2016 MLB thread. THE CUBS HAVE BROKEN THE CURSE! Chicago Cubs are your 2016 World Series champions

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Ps good news for DC Metro fans.
Past 4 years I've visited the eventual champs stadium. This year I went to Nats and O's parks. Enjoy the parade
 
Dellin Betances just broke Yankees record for most strikeouts in a season by a reliever 131Ks in 87 IP.

Previous leader Mariano Rivera in 1996 with 130Ks in 107.2 IP.
 
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Bias aside, because you've been fair in the past, Matty's your NL MOY? If the season ended today.
Nah, I wouldn't give it to him. I'd probably give it to Redmond in Miami. I'd give Williams consideration, but honestly he was handed the keys to a Mercedes and all he had to do was not crash it.
 
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:lol:

:smh:

I hate sports.
 
Kluber and Sale both have a legitimate case alongside Felix for AL Cy Young.

Felix is having a historic run that is only topped by Kershaw's dominance. 2.14 ERA, should be at 18-19 wins right now, 0.91 WHIP to Kluber's 1.10, a higher WAR, breaking the record for starts with 2 or fewer runs in 7+ innings, yeah Kluber has had a great season but Felix is having a Cy Young season. There is no questioning that, hold for these last 2-3 starts.
 
Pitcher wins and team success should really have nothing to do with whether or not a guy should win a Cy Young. I would think Felix fans would understand that concept seeing as Felix got shut out for so long because of that fact.

All three of them are having extraordinary Cy Young worthy seasons. To doubt that, shows you don't really know what you're talking about.

Also, don't use Baseball Reference WAR. It's been beat into the ground why Fangraphs WAR is superior. There, Kluber leads Felix by a healthy 0.7 WAR, not that WAR is the end all be all of the matter.
 
Pitcher wins and team success should really have nothing to do with whether or not a guy should win a Cy Young. I would think Felix fans would understand that concept seeing as Felix got shut out for so long because of that fact.

All three of them are having extraordinary Cy Young worthy seasons. To doubt that, shows you don't really know what you're talking about.

Also, don't use Baseball Reference WAR. It's been beat into the ground why Fangraphs WAR is superior. There, Kluber leads Felix by a healthy 0.7 WAR, not that WAR is the end all be all of the matter.

To completely ignore my post, and point out WAR, shows you're really not grasping the factual information. I said Felix should have 18-19 wins, clearly his lack of wins isn't hurting his Cy chances. And let me know when Kluber breaks a 40+ year old effiency record and posts close to a 2.0 ERA. Devils advocate doesn't work here.
 
Since I have time, I'll compare the 3 Cy Young candidates by rank in the AL, I'll rank them 1st through 3rd by stats:

ERA:
1st - Felix
2nd - Sale
3rd - Kluber

WHIP:
1st - Felix
2nd - Sale
3rd - Kluber

K's:
1st - Kluber
2nd - Felix
3rd - Sale

Average allowed:
1st - Felix
2nd - Sale
3rd - Kluber

H/9:
1st - Felix
2nd - Sale
3rd - Kluber

Wins:
1st - Kluber
2nd - Felix
3rd - Sale

IP:
1st - Kluber
2nd - Felix
3rd - Sale

Felix lead in 4 of these 7 categories and not once came in last. He broke a 40 year old record set by Tom Seaver in the 70's. His ERA is 2.14. Now, the season is not over and he's probably going to face some good lineups in his last couple starts, but save me the controversy, it is inconceivable that right now people are picking Kluber and Sale over Felix for Cy Young. Shows how many folks on here know nothing about baseball. :lol:
 
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Wilmer Flores Successfully Making Routine Plays.

Earlier today, the author published a post regarding rather young Mets shortstop Wilmer Flores and how — somewhat surprisingly, given basically every scouting report about him — Flores had played a mostly average shortstop over 400-plus innings.

Said post included select footage — both of Flores misplaying relatively harmless ground balls and also Flores recording outs on batted balls that are converted less than 50% of the time. What it lacked, however, was any footage of Flores making actual, normal shortstop plays. The purpose of this current post is to address that pressing issue.

Here, for example, is Flores cleanly fielding and throwing to first a ground ball by Miami third baseman Casey McGehee in the fourth inning of the Mets game last night:

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And here’s Flores doing basically the exact same thing two innings later:

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Finally, here’s Flores backhanding a Donovan Solano grounder in the ninth and, once again, making an entirely acceptable throw to first:

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And because it exists, here’s a final GIF of that last play, except from a different angle:

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Updating Mike Trout’s Historical Context.

Two years ago, Mike Trout had the best age-20 season of all-time, by Wins Above Replacement. Last year, Trout had the best age-21 season of all time, by Wins Above Replacement. This year, Mike Trout will not have the best age-22 season of all time, because he’s regressed a little bit and also because holy crap Ted Williams.

But just because Trout hasn’t had the best season of any player ever at this age doesn’t mean we can’t have fun appreciating where his updated career totals have him relative to everyone else who has ever played the game. So, here are the five best players through their age-22 season, by WAR.

Name PA Off Def WAR
Mike Trout 2,157 186.3 13.7 29.0
Ty Cobb 2,490 165.5 -24.0 25.9
Mel Ott 2,640 180.7 -0.7 25.1
Ted Williams 1,944 199.6 -21.4 24.8
Jimmie Foxx 1,974 154.5 -1.3 21.0
Modern defensive metrics have error bars, of course, and that goes double for numbers from 100 years ago, so you can essentially do whatever you want with those DEF numbers and adjust accordingly; this list is not gospel. But there’s Trout at the top, and even if you ignored defense and position to just rate by offensive runs above average, he’d fall all the way to #2, behind only Ted Williams.

But that’s not unexpected; the guy who ranks #1 in WAR at both age-20 and age-21 should rank at the top of this leaderboard. So instead, here’s a slightly more fun list; the best players through their age-23 season, all time, by WAR.

Name PA Off Def WAR
Ted Williams 2,615 285.6 -22.9 36.4
Ty Cobb 3,080 236.4 -20.0 36.2
Mel Ott 3,313 245.3 -3.3 33.2
Mickey Mantle 2,841 193.0 0.8 29.5
Mike Trout 2,157 186.3 13.7 29.0
Trout is virtually tied with Mickey Mantle for #4 on this list, ranking behind only three Hall of Famers. And Mike Trout has not yet had his age-23 season. That will be next year, and with another reasonable Trout season, he’ll pass Williams and take the top spot on that list too.

Things will get a little harder two years from now, since Ty Cobb put up 47 WAR through his age-24 season, meaning Trout will need 18 WAR over the next two years to catch him. He can do it — he’s put up 18 WAR the last two years — but it’s not a shoo-in, and so in a few years, we might actually have a list of best careers through a specific age where Trout is not #1. But it wouldn’t be too shocking if he caught Cobb and ended up atop that list too.

Let’s appreciate what we’re seeing here. The term generational talent gets thrown around too much, but Mike Trout is a generational talent.

Examining the A’s Epic Collapse.

One of the biggest stories of the season’s second half has been the historic decline of the Oakland Athletics. They are flirting with accomplishing the extremely difficult feat of having the best record in baseball at the All Star break, and then missing the playoffs. Winning the final two games of their pivotal series with the Seattle Mariners this past weekend has sharply decreased the likelihood of that worst case scenario, but the collapse has been stark nonetheless. It’s convenient to tie the A’s second half results to the departure of Yoenis Cespedes in the Jon Lester trade, but the reality is a bit more complicated than that. There are many factors in play, but arguably the foremost among them has been the precipitous fall of two of their key offensive players – Derek Norris and Brandon Moss.
As we stand here a week and a half away from the end of the regular season, one can still make a very strong case that the A’s are the best club in the major leagues, despite the fact that they currently trail the Angels by 10 1/2 games, through Tuesday’s night’s games. Their run differential remains the game’s best, and over a large sample size, they have proven to be a balanced, resilient club. They are 3rd in the AL in runs per game, and 2nd in runs allowed. They play strong defense. They don’t have wasted spots on their roster, platooning often in the lineup, and getting valuable contributions from both the back end of the rotation and bullpen.

The A’s record crested at 28 games over .500, at 72-44, on August 9, though their winning percentage peaked at .625 a couple weeks earlier, on July 27. They are 18-28 since the former date, and 11-23 since the latter. Obviously, this is right around the time of the Cespedes trade, on July 31. Usually, when a contender acquires a high-end rental player like Lester at the deadline, minor league pieces are exchanged in return.

By dealing Cespedes, the A’s did weaken their lineup to strengthen their rotation. They did receive Jonny Gomes in the deal, but unsurprisingly, he appears to be toast, batting .250-.317-.269 since the deal. Sam Fuld was also re-acquired that same day, and has had to play quite a bit, batting a puny .217-.272-.344 in two stints with the A’s this season. Certainly, there has been an offensive dropoff with the departure of Cespedes, but there is that slight mitigating effect – sarcasm intended – of the acquisition of Lester and his 2.30 ERA in 62 2/3 innings since the trade. The offense was hurt, but the team significantly helped by the deal. As a club, the A’s were batting .254-.329-.406 through July 29 – since that day, they have hit only .223-.295-.335. It has been run creation, not prevention, that has keyed the club’s decline.

One under-the-radar reason for the A’s offensive decline has been the absence of John Jaso, placed on the DL on August 24 with a concussion. From July 29 until that date, Jaso went 8 for 52, batting .154-.214-.231 over that span. Jaso is no superstar, but he is exactly the type of versatile, undervalued piece that the A’s productive offense has been built upon. The timing of his decline exactly mirrors that of the club, but every contender has injuries, and many of them have occurred to players more valuable than Jaso. Another mitigating factor here has been increased playing time for Steven Vogt, who has contributed more than the A’s ever could have asked.

This brings us back to Norris and Moss. Both players were acquired in two of the more common ways utilized by the A’s. Gio Gonzalez was becoming too expensive for the A’s taste, so they dealt him to the Nationals for a substantial package that included Norris. Moss was a humble minor league free agent signing prior to the 2012 season, an undervalued asset that the A’s identified as a potential breakout power performer.

On August 2, Norris woke up with a .303-.402-.481 line, and Moss had a line of .266-.347-.526 as recently as July 24. Obviously, these guys were a big part of their great start, and they have been an equally large part of their recent struggles. Let’s first examine their overall 2014 plate appearance outcome frequency and production by BIP type data to get a better feel for their true talent level. First, the frequency data:

FREQ – 2014
Norris % REL PCT
K 19.7% 97 54
BB 11.8% 153 89
POP 9.4% 122 69
FLY 27.3% 98 42
LD 18.0% 86 10
GB 45.3% 104 69
————– ———- ———- ———-
Moss % REL PCT
K 26.5% 131 83
BB 11.0% 143 84
POP 11.0% 143 81
FLY 37.8% 135 96
LD 20.7% 100 48
GB 30.4% 70 3
There’s actually a lot to like in Norris’ full-season frequency profile. HIs BB rate is quite high, with an 89 percentile rank, providing some margin for error with regard to batted-ball authority. Though his popup rate remains quite high (69 percentile rank), it is way down from his massive 17.2% popup rate in limited 2013 duty. His liner rate (10 percentile rank) is low, but liner rates tend to fluctuate more than those of other batted-ball types, so positive regression could be in his future.

Moss is what he is, an extreme fly ball hitter (96 percentile rank). In my Chris Davis piece earlier this week, it was noted that Davis and Moss, along with Colby Rasmus, were the three most extreme fly ball hitters in the game in 2013. Such hitters are extremely risky, and the vast majority of the 17 2013 MLB regulars who had more fly balls (excluding popups) than grounders have struggled quite a bit in 2014. Moss strikes out a ton (84 percentile rank), but like many power hitters gets his walks (83 percentile rank). With such a high K rate, it is imperative that Moss make thunderous contact when he does put the ball in play.

To assess the relative authority of both players’ contact, let’s take a look at their overall 2014 production by batted-ball type, before and after adjustment for context:

PROD – 2014
Norris AVG OBP SLG REL PRD ADJ PRD
FLY 0.299 0.687 98 66
LD 0.523 0.841 75 113
GB 0.342 0.378 202 126
ALL BIP 0.339 0.518 109 94
ALL PA 0.262 0.350 0.401 117 104
—————- ———- ———– ———- ———- ———-
Moss AVG OBP SLG REL PRD ADJ PRD
FLY 0.363 1.062 194 246
LD 0.726 0.919 116 115
GB 0.242 0.264 100 110
ALL BIP 0.345 0.637 136 153
ALL PA 0.239 0.323 0.442 116 128
Both players’ actual production on each BIP type is indicated in the AVG and SLG columns, and is converted to run values and compared to MLB average in the REL PRD column. That figure then is adjusted for context, such as home park, luck, etc., in the ADJ PRD column. For the purposes of this exercise, SH and SF are included as outs and HBP are excluded from the OBP calculation.

There are major disconnects between Norris’ actual and adjusted production for each batted ball type. He’s been quite lucky on fly balls (98 REL PRD vs. 66 ADJ PRD), a fact that has been largely offset by his bad fortune on liners (75 REL PRD vs. 113 ADJ PRD). What cannot be ignored, however, is the extreme good luck he has experienced on ground balls. Norris is batting a stunning .342 AVG-.378 SLG on grounders for the season – a 202 REL PRD figure, over twice as productive as the average MLB hitter. This, from a relatively, slow, righthanded-hitting catcher. He does hit his grounders (and liners) fairly hard – adjustment for context only brings his ADJ PRD on grounders down to 126. Overall, his REL PRD on all BIP is above league average at 109, but is adjusted down to 94 for context, largely due to the grounder disparity. Adding back the K’s and BB’s is a net plus for Norris, raising his ADJ PRD to 104 – above league average production at a defense-first position is a very good thing.

Moss hurts the baseball, as a high-K guy must. He has a strong 194 ADJ PRD on fly balls, and such performance in a relatively pitcher-friendly park elevates it even further to a 246 REL PRD. Like Norris, Moss hits his liners and grounders quite hard, with ADJ PRD figures of 115 and 110, respectively. Overall, his above average fly ball frequency and authority drives his REL PRD on all BIP to a very high 153. His fairly extreme K rate takes a toll when the K’s and BB’s are added back, dropping his overall ADJ PRD to 128.

The full-season numbers paint both Norris and Moss as the productive offensive performers they are, both overall and relative to their respective positions. Let’s split both players’ frequency and production data into 1st and 2nd half data, using August 2 as Norris’ cutoff, and July 24 as Moss’, to see what has gone wrong.

FREQ – 2014
Norris – 1st % REL PCT
K 16.9% 83 42
BB 14.3% 186 98
POP 9.0% 117 66
FLY 27.7% 99 45
LD 20.9% 100 48
GB 42.9% 98 59
————– ———- ———- ———-
Norris – 2nd % REL PCT
K 25.5% 126 79
BB 7.1% 92 35
POP 10.3% 134 76
FLY 26.5% 95 35
LD 11.8% 57 1
GB 51.5% 118 90
————– ———- ———- ———-
Moss – 1st % REL PCT
K 24.0% 118 73
BB 9.4% 123 70
POP 10.9% 141 80
FLY 37.9% 136 96
LD 20.2% 97 37
GB 31.0% 71 4
————– ———- ———- ———-
Moss – 2nd % REL PCT
K 32.9% 162 98
BB 14.2% 184 98
POP 11.8% 153 84
FLY 37.3% 134 95
LD 23.5% 113 82
GB 27.5% 63 2
Some really interesting stuff here. Norris’ big problem has been the utter breakdown in his K and BB rates, going from 16.9/14.3 ratio in the 1st half to 25.5/7.1 in the 2nd. There have been some variations in his other frequencies, primarily, the absolute crashing of his liner rate to 11.8% after August 2, but the K/BB breakdown is the key item.

The biggest piece of info in Moss’ frequency profile is the explosion in his K rate, from 24.0% in the 1st half to 32.9% in the 2nd. This puts extreme pressure upon his batted ball authority for him to have any degree of success. The BIP production by half data should give further insight as to why both hitters have struggled so much of late:

PROD – 2014
Norris – 1st AVG OBP SLG REL PRD ADJ PRD
FLY 0.327 0.816 129 90
LD 0.556 0.889 84 114
GB 0.382 0.421 251 120
ALL BIP 0.364 0.576 129 100
ALL PA 0.291 0.394 0.461 151 122
—————- ———- ———– ———- ———- ———-
Norris – 2nd AVG OBP SLG REL PRD ADJ PRD
FLY 0.222 0.333 35 20
LD 0.375 0.625 40 106
GB 0.257 0.286 115 139
ALL BIP 0.292 0.406 74 84
ALL PA 0.212 0.268 0.295 66 74
—————- ———- ———– ———- ———- ———-
Moss – 1st AVG OBP SLG REL PRD ADJ PRD
FLY 0.393 1.191 237 284
LD 0.680 0.880 104 109
GB 0.247 0.273 105 117
ALL BIP 0.364 0.715 161 180
ALL PA 0.265 0.336 0.522 141 155
—————- ———- ———– ———- ———- ———-
Moss – 2nd AVG OBP SLG REL PRD ADJ PRD
FLY 0.211 0.421 42 97
LD 0.917 1.083 175 143
GB 0.214 0.214 73 76
ALL BIP 0.280 0.373 65 76
ALL PA 0.167 0.291 0.222 61 68
The stark breakdown in Norris’ fly ball authority is the most eyecatching aspect of his profile. He is batting just .222 AVG-.333 SLG on fly balls in the 2nd half, an amazing 35 REL PRD that is adjusted even lower for context to 20. Norris is completely unable to elevate the ball in the air for distance up the middle and to the opposite field. He has hit a grand total of two fly balls at 90 MPH or higher in those directions all season, and of late, Norris has had a much harder time pulling the ball in the air. Through August 2, Norris hit 28 balls in the air to LF-LCF, and 14 to RCF-RF. Since then, he has hit 7 to LF-LCF and 7 to RCF-RF. Norris’ body and bat are slowing as the season progresses.

Knowing that he is unable to hurt them to fully two-thirds of the field, pitchers are learning that they can throw strikes to the outer half vs. Norris and not be hurt. His BB rate has plunged, and coupled with his almost nonexistent liner rate and the expected regression of his performance on grounders – .342 AVG-.378 SLG in the 1st half, .257 AVG-.286 SLG in the 2nd – voila, you have Norris’ 2nd half.

As for Moss, as it is for Chris Davis, it’s all about the pulling. Moss is arguably the most extreme pull hitter in the game today, and that inherently makes him streaky and risky. Looking at Moss’ 1st and 2nd halves is like looking at Raul Ibanez‘ 2013 and 2014 seasons. Not coincidentally, Ibanez was also on the list of extreme fly ball hitters in 2013. Moss has totally lost his swing in the 2nd half, a swing that is grooved to drive mistake fastballs on the inner half over the RF fence, and little else.

He’s gone from .393 AVG-1.191 SLG on fly balls in the 1st half to .211 AVG-.421 SLG in the 2nd, though context and a very small sample size bumps his 2nd half fly ball ADJ PRD figure up to 99. Moss needs to pull in the air to excel, and he has struggled to do so in the 2nd half – 72% of his fly balls were hit to RCF-RF in the 1st half, but only 50% have been pulled in the 2nd half. Moss also hits extremely “high” fly balls, another risky feature covered in the Davis article. If anything, Moss has been incredibly fortunate on ground balls, as he is the most obvious overshift candidate out there, with a 13.17 pull ratio (79 grounders to RCF-RF, 6 to LF-LCF). If he starts to hit .120 on grounders like Davis, Moss could disappear in an instant.

The A’s have largely built their club around players such as Norris and Moss, and deserve a great deal of credit for doing so. Both possess clear strengths, but also have clear shortcomings. As their careers have progressed, pitchers have begun to pound their weaknesses, and the onus is now on them to make the necessary adjustments. Moss has homered in two of the last three games, and even 70% of the first half version of Norris is valuable because of the dearth of offense at the catching position, so all is far from lost. We should realize, however, that perhaps the A’s and their offense weren’t quite as good as they appeared to be a couple months ago, and that their full season numbers only now represent their true talent level.

Dodgers’ Lefty Tom Windle Shows Power Stuff.



Tom Windle, LHP, Rancho Cucamonga Quakes (LAD, High-A – most recently viewed 8/27 at Rancho)

Windle was an arm scouts noticed out of the bullpen for U. Minnesota as early as his freshman year, but the big power lefty had his breakout when he got his first sustained chance to start in the Cape Cod League before his junior season. At 6’4/215 with a power fastball-slider combo from the left side, Windle gives scouts a lot to like and their main concern before the draft, his changeup, has made progress since the Dodgers took him in the 2nd round in 2013. The changeup still comes and goes and the fastball sits in the low 90′s, but he can dial it up to 93-95 mph when needed. The biggest concern with Windle now is his stiff delivery with an awkward finish and some recoil. His command is just good enough to start now, but these types of deliveries don’t usually age well and sometimes can contribute to diminishing stuff, so Windle is walking a tight rope to get to his #4 starter upside.

Fastball: 50/55, Slider: 50/55, Changeup: 45/50+, Command: 40/45+, FV: 50 –Kiley

In his first full season in the minor league ranks, the 22-year-old Tom Windle displayed consistency and steadiness in the high-A California League. But without the flash or high upside potential, his projected role may create some Dodgers fans to feel disappointed.

Fastball: 50/55

Windle began the outing working 89-91 mph, but would eventually settle in at 91 mph while touching 93 mph a handful of times. The fastball velocity is just solid-average, but coming from the left side, and there’s some projection in the body that he may be able to work above-average with additional strength and stamina.

Windle would occasionally alter his arm slot at times by design, creating different arm angles for the opposition to time up and identify. He can also manipulate the movement on his fastball, altering between cutting and arm side run, though the offering straightens out at its peak velocity of 93 mph.

Slider: 50/55

Windle will consistently change the length of the break on his slider, varying between long and short breaking action, creating two distinct looks for one offering.

His short breaking features short horizontal break, and typically comes in at 80 mph on the radar gun. The pitch fails to fool hitters, but he shows an advanced feel for commanding the pitch to both sides of the zone. While it isn’t his best slider, it does allow him to get ahead of hitters without relying on his fastball.

The longer breaking slider is the better of the two, and is Windle’s put-away pitch. The pitch typically hits 85 mph on the radar gun, breaking far away from the hands of same-sided batters. But there isn’t much sharpness to the pitch, as it can get loose and soft as it breaks. It also stays relatively one-planed in its action. It is often used as a chase pitch with two-strikes.

Changeup: 40/45

Windle’s changeup will be his biggest obstacle in sticking in a starting rotation for the long-run, as the pitch presently grades out as just a below-average offering without much future projection. The changeup routinely comes in at 79 mph, showing some light fading action with a touch of sinking action. But due to Windle’s stiff arm action and tendency to short arm the baseball, the pitch will lack the expected finesse and deception one would prefer to see, creating consistency problems.

Command: 45/50

I would characterize Windle’s arm action as stiff rather than loose, and he doesn’t possess standout athleticism in the body or the delivery. In fact, it’s as if he short arms the baseball, failing to continue to rotate his backside after release and continue his deceleration process. In spite of that, he shows a strong feel for his delivery, as he’s able to consistently repeat his mechanics while working inside and around the zone, though it is more control than command.

He remains loaded in the upper half while the arm gets up and through on time. But the timing can be inconsistent due to how Windle moves his momentum and body towards home plate at the peak height of his leg kick. Ultimately, the command profile isn’t great, but he has enough feel in all areas to reach average command.

Summary

The Dodgers 2013 2nd round draft pick should reach the majors and provide value to his parent organization, but I believe it will be as a reliever rather than a starter. But since Windle lacks the power arsenal to get through a major league order one or two times, it also excludes him from profiling as a weapon in the backend of a bullpen.

Ultimately, I see Windle profiling somewhere between a seventh inning reliever and lefty specialist. The reason for the distinction is because I think a manager could certainly have enough confidence in him to face a right-handed batter, if there’s one splitting a pair of left-handed batters in the lineup, so it’s a tad more than the typical run of the mill LOOGY.


Building Jake Arrieta.

Let’s go back to 1920. Let’s look at starting pitchers who threw at least 75 innings in consecutive big-league seasons. Relative to last year, Jake Arrieta‘s K-BB% has improved by 14 percentage points. That’s the fourth-greatest improvement within the sample. Relative to last year, Arrieta’s FIP- has improved by 64 points. That’s the single greatest improvement within the sample, edging out 2007-2008 Cliff Lee. This is what a breakout looks like. This is what maybe the biggest breakout looks like.

It’s up to you to determine whether or not Jake Arrieta is an ace, but he’s certainly generated ace-like results for the past several months, so if he’s not an ace yet, he’s on the right track. Six times already, he’s held an opponent hitless into the fifth. Three times, he’s held an opponent hitless into the seventh. Twice, he’s held an opponent hitless into the eighth. Arrieta’s flirted with history a few times, and while he hasn’t sealed the deal on an actual no-hitter, he’s at least earned greater familiarity and exposure. The Arrieta breakout, by now, is obvious. And more and more people are becoming aware of it.

So, we think we know what we have. How did this happen? How was Jake Arrieta built? Let’s condense his whole story into a blog post. Seems editorially responsible.

Establish a foundation

Arrieta wasn’t born 6’4, 225, but he got there eventually, probably the former ahead of the latter. Arrieta was blessed with genes allowing for a pitcher’s body, and then he developed interest in becoming a pitcher, which is the other necessary component. Arrieta played with a high-school program in Texas, which is a good place to get better at sports, and then in time he wound up with a major collegiate program, getting him exposure, while also getting him experience and high-level coaching. In college, Arrieta was throwing hard, with other pitches. He met the most general requirements for getting to the majors.

So he got drafted, and he got developed by a big-league organization. More experience, more coaching, more exercise. Staying healthy enough, Arrieta reached the majors and performed inconsistently. Bits and pieces were there, but not often enough, and not often together. But you could say that Arrieta was an unsolved jigsaw puzzle. The puzzle pieces were there on the table — they just had to be properly linked.

Add balance

The secret to better pitching is always the same: improved mechanical consistency. You can repeat your performance if you can repeat your delivery. With a consistent delivery, a pitcher can locate his fastballs, and then he can build off that to make the other pitches work. What about a pitcher who learns a new pitch, you say? A pitch is just a grip and an arm movement. It’s nothing without mechanical consistency. Everything has the same basic explanation.

With Chris Bosio and the Cubs, Arrieta’s worked on his throwing motion. He’s forever been working on his throwing motion — that never really stops — but with the Cubs, instruction has clicked. Click through to that link, and you can hear Arrieta for yourself, talking about keeping his shoulders level, and talking about timing with his front leg. Arrieta’s just tried to find repeatable balance, and from all indications, he’s had it. He’s put together a throwing motion that keeps him comfortable and powerful, and better consistency means better command, and better command means better everything. Used to be, Arrieta could locate his pitches, sometimes. Now he can locate his pitches more of the times.

Add a different mix

Some people say that Jake Arrieta has a cutter. Arrieta himself says he has a hard slider. It doesn’t really matter — those are just different words for the same thing, and, armed with his greater consistency, Arrieta’s grown a hell of a lot more comfortable with his slider in 2014. Eno wrote about this all the way back in June. With the help of Brooks Baseball, let’s watch Arrieta’s mix over time:

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He’s doubled up on his slider usage. It’s cut into his sinker and fastball usage. He loves the damned thing. He’ll throw it on the first pitch. He’ll throw it behind in the count. He’ll throw it ahead in the count. He’ll throw it with two strikes. He’ll throw it to lefties. He’ll throw it to righties. He’ll throw it low. He’ll throw it at the hands. Arrieta has a pitch at 94 that tails arm-side, he has a pitch at 94 that doesn’t tail arm-side as much, and he has a pitch at 90 that breaks down and glove-side. The first one and the last one are his primary pitches now, and they behave in opposite ways with little velocity difference. That’s not very nice.

Add a different release

Going back to the Brooks Baseball well, let’s look at Arrieta’s horizontal release points over time:

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Arrieta’s throwing the ball more from the third-base side than ever, and while it might seem like a minor thing, hitters have noticed. Said David Ross:

“He’s definitely a different pitcher,” Ross said. “He may have moved sides of the rubber. I’d have to check the video to see that. I just remember seeing his ball a lot better [previously] than I did today. It was definitely across [the zone]. It felt almost like he was throwing behind me and locating down and away. That’s really tough to do. You ask any pitcher, it’s probably one of the hardest things to do.

Said Ryan Zimmerman:

“[Arrieta is] really tough on right handers. He’s right on the third-base side of the rubber. It seems like the ball starts behind you,” Zimmerman said.

A few years ago, Arrieta moved to the other side of the rubber. So he’s toyed with this before, but never with his current level of consistency. Now he’s the best equipped to make a worthwhile tweak work, and if you look at some screenshots, it seems like this is about more than just throwing from a few inches over.

Baltimore, 2013:

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Chicago, 2014:

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Chicago, 2014:

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Pay attention to his left foot and left leg. In the Baltimore image, Arrieta’s stepped forward, toward the plate. In the Chicago images, Arrieta’s stepped more toward the right-handed batter’s box, and his leg as we can see it is at a more pronounced angle. This could contribute to that feeling of Arrieta throwing from behind a righty, because it looks like he’s stepping toward a right-handed batter until he lets go of the ball. I’ve never stepped in against Arrieta before, but this could add to his deception, and given how hard he throws, every split-second matters. His somewhat unconventional delivery could make the ball more tricky to pick up.

So you put everything together. To put it one way, a year ago, Arrieta threw 29% of his pitches with two strikes. This year, he’s thrown 29% of his pitches with two strikes. But, a year ago, he got strikeouts with 17% of those pitches. This year, he’s at 23%.

But let’s look at some pitch locations. Here’s some evidence of better consistency:

Curve spot 2013 2014
RHB, below zone 37% 58%
LHB, below zone 47% 60%
Arrieta wants to use that curveball as a wipeout pitch. This year, he’s been a lot better about keeping the pitch down, below the zone. The worst thing that happens with a low curveball is that it bounces in the dirt. Worse things happen to curveballs in the zone. Depending on the timing, those things can be much worse.

How about spotting that slider?

Slider spot 2013 2014
RHB, over plate 51% 69%
LHB, over plate 52% 70%
Arrieta used to push a lot of his sliders glove-side, away against righties and in against lefties. By changing his release, and by improving his consistency, Arrieta’s brought the slider more over the plate. By being able to throw the pitch for strikes, Arrieta can throw it in any count, against any hitter, and the hitter has to prepare for a few different pitches at 90+ miles per hour. Arrieta calls the pitch a hard slider, but his would be an unusual slider that he likes to throw in the strike zone. An Arrieta slider over the plate isn’t a hanging mistake. It’s usually intentional.

To close, let’s look at Arrieta’s more ordinary fastballs:

Fastball spot 2013 2014
RHB, inside 21% 42%
LHB, outside 48% 70%
This is another function of throwing more from the third-base side. That opens up a different part of the plate, and this year Arrieta has doubled his rate of inside fastballs against righties. Meanwhile, his rate of outside fastballs against lefties is also up more than 20 percentage points, as Arrieta can get his pitches to that arm-side edge. What this allows him to do is throw different hard pitches to different halves of the zone, keeping barrels away, and then by mixing in the sharp curveball, he can also just keep bats away. Arrieta’s curveball has a career-best whiff rate. His fastballs have career-best slugging percentages. A year ago, 16% of Arrieta’s two-strike curves got strikeouts. This year that’s nearly doubled. You can ask a hitter to prepare for only so much.

Jake Arrieta sure looks like an ace these days, a summer after getting traded for a No. 3 in his walk year. What’s been the secret behind Arrieta’s emergence? Actually, there have been a number of things, and without any one of them, who’s to say where we’d be today? Is it because of the mechanical work? Is it because of the slider? Is it because of the release? The answer, simply, is “yes”, as Arrieta’s benefited from everything in raising his game to an incredible level. If you’re looking for a shortcut, though, you can never go wrong with “improved mechanical consistency.” Arrieta’s motion now is more consistent. Therefore, so are his results, at a level inconsistent with his history.

Mark Sappington Moves To The Pen, Throws Harder.



Mark Sappington, RHP, Inland Empire 66ers (LAA, High-A – most recently viewed 9/8 at Inland)

Sappington was a classic small school, power arm pop-up guy in the 2012 draft out of Rockhurst U. in Missouri; the Angels took the 6’5/210 righty in the 5th round. Most scouts saw enough effort in the delivery that they had Sappington as a relief-only guy but the Angels had him work on a changeup and tried him as a starter. This year, that experiment appeared to end and, as Ron reports below, they’re simplifying things to hopefully fast-track him as a late-inning arm. His delivery is higher effort and his fastball is harder in the relief role, but the command is still holding back Sappington’s results and the slider isn’t good enough to profile in the 8th/9th inning.

Fastball: 60/65, Slider, 45/50+, Command: 35/45, FV: 40 –Kiley

Mark Sappington entered the season as one of the Angels top prospects, and he may still be just that because of how depleted the farm system is. But make no mistake about it, 2014 was a very difficult year in which he took a few developmental steps backwards in comparison to last season.

Fastball: 60/65

When someone possesses Sappington’s size, one would expect consistently plus or better fastball velocity. But he never showed me that last year, instead displaying inconsistent velocity while failing to hold his velocity throughout an entire outing. But that was when Sappington was still taking the ball every fifth day as a starting pitcher and working with a much different delivery than he is now.

The 23-year-old is now comfortably working his fastball at 94-95 mph, thanks to being able to pitch in short-bursts as a reliever. As shown in the embedded video above, the velocity is being forced out of him, as he’s scratched his tall-and-fall mechanics from last season.

While he is now pitching in the mid-90s, the pitch doesn’t have the effectiveness of a plus-plus pitch, due to a lack of movement or late life. There also present command issues that will linger, because I have a tough time seeing being worked out given his current mechanics.

Slider: 45/50+

Sappington had previously pitched with a slider and breaking ball, but he’s now showing just one breaking ball in his trimmed down arsenal. The slider is more of a hybrid breaking ball than it has been in the past, perhaps even a power curveball, touching anywhere from 85-87 mph on the radar gun. The pitch features above-average depth with short breaking action to the glove side, but it will fail to garner a heavy dose of whiffs from opposing batters due to a lack of lethal bite or great command.

The pitch would presently grade out as a below-average offering, but shows potential to reach solid-average in the near future. It should get there in time, too, now that Sappington has shortened his arsenal and can now focus on making this pitch his best and only secondary offering. He has the feel, but just needs the repetitions now.

Command: 35/45

One reason why Sappington is no longer a starter is because of his poor command. At times, he can lose feel for the zone despite being more control than command to begin with. The future command outlook is murky as well, due to the mechanics of his revamped delivery.

Sappington’s simplified the delivery to get the most velocity out of his arm as possible. The delivery looks forced, and is tough to watch from a side angle as a result. He’s putting heavy stress on his arm and shoulder by staying upright and stiff throughout his motion. The arm action creates red flags, as it is stiff getting through and features a wrist wrap early in its stroke. With a lack of feel and significant issues within the delivery, it’s difficult to project the command reaching average or better.

Summary

Sappington had the body and hyper-competitive nature that talent evaluators are always looking for in starting pitchers, but that dream is now over. The present profile ultimately points towards the role of a middle reliever, where he will be able to work mid-90s heat in a quick, short look.

The slider is presently lacking for him to provide the anymore value than that, as the pitch quite frankly isn’t a weapon. But even if the breaking ball made a full grade jump forward, the command will be holding Sappington back as it has in the past. The noted red flags in his delivery won’t be fixable without significant mechanical changes, and neither party can wait for that as he will soon be turning 24 years of age.


A 2014 Review of 2013′s Fringe Five Champions.

Last week, the author published the final results of this year’s weekly Fringe Five column, which column is designed to identify the most compelling of those rookie-eligible minor leaguers excluded from notable preseason top-100 prospect lists. To what degree it does that (i.e. identify compelling prospects) is a matter of some debate, probably. With a view to assessing the efficacy of the project, however — or, at least, to producing internet content — what follows is a review of the top finishers from the 2013 series of weekly Fringe Five posts. Players ordered alphabetically according to surname.

*****
Wilmer Flores, 3B/SS, New York NL (Profile)
Level PA BB% K% AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
AAA 241 6.6% 16.2% .323 .367 .568 137
MLB 233 4.3% 11.2% .245 .280 .386 87 1.2
Much of what the author is compelled to say about Wilmer Flores, he’s already said within the last 24 hours via a combo package of two posts regarding the 23-year-old’s surprisingly adequate shortstop defense. What’s omitted from those posts, however, is any mention of Flores’s offensive acumen — which acumen the Venezuelan native exhibited considerably during Tuesday night’s Mets game, during which he hit two home runs and produced a single-game 836 wRC+ over four plate appearances. Over the last two weeks now, Flores has recorded the highest isolated-power mark (.429) among 156 qualified batters while simultaneously posting the fourth-lowest strikeout rate among that same group.

Maikel Franco, 1B/3B, Philadelphia (Profile)
Level PA BB% K% AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
AAA 556 5.4% 14.6% .257 .299 .428 97
MLB 33 3.0% 15.2% .194 .212 .226 17 -0.1
That Franco appeared among the top-five finishers on the arbitrarily calculated end-of-season 2013 Fringe Five Scoreboard deserves some note — insofar, that is, as he (i.e. Franco) last appeared within that weekly column at some point in or around July, his inclusion on multiple mid-season prospect lists having disqualified him from consideration as a “fringe” prospect. Though he continued to exhibit an excellent combination of power and contact ability following a promotion to Double-A last year, that same package of skills didn’t translate entirely to Triple-A this season, where he homered at only about half the rate as in 2013. That he recorded a league-average line there as just a 21-year-old, however, bodes well for his future.

Mike O’Neill, OF, St. Louis (Profile)
Level PA BB% K% AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
AA 408 10.0% 9.1% .269 .343 .347 101 —
AAA 65 10.8% 6.2% .333 .400 .386 112 —
Given the limits both of his power and also his defensive skills, O’Neill’s ceiling is necessarily rather low. In 2013, however, he produced such considerably anomalous walk and strikeout rates (16.0% and 6.5%, respectively) at Double- and Triple-A that he became a fixture among those prospects included weekly in the Fringe Five. While still better than average, O’Neill’s rates haven’t scaled the heights of incredulity like last year. In 477 plate appearances between Double- and Triple-A this season, O’Neill has produced marks of 10.3% and 8.8%, respectively. That he’s employed by an organization boasting a surplus of outfielders offers no great hope to his chances of earning any kind of playing time.

Danny Salazar, RHP, Cleveland (Profile)
Level IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 xFIP FIP ERA WAR
AAA 60.2 11.3 4.2 1.0 3.79 3.71
MLB 98.0 9.5 2.9 1.2 3.52 3.79 4.22 1.3
Salazar began last season as a Tommy John survivor never to have appeared on a top-100 prospect list and ended it starting the Cleveland Clevelanders’ literally most important game of the year. What he did in the meantime was exhibit both a 96 mph fastball and also split-changeup, the latter of which offering provoked a non-zero number of religious experiences throughout Cuyahoga County. In terms of run prevention, Salazar’s 2014 season hasn’t been as excellent; indeed, he’s produced a league- and park-adjusted ERA 13% worse than average. In terms of his fielding-independent performance, however, Salazar has continued to pitch like an above-average major-league starter — if with perhaps slightly less electricity than during his 10-start run with the parent club last year.

Marcus Semien, 2B/3B (Profile)
Level PA BB% K% AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
AAA 366 14.5% 16.1% .267 .380 .502 142 —
MLB 216 7.4% 29.2% .226 .284 .342 73 0.2
As one notes from his stat lines here, Semien has produced very different offensive numbers this season at the minor- and major-league levels, exhibiting excellent plate discipline and contact skills in the former and much less of those things in the latter. That said, Semien’s walk and strikeout rates in 2014 represent a substantial improvement over his brief time with the White Sox last year, when he produced a 1:22 walk-to-strikeout ratio in 71 plate appearances. Both Steamer and ZiPS regard him as a nearly a league-average true-talent hitter.

The Next Five
Here are the players who finished sixth through tenth on last year’s Fringe Five scoreboard.

Boston infielder/outfielder/wunderkind Mookie Betts wasn’t even eligible for the Five until a mid-July promotion to High-A Salem, but still produced enough there to finish sixth overall on the mostly arbitrary Scoreboard. His 2014 season has been mostly a study is excellence … Miami left-hander Brian Flynn appeared within a number of early season editions of the Five, but was less effective following a promotion to Triple-A New Orleans. He made just two major-league appearances this season… Somewhat surprisingly, it’s been Mets right-hander Rafael Montero‘s command that has made his transition to the majors difficult. He’s produced a walk rate of 12.3% over 39.0 innings in the majors this season after walking only 5.8% of batters in over 400 minor-league innings… St. Louis’s Stephen Piscotty didn’t exhibit any more power this year than last — of some concern, that, if he’s to play a corner-outfield spot. Still, he continued to record excellent plate-discipline marks this season, posting walk and strikeout rates of 7.7% and 11.0%, respectively, with Triple-A Memphis… Following a promising record in the minor’s last season, Burch Smith‘s 2014 was a nothing: he pitched only 5.1 innings for San Diego’s Triple-A affiliate while dealing with a forearm injury.

The Year in High Strikes to Jose Altuve.

Jose Altuve accomplished something Tuesday night. He played in a major-league baseball game! Wow! And even more incredible than that, he broke the Astros’ single-season record for hits, previously held by Craig Biggio. There are still another two weeks left to play. Of course, not all hits are the same, and we don’t usually spend much time talking about single-season hit totals, but you might prefer this: Altuve’s been great. The hits are one indication. He’s been something in the vicinity of a five-win player, as a 24-year-old in the middle infield. That’s a long-term building block.

So when some people think Altuve, they think hits. When other people think Altuve, they think short jokes. It’s clear that, in order to become the player he is today, Altuve’s had to overcome considerable adversity. A lot of that is simply that players his size tend to get selected against. They receive fewer opportunities. But then there can also be issues on the field, even during opportunities. Maybe it’s more difficult to turn a double play. It’s certainly more difficult to snare a line drive. And there’s the matter of the strike zone. Umpires aren’t great with unusual strike zones, and Altuve’s, obviously, is lower than most.

According to the PITCHf/x settings, the lower part of Altuve’s zone is lower than the average zone by almost three inches. The higher part of Altuve’s zone is lower than the average zone by almost five inches. So you know where this is going, based on that sentence, and based on the headline. I think I put together this same exact post every season. It’s time now to reflect on the season’s highest called strikes to Jose Altuve.

We can just get right into it. I’ve selected the five highest called strikes. Trust me, there have been several more high called strikes, but I didn’t want your computers to melt.

5

May 18
4.5 inches above PITCHf/x strike zone

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4

April 23
4.6 inches above PITCHf/x strike zone

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3

July 19
5.7 inches above PITCHf/x strike zone

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2

July 2
6.1 inches above PITCHf/x strike zone

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1

July 26
6.3 inches above PITCHf/x strike zone

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If you just look at the .gifs, these don’t seem so egregious. Everything’s moving fast, and the pitches don’t really seem that high. We’re accustomed to watching the ball and the catcher, and the catchers don’t have to do anything wacky to reel these pitches in. But then, that’s just it. We’re used to watching things one way because most of the time the guy at the plate is somewhere around average-sized. Look at the screenshots. The screenshots really capture how high these strikes were, relatively speaking. That last one is practically at Altuve’s shoulders. To a tall hitter, it’s a borderline strike. To an average hitter, it’s an unusual strike. To Altuve, that’s as much of a ball as a pitch around Michael Brantley‘s shoulders.

This is just something Altuve has to deal with. He’s had to deal with it his whole baseball-playing life. So at least in that sense, it’s an obstacle he’s grown used to, but it still puts him at something of a disadvantage, considering what should be his reality. It’s hard enough for an umpire to call balls and strikes with a normal hitter by the plate. Pitches move really really fast, and they break in ways umpires don’t anticipate, and then catchers are right there in the way. It requires a lot of focus to have a good idea of the strike zone, and that’s before you try to keep in mind a particular hitter’s individual zone dimensions. You can make a little mental adjustment, but ultimately you can factor in only so much.

Let’s have a look at a table, powered by StatCorner. Has Altuve’s zone been getting better? In the table, zTkB% refers to the rate of taken pitches in the zone called balls, and oTkS% refers to the rate of taken pitches out of the zone called strikes. You’ll also see league averages, and Altuve’s rank in oTkS%, since that’s what we’re thinking about:

Year zTkB% Average oTkS% Average Rank
2011 16% 15% 12% 7.3% 6th-highest
2012 13% 14% 12% 7.5% highest
2013 13% 14% 12% 7.0% 3rd-highest
2014 13% 13% 9.2% 7.6% 38th-highest
Used to be, Altuve had a ton of strikes called outside of the zone. It seems like that’s gotten a little better in 2014, although he’s still gotten a higher rate than average. So that could be interpreted as a positive step. But now let’s use Baseball Savant to check Altuve’s rates of high called strikes, out of the zone:

2011: 47%
2012: 42%
2013: 37%
2014: 44%

Those are strike rates on pitches taken over the plate, in a rectangle six inches tall beginning with Altuve’s zone’s upper boundary. The league average this year is about 12%. Altuve does see slightly fewer low strikes than the average hitter, but this is more than offset by the high strikes, and the high strikes haven’t gone away. Probably, they’ll just remain a part of his life.

But I suppose Altuve’s had a whole career to adjust. He’s never known any way but this way, so it’s just something that’s kind of particular to him, and the rest of the population of littler hitters. Jose Altuve plays baseball with a bigger strike zone, relatively speaking, than the average baseball player. That’s one of the reasons it’s terrific he’s blossomed into an above-average baseball player.

Derek Holland’s All About The Slider.

Look at the list of two-pitch starters these days, and you won’t find any left-handers. That’s probably because lefty starters have to think about opposite-handed hitters more than anyone. That’s probably also why more lefties use changeups than righties — the pitch is more effective against opposite-handed batters.

Well, Derek Holland‘s changeup has seen better days, he’ll admit it. And he doesn’t throw his semi-consistent curve all that much. So how does the mustachioed lefty make it work?

For his career, his changeup gets about 10% whiffs and 36% grounders, which is decidedly below average. He knows all about it. “It’s a very tough pitch,” Holland admitted before a game with the Athletics. “Sometimes it’ll cut. On accident.”

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He swears it wasn’t always this way: “I used to have a really good changeup, and then I started toying around grips because it was getting firmer and I was freaking out — so I tried different grips and then I lost it for a bit.”

Rehab actually gave him the opportunity to work on the change. “The best way to practice it is to throw it during long toss,” Holland said. “The more you long toss, the more you actually have to throw the dang ball.” The small-sample results on the change so far this year are better (15% swinging strikes, 86% grounders), but the pitch still lacks the fade and depth that you’d like from a strong changeup. His sinker fades more and the change only drops a half inch or so more than the sinker.

That’s okay when you’ve got one of the best sliders in the game. Until Clayton Kershaw‘s most recent start, Holland owned the best swinging strike rate on a slider in the game (among starters). A strong game from the Dodger pushed him up to 30.1%, but Derek Holland‘s 29.1% is nothing to sneeze at, especially when third place among regularly-thrown sliders is Carlos Carrasco‘s 26.5%.

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Still, the slider has platoon splits, and Holland is a lefty. What does he do to keep righties guessing? “Backfoot, backdoor, I just try to move it around, I don’t want it to be in one spot, so that they can look for that,” Holland said. “I’m trying to show them that not only can I do it there, I can throw it back here, I can throw it behind in the count, ahead in the count, I can do whatever with it — we work on that in bullpens, go through the system every time.”

He may move it around some, but a slider moving into the heart of the plate against a righty is a terrifying thing. It looks like the back foot is his salvation, according to this chart of his slider locations to righties:

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Provided you don’t actually hit the back foot, that’s a fairly nasty pitch. Mr. Holland’s opus looks like it’s headed to the wheelhouse — most righties love the pitch low and in — and then it breaks out of the zone. That’s how the lefty has limited all hitters to a 46 wRC+ off the pitch in his career, despite seeing twice as many righties as lefties.

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While his slider location may be more predictable than he’d like, Holland has been very successful in mastering command of the slider to the point that he can throw the pitch in any count. His usage of the slider over his career only dips from 14% in no-ball counts to 11% in three-ball counts. It’s hard to sit fastball on him.

Still, it’d be nice to have a legit third weapon. If it doesn’t come from the change, it may come from the curve. Though the movement isn’t always consistent on his knuckle curve, it’s effective in other ways. “It’s not a true hammer — at times it’ll be 12-to-6, at times it will be 11-to-5, it kind of tilts from time to time,” said Holland. “You can see it in the velocity. And the change in eye-level.” The curve gives him his only pitch in the 70s, and the biggest drop on any of his pitches.

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The curve doesn’t have great peripherals (7% whiff rate, 30% ground-ball rate), but it can serve to make his fastball more effective, particularly high in the zone. “I can throw a curveball and then all of a sudden I can throw an elevated fastball,” Holland said. “All about changing eye level.” Holland does love the high fastball:

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With velocity that is — even with a bit of a drop this year — at least two miles per hour faster than the average lefty starter, maybe that high strike isn’t so dangerous. But when I mentioned Texas… “Gotta be careful,” Holland admitted. As much as the high fastball can be a weapon, it’s better in small doses. “The thing that we are taught is don’t live up in the zone,” Holland said. “We’re taught to be down and then elevate by design. Try to change it up. Don’t live in one little area.”

Since he features two inconsistent secondary pitches, one of the best sliders in the game, and plus velocity, the future isn’t written for the lovable lefty. When he starts tonight, watch the curve and change for depth, and maybe his slider usage in fastball counts. Those will be important for him going forward.

But rehab may have helped him in a way that will make all of his pitches better. “When I was rehabbing, I wanted to make sure I could command every pitch,” Holland said. He could do more with his arm, since it was a leg injury, but he still had to watch out: “Once I started playing catch, you start to see how much the knee can let you do things. It’s my pushoff leg, so I got to make sure I’m using it the right way because that could lead to other problems.”

So he played catch most of the summer. It was still constructive time. “Any time I’m playing catch, I want to hit the spot,” Holland said of his pre-mound rehab work. “I don’t ever want to hit the guy in the chest, I want to hit in the shoulder. I’m never going to throw the ball and try to hit the catcher in the chest. But you can work on that just playing catch.”

Maybe a little bit more command will really tie the whole package together. If so, we’ll finally know for certain how important playing catch really is.

Johnny Cueto, Good Pitcher Made To Look Even Better.

In some ways, this Reds season has turned out exactly like we expected. Way back in February, I worried that Cincinnati wouldn’t have enough offense to compete in 2014, and that the season would be a disappointment. It wasn’t hard to see why, really. Take a team that was 15th in wRC+ in 2013, replace Shin-Soo Choo‘s elite on-base skills with the huge question mark of Billy Hamilton, do absolutely nothing else other than add the mediocre Skip Schumaker and Brayan Pena to the bench, have Brandon Phillips and Ryan Ludwick get another year older, and watch the offense collapse.

That’s what happened! Sort of. The Reds are 29th in wRC+, saved from last only by the Padres, and are probably going to lose more games than they have since 2008, but it hasn’t happened in exactly in the way we might have thought. Hamilton has been good enough. Joey Votto and Jay Bruce, the only two Reds hitters you could have counted on entering the season, have had disaster years. Devin Mesoraco and Todd Frazier have had breakout campaigns. The end result is still bad, just a different kind of bad.

You can see the same thing on the pitching side, too, just in the other direction. A good, deep rotation was expected to be a strength, and it has. Homer Bailey had finally put it all together in 2013, earning himself a rich contract extension, and a full year of Tony Cingrani seemed fascinating. But Bailey, dealing with a bulging disk in his neck, made only 23 decent starts before undergoing flexor tendon surgery. Cingrani was a huge disappointment, dealt with shoulder issues and hasn’t been seen in the bigs since June. Mat Latos didn’t make his first start until June thanks to elbow trouble, then made only 16 before being shut down earlier this month with — wait for it — elbow trouble.

This shouldn’t be a good rotation. By one measure, it’s arguably been the best rotation. We should talk about that.

* * *
First, let’s talk about what “best” means, because that “arguably” comes with a huge asterisk. If you look at rotation WAR, you won’t find the Reds at No. 1. Or No. 10. Or even No. 20. No, you’ll find the Reds down at No. 21, worse than the Twins and Marlins. That’s not best, or even good. It’s mediocre.

That is, of course, because the standard WAR here is FIP-based, which by its very definition strips out the impact of defense in order to focus on the things a pitcher can control, and the Reds rotation, as a whole, doesn’t stand out in some of those areas. They’re middle-of-the-pack in strikeouts, slightly better in walks, and poor in home run prevention. There’s obviously more than goes into the calculations than that, but those are three of the main things you’d look for, and there’s nothing spectacular there.

Now, flip over to RA9-WAR, which focuses more on runs allowed, and you’ll see something very different. You’ll see the Reds rotation atop the leaderboard:

2014 Starting Rotations
Team RA9-WAR FDP-Wins WAR
Reds 16.8 7.8 9.0
Mariners 16.7 5.4 11.3
Nationals 16.2 1.4 15.2
Orioles 15.8 6.7 9.2
Dodgers 15.2 1.8 13.1
(Usually, I wouldn’t put much into 0.1 WAR, but it was somewhat different when I originally wrote this last night, before the Reds got hit hard and the Mariners shut down the Angels. The point, anyway, is to show how different they’re viewed from regular WAR.) I’ve also included FDP-Wins (Fielding-Dependent Wins) on this chart, and the math there is pretty simple. RA9-WAR, which accounts for runs allowed, minus WAR, which is trying to measure only what the pitcher controls, gets you FDP-Wins.

So perhaps the more appropriate term wouldn’t be “best rotation” so much as “best run-prevention unit,” including defense, and there’s more than one way to get to that. The Dodgers and Nationals don’t have a ton of defensive value, but their starting pitchers are so good that they mitigate the issue. The Orioles and Reds have decent rotations that look a lot better because of the fielders behind them. Unsurprisingly, these are the same two teams with the biggest positive difference between their ERA and FIP numbers.

It stands to reason that the Reds would rank pretty highly in the defensive metrics, and they do. They’re third in DRS, fourth in UZR/150 and fourth in our “Defense” stat, partly because they’ve been strong up the middle. Hamilton’s defense has been a big step up from Choo, and Zack Cozart has been so good at shortstop that he’s been an above-replacement player despite being the worst everyday hitter in the big leagues. Phillips has been solid, and so has Frazier. This has been a good defensive unit overall, and it’s making their pitchers look better.

But with apologies to the surprising year of Alfredo Simon and another quietly solid season from Mike Leake, the reason I started writing about this was to talk about Johnny Cueto, who has been outstanding this year after making only 11 starts last year around three trips to the disabled list with lat injuries. We really haven’t talked about Cueto enough, I don’t think. Since we’re full-on into “will Clayton Kershaw win the MVP” discussions, it’s safe to say that he’s got the NL Cy Young completely wrapped up, and rightfully so. That’s sucked a bit of the air out of the room, though, and that’s meant that Cueto’s outstanding season has gone by a little too quietly. (This article was written before the Cubs lit him up last night, so not great for me, but the point still stands.)

When healthy, Cueto has been a valuable pitcher for a while, and his 2014 looks a lot like his 2012, with nearly identical FIP, but he’s a different pitcher now. He walks a few more than he did in 2012, and he’s allowed more homers. He’s also struck out a ton more, and that’s in large part due to his changeup. Cueto’s change has been a good enough pitch that we actually wrote about it here more than two years ago, yet it’s still been improving. Just check out his K% on the change over the years:

2010 — 5.8%
2011 — 12.5%
2012 — 22.8%
2013 — 33.3%
2014 — 37.1%

You can say the same thing about his fastball, which has also been missing more bats — that all of baseball is striking out more isn’t an irrelevant fact here — but that’s a pretty consistent and outstanding rise in his change, which ranks among the top 5 in our pitch values, and looks like this when it’s making Anthony Rizzo look silly:

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Without question, Cueto has been very good this year, leading the NL in innings pitched, and sitting, for the moment, at fourth in ERA. The traditional stats, where he’s going to end up with something like a 19-9 record and a 2.30 ERA, might even be enough to peel some first-place Cy votes off of Kershaw, considering how many more innings he’s thrown. He’ll almost certainly finish in the top three, probably alongside Adam Wainwright or maybe Madison Bumgarner.

But the credit that Cueto should get for his performance is a little more complicated than that, because there’s still that defense. I took all the starters who had thrown at least 100 innings this year, and sorted them by the difference between their WAR and RA9-WAR. Who do we find?

Cueto is on top, and that’s the difference between a good year (4 WAR) and a great one (7 WAR).

Name Team WAR RA9-WAR Difference
Johnny Cueto Reds 3.9 6.8 2.9
Miguel Gonzalez Orioles 0.6 3.2 2.6
Doug Fister Nationals 1.1 3.5 2.4
Chris Young Mariners 0.8 3.1 2.3
Alfredo Simon Reds 0.9 3.1 2.2
Shelby Miller Cardinals 0.2 2.2 2.0
Josh Beckett Dodgers 0.3 2.3 2.0
Cole Hamels Phillies 3.3 5.2 1.9
Edinson Volquez Pirates 0.3 2.2 1.9
Adam Wainwright Cardinals 4.0 5.8 1.8
Cueto, over the last two seasons, has the lowest BABIP in baseball. Good luck? Possibly? Quality pitches that lead to poor contact? Probably. Outstanding defense behind him? Almost certainly. However you want to weight those things, when the batter makes contact with the ball, it leads to outs more often for Cueto than it does for just about everyone else in baseball. That doesn’t have zero to do with him; it also can’t be realistically said it’s all due to him, either.

Just like for everything else in the world, context is important. You can’t compare a pitcher’s ERA to a similar pitcher from 15 years ago without noting that the run environment has changed dramatically — same with strikeouts. You can’t merely say that a pitcher earned his own win, and you also can’t put the entirety of run prevention on his shoulders either. When we talk about defense mattering, we usually mean it in the context of comparing the overall value of two players, and yes, I am referring to the Mike Trout / Miguel Cabrera MVP wars.

It matters a lot for pitchers, too. In the case of Johnny Cueto, he’s had a very good year, improving in some areas while declining slightly in some others. Thanks to the fabulous Cincinnati defense, the things he’s good at look even better. It hasn’t been enough to overcome a dreadful Cincinnati offense, but it has mattered a lot to ensure that this is just a lousy year for the Reds and not a disaster one. It’s also made Cueto look like even more of a star than he already is.

GREAT DEBATE: THE BEST TEAM IN BASEBALL.

The Angels currently have the best record at 94-57, so they're a natural pick, and maybe the best selection as they also lead the majors in expected record by BaseRuns and are second in run differential, both measures that attempt to strip some luck out of a team's results. But on the other hand, the Angels were excellent for most of the season in part due to the excellent pitching of Garrett Richards, who is now injured and won't pitch again this season.

Rob Neyer did a nice job of showing that one player does not make or break a team, but good players do matter to some degree, and the Angels are a worse team without Richards than they were with him. His loss doesn't cut out their legs, but it does make them less likely to keep winning at this same pace going forward. And this question of baseball supremacy asks us to care more about the future than the past.

So maybe this isn't such an open-and-shut case. Let's evaluate a few of the top contenders, and look at their claim to the Best Team in Baseball title.

The Angels

They might not have Richards for the rest of the season, but they still have the best player in baseball leading a high-powered offense. And they've spent most of the season bludgeoning their opponents into submission. They've played exceptionally well since Richards got hurt, in part due to the success of unheralded pitchers like Matt Shoemaker, who have given this rotation depth that it just didn't have last year.

But then again, Shoemaker is unheralded for a reason. He began the year in Triple-A, where he posted a 6.31 ERA over 25 2/3 innings. His career Triple-A ERA, in over 400 innings pitched at the level, is 5.38. Pitchers can get better overnight, but we also have plenty of reasons to be skeptical that he's one of the better pitchers in the American League. And if he goes back to being something closer to the 2008-2013 version of Matt Shoemaker, then this rotation suddenly starts looking a little thin again.

Can the best team in baseball really have a rotation featuring Jered Weaver, C.J. Wilson and the hope that a minor-league veteran keeps up his imitation of an All-Star? Maybe. This offense is that good, and the bullpen can help make up for some rotational weakness, but while the Angels have been a juggernaut in 2014, there are legitimate reasons for concern here.

The Orioles

The Orioles have the second-best record in baseball, so if it's not Trout and his boys, then maybe they're the next best pick. Except their resume has plenty of holes as well. They are second in the majors in wins, but just fourth in run differential and fifth in BaseRuns expected record, suggesting that their record isn't entirely indicative of their performance to date. And if we're going to point out that the Angels are relying heavily on Shoemaker, then we have to say the same thing about the Orioles and Steve Pearce.

Pearce has been a revelation for the O's -- he has the same wRC+ as Jose Bautista -- but we shouldn't ignore the fact that he hit .238/.318/.377 in 847 big-league plate appearances before this season began. Pearce has been spectacular for 361 plate appearances this season and there are plenty of reasons to think he can continue to be a solid hitter, but how much do we want to bet on a guy who was put on waivers a few months back to keep outhitting Miguel Cabrera?

The Orioles are a good team, but to believe that they're the best team in baseball, you'd have to believe that guys like Pearce are what they've been in 2014. And history should teach us not to ignore history when it goes against a long-standing track record.

The Nationals

So how about we shift leagues and look at the team with the best record in the NL? The Nationals don't have as many wins as the Orioles, but their run differential and BaseRuns record are both a little bit better. So we're finally looking at a team that might be better than its record indicates. And the Nationals don't have any players who are dramatically outperforming expectations; if anything, they've got a guy on the opposite end of the spectrum in Bryce Harper, and you could even make a case that Stephen Strasburg's 3.34 ERA is higher than we'd expect given his talent and peripherals.

They also don't have a significant injury problem, as they've played without Ryan Zimmerman for most of the year and his potential return could add extra depth at multiple positions. The Nationals are a team without a glaring flaw, which is kind of what you want in a Best Team in Baseball candidate. Their biggest question mark might be which quality starter is going to the bullpen in October, with the likely candidate being Tanner Roark, despite a career 2.56 ERA in the big leagues.

There are nits to pick in Washington, with Drew Storen perhaps not being the kind of lights-out closer a team would hope to have for the postseason run. But this is a very good team from top to bottom, and one without some of the red flags that we find on other top contenders. And perhaps that's why the FanGraphs Playoff Odds model gives the Nationals a 19.4% chance to win the World Series, the highest mark of any team in baseball right now.

That doesn't make the Nationals the only choice for the title, though I do lean in their direction. We're living in an age of parity in baseball, and there's very little separating the teams at the top of the heap. The Angels, Orioles, Tigers, Dodgers and even the A's could also make a case, and it's always foolish to rule out the Cardinals. We don't have the anything like the '27 Yankees right now, which should make this postseason a lot of fun.

Where Do the Braves Go From Here?

Unlike the previous iteration of the “Where Do The _____ Go From Here”, the immediate future of this week’s focus, the Atlanta Braves, remains very much unwritten. The Braves are 5.5 games out of a National League Wild Card spot with one team to leap frog. Should a litany of things break their way, they’ll play at least one game of significant significance.

That said, the Braves finding themselves in that pivotal play-in game would represent a serious reversal of fortune. Right now, and for much of the last month, the Braves look bad. Their offense is abysmal, one of the worst in baseball in the second half of the season, and they just watched their main rival celebrate a division title in their own soil. Their ongoing presence in the playoff race is more a testament of the rather putrid NL Wild Card class, currently featuring a Giants team that opted not to win a single game during the summer months and the Milwaukee Brewers, currently showing the Braves what a real slump looks like.

The problems with the Braves are relatively minor. They won 96 games last year, which we know to be extremely good. They hung in the Wild Card race and at the top of the NL East all season despite losing 40% of their starting rotation before the year even started, and then losing their lottery ticket starter before they even got to scratch it. But the issues the Braves currently face are largely issues they might have addressed in the offseason.

After their surprisingly terrific 2013 season, Braves GM Frank Wren balanced a need to improve a club that perhaps misrepresented its true talent one year against very real budgetary concerns in the next. Other than nabbing Ervin Santana on a one year desperation deal and acquiring Ryan Doumit for mildly inexplicable reasons, they stood pat and are now paying the price.

“Why mess with a 96 win team?” you might wonder. The Braves did indeed post 96 wins in 2013, but the talent they had on hand at the start of 2014 projected to win 82-86 games. Right now, the problem for Atlanta is this team is about as good as it should be. They came into the year with a question marks at a few spots in the lineup and did nothing to address them. The Braves needed underperformers like B.J. Upton to rediscover their old form while the upstarts such as Chris Johnson needed to repeat their production of the previous season. Or they could make a push to improve their team and push themselves into 90 win territory, It didn’t happen.

So now we’re left to take stock of the Atlanta Braves, now and in the future.

The Braves have:

Black holes – it is hard to believe that the Braves one Chris Johnson slump away from becoming just the ninth team of the expansion era to have three qualified hitters post an OPS+ lower than 80. Those three hitters –Johnson, Andrelton Simmons, and B.J. Upton — aren’t going anywhere soon, as they’re all signed for at least two more seasons beyond this one.

Simmons’ isn’t in the lineup for his offense, and as suggested a few weeks ago, he might be suffering from a small identity crisis at the plate. Upton is playing slightly better in 2014 than he was in 2013, but his far below-average productions sends his contract into “worst free agent deals ever” consideration.
Three extremely good hitters – for all the flailing at the bottom of their order, in Freddie Freeman, Justin Upton, and Evan Gattis, the Braves have three exceptional offensive players at their disposal.

It’s a nice problem to have, though Gattis misses a little too much time for comfort. Freeman and Upton are young enough to form the backbone of a very good team for a long time. Freeman is signed long term and Upton can test free agency after next season.
Enviable run prevention – When Brandon Beachy and Kris Medlen went down with elbow problems this year, all looked lost in Atlanta. But their pitching staff has barely missed a beat. They boast two of the best defenders in baseball in Simmons and Jason Heyward, as well as well-regarded players at other positions.

Just look at Aaron Harang and his 2014 renaissance, buoyed by the Braves D as he might be (to be fair to Harang, he’s keeping the ball in the park as much as he benefits from the Braves defense.)

The Braves have a good starter signed for pennies in Julio Teheran, starters with nice track records but health questions in Medlen and Beachy, league-average starters (at worst) in Alex Wood and Mike Minor, and another cohort of young pitchers shuttling through their minor league system. Plus, they’ve demonstrated and ability to wring decent innings out of slightly washed-up starters like Freddy Garcia and Harang, a nice trick to lean on when the unexpected happens.
The Braves need:

To overpay a bench player – the failings of the Braves offense in 2014 breaks down right along “stars and scrubs” lines. Subbing out one of their sub-par hitters with even a league-average performer could go a long way, to say nothing of giving notorious batting order butcher Fred Gonzalez a few more options.

Simmons is firmly entrenched (quite rightly) so it’s between Johnson and Bossman Junior to decide where the upgrade needs to come, though even a full season of unspectacular play from Tommy La Stella at second base might stop the bleeding from the non-core hitters.

Heading down to the “guy who plays multiple positions and can thrive without playing everyday” store isn’t an option, but a player like the one they thought they acquired in Emilio Bonifacio will go a long way. This year’s Braves squad is pathetically short on depth, a glaring need going forward.
Decide on one of Heyward or Upton and trade the other – money will always be a challenge for the Braves, who cry poor often enough that they might actually believe it themselves. Both Jason Heyward and Justin Upton are destined for free agency at the end of 2015. They are both very young and about to become very expensive. They offer similar production in two very different shapes.

It won’t be an easy decision, should they decide to move one and build around the other. Perhaps the Braves will attempt to keep the current outfield in tact for one more season and then let them both walk, recouping draft picks for complete franchise overhaul. Either way, these are valuable trade chips and the temptation to move them will be strong.
Fixing a team one year removed from 96 wins shouldn’t be a difficult task, but the choices before Wren and the Braves front office are tough indeed. There are many nice pieces in place right now but the Atlanta Braves team that takes the field on Opening Day next season could easily feature a whole host of new names and faces.
 
I'm thinking the guy that knows baseball forgot to list WAR and FIP as Kluber leads, but that was probably just because he ran out of time.
 
Clayton Kershaw is going to face like 900 batters this year, a Batter is going to make like 600 PA,

soooo, thats like saying you want 3 quarters instead of a 1 dollar bill becuase theres "more" of them. :lol:


It's very difficult for a pitcher to be the best player in a league, but its not because of the every day thing.

You know what...

Never looked at it this way...

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AL MVP- Miguel Cabrera
AL Cy Young- Felix Hernandez

NL MVP- Clayton Kershaw
NL Cy Young- Clayton Kershaw

:tongue: on Miggy, Trout gets it easy this year. The argument from the past two years if finally over. :lol:
 
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Good, thank you. I look forward to reading it. :lol:

Help to remind him that the Indians have the worst defense in baseball, and the Mariners have a top 5 defense in baseball, hence, why the pitching only metrics favor Kluber, but the overall metrics (which include team defense) tend to favor Felix.

But of course, I already know that you know that detail. Mariner fans on the other hand....... :lol:
 
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I'm thinking the guy that knows baseball forgot to list WAR and FIP as Kluber leads, but that was probably just because he ran out of time.

:lol: I listed my WAR but it's not good enough for Billy Beane over here

I also can't wait to read how a pitcher with a 2.54 ERA and .236 opposing BA deserves Cy over a guy with a 2.14 and .202
 
Billy Beane. That's a clever one.

I told you why your WAR is not good enough. You're using the WAR over at Baseball Reference or ESPN which has been debunked everywhere as the inferior WAR.

- I just wanna preface what I say that to all Mariners fans, this is not in any way taking a shot at Felix. He's the king, one of the top pitchers in baseball and has been for the last six years or so. And this is not me saying that he does not deserve the Cy Young. This is just addressing an extremely homer prone poster.

Pitcher wins and team success should really have nothing to do with whether or not a guy should win a Cy Young. I would think Felix fans would understand that concept seeing as Felix got shut out for so long because of that fact.

All three of them are having extraordinary Cy Young worthy seasons. To doubt that, shows you don't really know what you're talking about.

Also, don't use Baseball Reference WAR. It's been beat into the ground why Fangraphs WAR is superior. There, Kluber leads Felix by a healthy 0.7 WAR, not that WAR is the end all be all of the matter.

To completely ignore my post, and point out WAR, shows you're really not grasping the factual information. I said Felix should have 18-19 wins, clearly his lack of wins isn't hurting his Cy chances. And let me know when Kluber breaks a 40+ year old effiency record and posts close to a 2.0 ERA. Devils advocate doesn't work here.

Because your post is garbage. You pick five arbitrary stats that all back up Felix, how else is someone supposed to respond. You're using stats that should have no bearings in Cy Young voting. Pitcher wins does not matter. ERA does not matter. You're using batting average against and hits per nine like those are not incredibly skewed in Felix's direction because of his extremely superior defense behind him.

That's all well and great he broke Tom Seaver's record. An arbitrary record that SC and ESPN decided to pick up on and run with that pretty much no other baseball outlet paid attention to. You know why? Because you don't just go nitpicking random records and throw it out there like that's supposed to pump up someone's case. It would be like me bringing up the fact that Kluber has 6 games where he has went 7 innings or more with no ER's compared to Felix's 3. Or leading in double digit K games 9-5. Because it's ******* asinine to bring up arbitrary stats and try and pitch them for a season long award.

So let's look at the stats.

K/9:

1. Sale - 10.61
2. Kluber - 10.00
3. Felix - 9.25

BB/9:

1. Felix - 1.68
2. Sale - 1.92
3. Kluber -1.97

HR/9:

1. Kluber - 0.57
2. Felix - 0.62
3. Sale - 0.70

BAPIP (which is going to show you a better picture than H/9 & BA against because it shows how good your defense is behind you on balls in play. Lower it is, more impact your defense has on your pitching line):

1. Felix - .259
2. Sale - .278
3. Kluber - .312

FIP (which is going to show you a better picture than ERA because it strips out the impact of defense, luck and sequencing coupled with a league average BAPIP):

1. Kluber - 2.47
2. Felix/Sale - 2.59

So this is going to give you a much clearer picture of who stands where instead of using ERA, BA allowed, H/9, wins or IP.

I know this might warp your mind and have you dismiss everything but Felix has pitched half of his starts give or take in a pitcher's park where Kluber has been in a more neutral park. Couple that with the fact that Kluber has pitched in front of a horrid defense with a pretty bad framing catcher as opposed to Felix good defense with a very exceptional catcher.

I'll put this here which you really should read to get a better view of how much help Felix has and how little Kluber has gotten. This is as of about a month ago so these figures are even more skewed in Kluber favor.

To make a current case for Corey Kluber, you have to consider areas the voting pool is unlikely to consider in depth. That is, you have to consider elements over which Kluber doesn’t really have any control.

Felix and Kluber have both started 26 games. Felix has thrown six more innings, but Kluber has faced ten more batters. They’re exactly tied in strikeouts. Felix has six fewer walks. Felix has allowed seven fewer earned runs, and six fewer total runs. We can start by pointing out that Felix has started half the time in a more pitcher-friendly ballpark than Cleveland’s. Felix isn’t Chris Young — he isn’t engineered to get the maximum benefit out of Safeco’s dimensions and air — but pitcher-friendly is pitcher-friendly. And speaking of pitcher-friendliness and unfriendliness, we’ve got to look at team defenses.

Felix has allowed fewer hits than Kluber, and that’s shown by a large separation in BABIP. But, by UZR, the Mariners have had a better defense than the Indians by 90 runs. By DRS, the difference is 85 runs. Some measures call the Mariners roughly average, and some say they’ve been better than that. All agree that the Indians have been a defensive disaster, and there’s no reason to think Kluber has been immune to that. To some extent he’s been hurt by the players behind him, and that’s going to change his runs-allowed total. Even if you stop short of plugging in a number, this is something that reduces the gap between the league’s top two starters.

And there’s no way we’re getting out of this without mentioning pitch-framing catchers. Good pitch-framers have an effect on numbers we long thought to be fielding-independent. Kluber has mostly pitched to Yan Gomes, and Gomes is fine behind the plate, but Felix has almost exclusively worked with Mike Zunino, and Zunino rates as outstanding. Remember that, on the year, Felix has allowed six fewer runs than Kluber has. According to Baseball Prospectus, Felix’s catchers have been worth +6.6 runs in his starts. By the same source, Kluber’s catchers have been worth +0.4 runs in his starts. By raw extra calls, Felix has gotten 22 more. These numbers are a little bit theoretical, and they might not do a perfect job of stripping away the pitcher’s role in getting his own calls, but there’s reason to believe Zunino has helped Felix get strikeouts and avoid walks. It’s a further reduction of that gap. It might even erase the gap entirely. The framing difference is estimated to be six runs. The runs difference is observed to be six runs.

Felix has the familiarity and the narrative, which I totally understand. He's been the guy the last six years and he's on a team exceeding expectations. He has the win % and the fraudulent ERA title. You're taking it in a way where you have Felix on the pedestal with no one coming close. I'm not saying that he is not the winner right now. I have no clue who will win. You have 3 guys who would win handily in any other season going neck and neck with each other. The only reason Sale is 3rd is because of the 7 extra starts. It sucks to take that away from him but with what Felix and Kluber are doing, you might have to.

I don't know what else to tell you. If all of that information does not get through to you to show that Felix is not running away with it and you really cannot go wrong (as of right now) with a winner, then God bless you and your homerism.
 
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