Pitchers are always looking to chip away at the platoon advantage. Two of the most common weapons in doing so are the changeup and curveball. The former fades away from opposite-side batters and from the barrel as the bat whips through the zone. Most of a curveball’s movement, meanwhile, is vertical; no matter the handedness of the batter and corresponding bat path, the pitch can duck under the bat as the batter makes contact. Sliders, though, generally have a large platoon split, to the detriment of the pitcher, as they move more horizontally relative to vertically and toward the pitcher’s glove side. This leads the ball towards the barrel of an opposite-handed hitter, giving him more of an opportunity to make contact.

Cutters are interesting in this regard. Given the movement of the pitch, you would expect it to have significant platoon splits like a slider. The ball moves toward a pitcher’s glove side, albeit generally not as far as a slider; an opposite-handed hitter would have a better chance putting the barrel on it. But this is not the case, according to research from Max Marchi done back in 2010, as he found that cutters were in the middle of the pack with respect to pitch-type platoon splits. It still had more favorable splits when the batter had the platoon advantage, but that is the case for all pitches in general.

So why does the cutter not have much of an effect on the platoon advantage despite its break? As MLB.com explains it, the magnitude of the horizontal break is subtle enough to catch a hitter expecting a four-seamer off guard. Thus, when he swings, the movement of the pitch forces the batter to fight it off his hands and either induces weak contact or breaks the bat altogether. My thesis was that players are turning to the cutter because of these neutral platoon splits, as heavily using a pitch that works well to hitters from both sides makes you harder to predict. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the San Diego Padres. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. As there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was gleaned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been meaningfully altered begin by telling you so. Each blurb ends with an indication of where the player played in 2020, which in turn likely informed the changes to their report if there were any. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside of a given org than those within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there, and the context of that data, in my opinion, reduces how meaningful it is. Lastly, in an effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both on my lists and on The Board: MIRP, or multi-inning relief pitcher, and SIRP, or single-inning relief pitcher.

For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed, you can click here. For further explanation of Future Value’s merits and drawbacks, read Future Value.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Mariners’ impending call-up of top prospect Jarred Kelenic, the Dodgers’ recent slump, the Oakland A’s threatening to relocate, Wade Miley’s no-hitter and how long it takes for no-no fatigue to set in, whether MLB’s offensive downturn will force the league to take action, the role of hitters in the hit-by-pitch spike, a near-umpire perfect game and the unparalleled pitch-calling accuracy of unsung umpire John Libka, the Mets’ mysterious rat/raccoon fiasco, the return of Luke Voit, zombie runners, and players and staff testing positive post-vaccine, plus a PSA about broadcasters saying “effectively wild.”

Audio intro: The Clash, "The Call Up"
Audio outro: Paul McCartney, "Keep Under Cover"

Link to FanGraphs’ top prospects
Link to ESPN report about the A’s
Link to Tony Wolfe on Miley’s no-no
Link to Rob Arthur on HBP
Link to Ken Rosenthal on HBP
Link to Sara Sanchez on HBP
Link to 2002 armor crackdown news
Link to podcast with Theo
Link to Libnak umpire scorecard
Link to Umpire Scorecards explainer
Link to Libnak call of the month
Link to Libnak Mets game
Link to Ben on umpire perfect games
Link to ump accuracy rates by game
Link to lifetime ump accuracy rates
Link to seasonal ump accuracy rates
Link to Meg on a baseball penalty box
Link to Zack Scott rat/raccoon story
Link to Jay Jaffe on zombie runners

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I love wonky early-season slash lines, the kinds of combinations that make you scratch your head and consider what exactly had to happen to get to this point. It’s pretty easy to put Yasmani Grandal’s start in that category: Through 22 games and 91 plate appearances, Grandal is hitting .113/.378/.242, slugging two homers and posting a… 102 wRC+?!?

Yes, you read that correctly. Through games on Sunday, Grandal has just seven hits and has the worst batting average among players with at least 80 trips to the plate. And yet he’s also managed to be an above-average hitter by wRC+. There’s truly some wild stuff going on here.

Of course, none of this is sustainable. Grandal has faced some pretty horrible BABIP luck, and as Dan Szymborski noted in his article yesterday, he is the fourth-largest underachiever in actual BABIP (.119) versus ZiPS-developed zBABIP (.261). Plug that figure into his balls-in-play total and you’d find that Grandal should have more than 13 hits this season, giving him a more-respectable-though-still-not-great .210 batting average.

But what is most interesting about Grandal’s start isn’t that he’s faced such poor BABIP luck; it’s that he has still managed to be a productive hitter in spite of it. Grandal has walked a whopping 27 times to start the season, a near-30% walk rate and a figure that leads baseball by a rather healthy margin. As of this writing, Max Muncy is the only other player who has amassed more than 50 plate appearances with a walk rate above 20%, and he’s still more than six points behind Grandal. Since 1901, Grandal’s 27 walks in his 22 games are tied for the 16th-most walks in any player’s first 22 to begin a season, but he’s one of just five players to do that while also batting under .150. Read the rest of this entry »

First base is an offense-first position. Sure, it’s great to have a first baseman who is handy with the glove and can scoop errant throws, but by and large, it’s a position for sluggers. Even though the position supplied both of last season’s MVPs — Freddie Freeman and José Abreu — it’s production doesn’t hold up as strongly as it has compared to previous years. From 2018 through the 2021 season thus far, first basemen have averaged a 108 wRC+ compared to an average wRC+ of 115 over the 2000-17 seasons.

There are plenty of teams suffering from lackluster production at first base but I want to highlight two of them: the Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays. The Brewers have managed a measly 68 wRC+ and -0.5 WAR, with contributions mostly from the duo of Keston Hiura (who is now in Triple-A) and Daniel Vogelbach. The Rays have been a bit better with a wRC+ of 82 and -0.1 WAR. These aren’t the worst teams in the majors at first base but they do share something in common; they once had Jesús Aguilar under team control and let him go.

In his tenure with the Marlins after being selected off waivers on December 2, 2019, Aguilar has solidified himself as the team’s primary first baseman, slashing .254/.356/.469 with 14 homers across his two seasons (the stats in this piece are through May 9); that’s good for 126 wRC+ and 1.2 WAR. This season has been particularly good to Aguilar so far. He’s slashing .269/.363/.490 and is in the top 10 in the majors among first basemen in wRC+ (9th) and WAR (9th). Not bad for a waiver pickup! I make mention of his previous clubs’ oversight not to shame them; it’s not the first time a valuable player has been overlooked. But his path to the player he is today is a unique one. Read the rest of this entry »

If it feels as though you’re seeing more extra-innings games than usual this year, it’s not just your imagination. Nor is it your confirmation bias — assuming, that is, that you’re not a fan of the new-fangled rule that starts every inning after the ninth with a runner on second and thus regard every instance of such games as a seed between the teeth. Not only are more games going past nine innings this year than last, but the rate of extra-innings games is higher than it’s been in more than half a century. Unfortunately, with scoring at its lowest level since 2015, we’re probably in for more of the same over the remainder of this season.

The extra-innings rule, which was introduced in the minor leagues for the 2018 season and had previously been used in international play, was adopted last year as part of the COVID-19 health and safety protocols. The goal was to end extra-innings games more quickly, thereby reducing players’ time in proximity to each other and their risk of spreading COVID-19, as well as reducing their amount of wear and tear via marathon games. The hope was that the rule would add some excitement as well as a layer of strategy by creating an immediate level of urgency given the automatic placement of a runner in scoring position.

The rule did what it was supposed to do last year in terms of shortening games, at least as measured by innings. Extra-inning games — and here I’m excluding the ones attached to seven-inning doubleheader games — averaged 10.42 innings in 2020, down from 11.26 in ’19 and 11.17 in ’18. The percentage of games going past 11 innings dropped to 0.7%, down from 2.3% in 2019 and 2.8% in ’18. Only two games lasted into the 13th inning, compared to 37 in 2019 and 39 in ’18.

As for “excitement,” that’s subjective, but the rule gained a surprising amount of acceptance within the game once people saw it in action. In November, Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Tony Clark told Sportico’s Barry Bloom that the players were interested in continuing with the rule in order to cut down the stress on pitchers’ arms and position players’ legs, and commissioner Rob Manfred loved it, of course, crowing, “It was obviously adopted as a health and safety rule so games wouldn’t go on too long. But I just think it had appeal even to some traditional members of the media.” Read the rest of this entry »

There have been some scary moments in the first few weeks of the 2021 major league season. On April 28, Phillies Manager Joe Girardi was ejected after both Didi Gregorius and Bryce Harper were hit by pitches while they were playing the Cardinals. Harper’s incident was particularly scary as he was hit in the face with a 97 mph fastball. On April 5, Cubs catcher Willson Contreras was plunked by a 93 mph fastball to the helmet. Two days later Reds rookie Jonathan India had a similar moment after a fastball ricocheted off his helmet.

It’s not your imagination: batters are being hit by wayward pitches at a record clip. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic made note of the trend this morning. Baseball Prospectus’ Rob Mains recently published an excellent breakdown of this year’s record-setting pace for hit batsmen. I was particularly taken aback by this chart showing that prior to 2018, no season in baseball history had a hit batsman in more than 1 in 103 plate appearances:

Mains continues:

There was one batter hit per 96 plate appearances in 2018, a new record. It fell further, to 94, in 2019. Then all the way to 81 in last year’s short, weird season.

This year? Through Tuesday night’s games, it’s down to 74.5. Batters are being hit thirty-eight percent more frequently than in 1901. There are just over eight hit batters for every five just a decade ago. We’re averaging 0.997 hit batters per game in 2021, a single HBP shy of one per game—a level the sport’s never approached. Batters so far have a .309 on-base percentage. Hit batters account for thirteen points of that figure. Ten years ago, there were only eight points of hit batters in MLB’s .321 OBP.

I wanted to take a look at possible reasons the HBP rate is at record levels so far in 2021, but first we need to be clear about which parts of this trend are continuations from previous seasons and which parts are actually new. In 2019, Devan Fink demonstrated that the HBP rate per plate appearance was approaching the highest levels seen since the early 1900s. He looked at increased velocity and reliever usage to demonstrate that while a pitches’ speed didn’t necessarily mean a pitcher had worse command, relievers had a larger share of HBP than their starting counterparts. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Bryce Johnson, CF, San Francisco Giants
Level & Affiliate: Triple-A Sacramento  Age: 25   Org Rank: NR   FV: 35
Line: 5-for-5, 2 2B

Notes
Johnson was a 2017 sixth round pick out of Sam Houston State, his draft stock driven by his above-average speed, terrific baseball frame, and feel for the strike zone. His career .271/.358/.361 line in the minors perfectly illustrates his offensive skillset and flaws. He’s the sort of hitter who can be a bench outfielder if he can play a dynamic center field, where Johnson is closer to average. While the hitting environment in Las Vegas (where Sacramento spent their first six games) likely aided Johnson’s incredible start to the year (.684/.727/1.263 with five multi-hit games in six days), his swing is clearly different now than it was in 2019, so maybe he will actually hit for some more power now. His stride is quite a bit longer now than it was when we last saw him and the bigger move forward has made his swing a little more athletic. Johnson’s back foot is coming off the ground close to the time of contact, not something you’d see with his last swing’s more conservative footwork. It’s too early to re-evaluate an older hitter like this, and even if this change proves to be meaningful, Johnson is still probably just a bench player, but it might be the difference between him getting a cup of coffee at some point or not. Read the rest of this entry »

We are reaching peak levels of Shohei Ohtani early in the 2021 season. The true two-way play we were teased with in 2018 is now on full display, with both hitting and pitching in the same game. But as incredible as the hitting has been, there are still questions about Ohtani’s performance as a pitcher: In 18.2 innings, he has somehow pitched to a 2.41 ERA and 3.96 FIP despite a 22% walk rate that is third worst in the league among pitchers with 10 innings or more. Yet in the midst of massive control issues and everything he’s doing at the plate, Ohtani is continuing to develop as a pitcher, adding a multi-faceted cutter to the pitch mix.

There’s a Jekyll and Hyde nature that comes about even within Ohtani’s starts. Take a look at his April 26 outing in Texas to see what I’m talking about.

Updating Ohtani's night on the mound…

1st inning: 4 runs, 2 hits, 2 walks, HBP, 1 K, 11/29 strikes
Since: 0 runs, 1 hit, 0 walks, 8 Ks, 30/46 strikes https://t.co/H9xcc9hH6i

— Jack Harris (@ByJackHarris) April 27, 2021

Something obviously clicked after the first, and all was well again. But looking at his pitch usage that night tells a story itself about where Ohtani is in his development as a pitcher.

It’s an overly simple bit of visualization, and it should be pretty clear what’s going on: Ohtani is largely only comfortable with the fastball and splitter. You can see that the slider, curveball and cutter barely feature, with the latter two popping up in the first inning but not after and the slider appearing only in the fifth and sixth. That’s in line with his career (70 innings) to date: fastball (52% usage), splitter (21%), slider (12%), curve (6%), and cutter (7%). Not that there isn’t precedent for a pitcher who can live primarily off of a four-seam/splitter mix (cf. Kevin Gausman), but it’s a dangerous line for a starter to walk, especially with Ohtani’s command as is.

Read the rest of this entry »

In 2018, Matt Barnes had a promising season for the Red Sox. He struck out 36.2% of the batters he faced en route to a 3.65 ERA and 2.71 FIP. His one weakness? He walked 11.7% of the batters he faced, a dangerous number. That pattern carried through to 2019; he struck out 38.6% of his opponents but walked 13.3% of them. That strikeout rate is wonderful, but the walks gave him little margin for error, as evidenced by 2020, when he struck out 30.4% of his opponents (still great) but walked 13.7% on his way to a below-replacement-level season.

In 2021, you’ll never believe it — Barnes is striking out the world again, with a 48.4% strikeout rate that’s fourth among relievers, behind only Aroldis Chapman, James Karinchak, and Josh Hader. Oh yeah — he’s also walking 4.8% of his opponents and has been quite possibly the most valuable reliever in the game. Let’s get an explanation for that, shall we?

At surface level, it’s easy! Take a look at swinging strike rate, a statistic that becomes reliable quickly:

A 19.1% swinging strike rate is excellent; top-of-the-league excellent, really. Also true: Barnes hasn’t changed his pitch mix. He’s a two-pitch reliever, with a riding four-seamer and hammer curve. He throws them both roughly half the time, and they spin more or less exactly opposite out of his hand, which seems to help them both play up:

Great, problem solved. Hard curveball, decent fastball, they both play into each other’s deception, sounds like a good reliever to me. One small problem: there are maybe 50 relievers like that in baseball, and Barnes was also like that in the past, when he was far more walk-prone without his current killer strikeout numbers. Read the rest of this entry »