When the Cubs’ 2021 schedule came out, I circled May 17-20. That otherwise unremarkable four-game series with the Nationals would mark the return of 2016 World Series heroes Jon Lester and Kyle Schwarber to Wrigley Field. I knew they would receive an epic welcome from fans and I felt like I needed to be part of it.

The Cubs are pretty far removed from the juggernaut that won 103 games on the way to the team’s first championship in 108 years. While a relatively weak division means it’s certainly possible they could go on a run that would keep Jed Hoyer’s front office from being sellers at the deadline, it is far from guaranteed. Our playoff odds give the Cubs a 35.1% chance of making the postseason. It has left me looking for those moments of joy that fall short of the ultimate goal of hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy at the end of the season but are still meaningful.

It occurred to me that I am far from the only fan looking for moments to celebrate beyond the expectation of playing in October. So I started looking for all of the silver linings to 2021’s cloudiest seasons. I identified all of the teams with less than a 20% chance to make the playoffs per our odds, then dug into the prospect lists, record books and clubhouse storylines to see what I might circle on the calendar for the sport’s less fortunate faithful. So here they are, a few moments of joy for the fanbases that may still be holding out hope that their team will channel its inner 2019 Nationals, but suspect they won’t. It’s not an exhaustive list, but it’s what struck me as notable. Today, I’ll take a look at the American League, with a National League post to follow next week. Read the rest of this entry »

The Padres’ nine-game winning streak came to an end on Monday night at the hands of the Brewers, who beat them 5-3 in Milwaukee, but the loss did have at least one bright spot, in that Tommy Pham homered for just the second time this season. The 33-year-old outfielder has struggled mightily since being acquired from the Rays in December 2019, particularly after being the victim of a stabbing last October, but lately he’s showed signs of heating up, a welcome development for the surging NL West leaders, who have since returned to their winning ways with back-to-back wins and at 32-18 lead the NL West by a game and a half.

Pham crushed a two-run homer in the ninth inning of Monday’s game off reliever Angel Perdomo, at a time when the Padres trailed 5-0:

The blast had an estimated distance of 430 feet, making it his longest since his 440-foot homer at Coors Field last July 31. In his previous 75 games with the Padres, he’d hit just one other drive of more than 390 feet, a 410-foot homer against the Dodgers in Los Angeles last August 13, three days before fracturing a hamate bone in his right hand while fouling off a pitch.

That hamate fracture, which required surgery and sidelined Pham for just over a month, was a far less severe injury than the stabbing. On October 11, three days after the Padres were ousted from the playoffs by the Dodgers, Pham was involved in an altercation in a parking lot outside a San Diego strip club, during which he was slashed across his lower back. He needed 200 stitches to close the deep gash, and was fortunate to escape even worse damage. Read the rest of this entry »

Zack Wheeler signed a big contract before the 2020 season, and if we’re being honest, the Phillies paid for potential. That’s not to say Wheeler wasn’t an effective starter with the Mets, but his career numbers — a 3.77 ERA, a 3.71 FIP, a 22.8% strikeout rate, and an 8.5% walk rate — didn’t scream ace.

His stuff, on the other hand, spoke loudly. An upper-90s fastball and lower-90s slider invite comparisons with Jacob deGrom, and his curveball prevents batters from sitting on a single breaking ball. If you could design a pitcher in a lab — well, fine, you might come up with deGrom or Gerrit Cole. But if you ended up with Wheeler, you’d certainly be happy with your work.

When a pitcher’s results — and again, they were good results — fall short of what you’d expect from their stuff, any stretch of better outcomes feels like a tantalizing glimpse at what a breakthrough might look like. At this point, however, it’s not a glimpse: Wheeler has fully broken out into the ace the Phillies hoped for when they signed him.

Consider this: since leaving the Mets, Wheeler has the 10th-best ERA in baseball. It’s not some fluky sequencing effect, either. He has the eighth-best FIP in the game over that time frame, the 17th-best xFIP, and the 17th-best SIERA, another advanced ERA estimator. He’s done all of that while throwing the third-most innings in the game, behind only Shane Bieber and Aaron Civale. That combination of skill and volume puts him sixth among all starters in WAR over that time frame, in a virtual tie with Cole. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and Baseball Prospectus editor-in-chief Craig Goldstein banter about cicadas, New Era’s short-lived “MLB Local Market” caps, the exploits of Adolis García, and Byron Buxton being too fast for his own good, then discuss Craig’s recent writing on how to fix what ails baseball, touching on what exactly the problem (if any) is, whether the offensive environment could correct itself, the best ways to reduce pitch speed and strikeouts, and much more, plus a real-time reaction to the conclusion of MLB’s investigation into Mickey Callaway.

Audio intro: The Apples in Stereo, "If You Want to Wear a Hat"
Audio outro: Tall Tall Trees, "Hats"

Link to The Athletic on the caps
Link to Royals’ response to caps
Link to post about the Grand Junction Chubs
Link to first bad fun fact
Link to second bad fun fact
Link to Jamey Newberg on Garcia
Link to Levi Weaver on Garcia
Link to Buxton tweet
Link to Craig and Patrick on restrictor plates
Link to Craig’s rules suggestions
Link to Russell Carleton on rules changes
Link to Rob Arthur on time between pitches
Link to THT on ascendant strikeouts
Link to BA on TTO at all levels
Link to article on pitch clock and injuries
Link to Hot Takedown episode on offense
Link to Ben on 2021 offense
Link to Petriello on pitcher strikeouts
Link to The Athletic on foreign substances
Link to Ben on foreign substances
Link to Five and Dive podcast
Link to story about baseball on ice

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Trying to project how teams will behave in the coming months involves considering a lot of variables. There are the standings themselves, and yes, many teams are daily visitors to the FanGraphs Playoff Odds pages. There are payroll limitations as defined by the ownership group, though front offices frequently try to make the case for spending more money if they can make the argument that it will lead to more revenue in the form of an extended postseason run. Finally, there is the state of the roster in terms of now versus the future. Who’s good on this team? Who’s good on this team and will be here next year? What about in three years? When thinking about all those things and how teams will comport themselves this summer, no franchise fascinates me more than the Giants.

The Giants have been one of the most pleasant surprises in baseball. Their ZIPS projection entering the season was 75–87, with the potential to get to .500 if everything went well. Their rotation was seen as a strong suit, and their bullpen and offense were viewed as major question marks. Two months into the season, the rotation has been as expected, the bullpen has been more than good enough, and their lineup has put more runs on the board than anticipated with a low-contact group that depends on walks and power. Like with his former team in Oakland, Farhan Zaidi knows how to make a sum greater than the parts when constructing a roster, mixing and matching his lineups well beyond simple platoons to maximize what he has. He’s also also benefitting from seasons from Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford that are in the 90th-plus percentile of expectations.

As we hit late May, the Giants are one of the best teams in baseball, with a run differential that says this might not be a fluke. If you just look at the record and team performance so far, this is a clear go-for-it moment for the club. That’s the good news. The bad news is that they are in the same division as the Dodgers and the Padres, who are unanimously seen as two of the best teams in baseball. San Francisco has stuck with the pair for two months, but asking for four more months of equal performance might be pushing the envelope a bit, and last weekend’s sweep at the hands of Los Angeles confused matters even more.

Read the rest of this entry »

Remember when the Rockies attempted to assemble a super-mega bullpen? During the 2017-18 offseason, the team committed a combined $106 million to Wade Davis, Jake McGee, and the protagonist of this article, Bryan Shaw. What followed was a disaster. The trio put up just 0.4 WAR while part of the Rockies bullpen, a miserable return on investment.

Each pitcher had his own flaws, but none was worse than Shaw, who dragged down an already disappointing total with -0.5 WAR over a two-year span. If you’re not too familiar with him, Shaw is synonymous with his cutter, which he’s thrown upwards to 80% of the time in his career. It’s a fantastic pitch, featuring some of the league’s best horizontal movement in tandem with ample rise. The problem: In Colorado, the high altitude suppresses magnus force, the source of backspin and thus vertical break. Many of Shaw’s cutters became extremely hittable in this new environment – his Hard Hit rate jumped from 28.6% in 2017 to 39.7% the following year.

That’s where the story ended, for a while. Even at FanGraphs, our last mention of Shaw was in a Sunday Notes column back in 2019. Two years later, Bryan Shaw is now an essential part of Cleveland’s bullpen, his former home, with a 1.42 ERA and 3.56 FIP. Talk about a resurgence! What’s more, it’s not as if he’s added a secret new pitch. He still throws the cutter as often as he did years ago. Read the rest of this entry »

If you missed yesterday’s post, I’m spending a few days this week focusing on the college postseason, which began yesterday. For those who missed yesterday’s action, this YouTube channel and many like it post “highlights” consisting of the end of each plate appearance. You get a good feel for the flow of the whole game in about 15 minutes. They’re a great resource if you want to follow college baseball and softball but don’t have ESPN+. Below I have brief previews for the tournaments that begin today. This is done with a focus on the groupings with prospects, and the ones people can watch on streaming services (again, mostly on ESPN+). I’ll also be citing work from D1Baseball and Baseball America a lot. They are both indispensable resources for college coverage.

The best reason to watch the Big 12 tournament is to see Jace Jung hit. The COVID freshman posted a .366/.496/.766 line this year, was tied for fifth in the country with 20 homers, and had 46 walks against 35 strikeouts. He’s built a lot like his brother, Josh, the top Rangers prospect, except he’s left-handed, has better feel for turning on pitches than Josh did at the same stage, and plays second base rather than third. Plus, the younger Jung’s style of hitting is cool, and totally his own. Tech catcher Braxton Fulford has rare power for the position, as does COVID freshman shortstop Cal Conley, who is college baseball’s version of Brad Miller. All three Red Raider home run leaders play up the middle positions. Righty Brandon Birdsell muscles up and sits 95-plus pretty consistently, too. Tech is fun and talented. Read the rest of this entry »

David Hamilton didn’t raise his stock in his junior year at the University of Texas. He never got the opportunity. On the heels of a sophomore season that saw him put up a .404 OBP and pilfer 31 bases, the speedy shortstop suffered a torn Achilles tendon in a scooter accident. The date was January 11, 2019, the motorized scooter was a Lime, and the upshot was Hamilton lasting until the 253nd pick of that summer’s draft.

The 5-foot-11, 175 pound San Marcos, Texas native could end up being be an eighth-round steal. Finally getting his feet wet in organized ball, Hamilton is off to a pedestrian start with the bat — a .250/.324/.359 slash line in 71 plate appearances — but the tools are real. Especially the wheels. Hitting near the top of the order for Milwaukee’s High-A affiliate, the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, Hamilton has legged out a pair of triples and is 10-for-11 in stolen base attempts.

The 23-year-old middle infielder aspires to swipe 50 bags this year, and there’s a pretty good chance he’ll do just that. Augmenting his plus speed — Hamilton shared that he’s run a 6.4 sixty and a 4.4 forty — is an experimental rule designed to reward jackrabbits. Read the rest of this entry »

The Lineup Tracker is the latest addition to our RosterResource collection at FanGraphs. This newest feature is an extension of our “Projected Go-To Lineups vs RHP” on the RosterResource depth charts, allowing readers to pick up on trends by providing a regularly updated look at where every player has batted in the order and lined up defensively throughout the season. The link to this feature can be found in the RosterResource drop-down menu under “In-Season Tools”.

I’ll be explaining the Lineup Tracker in detail on today’s episode of The RosterResource Show, which will air live at 4:30 PM PT/7:30 PM ET on Twitch and the FanGraphs homepage. It will be the first topic covered.

As has been the case with the last few RosterResource additions, including the Closer Depth Chart, Transaction Tracker, and Injury Report, we have several ideas that would improve this feature once we circle back around for upgrades. We have only one remaining feature to build — the Schedule Grid/Probable Starting Pitchers — that had been part of the RosterResource website prior to joining FanGraphs. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the scant separation between the top teams in each division and the division races they find the most intriguing, Buster Posey, Scott Kazmir, and other old Giants, Isiah Kiner-Falefa backing up his objection to coming in last on FanGraphs’ shortstop positional power ranking, Mariners catcher José Godoy becoming the 20,000th major leaguer (or not) and the factors that influence the way we remember history, Erik Kratz alleging that the Rockies and (seemingly) Dodgers stole signs illegally and whether the world needs another act to the sign-stealing saga, Joe West breaking the record for most games umpired and the Hall of Fame umpire drought, the motley roster of the U.S. Olympic baseball team, the latest in Oakland ballpark brinksmanship, the Hanshin Tigers’ “Curse of the Colonel,” Zach Plesac’s poor undressing skills, and a Stat Blast about new Brewers shortstop Willy Adames and extreme reverse home-road splits.

Audio intro: Ramones, "Don’t Come Close"
Audio outro: George Harrison, "Any Road"

Link to FanGraphs playoff odds
Link to Jay Jaffe on Kazmir
Link to story about Kiner-Falefa
Link to FanGraphs shortstop WAR leaders
Link to story about Godoy
Link to John Thorn on the National Association
Link to story about Kratz’s comments
Link to 2018 story about the Brewers and Dodgers
Link to Episode 1505 (on sign stealing)
Link to list of Hall of Fame umpires
Link to Adam Darowski on Hall of Fame umps
Link to AP story about West
Link to Kill the Umpire on YouTube
Link to Team USA roster
Link to list of winter/summer medalists
Link to story about Rays lawsuit
Link to Alex Coffey on Oakland’s ballpark
Link to A’s postgame show walkout
Link to Curse of the Colonel Wiki
Link to story about Adames at the Trop
Link to Stat Blast home/road splits data

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