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Morning Mound Visit: sabermetrics news - 11/22/19

Andrew Miller’s troubled tunneling; Grandal as a good first step; how good are Yoshitomo Tsutsugo and Shogo Akiyama

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World Baseball Classic - Championship Round - Game 2 - United States v Japan Photo by Harry How/Getty Images

FanGraphs | Michael Augustine: Andrew Miller showed some flashes of brilliance in his 2019 season, but he has a long way to go before he’s back to form. The key is really his slider tunneling; a more vertical slider “hops” out of the tunnel earlier, while when thrown on a more horizontal axis it is much more deceptive. That will be the key for him in 2020.

Baseball Prospectus | Collin Whitchurch ($): Yasmani Grandal represents, surprisingly, the biggest free agent signing in White Sox. Yet at the same time it’s not wholly sufficient to make the team a contender, even with the likes of Nick Madrigal and and Luis Robert likely to make their 2020 debut.

The Athletic | Eno Sarris ($): Yoshitomo Tsutsugo and Shogo Akiyama of the NPB are likely to be posted, but how good could they be in the majors? Akiyama is more attractive for being younger but doesn’t have as much power, and projections think he’s about as good as, say, Alex Gordon, Nick Markakis, or Adam Eaton on the higher end. Tsutsugo is the slugger of the two, and projections think he could hit like JD Davis or Brandon Belt. Though relative unknowns stateside, they could be big bargains for teams willing to take a shot.