A more-consistent arm slot associated to a transfer again to the third base facet of the rubber has contributed to Cole Ragans’s success this season. The uncooked stuff was clearly already there. As Ben Clemens wrote again in March, the Kansas Metropolis Royals left-hander “seems to be like an absolute terror on the mound.” My colleague went on to say that if he “have been designing a pitcher in a laboratory, he’d look loads like Ragans.”
After I talked to the 2024 American League All-Star on the eve of the break, he instructed me that going into full assault mode following final yr’s oft-reported velocity soar performed an enormous function in his emergence as a front-line starter. As he put it, “I form of needed to educate myself that I might get away with a bit extra of a miss in comparison with after I was throwing 90-91 [mph]. I’ve arsenal for my part, so I can simply go after hitters.”
After which there’s the work he does within the laboratory.
“I take advantage of TrackMan in my bullpens, particularly with the slider and the cutter, to form of see the place I’m at,” mentioned Ragans, whose heater is now mid-to-high 90s. “The most important factor for me is my launch factors, ensuring that my pitches are in a good cluster. I would like every part popping out of the identical tunnel. I don’t wish to be throwing a fastball from this launch top, and my slider from a decrease launch top.”
Ragans has “gone via phases” the place that has occurred, together with earlier this yr the place he discovered himself dropping his arm slot “three or 4 inches” when throwing his slider. A change to the place he stood on the rubber contributed to the undesirable distinction. He moved from the third base facet to the primary base facet in the course of the offseason and remained there all through spring coaching and for his first few regular-season begins.
“What I’d needed was extra horizontal method angle, particularly versus lefties with the curveball,” defined Ragans, who has a 3.16 ERA and a 2.67 FIP on the season. “Left on left, I’d form of be coming from behind their ear. However doing that form of tousled the texture of sure pitches, particularly the slider; I used to be yanking it, ensuring that it didn’t keep center. We determined to maneuver again to the third base facet, and from there the slider acquired again to the place it wanted to be.”
The place it wanted to be was popping out of the identical slot as his high-octane fastball and different pitches, which makes considered one of baseball’s greatest arsenals even higher. With the difficulty recognized on video and subsequently corrected, the southpaw was again to trying like Cole Ragans.
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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS
Angel Pagán went 0 for 14 towards Brad Ziegler.
Brett Gardner went 0 for 16 towards Darren O’Day.
Julio Franco went 0 for 17 towards Dan Quisenberry.
Marquis Grissom went 1 for 17 towards Byung-Hyun Kim.
Ivan Rodriguez went 1 for 18 towards Chad Bradford.
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I ran a Twitter ballot on the afternoon of Tuesday’s All-Star Recreation, asking how a lot of it folks have been planning to look at. There have been 4 choices, and the outcomes strongly steered that the Midsummer Traditional — this yr’s was the ninety fifth — isn’t practically the attraction it as soon as was. Solely 19% of respondents chosen “all,” whereas one other 15.9% went with “most.” The lesser-interest choices fared significantly better. “Some” garnered 29.4% of the votes solid, and “none” topped the ballot with 35.7%.
Viewership numbers have been nothing to jot down house about. Per the Related Press, “This yr’s All-Stars drew 7,443,000 viewers on Fox, up 6% from the 2023 sport however the second lowest for the occasion.” Furthermore, the “3.8 score and 12 share have been down from a 3.9/12 final yr.”
None of that is stunning. For a wide range of causes — inter-league play and common entry to most each sport/crew/participant are the first ones — the sport has clearly misplaced a lot of its luster. The times of Pete Rose operating over Ray Fosse (in 1970) and Carl Hubbell putting out 5 consecutive Corridor of Famers he’d by no means earlier than confronted (1934) are lengthy gone. As B.B. King famously sang, the joys is gone.
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Jerry Izenberg’s Larry Doby in Black and White: The Story of a Baseball Pioneer is one the most effective books to return out this yr. Inside its pages, the writer tells of Doby, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, and Jackie Robinson all enjoying within the 1949 All-Star Recreation, which was held at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Area.
“No Black man had ever been in an All-Star dugout earlier than,” Izenberg wrote. “All 4 had been signed off Negro League rosters, however Doby was the one one whom baseball basic managers had paid to signal; [Branch] Rickey and the Dodgers refused to barter or pay for his or her three. [Bill] Veeck, after all, paid the [Newark] Eagles for Doby.”
A not-unimportant a part of baseball historical past that the majority followers most likely aren’t conscious of.
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A quiz:
Of the 34 gamers to have hit 400 or extra house runs for the reason that begin of the 1980 season, solely three performed completely for one crew. Who’re they?
The reply will be discovered under.
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NEWS NOTES
The Nationwide Baseball Corridor of Fame and Museum introduced on Friday that Kim Ng has joined its board of administrators. The official announcement will be discovered right here.
Jerry Walker, who pitched for the Baltimore Orioles, Kansas Metropolis Athletics, and Cleveland Indians in a profession that spanned the 1957-1964 seasons, died earlier this week at age 85. The suitable-hander went 11-10 with a 2.92 ERA for the Orioles in 1959, a yr that noticed him throw 16 scoreless innings to earn a 1-0 win over the Chicago White Sox.
Nelson Chittum, a right-hander who pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1958, and for the Boston Crimson Sox in 1959 and 1960, died this previous week at age 91. His profession ledger features a 3-1 document and a 3.84 ERA over 68 innings.
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The reply to the quiz is Jeff Bagwell, Chipper Jones, and Cal Ripken Jr.
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Again in June, I put collectively a chunk titled Participant’s View: The Greatest Recreation of My Life through which a dozen present massive leaguers shared reminiscences of their biggest particular person performances so far, and never simply at baseball’s highest stage. Included have been video games from the minors, school, highschool, and even youth leagues. I’ve since begun procuring accounts from different gamers, with plans to sporadically embody them right here in Sunday Notes. I’ll begin with Cleveland Guardians outfielder Steven Kwan, who shared one every from MLB, NCAA, and Little League.
“It will most likely be my third big-league sport [on April 10, 2022],” mentioned Kwan, “We have been enjoying Kansas Metropolis and I had a 5-for-5 day. I couldn’t even clarify the way it all occurred. There have been possibly two barrels out of the 5 hits, however every part was falling. That was an enormous day for me in affirming that I might play within the massive leagues. We received the sport, as effectively. It was thrilling.
“After I was [at Oregon State University] we had a sport my junior yr, towards LSU, who had knocked us out of the event the yr earlier than. I ended up working a 9 or 10 pitch at-bat to steer off the sport and hit a house run to present us a 1-0 lead. I don’t keep in mind how the remainder of the sport went, however I do not forget that being superior. That one actually stands out to me.
“After I was 12 years outdated, we have been enjoying on a Little League subject, my house ballpark, and I went 4-for-5 with 4 homers. On the fifth one, I flew out to the warning monitor and my teammates have been cheering as a result of I acquired out. That was a humorous one, though I keep in mind being a bit bothered that my teammates have been cheering that I acquired out. I used to be clearly simply attempting to win the sport, however they have been someplace else with all that.”
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FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Hiroto Takahashi had yet one more overpowering outing as he continues to be NPB’s most-enthralling pitcher not named Roki Sasaki. On Friday, the 21-year-old Chunichi Dragons right-hander threw eight scoreless innings whereas permitting simply 4 hits with no walks and a dozen strikeouts. Takahashi is 7-1 with a 0.52 ERA over 86 innings on the season.
Darwinzon Hernández has a 2.00 ERA to go along with 49 strikeouts in 27 innings for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. The previous Boston Crimson Sox reliever has had no less than one strikeout in all 27 of his appearances this season. Furthermore, no NPB pitcher had beforehand gone greater than 25 consecutive innings with no less than one strikeout.
Maikel Franco went 3-for-5 with two house runs and 5 RBIs on Monday because the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles routed the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters 16-3. The erstwhile MLB infielder is slashing .271/.294/.441 with half a dozen dingers in his second NPB season.
Do Yeong Kim has 24 house runs to go along with a .346/.417/.623 slash line and a 162 wRC+ in 411 plate appearances for the KBO’s Kia Tigers. The 20-year-old third baseman has stolen 29 bases in 32 makes an attempt.
Haarlem Honkbal Week concluded on Friday with Japan beating a USA squad composed of junior school gamers within the championship sport. The ultimate rating was 10-4. Japan went 7-0 within the event, whose members additionally included the USA, Chinese language Taipei, Italy, Spain, and the host crew from the Netherlands.
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A random obscure former participant snapshot:
Dave Meier’s relatively-brief MLB profession included being thrown out in all seven of his stolen base makes an attempt (the document for many instances caught stealing with out a profitable theft is held by Oscar Robles, who went 0-for-8). A local of Helena, Montana who performed for the Minnesota Twins in 1984-1985, the Texas Rangers in 1987, and the Chicago Cubs in 1988, Meier logged 62 of his 70 big-league hits with the Twins, together with his solely homer, a three-run blast off of Chicago White Sox southpaw Floyd Bannister. Meier’s minor-league numbers have been fairly good. In 1,509 Triple-A plate appearances, he slashed .320/.386/.506 with 46 house runs throughout three seasons.
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FARM NOTES
Dasan Brown is slashing .268/.370/.420 with six house runs, 17 stolen bases in 18 makes an attempt, and a 127 wRC+ in 270 plate appearances for Excessive-A Vancouver. A 3rd-round decide in 2019, the defensively-gifted centerfielder from Oakville, Ontario is No. 23 on our Toronto Blue Jays Prime Prospects listing.
Cooper Ingle is slashing .332/.436/.517 with seven house runs and a 172 wRC+ in 243 plate appearances for Excessive-A Lake County. A fourth-round decide final yr out of Clemson College, the 22-year-old left-handed-hitting catcher is No. 25 on our Cleveland Guardians Prime Prospects listing.
Charles McAdoo is slashing .318/.400/.545 with 13 house runs and a 160 wRC+ in 345 plate appearances between Excessive-A Greensboro and Double-A Altoona. A Thirteenth-round decide final yr out of San Jose State, the 22-year-old third baseman went unranked on our Pittsburgh Pirates Prime Prospects listing.
George Wolkow is slashing .271/.383/.519 with 10 house runs and a 149 wRC+ in 214 plate appearances between between the Arizona Advanced League and Low-A Kannapolis. A seventh-round decide final yr out of Downers Grove [IL] Excessive College, the 18-year-old outfielder is No. 22 on our Chicago White Sox Prime Prospects listing.
Demetrio Crisantes is slashing .372/.450/.525 with 4 house runs and a 154 wRC+ in 262 plate appearances between the Arizona Advanced League and Low-A Visalia. A seventh-round decide in 2022 out of Nogales [AZ] Excessive College, the 19-year-old second baseman went unranked on our Arizona Diamondbacks Prime Prospects listing.
Jackie Bradley Jr. is slashing .398/.473/.733 with 12 house runs in 184 plate appearances for the unbiased Atlantic League’s Lengthy Island Geese. The 34-year-old former big-league outfielder has a 27-game hitting streak.
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Bryce Rainer took questions from the media after being taken Eleventh-overall by the Detroit Tigers in final Sunday’s newbie draft, and there was a little bit of Triston Casas in his solutions. Very like the always-engaging Boston Crimson Sox slugger — Casa was likewise a first-round select of the prep ranks — Rainer got here off as a mix of assured, refreshingly trustworthy, and entertainingly quirky.
The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen led off the questioning by asking the 19-year-old shortstop out of Los Angeles’s Harvard-Westlake Excessive College what it was like to listen to his identify referred to as.
“I truthfully don’t assume there’s a phrase to elucidate how I felt,” Rainer replied. “If there’s something I might evaluate it to, I’d say it’s virtually like a child at Christmas… I’m nonetheless form of in a state of shock, per se. It nonetheless doesn’t actually really feel actual, but it surely’s been fairly cool.”
Rainer talked about Santa Claus in his response, and no matter how actual outdated Kris Kringle really is, the younger infielder is certainly Detroit-bound. It’s not what he anticipated come draft day.
“I didn’t assume it was going to be the Tigers,” admitted Rainer, whom Eric Longenhagen had projected to go the Chicago White Sox six picks earlier. “I’m going to be trustworthy with you. We had some concepts. The draft’s loopy — loopy issues occur — and time went on, getting cellphone calls, then it was ‘Tigers.’ I used to be like, ‘All proper. Let’s go. Appears like I’m going to be a Tiger.’”
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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE
Terrible Saying’s 2024 TV Broadcaster rankings are actually out.
At Forbes, Daniel R. Epstein wrote about how MLB’s bonus swimming pools prohibit draftees’ negotiation leverage, particularly for senior indicators.
What’s subsequent within the profession of Shane Baz? Ryan Clark delved into that query at Pitcher Checklist.
Gaylord and Jim Perry have been the primary brothers to begin towards one another in an American League sport. Richard Cuicchi chronicled the July 3, 1973 contest for SABR’s Video games Challenge.
The SABR Defensive Index rating via July 14 will be discovered right here.
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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS
On June 23, Masataka Yoshida was slashing .228/.302/.316 with two house runs in 126 plate appearances. Since that point, the Boston Crimson Sox DH has slashed .313/.362/.453 with two house runs over 69 plate appearances.
On June 13, Colt Keith was slashing .215/.267/.277 with two house runs in 206 plate appearances. Since that point, the Detroit Tigers rookie infielder has slashed .311/.371/.585 with seven house runs over 116 plate appearances.
On June 1, Rowdy Tellez was slashing .177/.239/.223 with one house run in 142 plate appearances. Since that point, the Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman has slashed .321/.356/.575 with seven house runs in 118 plate appearances.
Rowdy Tellez’s three sacrifice flies on Friday tied a document that’s now co-held by 12 gamers. The final participant to log three sac flies in a single sport had been Jose Lopez with Seattle in 2008.
Nelson Cruz had 464 house runs, a .513 SLG, a 128 wRC+, and 41.1 WAR.
Jose Canseco had 462 house runs, a .515 SLG, a 130 wRC+, and 42.1 WAR.
Lary Aaron performed components of two seasons within the Atlanta Braves group and went 46-for-183 (.251) with one house run between the Gulf Coast League and the Low-A South Atlantic League. Drafted 776th total by Atlanta in 1981, the Milwaukee native is the son of Corridor of Famer Henry Aaron.
On in the present day’s date in 1945, the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Athletics performed to a 1-1 tie earlier than the sport was referred to as resulting from darkness after 24 innings. Every crew used two pitchers, with Detroit’s Les Mueller going 19-and-two-thirds innings. Philadelphia’s George Kell, who later received a batting title with the Tigers, went 0-for-10 on the plate.
On in the present day’s date in 2002, the Kansas Metropolis Royals walked off the Cleveland Indians 13-12 in 10 innings on a two-out, bases loaded HPB. Raul Ibanez, who had tied the sport with a two-run homer within the ninth, was the participant plunked.
Gamers born on in the present day’s date embody Jim Manning, who has the excellence of being the youngest participant in Minnesota Twins historical past. Eighteen years outdated when he made all 5 of his MLB pitching appearances, in 1962, the Northern Michigan College product grew up in Trout Creek, Michigan (inhabitants 275), the identical hometown as erstwhile big-league hurler Dick Pole.
Additionally born on in the present day’s date was Mark Lemongello, a right-hander whose 4 big-league seasons included back-to-back years (1977-1978) with the Houston Astros through which he went 9-14 and allowed 20 house runs whereas making 30 begins. Initially within the Detroit Tigers group, Lemongello’s minor league teammates included Mark Fidrych, Ron LeFlore, and John Wockenfuss.
