A's Minors Midseason Statistical Check-In, Part 2: Pitching Basics

In Part 1 of the Midseason Statistical Check-In series two days ago, I looked at which hitters in the A’s system ranked in the organization’s top and bottom ten in some basic offensive categories: the triple-slash statistics, wOBA, and wRC+. Today in Part 2, we’re going to go through similar statistics, but this time for the organization’s minor league pitchers. In future installments, I’ll go through batted ball and approach-related data to examine some of the specific strengths and weaknesses that underlie the positive and negative results specified in these first two pieces. As we look at the lists in this piece, I’ll talk through some of the context behind each pitcher’s performance.

The statistics we’ll look at here are batting average against, on-base percentage against, slugging percentage against, ERA, FIP, and xFIP. Statistics are through games of June 9 and limited to pitchers with prospect eligibility and 10+ innings pitched this season. Let’s begin.

Batting Average Against

Just as we started Part 1 by looking at the batting averages of Oakland’s position player prospects, we’ll start here by looking at the batting averages allowed by the pitching prospects. Here’s the organizational top 10:

Rank	Player	BAA
1	Hogan Harris	.114
2	Jeff Criswell	.184
3	Norge Ruiz	.191
4	Kumar Nambiar	.192
5	Trayson Kubo	.203
6	Jared Koenig	.203
7	Dalton Sawyer	.211
8	Austin Briggs	.214
9	Chester Pimentel	.230
10	J.T. Ginn	.231

There are some interesting trends in this list. One is that no Stockton Ports appear, which makes sense not only because the California League is a notoriously tough place to pitch, but also because Low-A defenses are significantly less efficient than, say, Triple-A defenses (even though Triple-A Las Vegas is a hellish pitching environment as well). So the list is paced by four straight Lansing Lugnuts, with the rest of the spots occupied by upper-minors hurlers. There’s a fairly even split of starters and relievers (4-6) and an even split of lefties and righties, which is more surprising given that the A’s pitching group tends to be quite righthanded-heavy. That said, all of the lefties on this list except Koenig and Nambiar are just over the ten-inning minimum, so perhaps we shouldn’t get too carried away on that front. There’s also a relative preponderance of fairly anonymous guys, with only Criswell and Ginn ranking as well-known prospects, perhaps somewhat joined by Koenig in this regard given the breakout season that saw him debut in Oakland on Wednesday.

Even at just 13 innings pitched this year (across seven starts, as he’s been stretched out very slowly), Harris’ excellence merits at least a passing discussion. The oft-injured former third-rounder has a viciously vertical attack with some of the biggest fastball/curve vertical movement separation you’ll ever see (the movement on his changeup isn’t half bad too). Check out this chart of his pitch movement from an AFL appearance last fall (h/t Brooks Baseball):

The batting average will certainly regress down somewhat, but Harris is still showing legitimate, crisp stuff this season, and hopefully it will continue to play well as he starts facing lineups multiple times.

As I discussed in the most recent episode of the podcast (see around 61:30 for the start of the segment), Criswell has been the top 2022 performer among the pitchers in the system who ranked fairly highly on offseason prospect lists. He brings a well-diversified four-pitch arsenal headed by a riding 92-95 mph fastball and a changeup with massive speed separation that seems to freeze as it crosses the plate. Koenig is more of a finesse pitch-mixer whose strength is his cutter/slurve combination and feel for locating. Ginn has been limited by injuries this season, but his heavy sinker is very tough to lift or hit with authority; he appears on this list in spite of a BABIP over .300.

The most interesting name of the relievers is probably Kubo, who had been pasted to a .330 average across his first two pro seasons in spite of a fastball that sat 93-96 and a solid breaking ball. He had Tommy John surgery over the pandemic off-year and seems to be gaining consistency in his second year back from it, with the fastball touching 98 and the slider grading as one of the better breakers in the system. Briggs has somehow managed to work his way on here in spite of an early-season battle with command that may have been related to injury; he’’s walked ten batters and struck out just five in 12 ⅓ innings. Batters hit just .227 off him from June 23 to the end of the season in ‘21, though, so it’s actually pretty in-character for him; he’s the hardest-throwing lefty in the system, up to 96 mph with long running action that creates a weird angle from his abrupt delivery. The big-bodied Pimentel is up to 95 mph with some cutting action that gives his fastball some odd attack angles as well, though he’s struggled to command the ball consistently in either Midland or Las Vegas, so the low batting average here might just be some touches of effective wildness. The other three guys are more finesse-oriented, though Ruiz’s fastball has ticked up a touch as the season has worn on (from 90-92 in April to 92-94 now) while Sawyer’s backed up (from 92-94 last year to 89-90 in 2022), possibly due to an injury that has shelved him after just 11 ⅔ innings. Nambiar has been a big surprise this year: batters hit .287 off him when he was in Stockton’s rotation in 2021, and his balanced finesse arsenal wouldn’t seem the sort to get dramatically better results out of the bullpen, yet here we are. Facing the order only once has allowed the lefty to throw his curve and changeup at will and may have helped his acumen for patterning play up. He tends to rack up called strikes by keeping his fastball on the edges of the plate, and his arsenal has some similarities to Harris’ minus about three ticks on the heater.

Now, let’s take a look at who has struggled the most at hit prevention.

Rank	Player	BAA
1	Ryan Cusick	.387
2	Alexis Cedano	.364
3	Skylar Szynski	.356
4	Grant Holmes	.351
5	Ty Damron	.351
6	Aaron Cohn	.340
7	Brock Whittlesey	.336
8	Miguel Romero	.333
9	Brian Howard	.319
10	Zach Logue	.319

There are 57 pitchers eligible for these lists. I think if you’d given me 50 guesses before the season as to who would occupy the #1 spot on this list at this point in the season, I wouldn’t have guessed the correct answer. Cusick was completely unhittable in Low-A after the Braves drafted him in the first round last year, he’s been up to 98 mph this year, and he shows a plus hard slider. It’s not as though you can’t see some evidence of the quality of those pitches in his statline, either, as he’s struck out 31 batters in 27 ⅔ innings. Some of the struggle is luck–witness the .483 (!) BABIP figure–but it’s been a rough go for Cusick so far. He’s an object lesson in how stuff alone–even with a semblance of command–doesn’t guarantee a seamless path to the majors, as there’s much to learn about pitch sequencing and consistency along the way. Cusick didn’t really throw a changeup before 2022 and the A’s are trying to get something going with a third pitch there, but it hasn’t taken yet, as the changeup is more of a 90-93 mph batting practice fastball than anything else right now. Pushing him to Midland immediately was a very aggressive move and the fastball-slider combination is intact, so as alarming as the number here might be, it’s not necessarily cause to panic about Cusick’s status, just a reminder that even extremely talented players can face significant challenges (see Tyler Soderstrom on a batting side for another obvious example).

Beyond Cusick, we do see an overrepresentation of Vegas and Stockton pitchers, mostly relievers. Holmes and Romero both throw reasonably hard out of the Vegas ‘pen: Holmes is 94-96 with a solid curve, and Romero sits 92-95 with sink. But both of them have lived in the middle of the zone this year, which is bad news anywhere, but especially in Vegas:

The other Vegas pitchers who appear here are Logue and Howard. Logue has a more normal zone distribution and BABIP figure but has been victimized by the home run ball in both Vegas and his stints with the big club, with strikeout rates under 20% at both stops. Howard has some more positive metrics, limiting opponents to an average exit velocity of 87.3 mph and striking out 23.6% of them, so his struggles (.395 BABIP, up from .316 in Vegas last year) might be somewhat more luck-driven.

The rest of the pitchers here either lack velocity (Damron, Szynski, Cohn) or have average velocity but have struggled with their in-zone command (Whittlesey and Cedano). Whittlesey and Damron hit enough corners in the lower minors to be effective but haven’t managed to walk the tightrope as well in Midland (though Damron’s pitched better the last couple of weeks), and Cohn and Szynski don’t have any margin for error with their 86-87 mph fastballs, especially in Stockton’s environment. Though Cedano’s combination of a 92-94 mph carrying fastball and hard curve doesn’t confine him to the same sort of finesse bucket and he’s amassed more than a strikeout per inning, hitters get a long look at the ball in his delivery and he’s lived in the middle third of the zone too frequently.

On-Base Percentage Against

There was a large amount of overlap between the batting average and on-base percentage leaders in the system among offensive players, but we might think of hit avoidance and walk avoidance as somewhat more orthogonal skills for pitchers than for hitters. Does that mean that there’s less overlap here? Let’s find out.

Rank	Player	OBPA
1	Jared Koenig	.261
2	Hogan Harris	.264
3	Jeff Criswell	.271
4	Blake Beers	.280
5	Norge Ruiz	.282
6	Trayson Kubo	.289
7	Kumar Nambiar	.292
8	David Leal	.293
9	Jack Cushing	.300
10	Grant Holman	.302

Well, six of the ten BAA leaders make it here, including three (Harris, Ruiz, and Nambiar) with walk rates higher than 10%; their ability to limit hits has more than made up for the free passes. Ruiz and Nambiar in particular tend to focus on pitching on or just off the edges of the zone, trading the occasional walk for the avoidance of barrels; Harris’ plane and movement allow him to pitch out of the zone and get chases, though he’s also had some stretches where his command hasn’t been nailed down (likely due to post-injury rust; he’s improved as the season has worn on). As cool as Koenig’s story has been in general, one of the overlooked elements of it is how much he’s improved this year, adding ten percent to his strikeout rate from where it was as a 27-year-old in Midland in 2021. Kubo’s appearance on this list is perhaps even more notable than his ability to limit batting average, since he had never walked under five batters per nine innings even in college, let alone in pro ball, and thus had never cleared the 5 ERA threshold at any level either. Criswell’s command has looked shaky at times this year, but he’s shown good poise and rebounded quickly from errant offerings, often expertly working his way back into counts from 2-0 or 3-0 deficits without having to resort to lobbing cookies in there.

The four new entrants onto the list are all starting pitchers. Leal’s impressive command is well-documented and I’ve discussed him at ridiculous length before. Cushing’s continued success in Double-A this year has been a surprise in light of his reliance on his 90-91 mph fastball, but he comes right at guys with it and has both four- and two-seam variants to at least mix up his in-zone locations effectively. Holman and especially Beers had elevated walk rates in their 2021 college seasons, so their very low pro walk rates have been pleasant surprises. Holman showed solid command and pounded the zone with his hard sinker before going down with a shoulder injury last month. Beers, on the other hand, has a vicious two-plane slider that he throws more than his fastball. He’s gone from a full windup in college to a simple stretch-only delivery in pro ball and has also focused on pounding the zone with both the slider and the low-90s heat, to stunning results so far.

Now let’s turn to the pitchers who have struggled the most to keep opponents from reaching base.

Rank	Player	OBPA
1	Skylar Szynski	.486
2	Ryan Cusick	.453
3	Miguel Romero	.450
4	Alexis Cedano	.439
5	Wandisson Charles	.436
6	Daniel Martinez	.433
7	Ed Baram	.429
8	Ty Damron	.420
9	Bryce Conley	.416
10	Diego Granado	.409

One thing that really stands out when you look at these two lists is how the system’s best OBP-limiters have largely been starters (7 out of the top 10), while the worst are mostly relievers (8 out of 10, and in fact 10 of the worst 12). We usually think of starters as having the more challenging job, since they have to go through the order multiple times. The A’s player development staff hasn’t been shy about letting most of their starting pitchers at all four levels go deep into games this year, as their pitch counts have tended to reside in the 90s and even broken 100 on several occasions. Yet despite the challenge of maintaining stamina through that extended duration and having to face hitters a second and third time, the organization’s starters have seemed to outpace their relievers, largely because the starter group was heavily restocked in the last year with the strong 2021 draft and the offseason trades, while the reliever group has not.

All of these pitchers have walk rates at or above 10%, and several of them–Baram, Martinez, Szynski, and Charles–have gone through stretches of outright sub-50% strike wildness, though none have quite descended to the point where the dreaded yips come into play. In addition to the previously-discussed Cusick, Romero and Cedano, Charles (95-99 with a solid breaking ball and splitter), Conley (93-95 with a solid cutter/slider combo and good extension) and Baram (up to 95 with a solid slider and split) have some legitimate stuff (Charles and Cusick obviously being in a top tier of stuff separate from the rest), but Charles’ and Conley’s strike-throwing seem to waver wildly from outing to outing, while Baram has struggled to get over his front side in his crossfire delivery and has tended to sail his tailing fastball off to the arm side. The rest of the guys on the list don’t have the grade of stuff to sustain walk problems. Granado’s command actually looked borderline plus in Stockton last year, but a drop to a low three-quarters arm slot this season has led to him getting on the side of the ball too often. Martinez is a good athlete and former two-way collegiate player, but his lower-half usage and timing to the plate vary from pitch to pitch. Szynski is understandably still trying to regain his feel for pitching after missing four full seasons from 2017 to 2020, and he’ll flash more command than his rough 2021 and 2022 statlines indicate, but has yet to gain much consistency.

Slugging Percentage Against

Let’s now turn to slugging percentage, which one would think would incorporate some more elements of groundball generation and exit velocity limitation on top of the batting average figures. Here are the system’s top performers:

Rank	Player	SLGA
1	Hogan Harris	.114
2	Adam Oller	.261
3	Kumar Nambiar	.273
4	Norge Ruiz	.286
5	Jared Koenig	.318
6	Jeff Criswell	.354
7	Austin Briggs	.357
8	Trayson Kubo	.365
9	David Leal	.378
10	Blake Beers	.379

Not much to say here, as I’ve discussed nine of these ten guys already. Harris has yet to allow an extra-base hit in 13 innings despite a 52% flyball rate, highest in the system. Spoiler alert for a future installment of the series (perhaps it’ll change by then, though): Ruiz and Briggs are the top two pitchers in the system in groundball rate, so it makes sense that they’ve avoided extra-base hits well. Kubo and Criswell also eclipse a 50% groundball rate on top of their already-good stuff. The one new name is Adam Oller, which might surprise folks who have watched him get smacked around to a .758 SLG in the big leagues, but he’s allowed just two extra-base hits–both doubles–in 23 Triple-A innings. Almost half of the flyball contact he’s generated has stayed in the infield, easily the highest mark in the system. As much as Vegas-to-Oakland might be the easiest AAA-MLB environmental jump in baseball for pitchers, Oller’s season to date just goes to show you that park factors can only tell you so much about how players will adjust to new levels.

The players who have struggled the most in this area also mostly appeared on one or both of the previous lists:

Rank	Player	SLGA
1	Skylar Szynski	.759
2	Alexis Cedano	.687
3	Zach Logue	.615
4	Ryan Cusick	.613
5	Aaron Cohn	.604
6	Daniel Martinez	.597
7	Brock Whittlesey	.586
8	Ty Damron	.558
9	Matt Milburn	.556
10	Joe DeMers	.551

More Lugnuts than Aviators! I wouldn’t have expected that, simply due to the extreme difference in league environments between the MWL and the PCL, but there you go. The one new name is veteran Double-A starter Matt Milburn, a control specialist who throws a lot of sliders and a fastball around 90. It’s worth noting that while Vegas and Stockton get the flashing-red-light treatment in discourse about park/league caveats, Midland’s ballpark and league are quite hitter-friendly relative to Double-A as well, which makes it a tough place on command-over-stuff guys like Milburn and Damron. In fairness, though, that hasn’t stopped guys like Leal and Cushing from succeeding in the RockHounds’ rotation.

Of these ten pitchers, only Cohn and Milburn rank above average in generating ground balls, and even they only barely eclipse the mean in that statistic. Most are four-seam fastball guys, but it’s frustrating to see DeMers, owner of one of the heaviest sinkers in the system from his low, extended arm slot, allowing so many extra-base hits. Some are inevitable because he’s a zone-heavy guy (third-lowest walk rate in the system) who doesn’t throw hard, but it’s confusing to see him pitch up in the zone with the fastball as often as he does given its shape, leading to a well-below-average groundball rate in spite of the fastball having so much movement that opposing announcers often mistake it for a breaking pitch.

With the performances on each of the triple-slash stats established, let’s now turn to the overall performance indicators. We’ll start with ERA and then move on to FIP and xFIP, seeing which pitchers each highlight as having had the most success or faced the most problems.

Earned Run Average

Each of these metrics is going to have separate strengths and weaknesses. Of the three, ERA would appropriately be termed the most vulnerable to luck, impacted significantly by things like BABIP and strand rate. Those numbers tend to regress to the mean, but they also sometimes indicate something about the pitcher’s stuff or hittability. Here’s who’s leading the system in ERA:

Rank	Player	ERA
1	Hogan Harris	1.38
2	Jared Koenig	2.21
3	Kumar Nambiar	2.70
4	Dalton Sawyer	3.09
5	Norge Ruiz	3.12
6	Jack Cushing	3.20
7	Trayson Kubo	3.20
8	Jeff Criswell	3.38
9	David Leal	3.40
10	Grant Holman	3.43

We’ve talked about all of these pitchers before. We perhaps see some park/league effects on this list, as six of the ten have spent much or all of the season in Lansing and none of these guys have been in the Cal League this year. Sawyer’s inclusion (6.24 FIP, 5.95 xFIP, only 11 ⅔ innings) is fluky, but otherwise, the top seven names on this list have been pleasant surprises this year. Koenig has pitched his way to relevance in a major way, Harris is starting to take some steps, Kubo has turned into a reliable closer in Lansing, Ruiz has pitched his way from the bring of release to a high-leverage AAA bullpen role, Nambiar looks to have given himself a path to the upper minors, and Cushing has kept getting outs in Midland despite middling velocity.

Here’s who’s struggled the most at run prevention.

Rank	Player	ERA
1	Alexis Cedano	12.39
2	Daniel Martinez	11.94
3	Skylar Szynski	11.37
4	Wandisson Charles	9.78
5	Miguel Romero	8.76
6	Brock Whittlesey	8.67
7	Osvaldo Berrios	8.40
8	Ryan Cusick	8.13
9	James Gonzalez	7.66
10	Ed Baram	7.58

Familiar names for the most part–and another relief-heavy group–though Berrios and Gonzalez appear here despite avoiding bottom-ten status in any of the triple-slash stats. Berrios, like Whittlesey, is a strike-thrower whose in-zone command hasn’t been fine enough to avoid running into trouble with a fairly vanilla repertoire. Gonzalez is another example of how adjacent levels can be dramatically different for certain players. The 21-year-old Panamanian lefty was assigned straight to Lansing from extended spring training to fill in, and was hit around to an 11.88 ERA in five appearances there. Subsequently assigned to Stockton–where he only had eight prior innings of experience–Gonzalez has pitched significantly better in a swing role. He has promising stuff but lacks the consistency to compete at the High-A level presently. He’s only allowed a .263/.353/.414 triple-slash, by far the best of these ten pitchers.

Fielding Independent Pitching

All four of the metrics we’ve looked at so far have significant overlap. It’s hard to have even an average OBP against, SLG against, or ERA while allowing a very high batting average. FIP, however, is not beholden to batting average against in the same way, focusing solely on strikeouts, walks allowed, and home runs allowed. This strips a lot of the luck out of the performance of a pitcher, but in assuming all BABIP is simply luck-driven, it can penalize pitchers who perpetually induce weak contact. Here’s who FIP thinks has performed the best in the system so far:

Rank	Player	FIP
1	Grant Holman	2.60
2	Hogan Harris	2.85
3	Kumar Nambiar	3.18
4	Norge Ruiz	3.34
5	Angello Infante	3.35
6	Jared Koenig	3.43
7	David Leal	3.49
8	Garrett Acton	3.49
9	Jack Cushing	3.53
10	Blake Beers	3.61

This does mix it up a bit. This is certainly a more realistic appraisal of how good Hogan Harris’ performance has been than any of the previous metrics show, but FIP still paints his success as quite legitimate. It’s Holman, with his combination of very few walks and heavy groundball tendency, who ends up in pole position here (despite a .277 BAA), though: hopefully he can return from his shoulder injury at some point this year and keep building on that performance.

Two new names enter this list. Garrett Acton is the more notable one: his success has been driven by a strikeout rate now north of 35%, as he’s been unhittable for the last month-plus after seeing his velocity tick up to the 96-98 mph range. Conversely, Angello Infante’s appearance might seem shocking, as he narrowly misses the worst ERA list with a 7.47 mark, driven largely by a couple of nuclear outings that preceded his being shut down for two weeks with a shoulder injury. His approach to pitching isn’t dissimilar from Cushing’s.

On the minus side, we have…

Rank	Player	FIP
1	Skylar Szynski	12.38
2	Daniel Martinez	9.67
3	Zach Logue	8.20
4	Ed Baram	8.19
5	Aaron Brown	8.08
6	Austin Briggs	7.98
7	Aaron Cohn	7.81
8	Alexis Cedano	7.74
9	Parker Dunshee	7.31
10	Wandisson Charles	6.92

Austin Briggs becomes the first player in this series to show up on a best-of list and a worst-of list. Like Infante, his bad outings–in this case, several with multiple walks and no strikeouts–were followed by an IL stint, and there’s a more positive history in his recent past. He’s pitched better since being reactivated. Aaron Brown is another upper-minors lefty reliever with good stuff , touching 95 and showing an above-average slider, who has struggled to locate consistently; Vegas does not reward pitchers who fall behind in counts and walk a lot of batters. FIP thinks his .253 batting average against, driven by a .207 BABIP, has been quite lucky. All of these pitchers have allowed a lot of home runs this season, and all but Cohn have had trouble avoiding walks. Dunshee’s inclusion in the latter category has been surprising, as he had never been over a 10% walk rate at any previous stop in his career, including two prior seasons in Vegas.

Expected Fielding Independent Pitching

xFIP is FIP that attempts to account for home run luck, estimating the number of home runs a pitcher “should” have allowed based on his flyball rate. Let’s see if this statistical adjustment highlights anyone different, starting with the leaders:

Rank	Player	xFIP
1	Grant Holman	2.51
2	Garrett Acton	3.01
3	Blake Beers	3.46
4	David Leal	3.64
5	Jeff Criswell	3.71
6	Jack Owen	3.72
7	Joey Estes	3.99
8	Kumar Nambiar	4.13
9	J.T. Ginn	4.15
10	Jared Koenig	4.23

ERA, FIP, and xFIP all agree that some of the best performances in the system this season have come from Holman, Leal, Beers, Nambiar, and Koenig (the vaunted Hogan Harris performance misses this list by 0.01 runs, as well). It’s pretty safe to say that they have been some of the most effective pitchers in the system this year. Criswell vaults back into the top five here after missing the top ten in FIP, with xFIP crediting him more for his strong groundball rate. xFIP also really likes Garrett Acton’s season, and I can’t disagree with it there.

Three new names show up on this list though, in Owen, Estes, and Ginn. Owen is similar to Nambiar in a lot of ways–he was a finesse starting pitcher last year after being signed as an undrafted free agent, spotting his 86-88 mph fastball on the edges of the zone. You wouldn’t think his well-rounded but soft arsenal would play up in the bullpen, but he’s been one of Stockton’s top relievers this year, perhaps on the back of his ability to mix up his sequencing when facing hitters just once. Estes and Ginn are two of the system’s top pitching prospects but are currently shelved with injuries. I mentioned earlier that he's known for his heavy sinker, but (in a small sample because of injury) Ginn actually had a non-elite groundball rate for the first time in his career this year; however, his strikeout rate was off to a good start (over 30%) before the injury. Estes throws very hard and gets huge running action on his fastball, but is more of a flyball pitcher. He also has a strong strikeout-to-walk ratio (40/11) but made a few too many in-zone mistakes in the early going; as the youngest full-season starting pitcher in the system, he has plenty of time to clean that up as he advances.

Finally, here’s the list of pitchers xFIP thinks have struggled the most:

Rank	Player	xFIP
1	Skylar Szynski	8.71
2	Ed Baram	8.03
3	Daniel Martinez	7.41
4	Miguel Romero	7.36
5	Austin Briggs	7.16
6	Zach Logue	6.80
7	Parker Dunshee	6.77
8	Aaron Brown	6.68
9	Alexis Cedano	6.37
10	Chester Pimentel	6.04

It’s worth noting that xFIP doesn’t let Zach Logue off the hook for his homer problems, as it still thinks he’s gotten pretty lucky ERA-wise. Chester Pimentel becomes the second guy to appear on both a best-of and worst-of list, punished here by his near-20% walk rate, and xFIP also isn’t much kinder to Briggs than FIP is, despite his extreme groundball tendency. The metric does take some of the extremity out of the double-digit ERA figures of Cedano, Martinez, and Szynski.

As a final note, I want to stress that players’ appearances on these lists can absolutely be temporary. Kubo, Ruiz, and Nambiar, for instance, would’ve appeared or been close to appearing on some of the bottom-tier lists last season, and Beers had an ERA over 8 in college last year; conversely, Cusick was unhittable wherever he pitched in 2021. Circumstances change and players develop, and these lists are merely a snapshot in time. In the next installments of the series, we’ll move from these overall metrics–where appearing on the best-of lists is unequivocally a positive and the worst-of lists are a dubious honor–to batted-ball metrics, where placement on the list is often more reflective of a player’s tendencies than their overall success. These first two pieces establish some baselines for who has been successful and who has struggled that we can think back to as we look through those more process-reflective metrics.