Josh Bell went down in the first round of the 2019 Home Run Derby, but the Pirates' breakout star is slugging enough during games that count to raise his national profile and threaten records that have stood for more than half a century.
He is on pace to belt 49 home runs in 2019, which would rank as the third-highest single-season total in Pirates history behind Ralph Kiner in 1949 (54 HR) and 1947 (51). His projected total beats out seasons turned in by Willie Stargell (48 in 1971), Kiner (47 in 1950), Stargell (44 in 1973) and Kiner yet again in 1951 (42) and 1948 (40). Among switch hitters, his projected 49 homers would rank behind only two seasons by Mickey Mantle (54 in 1961 and 52 in 1956).
Even in this homer-happy environment, it's not hyperbole to say that Bell is showing Cooperstown-quality power.
In honor of his historic 2019 season, let's break down Bell's 27 bombs.
• Throw him a fastball at your own peril. Of Bell's 27 home runs, 15 have come against fastballs, seven against breaking balls, and five on offspeed pitches. According to MLB Statcast, only Cody Bellinger (20 HR versus fastballs), Pete Alonso (20), Freddie Freeman (19), Christian Yelich (19), Mike Trout (17), Daniel Vogelbach (17), Hunter Renfroe (17), Eugenio Suarez (17), Franmil Reyes (16), Gary Sanchez (16) and Max Muncy (16) have gone deep more often against the heat (including four-seamers, two-seamers and sinkers). Despite Bell's homer barrage and .700 slugging against fastballs, pitchers have fed him that pitch type 51.7 percent of the time. That's right around the 52.6 percent MLB average, per Fangraphs.
• Bell sees plenty of high-velocity pitches, but he sends them back at pitchers at an even more breakneck speed. Bell's home runs have an average exit velocity of 106.5 mph, which ranks tied for 22nd among MLB hitters with double-digit homer totals in 2019. His fastest homer checked in at 116.2 mph off the bat on May 22 versus a changeup thrown by Colorado's Jon Gray. That's the third-highest exit velocity on a home run this season, behind two scorching shots hit by Alonso (118.3 mph and 117 mph).
• Even if you're in the cheap seats, you've got a chance at a souvenir. Bell's homers have traveled an average distance of 414 feet, which is 13th longest among double-digit home run hitters this season. His most epic shot came on May 8, when he rocketed a Shelby Miller fastball 472 feet against the Rangers. That's tied for the 11th-longest home run hit this season.
• Bell, a switch-hitter, is mauling pitches from both sides of the plate. He has 20 homers as a lefty batter, seven from the right side. From both sides, Bell's power to the middle of the field is impressive:
• He's going up swinging. Bell has been ultra-aggressive on the first pitch of at-bats, swinging 40.2 percent of the time (28.2 percent MLB average). That approach has paid off, as Bell has cracked five first-pitch home runs. That's tied for the 16th-highest total among MLB hitters. Even if he falls behind, though, he's lethal. With seven home runs in two-strike counts, Bell ranks seventh among all big-league hitters.
• He likes slugging against quality teams, and division foes. Nineteen of Bell's 27 bombs have come against teams with winning records, according to Baseball Reference. His most frequent victims include the Cubs and Reds (four HR apiece), as well as the Diamondbacks (three).
So, can Bell topple Kiner for the all-time single-season home run record for a Pirates hitter? The projection systems are skeptical, with well-known forecasting platforms like ZiPS estimating that he'll hit around 12-15 homers during the rest of the 2019 season. But you don't have to be a notorious, anonymous scout to know that Bell has proven people wrong before.
MORE PIRATES
• Peak nightmare: Felipe Vazquez is pitching better than ever before. He's on his way to establishing a new career high in strikeout rate (37 percent of plate appearances, compared to a 29.2 percent career average) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (6.0, 3.8 career average). Vazquez still brings triple-digit gas, but he has diversified his pitch mix even more this year. He's throwing fewer fastballs (60 percent, compared to 66 percent in 2018) while more than doubling his percentage of sliders thrown (17 percent in 2019, 8 percent in '18). Vazquez has limited batters to a .103 batting average with his slider, with zero extra-base hits allowed (per MLB Statcast). When he throws a slider with two strikes, Vazquez is sending batters back to the dugout 72 percent of the time. Good luck.
• Brault at the bat: As a group, pitchers continue to make the case for the universal DH. Pitchers have collectively struck out at the highest rate in MLB history (43 percent of plate appearances) while posting the seventh-worst park and league-adjusted batting line for their position. There's one guy who wants nothing to do with the universal DH, though: Pirates lefty Steven Brault. Brault, who also played outfielder while at Regis University, has a .381 average/.381 on-base percentage/.429 slugging percentage in 2019. His adjusted batting line is above the overall MLB average (114 OPS+), and it ranks second among all pitchers who have taken at least 20 trips to the plate this season (Zack Greinke leads everyone with a 117 OPS+). He's not Shohei Ohtani, but Brault brings some value with his bat compared to his punch-and-judy peers.
PENGUINS
• Tanev's tenacity: Many people have lambasted the Penguins for handing out too much money ($3.5 million per year) over too long of a term (six years) to sign free agent winger Brandon Tanev. There's also concern that in signing the 27-year-old former Winnipeg Jet, the Penguins may need to clear salary cap space by trading a better version of the same kind of speedy, defense-focused winger (Bryan Rust) or by trading a guy who can toggle between center and wing and has some untapped offensive potential (Nick Bjugstad).
Let's play devil's advocate for a moment and try to understand what prompted Jim Rutherford to shell out $21 million for Tanev.
Clearly, the Penguins' interest stems from Tanev's defensive play. When Tanev was on the ice last season, the Jets surrendered 23.1 scoring chances per 60 minutes of five-on-five play. That was the 20th-lowest rate of scoring chances surrendered among 251 forwards who had at least 800 minutes of even strength ice time in 2018-19, according to Natural Stat Trick. Tanev was even better in terms of limiting high-danger scoring chances, ranking seventh among forwards meeting the same criteria (8.6 per 60 minutes at even strength). With 1.8 goals allowed per 60 minutes, he ranked 19th among all forwards. Tanev also averaged 2:12 per game on the penalty kill, while ranking 23rd in goals allowed per 60 minutes (5.6) and netting two goals for the Jets while playing a man or two down. And, for a guy who started just 42 percent of his faceoffs in the offensive zone (215th out of the same 251 forwards with 800+ minutes at even strength), he wasn't a complete zero in terms of generating chances and goals last year. Tanev took more shots in 2018-19 (7.4 per 60 minutes of five-on-five-play, compared to about 6.7 the previous two years) and had a career-best 0.36 points per game.
Tanev embodies the defensive conscience with which Rutherford and coach Mike Sullivan want the Penguins to play in 2019-20. The question is whether they needed that defensive conscience at such a player-friendly term.
• Jack Johnson, naturally: Those still holding out hope that Jack Johnson is more than a highly-compensated sixth defenseman with an inexplicable amount of job security -- including GM Jim Rutherford -- point to the improvements in Johnson's game down the stretch last season after he moved to his natural left side of the ice. Did Johnson actually play better once he was shifted to his natural side? From the beginning of the 2018-19 campaign through January, the Penguins generated 46.4 percent of shots when Johnson was on the ice during five-on-five situations. Pittsburgh also had 49 percent of total scoring chances, and 39 percent of goals scored. From February through the end of the regular season, the Penguins had a 45.7 percent shot share in even-strength play when Johnson skated, while accounting for 47.1 percent of scoring chances and 52.8 percent of goals scored. The score tilted more in the Pens' favor after Johnson played mostly on his strong side, but the underlying process wasn't much better. Hey, it's something.
• Ultimate iron man: Even Phil Kessel has to give it up for the endurance shown by Marcus Pettersson during the 2018-19 season. Thanks to an in-season trade from Anaheim to Pittsburgh -- one initially reviled because the Penguins gave up Daniel Sprong, and eventually embraced as Petterson proved to be a quality two-way defenseman -- Petterson played a combined 84 regular-season games. Pettersson led all NHL skaters in games played in 2018-19. And, since the NHL moved to an 82-game regular season in 1995, only two players have suited up more often in one year. Bill Guerin played in 85 games back in 2000-01, as did Rem Murray in 2002-03. Like Pettersson, both of those guys swapped teams during the season (Guerin from the Oilers to the Bruins, and Murray from the Rangers to the Predators).
STEELERS
• Missed connection: James Washington demonstrated some late-season improvement in 2018, including two 60-plus yard receiving games over the last three contests. But even so, the Oklahaoma State star turned in one of the least productive rookie seasons in recent memory for a high-round wide receiver draft pick.
Over the past quarter-century, there have been 151 wide receivers selected within the first two rounds of the draft. With a 42.1 percent catch rate, Washington ranked 137th among rookie wide outs. He placed 146th in receiving yards (217) and 113th in yards per reception (13.6). Turning in a lousy rookie year isn't necessarily a kiss of death for a receiver's career -- former Steeler Plaxico Burress had the second-lowest catch rate (33.9 percent) as a rookie and went on to have four 1,000 yard seasons, and Isaac Bruce had a borderline Hall of Fame career after barely outgaining Washington (272 receiving yards) -- but the list is littered with high-round washouts.
With Donte Moncrief establishing early chemistry with Ben Roethlisberger and rookie Diontae Johnson in the fold, Washington could fall to fourth on the depth chart without marked improvement.
• Red zone replacement: Despite missing the playoffs, the 2018 Steelers had the highest red zone touchdown rate (73.5 percent of trips within the opponent's 20-yard line) of any offense in the NFL. It's natural to wonder how much Pittsburgh's red zone performance will suffer now that Antonio Brown is doing Antonio Brown things in Oakland. Last year, Roethlisberger completed just 47.4 percent of his red zone passes (nine for 19) that targeted Brown. When Ben targeted any other receiver in the red zone, he had a 59.1 percent completion rate. Ben averaged 2.9 yards per target when throwing red zone passes to Brown, and 3.8 yards per target when throwing passes to everyone else. The Steelers will unquestionably miss one of the game's greatest receiving talents of all time, but the Roethlisberger-Brown connection in the red zone wasn't as strong as you might think last year.
• Keeping Hargrave: The Steelers, who have already invested heavily in their defense line by signing Cam Heyward and Stephen Tuitt to lucrative long-term deals, face an interesting decision with Javon Hargrave. On one hand, Hargrave was on the field for just 43.5 percent of the team's defensive snaps in 2018. On the other hand, the soon-to-be unrestricted free agent was borderline dominant when he got on the field. Hargrave registered 6.5 sacks, six tackles for a loss, and eight QB hits last season. A former third-round pick out of FCS school South Carolina State, Hargrave ranked 11th in sacks among all players considered an interior lineman in 2018, according to Pro Football Reference. On a per-play basis, Hargrave had a great 2018. Will the Steelers be willing to pay up for a guy who played less than 50 percent of snaps last year? Will they expand his role in 2019? Stay tuned.
THE NATIONAL TREND
• Home runs all around: MLB teams are clubbing 1.37 home runs per game in 2019, a blistering pace that would easily best the current all-time high of 1.26 per game set in 2017. What's truly crazy is just how easily batters are clearing the fence in all directions. Baseball Info Solutions has detailed batted ball data going back to the 2002 season. In 2019, hitters are establishing new all-time highs during the Baseball Info Solutions era in home run per fly ball rate on pitches pulled down the line (36 percent), pitches hit to the middle of the field (11.1 percent), and pitches drilled to the opposite field (6 percent). If you're sitting in the bleachers, in any direction, bring a glove.
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