Articles about whether a player is suddenly terrible aren’t exactly standard FanGraphs fare. That’s hardly surprising — players almost never suddenly become terrible. Far more often, they get unlucky a bunch of times in a row, or they were already terrible and everyone suddenly noticed, or they were secretly hurt the whole time.

It pains me, given that, to ask this question that you probably already know the answer to: is Brandon Lowe suddenly terrible? Probably not! I’m telling you the answer now so that you won’t be in suspense, even though let’s be honest here, you wouldn’t be in suspense anyway. Still, he’s been bad this postseason, phenomenally awful. We at least owe it to ourselves to consider whether something happened.

During the regular season, Lowe was awesome. He was an MVP candidate, particularly if, like Craig Edwards, you enjoy rhyming his name with “Mister Plow.” He kept the same ferocity he’d displayed on contact in 2019 and cut down on his strikeouts, which had been the only real thing holding him back before. The result? A 150 wRC+ and 14 homers in only 227 plate appearances, the best hitting line on the Rays and one of the best in baseball overall.

The postseason has been, well, whatever the opposite of that is. Through 12 games, his wRC+ is -10. That’s not a stat you want to be negative. Plus is right there in the name! His home run on Thursday was his first extra-base hit of the playoffs, but even that was a mixed success; it was his only hit of the night, and he struck out twice, which raised his strikeout rate for the postseason to 32.7%.

How often has Lowe had a stretch like this? Exactly never:

Lowe has gone through rough patches, but nothing so extended as this. The short dip on the left comes from before he had 12 games to average, so that doesn’t count. It’s not just the strikeouts, though those clearly aren’t helping. Heck, Lowe struck out at a higher rate for last year as a whole, and still put up a 125 wRC+. Let’s dig deeper. Read the rest of this entry »

On a Braves team that’s now one win away from its first trip to the World Series since 1999, Freddie Freeman has gotten the lion’s share of the attention, at least on the offensive side. This is quite understandable given his MVP-caliber season as well as the big hits he’s come up with thus far in the playoffs, including his homers in Games 1 and 2 of the NLCS against the Dodgers. While Marcell Ozuna’s bat spoke nearly as loudly during the regular season, the 29-year-old slugger had scuffled in the postseason prior to Thursday night’s Game 4, when he snapped out of an 0-for-9 skid with a four-hit, four-RBI night that included a trio of timely extra-base hits, two of them homers.

Ozuna’s first home run came in the fourth inning at a time when the Braves trailed 1-0. Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw had given up some loud contact to that point, but the four hard-hit balls he’d surrendered (exit velocities of 95 mph or higher) all had launch angles of 11 degrees or lower, including the 104.4-mph grounder that Ozuna hit for an inning-ending double play and a 101.1-mph Freeman liner that preceded Ozuna’s second turn at the plate. This time, Ozuna elevated a slider for a towering blast that left the bat at 108.6 mph and traveled an estimated 422 feet:

Whew. The down-and-in slider wasn’t a horrible pitch from Kershaw; in just about every Statcast zone-based breakdown for this season, Ozuna’s actual and expected stats for that area (zone 7) were his lowest. For example: Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 892

While the playoffs rage on, the FanGraphs crew sadly must again turn their attention to former greats. This episode includes reflections on the past, reflections on ourselves, the 1968 Detroit Tigers theme song, and more.

• To lead off the show, Jay Jaffe honors the late Whitey Ford and Joe Morgan. Jay recently wrote about both Ford and Morgan, whose impressive careers and achievements are well worth revisiting. [1:50]
• After that, Jay is joined by Eric Longenhagen to talk more about Morgan’s legacy. The second baseman was undoubtedly a focal point in the sabermetric culture war, inspiring Eric and Jay to reflect on how we discuss ideologies — both within baseball and more broadly — then and now. [14:35]
• Finally, David Laurila is joined by Dan Dickerson, the radio play-by-play voice of the Detroit Tigers. David and Dan discuss topics such as Tigers squads past and present, Miguel Cabrera, and that Magglio Ordonez home run. [46:00]

Read the rest of this entry »

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If you watch a lot of scary movies, you learn to anticipate when the big jump-scare is about to happen. The music, after ominously trickling along throughout the scene, suddenly stops. The camera does a painfully slow pan around a corner or abruptly whips across the room. You learn to brace yourself when a woman is quietly observing her reflection in a mirror, or when a child peeks through around the door of his clearly-haunted wardrobe. There is a rhythm to these movies, and it mirrors that of Dodgers postseason baseball.

Game 4 of their National League Championship Series against the Atlanta Braves had all the familiar cues. There was Clayton Kershaw, heading out for the sixth inning of what had been a perfectly solid postseason start. There was manager Dave Roberts, leaving Kershaw in to face the toughest lefty in the opponents’ lineup. There was Roberts — gulp — leaving him in to face another hitter, even after he failed to get the first two out. And there was the Dodgers’ bullpen, searching for water to douse the flames but finding only gasoline, until yet another incredible season was just a game away from turning to ash.

The Braves defeated the Dodgers, 10-2, at Globe Life Field on Thursday to take a 3-1 lead in the NLCS. Atlanta is one win away from clinching its first World Series appearance since 1999, and a shot at winning its first title since 1995. Los Angeles, meanwhile, is on the verge of failing to reach the World Series despite owning the NL’s best regular-season record for a second-straight year and continuing a championship drought that has persisted since 1988.

Braves right-hander Bryse Wilson turned in the best game of his young career, tossing six innings of one-run ball while allowing just one walk and striking out five. The one hit he yielded came on a solo home run by Dodgers designated hitter Edwin Ríos in the third. Despite being a rookie who started just twice during the regular season, Wilson made it difficult for the future Hall of Famer in the other dugout to keep up. For five innings, though, Kershaw did just that. He allowed just one run on a solo homer by Marcell Ozuna, who was DHing, and otherwise scattered three hits and a walk while striking out four. He’d thrown just 71 pitches, making Roberts’ decision to send him back to the mound for the sixth inning a seemingly easy one, even if the Braves were turning the order over for a third time. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about a baseball ad on the radio, revisit the topic of how often teams win when they outhomer their opponents, discuss the brand of baseball on display this postseason, share a Stat Blast about the percentage of runs scored on homers and investigate whether all-or-nothing baseball is as problematic as it’s made out to be, then examine a pair of standout postseason umpiring efforts and answer listener emails about whether groundball pitchers might make a comeback and what should constitute a “match point” in baseball.

Audio intro: Cordovas, "The Game"
Audio outro: They Might Be Giants, "I’ve Got a Match"

Link to Ben on home runs this postseason
Link to Ben on learning to accept strikeouts
Link to Ben on October baseball
Link to article about increase in solo homers
Link to Ben on umpire perfect games
Link to Umpire Scorecards on Pat Hoberg
Link to Close Call Sports on John Tumpane
Link to 2015 article on umpires improving
Link to 2016 article on umpires improving
Link to Matt Trueblood on the Dodgers’ bullpen
Link to Bill James on groundball pitchers
Link to article about groundball pitchers being overrated
Link to Seinfeld tweet about the “final strike”
Link to FanGraphs playoff coverage

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It all started, as it so often has in this ALCS, with a homer — the first pitch from Rays opener John Curtiss, a fastball over the plate, was launched into the seats by George Springer. And it ended with a homer from Carlos Correa, crushed to center in the bottom of the ninth — his third ALCS walkoff in the last four seasons. The Astros, for the second day in a row, won a do-or-die game by a single run, the final score again 4-3. And their deficit in the series, once a daunting three games to none, has narrowed all the way to 3-2.

How they got there on the pitching side was a little less familiar than it was on the hitting side. The Astros used seven pitchers over the course of Game 5, the first five of whom were rookies. First on the mound was Luis Garcia, 21 years old, with all of 12.1 major-league innings on his resume. Despite some hard contact — a hard fly ball from Brandon Lowe, a line drive from none other than Randy Arozarena — he got through the first inning without allowing a baserunner. Garcia’s second inning was a little more fraught: he loaded the bases on two walks and a hit batter for Mike Zunino. But Zunino flew out, stranding all three runners. The inning, and Garcia’s postseason debut, ended without incident. Read the rest of this entry »

I submit that we are never more keenly aware of our own physical state than when we are embarrassed. Other emotions make themselves felt in the body, of course; the soft, spreading warmth of love, the acute pops and pains of joints as fear inspires flight. To be chased by a tiger is to be gripped by terror and also remember that bad knee of yours. Embarrassment works a little differently; it makes our person its accomplice. Embarrassment is an ampersand, tacking on an emphatic “and like so” to your flubbed expense report. I’m embarrassed and rain-soaked. I’m embarrassed and without pants! Perhaps because I’m without pants, but most definitely embarrassed and without them. Many of our embarrassments these days are private, hidden behind so many masks and closed front doors. But some of us are not so lucky. Some of us are made fools at work, even now, and with everyone watching.

For instance, sometimes you’re a member of the Atlanta Braves. You’re a member of the Atlanta Braves and you’re on the mound, down a run. That’s ok! It’s just a run, and there are two outs. You’ve only thrown nine pitches. And you’re you, Kyle Wright, and your seven strikeouts and six innings of scoreless NLDS baseball are on the mound with you.

Only now it’s two runs…

… and then 17 pitches. And also, you’ve walked Cody Bellinger.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Astros had their backs against the wall, down 0-3 to a surging Tampa Bay team. For one night, though, they had an ace in the hole: their ace, Zack Greinke, made his first and likely only appearance of the series after two straight days of being pushed back in the rotation.

When Houston acquired Greinke last year, he was a severely overqualified third starter, the delicious dessert after a Cole/Verlander entree. With Gerrit Cole in New York and Justin Verlander felled by a pesky elbow, however, Greinke stands alone among the pitching staff, surrounded by Lance McCullers Jr. and a passel of rookies.

Greinke brought his usual bag of tricks: fastballs in the eighties, changeups with fastball velocity and hummingbird movement, and a slow curve that all other slow curves merely imitate. The Rays struggled to adjust to the funk; Manuel Margot watched four straight fastballs go by to lead off the first, the last three of which were strikes. Randy Arozarena got ahead 3-1 before taking a 72 mph curve for a strike and swinging over a diving changeup, giving Greinke two strikeouts in his first three batters faced.

In the bottom of the inning, Tampa Bay brought reverse Greinke: Tyler Glasnow throws 100 mph, snaps off lollipop curves whose velocity rivals Greinke’s fastball, and tries to do with power what Greinke does with guile. His height adds to the effect; a 100 mph fastball coming from a 6-foot-8 pitcher with an upright delivery gives the distinct impression of a payload dropped from orbit. Read the rest of this entry »

Well that got out of hand quickly, eh?

It took all of two pitches for the Dodgers to stake an early lead in Wednesday’s NLCS Game 3. Mookie Betts legged out an infield single (replay correctly overturned a bang-bang play at first) and then Corey Seager continued his torrid hitting with a double in the left center field gap to plate the leadoff man. After two quick outs, it looked like Braves starter Kyle Wright would be able to wriggle out of the inning with minimal damage.

Then the barrage began in earnest: A double and a walk preceded back-to-back jacks from Joc Pederson and Edwin Ríos. Another walk chased Wright, but all Grant Dayton could do was throw more fuel on the fire: Walk, double, HBP, grand slam. Just like that, the Dodgers — who were an overturned call at first from getting nothing in the frame — had an 11-0 lead, and a new record for runs in a single postseason inning.

From there, it was academic. Los Angeles added in the second and third and Atlanta managed a few runs of their own. The only real remaining highlight was Cristian Pache’s first major league home run, a no-doubter that stayed just fair on its way past the foul pole.

The obvious parallel here is Game 5 of the 2019 NLDS, when St. Louis’s 10-run first inning explosion all but ended Atlanta’s season eight and a half innings before it became official. But tonight’s lopsided contest actually reminds me of a game from all the way back in 2001. Read the rest of this entry »

Though undersized by baseball standards — just 5-foot-7 and 160 pounds — Joe Morgan stands tall in baseball history. As the second baseman for the Cincinnati Reds during his prime (1972-79), he helped elevate an already-strong team that starred the more famous Pete Rose and Johnny Bench into a powerhouse for the ages, earning back-to-back NL MVP honors on the Big Red Machine’s 1975 and ’76 championship teams. Over the course of a 22-year major league career (1963-84) with five franchises, Morgan made 10 All-Star teams, won five Gold Gloves, and built a case as the best second baseman in the game’s history, less by attaining traditional milestones and awards than by standing out in ways that became more apparent with advanced statistics. In 1990, he was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility; he would leave a stamp on that institution later in life as well.

Morgan died at home on Sunday in Danville, California at the age of 77. According to a family spokesman, the cause was nonspecified polyneuropathy, a condition that affects the peripheral nerves of the body. He had endured other health woes in recent years, having received a bone marrow transplant in 2016. He’s the sixth Hall of Famer to die this year, after Al Kaline, Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, and Whitey Ford, the last two of whom passed away earlier this month. He’s also the third member of the late 1960s and early ’70s Astros to die in 2020, after Jimmy Wynn and Bob Watson. It’s enough to make any baseball fan cry, “Uncle.”

Justifiably hailed as “the game’s most complete player” in a 1976 Sports Illustrated cover story, Morgan had more tools in his belt than the standard five, including an off-the-charts baseball IQ that earned him the nickname of “The Little General,” and, by his own admission, a brand of arrogance. As he told Mark Mulvoy in that SI feature, “To be a star, to stay a star, I think you’ve got to have a certain air of arrogance about you, a cockiness, a swagger on the field that says, ‘I can do this, and you can’t stop me.'”

Morgan hit .271/.392/.427 (132 OPS+) for his career, racking up 2,517 hits, 268 home runs, and, thanks to his keen batting eye and compact strike zone, 1,815 walks (and just 1,015 strikeouts). His walk total ranks fifth all-time, while the 266 homers he hit as a second baseman rank fourth. While he only posted batting averages above .300 in his two MVP seasons, and never finished higher than fourth in that category, he drew at least 100 walks in a season eight times, and topped a .400 on-base percentage eight times as well, leading the league in four of those years, and finishing among the top 10 11 times. He also stole 689 bases, a total that ranks 11th; of his 11 times cracking the league’s top 10 in that category, seven times he ranked second, five of those behind Brock. His 81.0% success rate ranks 17th among players with at least 300 attempts since 1951 (caught stealing data was not consistently available earlier), but fifth among those with 600 ore more attempts. Read the rest of this entry »