The Metropolitan: 1986 all over again
The first-place Red Sox visit the first-place Mets. Let's hope Calvin Schiraldi makes an appearance.
Good Morning,
Today we’ll talk about the encouraging bright spot that is Miguel Castro, and we’ll provide you with a mind-blowing resource you won’t find anywhere else.
But first, let’s catch you up on the latest news and preview tonight’s action in Queens against the Boston Red Sox, where the first place Mets host the first place Red Sox (aka, baseball the way it oughta be).
🐻❄️ ALONSO: After a slow start, first baseman Pete Alonso is now up to a .907 OPS, along with 5 HR, 12 RBI, .357 OBP, and surprisingly strong defense.
🏟️. CITI FIELD: New York State eased restrictions for outdoor stadiums on Monday (raising capacity from 20 to 33 percent), but Citi Field still must comply with New York’s social distancing order, requiring pods of seats to be six feet apart. Per Anthony DiComo, the Mets expect to increase their capacity to a maximum of 9,341 people, by May 24.
⬆️ PROMOTION: SNY’s Steve Gelbs will have a new, expanded role with the network this year, to include “host of SNY’s Jets studio programming.” Per SNY, this will feature the station’s pre- and post-game shows throughout the Jets season.
🧑🏫 SOUND SMART: In 10 of their first 17 games this year, Mets starters have lasted 6+ IP, and surrendered 5 hits or fewer, 2 ER or fewer and 3 walks or fewer. The last time a team had this many such starts in its first 17 games was… 1901 (h/t: Greg Harvey).
⏭ NEXT UP: Boston Red Sox
⚾️ IN SHORT: The Mets take on the Red Sox at home for a quick two-game set before another day off on Thursday. Shockingly, both teams are the only ones above .500 in their respective divisions. Boston (14-9) has a significant 3-game lead over the Rays (11-12) and Blue Jays (10-11). And the 9-8 Mets are holding onto first place by a half-game after Philadelphia (11-11) grabbed a win last night.
📖 SCOUTING REPORT: The Red Sox have picked up where they left off when Alex Cora was last managing the squad (before a one-year suspension for his role in the Houston cheating scandal). While the club no longer has key players like Mookie Betts, David Price, Jackie Bradley, Jr., or Andrew Benitendi, it’s still getting major offensive production from stars J.D. Martinez and Rafael Devers.
🗓️ THE OTHER DAY: Thanks to a solid performance by ace Eduardo Rodriguez, the Red Sox grinded out a 5-3 win on Sunday, to salvage a split of a four-game series against the Mariners. They are 4-0 in Rodriguez’s starts, and 10-9 in their remaining games.
✂️ SPLITS: Prior to its off day yesterday, Boston completed a three-series homestand, splitting each of the three, and finishing 5-5 overall. They are now 8-8 at home, and 6-1 on the road.
⏭ NEXT UP: Lefty David Peterson (1-2, 6.75 ERA) takes on righty Garrett Richards (0-2, 6.48 ERA) tonight, in a matchup of starters looking to avenge recent rough losses. Peterson couldn’t make it out of the fourth inning of his last start against the Cubs. And Richards walked six before leaving in the 5th against Toronto.
🎵 METS WALK-UP SONGS
A reader recently reached out to us on Twitter and asked, “Any chance y’all could publish a current list of players’ walk-up music in your newsletter?”
Listen, dear reader. This is Mets Fix.
Ask and you shall receive! This list is accurate as of last week:
Why is Miguel Castro suddenly so effective?
🧓 by Jeffrey Bellone
Building off our musical theme, RHP Miguel Castro is sort of like that deep track on your favorite album that everyone knows and likes, but for some reason is never played on the radio or listed as a top song.
Granted, after arriving in New York from Baltimore last season, the right-hander lost his command and finished the season with a 4.01 ERA, but armed with a 98 MPH sinker, a swing-and-miss slider, along with a change-up, the stuff was like a catchy beat behind lackluster lyrics, which I suppose explains why we have to compare him to a deep track instead of a hit song.
But after spending the offseason tinkering with his repertoire, Castro is starting to play a sweet tune out of the Mets’ bullpen. He’s only made seven appearances, but the changes he has made to his pitch mix offer reason to believe his impressive strikeout-to-walk ratio isn’t just a product of a small sample size.
Castro can throw the ball hard. That is obvious. His sinker that nearly touches 100 MPH is one of the heaviest in baseball, and he hasn’t done much to change his go-to offering over the past year. What he has done is improved his secondary pitches.
By manipulating the spin characteristics on his slider and change-up, he has drastically changed the shape of both pitches, creating greater separation from his fastball, and thus, giving himself a platoon-proof arsenal to use against either lefties or righties during a time when the rules of baseball have forced managers to trust relievers against opposite-handed hitters.
Castro’s slider and change-up have each added 3+ inches of drop since last season, and his slider has doubled its sweeping action from right to left. As a result, he’s getting a 50% whiff rate on his slider (mostly to righties) and a 47% whiff rate on his change-up (mostly to lefties). His arm angle has always produced above-average side-to-side movement, but by fostering more depth on each of these offerings, they have both become lethal offsets to his fastball, particularly his change-up, which hasn’t always been the case.
You can see in the video below how the righty is able to find success using his change-up off his sinker by messing with the hitter’s timing (with a 6 MPH velocity gap) and generating that sharp added movement.
How is he doing this? I will save the detailed lecture on “seam-shifted wake” for another post, but for the purposes of this newsletter, it’s important to know there is new research that suggests there is a force other than the Magnus Effect that contributes to the movement of pitches as they approach home plate.
This is called seam-shifted wake and found most prevalent in sinkers and change-ups. And it explains why pitches move in seemingly unpredictable ways, such as when we look at the spin direction of Castro’s change-up as measured by Hawk-Eye (left image below) relative to what we would expect the spin direction to be based on the actual movement of the pitch (right image).
IN SHORT: Castro throws his sinker and change-up from similar release points with very similar tilt (think of the baseball tilted toward 2:00 on a clock), which would suggest they should move similarly, other than the impact imparted by gravity due to their different spin rates and velocities. However, his change-up moves with significant more horizontal movement than expected, which, as we showed in the video above, creates deception when sequenced with his sinker, and it aligns to the research of how seam-shifted wake impacts this pitch type.
By throwing his change-up a little slower (well, slower for Castro) and with less spin than he did last year, he is gaining more drop, along with strong arm-side movement from what appears to be non-Magnus effects. He adjusted his slider a bit differently, altering his grip and/or release to reduce the amount of gyro (and thus reducing seam-shifted wake effects) in exchange for spiked movement. Together these changes have made both pitches even more distinct from his sinker in both velocity and shape.
BOTTOM LINE: Miguel Castro’s early success isn’t just the result of making a few good pitches here and there. He has improved his secondary pitches to make himself a much more dangerous option out of the bullpen.
⚾️ The Orioles’ Matt Harvey is beginning to cobble together a nice comeback story, beating the Yankees last night 4-2 on six innings of one-run ball, to climb to 2-1 with a 4.26 ERA.
⚾️ Harvey’s former rotation-mate Zack Wheeler threw 8 innings of one-hit, one-run ball last night, to lead the Phillies 2-1 over the Cardinals.
⚾️ Milwaukee’s Corbin Burnes began to show he’s human, allowing five runs (4 earned) over 5 innings to Miami. However, he now has an eye-popping 49 strikeouts and still no walks to begin the season.
⚾️ The Angels’ Shohei Ohtani was the starting pitcher last night, making him the first pitcher to start a game while also leading the league in HR… since Babe Ruth a hundred years ago (per MLB).
⚾️ Colorado GM Jeff Bridich stepped down from the job. He will perhaps be most remembered for alienating stars Troy Tulowitzki and Nolan Arenado in their primes, and trading them away for little in return.
🔗 One surprising reason for Mets’ hope has nothing to do with them, by Joel Sherman, NY Post: “Atlanta’s pedigree, culture and depth still looms as the greatest challenge to the Mets ascending to atop the division. But four weeks are providing indicators that the NL East might not be what we expected and the Braves might be down a grade. The door has opened further for the Mets.”
🔗 How is Jacob deGrom getting even better? by Tim Britton, The Athletic ($): “It isn’t just velocity (but yes, deGrom is throwing even harder than last year). It’s also the increased movement on deGrom’s four-seam fastball. As Jeffrey Bellone of the Mets Fix newsletter pointed out, deGrom’s four-seamer is getting a lot more arm-side run this season compared to earlier in his career.” (Thanks for the shout-out!)
🔗 We ask the experts: Jacob deGrom is the best pitcher since…? by Andy Martino, SNY.com: “Howie Rose, Mets broadcaster: ‘What makes it challenging to find the proper comp is that we’re looking at what is the beginning of Jacob’s fourth Hall of Fame caliber season. Pedro (Martinez) and (Greg) Maddux had seven straight and Johnson six… of recent vintage, Pedro’s seven year stretch is the gold standard. It will be hard for deGrom to match that at his age, but he seems to get better every year, which defies logic. At this moment, the Jacob deGrom of today is the best I’ve seen since Pedro Martinez in his prime.’”
And we leave you with old friend Matt Harvey talking about beating the Yankees last night…
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