Next Up: The Los Angeles Dodgers

The Pirates have 23 games remaining in August. Only three--a three-game series in St. Louis starting Tuesday--are against National League Central opponents, but 13 are against the National League West, starting with a three-game series beginning Friday against the Dodgers. I'm going to be off the grid most of the weekend, so I'm going to hit it up now. The Pirates have a better record than the Dodgers (62-44 vs. 61-46) but while the Pirates trail the Cardinals by 5.5 games in the tough National League Central, the Dodgers have a two game lead over the San Francisco Giants in the National League West. The series in Pittsburgh begins with a marquee matchup of Gerrit Cole vs. Clayton Kershaw Friday night. The Pirates face two pitchers the Dodgers acquired at the trade deadline, Mat Latos and Alex Wood, on Saturday and Sunday.

Remember when nobody cared about the Pirates? The entire Dodgers series will be nationally televised. Friday's game will be on ESPN, Saturday afternoon's on Fox Sports 1, and Sunday evening's is the ESPN Game of the Week.

How Are They Doing Lately? At 14-9, the Dodgers are tied with the Phillies for the third-best record in the National League over the past 30 days. (The Pirates are half a game behind at 14-108) The Dodgers have scored only 3.8 runs per game, fifth fewest in the league over that span, while giving up 3.6, the fourth fewest. That run differential is more typical of a team that goes 12-11 over 23 games, not 14-9, so the Dodgers have been a little lucky to have that record. On the other hand, the Pirates have been outscored (106 scored, 115 allowed) over the past 30 days, so maybe both teams have had some fortune on their side.

What's Going Right? Dodgers starters, led by Kershaw and Zack Greinke, have a 2.43 ERA over the past 30 days, the best in the league. They have the second-highest strikeout rate, the third-lowest walk rate, the highest rate of ground balls and soft contact allowed and the lowest rate of hard contact allowed. They've allowed just five home runs over the past 30 days; no other team's allowed fewer than ten.  starting pitchers have a 2.99 ERA over the last 30 days, fourth best in the league, with the highest strikeout rate and sixth-lowest walk rate. They've induced the highest rate of ground balls and the second lowest rate of hard contact in the league. On offense, the Dodgers have been OK (sixth in batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage over the past 30 days). Nothing really stands out other than the lack of larceny, with only five stolen bases over the past 30 days, fewest in the league.

What's Going Wrong? The relievers have been as bad as the starters have been good. The bullpen ERA over the past 30 days is 5.83, more than 1.2 runs worse than the next-worse team. They've struck out a lot of batters and they don't walk an excessive number, but they've given up more homers than any other bullpen (13, eight more than the starters in about 60% fewer innings), they don't induce grounders (lowest ground ball rate in the league), and while they can pitch to the strike zone (third-highest pitched strike rate in the league), they're not fooling batters, who've swung at only 29% of their pitches outside the strike zone, the third-lowest rate in the league.

Who's Hot? The Dodgers offense has been led by two hitters over the past 30 days: First baseman Adrian Gonzalez (.305/.387/.537 slash line) and catcher Yasmani Grandal (.382/.460/.527). Over the last 30 days, Kershaw has given up no runs, one walk, and 16 hits over 34 innings while striking out 45. A bunch of starters that the Pirates won't face (Greinke, Brett Anderson, and the recently-demoted Mike Bolsinger) have also done well over the last 30 days. Of the starters they'll face, Latos, who pitched well in his first start for the Dodgers, has a 1.89 ERA over the past 30 days. Wood, who had a rocky first start, is at 4.85. He had a 3.17 ERA through the end of June, 5.06 since. In the bullpen, Pedro Baez has a 1.86 ERA over the last 30 days. 

Who's Not? The team's two most-watched young batters are right fielder Yasiel Puig and All-Star rookie center fielder Joc Pederson. Both have slumped over the last 30 days, with Puig hitting .200/.244/.400 and Pederson, who's struck out in a third of his plate appearances, .177/.286/.266. I noted Baez's nice relief ERA; he's the only Dodgers reliever with more than two innings pitched over the past 30 days with an ERA below 4.26. Closer Kenley Jansen has six saves in nine appearances and 16 strikeouts in just eight innings, but he's also given up three homers--that's as many as the three starters the Pirates will face have given up combined over the same period--and has a 5.63 ERA. 

What's the Outlook? Well, it's pretty obvious: To beat the Dodgers, you have to get to their bullpen. The problem is, to do that, you have to get by their starters. That's always going to be a challenge when Kershaw's on the mound. The Pirates' outlook improves after tomorrow night's game.

Reality Check: The Gold Glove Awards

On November 8, I received my 2015 edition of The Bill James Handbook. I wrote a lot about the Handbook last winter, and I will again this year. It's a fun book. I'll find myself going through it, looking at the pages, all the way until the 2016 edition's delivered next November. It contains career records for every player who appeared in a major league game in 2014 as well as all sorts of features on pitching, managing, fielding, hitting, and baserunning. Want to see how much Phillies starter Cole Hamel's fastball slowed down last year? (It didn't; he's been around 90-91 mph each of the past eight years.) Wondered who got thrown out trying to take an extra base most frequently? (The Dodgers' Yasiel Puig, which isn't a surprise, and the Brewers' Carlos Gomez, which sort of is; both with nine.) Which AL manager called the most sacrifice bunts? (Trick question; the Royals' Ned Yost has a reputation for being bunt-happy, but he trailed Cleveland's Terry Francona, Tampa's Joe Maddon, Baltimore's Buck Showalter, Toronto's John Gibbons, and Seattle's Lloyd McClendon.) You can order it here or at your preferred book retailer. I really like it.


The first thing I do every year when I get the Bill James Handbook is check out the Fielding Bible Awards. These are fielding awards voted by a panel of twelve baseball experts. You've heard of several of them, probably: Bill James, ESPN analyst Doug Glanville, MLB Network host Brian Kenney, sportswriter Peter Gammons. The voters receive data from John Dewan's Baseball Info Solutions, which compiles and distributes baseball statistics to teams and consumers, to help them make their decisions. The two key differences between the Fielding Bible Awards and the Gold Glove Awards is that the former are voted by baseball experts who use statistics, while the latter are voted by managers and coaches. I like to compare how the more empirical vote does compared to the more intuitive one. The stats vs. scouts storyline is a false dichotomy, and the Gold Glove voting includes a statistical component, but I always look to see how the Gold Glove winners do in the Fielding Bible voting to get a read on how the much the two views of the game are diverging.

There is one Fielding Bible Award per position, while the Gold Gloves are awarded to a player in each league. Here's the rundown:

FIRST BASE: Adrian Gonzalez of the Dodgers won the Fielding Bible Award. The Gold Gloves went to Gonzalez in the NL and Kansas City's Eric Hosmer in the AL. Hosmer finished in a three-way tie for twelfth in the Fielding Bible vote. He was tied for sixth in the American League, which was led by the Angels' Albert Pujols, so there was a pretty big disagreement there.

SECOND BASE: Boston's Dustin Pedroia won the Fielding Bible Award and the Gold Glove, with the NL Gold Glove going to the Rockies' D.J. LeMahieu. LeMahieu was the top National League vote-getter in the Fielding Bible balloting, so there's no disagreement here.

THIRD BASE: Oakland's Josh Donaldson won the Fielding Bible Award, edging out Colorado's Nolan Arenado, who was the top National League vote-getter for the second straight time. The Gold Gloves went to Arenado and Seattle's Kyle Seager. Seager was ninth in the Fielding Bible voting, behind Donaldson, Chase Headley (who split his season between the Padres and Yankees), Texas' Adrian Beltre, and Baltimore's Manny Machado among American Leaguers. 

SHORTSTOP: Brave sensation Andrelton Simmons was a unanimous Fielding Bible Award winner for the second year in a row, and he took the Gold Glove too. Baltimore's J.J. Hardy won the AL Gold Glove and was the top American League shortstop in the Fielding Bible voting. No controversy.

LEFT FIELD: The Royals' Alex Gordon was a unanimous Fielding Bible winner, besting the Marlins' Christian Yelich. They won the Gold Gloves too. No disagreement.

CENTER FIELD: Juan Lagares of the Mets got all but one first-place vote to win the Fielding Bible Award. He won a Gold Glove, along with the Orioles' Adam Jones. Jones is probably the one player for whom the analysts and the managers have the widest disagreement. He has a strong arm and he can go over the fence to rob a homer, but he's well below average at getting to balls. He finished behind six American League center fielders, led by Boston's Jackie Bradley, in the Fielding Bible vote, en route to a 13th place finish overall. Big continuing dispute here. 

RIGHT FIELD: The Braves' Jayson Heyward was a unanimous Fielding Bible winner and he took the National League Gold Glove too. He's now a Cardinal. In the American League, there was another Oriole-related difference, as Tampa Bay's Kevin Kiermaier was first, followed by Oakland's Josh Reddick and Boston's Daniel Nava, ahead of Baltimore's Gold Glove winner, Nick Markakis. 

CATCHER: Jonathan Lucroy of the Brewers barely edged out the Pirates' (now Blue Jays') Russell Martin, who in turn was just a bit ahead of the Cardinals' Yadier Molina in the Fielding Bible vote. Molina won the Gold Glove, as did the Royals' Salvador Perez, who was the top-rated AL catcher per Fielding Bible. Close enough.

PITCHER: I've always been skeptical of fielding awards for pitchers because the sample sizes are so small. The Fielding Bible Award went to Houston's Dallas Keuchel, who also won the Gold Glove. The NL Gold Glove went to the Dodgers' Zach Greinke, who was third, behind the Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw and the Marlins' Henderson Alvarez in the Fielding Bible vote. 

So that wasn't all that controversial, was it? There was a big disagreement between the Fielding Bible votes and the Gold Glove voters for the AL center field and first base awards, and a smaller disagreement over third base and right field in the American League. But that's pretty much it. Every Fielding Bible award winner got a Gold Glove other than Lucroy and Donaldson. 

It wasn't always this way. What this is saying is that the empirical view and the intuitive view are getting closer together. I'll leave it to you to figure out who's influencing whom.

Flyover: Los Angeles Dodgers

This continues a series of looks at each team over the past month. The National League West is the only divisional race I haven't discussed so far. Let's change that, starting with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

How Are They Doing Lately? Their 16-10 record over the past 30 days is the third best in the league and half a game ahead of their divisional rivals, the San Francisco Giants. They've scored the most runs in the National League, 5.7 runs per game, by a wide margin; the Giants are second with 5.0. However, they've given up 4.5 per game, the third most in the league. At 88-67 entering play today, the Dodgers have assured themselves a playoff berth, and any combination of five Dodgers wins and/or Giants losses will give them the NL West crown. They're two games behind Washington and a game ahead of St. Louis in the race for the best record in the league (and home field advantage throughout the playoffs). 

What's Going Right? The Dodgers are first in the league in batting average (.296) and on base percentage (.359) and third in slugging percentage (.454) over the past 30 days, while the league's averaging .253/.314/.386. The pitchers have been pretty middling, seventh in the league in ERA. They have the sixth-highest strikeout rate and fourth-lowest walk rate, but they're third to last in strand rate, as 31% of baserunners have come around to score. They've had good control, as LA's one of four pitching staffs in the National League with over half of pitches in the strike zone over the past 30 days.

What's Going Wrong? Those offensive stats are a little bit of an illusion. The Dodgers have benefited from a .356 batting average on balls in play, by far the best in the league, which is averaging .302 over the past 30 days, and they've gotten home runs on 15% of fly balls, while the league's averaging less than 10%. Neither of those sorts of deviations are usually sustainable; the Dodgers were at .309 and 9.5%, respectively, in the first half of the year. So while they've been hitting like crazy, they're not likely to keep it up. The pitchers are third-worst in the league at inducing swings outside the strike zone, at 30%, and as a result opposing hitters are making contact on 80% of swings, which is above average. 

The Dodgers have also had a pretty easy schedule. Over the past 30 days, entering play today, they've had five games against the worst team in the league (Arizona), three against the second-worst (Colorado), three against the third-worst (Chicago), and six against the sixth-worst (San Diego). They've had only six games against teams with winning records, San Francisco and Washington, and they split them. So there's plenty of reason to take that 16-10 record over the past 30 days with a grain of salt.

Who's Hot? Most Dodgers batters have been swinging the bat well of late. Over the past 30 days, first baseman Adrian Gonzalez is leading the league in home runs (eight) and RBI (28), and he's second in runs (21) and slugging percentage (.614). Juan Uribe and Justin Turner have been a formidable tag team at third, with a combined .395/.429/.463 slash line over the past 30 days. Left fielder Carl Crawford's batting .379, right fielder Matt Kemp is batting .310 with seven homers and a .610 slugging percentage, second baseman Dee Gordon's batting .327 while shortstop Hanley Ramirez is at .305. That's six of eight lineup positions where the Dodgers have a .300+ batting average over the last 30 days. 

Three starting pitchers--Clayton Kershaw, Dan Haren, and Zach Greinke--have been almost unbeatable, combining for an 11-1 won-lost record and a 2.40 ERA. Setup man Pedro Baez has a 1.46 ERA over the past 30 days, the only reliever with over eight innings pitched with an ERA below 3.00. 


Who's Not? Much has made of center fielder Yasiel Puig's slump, as he's gone from batting .309 with twelve homers prior to the All-Star break to .283 with three homers since. He was particularly bad in August, when he hit .216 with no homers. He's come alive some in September (.313 with two homers entering play today), and over the past 30 days his slash line is .250/.365/.375 compared to .253/.314/.386 for the league as a whole--not great, but not much different from the league average.

After Kershaw, Haren, and Greinke, the rotation's been a mess. The No. 4 starter, Hyun-Jin Ryu is hurt, and the other three starters the Dodgers have tried (Roberto Hernandez, Carlos Frias, Kevin Correia) have a combined ERA of 7.92. 

What's the Outlook? The Dodgers should win their division, but they're not as good a team, it seems to me, as their recent record would suggest. As things stand now, they'd play the Cardinals, another team that I've described as good but flawed, in a divisional series. The Dodgers' top three starters may give them the edge, but the Cardinals can pitch as well. It could make for an interesting series.

Reality Check: Defensive Shifts

Tom Verducci writes about baseball for Sports Illustrated and talks about on the MLB Network. He's a smart guy and a great writer. He's passionate about the game as well, writing on occasion about ways it could be better. He did so last week, proposing that baseball do something to limit defensive shifts: moving fielders to one side or the other of second base in order to take advantage of hitters' tendencies to hit the ball there. You know, like this:

Verducci cites the situation pictured above in particular, when the player at the plate is lefthanded, he tends to hit balls to the right side of the infield, and, in addition, he's slow. (I can't speak to the speed of the guy at the plate in this picture; I can't make him out.) He cites slow left-handed batters who pull having down years: Chris Davis, Ryan Howard, Jay Bruce, Adam Dunn, Brian McCann, Shin-Soo Choo, David Ortiz, and Adrian Gonzalez, among others. He has a pretty convincing table: batting average on balls in play (i.e., excluding at bats that result in strikeouts or home runs) for left-handed hitters when they hit the ball to the right side of the infield:
   2005   .379
   2006   .386
   2007   .353
   2008   .358
   2009   .350
   2010   .351
   2011   .332
   2012   .313
   2013   .323
   2014   .301

Verducci:

In 2010, Howard, McCann, Ortiz, Bruce, Dunn, Choo, Curtis Granderson and Adam LaRoche all were among the best lefthanded hitters in the game. None of them were All-Stars this year. Fewer hits to the pull field – into the shift – is one reason. Throw in former All-Stars Mark Teixeira and Carlos Beltran, two more slow-footed sluggers (and using only their numbers batting lefthanded), and you can see how the shift is harming lefthanders...

Ignore that some of those guys haven't been good for years. His point, that the shift's affected lefties since the Tampa Bay Rays started becoming shift-happy in 2008, seems to be borne out by the numbers above. His solution: That baseball should look into establishing an "illegal defense rule" that'd limit the number of infielders on either side of second base to two. 

Verducci's proposal met with a fair amount of criticism on the Internet, partly because he's proposing a pretty significant change to the rules of the game. I don't really buy that. The rules of baseball aren't inviolable; we added replay and removed home plate collisions this year. If there's a problem in the game, let's address it.

The problem I have is that I'm not sure the response Verducci's proposing--limiting defensive shifts--will address the problem of a decline in offense, simply because there's not a lot of evidence I can see that shifts are the culprit. I'm going to show you a somewhat busy table, so let me explain the columns. The first one, Year, is self-explanatory. BABIP is the batting average on balls in play--that is, the batting average when the batter puts the ball in play (doesn't strike out, walk, get hit by the pitch, etc.) and doesn't hit a home run. Ground is the batting average on ground balls. L vs. L is the batting average for left-handed hitters--the focus of Verducci's research--against left-handed pitchers. L vs. R is the batting average for left-handed hitters against right-handed pitchers. If defensive shifts are hurting offenses, particularly with lefties at the plate, we should see all of these batting averages decline with time, as shifted fielders turn what used to be hits into outs. Here's the table:
   Year    BABIP  Ground  L vs. L  L vs. R
   2005    .295    .233    .295     .299
   2006    .301    .236    .294     .302
   2007    .303    .239    .301     .312
   2008    .300    .237    .298     .302
   2009    .299    .232    .286     .299
   2010    .297    .234    .299     .298
   2011    .295    .231    .291     .301
   2012    .297    .234    .287     .299
   2013    .297    .232    .293     .300
   2014    .299    .237    .297     .307

Do you see any evidence from those number that defensive shifts--which have grown in popularity especially in the last couple years--have hampered offense? I can't. As of today, the batting average on balls in play at its highest level since 2009. The batting average on grounders is the highest it's been since 2008. Left-handed hitters are hitting better against lefties than any year since 2010 and against righties since 2007. Offense is surely down, but it's not because defensive shifts are resulting in plummeting batting averages. So I don't see a need to legislate against shifts.

As to why offense if down: batters are striking out in 20.3% of plate appearances, the most in history--the rate's risen for nine straight years--the walk rate's declined for five straight years and is now at its lowest level since 1968, batters are hitting balls on the ground,  which produce a lower OPS than balls hit in the air, at the highest rate since stats became available in 2002, and the percentage of fly balls leaving the park has declined for two years, to the lowest level since 2011. That's why. Sounds like a problem of good pitching rather than innovative defense.

Sweet Plays of the Day: June 18

Quite a day for pitchers. Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw pitched a dominating no-hitter at home against the Rockies: 15 strikeouts, no walks. It would've been a dominating one-hitter without this play by third baseman Miguel Rojas and first baseman Adrian Gonzalez:



Earlier in the day, 41-year-old Mets starter Bartolo Colon, listed at 5'11", 285 pounds, put on a hitting and baserunning clinic in St. Louis: 

What I Saw Last Night

One of the joys of being a baseball fan in the 21st century is that you can watch pretty much any major league game, anywhere. With mlb.tv and At Bat 13, every game is televised (subject to blackout provisions that are sometimes crazy). So here's what I watched last night:

• Nationals-Marlins: Jose Fernandez's second-to-last start. I've written about Fernandez before. He has a reasonable shot at NL Rookie of the Year (I still think Puig will get it) and is a shoo-in for NL Rookie Pitcher of the Year. He's only 21, and the Marlins don't want to risk breaking him down, so they've put an innings limit on him, making last night one of the last chances to see him. It was amazing. He gave up one infield single and a walk while striking out nine in seven innings. He threw 94 pitches and 71% were strikes. Until the seventh, he threw no more than four balls in any inning. He now has an ERA of 2.23 and has struck out 9.9 and walked 3.0 batters per nine innings. Here is a list of all pitchers 21 or younger who have an ERA under 2.40 who have struck out 9 or more and walked 3 or fewer per nine innings: Jose Fernandez.
• Dodgers-Reds: I caught the end of this one, seeing Aroldis Chapman nail down the save. He came in for the ninth inning. He threw 13 pitches: 12 fastballs and a slider. All but one of the fastballs were over 100 mph. The heart of the Dodgers' order--Yasiel Puig, Adrian Gonzalez, and Hanley Ramirez--swung and missed seven times, and had one called strike. The only contact they made was a foul ball by Gonzalez. Thirteen pitches, three swinging strikeouts.
• Red Sox-Yankees: Then, for something completely different, I watched four Yankee relievers give up nine runs in two innings, turning an 8-3 lead over the Red Sox to a 12-8 defeat.

And, as it turned out, I missed what was easily the best pitching performance of the night. And you are forgiven if you didn't know what a Yusmeiro Petit was before last night.