Mining the News (5/5/22)

American League

Blue Jays

Yusei Kikuchi has tinkered with his mechanics and dropped his cutter for a slider.

It’s been less than a month since Kikuchi last faced the Yankees and didn’t make it out of the fourth inning, but in that short time, the Blue Jays pitching coaching staff, led by Walker, have been tinkering with Kikuchi’s mechanics and repertoire. It was last outing, against the Houston Astros, that Kikuchi showed a new delivery on the mound with a toned-down leg kick. They’ve also shifted the target behind the plate. And Kikuchi has scrapped his cutter entirely and instead has introduced a new, harder slider instead.

Making in-season adjustments isn’t easy and requires patience. Let’s also remember that Kikuchi has had to do this while facing an absolute gauntlet of a first stretch starting against the Yankees twice, the Red Sox and the Astros twice.

He might be worth a bench and watch to see if the changes lead to permanent improvements.

Mariners

Projecting Saves for this team is going to be a mess.

In Sewald’s absence, Seattle back-filled the sequences he likely would’ve been slated for with a combination of Erik Swanson, Andrés Muñoz, Diego Castillo and Yohan Ramirez. The results were mostly positive, other than a blown save by Ramirez on Saturday against Kansas City that the Mariners recovered from. Those arms now have more high-leverage experience heading into the thick of the season.

“I think, generally, that’s why we’re going to be really good this year, is that we don’t have two or three guys that you trust and then six or seven that you don’t,” Sewald said. “We trust you guys, and we’ll throw whoever we have to in whatever inning, and that way nobody gets overused and so everybody’s fresh.”

Andrés Muñoz will be used in “big” innings as he works on his ideal fastball-slider combination.

“He’s gaining confidence as a young player,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said recently. “He’s going to pitch some really big innings for us as the season goes along.”

“(The Mariners) haven’t told me to throw more sliders. (I’m) still learning the league and finding the best combination with the fastball and slider,” Muñoz said through an interpreter. “I want to throw more fastballs, but right now the slider has been really, really good.”

Tom Murphy is trying to improve his strike zone awareness.

“I really started getting more aware of it just because I physically couldn’t do the things that I normally did in the box, so I had to try to adjust somewhere,” Murphy said. “And that was trying to tighten the strike zone up for myself a little bit. But, really, prior to coming to the Mariners, that was never even a thought.”j

Murphy ditched his leg lift three weeks before the end of last season in favor of a toe tap, then he worked diligently on the mechanics all offseason. Doing so has allowed him to hold his load-up far longer, and as such, his timing against secondary pitches has been better. He has a .267 batting average against breaking balls and offspeed, up from .173 last year.

While his strikeouts are basically the same (31% vs 33%) compared to last season, his walk rate is way up (12% to 20%).

Matt Brash thinks he was tipping his pitches.

Brash also made a mechanical adjustment when pitching out of the stretch, moving his glove closer to his waist with the ball more hidden, compared to more away from his body at shoulder height.

“Just watching video and stuff, it might’ve looked like I was tipping pitches,’ Brash said. “I was showing my glove to the [runner] on second and stuff, so I made the adjustment to have it a little lower, hide the ball a little better.”

Rays

Drew Rasmussen is throwing a second slider.

Rasmussen credited his success to what he described as a “cuttery-slider” — a slider with a little more velocity. He worked that pitch in with his fastball and a more traditional side-to-side slider.

Red Sox

Michael Wacha reworked his arsenal.

The Red Sox didn’t so much settle for Wacha. They went after him, intrigued by last season’s uptick in velocity and command, believing he was finally back to full health and seeing room for pitch-mix optimization. These weren’t purely speculative observations. Wacha had reworked his arsenal late last year — basically ditching his cutter, adding a two-seamer and throwing more curveballs and changeups — and the result was a 2.88 ERA in his last seven outings, two of them scoreless starts on the road against the Astros and Yankees.

• Alex Cora wants a structured bullpen.

“You guys know I like structure,” said Cora. “We tried the whole ace reliever in [the first half of] 2019. It’s different than this, of course. The three lefties gives us an advantage on certain days. But I think it’s one of those where we would love somebody to step up and be consistent to throw strikes, go through three batters and turn the page. That’d be great so we could actually set up the sixth, the seventh, the eighth. But so far, we’ve been up and down with this.”

Twins

Jhoan Duran had a shoulder injury last season (see Ryan Helsley under the Cardinals).

It seemed like there was a big hole at the back end of the Twins’ bullpen after they traded Taylor Rogers to the Padres on Opening Day — but it turned out they had another monster ready to go all along. The world just hadn’t seen him yet, since Duran missed most of the 2021 Minor League season with an elbow injury.

The Twins might be protecting Duran because of the injury since they have always given him at least two days of rest between appearances. He could be getting Saves, but so will others in the bullpen.

National League

Brewers

• Willie Adames is trying to be more selective at the plate.

Each offseason, Adames, 26, tries to pick a couple of areas of his game to improve. Last winter, one area was laying off pitches out of the strike zone.

“All the elite hitters,” Adames said, “they don’t chase that much.”

“He used to be really aggressive,” Hyde said. “I think he’s got a little bit more strike-zone discipline right now. And, hey, good for him. He’s super talented. He can improve, and he’s already extremely talented right now.”

While he hasn’t cut his strikeout rate (28% in 2021 and 2022), his walk rate is up from 10% to 13%.

Lorenzo Cain believes he needs 50 to 60 plate appearances to be ready for the season.

For Cain, one thing to follow is how he performs against fastballs. Throughout his career, he’s done well against heaters, including a .314 average against them in 2021. But so far this season, he is hitting just .172 against fastballs.

“Just catching up on the fastball right now, I am typically a guy who would like 50-60 at-bats in the spring,” Cain said. “I didn’t get that, but, hey, we are all dealing with the same thing. I think as the season goes on, we’ll all start swinging the bat a lot better.

“The more I play, get consistent at-bats, hopefully I improve and start squaring some balls up.”

So far in May, he has a .984 OPS, so he might be gaining some traction.

Cardinals

Paul DeJong believes he went too far in letting his natural ability take over.

DeJong, who noted multiple times last season he felt he had become overly analytical about his swing, is now facing the opposite result. In an attempt to think less and let his natural skill take over, DeJong feels he may have begun to relax too much.

“It seems like I’m on the other side of the cycle now,” DeJong said. “I was trying to be so relaxed, I kind of lost my edge or my direction, I guess. I did some work (Saturday) after the game to figure out what it was and it’s literally just me missing a pitch I should be hitting, and fouling it back. Overall my pitch selection has been pretty good. It’s just literally one pitch an at-bat that I’m slightly missing under and fouling back instead of putting in play hard.

Ryan Helsley had two injuries (elbow) last season (see Jhoan Duran under the Twins).

When Marmol made the closer comments in early spring, he did so without knowing if there was another high-impact right-handed reliever he could count on besides Gallegos. The Cardinals knew they could rely on Génesis Cabrera as a left-handed setup man, and they hoped they could do the same with Ryan Helsley as the right-handed option, but with Helsley coming off two separate injuries, they couldn’t be certain.

“When I think about the closer’s spot, I’d like to think if there’s an opportunity that’s more meaningful in the eighth, does (Gallego) get that? My answer’s yeah, like that’s the way I’d like to think through it,” Marmol said earlier in the week. “But is he still in the back of my head as the ninth-inning guy? Yes. But I see those as interchangeable. I have no problem using Helsley if I’ve already used Gio. Both guys have the ability to get a lot of outs.”

Just once was Helsley used with fewer than two days of rest, and that was between his first and second start. The Cards then gave him a week off after the second appearance. I wonder if he’s not the official closer because he needs at least a couple of days off between appearances.

Cubs

Expect some adjustments to Sean Newcomb as the season goes on.

The things Newcomb needs to work on won’t be pushed on him just yet as the Cubs focus on getting him comfortable with their system and encouraging him to just let his stuff play in the strike zone.

Hottovy and his staff will eventually have him start working on a few ideas they have, whether it be pitch usage, location or even some grip or mechanical adjustments. What he’s comfortable with and what he takes to will be key, of course. But for now, Newcomb will just be expected to come in for lower-leverage outings as the Cubs ease him into his new surroundings.

Padres

Wil Myers‘ struggles could be related to a thumb injury he tried to play through.

As for Myers, he’ll head to the 10-day IL after opening the season in a .218/.254/.273 funk at the plate. That sloth-like start comes on the heels of a solid 2020-21 run at the plate, and it’s fair to say the thumb injury has contributed to his struggles. Myers originally incurred the injury during an at-bat two weeks ago and has been held out of the lineup on multiple occasions in an effort to let it heal. His placement on the injured list is retroactive to yesterday, so he’ll be eligible to return a week from Saturday.

Luke Voit tried to play through a bicep injury.

Luke Voit has been bothered by a lingering right biceps problems, the Padres first baseman told The San Diego Union-Tribune’s Jeff Saunders and other reporters. With only a .143/.315/.167 slash line over his first 54 PA, Voit bluntly described himself as “a waste of an at-bat right now. I’m not doing the team any good. I played through injuries last year and it’s really hard.”





Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.

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JimmieFoxxalorianmember
1 year ago

I would love to see a full breakdown of Alex Cora’s 2022 bullpen decision-making. Anecdotally, in games I’ve watched his decisions seem to backfire nearly every game. Its hard to gauge how much of that is a product of bad luck or an actual poor decision.

For example, in yesterday’s Angels game Robles was on the verge of finishing the game and getting a save, but he got slightly wild and Cora brought in Diekman for the lefty-lefty matchup vs. Walsh, who of course had a great at-bat and tied the game. Then in extras Cora brought in Barnes who got destroyed. Robles did walk Trout & Ohtani, but he was throwing 97mph and missed a couple of close calls.

I felt it was a mistake to go to Diekman, who not surprisingly was wilder than Robles, which is consistent with how Diekman performed in prior games. I understand the logic of the lefty-lefty bit, but Robles threw some quality pitches and happened to walk two great hitters. It seemed the plan was to go to Diekman for that matchup regardless. As a manager you also have to think what that does psychologically to Robles confidence in future games. I’d have rolled the dice with Robles 97mph heater vs. Walsh, since Diekman has been crap more often than not anyway.

Fast forward to today’s loss, Cora pulled Hill, who was pitching a great game, and seemed to have plenty of gas in the tank—brought in Houck, then stuck with him so long that he gave up 7 runs. It’s bewildering trying to make sense of Cora’s decisions, but maybe I’m missing something that’s informing how he’s managed the pitching staff.

Sonny Lmember
1 year ago

One of the things I was most excited for with Bloom and Co heading to Boston was seeing the Rays acquisition and development magic on the Sox bullpen. So far…I don’t think you can call an MLB bullpen that gives Ryan Brasier high leverage innings particularly good or deep.

But these things are cyclical. There’s a lot of arm talent in the system and I could see the answer to Cora’s problems come from within the org by mid season.

weenis
1 year ago

Hansel Robles is fucking terrible.