The Twins are undeniably one of the most exciting stories of the year. They’ve hit, and I’m approximating here, eighteen million home runs on their charge to the top of the AL Central, holding off the Indians with burst after burst of offense. Their starters are deep and talented — Martín Pérez, whose resurgence has been a fun story, is their fifth-best starter by WAR, with 1.8. José Berríos keys the unit, but Jake Odorizzi, Kyle Gibson, and Michael Pineda are all having excellent seasons.

While all the sluggers and starters have top billing on the team this year, their bullpen has been quietly excellent. They’ve been the second-best group in baseball by WAR this year, the best by FIP-, and have walked batters less frequently than any other relief corps. If win probability added is more your speed, they’re eighth in the league. A year after being below average across the board, their sterling last 30 days (3.24 ERA, 3.30 FIP, 1.6 WAR) has helped the Twins remain atop the AL Central after a brief swoon.

But calling it a group effort is misleading. They’re a group, to be sure — seven relievers with at least 20 innings pitched have posted park-adjusted FIPs and ERAs better than league average. They’re more Derek and the Dominos or the White Stripes than a true group, though. Taylor Rogers is the rock of the group, a bona fide stopper putting up his second straight dominant year of relief. He’s still best known for having a twin brother in the majors, but maybe it’s time he’s known more for his pitching than his family. Read the rest of this entry »

Entering Sunday’s games, 30 pitchers since 1908 had thrown multiple no-hitters. The list is an impressive one, including names like Warren Spahn, Max Scherzer, Walter Johnson, and Randy Johnson. There are also some less exciting names on the list with Homer Bailey, Mike Fiers, and Jake Arrieta all accomplishing the same feat in recent seasons. Of those 30 players with at least two no-hitters since 1908, 27 of the 30 had thrown exactly two such games, including Justin Verlander. After a 14-strikeout, one-walk no-hitter on Sunday, Verlander joins Bob Feller, Cy Young, and Larry Corcoran in all of baseball history three no-hitters, sitting behind only Sandy Koufax (4) and Nolan Ryan (7).

All no-hitters are impressive, as navigating an entire game without allowing a hit is a feat unto itself and generally comes with an excellent defensive performance combined with a great outing from the pitcher. Verlander’s no-hitter is one of the most impressive in recent history due to how little he relied on his teammates to complete the task. Only seven times before has a pitcher put up more than Verlander’s 14 strikeouts in a no-hitter. Scherzer put up 17 in his October 2015 no-hitter and Ryan did the same back in 1973. Ryan also struck out 16 and 15 in other no-hitters, with Clayton Kershaw getting 15 Ks in 2014 while Warren Spahn and Don Wilson also reached 15 strikeouts in their performances. Verlander’s 14 matches four others including Ryan, Koufax, Matt Cain, and Nap Rucker back in 1908. Cain, Koufax, and Rucker did not walk any batters, and the only other pitchers with at least 14 strikeouts and one walk or none were Scherzer and Kershaw. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about the Cardinals, the Nationals, and the NL’s increasingly interesting playoff races, the pluses and minuses of expanded September rosters, a caveat about time-traveling to see Mike Trout’s final game, and Justin Verlander’s third no-hitter and the role of health in determining pitchers’ careers, then discuss the significance of five fun (and not-so-fun) facts: Oakland’s history of slow starts and fast finishes; Cleveland’s performance against good and bad teams, Buster Posey’s second-half swoons and the veteran stars having the most disappointing seasons; the Marlins’ attendance and baseball’s future as a remote viewing experience; and the Tigers’ lack of above-average hitters and the entertainment value of terrible teams (plus an update on Aristides Aquino and facts about fastest starts).

Audio intro: The Resonars, "Three Times Around"
Audio outro: John Doe and The Sadies, "The Cold Hard Facts of Life"

Link to Glanville on expanded rosters
Link to Sam on Stallings
Link to Sam on Statcast no-hitters
Link to article about Verlander’s low point
Link to Sam’s power rankings contributions
Link to Max Marchi on who’s ahead of whom
Link to Neil Paine on the terrible Tigers
Link to Aquino story
Link to Sam on Bellinger
Link to Sam on Yelich
Link to Ben on knuckleballs
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Luke Voit is a huge football fan. In recent years, he’s been a huge football fan without an NFL team to support. A Missouri native, Voit grew up rooting for the Rams, but the franchise relocated from St. Louis to Los Angeles while he was climbing the minor-league ladder in the Cardinals system. A void was thus created.

That jilted-lover experience is now safely in the rearview, and he has a new allegiance in mind. Voit recently bought a Sam Darnold jersey and is flirting with the idea of becoming a New York Jets fan.

“Because I’m playing for the Yankees now,” was the sturdily-built slugger’s response when I asked why that is (the Jets have gone 14-34 over the past three seasons). “I think it would be a fun connection to have. I want a team, and being in New York — I have a place there — I’ll be able to go to a game or two.“

His younger brother excelled on the gridiron. John Voit was a defensive lineman at
Army for four years, serving as a co-captain and earning the team’s prestigious Black Lion Award. Luke likely would have played collegiately himself had he not blown out his shoulder in high school. It was at that point that he devoted his full attention to baseball.

Upon learning that he’s been a linebacker, I asked Voit if he liked to hit people. His smiling response was, “Oh, yeah.” Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about GPS, resisting the urge to take the bait on bad takes, and the debate about access for broadcasters who double as team personnel, answer listener emails about not replacing broken bats, earning/working walks, and players with underutilized skills, and close with a discussion of Félix Hernández’s future and some podcast metacommentary (plus a postscript about another unintended consequence of mercy rules).

Audio intro: Tame Impala, "Be Above it"
Audio outro: Pete Townshend, "You’re So Clever"

Link to Meg on the 12-minute game
Link to Marc on double-duty broadcasters
Link to article about broken bats
Link to order The MVP Machine

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I am currently in Busan, South Korea for the 2019 WBSC U-18 World Cup, where 12 countries have teams featuring some of their best young talents. Friday, August 30 was Opening Day and, besides an occasional breeze, it was quite sunny and humid. Below are notes on a few of the notable players I saw.

Chen Po-Yu (Taiwan), RHP

The 17-year-old Chen is far from an unknown at this point. According to the international prospect section of THE BOARD, he could be looking at a seven-figure signing bonus in 2020. A major league scout told me that, at this moment, Chen is the most “complete package” among the pitching prospects out of Taiwan. Needless to say, a large group of major league scouts swarmed behind home plate to see Chen pitch against Panama.

Even before his start, Chen’s delivery stood out to me during his bullpen. He has an easy, fast-tempo motion that was direct to home. He finished well towards the home plate, setting himself up for good fielding position in case of a batted ball. He also showed good tempo between his pitches and rarely seemed hesitant to throw any of his pitches.

Chen’s fastball sat at around 89-91 mph throughout the game. He maintained the velocity late in the game when he broke 80-pitch mark. In general, he showed a good feel for commanding the pitch in different parts of the zone. In the second inning, he left some pitches up, which led to some hard contact. When he located his heater well, however, he was able to get called strikes or set up his secondary pitches. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Saturday, Boston Red Sox right-hander Brandon Workman authored an outing that was fairly representative of his 2019 season. He entered the game in the ninth inning, with the Red Sox ahead of the host San Diego Padres by a score of 5-4. At just 6.4% playoff odds according to our own calculations, Boston remained in the American League playoff hunt only on the periphery, but even that could take a significant blow with a loss in a game like this. Workman’s job, then, was an important one.

He began the inning with three straight curveballs to Austin Allen. The first one was called a strike, while the next two eluded Allen’s swinging bat:

He attacked the next hitter, Ty France, in a similar fashion. He threw three straight curveballs, but instead of throwing them at the knees, he aimed them up in the zone. All three missed their target high, and another high fastball gave France a free base. Next up was Josh Naylor, who saw seven curveballs in a row. The first was taken for a strike, followed by three balls and two foul balls. The final pitch of the at-bat froze Naylor in place for the second out:

Next came Manny Machado, who saw five pitches, four of which missed outside, resulting in Workman’s second walk of the inning. That set up the tying run at second and winning run at first for Eric Hosmer, who fouled off a cutter and a four-seam fastball in on the hands to fall behind 0-2. The next pitch was impossible:

Workman isn’t the pitcher who Boston expected to be relying upon to close games this season, but there’s a good reason he has that responsibility now: He’s been incredibly difficult to hit. In 59 innings out of the bullpen, Workman has allowed just 24 hits, just one of which was a homer. He’s walked a lot of batters (35) but he’s also struck out 85. Those numbers have culminated in a 1.98 ERA, a 2.38 FIP, and 1.7 WAR for the 31-year-old this year. In a Red Sox bullpen that has been among baseball’s best — ninth in ERA, fourth in FIP — Workman has probably been the best of the bunch. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

It takes incredible talent just to be a fringe major leaguer, and even more talent to be a first-round draft pick and a top 10 prospect, as Lucas Giolito was earlier in this decade. Yet last year, the 6-foot-6 righty was The Worst, at least among the 57 pitchers who threw enough innings (162) to qualify for the ERA title. While good health and the White Sox’s commitment to rebuilding allowed him to take the ball 32 times and throw 173.1 innings, Giolito finished his age-23 season with the highest ERA (6.13) and FIP (5.56), and the lowest strikeout-walk differential (4.5%) and WAR (-0.1), of any qualifier. Ouch.

This year, it’s been an entirely different story, as Giolito has pitched like an ace, posting a 3.20 ERA and 3.30 FIP in 157.1 innings en route to 4.7 WAR, good for fourth in the league. When I set out to adapt my “Most Improved Position Players” methodology to starting pitchers, I strongly suspected that the now-25-year-old righty would come out on top, just as Cody Bellinger did in that exercise. He not only did, he was the runaway winner, scoring points in eight of the nine categories I chose to measure. In three of them, he had the largest improvement of any pitcher, and in four others, he ranked among the majors’ top four.

For those unacquainted with my previous foray, its basis is our handy but somewhat obscure Season Stat Grid, introduced just over a year ago. The grid allows the user to view up to 11 years worth of data in a single category, and to track and rank year-to-year totals and changes based on thresholds of plate appearances and innings. Echoing what I did for the position players, and some of the feedback I received (thankfully no tar or feathers), I chose nine statistical categories where we might look for significant, skill-driven changes. To qualify, pitchers needed to have thrown just 80 innings last year, and 120 this year; for the position players, I used 400 plate appearances last year and 300 this year, but in retrospect realized that some very improved players, such as Christian Vázquez, had slipped through the cracks. With pitchers such as the Yankees’ Domingo Germán (who didn’t even crack my top 20) in mind, time I loosened the pitcher thresholds a bit. For the top 20 pitchers whose changes went in the right direction (lower ERA, FIP, walk and home run rates on the one hand, higher WAR and strikeout, first-pitch strike, groundball, and chase rates on the other), I awarded 20 points for first place, 19 for second, and so on. I went 30 deep on the position players, but found that among the pitchers, often the 25th- or 30th “best” change might be a negligible improvement or even a step in the wrong direction. Read the rest of this entry »

Tim Anderson isn’t exactly toiling in obscurity. Playing in the nation’s third-largest city, he made headlines earlier this year after one of his trademark bat flips drew a retaliatory plunking from Brad Keller. That sparked a benches-clearing brawl and placed Anderson at the center of the sport’s ongoing discussion about the proper way to play the game. In the aftermath, Anderson appropriately defended his right to play with emotion, and the episode helped reinforce the sentiment that he’s the kind of player a healthier league would market aggressively.

And yet, you could be forgiven for not knowing that Anderson has been quite good this season. He missed more than a month with a high ankle sprain, but when healthy, he’s hit .328 while posting a 124 wRC+. He’s posted nearly 3 WAR even with all that time on the shelf, more than a four-win pace over 162 games. (All stats are through the start of Thursday’s action.)

What’s less clear is how encouraged we should be by Anderson’s 2019 campaign. Prior to this season, he had established himself as a reliable big leaguer, albeit one with a mediocre stick. A cursory look at his year-to-year numbers suggests that, big BABIP spike aside, not too much has changed:

Other than the .390 BABIP, there isn’t much in his profile that suggests he’s a new man. The modest reduction in strikeouts is mostly cancelled out by a lower walk rate, and his ISO relative to the league has actually dropped in 2019. His average launch angle is also two degrees lower, for whatever that’s worth.

Read the rest of this entry »