Mining the News (8/17/23)

For those in early drafts, two international names to consider are Jung-hoo Lee 이정후 and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

As for international stars, the Padres might try to bring to the U.S. this coming offseason, Kim’s former teammate, Jung-hoo Lee, is an obvious candidate. San Diego sent multiple high-ranking evaluators to watch Lee this year before the Kiwoom Heroes outfielder suffered a likely season-ending ankle injury in July. Some rival clubs view the Padres, who employ both Kim and Chan Ho Park, as the current favorites to land Lee. It remains to be seen how the ankle injury affects his market. Unfortunately for Lee, who turns 25 this month, it could lower his price.

The Padres also figure to be in the mix for Japan’s Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but fierce competition is expected for the Orix Buffaloes ace. The 25-year-old Yamamoto is so coveted he could command a contract approaching nine figures — before factoring in the posting fee.

American League

Angels

• Reid Detmers continues to tinker with his manager wanting him to “pitch-to-contact”.

He has made some other sequencing changes — mostly abandoning his changeup and using his slider more. Detmers has said this season that he’s tinkered in-game with his mechanics, specifically with grip and wrist placement. And that it’s been hard for him to find something that consistently works.

Nevin said Wise has worked with Detmers on pitching to contact more, and not trying to strike everyone out. It’s unclear how his penchant for striking guys out, however, is at the root of his failures on the mound.

Astros

• The team might manipulate the rotation to keep Justin Verlander on his routine.

“I think with him being very routine-oriented, having the extra, extra day (off) is not great for him, that’s part of what went into the decision for him to go on regular rest here, so he didn’t have two extra days,” Miller said.

The decision came at Brown’s expense. Instead of taking his turn in the rotation on Wednesday, the rookie right-hander will be available out of the bullpen during the Marlins series. If Brown doesn’t appear, the team is planning to start him at some point during its series against Seattle this weekend.

The Astros are treating Brown much like they did France during his last trip through the rotation: France made his first major-league relief appearance in a tandem start with José Urquidy at Yankee Stadium on Aug. 6.

France returned to the rotation Saturday against the Angels. He worked seven innings, inflating his season-long workload to a career-high 121 1/3 innings. Brown has already thrown 123 1/3 innings this season, three shy of his career-high. Protecting them both must be Houston’s foremost goal. Tactics like this should help, while also allowing Verlander to maintain his all-important routine.

Rays

• Osleivis Basabe will be the everyday shortstop until Taylor Walls comes off the IL or Wander Franco comes off the restricted list.

They are also optimistic about slick-fielding Taylor Walls, who is recovering from a strained left oblique. Walls had a symptom-free day on Monday, Neander said, and he should begin baseball activities by taking dry swings on Tuesday. Walls won’t be ready this week or next, most likely, but the latest developments would seem to indicate he should be back in the mix at some point this season.

For now, though, the job belongs to Basabe.

“Osleivis is a good player,” Neander said. “He doesn’t have a whole lot [of experience] underneath him, but we’ve never been afraid to go with an internal option with little underneath them if they show they can handle it. So we’ll give him that shot.”

Red Sox

• Triston Casas thinks deep about hitting.

Laurila: A lot of hitters I’ve talked to, including Justin Turner just recently, have stressed the importance of timing.

Casas: “I think hitting is more about being on plane. To me, on plane means matching the plane of the pitch coming into the zone. Being on plane gives you a lot of margin for error. If your swing is too direct or too steep, your timing is going to have to be perfect to match the vertical entry angle of the ball into the zone, as opposed to matching it and being able to hit the ball within that 90-degree angle that allows you to hit it fair.”

• Also, Casas won’t always be a platoon player.

But the Red Sox don’t see Casas as a platoon player. Not in the long run. Not if he’s going to fulfill his potential as the team’s best homegrown slugger since Rafael Devers.

“He’s a good hitter,” Cora said. “And little by little, we’re going to keep giving him at-bats against lefties just like we did with Raffy in ’18. He has a pretty good idea of what he wants to do.”
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“We’re going to mix and match,” Cora said. “Ref has to play, and Adam will play against lefties. Somebody has to sit.”

More often than not this season, Casas has been one of those guys on the bench when a left-handed starter is on the mound. It’s an indication of where he is as a young hitter, and not where the Red Sox hope he will be a long-term fixture in the organization.

• Trevor Story plans to keep running.

“(Running) is a big part of my game,” Story said. “I kind of missed doing that stuff. You know, honestly watching Duran this year, I’ve always been inspired to do it, but man, just watching him kind of change the game and just wreak havoc on the defense, it was a big goal of mine when I came back to hit the ground running and kind of catch up with him.”

• Brayan Bello performs better with extra rest.

“It’s a long season, and for me, it’s a matter of making an adjustment,” said Bello. “For me, I look at the good and bad outings and try to learn from them. I feel good, I feel healthy and I feel strong, so that’s it. Just try to make an adjustment and learn on the go.”

The Red Sox have used gaps in the schedule to consistently give Bello extra rest whenever possible. Saturday marked just his fourth start this season on the standard four days of rest, and Bello has a 5.75 ERA in those outings.

Bello’s next start will be at Yankee Stadium on Friday night, giving him an extra day of rest.

• Nick Pivetta found a new slider back in June.

At some point during Boston’s three-game series in Cleveland from June 6-8, Pivetta was playing catch in the outfield and came up with a second slider with more of a horizontal break.

“I was just messing around with some pitches in the outfield and then it was working well, and I brought it into a game to see how the pitch would play,” Pivetta said. “It seems to work really well off of my curveball and off of my fastball up.”

Initially, the pitch performed great but it’s results have tapered off.

Possibly the league has adjusted to it.

Royals

• Alec Marsh is happy with his new slider.

Alec Marsh has been tweaking his slider all season, but the pitch he threw on Thursday night against the Red Sox was completely new.

With a new grip and new movement — and better results — it’s what helped the right-hander get through five innings in the Royals’ 2-0 loss to the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

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Marsh, ranked as the Royals’ No. 6 prospect by MLB Pipeline, entered to begin the fourth to face the middle of Boston’s lineup. And with it, the rookie debuted a new slider. After tinkering with the pitch for several weeks, Marsh found the grip that worked in his bullpen session earlier this week.

Marsh’s slider (15% SwStr%, 41% GB%) is not holding him back. The issue with Marsh his that he has a 5.68 BB/9. Do you know what a 5.68 BB/9 leads to? A 5.68 ERA (his actual value) and a 1.68 WHIP. He needs to quit worrying about his damn slider and start throwing strikes.

Twins

• Carlos Correa is struggling against fastballs.

One potential red flag: Correa has had a particularly difficult time catching up to fastballs after previously feasting on them. He’s a lifetime .302 hitter versus fastballs, including .336 last season for the Twins, but he’s hit just .223 against fastballs this year. He’s whiffed on 14 percent more fastball swings than in 2022, and his average exit velocity on fastballs is down almost 2 miles per hour.

I probably should have just stopped at struggling.

White Sox

• Yoán Moncada is starting to find his groove.

“I had a couple months where I wasn’t able to put the ball in the air,” said Moncada through interpreter Billy Russo. “It’s good to see that now.”

“He feels pretty good so he’s able to get back to what his mechanics really look like, and you’ve seen it,” White Sox manager Pedro Grifol said. “The last few days he’s been able to pull a baseball.”

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“Now, there are times where I feel like my mechanics are right. But there are times where I don’t feel on time, or I’m in that rhythm that I’m used to when I’m in full swing. That’s part of the process now. That’s what I’m trying to find right now. There are games where I feel good and there are games where I’m struggling a little bit. I’m fighting. It’s a battle every day.”

Yankees

• Michael King is being stretched out as a starter.

Yankees are using this as an opportunity to build up Michael King’s stamina as a starting option. King has expressed interest in returning to the rotation and is excited about the idea.

— Bryan Hoch ⚾️ (@BryanHoch) August 12, 2023

National League

Brewers

• Corbin Burnes is a different pitcher than the one who started the season.

Yes, Burnes’ slider movement doubled out of nowhere in July, from 6 inches to 12 inches. Then it jumped again, all the way up to 17 inches, in his first start of August.

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Burnes has added five inches of sink to his sinker since the start of July — it was dropping 17 inches, now it’s dropping 22 inches. He’s added the same amount of drop to his curve — it was dropping 52 inches, now it’s dropping 57.
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Burnes was trending the wrong way into the summer. He’s reversed that trend since July. Fewer than half of his cutters were pounding the zone in May and June; that number leaped to 56% in July, then to 63% in his first start in August.

Burnes’ cutter is one of the most dominant in-zone pitches out there. Now he’s using it as such.

• Christian Yelich is improved because his back is healthy and his leg kick is gone.

There’s a mix of factors that got Yelich back to this point. Health is a critical component. He dealt with lingering back issues in years past. Mechanical changes are part of his story, as well. Dawson said the adjustments he worked on last year were scattered. This year, there’s more purpose behind them.

In May, he altered his leg kick to become more of a toe tap. He’s got an .892 OPS since the start of that month, compared to .656 in April.
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This year, Yelich is hitting a .337 against fastballs. He’s got 12 homers against the pitch. He had 15 total the last three years combined. Eliminating the leg kick helped with timing and balance. This is the result.

Giants

• The team wants Luis Matos to beef up.

Matos possesses elite bat-to-ball skills, but he ranked in the 25th percentile in exit velocity and often wasn’t getting rewarded for making solid contact. Manager Gabe Kapler said the Giants have spoken to Matos about adding more strength to his 5-foot-11, 160-pound frame to ensure that more of those balls start to fall for hits in the future.

• Ross Stripling continues to deal with back tightness.

A tight lower back isn’t going to help matters. Kapler revealed that Stripling has been dealing with more back trouble. The right-hander called it mild and nowhere near the discomfort he felt when he went on the injured list in May.

Mets

• Francisco Alvarez will be capped at starting two games in a row.

The Mets have already throttled back on the rookie Álvarez’s playing time behind the plate. After he started the final eight games before the All-Star break, Álvarez hasn’t caught more than two in a row in the second half of the season. He’s essentially gone from starting three of every four games to two of every three.

• Ronny Mauricio and Brett Baty will be playing third base in AAA.

I do find it curious, however, that the Mets moved Mauricio to third base just this week — the same time they sent Baty down to Syracuse. Hinky, right? So I’m interested in seeing how the S-Mets align defensively over the next couple of weeks and what that says about Baty’s (and Mauricio’s) long-term fits.

Pirates

• Ke’Bryan Hayes added a leg kick and then went with a toe tap and then added back in the leg kick.

With a mechanical tweak in tow, eschewing his toe tap for a more familiar leg kick, Hayes hit his third home run in the last four games as the Pirates lost to the Reds, 9-2, on Friday night at PNC Park.

“[I’ve been] in a good spot to hit, and fortunately getting the pitches to put good swings on,” Hayes said. “Just been working a lot, figuring out a setup to make my movements as minimal as possible. But yeah, just ultimately being in a good spot with my body being behind the ball and being able to let the barrel work down.”
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Hayes began the season with a leg kick before his swing, but after a four-strikeout game against the Mariners in Seattle on May 28 (Hayes believes it was the first four-strikeout game in his entire life), he switched from a leg kick to a toe tap. The change yielded instant results; from May 31, the first day he introduced the toe tap, to June 9, Hayes went 19-for-34 (.559) with two home runs, two triples and three doubles, the highlight of that stretch being a five-hit game.

Here is a clip of the change.

Ke'Bryan Hayes has talked in recent days about reducing movement in his swing. In recent days, he's gone from a toe tap, which he introduced earlier this year, back to a small leg kick.

The first clip is from Sunday. The second is from today. pic.twitter.com/Seqd8r91Mk

— Justice delos Santos (@justdelossantos) August 12, 2023