Mining the News (7/14/23)

American League

Athletics

• Luis Medina has been working on a new slider.

Medina, who typically favors his four-seamer, utilized a five-pitch mix (fastball, slider, sinker, curveball and changeup). Five of his nine strikeouts came on the slider, a pitch Medina has been working on.

Red Sox

• Yu Chang will be the starting shortstop for the time being.

On Friday, Chang’s two-run single up the middle in the second inning in his first at-bat back led to a five-run inning for the Red Sox in an eventual 7-3 win over the A’s.

Now that Chang is back, he’ll remain the starting shortstop. What this all means for Hernández remains to be seen.

Royals

• A good read on how the team is trying to improve their pitching development.

Each player report looked different, individualized to them and their profile. No longer are the Royals using a blanket pitch-usage philosophy, general manager J.J. Picollo said. There is a better understanding of a player’s pitch characteristics — emphasizing the pitches that fit the pitcher — while they’re trying to integrate movement patterns better than before.

“We’ve adapted to understanding what a pitcher wants to do and what his pitches are telling us he can do,” Picollo said. “It’s coming together more nicely now. We have a better balance of people to communicate with any type of player.”

Twins

• Kenta Maeda cleaned up his mechanics and no longer needs to concentrate on them but instead he can worry about the batter.

That makes it two straight outings in which the fastball that struggled to touch 90 mph before this recent IL stint has blown past the 92 mph mark at least once. Maeda had attributed that to mechanical issues that bothered him in his first go-around this season but have since been resolved thanks to the time away.

“I had the time to look over my mechanics while I was on the IL,” Maeda said through interpreter Dai Sekizaki. “And now, I can concentrate on each hitter I’m facing, so that’s a plus. I can attack with confidence and not have to worry about the mechanics. That’s huge.”

Yankees

• While this entire article has quite a bit of useful player information, this bit on Clarke Schmidt adjusting his cutter to get out lefties I found to be the most interesting.

At the beginning of the season, it looked like it wasn’t going to work out for him in the rotation because he couldn’t get left-handed hitters out. The talk of camp in spring was Schmidt’s development of a cutter. It was mostly ineffective to begin the season. Over the past two months, there’s been a change in the movement he’s getting on it. He’s now getting more horizontal break instead of vertical break and it’s no longer mirroring his sinker.

National League

Dodgers

• Miguel Vargas developed bad habits because of a fracture in his thumb.

After suffering a hairline fracture in his right pinky early in spring, and injuring his right thumb in the first homestand of the regular season, Vargas started to develop what hitting coach Aaron Bates described as “bad habits” to protect himself. It sapped him of his ability to get to what made him function so well in the minors: driving the ball into the gaps with force while avoiding high strikeout totals.

• Two bits of information on Max Muncy. First, the team has determined his elbow is 100% healthy.

Hitting coach Aaron Bates called Muncy’s first half “up and down.” Manager Dave Roberts said Muncy has been “searching.” He has, tinkering with every aspect of his offensive approach in hopes that something sustainable can shake itself out. Internal strength testing and bat speed evaluations show Muncy is no longer inhibited by the elbow. But after the injury, he said “it was like having to start from scratch and not being able to carry anything over.”

Second, he is a constant tinkerer:

So he changed bat models for the first time in 12 years, trying to find something that better fit this version of himself. He also changed “pretty much everything” in between. He credited an unorthodox “step back” move with helping his swing find that rhythm for the final two months of last year when he looked very much like the hitter who has garnered MVP votes in the past. But his left knee was stiff by October as a result. When Muncy fiddled with his mechanics this spring, he felt he was losing the rhythm the “step back” generated, so he ditched it. A miserable start in which he went 4-for-33 with 16 strikeouts to start the season brought it back, and Muncy took off. “He was the best player on the planet for two, three weeks,” Bates said as Muncy stormed to the top of baseball’s home run leaderboard.

Mets

• Carlos Carrasco tweaked his slider grip with improved results.

After tweaking the grip of his slider upon watching a video on Instagram, Carrasco has allowed just two runs over 13 innings with 10 strikeouts and four walks. Still, his eight-inning gem last week marked just the first time he pitched beyond the fifth inning since May 31.

He’s getting two more inches of horizontal break.

The slider’s Pitching+ before the adjustment was 99 and it dropped to 98 after the change. His slider has been fine over his career (24% SwStr%) but he needs to give up on his curve. The curve’s results graded out as a 4.86 ERA pitch. His other issue this season is the 10% BB%.

I could see Cookie go on a nice run but he needs to tighten up his control and pitch mix.

Phillies

• Rule 5 pick Noah Song will have to join the MLB team soon and will also have to be on next season’s 26-man roster to stay with the team.

“To see him go from a 90-93 mph guy at the complex to pumping mid-90s in a game, I think that’s what we all hoped would happen once he got out of the rehab mindset and more in the compete mindset.”

Song, barring another setback, must be activated by July 28. The Phillies are treating him as a reliever now, but if they can keep him in the organization through the winter, they would attempt to make him a starter again. The short-term risk — dedicating a roster spot to a pitcher not ready for the majors — could be outweighed by the potential long-term benefits.

Rockies

• Brendan Rodgers hopes to rejoin the team by season’s end.

On Wednesday, Rodgers laid out the light that he always saw at the end of the process. He’ll continue his rehab with the club during the first homestand after the All-Star break, but the plan is to head to the team’s complex in Scottsdale, Ariz., around July 19. From there, he will begin a reintroduction to game action of what manager Bud Black expects to be “30 to 50 at-bats,” with the final game action at Triple-A Albuquerque.

If all goes well, Rodgers will hit on the optimistic prediction that he could return to play in one to two months.