Jake

The kids can play

Earlier this year I thought Gowens might be on a fast-ish track to the majors. Then he started to fall off. Maybe he's getting straightened out. A few weeks ago, I thought Jacob Gonzalez would imminently be promoted to AAA but he's really fallen off again. If he does go to Charlotte, he's got the profile of a guy I'll have to watch the Statcast metrics on closely because he might hit a bunch of those Charlotte-only cheap homers.

I love how it can simultaneously be that while sometimes being "Chris Sale throws 100 sidearm and I have no clue how to hit it" or (IIRC) guys like Albert Belle who didn't want instruction on their swings, etc. and pretty much just liked to pound a few cups of coffee and mash. I'm sympathetic to the "keep it simple" hitters. Once I was finished with high school ball, I became a pitcher-only as I tried to play small-time college ball. I was just okay as a high school hitter but tended to overthink. In the travel circuit and college summer league circuit, I had a handful of situations where I had to be an emergency pinch hitter due to injuries — I would have gone at least weeks without batting practice or in-game at bats in these cases. I batted literally 1.000 in those situations and there's no doubt in my mind that besides a little luck, it was all because my mind wasn't cluttered with swing thoughts, attempted adjustments from previous at bats, all that junk. You might say that half the chess match is against yourself.

I think that... 1. Fans often attribute injuries to poor offseason/off-field effort by the player 2. Fans often perceive players/teams who don't hit as not caring 3. Fans often assume that mental mistakes are due to the player not caring (not a big leap, to be fair) 4. Fans look for obvious displays of effort/emotion as a clue to whether player is trying hard and cares about the results LouBob has been injured, has had some nasty slumps, has made mental mistakes on the field, and is certainly not someone who makes a big show of hustling or talking a big game about his desire to win. So it doesn't surprise me that some fans see him as a guy who has problems with his effort. And maybe he does or used to, I don't know. My hunch has been that he's a player that tends to play worse when he tries to increase his mental effort, but it's just speculation on my part.

Well I think the prevailing wisdom is that tunneling matters with the curveball insofar as it doesn't tunnel, therefore the hitter immediately recognizes it is a curveball and can turn their attention to figuring out the timing and movement (which might still be difficult if it's a good curveball). I have heard a few mentions of guys who feel like the high fastball and curveball can be a tunneled pairing — if the batter isn't reading the curveball right out of the hand, then he will initially see it as a high heater. You can increase that confusion by actually throwing high heaters to make the hitter respect that possibility. In youth baseball you'll see hitters running out of the batters box on curveballs that end up in the strike zone because the batter thought it was a fastball coming at his earhole. Same principle here, it's just that the hitters are a lot more discerning. FWIW, I've seen it claimed that knuckle curves are not so easily read out of the hand, but I'm not sure whether it's true or why exactly that would be the case. Giolito's high change approach was a good use of tunneling; his fastball didn't play well at the bottom of the zone so he never threw it there. So if he's throwing a changeup, which is meant to look like his fastball out of the hand, a batter may eventually realize if there's a fastball-looking pitch headed to the bottom of the zone it must be a changeup. Or in other words, he tunneled the changeup and fastball by throwing the changeup higher to keep it in the tunnel with the heater. By keeping them on the same path towards home, it takes the hitter a long time to decide whether the incoming pitch is a fastball or changeup and increases the likelihood that the hitter mis-times his swing or swings at the wrong spot since eventually the changeup probably goes a bit lower than a fastball would. Another tidbit for tunneling with high four seamers...I read a while back about teams trying to counter the increased use and optimization of the "rising" four seamer thrown at the top of the zone. Teams were starting to use those fancy pitching machines like the Sox have (can't remember the brand name) to get batting practice against high-rise four seamers thrown at the top of the zone. Hitters seemed to say the mental cue they used after some practice was to try to swing above the pitch and that would result in them squaring it up. Once the pitchers started experiencing the hitters squaring up the four seamer, they started mixing in the occasional high *sinker*. The batter sees it and thinks it's a four seamer and prepares to either 1. take the pitch because he assumes it will miss high or 2. swing high because he knows the pitch will ride up relative to how it looks. But when it's a sinker, you either get 1. taken for a strike because it dropped into the zone or 2. Guy swings way above it. I remember an at bat earlier this year between Miguel Vargas and Walker Buehler where Buehler sneaks in a sinker to end it. Strike 1: Four seamer at the top of the zone, Vargas takes because at this point before his swing change he's very weak to that pitch (even from a relative soft-tosser like Buehler). Strike 2: Another four seamer in the upper portion, he decides to swing but he's underneath it. Strike 3: Vargas is probably expecting Buehler to elevate a four seamer out of the zone, knowing that Vargas can't touch it. Buehler may be thinking instead that even though Vargas can't hit a fastball, he's got a great batting eye and probably won't chase up out of the zone here. So let's throw him a sinker which will look like a four seamer up and out of the zone right up until it drops back in for strike 3. The fun of the chess match here is that the high sinker is only going to work if the hitter is totally locked in on a four seamer. If he's a little more cognizant of the sinker or other pitch types, the sinker is a pitch he will find easy to hit by just naturally reacting to it. So Buehler wins this one but the moment a hitter is looking for that pitch he will likely pay a big price. Similar principle applies to Luis Castillo of the Mariners. He's got one of the nastiest sinkers in baseball, high-velocity and runs a ton towards the inside part of the plate to right-handers. He has a very effective slider...even though that slider has literally zero sideways movement on average. But it's coming out of the same tunnel as that sinker, making batters perceive it almost as if it's breaking a ton towards the glove side. And thanks to Castillo's sinker, there is indeed 20 inches of difference in the horizontal movement of those two pitches even though they will spend much of their trip to home plate looking almost identical. Castillo also has a 4-seamer that doesn't have a ton of ride, but compared to his sinker has an extra 9 inches of carry. Those two playing off of each other will make batters really off balance even though only one of the pitches in his arsenal has truly great movement.

The ball Meidroth hit was way in off the plate. Impressive that he could square up a pitch thrown there (and keep it fair)

From watching Plesac for years on MLB Network, the one thing that is most obvious is that he really does not take himself seriously at all. And I mean that in the positive sense. He takes his job seriously but he's not too good for anybody.

Interestingly, per Statcast, Steinbrenner Field is not playing all that offense-friendly so far this season. Huge boost to homers but not to other types of offense. The "environmental factors" (temperature, humidity, prevailing wind, etc.) suppress fly balls by 4 feet relative to average.

The Christopher Morel Experience

He's got a big problem chasing high heat. It's a simple problem so you'd think he might be able to figure it out. On the other hand I watched Vaughn battle it for years with no luck (although Vaughn tended to foul them off).

Revenge for denying us our destiny

I was never a Gavin Floyd hater, but I bet the way I feel towards Burke is how some of you felt about Gavin Floyd

Baldwin's:

Where Vargas's ball would have left the park:

April 23, 2025 IYKYK

My gut feeling is that the union does not have the mettle to fight the owners hard enough to prevent a salary cap if the owners do indeed push hard for it. They will roll over in exchange for stuff like higher minimum salaries, minor amenities around travel/etc., and a few boosts to minor league life. I hope I'm wrong but they've been getting stomped as of late. Union brought in the best guy possible to help Tony Clark but it seems like the players just aren't buying the anti-cap argument. I think adding minor leaguers to the union will only add to this problem as they can be "bought" easily via concessions that owners don't care about.

Colson...welcome back to Earth

6 whiffs in 11 swings for Taylor

Yeah that seemed like a good time to let Baldwin hit.

That's a pretty interesting find on the Vargas vs. lefty fastballs split. I'm not going to ring the alarm on it just yet (helps that he hit a double on a four-seamer around the time that was posted). He's hitting lefty sinkers well for one so it's not like he's completely unable to hit their velocity. He's also hitting right-handed four seamers well. Some guys end up with reverse splits but it's really unusual for reverse splits to happen because a guy can't hit a straight fastball against oppo-handed pitchers even though he can against same-handed ones.

I can't believe that ball didn't leave the ballpark for Quero.

Colson looks like he's been playing 3B his whole life

Surprised to see Oneil Cruz gets above-average marks from the defensive metrics. Speed is a hell of a weapon for an outfielder. But it won't help if he kills himself out there.

On Yoendrys Gomez: shockingly good numbers for a Charlotte starting pitcher this year. I'm not sure that I buy he's going to give the White Sox value as a starter. Prior to coming to the Sox, I didn't see much to like on the statsheet for Gomez. But Statcast gave a clue what the Sox were looking at: some exceptional movement on his sweeper. The rest of his arsenal didn't seem like anything special but you can go a long way with a great sweeper if you use it right. He also has huge drop on his curveball but that's less of a weapon nowadays. Fastball is pretty average. He has a somewhat unique release point which is something Bannister has mentioned as appealing in some other Sox pickups. In AAA, Gomez is getting an incredible 51% whiff rate on the sweeper. Batters are hitting .040 against it. His four-seamer is performing okay too, maybe because hitters are worried about the offspeed. He's getting 40% whiff rate on his curveball too but some of the contact has been hot against it. He basically only uses the curve against lefties. He's mixing in a changeup and non-sweeper slider but they both appear to be crappy pitches. So I see a glimpse of a guy who could thrive in a bullpen role in which you can protect him from seeing too many lefty hitters and let that sweeper eat. Kind of a Steven Wilson profile although I acknowledge that doesn't sound very exciting.

This is a nice start from Civale, so far.