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More Fastballs, Different Fastballs for Rubby

On April 9, 2015 By

On Tuesday, Rubby De La Rosa started for the Diamondbacks. It was Arizona’s second game of the season. That made De La Rosa the D-backs’ number two starter, kind of. At least that’s how people thought of it, and when they did, a lot of them said, “hey, Rubby De La Rosa is our number two?” to which others responded, …

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Ender Inciarte, D-backs OF Alignments, and the Run Value of Defensive Replacements

On April 8, 2015 By

In addition to having some positional flexibility and not being an automatic out at the plate, most fourth outfielders have some kind of “special sauce” that can be particularly useful at particular times, such as great baserunning, being able to hit either righties or lefties particularly well, having some “pop,” or offering not just adequate but very good defense. Some …

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Ahmed In, Hill Out: a Positive Change?

On April 7, 2015 By

The news of the Trevor Cahill trade and the insertion Archie Bradley was surely surprising. But the news that Nick Ahmed was going to start over Aaron Hill, shifting Chris Owings to second base, was perhaps even more of a shock. And not a bad shock necessarily as Ahmed had a fantastic spring, but a shock nonetheless. The transition …

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Out of Left Field: Platoon Trumbo and Peralta

On April 2, 2015 By

The Diamondbacks’ outfield is set. Now that we know that Yasmany Tomas is almost surely destined for the minors and that he’s going to continue working at third base, the pieces are in place. A.J. Pollock is a stone-cold lock for every day duties in center field. Cody Ross is going to get some starts, but isn’t a major piece …

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Daniel Hudson’s Very Best Fit

On March 31, 2015 By

It’s one week until the Diamondbacks take the field for Opening Day. Of course, that will be their second game of the season for them since they play on Opening Night against the Giants, but baseball’s right around the corner. Finally. And, with this being the final week without real baseball, everyone’s releasing their final predictions. The trend for …

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Real D-backs Defensive Shifts, Really

On March 26, 2015 By

It’s been presumed since Chip Hale was named manager: the Diamondbacks will shift more in 2015. Given his tenure in Oakland, it’s no surprise that Hale picked up a thing or two about moving around the infield based on who’s in the box (and hopefully he took notes on creating platoons, too, but more on that later). Not only …

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Robbie Ray’s New Breaking Pitch Much Different, Much More Consistent

On March 19, 2015 By

Most national fans of baseball heard Robbie Ray‘s name for the first time fifteen months ago, when he was the featured prospect in what many considered to be an underwhelming return for Detroit in trading Doug Fister to the Nationals. Now making a bid for the D-backs rotation to start the season, Ray has seen his repertoire change.

Although …

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Working the Count: Forget About It (And Don’t Feel Guilty)

On March 18, 2015 By

In 2014, working the count was not a strength of the D-backs. At 3.76 pitches per plate appearance, the team’s batters trailed all but two other teams in the National League, although they were nearly as close to the league leader (Cubs, 3.88 Pit/PA) as they were to the team with the quickest plate appearances (Brewers, 3.65 Pit/PA). Despite a …

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Spring Notes From D-backs MLB Camp

On March 17, 2015 By

As Ryan stated in yesterday’s Round Up, we were literally camped out at Salt River Field for a few days last week and over the weekend. That opportunity allowed us to access to things in a whole new way. There’s simply nothing like taking in batting practice from 10 feet away or standing even with the third base bag while …

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Quantifying the Effect on Pitching of D-backs Defensive Alignments

On March 13, 2015 By

As Jeff wrote yesterday, the chances that Yasmany Tomas ends up at third base seem to have taken a dive of late as more scouts have seen him – and his perhaps “limited mobility” – in action. But as Jeff Passan noted when the report issued, the D-backs are the same team that doggedly refuse to see Peter O’Brien as …

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Can Patrick Corbin Pull a Matt Harvey?

On March 10, 2015 By

Everyone is excited about Spring Training and baseball being played. This is great, with the exception that we see plenty of hyperbole. “Player X is in the best shape of his life and could be an MVP,” “Player Y has a new changeup grip and will win the Cy Young,” “Player Z changed his pre-game routine and will play 155 …

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One Final 2015 D-backs Projection

On March 5, 2015 By

The season kinda already started and that’s good. I mean, the Diamondbacks have beaten a good college team and the Rockies. There’s a joke in there somewhere, I’m just not interested enough in finding it. The team is 2-0, or 1-0, but really they’re 0-0 because Spring Training absolutely doesn’t matter from a wins and losses standpoint. And has …

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Chase Anderson and a New-Found Sinker Reliance

On March 4, 2015 By

Chase Anderson defied expectations last season. After a promising early career in the minors, he put up a scintillating 2012 line at Double-A: a 2.86 ERA in 21 starts, backed by a very good 8.39 K/9 and a borderline excellent 2.16 BB/9. Things looked good. But they did not look good the following year in 88 Triple-A innings (13 starts, …

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An Alternative Answer to Trevor Cahill

On March 3, 2015 By

The saying that “there’s more than one way to skin a cat” always struck me as being spoken in poor taste. First, I’d argue that cats don’t project to taste well (low fat content, gamey, etc.) and, second, that the visual is distracting to whatever analogy the speaker is trying to make. No matter the argument, as soon as you …

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The Cause of Trevor Cahill’s Downturn

On February 27, 2015 By

By virtually any metric, it’s hard to look at Trevor Cahill‘s recent performance and conclude that he’s likely to be a good value at his $12M salary for 2015. But that doesn’t mean that he’s not worth more than the $520k the team would be likely to recoup by releasing him. As recently as 2013, Cahill was arguably an …

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D-backs Will Shift More in 2015

On February 26, 2015 By

We’re big proponents of the shift around here. You might have picked that up. Both Ryan and I have discussed shifting and how it pertains to the game at various times. At Beyond the Box Score, I discussed which players in baseball are most and least shiftable and Ryan even went so far as to suggest that teams use a …

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