12:03

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to another edition of my Monday chat. Excuse the slow start on my part – I’ve got a piece on Domingo German, DV suspensions, and the postseason that’s going live soon and that requires more attention than most posts when it comes to an editorial pass. On a lighter note… well, things aren’t great for Team Entropy (update coming tomorro) but we’ll manage. And now, on with the show…

12:06

Jay Jaffe: I did not actually watch much of it, alas. Because the weather is so good here in NYC, and because the next few weekends will be so hectic, I spent much of my weekend with my daughter — her first trip to the Bronx Zoo on Saturday and then first to the Metropolitan Museum on Sunday. Very fun times. Less so for the Cubs, apparently. Between their mounting injuries and the ongoing failures of Craig Kimbrel — who, let’s face it, can’t possibly be at 100% right now — it’s a grim ending for them, and a bummer for #Team Entropy. It’s an impressive showing by the Cardinals, and the fact that the Yelich-less Brewers have risen to the occasion while the Cubs have fizzled is impressive as well.

12:09

Jay Jaffe: Given that the Nationals have rebounded from their dreadful start to (likely) make the playoffs, I don’t see Davey Martinez getting ousted. If it’s an NL East landing spot for him, I suspect that the Phillies are the more likely destination — particularly when held in contrast to the Mets; i can’t see them willing to pay his high salary or see him willing to sign on for the chaos that comes with working for the Wilpons. Maybe the Padres, but as with Philadelphia, the firing of the managers often suggests that the GM is next on the chopping block, so I’m not sure how attractive either scenario is.

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All season, the Milwaukee Brewers were a band propped up by a stud lead guitarist. The drummer was often off-beat, the singer was pitchy, the rhythm guitarist was clearly only in the band because he was the singer’s kid brother, and the bass player was … well actually, the bass player was pretty sweet, too. But man, could that lead guitar shred. He was the reason the band could book any gig in town, the standout performer every night. His name was Christian Yelich, and on September 10, he fell off the stage — or rather, he fouled a pitch off his kneecap, and suffered a season-ending fracture. As Jay Jaffe wrote at the time, the injury dampened what were already somewhat long playoff odds for the Brewers. But the band pressed on, undeterred by the loss of their star. And lo and behold, they’ve sounded incredible.

On September 5, our playoff odds put Milwaukee’s chances of reaching the postseason at just 5.6%. Those were worse odds than in-division rivals St. Louis and Chicago, and also put them at lower Wild Card odds than New York and Arizona. They won five straight games before losing Yelich, but that still only raised their chances to 25%. Yelich had already accumulated 7.8 WAR, and was in excellent position to win a second-straight MVP award, and he fell out of the picture. Without him, the Brewers had just one other 4 WAR player, and just six 2 WAR players. That lack of starter-quality depth placed them in the back half of all the teams in baseball.

Every team with fewer 2 WAR players than the Brewers has been firmly out of the playoff race for weeks, and a number of teams in front of them — including Boston, Pittsburgh and San Diego — have been out of the race for a while as well. No contender was more poorly equipped to lose a star player for final month of the season than Milwaukee. At least, that was the way it appeared.

That five-game win streak the Brewers were riding when Yelich hit the IL? It ultimately turned into seven games. They finally lost in St. Louis, but rattled off four more wins after that. Then came another loss, this time at San Diego, followed by four more victories. Overall, the Brewers are 15-2 since September 6. In that time, they’ve raised their playoff odds from 5.6% to 97.1%. It’s one of the best runs any team has put together this season, and given the circumstances, it’s come from one of the last teams one would expect.

A portion of the Brewers’ success can certainly be credited to the competition they’ve faced over this stretch. Of their last 17 games, 11 have come against the Marlins, Padres and Pirates. September is a very fortunate time to run into two last place teams and a third non-contender, but to be fair, the Brewers pushed them around exactly the way they should have. They won 10 of those 11 matchups, outscoring their hapless opponents by a jaw-dropping 60-23 margin. Playoff teams are supposed to look dominant against inferior competition, and that’s exactly what Milwaukee was. Their recent hot streak also included three wins in a row over the Cubs and two victories in three games over the Cardinals, the two most direct obstacles to their postseason hopes. Read the rest of this entry »

On the surface, Justus Sheffield’s developmental journey looks pretty smooth. He was a first-round pick back in 2014. He’s been a consensus top 50 or so prospect since the Obama administration — never much higher than that, but only rarely lower (Eric and Kiley had him ranked 60th overall and first in the Mariners system preseason; he’s since dropped to 109th and seventh respectively). His velocity has not materially changed. He’s suffered a few bumps and bruises, but nothing ever sidelined him long. Twenty-three years old now, he’s cracked a big league rotation right on schedule for a high school draftee of his caliber.

Statistically, he’s been consistent as well. With the exception of a very poor early season spell this year, he’s maintained an ERA under 3.40 at every minor league stop. His strikeout numbers have almost always hovered just above a batter per inning, his walk totals around 3.5/9. He typically generates more grounders than flies. Every year, a new level; every year, the same successes.

Yet Sheffield’s path has actually meandered a bit. As a high schooler, the lefty was seen as an athlete who would have no trouble throwing strikes and a guy who could develop three plus pitches. Two years into his career, he effectively pocketed one of them, shelving his curve in favor of a hard slider. He also grew quite a bit soon after the draft. Between the added weight, a new pitch mix, and a difficult delivery to repeat, his control suffered and whispers about a bullpen role grew louder even as he continued missing bats. His velocity, while stable in the aggregate, has periodically fluctuated on either side of the low-90s. We’ve learned that Sheffield’s fastball has a very low spin rate (more on that later).

He also got traded twice. On the one hand, Sheffield has had the opportunity to hone his craft under the tutelage of two of the sport’s finest pitching development staffs. On the other, those same clubs ultimately decided to work with different pitchers. As he’s matured, and as his fastball looks less like a bat-misser and his changeup remains a work in progress, he’s increasingly relied on his slider. The soothing consistency in his production belies a conflict between the quality of that slider and the reality that he must throw something else eventually. How that conflict resolves itself will shape his ultimate role.

The bullpen has long been the logical end point here. As a starter, Sheffield sits in the low-90s, touching 95 or a tick better at his strongest. In relief, he’d throw even harder. Pair increased velocity with a slider that earns a whiff nearly a quarter of the time he throws it, and you’ve got a late-inning reliever. Lefties, even ones with serviceable changeups, usually peak as eight-inning guys out of the pen. But on paper, Sheffield’s cocktail is good enough to close. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about Cody Bellinger‘s and Keston Hiura’s home runs, the Cardinals’ climactic four-game sweep of the Cubs, the Brewers’ surge sans Christian Yelich, the rapid reversal in the NL Central playoff picture, Craig Kimbrel, Dallas Keuchel, and the narrative about players signed at midseason, what went wrong for Chicago and how we should perceive the Cubs’ Theo Epstein era, how this year’s playoff teams got good, what we’ve learned about the efficacy of tanking, the AL wild card race, and the Padres firing Andy Green.

Audio intro: Phish, "Swept Away"
Audio outro: The Avett Brothers, "Swept Away (Sentimental Version)"

Link to article about the Triple-A home run rate
Link to NL Central playoff odds graph
Link to video of Ozuna homer
Link to article about forthcoming Cubs changes
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Luke Carlin learned a lot in his rookie season, and the lessons began in full force when he made his MLB debut on May 10, 2008. Adorned in the tools of ignorance and a San Diego Padres uniform, Carlin caught both “The Professor” and a closer who entered to the sound of “Hell’s Bells.”

An orientation session with the former preceded his first game. It was then that the Northeastern University graduate discovered that being familiar with Greg Maddux is one thing; understanding how he went about schooling big-league hitters is another.

“When I got called up, Buddy Black was like, ‘Hey, make sure you talk to Greg, because you’re going to catch him on Saturday,’” recalled Carlin. “So I had a day or two to get with Greg, but the funny thing was, everything I’d learned about game-calling and reading swings was basically useless until I started watching video with him. He had a simple, deliberate process. Greg was patient with me, making sure that I was on his page as much as possible.”

Carlin, who now manages in the Cleveland Indians system, used military and football analogies to describe Maddux’s tactical-planning acumen. And going into a game with nuanced knowledge of his opponent’s strengths and weaknesses was only part of his M.O. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s undeniable that Nicholas Castellanos has changed his 2019 storyline. Castellanos has hit .330/.365/.665 as a Chicago Cub with 15 homers and 35 RBIs before even completing his second month with the team. When the Cubs won the World Series, they ranked second in the National League in runs scored, behind only the team playing on Planet Coors. The Cubs were a middle-of-the-pack offense in 2019 through the trade deadline, and the main culprit was underwhelming production from the outfield. Castellanos’s surge been enough for one particularly optimistic national writer to predict that Castellanos would get $100 million in free agency.

If you go by the first four months of the season, 2019 looked like a weak followup to Castellanos’s 2018 campaign, when he set career-bests in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and WAR. As one of the best free-agents-to-be at a corner outfield position, it appeared likely that Castellanos would start 2019 with a new home given the state of the Detroit Tigers. Castellanos expressed a desire to have a trade completed before the season started, but no such transaction materialized until the trade deadline. That deadline trade was no blockbuster, with the Tigers only squeezing from the Cubs a single prospect ranked by THE BOARD, and a 40 FV prospect at that.

At the trade deadline, ZiPS projected the Chicago Cubs as the team that had the most to gain from adding Castellanos. But the longer-term question remains: should his post-deadline flurry change how clubs think of Castellanos going into the winter? Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller talk to two Atlantic League players with the Somerset Patriots, pitcher Rick Teasley and catcher Yovan Gonzalez, about the experimental rules being tested in the league this season as part of a partnership with MLB. They discuss how Rick and Yovan first heard about the new rules, how players have perceived the changes and the effect of the rules on team morale, the elimination of mound visits, the problems with robot umps, the end of catcher framing, the absurdity of “stealing first base,” the second-half pickoff-move change and subsequent explosion in stolen bases, how future changes should be implemented, which new rules could be worth keeping, what the impact of moving the mound back might be, Teasley’s quasi-perfect game, and more.

Audio intro: Mates of State, "An Experiment"
Audio outro: Silver Jews, "Random Rules"

Link to list of Atlantic League changes
Link to Rob Arthur on Atlantic League stolen bases
Link to video of Atlantic Leaguer refusing to run to first
Link to Ben on moving the mound back
Link to article about Teasley’s quasi-perfect game
Link to video of last out of Teasley’s perfect outing
Link to story about 2018 Tampa Tarpons game
Link to order The MVP Machine

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For teams that have been eliminated from playoff contention, September is a time for youngsters and debuts. Giving prospects a few weeks of major league experience is one of the great side effects of expanded rosters during the last month of the season. The Mariners have been auditioning their young talent since June — they’ve rostered 67 different players this season, a major league record — but the group of September call-ups were exciting nonetheless. After the Arkansas Travelers were eliminated from the Texas League playoffs, the Mariners promoted a group of four players from their Double-A affiliate: Donnie Walton, Art Warren, Justin Dunn, and Kyle Lewis.

Dunn and Lewis were the headlining names of this squad. Dunn had been ranked towards the back of a few top-100 prospect lists after his breakout last season. Lewis was a much bigger surprise. A first-round draft pick in 2016 — Jerry Dipoto’s first draft after taking over as Mariners GM in late 2015 — Lewis’s professional career was derailed almost as soon as it started. A nasty collision at home plate practically destroyed his knee after just 30 games in the minors. That injury sapped him of much of his athleticism and mobility for more than a year and he wasn’t fully healthy again until 2018. In that time, he tumbled down prospect lists and soon became an afterthought in an organization desperate for talent on the farm. Read the rest of this entry »