The White Sox were one of the most exciting teams in baseball last year; a youthful, exuberant squad that broke up the Minnesota/Cleveland hegemony in the AL Central with a solid pitching staff and an unending barrage of crushed, smoked, and blistered baseballs. They led the league in position player WAR, and it was a team effort — seven different Chicago players had more than 100 plate appearances and an above-average batting line.

Notably absent from that group: Yoán Moncada, the one-time top prospect in baseball. He still put together a solid season — he hit .225/.320/.385, good for a 96 wRC+, and played stellar defense at third base — but after his breakout in 2019, 2020 can only be viewed as a disappointment.

I’ve got good news for people who are hoping Moncada turns things around: I know one of the main contributors to the problem (well, two, actually, but we’ll cover the second at the end of the article). I also have bad news for people who are hoping Moncada turns things around: it’s the same problem as always, and one that I hoped he had put in the past. Moncada simply doesn’t swing enough.

If this doesn’t sound like a common problem to you, well, yeah, it’s not. We as fans (and analysts) want batters to have a “good eye,” to avoid swings at devastating secondary pitches that they can’t do anything with. That’s the downfall of many a prospect, but Moncada has never had that problem.

Every year of his big league career, Moncada has chased fewer pitches than league average. This isn’t some trick of the count, either. Most batters chase more frequently when they’re behind in the count. Moncada chases less:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Texas Rangers brought a promising young hitter on board when they took Justin Foscue with the 14th-overall pick of last summer’s draft. A 21-year-old second baseman, Foscue put up a .958 OPS in his sophomore season at Mississippi State University, and he followed that up by slashing 321/.464/.509 in last year’s truncated collegiate campaign. Moreover, he displayed exemplary plate discipline and bat-to-ball skills. Foscue had 69 plate appearances with the Bulldogs in 2020, and drew 15 walks while striking out just three times.

What kind of hitter does the Huntsville, Alabama native view himself as, and how might that change as he advances through the professional ranks? Foscue addressed those questions, and much more, over the phone earlier this week.

———

David Laurila: How would you describe your hitting approach?

Justin Foscue: “That goes into what your strengths are as a hitter. For the past two years — my sophomore and junior years — I was really keyed in on advantage counts. On 1-0, 2-0, 3-1, I was sitting on a middle, middle-in, fastball, and if it was there I was trying to hit it out of the ballpark. If it wasn’t there, I wasn’t swinging. In those advantage counts, you’ve still got more pitches to play with.

“As a hitter, you have to be very disciplined with your approach, because if you don’t stick to it, you’re not going to be as successful as you could be. I kind of just try to hit mistakes. I’m also sitting fastball, because when guys are throwing 94 to 98 [mph], you’ve got to be keyed in on that or you’re going to miss it. And if he hangs a breaking ball, you have to be ready for that, too. One reason I’ve been so successful is that I haven’t missed too many pitches that I should be hitting.”

Laurila: What about when you’re not in an advantage count? Read the rest of this entry »

More than 10 years ago, my first piece of published baseball writing appeared on the Community Blog at FanGraphs. It was on Adam Wainwright’s curveball. About five years later, I joined FanGraphs as a part-time contributor. I read the offer email in line at Costco of all places. A few years after that, I joined the staff full-time. For nearly six years, I’ve written almost every day, doing work I love focused on a sport I care deeply about. It is a privilege to work at FanGraphs, and while I’m not tired of the work, I’m moving on. I’m leaving the site to join the Major League Baseball Players Association as their Senior Analyst for Economics and Collective Bargaining.

As I was writing this piece, I thought about the others staff members who have moved on and read through the many farewell posts to grace this site since I joined (remember correlation doesn’t equal causation). Managing editors and writers like Dave Cameron, Carson Cistulli, August Fagerstrom, Corinne Landrey, Kiley McDaniel, Chris Mitchell, and Jeff Sullivan went to work for teams. Writers like Mike Petriello, Travis Sawchik, Eno Sarris, and Kiley McDaniel (again) pursued other jobs in media. Some, like Paul Swydan, pursued other dreams. While every post represented the individual writing it, the goodbyes generally contained three themes: the people here, the work, and the opportunity.

David Appelman created a site for people who love baseball. FanGraphs helped me to appreciate baseball more than I did as a kid growing up on baseball cards,
Sports Illustrated, and a playing career that peaked at the age of nine. As a writer at FanGraphs, I’ve gotten the opportunity to work for and with some amazing people in a welcoming environment fostered by David and all those he’s hired over the years.

I’ve had three Managing Editors, all uniquely brilliant. Dave Cameron interviewed me, sent the email hiring me, and helped shape many of my early posts as I was getting my footing. Carson Cistulli spent considerable time editing my words, and to this day, uses the Socratic method if I ask him a question about baseball. Meg Rowley takes great care in her work and encouraged me to use my own voice. Many others have edited my words, their work is mostly unsung. Hopefully I’m not missing anyone, but I owe a debt to Robert Sanchez, Paul Swydan, Dylan Higgins, Brendan Gawlowski, Rachael McDaniel, and Jon Tayler, as well as Christina Kahrl at ESPN. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and FanGraphs author Ben Clemens break down the Marcus Semien, Andrelton Simmons, and Tommy La Stella signings, the Steven Matz trade, and Masahiro Tanaka’s decision to return to NPB’s Rakuten Eagles (with digressions about Japan’s tradition of awarding the uniform number 18 to aces and the greatness of Hiroki Kuroda) before explaining what the internet-driven inflation of GameStop stock has to do with the Mets, why Billy Beane isn’t leaving the A’s after all, and why teams are so intent on treating the competitive balance tax threshold as a salary cap. Then (57:32) they’re joined by Dr. Barton Smith, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Utah State University, to discuss how the Hawk-Eye component of MLB’s Statcast system is enabling new breakthroughs in pitch design, the concepts of seam-shifted wake and spin mirroring, which pitchers and teams are on the cutting edge, why some earlier analysts were wrong about pitching, whether hitters can counter the latest advances, what we still don’t understand about pitching, the increasing complexity of player evaluation, and how this all relates to foreign substances and the baseball’s surface.

Audio intro: The Shazam, "Squeeze the Day"
Audio interstitial: Buzzcocks, "Wake Up Call"
Audio outro: Heatmiser, "Wake"

Link to Ben Clemens on the Semien signing
Link to Dan Szymborski on the Simmons signing
Link to Tony Wolfe on the La Stella signing
Link to Tony on the Matz trade
Link to Brendan Gawlowski on the Tanaka signing
Link to Jim Allen on the Tanaka signing
Link to Rob Arthur on MLB FA going to Japan
Link to Slate’s GameStop stock explainer
Link to report about Steve Cohen’s losses
Link to report about Beane’s bid
Link to report about Oakland’s offer to Semien
Link to Andy McCullough on the CBT
Link to Marc Normandin on the CBT
Link to Hawk-Eye introduction
Link to Ben’s primer on the seam-shifted revolution
Link to Alan Nathan on late break
Link to Nathan on active spin
Link to Barton’s seam-shifted wake explainer
Link to Barton’s video about seam-shifted wake
Link to BP article on seam-shifted wake
Link to Driveline study on seam-shifted wake
Link to Tom Tango on seam-shifted wake
Link to Eno Sarris on seam-shifted wake
Link to Eno on spin mirroring
Link to Michael Augustine on spin mirroring
Link to Mike Petriello on spin direction
Link to Tango on spin direction
Link to Tango on gyro spin
Link to report about defamation lawsuit

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After extensive research and testing, we’ve settled on a new FanGraphs Mug!

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Just two years ago, the Blue Jays used an MLB-record 21 different starters over the course of a season, most of whom were either years past their prime or pitching in the majors for the very first time. Unsurprisingly, that didn’t go so well. Toronto tried to fix that last winter by adding nearly enough pitchers to build a whole new rotation, then acquired three more starters at the August trade deadline. Even after all that movement, though, the Jays still finished 24th in the majors in pitching WAR.

The Blue Jays don’t have an arm quantity problem; they have an arm quality problem. But between a free-agent market lacking in top-end starting pitching and an apparent unwillingness to compete with the Padres and White Sox in making trades for aces, Toronto has been unable to address that need. Instead, it has directed its financial resources elsewhere, adding two of the best free-agent hitters of this winter’s class and the best reliever of the 2019 season. The Blue Jays have improved their offense and their bullpen. As for their starting pitchers, well, there sure are a lot of them.

You can add one more arm to that growing pile, as Toronto acquired left-hander Steven Matz from the Mets on Wednesday in exchange for three young right-handed pitchers: Sean Reid-Foley, Yennsy Diaz and Josh Winckowski. Matz, 29, is entering his final year of team control and is set to make just over $5 million in 2021. He became expendable in New York after the team acquired Joey Lucchesi — a younger, cheaper, and more controllable left-handed starter — from the Padres in the three-team deal that sent Joe Musgrove from Pittsburgh to San Diego. On the Mets, Matz was either the fifth or sixth starter in an elite rotation. In Toronto, he’ll be the fifth or sixth starter in a rotation that is merely okay.

Read the rest of this entry »

In perhaps the most surprising signing of the off-season, Masahiro Tanaka has agreed to terms with NPB’s Rakuten Eagles. NPB contract details are notoriously difficult to parse, but the anchor number of the hour is $8.6 million per year on a two-year deal, per the Kyodo News. Tanaka will wear No. 18, the number that usually belongs to the staff ace in Japan.

It’s a reunion of player and team, as Tanaka starred for the Eagles prior to signing with New York. In seven years and 176 games with Rakuten, he compiled a 99-35 record with a 2.29 ERA, and I’m comfortable using caveman statistics here because his performance was extraordinary across the board. In his final NPB season, he went 24-0 with a 1.27 ERA, which led to a seven-year, $155 million deal with the Yankees.

Tanaka’s time in the Bronx was a clear success. He departs the States with a 3.74/3.91/3.52 pitcher slash, which was good for 19 WAR over seven seasons. In that time, he also made four Opening Day starts and two All-Star appearances. With his elegant delivery, dastardly split, and well-rounded pitch mix, he’s been a great pitcher (by WAR, the 19th best starter in baseball since his debut) and a joy for this neutral to watch. He also managed to avoid the Tommy John surgery that seemed inevitable back in 2015, when his elbow barked and he was diagnosed with a partial UCL tear.

At this point, it’s unclear what shaped Tanaka’s choice to leave the U.S. A return engagement with the Yankees clearly wasn’t in the cards anymore, after the acquisitions of Jameson Taillon and Corey Kluber. But while New York is the only MLB home Tanaka ever knew — and a place he expressed tenderly sentimental feelings toward prior to his final regular season start — he made it clear earlier in the offseason that he was willing to field offers from other big league teams. Whether those wound up being compelling or even forthcoming at all, we can’t say. But it was only in recent days that the rumors surrounding negotiations with Rakuten surfaced; clearly those were very far along. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

12:03

Dan Szymborski: And hello!

12:03

Dan Szymborski: Welcome to a so-far uneventful Thursday!

12:04

Dan Szymborski: Call me crazy, but I still like Odorizzi

12:05

Dan Szymborski: Yes. It’s a bit annoying since it’s a decade out of date too; it’s literally before I worked for ESPN!@

Read the rest of this entry »

Ah, relievers. Can’t predict them, can’t live without them. Between the changing demands of a modern game and the fact that bullpen arms seem to fluctuate randomly between unhittable and unreliable, everyone always needs more relievers. Both New York teams, set at many other positions, made moves to bolster their bullpens yesterday. The Yankees are signing Darren O’Day, while the Mets are adding Aaron Loup (pending a physical).

Let’s address O’Day first. Only two days ago, the Yankees traded Adam Ottavino to the Red Sox for a bag of baseballs. Actually, it was worse than that: they traded Ottavino and a prospect and $850,000 to the Red Sox for future considerations. As Dan Szymborski detailed, the Yankees made that trade to dodge the Competitive Balance Tax, but doing so left a right-handed hole in their bullpen.

One thing that no one can dispute is that Darren O’Day is right-handed. That has, in fact, been his calling card for 13 major league seasons: O’Day breaks right-handed batters down, end of story. Over his lengthy career, he’s held them to a .248 wOBA, with a 27.5% strikeout rate doing most of the heavy lifting. His sidearm delivery is a rarity these days, and it turns righties into… well, into whatever you want to call Bobby Dalbec on this swing:

That goofy (though not in a skateboarding sense) arm angle turns an 86 mph fastball into a devastating weapon, a pitch that batters think will hit them in the leg before it explodes up and away. He complements it with a sweeping slider he commands well to his glove side, a useful counter when hitters start to adjust to the unexpected release point.

The last time O’Day allowed even league average production to opposing righties was in 2011, when he faced only 43 of them. ROOGY is an overused term — at this point, even LOOGYs hardly exist — but O’Day might be the rare pitcher who fits the bill.

By using O’Day strategically against righty-heavy patches of the opposing lineup, the Yankees hope to get a steady diet of strikeouts and weak fly balls. Unlike most sidearmers, O’Day works up in the zone, something which surely adds to batters’ confusion. It’s not so much the velocity, the location, or the delivery; the combination of everything is simply too strange to deal with.

You might think that a sidearmer throwing high in the zone to lefties — three batter minimum and all — would undo all the good that O’Day does against righties. You’d be right — O’Day has been brutal against lefties as his career has worn on. Since the beginning of the new lively ball era in 2015, he’s allowed 1.5 HR/9 against lefties, good for a 4.67 FIP (ERA isn’t really compatible with splits like these). For comparison, his FIP against righties over the same window is a stellar 2.61.

The onus is on the Yankees to find good spots to use such a situational reliever, but the opportunities will certainly be there. Consider the rosters of the Yankees’ three division rivals (sorry, Orioles). The Blue Jays signed righties George Springer and Marcus Semien to join righties Bo Bichette, Teoscar Hernández, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., while the Red Sox have only three lefty batters on their roster. The Rays — well, yeah, the Rays will be a problem. Even then, though, sending O’Day out to face a dangerous righty with two outs will often be worth the gamble — he’s bad against lefties, but not enough to offset his mastery of righties.

At $2.45 million, O’Day doesn’t need to set the league on fire to meet expectations. The Yankee bullpen is strong at the top — Aroldis Chapman, Zack Britton, and Chad Green provide quantity and quality, and two of them are even lefties. If O’Day can contribute 40 to 50 innings of right-handed filth, the Yankees will be pleased — that’s Ottavino production at a quarter of the price.

Speaking of New York teams signing situational relievers, the Mets signed Aaron Loup, who will become the only left-hander in an already-excellent bullpen. Calling him reverse O’Day misses the mark — he throws harder and doesn’t display such extreme platoon splits. Still, though, bringing in a southpaw in an all-right-handed bullpen tells you what the Mets want from Loup: come in against opposing leftys, sit them down, and tread water against the righties.

Okay, fine, there’s one major similarity between Loup and O’Day:

Like his new borough neighbor, Loup comes at hitters from a novel angle. Unlike O’Day, he lives in the bottom of the zone with a sinker. He complements his fastball, which sits around 92 mph, with a cutter, curve, and changeup that he uses almost exclusively against righties — the last time he threw a changeup to a lefty was in 2017.

The terms of Loup’s deal haven’t yet been disclosed, but they’ll likely closely mirror O’Day’s contract. So, too, will his role, though this time I mean mirror in the sense of the same thing in reverse. Loup will face dangerous lefties and then try to survive against the righties who follow them, shielding the Mets’ top relievers from the slings and arrows of outrageous Juan Soto highlights.

Neither of these deals are going to turn into wild, runaway success stories. Neither player is going to garner Cy Young votes. But teams need innings out of the bullpen, and both the Mets and Yankees are in competitive divisions. Filling those innings with quiet competence might be the difference in a game or two, and a game or two might be the difference in the playoff race.

How might these signings backfire? It all depends on what you mean by “backfire.” The most obvious downside is that O’Day and Loup might simply not be very good. O’Day throws a mid-80’s fastball and Loup is a 33-year-old reliever who struck out only 22.9% of opponents last year. It would hardly be shocking for one of these pitchers to be a roster casualty within the year — a few bad weeks, a pressing need for 40-man space, and that might be that.

Short of that, the downsides are all opportunity cost. If you’re out of the Loup market, you might be in the market for an exciting call-up from Triple-A. Giving innings to known and medium quantities is all well and good, but it lowers your odds of making exciting discoveries with that roster spot. The odds of O’Day turning into the next hot reliever du jour are essentially nonexistent.

For two presumptive playoff teams, however, that’s a negligible downside. It’s fun to discover new young relievers, but the downside is no joke: they might be bad! For teams far from contention, volatility is good. If you’re right in the thick of things, though, reliever volatility is definitely not where you want to be. By lowering their odds of failure, the Yankees and Mets are increasing their chances of success. Not bad for two sidearmers.