With three losses in a row against the Nationals at Wrigley Field this past weekend, the Cubs (69-61) slipped out of first place in the NL Central. They’re now three games behind the Cardinals (72-58), the furthest they’ve been from first since May 1, and just one game ahead of the Phillies (68-62) and two games ahead of the Mets (67-63) in the race for the second NL Wild Card spot. They’ll face the latter in an important three-game series starting today, but the bad news for them is that they’ve had to pack their suitcases to head to Citi Field. At 25-39, the Cubs own the major’s eighth-lowest winning percentage on the road (.391), and the lowest of any contender by 44 points (the Mets are 30-39 at .435 on the road).

In a race for a playoff spot, that’s quite a handicap, of course. In fact, in the Wild Card era, no team has ever won less than 40% of its games away from home and still reached the playoffs. Just a small handful of teams has won less than 45% and done so. Here’s the bottom 10:

Of the 10 teams above, the 2006 Cardinals, who won the World Series despite finishing with just an 83-78 record — the low-water mark for any World Series champ — and the 2005 Astros at least made it to the big dance, but aside from the 2015 Astros winning the AL Wild Card game, the 2008 Dodgers were the only other team from the above group to advance in the postseason.

I limited that list to 10 because beyond that, the rankings get pretty bunched up, with three teams at .458 (from the strike-shortened 1995 season), six at .469, 11 at .481, and so on. In all, 43 of the period’s 206 postseason teams (20.9%) had sub-.500 records on the road; if you’re a stickler for a full 162-game schedule, it’s 40 out of 198 (20.2%). Just 10 of those teams won a pennant, and only three — the aforementioned 2006 Cardinals, and the 1997 and 2003 Marlins, because of course — won the World Series. It’s not a particularly viable route to dog-piles and champagne showers. Read the rest of this entry »

Billy Hamilton has been a Brave for a little over a week — only since Atlanta picked him up off waivers from Kansas City on August 19 after losing Nick Markakis and Ender Inciarte to injury — and he’s already achieved that highest aspiration for any member of the Braves organization: He humiliated the New York Mets, and on their home turf at that. The play came with the score tied 5-5 in the eighth inning of Saturday’s second game of the weekend series, with Ronald Acuña Jr. at the plate, Rafael Ortega at second, and Hamilton at first. Acuña, who at that point was an uncharacteristic 0-for-4 on the night, wasted no time in taking a Brad Brach hanger on the outer third of the plate softly into left. Then, this happened:

J.D. Davis, the Met unfortunate enough to wind up holding the ball on this particular play, spoke to our own Jay Jaffe after the game:

I was going to make a play to third,” he said, in a clubhouse near-silent after a late loss to a division rival, “and then I saw that the runner [Hamilton] was already like three-quarters of the way … so I just held onto the ball, and I looked at first to see where that runner was. But then as I released it to throw it to ‘Rosie’, he was already rounding third and headed home … I should have just thrown it to ‘Rosie’ and got it in. [You feel kind of] helpless, with Hamilton and his speed … it was just perfect timing. It was a good, high-baseball IQ kind of play.

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Amir Garrett emerged from the bullpen into quite a jam. With the Reds up 5-1 heading into the eighth, all had seemed fine, but Michael Lorenzen allowed the first three batters he faced to reach base. As Garrett prepared to face Anthony Rizzo, one swing of the bat could tie the game. Knowing that, Garrett didn’t mess around — he went to his best pitch right away.

The first slider he threw might have clipped the inside edge of the zone, but it was called a ball. Still, down 1-0, he didn’t give in. He went back inside with a slider — and hit Rizzo. That free base drove in a run, and now Garrett was right back where he started with one less run to work with.

With free-swinging Javier Báez up next, it was time for another slider. Garrett again clipped the corner, and this time was rewarded with a grounder that Joey Votto threw home for a force out. Garrett breathed a sigh of relief. There was no time to relax, though — with only one out, the situation was still precarious.

Ian Happ, coming off of a scorching-hot six game stretch where he had compiled a 343 wRC+, stepped in next. Fortunately, though, Happ has one major weakness: sliders. Garrett took no prisoners:

Read the rest of this entry »

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — JT Chargois, Brad Keller, and Adam Ottavino — on how they learned and developed their sliders.

———

JT Chargois, Los Angeles Dodgers

“I was having trouble getting one to spin — to turn over — so my high school coach showed me a spike. Over the years I’ve manipulated where I hold my [pointer finger] on the ball, but it’s still a spiked-curveball grip. I just throw it like a heater. Instead of getting out front and pulling it like a curveball, I stay true on it as though it was a heater.

“When I get in trouble — maybe it’s backing up on me — and I need to make an adjustment, I tend to change my mindset to more of a curveball, to more of a downer-pitch. I want it to have two planes, as opposed to just moving horizontally.

“It was actually taught to me as a curveball. Then I started throwing harder as I got older. I got stronger and was literally trying to throw the crap out of it. That’s kind of how it migrated into a slider. As opposed to having more of a wrist-turn to get a bigger break, [a slider] is more about the manipulation of your hand position at release point. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about what GPS directions have to do with analytics-averse managers, MLB’s black and white uniforms fiasco on Players Weekend, Sam’s takeaways from his trip to see a former podcast guest’s game in the Southern California Vintage Base Ball League, a philosophy professor’s quest to establish that the tie goes to the runner and a complaint about replay review, and whether Lance Lynn’s career year and the ascendance of data-driven development suggest that players who re-sign with the same team will no longer outperform players who depart to play for a different team.

Audio intro: The Inbreds, "My Favorite Satellite"
Audio outro: PUP, "Bare Hands"

Link to column about MLB and Players Weekend
Link to podcast episode about vintage baseball
Link to Southern California Vintage Base Ball League website
Link to article about Ted Cohen’s quest to make ties go to the runner
Link to audio recording of the essay “There Are No Ties at First Base”
Link to Matt Swartz’s earliest research about other people’s players
Link to Matt’s most recent research about other people’s players
Link to Zach Kram on trading top prospects
Link to Michael Baumann on Lance Lynn
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Below you’ll find a roundup of notable moves from the past few days, as well as future expected moves and a Minor League Report, which includes a list of recent major league debuts, and top prospect promotions. For this column, any lineup regulars, starting pitchers, or late-inning relievers are considered “notable,” meaning that middle relievers, long relievers, and bench players are excluded. You can always find a full list of updated transactions here.

Lineup Regulars

Arizona Diamondbacks
8/24/19: OF David Peralta (AC joint inflammation) placed on 10-Day IL, retroactive to August 24.

For the third time this season, Peralta has been placed on the injured list with a shoulder issue. He’s still managed to slash .275/.343/.461 with 12 homers and 29 doubles in 432 plate appearances, but he has only nine hits in his last 46 at-bats. With the Diamondbacks’ playoff hopes all but gone, they could just decide to shut him down for the year and take a long look at rookie Josh Rojas in the outfield.

Roster Resource

Read the rest of this entry »

After struggling for the first few months of the season, both José Ramírez and Cleveland broke out in a big way with Ramírez discovering his old form and Cleveland going on a big run to catch the Minnesota Twins for first place at one point this month. Cleveland couldn’t quite keep up that pace over the last few weeks, falling a few games back of the Twins, but still looked to be in great shape for the wild card race. With news of a broken hamate bone and the resulting surgery for Ramírez, the team is losing their best hitter for the rest of the season, leaving a massive hole in the lineup and at third base. The club’s path to the playoffs just got a lot more narrow.

Just two weeks ago, I discussed the remarkable turnaround Ramírez made in his game, eschewing an approach designed to be beat the shift but costing him power and going back to the pull-heavy, fastball-hunting approach that made him a star in the first place. In the second half of the season, Ramírez has put up a 168 wRC+ to go with 2.3 WAR that ranks behind only Anthony Rendon, José Altuve, Mike Trout, and Ketel Marte among position players. On the season, Ramírez had finally moved his wRC+ up to 100, and with solid baserunning and fielding, he was up to 2.9 WAR on the season. These totals are a huge drop from the 6.4-WAR average he produced over the three previous seasons, but 2019 was still shaping up to be a productive year despite his awful start. Unfortunately, Ramírez isn’t likely to get any more time to improve his numbers further.

One month of any one player isn’t likely to matter a whole lot to a team’s playoff chances over the course of an entire season, but when there’s only 31 games left and the player in question was set to be worth a full win over those 31 days and his substitutes are replacement level, that month can matter a great deal. To provide some sense of what Cleveland loses in terms of projections and playoff odds, here’s where the club stood after Saturday’s games compared to where they stand now with Ramírez’s injury factored in. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — They own the majors’ best record since the All-Star break, but the 2019 Mets remain a work in progress. Winners of 27 out of 40 games in the second half, they’ve played themselves back into contention for a postseason berth, and energized Citi Field, but after winning 10 out of their previous 12 series, they spent this past weekend making mistakes, missing opportunities, and ultimately dropping their second series in as many weeks to the Braves — this time via a three-game sweep at home.

In Friday night’s 2-1 loss, the Mets squandered a seven-inning, 13-strikeout gem by Jacob deGrom, who provided the team’s only run of the night on a solo homer, his second of the year. For as well as the reigning NL Cy Young winner pitched, opposite number Mike Foltynewicz — who entered the evening with a 6.09 ERA and a 5.82 FIP, numbers more than double those deGrom — yielded just one other hit besides the homer over his seven innings. The 1-1 tie carried into extra innings, and after the scuffling Edwin Díaz stranded pinch-runner deluxe Billy Hamilton at third base by striking out both Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies in the top of the 10th, the Mets got the winning run to third in the bottom of both the 10th and 11th themselves, but failed to convert; the team went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position on the night. Ultimately, a 14th-inning single by Hamilton (who entered hitting .211/.275/.269) off Jeurys Familia brought home the deciding run.

In Saturday night’s 9-5 loss, Zack Wheeler was knocked around for his third straight start, putting the Mets into a 4-0 hole by the middle of the third inning. They clawed their way back, and took a 5-4 lead when Pete Alonso walloped a 451-foot three-run homer into the black batters’ eye, tying the franchise’s single-season home run record — 41, previously reached by Todd Hundley (1996) and Carlos Beltran (2006) — and reaching 100 RBI in one fell swoop. Two significant defensive mistakes, an error by third baseman Todd Frazier on a grounder down the line by Francisco Cervelli in the sixth inning, and a lackadaisical relay play by left fielder J.D. Davis in the eighth, both led to runs, while a baserunning out at third base by Jeff McNeil, that after a pair of bunt attempts by hot-hitting Amed Rosario, snuffed a potential sixth-inning rally.

In Sunday’s 2-1 loss, the Mets could do little against Braves starter Dallas Keuchel, who shut them out for seven innings while allowing just four hits, all singles. Steven Matz answered with six innings of two-hit ball, but one of those hits was a Josh Donaldson homer, and the Braves’ third baseman greeted reliever Paul Sewald with another one in the seventh inning. The Mets broke through in the ninth inning against Mark Melancon, albeit on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Frazier that nearly became the team’s fourth double play of the afternoon. Ultimately, the tying run was stranded at second base, the last failure in a 1-for-8 day with runners in scoring position. So it goes. Read the rest of this entry »

Gio Gonzalez is expressive on the mound, there’s no doubt about that. He tends to wear the result of the most recent plate appearance on his face. So if I told you that he threw a 3-2 pitch to Javier Báez, and followed it by looking like this:

What would you think happened? A double off the wall? A home run? Perhaps a smashed line drive that miraculously found a glove?

What if I told you that the pitch was a fastball that ended up here?

Okay, now you have a good guess. You’d make that face too if you walked Javy Báez on an uncompetitive pitch. There’s not much good to say about a pitch that missed the outer edge of the plate, per Statcast, by 13.2 inches.

Ha, I’m joking. It’s Javy Báez. That was a strikeout:

You might think, after that intro, that this is an article that will take issue with Javy Báez’s plate discipline. It is most emphatically not that. This is a paean to Báez’s singular, tremendous talent. Who else in baseball can swing at that pitch and also be a star? Who else can swing at that pitch and even be a major leaguer?

The book on Báez has always been that he has all the power in the world and none of the plate discipline. In the minors, he had unheard-of pop for an elite, up-the-middle defender — the kind of tools prospect evaluators drool over. There was just that one little thing: as his Triple-A manager, Marty Pevey, said when he was called up: “It’ll be a learning curve for Javy. He’ll want to hit every ball 600 feet. He’s such a great competitor.” Read the rest of this entry »

12:02

Dan Szymborski: G’Afternoon!

12:03

Dan Szymborski: If only I had such powers.

12:03

Dan Szymborski: Pretty highly. He’s getting a power boost even for power boosts

Read the rest of this entry »