Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2020 i Baseball America

Baseball milestones echo through the ages. As we approach the 100th anniversaries of Ty Cobb collecting his 3,000th hit, Babe Ruth hitting his 500th home run and Walter Johnson striking out his 3,000th batter—all of which occurred in the 1920s—those achievements still resonate. As we enter the 2020s, a number of the game’s brightest stars are on pace to one day reach those same milestones and enter the baseball pantheon. But it wouldn’t be 2020 without a cruel twist. The coronavirus-shortened 60-game season announced on June 22 will affect players’ climbs to those peaks. To get an idea of what the pandemic has wrought on the baseball record book, I determined how star players’ pursuits of 3,000 hits, 500 home runs and 3,000 strikeouts were affected by losing 102 games…

It was another blazing summer day on the back fields of the Gulf Coast League—the kind where the arrival of a predicted heatwave can sting the eyes and smudge the horizon—as Cardinals farm director Gary LaRocque made his way out to see one of the newest draft picks, one of the rarest kind of draft picks for the club. A few weeks earlier, the Cardinals had selected high school righthander Jack Flaherty with the 34th overall pick in the 2014 draft. The tall, lithe 18-year-old from the Los Angeles area relieving for the Rookie-level GCL Cardinals that July day had first been scouted as a third baseman. The Cardinals drafted him as a pitcher, and in the previous 22 years they had selected only one high school righthander higher than…

A good fastball has always been about more than just its velocity. How it moves and where the pitcher locates it have always been integral to a fastball’s success. But for decades, radar guns were the only publicly available tool to measure a fastball. Thus, the pitch was often described solely by how hard it was thrown. The rise of new technologies has led to changes. Now, whereas observers could once see a fastball’s movement but had no way to measure it, the exact amount of movement—in any direction—can be now measured to the smallest decimal points. The same goes for how many revolutions per minute (rpm) the ball averages on its way to the plate, the axes of its vertical and horizontal spin (spin axis) and how well it…

BEST DEFENSIVE CATCHER Ivan Rodriguez won a record 13 Gold Gloves at catcher thanks to his cannon arm and cat-like agility. “Pudge” threw out 46% of career basestealers and led his league in that category a record nine times. Rodriguez became a regular at age 19 and lasted until 39, catching a record 2,427 games. BEST DEFENSIVE FIRST BASEMAN Don Mattingly won nine Gold Gloves at first base; only Keith Hernandez won more, with 11. Both starred in New York in the 1980s, making the Big Apple synonymous with slick-fielding, team-leading first basemen. Mattingly remained sharp defensively into his early 30s, before a balky back forced his retirement at age 34. BEST DEFENSIVE SECOND BASEMAN Roberto Alomar won a record 10 Gold Gloves at second base, showing uncommon durability at…

Brian Smith is no stranger to talent. As the head coach of Winder-Barrow High in Winder, Ga., he’s seen his fair share of talented players and teams. At USA Baseball’s National High School Invitational in 2017, Smith’s club beat the defending champions of the event—a prospect-laden Huntington Beach (Calif.) High team—and later blanked Florida powerhouse American Heritage High to make the semifinals at the prestigious tournament. Smith has coached plenty of great players. From catcher Beau Hanna—a 12th-round pick of the Red Sox in 2017—to current Yankees prospect Pat Demarco to past first-round picks Travis Demeritte and Max Pentecost, the latter after three years at Kennesaw State. Smith knows how to spot talent. He’s been around enough professional ballplayers to know what they look like. And he knows he has…

No two seasons are exactly alike. The players, the managers, the teams, the storylines—they all change from year to year, keeping each new season fresh and exciting while the game of baseball remains comforting and familiar. Even in that context, the 2020 season is unlike any other in baseball history. The season began in July. The schedule is 60 games long. No fans are allowed in ballparks, at least to start. Extra innings will begin with a runner on second base. The DH will be used in the National League. And that’s just Major League Baseball. The minor league season was canceled entirely. So, too, were the high school and college seasons and the Cape Cod League. Across the country, new leagues with names like the Constellation League, Lemonade League…

Minor League Baseball officially announced at 5 p.m. Eastern on June 30 that the season had been canceled because Major League Baseball would not be providing players. The focus shifted quickly to what comes next. First, teams had to unravel as much as they could from the 2020 season. Fans and advertisers asked for refunds for tickets or deals they had purchased for games that had merely been suspended and not officially canceled. Some of those fans and advertisers will choose to roll their dollars toward 2021, but others will want to replenish their own cash flow as best as possible. The stagnation of the economy has negatively affected nearly every industry, and some people and businesses will want to reclaim as much as they can to stay afloat. For…

One of baseball’s oldest catchphrases is “spin to win.” For most of the game’s history, it referred to the success a pitcher could have with a particularly nasty curveball. Now, as analytics and technology have found new ways to quantify the various qualities of pitches, the thought is universal: The higher the spin, the bigger the win. That philosophy is particularly evident in the north-south pitching strategy that has become en vogue across all levels of the game. The theory is simple: Throw a high-spin fastball at the top of the strike zone, then pair it with a high-spin curveball that starts at the top of the zone before diving sharply. If executed correctly, the result should be plenty of swings and misses. “All this stuff started several years ago…

Since its inception in 1981, Baseball America has kept an eye on the horizon. We’re not going to stop now. Now that the 2020 draft is complete and the minor league season is officially canceled, we look ahead to 2021—and beyond. Next up: We present our early draft preview and spotlight a pair of 18-year-old Dominican shortstops you’re going to be hearing a lot from in the years ahead.…

1. BRADY HOUSE, SS WINDER-BARROW HS, WINDER, GA. House developed physically early in his high school career and remains an imposing physical presence at 6-foot-3, 215 pounds. Outside of speed, House is full of loud tools, but his combination of impact hitting ability and present future power potential have scouts excited. He combines natural strength and bat speed with a mature approach that includes good pitch-recognition and the abilities to make adjustments and square up both premium prep velocity and off-speed offerings. 2. MADDUX BRUNS, LHP UMS-WRIGHT PREP, MOBILE, ALA. A 6-foot-2, 210-pound southpaw, Bruns throws with a deceptive delivery and a high, vertical arm slot that teams are increasingly favoring and has shown three pitches that could become above-average. His fastball has sat in the 93-95 mph range in…

Marco Luciano’s first look at San Francisco’s picturesque Oracle Park came in January, when the 18-year-old Dominican shortstop was part of a group of prospects invited to the Giants’ minicamp. Back then, the diamond Luciano hopes to call home one day looked larger than life. “When I was there in January, I felt like the park was extremely big,” Luciano said, with help from a translator, “but now that I’m on the field it feels like the ball really flies in the stadium.” It’s easy to feel that way when your first swing redirects a 95 mph fastball for a long home run against a pitcher with big league experience. That’s exactly what Luciano did in his first intrasquad action as a member of the 60-man player pool the Giants…

TODD ABELL, a shortstop and third baseman who played in the minor leagues in 1989, died June 3. He was 52. CARL ANGELO, a lefthander who pitched in the minor leagues in 1954, died July 1 in Battle Creek, Mich. He was 88. PETER ARNITZ, a righthander who pitched in the minor leagues in 1958, died June 1. He was 82. CLYDE BALDWIN, who pitched in the minor leagues from 1950-54 and served as a player/manager for the Ardmore Indians of the Sooner State League in 1952, died May 25 in Richardson, Texas. He was 91. DAVID BORGES, a righthander who pitched in the minor leagues in 1956, died June 18. He was 83. OSCAR BROWN, an outfielder who played in the major leagues for the Braves from 1969-73, died…

WITH NO BEST TOOLS BALLOTS CAST THIS YEAR BECAUSE OF THE CORONAVIRUS, WE CELEBRATE THE FASTBALL AND WHAT IT MEANS TO BASEBALL. The fastball has waned in popularity in recent seasons as major league pitchers throw a higher percentage of breaking and off-speed pitches. But make no mistake: The fastball is still king No pitch is more effective than the fastball at setting up other pitch types because of its location and tunneling. No pitch is more effective for planting expectations in batters’ heads, making them anticipate and defend against velocity. Not only is the fastball ruthlessly effective, but the pitch is also a thrill for the senses. No pitch is more satisfying to listen to as it pops the catcher’s mitt. No pitch elicits more oohs and ahhs based…

In 2010, Aroldis Chapman showed everyone that it was possible to throw a baseball 105 mph. In just his 10th game in the majors, Chapman threw the hardest recorded fastball in major league history. Over the past decade, no one has thrown any harder. But with the continuing rise in overall fastball velocity, the reasonable question to ask is: What will the upper limits of velocity be in 2030? Will we be discussing 108 mph fastballs a decade from now? Is 110 mph sitting over the horizon in the 2040s? And if so, what happens to hitters? Calm your fears, hitters. According to experts, major league pitchers are already brushing against the velocity limits. “It would totally shock me (if someone is throwing 107-108 mph in a decade),” said Dr.…

BEST HITTER Tony Gwynn won eight batting titles between 1984 and 1997, hitting .342 in those 14 seasons. Only Ty Cobb, with 11, won more batting titles overall. Gwynn hit .338 over 20 seasons thanks to his all-time bat control and ability to “hit ’em where they ain’t.” Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. are the first Hall of Famers to be covered as prospects by BA. BEST POWER Giancarlo Stanton won a pair of home run titles in his first 10 seasons and swatted 308 bombs overall in the 2010s. Only ageless sluggers Nelson Cruz and Edwin Encarnacion hit more in the decade. Even with a lost 2019 season, Stanton is well on pace for 500 career homers. Expect his patented line-drive laser show to continue. FASTEST BASERUNNER Carl Crawford…

Matt McLain didn’t have the freshman season at UCLA that he would have wanted or that most expected he would. Expectations were high for McLain after he spurned the D-backs as a first-round pick in 2018 and chose to stick to his college commitment at UCLA. But instead of imposing his will from Day One, he struggled, hitting .204/.276/.355 in his first season. “There were for sure struggles there, as everyone saw,” McLain said. “That was the first time that I’ve really struggled at the plate like that in my life.” Context matters, though, and this wasn’t just a freshman struggling to make the transition up to high-level Division I baseball, though that was certainly at play as well. He was also taking one for the team and playing out…

Outfielders Jarred Kelenic and Julio Rodriguez spent the 2019 season clobbering the competition at every stop. Nearly every Seattle pitcher, from high-profile starters Logan Gilbert, Justin Dunn and George Kirby to whiff machines like Ljay Newsome, Sam Delaplane and Aaron Fletcher, laid waste to hitters across the minor leagues. And in the Dominican Summer League, the leader of the next generation made his presence felt. Shortstop Noelvi Marte, whom the Mariners signed in 2018 for $1.55 million, raked from Opening Day until the final out of the DSL season. When it was done, Marte hit .309/.371/.511 with 18 doubles, nine home runs and 17 stolen bases. He enters the season ranked No. 6 among Seattle’s enviable collection of talent. As a reward for his incredible season and as a nod…

@JJCOOP36 Major League Baseball has a growing competitiveness problem. This isn’t an in-game issue. It’s not about parity, tanking or banging garbage cans. It has nothing to do with runners on second base to begin extra innings or three-batter minimums. It has to do with rules of how the game are structured. Whether it’s in-person pro scouting, the prospective Arizona Fall League season or the structure of the minor leagues, front office officials see a worrying trend. Instead of allowing teams to carve their own paths and letting the free market of ideas demonstrate what works and what does not, MLB appears to be heading in the direction of a command economy, where decisions are made at the top to ensure that all teams abide by the same set of…