Mining the News (8/18/20)

American League

Angels

The Angels are considering cutting Albert Pujols’s playing time once Andrelton Simmons returns.

It would allow the Angels to play David Fletcher at second base and still have La Stella in the lineup playing first base, as Fletcher will remain an everyday player when Simmons returns but will be a super-utility player.

It would come at the expense of Pujols, but the veteran slugger has struggled at the plate this season.
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Pujols, 40, wasn’t in the lineup on Saturday and is batting .186/.238/.356 with three homers and eight RBIs in 15 games this season. Maddon remains confident Pujols will get going, but it does appear that his at-bats could be reduced once Simmons returns.

The big winner is Tommy La Stella who should keep much of his playing time.

Athletics

• If A.J. Puk returns this season, it will be to the bullpen.

However, Melvin recently mentioned that Puk would likely pitch out of the bullpen upon returning to Oakland and there might not be enough time to build his arm up into a starting role given the shortened 60-game regular season.

Royals

• The Royals are calling up Matt Harvey.

And after that, Royals general manager Dayton Moore said the organization will re-examine the need to possibly use him on the 28-man roster sometime during the next homestand, which starts Tuesday against the Reds.

“He’s throwing well,” Moore said. “And he’s a guy who can serve a variety of roles for us. He can be a starter, he can be a long man, he might even be able to help us in the back of the bullpen. We’ll see.

It’s been over five years since Matt Harvey was productive. The key for a Harvey rebound centers on his fastball. When he was good, his four-seamer averaged around 95-mph. It might be tough for him to regain 2 mph since he was sitting at 93 mph last season. One twist could be a move away from his four-seamer and to a sinker (65% GB% for his career).

Also, he needs to throw his fastball no more than 50% of the time while throwing his slider, curve, and changeup more. They have a career swinging-strike rate over 13%. Finally, he needs to find the plate. In his two worst ERA seasons (6.70, 7.09), his walk rates were nearly 4.5 BB/9 each season. It’s a lot of ifs.

Tigers

• Matthew Boyd is just catching too much of the plate.

Boyd is still throwing strikes 63.8 percent of the time, only down from 66.1 percent last season. But zone breakdowns indicate that if Boyd hasn’t been missing, he has been leaving too many pitches over the plate. Boyd has also not been the beneficiary of overwhelming bad luck. Per Statcast, his expected ERA is still 8.01.

I decided to create a four-act play to simply describe his 2020 season so far.

Four act play staring Matthew Boyd

Act 1: 2019 Pitch location pic.twitter.com/uYXBAjHrYb

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) August 18, 2020

National League

Diamondbacks

• Stephen Vogt and Carson Kelly will split time catching.

Over the past six games, Lovullo said he wanted to get Stephen Vogt more work behind the plate, which is why Vogt started four games at catcher to Carson Kelly’s two.

Now, it looks like it will be more of an even split moving forward.

“It’s going to probably flatten out and be 50/50,” Lovullo said. “I just was sorting through that and going through some of the matchups that I liked, and I think there’s a lot of familiarity between a pitcher and a catcher that works for both.

The lack of playing time will make both undesirable.

• Starling Marte is being more selective.

That’s not to say Marte is a walk machine now, of course. He isn’t, and hasn’t actually drawn a walk in more than a week after collecting six in his first 11 games. But plate discipline isn’t just about racking up bases on balls. It’s about saving your swing for the pitches you can hit hard, and one doesn’t have to look too far beyond Marte’s walk total to see evidence that he’s being more discerning.
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Coles attributes that to a couple of factors. One is Marte’s increased willingness to take the first pitch of a plate appearance. …The second factor Coles has noticed is a better recognition of breaking pitches.

The changes have occurred (4% BB% to 9% BB%, 16% K% to 14% K%) and the overall results have been outstanding (.935 OPS, 2 HR, 3 SB). There is not much an owner can do this season since Marte will be 100% rostered and his trade price will be through the roof.

Mets

• Andres Giménez is transitioning into a well-rounded hitter.

“It allows his body to work the way his body is built,” Ellis said. “He’s not losing the integrity of his back leg, thus creating more force from the ground up. Before, he was spread out and the integrity was lost. Being able to load around that back leg, that helps him out tremendously with the force from the ground.”

“He’s able to stay longer behind the ball and create more leverage,” Rojas said, adding that the difference between Giménez as a hitter in 2018 and 2020 is “eye-popping.” “He can still spray the ball, and now he can even turn more on a pitch and create a little bit more power.”

I’d buy all-in with Gimenez but with both Robinson Canó and Amed Rosario off the IL, his playing time is getting squeezed some, especially with middle-infielder Luis Guillorme hitting .458/.517/.542

Phillies

• Andrew McCutchen’s knee is better except it is not great.

The extra three months off while the season was paused allowed Andrew McCutchen to continue to build strength and mobility in his left knee and surgically repaired ACL.
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He doesn’t feel like anything is hindering him, even though McCutchen said he “may look a little weird and awkward at times.”
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McCutchen’s speed is an indicator of how he is still working to get back to his old form. His average sprint speed is 27.0 feet per second this season, according to Baseball Savant. It is a significant drop from last year, when he posted a sprint speed of 28.8. He ranks in the 64th percentile at his position, one year after being in the 91st percentile. Girardi believes McCutchen will move better during the course of the season.

He has slowed down and is running awkwardly. I’m throwing the bullshit flag for everything being great.

• Zach Wheeler continues to pound the bottom half of the strike zone.

It’s a great fit, although it has been a little surprising to see him pitch down in the zone as much as he has in his first three starts. It’s too small a sample to draw conclusions, but Phillies pitching coach Bryan Price is a proponent of the well-located fastball down and away. This version of Wheeler isn’t chasing strikeouts like before and his strikeout rate is way down.

While Wheeler has increased his groundball rate 10% points, his strikeout rate has been cut in half (9.0 K/9 to 4.2 K/9). this decision makes zero sense.

Pirates

• Josh Bell knows he needs to lay off pitches out of the strike zone.

“I think that if I command the strike zone just a little bit better, that I would force them into the zone. I think my chase rate is a little bit up from last year,” Bell said. “Just about not missing the pitches that are in the zone and staying off the ones that are underneath or are a bit away.”

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Trying to gear up for fastballs felt futile when he wasn’t seeing any, so he adjusted his approach to better prepare for offspeed pitches. Those changes, Bell said, “were the beginning of my downfall.”

We’ll see if he can adjust because so far this season his walk rate is down 7% points and his strikeout rate is up 13% points.

Rockies

• Jon Gray is throwing just as hard but his velocity is down.

The heater, which Gray is throwing less often because he is changing speeds with greater regularity, is averaging 93.8 mph. Last year, he averaged 96.0 mph while posting a 3.84 ERA with 150 strikeouts in 150 innings to bounce back from an inconsistent 2018.

“I don’t have any pains or anything like that,” Gray said. “Nothing’s bothering me. It’s just I reach back [for velocity], and I look up and it’s 93, 94. It’s not normal.”

I’ve always been in the camp that injuries lead to degraded velocity and therefore performance. Gray and Sean Doolittle (link) have both mentioned they feel they are throwing just as hard but the velocity isn’t there. I’m not sure how to act on the information. Maybe it’s something with the messed-up short season. Maybe it is the beginning of a quick decline. For me, it’s more of a monitor and re-evaluate the situation at a later date.