Last week, the FanGraphs staff and I previewed the top 50 free agents on this winter’s market. It takes two to tango, though (pending the development of my experimental one-person tango), which means the teams looking for players matter just as much. Over the course of this week, I’ll preview the needs of each team in baseball. Today, it’s time to preview the NL and AL Central. You can find the 10 teams in the East here and the Central here.

As much as possible, I’ve tried to be realistic. Yes, the Orioles could sign Carlos Correa, Marcus Semien, Freddie Freeman, Starling Marte, Max Scherzer, and Marcus Stroman in pursuit of a playoff berth next year. They not going to sign even one of those players, though, and I’ve focused on what a team should do given real-world budgets. You won’t see the Rays listed as a landing spot for free agents in the market for $100 million contracts, or anything of that sort. As much as possible, this list is what teams might actually do. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, the FanGraphs staff and I previewed the top 50 free agents on this winter’s market. It takes two to tango, though (pending the development of my experimental one-person tango), which means the teams looking for players matter just as much. Over the course of this week, I’ll preview the needs of each team in baseball. Today, it’s time to preview the NL and AL Central. You can find the 10 teams in the East here.

As much as possible, I’ve tried to be realistic. Yes, the Orioles could sign Carlos Correa, Marcus Semien, Freddie Freeman, Starling Marte, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, and Marcus Stroman in pursuit of a playoff berth next year. They not going to sign even one of those players, though, and I’ve focused on what a team should do given real-world budgets. You won’t see the Rays listed as a landing spot for free agents in the market for $100 million contracts, or anything of that sort. As much as possible, this list is what teams might actually do. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »

The Tigers have been going through a prolonged down period. The last season they finished above .500 was 2016, and the intervening years have been brutal — 2021 was the first year where they won even 40% of their games since that ’16 season. This year’s team was full of interesting players, and Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson should be ready soon, but the Tigers still needed a talent infusion if they wanted to compete next year.

Enter Eduardo Rodriguez, a perfect fit for the Tigers. Rodriguez signed a five-year, $77 million deal to join Detroit. He’s the first big signing of the offseason, and the symbolism of the Tigers opening the free agency market as they open their window of contention is fun to think about, even if it’s mainly just a fun fact. The Tigers are coming! Let’s talk about three things in order: what Rodriguez brings to the table, why Detroit wanted a starter, and the particulars of his contract.

First things first: Rodriguez isn’t your average 4.74 ERA starter. He was quite poor in the run prevention department this year, but under the hood, his statistics looked far more enticing. He set a career high in strikeout rate and a career low in walk rate, welcome improvements for a pitcher who was already above average. He made 31 starts, showing no rust after missing all of the 2020 season due to a heart condition. He missed as many bats as ever, surrendered fewer barrels than the average pitcher, and generally looked like a star. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, the FanGraphs staff and I previewed the top 50 free agents on this winter’s market. It takes two to tango, though (pending the development of my experimental one-person tango), which means the teams looking for players matter just as much. Over the course of this week, I’ll preview the needs of each team in baseball, starting with the NL and AL East and continuing westward throughout the week.

As much as possible, I’ve tried to be realistic. Yes, the Orioles could sign Carlos Correa, Marcus Semien, Freddie Freeman, Starling Marte, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, and Marcus Stroman in pursuit of a playoff berth next year. They not going to sign even one of those players, though, and I’ve focused on what a team should do given real-world budgets. You won’t see the Rays listed as a landing spot for free agents in the market for $100 million contracts, or anything of that sort. As much as possible, this list is what teams might actually do. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »

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Every series needs a finale, and the postseason managerial (and front office) report card series is no exception. Unlike nearly every movie franchise in history (Lord of the Rings, you’re excused), the last chapter here is the best. Brian Snitker did a tremendous job managing the Braves through this postseason. He started with a tenuous starting pitching unit, lost Charlie Morton, and managed his way through it anyway.

As always, these rankings are a reflection of the tactical decisions a manager made during the playoffs. I’m not considering roster moves or off-field decisions around keeping players ready to contribute — Kevin Cash and the Rays are the best example of this, but the Giants deserve mention here as well. This is just on-field moves — pinch hitting and lineup choices, pitching decisions, and the like. Read the rest of this entry »

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Welcome to perhaps the most uncertain edition of FanGraphs’ annual top-50 free-agent rankings. In past years, luminaries like Dave Cameron, Kiley McDaniel, and Craig Edwards have helmed this exercise. This year, I’ve enlisted a little help from my friends to fill their shoes.

Below, I’ve ranked the top 50 free agents and provided contract estimates for each of them. For the top 25 players, I’ve also written some short commentary, alternately about their potential suitors and what makes them enticing. Devan Fink, Brendan Gawlowski, Kevin Goldstein, Jay Jaffe, Eric Longenhagen, Dan Szymborski, and Jon Tayler have provided their own breakdowns for each player in the top 50 (with me chipping in for a few guys at the end), focusing mainly on the players themselves rather than their market.

Players are ranked in the order that I prefer them. That’s often the same as ranking them in contract order, but not always. In some cases, I’d prefer a player who I expect will get less money over one who stands to make more. I’ll generally make note of that in the accompanying comment, but just to reiterate, the list isn’t exclusively ordered by descending average annual value, or total dollars, or anything of that sort. All dollar amounts are estimated guarantees. Plenty of contracts in the bottom half of this list could end up with team options tacked on, but those aren’t included in these estimates. Some players in the top 10 could end up with opt outs, which also aren’t included. Unless otherwise noted, all projections are Steamer 2022 projections. The listed ages indicate the age-season the player is about to play.

We’ve made a note of which players received a Qualifying Offer, which is worth $18.4 million this year. Teams had five days after the World Series to make those offers, after which time players have 10 days to accept or decline. The uncertain nature of this year’s collective bargaining agreement makes predicting whether players will accept Qualifying Offers more difficult than usual. As a refresher, if a player receives and declines a qualifying offer, the team that eventually signs them forfeits a draft pick, while the team that made the offer gains one. Which draft picks change hands depends on the circumstances of both teams, as well as the total dollar value of the contract signed. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time for another edition of postseason managerial grades. If this article series has taught me anything, it’s that in-game management is both hard and largely inconsequential. There are a million variables to consider in nearly every at-bat, but at the end of the day, the players on the field win or lose the game. Dusty Baker, the subject of today’s article, is proof of that: the Astros are an excellent team, and Baker managed well, and the Braves just beat them. The team didn’t choke, and neither did he. They simply ran into someone playing better, which is almost always more important than who moves the chess pieces around more efficiently.

One piece of feedback that I’ve gotten in previous installments of this series is that giving managers all the credit or blame for their decisions understates the role that team front offices have in preparing for the playoffs. Managers aren’t making it up as they go along, at least not always; they come into each game with a plan for many contingencies. In most cases, that’s a plan they’ve constructed in collaboration with front office personnel who do the drudge work of coming up with 50 (or 100 or 200) scenarios that mostly won’t take place, then coming up with plans for each.

So if you’d like, consider these as joint manager and front office grades. The two are operating in concert, with the front office doing research that the manager applies during games. So this is a Dusty Baker report card, but it’s also a referendum on everyone in the Astros’ front office for getting the right information in front of him. And spoiler: they all passed with flying colors.
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The last two World Series games have featured pitching best described as aspirational. The Braves used three pitchers who barely pitched in the majors to face 37 Astros, and the results were mixed. Sometimes you’re Kyle Wright, throwing 4.2 clutch innings to keep your team in the game. Sometimes you’re Tucker Davidson, coughing up a four-run lead in two-plus brutal frames. That’s the nature of pitching, but it’s not exclusive to those fringe arms, as this postseason has shown.

Consider the worst pitchers that teams brought into these playoffs. Fourteen relievers who posted a regular-season FIP of 4.50 or higher have appeared this postseason, pitching a combined 44.2 innings. They’ve been awful! They’ve combined for an ERA of 6.00 and a FIP of 5.30. That’s the kind of pitching that sends you home early.

It’s also better than you’d expect! After all, these pitchers aren’t great. That’s how I selected them — pitchers with bad numbers during the regular season. In fact, this group combined for a 5.52 FIP in the regular season, weighted by the number of postseason innings they’ve each accounted for. They’ve actually done better in the playoffs — perhaps the reason why teams selected them in the first place. Read the rest of this entry »