A few days ago, I read an article on FanGraphs that flew in the face of everything I wanted to believe. This article told me that Aaron Judge — the man who holds the record for the most home runs hit in a season as a rookie — was not clutch. As a lifelong Yankee fan, I immediately got defensive. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t really sure that I even believed that “clutch” existed. Or, at the very least, I wasn’t sure we were measuring it correctly.

I decided to go a different route. I decided to go back in time, and replace Aaron Judge with a completely league average player…in every situation he was in. I took every plate appearance, from every base-out situation from 2014 through 2017, and averaged some random samples to find out exactly how many runs a hitter was expected to generate (xRBI). How many more runs did Aaron Judge force across the plate than the average player (RBI – xRBI)? So I calculated some xRBIs…because I like to pluralize RBI. My distribution of dRBI was a bit skewed — so I adjusted for HRs (high HR rates would inflate your RBI over your xRBI…but solo shots are still valuable things), and SOs (because strikeouts provide essentially no opportunity to bring in a run). Now, my distribution looked more normal.

And here we have it! Aaron Judge’s 2017 ranks….879th out of 954 hitter-seasons with 350+ PAs?! Dammit. Apparently Aaron Judge, based on the base-out opportunities he’s been provided, drove in 10 fewer runs than we should have expected. Womp womp.

What does this tell us? You know…I’m not really sure. Here’s the top 15 player-seasons:

         name      Season  PA   OBP HR  K.rt RBI   xRBI  dRBI
1  Miguel Cabrera    2014 685 0.371 25 17.08 109  83.03 25.97
2  Nolan Arenado     2015 665 0.323 42 16.54 130 106.55 23.45
3  Mike Trout        2014 705 0.377 36 26.10 111  88.87 22.13
4  Robinson Cano     2014 665 0.382 14 10.23  82  61.04 20.96
5  Michael Taylor    2015 511 0.282 14 30.92  63  43.13 19.87
6  Devin Mesoraco    2014 440 0.359 25 23.41  80  60.15 19.85
7  Nolan Arenado     2017 654 0.369 35 15.90 126 107.23 18.77
8  Giancarlo Stanton 2014 638 0.395 37 26.65 105  86.28 18.72
9  Ryan Braun        2014 580 0.324 19 19.48  81  62.53 18.47
10 Justin Morneau    2014 550 0.364 17 10.91  82  64.13 17.87
11 Matt Kemp         2015 648 0.312 23 22.69 100  82.15 17.85
12 Paul Goldschmidt  2014 479 0.392 19 22.96  69  51.28 17.72
13 David Ortiz       2014 602 0.355 35 15.78 104  86.35 17.65
14 Yoenis Cespedes   2014 645 0.301 22 19.84 100  82.69 17.31
15 David Ortiz       2016 626 0.401 38 13.74 127 109.82 17.18

They’re all pretty good. Were these the most clutch guys? I’m not really sure where I’m going with this. I’m not even sure if I’m going anywhere with it. I guess it’s just a different way to think about clutch. My process doesn’t take the game score into consideration. It doesn’t take into consideration whether or not a player is playing at home, or any other context for that matter. But in trying to quantify a relatively subjective stat…should any of that matter?

Albert Pujols and Robinson Cano have a lot in common. They both play in the AL West. They both will one day have a plaque in Cooperstown. They’ve both played on World Series-winning teams. And they both signed 10-year, $240-million mega-contracts with their current teams.

In my office, we had a short debate about which player has come closer to justifying the cost of their deal, and it wasn’t hard to sell even the most ardent defenders of home runs and RBI that the answer was Robinson Cano. Still, one co-worker encouraged me to do a year-by-year comparison of these two players. Mostly to see just how badly Cano has outclassed Pujols since signing said mega-deals. Still, I was quite surprised at just how stark the difference has been.

So let us embark, then, on to the battle of $240-million men! For the players’ dollar-value figure, I’m using FanGraphs valuations. We’ll start off by comparing Pujols’ first four years with the Angels to Robbie’s first four with the Mariners.

Pujols year 1: .285 AVG/.343 OBP/.516 SLG, 133 wRC+, 30 HR, 3.6 WAR, $23.4m
Cano year 1: .314 AVG/.382 OBP/.454 SLG, 137 wRC+ 14 HR, 5.2 WAR, $39.3m

Pujols year 2: .258/.330/.437, 112 wRC+, 17 HR, 0.6 WAR, $4.1m
Cano year 2: .287/.334/.446, 116 wRC+ 21 HR, 2.1 WAR, $16.7m

Pujols year 3: .272/.324/.466, 123 wRC+, 28 HR, 2.8 WAR, $21.4m
Cano year 3: .298/.350/.533, 137 wRC+ 39 HR, 5.9 WAR, $47.5m

Pujols year 4: .244/.307/.480, 114 wRC+, 40 HR, 1.8 WAR, $14.7m
Cano year 4: .282/.341/.455, 113 wRC+ 22 HR, 3.3 WAR, $26.0m

Of course, Pujols came to the division two years before Cano. With just a few days left in the season, each player’s 2017 numbers are unlikely to change much — their total season numbers will be pretty close to where they are today on September 26^th.

Pujols 2014: .272/.324/.466, 123 wRC+, 28 HR, 2.8 WAR, $21.2m
Cano 2014: .314/.382/.454, 137 wRC+ 14 HR, 5.2 WAR, $39.3m

Pujols 2015: .244/.307/.480, 114 wRC+, 40 HR, 1.8 WAR, $14.7m
Cano 2015: .287/.334/.446, 116 wRC+ 21 HR, 2.1 WAR, $16.7m

Pujols 2016: .268/.323/.457, 110 wRC+, 31 HR, 0.8 WAR $6.3m
Cano 2016: .298/.350/.533, 137 wRC+ 39 HR, 5.9 WAR, $47.5m

Pujols 2017: .240/.287/.388, 79 wRC+ 23 HR, -1.8 WAR, $-14.3m
Cano 2017: .282/.341/.455, 113 wRC+ 22 HR, 3.3 WAR, $26.0m

Basically, Cano has won in almost every category except for home runs every single year. Even without doing the math (which I’m going to do in a second, don’t worry), it’s pretty obvious that no matter which way you compare these contacts, Cano’s looks better.

However, even though both players are making $240 million over 10 years, they’re making it differently. I wondered if that might tip the scales a little more in Pujols’ favor. Cot’s Contracts shows Cano making exactly $24 million annually, while Pujols has a backloaded deal. According to Cot’s, after this season Pujols is owed $114 million over four seasons ($28.5m per season). At $24 million a pop over six seasons, Cano is still owed $144 million.

Using these numbers, I compared their total value since signing with their new teams against how much they’ve actually been paid:

Pujols: $55.6m (actually paid $126m, -$73.6m in surplus value)
Cano: $129.5m (actually paid $96m, $33.5m in surplus value)

Since we’re comparing two guys who are currently division rivals, it’s also fun to look at their value compared to their pay just since Cano signed with the Mariners:

Pujols: $28.1m (actually paid $98m, -$69.9 in surplus value)
Cano: $129.5m (actually paid $96m, $33.5m in surplus value)

So pretty much any way you slice it, Cano has totally dominated Pujols in the battle of 10-year, $240-million men. For the most part, even, Cano has been better even if you limit your criteria to just offensive production. The fact he plays second base while Pujols has spent about half of that contract DHing is just gravy for the Mariners, even if Cano is just average or a little worse than that at second now.

The Angels do have one advantage, though: Pujols has four years left on his deal after this season, and Cano has six. Cano would probably still be lucky to break even on the $240 million he’s actually being paid, considering his second-half slump and his age (he will be 35 in 2018). Still, largely because he had a huge head start, Cano could end up actually earning the total value of his contract.

It’s probably likely that Cano will have some negative-value seasons in his future, though. If he’s moved off of second base, his bat becomes less valuable; if he doesn’t, his defense may erode much of his offensive value at second base. But by then, he will have likely come close to putting up $240 million in value. It would take a miracle for Pujols to end up being worth even half of his contract.

Whenever a team signs a player to that big of a deal, they know they’re likely going to suffer at the end of it — most people assumed the instant they were signed that both of these contracts would look bad at the end. Unfortunately for the Angels, Pujols’ has looked pretty bad from the beginning. Cano, on the other hand, has given the Mariners perhaps even a little more than what they expected at the time.

So, the Mariners finally won something! They won the battle of $240-million men! Now, if only that translated to winning games…

How many teams are looking for a cheap starting pitcher to be a veteran presence for a young rotation? Looking for an upgrade over what they currently have for starting pitching? Or just need a warm body to fill the hole left by Joe Ross with someone not named Edwin Jackson? As far as I can tell, 10 teams are looking for a 3/4 starter such as Merrill Kelly, especially considering his stats that he has accumulated in this season (maybe he’ll get one more start to add to his excellent season so far) have been particularly impressive. All this when the Rays thought that Merrill Kelly was just a “AAA starter” who could be a bullpen guy in the big leagues.

Merrill Kelly in the minor leagues was a solid minor leaguer who would become a swingman with the Durham Bulls. In his age-25 season, he went 9-4 in 114 IP with a 2.76 ERA, a 3.74 FIP, and a 3.57 xFIP. Which looked good with his 8.53 K/9 and 2.92 BB/9, a .298 BABIP, and a 47.9% ground-ball rate as well. Perhaps he could a solid swingman/fifth starter in the big leagues. The Rays apparently thought otherwise and said either he’d be a bullpen pitcher for the MLB team or a starter in AAA. Merrill Kelly thought otherwise and went to South Korea to play for the SK Wyverns.

Merrill Kelly in South Korea was all right in his first season, with an 11-10 record in 30 games (29 starts), 181 IP, and an ERA of 4.13. With peripheral rates that weren’t as good (6.91 K/9 and 2.69 BB/9). His next season was similar, with a 9-8 record in 31 games, but a great 200 1/3 IP with similar rate stats: 3.68 ERA, 6.83 K/9, and 2.70 BB/9. This year has been very different for him, with a 15-7 record in 29 games and 185 IP with a 3.65 ERA; his rate stats are much more improved, at 8.90 K/9 and 2.14 BB/9.

What is he doing differently to get these improved stats? Why is his ERA as high as it is, despite getting more strikeouts and walking fewer batters? He is allowing more pesky little hits: that is, his defense is not getting as many outs made as it should (1.08 hits per inning this year, vs 1.03 hits per inning in 2015-2016 combined). He has also allowed one more homer and two more doubles than last year, in 15 1/3 fewer IP.

His repertoire:

-4 Seam Fastball – 92-94 MPH (back in 2015, he was throwing 88-91 MPH)

-2 Seam Fastball – couple of miles slower and has slight sink, and runs in an opposite direction. He mixes this pitch well with his fastball

-Cutter – He started to throw this pitch more once he got to Korea and has mixed it well with his other fastballs and change

-Slider – Has a good slider that can break sharply when he’s pitching well. About 83-87 MPH

-Curveball – Decent enough curve but probably not his best pitch. Up 78-80 MPH

-Circle Changeup – Good sinking and running movement. He throws it about 85 MPH. One of his top pitches

What has he improved? Velocity on his pitches, sharper movement to his fastballs and changeup, getting better with the cutter, and improving his control. (This quoted from this article on Reddit: Merrill Kelly scouting report and info, which I think explains his improvements, but I disagree with his assessment of Merrill Kelly’s talent.) Given the talent level of the average hitter in the KBO is around AAA level, he should be able to perform as around a low-3/high-4 starter, as I’d say he is better than the average starter. A funny thing of note is that the Rays have another version of Merrill Kelly named Ryan Yarbrough, who has pitched better than Kelly did at a similar age; hopefully they’ll give him a chance to prove the Rays wrong for letting Merrill Kelly go.

Since he is on the right side of 30 and will pitch the 2018 season at age 29, I’d offer him a three-year deal worth $6 million per year with incentives that could boost the value of the deal to around $24 million over three years, with an option for a fourth season at $7 million (buyout of $2 million) with incentives to boost the option value to $10 million. This is due to his risk, and likely lower than what Phil Hughes was offered after the 2013 season from the Twins.

Who are the 10 teams that could use Merrill Kelly as a starting pitcher? The answers might be more surprising at first glance than other answers. The best choice would be the Miami Marlins for the same reasons listed, but it could become a wild-card contender taking a chance for Kelly to make more money in a playoff cut. The second-best choice is one that is pretty questionable, depending on whether the Nationals are willing to take a risk on a player from the KBO and whether they want someone better than him. But he’d be great for them in place of Joe Ross, and would be an upgrade over their current options; plus he would be cheap enough to fit in their payroll. One issue is that the Nationals have a hitter-friendly park, but not having to face the Nationals would mitigate some of those concerns. The San Diego Padres would be the third-best choice due to the non-DH league, an extremely pitcher-friendly park according to MLB park factors, and multiple available rotation spots, but they are in a tough NL West and aren’t likely to be a playoff team.

The next one is questionable but they would certainly be able to make room for him — the Oakland A’s have always been unconventional, and the park is usually known for being pitcher-friendly. The Twins would be similar to the A’s in those respects and are in fact a playoff threat (I didn’t expect to be saying this about the Twins this year at all). The Royals are practically in a tie with the Twins and A’s due to a pitcher-friendly park, although their team is going to be worse due to many key players leaving (Cain, Hosmer, and Moustakas).

Despite the Rangers having a definite hole in the rotation (who would let Nick Martinez or A.J. Griffin start in an extreme hitter-friendly park?), they are the seventh-best option due to that park, the DH league, and just not having a great team in general. The White Sox are an even more extreme version of the Rangers, and are extremely bad as well; I doubt he’d want to play for such a poor team. Same with the Reds, except there is no DH, but the Reds might want to give younger options a try first. The Orioles have almost all the bad factors: A league with a DH, a hitter-friendly park, a tough division, a bad defensive team, and generally bad development staff that has done more harm than good for its pitchers.

I would love to see one of the top six teams sign Kelly to a contract, since those would be best for him getting another contract after the first one expires. Can’t wait for him to get his shot in the big leagues, to prove his previous doubters wrong, and to have a long and successful career in the MLB.

All stats are owned by their respective owners (ESPN, FanGraphs, KBO, Reddit), I own none of the stats used. All stats are as of 9-23-2017.

We’ve seen names like Francisco Lindor, Yonder Alonso, and, of course, Josh Donaldson associated with the fly-ball revolution constantly. But one of the most underrated breakouts of 2017 has come from the launch-angle craze: Marwin Gonzalez.

If you were familiar with him before 2017, it was almost certainly because of his defensive versatility. Gonzalez has never been much of a force, but the ability to play the entire infield and outfield corner spots earned him consistent playing time in the past. He’s no longer lacking in the offensive department.

Gonzalez is slashing .302/.371/.531 and has more than doubled his 2016 walk rate, while keeping his strikeout rates steady, en route to a 142 wRC+. Names like Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, George Springer, and Josh Reddick are the first that come to mind with the Astros. But Gonzalez ranks 3rd in batting average, 2nd in wOBA, and 2nd in wRC+. He leads one of the best offenses in major-league history in runs batted in, despite six players having more plate appearances.

Here is his exit velocity and launch angle by year, stretching back to 2015 (when Statcast started measuring):

Gonzalez has seen a massive uptick in his launch angle this season, and, like the other successful members of the launch-angle increase, has seen a massive uptick in power. With 23 home runs, he has ten more than last season.

Interestingly, with the home-run increase, Gonzalez has increased his use of all fields. His Oppo% is up to 25% from 18% in 2016. But only two home runs have been to the opposite field (he’s a switch hitter, so a basic spray chart won’t show this). He’s displaying the ability to turn on the balls he can crush and adapting better to the ones he cannot.

Just Monday night, September 25th, Gonzalez put this on full display in a four-hit night against the Texas Rangers. Here’s a two-run single:

Gonzalez gets low and adapts to the pitch location, sending it straight back up the middle. Now here he is, a couple at-bats later:

Gonzalez sees a pitch he can hit hard, and does just that, obliterating this ball (sending it 443 feet at 108.1 mph, exactly).

Using all fields while maintaining pull power is a hard skill to master, but one Gonzalez has mastered no less. He has mastered hitting the balls well that he can hit well. His 19 line-drive base hits are tied for 24th in the league, but his 19.8% LD% ranks 98th. He is 287th in average ground-ball exit velocity at 82.3, but 110th in average line-drive/fly-ball exit velocity at 93.9 mph. This is likely what skews his xwOBA-wOBA numbers, which peg him for a much less impressive performance. He’s not hitting everything harder, but he is hitting what he should hit hard harder. And with the increased launch angle, he’s only hitting more and more line drives and fly balls.

Gonzalez has stayed out of the national spotlight despite being one of the most consistent and best players on the league’s best offense. Don’t be surprised to see him explode in the national spotlight.

It’s no secret that Jonathan Lucroy is having a subpar season.

The two-time NL All Star was projected to be a top-three catcher in 2017.  Before the start of the season, Steamer pegged his value at 3.6 wins above replacement, while ZiPS had him at 3.2.  His .242/.297/.338 line and 66 wRC+ in 306 plate appearances as a member of the Texas Rangers produced 0.2 WAR.  No one really expected that.

Lucroy was eventually traded to the Colorado Rockies.  The Rockies, who had the worst catching tandem in baseball, instantly viewed Lucroy as an upgrade, while many other playoff-bound teams would have viewed him as a liability.  With the hitter-friendly environment of Coors Field and poor pitching staffs among the San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres, the team figured that Lucroy would return to his All-Star form once again.  Although he has not returned to being the power threat that he once was, he has changed his game ever so slightly, such that he might have become the game’s best-hitting catcher.

His basic stat line is not reflective of his plate discipline as a member of the Rockies.  His slash line has gone back up to near his career average (.279/.384/.377), but what is most impressive about him is his actual hitting ability.  Always a good contact hitter, he has changed his game to be more selective, get more contact, and put the ball in play.  His 92 percent contact percentage ranks first in baseball since the trade, and his 88 percent contact percentage of pitches outside the strike zone also ranks first.  The result: a high walk rate (12.3 percent) and fewer swinging strikeouts (6.3 percent of plate appearances resulting in a strikeout).  All of this while swinging at fewer pitches outside the strike zone (18.6 percent) and fewer swings in general (38 percent).  You may be asking “Why isn’t he leading the league in hitting with numbers like that?”  Well, the answer is rather simple.

While he is making more contact than anyone in baseball, most of the balls in play are hit to the defense.  This season, he is hitting more ground balls than ever before.  As a Rockie, 50 percent of the balls he has hit in play have been ground balls, well above his career average of 42.8 percent.  As a result, he has hit fewer fly balls (28.7 percent) which has led to fewer home runs (3.2 percent HR/FB).  This explains his lack of power this year.

He has hit the ball in the wrong place more this season than any other.  For his career, Lucroy has had a tendency to drive the ball up the middle — that has not changed much this season — but this season he has hit the ball softer than in any previous season.  His average exit velocity (85.0 miles per hour) is more in line with middle infielders and outfielders than catchers.  In fact, he has the fourth-slowest average exit velocity among all qualified catchers.  His average exit velocity last season was 87.6 miles per hour, and it was 88.6 in 2015.  Without the wheels of a speedy outfielder or infielder capable of beating out a ground ball (or at the very least forcing the defense to rush the throw), a ground ball for Lucroy is as good as an out.  Just as the saying “baseball is a game of inches,” it’s a game of miles per hour, too.

Fewer ground balls are going through the holes in the infield, and fewer ground balls are becoming hits.  His batting average of balls in play as a Rockie is similar to his career average (.308 as a Rockie and .306 for his career), but his RBBIP — percentage of balls in play that go for a hit or an error — is .318.  While it is above league average, it is well below his RBBIP numbers of both his All Star seasons and 2012, when he hit .320.  Has Lucroy been entirely unlucky with his balls in play?  No; pitchers have pitched to him largely down and away, which has resulted in a horrible contact percentage on those pitches, and he has also regressed slightly in every season since 2015.  But if Lucroy can keep his contact percentage up, hit fewer ground balls, and stay selective at the plate, then he could be one of the best-hitting catchers in the game again.

Thor’s lat tear was the team’s biggest disappointment in 2017, a season that’s been chock-full of frustration and futility.

It was more demoralizing than the poor winning percentage. More displeasing than a certain player’s disappearance. And even more disheartening than the injuries en masse.

The fall of the Mets’ burgeoning ace is so distressing because it raised alarms about the future of their starting rotation. It’s now uncertain whether Noah Syndergaard, the pitcher once dubbed the second coming of Nolan Ryan, can play a significant role – let alone become the successor to Tom Seaver and Dwight Gooden.

How should the Mets deal with this situation? Though unpopular, there’s only one pragmatic solution: hope for a full recovery, let him recoup value, and trade him before future injuries occur.

Wait – trade him? Wouldn’t it make more sense if they gave such a tremendous talent the opportunity to fix his problems before they press panic button?

Sadly, it’s not quite that simple.

Syndergaard’s issues are so deeply rooted that he’s probably going to get hurt again.

And again.

And again.

Two core components of his skill set are the likely culprits of these injuries, and both are difficult to cure – at least without harming his effectiveness.

The first is Thor’s throwing motion. In the GIF below, you can see how he relies heavily on his golden arm when delivering a pitch:

At first glance, these mechanics appear quick, straightforward, and minimalistic. But also arm-dependent. If you look more closely, you won’t spot a single movement that attempts to alleviate the immense stress placed on his right wing. Not one.

You don’t see Syndergaard use a high leg kick or take a long stride. Nor do you notice him place substantial weight on his right leg when pushing off the rubber. You can’t observe him rotate his hips fully. And you won’t find too much torque in his upper body.

In short, he utilizes none of the mechanics that generate substantial velocity from his legs, hips, and core. Instead, you witness Thor gain most of his power from a sudden, violent contortion of his back and a quick snap of his almighty arm.

Needless to say, this delivery taxes his right wing…exorbitantly. On every single pitch.

But that’s not all. You also glimpse a slight timing problem that’s already become a ticking time bomb:

Syndergaard’s throwing arm is practically parallel to the ground when he plants his left foot. Then – before raising it to the cocked position – he rotates his hips and accelerates all components of his upper body, actions that place additional stress on his elbow and shoulder.

Mechanics of this sort, both arm-dependent and off-time, significantly increase his chances of getting hurt in the future…and that his afflictions will be far more severe than a torn lat.

The second cause of Thor’s injuries tilts those odds even further. That’s his max-effort pitching style. He looks to dominate batters with a repertoire of five overpowering pitches and, as you can see, holds nothing back:

Both fastballs routinely register around 98 MPH, and his slider and changeup hover about or above 90 MPH. Each one is at least 5 MPH faster than league average and is among the hardest thrown by any starting pitcher. Even his curveball, the “slowest” of the group, is well above the 78.14 MPH mean.

But something sinister lurks beneath these awe-inspiring averages. And that’s the not-so-subtle implication that Thor competes on stuff alone.

There’s neither an inkling that he paces himself nor an indication that he uses complex pitching strategies – at least not to any meaningful degree. Au contraire. From the looks of it, he throws as hard as physically possible all game long. Nothing more, nothing less.

Such an explosive approach requires Thor to exert himself fully on every single pitch he throws. This places additional strain on his elbow and shoulder, accelerates the damage inflicted by his delivery, and dramatically increases his chances of developing major arm problems.

Making matters worse, the two reasons for his injury are incredibly difficult to fix without breaking something else, namely his dominating performance.

Which is exactly why the Mets should move their star pitcher.

Noah Syndergaard is still a blue-chip asset with great trade value. You’d be hard-pressed to find another starter whose repertoire resembles that of an elite closer…let alone one who just turned 25 and won’t be a free agent until 2022.

That combination of unique ability, extraordinary upside, and relatively low financial risk makes him an attractive target despite his injury and its causes. As such, the team would probably acquire several top prospects in return for their ace.

If he’s able to put together a healthy season (or half-season), they should shop him around and pull the trigger on the best deal they find. Otherwise, it’s likely that a catastrophic arm injury will compromise his value; they’d never be able to swap him for anything meaningful again.

Should that day of reckoning arrive, the Mets will be forced to admit that they have another Matt Harvey on their hands: a supremely talented, though fundamentally flawed pitcher whom they should have traded before it was too late.

Any team need a reliever who can pitch multiple-inning stints if you need? I think lots of teams would jump at the chance to acquire such a reliever considering Madison Bumgarner’s legendary five-inning relief appearance in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series. Andrew Miller became a dangerous bullpen weapon in the 2016 postseason with the Indians, which brought them within a game of winning the World Series in three consecutive games. And there’s some guy on the Astros called Chris Devenski, who could also spot start if you need a starter desperately. The Blue Jays acquired Tom Koehler from the Marlins, who I admittedly have some interest in as a starter or multi-inning reliever. Maybe you want someone like Raisel Iglesias or Michael Lorenzen.

Currently, most relievers are used in one-inning stints; some are even used against lefties or righties only. Christian Bethancourt, Chris Gimenez, and Jordan Schafer have been two-way players: a hitter and a reliever to give more bench depth and help keep Rule 5 draft picks. Some top prospects have been billed as two-way players such as Brandon McKay, Hunter Greene and most notably Shohei Otani, who has been fantastic in Japan.

The reliever who should be receiving more attention as a multiple-inning reliever is Craig Stammen, who used to be a part of the Nationals as a starter and was then converted into a reliever when he was called up from AAA in 2011. Stammen was doing pretty well from 2012-2014 as a setup reliever, but then he missed most of 2015 and didn’t make it back to the big leagues until this season. As a result of him previously having been a starter for much longer, he has more stamina than an average reliever, and can be used in multiple-inning relief stints, providing more bench depth for a team like the effect of having a two-way player (even if they aren’t very good).

This year, he has been getting back to what he was doing before in terms of his ERA, strikeout and walk rates, and innings per appearance. His home-runs, however, have gone up quite a bit despite his 52.2% ground-ball rate. This is due to an unsustainable 19.4% HR/FB ratio(!), which has overly inflated his FIP to 4.34, with a much more appealing 3.75 xFIP and a 3.60 SIERA, which suggest a solid middle relief/ setup type of reliever that he has been performing like. This and his ability to pitch multiple-inning stints create a higher value than his $900,000 contract. He has four pitches with positive values according to Pitch Info this year. Despite minute velocity drops for his pitches from his peak years of 2012-2014, he is still very effective with his pitches, with only one registering a slight negative according to Pitch Info.

Admittedly, his BABIP is a bit lower than it should be at .254, but it shouldn’t regress too badly (somewhere around .280 since he does generate quite a few ground balls). He is only getting about 6.7% pop-ups, which is not very good, compared to his peak seasons. Batters are getting more hard contact this year compared to the rest of his career (30.1% this year compared to 28.5% for his career). And his strand rate is at 85.7% this year, compared to just a 71.9% career mark. Additionally, he has allowed a .329 wOBA against lefties this year vs a .256 wOBA vs righties.

Overall, Stammen has been lucky and unlucky this year. Ultimately, he is a solid reliever who should be able to do quite well in almost any park except Coors Field or any extreme hitters park. He should receive a two-year deal worth around $4-5 million per year for how well he can pitch as a solid multiple-inning reliever, and how he can help increase bench depth for a team that wants to keep a Rule 5 talent, an extra bench player, a normal reliever, or maybe a specialized reliever such as a LOOGY (looking at you, Randy Choate, Brian Shouse, and so many more who have made careers out of being LOOGYs). The former two are much more likely than the latter two — particularly a LOOGY, as most aren’t as useful to teams anymore.

All stats and links are owned by FanGraphs, except for the link to Shohei Otani’s player page, which is owned by the NPB.

Some say the sample size of Luis Castillo’s season is 15 starts; I say it’s only eight.

July 25th was the first game in which BrooksBaseball.net registered a sinker from the 24-year-old. While some other sites show blips of the pitch peering out from behind the curtain – misread changeups? – you’ll read elsewhere that he learned the pitch right as the August sun crept up on the city of Cincinnati. After adopting the sinker, his following eight starts showed a clearer picture of the pitcher he’ll be in 2018.

The issue that resonated most with analysts during his debut at the end of June was his fastball’s tendency to stay straight. An old adage you’ll hear in baseball circles revolves around a straight fastball’s velocity mattering less, because if it’s a straight 98-99 mph pitch, theoretically, a major-league hitter will have a better chance of squaring it up.

Castillo never got that memo.

Unless the Yankees’ ace Luis Severino concentrates some adrenaline to kick up his average fastball velocity by season’s end, Castillo will claim the “velo crown” for starting pitchers – 97.8mph is his number (min. 200 pitches). While velocity doesn’t tell the whole story – I’m looking at you, 2016 Nathan Eovaldi, and your 97.8mph average four-seamer – for Castillo it’s a catchy interlude; a hook that gets your undivided attention. Even with the pitch and its “straight” tendencies, aggregating all 15 of his starts, the pitch maintained a whiff-per-swing rate inside the 85th percentile among all starters – 22.6% (min. 200 pitches).

It may seem dubious that the hardest fastball among starters in all of baseball could get better during any stretch of time, but Castillo wove into his repertoire a sinker that allowed his four-seamer to change its attack.

Above we’re looking at Castillo’s four-seam fastball location pre-sinker adoption (before July 24th) and post-sinker adoption (July 25th forward). The former being a tight concentration towards the outside part of the plate, while the latter is the much larger area of dark red, up in the zone.

This philosophy makes sense; take a straight fastball, stop throwing it for strikes down in the zone, and put it at the letters, making it nearly impossible for hitters to muster success. It worked. Castillo wasn’t able to execute this move sooner because he didn’t have another fastball to establish the zone with early in starts.

Before Castillo’s sinker, hitters were teeing off on Castillo’s fastball to the tune of a .658 slugging percentage. All the while, his slider and changeup – which we’ll touch upon shortly – were nearly unhittable with slugging percentages that couldn’t edge past the fabled “Mendoza Line.” After Castillo learned his sinker, that cringe-worthy slugging percentage on his four-seamer fell to a manageable .368. His sinker, meanwhile, was his early-count pitch, and he located it unbelievably well. Castillo’s worm-killer was second among starters with a 77% grounder-per-ball-in-play rate, trailing only Jordan Zimmermann, who can’t sniff the whiff rates of our Dominican-born phenom (almost as good as Carrasco’s sinker). As Eno Sarris mentions in a FanGraphs column, Castillo is creating a duo of skills that most pitchers envy: choppers and whiffs.

Those whiffs come from his slider and changeup, two pitches that stood out before the sinker, becoming much easier to “arrive at” in terms of sequencing with a two-percent cut in walks and improved ability to get ahead of hitters. His changeup – like with most righties – is a put-away pitch to left-handers; 33% usage rate overall that kicked up to 43% when Castillo had two strikes on a lefty. The sinker we’ve discussed at length also seems to correlate with an uptick in slider usage to left-handed hitters. It ticks up 8% when Castillo has two strikes on a hitter. My speculation is this has a bit to do with gaining confidence in the pitch through understanding eye-level adjustments that hitters have to make after realizing Castillo is now living up in the zone with his four-seamer (see the GIF above). Of course, this is merely speculation; it could easily be Castillo becoming more comfortable with the break of the pitch, eliminating fears that he doesn’t follow-through and leave it up in the zone – essentially a meatball.

Sitting just below Castillo’s changeup in terms of velocity is his preferred put-away pitch to right-handers, a compact slider that doesn’t jump out in terms of swinging strike rate, velocity, or even movement, but possesses an uncanny ability to avoid becoming line drives. A peculiar metric to stand out in, yes, but after understanding line drives go for hits three times more often than ground balls, limiting line drives becomes the best thing you can do if you’re offering a pitch devoid of Kershaw-territory whiff rates.

A 27% strikeout rate in just under 90 innings, with a ground-ball rate near 59%, is a combination very few pitchers possess; Castillo is one of them. With his sinker in play, those numbers became 25% and 61% respectively; just as dominant, yet more stable with the improved control I’d speculate the sinker brought about. I’ve heard a lot of Luis Severino and Michael Fulmer comparisons to Castillo because of the fastball-slider-changeup offerings, but one of the best young pitchers in baseball is becoming a unique beast with his sinker.

Castillo’s potential is the good kind of unbelievable, in contrast to another kind of unbelievable from this Cincinnati.com article titled, “Bryan Price: Luis Castillo is in the 2018 Rotation” which implies we needed to know one of the best young pitchers in all of baseball will be allowed to dominate as a starter come March 29th of 2018. March? Yes, March. Baseball and snow is quite possibly my second favorite pairing. Behind, of course, the whiffs and grounders Castillo generates.

A version of this post can be found on my site, BigThreeSports.com.

I’m on Twitter @LanceBrozdow

The Milwaukee Brewers have been a very entertaining team in 2017. Their early dominance of the NL Central over the struggling Cubs predictably came to an end after the Cubs decided to stop being bad and to start winning baseball games again. Now, thanks to some struggles, along with the surge of the Rockies and Diamondbacks, the Brewers are on the outside looking in during the playoff race. However, that doesn’t mean that the Brewers don’t have an interesting group of solid young pitching and an intriguing offensive core. Among all of these players, Zach Davies may be one of the most interesting. Davies was never a highly-touted prospect; he always lingered near the bottom of organizational top-10 lists during his time with the Baltimore Orioles and Milwaukee Brewers. In 2016, Baseball Prospectus had him ranked 8th in the Brewers system with a 45 FV, projecting him as a back-end starter with above-average command.

This year, Davies has sported a 4.38 xFIP and a 15.9 K%, which certainly profiles like a 4th starter’s stat line. However, Davies ranks in a tie for 27th (min. 100 IP) for WAR with 3.0 on the season up until September 16th, which definitely isn’t something to expect from a back-end starter. When you look at Davies’ numbers, you have to wonder how he has manged to succeed with such a low K rate and an inflated xFIP.  Even going back to last year, Davies had a higher K rate at 19.8%, along with a 3.94 xFIP in 163.1 innings, and posted a 2.7 WAR. These stat lines look fairly similar, except for the the fact that he reduced his K rate in 2017. What else changed that has allowed him to succeed with this decreased strikeout rate? One thing Davies has changed in 2017 is his HR rate, which decreased from 1.10 in 2016 to 0.87 in 2017. So, in essence, Davies traded strikeouts for home runs. How did he manage to do that?

Let’s revisit that scouting report from 2016, with an emphasis on the 55 FV for Davies’ command. In that same report, it’s said that he had battled control problems during his time in the Brewers system. Now, there has always been a little bit of confusion as to what exactly the difference is between command and control, but Baseball Prospectus did a great job of dissecting this issue. Basically, control is the ability to throw the ball in the strike zone, while command is the ability to throw the ball in precise locations in or out of the strike zone. Below is a very handy diagram from the aforementioned article.

In this same article, two new stats are introduced that help attempt to quantify command and control: CSAA (called strikes above average) and CSProb (called strike probability). While these stats were originally created to show how well a catcher frames pitches, they can also tell you a lot about a pitcher. CSAA attempts to quantify how many strikes a pitcher creates for his team solely on taken pitches, and quantifies command. For example, having a CSAA of 3.0% means that there is 3 percent better chance that pitcher’s pitches will be called a strike than your average pitcher. CSProb quantifies how likely a certain pitch is to be called a strike, and highlights control. If you have a 50% CSProb, then there is a 50% chance a pitch you throw will be called a strike. As it turns out, the 2016 scouting report on Davies was correct; he ranks at the top of the leaderboard in CSAA and is near the bottom in CSProb. In 2017, Davies ranks 6th among qualified pitchers in CSAA at 2.83%, and he has a CSProb of 43.8%.

Davies has always been good at working the corners with a low 90’s to high 80’s fastball that has a lot of heavy run/sink to it. Usually, pitchers like this have to ensure that they can nibble at the corners of the plate so that their “slow” fastballs don’t get completely crushed by the power hitters of the league (which are apparently Elvis Andrus and Didi Gregorius now). Davies does just that, as shown in his zone heat map from Brooks Baseball below. He stays low in the zone to the majority of batters and does a good job of working both sides of the plate.

A pitcher who lives on the corners like this usually tends to draw poor contact, and that’s exactly what Davies does, in whatever way you want to to quantify it. He is one of the better pitchers in a multitude of categories, as he ranks near the top in Baseball Savant’s barrels per plate appearance stat at 2.9, has one of the lowest average exit velocities at 85.0 mph, and only 28.3% of contact against him is classified as hard hit by FanGraphs. It seems like Davies has the ability to use his pitches to work the corners and manipulate contact in his favor, which explains how he started allowing fewer home runs in 2017.

You can see this in his numbers, like stated before, where he has worked to his strengths and traded strikeouts for weak contact. This is also supported by his ability to command the ball, and his 2.83% CSAA. Put both of these qualities together, and you get a pitcher who not only limits good contact but also excels in getting called strikes more often than the average pitcher. These qualities can also help show why Davies has an inflated xFIP. Davies’ contact rate has gone up 2.5% from 2016 to 2017, and since xFIP relies a lot on batted-ball events, it can help explain why his is fairly high despite his 3.0 WAR. Davies has shown that he has the ability to adapt to major-league hitting by identifying that he can be successful in limiting good contact while at the same time allowing more of it and striking fewer batters out. If he can keep it up, there’s no reason to believe he couldn’t be a mainstay in the Brewers rotation for a long time.

If it weren’t for Adam Engel, Carlos Carrasco would have shut out the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday night. It’s hard to believe something stood out to me more than the preceding sentence’s qualifier, but baseball possesses the quality of unpredictability, and I will never complain.

Carrasco is an artist, mixing five pitches with such care that I often find myself gravitating towards his starts despite my lack of association with the Indians’ fan base. On Wednesday, what I noticed more than Engel ruining a shutout was Carrasco veering away from a pitch vital to his repertoire — his changeup. Due to the graces of BrooksBaseball.net, I can confirm the lack of changeup usage was unusual for Carrasco; five instances of the pitch were his second-fewest in any start this season. Wednesday was the longest outing of Carrasco’s season and matched his season-high “game score” of 89 (50 is average) from a battle back on April 22nd against — you guessed it — the White Sox.

Carrasco’s beauty stems from his ability to execute flawlessly with a game plan contrary to what you would expect. His season averages reflect the bigger picture, yet on a given night he can meander in unprecedented directions. My wonder surrounding the lack of his usual third pitch brought me to another contrarian aspect of Carrasco’s game: this changeup possessed the best ground-ball per ball-in-play ratio of any pitch in baseball (min. 200 pitches). 82% of the time when contact is made between the lines, the batted-ball result of this changeup is a ground ball. With 6% of batted balls falling into the “fly-ball” category, Carrasco’s pitch is one of the hardest in baseball to hit in the air.

Does this make it the best changeup in baseball? That depends on what qualities you believe make a changeup great. Per FanGraphs, Clayton Kershaw — shocker — holds the highest pitch value for a changeup at 6.9 runs per 100 pitches (0.0 is an average offering), with Carrasco just behind him. If you subscribe to limiting line drives as the better indicator of changeup success, the honor would go to Stephen Strasburg, who coincidentally gets the most whiffs per swing on his changeup at 51%. I’m not arguing that Carrasco has the best changeup in baseball; I’m highlighting how absurdly hard it is to do anything but hit Carrasco’s changeup on the ground. That in itself deserves as much attention as one that generates excessive swings, or is throw by the left hand of a legend — I tip my hat to you, Mr. Kershaw.

If you read my most recent recent column on the Orioles’ Dylan Bundy — whom I already consider to be “great” (yeah, pretty bold) — you can tell I’ve become intrigued by the Baseball Prospectus rabbit hole that is pitch-tunneling. In as simple terms as you can get, the “tunnel point” is where the hitter has to decide whether or not to swing, with movement more than 2.6 inches between the tunnel point and home plate considered above-average. The concept is fresh, with only bits of hard evidence for suggesting how to correctly apply the statistic, but one of its beliefs makes intuitive sense. In a vacuum, if your pitch moves more than average beyond the tunnel point, it becomes harder to hit. My thinking with Carrasco’s changeup is simple: it must have a lot of downward, “late” break to force hitters into topping the ball at such a high rate.

Ah, if only baseball was that easy.

Carrasco’s pitch sequence of fastball-changeup is his fourth-most commonly used pitch pair; it doesn’t stand out in terms of post-tunnel break among his other pitch pairings, nor when you compare that break back to the league average for a typical fastball-changeup sequence. What it does stand out on is something called “flight-time differential.” Carrasco’s .0223 is the third-lowest in baseball among pitchers who have thrown a fastball-changeup sequence more than 50 times. This stat is another way to show velocity differences between pitches. The short flight-time differential holds up when we observe Carrasco’s 5.7 mph difference between his average fastball and changeup velocities (fourth-smallest, qualified pitchers).

Good news: this all jives with Harry Pavlidis’ research. Harder changeups with smaller velocity differentials between that pitcher’s fastball means more ground balls, while a larger velocity gap between the two pitches means more whiffs. While ground-ball inducers tend to throw their change earlier in counts, whiff inducers favor the pitch as a put-away offering. While that sentence isn’t all-encompassing, Carrasco’s deviation from conformity continues.

As with most right-handed pitchers, Carrasco tends to throw his changeup to left-handed bats substantially more than right-handed bats, favoring the benefits of arm-side movement a changeup generally possesses due to the pronation of a pitcher’s hand. But unlike conventional thought that suggests the pitch’s ground-ball rate is such that early-count looks are likely, Carrasco throws the pitch more as he gets deeper into counts.

Just as Carrasco plays second fiddle to Corey Kluber in the Indians rotation, his changeup plays second fiddle to his slider, both allowing for rampant underappreciation. The pitch is so good this year that Carrasco has muddied the stigma that high-velocity, or low-velocity differential, changeups should remain early-count offerings. Once again, Carrasco is veering from the path of predictability.

Even after four seasons where progressive improvement hasn’t ceased, due to injuries we still haven’t seen a 200-inning campaign from the righty. 2018 will be his age-31 season, and as father time comes knocking, it’s unfortunate that we may be observing the tail end of Carrasco’s peak performance. With the Indians firmly intertwined with the phrase “playoff bound,” Carrasco will get his first reps on an October mound. If history provides any indication of the future, we know Carrasco will both stand out from him predecessors and succeed.

In regards to an obscure September outing and the lack of changeup usage, digging deeper might unearth logical reasoning, but with Carrasco, I think mystery adds to the legend of an under-the-radar arm.

I can be found on Twitter – @LanceBrozdow – tweeting about the greatest of all games.

A version of this post can be found on my website, BigThreeSports.