Mining the News (9/28/23)

• A great article by the Athletic on a player from each team who took a major step forward this past season. For example, here is a bit on Ryan Jeffers reworking his swing.

Jeffers slashed .210/.285/.390 across his first three seasons and then watched the Twins sign free agent catcher Christian Vázquez to a three-year, $30 million contract. His response? He re-tooled his swing and transformed into one of the best offensive catchers in baseball while playing a part-time role, putting up an .841 OPS in 92 games.

Jeffers always showed some pop in his 6-foot-4 frame. But he’s cut down on his swing and miss while increasing his plate discipline. He’s hitting well against both righties and lefties, but as you might expect, he’s doing big-time damage against left-handed pitching.

I can’t do a cut and paste so read it all.

American League

Athletics

• Zack Gelof doesn’t want to swing out of control so his maxEV will be low.

By Max EV, he’s 56th out of 68 qualified rookies, and that number is the same in Triple A, where he had another 308 plate appearances of sample. [Gelof is] not great at hitting the ball super hard.

“Maybe down the road, next year, I might unlock something in my swing a little bit and plug into a 110,” the 23-year-old thought. “But with me, I’m just okay with who I am, and I consistently get to my barrel enough. Last night, I got to a ball, 106 off the bat to right center; that’s a home run anywhere. I’m just trying to get to that consistency. If I live at 100, 102, 106 at a good launch angle, that plays to all fields. If I go for 109, it feels like I’m going out of control. It just feels like when I do hit the ball hard, it’s in the right launch angles. I’m not built like Bobby Witt, hitting homers and lower angles at 118.”

While most hitters have around a 20 mph to 21 mph gap between their avgEV and maxEV, Gelof’s is at 18 mph.

Mariners

• Julio Rodríguez cleaned up his swing to get to more fastballs.

“Just trying to be more efficient and getting rid of wasted movement so I can do what I want to do,” said Rodríguez this month, pointing especially to moments early in his swing.

Early in the season, Rodríguez had his hands away from his body as he anticipated the pitch, and then he had to bring them up to begin his load and start the swing.

In August, he brought those hands back up as he anticipated the pitch so that there was less movement backward for his hands.

This change upped his pull percentage from under 40 percent in the first three months of the season to nearly 50 percent in the second half. He was able to pull fastballs on the outer half of the plate that he wasn’t pulling before. And so pitchers adjusted back, moving their sinker location to the outer half of the plate (first two months, on the left) to the inner half of the plate (September, on the right).

Red Sox

• Tanner Houck, Garrett Whitlock, and Kutter Crawford will be stretched out as starters to begin next season.

Garrett Whitlock and Tanner Houck are in the same boat as Crawford. Cora’s inclination is that all three will at least prepare this offseason as if they will be starters next season for the purpose of building up endurance, etc.

“I think it applies to all [three] of them,” Cora said. “I mean, you can always adjust to the other role. Right now, we don’t know. That’s the reality of where we’re at. We know the players, we know what [we want to] do.

Tigers

• Spencer Turnbull and the team are not on good terms.

Detroit could also subtract a notable name from the rotation picture. Spencer Turnbull once looked like an innings-eating mid-rotation starter who’d be a key contributor. According to various reports, the relationship between player and team looks to have soured over the past six months. Turnbull reported a neck injury after the Tigers attempted to option him to the minors in May, leading Detroit to put him on the major league IL.

The Tigers sent him to the minors once he was healthy, meaning he’ll finish the year just shy of five years of service. Turnbull reported a toenail avulsion that kept him off the mound for a few weeks immediately thereafter, though he has pitched since having the injured nail removed two weeks ago.

Whether the team/player relationship has soured or not, Turnbull looks to have been squeezed out of the rotation. He’s a potential non-tender candidate as a result, although it wouldn’t be a surprise if Detroit finds a minor trade return from a club interested in giving Turnbull a fresh start.

• Prospect Jace Jung will get some time at third base with another top second-base prospect in Detroit’s system.

Tigers prospect Jace Jung has played only second base and DH during his two pro seasons, but he’ll now be getting some looks as a third baseman in the Arizona Fall League, Lynn Henning of the Detroit News writes. Both MLB Pipeline (67th) and Baseball America (98th) rank Jung among the top 100 prospects in baseball, though both outlets have concerns about his eventual defensive future, as second base was seen as a less-challenging spot for Jung than the hot corner. However, an even more highly-touted Detroit prospect faces similar defensive questions, as Colt Keith (18th BA, 25th Pipeline) looks ticketed for second base duty. Keith gets the priority because he has posted big numbers at Triple-A this second and could factor into Detroit’s lineup as early as Opening Day 2024, while Jung might need more time to get acclimated at his new position and has yet to reach Triple-A.

Twins

• Chris Paddack beefed up while rehabbing.

Paddack used the lengthy rehab process to add around 20 pounds of muscle to his slender 6-foot-5 frame, and surprised himself by how much stronger he felt and how much harder he was throwing once he could see the finish line ahead.

Yankees

• Aaron Judge will not have offseason toe surgery.

Before the game, Boone said his “understanding” was that Judge, who was out of the lineup Tuesday, wouldn’t need offseason surgery to repair a torn ligament in his right big toe.

“I’ve kind of felt that way for a while,” Boone said. “I think the belief is that it’s gone as well as it has since he’s been back, where the hope would be that he would even improve as he goes along and I think that’s been the case. I think that’s what I’ve seen. I’ve seen the way he’s been able to move around the bases and things like that. I think there’s been a steady improvement the whole time. I think that’s what’s been encouraging.”

• Giancarlo Stanton, DJ LeMahieu, and Anthony Rizzo are the worst fastball hitters on the team.

On the Yankees roster, there’s not a bigger offender of not being able to catch up to a fastball than Giancarlo Stanton. Stanton is hitting .197/.306/.463 against all fastballs this season. That problem is further exacerbated when facing fastballs over 95 mph, which Stanton is hitting .157/.239/.277.
…

But Stanton is not the only veteran who’s struggled catching up to 95+ mph pitches this season. DJ LeMahieu, under contract for three more seasons, is hitting .141/.276/.328. Rizzo, who played for two months before being shut down with post-concussion syndrome, hit .206/.299/.353. Out of those who are guaranteed to be on the Opening Day roster in 2024, Stanton, LeMahieu and Rizzo are the three worst hitters against high-velocity pitches on the team.

National League

Cardinals

• Zack Thompson is having issues maintaining his fastball velocity.

Well aware of that fact after numerous talks with St. Louis’ coaching and strength and conditioning staffs, the 25-year-old Thompson vowed to come back next season looking more like the pitcher who shut out the Brewers over the first five innings than the one who was unable to get through the sixth.

“I know for a fact that I can get through five [innings] every outing, but now it’s about taking the next step and making sure I can get through six or seven, and get through a lineup the third time through,” Thompson said after the Cardinals’ 3-2 loss to the Brewers at American Family Field.
…
Some of the fluctuation in Thompson’s pitches — often the product of his mechanics not being properly synched up — could be attributed to his changing role throughout his second big league season.
…
When Thompson comes back with more bulk and consistent leg drive next season after an offseason of work, he hopes to consistently be the kind of pitcher who can use his electric velocity to blow hitters away.

…

“Now, I’ve got to get some weight back on me, be able to maintain my velocity through starts. Then, when I get in trouble and get a runner on second or third, I want to be able to really reach back and grab those [high-velocity fastballs].”

During the start in question, his fastball velocity jumped around …

… and was up from his previous starts.

Dodgers

• Ryan Yarbrough changed his pitch mix when joining the team.

You definitely beat me to sharing this .. pic.twitter.com/DOIygXWnra

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) September 28, 2023

Giants

• Mike Yastrzemski’s knee isn’t feeling “perfect”.

He aggravated the injury not long after he attempted to return. Because the strain was located in the lower portion of the muscle, near the ligaments that connect to the knee, there was a greater risk of reoccurrence. He knew he wasn’t going to feel perfect the rest of the season. He just hoped to be able to play until he could make it to the offseason.

“I’ve just got to give it two months to heal (this offseason),” Yastrzemski said.

• Sean Manaea was able to keep his offseason velocity gain throughout the year.

After regaining a regular spot in the Giants’ rotation on Sept. 12, Manaea allowed only six earned runs over 24 innings (2.25 ERA) in his final four starts, lowering his ERA to 4.44 on the season.
…
Kapler praised Manaea for staying “mentally tough” as he adjusted to pitching out of the bullpen, where the veteran hurler ended up working through his mechanics and learning to harness the bump in velocity he gained after training at Driveline last offseason.

Mets

• Kodai Senga will likely throw more innings next season.

“It’s a very fluid situation. It’s not just, ‘We want you to go on four days’ rest or not.’ There is a lot of thought that goes into that decision on the team’s end too,” Senga told the New York Post’s Mike Puma, via interpreter. “So I think they will prioritize my health as they did this year. We’ll do my measurements between starts as we did this year, and if everything looks good sometimes it will happen, sometimes it won’t.” Mets pitching coach Jeremy Hefner also noted that Senga’s usage could also be determined by what other pitchers join the rotation next year, as New York is thin in proven starting pitching depth.

Padres

• Johan Oviedo is not going to be nice next season.

“When I pretend that I’m not nice, things go better,” Oviedo said. “So next year, I’m going to be a little more of a [expletive].”

…

“I have to be more selfish and jealous about my job,” Oviedo said. “I have to be more mean, even if it means it’s with people that are next to me.”

• Quinn Priester is leaning more on his sinker.

Priester has always been a ground-ball pitcher, but he’s been shifting even more to his sinker lately. Heading into the game, Priester was throwing his sinker 32.0 percent of the time and his four-seamer (which often has cutter-like spin) 20.3 percent of the time. But on Sunday, he threw the sinker at a 42.4 percent rate while only throwing 11 four-seamers in 92 pitches.

And it’s not just that he’s throwing the sinker more — he’s throwing it more effectively as well. He has worked on improving his athleticism to add a tick of velocity (94.4 mph average on Sunday, up from 93.3 on the season). The pitch did not get any swings and misses, but he got eight called strikes on it and all five sinkers put into play resulted in outs.

“Just with the velo being up with it and feeling a lot better, we know we can attack with that pitch and have a lot more margin of error than we did before,” Priester said. “Guys have a really tough time getting that pitch in the air, and in a ballpark like this, keeping the ball on the ground is huge. Just using the heck out of that pitch when it’s feeling good and coming out good. It’s definitely been more of a weapon.”

The 93-mph sinker isn’t a bad pitch with a 57% GB% and 5% SwStr%. The problem is too many walks (5.2 BB/9) and no average or better third pitch.

Rockies

• Brenton Doyle made an adjustment to make more contact.

But he has to make contact to take advantage of his tools.

Doyle’s in-season adjustment is to address keeping his hands higher as he starts his swing.

“It’s very small — I don’t think a lot of people would actually be able to tell, but it’s been a good difference and it has been helping me get to balls I would normally swing under,” Doyle said.

Doyle has struck out on 34.8 percent of his plate appearances (141 of 405) but in September that number is down to 23.9 percent (17 of 71).

• Things are starting to “click” for Brendan Rodgers

Rodgers’ performance on Sunday continued a strong push to the finish line for the 27-year-old, who missed the first four months of the season after suffering a left shoulder injury in Spring Training that required surgery.

Rodgers estimated he felt his timing really start to click after around 120 at-bats, which lines up with his recent hot stretch and the momentum he hopes to carry into the offseason and 2024.