How in the world can you explain a team like the Rays? There are a lot of strange and seemingly magical things going on there, but let’s focus on just their starters. They churn out top-of-the-line dudes like no one’s business. Shane McClanahan is nasty. Tyler Glasnow looks unhittable at times. Jeffrey Springs went from zero to hero and stayed there. Zach Eflin is suddenly dominant. They can’t seem to take a step without tripping over a great starter.

They’re also always hungry for more. Whether it’s bad luck, adverse selection, or something about their performance training methods, the Rays stack up pitching injuries like few teams in baseball history. Of that group I named up above, only Eflin hasn’t missed significant time in 2023, and both McClanahan and Springs are out for the rest of the year. The Rays not only have all these starters, but they also traded for Aaron Civale at the deadline, and they’re still short on arms.

They did what anyone would do: point at a random reliever in the bullpen and tell him he’s now an excellent starter. Wait, that’s not what anyone else would do? Only the Rays do that? You’re right, at least a little bit; surely you recall the Drew Rasmussen experiment from 2021. That one was a big hit until Rasmussen tore his UCL this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Wednesday night in Philadelphia didn’t start off as a celebration of Michael Lorenzen. Making his first home start after joining the team at the trade deadline, he struggled to get comfortable on the mound. The first batter of the game, CJ Abrams, smashed a pitch to the warning track in the deepest part of the field. The next three batters worked full counts, with one walking. Keibert Ruiz worked another walk to lead off the second inning. Lorenzen threw 53 pitches in the first three frames. Through four, he had three strikeouts and three walks.

Luckily, he didn’t need to be the focus, because a celebration in Philly was happening one way or another. Weston Wilson smashed a home run in his first major league at-bat. Nick Castellanos popped a two-run shot in the first and followed up with a solo shot in the third. The Phillies were romping over the Nationals on a glorious summer evening. And that’s leaving the best part for last: Ryan Howard was in the booth to celebrate opening a new chicken and waffles stand in the stadium.

I won’t lie to you; those waffles looked good. John Kruk was nearly rapturous as he contemplated them. At one point, he openly begged Alex Call to finish an at-bat quickly so the booth could go to commercial and he could eat. Howard seemed happy, too, and the Phillies continued to pile up runs while he recapped the genesis of his foodie vision. After four innings, the Phillies led 6-0, and the celebration was in full swing.

Obviously, though, you aren’t here to read about Howard’s chicken and waffles, or to learn, as I did, that Kruk avoids spicy food. You’re here because a funny thing happened in the back half of this game. Lorenzen, staked to an enormous lead, started attacking the strike zone. He dared the Nationals to swing – four-seamers middle-middle and belt-high sinkers, calling out to be swung at. When he fell behind in the count, he fired one down the pipe and said “hit it.”

This being the Nationals, they mostly didn’t hit it. Calling their offense punchless might be going too far, but they’re towards the bottom of the league in every offensive category, and that doesn’t account for the fact that they traded their best hitter at the deadline. Abrams is coming on, and Lane Thomas has been good all year, but we’re not quite talking about Murderers’ Row here.

Suddenly it was the seventh inning, and the Nationals were still hitless. Lorenzen pulled his secondary pitches back out; he buried Jake Alu under a pile of changeups for his fourth strikeout and then mixed four-seamers high with changeups low to coax a groundout (smashed, great play by Rodolfo Castro) out of Ildemaro Vargas. Seven innings, 100 pitches, no hits – was this happening?

That last out of the seventh inning awoke the Philadelphia crowd from its post-homer lethargy. They’d been enjoying a casual demolishing of the little brothers of the NL East. Now, they might be witnessing history. A roar broke out, and the crowd rose to its feet to collectively cheer Lorenzen as he strode off the field. Six outs, six measly outs – surely he could do it.

Lorenzen came out sharp in the eighth – by which I mean, he threw some good pitches when the count made that possible and otherwise made the Nationals beat him by putting the ball in play. It was a brilliant plan all night; the Phillies recorded 15 outs in the air, few of them threatening to be anything more than cans of corn. Most importantly for Lorenzen, that eighth inning took only 11 pitches, which gave him enough runway to come back out for the ninth.

I’ve spent a lot of this writeup talking about Lorenzen’s ability to adapt his pitching to the situation, and that was on display in his last inning of work. The strike zone widens when no-hitters near the finish line. Hitters’ pulses rise – you don’t want to be on that highlight reel, you know? Lorenzen aimed for the corners to get ahead, then snapped off ridiculous breaking balls whenever he had the chance, hoping for a miserable flail from a desperate opponent.

That plan dealt with Thomas and Joey Meneses, the latter a victim of a called strike three that was both clearly outside and clearly a pitch you have to swing at in the ninth inning of a no-hitter. That left only Dominic Smith, but he wasn’t going down easily. After falling behind 1-2, he took and fouled his way back to a 3-2 count. Lorenzen looked gassed. “One more pitch,” Kruk breathed on the broadcast, almost a mantra. And Lorenzen left it up to the gods of contact one more time. He threw a slider right down main street at 85 and dared Smith to do his worst:

After the momentous end to the seventh inning, Citizen’s Bank Park had turned raucous. That energy carried right through to the end of the game. The place positively shook when Meneses struck out, and erupted even more when Johan Rojas squeezed Smith’s fly ball for the final out. Sorry Weston, and sorry Ryan; it was Lorenzen’s night now, and the crowd bathed him in applause as he exulted in his achievement.

If you didn’t know he hadn’t allowed any hits, Lorenzen’s line wouldn’t turn any heads. Five strikeouts, four walks; it’s not exactly the stuff of aces. But Lorenzen has never been an ace, and he wouldn’t tell you otherwise. He’s never been a high octane strikeout pitcher, and now that he’s transitioned from the bullpen to the rotation, he’s leaning more than ever on his savvy. Tonight was the crowning achievement of that style.

As the stadium roared and Lorenzen’s mom beamed from the crowd, the team mobbed him. What a glorious feeling it must be to combine the pinnacle of individual achievement with your first real taste at team success. Lorenzen has played for a winning team exactly twice in his major league career – the 2020 Reds went 31-29 and the 2021 edition finished 83-79.

This year’s Phillies are a cut above that – the defending National League champions, near-locks to make the playoffs and another run at the title. And he’s one of them now, indelibly linked with this team, this city. You won’t be able to tell the story of the 2023 Phillies without mentioning this night, which means you won’t be able to tell it without mentioning Lorenzen. How wonderful that must feel after nearly a decade in the wilderness, hoping to start, then getting your wish only to toil in obscurity.

Baseball is about a lot of things. It’s about the crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd, the beauty of close plays and the shocking speed and strength of grown men wearing ridiculous pajamas. Increasingly, it’s about numbers too – teams are getting smarter and smarter about separating what seems important from what is important. But regardless of the numbers, tonight was important. Baseball isn’t just about who wins the trophy at the end of the year. It’s about nights like these, and players like these. What a glorious night for Lorenzen, and what a wonderful celebration of baseball.

Monday night, my wife posed a baseball question I couldn’t immediately answer. As the Angels and Giants went to the eighth inning with the Halos up by a run, she had a simple question: How often does a team that’s losing after seven innings come back and win? I guess I could have gone to our wonderful WPA Inquirer, a fun little tool for hypotheticals. That tells me that the Giants had around a 25% chance to win heading into the eighth. But I took her question as a broader one, concerned not just with that specific game, but with all games. How likely is a comeback?

I didn’t know the answer offhand, and I couldn’t find it on Google either (secret professional writer tip: use Google). So I did what anyone in my situation would do: I said “I don’t know, but now I’m going to write an article about this.” Two days later, here we are.

I’m hardly the first person to do research on comebacks. Russell Carleton has been looking into comebacks for a while. Rob Mains has too. Chet Gutwein investigated comeback wins and blown saves here at FanGraphs in 2021. Everyone loves to write about comebacks. Baseball Reference even keeps a list of the biggest comeback wins. They’re memorable games, and fertile ground for investigation. Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone likes an inspiring story. They don’t call it a Hollywood ending for nothing; people love it when the hero wins before the credits roll. Over in near near-ish the center of American film-making, it looked like the Angels were setting up for another iteration of that classic arc. They were down and out, deciding whether they could stomach trading the best player in the game before losing him forever. The previous best player in the game was out with injury, and the ship was taking on water. Then, a classic mid-story twist: they ripped off an 8-1 run in the latter half of July and decided to go for it one last time.

Yeah, about that. Since trading for Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo López to lean fully into this year, they’ve gone 2-9, slipping back below .500. After their playoff odds reached 22.7% on July 27, the Halos have crashed down to 1.3% in short order. That’s a seasonal low for their chances of making the postseason. Things are decidedly non-magical in the land of Disney these days.

What’s gone wrong for the Angels? Well, one thing’s for sure: it’s not Shohei Ohtani. He’s started at DH for all 11 games of the stretch and has hit a ludicrous .405/.542/.649, even better than his seasonal line. He left his lone start in that span early with hand cramps, but pitched four scoreless innings before departing. To the extent that one player can power a team, Ohtani is doing his best. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Was that as fun for you as it was for me? It’s been a busy month, both personally and for baseball. The All-Star game, the draft, the Trade Value Series (okay fine, that one’s just me), the deadline; it’s been a mile a minute since the Fourth of July. Now we’re slipping back into normal baseball rhythms, with a month’s lull before the September playoff chase heats up again. I’m taking advantage of that break to get back to what I love: paying homage to Zach Lowe and talking about five things in baseball that tickled me. Despite the title, I’m casting a slightly wider net than “this week” – we’ve missed a lot!

1. Patty Bailiff
Patrick Bailey got the nickname Patty Barrels for his switch-hitting home run feats in college, but I’m officially revoking that one after he posted a 15 wRC+ for the entire month of July. It’s okay, because he’s not here to hit (though I think his bat is perfectly acceptable and will rebound the rest of the year). He’s here to keep the defense in order and grind opposing running games to a halt.

You think you can run in his courtroom (I’m stretching the analogy here, I know, but I like the sound of it)? He’ll shut you down as quickly as you can say “Rickey Henderson.” Since he debuted, he’s comfortably atop the throwing leaderboard; he’s caught 19 runners stealing, six clear of Shea Langeliers over than span. He has a cannon arm, pinpoint accuracy, and balletic footwork. He’s somehow always in a good throwing position despite also being a superlative receiver. This is what 80-grade catcher defense looks like.

To celebrate being clear of that terrible July, Bailey put on a show Tuesday night against the Diamondbacks. He started the game on the bench for a well-deserved rest, but entered the game as a defensive replacement when the Giants took a slim 4-3 lead into the eighth. He got things going right away by giving Jace Peterson a rude welcome back to the Bay:

That’s outrageous. No time to collect himself, no time to get out of his crouch, no time to even think; he gunned Peterson down remorselessly anyway. That looked like a clean steal when the ball reached home plate despite the failed bunt attempt, but Bailey is just too good:

That right there is a great day for a defensive replacement. How many catchers come in and immediately erase a baserunner? He wasn’t done, though. In the ninth inning, Arizona put another baserunner on, but Bailey wasn’t having any of it:

That’s absolutely incredible. Two innings, two baserunners erased, and one of them a game clincher. Just perfection. Take a look at it from another glorious angle:

I don’t really have anything else to say. Bailey might be the best defender in baseball right now. He’s winning games with his throwing arm, which is what pitchers are supposed to do, not catchers. The Giants wouldn’t be nearly this good without him.

2. The Versatile Reds
Cincinnati is in a pitched battle for the top spot in the NL Central. I’ve written about them frequently this year, largely because they’re so dang fun. It’s not just the sheer youthful exuberance of the Reds that draws me in, though. I also love their avant-garde approach to lineup construction, enabled by an embarrassment of middle infield riches and a few versatile corner types.

Here’s an example off the top of my head. On July 6, they pulled out a narrow victory over the Nationals, 5-4 in 10 innings. That’s not particularly notable; the Nats aren’t what you’d call “good” this season, even though they’re not the complete laughingstock that some feared before the season. No, what I loved about this game was that Cincinnati used multiple players at every defensive position.

Take a look at this delightful chaos:

That’s right: Kevin Newman, of all people, started at first base. He got replaced defensively by Spencer Steer, then Joey Votto, then Steer again after Votto himself got replaced. Newman got pulled from the game because the Reds pinch hit for Luke Maile with TJ Friedl, then left Friedl in the game in center field. That meant they needed a new catcher, and Curt Casali subbed into Newman’s lineup spot. Easy peasy.

Only, they pinch hit for Casali too (with Votto). That meant that DH Tyler Stephenson had to surrender his DH duties and don the tools of ignorance. But that meant the team needed to put a pitcher into the lineup. Sure, no problem; Jonathan India made the last out of the inning where Votto pinch hit, so the team simply pulled him for the pitcher’s spot.

But wait, who plays second base? That would be Matt McLain, who shifted over from shortstop. Naturally, then, Elly De La Cruz moved from third to short, and Steer, who had started the game in left before moving to first base, slid over to third with Votto replacing him.

Following so far? Good, good. Things were pretty much standard from here until the bottom of the 10th, when the Reds brought in their defensive replacements. Steer moved back to first, Nick Senzel moved from right field to third, and Jake Fraley took over in right. Just your standard LF-1B-3B-1B line for Steer.

If you’ve been following along, you’ll realize I left two positions unmentioned. After Friedl pinch hit, he stayed in the game as a center fielder, but the Reds didn’t remove their original center fielder from the game. Senzel merely slid from center to right, which meant Will Benson had to move from right to left, which was the impetus for moving Steer from left field to the infield in the first place. It all makes sense when you follow through on it, but no one is making these kinds of hockey-style bulk substitutions in the universal DH era. No one except the Reds, that is.

3. Miguel Rojas, Savvy to the End
Miguel Rojas was never much of an offensive threat, and he’s been outright awful this year. Honestly, “awful” might be too kind to him. He’s hitting .223/.275/.285. He hit his first homer of the year on Wednesday, and it’s August. That’s not when you’re supposed to hit your first home run. The Dodgers went out and traded for Amed Rosario, and they have to be hoping to ease Rojas out of the lineup sooner rather than later.

That seems like a reasonable plan to me, but I want to give a quick nod to his career before he’s relegated to the dustbin of history. I loved watching Rojas on a series of awful Marlins teams, and it wasn’t because of his uncanny ability to rack up one to two Wins Above Replacement year in and year out. In one specific phase of the game, and one specific phase only, he resembles Mookie Betts. That phase? Self-assuredly smooth actions on defense.

I’m mentioning this not to say that the Dodgers should keep playing him, but rather because a play he made a few weeks ago made all my old memories of Rojas come rushing back. It wasn’t exactly a highlight reel play. You might miss it if you weren’t looking for it. But his footwork and instincts are smooth like creamy peanut butter:

There are a ton of ways to get that play wrong. You could charge the ball; in double play situations, it’s generally a good idea to go and get the ball to save precious fractions of a second. But that wouldn’t work here, because there was no chance of turning two if multiple throws were needed. Charge this one, and you’re looking at one out maximum. You could angle your body wrong; to make this play, you need to catch the ball with your weight carrying you towards first base. You could get the footwork wrong; the timing was so tight that the foot that hits second base needs to be your plant foot for the throw to first.

All of that was automatic for Rojas. The Orioles broadcast isolated Rojas on a replay that really drives his skill home:

Those choppy steps are all part of the plan. Even the way he fields the ball is deliberate; the footwork means there’s no need for a barehanded stab, but the transfer needs to be immediate, and Rojas dropped down on the throw to accommodate that and also to avoid a sliding Colton Cowser. He did it with no time to spare whatsoever; it was a bang-bang play at both bases. If his internal clock was even slightly off, the Dodgers might have ended up with no outs instead of two. But his clock wasn’t off. It’s never off.

Modern baseball statistics are really good at measuring how valuable Rojas’ defense is, and it’s not valuable enough to offset his anemic offensive skills. But they can’t measure the sheer joy I get out of watching his defense. Even Betts himself just sat there and admired it from a front row seat. I hope we get plenty more plays like this from him before his offense plays him off the field.

4. Manny Being Manny
This probably won’t surprise you given my general taste in baseball players, but I love Manny Machado. I love his defense and his easy power. I love his mannerisms on the field. I loved when he sulked performatively every time the Padres shifted him into shallow right field. I love his 80s-TV-villain demeanor at the plate. As it turns out, I also love watching him take pitches.

When Machado is taking all the way, you’ll know it immediately:

Nope, probably not swinging at that one. He didn’t even keep his hand on the bat! He’d clearly made the decision to take no matter what, and it was a savvy decision; José Berríos had been wild all inning. But there’s no pretense of standing in at all. He’s up there completely uninterested in the pitch – maybe he’s thinking about the weather, or why the money in Canada is all plasticky-feeling.

With that delightful take out of the way, he stood in for the next pitch and at least looked like he was considering taking action:

Berríos looked befuddled on the mound. Was Machado just not going to swing? There’s something about his languid pre-pitch demeanor that makes it feel like he’s barely deigning to pay attention to what’s going on. But that’s just a cover; throw him something he’s interested in, and it’s go time:

That’s a ferocious hack; the barrel of the bat almost made it to the outfield. Imagine how much force he must have been swinging with to shatter the bat so completely and still muscle the ball for a bloop single.

The dichotomy between rest and action is baseball in a nutshell – Willie Mays described the sport as “violence under wraps.” But no one playing today epitomizes that for me quite like Machado. He can shut it down completely for a pitch, then crank it up to max effort to brute force a ball to the outfield, then take it all the way back down for a businesslike acknowledgement of his success:

5. George Kirby’s Alien Precision
As the saying goes, to err is human. Baseball has a great way of reminding us of that. The best hitters make outs 60% of the time. The best pitchers give up the occasional mammoth home run. Sure-handed defenders make errors, contact wizards whiff, and elite baserunners get thrown out. The sport is hard!

Don’t tell George Kirby that, though. He has otherworldly command – he’s running a 2.7% walk rate! – and it was on full display in his start against the Twins on July 20. Check out this sequence against Alex Kirilloff, for example:

I left out two fishing expeditions on 0-2 and 1-2 to make the GIF a reasonable length, but you get the idea: Kirby has the ball on a string. That slider away/slider down combination is ludicrous; they’re both perfectly located. Then he dots the same corner with a fastball, and has a breaker-for-a-strike wrinkle in his bag too? Come on, that’s overkill.

He had a whole bagful of those perfectly-placed pitches that day. Check out this smash cut of four strikeouts:

That fastball goes where Kirby tells it to. If you’re keeping score at home, he’s perfectly capable of dotting both edges with it, and he can move it up and down as appropriate. Oh yeah – he’s regularly hitting 97 mph. Seems pretty good to me!

When Kirby’s as on as he was in this game, it feels like he’s just toying with hitters. As he chugged towards the conclusion of this seven inning, 10 strikeout gem, he eschewed his secondary pitches and painted with his fastball. First to Byron Buxton to get an easy pop out:

Then to Willi Castro for his last strikeout:

Kirby will probably always give up his fair share of home runs, but that’s a small price to pay for his clinical command. There will be no walks. There will be plenty of disbelieving batters. It isn’t how most pitchers succeed, but it’s undeniably fun to watch.

Here’s a true statement: Luis Medina has not been very good this year. You can say that just by looking at his numbers: a 5.35 ERA and a 4.83 FIP. He’s running a so-so 22.8% strikeout rate and walking a worrisome 10.8% of batters. If you looked up replacement level in the dictionary… well, you probably wouldn’t find anything, because that’s not the kind of thing that dictionaries define. But Medina’s performance has been almost exactly replacement level this year.

Here’s another true statement: Medina is great right now. That’s kind of confusing, what with all the bad statistics I just hit you with in the last paragraph, but I was cheating. Those are Medina’s full-season numbers, but he’s been an absolute beast in the last month. I’m not talking about some small-sample ERA mirage, either, though his ERA is a tidy 2.86. He’s running a 2.23 FIP, and he’s doing it by striking out 30% of opposing batters and walking only 5.6%. In other words, he’s an ace — or at least, he was one in July. Sounds like it’s time for an investigation. Read the rest of this entry »

The trade deadline was yesterday, which means it’s time for a winners and losers post. I don’t really have a clever introduction for you here; you know what these things are, and you know how they go. I consulted a bit with the FanGraphs staff in compiling these, but these are mostly just my opinions. Want a high-level summary of what you should care about following the deadline? Here it goes.

Winner: Teams Trading Pitchers
The market for pitching of all types was scalding hot this week. Most of the best prospects who moved were shipped out in exchange for pitching, including plenty of rentals. Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo López have been just okay this year, and they merited a 50 FV prospect plus more. Jordan Montgomery and Chris Stratton fetched a similar return. Noted old men Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer got the Mets both quality and quantity in return. Even rental relievers like Jordan Hicks and David Robertson brought back exciting prospects.

Of course, not every rumored move materialized. If teams were willing to offer this much in return for rental pitchers, it’s perhaps unsurprising that some of the big names rumored to be on the market stayed put. Three months of Montgomery is one thing, but what about two years of Dylan Cease or four years of Logan Gilbert? Given how much teams are willing to dole out for a few years of an aging, paid-down ace, you can imagine the sky-high price tag for young, controllable starters.

I think the activity we saw makes a lot of sense. It’s hard to know how many healthy and effective pitchers you’ll have in July, even if you start the season with a full complement of them. It’s also a position that everyone needs; realistically, every playoff contender could use another excellent reliever and another innings-eating starter. Heck, Lance Lynn has the worst ERA in baseball and the Dodgers still traded for him.

I used to think that if you weren’t sure whether your team was playoff bound, it was more effective to wait until July to build a bullpen. Bring in four or five relievers if you’re in the race; trade some guys if you aren’t. But at current valuations, I think that equation has changed. You can add pitching in July, no doubt, but these days, it’ll cost you.

Winner: Teams Acquiring Hitters
As hot as the market was for pitchers of all varieties, even good hitters didn’t fetch much this deadline. Jeimer Candelario has already racked up 3.1 WAR this season, and yet he got dealt for less than either Robertson or Hicks, two rental relievers who have combined for 1.5 WAR and 86.2 innings pitched this year. Mark Canha was dealt for a long-shot starter prospect. Tommy Pham only brought back a DSL lottery ticket.

I don’t think this crop of rental hitters is particularly weak, but there are no standout options. Perhaps that kept bids down. But Candelario, Pham, and Canha are the kinds of solid major leaguers that most teams can use in some capacity or another, in the same way that a fifth starter can chip in even without being particularly good.

Perhaps it’s just a fluke of the way the standings broke; among playoff contenders, only the Marlins, Brewers, Guardians, and Twins have truly dire offenses. The Twins and Guardians both seem to have been moved by the spirit of their division and decided lousy might work just fine, while the Brewers and Marlins both added. That’s a fairly small crop of needy teams overall, though I think at least four other contending clubs could have improved their fortunes markedly by adding Candelario.

The market has been heading this way in recent years; hitters are getting less and less at the deadline unless they’re true stars. Smart teams are surely taking note. If my team has to go into a given season with a weakness, I’d much prefer it to be at a corner offensive spot rather than in the rotation or bullpen. It’s easier to get competent upgrades at those positions at midseason than to restock a bad bullpen or bulk up a wimpy rotation.

Winner: The Mets Farm System
I’ve long thought that Steve Cohen’s financial might would eventually start helping the Mets’ farm system. It turns out, a surprisingly awful season was all the team needed to get going on that front. The equation is simple. Take a star on a market rate contract, then absorb enough of the money that they’re on a below-rate contract. Presto, changeo! You now have a valuable trade chip.

Four of the team’s top 10 prospects weren’t Mets a week ago. They’ve added across the entire scope of the minors; they acquired three players in the Dominican Summer League and several who are already performing well in Double-A. We have them as the 11th-best farm system now, just behind some vaunted organizations (Orioles, Rays, Diamondbacks), and that’s after Francisco Alvarez, Brett Baty, and Kodai Senga all graduated from our preseason list. They did most of that by trading pitchers who are 38, 39, and 40. That’s some kind of pivot.

Look, spending a bunch of money is a good way to get good baseball players. That’s hardly a shocking statement. Traditionally, wallet-flexing is mostly about supplementing your roster with star veterans. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I’m betting that the Mets will keep doing that where appropriate. But real long-term success requires a vibrant farm system that can churn out flexible role players and the occasional star. The Dodgers wouldn’t be such a juggernaut if they weren’t hitting on Will Smith, Bobby Miller, Walker Buehler, Tony Gonsolin, and so on. They wouldn’t have had the prospects to trade for Mookie Betts if they didn’t focus on developing them first.

One move I particularly liked: starting an AL West arms race and then profiting off of it. Sending Scherzer to Texas clearly lit a fire under the Astros. The Rangers already looked like a serious threat for the division title, but Scherzer and Montgomery might have made them the favorites. The Mets turned around and dealt Verlander back to Houston on the back of that, and they got the Astros’ best two prospects for him. That’s clean living.

Winner: Milwaukee Brewers
The Brewers didn’t come into the deadline planning to expend much prospect capital. Their team is hardly a juggernaut, and they could use a minor league talent infusion soon to offset the upcoming losses of Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff. But thanks to the vagaries of the market, they were able to add two meaningful pieces in Canha and Andrew Chafin without doing much to affect their future plans.

That’s not a bad start, but it gets better than that. Luis Urías had turned into a sunk cost; he’s making $4.7 million in arbitration this year, but played poorly enough to get demoted to Triple-A. The budget-conscious Brewers were likely going to DFA him, but they traded him to the Red Sox instead and got Bradley Blalock, a 40+ FV starter who’s been on fire this year. Recouping value when players don’t pan out like you’d hoped is a key part of the Milwaukee strategy, and this is a good example.

And there’s more! The Reds are leading the NL Central, but they essentially sat out the deadline. Their core is made up mostly of rookies, and I’m sure they’re telling themselves that now is too soon to strike, but come on, man. The NL Central probably won’t be this winnable for years to come. The Cubs are on the rise. The Cardinals won’t stay down long. The Pirates… Well, fine, you can’t win them all. But the Reds sat on their hands, which meant the Brewers’ additions went unopposed.

Winner: Miami’s Strategy
Speaking of teams that understand their window, the Marlins were busy this week. They added a closer, a first baseman, a third baseman, and whatever role you want to assign to Ryan Weathers. They badly needed those corner infielders, and their bullpen could use some work too. The plan of “fix all our weaknesses and try to go make the playoffs” makes even more sense when you consider that they’ve only been there once since their 2003 World Series championship, and even that postseason trip was in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. When you’re the Marlins, you need to take your shots where you can.

Loser: Miami’s Tactics
But, uh, maybe not like this. The Marlins gave up some promising youngsters in the trade for Robertson. Marco Vargas in particular is a buzzy name in scouting circles, the kind of hitter who everyone thinks is the best kept secret to the point where the secret isn’t particularly well kept. The public-side prospect watchers I listen to the most all think the Mets got the better of that deal.

And don’t even get me started on the first base situation. No one would disagree that the Marlins need help there; their first basemen have produced an anemic 96 wRC+ on the year, not exactly what you’d hope for from an offense-first position. Just one problem: Josh Bell, who they acquired from the Guardians, has a 95 wRC+.

That’s harsher to Bell than he deserves, which mirrors his batted ball luck this year. He’s making his customary loud contact and putting up good strikeout and walk numbers, but the power just hasn’t appeared. He also has a pretty horrendous .272 BABIP, especially vexing when you consider how many grounders and line drives he hits. Garrett Cooper, who Bell is replacing, had similar numbers but worse raw measurables; I think Bell is a small upgrade.

To make that small upgrade, the Marlins took on roughly $9 million in salary across the next two years. They also sent out post-hype sleeper Kahlil Watson. Neither of those is a huge loss, but the net of the whole thing is baffling to me. Money and a prospect for a hitter who you’re hoping ends up 15% above average? Just trade for Canha or Pham for way less, or something like that.

In a deadline where bats were there for the taking, the Marlins overpaid. I don’t think their Jake Burger/Jake Eder swap was quite so bad, because they’re getting future years of control from Burger and Eder is a phenomenally risky prospect, but it’s a sign of the same thing that bothered me about the other trades. Sure, Burger will be around for longer than a rental, but you could plug a series of veterans into that role, and there’s no guarantee that Burger will be playable for his entire Miami tenure. The Marlins got half of the equation right – it’s time to go out and get some hitters and relievers – but then they went about it in a bizarre way.

Loser: The Theory of Perpetually Increasing Prospect Hugging
Teams have been getting increasingly attached to their own prospects. Last year, only seven prospects we gave a grade of 50 FV or higher got traded, and three of them were part of the Juan Soto deal. With no one that good on the market this year (RIP, dreams of a Shohei Ohtani rental), I thought there was a chance that roughly zero top 100 prospects would get traded.

That didn’t happen. Six FV 50s got traded this deadline, headlined by Kyle Manzardo and Drew Gilbert. Plenty of interesting prospects just outside the fringes of the top 100 moved as well. That’s a big haul considering how quiet the deadline was; the Mets, White Sox, and Cardinals were the only sellers of note this year. If you weren’t interested in what those teams were offering, there wasn’t much to do.

I’m not ready to say that the tide has changed. Teams are still clinging to prospects in general; the Orioles and Reds, two of this year’s biggest surprises, went small at the deadline despite flourishing farm systems and not enough spaces to play their coterie of exciting young hitters. Both teams might regret that move down the road; give or take service time shenanigans, they’re taking a major disadvantage in one sixth of the team control years for their core.

You’re telling me that Heston Kjerstad is more useful in Baltimore as one of a bevy of might-work-out outfielders than as a trade chip to help this year’s team? I’m skeptical. The same goes for third basemen Noelvi Marte and Cam Collier in Cincinnati – you might have heard, but the team isn’t exactly short on infield prospects.

Prospect hugging isn’t defeated, and it probably never will be. But this year’s mix of deals feels a little closer to rational than the past few years, at least in my mind. I still think it’s a good time to be adding at the deadline, but not to quite the extreme that I feared the market would find equilibrium.

Loser: The Orioles
Let’s break that previous thought out a little bit more. The Orioles are a lock to make the playoffs this year, and yet their rotation is one of the worst in baseball. This deadline had a ton of impact rental arms, and while they would have cost a decent amount in terms of prospects, the Orioles were perfectly positioned to do just that. Kjerstad, Colton Cowser (currently on the big league club but scuffling), Joey Ortiz, Jordan Westburg; they have a surfeit of coveted hitting prospects, easily enough to swing a deal for at least a few impact starters. Somehow, they instead ended up with only Jack Flaherty, who looks like more of what their rotation already had.

That hurts! Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson are going to be around for a long time, but it’s not literally forever. The AL East is consistently one of the toughest divisions in baseball. There’s no guarantee that the Yankees and Red Sox will stay down, and no guarantee that the Orioles will lead the division this late in the season in the immediate future. Their Pythagorean and BaseRuns records suggest that they’ve been playing better than their underlying talent, but that shouldn’t be a reason not to add. This is surely the best shot the O’s will have at a playoff bye in the next few years based on divisional competition alone. It’s criminal to let the deadline pass by without leaning into that chance.

My guess is that Baltimore’s front office is held back by the very thinking that has propelled them to this spot in the first place. They sold at the deadline last year despite being fringe contenders, and it paid off. They try to red paperclip every trade, always building towards a perpetually glorious future. They hoard prospects and work reclamation projects. The system works! Houston used that model to become a juggernaut, and the Orioles might follow in their footsteps one day. But that plan has its limits; it’s designed to build up your farm system while the big league club stinks, not to deal with the exigencies of a playoff contender.

The Orioles are run by a sharp group of people; you’ll get no objection from me on that score. They’re surely aware of the perils of constantly looking to the future; it’s not a deep secret. But subconsciously, I think they might be struggling to change mental models. Constantly dreaming about what players might become in three years leads to systematic mis-evaluations of how important the present is at any given time. Concentrating value into windows of contention by adding at some deadlines and restocking at others is the way that teams with good process convert their farm systems into titles. The Orioles will figure it out, but I don’t think they’ve gotten the math right just yet.

Winner: Midwestern Retools
I’ve already covered the Mets; the two other major sellers this year were the White Sox and Cardinals, both of whom had a truckload of pitchers with expiring contracts, the new coin of the realm. Giolito, Lynn, López, Joe Kelly, Kendall Graveman, Montgomery, Jack Flaherty, Hicks, Stratton… the names just kept on coming.

Out of that laundry list of players, only Graveman has a guaranteed contract next year. These teams expected to contend for the playoffs, and they were going to have to work hard in the offseason. They’ll still need to replace that production if they’re planning on reaching the postseason in 2024, but that was always the case; now, at least, they have a bunch of prospects that they wouldn’t have access to otherwise.

Each team acted according to its expected timeline. I don’t think the White Sox will be great next year, and they seemed to agree; the best prospect they got back in their deals is a 20-year-old catcher. The Cardinals targeted near-majors-ready pitching, which makes sense given their huge need there. It’s win-win to me; a ton of good players who are headed for free agency get to battle for playoff spots down the stretch, and two farm systems in need of rejuvenation got just that.

Loser: Excitement
We can go back and forth about who won and who lost all day, but the bottom line is that the only trades that felt like capital-n News were Verlander and Scherzer decamping to Texas. Big names, big salaries, splashy prospects coming back; those are the kinds of deadline deals that top SportsCenter and get my non-baseball friends buzzing.

No one really went all-in this year, unless you want to count the Rangers. No one did a full teardown. The only sellers who had much to move did so with the intention of competing again soon. The Cardinals and Padres held onto some high impact stars who might have shaken up the deadline, and the White Sox stopped short of trading Dylan Cease. It’s hard to blame any one team for their decision. Taken individually, I can mostly understand the tactics everyone chose, even if I quibble with what the Orioles and Reds did (or didn’t do). But the end result of all those rational decisions was a bit of a snooze.

I’m not sure there’s much of a solution to this. From an entertainment standpoint, it’s dull. From a process standpoint, baseball is big business these days, and risk aversion is on the rise. Taking a risky move or blowing things up on a whim doesn’t sound quite so enticing when you’re making multiple million dollars a year as a GM. It probably doesn’t sound as enticing for an owner, either. The deadline doesn’t have to be exciting, and there are some awesome playoff races to follow down the stretch, but I was hoping all day for some shocking blockbuster, and it never materialized.

AJ Preller couldn’t keep it going forever. For years, he had his fingerprints on every major trade and free agency signing. He got Juan Soto! He got Josh Hader! He made a last-second pass at Aaron Judge before signing Xander Bogaerts. He built up a solid farm system and then lovingly tore it apart for established major leaguers, and he did it so frequently that he seemed to be in on every last deal.

This deadline, Preller finally rested. Earlier in the day, he engaged in some light veteran-snagging activity, adding Rich Hill and Ji Man Choi in exchange for a prospect sampler platter. A bit later, he swapped Ryan Weathers for Garrett Cooper and Sean Reynolds, but there was no seismic move to follow. The Padres’ last involvement with the trade deadline was another modest swing. They acquired Scott Barlow from the Royals in exchange for prospects Henry Williams and Jesus Rios.

I’ll level with you: this one won’t move the needle much. Barlow is a reliever archetype, reliably unreliable thanks to devastating stuff and lackluster command. He had a 3.62 FIP last year and checks in at 3.63 so far this year. Consistent like you wouldn’t believe! But he had a 2.18 ERA last season and has a ghastly 5.35 mark so far this year, so whoops.

That ERA can be attributed to a .340 BABIP and a teensie strand rate, but to be honest, watching Barlow pitch doesn’t give me the vibe of a mid-3.00s ERA reliever. He’s been quite hittable thanks to his lack of command. He’s often so far behind in the count that he’s laying one in there. When he doesn’t do that, he’s often missing his target and leaving the ball over the middle anyway. His slider and curveball are both excellent, and he’s going to get his fair share of strikeouts no matter what, but he feels like a constant implosion risk. Guys like him go from effective to can’t-buy-a-strike faster than you’d think sometimes. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s something strange going on in the desert. The Diamondbacks have been one of the best stories in baseball this year, led by Corbin Carroll and a motley crew of veterans and rookies. An early season tear sat them atop the NL West, and we gave them an 80% chance of making the playoffs on July 1. Whoops – they’ve gone 8-16 since then, the worst record in the NL, and now they’re scrambling to make the playoffs. Time to make some trades!

Tommy Pham fits perfectly with what Arizona is going for. After a desultory three-year stretch from 2020-22 where he posted a 94 wRC+, he’s been one of the lone bright spots for the Mets this year. He’s hitting .268/.348/.472, and his quality of contact has been even better than that; he has a shiny .390 xwOBA and is smashing balls left and right. His plate discipline, always a strength, has never been better. He’s posted as much WAR this year as in those three previous ones.

The Diamondbacks could use that kind of production. They’ve relied on four regular outfielders this season, and only Carroll has been good. Jake McCarthy has an 85 wRC+ and the underlying stats to match. Alek Thomas checks in at a 79 wRC+. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. is the best of the group, but that’s faint praise; he’s hitting .249/.296/.448 with a 98 wRC+ himself. Murderer’s row, this is not. Read the rest of this entry »