It would appear that James Paxton is finally getting credit for the body of work he’s produced over the past two years. Jeff Sullivan wrote about this very topic last week, pointing to several metrics that support his claim that James Paxton is one of the best pitchers in baseball. I won’t rewrite his points here; instead, I will show you the many similarities between James Paxton and a relatively unknown pitcher outside Brewers nation, Jimmy Nelson. I don’t mean to imply Nelson is equally as good as Paxton, but I hope by the end of this article there will be a greater acknowledgement of what this pitcher has done this year.

Armed with a fastball that averages 96 mph, a darting 90 mph cutter, and a tight 81 mph knuckle curve, James Paxton is able to generate plenty of swings and misses and weak contact. His 28.8 K%, 7.0 BB%, 46.5 GB%, 5.6 HR/FB% in 2017 has led to a sparkling 2.70 ERA and 2.31 FIP. His 4.2 WAR would rank fifth-best in the MLB among pitchers if he had enough innings to qualify. While Jimmy Nelson doesn’t quite have the stuff of Paxton, his repertoire might sound familiar: a 94.5 mph fastball/sinker, a 89 mph cutter, and a 81 mph knuckle curve. His 27.3 K%, 5.9 BB%, 50.9 GB%, and 13.1 HR/FB% in 2017 has produced a 3.24 ERA and 3.04 FIP. His 4 WAR ranks sixth among qualifying pitchers.

The main differences in their 2017 performance in these metrics appears to be their HR/FB%. Jeff Sullivan addressed James Paxton’s ability to manage contact in his article, and there is evidence that he should be able to maintain a below-average HR/FB%. Over 399.1 innings, Paxton has a career HR/FB% of 8.1. In addition, he currently leads the majors in 2017 in xwOBA on balls in play based on launch angle and exit velocity. While it would be foolish to expect him to keep a 5.6 HR/FB%, a 8.1% might be his norm, circa Clayton Kershaw pre-2017. Despite having a well below-average xwOBA on balls in play, his career ERA is 19 points higher than his career FIP (with an even larger difference this year). I’m not sure if we can hand-wave this difference away, but we’ll accept his FIP as the more accurate measure for this analysis.

Jimmy Nelson, on the other hand, has a history of relatively loud contact. His 13.1 HR/FB% this year isn’t much different than his career 12.4%. Despite this high career rate, his xwOBA on balls in play this year is .343, good for 25th in baseball among 113 starters who have faced at least 250 batters. In addition, his average exit velocity is 85.2 mph, good for 13th-lowest among the same group. It might be that his contact management woes are coming to an end.

Perhaps 2017 will be seen as an out-of-nowhere career year for Jimmy Nelson. Perhaps 2017 will become his norm, and he’ll take his rightful place among the 10-15 best starters in baseball. Either way, he deserves more attention than he’s been given. It’d be a shame if he continues to be denied an All-Star despite producing like one (no pitcher with an equal or higher WAR missed the Midsummer Classic).

Since no posts can be complete with mere words, here’s a link to video of Jimmy Nelson’s most recent start.

Christian Yelich is a very good baseball player. Since becoming a full-time major leaguer in 2014, Yelich has accumulated 13.8 Wins Above Replacement, good for 35th among qualified hitters. Yelich owns a career 120 wRC+, showing he’s a fine hitter. Yet there has always been a lingering question: Can his bat be even better?

Yelich hits the ball hard. Since 2016, only 10 players have a greater average exit velocity (minimum 2500 pitches seen). More importantly, his 94.3 MPH exit velocity off of fly balls is 25th from the same group. If we add in line drives with fly balls, Yelich’s 95.7 MPH exit velocity ranks 17th, sandwiched in between Manny Machado and Yasmany Tomas. Exit velocity is only part of the story, though. His launch angle is not ideal. Despite hitting the ball more than a mile harder than sluggers such as Bryce Harper, Michael Conforto, and Anthony Rizzo, Yelich has routinely chosen a ground-ball-based approach. Since the All-Star break, we might have gotten another indication of a possible transformation. The prospects are tantalizing. Have always been tantalizing.

Last season, Yelich saw his wRC+ rise to 130, the best of his career. This was partly related to him increasing his power level, as shown by a .185 ISO, the highest of his career. No doubt like every other batter, he was aided by a mysterious force (most likely the ball), but he also had a slight approach change. Yelich hit more fly balls, and so far in 2017, he’s expanded on that. Yelich has the 35th highest (122 players) difference between his 2016 fly-ball rate and 2017 fly-ball rate (minimum 350 plate appearances in both seasons). Slowly, Yelich might just be embracing the fly-ball revolution. This is also seen in his launch angle. In 2016, Yelich’s average launch angle was 2.5 degrees. In 2017, it’s 4.9 degrees, nearly double (more on this later).

Yelich’s 15 Game Rolling GB% and FB%

Yelich seems to have committed to some sort of approach in which fly balls are more sought after. In September of last year, Yelich carried a fly-ball rate at nearly 30%. He began April hitting fly balls at a 27.2% clip, followed by 23.6% in May, and to a low 14.1% in June. He seemed to abandon the fly-ball approach as his results weren’t up to his standards. Have you ever done something you were excited about but didn’t do well that you sort of slowly stopped? I’d imagine something like that may have happened with Yelich. During the second half so far, his fly-ball rate is 32.3%! It could very well be the result of small sample size, but it could also be a sign of Yelich looking to become a better hitter. Since the All-Star break, the Marlins outfielder’s average launch angle has been 10.4 degrees. This is what we want to see. And interestingly enough:

Yelich’s 15 Game Rolling GB% and FB%

We haven’t really seen Yelich be at this power level. He’s had spikes for sure, but nothing as high as the power streak he has shown recently. It coincides with him lifting the ball more. Since the start of the second half, Yelich has a .250 ISO. To give you an idea of the type of power output, that’s pretty much what Anthony Rizzo and Miguel Sano have this season (both at .247).

This feeds into what I mentioned above with psychological factors possibly playing a role. Yelich is seeing good results; perhaps he may experiment a little more with a greater emphasis on fly balls.

As mentioned above, Yelich hits the ball hard. But he also hits it hard to all fields. This is just another example of the kind of strength that exists within Yelich and his all-fields approach making him a tough out. Being able to hit the ball to the opposite part of the park with authority is a rare skill. It’s one of the reasons why Rafael Devers is such an exciting prospect.

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Now combine that all-field power with solid zone control and you’ve got a good hitter. Then combine someone who is has a better batted-ball mix and you might just end up with a great hitter. If Yelich shows more power, which his 6’3″, 195lb figure suggests is there, Yelich will likely be given more free passes. Basically, Yelich has the tools to be that rare hitter than can hit for average and power.

Back to the launch angle which has nearly doubled — FanGraphs Andrew Perpetua recently had an intriguing article advising caution when using Launch Angle. In the article, Andrew writes, “Launch angle is largely dependent on the particular swing and approach of a given batter. If they have an uppercut, then they will produce high launch angles with their high-velocity balls. If they swing down on the ball, then they will have lower launch angles with their high-velocity balls.” Furthermore, Andrew mentions in the comments, “I think launch angle is so intimately tied with swing mechanics that you probably shouldn’t talk about it outside the context of swing mechanics.” This does make sense. Hitters need to alter their bat path to hit the ball at specific angles. Bringing it back to Yelich, we can try to see if he has altered his mechanics. Take the following with a massive grain of salt because it’s only a couple of videos, and I’m no swing expert. From the videos I’ve seen of Yelich, he seems to have a pretty smooth swing path and uses a leg kick for additional power. Here are two of his home runs this year: the first from June 2 against the Diamondbacks and the second from July 26 against the Rangers.

I don’t see a major difference. A bit of a stronger leg kick in the homer against the D’Backs.

In both of these videos, Yelich hits an opposite-field double. Against the Braves, Yelich seems to do a double leg kick. He did this in the next game as well. It’s not something that I’ve seen stick. I’d imagine it might have been due to seeing something he may not have been expecting. Either way, it must’ve been an interesting conversation between Yelich and the hitting coach.

From the limited video evidence, I can’t decipher much. Someone more experienced might want to look into it. The numbers show Yelich very well may have altered his bat path slightly.

One of the criticisms of Yelich was his lack of damage done when pulling the ball. He’s been the fourth-best hitter when going opposite field over the past three calendar years.

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On the plus side, this is another area of improvement for Yelich.

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Christian Yelich could very well remain a ground-ball-heavy hitter and be one of the better hitters in the majors. His plate approach has been lauded for many years to go along with his full-field power. If he is part of the fly-ball revolution, Yelich very well could be one of the best hitters in the game. He’s shown signs of a different approach. With the results to back it up, the rest of the season will give us a glimpse into the hitter that Yelich both wants to be and could be.

In 1912, the now-known as International Association of Athletics Federations recognised the first record in the 100 metres for men in the field of Olympics’ athletics. Donald Lippincott, on July 6, 1912, became the first man to hold an official record on the discipline with a time of 10.2 seconds from start to finish. He measured 5’10’’ and 159 lbs. It wasn’t until 1946 – 34 years later – that a man broke the 10-second barrier in the 100 meters. James Ray Hines did it at 6’0’’ and 179 lbs. Now fast-forward to 2009 and look up a name: Usain Bolt. There is no one faster on Earth. The Jamaican set the 100 metres world record (9.69 seconds) in Berlin holding a size of 6’5’’ and 207 lbs. I don’t think it is hard to see the evolution of the athletes’ bodies here. We, as human beings, are becoming taller and stronger, physically superior each year. At least some.

While we can’t compare the MLB and baseball as is with Olympic athletes and the demands of track and field, the evolution of sportsmen have been parallel to some extent between both fields. Look at this season’s sensation Aaron Judge. He’s huge. He’s a specimen of his own, truly unique in his size and power. Basically, he’s what we may call the evolution of the baseball player made real. Given that we have height and weight data from 1871 to 2017 provided by Baseball-Reference.com we can plot the evolution of both the height and weight of MLB players over the past 146 years. Here are the results.

Unsurprising, if anything. As we could expect, small baseball players populated the majors during the XIX century and the first third of the XX one, only to get reduced to a minimum that has never got past three active players of 67 inches or less for the past 61 years. On the contrary, players taller than 78 inches started to appear prominently in the 60’s and 70’s to reach their most-active peak in 2011 with 72 players spread over multiple MLB rosters. A similar story can be told about the weight of ballplayers, who tended to be lighter in the early days of the game than from the 70’s on, starting to be overcome in presence by heavier players at around the mid-to-late 90’s.

But even with as clear a trend as this is, there are always outliers out there. And in this concrete case of player size, Jose Altuve is defying the rules of evolution by no small margins. At 5’6’’, the Venezuelan is the shortest active MLB player, and he started painting his path to the majors by signing with Houston for a laughable $15,000 international bonus after being rejected earlier by the Astros due to him being too short. This happened in 2007, and by 2011 Jose Altuve was already playing in the MLB and finishing his rookie season with an 0.7 bWAR (good for 5th-best among 21 years old-or-less rookies, tied with RoY Mike Trout). By his second season, Altuve made the All-Star Game, became a staple at Houston’s second-base position and posted a 1.4 bWAR. From that point on he’s had seasons valued at 1.0, 6.1, 4.5, 7.6 and 6.2 bWAR. The next table includes the 20+ bWAR – during their first seven seasons playing in the majors – players of height 5’6’’ or smaller the MLB has seen since 1871.

Look at the debut season of all those players. Of the eight that made the list, two are from the XIX century and five from 1908 to 1941. That is, the closest “small” player with a 20+ bWAR during his first seven seasons of play to Jose Altuve is from more than 75 years ago – and Altuve’s yet to finish the 2017 season, which will probably enlarge his bWAR total.

Focusing on the 2017 season, a total of 1105 position players and pitchers have generated offensive statistical lines and accrued bWAR values by Baseball-Reference.com. Here’s how they are distributed in terms of height/bWAR.

It is not hard to see how the average MLB player holds a height of around 72 inches (6’0’’), varying from 69 to 76 in most of the cases. There way taller (Chris Young, Alex Meyer, Dellin Betances) and way smaller (Tony Kemp, Alexi Amarista) outliers, and if we add bWAR to the equation, then there is Jose Altuve. Yes, Altuve is the blue dot in the chart, at the bottom right part of it. Not only is he the shortest player of the league, but he’s also the most valuable at this point (6.2 bWAR by Sunday, August 6) and by a good margin over his closer rivals Andrelton Simmons (5.7), Paul Goldschmidt (5.5), Aaron Judge (5.1) and Mookie Betts and Anthony Rendon (both 5.0).

Not just happy with that, Altuve is leading the league in hits (151, with just an 11.9 K% – 16th-best among qualified hitters), batting average (.365), OPS+ (176) and total bases (238). He has improved in virtually every statistical category during the current season, participated in his fourth consecutive All-Star Game, led the MVP race in the AL, and he’s on pace to get also his fourth Silver Slugger award at the second-base position. Even with all that, the likes of Judge and Trout are coming and finishing the year strongly, and there are no guarantees for Jose to become the first Venezuelan to win the MVP since Miguel Cabrera did it five years ago in 2012.

All in all, and looking at how his top rivals stack up in terms of size and production, their numbers could be somehow expected. What Altuve is doing at his size, though, not so much. We have been told that we’re living in the era of the strikeout and that of that of the home-run resurrection, but Jose is determined to turn back the clock and make us all appreciate the wonders of small ballplayers roaming the majors’ fields. Appreciate it while you can, because what he’s doing is truly unique in the history of the sport and its evolution expectations, although it doesn’t seem like anything will be stopping Jose “Gigante” Altuve any time soon.

A lot of things have clicked for the Kia Tigers this season, chief among them being their offense’s record production. Kia’s fearsome lineup features three of the Korean Baseball Organization’s top-10 hitters by batting average, and five of the top-20 hitters by wRC+, and is a driving force behind the team’s domination of the standings, currently sitting in a comfortable 1^st place at 64-34-1, five games up on the second-place NC Dinos.

A major force behind the dominance of the Kia offense has been the unexpected emergence of their new center fielder Roger Bernadina, in his first season in the KBO. Just a season ago, Bernadina was toiling in the minor leagues, playing with the Las Vegas 51s, the New York Mets’ Triple-A affiliate.

The difference between the old Bernadina, a failed prospect who played seven partial seasons in Major League Baseball, mostly with the Washington Nationals, and the current Bernadina, who hits leadoff for the Kia Tigers’ offensive juggernaut, is stark.

In less than a fifth of the games played, Bernadina has already accumulated over three times his MLB WAR and hit over half as many home runs (19 to 28). By wRC+ he has been the 16^th most productive player in the KBO this season, and by WAR, he has been the 6^th best position player in the league. On Thursday night he hit for the cycle, becoming only the third foreign player to do so in the KBO. Quite a jump for someone who was a career 81 wRC+ hitter in the MLB.

Which of course begs the question: What’s changed? In less than a season, how has Roger Bernadina improved this much?

It isn’t plate discipline; Bernadina is actually walking slightly less (7.7 percent in the KBO versus 8.2 percent in the MLB) and swinging more (50.3 percent vs 42.1 percent). His strikeouts are down from 21.3 percent in the MLB to 17.4 percent in the KBO, but that change may be more a function of the leagues themselves (the MLB’s higher overall K% means Bernadina’s mark is about league average in both leagues) than any adjustment Bernadina himself has made.

Bernadina also still profiles as the same type of hitter, hitting a majority of his batted balls on the ground, with a moderate preference to pull. He never displayed particularly drastic platoon splits, hitting roughly the same against lefties and righties, and this tendency is also unchanged. Though his batted-ball characteristics would have made him a reasonable shift candidate, shifts were almost never employed against him in the MLB, so his increased numbers in the KBO are also not the result of the KBO’s relative lack of defensive shifts.

The biggest difference is the change in Bernadina’s batting average on balls in play. His current KBO BABIP is .353, a drastic increase from his career MLB BABIP of .288.

On one hand, Bernadina profiles as the type of hitter than might naturally run a higher BABIP. He runs well, having rated as a positive baserunner and base-stealer in both his time in the MLB (59 steals, 83% success rate, 8.9 BsR) and the KBO (21 steals, 81% success), and the fact that he is primarily a ground-ball hitter should give him ample opportunity to take infield hits and run a higher BABIP.

However, his track record shows this to not be the case. BABIP is a statistic that takes a long time to stabilize, and as such his career average is more indicative of him as a player than his current 2017 outlier mark. With no other changes in batted-ball profile or batting approach, Bernadina’s increased BABIP, and by extension increased offensive production, is more likely the result of fortunate circumstances and luck than any real change in skill.

That being said, simply acknowledging that Bernadina has been lucky this season does not diminish his performance. Regardless of whether he is performing to his expected outcomes or not, he has been a productive member at the top of the Kia Tigers’ lineup and, perhaps even more interestingly, has hit better as the season has progressed.

As with most rebuilding teams, the San Diego Padres aren’t in any particular need of a strong bullpen, and they’ve handled this season’s trade deadline accordingly. As of July 30, they’ve already traded away Ryan Buchter and first-half closer Brandon Maurer, and relief ace Brad Hand is expected to follow this offseason. The rest of San Diego’s bullpen is, for the most part, unexceptional; not including Hand, the most-used relievers still on the team are Craig Stammen and Jose Torres, neither of whom have a positive WAR or a FIP under 4.50.

It’s fortunate for San Diego, then, that Kirby Yates has quickly become their most reliable non-Hand option in relief. The team plucked Yates, a relatively unknown 30-year-old Hawaiian right-hander, from the waiver wire in late April, prior to which he’d spent time as a Ray, a Yankee, and, for one inning in 2017, an Angel. Minus a disastrous 2015 season, due in part to a HR/FB ratio of over 30%, both Yates’s FIP and xFIP have consistently been below 4.00. He’s also demonstrated an impressive strikeout ability over the past few years; his K rates in ’14 and ’16 were both approximately 27%, and in 2015, his worst season, he still managed to strike out nearly 23% of batters faced.

Since his move down the California coast in April, though, Yates has emerged into the Padres reliever perhaps most likely to take over the closer role — assuming Hand is dealt as expected (ed. note: oh well) — and has been one of the more unexpectedly impressive relievers of 2017. In prior years, Yates’s terrific strikeout rate was often coupled with a walk rate that was passable at best (7.6% in 2015) and dreadful at worst (10.3% last season). This season has seen progress in both areas — his BB% is down to 6.3%, and he’s struck out over 38% of the batters he’s faced. Yates’s improvements in strikeout and walk percentage have been sufficient to land him among the league leaders in both K%, where he ranks seventh among qualified relievers, and K-BB%, where he ranks fifth, at 31.9%. For reference, Andrew Miller ranks sixth at 31.0%, and other members of the top five are comprised of arguably the best relievers in the game, including Craig Kimbrel and Kenley Jansen.

Of course, it’s a bit premature to tout Yates as a Kimbrel-quality option out of the Padres’ bullpen. He doesn’t have the same electric stuff, or anything near the track record, of his peers on the league leaderboards, and he’s been the beneficiary of a strand rate of almost 91%. At 3.09 and 3.01, his FIP and xFIP, respectively, are also significantly higher than his 2.23 ERA, so there’s a fair bit of evidence to suggest that Yates isn’t as good as his basic stats indicate. With that being said, though, there’s a lot to like about Yates’s performance this year. There’s nothing fluky about a 38% strikeout rate, and his SIERA score, at 2.24, has been far more bullish on Yates than have his FIP and xFIP. So while Yates isn’t necessarily becoming the next great San Diego closer, his improvements this year are far too drastic to be chalked up entirely to luck.

Instead, I believe there are a couple interrelated reasons for Yates’s recent success. In June, Jeff Sullivan wrote about Brewers starter Chase Anderson’s 2017 breakout, noting that Anderson had started shifting his location on the rubber. Against right-handed hitters, Anderson began his wind-up from the far right side of the rubber; this was, as Sullivan explained, about “playing the angles,” adding that Anderson could get his pitches “sweeping away” from these batters.

Yates, it appears, has followed the same line of thinking. Compare the starting point of Yates’s delivery between the past two seasons:

We can also see how much his pitches’ respective routes to home, as illustrated by PITCHf/x, have changed since last season:

Compared with a .283/.372/.457 slash line in 2016,  righties are hitting just .171/.227/.305 against him this year, with a .227 wOBA and .224 xwOBA. With Yates’s new starting point on the rubber, his pitches have been able to more effectively “sweep away” from right-handed batters, since they start significantly farther to the right, and he’s seen excellent results against righties in particular. This effect, I believe, has been a significant contributor to Yates’s success. As the above graph indicates, his fastball and slider travel most toward the outer section of the plate, which may be giving right-handed hitters more difficulty in the batter’s box.

However, that’s not the only interesting development regarding Yates’s slider. According to PITCHf/x, he’s throwing roughly four percent more sliders against right-handers, and his fastball usage has declined by roughly the same amount. His slider hasn’t spun the same this year as it has in the past, either: according to PITCHf/x, the pitch’s spin rate has risen from 594 to 1,962 RPM this season. (I should note that Baseball Savant sees a negligible difference in the average spin rate of Yates’s slider, so there may be an error in the data.) Regardless, it’s hard to deny that the pitch’s movement has changed:

As evidenced by the wide spread in 2017, Yates’s slider still seems like a work in progress, but it’s clear that the pitch has taken on some new movement. FanGraphs, through PITCHf/x, scores his slider’s xMov as having shifted from 1.4 to -2.2, indicating that the pitch has actually begun moving toward right-handed batters. This doesn’t invalidate the merits of Yates’s shift on the mound, though — the new angle might still be affecting how righties pick up his pitches, and the majority of his sliders do tend toward the outer half of the plate, thus still “sweeping away” from the batters.

Yates briefly spoke on his slider in a May interview with Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union Tribune, saying the pitch was “getting back to where it used to be.” I found this a curious phrase for Yates to use, seeing as how the pitch has done anything but revert back to its old movement. His next sentence, however, may answer this question. Yates says he’s “incorporated a splitter that [he] feels pretty confident in,” and later mentions that over the offseason, he developed the pitch as a sort of contingency plan against an occasionally less-than-trustworthy slider.

I’m not very familiar with the inner workings of PITCHf/x, but it seems possible that the system could be classifying some of Yates’s new splitters as sliders. Not only would this account for the change in his slider’s horizontal movement, but it’d also explain Yates’s description of the pitch. Overall, though, I believe Yates’s newfound success can largely be attributed to the above adjustments he made over the offseason. He may not become the next Trevor Hoffman, but Yates has shown the Padres more than enough to feel a bit more comfortable with their bullpen, even after Brad Hand is dealt this winter.

Anthony Rizzo is hitting just .257 this year with a .242 BABIP. A fantasy-league mate of mine proclaimed “Rizzo sucks this year” after a recent trade. However, the only thing I can see that’s changed is his BABIP. He’s on pace for 106 RBI and 95 runs after totaling 109 RBI and 94 runs last season. His ISO is an identical .252. For all intents and purposes, he’s the same hitter, except he’s missing some hits. My league-mate chalked this up to “he’s getting shifted more” or “he’s worse hitting against the shift.”

One of those two things is correct. Rizzo has faced a shift in 85.7% of his plate appearances this year, which isn’t different from the 85.5% he faced last season. Rizzo is, however, hitting only .247 on balls in play when facing the shift (.214 when not shifted) this year. This is a 54-point swing in BABIP from a year ago (.301 while shifted; .359 when not shifted). This amounts to 13 missing hits thus far this year against the shift (and six more when not shifted). For the purposes of this article I want to focus on the missing hits against the shift.

What we have here is the symptom of something that’s going on when Rizzo is hitting this year that wasn’t happening as much last year, so I started sniffing around for other major changes in the Rizzo data. One thing that popped into my head was that the Cubs offense, especically the top of the order, has been getting on base much less this year than last year. That led me to thinking about what the defense looks like when there are runners on base versus when the bases are empty.

For a reference point, this is a typical shift against Rizzo with no one on base:

With only a runner on first base, the shift is the same, but with the obvious addition of the 1B holding the runner on.

In 2016 Rizzo batted with runners on base in ~55% of his plate appearances and ~32% of the time with runners in scoring position. In 2017 those numbers have dropped to ~45% and ~24%.

While I don’t have Rizzo-specific defensive placements for all his batted balls in play, I did compare his spray charts from last year and this year and noticed two very empty spots.

The first spot is just behind the second-base bag, where the SS typically lines up in the over-shift against Rizzo. In 102 games this year, Rizzo has yet to collect a hit to this part of the field, while he had six hits within this area of the field last year and a few more just behind it to the opposite-field side. Using the FG splits tool we can see Rizzo has an .054 AVG in this area of the field this year vs. .333 from a year ago.

The second empty spot is where you’d find line drives to the opposite field falling in before the left fielder. This led me to look into Rizzo’s batted-ball distribution to the pull side and opposite-field side for both ground balls and line drives. As you’ll see, Rizzo is going to the opposite field ~5% less on his ground balls, and non-oppo GBs turn into outs more frequently for Rizzo due to the shift.

Rizzo is hitting .140 this year on ground balls to the left or up the middle, against a .345 mark from a year ago. This accounts for eight of his 13 missing hits. Another three hits are accounted for from luck against the shift on the pull side. The remaining two missing hits are from a slight change in batted-ball distribution on line drives to the opposite field. At the end of the day, I don’t think anything has changed with Rizzo outside normal variance in various batted-ball outcomes.

Yankee southpaw Jordan Montgomery is having a a capable rookie season at age 24, with a 3.92 ERA and 4.07 FIP over 108 innings, both good for second among qualifying rookie starters (although to be fair, there are only four). Montgomery has solid strikeout and walk rates of 8.25/9 and 2.75/9, respectively, and if he’s given up a few too many homers (1.25/9), well, so has pretty much everyone else this year. So far, so encouraging, especially for a guy who eluded the top 100 prospects lists, but Montgomery is going about it in a highly unusual way. Just 42.4% of his pitches have been fastballs this year, the fifth-lowest rate in the majors among qualifying starters.

Throwing fastballs is a young man’s game. No other under-25 pitcher has used the fastball less than 50% of the time this season. The next such pitcher down the fastball rarity list from Montgomery is teammate Luis Severino, (25th on the list) who throws his heat just with just over a 51% frequency. In fact, none of the other bottom-10 fastball users are under 28.

While career development can take many different paths, pitchers tend to throw more fastballs early in their careers and fewer as they age. Kershaw’s career, for example, follows this pattern almost exactly, while Adam Wainwright’s is somewhat similar, though his (low) fastball usage this year is somewhat higher than last year’s. It’s unusual in the current era to see a young pitcher come up and have sustained success throwing fastballs so infrequently.

Over the last five years, just 20 pitchers have used the fastball less frequently than Montgomery has this year, 15 of whom are (or were, in the case of the retirees) starters. Only two of the active pitchers are under 30: Cleveland reliever Bryan Shaw (29) and yet another Yankee, Masahiro Tanaka (28). (The perceptive reader perhaps will have divined that the Yankees staff as a whole has the lowest fastball usage in the majors.)

On the surface, Montgomery’s reluctance to cook with gas is understandable: his gas is flammable. According to FanGraphs pitch values, Montgomery’s curve and changeup are among the ten best in all the land, while his fastball is down at 50th. So Montgomery might be excused for being gun shy (that actually is a pun — it’s okay to laugh!), but as noted above, very few young pitchers have survived to baseball middle age by so assiduously avoiding the fastball. If Montgomery is to have long-term success, he will either need to bushwhack a hitherto unblazed career trail, or figure out a way to keep hitters honest with a few more fastballs.

For an example of the latter course, consider Corey Kluber. When he arrived in The Show he had a somewhat similar pitching profile to Montgomery’s: a very hittable fastball that he was reluctant to throw, coupled with other, more promising pitches (in Kluber’s case, the the cutter was initially the best, followed by the curve and then the change). According to pitch values, Kluber’s heater was quite a bit worse than Montgomery’s is now, and Kluber accordingly suffered during his first two seasons in 2011 and 2012. FIP saw his potential, however: Kluber’s best ERA in those formative seasons was 5.19, but his worst FIP was 4.29.

In the next two seasons, Kluber would cut almost two full runs off that FIP, on his way to a Cy Young Award in 2014. Four significant changes helped postpone the start of Kluber’s broadcasting career. First, he added velo, which rose from 92.0 in 2011 to 93.2 in 2013. Second, perhaps because of the additional speed, he threw fastballs more often. Much more often, rising from around 43% in his first two years to 53% in 2013. Third, he correspondingly reduced changeup usage, from 16.5% in 2012 all the way down to 4.8% in 2014. Fourth, perhaps because of this simplified approach, his curve went from being spotty in 2012 to a wipeout pitch in 2014.

Kluber thus became the ace on a World Series pitching staff. He would go on to top 50% fastball usage every year until now, when it has once again slipped to 45%. His fastball has never been a dominant pitch, but it effectively sets up his curve and cutter, which are. As he’s aged, Kluber has given back his velocity gains, but so far that has not significantly eroded his overall effectiveness.

No player’s career is a perfect template for another, but Kluber’s rapid evolution at the major-league level suggests some steps Montgomery could take to remain in the Yankees’ rotation. Efforts to enhance velocity don’t always end well, but Montgomery’s velo (91.9) is just about where Kluber’s was before he began his ascent, and it doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that Montgomery could add 1 mph or so to his heater, thereby making him more willing to throw it. If he’s more afraid of his fastball than the hitters are, success will likely elude him. Of course, almost every pitcher would like to find an extra mile per hour in between the couch cushions, but in Montgomery’s case that may be closer to a need than a want.

If Montgomery throws more fastballs, he could also throw fewer sliders. Though not a bad pitch, it is the weakest of his other offerings and the one he already throws least frequently (12%). Largely scrapping it would enable to focus on developing and using his curve and change, which are the pitches that will essentially determine whether the Yankees ever have a Jordan Montgomery Bobblehead Night. Coupled with a more effective fastball, these pitches could become devastating.

To be sure, top prospects drive the bus — out of the 2016 Cleveland Spiders 27+ WAR, around 16 came from four former top-50 prospects (Francisco Lindor, Carlos Santana, Jason Kipnis, and Lonnie Baseball). Two former top-50 pitchers (Trevor Bauer and Carlos Carrasco) contributed just over 5 of the around 19 WAR that the staff produced. But teams need to get value from their unheralded players as well. In 2016, Kluber’s 5.1 WAR essentially equaled Bauer and Carrasco’s combined.

The Yankees are certainly far more important to Jordan Montgomery than vice-versa, but his performance thus far suggests that he is more than a fringe rotation member; he may be a fringe impact starter. The rotation is the weakest link in a Yankees team that otherwise looks poised to compete for the AL East crown for years to come. It’s easy to imagine that only Severino will have been in both the 2017 and 2018 opening-day rotations. Even if Chance Adams and Justus Sheffield can progress quickly enough to make an impact next year, the Yankees will need help that lies beyond the glow of the top-prospect campfire. Jordan Montgomery could be that help if he can learn to love the fastball.

The Colorado Rockies have been one of the biggest surprises this season with a 58-45 record, after going 75-87 last season. Currently, FanGraphs gives them a 64.8 % chance of making the playoffs as a wild-card team. Despite an offense that ranks 29th with a wRC+ of 83, their defense and baserunning have been strong suits, with the eighth-ranked defense and fifth-ranked baserunning. Their pitching staff has been around the middle of the pack (24th in ERA, 19th in FIP, 17th in xFIP) but this is a huge feat while pitching half of their games at the hitter’s heaven of Coors Field. This year, success has come in the form of a young starting rotation that ranks fourth in ground-ball percentage (48.6) and 11th in HR/9 (1.27) among all starting rotations. That’s right, while playing half of their games at Coors Field, the starting rotation has given up fewer HR/9 than 19 teams. Much of the credit for this success goes to rookie left-hander and ground-ball machine Kyle Freeland.

Taken eighth overall in the 2014 draft out of the University of Evansville, Freeland spent two and a half seasons in the minors that included him missing time in 2015 with a shoulder injury, before being called up to start the 2017 season in the Rockies’ rotation. To date, Freeland has thrown 116.1 innings with a 3.64 ERA and a 4.71 FIP while having the third-highest ground-ball rate (57.0 %) among qualified pitchers, to produce 1.4 WAR. What immediately sticks out about Freeland is the huge difference between his ERA and FIP. While FIP is typically higher than ERA for ground-ball pitchers, Freeland is still an extreme case, with his -1.07 ERA – FIP. Like most ground-ball pitchers, he doesn’t get many strikeouts or swings and misses; his 14.4 K% is the third-lowest among the 71 qualified starters, and his swinging-strike rate of 6.9 % is the lowest among qualified starters. However, unlike most ground-ball pitchers, Freeland walks a ton of guys; his 8.8 BB% is 15th-highest among qualified starters. And even more unlikely, while pitching at Coors, he’s allowed the 17th-fewest HR/9 (1.01) to go with a .281 BABIP.

Now it’s time to take a look at the stuff behind those results. Freeland features primarily a three-pitch mix of a four-seam fastball, sinker, and cutter, while also possessing a slider and changeup. His four-seam and sinker are his two best pitches (and only two pitches he has with a positive pitch value according to FanGraphs). As a left-handed pitcher, Freeland has above-average velocity on his fastball, averaging 92.8 MPH with his four-seam and 92.0 MPH with his sinker. Both of these pitches have above average arm-side run and sink, with his four-seam averaging 5.75 inches of horizontal movement with 6.34 inches of vertical movement (it really means that this pitch, on average, drops 6.34 inches less than a pitch thrown at the same velocity with no spin) and his sinker averaging 7.92 inches of horizontal movement and 3.51 inches of vertical movement (the lower the number, the more sink a pitch has).

His fastball and sinker both have above-average sink, but his sinker actually has less horizontal movement than an average sinker and is more of a two-seam/sinker hybrid (Statcast categorizes it as a two-seam while the folks over at Brooks Baseball classify it as a sinker). Yet both of these pitches generate a ton of ground balls and combined are used 65.8 % of the time by Freeland, which is the third-highest FB% among qualified starters. On the other hand, Freeland throws his cutter 20.5 % of the time at an average of 86.9 MPH with -0.46 inches of horizontal movement, to go with 3.18 inches of vertical movement. Due to this vertical movement, Statcast (differing from Brooks Baseball once again) classifies the cutter as a slider despite its low horizontal movement. Freeland’s cutter is truly a cutter/slider hybrid as it has a lot of tilt (like a slider) but doesn’t have much horizontal movement (like a cutter).

The way he uses this arsenal varies greatly when facing left-handed hitters and right-handed hitters. Against righties, Freeland throws his sinker 37.1 % of the time, his four-seam 30.7 % of the time, and his cutter 17.1 % of the time. The idea here is to mix in the sinker thrown down and away with a four-seam thrown in, and a cutter thrown either down and in or over the outer edge of the plate as a backdoor pitch. Against lefties, Freeland throws his four-seam 44.4 % of the time, his sinker 14.0 % of the time, and his cutter 33.0% of the time. Just like against righties, Freeland throws these pitches in the same areas of the zone, throwing his four-seam to his glove side, sinker to his arm side, and cutter to both sides. However, all that changes is how much he uses each pitch. Against both righties and lefties, Freeland pounds the lower outer half, but isn’t afraid to come back inside, usually up and in. This mix is tough for hitters on either side of the plate as these three different pitches all come from the same arm slot and start off heading in the same direction, but break off in different directions, allowing Freeland to miss the middle of bats and generate ground balls. This arsenal has also allowed Freeland to be almost equally effective against righties and lefties. Although it is a small sample, he has faced 102 lefties that have produced a slash of .271/.317/.409, good for a .310 wOBA, and 398 righties that have produced a slash of .253/.345/.398, good for a .324 wOBA.

Only 24, Freeland remains in the early stages of his career, and a sample of only 116.1 innings is nothing. Although he has gotten soft contact at a 25.0% rate, which is the best in the league, we can probably still expect some regression on balls in play. However, since Freeland is a pitcher that relies on the ground ball, his ERA will most likely not regress all the way up to his FIP, especially with strong infield defense behind him. The biggest issue for him to fix in order to sustain his success will be his walk rate. With his high fastball usage, Freeland has no excuse to continue to walk guys, and increased control should come as he ages. Most importantly, the Rockies will be leaning on him as they make a push for their first postseason appearance since 2009. Best-case scenario, Freeland becomes a fixture in the Rockies rotation as their new prototype for success at Coors Field, and leads them into the postseason for the first time since Ubaldo Jimenez was their ace. Worst-case scenario, Freeland experiences extreme regression as his high walk rate and lack of strikeouts come back to haunt him. Based on his stuff and pedigree, Freeland appears to have what it takes to stay in the rotation down the road, but if not, there will always be a role for him in the bullpen, where he can go and throw 75 % fastballs (or more) while generating a ton of ground balls (a la Scott Alexander). Either way, he looks like he can have big-league success while pitching in the big league’s toughest ballpark.

In the 2014 offseason, many free agents changed teams, some even changed leagues. Hiroki Kuroda went back to Japan to pitch for his hometown team, the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, while the Yankees got an upgrade (when healthy) in Masahiro Tanaka on a seven-year, $155-million deal (with a $20-million posting fee that they spent to talk to him), which he can opt out of after this season.

There was a second pitcher who was almost as good as Tanaka, who had worse stuff but excellent command. He also had some injury concerns after his 2011 injury where he missed a few starts, and in 2012 where only pitched nine starts, albeit with 63 1/3 IP in those starts though. Heading into the 2014 offseason, he had two excellent seasons, with ERAs of around 2 in 2013 and 2014, pitching 223 1/3 IP, with 200 strikeouts and 58 walks allowed, then 191 IP with 199 K and only 42 BB respectively in those seasons. He had a 1.98 ERA in those 191 innings in 2014, and a 2.01 ERA in 2013, generating interest from big-league teams and making an appearance in Bradley Woodrum’s article as a pitcher of note that might come over. He ultimately re-signed with the Orix Buffaloes on a four-year deal.

The injury bug bit him again in 2015 as he pitched in 16 starts, throwing 93 IP, and he had a lower strikeout rate than he had in 2013 and 2014 (7.6 K/9) with an ERA of 3.19. He pitched in 2016 and had a mostly healthy season, save for a declining strikeout rate (6.9 K/9) and an increased walk rate (3.3 BB/9), with an ERA of 3.83 in 162 IP. This year his strikeouts (5.7 K/9) and walks (3.0 BB/9) have stayed bad, with a slightly better 3.57 ERA in 116 IP.

What has caused this drastic downturn in performance? It seems that some of his downturn is because he’s getting older, but that doesn’t explain his increased walk rate or his severe decrease in strikeouts. Most of this is likely due to injuries he sustained in the 2015 season. And given that he hasn’t gotten better, it seems as if he’s been pitching despite an injury which has been sapping his effectiveness. He went from being as good as Alex Cobb was in 2014 (considering the thought of the average active hitter in Japan being slightly better than AAA quality) to performing like Ervin Santana this year.

He was a great pitcher with some downside, like Jered Weaver was, but Kaneko hasn’t declined that far yet. Weaver is too bad to even be on an MLB team until he gets medical help to fix his hip and/or shoulder. Weaver is one of the other pitchers who had declined that quickly. So far, he hasn’t rebounded and has continued to get worse, worse than he was last year when he was the second-worst pitcher qualified for the ERA title. It appears that Weaver is virtually unfixable. I think that Kaneko’s issues can be fixed, though, and if they are fixed, he could be an interesting buy-low opportunity.

After the 2014 season, if I were Dayton Moore (armchair GM ideas away), I would’ve signed him to a three-year, $30-million deal with lots of incentives, which could’ve raised the value to $51 million if all were reached. And I think he would’ve done quite well; we might not have this article at all. I must digress, as what-ifs are all around us. (Look at Yordano Ventura, who died far too young with so much untapped potential left.)

He looks like a potential project for the Pirates if he can show signs of improvement in his performance and peripheral stats. The Pirates and Ray Searage could definitely turn Kaneko into something of value, like they did with A.J. Burnett, Edinson Volquez, JA Happ, Ivan Nova, Juan Nicasio, Joel Hanrahan, Mark Melancon, Tony Watson and more. There’s a good amount of upside in trying for this — some prospects that can help the team in the future.

Here is a link to his player page so you can see it for yourself and make your own conclusions about him, and what he can do to remedy himself.

I don’t own any stats used; all stats are from either FanGraphs or the NPB website linked above.

Last week I offered a poll in the Community Blog. The poll compared three anonymous players — Frank, Tom, and Dan, asking: which player would you rather have for the rest of the season?

The descriptions of each player provided a brief background of their performance in the first half of this season, some non-relevant details of how they have been described by others, and their history of performance, to the extent that there was any. Additionally, the poll provided the major-league averages of certain offensive statistics for the first half of this season. These stats were comparable to the stats given about the individual players.

The poll was not meant to take defense into account and the descriptions were quiet on any defensive characteristics of the players, including the position they played. There was also no indication that one player was more susceptible to injury than another. Therefore, the poll selection should have been focused solely on the player’s offensive potential for the second half of this season.

I came into the poll thinking that Dan is the player I would prefer to have for the rest of the season. I started leaning towards Tom as responses to the poll came in. I never considered Frank a viable option.

After doing some research, I think all three players are viable options. However, I think Tom stands above the rest and resembles the closest thing to an objective choice when faced with a decision to take only one of these players for the rest of the season. Before explaining why, the results of the poll can be found here. Here is a summary of the 62 responses:

Question 1: Which Player Would You Rather Have For The Rest of This Season?

Dan: 37.1% (23)

Frank: 32.3% (20)

Tom: 30.6% (19)

Question 2: What Best Describes You?

I am a professional. I get paid to assess baseball players for a team, media, or other company: 3% (2)

I am extremely knowledgeable in sabermetric analytics, but not a professional: 22% (13)

I am knowledgeable in sabermetric analytics: 53% (31)

I am familiar with sabermetric concepts: 22% (13)

No Response: (3)

The Analysis of Dan

There are likely three scenarios you have in mind if you would choose Dan for the rest of the season. They all revolve around the idea that he will likely perform at a level that he has over the course of his career or above that level, bringing his total season number closer to his career average.

Below are the results of the three likely scenarios you could play out in your mind when you choose Dan.

The “Good” result is Dan performing at career averages.

The “Better” result is Dan performing 50% better or worse than his under-/over-performance in the first half of the season, on top of his career averages. For example, Dan’s BABIP of .234 was .067 points lower than his career average. Therefore, his BABIP in this scenario is .0335 better than his career average of .301, bringing it to .334 in this scenario. Conversely, his BB% was 1.6% better in the first half, so in this projection it would be .08% worse than his career average, or 6.2%.

The “Best” result is Dan performing 100% better or worse than his under-/over-performance in the first half of the season, on top of his career average. For example, his .234 BABIP, .067 point lower than his career average, is reversed completely in this projection, where his BABIP is .368. His 1.6% improvement on his career BB% is reversed completely, and his BB% is projected to be 5.4%. 

The Analysis of Tom

The analysis for Tom isn’t quite as complicated. That may be why you chose Tom.

Tom’s numbers are very close to his career averages. The three likely scenarios you have for Tom were probably one where he hits at his career averages, one where he hits as he did in the first half, or one where he performs as Dan did in the “best” case scenario, described above.

This is what those three scenarios look like:

The Analysis of Frank

The analysis of Frank is the most difficult because we have very little information about what we should expect from him. You should be confident that, despite his first half, he will not go on to have one of the luckiest and best baseball seasons in history, only because those seasons are extremely rare.

The prospect of someone having something good happen over 50% of the time his bat touches the ball is untenable. So is Frank’s .427 BABIP, which you could have backed into or just ballparked by the numbers given. In light of the league averages, and our general knowledge of baseball, we know that these results are on the extreme of a spectrum and are a product of a great talent coupled with a large amount of luck.

So, these numbers tell us Frank is talented and that he has been really lucky, but we have no context of historical performance to place that talent and luck in. Therefore, I thought the following three scenarios would be most appropriate for Frank.

The “League Average” scenario, where Frank’s performance reverts to league average for the rest of the season. These numbers coupled with his first-half numbers still result in an impressive rookie season.

The “Towards Average” scenario, where Frank’s  performance comes back toward, but not all the way to the league average. In this scenario I have brought all his numbers back half-way. Therefore, his 30% strikeout rate, 8.6% above league average, is scaled back to 25.7%, which is 4.3% lower than it was during the first half of the season.

The “Best” case scenario, where Frank’s performance from the first half of the season continues.

Which Player Would I Rather Have For the Rest of The Season?

I’d imagine everyone knew Frank was Aaron Judge. The other two may have been more mysterious, but Tom is Giancarlo Stanton and Dan is Manny Machado.

The one scenario that I didn’t account for in my analysis is things going very poorly for any of these players in the second half. That is a real possibility, but it’s unlikely things will get much worse than what I projected for these players (I’ll discuss that a little more for each player below).

I thought Machado would be the best answer when I created the poll. A lot of that was based on bias, not the information given. Machado’s most recent seasons have been much better than his career averages suggest. That probably shaded my thoughts about how he would perform for the rest of this season. In reality, the career numbers look right, particularly in light of the struggles Machado faced in the first half of the season, which is factored into those career numbers.

I mentioned the lack of exploration of a “worst” case scenario above. In my opinion, the projection for Machado is most vulnerable to this omission. I don’t think the vulnerability is that large, though. Machado’s .234 BABIP is on the opposite, yet nearly as extreme, end of the spectrum as Aaron Judge’s .427 BABIP. While it’s possible that the bad luck continues, it’s probable it does not. The BABIP number from the first half says a lot more about luck, not Machado’s talent level.

Machado’s main issue, in a comparison with these players, is that his best-case scenario is needed to get him in the conversation. The mean wOBA of his three scenarios is .358, which is very good, but it’s not on the level of the others. His wOBA in the best scenario is .380. It is a level where the risk is not worth the reward (in the context of this poll).

In actuality, Machado has another asset: he is a very good third baseman, but for purposes of this poll that is irrelevant. Based on this, Manny Machado is not the player I would want for the rest of the season.

I’m an Aaron Judge skeptic. I think he’s likely to remain an All-Star player, but I don’t think he is one of the best players ever.  The average wOBA of his three scenarios is .386, with a high of .468 in the “best” scenario, replicating his first-half performance. The potential of such high performance tempers the risk of Judge’s floor of a .314 wOBA laid out in the “League Average” scenario.

There are a lot of scenarios that I’m leaving out here. I have brought all of Judge’s numbers down to league average, or half-way to league average. That predicts regression in areas such as BABIP and power, but it also attributes a fake ability to not swing and miss to Judge.  However, even if we said that the “League Average” scenario has a 20% chance of happening, the “Towards Average” scenario has a 70% chance of happening, and the “Best” has a 10% chance of happening, Judge’s average wOBA would be .374. This does not necessarily eliminate the issue of attributing “fake” qualities to Judge, but those “fake” qualities run both ways, as the “League Average” scenario severely underestimates his ability to hit home runs and draw walks. Either way, I hesitantly will take Aaron Judge over Manny Machado for the rest of the year.

That leaves Stanton. Why is he the best bet? Because he is not much of a gamble at all. Stanton is performing very close to his career averages, if not a shade under many of them. His projected scenarios reflect this. Stanton is close enough to his career averages that it’s not unreasonable to believe he can perform above those averages in the second half of this season and create a season meeting his career averages. It’s certainly not an unreasonable thought that he will close out the year performing in line with his career averages, nor is it unreasonable to think that his first half represents a new, slightly lower level of baseline performance for Stanton. All of this adds up to very little uncertainty. The average wOBA of the three scenarios is .385. If you had to take one of these player for this second half of the season you would take Stanton. He’s much of the upside and none of the downside. You know what’s coming and it’s going to be very good to great.

Notes:

• These projections aren’t very scientific or complex. They are based on three scenarios that come to mind and then a basic application of standard baseball stats.
• I used wOBA to measure the players projected success in the scenarios laid out. This version of wOBA does not account for the value of  a stolen base, caught stealing, hit by pitch, or sacrifice fly. I used the 2017 weights from FanGraphs’ GUTS to calculate wOBA. I used the weights that were available around July 21st.
• I projected how many hits were singles, doubles, and triples by determining the percentage of non-home-run hits that were singles, doubles, and triples, respectively, between 2012-2016 and applying that percentage to each player’s overall hits (which is calculated using BABIP).
• I projected home runs using HR/PA.

Thank you to everyone that voted in the poll!