Notes and Essays, 7/28/26

N1: I am happy (I guess for the sake of historical defensive statistics) that Defensive Runs Saved now recognizes Omar Vizquel as having been All-Star quality on defense. In Rfield he was double digits on the plus side every year as a pup with Seattle from 1990-1993, and he was positive in every one of his first 11 years. He also had double-digit positive seasons in 1999, 2003, and 2007. Wasn’t there a long period, over several advances in measures, when analysts were continually finding him with such poor range his hands didn’t begin to carry him?

N2: Two notes on Blake Snell, who has made a couple of rehab appearances at AAA. First, for his career, he has 4.05 BB/9 and 11.20 SO/9. To be more correct in analysis, I will use his 10.9 BB% and his 30.0 SO%. He’s put up those rates pitching 223 games (all starts), and faced 4809 batters. Is there anybody like him?

Taking a range of 9.9-11.9% on the walks and 27.0 to 33.0% on the strikeouts, and requiring a minimum of 2000 batters faced among active pitchers, there are two guys: Robbie Ray and Dylan Cease.

Cease in particular is a good comp. His strikeout percentage is 1.5 units higher than Ray’s, and he’s faced 4761 batters.

Cease and Snell pair in terms of walks and strikeouts, but because it is more or less Mr. Durable and Mr. Brittle, Cease is on the verge of catching Snell in batters faced, despite starting in the majors some two years and two months after Snell did.

My second note on Snell is that he’s only had three seasons of 25 or more starts. In two of them, he won the Cy Young. The other was in 2021, his first year with San Diego. He had a 92 ERA+ and lasted less than 5 innings a start.

I think Snell has been quite a special pitcher — you might even say brilliant. I have my doubts he will come back 100%, but I take some heart from spectacular postseason work (just 2 runs and 6 hits allowed in 21 IP, with 28 SO) before the World Series last year.

N3: The Marlins have cratered, but the surprising Otto Lopez has been oblivious. He has a .902 OPS in July and is 6 for 6 in steals. He is now 3rd in the National League in singles, tied for 1st in doubles, and tied for 2nd in triples. (Tied for 76th in home runs, if you must.)

His batting averages by month (using that MAR/APR): .322, .339, .340 and .321. I have no idea if that means he’s more likely than, say, Chandler Simpson (who I showed recently has been all over the place) to hit .300 in August.

N4: In compiling the above, a couple of NL single ranks that surprised me….Nick Gonzalez is tied with Arraez on top. Bo Bichette is tied for 5th.

N5: Three of the top 12 base stealers in the NL this year have the initials JM. Those would be Jackson Merrill, Jake Mangum and Jakob Marsee.

Rest assured, the speed in these initials must be respected. Inspiration comes in the form of John McGraw, who twice stole over 70¹, and Joe Morgan, who was over 50 five times, and had 689 for his career.

Of course, McGraw, who virtually gave up playing when he became Orioles manager in 1901 at age 28, did not have a career that rated with Morgan’s, but it is surprising how far one can go with the comparison. Most notably, in that that their walk percentages were 16.9 (McGraw) and 16.5 (Morgan), and that they were both 5’7”.

A couple of other league champion base stealers with the initials JM were Johnny Mostil (White Sox in the ‘20s) and Jorge Mateo.

On the other end of the spectrum, Joe Mack hasn’t stolen a base yet. Jeff McNeil is no burner, and he’s only stolen 2 this year.

Overall, of course, I must remember that I was reading the Sports Illustrated article² about Jacob Misiorowski last night, and that it is Misiorowski’s year.

N6: We’re still looking for a breakout star, but considering that he’s a shortstop and had never been over .433 before, that CJ Abrams can fill the breach and lead the NL in slugging average still gets your attention. His .570 would be the lowest for any league champion since Giancarlo Stanton’s .555 in 2014.³

N7: Not really a ton good that can be said about Scherzer’s return from a line score perspective, but he did strike out more guys (4) in his mere 2 2/3 innings than the Nationals got from his guys all night. But in the context of his greatness, his attempts over the last couple of years have frankly been pathetic.

Perhaps an intervention is needed. Man’s just addicted to competition and/or pitching.

N8: Since switch-hitter Ozzie Albies is a much better hitter from the right side, it’s worked to his advantage that Atlanta has more plate appearances against lefties this year than any other team. Albies’ 10 home runs versus 54 strikeouts against right-handers have him in good stead, but his 8 dingers versus 14 strikeouts against lefties are something else again.

N9: Masyn Winn’s power outage has been on a scale that it’s devastated his offensive value. To show you what I mean, starting with his rookie year of 2024, his BAbips have been .303, .301, and .291, his BB percentages have been 6.4, 6.3, and 8.7, and his SO percentages have been 17.1, 19.0, and 19.2 We have filled in a lot of the puzzle, and it looks like no more than a small dropoff. But his isolated power (SLG - BA) has gone from .148 to .110 to .079. And, hence, his OPS from .730 to .673 to .637. His doubles are well off this year, and his drop in home runs has cost total bases and free hits.

But the odd thing is that Winn’s 2026 average exit velocity of 88.1 is in line with his 88.3 (2025) and 87.0 (2024) of the previous years. Sometimes you can largely explain this by citing a shift to ground balls, but not so much in this case. Since 2024, his GB/FB ratios have 1.08. 0.94, and 1.29.

I guess he was luckly to slug .416 with a 87.0 EV in 2024. But he must be better than his results this year, too.

N10: With just 2 hits and 2 walks against him in 6 innings Monday, Walbert Urena continued his season-long act. In 93 1/3 innings on the year, he’s walked 49 men but only given up 69 hits. That ratio of 0.710 easily tops Gavin Williams 0.638 leading ratio of last year among pitchers with 502 batters faced. I guess consistent with some of the high walk rates we’ve had, though, Urena has been bested by Spencer Arrighetti (50 BB, 68 H — 0.735) and Trey Yesavage (42 BB, 58 H — 0.724).

All three pitchers are rather in the same boat, not having quite been forced to run the March through August gauntlet, but on pace for 502 batters faced. However, Arrighetti was just put on the injured list with “foot nerve irritation.”⁴

1. Placing 2nd in the NL both times

2. Not one of Tom Verducci’s best efforts, but maybe I was just too exhausted to appreciate it. But I don’t think Verducci was feeling it here. Or maybe SI doesn’t now give him enough pages to do his thing.

3. Although Paul Goldschmidt not only led with just .551 in 2013, but led with a mark similar to Abrams’ (.578) just back in 2022.

4. However, I’m sure regrets will transcend possibly not qualifying for the fictitious BB/H title!