This Monday, against the backdrop of the Mookie Betts trade, MLB dropped a bombshell. As Joel Sherman reported, the league is seriously considering expanding the playoff field starting in 2022. The new proposal, a 14-team field with an extra round and a bye, would radically alter the shape of the playoffs, so let’s walk through it and consider the ramifications.

The format would be significantly more complicated than the current one. The best team in each league would receive a bye, while the other six teams would face off in a best-of-three first round. That doesn’t necessarily sound groundbreaking, but there’s some fancy stuff going on behind the scenes. The division winner with the second-best record would get to pick which of the three worst Wild Card teams they’d like to play. The remaining division winner would pick another of those three, and the best Wild Card team would play the remaining team in the group.

The first round would be three games, all played at one park. From there, it would be business as usual: a five-game divisional round with four teams per league, two seven-game championship series, and the World Series.

The league told Sherman what they’re looking for with this new format. They want to drum up interest in baseball among borderline viewers while selling networks more playoff games. The league also hopes that more teams in the playoffs would drive attendance boosts during the regular season. Sherman discussed playoff expansion as a way to counteract tanking, though it’s unclear whether this was a league talking point. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend, the presumptive second-best team in the AL East sent a key contributor from a recent playoff run to sunny California. In exchange, they received a package including a major league outfielder and a minor league catcher. That’s right — Emilio Pagán is headed to San Diego. As Josh Tolentino first reported, the Rays traded Pagán to the Padres in exchange for Manuel Margot and catching prospect Logan Driscoll.

At first glance, this trade seems pretty straightforward. Pagán was the most valuable pitcher in one of the best bullpens in baseball last year. His fastball/slider combination overwhelmed batters to the tune of a 36% strikeout rate and only a 4.9% walk rate. With Nick Anderson, Diego Castillo, José Alvarado, and a host of others ready to pick up the slack, however, he was surplus, and as noted last week, the Rays lacked a right-handed platoon partner to play center alongside Kevin Kiermaier.

Enter Margot, or exit Margot from San Diego’s perspective. Over three seasons as the team’s regular center fielder, he provided spectacular defense and forgettable offense. Per Statcast’s OAA, he’s been the eighth-best defensive outfielder in baseball since the beginning of 2017. His batting line of .248/.301/.394, on the other hand, works out to an 85 wRC+, a cool 207th among qualifying players. The whole package came out to 4.1 WAR over those years, and while that’s a valuable contribution, it’s a fourth outfielder’s line overall, even with the shiny defense. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, Rockies owner Dick Monfort made headlines by predicting a rock-solid 94 wins for his franchise this season. It seemed wildly optimistic; the team won 71 games in 2019 and didn’t make any major changes this offseason. We project them to be one of the worst four teams in the National League, not one of the best four.

But Monfort used interpolation, as he was quick to point out. And we can’t simply ignore something with math behind it. So I’m taking out a special, purpose-built Rockies model to investigate the team: M.O.n.F.O.R.T., or the Model for Official non-Fake Obvious Rockies Truths.

First things first, let’s establish a baseline. On our Depth Charts page, you can see FanGraphs’ projected winning percentage for each 2020 club against neutral opponents. This only uses Steamer projections at the moment, but it will soon fold in ZiPS. The Rockies are projected for a .462 winning percentage.

That sounds bad, but it doesn’t consider their opponents. The Rockies play the AL Central in interleague play, which helps. And they play the Marlins seven times, but the Cardinals and Cubs only six. Do these small schedule quirks help them? Nope! In aggregate, we expect Rockies opponents to have a .501 winning percentage. What you see is what you get, in essence; we have the Rockies down for around 74.5 wins. With that baseline in mind, let’s start using M.O.n.F.O.R.T.’s findings to boost the Rockies.

Daniel Murphy Rekindles the Flame
Something you should know about my model is that every player’s closest comparable is Babe Ruth. But I asked it for a second comparable for Daniel Murphy, and it spit out “Daniel Murphy, but when he was good.” So there you have it — Murphy is going to defy age and start hitting again. As recently as 2017, he was putting up a .322/.384/.543 line. Imagine adjusting that up for altitude, and you can see some upside.

What’s changed since then? Mostly the power. Murphy compiled a piddling .174 ISO in 2019, looking more like the slap-hitting Murphy of old than the peak, world-striding version. At 34, there could still be magic left in that bat. Let’s give him his 2017 self back; a 126 ISO+, a 135 wRC+, and 24.5 runs above average over 593 plate appearances. Read the rest of this entry »

Max Muncy is a Dodgers success story. He’s compiled 10 (10!) WAR over the past two seasons, walking and homering and standing at second base in ways that would have been hard to predict two years ago. What would have been easy to predict, though, is his salary. As a pre-arb player, the Dodgers had absolute discretion over his pay (subject to the major league minimum) and chose to give him $545,000 in 2018 and $575,000 in 2019.

Muncy was scheduled to head to an arbitration hearing with his club. He asked for a $4.675 million salary for 2020, and Los Angeles countered with $4 million. We’ll never know what the outcome of that hearing will be, though, because as Ken Rosenthal reported yesterday, he signed a three-year extension worth $26 million dollars. The contract also includes a team option for a fourth year, at a salary of $13 million, with a $1.5 million buyout (the contract is actually for $24.5 million plus the buyout, which places the option year at $11.5 million net).

At first glance, this looks low. Muncy has been worth 10 WAR over the past two seasons! He’s one of the best hitters on one of the game’s best teams. Look upon his ZiPS, ye mighty, and despair:

Read the rest of this entry »

By now, you know the drill. Earlier this week, I highlighted contending teams with weak points in the infield and on the mound. We’ve still got eight teams to cover today, so there’s no time to waste. Let’s dive in!

St. Louis Cardinals

The Hole: Two years ago, the Cardinals were so overloaded with outfielders that they traded Tommy Pham to open up playing time for promising youngsters Harrison Bader and Tyler O’Neill. This offseason, they had enough of an outfield surplus that they traded Randy Arozarena and José Martínez, but the top-end talent the team hoped for still hasn’t materialized.

That’s not to say that the Cardinals don’t have outfielders. O’Neill and Bader are still around. Dexter Fowler is solidly in his decline phase, but will likely take up a season’s worth of plate appearances. Tommy Edman will see some time in the outfield in addition to sharing third base with Matt Carpenter.

But while they have bodies, they’re lacking in upside. Bader looks like a long-shot to ever recapture his 2018 offensive line, O’Neill’s 2019 was gruesome (35.1% strikeout rate), and Fowler is subsisting on walks at this point. They might field an entire outfield of sub-100 wRC+ batters, and only Bader can make up for that with his glove. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, I looked into contending teams with weaknesses in the infield. Today, let’s continue by looking at teams who could upgrade their pitching, plus teams involved in blockbuster trades sending MVP’s to the West Coast.

Los Angeles Angels

The Hole: The Angels had only a single pitcher throw more than 100 innings last year. That’s bad. What’s worse is that it was Trevor Cahill, who had a 5.98 ERA and still beat his FIP (6.13), good for a -0.8 WAR effort over 102.1 innings. He’s a free agent at the moment, and that was the pitcher the Angels used most.

It’s hard to disentangle this from Tyler Skaggs’ tragic death, and I don’t intend this to be an indictment of team building, or a dig at the franchise’s response. The team’s 2019 season was tragic, and those woes need not carry into 2020.

Despite a lot of churn, however, they aren’t exactly running out an inspiring rotation. Shohei Ohtani is back, and projects to be their best pitcher on a rate basis, but he’ll be on a strict innings limit. Dylan Bundy is somehow only 27, but it’s hard to see anything but an average pitcher with injury risk to the downside given his uneven career.

Julio Teheran is probably a FIP beater, but with Steamer projecting him for a 5.47 FIP, that isn’t enough. Andrew Heaney is basically Dylan Bundy, only a year older (somehow) — a guy you’d like as an innings-eater but with a checkered injury history.

If there’s upside in this rotation (aside from Ohtani), it’s Griffin Canning, whose fastball/slider combination has looked good in his short career. He’s also coming off of a season shortened by elbow inflammation, and he had a 4.58 ERA and 4.75 xFIP in 2019 — we’re not talking about an ace with a hurt elbow here. Overall, the team has a bunch of league average starters with downside risk.

The Fix: The team attempted defense in depth by acquiring Bundy and Teheran, but I’d prefer to see them try to go tall rather than wide. Paul Sporer suggested a trade for Mike Clevinger, and if the Indians would take Brandon Marsh plus a couple other notable names for Clevinger, the Angels could improve themselves by a lot quickly.

If you think the Indians plan on contending, however, there isn’t much to do when it comes to ace-upside pitchers. Noah Syndergaard rumors have died on the vine, and the teams at the bottom of the standings don’t have much to offer on the star pitching front. They could try to acquire Matthew Boyd to add to their quintet of average pitchers, but why? No, they’re mostly stuck with what they have — which might work out okay, but certainly feels risky for a team with Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon at the peak of their powers. Read the rest of this entry »

The offseason is a time for dreaming, for picturing your team getting better. Anyone could sign Gerrit Cole or Anthony Rendon. Anyone could trade for Mookie Betts. The world is everyone’s oyster.

But it never lasts, naturally. The Yankees sign Cole, and the superposition of every team potentially having Cole at the front of the rotation collapses. The Angels sign Rendon and the Twins sign Josh Donaldson, and third base becomes a weakness instead of being one signature away from a strength.

With the free agency market now winding down (the top remaining free agent is probably Yasiel Puig), rosters feel pretty solidified. That doesn’t mean that Kris Bryant, Francisco Lindor, or Nolan Arenado can’t headline a trade tomorrow and alter some team’s fate. But it does mean that for the most part, what you see is what you get. Read the rest of this entry »

Joey Gallo cracked the code in 2019. He recorded his highest major league wRC+ (by far), his highest WAR total (in only half a season!), his highest walk rate, and his highest isolated power. Before fracturing his wrist in July, he looked like a second-tier MVP candidate. It was a clear step forward for a player who was already an above-average major leaguer.

It wasn’t all cotton candy and lollipops. His strikeout rate ticked up, from a yikes-gross-cover-your-eyes 35.9% to a seek-shelter-this-is-not-a-drill 38.4%. Gallo struck out nearly as many times, in under 300 plate appearances, as Michael Brantley has in nearly 1200 PA over the last two years. But despite the eye-popping strikeout rate, the overall package made Gallo one of the most fearsome hitters in baseball.

What did Gallo change to turbo-boost his game? He started swinging less. That’s not all he did, but it’s a lot of it. And for someone like Gallo, that makes a ton of sense. He has what Eric and Kiley call a grooved swing — his swing rides a consistent path, which makes it hard to adjust to pitches away from his preferred target area, and given how much damage he does when he connects, pitchers are doing their utmost to avoid that target area.

To wit: in 2019, 39.9% of the pitches Gallo saw were in the strike zone, a rate that would have been 30th-lowest in baseball if he had enough plate appearances to qualify. In 2018, it was even more severe; his 38.1% zone rate was fifth-lowest in baseball. In 2017, his 36.1% zone rate was the lowest in the majors. Read the rest of this entry »