FanGraphs Baseball

Position: Arizona League Hitting Coach

Reports To: Hitting Coordinator
Department: Player Development
Location: Scottsdale, Arizona
Re-Location: Yes

About the Team:

You will be a part of the cutting edge Player Development system of the San Francisco Giants and lead their Arizona based players through their offensive skill development. You will enjoy being part of an iconic franchise in the Sports world and get to experience a company that believes in small teams for maximum impact; that strives to balance work and home life, that understands that this is a marathon, not a sprint; that continuously and purposefully builds an inclusive culture where everyone is able to be the best version of themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Luis Urías, the zombie runner, and walk-off wins, a few other aspects of the Will Craig/Javier Báez play, a new stat called the “Boner,” MLB and NFTs, Theo Epstein’s recent comments about making changes to the game, Shohei Ohtani’s player-page traffic and the future of two-way players, the Rays and Rich Hill, how the aftermath of the spitball ban relates to the future of foreign substance use, the definition of a “generational talent,” whether to credit teams or players for positioning, and whether MLB should ban in-game analytics use (and coaching visits), plus a Stat Blast about Trey Mancini and players who’ve accrued the highest-ever percentages of their teams’ runs and RBI.

Audio intro: The Replacements, "Gary’s Got a Boner"
Audio outro: David Newberry, "The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth"

Link to Brewers walk-off game story
Link to Craig’s comment about his boner
Link to Dan in Milwaukee’s field diagram
Link to story about Gehrig NFT
Link to story about Topps NFTs
Link to story about NFTs’ environmental impact
Link to Theo Epstein story
Link to Ben on Ohtani
Link to story about the spitball ban
Link to Pages from Baseball’s Past
Link to Servais “generational player” quote
Link to Tango on sports generations
Link to story about Joe West confiscating card
Link to “lasers in the outfield” story
Link to Stat Blast “Contribution Rate” data
Link to Ben Clemens on Lindor
Link to All-Star Game lawsuit story
Link to second All-Star Game lawsuit story
Link to listener David Newberry’s album

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Because there are so few minor league baseball games on Mondays this year, you’ll see me play with the format of the Tuesday Daily Prospect Notes. For today, I’ve made a change to the Seasonal tab over on The Board. Now there is a page where those of you who are watching the Americas Qualifier for the Tokyo Olympics can see which young prospects are rostered for the event. Day One of the Qualifier was yesterday when the site was dark for Memorial Day. You can find recaps of yesterday’s action on the WBSC website along with each country’s full roster.

This qualifier was originally supposed to take place in Arizona during March of 2020 but the pandemic reached our shores and it was postponed. It’s now being played on the east coast of Florida, in St. Lucie and Palm Beach. Two four-team pods (Group A is the US, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic; Group B is Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, and Canada) play a round robin tournament, with the two top seeds from each pod advancing to face the top two seeds in the other. The country with the best record at the end advances to the Olympics while the second and third place teams face each other for the final qualifying spot.

In addition to the prospects I’ve added to the Seasonal tab, there are several recent big leaguers (David Robertson, Melky Cabrera, Robinson Chirinos, etc.) playing in the Qualifier who most readers will know, along with lots of draft picks and signees from years ago who are no longer “prospects” but will be familiar to those long-immersed in prospect stuff (Jesmuel Valentín, Ryan Kellogg, Noel Cuevas, etc.). Mariners outfielder Julio Rodríguez is the top prospect in the entire tournament; there are four more Top 100 prospects and another half-dozen who project as good big league role players. I also have brief scouting reports on several of the Cuban players, mostly pitchers who have had good careers in Japan and who might factor in big league free agency over the next couple of years as they age out of the bonus limitations put forth by MLB.

Normally, I’d write some cutesy introduction to this article, maybe regale you with a fun anecdote from my life or make a bad joke to keep the mood light. Today, there’s no time. Francisco Lindor is hitting poorly this year, and we need to get to the bottom of it.

When stars slump early in the season, it’s often easy to see a culprit. Maybe they’re swinging out of their shoes and running a huge strikeout rate. Maybe they’re victims of bad batted ball luck. Maybe they’re playing hurt. In Lindor’s case, the problem is power. Now 195 plate appearances into the season, he’s hit five doubles and four home runs. Those are both by far the worst rates of his career, and combined with a .216 BABIP, they’ve resulted in a desultory batting line.

Easy, right? Lindor stopped hitting the ball hard, so now he’s bad. Only, he’s not:

So much for the lazy analysis — and to be clear, using average exit velocity is absolutely lazy. Whatever’s going wrong, it’s more complicated than a simple power outage. Read the rest of this entry »

With disastrous free agent signing after disastrous free agent signing, and then the trade of Nolan Arenado, the Rockies have already fallen into irrelevance, even if their 20-34 record isn’t actually the NL West’s worst. As if they needed more problems, star shortstop Trevor Story has been sidelined by inflammation in his right elbow. At a time when his production has already fallen short of expectations, the 28-year-old shortstop’s injury — which recalls a late-2018 scare — could have a significant impact upon his trade value.

According to manager Bud Black, Story began experiencing tightness and pain in his elbow and forearm following a play against the Mets in the second game of a doubleheader last Thursday. Fielding a grounder off the bat of Cameron Maybin in the third inning, he ranged to his left, spun, and threw a one-hopper to first base in time for the out.

Story left the game in the middle of the fourth inning, without fielding another ball or coming to bat. He did not play on Friday, and was placed on the 10-day Injured List on Saturday. With the Rockies in the midst of a week-long road trip to New York and Pittsburgh, the team planned for him to undergo an MRI on Monday, once he returned to Denver, to determine if the injury is more severe. At this writing, the Rockies have yet to share the results with the public, but the early indications are that this isn’t a worst-case scenario; Black characterized Story’s injury as “not as bad” as one he suffered in late 2018 (more on which momentarily). Via MLB.com’s Manny Randhawa:

“Trev and I and [head trainer] Keith [Dugger] spoke this morning, and we decided the best thing for Trev was to go on the injured list,” Black said. “There’s still some residual soreness and general tightness around the joint of the elbow. He wasn’t gonna play today, probably wasn’t gonna play tomorrow, and then the off-day. And then the three of us also thought there’s gonna be a couple days to test this, to go out in Denver and throw and hit at some level of intensity as opposed to just picking up and playing.”

Read the rest of this entry »

As the calendar flips to June, it means just one thing to big league teams: there’s activity on the horizon. July means trade season, and June is the month to get ready for it. It can be a complicated process, but it starts with some old school front office work, as teams get in touch with each other to lay the groundwork for the insanity to come through what are commonly referred to as reach out calls.

Before such calls occur, teams prepare by assessing their 29 potential trade partners. For each team, needs and surpluses are identified. When I was with Houston, a group of people created matrices for each club, showing what those teams might need and which players might be available, as well as a snapshot of their payroll and any anticipated flexibility in that regard. For teams seen as buyers, did we have a player who fit their needs? For those likely to sell, did they have targets to help get us into the playoffs, or who could help us win a playoff series? For those on the bubble, both possible scenarios need to be prepared for.

The calls themselves are made by a variety of people, ranging from general managers to assistant GMs to other top lieutenants at the director level or higher. During my Astros tenure, assignments were based on relationships. I generally did somewhere between six and 10 of these calls because I knew the person on the other end of the phone best. Read the rest of this entry »

Javier Báez and Will Craig were the main protagonists in the tragicomedy that took place in Pittsburgh on Thursday. In a re-scripting of Merkle’s Boner, “El Mago” was cast as the hero, while the rookie first baseman co-starred as the unwitting villain. Given their respective roles, it’s understandable that they’ve received the lion’s share of attention for what transpired.

A supporting actor deserves his own acclaim. Largely overlooked — but no less important — were the actions of Willson Contreras. Had the Chicago catcher not made a mad dash toward home plate, panic and mayhem wouldn’t have entered the equation. Craig would have simply tagged Báez, relegating the latter’s amusing backpedal to a quickly-forgotten, footnote.

I brought that up to Pirates manager Derek Shelton on Friday.

“Yeah, I mean the one thing Contreras did was, he never gave up on the play,” responded Shelton. “He continued to run, and that was an important factor. He just continued to play, and finish the play. Unfortunately, it turned out against us.”

His thoughts on his ball club’s turning a routine play into Theatre of the Absurd?

“Move on from it,” said Shelton. “If we could all live our lives without making any mistakes, it would be really fun. But that doesn’t happen. Move on.”

Brandon Hyde and Will Venable have moved on from Chicago, where they
shared a clubhouse with Baez and Contreras as members of the Cubs coaching staff. I reached out to both for their perspectives on what will likely go down as the season’s craziest play. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

You won’t find many joint Yankees/Mets fans, but if such a bizarre chimera exists, it’s been a rough few days for pitching health. On Tuesday, Noah Syndergaard made a scheduled rehab start for the St. Lucie Mets. He departed after only an inning, and he’s now been shut down for six weeks. Meanwhile, Corey Kluber made his first start since no-hitting the Rangers, only to leave after three innings. The Yankees placed Kluber on the Injured List and announced that he won’t throw for at least four weeks, with a return date still unknown.

Weird hypothetical New York fans aside, there’s an obvious link between these two situations. Both teams are suffering greatly in the wave of injuries currently sweeping baseball, and how both teams deal with the loss of their pitcher will do a lot to determine the outcome of their respective East divisions. Injury management is nothing new, but these two come at particularly pivotal times for both teams.

Syndergaard’s setback isn’t immediately devastating to the Mets. He was still likely more than a month away from returning to the major leagues, and the Mets planned around his absence. They acquired pitching in bulk this offseason; Taijuan Walker, Joey Lucchesi, Carlos Carrasco, and Jordan Yamamoto are all newcomers who the team expected to provide some coverage this season.

With Jacob deGrom looking no worse for the wear after a brief IL stint, the Mets are fine at the top of their rotation. Marcus Stroman, too, has been solid. Things dip from there — Walker, Carrasco, and Yamamoto are all on the IL, and Carrasco hasn’t pitched yet this year — but deGrom and a reasonable followup is all you need for an acceptable rotation. Walker will likely be back soon, to boot — he’s already throwing live batting practice. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »