Re: Just Baseball: Major League teams OTHER THAN the Tribe
Posted: Sat May 08, 2021 12:53 pm
by TFIR
Stark: What we learned in April — offense is at 1968 levels (or worse), but must-watch performances are everywhere
Jayson Stark May 3, 2021 208
Do I even need to explain how April is baseball’s weirdest month? Lew Ford once hit .419 in April. … Bryan LaHair once slugged .780 in April. … CC Sabathia once went 1-4, with a 7.88 ERA, in April — and wound up as a top-five Cy Young finisher.
I have a friend in one front office whose longtime vow went this way: He would never look at the standings in the entire month of April. And he took great pride in bragging about that, too.
Ah, but that was in the Before Times. Now that we’re here in the year 2021, this is no time to kid about April, to dump on April or, especially, to ignore April. No, no, no. This is the time to celebrate April — and, to be honest, to thank the Players Association, in retrospect, for pushing to start the spring and the season on time. Who knew then it would turn out to be such a fun month?
“I don’t want to ignore April. I want to care about April,” said one National League assistant general manager. “And that’s just because there was no baseball last April. It’s fun. It’s exciting. And unlike in the past, I’m looking at some of this stuff and really trying to get a more true read on what it means.”
Well, guess what? If that’s all he needs, he’s come to the right place. Because it’s time once again — after an unfortunate two-year intermission — for another spectacular edition of What We Learned in April.
It’s 1968 again!
True confession: I lied about that headline. It’s not 1968 again. It’s worse. Offenses are actually in much rougher shape than they were then. Um, is that good?
The batting average of the entire sport in April — an average compiled by the best collection of athletes ever to play baseball — was .232. That’s not just the worst it’s been since the Bob Gibson 1.12 ERA/Nobody Can Hit days of 1968. That .232 mark would be the worst ever. Heck, the league average in 1968 was an action-packed .237.
Here are other sport-wide offensive numbers from April. If you’re squeamish, don’t look. It might occur to you that baseball has somehow transformed into a whole sport full of Doug Mirabellis. And you wouldn’t be wrong!
On-base %: .309, lowest since 1968
Slugging %: .389, lowest since 2014
OPS: .698, lowest since 1989
Hits per game: 7.63, lowest since ever
At least the league OPS is almost 60 points higher than it was in 1968, largely because the home run rate is almost double. So the average team is scoring about one more run per game. But even that’s misleading because pretty much all of those additional runs come from home runs. Want to guess how often in baseball history we have seen a runs-per-game rate this low (4.25 per team) paired with home run rate this high (1.14 per team per game)?
“I’m going to guess never,” said one NL exec who brought this up.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. “Never” would, in fact, be correct. You can feel free to blame launch-angle swing paths, pull-happy hitters and all the batters walking around saying, “Strikeouts are just like any other outs.” But the truth is, that ain’t it!
“It’s the pitching,” said one GM. “Pitching is too good. It’s simple.
“Name me any innovation or any evolution of the game that’s happening right now,” he went on. “Every single one favors the pitchers.”
Want to argue with that? Good luck. There’s the training that has caused massive upticks in velocity. There are all the “substances” pitchers slather on their fingertips that have helped create unhittable movement. There’s the information explosion that exploits hitters’ weaknesses in more ways than ever. I have never heard the same quote so many times in the same month:
“It’s never been harder to hit.”
It’s true. Now here’s even more evidence of that …
We’re making 6,000 singles and 2,000 doubles disappear!
It’s not technically accurate that it’s easier to hit a home run now than it is to hit a single. But organize the search party, because the single is disappearing. And in a shocking development, the double isn’t far behind.
Behold the shrinking single:
2021
23,734*
n/a
2019
25,947
2,213
2018
26,322
2,588
2017
26,918
3,184
2016
27,538
3,804
2011
28,357
4,623
2007
29,855
6,121
(*projected over a full season)
That’s frightening enough. But even scarier, and more mysterious, is this question: Whatever happened to the double?
2021
7,093*
n/a
2019
8,531
1,442
2007
9,197
2,104
(*projected over a full season)
So what are we to make of this? In the case of the ever-dwindling single, it’s not too complicated. (A) Have we mentioned it’s hard to hit, period? (B) There’s the shift, which gobbles up so many groundballs that there’s almost no such thing as a ground-ball single anymore. And (C) now you can blame launch angle.
“Hitters are just trained to elevate the baseball,” said one NL exec. “The higher the launch angle, the less chance you’re going to hit a single.”
But where did all those doubles go? Nobody has that one figured out.
“I wonder,” said the same NL exec, “if it’s a result of better outfield positioning. I think we’ve seen a trend toward deeper outfield positioning.”
Another NL exec’s theory: “With these launch angles, I wonder if balls that used to fall in the gaps now stay in the air longer and get run down.”
So we ran this past The Athletic’s resident analytics czar, Eno Sarris. He studied the average launch angle of all hitters in the Statcast era, and, well, that wasn’t it.
2015
11
2016
11
2017
12
2018
12
2019
13
2020
12
2021
12
So it’s true that launch angles are creeping upwards. But … the average launch angle in 2021 is actually lower than in 2019. Which means this really does defy logical explanation. But of course, there’s also this …
Over 1,000 more strikeouts than hits!
This feels like something I just made up to get your attention, but here comes the stat that sums up baseball in 2021. In the April we just completed, there were nearly 1,100 more strikeouts than hits!
STRIKEOUTS: 6,924
HITS: 5,832
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the single largest strikeouts-to-hits differential in any month ever. And it wasn’t even close.
Largest K/H differentials by month
April 2021: 1,096
Sept. 2019: 705
April 2019: 529
Sept. 2020: 496
Now, remember this: Until May 2018, there had never been any month in the history of baseball with more strikeouts than hits. Until last year, there had never been a season with 1,000 more whiffs than hits. But now, if this pace keeps up, we’re looking at a season with about 7,000 more strikeouts than hits. Seven thousand!
That’s a great thing if you’re trying to ventilate your ballpark on a sticky August night. But unless your idea of action is the catcher throwing the ball around the infield 20 times a game, this sport is on the verge of a humongous crisis.
“If it’s not a crisis now, I think we’re approaching it,” said an American League exec. “That’s why we’re trying to find solutions in the minor leagues. There’s no way you can look at what’s happening in the game and not understand we have to find a solution. I don’t think we have to pull the fire alarm yet and make radical changes. But there’s no way we should think everything’s fine and we shouldn’t try anything.”
Well, luckily …
Theo is energized!
Officially, Theo Epstein is just a consultant to Major League Baseball. But behind the scenes, people describe him as baseball’s most hypersonic energizing force for innovation. He may not be the Elon Musk of baseball, but he’s trying. And if Theo is energized, how is that a bad thing exactly?
“You’d think it would be tough to energize somebody who’s already broken two curses,” one GM quipped. “But this seems like it’s the right thing for him to be embracing right now.”
Epstein has already told The Athletic, in vivid detail, what he’s up to, in a visit with Doug Glanville and me on our Starkville edition of “The Athletic Baseball Show” podcast.
But to sum that up, Theo (and his cohorts) are on a quest to see if it’s possible to refine baseball, hopefully as subtly as possible, to help create a version with more contact, better rhythm and more great athletes doing their great-athlete thing. In a related development, every one of the rule-change experiments that are about to kick in, in the minor leagues and the independent Atlantic League, feel like they bear his stamp in some way.
• Is moving the mound back a foot going to look like a solution or a disaster? Sorry. No idea. But if we don’t test that, we’ll never know.
• If you’re worried about the decline in balls in play, how exactly does it help to impose anti-shift rules — on balls that are already in play? Excellent question. So why not find out?
• Will all the new pickoff rules in A-ball leagues kick off a new era in base-stealing adventures? Seems like they should. But we’re about to find that out, too.
It’s possible these rule changes could provide a road map to a better future. It’s also possible they could be packed with unintended consequences that create more problems than they’re attempting to solve. And it’s possible that no matter what they accomplish (or not), the players’ union won’t have any interest in getting on board.
But there is intense interest, in front offices everywhere, in what these ideas might or not produce — particularly in the Double-A shift limitations and Atlantic League mound-distance experiment. Either way, the fact that we’re about to see them at all tells us something. Theo may not be running a team, but he sure isn’t sitting around doing crossword puzzles all day.
The ‘deadened’ ball isn’t so deadened!
Speaking of experiments, have you heard the one about the baseball?
We’ve read widespread speculation about how the new “deadened” baseball might be a factor in all the plunging offensive numbers. But let’s pull the plug on that talk right now, because “dead” is not a word anyone should use to describe this ball and how it’s behaving.
“I’ll say this: It’s definitely not the 2019 baseball,” said one NL exec. “It looks to me like the ’16, ’17, ’18 version. And I think the home-run rates and fly-ball distances would support that.”
Excellent point. So let’s look at that evidence, starting with the percentage of fly balls that leave the premises.
2021
13.4%
2020
14.8%
2019
15.3%
2018
12.7%
2017
13.7%
2016
12.8%
(Source: FanGraphs)
And now here’s the distance of the average fly ball.
2021
318
2020
311
2019
324
2018
319
2017
320
2016
318
(Source: Baseball Savant/Statcast)
Finally, here’s the rate of home runs per game.
2021
1.14
2020
1.28
2019
1.39
2018
1.15
2017
1.26
2016
1.16
(Source: Baseball-Reference)
When you peruse those numbers, from the biggest home run era ever, does anything about this baseball seem “dead?” If the changes to the ball are comparable to 2017, we might want to remember that the second-most home runs in history were hit that year. If it’s 2018 all over again, that season produced the fifth-most homers in history.
So even if the 2021 baseball isn’t flying like the turbo-charged 2019 baseball, it fits right in with all of the other seasons on this list. And be sure to notice that the average fly-ball distance is actually greater this season than last season.
“Even just with the naked eye, watching balls off the bat, 2019 stands out,” said the same NL exec. “That year was just different. But if you take that year out and look at 2016 to now, it would take a really keen eye to see any difference at all.”
The injury epidemic might be an illusion
Christian Yelich! George Springer! Juan Soto! Cody Bellinger! Lance Lynn! Zack Britton! Stephen Strasburg!
No, that’s not the box score from the 2019 All-Star Game. Those are just some of the stars who have spent most or all of this season on the injured list. And as baseball transitions from its 60-game 2020 track meet back to the full 162-game marathon, that has alarm sirens going off in front offices everywhere.
“I’ve been scared about this all winter long,” said one AL exec. “The truth is, no one knows how the human body is going to react to playing 162, then 60, then 162 again, because it’s never been done before. And it’s really scary.”
There’s no question that IL activity was up this April compared with the last full season (2019). According to Derek Rhoads, who compiles injury data for Baseball Prospectus, IL assignments were up nearly 11 percent over the first 30 days of this season compared with the first 30 days of 2019.
2021
236
2019
213
(Source: Derek Rhoads / Baseball Prospectus)
That number could actually grow slightly, when players are placed on the IL retroactive to April in the next few days. It also does not include players on the COVID-19 IL. Either way, it’s a large number, and it sounds ominous. But can we be sure this is all connected to the 2020 shortened season?
The truth is, “it’s just too early to tell,” said Stan Conte, the founder of Conte Injury Analytics.
Conte, who spent more than two decades working as an athletic trainer and team medical director for the Giants and Dodgers, said there were two main issues with trying to draw conclusions from the injured list. One is that teams have been known to manipulate the 10-day IL for all sorts of reasons. The other is that many April injuries are holdovers from the previous season or offseason. Nevertheless, he’s carefully watching for certain types of injuries and where they might lead.
“April is a month where you really see a lot of soft tissue injuries,” Conte said. “Oblique. Hamstring. Groin. Quad. You see those a lot. And over the years, the highest percentage of those occur in April.”
In fact, according to Rhoads, “upper leg” IL placements, which include quad and hamstring injuries, are up dramatically — from 21 two years ago to 38 this year. So that particular theory is on target. But what really makes this a fascinating year is all the unknowns. What percentage of the injuries that do occur can be connected not only to last season, but also to how last year affected the way players trained this past winter and spring?
“Those are really important questions,” Conte said. “The problem is, there’s no way to prove or disprove that.”
So while we wait for more data, the other reason this matters is the growing sentiment that the teams that survive the injury and COVID-19 IL onslaught best will be the teams playing baseball in October. The Twins and Nationals just might be proof of the toll that COVID-19 list alone can take.
Time to pay attention to these dudes!
Before you start typing those story comments, this list of players who caught my eye in April was never intended to serve as a list of everybody who had a great (or not so great) April. Yep, I noticed that Mike Trout, Ronald Acuña Jr., Shane Bieber and Danny Duffy have all been awesome. Among others. We promise to type lots of words about them in the months to come. Got it? Thank you.
Yermín Mercedes: A month ago, I’m guessing you’d never heard of this guy. Then all he did was go out and hit .415 in his first full month in the big leagues! That ranks second all-time, behind only Aledmys Díaz (.423 in 2016) for the highest April average ever by a player in his first full season in the majors (minimum: 75 plate appearances). If the season ended today — which seems unlikely — Mercedes would be your AL Rookie of the Year. At 28! And what’s so wild about that? The only position players ever to win it in their age-28 seasons (or older) both came out of the Negro Leagues: Sam Jethroe in 1950 (at 32) and the legend, Jackie Robinson, in 1947 (at 28).
Byron Buxton: We’ve been waiting for that Buxton breakout year forever. Does .426/.466/.897 feel like enough of a breakout for you, especially coming from an elite impact defender in center? Ready for the complete list of everyone in the modern era who got at least 60 plate appearances and matched or beat that April slash line? Here it comes: Henry Aaron in 1959, Barry Bonds in 2004, George Brett in 1983, Larry Walker in 1997 … and Byron Buxton.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: When we talk about Vlad’s new look, we’re not just talking about his physique. He had an outrageous April (.350/.490/.663) that included more walks (20) than strikeouts (16) and a feat his famous father somehow never achieved: a three-homer game that included 1,226 feet worth of home runs. Considering he also had a stupendous .421/.511/.737 spring, this feels like a case of a rising star announcing his potentially immense presence. “For anyone who saw Vlad this spring or looked at his track record before he got to the big leagues, none of this is a surprise,” said an exec who has clearly been waiting for this.
Corbin Burnes: Is it possible the three greatest Aprils by any starting pitchers in history just happened? Heck, yeah, it is. There was Jacob deGrom — the first starter ever to finish April with a sub-1.00 ERA (0.51), sub-1.00 WHIP (0.57) and 48 percent strikeout rate (minimum: 3 starts.). There was Gerrit Cole, who had a 1.43 ERA, 0.72 WHIP and 44 percent strikeout rate. But right there with them is the emerging Marquis de Milwaukee, Burnes — with his never-before-seen 49-to-zilch strikeout/walk ratio, or whatever this number on Baseball-Reference is.
This is a man throwing 98 mph Mariano-esque cutters that have to be seen to be believed.
Trevor Story: The Rockies shortstop didn’t make this list because he was particularly spectacular, at least by his standards. He makes it because the Rockies were in more disarray than any team in the game. Worst April record in the NL (9-17). Pushed their GM (Jeff Bridich) to resign. And all but guaranteed their star shortstop will be the captain of this summer’s All-Trade Rumor Team, assuming his finger injury Sunday is minor. “I don’t know if he’ll be the very first player traded,” said one NL GM. “But he might be the first big-name player traded.”
Shohei Ohtani: I apologize if it seems like I say this once a week — but we’ve never seen anything like this guy. Two men in the whole sport hit a baseball at least 119 mph in April. Ohtani was one of them. (The other? Giancarlo Stanton.) Two starting pitchers in the whole sport threw a baseball at least 101 mph in April. Ohtani was one of them, too. (The other? deGrom, of course.) Who else has passed through this sport who was capable of doing both of those things? “He’s got (Aroldis) Chapman arm speed when he pitches,” said one exec. “And the way the ball jumps off his bat is right up there with the greatest sluggers ever. And that’s all in one person — playing two positions at the highest level you can play them.”
Joey Gallo: This was Gallo’s utterly unprecedented four-season homer-to-single ratio from 2017-20: 113 home runs, 110 singles. Then came April 2021, when he somehow did this: two home runs, 15 singles. “You asked me earlier why there were no more singles,” one exec needled me. “And now here’s guy who was a home run hitter who turned into a single hitter? What is happening?” Good question. I asked a bunch of other execs what they thought was going on. But face it. We all know what’s going on here: Baseball!
Pay attention to these teams!
Let me say this one more time: If I didn’t mention your favorite team here, you are not permitted to conclude that I hate your team. Thank you.
Twins: The Twins were once the favorite in the AL Central. So does it feel like it’s too soon to announce they aren’t going to make the playoffs? Of course it does. But here’s the deal: Teams that start out 7-15 (or worse) almost never do. If we toss out the 1981 split season, in fact, only two teams have ever gotten themselves buried eight games under .500 that fast and lived to play in October: Possum Whitted’s 1914 Braves (5-17) and Colby Lewis’ 2015 Rangers (7-15). Why does it seem like kind of an ominous sign that the first of those two teams was nicknamed the “Miracle” Braves?
A’s: The A’s just had the most unique April in baseball history. They lost their first six and were outscored, 50-13. Then they won 14 of their next 15, including 13 in a row. And then they went 3-5 in their next eight. Only one team in history — Dale Sveum’s 1987 Brewers — ever won 13 (or more) in a row at any point in April and went on to miss the playoffs. Then again, no team has ever had an April winning streak that long and still came out of the month with a negative run differential – until these A’s (minus-four). Tough team to get a read on!
Brewers: Presenting one of the best stories in baseball. No team has more players on the injured list than the Brewers do (14). No team in the NL had a lower team batting average or OPS in April than the Brewers did (.215 AVG, .666 OPS). And if that seems like a bizarre formula for how to carve out the best record in your league, you’re catching on to just how unique this team is. Not counting strike-altered seasons, you have to go back nearly 50 years — to Felix Millan’s 1973 Mets — to find an NL team that had an April average and OPS this low, but still made the playoffs. Then again, opponents are hitting an incredible .190 against Brewers starters not named Alec Bettinger, and the back of their bullpen is ridiculous. “Their pitching is unbelievable,” said one exec. “To me, they’ve separated themselves from the pack in that division.”
Red Sox: This just in: Like Craig Counsell in Milwaukee, Alex Cora is a difference-maker. You can think whatever you want about his role in the Astros’ sign-stealing scheme. But he’s one of those rare managers who’s a team-changer. So who was the winningest team in baseball in April? Alex Cora’s Red Sox, at 17-10. The last six times the Red Sox have started 17-10 or better, they’ve made the playoffs. But it’s hard not to wonder if this team has enough staying power. The Red Sox’s .314 average on balls in play is 56 points higher than the Yankees. The Sox are also slugging .437 as a team – nearly 50 points higher than the major league average. “So you look at that,” said one exec, “and it looks unsustainable.”
Royals: The Royals (15-9 in April) are another fantastic story. They had a streak last week of four consecutive days with the best record in baseball — for the first time in 41 years. They lost one series all month. And they still haven’t lost more than two games in a row at any point. But is this sustainable? They’re 6-1 in one-run games. They’ve only lost one game all season that they led at any point. And Danny Duffy (0.60 ERA) and Salvy Perez (6 HR, .812 OPS) are off to incredible starts. So it’s hard not to wonder if this is what they are. “But you can’t sleep,” said one NL exec, “on young, exciting teams.”
Dodgers/Padres: The banged-up Dodgers have gone 4-13 since a 13-2 start. The Padres’ offense is slugging only .366 – almost 100 points lower than last year. And both of these teams still sit behind the where’d-they-come-from Giants in the standings. So we still haven’t figured out much about what’s real and what’s not in the NL West. But we’ve figured out one thing. The Dodgers and Padres are a show. It might be too soon to say this is our Brady versus Rodgers, our LeBron versus Steph. But never has 19 games between two teams felt like, oh, about 80 too few. “I actually left a barbecue the other night because they were on Sunday Night Baseball, and I had to watch,” said one NL scout. “And I don’t cover either of those teams.”
Re: Just Baseball: Major League teams OTHER THAN the Tribe
Posted: Mon May 17, 2021 12:39 pm
by TFIR
civ would like this article.
Posted an article earlier about Phil Maton and his younger brother Nick. More on Nick from an article before the Rule 5
Phillies add 6 prospects to roster ahead of Rule 5 Draft
by Matt Rappa5 months ago Follow @mattrappasports
The Philadelphia Phillies added six prospects to their 40-man roster on Friday — left-handed pitchers Kyle Dohy (24 years old), Bailey Falter (23), Damon Jones (26); right-handed pitcher Francisco Morales (21); infielder Nick Maton (23); and outfielder Simon Muzziotti (21).
By selecting their contracts ahead of Friday’s deadline, these players are now protected from being selected by another team in next month’s Rule 5 Draft. The Phillies’ 40-man roster now stands at 37 players. Maton, Morales, and Muzziotti were recently named to Baseball America’s Top 10 Phillies prospects list.
2019 Stats
Dohy (AA, AAA): 7-5, 5.32 ERA, 47 appearances, 105 strikeouts, 67 2/3 innings
Falter (AA): 6-5, 3.84 ERA, 14 starts, 62/15 SO/BB, 77 1/3 innings
Jones (A+, AA, AAA): 5-4, 2.91 ERA, 23 starts, 152/59 SO/BB, 114 1/3 innings
Morales (A): 1-8, 3.82 ERA, 27 appearances, 15 starts, 129 SO, 96 2/3 innings
Maton (A+, AA): .266/.349/.376, 17 2B, 3 3B, 7 HR, 51 RBI
Muzziotti (A+): .287/.337/.372, 21 2B, 3 3B, 3 HR, 28 RBI, 21 SB
Dohy, Falter, Jones, Morales, Maton and Muzziotti are Rule 5-eligible because they either signed their first professional contract when they were at least 19 years old and have played four years, or signed when they were 18 or younger and have played five years.
Last year, the Phillies protected four prospects, including left-handers JoJo Romero, Garrett Cleavinger and Cristopher Sanchez, as well as right-hander Mauricio Llovera. Romero (12 appearances, 7.59 ERA), Cleavinger (1 appearance, 13.50 ERA), and Llovera (1 appearance, 36.00 ERA) all made their big-league debuts this past season. Sanchez was added to the 60-man player pool, but never received the call up from the Phillies alternate training site in Lehigh Valley.
Despite protecting these four, several other of the organization’s prospects remained vulnerable to being plucked. NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jim Salisbury notes that southpaw reliever Zach Warren, southpaw starter David Parkinson, slugging outfielder Jhailyn Ortiz, and righty Kevin Gowdy were left unprotected. The Phillies lost no players in the 2019 Rule 5 Draft’s major league phase.
The draft provides a unique opportunity to add a player for $100,000 from another organization through means other than free agency or trade. If the Phils were to select a player — such as they famously did 16 years ago with the now-Hall of Fame-eligible Shane Victorino — they must remain on the big-league roster for the entirety of the 2021 season or be offered back to their original team for $50,000.
The Phillies have not kept any of their Rule 5 selections since Tyler Goeddel in 2016. They selected 26-year-old shortstop Vimael Machin from the Chicago Cubs in the 2019 Rule 5 Draft, but soon after dealt him to the Oakland Athletics for cash considerations.
Re: Just Baseball: Major League teams OTHER THAN the Tribe
Posted: Mon May 17, 2021 12:40 pm
by TFIR
More on Nick in late April:
Phillies: There’s a lot to like about prospect Nick Maton
by Matt Rappa3 weeks ago Follow @mattrappasports
Before the 2021 season, Philadelphia Phillies infielder prospect Nick Maton has largely gone “under the radar.”
The 24-year-old was selected in the seventh round of the 2017 amateur draft out of Lincoln Land Community College in Illinois and is ranked 19th on the most recent top 30 Phillies prospects — trailing fellow infielders Bryson Stott, SS; Luis Garcia, SS; Casey Martin, SS; Kendall Simmons, 2B/SS/3B; and Jamari Baylor, SS.
Phillies prospect Nick Maton is putting up great numbers early on.
Maton never played above the Double- A level prior to his big-league debut last Monday. Playing in 114 combined games between the Clearwater Threshers and Reading Fightin Phils in 2019, he slashed .266/.349/.376 with 27 extra-base hits and 51 RBI spanning 456 plate appearnaces.
At that point, Scott Kingery was long believed to be the next-best homegrown Phillies infielder. But, the “tides have changed” — especially considering Kingery started the season at the alternate training site in Lehigh Valley.
So far through four games, Maton appears to have jumped Kingery on the “long-term depth chart.” Logging 16 at-bats, Maton is slashing .438/.438/.563 with five singles, two doubles, one RBI, and just five strikeouts. He has logged multiple-hit games in each of the last two contests, including on Wednesday in which he slugged three singles to help the Phillies to a 6-5 win over their former manager Gabe Kapler and the San Francisco Giants.
According to Sportradar, Maton is tied for logging the fourth-most hits (7) for a Phillies rookie across the first four games of their respective careers, since 1906 — trailing only Richie Ashburn (9, 1948), Art Mahan (9, 1940), and Joe Ward (8, 1906). Five other Phillies have similarly collected seven hits as Maton in this span.
But, there is plenty more to like about Maton other than his great on-the-field statistics — including a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage through 21 combined chances at second base and shortstop. As the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Matt Breen reports, Maton once played three weeks at Double-A with a broken finger. He did not tell anyone, however, as he felt that he just wanted to play. Because of that, Larry Bowa says the rookie has a mindset like Chase Utley.
Drawing comparisons to Utley, as well as putting up great numbers all-around early on, surely has all signs pointing in the right direction for Maton. Hopefully, he can keep it up.