Morning Mound Visit: sabermetrics news - 4/17/19

FanGraphs Dan Szymborski: There have been hot starts to start the season like there always have been, but some are more believable than others: Pete Alonso, Yoan Moncada, Austin Meadows, and even Mike Trout, who has boosted his contact abilities to otherworldly heights, may have just hit another level.

Baseball Prospectus | Craig Goldstein ($): Baseball teams are starting to act more like insurance companies than ball clubs, essentially forcing young players to hedge against themselves to provide security. While we can argue all day how bad the Ozzie Albies deal was, and it is bad, the bigger issue is that a player’s only option is to take a team-friendly extension or risk hitting their lesser outcomes and walking away with nothing; there needs to be an alternative.

ESPN | Sam Miller: Things have changed in baseball already! For one, there are nearly no triples anymore, which we would expect in a home run and strikeout-heavy world. There are also more wild pitchers, which should make sense in our slider/curve-heavy world. But what’s most interesting is relievers pitching worse than starters, which is more evidence of the expanded reliever pool with shorter starter usage (and luck) than anything else.