A.J. Pollock is, at the moment, one of the best fantasy outfielders in major league baseball.  He’s 4th according to the ESPN player rater but since most of you and I don’t REALLY know what that means, let’s say it a different way.  He is one of only four players with at least a .290 AVG, 10 HR, and 15 SB.  Still, whenever I talk with anyone about Pollock’s performance, the consensus opinion on him is more of a resonating question: “Is A.J. Pollock really this good?”  Let’s attempt to answer that.  Dating back to the beginning of 2014,  Pollock has played in 161 games.  We could round that up to 162 games, especially since players rarely play every single game of a season, and call it a full season, but I’m going to go the extra mile here and pull the last game from his 2013 campaign to have a constant 162 games for this exercise.  The stat line he has produced is impressive.

Let’s lower the bar a little bit so that we can find more players in THIS search: how many other players over their last 162 games have hit at the very minimum: .290, 90 R, 15 HR, 60 RBI, 25 SB?  The answer is 1, and that man is Starling Marte.

I’m not sure if that makes Marte a fair comparison.  We can compare them, but Marte delivers more line drives and raw power than Pollock does.  Marte, despite having a paltry 19.3% FB rate, has averaged 312 feet on his fly balls this year, 4th best in the majors, allowing him him to post an absurd 29.5% HR/FB rate – and we’re not even ready to get into park factors yet.  Pollock is just a bit more refined than Marte, posting a better BB rate and K rate than Marte has, by, obviously, swinging at better pitches to hit.

Pollock, too, has a fine average fly ball distance.  It’s 295 (a number he’s increased each year), which is good for 39th overall, smack dab in between Adam LaRoche to the north and Nolan Arenado to the south.  But Pollock has also been incrementally improving his BB/K ratio over the last three years, bringing it from 0.40 to 0.47 this year.  It could be as simple as that – a good player that has made strides in his approach at the plate, but I can’t just leave it at that.  Despite these improvements, albeit, very small ones, his batted ball profile looks right around league average.

Pollock is fast, so hitting a lot of ground balls works in his favor.  He’s been able to have higher than average IFH and BUH percentages in each of the last three years because of his speed.  However, despite being a below average line drive hitter this year, and throughout his career, he is less susceptible to BABIP fluctuations than other high frequency GB hitters like Alcides Escobar, Elvis Andrus, Jean Segura, because Pollock produces a hard hit rate higher than the league average – he is an authoritative hitter.  Curious though, that with his below average LD rate, this is the case.  So his hard hit% is driven by either hard contact on fly balls or ground balls relative to league average.  Since he has an IFFB% above league average I’m going to predict that he’s a high authority GB hitter.  There’s logic in that, right?

He’s right at about league average for hard hit fly balls, but he does seem to have a hard hit ground ball percentage markedly higher than league average.  In fact, his 23.1% hard hit GB rate is 18th best in the league.  The 17 players in front of him have combined for an average line of:

The list also includes names like Tulo, Miguel Cabrera, Posey, Pederson, Upton, Donaldson, Trout, Jose Abreu, and Yoenis Cespedes.  It’s guys that we generally perceive to be hard contact hitters, or I guess, more specifically, power hitters.  But he’s 18th on the list and produced a quality hard hit ground ball rate last year, too.

But, he still has a league average hard hit fly ball rate and a below average line drive rate.  These are reflected in his numbers compared to the league.

Lastly, he plays in Chase Field, which, throughout its history, has been a hitters park.  From 2008-2014 it had an adjusted park factor of +111.  For right handed hitters (and left handed hitters) like A.J. Pollock, it has had only positive affects, but this table is solely for righties:

Put Pollock in a neutral park and his numbers for the last 162 games would theoretically look like this:

I was kind of hoping to see more signs that Pollock is experiencing more luck.  Not because I don’t like Pollock, I love him as a baseball player and I’m sure he’s a fine person, but because of the questions regarding the sustainability of his play in the first half of the 2015 season by many of my peers.  The answer to, “is he really this good”, is that he is pretty darn close and I can see him performing to any of the projection systems’ expectations the rest of the way (ZiPS, Steamer, or Depth Charts).  He should experience some fluctuation in BABIP because of his GB rate, but so far he really hasn’t – and again that’s partially due to the authority with which he hits them.

In terms of finding a player closest in comparison to Pollock, Marte might be a pretty decent choice.  If I can just brainstorm using the cloud technique, I would probably have, with A.J. Pollock’s name in the middle: Starling Marte, Jason Heyward, Christian Yelich, Charlie Blackmon, Brett Gardner, and Lorenzo Cain as smaller clouds extending off the big, middle cloud.  Here are stats based on the last 162 games played.

This group kind of works as a spectrum.  I see the players on the extreme north and south columns least like Pollock and the players in the middle most like Pollock.  There is no one player to compare A.J. Pollock with that is playing currently, although Mitch Webster would be a pretty good historical comparison using his ages 26 – 28 seasons.

Mitch Webster ages 26-28 162 G AVG:

Probably too high of a walk rate, but that looks pretty good.

The average season of the group above would look like this:

A little too high of a K rate, but that also looks pretty good.

And finally A.J. Pollock ages 25-27 162 G AVG

In conclusion, A.J. Pollock is very close to this good if he’s not actually THIS GOOD and I think these players are pretty good comparisons.  And hopefully Pollock has more long lasting success than Mitch Webster.  In a time when speed/power combo players are in decline, what Pollock is doing is clearly elite in that sense.  What I really would like to see would be the history of authoritative ground ball hitters with good speed who have played in parks that have buoyed their power numbers.  Unfortunately, I don’t have access to batted ball profiles for hitters throughout history – how many Pollocks does it take to gather that information?

The 2015 MLB season has been filled with plenty of surprises thus far. The Twins have maintained their hot start, and currently hold the first wildcard spot in the AL. The NL Central has been highly competitive, with three teams in position to make the playoffs should the season end today. The Padres have been a huge disappointment (although I never fully bought into them), and may be sellers at the deadline just seven months after making the biggest splashes of the winter. Sleeper picks Cleveland and Seattle might as well have been asleep the first half of the year, both putting together extremely underwhelming performances and effectively ending their postseason hopes.

But no over- or under-achieving organization quite took the league by storm like the Houston Astros. They began the year hotter than any team in baseball besides St. Louis, finishing May with a record of 32-20 and a four-game lead over the second-place Angels. In their last 43 games, however, it has been a much different story. They have gone 20-23, enduring one seven-game losing streak in June, and they began the second half on a six-game losing streak (also losers of 8 of their last 9). Back in mid May, amidst all the frenzy over the already anointed playoff bound Astros, I began to wonder what was propelling this team to victory. It was clear that although their starting pitching doesn’t blow anyone away with immense velocity or stuff, they had a set of guys who were displaying that they knew how to pitch and could hold their own in a MLB rotation. Here are the splits on the Astros’ starting pitching, using May 31^st as the divider.

I made sure that only active players on the Astros’ roster were included due to the fact that there are many insignificant players whose numbers would have been included in the splits because of spring training. The ERA and FIP numbers are very similar, as are the BABIP and LOB% stats. The two interesting changes are the increase in strikeouts and the simultaneous increase in walks. Walks lead to runs, and since the Astros have not been great offensively, the more free passes given out the more likely they will be playing from behind in games. While Dallas Keuchel has been extraordinary, and Lance McCullers has been solid as a rookie, their rotation doesn’t seem to have enough to strike fear into opposing team’s hearts (see 1990’s Atlanta Braves).

They do however appear to have a solid bullpen, possessing the 4^th best ERA at 2.67 and the 4^th best LOB% at 80%. Their recent scuffles have them at an overall record of 49-42, currently a half game back of the Angels. According to the computers, they have a 55.3% chance of making the playoffs in some capacity this year, and are expected to finish with a record of 84-78 — good enough to win a wild card spot. The computer’s calculations aren’t always perfect, so it is safe to say that there is definitely a margin of error here, although I cannot say for certain what that number might be (probably ±3-4 wins). Regardless of what the analysts are saying, I believe they WILL NOT make the postseason. Why? Because history is not on their side.

After a lot of hard work entering in all of the numbers by hand, I finally have created a table that houses several statistics from all playoff teams starting in 1995 when the wild card was introduced. Take a look at these numbers:

If the season were to end today, and the Astros made the playoffs, they would have some heavy outliers among the last 20 years worth of playoff teams. They would have the second lowest batting average, the highest K%, and the lowest OBP. Their ISO is well above average, but the fact that they run such a low OBP means that those extra base hits won’t increase their expected run totals very much; you need guys on base to score runs. Their average walk rate is to be expected based on the lineup they have assembled. They have a lot of what I would call “hackers,” guys who go up and take massive cuts trying to crush the ball — Chris Carter, Evan Gattis, Luis Valbuena, and Colby Rasmus to name a few. The only way this lineup gets worse in the ‘K’ department is if you bring Adam Dunn back from the dead and trade for Mark Reynolds. My point is simple: there has never been such a boom or bust type of team to make the playoffs, at least not one this extreme. Even if they were to acquire a frontline starting pitcher like Johnny Cueto or Cole Hamels, I do not believe that their lineup would be able to support the pitching staff enough to catapult them into the postseason.

Only time will tell what happens with the darlings of the MLB this season. They have a strong core, and a bright future, with many top prospects making their debut this season and even more right on the doorstep. Jeff Luhnow has done an incredible job building this team, and there is no doubt that they will be contenders in the AL West for many years to come. Yet, while they are not the same Astros of recent memory, they are not quite ready to make the postseason. This may not be a bad thing, though. As Yogi Berra once said, “You can observe a lot by watching.”

It’s been a disappointing year thus far for the Cleveland Indians. They are currently 42-46 heading into the All-Star Game, and are in 4^th place in the competitive American League Central division. They are underperforming their BaseRuns projection by 4 wins, meaning the computers view this team as much more of a playoff threat than they actually have been thus far. Although they have the third-highest remaining projected winning percentage in the AL at .532, their rough first half has them only finishing with about 81 wins. As wide open as the wild card race is, a .500 finish would clearly not be enough. What has happened to everyone’s preseason sleeper team? Besides Sports Illustrated jinxing them of course.

Well as expected, they have had stellar starting pitching from the likes of Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer, and Danny Salazar, and even have gotten good outings recently from under the radar prospect Cody Anderson. Everyone knew they had a bad defense, but many thought that the Indians’ offense could support the great starting pitching enough to propel them into the postseason. Thus far, however, that has not been the case. They are at league average or below in almost all offensive categories. They are not a power hitting team by any means, and have the 10^th lowest FB% in the MLB, which makes sense seeing as to hit for power you need to get the ball in the air. However, they still run the 7^th lowest BABIP in baseball, which insinuates that they have a lot of hitters who tend to roll over a lot. Lo and behold, they are 3^rd in Pull %, and have a lefty heavy—heavy being an understatement—lineup.

Essentially, the Indians have amassed a lineup with a bunch of pull-happy hitters who don’t hit for much power, which doesn’t work in a league that nowadays uses the shift religiously. I think all Cleveland fans know where I’m going with this, because the phrase has been overused by Tribe fans for almost a decade now. Yes, Cleveland is lacking an impact right-handed bat. Brewer’s prized prospect Matt LaPorta was supposed to be that guy when the Indians traded C.C. Sabathia for him and others—including player to be named later Michael Brantley. However, his MLB career was as successful as Kim Kardashian’s first marriage. Ironically or not, Milwaukee has another player that I believe can push the Tribe over the hump; his name is Carlos Gomez.

The 29 year old native of the Dominican Republic, known for his fiery personality, has been extremely productive for the Brew Crew since 2011, racking up 18.4 WAR in that 4 year span. With Milwaukee sitting at the halfway point with the second worst record in all of baseball, they will most definitely be sellers at the trade deadline. I recently tweeted FanGraphs’ Jeff Sullivan asking him if Gomez would be dealt, to which he responded, “Gomez is probably moving. Lucroy not.” That doesn’t mean it is set in stone, but that shows that there is a decent chance he gets traded. Let’s just assume for arguments sake that the Indians and Brewers have mutual interest in being trade partners. Why should the Indians’ make the move?

One plus is that Gomez wouldn’t be a rental. He is under contract through 2016, and is only set to make 9 million dollars next year. If you consider 1 WAR to be worth roughly 7 million dollars, Gomez’s average of 6.6 WAR per year the last two seasons would be a huge bargain for the Tribe. With the contracts of David Murphy and Ryan Raburn likely to be coming off the books next year, an extra 9 million dollars on the payroll will be inconsequential for the notoriously conservative Dolan family. Gomez also would provide a major upgrade from primary Tribe center fielder, Michael Bourn. I have included a chart that compares their averages from the last two seasons. Why two seasons? Because that’s when Bourn signed with Cleveland, where he has not been the same player he once was.

It is easy to see who has been the more valuable player. The reason I included ISO and SLG was to demonstrate Gomez’s excellent power, not necessarily to compare it to Bourn’s (because that is not the type of hitter he is). Gomez would provide a major upgrade defensively – where the Indians struggle – and at the plate, where he is a key catalyst in manufacturing runs. Gomez has created almost 40 more runs per season than Bourn the last two years. If you take into account how every 10 runs scored or given up equates to a win or a loss, those extra 40 runs would essentially add on about 4 more wins to the Indians win total (assuming those averages hold up throughout the 2015 season). So that would take the roughly 81 win Indians and make them an 85 win team; better yes, but still not a playoff contender.

Although Bourn and Gomez have been equally as good with RISP, this season has been a different story; Bourn is hitting .216 in 68 PA and Gomez is hitting .381 in 65 PA with RISP. The Indians have the 7^th worst average with RISP this season at .230, with the MLB average being .255. For a team that struggles to score runs, this would be a huge difference. Slotting Gomez in the lineup everyday behind a guy like Michael Brantley would also take a ton of pressure off of him to carry the team day in and day out.

So what does this all mean? Could Carlos Gomez really propel the Tribe into October baseball this season? Probably not. Here are their season splits against teams above and below .500.

They struggle against good teams, and beat bad ones. That is not the mark of a playoff team. In the last 74 games of the season, the average winning percentage for teams they play is .515. While I fully believe the team could make a strong second half push – I actually believe they will make the playoffs – it is not likely. Still, a trade for Carlos Gomez would not only aid them in the second half of this season, but for next season as well. Clevelanders are sick of hearing “we’re building for the future.” The Indians have an extremely strong core, one that is young and locked into team-friendly contracts. It is time to win now, because they would hate to look back years from now like a reminiscent ex-lover and say, “That was the team that got away.”

Earlier this year, Alex Chamberlain of FanGraphs took a look at the top NL outfield prospects for the 2015 season. On this list of five outfielders, three of them have had significant time in the big leagues: Joc Pederson, Jorge Soler, and Randal Grichuk. They were ranked 1, 2, and 5 respectively prior to the season (Andrew Lambo and Eury Perez were ranked 3 and 4 but due to both playing less than 25 games, I did not include them in my analysis). The purpose of my writing today is to analyze these three outfielders and see if the preseason rankings has translated to the regular season. To understand if the rankings hold true, I will compare how each player has hit to this point in the season as well as their ability to help their team on defense.

Offensive Analysis

Using simply batting average as a definitive metric for determining which player is succeeding is especially tough considering the snapshot is only the first half of the 2015 season. That being said I think it is important to look at simple batting average to see if there is any outliers when comparing it to BABIP. In terms of batting average, Randal Grichuk is leading the way with a .277 average, followed by Soler and Pederson at .260 and .230 respectively. While this is a good baseline, comparing it to BABIP and % of hard hit balls identify if these averages are sustainable or unsustainable over the course of a season.

Pederson has a BABIP below the league average at .282, while Soler and Grichuk have BABIP almost 80 points higher than the league average. One of the factors that could be contributing to Pederson’s significantly lower average is simply being unlucky. In terms of Hard Hit%, Pederson is tops of the three with 41.5% of the balls he makes contact with being classified as hard hit. Soler and Grichuk have a 38.6% and 39.2% Hard Hit%. Another factor to consider is K%, but this is somewhat of a moot point considering that each outfielder has a K% within one point of 30%, nearly 12% above league average. This is to be expected of young players who are adjusting to big-league pitching and have a large amount of raw power. These percentages indicate that Pederson’s average should not be nearly as low as compared to the other two and would be considered an outlier and his .230 average is not indicative of how he is hitting overall. But it stands to reason that both Soler and Grichuk could see a regression in average if their BABIP falls towards league average.

Another factor that is important to look at when ranking these three budding All-Stars is their raw power. Hitting for average is important but in today’s game it is much harder to string together multiple hits, so being able to drive the ball in gaps or over the walls is a premium quality in a young player. Isolated Power is a great metric to look at when evaluating the raw power a player is displaying because it takes out the batting average variable out of Slugging %. Grichuk and Pederson have the exact same ISO at .257 while Soler’s is much lower at .128, just below the league average of .135. What this metric means is that Soler’s actual slugging% is somewhat inflated by his average. If his average falls, which would be due to a decline BABIP, his slugging% will suffer. It seems that even if Grichuk’s BABIP slumps he will continue to make an impact at the plate in terms of slugging% since his ISO is over 120 points higher than Soler.

To wrap up the offensive portion of my analysis, I would rank the three rookie outfielders 1) Pederson. This is based on the fact he has made a huge impact on the Dodger’s lineup (20 HR, 40 RBIs) although he has been hampered by an unlucky BABIP.  2) Grichuk. Due to the higher ISO than Soler against major league pitching. Grichuk has not only produced more this year than Soler but he projects to continue to have an impact on his team through his higher ISO even if his batting average drops. 3) Soler, is ranked third because the high BABIP and lower ISO make him less appealing throughout the course of the long MLB season.

Defensive Analysis

Defensive metrics also help determine which outfielder is helping save runs for their team which in turn improves the chance of winning a ball game. Revised Zone Rating or RZR is a good indicator of how well a player has been able to make plays in their fielding zone. In terms of RZR, Grichuk is the low man on the totem pole with .902 RZR. Pederson is tops in the group with .926 and Soler in the middle with .916. While RZR is a helpful stat it does not tell the full story of which outfielder is saving the most runs for his team.

DRS or the total defensive run saved helps give an idea of how many runs a fielder has saved above the average player. In terms of DRS, Grichuk has saved 6 runs above average even though he had the lowest RZR. Whereas Pederson has saved 1 run and Soler has saved 0 runs even though both have more outfield assist with than Grichuk (4 each vs. 1). Soler’s low DRS can be attributed to the fact on balls where Soler has between a 60-90% chance of making a play, he has only made the play 66.7% of the time compared to Grichuk and Pederson who have made those same plays 100% of the time.

In terms of defense, I would rank Grichuk number one due to his high DRS. Since saving runs is vital to a team’s success. Pederson would rank second and Soler would be third.

Conclusion

To wrap up my analysis, I think it is important to look at total WAR when evaluating players. Especially when breaking down these three young outfielders. I think it is clear that to this point in their 2015 seasons, Jorge Soler would be ranked third of the three due to the fact that his WAR is only .4 and he lags Grichuk and Pederson in almost every metric I have discussed. Grichuk’s WAR of 1.9 places him second. Even though he saves more runs than Pederson with his glove, the offensive impact Pederson has made even with his .230 batting average is extremely impressive. With 20 home runs at the All-Star break and a WAR of 3.3 Pederson would have to be ranked as still the top NL rookie outfielder that was ranked in the preseason.

All stats for this article were taken from FanGraphs.com

In 2015, MLB implemented changes to shorten the length of games. As has been widely reported, game times have been reduced. Less widely reported is that the majority of the reduction is due to shorter breaks between innings, and the time between pitches has not decreased.

There is concern that rule changes to directly address the time between pitches will impact the game negatively. There are concerns for the logistics of a pitch clock and tasking umpires to somehow legislate/manage situations requiring exceptions. I am a wholehearted proponent of reducing time between pitches, but I have a hard time envisioning how a pitch clock would work with a fast runner on 1B or when the pitcher has mud in his cleats or when the batter gets dust in his eyes.

I propose an effective and non-invasive method for reducing the time between pitches: focus on player averages. A pitcher (or hitter) can be judged over a rolling sample of pitches and with escalating fines/penalties administered to the player and/or team. This method would not dictate any specific in-game action/penalty. It would not require involvement by umpires. It would be transparent to fans, other than less yawning and urges to check email.

While a simple rolling average would be…simple, improvements to the methodology can easily be envisioned. A player’s time score could be adjusted based upon the batter/pitcher faced, foul balls, stolen base opportunity, etc.

I’m surprised this type of method has not gotten much discussion in the media. I think it would allow MLB to steer behavior change without the negative impact of trying to take action in-game on a per-pitch basis.

If you’ve ever attended a Nationals’ home game, you’ve probably seen the best promotional event held in the Washington D.C. area– the Presidents Race. Beginning as a cartoon race featured on the video board of old RFK Stadium in 2005, the first-ever live race was held on July 21, 2006. The 10-foot tall presidents run the length of the field — across the warning track, down the foul lines, around the diamond — while often avoiding obstacles such as traffic cones and competing teams’ mascots. The race reached a fever pitch in the community and media in 2012 when Teddy Roosevelt finally broke his humiliating 500+ race-losing streak. The original competitors — Teddy, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson — were joined by William Howard Taft in 2013 and Calvin Coolidge earlier this month.

As we approach the 9th year anniversary of the Presidents Race, I thought it would be interesting to look for correlation between the Presidents Race winners and the Washington Nationals’ on-field performance. Let’s begin with a few caveats. I’ll be looking at data from the beginning of 2013 to July 2, 2015. I chose 2013 as a starting point because it marked the end of Teddy’s losing streak and the beginning of William’s running career. I did not include any data from Calvin’s career because of small-sample-size issues. Also, regarding the racing record in relation to the Nats’ performance, I include data from 4th-inning races, extra-inning races, both races in a double-header, and all playoff races. Finally, I want to give a big thanks to Let Teddy Win! which is a tremendous wealth of Presidents Race knowledge, data, and video.

Abraham is the easy race champion over this time period, finishing 2nd in the final standings in 2013 and 2014. Teddy was carried by his impressive 29-win campaign in 2014, while let’s just say that Thomas is better at writing declarations than at running races. It should be noted that Teddy has been disqualified many times in his racing career because of infractions like unnecessary roughness and cutting the outfield corner.

From 2013-2015, the Nationals were 123-80 (.606) at home, the 3rd best home record in MLB, trailing only St. Louis (.667) and Pittsburgh (.632) over the same time period. To fully appreciate the influence (for better or worse) that the Presidents Race winners had over the Nationals’ on-field performance, we need to look for the winning percentages farthest from .606.

Unsurprisingly, the father of our nation has the biggest positive influence over the Nationals ballclub, leading the squad to a crushing .697 winning percentage. The newcomer, William, also inspired the Nats to play well, despite their mediocre run differential after his race victories. And while Nats fans and opponents may love Teddy (first as a lovable loser and now as a legit competitor), Nats players have not been inspired on the nights he crosses the finish line first. (Teddy went undefeated in the 2014 playoffs, and the Nats went winless in those games.)

The front-runner for this year’s National League Most Valuable Player is clearly inspired by the nation’s front-runner for Most Valuable President. At the plate after a George victory, Harper mashes to the tune of .325, while on-pace for a 50+ HR season. Teddy and Abraham again bring up the rear, and William has another strong showing, reinforcing the idea that “as Harper goes, so go the Nationals.”

Not only does Zimmermann pitch more often on George-victory days than on other days, but he also puts up his best numbers after George pulls out a win. Teddy upsets the pattern by inspiring Zimmerman to a 2.35 ERA and a 9 K/9 mark, the best of the five.

Taft famously threw the first-ever presidential first-pitch, yet both Nats pitchers remain uninspired on William’s victory days. Thomas remains the least influential president (perhaps due to the rarity of his victories), inspiring the team, Harper, and both pitchers to average winning percentages and average career numbers. Lincoln inspires Storen’s lowest ERA and 2nd best K/9.

The results of this data crunch are clear: while Teddy may be a lovable loser, some of that losing might be rubbing off on the Nationals. And if you’re a Nats fan, you probably want to root for George. Bryce Harper and Jordan Zimmermann clearly do.

If you are like me, and you are in a custom, home-run-only fantasy baseball league, you might lie in bed around midnight and look through box scores on your phone. You also might look through box scores for a number of other reasons. Looking through them, I’ve noticed what I believe to be trend. Managers are shifting their lineups to put much more productive players second in the order. That is what this post is about. Another in a long line of posts about something that at the end of the day doesn’t really matter. As long as a manager puts the right names on the card, he is unlikely to screw this up too much.

As a longtime baseball fan, I had a feeling this was a trend that has happened during the course of this year. It was widely publicized that the Reds were going to hit Joey Votto second in the order. 2014 Votto is not exactly a controversial choice for that spot in the lineup. While his power has had a bit of a resurgence, the Reds have still left him in the two hole. So, in what is definitely a very unscientific study, I looked at who each team batted second on July 7^th (I started writing this on July 8^th. I have a job, so it has taken me a few days. I promise this was random) and I compared that to opening day (and opening night the day before in the case of the Cardinals and Cubs). What follows is a list of the same (two players listed denote a double-header on July 7):

Team                               Opening Day                            July                                                                 

Anaheim                           Mike Trout                                     Kole Calhoun

Atlanta                              Jace Peterson                                Cameron Maybin

Arizona                             Ender Inciarte                               David Peralta

Baltimore                         Manny Machado                           Jimmy Paredes

Boston                              Dustin Pedroia                               Brock Holt

Chicago (AL)                   Melky Cabrera                               Jose Abreu

Chicago (NL)                   Jorge Soler                                     Anthony Rizzo, Rizzo

Cincinnati                        Joey Votto                                      Joey Votto

Cleveland                         Jason Kipnis                                  Francisco Lindor

Colorado                          Carlos Gonzalez                             DJ LeMahieu

Detroit                              Ian Kinsler                                      Yoenis Cespedes

Houston                           George Springer                            Preston Tucker

Kansas City                     Mike Moustakas                            Alex Gordon, Gordon

Los Angeles                     Yasiel Puig                                     Howie Kendrick

Miami                              Christian Yelich                             Christian Yelich

Milwaukee                      Jonathan Lucroy                           Jonathan Lucroy

Minnesota                      Brian Dozier                                   Joe Mauer

New York (AL)              Brett Gardner                                Chase Headley

New York (NL)              David Wright                                 Ruben Tejada

Oakland                          Sam Fuld                                        Stephen Vogt

Philadelphia                  Obudel Herrera                             Ben Revere

Pittsburgh                      Gregory Polanco                           Neil Walker

San Diego                       Derek Norris                                 Yonder Alonso

San Francisco                Joe Panik                                       Joe Panik

Seattle                             Seth Smith                                     Franklin Gutierrez

St. Louis                         Jason Heyward                             Kolten Wong, Matt Carpenter

Tampa                            Steven Souza                                 Joey Butler, Grady Sizemore

Texas                              Elvis Andrus                                  Rougned Odor

Toronto                          Russell Martin                              Josh Donaldson

Washington                   Yunel Escobar                              Danny Espinosa

What follows is a categorization of the difference between then and now. I’ve categorized each as either the same; functionally the same (old-school); functionally the same (new-school); shifting old-school; shifting new-school; and wildcard. It’s tough to define exactly what is old-school versus new-school. Some attributes of old-school second-hole hitters are: bad hitters, no power, middle infielder, speed, and younger players. While only the first two of these are actually bad attributes, a new-school thought would be to put a good power hitter second even though he is slow and plays a corner. Anyway, when looking at the choices, sometimes it is harder than you might think, and you may disagree with a few of these. You can read my brief analysis for the 26 teams that had different players, or skip to the bottom for the anticlimactic conclusion.

Same – Miami, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Cincinnati

My article is about the shift in attitude from the beginning of the season to now, but I will note that this seems to be a group that is not behind the times, with the exception of San Francisco. Despite the fact that Joe Panik has wildly exceeded expectations, it’s hard to argue that this isn’t the classic no-bat middle infielder that should not be hitting second. Process, bad. Results, good!

Functionally the same (old-school) – Washington, Arizona, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Texas

Perhaps Peralta has shown himself to be just a little too good of a hitter to waste in the two-hole, so Inciarte took his place. You could argue this is shifting backwards, but Peralta is a young guy who was not considered one of Arizona’s best hitters. Cleveland had previously lucked into the fact that the low-power middle infielder they hit second was actually not bad offensively. But now there is a new middle infielder who is a rookie and can’t hit, so he should hit second! It is possible that Washington simply bats whoever is playing third base second in the order. You can’t prove they don’t. Well, you could, but please don’t. Philadelphia is a team that has slotted FanGraphs whipping boy Jeff Francoeur either 4^th or 5^th in about one third of its games, so why be surprised that both then and now a below average hitter, even for this team, is hitting second? You might think that Texas could do better than hitting Andrus second. They could. But instead they have inserted another below average middle infielder, who I assume gets this honor because he’s the less experienced player.

Functionally the same (new-school) – Boston

Boston is a tough one as could see Brock hitting here because he does so much to help the team win and Pedroia, while a great hitter, is also a tiny middle infielder. I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt as Pedroia is also a star player and Holt is their only All-star and has been perhaps the best hitter on the team in 2015.

Shifting towards old-school – Houston, Anaheim, Los Angeles, New York (NL), Baltimore, Tampa, Colorado, New York (AL)

Houston went from one of its best hitters, who is also a high OBP/speed guy, to the rookie, because I guess it’s embarrassing to hit in the same spot in the order as Matt Rizzo or Jose Abreu. This might be bad luck as Trout has batted second in the vast majority of Angels games, but this is a huge drop off in production (though, to be fair, almost anyone alive is a huge drop off in production from Trout). On the plus side, Calhoun is actually one of the better offensive players for the top-heavy Angels. Yes, Puig is young and fast, but he is also big, strong, and a great hitter. Kendrick is your grandpa’s choice to bat here. Wright is hurt. With the Mets batting Tejada second, it’s hard to know if good lineup construction is just a matter of luck for this team.

Baltimore went from one of its best hitters (and one of the best players in baseball) to a guy, Jimmy Paredes, that I definitely had to look up to know who he was. Souza may be striking out at an incredible rate lately, but that is no excuse to bat the walking corpse of a once great player second. Tampa played two games, and batting Butler second in one of them is excusable. If Sizemore plays at all, he should be hitting on the other side of lead off. Perhaps the biggest shift of all is in Colorado (which I guess shouldn’t surprise anyone as this is the team that might be the hardest to understand). They went from a star player who does not fit the traditional mold to a below average middle infielder who screams 1980s bunting-the-runner-over. For New York, Gardner was a guy that both fit the old-school model and the new-school model. On the other hand, the current version of Headley is a baffling choice to hit second.

Shifting towards new-school – Toronto, Atlanta, Chicago (NL), Seattle, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Detroit, Minnesota, Chicago (AL), Oakland

While the Blue Jays were already ahead of the curve with Martin, they now have their MVP candidate and a guy that would be the best hitter on many teams hitting second. It may be luck that Atlanta is here as Maybin has not hit second frequently for this team. Sadly (for the Braves), Maybin is arguably the best healthy bat in the Braves lineup, a huge improvement over sticking Peterson in the two-hole, a move that could have looked a lot worse if not for a surprising start to his season. Chicago was one of my inspirations for this piece and it’s easy to see why. Rizzo is clearly one of the two best hitters on this team, and he’s a power hitting first baseman to boot. These guys never, ever, ever hit second even 10 years ago. Soler wasn’t a terrible choice, but this is clearly a shift.

Seager fits some of the old-school bill, but compared to trotting out Gutierrez, this is clearly higher-level thinking. I’m giving San Diego credit because Alonso is a pretty good choice for this team, especially considering he’s having a good year, and also because he’s a first baseman. While he’s not a first baseman like Rizzo, it was still rare to see lineup with a “3” next to the two spot a decade ago. Perhaps Pittsburgh thought the previously highly touted Polanco would be better, but there is no doubt that Walker is one of the best hitters on this team. Unlike some other teams, such as Boston and Cleveland, Pittsburgh has not allowed him to “graduate” out of hitting in one of the most important spots in the lineup.

Kansas City was not going with the prototypical guy beforehand, but by inserting Gordon, who hit second in both of Kansas City’s games on Tuesday, they have gone with the best hitter and best player on their team. Detroit is another team that has gone from a mediocre offensive middle infielder to a power hitting outfielder. You could easily argue that Victor Martinez would be a much better choice, but I guess hitting perhaps the slowest player in baseball second is a bit too far for now. Dozier is a nice little player for Minnesota. Their place on this list is more about who took his place, face-of-the-franchise Joe Mauer. He also happens to be easily the best OBP guy on this team. There must be something in the water in Chicago, because the two best examples come from the south- and north-side. Chicago flipped Cabrera, a fairly classic two-hole guy, and Abreu, clearly not in that category. This is the last one I’m doing, so I’ll just say this. Fuld is not good. Vogt is good.

Wildcard –St. Louis

The Cardinals are two as they played a double-header with two different players batting second. You could argue that Heyward is a new-school choice. Carpenter definitely is as a guy with a .377 OBP and no speed. However, they also used Wong, who is definitely in the old-school camp.

Final Tally: Same – 4; Stayed Old-School – 5; Stayed New-School – 1; Shifted Old-School – 8; Shifted New-School – 11; Wildcard – 1

I wanted to find something. I didn’t. That makes me comfortable with my conclusion. A few teams are definitely bucking the old-school ways, at least for now. But just as many teams seem to have gone backwards since opening day. But overall you do see a much more productive player, on average, hitting second. Both the Chicago teams are the clearest examples, as they have put large first basemen/DH with elite power who happen to be their best hitters second in their lineups. You might think that Kansas City or Toronto have permanently turned over a new leaf. But when you see Colorado go from Carlos Gonzalez on opening day to DJ LeMahieu in July, it makes it hard not to discount the possibility that any shift by any team is merely temporary. And now I’ve written 2,000 words on nothing, except perhaps a warning that if your favorite team does something you like because it seems forward thinking and helpful, don’t get too excited because there is a good chance it a blip and Howie Kendrick will be hitting second before you know it.

Most of the all-time great hitters, since I’ve been watching, are terrible fielders.  Sorted by wOBA, here are the top 15 hitters since the year 2000 and their cumulative career defensive scores.

 Here’s the top 15 cumulative defensive scorers, along with their ISO scores. Jim Thome had an ISO of .288, for reference.

The guy who can knock the crap out of the ball and the guy who can make the SportsCenter highlight defensive plays are usually different people.  Unfortunately, this tradeoff only really hurts fans.  The ‘defensive replacement’ comes in late in games and is rarely noticed.  We like web gems, and we like bombs, why not have both?

We’ve probably never seen the world’s best defensive player.

Hitting an MLB fastball is hard.  It’s a very specific, rare skill set.  Playing outfield, however, is something to which athletes from other sports could adapt.  I bet Cam Newton could play right field, for example.  There are some soccer goalies who could probably play shortstop.  There are guys at every position that are wasting away in the minors or worse because they can’t hit the elite pitching.  If there’s a freak athlete that can jump and catch balls three feet over the wall, I want to see it.

The designated fielder prevents injuries and keeps the stars in the game.

I’m having trouble finding data, but my guess is that a fair portion of playing injuries happen on defense.  Especially for outfielders running into each other and walls.  A designated fielder takes guys prone to aches and pains off the field but lets them contribute on offense, even in the National League.  It also makes big contracts less risky in the National League, which might lose out on an aging slugger like Albert Pujols.

It adds an element of strategy.

There will be tremendous temptation to play a catcher as your designated fielder.  They make your pitchers better and prevent stolen bases.  That said, what if you had a second-best catcher who could hit but an excellent outfielder who can’t hit?  The decision gets cloudy.  Teams might strategize based on the potential base-stealing skills of the opponent versus their expectations of fly balls.

A designated baserunner too?

My vision of the designated baserunner is more like a once-a-game power up you can use rather than a permanent fixture.  I’ve always though it was sort of lame that you had to take a guy completely out of the game to get somebody to run for him.  Currently, that dooms pinch-runners to the eighth or ninth inning.  Well, I and most fans enjoy stolen-base attempts and guys stretching a hit for an extra base.  It’s one of the more exciting parts of the game.  We know Albert Pujols isn’t going to steal too often.  Most catchers aren’t exactly speed demons either.  So, I propose, once a game, managers will be able to pinch-run without making the guy leave the game.  Could you imagine Usain Bolt on the base pads?  If teams wanted speed bad enough, it’s possible.

The right equilibrium.

I like to see baseball with a constant ebb and flow of teams threatening to overtake each other.  The designated fielder adds one more guy who can hit to the lineup.  Defensive shortstops and catchers won’t be weakly grounding out and popping up quite so often.  The ball will be in play more often and will sometimes be negated by amazing plays by the designated fielder.  Catchers with rocket arms will be behind the plate more often.  But, they’ll face more elite baserunners.  Would you pitch around Giancarlo Stanton, if you knew an elite baserunner would run for him?   Do you bring on a lefty to hold the runner on?

I favor letting pitchers hit, however.  I see this as a National League first experiment.  The sacrifice bunt attempt is a pretty exciting part of play, and the shock of watching a hurler rope a hit to left-center is worth it.  I don’t want to be inundated with offense; just enough to spice things up a little.

Any thoughts?

Now that Chris Sale’s historic strikeout streak has ended, it seems an appropriate time to marvel at the dominance Sale has shown. Over an eight-game stretch from May 23 through June 30, Sale had the following line:

I’ve included BABIP to show that Sale was not on some incredibly low BABIP streak. League BABIP this season currently sits at .297. Sale’s career BABIP is .286. Without showing the normal indications for extreme luck, Chris Sale turned opposing lineups into a bunch of light-hitting middle infielders. For comparison, below is the season-to-date line for Indians SS Jose Ramirez.

The fact that the White Sox were only 4-4 in those eight games speaks to how badly the White Sox have played during 2015. Of those eight starts, six occurred during the month of June. It is these starts I’d like to focus on through the lens of pitch values relative to the rest of the league. I’ve posted some previous work on pitch values. The framework for the calculations can be found here. I’ve made some tweaks to the calculations, mainly to allow for player specific Balls/BB and Strikes/K to be calculated and league specific adjustments rather than MLB-wide constants.

According to Brooks Baseball, Sale threw 694 pitches during the month of June with a pitch mix of 45% Four-seam Fastball, 25% Changeup, 22% Slider, and 8% Sinker. The sinker was clearly Sale’s worst pitch in June. With the 55 sinkers thrown, Sale managed to give up six hits (11%). With the other 639 pitches, he gave up 21 hits (3%). So just how good were his other pitches? Chris Sale accumulated 2.9 WAR by my calculations over the month of June. He accumulated 0.0 of that from his sinker. For reference, here is the top ten in WAR from the month of June.

Sale lapped the field no matter which calculation you look at. Now, let’s take a look at a slightly adjusted version of that top-ten list.

We can split Sale’s June into two separate pitchers, and both “Sales” were top-ten in Pitch Value WAR accumulated. The Chris Sale that threw nothing but fastballs (Four-seam Fastballs and Sinkers) was the best pitcher in baseball in June. The Chris Sale without a fastball (Sliders and Changeups) was the ninth-best pitcher in baseball. With that said, we can dig a little deeper into the value of each of his pitches. First, let’s look at Sale compared to other four-seam fastballs. The table below gives the top five most valuable four-seam fastballs as well as a pitch rating based on June data set to a 20-80 scale.

Since WAR is a counting stat, there are two components to accumulating a high total. First, you have to throw a lot of the specified pitch type. Pitchers that threw 300 four-seam fastballs almost always accumulate more PV-WAR than those who only threw 30. Secondly, the pitch has to be of certain quality. Throwing 1000 of the world’s worst four-seam fastballs isn’t nearly as valuable as throwing 100 of the world’s best four-seam fastballs. In June, nine pitchers threw more four-seam fastballs than Chris Sale. No one that threw at least 90 total four-seam fastballs threw a better four-seam fastball than Sale. In fact, Sale’s four-seam fastball was the third highest rated qualifying pitch in June. To qualify, the pitch had to be thrown more than average for that pitch type. For example, if there were 4,000 curveballs thrown in June by 40 total pitchers, anyone who threw more than 100 curveballs would qualify. Moving on, Sale’s second most used pitch was his changeup. Here’s the table for changeups.

Once again, Sale tops the PV-WAR rankings. He was “slacking” on his quality on his changeup though. His changeup only ranked 14^th out of 126 qualifying changeups, so I guess there’s always room for improvement. The last pitch of interest for Sale is the slider. It’s the pitch I most associate with Sale, but it’s only his third most used pitch. Below is the corresponding table for sliders.

I think a trend is developing. Chris Sale threw the most valuable slider in June as well. By rating, Sale finished fourth out of 129 qualifying sliders. The three pitchers above him in rating (Andrew Miller, Mark Lowe, Darren O’Day) are all relievers. To sum up, in June, Chris Sale had three pitches make up over 90% of his pitch mix. All three of those pitches were the most valuable pitch in their respective pitch types in June. He had the overall best rated four-seam fastball and the best slider thrown by a starter. His changeup was the “worst” of his three pitches and was still a top 15 rated changeup. Chris Sale was completely dominant in June. His nearest competitor for most valuable pitcher in June only accumulated a little more than half of Sale’s value. Who knows when we may see a pitcher in this much of a groove again? For curiosity’s sake, I’ve included a table with the most valuable and highest rated of each pitch type for your perusal. The overall highest rated pitch was Andrew Miller’s slider.

Position: Analyst
Reports to: Director of Baseball Operations

The Analyst position will provide systems analyst functions for the Baseball Operations department’s statistical & technology-related initiatives.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to the following:

• Oversee the in-house technological efforts associated with the development of Braves’ new internal player evaluation application
• Daily maintenance and continued development of internal applications, including a robust Microsoft SQL Server database
• Development and on-going adjustment of proprietary statistics and systems
•  Understand internal baseball processes in order to develop functional requirements (specifications) for outside vendors and application developers—includes requirements, system impact, data flow diagrams special considerations, etc.
• Must have a good understanding of the back-end data structures in order to make sure any front-end Tool/Application changes will meet the needs of Baseball Operations
• Identify and diagnose data quality issues and provide recommendations
• Translate unstructured baseball data into valuable analytical information
• Maintain and expand upon the current Baseball Operations analytical strategy including developing and supporting new reports, dashboards, and data integrations
• Develop and support ETL mappings, procedures, schedules etc. This includes the integration of multiple data sources (internal and key 3rd party external data sources) into a single data repository
• Provide data management expertise to the Baseball Operations team by evaluating requirements and developing solution design proposal
• Troubleshoot and resolve data/ system/application issues
• Discuss technical issues with the software and hardware vendors
• Continue to advance the department’s use of technology and analytics
• Additional duties as assigned by Director of Baseball Operations

The ideal candidate will possess the following:

• BA or BS degree in CS, IS, or an Engineering/Technical Major
• A minimum of 5 years professional experience in a technical role
• Strong knowledge of Data Warehousing, Data Modeling and Reporting
• Experience with creating and understanding SQL concepts
• ETL knowledge is a plus
• Previous experience working with Microsoft products preferred
• Database system knowledge and proficient SQL skills.
• Experience in the use of the Microsoft SQL Server Platform tools (Integration Services, Analysis Services, and Reporting Services) is a plus.
• Logical and Physical Data modeling experience using data modeling tools.
• Relational and Data Warehousing design and development.
• SQL Server Database Administration skills, including performance and query tuning, debugging.
• Candidate should have strong communication, organization, project management, and problem solving skills.
• Experience architecting KPI’s and Performance Management solutions for Baseball Operations users.
• Strong customer facing skills and ability to manage multiple challenging projects simultaneously
• Ability to interact professionally with all branches of Baseball Operations department in fast-paced environment
• Must successfully pass a criminal and credit background check

Qualified candidates can should submit an application and salary expectations online at www.braves.com/employment.
Please note that no phone calls or emails will be accepted regarding application status.

ANLBC, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer