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Yesterday, I wrote an article about the ugly state of Atlanta’s current rotation. Last night, their run of rough starting pitching continued when Tommy Milone gave up eight runs in just 3.1 innings. While that outing might make my piece seem timely, and almost prescient, Milone’s start proved to be immaterial because the Braves scored 11 runs in the second inning and averaged three runs per inning over next six frames. In that same piece on Atlanta’s rotation, I noted that the team has scored at least seven runs in six of its last 10 games. Yesterday, the Braves’ offense met that mark four times over, beating the Marlins 29-9. And Atlanta wasn’t alone in its offensive explosion yesterday, as earlier in the day, the Brewers beat the Tigers 19-0.

To get a sense of what the Braves and Brewers did, let’s take a quick look at the team-by-team offensive numbers produced yesterday:

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12:02

Dan Szymborski: Let’s get this party* started!

12:03

Dan Szymborski: Disclaimer: There may not be an actual party

12:03

Dan Szymborski: I’m optimistic. Dude’s 22!

12:04

Dan Szymborski: Especially amazing given where he was after the first week

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It was the second game of the Twins-Cardinals doubleheader on Tuesday. The Cardinals had lost the first game, but were now already ahead 5-2 in the bottom of the third. The bases were loaded, and Caleb Thielbar, newly into the game, was facing catcher Matt Wieters with two out.

Thielbar quickly got ahead of Wieters, who had been hit by a pitch in his first plate appearance: a 90 mph fastball in the middle of the zone, a 68 mph curveball on the outside corner that Wieters just barely managed to foul off, and it was 0-2, advantage Thielbar. The 0-2 pitch, another fastball in the middle of the zone, was again fouled off by Wieters, sailing off into the right-field stands. No matter. Throw him a better one this time, right? Wieters took a little stroll, adjusting his gloves — maybe taking a breath, maybe pondering what Thielbar might have in store for him on the next pitch. He walked back into the box, cocked the bat, stared out to the mound. Almost the exact same pitch — almost the exact same result. This, it seemed, would be a battle. Another stroll for Wieters: inhale, exhale, the bat held out in front of his face.

This time, Thielbar changed things up — a curveball at the knees. Again, Wieters fouled it off, and again, he stepped away, out of the box, and took a breath. He was, with each pitch, just trying to stay alive, and to stay alive took all of his effort. He had to steal the breaths when he could. Because with each pitch that he fouled off, every successful attempt at fending off the onslaught, Wieters was prolonging the time he would have to spend fighting. The price of staying alive was that the struggle would not end.

And as the plate appearance continued, the struggle became more and more visible. Thielbar only threw three pitches outside the strike zone, all of them within the first nine pitches of what would end up being a 19-pitch at-bat. The rest Wieters had to foul off, the effort showing in his ever more laborious swings and grimaces, the length of his walks outside the zone, the depth of his deep breaths, and the tension in his stance as he returned to await, once again, a pitch that he would have to fight off. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a sentence you can find, on this very website, about Nelson Cruz: “Age and injuries have sapped Cruz’s speed in the outfield… Cruz has always struck out more than the average player, but his walk rate has dropped back below average the last few seasons. Cruz also has a durability problem, only playing in more than 130 games once in his career.” The fact that an outfield position is even in consideration should give you a clue that this isn’t current, but what year would you guess? 2016? 2017?

Here’s a further clue: the next line was “His (last year) was of course shortened by a drug suspension, which adds its own peculiar twist to his projection.” Yes, this was his 2014 writeup, penned just before he signed with the Baltimore Orioles. If that feels forever ago, that’s because it was. It’s two Cruz contracts, and 26.1 WAR, ago. Whoops!

That’s no slight on Matt Klaessen, who wrote that fantasy profile. Predicting Cruz’s age-related decline is a yearly tradition at this point. Here we are, though, in 2020, and the decline is still nowhere to be seen. Cruz is hitting .343/.432/.685, good for a 193 wRC+, the fulcrum of Minnesota’s offense. Naturally, then, I’m going to predict that Cruz is in for a decline… kind of. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller discuss the backstory behind the Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio trade, break down a clichéd postgame quote by Gavin Lux, and marvel at the historic excellence of 40-year-old Twins slugger Nelson Cruz.

Audio intro: Todd Rundgren, "Cliché"
Audio outro: Chip Taylor, "Santa Cruz"

Link to the Chicago Reader on the Cubs and Brock
Link to Brock obituary
Link to Lux clichés quote
Link to Bull Durham cliches clip
Link to Ben on Cruz in 2015
Link to Russell Carleton on the shift
Link to Tom Tango on the shift
Link to rate of shifting against Cruz

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Entering the season, the Braves looked to have a solid rotation. Mike Soroka was returning after a very good rookie season. Max Fried’s first year as a full-time starter showed promise. Mike Foltynewicz seemed to have discovered his old form in the second half of the season after a disastrous first half. Veteran lefty Cole Hamels was added to the group to provide solid innings. Kyle Wright was going to get a shot at the fifth spot with Sean Newcomb, Touki Toussaint, and Bryse Wilson potentially in the mix. Here’s the current status of those eight pitchers, projected to start this season for the Braves:

Fried was having a fantastic breakout season before an alarming drop in velocity resulted in a stay on the Injured List for a lumbar strain. The hope is that he will return from the IL when eligible a week from today, though at that point, there will be just 10 games left in the season. It might come as a surprise to look at the above table and discover that the Braves are in first place with a 24-18 record. Based on that, you might think the substitutions beyond the group listed above stepped up and had great seasons. But while prospect Ian Anderson has been good, great starts haven’t been coming out of the woodwork. Here’s the set of staring pitchers not listed above:

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There are a lot of reasons the San Francisco Giants, typically a contender now gone moribund, are hanging around the .500 mark. One is the breakout of outfielder Mike Yastrzemski, grandson of legendary Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer Carl. Hitting .294/.402/.563 for a 158 wRC+ and ranking second among MLB hitters with 2.3 WAR, Yaz: The Next Generation is a legitimate MVP candidate, though he’s likely stymied in that endeavor by Fernando Tatis Jr. But Yaz’s sterling 2020 campaign represents broad improvement in a number of areas to the extent that it’s likely that he’s truly established a new baseline of performance at age 30.

The natural inclination for the Orioles would be to think of Yastrzemski as the one that got away. Back in the 1987 Baseball Abstract, Bill James coined the term of “Ken Phelps All-Star,” referring to overlooked players who could play in the majors but for one reason or another did not have the full opportunity to prove it. Sometimes it was a limitation that teams just couldn’t overlook. Sometimes the player broke out past an age where teams could be bothered to care. Sometimes it was simply an inability to understand baseball performance. While the last seems a little mean, 1980s front offices were not particularly progressive in terms of baseball analysis. It’s useful to remember when we’re fighting over stuff like volatility of defensive measures in WAR or FIP vs. ERA that just a generation ago, drawing walks wasn’t widely accepted as both a real skill and a skill worth valuing.

But that’s not really Yastrzemski. This isn’t someone who was spending his mid-20s terrorizing Triple-A hitters and failing to get an opportunity; he put up a .688 OPS at age 24 and a .716 at 25. The last name certainly wasn’t giving him any more opportunities than he deserved. Perusing his minor league translations would give you the idea that his glove played enough to be a fifth outfielder for someone but that his bat had little of his grandfather in it. Read the rest of this entry »

The last time we saw Gerrit Cole in an Astros uniform, he wasn’t actually in an Astros uniform. He was, instead, in a Boras Corporation cap, ready to chart his own course through the league after a dominant run in Houston. When he signed with the Yankees, it felt almost preordained — one of the bright stars of baseball, either the best pitcher in the league or a close second, on the most storied franchise in the game. We get it — great players like the Yankees, and the Yankees like great players.

One look at the surface-level statistics will tell you that something hasn’t panned out in 2020. A 3.63 ERA? A 4.69 FIP? Thirteen home runs allowed in only nine starts?! He’s allowed a home run in each start, which is about as disastrous as it sounds. Heck, even his record tells you something is up; he’s 4-3 this year on an underachieving Yankees team, and while wins and losses are silly contextual statistics, Cole went 35-10 the last two years. Something is clearly up.

Far less clear? What that “something” is. There are some easy ways pitchers fail, ones you can see from a mile away. They lose velocity, and their fastballs become newly hittable. That hasn’t happened to Cole, though, at least not really:

Starters can also lose feel for one of their pitches, and change their pitch mix to compensate. That hasn’t happened either:

Uh… maybe he’s the victim of a poor early-count approach. He’s throwing fewer fastballs this year to start batters off, but just as many pitches in the zone. He’s not doing it by throwing more curveballs and sliders in the zone, either:

In other words, Cole is throwing fastballs less often to start, but he’s making up for it by throwing them in the strike zone more often. Sounds dangerous. Are batters suddenly teeing off on him on 0-0? Nope! They’re actually swinging less than ever, and the whole thing is too small-sample to matter anyway. He’s getting to 0-1 54.5% of the time, in line with his dominant 2019. Next! Read the rest of this entry »

Without a true minor league season on which to fixate, I’ve been spending most of my time watching and evaluating young big leaguers who, because of the truncated season, will still be eligible for prospect lists at the end of the year. From a workflow standpoint, it makes sense for me to prioritize and complete my evaluations of these prospects before my time is divided between theoretical fall instructional ball on the pro side and college fall practices and scrimmages, which will have outsized importance this year due to the lack of both meaningful 2020 college stats and summer wood bat league looks because of COVID-19.

I’m starting with the National League East. Players who have appeared in big league games are covered below, as are a few players who have been at the offsite camps all season. The results of changes made to player rankings and evaluations can be found over on The Board, though I try to provide more specific links throughout this post in case readers only care about one team.

Atlanta Braves

In an August post, I talked about how I was moving away from hitters who swing recklessly but failed to mention that I’d slid Drew Waters from the back of the 55 FV tier — around 50th overall — down to 76th overall, near a bunch of the high ceiling/high variance hitters grouped toward the back of the top 100.

I also slid Kyle Wright (now a 40+ FV — I know he has graduated off of other publications’ lists but even after counting his time on the roster I still have him classified as rookie-eligible, though perhaps I’m miscounting?) and Bryse Wilson (45+ FV). Both of them are throwing hard (Wilson up to 96 over the weekend, Wright up to 97 yesterday) but because they’re of the sink/tail variety, their fastballs don’t have margin for error in the strike zone and both of them too often miss in hittable locations. Each has the secondary stuff to start, but neither has seized a rotation spot even though Atlanta desperately needs someone to. Read the rest of this entry »