“One for the Money. Two for the Show.” That’s how the saying goes anyways. And that’s how Cristopher Sánchez’s career has gone thus far.

After a stretch of 33 starts from 2023 through mid-June 2024, in which the lanky lefty compiled 183 2/3 innings of a 3.09 ERA, he was really into the money, to the tune of a four-year, $22.5 million extension – with room to grow to six years and $56.5 million with incentives and club options.

He followed up this showing with 15 more strong starts, along with a five-inning performance in Game 2 of the NLDS, the Phillies’ only win against the Mets, to put a bow on his second year as a rising star in the majors.

But why isn’t he treated as such? You won’t often find the 28-year-old gracing MLB’s Instagram account, or even Pitching Ninja’s for that matter. He is not marketed as an ace despite his relative youth, place in a big-market postseason rotation, and proclivity to go deep into games.

Maybe the better question is, why should he be? I’ve decided to take up that mantle, at least within the friendly confines of the FanGraphs Community Blog.

For starters (pun definitely not intended), Sánchez carries a modern ace workload. Across 31 starts in 2024, Sánchez reached 181 2/3 innings. Like a true ace, he faced 24.32 batters per start – for context, this lines up with the volume of notable innings eaters Corbin Burnes and Tarik Skubal, and was certainly in the upper echelon of 2024 starting pitchers.

So, he faced a lot of batters. He also eclipsed 90 pitches per start. Both of these statistics matter because, to an extent, the best ability is availability. Cliché, sure, but true for postseason hopefuls like the Phillies, and true when it comes to staying at the top of fans’ minds. Put differently, Sánchez’s 3.32 ERA was stretched over more innings than most starters in the league threw last season. That is valuable.

Under the hood, the most notable pieces of Sánchez’s profile are his sky-high 39.3% O-Swing% (Sports Info Solutions) and solid 65.8% first pitch strike rate. That 39.3% O-Swing% was good for first in baseball last season. That’s right: Cristopher Sánchez – League Leader. Let that sink in.

As I mentioned earlier, Sánchez is not thought of as a particularly nasty pitcher. His stuff is not commonly GIF’d. He is relatively obscure, as far as sub-3.50 ERA starters on playoff teams go. Yet, he clearly stands out, especially when it comes to generating swings on pitches outside of the zone.

So how does he generate all of this chase? And why aren’t we calling him Chasetopher Sánchez (that may be more obvious)?

Sánchez throws three pitches according to Baseball Savant: sinker (47.3%), changeup (35.7%), and slider (16.9%). And he generally throws them all low in the zone.

This makes sense. He is a groundball specialist, generating a 58.3% groundball rate last season, good for a 95th percentile finish and the consequent bright red bar on his Savant page. And if we all are trained to do one thing, it’s to love when a player has bright red on his Savant page. It’s akin to a “Happy Hour” sign in a bar window or “BOGO” sign at the deli. It’s the modern day siren song. How could you not follow it?

The graphic above shows Sánchez’s three primary pitches and plots only those that generated swings and misses. Clearly, changeups below the zone make up the vast majority of his impressive O-Swing%, followed by sliders below the zone.

Sánchez threw his changeup outside the zone 71.8% of the time last season when ahead in the count (compared to 51.1% of the time when behind) and threw sliders outside the zone 60.4% of the time when ahead. Another note – the changeups in these situations skew glove side, while the sliders skew arm side.

Here was a particularly nice changeup thrown to Freddie Freeman in a 1-1 count.

This same pitch and location worked against lefties and righties. See the following string-pull presented to Aaron Judge.

The changeup plays well off of the sinker, his most commonly thrown pitch. There is a nearly 10-mph velocity gap between the two offerings, and both come from the same arm angle and have nearly identical arm-side tail. In other words, this is a nasty pitch, which is borne out in the 18 run value that the pitch generated in 2024, according to Baseball Savant.

Sánchez is elite at generating chase swings, likely because his best pitch is spotted to do just that. But part of why he may not get the consequent publicity his ERA would suggest he deserves is because, even as he gets all those swings on pitches outside the zone, he doesn’t miss as many bats as other high-chase hurlers.

Cubs lefty Shota Imanaga and Twins righty Bailey Ober finished second and third in O-Swing% last season, respectively. Both also allowed less contact on pitches in the zone and generated more swinging strikes than Sánchez. Not surprisingly, thanks to these whiffs, both struck out more batters than Sánchez as well.

I think this is, in part, because Imanaga and Ober are fly ball pitchers whereas Sánchez is a ground-and-pound specialist. Famously, balls hit in the air come with a greater risk of going over the fence than grounders, so the best way for Imanaga and Ober to avoid damage is to miss bats. Sánchez, though, can get away with pitching to contact, which can help to keep his pitch count down and allow him to go deeper in games.

Considering this, the better comparison for Sánchez is another Dominican lefty with an affinity for the sinker: Framber Valdez. Sánchez doesn’t have the pedigree of the Astros ace, but their arsenals and pitching approaches are similar.

What’s perhaps even more interesting about this comparison is Valdez’s embrace of the changeup in 2024, as pointed out by Ben Clemens this offseason.

Last season, Valdez threw the changeup in two-strike counts nearly 20% of the time, compared to 13.9% in 2023 and less than 10% of the time in all other prior seasons. Sánchez, meanwhile, threw changeups 51.4% of the time with two strikes last season. This makes plenty of sense, as the pitch generated a healthy 17.8% swinging strike rate.

So perhaps both have something to learn from each other, with Valdez leaning more into the changeup and Sánchez learning from new teammate Jesús Luzardo on his breaking stuff – wouldn’t that be fun? Even more likely, perhaps both are poised to continue frustrating opposing hitters with their bowling ball sinker/change combinations.

Ultimately, for as much love and attention as Valdez has earned at the top of Houston’s rotation, I think it is about time “Chasetopher” catches on and Sánchez gains a bit of respect as an emerging ace.

With Japanese outfielder Seiya Suzuki signing with the Chicago Cubs (written about by Kevin Goldstein here while Dan Szymborski ran projections on him here), I wanted to compare him to other Japanese position players who have moved to MLB in recent years. The comparisons I made were to the final NPB years of Shohei Ohtani, Yoshitomo Tsutsugo, and Shogo Akiyama. But considering Ohtani was injured in 2017, his stats will be from both the 2016 and 2017 seasons. Data is based on 1.02 – Essence of Baseball public data managed by DELTAGRAPHS.

Suzuki posted 8.6 WAR in 2021, the best for position player last year. His high WAR is based on great batting value (+57.6 per 500 PA), higher than Ohtani (+43) and twice that of Tsutsugo (+21) and Akiyama (+23). His baserunning value of -0.4 is average in NPB, and his total baserunning value of +1.4 from 2019-2021 is neither good nor bad. Meanwhile, he is a good right fielder, putting up a fielding value of +11.2 (equal UZR). Tsutsugo (-16.7) is a left fielder and Akiyama(-4.3) is a center fielder, so we cannot simply compare them, but I think we can expect better fielding stats than Tsutsugo in MLB. Read the rest of this entry »

Joc Pederson is selling pearls, but is anyone buying? After earning his second World Series ring, your favorite bedazzled outfielder is on the market and could be coming to a city near you.

This past year, Pederson slashed .238/.310/.732 OPS between his stints with the Cubs and Braves, finishing the season with 18 home runs, 61 RBIs, two stolen bases, and an OPS+ of 93. If we dive a bit deeper we can see that despite modest traditional numbers, Baseball Savant has him ranked in the 80th percentile for average exit velocity and the 90th percentile for max exit velocity. His ability to hit the ball hard is nearing an elite level, and though a subpar batting average is certainly not helping his case, his skill at driving the ball may entice a team in need of some lefty power.

Although many fans consider Pederson a clutch postseason hitter, primarily because of his self-proclaimed “Joctober,” his stats looked grim as this postseason winded down. Pederson went 5-for-22 with one bomb in the NLCS, which is not especially great for a postseason power hitter of his caliber. He was worse in the World Series, going 1-for-15 with no homers. Despite having won a pair of championships, “Joctober” seems to have been a classic case of small sample size. His recent performance, or lack thereof, will weigh heavy on the mind of executives and undoubtedly bring down his value. Read the rest of this entry »

Every franchise is looking for that player who seems to come out of nowhere to be a major contributor in their lineup. Players like José Bautista, who went from 1.8 WAR in 2009 to 6.5 WAR in 2010, or Justin Turner, who jumped from 0.5 WAR in 2013 to 3.4 WAR in 2014. The cost for acquiring these players was affordable because they were no longer prospects and most of the league had written them off as potential everyday players.

If a team had the ability to identify which players are most likely to exceed industry expectations, they would have a significant advantage over their competition. That is why I decided to create a model that tries to identify potential breakout performers.

Methodology

The first thing I needed to do was to define what constitutes a breakout performance. I thought of several different definitions, but I decided to define a breakout performance as any player that exceeded their career high WAR in a single season by at least 2.0 WAR. So if a player had recorded a season of 0.0 WAR, they would need to have at least a 2.0 WAR season. If a player had recorded a season of 1.0 WAR, they would need to have at least a 3.0 WAR season and so on and so forth. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s 0/573?

Baseball Savant knows, but they also know it’s useless information. This is precisely why they do not display it. And it’s a shame that they don’t display it.

If they did, it would show that David Fletcher is in the zeroth Percentile for Barrels.

For a quick refresher, Barrels are “a batted ball with the perfect combination of exit velocity and launch angle.” To qualify, a ball must be hit at least 98 mph. For that exit velocity, a launch angle of between 26-30 degrees is required. For every single mph increase, the range of acceptable launch angle degrees increases by two or three, up until 116 mph. At that level, any ball hit between 8-50 launch degrees is considered Barreled.

Fletcher didn’t do that once in 2021. Instead, he mustered eight “close calls” among his 573 batted ball events. Read the rest of this entry »

As the Red Sox move on to the American League Championship Series, the team may not have the talent to contend with teams like the Astros. Some could say the same thing about the Rays, but the Red Sox were fortunate Tampa Bay’s staff was shot after injuries plagued them throughout the season. The Red Sox have All-Stars talents like Rafael Devers, Xander Bogarts, and J.D. Martinez, but they need better role players who provide depth in October if they are truly going to contend each year. Successful teams don’t often undergo a complete rebuild, instead choosing to go through mini-rebuilds and focus on positions of need. This avoids 70-win seasons, ​​something Boston sports fans have not been accustomed to in the last two decades. It is no mystery that they need pitching help, but a more overlooked position of need is at catcher, which could help improve the staff as well.

Boston’s primary catcher and recent hero, Christian Vázquez, has had many memorable moments, none more important than his walk-off home run on Sunday. Despite this, it may be time for the Red Sox to part ways with their veteran. At age 31, Vázquez has shown signs of aging this season, and the Red Sox know this too. In the Wild Card game against the Yankees, the biggest game of the year, the Red Sox turned to backup Kevin Plawecki to get the job done behind the dish. Similarly on Sunday, Plawecki got the start while Vazquez came in to pinch-hit. The Red Sox need to start planning for their long-term future, which means seriously considering their better and younger options at catcher. Read the rest of this entry »

It shouldn’t come as any great surprise to a typical baseball fan that Dominican players play an outsized role in Major League Baseball today. In fact, the Dominican Republic, which has a population roughly just 3.3% that of the United States, supplies MLB with upwards of 10% of its players. Major League Baseball and baseball fans are better off because of this. After all, who wants to live in a baseball world without Nelson Cruz or Fernando Tatis Jr., for instance?

With this point in mind, the following takes a look at players from the Dominican Republic. More specifically, where in the D.R. players were born and when they made their way to MLB. What follows will be split into three brief sections: a description of the data utilized, some insights into the growth of the D.R.’s influence in MLB, and finally some map-based depictions of the players’ provinces of birth within the Dominican Republic. Read the rest of this entry »

There are many contributing factors to the lackluster performance of Boston Red Sox reliever Adam Ottavino, who made headlines in 2018 after saying he “would strike Babe Ruth out every time.” Currently, Ottavino has a 3.68 ERA, a FIP of 3.27, and 58.2 innings pitched at time of writing, placing him 119th out of 283 qualifying pitchers. Some big reasons for his mediocre stat line includes his inability to get left-handed batters out, command struggle, and pitch selection.

Red Sox Manager Alex Cora has done well to put Ottavino in situations to succeed, and without Cora at the helm, Ottavino’s stat line would look much worse. The bottom line is that the right-hander has been an abomination against lefties in 2021. In 19.2 innings pitched, he has allowed 10 earned runs, 22 hits, and 10 walks. Ottavino’s comments to the Boston Herald earlier in the season did not age well:

“I have no idea what they’re looking for these days in terms of roles and stuff like that, but I do think it would benefit me to get a full season in facing as many lefties as possible so I can put that kind of narrative to bed.”

Read the rest of this entry »

For Mets catcher James McCann, 2019 represented a career-altering triumph over the struggles that had plagued him through his first five big-league seasons in Detroit. With the Tigers, McCann’s abject lack of success at the plate led him to yo-yo between batting stances and approaches. In June 2016, he replaced his leg kick with a quieter front-foot step, struck out in a career high 29.2% of his at-bats, and tweaked his stance again in the offseason. McCann closed the book on his rookie contract with a 2018 season from hell — an abysmal triple-slash of .220/.267/.314, and a wRC+ of 56, good for second-worst among all hitters with at least 450 plate appearances.

Things opened up (literally) for McCann in Chicago. After signing a one-year, $2.5 million “prove it” deal with the White Sox, McCann’s most radical tweak struck gold. Opening his stance and bringing his hands closer to load unlocked an entirely different hitter in the once-struggling backstop. McCann became a legit power threat, popping 18 homers in just 118 games, and his wRC+ jumped to 108, placing him eighth among all catchers with at least 300 PAs. He continued this trend in 2020’s short-season madness: a slash of .289/.360/.460, a wRC+ within the top-40 of all hitters with as many at-bats, and even a positive grade as a framer. Read the rest of this entry »

In one of the later chapters of The MVP Machine, the authors describe a working relationship between an unnamed position player and a writer at an “analytically inclined” baseball website. The player felt that his club’s advanced scouting data wasn’t granular enough and asked the writer to supplement the information he was given by the club with additional detail. The writer was eventually performing scouting reports on the player himself, opposing pitchers, as well as the home plate umpires’ strike zones. In terms of evaluating his own performance, the writer summarized that the player was basically looking at three things: “Am I squaring up the ball? Am I swinging and missing? Am I swinging at strikes?”

With the first month of the season in the books, who would be some of the best performing hitters in the league according to this particular player’s criteria? Thanks to Statcast, we have the tools at our disposal to try and figure out just that. Note that the dataset I used for this exercise was all qualified batters as of the morning of April 30th, 2021.

First, we need to decide which parameters to use to represent each of the three questions posed by the player. Two of the three are pretty easy. “Am I swinging and missing?” We can look up a player’s whiff percentage on Statcast. “Am I swinging at strikes?” That information is represented in a player’s chase percentage. “Am I squaring up the ball?” The natural candidates here would be, if we’re using just one number, the average exit velocity, hard hit percentage, and barrel percentage. I decided to go with the average exit velocity because it takes into account every batted ball put in play by the batter. Let me explain. Read the rest of this entry »