It is uncommon for a player who has only pitched in relief to land within sniffing distance of a preseason top-100 prospect list. In his 2020 rankings, Eric Longenhagen identified a total of 43 pitchers, 42 of which have spent most if not all of their minor league careers as starters. Typically, just the threat that a pitcher could need to transition to the bullpen in the majors necessitates a substantial drop in his stock. Dodgers right-hander Brusdar Graterol, for example, dropped nearly 50 spots on Longenhagen’s list in the span of a year, partially due to the increased likelihood his big league career would be spent as a reliever.

All of which is to say that Cleveland’s James Karinchak is an anomaly. He was No. 115 on Longenhagen’s prospect list before the season started, two spots behind Graterol. Where he differs from Graterol — as well as others like Rays right-hander Shane Baz, who was ranked one spot behind Karinchak — is that there hasn’t been any real effort to have him start in some time. He appeared in 82 minor league games from 2017-19 and started just six, all of which came back in his first professional season. There is little precedent for someone inspiring such promise as a full-time reliever in the minors. Fittingly, there is also little precedent for the numbers Karinchak posted in his minor league career.

Karinchak made the Cleveland prospect list only in the “Other Prospects of Note” section before the 2019 season. At the time he was coming off a season in which he’d thrown 48.2 innings across three levels of the minors and allowed just nine runs while striking out 81 and walking 36. An injured hamstring delayed his first appearance last year, but when he finally got back on the mound, his numbers were something you couldn’t expect to replicate in a video game. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a wildly misleading set of years and statistics for you, to start this article off on a high note:

Boy, what a boring career. An average player, and average in a consistent way. There are no swings between 3 and 0, no is-it-a-breakout spikes or is-he-toast dips. Let’s zoom in slightly, though, because I’ll level with you: that was a cherry-picked set of statistics:

Fewer homers, wildly varying walk and strikeout rates — those static WAR totals were a trick! If you’ll forgive me the conceit, let’s do one last reveal of more statistics:

Ah, the magic of counting stats. Ian Happ is on pace to obliterate his best previous season. Let’s take a look at how he’s doing it, shall we?

When he reached the major leagues, Happ had an old man’s game trapped in a young man’s body; enough patience to draw a raft-load of walks, but also enough patience to get down in counts and strike out at an astronomical rate. The problem was that he didn’t draw enough of those walks to make up for the strikeouts: his batting eye simply wasn’t good enough to let him get away with the takes. After reaching a two-strike count, Happ struck out 54.4% of the time — that’s bad! The major league average over that timeframe stands at 42%. Read the rest of this entry »

While a shortened season might make this year’s version of our Trade Value Series an unusual one, with the deadline looming, we are not about to break with tradition. For a more detailed introduction to this year’s exercise, as well as a look at those players who fell just short of the top 50, be sure to read the Introduction and Honorable Mentions piece, which can be found in the widget above along with the other installments in the Series.

For those who have been reading the Trade Value Series the last few seasons, the format should look familiar. For every player, you’ll see a table with the player’s projected five-year WAR from 2021-2025, courtesy of Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections. The table will also include the player’s guaranteed money, if any, the year through which the team has contractual control of the player, last year’s rank, and then projections, contract status, and age for each individual season through 2025, if the player is under contract or team control for those seasons. Last year’s rank includes a link to the relevant 2019 post. Thanks are due to Sean Dolinar for creating the tables in these posts. At the bottom of the page, there will be an updated grid showing all the players who have been ranked up to this point.

With that out of the way, let’s finish the rankings.

Since the beginning of last season, no pitcher has thrown more innings than Shane Bieber’s 249. Only four pitchers have a higher WAR than his 7.0 over than span: Gerrit Cole, Lance Lynn, Max Scherzer, and Jacob deGrom. Cole just landed a monster contract. Lynn and Scherzer are in their 30s and will be free agents at the end of next season; deGrom is also in his 30s and makes more than $30 million a year. Bieber is 25 years old, will make the league minimum next season, and won’t be a free agent until after 2024.

Bieber’s performance and projections put him in a higher tier than Walker Buehler (18th in these rankings), who has a similar number of years of control remaining, but at a higher cost due to Buehler’s status as a Super Two. Bieber’s projections are just a bit lower than Jack Flaherty’s (19th), with the Cleveland right-hander boasting slightly better performance since the start of last year; he separates himself from Flaherty with an extra year of team control at virtually no cost. Unless Bieber wins a Cy Young award, he seems likely to make between $15 million to $20 million total over the next three seasons, and only $30 million to $40 million through the end of the 2024 season, or roughly the yearly salaries of Cole, deGrom, and Scherzer. Pitchers are inherently risky and the threat of Tommy John surgery always looms, which is really all that pushed Bieber to the back of the top 10 instead of being closer to the middle. When you factor in his contract status, Bieber is the most valuable pitcher in baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about the three-year anniversary of the Effectively Wild outing to see the total solar eclipse at a minor league game in Oregon and whether the backlash to the kerfuffle over Fernando Tatis Jr.’s 3-0 grand slam made this week a watershed for MLB’s unwritten rules, then answer listener emails about whether a pitcher will (or should) start both ends of a doubleheader this season, what percentage of hit by pitches are intentional and how good we are at distinguishing those that are from those that aren’t, and whether any managers will be fired in 2020, plus a trio of listener-inspired Stat Blasts on a statistical quirk of the top of the Mariners’ career ERA leaderboard, the most pitches thrown in a 1-2-3 inning, and games with “half no-hitters” thrown by both teams.

Audio intro: Neil Young, "Just Singing a Song"
Audio outro: The Moody Blues, "Meet Me Halfway"

Link to Ben on the eclipse game
Link to Ben on Tatis Jr. and unwritten rules
Link to Ringer MLB Show on Tatis Jr. and unwritten rules
Link to Bill James on home runs and hit batters
Link to Eric Gallipo’s Stat Blast Song cover
Link to Mariners career pitching leaderboards
Link to episode with discussion about defining 1-2-3 innings
Link to list of 1-2-3 innings with most pitches thrown
Link to list of games with “half no-hitters” by both teams
Link to Ben on the strike zone at the end of no-hitter attempts
Link to Ben on umpire perfect games

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At this point in his career, Eric Hosmer is a known quantity. A few good offensive seasons during his 10 years in the majors have been marred by just as many poor campaigns at the plate. Collectively, he’s been 7% better than league average as a hitter during his career. And because he’s been in the league so long, it’s pretty clear why he’s been unable to produce consistently. Among the more than 500 players who have qualified for the batting title since Hosmer debuted in 2011, his groundball rate is 20th at 54.3%.

With more than half of his batted balls getting pounded into the ground, Hosmer’s success has been dangerously tied to his BABIP. This table of batted ball stats from 2015 onwards tells most of the story:

Hosmer has never had trouble making solid contact. It’s just that more often than not, that hard contact is made on groundballs. That tendency to put the ball on the ground has only gotten worse since joining the Padres in 2018, and it’s come with an elevated strikeout rate as well. Since signing his eight-year deal, he’s been 7% below league average at the plate and has accumulated -0.5 WAR over two seasons. His contract and lack of performance has become a big problem for the Padres.

Things might be looking up for Hosmer in 2020, however. He started off the year with five hits in three games including two doubles and a home run. A stomach issue sent him to the Injured List for 10 days and he struggled in his first few games back, his body likely still recovering from losing some weight while he was sidelined. But from August 13-17, he put together a five-game hitting streak that included three home runs. Because of his missed time earlier in the season, he’s only accumulated 56 plate appearances, but there have already been some significant changes to his approach that deserve investigation.

Here’s the same table as above, this time with 2020 included.

Hosmer’s batted ball profile looks nearly unrecognizable from his previous career norms. His groundball rate has dropped to a career low, and his fly ball rate is among the league leaders at 46.5%. This spring, Hosmer made some comments recognizing the deficiencies of his approach and acknowledged the changes he needed to make:

“I’ve got to get the ball in the air a little more. I’ve got to drive the ball a little more. I hit the ball really hard. It just goes on the ground.”

This isn’t the first time Hosmer has expressed a desire to hit the ball in the air more often. He made similar comments back in 2018. But this is the first time that sentiment has led to an actual change in approach.

When a batter makes significant changes to his batted ball profile, the simple assumption is that he’s made a swing change, as so many other batters have recently. That doesn’t seem to be the case with Hosmer. Here’s an example swing from 2019:

And here’s a swing from 2020:

Hosmer still has the long, loopy swing that he’s always had. The leg kick is still present as a timing mechanism. If he made any mechanical changes to his swing, they’re likely small tweaks rather than the big, sweeping changes we’ve seen from batters like Justin Turner. In The Athletic interview linked above, Hosmer mentions maintaining balance on his back leg as a way to prevent him from swinging down on the ball. That minor mechanical adjustment is certainly present in his 2020 swing shown above but it probably isn’t the main source of his new batted ball profile; instead, a change to his swing profile is likely what’s driving the change in batted ball outcomes. Here’s Hosmer’s swing rate grouped by pitch type during his career.

He’s simply stopped swinging at breaking balls and offspeed pitches and has focused his approach on attacking fastballs. Over his career, his groundball rate against breaking balls is 57.7% and it’s even higher against offspeed pitches (60.6%). By reducing the number of swings on pitches that produce his highest rates of groundball contact, he’s bound to reduce his overall groundball rate. His historic groundball rate against fastballs has been high as well (53.2%), but this year he’s elevating the hard stuff he sees. His average launch angle against fastballs has increased by 10 degrees this year and his average launch angle against breaking balls has increased by 20 degrees!

There have been periods earlier in his career where his rolling average launch angle has been this high, but not since joining the Padres. (It should be noted that his average launch angle was higher (17.2 degress) through August 16 but he’s hit a bunch of groundballs in the days since — such is the nature of these early season stats.)

Hosmer hasn’t just increased his launch angle, he’s also changed his batted ball distribution. He’s had a fairly even distribution of batted balls throughout his career, with a 34.2% pull rate balanced by hitting to the opposite field 28.7% of the time. This year, his pull rate is up to 44.2%, easily a career high. And because he’s elevating the ball more often while still maintaining his hard hit rate, his barrel rate is also at a career high 12.2%.

Changing his swing profile has also helped him reduce his strikeout rate to where it was in Kansas City. His chase rate has dropped by four points and his contact rate has increased by more than 12 points, up to a career high 85.7%. Hosmer has a new plan at the plate. When he’s ahead in the count, he’s swinging at non-fastballs just 28.6% of the time, nearly 25 points lower than last year. He’s focused on attacking fastballs and pitches he can handle. And when he makes contact, he’s pulling the ball more often and elevating.

This new approach at the plate has resulted in a reinvention for Eric Hosmer. Nearly every single change he’s made has helped him produce better results at the plate. We’re getting close to the point where these underlying statistics become statistically reliable. It certainly seems like Hosmer has finally figured out the adjustments he needed to make to regain his productivity at the plate.

Thanks are due to Eric Longenhagen for sharing his notes on Hosmer’s adjustments.

Cleveland has received a lot of plaudits for this year’s draft class, with multiple publications giving it plus-plus grades. Top-to-bottom quality is the primary reason for the praise. On the first day of a truncated five-round draft, the club selected high school shortstop Carson Tucker 23rd overall, then tabbed Auburn University right-hander Tanner Burns with a Competitive Balance pick. The following day’s selections were Florida International left-hander Logan Allen (second round), prep outfielder Petey Halpin (third), prep shortstop Milan Tolentino (fourth), and Vanderbilt right-hander Mason Hickman (fifth).

Orchestrating those selections was Scott Barnsby, who serves as Cleveland’s director of amateur scouting. Barnsby shared his perspective on this year’s unique draft, including the players he brought on board (and one he didn’t), as well as the challenges of scouting in a pandemic.

———

David Laurila: How unique was this year’s draft?

Scott Barnsby: “First, we do everything we can to extend the timeline, to get to know these players as well as we possibly can. That starts as soon as the previous year’s draft is over. But the springs are really important, because we continue to develop relationships with the players and see how they’ve progressed from the fall and winter. We didn’t have that opportunity this year. It was unique in that sense.

“We obviously didn’t have a choice, because we were dealing with the pandemic and had to make adjustments, but it was pretty incredible to see how the staff came together. The one thing they kept saying was, ‘Hey, how can I help? What can I do to to get us to where we need to be in June?’ That’s the collaborative effort we always talk about. But it was still challenging. The majority of our work was done remotely, and we felt like there were gaps in the information we had, [both] on and off the field. We tried to do our best to to close those gaps.

“We held weekly meetings. There was daily work being done to prepare, but there were weekly check-ins starting a couple months prior to the draft to make sure that we were squared away on draft day. So while there were some challenges, it felt like it came together. And obviously, with five rounds we were really able to prioritize our time. Would we have liked more? We did the most with what we had.” Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

The Houston Astros took another hit Wednesday afternoon with the news that young slugger Yordan Alvarez, last year’s unanimous American League Rookie of the Year, would miss the rest of the 2020 season due to knee surgery. For the Astros, winners of 107 games in 2019, it represents the latest downgrade to the roster that was just one win away from winning the World Series last October. For Alvarez, it means a lot of pain, physical therapy, and a lost opportunity to consolidate some of his phenomenal gains as an offensive force over the previous 18 months.

Yordan Alvarez is going to undergo surgery next week to repair a partial tear of patella tendon in right knee and is out for the year, Baker said.

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) August 19, 2020

Knee problems are sadly not new for Alvarez; even in March, there was a very real chance that he’d miss what was then Opening Day due to his knees. His bread-and-butter will always be making baseballs travel a very long distance, but he’s also surprisingly quick for a man his size. Despite what the massive slugger trope suggests, Alvarez’s sprint speed during his rookie season was measured by Statcast as 26.8 feet per second, just below the league average of 27. That burst of agility is rightly not used to steal bases, but it was enough to give the Astros the flexibility to occasionally use him in the outfield.

The hope had been that the season’s start date being pushed back from late March to late July would allow sufficient time for Alvarez to heal from his knee problems. But further complicating matters was a case of COVID-19, officially revealed last Friday after a couple weeks of the usual-for-2020 speculation surrounding a player missing time due to “undisclosed” reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

12:04

Dan Szymborski: This is a chat.

12:05

Dan Szymborski: Well, ZiPS is not a scout and it’s going to be skeptical of most college players.

12:05

Dan Szymborski: Until they do stuff in the minors.

12:06

Dan Szymborski: And it wasn’t particularly enthralled by his minor league performance, which was largely walk-driven.

Read the rest of this entry »

The future of the Tigers arrived ahead of schedule this week — in Chicago, not Detroit, because necessity didn’t consult a travel itinerary. Faced with injuries, the majors’ most ineffective rotation, and a losing streak that erased a surprisingly strong start to the abbreviated season, the Tigers promoted three of their top prospects — third baseman Isaac Paredes, lefty Tarik Skubal, and righty Casey Mize, the last of those the number one overall pick of the 2018 draft — to provide immediate reinforcements. The moves aren’t likely to send the team to the playoffs, even given the field’s expansion, but they should make the Tigers an improved and more interesting club even as they endure growing pains.

After losing 114 games last year and an average of 103 over the past three seasons, the Tigers appeared likely to remain doormats this season. Back in March, before the coronavirus interrupted spring training, our Playoff Odds projected them for 95 losses, with a 0.1% chance of making the playoffs — higher than the Mariners and Orioles, both of whom came in at percentages too small to be viewed with the naked eye, but otherwise pretty hopeless. The pandemic-shortened schedule improved their odds significantly; though still projected for a .417 winning percentage (25-35 instead of 67-95) as of Opening Day, they were estimated to have a 1.4% chance at winning the AL Central and a 12.0% chance at claiming one of the AL’s eight playoff berths.

Those odds climbed to as high as 39.2% as the Tigers won nine of their first 14 games, the team’s best start since 2015, when they went 11-3. In that year, however, 14 games represented 8.6% of their schedule, where this year it’s 23.3%. Those Tigers finished 74-87, a reminder that even lousy teams sometimes bolt from the gate in impressive fashion; last year’s Mariners, to use an example in recent memory, opened by going 13-2 but still finished 68-94.

As if on cue, the 2020 Tigers hit the skids for what has become an eight-game losing streak, starting with five straight at home — two to the White Sox, then three to the Indians — and then all three games against the White Sox in Chicago. The skid has sent them to a 9-13 record, dropping their run differential into the red (-25 runs); even entering Wednesday, their actual winning percentage had been well ahead of their projected winning percentages, but they’ve regressed to the point that their .409 mark is looking up at both their Pythagenpat (.420) and Baseruns (.416) winning percentages, which is to say that they’ve apparently found their level. Read the rest of this entry »