Mining the News (8/10/20)

American League

Angels

• A simplified swing may have rejuvenated Max Stassi’s career.

“I feel a lot better after my hip surgery I had in the fall,” Stassi said. “My routine is totally different. Mindset, gameplan, everything is a lot better. Obviously, a lot more confidence.”

Stassi had previous experience with assistant hitting coach John Mallee from their time together with the Astros and said he worked hard with fellow hitting coaches Jeremy Reed and Paul Sorrento to simplify his swing.

“The short version would be I’m hunched over a little more over the plate,” Stassi said. “Kind of a posture thing, so I’m able to get into my back hip and keep my posture level, versus getting too uphill. My lead arm is now down, so I can work directly towards the ball. And then, I’m just trying to rotate as much as I can.”

The big improvement so far with Stassi is his contact rate jumping from 68% to 75%. The improvement has helped halve his strikeout rate from 33% to 16% and improve everything else. For his career, he has a .640 OPS but it is up to 1.096 this season.

Athletics

Khris Davis is making a swing adjustment.

The recent success came following an adjustment at the plate. The slugger moved his hands farther back and slightly higher in his stance.

“It’s just been helping me be more accurate to the ball. I’m finding less swings-and-misses and a little better contact,” Davis said. “Just having them farther back, there’s less room to go. They’re already ready to fire. It’s been working.”

The adjustment came on the advice of hitting coaches Darren Bush and Eric Martins, whom Davis approached for help. Together, they discovered that his setup changed, dating back to that night of his injury in Pittsburgh.

“We’ve just been working nonstop trying to figure out what is going to work,” Davis said. “I think when I got hurt, I started getting set up in a different way. My body just wasn’t adjusting to that injury. When I put my hands further back, it just kind of freed thing up.”

I’m not surprised to see him struggle after determining that hitters who play through an injury age faster. They don’t let the injury heal and form bad habits as Davis did. Maybe Davis will get right but only time will tell for the 32-year-old.

Rangers

Mike Minor is not 100% healthy.

“Mike might be a little behind as far as his arm conditioning,” Rangel said. “It’s hard when you are at home and trying to stay in shape. He was able to throw live BP early on, and then there was a period where they shut down where he was. I think that was part of it; he wasn’t able to throw while the rest of the guys were throwing.”

Minor retired the side in order in the fifth, but he told the Rangers he was “out of gas” at 83 pitches. He had thrown 98 pitches in each of his first two starts.

On the season, Minor’s fastball has averaged 90.4 mph. Over his career, the pitch has never been effective in that range (image). He’s offsetting the velocity drop by throwing his fastball fewer times (45% to 38%).

Joey Gallo’s struggles are likely linked to a sore wrist.

Gallo told the club after Wednesday’s 6-4 loss that his wrist was “pretty sore.” He tried to play through the pain on Thursday and went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts and a walk in another 6-4 loss. He was 1-for-11 with eight strikeouts in the three games in Oakland.

“He decided to play through it yesterday, because it was pretty sore and it affected his swing,” Rangers manager Chris Woodward said. “It probably didn’t help playing yesterday because it was pretty sore today. [We’ll] give him today and hopefully he’ll be full go tomorrow. Today is a no go.”

Gallo underwent season-ending surgery on his right wrist on July 24 last year to remove a broken hamate bone, cutting his first All-Star year short after just 70 games. Woodward said this injury is completely separate to what Gallo dealt with last season.

While Gallo isn’t hitting .253 like last season, he’s hitting better than most projections expected him to. With this news, there may be a second gear to Gallo and he may go off if he gets healthy.

Red Sox

• There is a chance that Andrew Benintendi may not hit near the top of the Red Sox lineup.

Ideally, Benintendi will start hitting soon. If that doesn’t happen, Roenicke hinted that Alex Verdugo could get a shot in the leadoff spot. While both players have similar skillsets, one difference is that Verdugo is a better hitter against lefties.

“He’d probably be the one guy in our lineup that makes a lot of sense. When he’s swinging well he looks like he’s very patient,” Roenicke said. “It doesn’t seem to bother him whether it’s a left-hander or right-hander, so, yes, we have talked about it.”

Much of his fantasy value was linked to getting 650+ PA a season at the top of a loaded lineup. Now, he’s headed to the back half of an OK lineup.

J.D. Martinez may be struggling because he can’t review his at-bats.

It’s not exactly surprising that Red Sox designated hitter J.D. Martinez is struggling with the temporary ban on players using communal video terminals to review at-bats or pitches during games. Martinez, renowned for making adjustments through in-game video study, told reporters last Friday, “That’s a big part of my routine … a big part of who I am.”

Without the visual aid, he is batting .244 with a .720 OPS and no home runs in his first 50 plate appearances.

“He’s very frustrated, not being able to go back and look at video,” Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke told the Fox broadcasters on Saturday. “When you’re DHing, you have to spend your time doing something. You can’t just sit on the bench and dwell. He’s in the cage a lot, but he usually looks at video. He’s one of the few players who can break down anyone’s swing. For him not to have that – to not be able to look at what he’s doing wrong and correct it – it’s affecting him.”

Martinez was projected for an OPS near .900 but it’s only at .596 so far. Most baseball players are creatures of habit and he doesn’t have one that he thinks makes him effective. It’ll be interesting to see if/how he adjusts.

Royals

• The Royals have stated that Trevor Rosenthal is not the set closer.

Matheny said on Saturday that Kennedy’s closer’s role has not been relinquished. In fact, if Josh Staumont had gone down to a back strain Friday night, Kennedy might have been lined up for a potential save. Instead, that save went to Rosenthal.

Matheny said he will continue to distribute bullpen opportunities based on game-to-game matchups.

“It’s nice to have different guys to fill those roles, including [Scott] Barlow,” Matheny said. “It’s more about the lineup matchups. …

In my opinion, actions speak louder than words with Rosenthal leading the team with three Saves while Kennedy sits at zero. Now, if the current approach does change, don’t be surprised one bit.

Twins

Marwin Gonzalez changed his left-sided stance.

While much of Minnesota’s vaunted lineup has slumped to begin the 2020 season, Gonzalez has been fairly consistent with his production and owned a .350/.435/.500 line with two homers entering Sunday. He’s not sure whether changing his left-handed batting stance directly correlates to that success, but he does feel that he’s now seeing the ball more effectively against right-handed pitchers.

Gonzalez said the motivation behind the move was that he felt unable to catch up to too many fastballs last season, especially as more pitchers around the league relied on four-seamers to the top of the zone to generate fly balls and swinging strikes. He hoped that the change in his bat path and positioning would help adjust to that.

He has raised his OPS vs RHP from .715 to .794. With Josh Donaldson out, Gonzalez is seeing full-time at-bats.

Byron Buxton is still dealing with foot and shoulder injuries.

Buxton’s added perspective from his teammates — and his recent results at the plate — certainly help as he continues to deal with the lingering effects of not only his foot injury, but also the torn labrum in his left shoulder that ended his 2019 season and was surgically repaired in September.

The 26-year-old said that the pain in his foot is simply “tolerable” and still improving, but it’s bearable enough to the point where Buxton is able to play almost every day. That’s not much of an impediment to his hitting, but Buxton said that he’s still held back at the plate by soreness in his left shoulder, and he’s had to adapt his routine in the past two days to do some early work to loosen it up.

“… not much of an impediment”. Sure.

White Sox

Yasmani Grandal is having a tough time getting both of his swings dialed-in.

Grandal had been open about the difficulty of trying to physically prepare for the season with no fixed target date. As a switch hitter, he has two distinct swings to get in sync–a right-hand stroke with a small lift of his front foot, and his primary left-handed stroke that is nearly strideless, where he turns his front foot inward to load but never raises it above the ground.

Being a switch hitter hasn’t hurt Marwin Gonzalez. At season’s end, I’ll examine switch hitters to see if they struggled more with the short ramp up.

Yankees

• The Yankees plan on rotating several players through the open DH spot and not go with one person.

The Yankees plan to “get a little creative” with their designated hitter spot while Giancarlo Stanton mends a strained left hamstring on the injured list, manager Aaron Boone said on Sunday.

Mike Ford got the start at DH on Sunday, marking his first turn in the slot this year. Aaron Judge, who entered play leading the Majors with eight homers, has also seen one game as the DH.

Many owners jumped to add Mike Tauchman (added in 71 NFBC OC leagues with a max bid of $333) but he may not have the job half the time. Expect others to fill the role as needed.

National League

Braves

Freddie Freeman is not comfortable at the plate.

It’s been two weeks since Freddie Freeman recovered from COVID-19. The Braves first baseman says he feels well physically, but he doesn’t feel right at the plate. He hopes that Thursday’s game against the Blue Jays was a stepping stone moment. In that game, Freeman went 2-for-4 with two RBIs, including his second home run of the season, in Atlanta’s 4-3 victory.

“I still have some indecision at the plate,” Freeman said. “I’m taking some fastballs that I normally don’t take. I’m working hard, working every day. Hopefully I can build off [Thursday].”

The struggles have not transferred over to his results where he’s hitting almost the same at last year (.938 OPS vs .934 OPS).

Brewers

Freddy Peralta’s fastball velocity jumped in his last start.

The right-hander, who has already pitched as both a starter and a reliever this season, was sharp during three scoreless innings Thursday, logging six strikeouts and a jump in average fastball velocity from 91.3 mph in a July 26 start against the Cubs to 93.2 mph against the White Sox.

“Of anybody that got a break here, Freddy was the guy that almost needed it, in a sense,” Counsell said. “That might sound strange, but I think it did him some good. … I thought we saw velocity. I think he’d just been kind of going through one of those phases where the ball’s just not coming out the way you want it, and there’s nothing wrong with you, it’s just not coming out. So essentially, he had about a 10-day break, and it looked like it did him some good.

Fastball velocity is extremely important for a pitcher who throws his fastball 75% of the time. As seen in the image, his swing-and-miss capability jumps significantly for each mph increase.

Mets

Steven Matz is struggling to throw a sinker more.

After his last rocky outing against the Nats, Matz revealed one thing he’s been working on with pitching coach Jeremy Hefner: moving full-time to a two-seam fastball because of the quirks in his fastball movement.

He struggled with that mix his last time out against Washington, eventually reverting back to trying some four-seamers and sliders late in his outing. It will be worth monitoring how he alters that approach against the same opponent Monday night.

Matz’s solution may not lead to improved results. First, his sinker doesn’t really sink and has just a 47% GB%. It needs to be in the 55% GB% range to start generating weak contact. Second, he’s never had an average or better third pitch. His change has achieved average results (18% SwStr%), his curve and slider are not good. His fastball performs almost on par with them (~9% SwStr%).

Nationals

Sean Doolittle isn’t throwing as fast as he used to.

“Mechanically, I might not be exactly where I want to be. But I feel physically like the ball should be coming out a lot harder than 89-90,” said Doolittle, who pitched 60 innings and had 29 saves last year. “It should have some life on it. I should be able to get through an inning.

I wonder how often this type velocity loss happens. The pitcher thinks he’s at full effort but the results go down. Maybe injuries start to occur if the pitcher exerts his body too much to keep up.

Stephen Strasburg lost feeling in his had during his last start.

Toward the end of Strasburg’s outing, the lingering effects of his hand injury were noticeable to him.

“To be honest, I felt it,” Strasburg said. “I don’t know if it was necessarily fatigue or just not having necessarily the stamina built up quite yet, but it’s something where I don’t think I’m doing any long-term harm on it. But it does have an impact on being able to feel the baseball and being able to commit to pitches. That’s something I haven’t quite figured out, how to pitch through it yet. So I think the goal is to continue to get built up and get the pitch count up to where that won’t be flaring up over the course of the start.”

Strasburg is viewing the discomfort as something he has to overcome. His goal is to “tighten things up a little bit” on the mound and learn how to adapt to the nerve issue before his next start.

“I think, for the most part, I’m symptom-free, and that’s a positive,” Strasburg said. “Now it’s just kind of trying to commit to it, trying to trust the stuff now. … It’s something where I’ve just got to kind of work through it, and the more reps I get, the sharper I’ll get.”

Rest in peace to all the batters standing up there when Strasburg is just launching the ball home with no feeling.

Padres

• The Padres plan on using a platoon of Jake Cronenworth and Jurickson Profar.

The question is whether the lefty-hitting Cronenworth would start against left-handed pitching. That seems unlikely. Jurickson Profar, a switch-hitter, is significantly better against lefties. If his struggles continue, fellow rookie Jorge Mateo might be called upon to platoon with Cronenworth.

This plan pretty much kills both of their fantasy values.

Phillies

Spencer Howard may not be part of the Phillies rotation just yet.

There’s Howard, the prospect who acknowledged he was not his sharpest in his debut. And there’s Vince Velasquez, who was Klentak’s first major acquisition as GM in 2015. Both pitched Sunday, and Girardi did not commit to change afterward. The next turn in the rotation is Friday against the Mets.

“Right now, my plans are Vinny to make that start,” Girardi said. “I have not talked to anyone. We’re going on a five-man rotation. Spencer came up and threw the second part of a doubleheader. I’ll sit down and talk to our coaches and Matt and (assistant general manager) Ned (Rice), and we’ll make a decision.”

But Howard is here for a reason, and he will contribute innings for this team somehow. He’s a starter and he would prefer to start, and it would make the most sense for the Phillies to start one of their best young pitchers every fifth day.

I’m sure Velasquez will fall apart at some point and Howard will be throwing every 5th day.

Scott Kingery is still feeling the effects of his bout with COVID-19

Just when Scott Kingery started to feel like himself, the Phillies stopped playing baseball for eight days.

Kingery arrived late to Summer Camp last month because of COVID-19. The 26-year-old still had lingering effects from the virus, including shortness of breath, but he said he finally “got to a good point,” when the Phillies had seven consecutive games postponed last week following a season-opening series against the Marlins, who had a coronavirus outbreak. The missed time in Summer Camp and the unexpected layoff might be a factor in Kingery’s slow start. Kingery is batting .083 (2-for-24) with one RBI, three walks and five strikeouts in seven games.

“It does feel like it’s just going to take a little bit of time,” Kingery said, “but these things come back quick. Hopefully soon we can get it going again and hopefully we don’t have any more off-days that aren’t supposed to be there.”

I really need to look into how players have performed based on if they had systems from getting COVID-19.

Rockies

The Rockies are in love with Matt Kemp.

“One of his greatest strengths is his ability to knock in runs, put the bat on the ball and really grind out critical at-bats,” Black said. “We’ve seen that so far. The way he’s going now, there’s a threat of an RBI, a big homer, slugging percentage. There’s just a good feeling right now with Matt offensively, and his place on our club.”

R.I.P. Sam Hilliard’s fantasy value.





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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Mario Mendozamember
3 years ago

You saved the best for last