Caleb Smith will likely be one of the names you’ll hear a lot as we close in on the trade deadline. It is not a foregone conclusion, but the Marlins probably won’t be playing meaningful games in late September. Derek Jeter and Co. make no bones about their willingness to trade talent, and Smith, who turns 28 years old three days before the deadline, might be the best trade chip Miami will have.

Smith is still in pre-arbitration and could be very appealing to a contender with budget concerns looking to add an arm. Depending on where the emerging staff ace might land, Smith could serve as a strong No. 2 or No. 3 starter. Should the Marlins make him available, what could Smith provide, and would he be worth the haul Miami may ask for?

Smith landed on the injured list back in early June and returned to the Marlins rotation on July 6th. He went six innings and gave up three earned runs on five hits with six strikeouts and one walk, earning his first victory since May 1st. He had a great first half, striking out at least six hitters in 10 of his 12 starts and currently stands ninth overall in K-rate at 31.5% (min 70 IP).

Smith works with three pitches — a four-seam fastball, a slider, and a changeup. His overall called-strike plus whiff rate (CSW) for all three is 31% (28% is average).

The most-used pitch in his repertoire is the four-seamer (48.6%), which sits in the 39th percentile for velocity alongside a higher-than-average spin rate (80th percentile). It gets some decent vertical break with a lot of horizontal action as a result of its 138-degree average spin axis. Read the rest of this entry »

In late June, Austin Adams entered a game for the Mariners against the Brewers with the reigning National League MVP, Christian Yelich, at the plate. He caught Yelich looking at an 89-mph slider for strike three before using that same slider on Ryan Braun and Mike Moustakas to get swinging strikeouts. He induced a groundout by Jesus Aguilar to finish his outing for the night. Navigating that part of the Brewers lineup is no easy task for any reliever, yet Adams almost effortlessly racked up three punchouts while facing only the four batters. That gave Adams four straight relief appearances with three or more strikeouts, part of a dominant stretch that saw him strike out 25 over 12.1 scoreless frames. On a struggling Mariners team, Adams has emerged as one of the lone bright spots. Soon, he could become the next elite bullpen arm in baseball.

Adams could also become the next name on a growing list of valuable relievers the Nationals have traded away in recent years. Felipe Vazquez and Blake Treinen have been reliable and at times elite closers for the their respective new teams. On May 4th, the Nationals traded Adams to the Mariners for Nick Wells and cash considerations. The trade came shortly after the Nationals designated Adams for assignment on April 29th. Starved for relievers and sporting MLB’s second-worst bullpen ERA of 6.29 and fifth-worst FIP of 4.89, the Nationals might have let another elite reliever slip away.

Since debuting with the Mariners on April 20th, Adams has been masterful. The 28-year-old right-hander, an eighth-round selection by the Angels out of the University of South Florida back in 2012, has a K/9 of over 15 and a K% of 43.9% through 24.1 innings pitched on the year thus far. He’s pitched his way to a 2.46 FIP and 2.28 xFIP, both of which come in well under his ERA of 3.70 (he was mostly recently charged with three runs on July 3 after leaving the bases loaded and having all runs score after he exited the game). In 36.2 innings in 2019, which includes his Triple-A numbers at Fresno and Tacoma, he’s served up just two home runs. At every level of professional baseball he’s pitched in since 2014, he’s accumulated a K/9 north of 12, including a 15.15 K/9 and a 1.93 FIP in 2018 while at Triple-A Syracuse in the Nationals organization. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2018 season was a messy one for Gary Sanchez, with an offensive showing that was among the worst in Yankees history, with not a lot of time for him to get into a good rhythm due to many injuries he suffered throughout the season. The 2018 season was also notable for Sanchez with a late-July controversy about his hustle after he failed to run out a ground ball on a misplay that ended the game. Most notable, however, was the great amount of passed balls and wild pitches that Sanchez allowed. Of all catchers to play at least 600 innings in the field in 2018, Sanchez led the pack with 18 passed balls despite playing only 653 innings at catcher, particularly notable because the top catchers in the league can play 1,000 or more innings at catcher in a single season.

Watching Sanchez in the field this season, that issue has seemed to resolve itself, as Sanchez is better than the league average for catchers this season in passed balls and wild pitches allowed. Seeing this improvement, I developed a theory about Sanchez that I was eager to test as the sample of innings got larger. Basically, I began to wonder if Sanchez has been so focused on improving his pitch blocking that he has begun to sacrifice pitch framing and if this change has made Sanchez an overall better defender than he was in 2018. Now, nobody from the Yankees or Sanchez himself has stated that this is the case, and it is good to see improvement from him in this area, but I wanted to know if these improvements are helping him overall. Passed balls are ugly and fans hate to see them because they are so visible and can directly cost a team runs, but framing is an important part of catching, and the impact of good framing can cancel out most blocking deficiencies.

Sanchez was an above-average framer last season, and despite his bad blocking, he was considered a better overall defender than guys like Brian McCann, Salvador Perez, and Francisco Cervelli by the Baseball Prospectus Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) metric. His -1.4 FRAA in 2018 ranked as not-great-but-not-bad at 85th out 117 catchers, while at the midpoint of the 2019 season, Sanchez and his -7.6 FRAA ranks 87th out of 91 catchers in the same metric. Knowing this, I felt like I could test out my theory. Read the rest of this entry »

Simply put, Chris Devenski has not pitched well in 2019. He’s currently sporting a 4.60 ERA and 4.59 FIP in 31 1/3 innings this season. It is also unfortunately a continuation of his struggles from last season. Do I even dare say it is going back to the second half of 2017? For a pitcher who was considered a key cog in the Astros’ bullpen only two years ago, the decline has been sharp for Devenski.

We’ve witnessed Devenski’s ERA noticeably worsen every season since his major league debut in 2016. In his rookie season with the Astros, we saw the former White Sox farmhand post a 2.16 ERA in 108 1/3 innings. He also finished fourth in the AL Rookie of the Year voting that year. The right-hander then made his first All-Star Game in 2017, which culminated with a 2.68 ERA in 80 2/3 innings and a World Series championship ring. If there were any warning signs with the right-hander in 2017, it was the roughly 10% jump in home run per fly ball rate. Devenski was still a quality reliever, however, in only his second season in the majors. Fast forward to 2018 and we saw more issues begin to emerge. Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday night baseball is such a great thing. Yes, I may fall asleep around the sixth or seventh inning, but I tend to fall asleep to baseball, which is nice. It’s such a summer feeling for me to have the window open, the summer breeze blowing in, and talk of baseball in the background. On June 9, the Cubs were aggressive early on the base paths. At one point, with Kyle Schwarber on first base and Kris Bryant at the plate, Bryant hit what would typically be a routine single to left-center. ​Now, with the Cardinals and the Cubs fighting it out for the top spot in the division, you saw an aggressive approach by Schwarber. Did mastermind Joe Maddon have that all planned and ready? Did he tell his team to run on Marcell Ozuna? Well, if so, maybe he (or his team of data scientists and analysts) was evaluating the rARM statistic.

Part 1: The Stat – Throwing Arm Runs Saved

A player’s total Throwing Arm Runs Saved is then the sum of our three halves: flyballs Runs Saved + groundballs Runs Saved + Miscellaneous Kills Runs Saved.

– The Fielding Bible Read the rest of this entry »

2019 has seen the arrival of numerous high-grade prospects — including the obvious juniors of Vlad and Fernando Tatis, as well as Nick Senzel, Austin Riley, et al, and more prized pieces of the way. Zac Gallen is name you probably hadn’t heard too much of until this year, other than he was one of the central pieces in the Marcell Ozuna trade last offseason. After going 9-1 over 91.1 IP with a 1.77 ERA in the Pacific Coast League (Triple-A) in 2019, he finally got called up for his Marlins debut.

Starting in St. Louis against the Cardinals, the team that originally drafted him, he managed to hold them to just one run on five hits, scattering two walks and six strikeouts through his five innings pitched. It wasn’t the most efficient start, as he needed 99 pitches to get through five frames of action, but for a 23-year old making his MLB debut, it was a good line.

We’ll get back to his debut, but let’s focus on his dominance at Triple-A. In addition to the 9-1 record and that gaudy 1.77 ERA, Gallen also amassed an impressive K:BB ratio of 112:17. Needless to say, he put up a ridiculous start to his season, which is saying something considering the state of the PCL this year, but his deeper analytical numbers, which we’ll get to in a moment, are also off the charts. Amidst Gallen’s great run to begin 2019, he also created a profile very similar to that of a very-well-known, extremely successful MLB pitcher. Before I reveal who it is, let’s look at the numbers and how they compare. To understand the similarities, lets first take a look at the context for each, and see how their body of work for 2019 has shaped up thus far (through the 21st of June): Read the rest of this entry »

The Evil Empire is no more.

Throughout history, the Yankees have been portrayed as Major League Baseball’s chief oppressor, needlessly feasting on the weaker, less financially able organizations. For the most part, they’ve fit the bill, never shying away from adding megastars like Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez, and CC Sabathia, and thus annually accumulating a payroll much richer than the rest of the league.

Factor in a staggering 27 World Series Championships and it’s not hard to see why opposing teams are a tad resentful. But times have changed.

The 2019 Yankees are built on young talent and depth. Gary Sanchez ($669,800), Gleyber Torres ($605,200), Luke Voit ($573,200), and Clint Frazier ($563,300) are the only Yankees with double-digit home runs and have been major contributors in stabilizing their first-place lineup with franchise-cornerstone Aaron Judge ($684,300) on the IL.

Not only that, but the Yankees have often recently been outbid while vying for the services of marquee free agents.

Most notably, Manny Machado and Bryce Harper, two of the youngest, most talented free agents on the market in history, were both rumored to be interested in joining the Yankees this winter. Machado was dined, but never officially offered a contract. The Yankees chose DJ LeMahieu instead. Harper was supposedly never even given a phone call. Brian Cashman and company felt better bringing back aging Brett Gardner to man left instead.

Manny Machado and Bryce Harper, making approximately $55 million total this season, have a combined 1.8 WAR.

DJ LeMahieu alone, making $12 million in 2019, has 2.4 WAR.

Most recently, the Atlanta Braves outbid the Yankees for the services of former Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel, with the latter viewed at one point as the favorites to land the star.

Most fans were upset. They shouldn’t be. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2017 and 2018 seasons were not particularly kind to Atlanta Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson. The former No. 1 overall draft pick struggled to stick his landing at the plate after a solid 38-game debut in 2016 (107 wRC+), finishing with wRC+ marks of 64 and 80 respectively. This offensive stagnation was exacerbated by Alex Bregman, the man chosen immediately after Swanson as the second pick in the 2015 draft, who had followed up a similarly impressive 2016 start (114 wRC+ in 49 games) with back-to-back breakout seasons that include wRC+ marks of 123 and 157, a World Series victory in 2017, an All-Star appearance, a signature playoff performance (223 wRC+ in 38 plate appearances), and a top-five finish in Most Valuable Player voting in 2018. Swanson may never become as good a player as Bregman, who has become one of baseball’s signature stars. That’s a tough thing to do! However, his 2019 campaign thus far is a step in the right direction, one that could lead him towards the celebrated career he seemed destined for not too long ago.

Through 64 games, Swanson looks like a new hitter. His wRC+ sits at a 104, and each aspect of his .264/.314/.490 slash line represents marked improvements (and career-highs) from the full seasons prior. What has changed?

For starters, Swanson has put a wrist injury that pestered him throughout 2018 in the past. Lance Brozdowski identified some mechanical changes Swanson appeared to have made before last season to the position of his hands and the timing of his front foot placement. His .766 OPS across March and April provided some evidence that these changes may be making a difference for the better before his fateful swing against the New York Mets, which tweaked his wrist and prevented a true sample size from taking a reliable shape. Injuries of any kind are not conducive to peak performance, but given the wrist’s role in the act of swinging a bat, this particular one was likely even less so. Read the rest of this entry »

(This piece originally ran at BTBNL.com on June 8)

It’s hard to believe that former Marlins prospect and current Athletics 1B/OF Mark Canha has only played 356 MLB games headed into tonight’s action. At 30 years old, he’s technically one-fifth through his third full season. He’s logged major league at-bats since 2015, a season in which he played his most games (124), but hasn’t taken a big leap forward until now.

Don’t scoff at the .247 batting average until looking under the hood. The San Jose product and Billy Bean project boasts a robust .383 OBP, and a man oft touted as a power-hitting prospect put up gaudy OBP numbers at all stops. At age 23, Canha reached base at a .371 clip at Double-A in the Marlins system. The next season at Triple-A, he improved to .384, and he logged over 500 plate appearances in both seasons. In 2017 at Triple-A, this time in the Oakland system, Canha did it again in a new league with a .373 rate in 75 games. Fast-forward to 122 major league games in 2018 and Canha, with 197 games of big league action under his belt, demonstrated his ability to produce with a .328 OBP and 17 homers in 411 plate appearances — close to a 30-homer pace.

That brings me to 2019. Canha is not only displaying career-bests in OBP and walk rate (15% BB, 8.3% in 2018), but he has also vastly improved his approach. In 2015 and 2018 (the two biggest samples), he swung at 32.9% and 31.1% of pitches outside the strike zone (O-Swing%) respectively. In those same two years, he swung and missed (SwStr%) at 9.8% and 8.1% of strikes. Now in 2019, he’s drastically reduced his O-Swing to 22.4% (!), good for the 19th-lowest mark in MLB (min. 120 PA), and is in the company of Anthony Rendon (22%), George Springer (21.4%) and Joey Votto (20.3%). When it comes to plate discipline for a “power prospect,” that’s extraordinary company. Furthermore, his 75.4% O-Contact rate in 2019 is a career-best, and his career-low 7.5% SwStr% is tied for 45th-lowest in MLB, well below the 10.4% MLB average. Read the rest of this entry »