Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2021 i Baseball America

Brit Minder loves the perspective that in-person scouting brings. The Twins’ coordinator of amateur scouting got her start with Minnesota seven years ago as an administrative assistant to the entire scouting department, where her role revolved around support. With progression and promotion, Minder transitioned into a more empowered role, helping the team’s evolution from a basic internal system to something much more advanced, its creation enveloping a large piece of her position. But the most significant change to her current role has been in venturing out to games and having an opportunity to scout. “The reason was twofold,” Minder said. “I wanted to learn these things and thought I could be a value add given my playing experience and also my office experience—having some understanding being around conversations in the…

A glut of returning infielders from UC Irvine’s 2014 College World Series team forced then-freshman Keston Hiura to shift to the outfield before playing his first college game. Hiura, a shortstop at Valencia (Calif.) High, eventually returned to the infield—but only after turning pro. The Brewers drafted him ninth overall in 2017 and developed him as a second baseman, beginning in 2018 after his throwing elbow healed. But just as Hiura, 24, was preparing to improve his defense at second base last winter, the Brewers seized the opportunity for an upgrade by signing Gold Glove second baseman Kolten Wong. That meant that Hiura, generously listed at 6 feet, would move to first base for a National League playoff contender despite having never played the position. “It really doesn’t matter whether…

The state of play in Major League Baseball—and the path it is on—has been a topic of frequent discussion. Velocity and strikeouts are way up. So are walks. Batting averages keep falling, but in recent years, hitters have compensated by hitting for more power. Until the ball was tweaked for the 2021 season, home run rates had steadily risen. Those who love the MLB product in 2021 say the game is never more exciting than when a pitcher and batter are battling, power versus power. Those who hate it say that now innings can go by without anyone other than the pitcher, catcher and hitter getting involved in the game. Like it or not, MLB in 2021 is seeing more strikeouts and nearly as many walks than ever. There are…

Just a decade ago, stolen bases were still a somewhat prominent part of the modern game. Today the landscape has changed. With the rise and spread of analytics, the number of stolen base attempts has declined precipitously. The rate of steal attempts in April this year was the lowest for any April of the expansion era, which began in 1961. Analytically inclined front offices, citing run expectancy matrices and other data, have largely concluded the risk of getting thrown out isn’t worth the potential benefit in most cases. The calculation appears to be changing. Ironically, many of the analytical trends driving today’s game have made stealing bases a more successful proposition than ever. Runners were successful on 76.7% of stolen base attempts through May 18, which was on pace to…

The big Texas righthander is a draft archetype that goes back decades. Nolan Ryan. Roger Clemens. Kerry Wood. Josh Beckett. Jameson Taillon. The list goes on. All of them seemingly cut from the same cloth as strong, powerful pitchers from the Lone Star State with big fastballs and seemingly boundless upside. Ty Madden is familiar with his home state’s tradition for producing big, powerful righthanders, pitchers who, well, look like him. Listed at 6-foot-3, 215 pounds, Madden has touched 100 mph with his fastball and this spring was averaging nearly 95. The native of Cypress, Texas, a suburb of Houston, headlines the Texas rotation and has helped the Longhorns emerge as College World Series contenders this season. Madden, a third-year sophomore, fits the profile of a big Texas righthander to…

Power is a driving force behind personnel decisions in Major League Baseball today. Put simply, pitchers throw harder than ever before, and batters hit the ball harder than ever before. These twin realities have reshaped the way players are scouted, data is applied and even how the game is played. With baseball being a top-down sport, changes to the style of play in MLB trickle down to lower levels, in this case the minor leagues, amateur baseball and beyond. MLB executives and scouts point to three factors that have steered the game to where it is today: advances in analytics, short benches and high velocity. We will explore all three in detail. ANALYTICS COME OF AGE We live in a post-Moneyball world. Few players active today remember the time depicted…

One of the biggest trade wins in recent memory plays shortstop in San Diego. Almost from his first day in the Padres organization, Fernando Tatis Jr. had the makings of a star. He crushed every level of the minor leagues, then made the big leagues out of spring training in 2019 and finished third in National League Rookie of the Year balloting. At the time he was traded in 2016, Tatis had yet to play an official game for his signing franchise. The White Sox had inked him out of the Dominican Republic in a 2015 international signing class that also included Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Juan Soto. The process the Padres went through to acquire Tatis as the second piece—along with lefthander Erik Johnson—in the deal that sent James…

With top-ranked Arkansas trailing Georgia by a run in the sixth inning of the rubber game of their early May series, DH Matt Goodheart stepped to the plate to face lefthander Ryan Webb. Goodheart, a lefthanded hitter, got ahead in the count 2-0 before Webb threw him a 91 mph fastball low and on the outer half of the plate. Goodheart didn’t try to do too much with the pitch. He got his bat extended and rocketed the ball to center field, taking aim at the light pole just to the left of the batter’s eye at Baum-Walker Stadium. By some estimates, the ball hit three-quarters of the way up the stanchion, higher than the batter’s eye. TrackMan measured the home run to have traveled 460 feet with an exit…

The laundry list of sports that Bubba Chandler excels at is lengthy. Whether he’s on the diamond, the gridiron, the field, the court, the green—the consensus is that he will excel. Committed to Clemson to play both baseball and football, Chandler is a two-way draft prospect with high upside on the mound who transforms into a switch-hitting shortstop anytime he’s not on the hill. Minor football injuries brought the quarterback’s high school basketball career to a premature end before his junior year. But he can still dunk, and there’s little doubt that he could stretch the imagination in any sporting venue. “He’s a competitor, so you can put him on a basketball court and he’s going to be really good; take him out to the golf course and he’s really…

GABRIEL MORENO BLUE JAYS The Blue Jays signed Moreno out of Venezuela in 2016 and have watched as he’s grown into one of the game’s more intriguing catching prospects. He spent time at the Blue Jays’ alternate training site in 2020 and impressed his more veteran teammates. Athleticism, hand-eye coordination and barrel control are some of Moreno’s hallmarks, and he’s already earned rave reviews at Double-A early in the 2021 season. 2021 CAPTAIN’S CATCHER’S AWARD WATCH LIST # MFRA MOVE FORWARD RISE ABOVE™…

Acquiring prospects before they go mainstream is a key to dynasty league sustainability. Each season, a number of prospects graduate into big leaguers or lose value with substandard minor league performance. New breakouts rise to take their place as Top 100 Prospects. Members of the following breakout prospect team are positioned to do just that. None ranked as preseason Top 100 Prospects, but all are candidates to join the club with strong 2021 seasons. Prospects who made major league Opening Day rosters, such as the Royals’ Kyle Isbel, the Reds’ Jonathan India or the Astros’ Chas McCormick, were not considered. Every member of this breakout prospect team lost game repetitions in 2020 when the pandemic canceled the minor league season. That doesn’t mean all player development was halted. Read on…

As the major league game undergoes drastic stylistic changes, the literal shape of the average major league regular is changing. According to data shared by Baseball-Reference.com, the average height of regular position players in the major leagues, weighted by games started, peaked at 73 inches in 2016. It fell to 72.9 inches in 2019 and 2020. The average weight of MLB regular position players, again weighted by games started, peaked at 211.4 pounds in 2015 but had fallen to 208.5 pounds in 2020. This could be reflective of a more youthful game, and younger players having lower listed weights earlier in their careers. To that point, the average major league position player got a full year younger between 2010 and 2020, falling from 29.2 to 28.2 years old in that…

Rates for scoring and home runs in Division I, 1970-2021 Change has been a constant part of college baseball. But unlike Major League Baseball, where there has long been plenty of speculation and intrigue around changes MLB may or may not have made to the baseball to alter the offensive environment, college baseball has been much more transparent about its tweaks. College baseball has been much more willing to pass rules to adjust the equipment and bring the game back in line with its desired environment. Most notably, in 1974 college baseball switched from wood bats to metal. The switch was done partly to cut costs—metal bats last much longer than wood—but also to boost the offense of a game that was somewhat stagnant. The change almost immediately added another…

In a typical year, a list of popup draft prospects and players trending up would be filled more with high school standouts who have taken a big step forward or who came out of nowhere after not playing on the summer showcase circuit. However, given the shortened 2020 amateur season and a blown-up evaluation period for the college class last summer, it makes sense that there are plenty of players from the college ranks who are turning heads and moving quickly up draft boards. Perhaps without the pandemic, many of these players would have been able to establish themselves as top players in the class a year ago—but that isn’t the case. Here are 10 players—along with their ranking on the BA board—who have popped up this spring and taken…

Marty Lamb has been one of baseball’s top scouts since he joined the Dodgers in 1999. As the organization’s area scout for Ohio, Tennessee and Kentucky, Lamb has signed 12 major leaguers, highlighted by Walker Buehler, Will Smith and Chad Billingsley. Early this season, three more players he signed made their major league debuts. Lamb joined the BA podcast in May to discuss his longevity, signing his latest big leaguers Luke Raley, Jordan Sheffield and Zach Pop and his work with the organization. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. Q: You’ve had quite the track record of signing future big leaguers. What’s your secret? A: (Laughs). I guess the secret is working for a good organization. I mean, I’ve been lucky enough with (scouting directors) Ed Creech,…