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 »

In a way, it’s a surprise Howie Kendrick is still playing in the majors. Last year, at 35 years old, he ruptured his Achilles tendon in a May 19 game against the Dodgers, ending his season after just 40 games. It was the second straight season in which Kendrick failed to play 100 games and the third straight year in which he came up short of 2 WAR. The Washington Nationals, meanwhile, had a fairly deep group of position players and had their eyes set on yet another postseason appearance. It would have made sense for both parties to agree to part ways. I’m not sure either foresaw a bounce-back season like the one Kendrick has put together in 2019.

Kendrick is hitting .343/.393/.577 with 16 homers in 113 games, good for a wRC+ of 146. His 2.8 WAR is the highest total he’s posted in any season since leaving the Angels after 2014. Nearly every other category is either a career-best or very close to it.

That’s only the beginning of the story of how good Kendrick has been. Statcast places him in the 94th percentile in baseball in exit velocity, the 100th percentile in xBA, and the 98th percentile in hard hit percentage, xwOBA, and xSLG. He is the only player in the majors with at least 50 batted ball events who ranks in the top 10 in xBA, xSLG, xwOBA, and hard hit percentage. By those metrics, Kendrick has actually underperformed his expected outcomes this season, with his .604 xSLG soundly outpacing his .577 SLG and his .422 xwOBA well in front of his actual wOBA of .406. Read the rest of this entry »

We probably don’t need to re-litigate the trade that sent Gerrit Cole from the Pirates to the Astros two years ahead of free agency. This post isn’t about what the Astros did to transform Cole or what the Pirates failed to do. This post is, to a certain extent, about who Gerrit Cole was, and who he is now, but it is less about how he’s changed and more about how he’s the same.

Every pitcher makes adjustments to try and get better and be more effective at getting hitters out. Some work better than others. Pitchers make these changes while staying in the same organization or while jumping to a different team. Injuries can sometimes derail development, as can trying strategies that just don’t work out. We know Cole wasn’t great with the Pirates in 2016 and 2017, and he’s been great with the Astros in 2018 and 2019. Hopefully this post serves as a reminder of how great Cole was in 2015 and how what he’s doing now is meeting incredibly lofty expectations his performance set for himself five seasons ago.

In 2015, Cole put up a 2.66 FIP, a 2.60 ERA, and 5.1 WAR, ranked 10th among all pitchers and first among pitchers 25 years old and younger, beating out Madison Bumgarner, Sonny Gray, Shelby Miller, and Carlos Martinez. Cole was just 24 years old at the time. To find some age-based comparisons, I looked at 24-year-old starters since 1990 within half a win of Cole. Read the rest of this entry »