Lucas Erceg’s story is fairly well known. A position player for his first seven professional seasons, the 2014 second-round draft pick converted to the mound in 2021 and went on to make his big-league debut last May after being traded from the Milwaukee Brewers to the Oakland Athletics. The transition has been a resounding success. Now with the Royals — Kansas City acquired the 29-year-old right-hander at last month’s trade deadline — Erceg has eight saves to go with a 3.40 ERA, a 2.87 FIP, and a 27.3% strikeout rate over 50-and-a-third innings on the season.
Pitching and hitting are different animals, and that includes the data and technology used to help hone one’s craft at the professional level. With that in mind, I asked Erceg if the degree to which he is analytically inclined has changed along with his job description.
“I’ve always been kind of minimal with that,” Erceg told me prior to a game at Detroit’s Comerica Park. “I think the more I start to look at numbers, and hyper-focus on what they are telling me, the more I’ll overcorrect instead of just making those day-to-day progressions.”
Erceg feels that he was guilty of overcorrecting during his hitting days down on the farm. Looking back, he realizes that he was prone to listening to too many voices, and as a result ended up “kind of bouncing around from idea to idea, never finding consistency.” The potential — especially in the power department — was there, but he ultimately stalled out developmentally as a slugger. In his final season as a position player, Erceg slashed .219/.305/.398 in Triple-A.
Moving to the mound coincided with a mental shift for the Menlo College product.
“When I turned into a pitcher, I was a little older and understood how long the season is, and how the process isn’t a week-to-week thing,” explained Erceg. “It’s a longer process in terms of seeing progress. I began to find success by simplifying. Like I said, I don’t want to be overthinking and overcorrecting. For instance, when I feel like I’m getting out of sorts in my mechanics, I remind myself to slow things down. I make sure that I’m feeling out the mound instead of trying to use it like a ball rolling down the hill, if that makes sense.”
Maturation having played a primary role in his success on the mound, might things have worked out similarly in reverse? Suppose Erceg had transitioned from a pitcher to a hitter around the time he began to better understand the development process and how it applied to his own self? Is it possible that he would be living up to his potential as a position player?
“Absolutely,” responded Erceg. “This game is hard, and the more you play the more you understand the ebbs and flows. Now that I have a better understanding of how the game works, and how long the season is, it’s easier for me to make the adjustments needed to put myself in a successful position. I think that could have happened as a hitter. At the same time, I’m happy to be a pitcher.”
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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS
Ralph Kiner went 32 for 100 against Warren Spahn.
Al Kaline went 38 for 112 against Whitey Ford.
Henry Aaron went 42 for 116 against Sandy Koufax.
Dexter Fowler went 20 for 51 against Clayton Kershaw.
Ellis Valentine went 19 for 47 against Steve Carlton.
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John Schneider was impressed with the Kansas City Royals when his Toronto Blue Jays squad faced the AL Central club in a pair of early-season series. KC won five of the seven games, but it wasn’t just the results that stood out to the Jays’ skipper. The talent on the field, especially on the mound, is what captured his attention.
“Kansas City jumps to mind with their starting pitching,” Schneider replied when asked about Toronto’s 2024 opponents. “They’ve got Salvy [Salvador Perez] behind the plate and Bobby Witt Jr. at short. They’ve really taken a huge step forward. Baltimore. Every time we play them you kind of scratch your head with the home runs they can hit. There are a few teams. I feel that there is a lot of parity in the league, and you catch teams at different times of the year — and you never know with baseball — but Kansas City kind of jumps out at me a little bit. And Cleveland, to be honest with you.”
Schneider went on to describe Royals southpaw Cole Ragans as being “pretty damn good, and he’s young,” adding that 24-year-old Witt Jr. is “an MVP candidate probably year after year going forward.”
The Royals’ unexpected-by-many emergence as a serious contender?
“You could kind of see that coming,” said Schneider. “I think they’ve got a pretty good run ahead of them.”
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A quiz:
Two players in the modern era (since 1901) have won a National League batting title in a season where they didn’t hit a home run: Ginger Beaumont with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1902 and Zack Wheat with the Brooklyn Robins in 1918. Only one American League player has won a batting title in a season where he didn’t hit a home run. Who was it? (A hint: it was post-integration.)
The answer can be found below.
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NEWS NOTES
Mark Quatrani was named MVP of the summer collegiate Futures League after putting up a .906 OPS over 40 games for the Vermont Lake Monsters. A rising sophomore at Cornell University who had earlier been honored as the 2024 Ivy League Rookie of the Year, Quatrani joins Dartmouth product — and current New York Yankees first baseman — Ben Rice as the second Ivy Leaguer to win the Futures League’s top honor.
Don Wert, a slick-fielding third baseman who played for the Detroit Tigers from 1963-1970, and for the Washington Senators in 1971, died last Sunday at age 86. The Strasburg, Pennsylvania native won a World Series with the Tigers in 1968.
Tyrone Brooks has been appointed to SABR’s Board of Directors. The founder of the Baseball Industry Network, Brooks is the Senior Director of MLB’s Front Office & Field Staff Diversity Pipeline Program.
A historical database of MLB team employees — covering more than 40,000 people dating back to the late 19th century — is now available online through SABR’s Business of Baseball Committee. More information can be found here.
SABR’s Boston chapter will host a free event featuring Melissa Ludke this coming Tuesday, September 3, from 7:00 to 8:30pm, at Boston University’s Katzenberger Center, which is located at 871 Commonwealth Avenue. Ludke is the author of Locker Room Talk: A Woman’s Struggle to Get Inside, which focuses on her 1977 federal court case, Ludtke v. Kuhn, that gave women sportswriters the same access to interview players as their male colleagues. Jen McCaffrey, who covers the Red Sox for The Athletic, will serve as moderator. If you’re not in the area, the event will be accessible via Zoom.
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The answer to the quiz is Rod Carew, who went without a home run while leading the American League with a .318 average in 1972.
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The Seattle Mariners have four starting pitchers between the ages of 24-27. If you could have one of them going forward, which would you take?
I asked that question in a Twitter poll a few days ago, with the pitchers in question being Bryan Woo (age 24), George Kirby (26), Bryce Miller (26), and Logan Gilbert (27). Interestingly, the youngest of the bunch — this despite his having the lowest ERA, and before last night the lowest FIP — received just 8.5% of the votes cast. As for the others, Miller got 13.2%, Gilbert 31.2%, and Kirby 47.1%.
One takeaway from the poll is that Woo and his upside are a bit underrated. While his injury history is admittedly a cause for concern, he has a chance to be very good. With a 2.30 ERA and a 3.29 FIP in 17 starts comprising 94 innings, he’s certainly been good this season.
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Hunter Brown has been especially good since reintroducing a two-seamer to his repertoire in early May. In the 124 innings that have followed a tumultuous April, the Houston Astros right-hander is 11-3 with a 2.40 ERA and a 28.1% strikeout rate.
What led the 26-year-old (as of August 29) Detroit native to bring back a pitch he’d put in his back pocket a few years prior?
“I’d kind of questioned [not throwing it] for a couple years now,” Brown told me when the Astros visited Fenway Park a few weeks ago. “I always thought it was a good pitch, but I was having success, so it didn’t really come up. Then, when I wasn’t having success, it was, ‘All right, well.’ Right-handed hitters were kind of crushing me. I had my cutter, a curveball, a four-seamer with a little bit of cut — everything was kind of going away — and needed something that would go in to them, go in on their hands. It felt like guys were sitting away, and this [counteracted] that.”
Asked if it is the same two-seamer he’d thrown at Wayne State University and early in his professional career, Brown said that it was. He couldn’t say definitively if it is analytically the same, but in terms of feel, it is essentially no different.
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FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Roki Sasaki threw seven scoreless innings with seven strikeouts on Friday as NPB’s Chiba Lotte Marines beat the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks 6-2. The 22-year-old right-hander, who has 2.45 ERA and 91 strikeouts over 77 innings on the season, reportedly featured a lot of sliders and was 98-100 with his fastball.
Hiroto Takahashi allowed one run over seven innings in his last start and is now 11-2 with a 0.98 ERA and 115 strikeouts over 119-and-two-thirds innings. The Chunichi Dragons right-hander celebrated his 22nd birthday three weeks ago.
Kazuki Sugiyama has a 1.91 ERA to go with 46 strikeouts and 26 hits allowed in 37-and-two-thirds relief innings for NPB’s Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. The 26-year-old right-hander has made 37 appearances and has a 4-0 record.
Ji Hwan Park is slashing .300/.347/.400 with two home runs in 199 plate appearances for SSG Landers. The 19-year-old rookie second baseman was the highest-rated prospect in last year’s KBO draft.
Kyumin Woo has fanned 39 batters and issued just two walks while logging a 2.21 ERA over 40-and-two-thirds relief innings for the KBO’s KT Wiz. The 39-year-old right-hander has played in South Korea’s top league since 2004. His 799 career appearances are fifth-most in KBO history, one behind Deuk-yeom Ka, a.k.a full salt (a play on words from the translation of his name).
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A random obscure former player snapshot:
Charlie Pick had 333 big-league hits (340 if you count the postseason) but a game in which he went hitless is the most notable in his career. Playing second base for the Boston Braves on May 1, 1920, the Brookneal, Virginia native went 0-for-11 in a 26-inning 1-1 tie against the Brooklyn Robins. No other player in MLB history has had as many at-bats in a single game without recording a hit. Two years earlier, he’d excelled — albeit in defeat — in the Fall Classic. Pick went 7-for-18 for the Chicago Cubs when they lost the 1918 World Series to the Boston Red Sox. Two of his hits were off of Babe Ruth.
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FARM NOTES
Cam Smith was promoted to High-A South Bend earlier this week after going 15-for-48 with six home runs for Low-A Myrtle Beach in his first taste of professional action. Drafted 14th-overall by the Chicago Cubs out of Florida State University in July, the 21-year-old third baseman has since gone 7-for-16 at the higher of the two levels.
Blake Mitchell is slashing .241/.380/.445 with 18 home runs and a 143 wRC+ over 461 plate appearances for the Low-A Columbia Fireflies. Drafted eighth-overall last year out of Sinton (TX) High School, the 20-year-old catcher is now the top prospect in the Kansas City Royals system.
Caleb Ketchup leads the Low-A Northwest League with 59 stolen bases. Drafted in the 15th round last year by the Los Angeles Angels out of the Lipscomb University, the 22-year-old infielder/outfielder is slashing .206/.311/.310 with six home runs in 463 plate appearances.
Jose Davila has thrown 104-and-a-third innings for Low-A Palm Beach and has yet to be taken deep. Signed by the St. Louis Cardinals out of Maracaibo, Venezuela in 2019, the 21-year-old right-hander has a 43.6% ground-ball rate, a 24.1% strikeout rate, a 3.71 ERA, and a 3.06 FIP.
Chen Zhong-Ao Zhuang is 6-2 with a 2.09 ERA and a 2.98 FIP over 86 innings between Low-A Stockton, High-A Lansing, and Double-A Midland. Signed as an international free agent by the Oakland Athletics in 2021, the Taipei, Taiwan native celebrated his 24th birthday earlier this week.
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In mid-August, my colleague Michael Baumann wrote about how Kirby Yates has a chance to become the third reliever in MLB history with multiple seasons of 40 or more appearances and an ERA of 1.25 or lower. When told of that possibility, the Texas Rangers right-hander was pragmatic, saying that “being a bullpen guy, a lot can happen in six weeks.”
Since the piece ran, Yates has seen his ERA rise from 1.02 to 1.36, drop back to 1.25, then climb to 1.40. Following a scoreless frame on Saturday, it now sits at 1.38. In his nine post-article appearances, Yates has been credited with two wins and five saves while allowing three runs over nine innings.
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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE
Chet Lemon has suffered numerous strokes and can no longer walk or talk, but he was there, in a wheelchair, when the 1984 World Series championship team was celebrated at Comerica Park yesterday. Jeff Seidel wrote about the former All-Star outfielder’s situation for The Detroit Free Press (no subscription required).
Pitcher List’s Trevor Powers profiled Oakland Athletics 2024 first-round draft pick Nick Kurtz.
Twinkie Town‘s John Foley investigated Minnesota Twins right-hander David Festa’s times-through-the-order struggles.
A record number of fans have attended KBO games already this season, with roughly a month left on the schedule. Jee-ho Yoo has the story at Yonhap News Agency.
Oakland A’s minor league pitching coordinator Gil Patterson was once a prized prospect with the New York Yankees, and his only appearance on a Topps baseball card was in 1977… with a photo of a different player attached to his name. Nearly five decades later, at age 68, he’d like to have a card with his own picture on it. Tyler Kepner has the story at The Athletic (subscription required).
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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS
Tigers rookies have combined for 308 hits, the most in the majors, while Red Sox rookies have the second-highest total at 300. Boston has gotten the most home runs (38) from rookie-eligible players, with Detroit ranking second (37). The New York Mets and Pittsburgh Pirates are sans a hit from a rookie-eligible player.
Toronto Blue Jays right-hander Bowden Francis made five starts in August and allowed four runs over 34 innings. The 28-year-old right-hander surrendered nine hits, issued four free passes, and fanned 39 batters.
Pittsburgh’s Connor Joe has slashed .365/.447/.670 with eight home runs in 132 career plate appearances against the Chicago Cubs. His slash line at Wrigley Field, where the Pirates begin a three-game series tomorrow, is .340/.390/.585.
The Boston Braves were swept in doubleheaders seven times in September 1929. They also split a twin bill that month.
Candy Cummings, who many credit for inventing the curveball, went 35-12 for the National Association’s Hartford Dark Blues in 1875. He logged a 1.60 ERA and fanned 82 batters in 416 innings.
Toby Harrah and Bump Wills hit back-to-back inside-the-park home runs for the Texas Rangers in an August 27, 1977 game against the New York Yankees. Wills homered twice as the Rangers beat the home team 8
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