Note: This is a piece I have blogged about previously for a British baseball site located here, and this is a slightly updated version.

Jeff Sullivan does pieces on the worst called balls and strikes at the halfway mark and end of each season. These are usually quite bizarre calls that have some unusual circumstances behind them, but for the most part they don’t have too much influence on the game. However, in this postseason, there was a poor “strike” call which had a huge impact on a game.

In bottom of the second inning of Game Three in the NLDS series between the Braves and the Dodgers, Walker Buehler was in a difficult situation with two outs and runners on second and third after an error from Cody Bellinger. The Dodgers decided to intentionally walk Charlie Culberson, loading the bases, to get to Braves pitcher Sean Newcomb – a fairly standard approach in the NL. But Buehler fired four balls to Newcomb and walked in the first run of the game, bringing up Ronald Acuna, who Buehler threw another three balls to to end up down 3-0 in the count.

Then came “ball four,” but it wasn’t called a ball despite being two inches above the top of the zone, as home plate umpire Gary Cederstrom called a strike. That meant Buehler threw another pitch to Acuna, who launched it for a grand slam, resulting in a score of 5-0 and not 2-0. The potentially “pitcher friendly” call by the umpire cost the Dodgers three runs in a game they ended up losing by just one.

To go to a hyperbolic extent, this meant they lost the game, they then had to play a further game in the series against Atlanta, they were then more tired than the Brewers in what became a seven-game series, they were then more tired than the Red Sox, and they therefore lost the World Series. Certainly a stretch, but it’s not hard to see the effect in the game considering the Braves managed just three runs in the other 35 innings of their four-game series.

Not every mistake made by an umpire has an easily identifiable ramification like that, but they do happen in most game, and it is no surprise that MLB and the WUA (World Umpire Association) want to have the smallest number of mistakes possible. Nowadays they can do this by looking at how many calls an umpire got right or wrong thanks to systems that track the speeds and trajectories of pitched baseballs. Read the rest of this entry »

Jurickson Profar finds himself at the top of the second base depth chart for the Oakland A’s, his new team following an offseason trade. That is very good news for Jurickson Profar, since it seems Jurickson Profar is struggling to throw the baseball.

The former top prospect made nine throwing errors in 2018… at two different positions. He made nine throwing errors at shortstop and nine throwing errors at third base. He also made one at second base, for a total of 19 throwing errors on the year. That is seven more than anyone else and the most in one season since the stat was first tracked in 2003.

Profar came up as a middle infielder, playing every game but one there in his minor league career. In 2018, he started at shortstop for the first three months of the season when Elvis Andrus got injured, and he struggled to throw the ball accurately. In mid-May, Levi Weaver of The Athletic was concerned Profar had the yips. In the article, Profar states how he’s struggled to make the transition defensively from Triple-A to the bigs:

“You know, this is the first time that I’ve gotten to play, for a long time, shortstop in the big leagues. Shortstop in the big leagues is not the same as shortstop in the minor leagues. You don’t get big guys like… Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, and Didi Gregorius…”

Profar was getting his first real chance to play shortstop in the majors, recognizing its difference from minor league ball, and thought he was benefiting from his time there. Just as he was getting his reps and starting to figure out the differences, the Rangers decided to move him to third base in July as Adrian Beltre’s hamstring acted up.

Profar started 46 games at third base, and the results weren’t great. He made as many throwing errors as Maikel Franco in half the innings. In an article published by Sportsday, former manager Jeff Bannister attributes Profar’s miscues to his lack of footwork:

“There are times when he gets a little out of rhythm,” Banister said. “That’s when you see those errant throws. … He continues to work on being consistent with the footwork.”

On a bunch of Profar’s errant throws this year, he seems unaware of the amount of time he has to make a play. He gets the ball very quickly out of his glove but the throws have a tendency to be off-line. He appears to be rushing his throws in situations that don’t warrant it. This goes along with his poor footwork. When he’s better able to recognize the amount of time he has to make a play, he can take the time to set his feet and make a proper throw to first base.

All that said, there are two main reasons that there is some hope for young Profar. Exhibit A is Marcus Semien, Profar’s new teammate. In 2015, Semien’s first year with Oakland, he made 18 throwing errors. The next season he made only eight, and his defensive numbers have continued to improve overall. Maybe there’s some coaches in Oakland who will be able to recognize a problem that the Rangers could not. It also doesn’t hurt that Matt Olson is one of the best defensive first basemen in the league. With that in mind, the change of location could really benefit Profar.

The other silver lining, and what you’ve probably been thinking this whole time, is that second base is a much easier throw. Profar played 79 innings at second base this year and made just one throwing error, coming on a play where he slipped, regained his footing, and then made a throw well wide of first. On plays in which he did not slip, Profar had a flawless record at second.

Even if Profar makes eight throwing errors this season at second base, the most made by any second baseman in 2018, that is fewer than half what he made last year. The Athletics currently have one of the best defensive infields in the game, and they are hoping they can help Profar stay on his feet and contribute with his arm.

When I was first asked about Chavez Young, I honestly vaguely recognized the name. I knew he was a Blue Jays outfielder, but that’s about it (and I work with prospects!). Just looking at the stat line, I was impressed. And the deeper I looked, the more I began to think that this might be the most criminally underrated prospect in baseball. David Laurila also took note recently here at FanGraphs.

Quick question: Who was the only prospect in baseball to record 50 extra-base hits and steal 40 bases in 2018? You guessed it: Chavez Young. Which prospect is rated as having the best defensive arm in the Blue Jays system by Baseball America, with 98 mph from the outfield recorded in high school? You guessed it again, Chavez Young. So how does a player like this go so under-the-radar? How does a 20-year-old in full-season ball who plays plus defense, hits third in his lineup, and had 50 extra-base hits and 40 steals not even make MLB Pipeline’s top 30 for the organization?

Let’s start off by saying who Chavez Young is. Young was born in the Bahamas, an area that is starting to get more buzz as a baseball country after producing prospects like Kristian Robinson and Jazz Chisholm. But it is also an area that up until recently was rarely visited by baseball scouts. Since 1983, only one major league player has made the MLB from the Bahamas (Antoan Richardson). As a result, Chavez left the Bahamas in high school to pursue baseball in the prestigious Georgia prep ranks. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite the generally slow free agent market and the continuing increase of bullpen usage, starting pitchers have done fairly well for themselves this winter. Patrick Corbin inked a nine-figure deal, blowing past most projections to get a guaranteed $140 million. The Rays shelled out their largest free agent contract ever, giving Charlie Morton $30 million over two years. Nathan Eovaldi parlayed a strong second half and postseason heroics into a four-year, $67.5 million pact to return to Boston, and J.A. Happ got half that from the Yankees for his age 36 and 37 seasons. Even past-their-prime options such as Lance Lynn, Anibal Sanchez, and Matt Harvey were given eight figures, the former two on multi-year guarantees.

Yet arguably the most accomplished hurler among this year’s crop of free agent starters remains unsigned – Dallas Keuchel. FanGraphs’ Crowd Source and MLB Trade Rumors projections both had the 2015 Cy Young winner in the neighborhood of four years and $80 million, which would exceed Eovaldi’s deal for the second-highest guarantee among starters.

Of available starters, Keuchel was worth the second-most WAR last year (3.6, behind only Corbin’s 6.3), and projects to be the second-most valuable next year (3.3 WAR, just behind Corbin’s 3.5). Much has been made of his decline in punchouts (his strikeout rate dipped to 17.5% in 2018, fourth-lowest among qualified pitchers), but his velocity has remained steady and he’s continued to limit both walks and homers while inducing lots of ground balls. In 2018, Keuchel topped 200 innings for the third time in five seasons, and he’s been an above-average starter in all of those years.

At 31, he’s not young, but he’s younger than Happ (36), Morton (35), Sanchez (35), and Lynn (32), all of whom received multi-year deals. It’s fair to say that Keuchel doesn’t have the upside of Corbin or Eovaldi (or maybe even that of Morton or Yusei Kikuchi), but his consistency and track record should appeal to plenty of teams in need of a rotation upgrade.

Happ, a southpaw with a similar reputation for durability and above-average-but-not-elite performance, and Keuchel have been almost identical over the past three years (518 innings and 9.1 fWAR for Happ, 518.1 and 8.6 for Keuchel). But Happ is four years older, so over the course of his next contract, Keuchel’s output could quite reasonably look a lot like Happ’s recent past – that is, a 170-inning, 3-win metronome.

However, there seems to be some concern or trepidation surrounding Keuchel, a pitcher whose raw stuff was never overpowering, and the sustainability of his results. And looking at some of his underlying metrics, it’s easy to see why. Read the rest of this entry »

Managers are always attempting to optimize their lineups for success. Whether they make in-game decisions like double-switches and lefty-righty matchups, or choose to change things up based on recent or historical performances, every move is meant to give their team the competitive advantage. What if they also made alterations based on pitcher groupings? In this article, I will attempt to determine if batter performance is impacted by pitcher clusters that are organized by pitch speed and pitch proportion.

The parameters used to cluster pitchers are below:

• Proportion of Pitch Thrown
• Average Pitch Speed

These statistics were calculated for the following pitch types:

• Changeup
• Curveball
• Eephus
• Cutter
• Four-seam fastball
• Sinker
• Two-seam fastball
• Knuckle-curve
• Knuckleball
• Slider
• Splitter

*All data in this study is from 2010-July 2017 (MLB Gameday). Read the rest of this entry »

The 20-to-80 scale is one of the core tenets of baseball scouting and allows evaluators to quickly interpret a player’s skillset. Kiley McDaniel wrote an excellent series of articles back in 2014 (and provided an update this past November) explaining the scale, and while the whole series is easily worth a read, one of the key notes is as follows:

The invention of the scale is credited to Branch Rickey and whether he intended it or not, it mirrors various scientific scales. 50 is major league average, then each 10 point increment represents a standard deviation better or worse than average.

On the surface, the scale is fairly easy to understand, but somewhat harder to conceptualize what each grade actually looks like. For example, how frequently does a hitter with a 45 power grade hit a home run? How does a 60 run grade translate to Sprint Speed? I decided to investigate, drawing inspiration from a 2013 article by Mark Smith. The idea of an objective 20-to-80 scale, while not a new concept, is worth revisiting at this time because of changes in the run environment and the development of new player evaluation techniques, most notably StatCast. We’ll begin with a brief rundown on methodology before looking at each tool: Read the rest of this entry »

For a couple of years now, baseball fans have enjoyed publicly available Statcast data for the MLB level. This data allows us to examine the exit velocity, launch angle, estimated distance, and countless other aspects of every batted ball. This data has also resulted in “expected” stats, very useful additions to the toolbox of any baseball fanalyst. While this data is collected at the minor league level as well, it is not made publicly available, leaving us with a more limited toolbox when evaluating prospects via statistics.

Fortunately, one piece of Statcast-adjacent MiLB data is publicly-available. MLB’s Prospect site includes a search engine for MiLB statistics. For each batted ball, the site reports two “hit coordinates”: hc_x and hc_y. These coordinates appear to tell us the point on the field where the batted ball hit the ground or was caught. Using these hit coordinates, we can estimate (with some accuracy) the distance of home runs hit at the MiLB level.

Here are the hit coordinates of every batted ball by the Toronto Blue Jays in 2018 at the MLB level. The picture of a baseball diamond becomes even clearer if we multiply each hc_y by -1, flipping the image about the horizontal axis. Read the rest of this entry »

Since opening in 1999, Coors Field has provided the most offense-friendly environment in baseball. Despite the inherent volatility in park factors for single-season data, Coors has “won” the park factor title in 15 of the past 20 years, never finishing lower than third. The dramatic increase in home runs may be the most striking effect of the thin air about a mile above sea level, but all balls in flight, including pitches, are affected. Due to the lower air density, the spin-induced movement of a pitch thrown at high altitude will be lower than that of a comparable pitch closer to sea level.

Check out the average movement on Adam Ottavino’s pitches in 2017 and 2018 separated by home (purple) and away (black).

You may recall Ottavino said recently that he is confident Babe Ruth couldn’t hit any of this stuff. Read the rest of this entry »

The Yankees kicked off their offseason by acquiring LHP James Paxton from the Seattle Mariners to bolster their starting rotation. You won’t find anybody willing to deny Paxton’s immense talent, but it’s natural for people to scrutinize big acquisitions, especially when the big acquisition is on his way to New York. This scrutiny is best exemplified by a conversation I had with my mother on the day the trade was made. My mom followed the Mets of the mid-to-late 1980s when she lived in Brooklyn, went years without watching baseball, and has watched the Yankees for the past decade by product of my fandom. This leads to the amusing circumstance that she is very familiar with current broadcasters Keith Hernandez and David Cone, all of the recent Yankees players, and almost nobody in between. Our conversation on the day of the Paxton trade went something like this:

Me: The Yankees picked up a hell of a pitcher named James Paxton. I think he’s going to do big things for the Yankees next year!

Mom: Yeah, sure. Isn’t that what you said about Sonny Gray?

Okay — she got me there.

Read the rest of this entry »