30 June 2017

Mid-Season Questions Answered

Been fielding a lot of informal questions during this extraordinary baseball season. Here are some of them...



Q. Is the ball juiced?
A. Some research, to which I've previously alluded, seems to indicate it's bouncier and the seams are flatter. The differences are minute but they add up over thousands of pitches thrown, which only takes a few games. I doubt it's purposeful but it seems to be a factor in all the long balls.

Q. Are all the home runs and strikeouts bad for baseball?
A. All the talk about home runs and strikeouts being bad for baseball is bad for baseball. The game itself is fine. If no one informed you about all the home runs and strikeouts you would hardly realize it by watching. 

The difference between this remarkable season and the previous record for home runs is a bomb every 10 games per team. Let's say you're a Padres fan,* would you even notice an extra blast every two weeks?

* I picked them to avoid confusion because there aren't actually any Padre fans.

Sure, a large number of strikeouts and walks is dull. Home runs are exciting and make every lead a hair-trigger situation. So on balance, let's just enjoy the games.

Q. Can Aaron Judge keep this up? Will he win the MVP?
A. It's always unlikely that the hottest player in the game will remain that hot all season, and that's particularly true of anyone who has never done it before. And it's double true with a cherry on top when his BABIP is .400. At the same time, only a truly good hitter can produce an 1.150 OPS over 80 games. So I expect Judge to regress some, but he's obviously a very good hitter. By the way, he's also athletic despite his size and has flashed solid defensive and base running skills.

Q. Are the Twins really this good?
A. "This" is the illusion of weak competition. The Twins are barely a .500 team, but because the rest of the division's GPS is recalculating, they've been occupying first place. So sure, they can continue to play .500 ball and finish 10 games out of first.


Q. Are the Phillies really this bad?
A. We have this false notion that a franchise that flips its veterans for minor league talent will automatically contend five years later. It turns out the young prospects acquired by the Phillies just aren't that good, whether because of talent or development. The Braves are experiencing the same problem, though they have executed some wily trades and signings of veterans and earned an upgrade to mediocrity.

Q. Which team currently under .500 has the best chance of earning a playoff spot?
A.  With the Rockies possibly fading, I'd say ... the Cardinals? If the Mets get healthy-ish it could be them.

Q. Is all this launch angle and exit velocity stuff just a fad? Don't you still have to hit the ball to be good?
A. Oh yeah, just like the running craze. In the 70s, people would get up early in the morning, put on sweats and special running shoes, eat some high protein food like an egg or a shake, and go outside to run for miles. Just run, and end up right back where they started. I couldn't wait for that fad to end.

Q. Some folks are saying the Orioles are just awful but it's being camouflaged by their hot start. Do you think they're awful and should blow it up?
A. The people who say the Orioles are awful said the Orioles were awful in 2016. And 2015. And 2014, 2013 and 2012. During that time they won the division once, the Wild Card twice and never finished under .500. I think the Orioles are less awful than the projection tools of those who denigrate the Orioles.

That said, man their pitching sucks.

Q. Is Craig Kimbrel going to the Hall of Fame?
A. I'm sure he can afford a flight to Albany and a car rental to Cooperstown.

As for enshrinement, it's so tricky with relievers. At this moment, there is not a single pitcher in the Hall who was primarily a closer. Rivera will be the first. 

That said, Kimbrel's leading the league in saves for the fifth time in nine years and sports a 1.80 career ERA and 14.6 strikeouts per 9 innings. Let's see him do that for another eight years and then I'll guarantee him entrance without a ticket.

Q. Which active players would make the Hall if they retired today?
A. Pujols, Ichiro, Cabrera, Kershaw (it's his 10th season), Beltre, Beltran. Maybe Cano.

Q. Who will be the next guy after that group into Cooperstown?
A. Buster Posey? Heck, it might be Trout. He's already 13th in WAR among active players.

Also, I didn't include Utley, but he's right on the borderline. Easy now to forget how terrific he was '05-'09.

Q. Who was on your All-Star ballot?
A. I doubt you want to read the whole thing. I did put Trout on the team so he can be honored and replaced by Mookie Betts. I chose Paul Goldschmidt over Ryan Zimmerman, Joey Votto and the injured Freddie Freeman for NL first baseman, and Justin Smoak over Logan Morrison for AL first baseman, mostly because Smoak is from my neck of the woods. NL third base was the toughest pick with Kris Bryant, Nolan Arenado, Anthony Rendon, Justin Turner, Jake Lamb and Travis Shaw. I picked Arenado.

Q. What if the Cubs are like this all season?
A. Imagine the NL Central champ with 84 wins. But I really do believe they have too much talent (and money) to be this middling for an entire season. The rotation is their Achilles heal right now and they can always go into the market for a pitcher. Or, they can just reload next year.

Q. Are the Nats toast with that bullpen?
A. They'd cruise into the playoffs with 50 Cent as their closer, so the question is about the post-season. The benefit of having one truly glaring need is that it's easy to fill that hole and instantly improve. So Washington will snag a closer and set-up man before the trade deadline passes.

Q. How good does Bryce Harper have to be in his career to not be considered a bust?
A. He's got to be near Hall worthy. Keep in mind, though, he's younger than Aaron Judge and already owns 26 WAR. He's almost a lock for 60 or 70 career WAR, which puts him in the Hall conversation.

Q. I'm a Met fan. Woe is me. What should we do?
A. Wail unceasingly. Rend garments. 

At least you have the Jets and Kni...nevermind.

Q. If you were a member of a championship team, would you go to the White House to meet the President?
A. Of course. This isn't about the buffoon in office; it's about our team's accomplishment being honored at the White House. 

But I'd leave my wife home.

Q. Why are there no Lavar Balls in baseball?
A. For the same reason there were no Lavar Balls in any sport until this year. Guy is a genius who has made himself rich and famous. And anyone who pays more than 50 bucks for his sneakers is a moron.

Q. From the influx of young infielders who burst on the scene together, who do you think we'll be remembering in 20 years and who will turn out to be pretenders?
A. I don't think any of them are pretenders. Carlos Correa, Manny Machado, Francisco Lindor, Corey Seager, Nolan Arenado, Xander Boegarts, Andrelton Simmons, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo have all proven they're the real deals. The days of shortstops and second basemen being the weakest hitters are over for a while.

Q. Should the Yankees acquire a pitcher at the trade deadline?
A. They have to be very careful not to mortgage the future. They're a juggernaut waiting to happen and they can't allow premature success to divert them from their plan. Or, they could, and that would be fine with me.

Q. The Giants' record in the second half will be...
A. .500 or better. They're not this bad and Bumgarner returns. But prognosticating baseball is for fools who are soon parted from their money.

Q. What player's absence would hurt his team most?
A. Chris Sale or Max Scherzer. Neither team has the rotation to incur the loss of their ace.

Q. Same question with position players only.
A. It'd be interesting to see how many other Yankees would fall off if they lost Judge.

Arenado off the Rockies would hurt because his defense polishes up the pitching and Colorado has to hang onto that Wild Card for 81 games.

Q. Joey Gallo has 20 homers and 13 singles. Have you ever seen anything like that?
A. I wrote about Adam Dunn doing that a few years back, but it wasn't such a wide margin. Gallo is the new breed of Three True Outcomes hitter -- young and athletic.  Guy is sub-Mendoza but playing regularly because of the jacks and his defense and base running.


Q. You've made a habit of denigrating Derek Jeter's diving catch into the stands. So what was the best catch you've ever seen?
A. It's not denigrating Jeter's catch to point out the fact that he didn't come anywhere near diving into the stands to make it. He caught the ball in fair territory 15 feet from the stands, took two long strides and then flung himself over the railing. We see catches this good or better twice a week on Web Gems, but because they weren't made by Derek Jeter, they're forgotten five minutes later.

Here's a screen grab of your diving catch in the stands.





The best catch I've ever seen was made by Garry Matthews Jr. and has never received its due.

Q. Why do you suck?
A. Because I drink through a straw.


...and on that note, Happy Independence Day and let's have a great second half of the season.


28 June 2017

What A (Half-) Season It's Been



Hard to believe we're nearly 81 games into the 2017 MLB season. Wasn't Opening Day just last week?

It's been an amazing season. Truly. Little acorn teams have sprung up into mighty oaks. A couple of the mighty have shriveled and gone to seed. A gaggle of mediocre veterans have become Albert Pujols, who himself has become holes of poo.

Most importantly, the game's tectonic plates have shifted. Swing up; hit 'em out.

Let's take stock of the biggest stories of this season so far:

1.  The Launch Angle Revolution -- Hitters have decided that a level swing gets them hard-hit singles. Better to swing up and trade a few more fly outs for a gaggle more home runs, particularly when infields are shifting against your strength.

It's working for White Sox outfielder Avisail Garcia, whose OPS is 150 points higher than ever before.

It's working for A's first baseman Yonder Alonso, whose home run total in half of 2017 is greater than in any two of his previous seven campaigns.

It's working for J.D. Martinez, whose .658 slugging is 100 points higher than at his peak.

And for the Nationals' Ryan Zimmerman and Tampa Bay's Corey Dickerson and Toronto's Justin Smoak, who previous to 2017 placed on the Career Bust leaderboard. His two-and-a-half wins of value is double any previous full season.

All these guys are coming out of the woodwork and tearing the cover off the ball like never before. But wasn't it Babe Ruth who discovered that swinging hard and angling up offered the best results?

2. Aaron Judge -- And Cody Bellinger too. Out of nowhere, a couple of rookies are vying for their league's respective MVP. Between them, they have slugged 50 homers and earned 7.3 wins against replacement.

And Bellinger didn't start the season with the big club.

And Judge batted .179 in 95 plate appearances last fall.

And he's the second coming of Derek Jeter in comportment, except he's, like, 100 pounds heavier.

3. The Return of Bryce Harper -- Whew! Following a disheartening 2016 in which many observers thought the boy phenom was hurt, he's bounced back to an All-Star first half of 2017, posting an OPS over 1000 and hitting walk-off home runs.

4. The Ascendance of the Yankees, Diamondbacks and Rockies -- At press time* all of these teams have been passed by superior rivals. But they all seem poised to make a post-season run, something not generally in the Tarot cards at the commencement of festivities. They're back to bombing in the Bronx, Colorado has finally solved the home/away puzzle and Phoenix is where the scrubs are supporting the stars.

*There is no press. I write without deadlines. This statement is meaningless.

It will be fascinating to see how long they can keep it up. The Yankees' rotation is suspect, the Rockies' bullpen has regressed and the Dbacks are living off contributions from the likes of Robbie Ray, Taijuan Walker and Zach Godley.

5. The demise of the Giants, Mets and AL West. You hear that sound? That was the sound of the Houston Astros clinching the AL West. Premature? Then it must have been the sound of the Giants hitting the Earth. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. We knew the Mets would only be as good as their pitchers' health, but did anyone see this coming in San Francisco? How does a rotation of Johnny Cueto; Jeff, uh, The Shark; and Madison Bumgarner lose more games than all but one team? 'Tis a puzzlement.

6.The accidental? juicing of the ball -- A report by The Ringer found that the baseballs used in MLB games are ever so slightly springier and their stitches are ever so slightly smaller. That means they don't move around as much when pitchers hurl them and they bounce farther off bats. That leads to more home runs, which, coupled with item #1 above, leads to even more home runs, more per batted ball than ever before by a significant margin, as you can see below.



7. The head-scratching Cubs -- As recently as 10 weeks ago, the Cubs were the Golden State Warriors of baseball, a juggernaut that would crank out victories until the end of time. Then their pitching staff cratered, their defense became suddenly offensive and Kyle Schwarber found himself in Iowa. We keep saying Chicago will be fine...and they keep losing every other game. Could this be the beginning of the next 108 years?

8. The Brewers' slow burn -- By building their team backwards; i.e., by signing bench parts, utility fielders, middle relievers and fourth starters who have an edge on their league-wide counterparts, the Brewers have embarked on a teardown without the teardown. There aren't any stars on the team, particularly with Ryan Braun on the DL, but their bench is as good as anyone's, and that's kept them over .500 all first half. (The one glaring Achilles heal on the Giants this year is the opposite; their non-starters have been gruesome.) When their farm finally bears fruit they could be a contender without ever having hit rock bottom.

9. The rise of Statcast and the official end of the debate over analytics -- With MLB adopting advanced metrics, and even developing its own, the Luddites have been completely drowned out. Exit velocity, launch angle and other MLB inventions have muted the frustration over useful measurements like TAv, WAR and FIP. Plus Luddite-in-Chief Hawk Harrelson is retiring. The King is dead. Long live the King.

...and we're only halfway through the season.

25 June 2017

The Mets & the False Dichotomy of Buyers and Sellers

"Do you think the Mets will be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline?"


I've been asked this numerous times by NY fans desperate for a Met-amorphosis for their favorite team.

The answer, Met fans, is: No.

Not no, they will be neither. No, that is not the question. 

It is not the question because it is a false dichotomy. 

Somehow we have alighted on this bent twig of buyers and sellers, as if any team that is not in the playoff chase this season should simply tear itself down and start all over, like it's undressing for bed.

Sell the Free Agents; Keep the Rest
But the Mets are not the Reds, Tigers or White Sox. It is not true that they are doomed to failure for the foreseeable future unless they completely retool. They do not roster star players whose useful years will have passed by the time they next contend.



The Mets have been slowed not so much by poor play this year or lack of talent as by injury. If they can keep their talent on the field, and particularly on the mound, they are eating at the adult table.

The Mets aren't playing for 2017 anymore. They're hopelessly behind in the standings in both the division and Wild Card chase. So they can punt this season. But they need to strengthen themselves for 2018 when they could be a pennant prospect.

Sure, if they can get anything for Curtis Granderson, Lucas Duda, Neal Walker, Addison Reed and Jay Bruce they should go ahead and flip them. Those players are all free agents after this season. Unfortunately, Walker is hobbled, Granderson's tank is empty and Dudas grow on trees. It's hard to see them receiving anything useful in return. Reed and Bruce might generate some return, though the Sandy Alderson would like to re-sign their sterling set-up man/back-up closer.

The Mets are Not Alone
Those kinds of short-term moves make sense, but only if they help the team win next year. The next division winner might very well include the starting staff now in Queens and plenty of the everyday players on the roster.


There are other teams in this situation. The Pirates and Cardinals have sufficient talent to compete next year, with a few tweaks. Neither should jettison every veteran in uniform, the way the Tigers and Royals absolutely must to avoid a decade of obsolescence. If the Blue Jays, Mariners or Rangers conclude that the curtain has likely fallen on their 2017 act, they also need to tiptoe through the trade season.

The point is, it is not simply a matter of choosing between emptying the farm for a late season surge or dumping the veterans with an eye towards 2021. There are plenty of teams that are good enough to win -- next year -- and should try again with the roster they have now, more or less.


21 June 2017

Jansen and Kimbrel: Order is Restored


The most amazing relief pitcher in baseball is Kenley Jansen.

The most valuable relief pitcher in baseball is Craig Kimbrel.
 
All is right with the world.

In 30 frames Jansen and his all-World cutter have whiffed 50 batters and walked, hey, where did the walks go? I can't find any walks. Did you see his walks?

No one has ever fanned 36 batters without issuing a free pass. Jansen has blown by that by 33%. He has a K/BB rate of . . . infinity.

Jansen's 0.91 ERA is fueled by a very low Z-contact rate (rate of contact on balls in the strike zone) and a very high O-swing rate (rate of swings at balls outside the strike zone.) Put them together and you get a finisher who is flummoxing the National League. He has allowed 17 hits and recorded 15 saves. 

Whew!

Kimbrel, now in his second season in Boston, might be even more dominating. He leads all relievers in WAR with 2.2 after just 70 games. He's on pace for the best season by WAR of his illustrious career, better than any season as a closer by Mariano Rivera.

In 32 innings, only nine batsmen have hit safely against him. With five walks and 59 strikeouts -- nearly two an inning, Kimbrel is simply overpowering AL batters. His 0.85 ERA and 0.44 WHIP outshine everyone, including Jansen.

For his career, Jansen has a lifetime 2.11 ERA, a 0.87 WHIP and 682 Ks in 438 IP. 

For his career, Kimbrel has a lifetime 1.79 ERA, a 0.91 WHIP and 705 Ks in 433 IP.  After 2017, he will have Cy Young votes in five of his nine seasons. Coming out of the bullpen!

For both pitchers, none of that includes the last 60% of their best year so far.

It's nice to see these two performing at their peak. It makes it fun to think about what would happen if they kept it up for a bunch more years.

18 June 2017

Is This All There Is?

Take a look at the standings 70 games into the season. Could it really be that there is almost nothing left to learn?
By a combination of poor prospects entering the season and predictably poor performance, the following teams are essentially eliminated from the playoffs:
San Diego
Cincinnati
Philadelphia
Atlanta
Anaheim
Oakland
White Sox
Royals
Tigers

Thank you for playing. You get the home version of our game as a parting gift.

The Giants appear to be felled by a 26-44 start. They border on mathematical elimination in the NL West and sit 17.5 games out of the Wild Card.

So there is one-third of MLB that can cash it in for the season -- in mid-June.

On the other hand, the Nationals and Astros are on the verge of clinching. The Dodgers too, though theirs is conceivably a Wild Card.

The NL Central is a dumpster fire, but it seems inevitable that the Cubs will cobble together enough pitching to win that flaccid division.

That doesn't leave us much drama in the Senior Circuit. 

Colorado and Arizona have performed surprisingly well, and it's hard to believe they can maintain a .634 and .623 level of play (respectively), but who is going to run them down? The Marlins, Mets, Cardinals or Pirates, 11 or 12 games behind? Even if the Mets got the gang back together for an extended period and played .600 ball the rest of the way, that would get them to 87 wins, a number the Rockies and Dbacks will surpass even if they lose more games than they win going forward.

It appears we have our National League playoff teams mapped out already. By Father's Day.
In the AL, anyone can win the East or snag a Wild Card and maybe Texas or Seattle can challenge them. The Twins will eventually wake up and discover they are the Twins, probably around the time Cleveland blows by them for the AL Central lead.

And that will be that. The Yankees and Red Sox look strong; add the Indians and Astros and you have a five-way battle for the play-in game.

We're 70 games in and so much has been decided. Can that be all there is?

15 June 2017

100 Bucks for . . . What???


I haven't paid attention to boxing in decades and to MMA ever. I'm not even clear on the difference between MMA and UFC.

But I don't live under a rock. (I live under suspicion.) So "news" of a Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight has reached me. Probably you too.

It's a big event. A Big Event. This year's Fight of the Century kind of thing. Hundreds of millions of dollars involved. And I've been hearing talk of a $100+ pay-per-view pricetag.

This makes me laugh.

Look, I don't know anything about this fight or these guys, but I do know enough to realize that it is a farce, a money grab, a publicity stunt and nothing else.

Consider some logic for a second:

1. Floyd Mayweather retired two years ago. He's coming out of retirement not to fight a great boxer, but for this sideshow. He's a massive favorite, which means he has nothing to gain except...an immense payday.

2. Mayweather's fights are notoriously dull. They are bad viewing. He's a defensive fighter with few knockouts. His last Fight of the Century against an aging Manny Pacquiao was reputedly a snorefest.

3. Conor McGregor isn't a boxer. Sure, he viciously punches people, but he also kicks and wrestles them. And he won't be allowed to do any of that in this fight. There are 45 boxers with a better chance than McGregor of winning this fight.

4. The run-up to the fight is where the action is. McGregor is a poet with a rapier wit and a mean streak. His scathing psychological carve-ups of opponents is incredibly entertaining. But that's yours for free. You don't need to pay $100 for it.

A lot of things in America boggle my mind. Unlike this, some of them actually matter. Nonetheless, I can't imagine why anyone would pay to see this carnival, or even dedicate an hour to it, much less shell out 100 clams for it. 

P.T. Barnum was a genius.

11 June 2017

An Even More Worserer Contract

Recently, I mentioned that Albert Pujols's contract was the worst ever. Big money, small returns, never the player the Angels expected and now declining rapidly with four more brutal years left.

So, a defensible position.

But I neglected to consider a large ursine bamboo eater. Yes, the Big Panda

Pablo Sandoval inked a five-year, $95 million deal with the Red Sox that's nearly half done and he has "contributed" two losses against replacement. 

For $95 million he has made the Sox worse. And he has done it each year.

For three years he has hit, fielded, run the bases and avoided injury about at the level of an American Legion baseball player. Without a contract he would literally be out of professional ball right now.

And there are two more years left on his deal. Plus an option that the Red Sox are sure to pick up. And throw in the garbage.

So that might be the worst contract ever because literally every penny of it, all $95 million, was a waste.

My bad.

10 June 2017

Who Is Ryan Schimpf and What the Hell is He Doing?

Ryan Schimpf lives quietly in SoCal anonymity, which is to say he's the third baseman for the San Diego Padres.

You probably haven't heard of him, but he's a revolutionary.

Schimpf last year batted just .217 but earned three wins by smashing 20 home runs in half a season.

It's been the same but more this year. He's hitting .158 with 14 home runs. Those 14 big flies represent more than half his output of hits.

The Launch Angle King
Schimpf is the tip of the spear in the world of launch angles. He has adopted with prejudice the philosophy of swinging hard on an upward plane to produce fly balls that leave the yard. In a world where 11 degrees is an average launch angle, Schimpf is golfing his contact on a 29 degree angle, first in the Majors. That's first, not necessarily best.

At 5'9, 180, and 29 years of age, Ryan Schimpf is neither the biggest nor most pedigreed ballplayer. Aaron Judge, for example, has 11 inches and 100 pounds on him, and Billy Hamilton could beat Schimpf in a race to Schimpf's own hand. Schimpf isn't fast or powerful, so he's pushing all his chips to the middle of the table and betting on an upward swing. It's yielded him two seasons on the MLB roster and 34 home runs in less than a full season's work.

Maybe Hedge His Bets
But Schimpf might want to pull a few of those chips back. The folks at 538 determined that the optimal launch angle for fly balls is about 25 degrees. Anything more yields too many high fly balls and popups.  That's less than Schimpf's average batted ball and it's yielding, well, a lot of high fly balls and popups. Schimpf's 43% fly ball rate is nearly double the league average and pretty certainly more than is ideal.

Suppose he cut his launch angle in half? That would make him Justin Smoak, another guy who might be otherwise employed but for his new approach. Smoak's hit more jacks than Schimpf, and also more of everything else good.

The great philosopher, Mae West, said, "too much of a good thing is . . . wonderful." But in this case, there's a limit to how much a batter should angle his swing. And Ryan Schimpf appears to have found it.


08 June 2017

The New Paradigm in Hall of Fame Declines

Albert Pujols, who smacked the 600th home run of his Hall of Fame career this week, may be a pioneer in career decline.


You probably remember the sad declines of some great players. Mickey Mantle nearly unable to walk. Willie Mays a pathetic shadow of himself. Steve Carlton 6-15, 6.40 with as many walks as strikeouts.

But those guys hung on a year or two too long. They wanted to play. They didn't know anything else.

Pujols's performance has diminished seven of the last eight seasons. He  became a below average player last year and has sunk to replacement level this year. By next season, his 18th, he will be unrosterable.

But he will be rostered. The Angels inked him to one of the worst contracts of all time, a 10-year, $240 million deal at age 31.

Pujols will have four more years of payments after this, untenable, season.

Why Keep Playing? 114 Million Reasons
There is no reason but money for Pujols to stay on. He will not reach homer number 700. He will suffer injury. He will lower his lifetime batting average, now just eight points clear of .300, and his OBP, which has fallen below .400.


If Prince Albert were to walk away at the conclusion of this campaign, he would leave $114 million on the table. That he's already cashed a Powerball ticket -- $230 million over his career -- does not make it any more palatable to turn down $114 million doing what you love, even if you never get out of the dugout.

It is possible, depending on whether the Angels simply pay him off and turn him into a roving ambassador, that Pujols will don the uniform for five full seasons while contributing negatively to Anaheim's pennant thrust. 

That is an inner circle Hall of Fame decline. No one has quite done that.

Cabrera and Wright Too
But it may become the new norm, at least for a while. Miguel Cabrera has stumbled to below average offense so far this year. With six more years and $184 million guaranteed on his contract after
2017, he could also become a massive albatross in Detroit.

The Mets suffer the same ignominy with David Wright, who can't even get on the field. Including 2017, Wright has four seasons of guaranteed payment, worth $67 million to him. For $60 million from 2015-2017 he has offered the Mets a nice smile and three-tenths of a win.

Teams may have learned not to sign these ridiculous, backloaded contracts anymore. We saw what Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion had to settle for this winter. 

For a few more years though, some former great players will limp up to the plate and flail fecklessly at fastballs simply because they are getting paid for past deeds.


07 June 2017

How To Add 150 Points of OPS Overnight

Prior to Tuesday night, Reds second baseman Scooter Gennett was hitting .270/.308/.450 with three homers and 20 RBIs. He had produced 0.4 WAR in 46 games this season. 

One day later, he stands at .302/336/.578 with seven homers and 30 RBIs. He is now a well-above-average hitter and has produced 1.2 WAR in 47 games.



That's what a four-homer, five-for-five game will do for a slappy utility player.

By the way, the four-homer game is rarer yet than a perfect game, hitting for the cycle or Scott Kazmir DL stints. The list of four-homer performers (17 of them) includes:

Lou Gehrig,
Gil Hodges,
Joe Adcock,
Rocky Colavito,
Willie Mays,
Mike Schmidt,
Bob Horner,
Shawn Green,
Carlos Delgado,
Josh Hamilton.


And now Scooter Gennett.

The smallest number of lifetime homers among the previous 16 is Bobby Lowe's 71. He played for the Boston Beaneaters. 

Gennett is now at 42.

Scooter Gennett. 

Get that launch angle up, friends.

05 June 2017

Is There Fire Where There's Smoak?

It might have escaped your attention that MLB bust Justin Smoak, a native of Goose Creek, SC, 20 miles from the source of these words, is enjoying a career 1/3rd of a year in his eighth season.
A spare part most of his career, he was one tooth in the gear the Blue Jays hoped would offset the power output of departed Edwin Encarnacion.

Now Smoak is doing it all by himself. A career .223 hitter, he's delivering .283/.348/.550 with 14 blasts and out-slugging not only Encarnacion (.230 with 10 homers) but also any version of Justin Smoak we've ever seen.

With an OPS 130 points higher than his next best season's, Smoak has, in just the first 50 games of 2017, doubled his lifetime WAR. And he's doing it in a different way than the rest of the sport.

The buzzword today in MLB is launch angle -- swing up so that when you make contact you have a chance at extra bases. It sacrifices some BA and OBP for power. But that was already Justin Smoak's career modus operandi, and while it's kept him in The Show, his sun may have been setting. What has changed for Smoak is the quantity of his upward contact: he's fanning three percent less than league average, compared to six percent more in his previous seven years.

That might not seem like much, but take my word for it, it's the difference between .223 and .283, between replacement-level player and starting first baseman. And the reason seems to be that he's laying off breaking balls outside the strike zone. It's a small adjustment, but the kind that has given us Eric Thames and Aaron Judge and, now, Justin Smoak. So while we're comparing 50 games to 3000 previous trips to the plate, it might be sustainable.

That would be Smoak without the mirrors, and that would be a nice career boost for a guy who seemed headed back to Goose Creek.

04 June 2017

Holding Court on the Best Rookie Season

In 1975, rookie Fred Lynn took the American League by storm, earning a Rookie of the Year award and capturing the MVP along with it. He hit a league leading 47 doubles along with seven triples and 21 homers, batting .331/.401/.566 to lead the AL in OPS and won a Gold Glove in center field. His 7.4 WAR was second best among position players that year (behind Rod Carew.)

If it wasn't the greatest rookie season for a position player of all time, it's on the list. You might prefer Ichiro's "rookie" season in 2001 when he hit .350, stole 56 bases and earned 7.7 WAR or Ted Williams's 1939, when he blasted 86 XBH and compiled a .436 OBP en route to 6.7 WAR. Or perhaps you're partial to Albert Pujols and his 88 XBH, .403 OBP and 6.6 WAR that got lost in the drama of 2001.

(It's worth pointing out that Mike Trout's 20-year-old season blows all of these away, but he squandered his rookie status with 123 at-bats at age 19.)

Whatever your preference, it might all soon be moot. If Aaron Judge were to keep this up, he would lead the majors with 57 homers and 136 runs scored. His .326/.433/.691 and exemplary defense in right would be worth 10.5 WAR. In the absence of Trout's league-leading everything else, Judge is the top candidate for both Rookie of the Year and MVP.

The Signs Are Good for More
Can Judge keep this up? No one knows the answer, of course, not even Aaron Judge. We do know that he has passed the first adjustment test. The mammoth right-hander's May was every bit as intimidating as his April and he has shown improved plate discipline over his Minor League career. He's also performing this way despite striking out a jabillion times -- he's on pace for 200 Ks -- but also 100 walks. 

By definition, it's not likely the 25-year-old is quite this, because no one has ever been quite this his freshman season. But it's also quite likely he is something. After all, consider that not-too-shabby list above. If Judge performs at half this rate the rest of the way he's still nearly a seven-win player with close to 40 home runs. 

You've read and heard all the Judge puns, but they miss the point. This guy might just be Aaron.