Cleveland Sports Forum

Don't think it's just me but I believe the average person's attention span has shortened to the point of boredom with almost everything including baseball. I can't watch baseball on TV anymore. Not many people can. Tell me the last time you watched a game on TV without changing the channel.

Being at the ballpark is a little different because you have control over what you look at.

I can watch an entire NFL or college football game.

Speaking of watching a game. I enjoyed watching MLB TV of tonights game with CC, Sean Casey and Jake Peavey called the clubhouse. Now that was great ! Great conversation.

As the Yu turns:

Red Sox claimed IF Yu Chang off waivers from the Rays, designated OF Jaylin Davis for assignment.

Why oh why did we give Zimmer, Bobby Bradley and Yu Chang so much trial time!!

Answer: Because apparently they were place holders while waiting for the next batch.

Sarris: Across MLB, spin rates are back up near their peak. Is the sticky stuff here to stay?



Jul 28, 2021; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; MLB third base umpire Ramon De Jesus, left, and second base umpire Chris Guccione, right, check the equipment of Cleveland Indians pitcher James Karinchak (99) during the ninth inning against the St. Louis Cardinals at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: Scott Galvin-USA TODAY Sports
By Eno Sarris
Sep 14, 2022

Is the battle against spin hopeless? Spin rates around baseball are climbing back up — almost back to where they were before baseball started to more actively enforce the foreign substance rules mid-season last year — and it’s probably due to some sort of evolution in the sticky solutions used by pitchers to augment their stuff.

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And the reality is that’s only one of the ways pitchers have the edge over their counterparts at the plate right now, some of whom are increasingly frustrated about the situation.

“Pitchers have the ultimate advantage right now, with sticky stuff, the dead ball, and humidors,” lamented one major league hitter recently.

Last June, MLB made the seemingly unprecedented decision to ramp up enforcement of a pre-existing rule about using foreign substances to doctor the ball. There was immediately a precipitous drop in spin rates, but a mere two months later, we started to see players adjust to the enforcement method — consisting mostly of a check of the hat and belt — and regain some of their old spin rates. About a fifth of the players that saw a huge drop mid-season got their spin back late last year.

So baseball upped the enforcement this season and started touching pitchers’ hands. Which of course led to some tension, at least with certain pitchers.


The thinking is clear: the stickiest stuff leads to the biggest increases in spin rate (which in turn leads to the most dramatic increases in stuff) and so a check of the hand should keep anyone from using a substance that they can’t get off their hands quickly. If you’ve touched pine tar or Spider Tack — which was developed to help strongmen grip Atlas Stones during The World’s Strongest Man competitions — you know you can’t get it off easily. So, check the hands, stop the crazy-level cheating. That makes sense.

But it looks like pitchers have found something clear and wipeable that gives them more of a boost than sunscreen and rosin, because spin rate is back up in baseball. Almost back to where it was before enforcement started.



The highest and lowest points in league-average spin rate in the spin-rate tracking era are both on this graph, so it’s not a trick of the y-axis: spin took a huge drop after enforcement, and then it started to creep back to past levels almost immediately. Adjusting for velocity, because velocity and spin are interrelated, creates the same graph. This is a real effect.

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“It’s really obvious,” said a hitting coach who then rattled off examples of pitchers who had come to town recently and used some sort of substance.

But pitchers aren’t back to the extreme days of Spider Tack. You have to go through 51 pitcher seasons before you get to this year’s highest four-seam spin rate, and then another 123 pitcher seasons before you get to this year’s second-highest spin rate. The very top spin rates have been eliminated, but pitchers seem to be finding something that’s almost as good.

A league source confirmed this is something they are monitoring closely, but there is an obvious question they have to debate as they consider the way forward. What more can they do? Consider this breakdown of perhaps the most detailed frisking of a pitcher in modern memory: James Karinchak has been accused of using something in his hair to gain spin, and his spin rates are up (almost back to pre-enforcement levels). The umpire literally touches his hair upon request of the opposing manager.


“Of course it is,” said another major league hitter when presented with the evidence that spin is back up. “The umpire checks are almost useless.”

But that umpire check seems pretty thorough. If that’s useless, what more could umpires do? This is basically the same sort of frisking that MMA fighters get before a fight, which is fairly intimate and thorough. And yet it doesn’t seem to be working.

“I think they need to hire MLB officials that sit in the dugout or bullpen and do serious checks,” suggested a hitter.

Others thought more eyes on the field could help.

“If anyone really cared about this, they could put an umpire behind the mound that could step in and do spot checks at any moment,” said a hitting coach, pointing out there are pitchers with solutions on their pants that help dissolve sticky stuff before the hand inspections.

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The union wouldn’t comment on any negotiations concerning sticky stuff enforcement, nor would the league comment on any additional moves they might make to remedy the situation. Each potential additional solution has drawbacks, too.

There are already MLB officials that move around the clubhouse in order to monitor things like the storage and rubbing of the baseballs, and also officials that do random dugout sweeps for sign-stealing technology, but if they’re checking pitchers who have already stepped off the mound, they’re not likely to find much. That seems too similar to what umpires are already doing.

An umpire right behind the mound that could step in and check a pitcher between acquiring their sticky stuff and throwing the ball might actually stop the practice cold, but would also be completely new to the sport. Baseball went to a four-umpire system for all regular season games in 1952, at least, so it’s been a while.

But before either side agrees to something more radical, there’s another question that has to be considered. Who exactly cares enough to push that kind of change?

Selective enforcement of the rules is not ideal in any context, but in a sport with unwritten rules, there have always been slight differences between what’s in the rule book and what happens on the field. Baseball made a push to eliminate steroids from the game, but steroids produced players that looked different and broke hallowed numbers. Is sticky stuff really in the same category?

The sport is trying to change the play on the field and increase balls in play at the cost of reducing strikeouts, so reducing spin would help that effort. There’s a link between spin rate and results, but we’re talking about a strikeout percentage point or two when we talk about removing sticky stuff from the game, and that’s been borne out by play on the field. This isn’t a very effective way to reduce strikeout rates across the game.

Then there’s just raw interest in the whole thing. Though this story did break through and capture the national interest for a short time, it seems to have receded from the spotlight recently, as this graph from Google Trends shows.



There is, of course, a group that still cares a lot: Major league hitters (and their hitting coaches) care, especially when it comes to the link between spin rate and stuff and the more complicated history of the rise of hit-by-pitches within the game, and they aren’t necessarily largely happy to let things lie as they are.

But in the face of limited benefit to the game, perhaps limited interest from the fans, and difficult precedent-changing enforcement decisions, the road forward for baseball isn’t clear. Maybe capping spin rates below the extremes we saw when Spider Tack reigned will be good enough for the sport — if not for its hitters.

Our buddy Karinchak has become the poster child for sticky stuff suspicion.

Personally I suspect Civale too. That curve ball is freaky AND he has those repeated arm troubles.

What happens when that "REBUILD" goes for years and FLOPS!

The Royals’ rebuild was supposed to be built on pitching. What has gone wrong?
Rustin Dodd, Andy McCullough, Alec Lewis
Sep 15, 2022

Ten years ago this month, the Kansas City Royals approached a crossroads. The club had entered the 2012 season with big hopes, the result of a promising minor-league system and a talented young core which had debuted in the majors the year before. With the city hosting the All-Star Game that summer, the marketing department dubbed the season “Our Time.”

It was a massive flop.

The 2012 Royals started 6-15 in April, posted the fifth-worst ERA in the American League, and finished 72-90, their 17th losing season in 18 years — and sixth straight under general manager Dayton Moore. The performance — in particular the pitching — was so underwhelming that the Royals front office felt the need to shock the system. That winter they traded a package of prospects headlined by Wil Myers and Jake Odorizzi to Tampa Bay for veterans James Shields and Wade Davis. Hotly contested at the time, the deal catalyzed a burgeoning youth movement and laid the foundation for three winning seasons, two American League pennants and the 2015 World Series championship.

Ten years later, as the same front office finds itself in a similar spot — on pace for 90 losses, devoid of answers in the starting rotation, and facing heightened scrutiny from a skeptical fan base — you might think the Royals would find solace in the past. But the analogue to 2012 collapses, in part, because club officials did not expect 2022 to be another 2012 on the long path to contention. They had forecasted a breakthrough like 2013.


Royals GM J.J. Picollo (Colin E. Braley / Associated Press)
“I’d be lying if I said this is what we expected,” said general manager J.J. Picollo, in his first season in the role since Moore was promoted to president of baseball operations last year. “We thought we’d have a better record right now. We still think we’re a better team.”

The collective struggles have tormented the Royals — who have spent the last five years trying to rebuild a contender upon a foundation of pitching prospects — and left the franchise in a precarious position: seven years removed from its last World Series, five since fully pivoting to a rebuild, once again buoyed by a group of young position players — led by Bobby Witt Jr. — but with the whole project threatened by an assortment of cracks.

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Four years ago, the club attempted to rejuvenate its farm system and launch a rebuild by taking four collegiate pitchers — Brady Singer, Daniel Lynch, Jackson Kowar and Kris Bubic — in the top 40 picks of the 2018 draft. Three years later, all four had debuted in the major leagues — a trophy for a franchise in need of momentum. Yet in 2022, Singer is the only member of the quartet with an ERA under 5.00. The pitching, which was supposed to be bolstered by its young arms, has been among the worst in the American League, while left-hander Asa Lacy, the fourth pick in the 2020 draft, has been handcuffed by injury and a lack of command at Double-A Northwest Arkansas.

In Kansas City, much of the ire has been directed at pitching coach Cal Eldred, who, aside from the shortened 2020 season, has not had a pitching staff finish better than 11th in the American League in ERA since his 2018 hiring. The Royals will make decisions on their major-league staff this winter, but a survey of rival executives, coaches, player development coordinators, scouts and former Royals pitchers reveals a fuller picture of the club’s struggles to develop pitching — particularly homegrown starters. Rival executives wonder about the speed at which prospects reached the majors. Scouts question pitch usage and the implementation of data. Former pitchers lament development methods that felt too rigid.

“If these stud pitchers — Kowar, Lynch, Singer, all these guys — had they been Dodgers or Rays or Guardians, they would be very, very good,” said one rival pro scout, referencing three clubs seen as at the forefront of pitching development. “But unfortunately … they haven’t been taught how to move well. They haven’t been introduced to the metrics that gives them an idea of how they can pitch most effectively.”

“I just think they’ve been insanely aggressive in pushing some of these guys,” added one rival executive. “And I think when you do that with pitchers, you just destroy their development.”

“They’re still further behind than most organizations, just in terms of their implementation of technology and truly understanding data, what it means, and how to implement it into player-specific development plans,” a third scout said, adding, “I just feel like they’re trying to search for what the recipe is.”

When a young pitcher joined the Royals during a recent spring in Arizona, he threw his first bullpen and headed to the film room, where he attempted to watch video of the session. It was then, the player said, that he was informed he could not watch video without a coach present — at least, not until he reached Double A. “It was unlike I’d been used to,” the pitcher said.

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It was not the only rule that vexed some Royals farmhands. Before reaching Double A, pitchers could be mandated to throw fastballs in certain counts — such as 1-1 or 2-2. Nearly all bullpen sessions began by locating fastballs down in the zone — no matter the shape or spin rate of a pitcher’s fastballs. Some players wondered about the usage of the towel drill, an old-school pitching drill designed to increase extension whose utility has come into question. (“Through all the research and biomechanics, it’s well-proven better extension is driven through better rotation, not leaning out,” one pitcher said.) Another former pitcher who left the organization in 2021 told an instructor from his new team that the Royals’ methods didn’t lend themselves to the individual.

The Royals are not the first or the only organization to have young pitchers buck the system or question coaching. Club officials also say many of the cited examples are dated — or snapshots of a moment in time, when a strategy was implemented for development purposes. (The Royals used to prefer that their pitchers watch video with a coach, but that has changed to reflect the accessibility of video, while the club, in one example, only mandated fastballs in certain counts after pitchers in the low minors were throwing too many off-speed pitches for balls in pivotal counts.)

That a young minor-league pitcher might cite research on biomechanics to question the wisdom of a drill, however, offers a window into baseball in 2022. The most innovative clubs have weaponized data and tech to build pitching labs. Prospects have come of age in an evolving game. The Royals’ pitching apparatus — and its recent challenges — reveals an inherent tension surfacing across the sport: At one point last season, in the lower levels of the minor leagues, Royals pitching prospects were relying on teammates to gather data that might be useful to their pitch usage and development. “I think it was nice for them to have someone who wasn’t judging them for trying to learn more,” said one pitcher who is no longer in the organization.

The Royals have long held a reputation as a traditional front office that uses data but doesn’t always let it drive decisions, a somewhat simplistic critique that has put the club in contrast with front offices that more closely resemble ruthless consulting firms — the Dodgers, the Rays, the Astros. The rep has often been reinforced by the club’s tendency to keep its own approach close to the vest, and by its longstanding difficulty producing elite, homegrown starters. After six consecutive losing seasons, and just three winning seasons in the last 16 years, the industry perception remains. The Royals are struggling to develop pitchers who are successful at the major-league level. The obvious question is why.

For the Royals, the 2018 draft was one of the most pivotal in franchise history. Nearly three years had passed since the 2015 World Series, a crowning moment for Moore, who had taken the reins of the small-market club in 2006, when it was arguably the worst team in baseball. Moore’s front office had chased another title in 2016 and 2017, opting against trading a foundational group of pending free agents after 2017, Eric Hosmer, Lorenzo Cain and Mike Moustakas.

Publicly, Moore cast the decision as sensible and sentimental, based on loyalty to the players who had brought the crown to Kansas City. It also reflected his own competitive instincts: If you have another chance to win, you might as well floor it. The brass also saw the decision in practical terms. If Hosmer, Cain and Moustakas signed elsewhere, the club could receive up to three compensation picks after the first round — which, based on the dearth of franchise-altering offers on the trade market for those players in those years, may have the best path to acquiring premium talent.

“They’re a cautionary tale, in my mind,” one rival executive said. “You have two real choices in a mid-to-small-market environment. You can either push, push, push, push. Take it down to the studs and then rebuild it up, and then roll with that group for as long as you possibly can. And when it ends, it ends. And then do the same thing over again. Or you can retool on the fly.”

The Royals chose to push, but missed the playoffs both years. When Cain signed with Milwaukee and Hosmer left for San Diego, the club inherited a consolation prize: Four picks among the first 40 selections — and five total in the top 58. Team officials knew what they needed. During one meeting before the 2018 draft, scouting director Lonnie Goldberg laid forth the vision: “Guys, all we’re going to talk about today is college pitching.”

The industry had determined the 2018 draft class was rich with arms — particularly collegiate pitchers. The Royals agreed. The focus felt singular to the scouts.


Brady Singer (left) and Jackson Kowar (right) were college teammates at Florida before they were both selected by the Royals in the 2018 MLB Draft. (Mike Theiler / Associated Press)
On the day of the draft, the Royals used their first five picks on college pitchers: At No. 19, Singer; at No. 33, his Florida teammate Kowar; at No. 34, Virginia’s Lynch, a big lefty with big stuff who had underachieved in college; at No. 40, Stanford’s Bubic, another lefty; and at No. 58, Memphis’ Jonathan Bowlan.

The haul cost nearly $9.5 million in bonuses. After choosing Witt Jr. second overall in 2019, a year later the Royals used the No. 4 pick and nearly $7 million to draft Lacy out of Texas A&M. Last year, they used three of their first five picks (and $7.5 million) on three high school pitchers. From 2018 to 2021, the Royals selected 13 pitchers in the top four rounds. In late July, they acquired more arms from the Yankees in exchange for outfielder Andrew Benintendi.

Heading into 2022, the stockpile of pitchers was there. All Kansas City had to do was complete one of baseball’s most vexing tasks: Develop them.

That the Royals would try to rebuild around young arms was at once predictable and against the club’s own recent trends. Moore and many of the club’s top executives were raised by the starter-rich Braves. When Moore arrived in Kansas City, he described pitching as “the currency of baseball.” Yet when the Royals won the World Series in 2015, they did so not because of their starters, but because they predicted the role’s growing obsolescence in the modern game.

“In a lot of ways, that team was a model,” one rival analyst said.

Facing the market realities of Kansas City, the front office innovated by assembling one of the best bullpens in major-league history. It acquired talented position players by picking high in the draft and making shrewd trades. When the club won the World Series in 2015 — recording the best record in the American League in the process — its starting rotation ranked 12th in the AL in ERA and 14th in FanGraphs’ version of wins above replacement.

Any baseball front office measured by how many homegrown starting pitchers it churns out will, to some degree, appear substandard; pitching prospects get injured, they stall out, they break your heart. Nearly two decades ago, the founder of Baseball Prospectus coined the acronym TINSTAAPP: There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect. When Picollo scouted for Atlanta, the organizational mantra dictated you needed 10 pitching prospects to develop one frontline starter. He always wondered if the math checked out precisely, but he understood the sentiment.

Under Moore’s reign, the Royals have drafted, developed or acquired via trade just one starting pitcher, Danny Duffy, who has been worth more than 10.0 wins above replacement in Kansas City. (In the same time period, Cleveland has produced seven.) Context is helpful: Duffy contributed to two American League pennants, while Yordano Ventura, signed out of the Dominican Republic, was a member of the postseason rotation in 2014 and 2015 before his death in a car crash in 2017. In addition, the Royals used four pitching prospects, including Sean Manaea, to acquire Ben Zobrist and Johnny Cueto for the 2015 World Series run.

Duffy, however, was a member of the 2007 draft class, and Ventura debuted nine years ago. In the past decade, the best starting pitchers developed by the Royals are Brad Keller, a Rule 5 selection with a 4.27 ERA as a starter, and Jakob Junis, who was non-tendered last offseason and landed with San Francisco.

The results have prompted introspection. Royals officials concede their methods were more rigid a decade ago. All pitchers threw from the same side of the rubber. The club preferred four-seam fastballs and curveballs instead of sliders. Throwing programs had a uniform structure.

In 2019, the Royals reorganized their development staff. The club appointed former pro scout Alec Zumwalt as director of hitting performance. (Zumwalt replaced Terry Bradshaw as the big-league hitting coach in May.) Moore tapped former scout Paul Gibson to be director of pitching. The overhaul coincided with the arrival of new owner John Sherman, who had admired Cleveland’s pitching development during his time as a minority owner there. The changes were aimed at integrating new technologies, data and internal investments in areas such as behavioral science. For Picollo, the key word was balance, to be able to connect to each player, no matter how he learned or how much information he desired.

“Some players are really into analytics and data, and that’s what they want,” Picollo said. “A lot of them are visual learners, so being able to connect with players that think that way. Some just think like: ‘Just give me a pregame and postgame breakdown and I want to go compete.’

“So it’s just being able to provide for all of them.”

The Royals can take solace in at least delivering their pitchers to the big-league roster. When Singer, Bubic, Kowar and Lynch, along with 13th-round pick Jonathan Heasley, made starts for the Royals last season, it was the first time in major-league history that five pitchers from the same draft class accomplished that feat in the same season for the team that drafted them. The stack of qualifiers notwithstanding, it was an organizational achievement that might signal hope.

A bigger victory has come this summer as Singer, 26, has grown into the club’s best starter. He had opened the year in the bullpen, which confounded rival evaluators. Singer had posted a 4.06 ERA in 2020 while finishing eighth in AL Rookie of the Year voting. He backslid to a 4.91 ERA in 27 starts in 2021 as he struggled to complement his mixture of sinkers and sliders with a changeup. He entered 2022 without a fixed role among the relievers. Singer made only three big-league appearances in April.

Behind the scenes, the Royals’ analytics department had identified a change in the movement profile of Singer’s fastball which hampered its effectiveness. Eldred determined the issue stemmed from the tilt of Singer’s hand. Singer spent the end of April working through the problem and polished his changeup during a Triple-A tuneup. When Singer rejoined Kansas City on May 17, he tossed seven scoreless innings. In 21 starts since, he has a 3.07 ERA with 125 strikeouts against just 30 walks.


Brady Singer (Jay Biggerstaff / USA Today)
If the club’s other young pitchers have made progress, it resides beneath the surface. Lynch has posted a 5.35 ERA in 38 career starts. Bubic has a 5.40 ERA in 111.2 innings this season. Kowar has given up 17 runs in 15.2 big-league innings in 2022. Heasley’s 2022 ERA is 5.51. After showing promise in 2021, 25-year-old right-hander Carlos Hernandez pitched himself to Omaha with a 9.10 ERA in seven starts.

What happened? Moore has conceded that the canceled minor-league season in 2020 may have accelerated the organization’s timetable for some of them. “We knew (we) were going to have to develop them at the major leagues,” he said. One rival pitching coach, meanwhile, suggested the pitchers have suffered because their fastballs do not grade well in terms of spin rate or movement profiles — an observation backed up by a minor-league pitching coordinator who has evaluated the group.

“They did a good job of getting college performers in that draft,” the coach said. “Because that was the model for ‘Let’s get these guys to the big leagues quick.’ Part of what I think they missed on was a lot of those guys had bad fastballs — like they had below-average pitch metrics on their pitches.”

Or, as another pitching coordinator wondered: Are there enough weapons being developed?

There are two truths when it comes to pitching development: All clubs, more or less, have the same tools and data at their disposal. And nobody knows exactly how each team uses them.

The Royals utilize the same radar and camera technologies that dominate in 2022: TrackMan, Rapsodo, Edgertronic. They have not built a dedicated “pitching lab,” something teams like the Brewers and Yankees did in 2019. But Picollo says they can still “do lab-ish things.” Gibson, who spent eight years in the major leagues, began immersing himself in data during his time as a national supervisor in the Royals’ scouting department. The club’s R&D department and analysts can break down a pitcher’s arsenal, working with Gibson and other development staff.

Where the Royals can differ, according to one former minor-league pitcher, is how visible and central the data is. When the pitcher joined another organization, he found they included numbers from TrackMan — a radar system that captures spin rate, movement, velocity and other data — on the video from each bullpen he threw. The Royals, he said, had all the same tech, but “we would have to go out of our way to find out what (the numbers) were.”

Another former Royals minor leaguer praised his minor-league pitching coach, stating he was “awesome” to work with and “knew pitching in and out.” He didn’t, however, have much knowledge when it came to interpreting advanced data.

Added the pitcher: “It was up to you to be like, ‘Hey, what am I shooting for? What do these numbers mean?’ It wasn’t really explained to guys.”

Many clubs see value in keeping things simple in the lower levels of the minor leagues. For first- or second-year pitchers in the system, the Royals identify two or three things to focus on — something like first-pitch strikes or fastball command. They emphasize health. It’s not until a pitcher reaches High A or Double A that they start to zero in on pitch usage or pitch design — which pitches have the best quality, which breaking ball plays best, which fastball locations lead to the most success. One consequence of this approach is that the Royals have often ranked near the top among all organizations in fastball usage in the minor leagues, even as fastball usage across baseball has continued to drop, a fact that comes up in conversations with pitching coordinators and scouts. The Royals prefer to deemphasize throwing breaking balls that, in their view, may result in strikeouts at the lower level but hinder long-term development.

“Let’s just say you have a young pitcher that has a really good slider,” Picollo said. “But you know from the data that the pitch will work in Double A, but it won’t later on. We may not be heavy on a slider that’s pretty good, only because in the long run, it’s about getting guys to the big leagues. It’s not about getting guys from Columbia to the Quad Cities. But there is not an organization philosophy that says: ‘You’re not gonna throw a 2-2 breaking ball.’”

The Royals have also been plagued by command issues at all levels. In the last two seasons, the club has been last in the American League in walks per nine innings, while their top four minor-league affiliates, from Low A to Triple A, are averaging 4.5, 4.1, 5.3 and 4.0 walks per nine innings, respectively.

Picollo identified two possible explanations. In 2019, he said, the club tried to emphasize more detailed game planning at the lower levels. The players may not have been ready to execute. In addition, Picollo pointed to the trend of pitchers looking for outside help at training facilities and experimenting with changes, which the Royals believe has contributed to pitchers losing their identity.

It’s the latter, however, that has caused the Royals to think about ways they can tweak their staff — including seeking out coaches who are fluent in the practice of “pitch design,” the catch-all term for using data and technology to build pitches.

“If we don’t have somebody who is an expert on ‘pitch design’ or somebody for a player where that’s really what they want to learn, we may lose that (player’s trust) a little bit,” Picollo said. “So I think that’s something we need to address as well.”

The Royals have questions to answer this winter. Despite their record, the club’s own underlying models suggest they should be near .500. The front office will have to evaluate all facets of the organization, including its major-league staff and manager Mike Matheny. (Jason Simontacchi, a minor-league pitching coordinator, has already announced he will not be retained.)

Is the problem scouting? Development? Or are the Royals simply not maximizing the talent on their major-league roster?

Will Sherman spend in free agency? Will the club’s young hitters continue to improve?

And if Singer is for real, is that a sign the club’s processes are not as broken as they appear from the outside?

When measuring successes in player development, the sample sizes remain small, which means that one or two players can skew results and change the narrative. If Bubic or Kowar or Lynch was pitching like Singer, Kansas City’s 2018 draft might look like a rousing success. If Lacy resembled his pre-draft self, the organization might face less scrutiny. But that, of course, is the whole business. The clubs that develop the most players give themselves cover. On this point, the Royals are realistic about where they stand.

“At some point, they have to turn the corner,” Picollo said of the young pitchers. “There’s only so long you can go. They have to turn the corner.”

The Royals chose to rebuild on a foundation of young pitching. Those pitchers will decide how far this process can go. To club officials, Singer’s arrival qualifies as a victory — a reminder that the 2018 draft alumni have untapped potential. Singer represents the most important sign of tangible progress in 2022.

Lacy is still searching at Double A. Lynch, Bubic and Kowar are doing the same at higher levels. Others are years away. Perhaps the old adage is true: You need 10 arms to get one. Yet for the Royals to succeed, they need to live out the exception, rather than the rule.

“I still think this is a long ways from being written,” Picollo said. “They’re still young guys, they’re still developing. So I think it has a chance to be a special group.”

The Martian Chronicles: Keith Law on Jasson Dominguez’s promotion, plus more Yankees and Red Sox prospects

TAMPA, FL - May 18: Tampa Tarpons outfielder Jasson Dominguez (12) at bat during the Low-A Florida State League regular season game between the St. Lucie Mets and the Tampa Tarpons on May 18, 2022 at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, FL. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
By Keith Law
Sep 14, 2022

When the Yankees gave Jasson Dominguez $5 million back in 2019, when he was a 16-year-old free agent in the Dominican Republic, the hype was well ahead of the player – it would have been difficult for anyone that young to live up to the lofty praise and expectations laid on his shoulders. Then the pandemic hit, delaying his pro debut until 2021, and the Yankees chose (sensibly) to start him in extended spring training, so he didn’t appear in an official game until that June and had a solid but unspectacular showing over the rest of the summer, mostly in Low A, where he was among the youngest players at 18. After a rough April this year, however, he’s taken off and has improved so much as the season has progressed that the Yankees challenged him with a final-week promotion to Double-A Somerset, where he debuted on Tuesday night.

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I caught him there and in his final High-A game with Hudson Valley, who played at Wilmington on Saturday, and got both sides of Dominguez – the wildly toolsy, dynamic, explosive player who’s going to excel on both sides of the ball; and the young, inexperienced guy who’s going to have to make further adjustments as he races up the ladder. Saturday night was a ridiculous showing for him. He homered from both sides of the plate, including a missile he hit left-handed and a right-handed homer I didn’t even think he hit all that solidly, as well as two more hard-hit balls and a tremendous diving catch in center. It’s plus-plus power, 70 speed and good swings both ways.

On Tuesday night, Dominguez made his first start in Double A, leading off and serving as the designated hitter for the Patriots, and went 0 for 5 with a pair of punchouts. He seemed to struggle most with changing speeds – he was on breaking stuff, which isn’t surprising for a hitter who always has the platoon advantage, but his one swinging strikeout was on an 89 mph fastball middle-up from a lefty, a pitch he should have at least squared up, if not clobbered. As pitchers went fastball-changeup and back, however, he was slower to adjust. That may be his next developmental hurdle. It’s true centerfield and 30-30 upside, though, and more than enough command of the strike zone to get him there in time. I imagine this promotion came with the goal of getting him at least ready for a callup next September, especially if centerfield should be, um, available.

• Trey Sweeney was the Yankees’ first-round pick in 2021, out of Eastern Illinois, but the 22-year-old had a very disappointing full-season debut in High A, hitting .241/.350/.415 even though he was slightly old for the level. The Yanks moved him up to Double A a week ago, as he had at least been getting on base at a good clip in the second half. He’s very athletic, a plus runner with a great body that might still have some projection left to it, but there’s too much swing and miss here, even against mediocre pitching from Double A Portland on Tuesday night. I counted at least six whiffs, plus one dropped foul tip that would have ended the at-bat (he was caught looking after that), and they came on multiple pitch types. He’s not a shortstop long-term, but looks athletic enough to handle third, with enough arm. When the Yankees took him 20th last year, the main question was whether he could hit good pitching, or had just fattened up on weaker competition in a non-major conference. I think that jury is still out.

• Right-hander Yoendrys Gomez started the game for Somerset and struggled from the outset, giving up three runs in the first and five in total, on eight hits and two walks in 3 2/3 innings with four strikeouts. He was 93-96 mph with an above-average changeup that he needed to use a lot more, while he struggled with both breaking balls, hanging a slew of curves and command. He also worked way too hard to try to get to his glove side and often overextended while doing so. I’ve seen Gomez before and this was a step up in velocity but a step back in the rest of the package. I’d definitely like to see him go to the changeup more often, especially to lefties, rather than throwing meh breaking stuff right into their bats.


Ceddanne Rafaela (Tom Priddy / Four Seam Images via AP)
• Portland center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela, who has emerged as one of Boston’s top prospects this year, continued to show tremendous bat speed, but also continues to show a lack of discipline at the plate, swinging at a lot of pitches he should take because he has such great bat control that he can put a lot of those pitches in play. His first hit came on an 0-2 curveball moving away from him where he just stuck the bat out to cover and blooped it into right; and his second on another curveball, left up, again with two strikes. His hardest-hit ball of the night was a flyout to center, once again on a curveball, where the ball just seemed to keep carrying. He’s stronger than his 155-pound frame implies, although there aren’t many big leaguers in recent memory as small and slight as he is, and it’s not a naturally projectable body. He can definitely play center, and even recorded an 8-6 forceout through aggressive play on a hard liner to him, getting to the ball quickly enough to make the throw and nail the runner at second.

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• Boston first baseman Niko Kavadas is one of a number of older hitters who put up big numbers in their full-season debuts this year in A-ball, but the 23-year-old has slowed down against the better competition of Double A. He hit .295/.460/.603 between Low and High A this year, but has punched out 30 times in 82 plate appearances since his promotion to Portland, including twice in six at-bats on Tuesday night against Somerset. He had four “hits” on the night, although two of them were routine pop-ups, one of which nobody caught on the infield, one of which was dropped by the left fielder, while another was a very soft single on a hanging curveball. He’s first base only, with a stocky body that he’ll have to work to maintain. Kavadas does have a strong sense of the strike zone, so the walk rates and solid OBPs are somewhat sustainable, but I think better stuff is going to continue to give him trouble.

• Lefty Shane Drohan started for Portland and ended with a strange stat line – eight strikeouts in four innings, five runs allowed, but just one earned. He’s 89-93 mph with an average to slightly above-average changeup, and lives primarily by those two pitches, as his mid-70s breaking ball is no better than a 45. Boston’s fifth-rounder in 2020 out of Florida State, Drohan is pretty slender for a starter and might be better suited to a swing role. He showed a small reverse platoon split this year, and if he’s going through an order just once, maybe with a little more fastball, he could be effective.

• The Yankees took right-hander Jack Neely in the 11th round in 2021, out of an Ohio State University, and the 6-foot-8 reliever has been on a roll recently, with 15 strikeouts across the 33 batters he’s faced since returning from a month-long layoff a few weeks ago. He was 94-96 mph on Saturday night, just putting it right by guys, barely using a fringy slider. The Yankees do tend to generate relievers who throw hard and get whiffs on the fastball, for what it’s worth.

• Catcher Anthony Seigler stayed healthy for most of 2022, playing in a career-best 97 games, with more walks (91) than strikeouts (82) between Low and High A. The Yankees’ first-round pick in 2018 has been plagued by injuries, and I’m not sold that he’s ever going to hit – he can work the count, but decent velocity ate him alive last week. But he has soft hands and an above-average arm. Given the paucity of solid defensive catchers, I wouldn’t rule out a late bounceback from Seigler, especially if he gets another healthy season under his belt next year. I was a little disappointed to see how many balls he dropped or bobbled on Saturday, despite what looked like solid form, and he also made plenty of more difficult pitches look easy during the game.

MLB’s new rules: How pitch clock, shift ban and bigger bases will — and won’t — change the game

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By Jayson Stark
Sep 19, 2022
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There’s a thing I’ve noticed about sports: When you change the rules, stuff happens.

So here we are, a week or so after baseball announced its three most tide-shifting rule changes in almost half a century — pitch clock, shift limits and bases the size of the tires on your Honda. And now here’s the safest prediction I’ve ever made:

Stuff … will … happen.

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But what stuff? And how will — and won’t — it change the game? Here are 10 Things to Watch When the Rules Change.

1. The 2 1/2-hour game is back
Baseball has just fired its most accurate shot — aka., the 15-second pitch clock — in the War on Dead Time. And before it even lands, you should know this: That war is won.

“This thing is going to knock at least 20 minutes, I believe, off the time of a game in the big leagues.” — Morgan Ensberg, former Astros third baseman, who now manages the Rays’ Double-A team, the Montgomery Biscuits

Guess what? There is zero reason to think he’s wrong. The average time of a minor-league game is down 26 minutes this year, compared with the olden days of the pre-pitch-clock era (by which we mean last year).

2021 — 3:04 (hours, minutes)
2022 — 2:38

Or you could just compare a typical day of baseball in Triple A (home to a 14-second pitch clock) versus the big leagues. This was from last Wednesday.

9-inning games
13
14
Average time
2:44
3:00
Games over 3 hours
2
7
Games under 2:40
7
1
Yes, I’m aware the commercials mean the between-inning breaks aren’t the same in both leagues. Yes, next year’s big-league clock will be a second longer than this year’s Triple-A clock. Still …

• An 8-7 big-league game in Texas, featuring 20 hits, took 3 hours, 40 minutes.

• A 12-4 minor-league game in Nashville, featuring 24 hits, took 2 hours, 38 minutes.

I could give you 500 examples like this, but you get the idea. Watch any minor-league game on MiLB.com. You can’t miss the difference. The clock, Ensberg said, is “absolutely incredible. It’s given more time to the game versus just the fluff in between pitches. … What it does, it takes all the fluff out.”

Any fluff fans out there? Thought so! Now let’s move on.


Baseball in 2023 will speed up, in more ways than one. (Cliff Welch / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
2. The balk record is in major jeopardy
On the other hand … there are going to be issues!

There will be wrinkles to the pitch clock that will take some getting used to. It’s not only 15 seconds between pitches with nobody on and 20 seconds with men on base. But also …

The hitter has to be in the box, eyes locked on the pitcher, with eight seconds left on the timer (or the umpire can call a strike). … The pitcher needs to start his delivery before the clock hits zero (or the umpire can call a ball). … The hitter can step out only once per plate appearance (or it’s a strike). … The pitcher can step off/throw to a base only twice per plate appearance (or the third time is a balk, if he doesn’t throw to a base and the runner is out).

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So what can possibly go wrong? Ummm, paging Angel Hernandez.

Everyone I’ve talked with predicts a turbulent April as all parties — pitchers, hitters and umpires — adjust. Are you ready for this fun moment:

Bases loaded … Shohei Ohtani at the plate … two outs and a 3-2 count … Ohtani isn’t quite set and focused on the pitcher as the timer count hits “7” … and some letter-of-the-law umpire screams: “Timer violation … strike three … you’re out!”

Hoo boy.

“I think MLB has been very upfront that they don’t want this rule used in that way. They don’t want this rule deciding key moments of a baseball game.” — a team executive on that scenario.

“I think it’s important for umpires to understand the spirit of the law versus the letter of the law. And the umpires in the (Double-A) Southern League have done a really good job of understanding that meaning. They’re looking at the clock while looking at the pitcher, and they’re making an assessment whether or not to stop the game for a second and assess a ball. And if it’s at zero or minus-one, they’re letting it go. And they should, because … stopping (the game to make a call) is going to go against the entire spirit of the rule.” — Ensberg

Agreed. But be ready. Even if everybody gets that spirit-of-the-rule memo, this will get messy. Early in the season, before everyone settles in, there are going to be shocking calls never witnessed in baseball history. There are going to be ejections. There are going to be words uttered that you won’t hear on Nickelodeon. There are going to be lots of sensational sports-talk-radio moments. And also … there are going to be balks.

DOUBLE-A BALK RATE

2022 — One balk every 10.7 games
2021 — One balk every 20.5 games

Then again, in other news …

3. Terrance Gore has never been more employable

Terrance Gore steals second base against the Pirates on Sunday. (Gregory Fisher / USA Today)
Will the stolen base actually be cool again? Before you answer that, check out what’s happened this year in the minor leagues.

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Pickoff/stepoff limits and larger bases (18 inches-by-18 inches square, up from 15-by-15) — which shrink the distance between bases by 4 1/2 inches — have been in effect all season. And they’ve turned these games into the Penn Relays.

STOLEN BASE ATTEMPTS PER GAME

Minor leagues — 2.83
Major leagues — 1.36

Now here’s what that means: If big-league players suddenly started running at the same rate as minor-league players have this year, it would lead to a stolen-base attempt rate we haven’t seen in the major leagues in more than 100 years. So is that going to happen?

Quick answer: Of course not. As one exec I surveyed put it, “the cost of an out in the big leagues is still going to be valued.”

But also remember these rules aren’t just there to subtly encourage base stealing. They’re there because this sport’s brightest minds see base stealing as one of the centerpieces of the next wave of baseball’s entertainment strategy. So even if these rules don’t roll back the clock to, say, 1917, here’s what MLB execs do expect:

34 steals will never lead the league again! I’m guessing you could win this bar bet with your buddies: Who leads the big leagues in stolen bases? It’s Marlins track star Jon Berti (who else?) — with 34. Meanwhile, in the minor leagues, 79 players have stolen 34 or more, because thanks to these rules, stolen-base success rates have skyrocketed (to 77 percent).

MLB teams tend to run these days when they calculate at least a 75 percent probability of making it. If that’s the new probability for, basically, everybody, look out.

But it might take 70! Rickey Henderson’s 130 steals look as unreachable as ever, but would anyone find it shocking to see somebody swipe 70 (for the first time in 14 years) next season? Again, don’t forget, these rules are designed to make that eminently possible. As one exec put it, “I don’t think you’ll see any records, but if someone steals 70 instead of 35, that’s a dramatic change.”

Some team might steal 250! In 1976, Bert Campaneris and those fast-stepping Oakland A’s stole an incredible 341 bases. We won’t see that again. But as recently as 1992, Pat Listach’s Milwaukee Brewers stole 256. Is that out of the question? Why would it be?

The Rangers, for example, have eight minor leaguers with at least 32 steals this year. So why wouldn’t a team or two — or eight — decide the best way to find an edge and wreak havoc next season is to start running at rates no current big leaguers have ever had to find a defense for?

Terrance Gore forever! One more question: Shouldn’t teams start saving the last spot on their roster for the fastest dude they can find — since these rules will make it almost impossible to throw him out?

“If we’re going to be mandated to have 13 position players, that 13th guy could be a Terrance Gore,” one club exec said. “Then every time one of your slow guys gets on base after the seventh inning, you send in Terrance Gore to run. I think that makes a lot of sense.”

It’s also a reminder that these rules will affect how front offices construct rosters. More on that shortly. But first …

4. Coming to a park near you: the two-man outfield?
One theme that has come through loud and clear in the last week: Front offices are already think-tanking ways to turn these new rules upside-down and devise innovative strategies to use them to max advantage.

The idea I’ve heard most so far? The four-man outfield may be going away — but say hello to the “two-man” outfield.

All right, so technically, it’s not really a two-man outfield. It’s just an outfield with two defenders in conventional outfield locations — and a third outfielder lurking in, say, short right field, where those shifting infielders used to hang out against pull-heavy left-handed hitters. Here’s how MLB.com’s Mike Petriello diagrammed that one.


But this idea isn’t just popping up on Twitter. It’s sweeping through front offices and coaching staffs. Not everybody is convinced it will be widespread — or even work effectively enough to become popular. But if 18 teams start using it regularly, it definitely will be interesting to see how — or if — MLB reacts.

“MLB wants more triples, right? So in theory, if you’re hitting against a two-man outfield, you’re going to find some triples in there just by accident. So they may be OK with two-man outfields.” — one club exec

“You know what’ll happen if we see a lot of those two-man outfields, right? Then they’ll just change that (rule) the following year.” — another club exec

Are there really enough Joey Gallos out there who hit so few balls the other way, even in the air, that teams would go to that extreme? Seems doubtful. But you know what isn’t doubtful? That we’re about to find out.

As MLB consultant Theo Epstein said at the press conference announcing these rules, “The smartest organizations are already thinking about how to react” — to every one of these changes. No telling where that will lead. But in the meantime …

5. Left-handed hitters shouldn’t party too soon
That sound you heard, off in the distance, after that press conference, was the left-handed hitters of Planet Earth celebrating. And why would they be celebrating? Pulled groundballs might actually be hits again!

Avg. on pulled groundballs, LH hitters
2022
.146
56%
2019
.156
42%
2017
.189
22%
*percentage of plate appearances versus shifts

(Source: Statcast)

What does that chart show us? In the 15 seasons Statcast has been tracking batted balls, it has never been harder for a left-handed hitter to sneak a groundball through the pull side than it is right now. At the same time, the shift rate on those hitters has mushroomed. So is there any question about whether shifts work? C’mon. They totally work.

The data even shows they work no matter how hard these guys mash the ball. Check out these numbers, also from Statcast, on the impact of the shift on batting average on the hardest-hit groundballs (for all hitters).

Versus the shift
.362
.442
No shift
.445
.554
So shifts are depressing averages, even on rockets, by about 100 points. I think that explains why Phillies hitting coach Kevin Long confidently told The Athletic this the other day:

“There are going to be guys where their average skyrockets. I think Kyle Schwarber is going to be one of the biggest. Anthony Rizzo is going to be another one. Brian McCann, when he played, would have been a huge one, because those guys don’t run.”


Kyle Schwarber should be among those who benefit most from the shift ban. (Brett Davis / USA Today)
So there is going to be a subset of left-handed hitters whose average will climb because the shift disappears — possibly as much as 40 points in some cases, Long predicted. I don’t know why there’s anything wrong with that. Where’s the rule that says the sport is more entertaining when Max Muncy hits .199? I can’t find that.

So which left-handed hitters might fit into this subset? Sports Info Solutions just looked into that question. Corey Seager ranked No. 1. And Schwarber was way up there on the list.

But before that crowd starts popping too many Moët & Chandon corks, I need to break some news to these guys: The shift ban isn’t going to help as much as they’re dreaming it will.

I wrote about this earlier this year. As long as the shortstop can still play an inch to the other side of second base, and the precision of modern data places second basemen where teams know these hitters pull the ball most often, most groundballs will still be outs.

“The shortstop is still directly up the middle, and they’re still taking hits away from left-handers. And on the other side, the second basemen are taking hits away from right-handed hitters. … So the biggest impact is that you don’t see the second baseman in right field.” — Ensberg

Bingo. I asked Sports Info Solutions to dig into the effects of the minor-league shift ban by examining what happened in Double A, where the data is most extensive. As predicted by Ensberg, keeping two infielders on each side of the bag has had minimal impact. But keeping infielders out of the outfield? Different story.

PCT. OF OUTS ON PULLED GROUNDBALLS/BUNTS BY LHH

2019 (last season before shift rules) — 69.3 percent
2022 (first full season of shift rules) — 64.4 percent

PCT. OF OUTS ON PULLED LINE DRIVES

2019 — 12.3 percent
2022 — 6.8 percent

(Source: Sports Info Solutions)

In other words, when this rule was implemented, in Double A, it turned out to help just one more groundball out of 20 get through the right side. For a guy like Seager, who puts the ball on the ground an average of only 1.3 times per game, that doesn’t even work out to two extra ground-ball hits a month.

But let’s turn to the impact on pulled line drives. In the big leagues, they’re still being gobbled up regularly by that extra infielder in the outfield. But when that sneaky hit-burgling trick was outlawed in Double A, the rate of hits on those line drives nearly doubled!

In terms of total extra hits, we’re still talking about very few for any individual hitter when spread out over a whole season. Still, it’s something.

“I think we will all agree hitters should be rewarded for line drives. So if you’re hitting a really hard line drive to the pull side, you should probably be rewarded for that. And if this new rule helps that, I think that’s a good thing.” — one team exec

So if the line-drive single is back, hey, cool. But what about the beloved single up the middle? Well, I never enjoy being the bearer of unhappy news, but …

6. Still M.I.A.: The good old single up the middle
In the piece I wrote about the shift earlier this year, there was a Freddie Freeman quote that’s still stuck in my brain:

“That rover in right field … it’s very rare that I hit one into that shift. It’s just the one up the middle is the one that gets me. I’m like: You’ve been taught your whole life to hit a line drive up the middle — and now you’re out. … So maybe if they eliminate that, and they keep the shortstop on the left side of the bag, I might get some more hits.”

Freddie, I hate to hit you with this. But this particular shift limit isn’t going to change your life much. Here’s the Double-A data, courtesy of Sports Info Solutions.

PCT. OF OUTS ON GROUNDBALLS/BUNTS UP THE MIDDLE BY LHH

2019 — 66.1 percent
2022 — 64.2 percent

So basically, about one of every 50 groundballs makes it into center field now that didn’t before the shift was “banned.” Commissioner Rob Manfred often talks about his passion to “restore” the single up the middle. Oops. This sure isn’t going to do it.

“You do still see some balls get up the middle occasionally, just due to positioning. But that’s usually more on the right-handed pull hitter, versus the left-handed pull hitter.” — Ensberg

So as we were saying — sorry Freddie! And in a related development …

7. Launch angle is still a thing
At the press conference announcing these shift-rule changes, MLB’s Raul Ibañez, former left-handed masher of yesteryear, mentioned something we all need to stay dialed in on. The big hope here, he said, is that eliminating the defensive traffic jam on one side of the infield will change more than just batting averages.

Suppose groundballs are hits again, he said. … Which means singles become more attainable again. … Which means hitters might just realize they no longer need to design a swing with a sole goal to lift the ball over all of those infielders.

If all of that happens, Ibañez hypothesized, maybe that’s enough incentive for hitters to recalibrate those swings. Then, maybe launch angle won’t be quite as hot a ticket anymore, he said, hopefully. Which could bring back the old line-drive stroke that used to be the swing of every hitter’s dreams.

Hey, what a beautiful thought. I hope it turns out that way. It’s just hard to look at this shift rule — which mostly benefits pull-happy, left-handed, turn-and-burn hitters — and expect any of that to happen.

“Do you know how much these guys are creatures of habit? I mean, Schwarber’s not changing anything. He’s going to get more hits because the field’s opened up. … But I don’t think that has anything to do with it. Are our hitters going to change? No, they’re going to stay the same. … Like I’ve always said, home run hitters are home run hitters.” — Long

So what would have to happen to make that change? Maybe the big-league results won’t match the minor-league data we just laid out. Or maybe there will be more rules coming that alter the hitting climate more than these rules do. But is Gallo going to look at this set of rules and decide it’s time to try to win a batting title? Not happening.

But you know who is going to have to make some changes? I’ll tell you who …

8. Relievers are in for a shock

Braves closer Kenley Jansen ranks second slowest in Statcast’s pitch tempo. (Dale Zanine / USA Today)
The one-inning, let-it-fly relief pitcher is one of the great gigs in the history of baseball. But all of a sudden, trouble is ahead. And you spell that trouble: C-L-O-C-K.

What’s coming next year? A 15-second pitch clock with nobody on base. And how will that affect the boys in the bullpen? Thanks for asking. The Statcast data spells out exactly how.

According to Statcast, among pitchers who have thrown at least 100 pitches in the big leagues this season, there are 95 whose “tempo” (average time between pitches) would be considered to be slower than that 15-second clock would allow. And of those 95, 89 are relievers.

So their first challenge is they’re going to have to pick up that glacial pace. But that’s not these relievers’ only challenge.

The biggest question: If they no longer can take all the time they need in between pitches, to recover from that 101 mph smokeball they just fired, will they be able to throw the next pitch at 101 — and the one after that and the one after that?

MLB’s original hope was no. But the data doesn’t support that. Here was Ensberg’s reply when I asked if his relievers had seen their velocity drop:

“No. Absolutely not. There was no decline in any sort of performance. And arguably, the performance improved because of that tempo, because of that rhythm.”

That seems surprising. But it has turned out to be true, across the minor leagues. We know that thanks to Baseball America, which recently obtained velocity readings across minor-league baseball. Those readings showed zero drop in velo — literally.

AVERAGE FOUR-SEAM FASTBALL VELOCITY, MINOR LEAGUES

2021 — 92.3 mph
2022 — 92.3 mph

So for all those bullpen heat-wavers, it turns out this clock doesn’t pose a velocity challenge, Ensberg said. It poses a conditioning challenge:

“This will change the way (relievers) train, because they’re going to be throwing pitches quicker. So they’re going to want to have a little bit more endurance than usual. Nothing crazy, but they’re going to be throwing more pitches and doing more action, in a quicker amount of time. Their bodies will adjust. But early on, they’re going to want to have some more stamina.”

In fact, big-league execs I surveyed said they’re more concerned about whether their starting pitchers can sustain velocity deep into games than they are about their short relievers. So can anyone really be sure how this clock will affect big-league pitchers — especially veterans who have never experienced a clock in the minors? No, we can’t answer those questions until we see what happens next year.

But here’s one thing you can be sure of …

9. Wave goodbye to Mike Moustakas at second base
It’s easy to look at these rules and start digging into how they’ll affect games on the field. But if you only hone in on that part, you’ll be missing one of the biggest impacts of all:

This has a chance to dramatically change how teams are built.

In what ways, you ask? Here are two:

It’s a great time to be an athletic middle infielder. Let’s begin with another Epstein observation from the press conference: What fans want, he said, is having games decided “by diving plays” — not “by whose front office devised the best algorithm” to position all their shifting infielders.

So on that note, let’s talk about Mike Moustakas. Nothing personal. He just came up over and over as the poster boy for second basemen you’ll never see again in baseball.

“When you’re putting a roster together now, this is going to impact how you view defense. I’ll use Mike Moustakas as an example. He’s played a lot of second base, but he’s not a second baseman, He doesn’t have the foot speed to play second base. But in a shift, he could do it.” — one club exec

Well, not anymore. Teams are now going to rethink which positions they can sacrifice defense for offense. And in a world without shifts, second base won’t be one of those positions. I’d love to be an agent for an athletic free-agent middle infielder this winter. That’s going to go well.

“When you put together your team now, you may have three positions that are all about defense only – second base, shortstop and center field.” — the same exec

It’s time to collect left-handed pull hitters. You know what has changed since these new rules were announced? How front offices watch games every night. They now amuse themselves by tracking all the outs that would be hits with no shift. And all of a sudden, they have a newfound appreciation for left-handed mashers.

An executive of one team told me about a left-handed hitting player in his system who might not still be on the 40-man roster — but was kept around because the new shift rule would change his value. Another exec brought up Matt Carpenter, a perfect example of a left-handed pull hitter whose career was almost ended by the shift and now will be looked at in a whole new light.

“I think there are guys who are going to add 15 to 20 points to their average because of this. Matt Carpenter is one. Anthony Rizzo is another. Those are guys whose average has just been brutalized by the shift. But now I can see guys like that having much greater value, because they do hit the ball the other way in the air. They just hit most of their groundballs to the right side. And the shift has turned them all into outs.” — one longtime exec

So who knows — in future years, players like that could add even more value. And why would that be? Because …

10. The shift rules might keep shifting

Commissioner Rob Manfred said the competition committee will continue to evaluate the rules. (Brad Penner / USA Today)
Remember the early days of replay in baseball? MLB’s replay point guard, the Braves’ John Schuerholz, talked often then about how baseball should and shouldn’t implement major rule changes. You should keep that in mind at times like this.

What not to do: Fire up your new rule, assume you nailed it, then forget about it and move on to something else.

What to do: Implement your rule. Watch carefully. Then tweak it over the next few years until you get it right.

I still hear people in baseball quote that philosophy all the time. So that tells me something: Why would we think the same thing can’t happen again? Why would we think these will be the last rules MLB will ever install to neutralize the shift? Here are two I suspect we could see someday:

Into the deep: So now there’s a rule designed to add hits and action by telling infielders where they can and can’t stand. Why wouldn’t the next shoe drop? Why not a future rule that tells outfielders where they can and can’t stand?

Do you recall that two-man outfield experiment we talked about earlier? Suppose that works. Suppose it turns into a regular thing. Why wouldn’t baseball react with a rule that shuts that trick down? Could happen.

Also remember that MLB’s fan polling shows that the customers love doubles and triples, which have dropped to levels not seen in 50 years. Why wouldn’t baseball consider a rule requiring outfielders to play shallow again, so all those gappers would stop landing in outfielders’ mitts? MLB has tried that out, in extended spring training. So anything is possible.

Pie, anyone? Manfred wants to bring back the single up the middle, huh? That can be arranged. Remember, baseball started experimenting with a rule to do exactly that in the minor leagues this year.

It’s the Pie Slice Rule — a big, wedge-shaped diagonal line drawn in the infield dirt, which forces the second baseman and shortstop to leave the middle of the field open. They’ve tried it, and it works. And back in the minor-league test lab, that one has a lot of fans.

“They need to add that rule, because that’s the most important one.” — Ensberg

Of course, it was complicated enough to get these rules written and implemented. The next wave figures to be just as complicated. Maybe more.

But Manfred made it clear at that press conference. The competition committee that drew up these rules isn’t closing up shop. It’s open for business indefinitely, he said — for “an ongoing review process of the way we’re playing.”

So change is coming — after which, well, more change is coming. And you know what that means.

Stuff … will … happen.

Can you imagine an at bat with Karinchak vs Garciapara? Yikes it would take hours!

Commenting on boring baseball discussion while I was away:

Guardians are anything but boring; sure they are shut out more than we'd like but they play exciting games 90% of the time.
Football is of no interest to me.

Sarris: MLB’s new rules could mean more steals, higher averages, but which players benefit most?

Sep 1, 2022; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Texas Rangers shortstop Corey Seager (5) hits an RBI single during the third inning against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports
By Eno Sarris
Sep 22, 2022

We know the rules will be different next season. We don’t know which players will be hurt or helped the most, though.

There will be a pitch clock, set at 15 seconds with nobody on base. The bases will be bigger. To combat excessive shifting, infielders will have to be on the infield dirt, two on each side of second. As Jayson Stark said, “stuff will happen.” There will be winners and losers as baseball tries to reshape the game into one that displays more athleticism and action.

But until they actually play under the new rules, we’ll be left guessing about the real impact, and about which players will shine the most in the new version of the sport — if it truly even is a new version of the sport. But educated guessing is what we do. So here goes.

The shift
If you refer to the new rules regarding the shift as “banning the shift,” it seems like such a huge deal. Now you start wondering about how high the batting averages can go for those lefty pull hitters, and start adding 20, 30 points of batting average. They’re banning it!

Most outs made on ground balls/line drives hit into shifts (3 men on one side) this year:

90 Corey Seager
66 Kyle Tucker
64 Max Kepler
64 Keibert Ruiz
61 Rhys Hoskins
61 Charlie Blackmon
61 Marcus Semien

Seager stands out, and Tucker (22/24 SB) could benefit huge from 2 rules

— Jeremy Frank (@MLBRandomStats) September 9, 2022

But they’re not quite banning the shift, are they? The defenders can still move around on the infield and play in different places, they just have to be on the infield dirt and two to a side. How different is that, actually, than what they’ve been doing? Here’s how defenses played lefties with the shift on this season.



As you can see, the (orange) second baseman has to take a few steps in, and the (red) shortstop has to stay behind second, and can’t move over to the first base side. Let’s focus on the second baseman for a second, because he can still cover the same angles (25 to 30 degrees on that illustration), he just can’t stand as far back. One coach thought these steps in might actually cut the second baseman’s range in half on balls struck over 100 mph, because of reaction times.

The list of lefties that hit ground balls and line drives over 100 mph in that 20-30 degree band is just as obvious as you think: Corey Seager, Seth Brown, Max Muncy, and Kyle Schwarber are all in the top 15. Seager hit 31 balls in that direction into the shift … but still hit .387 on those balls. The league hit .462 into the shift on those balls. With no shift on, though, they hit .670 (!!). As a group, if the top 20 in pulled line drives hit that same number of balls in the same directions next year, they’d average an extra three hits next season.

Three hits, huh. That adds up over all of baseball, but on a single-player level, it’s not all that much. Are we overvaluing the effect of moving the second baseman in a few steps?

And of course, you still have your outfielders, as Mike Petriello points out.

… if you want to torment Joey Gallo, you can still torment Joey Gallo. You just risk a lot more than a single if he goes to LF. pic.twitter.com/EMBvuXQjzd

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) September 10, 2022

While it looks like that pull ground ball alley could be covered by an outfielder, the question is also how likely that is to happen, especially with the extra-base hits a team would give up on any hit to left field. With the pitch clock also in hand, though, would teams want their outfielders sprinting around in the 10-to-15 second window they’d have?

Another change on the field seems like it’ll be in the five-to 15-degree angle on that illustration — a place where the shortstop used to be able to be, but can’t be anymore. Which lefties hit ground balls and line drives in those angles with the shift on?

Hitting them where they won't be
Corey Seager
0.377
53
11.6
Matt Olson
0.302
43
10.3
Kyle Tucker
0.405
42
10.1
Max Kepler
0.317
41
12.6
Shohei Ohtani
0.293
41
10.7
Charlie Blackmon
0.278
37
9.0
Yordan Alvarez
0.351
37
10.8
Freddie Freeman
0.444
36
7.5
Rowdy Tellez
0.265
34
9.1
Cody Bellinger
0.344
34
10.4
Daniel Vogelbach
0.424
33
12.6
Josh Naylor
0.387
32
9.4
Bryan Reynolds
0.355
31
8.5
Seth Brown
0.533
30
9.4
Kyle Schwarber
0.467
30
8.7
Tony Kemp
0.310
29
7.3
Carlos Santana
0.214
28
9.1
Mike Yastrzemski
0.370
27
8.7
Jared Walsh
0.185
27
9.5
Jesse Winker
0.423
26
7.6
Okay, so this table has some of the same lefty pull hitters that showed up on the first list. Corey Seager, Kyle Tucker, and Matt Olson seem to fall into that bucket at least.

But you might notice a couple of things about this table if you keep looking at it. There are plenty of spray-hitting line drive masters sprinkled in here — Charlie Blackmon and Freddie Freeman are not your typical all-or-nothing lefty pull sluggers.

“Charlie and Freddie give me nightmares already,” said one coach responsible for setting infield defenses. “They’re ‘make you pick’ guys that distribute their ground balls relatively equally, so you’ll have to pick where to play your right-side defenders.”

How much can these players gain from losing that defender on the right side of the bag? The league hits .333 on these balls with the shift on, and .386 with the shift off. How many hits would our top twenty up the middle lefties add if they all hit .386 on these balls next year?

One extra hit each, on average.

Sure, the low-average guys like Matt Olson and Rowdy Tellez could see as many as four more hits next year based on limiting the shortstop’s ability to play on the right side of second. But someone like Kyle Tucker, who is supposed to benefit greatly from the shift rules, would not see any benefit, theoretically, on those balls up the middle on the right side of the infield. And as a group, they’d see about one more hit each.

If not much happens based on this rule, it’ll be following precedent.

“We did not see a large effect of limiting shifting at the Double-A level,” MLB’s Morgan Sword told Ben Lindbergh last year.

Batting average on balls in play rose a little that year, but BABIP tends to go up and down from season to season, and in fact, BABIP in the minors went down in the second half when more restrictive shift rules went into effect. If teams find a way to use outfielders to retain their ability to shift, it’ll also make sense: they’ve been more effective at suppressing offense with outfield shifts than infield shifts in recent years.

So, sure, give some lefties a few extra hits next season, especially ones with some spray ability like Freddie Freeman, Alex Verdugo and Rowdy Tellez. Doesn’t seem like anyone should add twenty or thirty points of batting average from these shift rules alone.

And some players might get hurt by these rules. It looks like second basemen and third basemen that don’t pick it well will have more pressure on their gloves without the ability to shift as liberally. Cameron Grove took a look to see which positions would need to show more range, and those were the two positions that stuck out.

I've seen it suggested that banning the shift will increase the value of infielder range. I used my defensive models to see if that's the case.

There isn't much of an overall effect, but there are significant changes with individual positions and batter handedness. pic.twitter.com/NbhPMvhrdK

— Cameron Grove (@Pitching_Bot) September 13, 2022

The league has been trying out bigger, slower defenders at second base and third base with the shift rules. Those players may be in for a rude awakening this year.

Helped the most: Corey Seager, Rowdy Tellez, Matt Olson, Kyle Schwarber, Max Muncy, Shohei Ohtani, Max Kepler, Jared Walsh

Hurt the most: Patrick Wisdom, Nolan Gorman, Luis Rengifo, Harold Castro, Alec Bohm

The clock
There will be a 15-second timer on pitchers with the bases empty this year. Anyone who has watched a minor league game will tell you that it speeds up the action, reduces downtime between pitches, and generally gooses the game, and the length of the games down there reflects that truth, as they’ve been shortened by more than 15 minutes.

That’s the top-line goal for the pitch clock. The secondary goal is trickier.

“Implementation of a pitch clock could lower the strikeout rate,” Theo Epstein told me for a story last month.

Why? The thinking could be that less time between pitches could reduce velocity. The converse of that phenomenon has been shown to be true, as Rob Arthur had compelling evidence that more time between pitches helped pitchers increase their velocity. But Stark reported that minor league velocity didn’t change last year when the clocks were implemented.

“I think the logic of having more time would make sense, but I’ve never really seen it affect someone much anecdotally,” said Chris Langin, Pitching coordinator at Driveline. “For a pulldown (running throw) it definitely seems like that taxes guys to the point some considerable rest is needed … kind of similar to doing a set of deadlifts or something. But just like, full wind-up and stretch throws … meh.”



That does look more like a max-effort deadlift than your average pitch.

More rest, more velocity makes some sense, but we haven’t seen it in the minor league data, so maybe there isn’t as much of a through line here. The other issue is that pitchers that have changed their pace have not seen a corresponding change to their velo in the past. Using Statcast’s tempo data, we can look at over 1,200 pitcher seasons in which a pitcher threw 100 innings in both seasons. Here are the pitchers by how much their pace changed from season to season and how much their velocity changed along with it.

faster by >1 second
-.12 mph
168
faster by <1 second
-.29 mph
400
slower by <1 second
-.14 mph
409
slower by >1 second
-.11 mph
242
Especially when you consider that aging curves suggest that most pitchers lose velocity as they age, this table doesn’t seem like great evidence that pitchers who have to speed up their pace next season will see a significant velocity loss beyond what they’d normally experience.

Still, the slowest pitchers will see a difference next year, and who knows how that might affect them. Mostly that means older relievers and a few slow starters will see new routines next season, for what it’s worth. Who gets helped? The fans, maybe, because it doesn’t look like there’s any benefit to the defense when a pitcher works fast in front of them.

Hurt the most: Giovani Gallegos, Kenley Jansen, Devin Williams, James Karinchak, Craig Kimbrel, José Suarez, Shohei Ohtani

Helped the most: The fans?

The bases
The bases will be a little bigger, to the point that they’ll shrink the base paths by around four-and-a-half inches. As Stark reports, that’s amounted to an extra 1.5 attempts per game in the minor leagues, meaning batters are taking off about twice as often given an opportunity.

But! That’s the minor leagues, where many organizations don’t put any priority on actually winning games, and players are often trying to get noticed any way they can. Still, there’s a decent correlation between minor league stolen base attempt percentages and major league ones, so maybe some real aggression on the base paths is coming.

The other but! is that it won’t be the same for every player. Stealing bases is a math proposition these days, and only certain combinations of running speed and pitcher times to the plate will produce the right opportunities. You have to have some speed to take advantage of the extra four inches.



Could there actually be three groups hidden within this one group? Think of the slowest guys — four inches isn’t going to mean much to them. Luke Voit takes five seconds to get to first, he’d still get caught no matter how big the bases are. And then there are the fastest guys, the ones taking off a lot already, and they could see their attempt rates double next year if it’s going to be easier.

The most fascinating group are the guys that are kinda fast. Maybe they’re not taking off now, but with second base four inches closer, that could change the math for them. They’re in that bend in the curve, but maybe they’re hidden between the two other groups. If so, that would be an example of Simpson’s paradox, where the entire group might be doing something different than the subgroups within. Let’s re-draw the correlations after we split the graph above into three groups.



At least we’ve identified the players that won’t benefit from this. They’re the group on the right with the flat line, showing that they won’t take off more even if shorter bases make them effectively faster.

The trend line on the left, for the fastest players, suggests that players who took off five percent of the time (league average) this season will take off around 7.5 percent of the time next year. That’s not quite double, but it should be a lot of stolen bases. That would turn someone like Andrew Benintendi, who is on about a ten stolen base per 650 plate appearances pace, into someone like Christian Yelich, who is on a 17 stolen base per 650 plate appearances pace. Amed Rosario’s pace (17 SB/650) could turn into Trea Turner’s (25 SB/650).

In the middle? That’s the hardest to figure out because the go/no-go line will be different next year. If the trend in that group holds, a player that took off 2.5 percent of the time last year will take off three percent of the time next year. That’s not a lot more. It could turn Luis Urias (2 SB/650) into Joey Gallo (5 SB/650) if the line is to be believed. If these increases seem muted, we have to remember that the throw is shorter, and the pickoff and clock rules will have an effect on this as well. New trend lines will emerge as teams apply analytics to the new basepath lengths.

Most likely, the fastest group is the group that will benefit the most, and they’ll go nuts off the slowest pitchers, in terms of times to home.

Helped the most: Trea Turner, Corbin Carroll, Alek Thomas, Myles Straw, Andrés Giménez, Byron Buxton, Amed Rosario, Brandon Nimmo, Gavin Lux, Ozzie Albies

Hurt the most: Noah Syndergaard, Sandy Alcantara, Nick Pivetta, Carlos Rodon, Kevin Gausman, Mitch Keller, Madison Bumgarner

The pendulum keeps swinging
There is, of course, a caveat that hangs over all of this analysis: what happens in the coming years after these changes are implemented? It took 15 years after pitch tracking debuted to get from 91.9 mph to 93.9 mph. It took five seasons after spin rate tracking debuted to get from 2,239 RPM on the league-average fastball to the peak in 2020, 2,305 RPM. Trends take time to permeate through 30 teams.

Rule changes and data changes have an initial effect, and then a long-term effect as front offices find ways to optimize within the new reality. Even if we don’t see outfielders sprinting into new configurations in year one, we may see it eventually. Even if hitters don’t all start pulling the ball right away, we may see more of that eventually due to the shift rules. Every team may not be able to put a good defender at second base in 2023, but the game may look different after they’ve had a chance to see what happened in year one.

That’s generally a good reason to think that the immediate change on a player-by-player basis may be muted in 2023. In the meantime, we’ll have plenty of outcomes to watch for.

Royals fire manager Mike Matheny after 3 seasons


The Kansas City Royals have fired manager Mike Matheny and pitching coach Cal Eldred, the team announced Wednesday night.

Kansas City finished in last place in the American League Central on Wednesday, ending the regular season at 65-97 with a 9-2 loss to Cleveland.

In three seasons with the team, Matheny had a 165-219 overall record with zero postseason appearances. Matheny joined the organization as a special advisor in 2018 before taking over as manager prior to the 2020 season.
go-deeper

GO DEEPER

With Mike Matheny out, who could Royals target as next manager?

The 52-year-old skipper spent seven seasons as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, compiling a 591-474 record and reaching the postseason in each of his first four seasons. Matheny led the Cardinals to the World Series in 2013, losing to the Boston Red Sox.

Matheny is the fifth manager in the majors to be fired this year, with the Rangers most recently parting ways with Chris Woodward in August.

“We are grateful to Mike for leading us through some unusual times these last three seasons. He met those challenges head on and helped us move forward in a positive manner,” executive vice president and general manager J.J. Picollo said in a statement. “We thank him for his leadership and know his influence will have a positive impact moving forward.”

The Royals missed the playoffs for a seventh straight year this season. Their last trip came in 2015 when they won their second World Series title against the Mets.

I never understood the hirings of either Matheny or LaRussa. Our division rivals are pretty inept.

Our old buddy John Sherman is cleaning house. I think KC is trending up.