The Rockies, a fly-ball revolution, Joe Maddon, power rankings, league leaders, and more

The Rockies are good, the fly-ball revolution is here, Joe Maddon won No. 1,000, MLB power rankings, league leaders, and more.

With a 7-3 victory on the road against the Twins Tuesday, the Colorado Rockies improved to 25-15, which set the mark for best 40-game start to a season in franchise history. The win pushed the Rockies NL West lead to 2.5 games over the Diamondbacks and three games over the preseason favorite Dodgers.

The Rockies are one of several teams off to a surprising start after the first six weeks of the season. The Yankees still lead the NL East, the Brewers are still a factor in the NL Central and Wild Card race, and Arizona looks like the a legitimate threat. Although, it’s worth pointing out that Colorado’s start isn’t such a huge surprise since the Rockies were bantered about as a potential Wild Card team after making improvements to their bullpen and adding Ian Desmond in free agency over the offseason.

I wasn’t a believer, however. Two months ago, in a preseason post where I outlined what I believed to be the 10 best over/under win total bets for 2017, I placed a virtual wager on the Rockies to finish with fewer than 80.5 wins.

Among the reasons I gave at the time was the puzzling decision to ask Desmond to play first base over the winter. I was also skeptical of new closer Greg Holland, who hadn’t pitched since 2015. I also pointed to a pitching staff that posted a 5.13 ERA last season (the worst in the majors), largely because Rockies pitchers are required to pitch at Coors Field, which is located one mile above sea level where baseballs are more free to fly because of the thin air at higher altitude. Of course, I also cited the good folks at Baseball Prospectus and Fangraphs (mainly because they are smarter than I am and have a bunch of fancy calculations I don’t), who projected Colorado for 77 and 78 victories, respectively.

Pitching will always be an issue in Colorado, and though the club has played without top starters Jon Gray and Chad Betts most of the season, the Rockies have found a good strategy that has helped them to limit runs. The club’s overall ERA has dropped to 4.31, which ranks 19^th in baseball – far from great, but not bad given the Coors Field factor. Colorado’s strikeout rate is a middle-of-the-road 20.7 percent, which is a little more than one percentage point higher than it was in 2016. A step in the right direction, but not a major improvement.

But using data from Fangraphs we can see that Rockies pitchers have a higher ground ball rate (50.9 percent) than any pitching staff in the majors. The Rockies ranked second in groundball rate (49.1 percent) last season, so it’s not that Colorado has an entirely new plan in place. Still, it shows commitment to common sense – a ball flies farther in thin air, so keep it on the ground.

Furthermore, the Rockies have upped their fastball percentage from 56.4 percent (No. 19 in the majors) last season to 62.4 percent this year (which currently ranks second in the big leagues behind the Pirates), likely because breaking pitches lose some of their effectiveness and the thin air limits movement. Despite the high fastball percentage, the Colorado pitching staff hasn’t suffered from hitters sitting dead red. The Rockies rank No. 4 in the majors and second in the NL with a 28.9 percent hard contact rate.

I was wrong about Holland, who has been amazing thus far posting a 1.04 ERA with a major league best 17 saves in 17.1 innings. The two-time All-Star has 23 strikeouts and just five walks. Rookies Antonio Senzatela and Kyle Freeland have saved the starting rotation, and German Marquez put together one of the best starts in baseball May 10 when he tossed eight scoreless innings in which he allowed one walk and three hits.

Carlos Gonzalez and Trevor Story are off to an ugly start at the plate (and Storey on the DL), but the Rockies lineup is even better than expected with Mark Reynolds leading the way with 12 home runs and 33 RBI while hitting .317/.389/.612. Reynolds has been so good that Desmond was moved to left field (which makes far more sense) after he returned from a spring training hand injury. Also, Nolan Arenado and Charlie Blackmon could make a case as the most underrated one-two punch in the majors.

Even with a thoughtful attack plan for the pitching staff, a solid bullpen, a potent lineup, and a handful of injured players expected to make their returns in the coming weeks and months, I remained skeptical. I didn’t think the Rockies could truly compete in the NL West (my preseason pick to win the World Series was the Dodgers, after all) until last week, when Colorado survived a difficult 10-game home stand against the D-Backs, Cubs and Dodgers.

After six wins against three of the toughest teams in the National League – teams that should be in postseason race all year – the Rockies showed they are capable of holding their own. We’re just 40 games in, but the tests have already started for Colorado, and so far, the Rockies are passing.

Three things we learned this week

1. The fly-ball revolution is alive and well

One of the most talked about topics in baseball this season has been the so-called fly ball revolution.

Players like Josh Donaldson, J.D. Martinez, Jose Bautista and Kris Bryant have used high fly ball rates to hit lots of home runs, which never raised many eyebrows because each was always considered a power hitter. But others, like second basemen Daniel Murphy and Yonder Alonso, bought in and have seen an uptick in home runs.

Alonso, specifically, has seen a dramatic change in his power numbers. As Michael Clair of MLB’s Cut4 noted earlier this week, Alonso added a leg kick to his swing, and increased his launch angle from 10.3 degrees last season to 23.8 degrees this year. As a result, the A’s slugger has already set a career high with 12 home runs. An eight-year big league veteran, Alonso’s previous best was nine long balls as a rookie with the Padres in 2012.

2. The fly-ball revolution isn’t a cure-all

Nate Silver, who developed the PECOTA projection for Baseball Prospectus, is no longer in the baseball-writing business. Though his website FiveThirtyEight is largely focused on politics (and the goings on in Washington are enough to keep anyone involved busy), the site also offers a wide range of in-depth analysis on sports topics.

Tuesday, Rob Arthur published a post titled “The Fly Ball Revolution Is Hurting As Many Batters As It’s Helped,” which shed some light on the darker side of the topic. Making a swing change is no magic pill. For every Yonder Alonso, there’s a Jason Heyward or Kiké Hernandez.

3. Craig Kimbrel is still amazing

Craig Kimbrel looked surprisingly human in his first season with the Boston Red Sox last year, posting a 3.40 ERA with 31 saves. He was an All-Star, and still racked up 83 strikeouts in just 53 innings, but his K-BB% was a career low 24.1 percent. Kimbrel struck out 37.7 percent of hitters (a few ticks below his career average) but posted a career worst 13.6 percent walk rate.

Alas, all is well with the baseball world in 2017 and Kimbrel looks like the most dominant closer in baseball again. In 17 appearances, Kimbrel is 2-0 with a 1.02 ERA and 12 saves. In 17.2 innings, Kimbreal has 34 strikeouts and two walks. He currently has a career high 54.8 percent strikeout rate, which is the best in baseball among pitchers with at least 10 innings pitched. For those that like alphabet soup, Kimbrel has allowed a .102 batting average, with a 0.45 WHIP, 0.42 FIP, 0.74 xFIP and 0.42 SIERA.

Oh, and he makes hitters look silly.

Kimbrel was at his very best May 11 against the Brewers, when he pitched an immaculate inning – three strikeouts on nine pitches – to seal the victory. His third strikeout of the inning was the 12th in a string of 13 hitters. Kimbrel has since struck out three of the nine hitters he faced in two perfect innings.

Quotable

"“Cheers.”"

-Cubs manager Joe Maddon, celebrating victory No. 1,000 as a major league manager with a glass of wine

The Cubs beat the Reds 9-5 Tuesday to pull back to .500, and within three games of the first place Cardinals in the NL Central, at 19-19. Typically, such a win wouldn’t be cause for much celebration, but win No. 19 of the 2017 season also happened to be the 1,000th career victory for Joe Maddon.

Maddon became the 63rd manager in major league history to reach 1,000 victories. He’s just the eighth active skipper to reach that mark, doing so in his 12th full season as a manager. The 63-year-old was 27-24 with the Angels in two separate interim stints as manager before finally earning a full-time big league managerial job with Tampa Bay in 2006. He posted a 754-705 record with the Raysand is 219-142 in Chicago.

Given his AL Pennant win in 2008 with the Rays and his World Series title last year, Maddon is a potential Hall of Famer, and is very much in the discussion as MLB’s top skipper (more on that later), but because it took him so long to get a shot at the job, it’s unlikely he’ll be considered one of the greatest managers in baseball history.

For comparison’s sake, Earl Weaver retired after 15 seasons as the manager of the Orioles in 1982 when he was 51, or one year younger than Maddon was when Tampa Bay hired him. Weaver returned to the bench in 1985, and retired again in ’86 after posting a 1,480-1,060 career record.

Regardless of whether or not he will end up in Cooperstown one day, 1,000 wins is incredibly difficult to accomplish and reaching such a lofty mark is certainly worth a celebratory glass.

Play of the Week

Every time I watch a game on MLB.tv I see a replay (or three) of Josh Harrison’s Houdini-like escape from rundown against the Mets in 2014. Three years later, Harrison still knows how to avoid a tag.

League Leaders

As we’ve done each week this season, we take a look at one portion of the analytical league leaderboard in an attempt to better understand some of the more advanced baseball statistics available to us.

There’s a small core group of sluggers – Bryce Harper, Ryan Zimmerman, Freddie Freeman, Mike Trout and Aaron Judge – sitting atop the majority of advanced offensive categories, such as OPS, ISO, wOBA and wWRC+ so far this year. Therefore, while we wait for some of those metrics to work themselves out, we’ll take a look at a simpler one: walk rate.

BB%

• Matt Carpenter, St. Louis Cardinals (20.3%)
• Miguel Sano, Minnesota Twins (19.6%)
• Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals (18.9%)
• Brad Miller, Tampa Bay Rays (18.4%)
• Paul Goldschmidt, Arizona Diamondbacks (17.8%)

Carpenter is one of the most underrated hitters in baseball. Though he’s hitting just .254 through 34 games (which would be a career low), Carpenter has a .405 on-base percentage (a would-be career high) thanks to 30 walks. The left-handed hitter also has eight home runs, helping him to a .518 slugging percentage that would also be a personal best.

Sano is very close to that elite group of five, and actially ranks sixth in wRC+ (186) and No. 8 in wOBA (.443), with Paul Goldschmidt right behind (.428).

For pitchers, we will take a look at xFIP, which takes the same fielding independent stats as FIP (the things a pitcher can control, such as strikeouts, walks, and hit batsmen) as well as fly ball rate, and converts it into a figure comparable to ERA. xFIP gives us a better indication on how many runs a pitcher should have allowed per nine innings, to date. Read more about xFIP here.

xFIP (Qualified starters)

• Chris Sale, Boston Red Sox (2.31)
• Michael Pineda, New York Yankees (2.47)
• Lance McCullers, Jr., Houston Astros (2.48)
• Jeff Samardzija, San Francisco Giants (2.79)
• Dallas Keuchel, Houston Astros (2.86)

It’s no surprise that Chris Sale tops the list in xFIP this season. In addition to pitching putting up Cy Young numbers such as a 2.15 ERA, Sale has blown hitters away at a league-best (among starters) 38.8 percent strikeout rate. The second best qualified starter this season has been Danny Salazar (33.2 percent).

xFIP (Minimum 10 innings)

• Kenley Jansen, Los Angeles Dodgers (0.48)
• Craig Kimbrel, Boston Red Sox (0.74)
• Trevor Rosenthal, St. Louis Cardinals (1.11)
• Tommy Kahnle, Chicago White Sox (1.13)
• Chris Devenski, Houston Astros (1.20)

It also shouldn’t be a shock that the best of the best in xFIP are high strikeout relievers. Each member of the top five has a strikeout rate of 44.6 percent, led by Kimbrel’s 54.8 percent.

Random MLB Power Rankings: Top 10 Managers 

1. Joe Maddon, Chicago Cubs
2. Terry Francona, Cleveland Indians
3. A.J. Hinch, Houston Astros
4. Bruce Bochy, San Francisco Giants
5. Joe Girardi, New York Yankees
6. Buck Showalter, Baltimore Orioles
7. Dusty Baker, Washington Nationals
8. Bud Black, Colorado Rockies
9. Craig Counsell, Milwaukee Brewers
10. Bryan Price, Cincinnati

Major league managers are interesting creatures. Managers are responsible for preparing the lineup and also make in-game decisions such as pitching changes and double switches. Managers have an impact on how players align defensively in the field, both in terms of the basic position they play and whether or not they shift against a particular hitter, and they can also call for steal attempts, hit-and-run plays and the like.

But, perhaps most importantly, managers must handle a group of 25 players on a day-to-day basis, the majority of which are multimillions with egos to match their salaries. Overall, the vast responsibility a manager has, including the heavy workload that comes with 162 games, makes the job one of the toughest in sports.

Nevertheless, given the individualized nature of the game itself, managers don’t get much credit for a team’s success. Generally speaking, the feeling is that when a team wins the players are responsible, but if a team loses the manager is to blame.

However, some big league skippers – like Maddon – are able to make an impact on the field and in the clubhouse.

Note, this is not solely a ranking of which manager has had the best career to date. In that case, three-time World Series champ Bruce Bochy would be a clear No. 1. Instead, this top 10 takes a variety of things into account, including past success, in-game decision making, lineup construction, and bullpen use.

In other words, if I were handed an MLB expansion franchise tomorrow, this is the order in which I would call current big league managers about potentially coming aboard to manage my squad.

Useless Info

According to ESPN Stats & Info, following his home run Monday against the Toronto Blue Jays, Braves slugger Freddie Freeman continued his streak of homering against every team he’s faced this season – 10 up, 10 down.

Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper launched his 13^th home run of the season Tuesday at PNC Park, which means Harper has now homered in all 15 National League stadiums. Harper is 24 years old.

Bill James Online pointed out that there have now been more American League games featuring the designated hitter than without it. The AL was formed in 1901, the DH rule went into effect in 1973.

On May 15, the Marlins tied a major league record by hitting an opposing hitter for the tenth consecutive game.

Next: Best all-time player for each MLB team

Baseball-Reference pointed out Tuesday that Giants catcher Buster Posey has seven home runs and 11 RBI this season, which is a 1.57 homer-to-RBI ratio – the lowest at the major league level since 1884.

We learned via the video board at Progressive Field May 15 that current Rays manager Kevin Cash has the fifth worst OPS+ (37) of all time among MLB position players with 650 or more plate appearances.

On May 11, Astros outfielder Jake Marisnick became the first MLB player this season to end a game with an outfield assist.