April 4, 2023April 4, 2023 by Charles Haas

Acuna Jr, Ronald – MLB HOF Tracker

AGE 24 Tracked Career 3.8 WAR – 9.6 WAR

Floor Level Hall of Famer Year 3.2 WAR

Average Hall of Famer Year 3.9 WAR

Acuna Jr, Ronald

2022: 2.2 WAR Career: 18.4 WAR

Let’s get this out of the way, if you’re wondering about my confidence in Ronald Acuna, Jr making a comeback, I think he’s the 2023 NL Comeback player of the year. And I think he’s a top 10 MVP candidate.

That’s not a through-the-roof estimation, because I don’t have complete confidence that come opening day he’ll have made all of the adjustments he needs to make. But it’s coming, in my humble opinion, because I do not think of Acuna having a down season due to nagging injuries. I see Acuna as someone who basically shouldn’t have been on the field at all, but his team was in the hunt and he was in there, and he still proved to be a worthy MLB starter.

The main question to ask yourself is, were Acuna’s struggles actually from injury? Yes. Hope that helped.

It’s just so easy to see how his knee hurt him in everything, including the most important thing: his swing.

And Acuna was the Braves star, always a potential breakout away. They were in an extremely close race, so they let him Kirk Gibson his way through the year. His arm was worse. Of course, you can’t plant and throw. His range was worse, of course, you’re slower with a knee injury. And this isn’t hard to see with his sprint speed metrics:

2018 29.7

2019 29.4

2020 29.2

2021 29.4

2022 28.5

Uh, did you see that? Acuna was still extremely fast. But when they say people lose a step – yes, he literally lost a step. That’s what it looks like when you’re running your competitive ass off on a knee that he described as “terrible.” Yes, that terrible was after he tweaked his knee in early September, but as late as mid-August his entire year had been described as “fighting pain every day.” You tell me how many players could be 2 WAR guys in that condition. Remember, there was a worry when he got hurt in 2021 that it was potentially career-ending. That was unlikely, but this was a serious, serious injury.

To me, 28.5 is illustrative of a few things:

1) He was obviously physically limited last year

2) He’s also obviously able to be fully healthy on his knee. You don’t run in the 82nd percentile of the league on a leg that won’t let you do it

3) This guy, effort-wise, kicks ass. There were certainly questions about him in his early years. Not one of you bozos would have endured what he did last year. He proved himself in my eyes, and that changes future projections a great deal.

4) This is a year-long total, it just occurred to me that I actually checked this on a previous update.

Last but not least, in fact, most, is that swinging a bat on a hurt knee is going to suck. You have to compensate in many ways. You can take me as an example. I was lucky enough to step on broken glass a few weeks ago. I went from running 5 miles a day to limping to my fridge in a frantic search of pudding. OK, that’s not the point. The point is while I was hoping my foot would heal, I injured my ankle and my calf because of how I had to compensate when dealing with my injury. After my foot was pain-free, I had to wait on two other injuries to heal before I could run again. (And I promise you it’s more like 28.5 feet a lunar year in my case.)

Acuna had injury issues all season long. Gee, I wonder why. Guy had to play as a professional athlete compensating for a major injury. How fun.

It’s not thought about a lot, but hitting with bad knees, I mean, my word. Nearly impossible to get your swing right. Knee pain sent Mark McGwire from having an MVP caliber 2000 to a retired, pathetic, pinch hit for in the playoffs by Kerry Robinson 2001. But we’re not here to talk about the past.

The knee changed Acuna as a hitter dramatically.

His career ground ball % going into last year was 38.2% And, as he was developing as a hitter, it was dropping. Literally every year of his career. He was turning into Mr. Launch Angle.

2018: 42.8

2019: 38.5

2020: 36.0

2021: 31.8

2022: 47.7

Uh, did you notice that one? Injuries change swing trajectories and often make guys groundhogs. Christian Yelich preview anyone? And it’s unstoppable. The knee wouldn’t let him rotate to get the proper loft. His GB/FB ratio nearly doubled year over year. Say it with me: He didn’t regress; he was hurt.

Every metric as a hitter plummeted last year, and pitchers knew it. Even his walk % went way down because he wasn’t the threat he was in years past. They weren’t scared to pitch to him anymore. His .300+ ISO went down to .148.

And if you need more proof of the knee making things impossible for him, consider this: He tweaked his knee on September 2nd, and it all but did him in for the year. And how did he do it? Hitting a 440+ foot bomb. At that moment he got his usual, fierce swing back, at that moment he was the Acuna of old, and he paid for it. His knee wouldn’t let him play that way anymore. He hit .239 the rest of the way. How? I do not know how.

The course of his season shows the wear and tear of the daily grind of baseball. Take a look at his game log and you’ll see a rehab-ready Acuna heading into June he was 9-9 in Stolen Base attempts. Zero caught stealings. Heck, he had 2 on opening day. By the end of the season, he would lead the league in being caught with 11. As late as June 11th his OPS was at .950. It’s around here things went south. The production left, and by the end of the month, Acuna started missing time, while still playing an unbelievable amount considering his injury. He was a sub .600 OPS hitter for 6 weeks. His next worst month, you’ll be shocked to know, is when the “terrible” revelation came out.

So last year we saw the real Acuna, or at least close to the real Acuna. But the knee couldn’t hold up. This isn’t a shock at all. No doctor would have imagined he could have been playing. No one would have expected he’d be starting both ends of a doubleheader twice within a week in August last year, but he did. And he did so without a day off in August. (Technically he had 3 days off where he wasn’t in the starting lineup – but they found a way to get him into each game anyway.)

So what is the real Acuna?

Here’s his per 162 WAR for each year of his career:

2018: 6.0

2019: 5.6

2020: 8.5

2021: 8.5

2022: 3.0

Folks, people don’t know crap about the Hall of Fame. They don’t. The vision they have in their head is always vastly different than what the Hall actually is. 4 or 5 years from now you’re going to hear people wondering if Acuna might be a Hall of Famer. Do you see the above? Yeah, he’s a Hall of Famer. Now look, he hasn’t played enough, obviously. He could be run over by a camel tomorrow, obviously. But as far as Hall of Fame talent, this is inner circle stuff here. He’s had injury troubles, yes. He was lucky enough to be screwed by the Covid season, yes. Even that said he’s so far ahead of pace for a 24-year-old it’s insane. Look at the list of 24-year-olds he’s with. Count how many just came up last year. Count how many are “if only he can break out in his prime” type of players. For Acuna, we just hope he can be 80% of what he was while playing full-time. That’s all he needs.

And remember, the numbers above are through age 24. We’re supposed to see prime Acuna now. Technically we’re supposed to see a better version of him soon. He was half an Acuna last year. You can pencil him in for a 6.0 WAR pace next year. I guarantee it.*

*-I can confidentially guarantee this because you don’t get jack if I’m wrong anyway.

How will you know if I’m right? Ignore the hitting stats to start the season. He’s spent a year away from his swing, and it’s going to take time to get it back. Check those sprint speeds. The closer they are to 29, the more he is healthy and letting it loose. If you see those kinds of sprint speed stats, his small sample hitting size won’t matter at all at that point. He has to be healthy first. Then he has to adjust.

Then you can look at that ground ball %. Watch that dip, and watch the king return. That’s the secret. That’s how you’ll know he’s coming.

450 to start the year (His homers were ALL bombs. Only 2 under 400 ft, 10 over 425 – just has to get healthy to get his flyball swing back)

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=0d11ea1b-1780-4b14-8fd8-a89ea349107f

June 7th multi-homer 434 and 464!

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=0c878fd5-2b21-444e-a304-80bde97efbd7

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=2ec2bba4-cd3b-4920-bac4-052b0c4583c2

Career hit 500

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=71070569-9b8f-471e-8179-d6e332b412b9

Hurt his knee – watch how they rotate on this 444 foot homer, like he didn’t mean to let go, but he did

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=a1bc5cac-7b5e-4705-aece-8cab7b18e170

September 27th multi homer

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=9346d21b-67fa-4e69-ad96-d0bee79c14ed

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=21257899-dbf9-4942-adc2-3a56e17c79fa

April 4, 2023April 4, 2023 by Charles Haas

Bichette, Bo – MLB HOF Tracker

AGE 24 Tracked Career 3.8 WAR – 9.6 WAR

Floor Level Hall of Famer Year 3.2 WAR

Average Hall of Famer Year 3.9 WAR

Bichette, Bo

2022: 4.5 WAR Career: 11.8 WAR

Well, what a difference a month makes. I think it’s fair to say that Bo Bichette burst onto the scene as a crazy free-swinging 21-year-old who made great contact, had good power, and played SS – which meant even if he wasn’t putting up Ruthian numbers on offense, makes him very valuable. Thanks to injuries and 2020 madness he didn’t get his first chance to get a full season in until 2021, and he did not disappoint. He led the AL in hits with 191, and also knocked 29 homers, driving in 102, and batting .298. All very good traditional numbers to see on the back of a baseball card for a 23-year-old shortstop.

Want to know how many 23-year-old SSs have ever hit 29 homers in a season? 5. Want to know how many of those are in the Hall of Fame?

OK, none. Maybe it’s a bad example. It just shows how far away 23-year-olds are from establishing such an honor. And also how new it is to have power-hitting middle infielders in their early 20s. The list includes active players like Machado and Lindor. Retired players who spent a career ruining their reputation like Alex Rodriguez, and finally Nomar Garciaparra (no one gives him a chance, but come back in 75 years, and the vets committee has already elected this guy) and Hanley Ramirez, who I think people forget how incredible he was in his early years. He stands out on the list as the cautionary tale. I would highly suggest that Bo Bichette not gain 700 pounds and become some sort of out-of-place hippo on the field, because that really didn’t help Hanley age well.

Base running? He was superb. 25 out of 26 stolen bases? Get out of here.

And his defense was, well, it was mixed. I suppose you could call it acceptable. Most of his metrics were a little negative, except his DRS was +2. So he wasn’t the world’s best defender, but he would pass at SS. But a 5.1 WAR 23-year-old SS? That’s a star. And hopes were high for 2022.

If you decided not to pay attention and glanced at his stats at the end of 2022, you’d say, oh! not bad! 4.5 more WAR. Looks like we have a well-established baseline for what we can expect from Bo. He’s 24, he’s had a 4.5 WAR year, and a 5.1 WAR year. Pretty darn consistent. The guy is a stud.

Well yeah, he is. But that’s not at all how I’d describe his 2022. His 2022 kinda, sorta sucked – before he suddenly became Superman.

At least on offense. Baserunning he went from spectacular to below average in one year. 13 steals, 8 times caught, and a -2.7 BSR. His defense was as though he was throwing games. His RAA? -5. His OAA? -7 His UZR? -15.4. His DRS? -16. It’s like the Blue Jays were experimenting with Jim Abbott at SS.

Strangely, his basic stats were the same. Putouts, assists, and errors, are almost all spot-on year over year. Except he played 100 more innings, which makes a big difference. It was like he stood out there for 11 games and simply let every single ball go by. That would hurt the numbers, frankly, but it’s hard to see from the naked eye when watching him OR reading his stat sheet.

I don’t know if he was actually that bad at SS. It’s hard to imagine he was. But still, here’s the thing, Bichette played 159 games in 2021, and he played 159 games in 2022. And I’m telling you something was wrong with him this year. Physical, mental, I do not know, but something was wrong with Bo Bichette that held him back most of the year.

Offensively it was evident from the beginning of the season. Bichette hit just .213 with a .535 OPS in April. While he surged up with a nice May – the surge didn’t last. To start play on September 1st, Bo’s was at .260 with a .725 OPS.

And then the Calendar flipped to September. Dun dun dun…..

I hate that kind of crap, things don’t go at a calendar, and they didn’t really for Bo either. But September is what is eye-popping to look at.

Whatever was wrong with Bo disappeared a few weeks earlier, and he got right. We can see it in the hitting. We can see it in the running. And I would bet if you looked you’d see it in the defense too.

August 20th was the nadir for Bichette’s year-long malaise. There was barely a month left in the season, and he was at .255 – his freaking OBP was below .300 at .295 – His OPS was at .715, in real danger of dipping below .700. And on the season he was only 7 for 14 in steal attempts. If you looked at Bo Bichette on that date, you’d be convinced he was going to have a lost season.

Then his legs came back. He was 6 out of 7 in steals the rest of the year.

And the bat came back. Hoo boy did it come back. While September was hot, you can often identify how a batter is doing by their pitch recognition. In the 10 games remaining in August, Bo hit .316. Which is good. It’s not an amazing run over just 10 games, but it’s a pick-me-up. However, in those 10 games, he walked 5 times. Juxtapose that with his last 5 walks, which took 6 weeks to accomplish. His eye was back.

So what was this September? I don’t even know how to describe how hot he was. He had 54 hits in September. Joey Gallo had 56 hits all year. In his first 6 games of the month, he went 16-27 with 5 home runs (September 5th he played a doubleheader. 3 singles in the first game; 3 homers in the second). That’s a .593 average. That 6 game stretch alone will make your month.

But forget that hot streak. The REST of September – 26 games – he hit .359. Scorching. The dude was in the .250s 5 weeks before and ended up leading the league in hits AGAIN. (And for a Hall of Fame watch, a guy racking up this kind of hits this young may be coasting to 2,000-2,500) He finished the year batting .290. That’s an insane increase. His OPS went over .800. His OPS+ was 127, HIGHER than the year before. He finished 11th in MVP voting. One step up! It’s just insane how much September alone made a ho-hum season make Bo Bichette look like a legitimate Hall of Fame thread.

He’s got a lot working against him. He’ll never be an OBP guy. At some point soon he’s going to have to say goodbye to SS. But he’s 24, and he’s 22 hits from 500, and you have to love where his stats are at.

69 home runs, 127 wRC+, 11.8 fWAR compares favorably to:

39 home runs, 114 wRC+, 12.0 fWAR

Those were Derek Jeter‘s career totals at 24. What’s scary is that Jeter has a pretty big advantage on defense. Hey, he stuck at SS. I can’t imagine Bo can do that, but as long as he keeps hitting better than Jeter, well that seems to be a good thing for his hall chances I’d say.

50th career homer

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=b0945249-8361-41cf-982f-23fcc691f040

100th career double, with a tootblan

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=3863df22-6867-4a2f-a155-e64d38b0db11

His only triple…came in September. Of course.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=02f645b9-51a1-4400-a166-806a28d02dc2

September 5th 1st hit

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=fd417169-e68f-4234-b5a6-4505582d8833

September 5th 2nd hit

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=e7d9e415-27b7-4bdd-881a-588ffa24c784

September 5th 3rd hit

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=51486bcd-bed7-4df0-b675-c856163b9836

September 5th 4th hit

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=87ccfbbc-c7a4-4e9c-aaef-7030d82e6888

September 5th 5th hit

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=ddcc1429-c2e9-47e4-a1c1-82bd68dd1b01

September 6th 6th hit

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=fa3d9ff1-40ff-4e73-aba3-8667f061cdd6

April 4, 2023April 4, 2023 by Charles Haas

Robert, Luis – MLB HOF Tracker

AGE 24 Tracked Career 3.8 WAR – 9.6 WAR
Floor Level Hall of Famer Year 3.2 WAR
Average Hall of Famer Year 3.9 WAR

Robert, Luis
2022: 2.1 WAR Career: 6.6 WAR

I’m not sure what I am going to write about Luis Robert, that I am not just going to copy and paste for Byron Buxton. We’re talking about a superiorly talented player. He played in the Cuban major leagues at 15. By 18 he was doing his best Bill Terry and hitting .401. There hasn’t ever been a single person that doubted his talent, which is why the White Sox paid over 40 million dollars to get him in the system, even knowing they were paying for him to be in the minors for several years. At 21, in the minors, he had a 30-30 season. At 22, he was in the majors.

And he’s been very talented, if not raw in the majors. He’s had struggles. He rarely walks. His rookie year was a strikeout bonanza. His fielding routes have been adventurous at times. But while he is raw, he also has raw talent that has shot up very quickly. Again, as a rookie, he struck out over 30% of the time. He got that below 20% in 2022. And it’s not like he was bad as a rookie. We’re talking about a guy who finished 2nd in the Rookie of the Year balloting and snagged a gold glove.

But it’s fair to say that he hasn’t lived up to his promise yet. The guy who hit .400 as an 18-year-old, and who went 30-30 in a single year in the minor leagues is hitting .289 in the majors and is still 4 steals short from being 30-30 in his big league career.

And it’s not because he’s been bad. It’s because he can’t stay on the field. OK, we won’t totally blame him for the Covid shutdowns, where to his credit he played 56/60 games. Since then? Major injuries and minor injuries mean he’s played a total of 166 games in the past two years. What’s worse – while in 2021 he was healthy when he played, and he absolutely crushed the ball, in 2022 he was constantly beset by nagging injuries, and his numbers were unspectacular. I suspect that’s related.

Even if you pretend Robert was better than we saw, but not as good as he was in 2021 – when we were looking at a guy who hit .338 with an insane .392 BABIP – Look at his combined season which will tell you what we’re missing from his injuries stopping his playing time.

201 hits. 40 doubles. 25 home runs. 99 RBI 17 SB. .307 Average.

Those are classic hall of fame numbers from the days when it was super fun to watch guys get 200 hits in a season. And yeah, maybe this day in age that requires someone to only walk 4.7% of the time. I don’t care where the value comes from, so long as it comes. And Robert can swing, he can run, and when he’s right, he can field. Don’t much care about the walks. Get some counting stats, man!

Now he’s 25, and what is to expect from him? Probably better than his 2022 line. Yes, Robert hit a relatively pedestrian .284 in 2022, but that was the result after ending the year 1-28, and in a state where he was injured and beat up so often, I don’t know why they even kept trying him. Yes, the White Sox were in a playoff hunt, but Robert could barely move at the end of the year, and he was only a negative to the team. Before that, in still an injury-filled season, he was hitting .304 with a .798 OPS in a pitching year. In other words, he was solid. The power was way down, yes. You need Robert to have a .200 ISO as a minimum if you’re going to dream on him, in 2022 it was a .142. He can’t outhit that into a stellar career. He just can’t.

But it’s also not who he really is. His last double was in August. His last home run was in July. It just wasn’t him. There were stretches of the season where he was just a singles hitter – and not a bad one! But it’s hard to be a superstar as a singles hitter. He barreled 4% fewer balls in 2022. His exit velocity dropped a few mph. His launch angle has plummeted. We just have to hope it’s all health-related.

Robert was an outstanding fielder in 2020, leading all CFs in putouts. His range and speed were amazing. That declined in 2021, and again in 2022. His speed scores, while still very very good, have dropped every year too. And age isn’t the answer to these. There’s not a work ethic problem that made him a suddenly worse fielder. It’s the injuries. All of his other flaws aside, nothing matters if he can’t play.

Steamer and FJDC both project a 4 WAR year next year, that’s with a sub .300 average and sub .200 ISO. I point those out to show how ridiculously low this projection – a 25 HR projection – is. This is assuming Robert is already permanently damaged. Maybe he is and we don’t know it. But just normal Robert would blow these projections away. And it’s not like 4 WAR is bad – it would be great! Sadly, the best of his career to this point.

You’re getting the picture here. Robert, if he can just stay healthy, could be an MVP candidate. The fact of the matter is, we haven’t seen him healthy yet.0

It’s a good time to start though, Robert is entering his age 25 season. He should be hitting his peak, and if he can be healthy through his peak, we do have a chance to be discussing a HOF player. Next year he needs to get 6.6 WAR to be on a minimum Hall-of-Fame pace. Is there anyone who doubts Roberts has that ability? Guessing No. Is there anyone who doubts we will ever see it? Yeah, I kinda do.

Walk-off against Chapman
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=cd52f1f7-ca4a-4278-8bfa-7f3ba0765ce8
Robbed on 117.8 MPH
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=d297aaef-a50f-4177-9712-c51f29a8a3ec
Brick Walls are Fun
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=890c9699-281c-4c14-963a-86de7ee51d26
448
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=08cd6b81-0f34-44d4-871a-219e2d03de60
449
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=34f14989-41f1-4d37-b603-d18a0413fb92
452 Grand Slam. See folks, the power is still there
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=f224d48f-0c9f-4b8f-b064-aaa7cbc7cbf3

April 4, 2023April 4, 2023 by Charles Haas

Manoah, Alek – MLB HOF Tracker

AGE 24 Tracked Career 3.8 WAR – 9.6 WAR
Floor Level Hall of Famer Year 3.2 WAR
Average Hall of Famer Year 3.9 WAR

Manoah, Alek
2022: 4.1 WAR Career: 6.1 WAR

Alek Manoah proposed to his girlfriend 4 hours ago, so we will call his inclusion on this list the 2nd best thing that’s happened to him today. It’s really, really hard not to love Alek Manoah, isn’t it? When your grandpa used to tell you how tough ballplayers were back in his day, I don’t know how Alek Manoah’s personality isn’t exactly what you would picture. And yeah, I fully believe all of that is pretty much crap. I think to star in the big leagues this day means you’ve had to prove your toughness in endless challenges for at least a decade before you’ve ever gotten there – but Manoah’s personality seems like a throwback. The man wants the ball. The man does not want to be taken out of games. Forget 2022, Alek Manoah hasn’t thrown fewer than 5 innings in a game since August 17, 2021.

He started his MLB debut by throwing 6 shutout innings against the Yankees, where he gave up only 2 hits. In 2022 he started his season against the Yankees, where he threw 6 shutout innings again, but this time he only gave up one hit. Talk about starting his year by making a statement.

His 2022 had 3 phases. In the first, he was untouchable. One had to wonder when he was going to regress to the mean.

In his first 12 starts, he was 8-1 with a 1.67 ERA

In his next 11 starts, he was 4-5 with a 3.90 ERA

We see this sort of thing a lot. A Player goes on a hot stretch to start the season and plays relatively normally through the rest of the season, but their hot stretch makes it look like they were very good throughout. After all, we’re talking about a 12-6 pitcher with a 2.73 ERA at this point. That’s a very good pitcher. Heck, his 3.90 stretch was solid too, let’s not pretend the guy imploded or anything. You’ll take that stat line happily from a 24-year-old starter. A solid pitcher with a 12-start hot run is something you can hope for every year.

Then he ended his year with an 8-start run where he threw 54 innings and had an ERA of 1.00.

And he did this in a year where he threw 196.2 innings. That’s a workhorse in today’s game. You don’t put a pitcher out there that long, you don’t make them work that hard. Pitchers are injury prone. They become ineffective with too much work. Well, Manoah finishing the year on a dominating run completely flies in the face of it. Whatever you want to call pitchers today, he’s one of the tough ones.

Now for what’s weird about Alek: per FIP he has beaten the odds big time in his first 2 seasons. In 2021 he posted an ERA of 3.22 against a FIP of 3.80. In 2022 he posted an ERA of 2.24 against a FIP of 3.35. That’s craze weird, and it’s one of those things that makes you look for HOW it’s done. For example, do the Blue Jays have such amazing defense that their pitchers are bound to beat their FIP? Probably not. In 2022 their team ERA was 3.87, and their FIP was 3.85. So if it’s the defense, it’s doing things for Alek only.

No, I’m going to guess that it’s all the work of Alek, because it’s kind of fun to do so. Alek has pretty darn good control. 3.2 BB/9 his rookie year is pretty decent. In 2022, he flipped the numbers and posted a 2.3. That’s very good. Manoah only has an average fastball (but good extension which will make it look a bit faster) and yet hitters don’t hit him well. In both seasons in the majors he ranked among the best in the league in hard-hit % against – that is, batters don’t hit him hard at all. That wouldn’t be unusual to see against a pitcher throwing 102, but it is for an average fastball guy like Manoah. But that average fastball for Manoah, as stated before, is ridiculously good.

In fact, in 2022, all four of his pitches were rated above average. Actually, pretty well above average.

How does this translate to beating his FIP?

Well, I’ll tell you how: I think hitters are terrified of him. I think batters are to Alek Manoah the “I have information leading to the arrest of Hillary….” meme. I think they are terrified of him because Manoah LLLLLLOOOOVES pitching inside. And he doesn’t have to be scared to pitch inside, because he has very good control. When you put up his pitch chart, you’ll find an inordinate amount of fastballs on the high and inside portion of the zone. Same with his heavy sinker. Heck, same with his changeup. And so with every single pitch, you HAVE to be thinking that no matter the situation, you might find yourself with a new earring if your reflexes are not fast enough.

Let me give you a simple stat to illustrate this.

We’ve already discussed that Manoah has pretty darn good control. Well, no one has perfect control.

In 2021 the AL league leader for most hit batsmen was Alek Manoah, with 16.

In 2022 the AL league leader for most hit batsmen was Alek Manoah, with 15.

In other words, this ain’t an accident folks. He’s only thrown a total of 5 wild pitches in his career! The average fastball in 2022 is really, really fast (Alek averages 94). Manoah takes his average fastball, he takes his 80th percentile extension, and he invites you to have a closer look at the baseball. And then, eventually, he throws a slider low and away. While you’re thinking about your dental plan, Alek is busting the opposite corner of the plate with an untouchable slider. His slider is 81 miles an hour. That’s not amazing by any stretch. It also has the lowest hard hit % of any of his pitches at just over 20%, and remember – Manoah is one of the best in baseball two years running at NOT getting hit hard. Batters cannot help but protect their face, and flail at the rest of the plate.

You’ve spent your entire life hearing announcers beg pitchers to throw inside. One guy listened.

On Statcast you can take a look at every game Manoah pitched. Go ahead. Flip through them. Try to find a game where there aren’t a solid 3 or 4 times a batter pissed himself.

Seriously, follow that link. You’ll see a table that shows the hardest pitches he threw in that game. His hardest sinker was 95 miles per hour. Want to know where it went? Off the plate high and inside. His average fastball nearly touched 96. Where did it go? Even farther.

Wait. This is just too delicious. This was the playoff game against the Mariners, and Julio Rodriguez was the batter for both. Here they are:

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=ffd8e725-a959-40ab-a4be-ad16eee8f5ac

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=beff63ef-ae14-464e-9223-0ceee0c61446

I don’t think Manoah hit him on purpose. But do I think 2 extremely hard balls flew up and in on purpose? Yes. Yes, I do. Julio has some good protective gear and all, I’m happy for him. But I would be scared out of my mind any time I faced him for the rest of my career. And both are probably going to have very long careers.

I’ve gone on long enough of my fun “Alex Manoah is a serial killer” hypothesis for why he’s been so successful, so I’ll keep this short: The nitty gritty details of 2021 and 2022 were almost exactly alike. He was a really good pitcher in both. Even if he’s had some luck when it comes to his FIP – and I’m not convinced of this yet – he’s going to be an average to above-average starter at worst. He’s an innings eater. He’s a battler. And he has a great arsenal to fall back on. With good health, he’s going to be super fun to watch through the years, and I would LOVE to see him fight to the death with Lance Lynn or something.

And if I’ve said anything to piss him off, please God don’t let him hurt me.

Slow, whiffle ball mistake slider that happens to be up and in. You can see him pull off the ball and miss entirely
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=0e82bceb-5f89-4cc5-875d-c1e76409a3f8
Bradley does the same thing with 97 heat. Watch the target go more and more inside before the natural cut brings it over the plate
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=1627d782-bbf5-4930-a8c4-58b805d667c3
Strange slider to a lefty that looks like it’s going to be outside
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=c843feb6-2276-4b0a-9bf8-1396ef5decd9
Trout can’t hold up on a pitch nowhere close
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=c86622d3-6de2-4f7d-9874-8f36fce35420
Ohtani flailing
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=30a377e3-edcf-4ff5-bf94-59d655039e9c

April 4, 2023April 4, 2023 by Charles Haas

Rogers, Trevor – MLB HOF Tracker

AGE 24 Tracked Career 3.8 WAR – 9.6 WAR
Floor Level Hall of Famer Year 3.2 WAR
Average Hall of Famer Year 3.9 WAR

Rogers, Trevor
2022: 0.8 WAR Career: 5.4 WAR

Well let’s get right to it: 2022 isn’t pretty. 2021 was gorgeous. 2023 is anybody’s guess.

Trevor Rogers is on this list because he had a 4.2 WAR season at age 23 in just 25 starts. And he deserved it. 2.64 ERA that aligned perfectly with his WHIP. About 3BB/9 which is fair and more than 10K/9 which of course is very good. Prorate out to a full season, and his 2021 would be a 5-and-a-half WAR year, and the Marlins would have a legend on their hand.

And instead, 2022 sucked, and what’s scarier, is that it mirrored his 2020 season rather closely. His 2020 FIP was 4.33. His 2022 FIP was 4.36. He was mediocre at best. Then he had an outstanding year. Then he was mediocre at best again. It’s not hard to guess what a player like that will be going forward. Especially when you try to discover WHY he was so good in 2021, and here’s what stands out: 5% HR/Fly Ball. Literally half what XFIP would expect it to be. And that’s important here because his XFIP in 2021 was a 3.54. In 2022 it was a 4.11. That’s not especially far apart. It leads one to wonder if we were too high on Rogers, but are now too low.

I think that’s a very fair surface analysis of Rogers. There is evidence of it being true. His insanely good HR rate in 2021 was almost as bad in 2022 (13.2%). His BABIP went up over 30 points. He suffered two injuries over the season, and really just never got on track. He seemed to be a completely different pitcher than the one that almost shocked the NL to win the ROY.

I’m not saying that’s wrong. He probably wasn’t actually that good in 2021. He probably wasn’t actually that bad in 2022. It just doesn’t tell us much going forward.

What does tell us much going forward is how Trevor Rogers developed as a pitcher in the year, and it was written brilliantly on Fangraphs right here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/trevor-rogers-changed-it-up/

To give you a synopsis, I spoke of this somewhat frustratingly when I was researching Ian Anderson. His changeup was a great changeup. A key pitch of his. But the general consensus is that you don’t throw the changeup to same-side hitters. So Ian Anderson was stuck throwing inferior pitches to righties, and they shelled him.

Rogers is a lefty, he also throws a changeup, and when it’s on it will blow Ian’s, or almost any other pitchers, away. And Rogers also didn’t throw changeups to lefties (actually it was almost the exact same rate as Anderson, hovering around 20%). And he stopped that. And he ended up throwing his changeup to lefties more than any other lefty in baseball. And that’s SMART, of course, because that’s his best pitch. Don’t let them take your best pitch away! And no, it’s not as effective against lefties as it is against righties – but it’s still well damn better than his other pitches. That’s the point. You’ve got to throw out the book sometimes. When the league is battering you to have an ERA over 5, you gotta change something up.

He also apparently changed his slider pretty dramatically. He originally threw his slider how I would throw my slider, my arm and fingers do something that I think will create a break in the pitch, and instead, it just goes up to the plate slower. His slider break is still small but is more effective against lefties. Again: the changeup is unstoppable against righties. So how does he combat lefties? More changeups is a good answer, but not a full answer. A slider with a little break helps with that against lefties (not at all against righties), and that’s a positive.

The fastball is really where it all went wrong. in 2021 the wOBA against his fastball was .300. In 2022 it was .411. That’s all that really needs to be said about that. There was a 27 run negative difference year over year from his fastball. That’s almost the equivalent of 3 losses for the Marlins just because Roger’s fastball was off. That’s amazing. As good as Rogers was in 2021, that’s how bad he was in 2022.

And that’s not to talk about the back spasms. Rogers had two DL stints last year, the first labeled back spasms, the 2nd labeled a lat strain. That’s not going to do for a pitcher, especially a 6’5 one. The issue was obviously a big one for him, and lord only knows how much it impacted his pitching mechanics. But it’s impossible that it didn’t.

Here’s the thing, and here’s the optimism. There has been talk about how Roger’s actually under-the-radar developed himself through the season. So where’s the evidence? The evidence is that after he was given proper recovery from his back strains, Rogers gave a brief glimpse of what he was the year prior. On the season Rogers had 4, just 4 quality starts. Out of 23 starts – 4 were quality. So it wasn’t awesome. One of those was in late April against the hapless Nationals, when Rogers was in a mini run – his previous start against Atlanta was 5 innings, no earned runs. Now against the Nationals he went 6 innings and gave up 1 earned run. In both those starts – and one of his few good ones two starts later, his pitch count hit the mid-90s, and he was pulled. His inefficiency early in the season wouldn’t allow him to get a quality start even when he pitched well.

When he came back from the DL late in the season, he immediately threw 3 quality starts in a row. 22Ks in 18.1 innings. And remember, this was Trevor with his new pitching philosophies.

You probably didn’t know about this – his ERA dropped from 5.85 to 5.35. No one was starting any fan clubs for this. But it’s a pretty big sign that Trevor could be a huge comeback player next year. If he can stay healthy. I say if because he was pulled after 1 inning in his next start. Lat Strain. Out for the rest of the year. Frustrating, yes. It’s either a sign of things to come, a pitcher that just can’t stay on the mound because his back won’t let him. OR, it’s a sign for the Marlins and Trevor about how important it is to treat this properly. Heal in the offseason, and have a stronger back for next year and beyond. We’ll see what happens. I have the feeling if they can fix the back, then 2021 Trevor will be back, maybe better.

Changeup against lefty
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=d0e0b256-0913-4b3f-9248-89f268cf818a
Perfect change against a righty – you think it’s coming in, and it stays out
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=53c0bd88-a999-452f-a943-c84d1591fa39
Slider against Corey Seager, you can see the effectiveness of having a little movement against lefties
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=358fa171-c19b-465a-9016-40d71e33e284
Honestly, the data for the fastball is just so, so bad. All season. Even when he was good at the end. But at least he can tell his grandkids about this one:
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=420753f0-04cd-47d6-b8c8-4bca1a262ee6

April 4, 2023April 4, 2023 by Charles Haas

McKenzie, Triston – MLB HOF Tracker

AGE 24 Tracked Career 3.8 WAR – 9.6 WAR
Floor Level Hall of Famer Year 3.2 WAR
Average Hall of Famer Year 3.9 WAR

McKenzie, Triston
2022: 3.6 WAR Career: 5.3 WAR

It’s just nice knowing Gumby had a career after his show business days were over. 6’5 165lbs, Triston McKenzie looks less like a professional athlete and more like someone who might make Tom Hanks look at him and acknowledge that Triston’s the captain now. If you’ve ever wondered if it’s possible for a human to have negative body fat, I invite you to do a google image search on him.

All of that to say, Triston came to the majors with a 50fv projection, and I can’t help to think that his build held him up. Fangraphs mentions that he needs to prove he can handle a full-time workload – and that was their commentary immediately after a season in which he made 30 starts across the majors and minors at age 23. If you still question his endurance after that kind of season, well, who aren’t you questioning?

I will grant you that it’s impossible to not have injury concerns here. I mean, who is more likely to snap like a twig than an actual twig?

But after 2021 Triston managed to put up 191.1 innings – basically Cap Ripken levels of playing time for a modern starting pitcher – and did so with a sub-3 ERA. Tack on 12.2 playoff innings and scouts might be looking for human-praying mantis hybrids in the future to cure the great pitching injury problem.

I’m kidding of course. He’s a pitcher. I expect him to spend 95% of his career in traction. But that’s what I expect from any pitcher, Triston’s ability to pitch and pitch again seems just fine.

His WAR isn’t spectacular of course. I mean, you’ll take 3.6 from a young pitcher any day of the week – but it’s not exactly a one-way ticket to Cooperstown. So the question is, how much better can Triston get? And here’s where we talk about why his WAR isn’t so hot. It’s because his FIP isn’t so hot. Pitching in front of one of the best defenses in baseball, Triston’s 2.96 ERA is well below his more ordinary 3.59 FIP – which happens to be a bit below his xFIP here. The basic numbers tell you that Triston was lucky.

I’m not sure if I see it that way. He has one very strange statistic that sticks out to me. He loves giving up home runs. I mean, his hr/flyball rate last year was 10.3%, which was&nbsp;by far&nbsp;the lowest of his MLB career. It made me wonder how unlucky he was and – yeah ok, he gave up some short home runs for sure. But a lot of them were closer to this.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=5d44485a-baa9-4ccd-a61b-dd9dce4a4b5d

That’s Aaron Judge taking him 449 on a center-cut fastball.

The issue here, of course, is that Triston is a flyball pitcher. 10.3% isn’t a bad percentage in itself – but when half the balls you give up are in the air, it can add up to a lot of home runs.

He has great control, we’re talking about a 2BB/9 pitcher here – half the rate of his weirdly ineffective 2021 season, but more in line with the rest of his career. It looks like someone who stays in the zone as much as he does is going to occasionally leave a meatball in the zone too. And you’re going to have to put up with some home runs.

Let’s talk more about that 2021 to 2022 transition, shall we? What if I told you these 3 things: his walk rate dropped from 4.35 to 2.07. His HR rate dropped from 1.62 to 1.18. His strikeout rate dropped from 10.2 to 8.94. What would you glean from that? The obvious answer is that he started taking something off his fastball, which decreased his strikeouts, but made him more of a painter and improved all of his other marks. There. Simple. Don’t even have to look it up.

Except when you do look it up his 4-seam velocity went up 0.4 MPH. How does that happen when you throw harder?

Man, I don’t know what to tell you. I’ll just try and diagnose him here:

Triston’s 2022 success over his 2021 season is pure development. Whether it was physical, or mental, Triston started truly coming into his own last year. His command was real command. His fastball is on the slower side of the league – but his movement is on the higher side, and his Fastball went from being hammered to being one of the best in baseball, was SEVENTEEN runs below average. (But of course, the peripherals say that batters hit it hard and he got lucky on it.)

His curveball – and I can’t say this without repeating again and again that I really just don’t get Triston McKenzie – it doesn’t curve. Like, the ball doesn’t move. Well below average curve. But the batter can’t hit it. They CANNOT hit it. It’s his put-away pitch. He throws it 20% of the time, but it recorded 31% of his outs. 14th percentile curve spin. 45% whiff percentage. For a straight curveball. Batters his .120 against it. Them’s Chris Davis numbers.

So if you get 2 strikes, you can absolutely sit on his curveball. A curveball that has the least movement of any of his pitches. And you’re going to miss it. Man. Wild. Are batters sitting curve and naturally expecting more movement? I dunno. He had a changeup but gave it up cause it got smashed. The curveball is now his changeup, and it’s his best pitch. I give up.

All of that makes him look like he took a great leap forward. Except for his slider. He has to fix his slider. His slider WAS smashed this year. But, of course, say it with me, the metrics suggest it wasn’t all that bad.

I really don’t know what to tell you.

Triston McKenzie is unhittable, except he’s one of the hardest-hit pitchers in the league. He has outstanding control except he all too frequently leaves meatballs over the plate. He has a fastball player’s crush, but crush into outs. He has a wicked slider that they smack all over the park. He has a curve that doesn’t, and it’s untouchable.

Somewhere in here, this is my fault. Maybe it’s the sample data. Maybe it’s an interpretation issue. When thinking about Triston, I think the bottom line is this: He’s done really, super well. He’s proven to be one of the more efficient pitchers in the league. If his FIP is the real him, then we’re talking about a 200-inning, 3.50 ERA guy. That’s pretty awesome. If his ERA is the real him, then watch out. An underrated star is coming. If his HR Rate ever stabilizes and he has a season in the 7% range, he’s going to get Cy Young votes.

I don’t understand him at all, but I believe in him. He has an insane, but consistent, .232 BABIP for his career. He gets outs. I don’t need to question it. I’m calling it now: you’re looking at an All-Star pitcher in 2023.

Or he’s gonna suck. What the Hell do I know?

(OK, I’m somewhat playing around here. You watch his curve, and you can see it’s outstanding. He is tall, so he releases the ball a lot closer to home. It makes his pitches look faster. But his curve is slow, and its movement is more gravity based than spin-rate based. He’s a really fun freak of nature to watch. We talk about worrying about his build, but his build is what makes his stuff work for him. Now, on to the videos.)

August 19th – McKenzie gives up 2 runs and strikes out 14 White Sox
September 21st – McKenzie gives up 2 runs and strikes out 13 White Sox

Two starts, and a full game’s worth of strikeout out White Sox.

Anyway, here’s the 5 times he struck out Andrew Vaughn ALL SWINGING:
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=52fa78e6-1402-4a78-9255-4e4122b50bcd
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=7413301b-14eb-4cec-b6b5-d455c3dae25d
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=344dd00d-f614-430e-99db-de54aece8108
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=7aa2740f-5be6-4852-8e89-302ce566a366
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=3b367230-fc92-4fa2-8a7b-5100e7f4f3d0

April 4, 2023April 4, 2023 by Charles Haas

Rutschman, Adley – MLB HOF Tracker

AGE 24 Tracked Career 3.8 WAR – 9.6 WAR
Floor Level Hall of Famer Year 3.2 WAR
Average Hall of Famer Year 3.9 WAR

Rutschman, Adley
2022: 5.3 WAR Career: 5.3 WAR

It’s actually a tad bit hard for me to write about Adley Rutschman because I’m still pretty pissed off about his entire call-up situation. I mean, I’m not saying I stomp around my house screaming about it in rage. I certainly don’t think about it daily. But when I think of Adley, I immediately think of Peter Angelos. While other people really celebrated the Orioles season last year – where they went from finishing an abysmal 52-110 (that old baseball saying you win 1/3, you lose 1/3, and it’s the other 1/3 that matters? Well, the Orioles didn’t actually win a 1/3) to improve by over 30 games in finishing over .500. It was a fun, almost cute story. Hey, look! The Orioles are decent! I want to celebrate the players that pulled it off. But the owner and the management moves that went with it? Hold them in the lowest regard.

To put it simply, Adley was a consensus top 5 prospect before the 2020 season and didn’t make his MLB debut until May 21, 2022. And there’s a simple reason for that. The Orioles didn’t want to pay him money.

And yeah, you could complicate this up. Adley would have been up sooner in 2022 if not for an injury – probably. They sent him on a strange tour of Baltimore’s entire farm system for 20 games, a sort of absurd amount of time to rehab, before finally calling him up. And it was shown to be absurd right away. Was Adley – who had a nearly .900 OPS in AAA the year before, ready for the big leagues? Well after 5 rehab games in single-A, he was hitting over .400. And then in 3 more games in AA he was hitting over .400. So I think physically he showed he was ready before spending another 12 games rehabbing in AAA, putting up an OPS over .800. You know, they just wanted to be sure he was super-duper ready to go.

The reality of it is this:

Adley Rustchman was probably ready for big-league baseball in 2020. Because he was a college pick, he didn’t have a tremendous amount of MILB experience with his first exposure coming in 2019, and with the Minor League season canceled in 2020, I can give a good faith explanation that they wanted him to get his feet wet in competitive baseball above the single A level before he made the majors. Note that he was DEFINITELY the best catcher in their system back in 2020, so putting him on the MLB roster would have been putting their best guys on the field – but you do have to think about how to get the most out of your player. That’s worthy.

Getting the most out of your wallet, well, back to that in a minute.

Adley played in 2021 as one would expect a top 5 prospect to play in AA/AAA. He was great. Posting a 145 wRC+ in AA, and a 142 wRC+ in AAA. Those are great numbers anywhere, but let’s remember that Adley is a damned catcher and not just a catcher, but one who has always graded out as having superior defense to offense.

Yet he rotted in the minors, in his age 23 season, which is not an unusual age at all for players to be in the majors. And he clearly had nothing left to prove. In fact, I bet if Adley was a top 150 prospect, he’d have been called up. But he wasn’t, because Baltimore – who has previously spent many years as a big spending team – did not want to lose a cost-controlled year of Adley on their 100-loss team.

Instead, Adley would debut at 24, and be under control through his age-29 season, in theory. And we’re talking about a catcher here. Someone who you can’t exactly depend on being super awesome once they hit 30. By not calling him up, Baltimore had essentially given themselves the very best 6 seasons of Adley’s career (7 if they Kris Bryant‘d him) under a supreme discount, saving themselves a boatload of money, and costing Adley a huge amount by making him hit free agency later – as an ever-aging catcher.

Then the new collective bargaining agreement happened – and it was designed, in theory, to end service time manipulation of young players by rewarding teams with an extra draft pick if any player with fewer than 60 days of service time gets called up for a whole season and finishes in the top 2 of Rookie of the Year voting. In other words, no need to keep Kris Bryant down for 2 weeks, if he’s going to kick butt. And if he’s going to kick butt, might as well call him up late the previous year as well. It’s at least a solid plan, in theory. Especially if it also encourages more late-season promotions.

But there’s always a way to exploit everything. Adley wasn’t called up, because this plan was put into place after the 2021 season. Adley should have been on the opening day roster, except, of course, he got hurt. And the recovery from the injury meant that even if he’d have been activated into MLB right away, he’d only have had 163 active days on the roster. To get credit for a full season, Adley would need 172. To get the draft pick, the Orioles would have needed him for 172+. Now, there was no draft pick incentive to have Adley on the roster.

But, you still want Adley under control for 7 seasons, not 6. And the only way to get that was to have Adley NOT finish in the top 2 of Rookie of the Year. 160ish games in the majors is still a lot of service time. So how do we manipulate this?

Well, the guy who everyone knows is ready for MLB action and has been for some time – when he’s done with his rehab assignment, we will hurt his ROY chances by having him go to AAA instead of the big leagues.

And so Adley Rutschman spent 25 total days in the Minor Leagues after his injury and an absurdly unnecessary amount of time. Hitters almost never spend a freaking month rehabbing from injury. Adley showed he was healthy and swinging well immediately. So why do this? To lower his MLB playing time enough that you can ensure yourself a 7th year out of him.

Of course, what happened instead is that Adley proved himself to be so awesome (and yes, he’s truly awesome) that in only 113 games, barely 2/3 of a season, he racked up 5.3 WAR and did take home 2nd in ROY voting. Adley ended up getting a full year of service time, and the Orioles still do not get a draft pick.

They WOULD have gotten a pick had they just called him up late in 2021. Their cheapness helped screw themselves, and that’s glorious.

But the cost of all of this is real. Like Kris Bryant, who I’ll talk about eventually, Adley lost a huge chunk of MLB time in all of this crap, and as a result, he starts way behind the 8-ball when it comes to building a Hall of Fame career. And it’s not like he didn’t spend all of those games still squatting on his knees day in and day out. Catchers have shorter careers for a reason, and nothing here has extended Adley’s. His 10th year in the majors will most likely come at age 33, and there’s a substantial chance he’ll be ready to fall off a cliff, production-wise. The gold standard at catcher is Johnny Bench. At 33, Bench was a 1B. These things come fast. Tinkering with Adley severely messed with his chances of building a Hall resume. It screwed him over. It screwed the fans over. And it didn’t even work. Well played, Orioles.

(I’d like to note that lots of fans cheer on these sorts of practices. Saving money here and there means you can invest in other places. I’d also like to note that the Orioles’ payroll is, right now, half of what it was a decade ago. They have virtually nothing on the books – Chris Davis is set to make the most money on the team in 2024 – there were a trillion great free agents on the market this year, and Baltimore has done squat. That’s what makes it so hard to actually cheer for them. Ownership does not care one bit about anything except a cash grab, which is what a few exciting years of cheap talent will get you. I hope the Orioles players do great. I hope the fans spend their money on opera tickets instead.)

On to the player. Adley’s triple-crown totals of 13HR 42 RBI and a .254 average, I think, probably have a lot of people considering him a disappointment. Those people are idiots.

First, let me give you this little tidbit:

BC (Before Catcher): 16-24
AD (Adley Dominates): 67-55

It’s not entirely unrealistic that Adley fooling around in AAA lost his team a playoff berth. Again, fantastic job Orioles.

The vast majority of the time, it takes players some time to adjust to the majors. Not a shock. (That’s why it’s often nice to call them up and give them a shot late in a season!) Adley was no different. In the 1st half he went .222/.302/.420/.722

Not terrible for a rookie. Not a sensation.

2nd half? .275/.399/.462/.861

At catcher? Are you kidding me?

His overall line doesn’t stun people, but in a pitcher’s year, Adley put up the best OPS+ on the Orioles at 128. The power really was there. While the 13 homers are something closer to 20 when prorated, Adley hit 35 doubles in his shortened season. That’s something close to 50 on a full schedule. He drew 65 walks and was hit another 4 times. A .362 OBP from a catcher? Even if that doesn’t improve as he becomes a veteran in his prime, you’ll take that all day from a catcher forever and ever. He was lethal against anything hard thrown toward him, especially fastballs. If you haven’t noticed, fastballs are a thing now.

Interestingly his splits are wacky. He’s a natural right-hander that comes to the bigs as a switch hitter. He crushed righties. Lefties dominated him. .889 OPS to .552. He’s another player that I just don’t get what switch-hitting really does for him. Would he be that much worse if he just hit lefty all the time? I dunno.

Now, let me tell you about his baserunning. He’s a catcher with average speed. Woo! The league average is 27 ft/second, and he’s running 27.2. Meep Meep!

While that’s not especially speedy, it’s certainly nice to have the catcher not be a dead weight on your team. Having a catcher take average speed and turn it into being an average base runner is a relief for your team. Except Adley isn’t an average baserunner, he’s a very good, savvy baserunner. He earned a 3.8 BSR alone on the bases – and that doesn’t include the 4 for 4 he earned in stolen bases for the year. Add to it that he’s also a positive in not grounding into double plays, and it’s really indicative of his overall value. If you look at his triple-crown stats, you’re going to be missing a great player. He’s a catcher, who is a plus runner. And running is the weakest part of his game. That works. And what’s important is it means he’s going to age well. Obviously, a 35-year-old Adley will be running like a 92-year-old sloth bear. But because he’s intelligent out there, you’re likely to think he’s only an 87-year-old sloth bear. That counts.

Finally, there’s his defense. Adley’s arm is average, maybe a tad bit above average. His framing is somewhere between good and great, Fangraphs giving him credit for a +9 last year. But his overall fielding? Well, let’s put it this way. He finished with 18 runs saved on the season, second in baseball, and let’s remember – he barely caught half of his team’s games.

We measure baseball, a team game, as tiny individual contributions that have little to no impact on the other players around them. In that scenario…in a partial season, Adley was a 5 WAR catcher. Extremely valuable. What we don’t know, is when Adley was, for example, saving all of those runs while catching – he was also saving a ton of pitches for his pitchers to throw. He was saving pitchers from having to come into the game. He was a catcher that didn’t need to be pinch hit for, making the entire lineup stronger. He was intelligently getting himself into scoring position, or not making outs on the bases. This was giving his team more at-bats and in better situations. Now, some of those values are estimated a little bit, but they aren’t really measured for their actual impact. I don’t mean just in one single game, but overall. How much does saving your starter 15 pitches in today’s game benefit you in 5 days? There are inputs we simply don’t know how to accurately measure, and while I’m not going to come close to thinking Adley is solely responsible for the Orioles’ turnaround, I do fully believe that we’re looking at a 5 WAR catcher that was probably worth quite a bit more than 5 WAR.

Will he end up in the Hall of Fame? Who knows? He might be this good for 15 years and be a lock. He might be like the last Orioles star catching prospect, Matt Weiters, and wind up being a disappointment. He might get hit by a bus tomorrow. But if you’re going to project him out, with a normal aging curve, he’s going to end up somewhere in that borderline gray area that falls in the 40-60 WAR range. And if he does, it’s entirely possible he doesn’t make it because his own franchise purposely held him back more than once. All to save money that they didn’t reinvest back in the team. I’ll say for a multitude of reasons, and I’d hope every baseball fan can join me in unison: Screw you, Peter Angelos.

Super cool that a catcher’s first hit was a triple
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=7efdac48-239f-4232-a45f-c02d787c1f41
1st MLB home run (also in a 5-0 losing game)
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=ba216df2-06a6-4e4d-948f-0740146c26e3
Game tying pinch hit homer
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=180a0889-4e54-49bc-9fa7-f397de25225e
439
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=b97a1009-f4ac-4863-9236-5464315fd982
2022 Highlight Video

April 4, 2023April 4, 2023 by Charles Haas

Clase, Emmanuel – MLB HOF Tracker

AGE 24 Tracked Career 3.8 WAR – 9.6 WAR
Floor Level Hall of Famer Year 3.2 WAR
Average Hall of Famer Year 3.9 WAR

Clase, Emmanuel
2022: 2.4 WAR Career: 5.0 WAR

It’s pretty worthless to even bother writing about Emmanuel Clase. He’s a closer. And there is no chance that a closer is going to survive this list over the course of their career. They can’t possibly accumulate enough WAR. Mariano Rivera is the gold standard for closers. He’s the guy that got 100% of the Hall vote. Mariano Rivera did not have enough WAR to stay on this list. This list is not meant for closers. It’s actually pretty remarkable that Clase is still on this list at all. If Clase is somehow on this list in his late 30s, then we’re talking about a demi-God pitching one inning at a time.

Clase is what you would create in a video game to be a closer. Statcast lists his fastball velocity as the 100th percentile, his fastball spin as the 100th percentile, and his chase rate as the 100th percentile. His walk rate is at 98th% His hard hit rate is at 90th%. Clase is going to make you swing. He’s not going to walk you (1.2 BB/9). There’s a good chance you’re going to strike out (9.5 K/9). If you do manage contact, it’s going to be weak (.222 BABIP), and if you are lucky enough to make solid contact, it ain’t leaving the park (0.37 HR/9). He’s got it all.

Clase has pitched for 3 seasons in the big leagues. The 1st year was a partial season with the Rangers. He got in 23.1 innings pitched and had a 2.31 ERA. Pretty darn good, but not exactly enough to be a full season. His other 2 seasons were around 70 innings each. Full seasons for a reliever.

Let me show you this. I grabbed every Hall of Fame closer. Rivera. Eckersley. Hoffman. Sutter. Fingers. Gossage. Smith. Wilhelm. And the years Smoltz was a closer. I also grabbed Billy Wagner who looks like he’s making it in the next few years, and K-Rod, who looks like he has a good chance of getting 5% this year, and then, who knows?

Here are the top 10 ERA seasons by ALL of these pitchers, and Clase:

1. 0.61 1990 Eckersley 73.1 IP
2. 0.77 1981 Gossage 46.2 IP
3. 1.04 1981 Fingers 78.0 IP
4. 1.12 2003 Smoltz 64.1 IP
5. 1.29 2021 Clase 69.2 IP
6. 1.31 1967 Wilhelm 89.0 IP
7. 1.34 1977 Sutter 107.1 IP
8. 1.36 2022 Clase 72.2 IP
9. 1.38 2005 Rivera 78.1 IP
10. 1.43 2010 Wagner 69.1 IP

Yes, taking THE best seasons from all of the HOF or near-HOF closers in history, and Clase is the only name to be on the top 10 twice. And it’s the only 2 seasons he’s pitched.

So, what I’m saying is he’s really…really…really…really good.

But that doesn’t mean much for the Hall. The honest answer to a lot of it is that it’s 2022. Edwin Diaz had a 1.31 ERA, Ryan Helsley 1.25, Ryan Stanek 1.15 Evan Phillips 1.14.

That’s the nature of relievers though. Eric Gagne was a superhero on the mound for 3 years before injuries made him a footnote in baseball history. Time-honored reliever panic tells us not to be surprised if Clase has a 7 ERA next year, or never pitches more than 20 innings in his career again, or goes crazy and gets arrested for breaking into a chicken coup, and slaughtering every one of them to drink their delicious blood. The only thing predictable about relievers is that they are unpredictable. They will break your hearts. The extremely few times one is able to break through and do it for a decade-plus, those are the guys with plaques.

In the meanwhile, Clase only had the 5th best ERA in a year where he seemingly had a historical ERA. Yup. Relievers. Every year at least a few of them are going to catch lightning in a bottle and look like unstoppable forces. So whatever you’re going to do, don’t trust ’em.

But…

Yes, but…

None of those guys ever put up 2 years like Clase. None of those guys certainly did it two years in a row. None of those guys are only 25 years old. No Hall of Famers ever did it either. Clase has now pitched 165.2 innings in the majors. He has a 1.47 ERA. He has a ZERO ERA in 6 postseason innings. He’s not the Messiah. Beware false profits. No way he’s the messiah. But he might be the Messiah.

101 Cutter
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=03e6d803-f4af-4ccc-93be-a8f4c9c33f52
95.7 Slider
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=b237c4ac-ea29-4e5e-8035-57e681251eb1
50th career save
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=96ea53d3-3bee-4963-88e7-3826419308c3
League Leading 42nd save of the season
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=36c2dce4-b872-49ed-8d32-856db839fd25

April 4, 2023April 4, 2023 by Charles Haas

Soroka, Mike – MLB HOF Tracker

AGE 24 Tracked Career 3.8 WAR – 9.6 WAR
Floor Level Hall of Famer Year 3.2 WAR
Average Hall of Famer Year 3.9 WAR

Soroka, Mike
2022: 0.0 WAR Career: 4.9 WAR

I am going to type this very s-l-o-w-l-y and very g-e-n-t-l-y due to the fear that if I type too hard it might tear Mike Soroka’s Achilles tendon.

Mike Soroka was drafted in 2015 in the 1st round, and ever since that time, every time he has stepped on the field, he has had good results. But that’s when he’s on the field. Which hasn’t happened at the major league level since 2020.

Soroka was a legit prospect. At 17 he had a 3.18 ERA in rookie ball. At 18 he had a 3.02 ERA in single-A. We’re talking about someone who should be asking girls to homecoming. Soroka became a top 50 prospect at that time and put up a 2.75 ERA in AA. Now, turning 20 he went to AAA and after 4 starts his ERA was 2.99

(yes, I’m saying ERA. Don’t sabe me bro. He was pitching well enough 5 years ago that I don’t need to go into more in-depth stats for 5-year-old minor league information)

Mike was promoted to the majors for his first big league start, and he didn’t fail to impress. He debuted against the Mets in New York and gave up just 1 run in 6 innings in hostile territory in the middle of a rivalry. Dude was tough, obviously. Well, headstrong. His body had issues.

After two more starts with the Braves, Soroka hit the DL with shoulder inflammation. I bring this up because there is zero chance you remember that Soroka after just 3 big league starts, hit the DL. Luckily, that would be the last time.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Soroka came back from shoulder inflammation to pitch two more starts and then got shut down with shoulder inflammation yet again. This time for the season. To recap his year, when he was on the mound, he was good. 5 starts, 3.51 ERA, 118 ERA+ at just 20 years old. But he couldn’t stay on the field.

2019 Soroka was on the field almost the entire season, and he was dominant (He was once hit by a line drive, and that spring felt more shoulder soreness again. 13-4 2.68 ERA in 174 innings. He was an all-star. He finished 2nd in Rookie of the Year voting. He finished 6th in Cy Young voting. He had a 4 WAR season at such a young age that the year alone would still have him on this list. Soroka was a truly rare pitcher that had good command and control of 4 pitches. No one of them had to be dominant. You had to look for anything in any count. Where you’ve heard the cliché that they start as throwers and then the best become pitchers – well Soroka succeeded by being a pitcher from day one. He was probably the most exciting young pitcher in baseball.

2020, now age 22, Soroka continued to pitch well in the Covid-restriction shortened season. He pitched 2 great games to start the season, and then in the 3rd, the Mets blew him up. Because something was wrong physically. He had torn his Achilles Tendon.

Lost for the season immediately, the Soroka news was devastating for Atlanta. These are long, hard injuries to overcome, it was originally feared that Soroka might miss quite a bit of time in 2021 also. Which, in retrospect, is like having the fear that on your date with OJ, he might not pay for dinner.

Let me tell you what has happened since then (at least that I could easily find!):

April 7, 2021: After beginning rehab from his Achilles, Soroka is shut down again with shoulder inflammation. (I told you it was important to remember that!)
May 12, 2021: Exploratory surgery on his tendon announced. Reveals another tear, shut down for the season.
July 7, 2022: Hit with a comebacker in the knee, rehab shut down for healing
September 22, 2022: Season shut down for elbow soreness. At least it’s something new!

Soroka did actually get to rehab for a few starts. It wasn’t great; it wasn’t terrible. He hadn’t thrown in years, it was just a victory getting on the mound. However, there was an expectation he’d make it back to Atlanta by the end of the year. The elbow soreness did him in, but I suspect his ineffectiveness in AAA wasn’t about to get him the ball in games that counted for the MLB team.

So Mike Soroka hasn’t thrown more MLB pitches than you in years, and that’s something for you to be proud of. His career isn’t over. He’s still young. The Braves know the talent he has, and so after all of this, they still gave him a $2.8 million dollar contract for 2023.

If Mike Soroka pitches it can still be very exciting. But considering it’s far more likely that his season will end as he is stepping on the mound to make his first comeback pitch just as sinkhole opens up underneath the Truist Park mound, it’s super hard to be betting on him. The way I figure it, the Braves will get great news when they are pulling him out of the pit, and he gives a thumbs up. They will pick him up out of the hole, and he will declare himself totally healthy and ready to go. But, for precautionary reasons, the Braves will have him lay on a stretcher, where he will snap his Achilles climbing in. The Braves will then rush him to a hospital, but oops! It’s the wrong hospital. This one is scheduled for demolition today! Hours later laying under the rubble, someone will see his arm slowly waving to paramedics to come rescue him. They won’t yet see his face, but they will know it’s Mike Soroka, due to the clearly visible inflammation in his shoulder.

Mike Soroka Career Highlights

April 4, 2023April 4, 2023 by Charles Haas

Lux, Gavin – MLB HOF Tracker

AGE 24 Tracked Career 3.8 WAR – 9.6 WAR
Floor Level Hall of Famer Year 3.2 WAR
Average Hall of Famer Year 3.9 WAR

Lux, Gavin
2022: 3.0 WAR Career: 4.4 WAR

I regret to inform you that Gavin Lux is still not the God he was projected to be.

Yes, in late September, this article started popping up all over: “Andrew Friedman Proud of Gavin Lux’s Career Rebound” Sorry. I just don’t buy it. In fact, I’d have told you that Andrew Friedman also doesn’t buy it, except as of now it looks like Gavin Lux is penciled in to play SS next year for the Dodgers. Pencil might be fitting, but disappearing ink might be better. OK, this is an unfair exaggeration. Lux is a serviceable player, and SS is a premium position. Lux playing SS every day is not the worst thing to happen to a MLB team. It’s just hard to imagine the Dodgers seeing him as a real answer there for the upcoming season.

Just as a reminder, Lux destroyed AA pitching in 2019, and got promoted to AAA for 49 games. Here’s what he did: .392/.478/.719/1.197 with 13 home runs in 232 plate appearances. People were excited.

Here’s what he’s done since:

In 1003 MLB plate appearances he’s had a 99 wRC+ with 18 home runs. He was supposed to hit 18 home runs every month, it seemed like. He was supposed to lead the league in home runs every year. He was supposed to be in the top 3 by himself. And yeah, that’s hyperbole – and yeah, it wouldn’t be the first time a prospect was given the God label only to fail at the MLB level. And he wouldn’t be the first prospect to become a star…eventually…after some early struggles. But it is pretty amazing that we’re going into 2023, and the only black ink Lux has gotten was leading the league in triples last year with 7. TRIPLES? (Also, SEVEN? WTF, 7 can lead the league in triples these days? Baseball isn’t boring. But it’s certainly less exciting than it used to be.)

But that’s 2022 – the year in which Lux is supposedly becoming the player he was meant to be. And that followed 2021, where Lux was demoted to AAA, where he was a below-average hitter, and we were told found himself. Here’s an article on Lux overcoming mental struggles in the minors —https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2022-04-27/dodgers-gavin-lux-overcoming-mental-struggles-full-time-roll. And it’s true, he came up last September and had a good month! Albeit with no power.

So 2022 is the difference maker? In 2021 Lux had a 90 wRC+, and in 2022 it shot up to 113. That’s a 23 point jump. That’s from solidly below average, to solidly above average. IT’S HAPPENING!!!!!!!

I apologize for doing this, but I’m going to do it:

My friends, the reason he got better is that he had all the lux on his side.

When you drill into the data there is basically no difference between this year and last year. So what changed? Nuttin. At least nuttin that would excite us. He didn’t hit the ball harder, he actually hit it a tad bit softer. Like, I don’t want to bore you with the details, but there is no difference between the Lux that got demoted in 2021 and the Lux who was praised in 2022. Groundball/Flyball ratio? Basically the same, he was a tad more ground heavy. Line drives? The same. What field did he hit to? The same. Walk%? K% same. same.

OK, none of these numbers are exactly the same, but there wasn’t a big enough shift here to see why this Lux would be different. In fact, a lot of his stats weren’t as good. His exit velocity dropped. His HR to Flyball percentage dropped. His infield hit percentage dropped. His “barrels” did increase by 10 – and the one big difference, his launch angle dropped 4.5 degrees.

His BABIP was .341. That’s up 41 points. Oh.

Some of that is probably explained by the launch angle helping him tap some more singles through the hole. (after all, his ISO, two-hundredths of a point better! aka…SAME)

But, by my estimation, Lux was luxy last year, and unluxy the year before.

So what going forward? I’ll be watching to see if this future power God ever reaches 10 in a season. And maybe that’s unfair. We are talking about a 24-year-old who got 3 WAR in 129 games. YOUR team would love a 24-year-old that accomplished that much.

Luc runs the bases well. That helps. Lux handles balls well at 2nd. By that I mean he doesn’t seem to have any range – his UZR is quite negative – but he’s performing above average in both OAA and DRS. Not spectacular, but you’ll give him a hardy thumbs up.

Of course SS, after years of not playing SS, well that’s going to be a tad bit different. I’m not sure how many players moved to a harder spot on the defensive spectrum and also doubled their ISO in the same year, but that’s pretty much what Lux needs to do to get himself on the Hall track.

Does Lux have a chance? Well, what he has going for him is that his expectations were so high, he was called up early and given ample chance to play. Plus, his ability to be platooned and rotated through positions has helped him get at-bats. And he’s a Dodger. Dude already has a ring.

But Lux isn’t Ozzie Smith in the field. And he isn’t Nomar Garciaparra at the plate. And to be realistic about Lux having the sort of career where you start tinkering with HOF thoughts, means Lux has to go into his prime and develop into the sort of hitter LA thought they were getting. Someone hitting .340 with 30 home runs. I don’t know what happened to that prospect. Haven’t a clue actually, and I’ve searched. But the guy who had the physical ability to absolutely dominate all levels of the minors is just a completely different guy in the majors.

And maybe you think I’m being too harsh here. He’s turning 25, going into some big physical prime years, and we know he physically can do it. Once you’ve shown you have that swing, it’s in you until time or injury takes it away. There’s no reason to think either has happened. He CAN be a .340 30 HR guy once he puts it all together!

Well, let me answer that with a quote from the article I posted – the article that was positive and optimistic about Lux. The man I’m quoting is Gavin Lux:

“When I first got here, I was like, ‘I‘ve got to hit .340 with 30 home runs,’” he said. “It’s just not realistic.”

I agree with Gavin. But may he enjoy his time on the list until he drifts so far of course he’s officially in the giant baseball piles of “what-ifs.” It won’t take long. I’m guessing 2 years.

-UPDATE- Well looky here, my 2 year guess may have been way too friendly. Lux is hurt, of course. He may be out for the season. If he is, he’s off this list. He says he’ll come back and play. They ALL say they’ll come back and play. So he’ll stay on the list now until it’s official.

OK, let’s cheer up by watching the league leader bang out his seven triples, because triples are fun dammit:

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Only St. Louis Cardinals Fans

Category / Age 24

Acuna Jr, Ronald – MLB HOF Tracker

Bichette, Bo – MLB HOF Tracker

Robert, Luis – MLB HOF Tracker

Manoah, Alek – MLB HOF Tracker

Rogers, Trevor – MLB HOF Tracker

McKenzie, Triston – MLB HOF Tracker

Rutschman, Adley – MLB HOF Tracker

Clase, Emmanuel – MLB HOF Tracker

Soroka, Mike – MLB HOF Tracker

Lux, Gavin – MLB HOF Tracker