5 Things I Favored (and Didn’t Like) This Week

This received’t shock you for those who’re an NBA fan, however I really like studying Zach Lowe’s 10 Things column each week. Lowe is a basketball author for ESPN, and his column is filled with data-driven anecdotes that wouldn’t fairly fill a column on their very own however are attention-grabbing nonetheless. Somehow, it had by no means fairly occurred to me to make use of that format in baseball, nevertheless it seems like an ideal match.

It had by no means occurred to me, that’s, till I attempted to write down concerning the first commentary that you simply’ll see on this piece. I couldn’t flip it into a complete article, however I saved making an attempt as a result of I actually needed to write down about it. There simply wasn’t sufficient meat on the bone, however I didn’t need to go away it there. Then I began noticing different little issues I needed to focus on, and a lightbulb went off.

My plan is to begin writing up 5 issues which have caught my curiosity each Friday. There’s a variety of baseball on the planet, which suggests a variety of attention-grabbing however bite-sized tales, ones that wouldn’t work on their very own however are nonetheless too good to disregard. Without additional ado, let’s get to liking (and, often, not liking) issues.

1. Oneil Cruz is So Dang Strong
I believe that individuals essentially misunderstand the proposition that Oneil Cruz presents. He’s a so-so defensive shortstop with swing-and-miss points and energy, and all of us have psychological heuristics for that form of participant. Think Paul DeJong, maybe, or perhaps a toned-down Javier Báez. Heck, suppose Josh Rojas masquerading at brief. We already know the way that form of manufacturing performs; with adequate protection, à la Dansby Swanson, you will be an elite participant, however the bar is excessive. And that’s if Cruz cuts down on his strikeouts. There are actual causes for concern right here.

But Cruz isn’t only a shortstop with energy and phone points. His energy shouldn’t be like different individuals’s energy. If he can strike out 26% of the time – even 30% of the time, actually – he’ll be an impressive hitter. This isn’t Willy Adames energy, it’s Aaron Judge’s physique swapped right into a shortstop energy. Cruz’s bat velocity, generated by arms the size of most individuals’s legs, signifies that he doesn’t must make good contact to do injury.

Want an instance? Watch him hitting a double that not many different gamers in baseball may even conceive of:

That’s not the best way you’d favor to make contact with a breaking ball. He hit it low and late, and didn’t precisely sq. it up. It nonetheless exploded off his bat at 100 mph and ripped previous Masataka Yoshida to the wall for further bases.

It’s not laborious to image a hard-hit line drive the opposite means, however this isn’t that image. You’re most likely considering of Freddie Freeman doing what he does finest and spraying a line drive into the hole. This pitch is hit with the identical exit velocity and on the similar angle, nevertheless it’s a purposeful swing designed to go the opposite means somewhat than what nearly regarded like a slap hit:

Cruz is attending to Freeman-like energy whereas falling off the ball. That’s what he does when he’s barely off. Imagine what would possibly occur when he will get into one. Or don’t think about. You can simply take a look at the leaderboards; he’s proper up there with Judge and Giancarlo Stanton as probably the most highly effective participant in baseball. If his current enhancements in plate self-discipline are actual, Cruz goes to be one of many largest tales of the season, pun meant. You’ve by no means seen a shortstop like this. He’s going to shatter hard-hit information and put up ludicrous manufacturing on contact. So lengthy as he could make contact, this must be an important yr for Cruz.

Bonus neat factor: there’s a brand new signal above the middle discipline scoreboard at Fenway that lights up with balls and strikes in a means I haven’t actually seen earlier than. Great promoting for Mass Mutual and a neat signal, and I discovered about it throughout Cruz’s at-bat:

2. Tim Locastro’s Dangling Limbs
Tim Locastro is a person of particular skills. He’s one of the vital environment friendly basestealers in historical past, with a profession 89% success charge. He boasts blazing velocity, which makes him a helpful defensive substitute. Both of these expertise contain substituting him into the sport when he could make the most important impression, however he has a backup talent when he seems on the plate: he will get hit by a ridiculous variety of pitches.

So far this yr, Locastro has 4 plate appearances. He’s been hit by a pitch thrice. That charge is clearly unsustainable, however make no mistake: Locastro is doing it on objective. Players attempt to bend the principles and take HBPs with out really trying to get out of the best way on a regular basis. He’s merely taken that up a number of notches, to the purpose the place it feels exploitative. This shouldn’t be a real try to get out of the best way of a pitch:

If you watch intently, he’s really leaning in direction of that pitch, somewhat than merely failing to get out of the best way. Standing away from the plate would possibly give pitchers a false sense of room off the within nook, however for those who toss stuff inside in any respect to Locastro, he’ll be trying to find it together with his elbow.

Want one other instance? Here’s his first HBP of the season, from the day earlier than the one above. This time, he almost made it to the strike zone with that protruding elbow pad:

The final pitch was no less than in a spot the place batters typically get hit. This one was virtually over the plate. That pitch was solely 10.2 inches to the righty batter’s field aspect of lifeless middle. The plate extends 8.75 inches, and the ball is 2.8 inches in diameter. In different phrases, a pitch 10.15 inches inside would dot the within nook. Exactly one HBP all of final yr got here on a pitch nearer to the plate (by Locastro’s teammate and fellow HBP-hunter Mark Canha, in case you’re curious). I really like watching Jacob Stallings throw his hand up within the air dismissively. What had been the Marlins imagined to do there aside from complain?

Locastro was working laborious to get hit on this at-bat. He nearly leaned right into a strike on 0-2, and I believe the proximity to his elbow saved that pitch from being known as a strike:

He was nowhere close to making an attempt to get out of the best way of those. The Mets broadcast captured an important sluggish movement shot of how he strikes most of his physique out of the best way to promote it whereas diving his elbow into hurt’s means:

Locastro is a enjoyable participant. His basestealing prowess is price popping out to the park to see. But this hit by pitch farce ruins the enjoyable. Sorry, Bailey: Locastro can’t be my favourite bizarre participant if he retains doing this.

3. A Beautiful Infield Deke
Let’s return to that Pirates-Red Sox sport and provides the Red Sox some plaudits as properly. The Pirates scored a ton of runs that day, however the Sox confirmed off some fancy fielding that will get misplaced within the field rating. With Canaan Smith-Njigba on first base and one out within the fifth inning, Jack Suwinski flied out to proper discipline. Uneventful – besides that Smith-Njigba obtained thrown out by about 90 toes for a double play:

What occurred? The Red Sox infield pulled off a fabulous deke, is what occurred. Enrique Hernández was manning shortstop and noticed Smith-Njigba take off for second on a steal try. He was already headed for second to cowl the bag, and when Suwinski put the ball within the air, he noticed a possibility:

That solely works towards a runner who’s stealing and due to this fact doesn’t have time to peek again on the plate to see what’s taking place, and it solely works for those who promote it immediately. You can see a extra regular infield response from second baseman Christian Arroyo. He begins to again up for the fly ball, then realizes that Hernández is working a play and that he ought to take part. Then he factors up, although I’m not precisely positive why; an instinctive response, however the outfielders knew the place that one was already. The pure response is to do one thing like Arroyo, in different phrases, which might have tipped Smith-Njigba off.

This play principally received’t work, nevertheless it was an ideal faux at an ideal time. Smith-Njigba badly needed to beat that double play flip, and he had an important bounce, so he went into second base head-first when he noticed the pivot man organising. If he’d gotten a worse bounce, he probably would have pulled up brief and saved himself an out. The mixture of a heads up play from Hernández and simply the precise bounce at simply the fallacious time resulted within the best outfield help Alex Verdugo will ever report:

4. Dylan Cease’s Masterful, Disasterful Command
Dylan Cease’s slider could be the most effective single pitch in baseball. It will get nice outcomes whether or not you’re searching for chase charge, whiff charge, or manufacturing on contact. That’s spectacular by itself, and it will get extra spectacular when you think about that he throws it almost half the time. Batters come to the plate realizing they’ll face that slider early and infrequently. They can sit on it in the event that they’d like; he’s hardly going to get by an at-bat with out utilizing it. But even realizing that, they arrive up empty, as a result of the pitch is simply that good.

The motion and velocity are glorious on their very own. Stuff+ rated it because the fourth-best slider in baseball by pure stuff final yr; PitchingBot had it second, behind solely Shohei Ohtani’s. It’s much more devastating than that, although, as a result of Cease can manipulate it everywhere in the plate. He’s additionally nice at repeating his supply, maybe as a result of he spends a lot time fascinated with the slider that he writes poems about it.

That doesn’t at all times work out in Cease’s favor. Feast your eyes on this spectacular accomplishment in pitch repetition that did him no good in any respect. On his first pitch to LaMonte Wade Jr., Cease put his slider in an important spot, beginning it over the plate just for it to dart out of the zone on the final minute. Wade was bluffing a bunt and managed to drag again, nonetheless:

Great pitch, unhealthy end result, however that occurs on a regular basis with sliders. Some of the most effective ones are positioned off the plate, and hitters by no means chase 100% of the time. On 1-0, Cease went again to the properly:

That location was, once more, pristine. It’s as near being a strike as you may get with out being a strike the entire means, which is mainly what you’re searching for with a slider. At least, it’s what you’re searching for if the batter would possibly chase. Wade regarded like he had made up his thoughts to take earlier than the pitch was even thrown.

On 2-0, you guessed it, Cease threw a slider. Yet once more, he put it in an important chase location, beginning it over the plate and working it to the very same down-and-in spot:

Again, Wade didn’t take the bait. Cease had the ball on a string on this at-bat. He threw the identical slider thrice in a row, the form of slider that catapulted him to a profession yr in 2022 and reveals no indicators of slowing down. Hey, that’s baseball. Sometimes you do your job very well and it hurts you.

But don’t really feel too unhealthy for Cease. This repeating-sliders trick works out for him loads of occasions. Earlier on this sport, he threw David Villar 4 straight sliders ranging from 0-2, with the fourth leading to a swinging strikeout. Even higher, he pulled off the identical trick towards Jake Meyers on Opening Day, with Meyers executing Wade’s stand-still-and-pray tactic. It labored out higher for Cease that point:

5. Jacob deGrom Rises to the Occasion
Wednesday’s matchup between Jacob deGrom and Grayson Rodriguez was pleasant in some ways. Pitchers as hyped as Rodriguez don’t debut fairly often, as a result of not many pitchers are as hyped as Rodriguez. Doing it towards the most effective pitchers of the twenty first century kicked the intrigue up a notch. Both hurlers carried out properly, and we even obtained a classic end from deGrom.

After throwing 4 good innings, deGrom stumbled within the fifth, permitting two runs (one earned) to make the rating 2-2. Adam Frazier, hardly a fearsome presence on the plate, delivered the game-tying RBI. After trying mortal in his first begin, deGrom at risk of breaking down once more. Even worse, Adley Rutschman led off the subsequent inning by working a stroll, with not one of the 4 balls notably near the zone.

That introduced Anthony Santander to the plate, after which deGrom went to work. He pulled out a uncommon curveball to begin, and Santander swung at it like a person who has been seeing 99 mph fastballs and 92 mph sliders all day:

After a yanked pitch to carry the rely to 1-1, deGrom began bearing down on the underside of the zone:

After lacking once more to carry the rely to 2-2, he went again down once more, however Santander was as much as the problem:

This was a heck of an at-bat by Santander, and he managed to work the rely to 3-2 after taking a fastball simply off the plate inside. Fine; it was time for deGrom’s bread and butter, the excessive cheese. This is only a good pitch:

Great location, basic rising motion, and you may see why Santander swung at what may have been ball 4. How usually do you face 99 mph with that a lot motion, positioned so exactly? There’s a motive deGrom has made a residing off of his fastball/slider mixture. The Rutschman caught stealing was merely icing on the cake.

From there, it was time to step on the accelerator and take issues dwelling, and Ryan Mountcastle had the misfortune of standing in his means. It didn’t take lengthy:

When deGrom is at his finest, he doesn’t must dig deep to remain in management. For most of this sport, that’s precisely what was taking place; he merely lorded over Baltimore hitters for 4 innings. When his again is towards the wall, although, is once I like watching deGrom probably the most. He rose to the event, the identical means he at all times appeared to in New York, and offered a must-see capper to a pleasant pitching duel.

That’s all I’ve obtained for this week, however I’m planning on loads extra of those to observe. There are so many pleasant moments taking place on a regular basis that I spend a variety of evenings breathlessly speaking concerning the nuances of the sport to anybody round me who will pay attention. Hopefully, these trivia will translate properly on this area.