Archive for Rockies

It would not be a Saturday edition of the Bullpen Report without a litany of questions which pervade the saves landscape. Starting in Chicago, the Cubs failed to convert a save chance leading to a loss. Steve Cishek entered this outing riding a 13.1 inning scoreless streak and failed to record an out. He walked Joey Votto prior to serving up the go ahead two run home run to Eugenio Suarez. Cishek then hit Jesse Winker with a pitch before being replaced by James Norwood. This marks Cishek’s second loss and second blown save of the season. During his scoreless streak, Cishek limited hitters to a .133 batting average against (six-for-45) but did not fare well on Friday, which coincides with the possible return of Pedro Strop on Sunday. Brad Brach also incurred his second blown save giving up four hits, an earned runand a walk with three strikeouts in 1.2 innings. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve been waiting for it…Gabe Kapler finally made a change to his lineup, and it’s not one of those one-and-done types of changes. That — and some changes impacting catchers — are among the more notable developments in National League lineups this week.

Arizona

There are no major changes here. With Wilmer Flores (foot) going on the IL, there is an opportunity for Ildemaro Vargas to get some starts against left-handed starters. Perhaps Ketel Marte will play a little more often at second base, giving Jarrod Dyson a slight boost in playing time in center field. Maybe Dyson’s start against left-handed Matt Strahm on Tuesday was more than just a random occurrence.
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When you drafted Eddie Rosario a couple of months ago, you probably took him after the first 75 players were already picked. He may have even been the third outfielder you selected. Yet based on what Rosario has done over the nearly two months since opening day, you might rightfully believe you snuck a player with first-round value onto your roster, long after the elite hitters came off the board.

Rosario has played in all but two of the Twins’ 47 games to date, and his total of 13 home runs has him on a pace to finish in the 40-to-45 range. He is also on a trajectory to finish with more than 120 runs and 120 RBIs. Even putting those numbers into the context of this season’s power explosion, it’s clear that Rosario is having a dramatic breakout campaign, as those marks would obliterate his previous career highs (27 home runs, 87 runs, 78 RBIs).
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After a 2018 breakout season, Kyle Freeland gave us a lot to be confused about on draft day. As a rookie in 2017, Freeland defied conventional wisdom about Rockies pitchers, posting a lower-than-average HR/FB ratio at Coors Field (10.3 percent), and then he did it again last season (12.6 percent). He even took a relatively modest 92.0 mph average exit velocity on flyballs and line drives (EV FB/LD) at home and lowered it to 91.2 mph. While Freeland had been especially effective at limiting homers with his four-seam fastball, last season, he was able to hit another level by getting more whiffs on his cutter.

We owners didn’t know exactly what to do with a pitcher who had consistent success at Coors Field. We didn’t treat him like the top 25 starter that he was in 2018, and for good reason. Skepticism about his home splits aside, Freeland benefited from an 82.8 percent strand rate that he was almost sure to regress from significantly. He had earned enough trust to be among the top 175 players taken overall on average, according to both FantasyPros and NFBC ADP. Even with a lower strand rate on the horizon, Freeland’s 3.67 FIP and 200-plus innings showed the potential value he could have for owners this year. To buy into the FIP and the innings, though, you had to buy into his homer-thwarting abilities.
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The fog seems to be clearing from the Padres’ outfield situation, but even with Matt Kemp out, it’s not apparent whether or not the Reds have a timeshare in center field. Also, the playing time situations for Colin Moran, Alex Verdugo and Raimel Tapia bear watching. Details are just below.
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Need reinforcements for a team that is off to a rough start or beset by injuries? You’ve got something in common with the Yankees.

Entering their three-game series with the Tigers on Monday, the Yankees found themselves short-handed, adding Giancarlo Stanton (strained biceps) and Miguel Andujar (shoulder, labrum tear) to an already crowded injured list. They called up Clint Frazier and Tyler Wade to take their places on the roster. Much to the chagrin of Alex Chamberlain, Frazier — and not the recently-acquired Mike Tauchman — is expected to be the main playing time beneficiary during Stanton’s absence. Wade, on the other hand, will fall behind DJ LeMahieu on the third base depth chart.
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The other day, my wife asked me what my next column was going to be about, and I told her it would be my annual Bold Predictions piece. She wanted to contribute a prediction, and when I asked her what it would be, I realized it would be the perfect addition to this column.

So the first-ever Bold Prediction for Mary Beth Melchior is this: J.T. Realmuto will break the all-time single-season record for home runs for a catcher.
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For the last couple of seasons, I have been waiting for a Tyler Anderson breakout. Over the course of 2017 and 2018, he induced whiffs on 11.9 percent of his pitches, which is good for the 21st-highest SwStr% among the 91 pitchers who have thrown at least 250 innings over that span. As I seemingly write in every other column, it is well established that SwStr% is strongly correlated with strikeout rate, yet Anderson’s 22.3 percent K% from the last two years ranks just 41st out of those same 91 pitchers.

The reason for Anderson’s apparent underachievement is clear: he doesn’t get many called strikes. The Rockies’ lefty throws a lot of pitches in the strike zone, and he gets swings on those pitches at an unusually high rate. That helps his swinging strike rate, but the flipside is that he has frozen batters at a subpar 16.5 percent rate over his career.
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Mike Tauchman deserves nothing less than the clickbaitiest of headlines. He’s my favorite player nearly no one has heard of or cares about, a name I draft that genuinely forces people to Google his name, a Triple-A hitter not only too old to be a prospect but also maybe too old to be a post-hype prospect, if he ever were a prospect, which he never was.

No one has heard of or cares about him because of any combination of: (1) he is not and never was a prospect; (2) there are a fair number of actual prospects in Colorado’s actual farm system who are actually exciting; (3) prospect status notwithstanding, he has no path to playing time because the Rockies habitually bury their actually exciting talent. At 28, Tauchman ain’t getting any younger, and I ain’t either. He deserves all the hype he can get, and I’m here to dish it out.

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Note: As was the case in a previous analysis of Statcast measures and their correlation with power metrics for hitters, I owe a debt of gratitude to Alex Chamberlain. He did a lot of heavy lifting for this column, running the correlations and discussing interpretations with me.

It won’t be the first or last time, but I did a silly thing on Twitter. In announcing a pick for the Pitcher List Experts Mock, I decided to tout the player I chose by citing one of his achievements, as captured by a Statcast metric.

Fun fact: Trevor Williams has the 3rd-lowest avg. exit velocity allowed on flies and liners over the last two seasons (min. 400 BBE), behind only deGrom and Kluber. Just took him in Rd 21 of the #PLExpertsMock. @JustinMasonFWFB, you’re up!

— Al Melchior (@almelchiorBB) December 13, 2018

(Justin, by the way, made his pick very promptly.)
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