Most of the time, you can count on early November to take a break from following baseball news. The World Series has just ended, but free agency hasn’t started in earnest. International free agents generally get posted closer to the mid-December deadline. Big trades are more of a December/January thing. But the Angels don’t operate that way. First they traded for Jorge Soler. Then they signed Kyle Hendricks. Now they’ve signed the first multi-year free agency deal of the offseason, linking up with Travis d’Arnaud on a two-year, $12 million contract.

At first blush, this feels like so much shuffling of deck chairs. The Angels have a lot of needs, to put it bluntly. Catcher was one of their best positions last year. They need more starters, more relievers, more outfield depth, more infield depth, and more top-of-the-order bats. Incumbent Logan O’Hoppe was one of only three hitters on the team to eclipse the 2-WAR mark. Why not sign a second baseman, or another starting pitcher, or pretty much anyone else?

I think there’s more here than meets the eye, though. We’re not talking about a blockbuster signing, and quite frankly, we’re not talking about a playoff team. A good season for the Angels in 2025 would mean flirting with .500 and developing a few new everyday players. Maybe Jo Adell will take a step forward and Mike Trout will play a full season at his normal standard of excellence. Maybe Zach Neto will continue on his current trajectory towards borderline All-Star production (once he’s back from shoulder surgery, of course) and Reid Detmers will rediscover his wipeout slider. Read the rest of this entry »

“Juan Soto hates swinging.” That’s a takeaway you’re sure to hear if you follow baseball this winter. His free agency is the biggest story of the next few months, and his offensive approach drives fans to distraction. Walks aren’t all that fun, and Soto feasts on them. How could you not bring it up when your team is pursuing him for a record-breaking deal?

From a certain standpoint, it’s true that Soto hates swinging. Of the 101 batters who saw at least 1,500 pitches with zero or one strikes this past season, Soto ranked 99th in swing rate on those pitches. When he isn’t defending the plate with two strikes, he spends a ton of time with the bat on his shoulder.

That’s not a specific enough way of looking at it, though. For an example, let’s chop the strike zone up into pieces. Soto saw 675 pitches that weren’t in the strike zone or even near it – what Baseball Savant defines as the chase and waste zones. He swung at 6.5% of those, 42nd out of the 44 batters who saw 500 or more such pitches. He was almost never fooled into swinging at awful pitches, in other words.

Next consider the edges of the zone – pitches that are either barely strikes or barely balls. There aren’t a lot of good options on these pitches. Hitters don’t generally crush the ball when it’s located on the corners, unless they’re sitting on either a pitch or a location. Sure, if you’re looking high and away, you might tag it, but more likely you’ll swing and miss or make weak contact. Soto swung at 31.3% of these pitches, the second-lowest rate in baseball.

Those pitches in the chase and waste zones? You shouldn’t swing at them. There, Soto’s patience is an obvious asset. The ones on the borderline? It’s less obvious. There are great hitters who take an expansive approach to borderline pitches, like Bobby Witt Jr. and Yordan Alvarez. There are awful hitters who do it too, as you’d expect. Swinging too much at offerings we call “pitcher’s pitches” is pretty clearly not going to pan out every time.

Likewise, discretion is no guarantee of valor. There are great hitters who, like Soto, mostly let these pitches go. Aaron Judge and Kyle Schwarber fit the bill. It’s not just high-walk-rate sluggers, either; Matt Chapman, Adley Rutschman, Nolan Arenado, and even Randy Arozarena behave this way. On the other hand, plenty of bad hitters take borderline pitches and are still bad.
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I’m using a new format for our postseason managerial report cards this year. In the past, I went through every game from every manager, whether they played 22 games en route to winning the World Series or got swept out of the Wild Card round. To be honest, I hated writing those brief blurbs. No one is all that interested in the manager who ran out the same lineup twice, or saw his starters get trounced and used his best relievers anyway because the series is so short. This year, I’m sticking to the highlights, and grading only the managers who survived until at least their League Championship series. I already covered Stephen Vogt, Carlos Mendoza, and Aaron Boone. Today, I’m looking at Dave Roberts.

My goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter with the series on the line, that’s a good decision regardless of the outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in behind closed doors for new strategies or unconventional bullpen usage is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but Luke Weaver and Brent Honeywell were also important contributors this October. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Mookie Betts is important because he’s great, not because he already had two rings. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m using a new format for our postseason managerial report cards this year. In the past, I went through every game from every manager, whether they played 22 games en route to winning the World Series or got swept out of the Wild Card round. To be honest, I hated writing those brief blurbs. No one is all that interested in the manager who ran out the same lineup twice, or saw his starters get trounced and used his best relievers anyway because the series is so short. This year, I’m sticking to the highlights, and grading only the managers who survived until at least their League Championship series. I already covered Stephen Vogt and Carlos Mendoza. Today, I’m looking at Aaron Boone.

My goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter in a huge spot, that’s a good decision regardless of the outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in behind closed doors for new strategies or unconventional bullpen usage is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but Luke Weaver and Brent Honeywell were also important contributors this October. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Juan Soto is important because he’s great, not because he won the 2019 World Series. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the offseason. As is customary, FanGraphs’ annual top 50 free agent rankings come following the World Series. In recent years, we’ve rotated through the writers principally responsible for the list – first Dave Cameron, then Kiley McDaniel, Craig Edwards, and, more recently, me. I’m back this year and I’ve brought help: the FanGraphs staff contributed mightily to this piece.

Below, I’ve provided contract estimates and rankings of the winter’s top free agents, along with market-focused breakdowns for the top 25 players. That could be a quick discussion of where a player might sign, what a team might look for, or even statistical analysis masquerading as market analysis – what can I say, I like analyzing players. Meanwhile, a combination of Davy Andrews, Michael Baumann, Jay Jaffe, David Laurila, Eric Longenhagen, Leo Morgenstern, Kiri Oler, Esteban Rivera, Michael Rosen, and Dan Szymborski supplied player-focused breakdowns, which are designed to provide some context for each player at this moment in his career. Special thanks to David Appelman, Jon Becker, Sean Dolinar, Jason Martinez, and Meg Rowley for their help behind the scenes.

The players are ranked in the order in which I prefer them. That’s often the same as ranking them in contract order, but not always. In some cases, I prefer a player 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, this list isn’t exclusively sorted by descending average annual value or anything like that. Read the rest of this entry »

“What if they made the whole pitching staff out of high-leverage relievers?” That line of thinking has infiltrated baseball over the past 15 years, and you can see why. The Dodgers built their team around it, and used it to perfection in the first three games of the World Series. When the Yankees weren’t dealing with three solid starters attacking the lineup in short bursts, they were facing an endless array of pitchers who sit in the upper 90s with venomous breaking balls. No wonder the Yankees only scored seven total runs across those three games.

In Game 4, the Dodgers asked another question: What if you made the whole pitching staff out of swingmen? Dave Roberts and the front office always planned on a bullpen game; they’ve been doing those all October. But this one was a wholly different animal than the efforts against the Padres and Mets, and the Yankees took advantage.

Want an example of how it was different? Ben Casparius drew the start, and Roberts gave him two innings, no questions asked. He was shaky as can be. Three walks, a 105-mph double off the top of the wall in dead center, and a few hard-hit balls besides; he spent the entirety of his two innings of work on the ropes, faced 10 batters, and was lucky to escape having only allowed one run. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m trying out a new format for our managerial report cards this postseason. In the past, I went through every game from every manager, whether they played 22 games en route to winning the World Series or got swept out of the Wild Card round. To be honest, I hated writing those brief blurbs. No one is all that interested in the manager who ran out the same lineup twice, or saw his starters get trounced and used his best relievers anyway because the series is so short. This year, I’m sticking to the highlights, and grading only the managers who survived until at least their League Championship series. I already covered Stephen Vogt and the Guardians. Today, I’m looking at Carlos Mendoza and the Mets.

My goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter in a huge spot, that’s a good decision regardless of the outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in for new strategies or unconventional bullpen usage behind closed doors is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but Mark Vientos and Jackson Chourio were also great this October. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Francisco Lindor is important because he’s great, not because of the number of playoff series he’s appeared in. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »

There are a lot of reasons to watch this World Series. There’s the history, the star power, the drama. We’ve had Ice Cube concerts and walk-off grand slams, controversial pitching decisions and defensive gems. I’m going to tell you a secret, though: None of those things has been my favorite part so far. The two preeminent strike zone controllers in the entire sport are facing off, and a showdown between Juan Soto and Mookie Betts is always worth watching.

Game 2 was a wonderful encapsulation of just what I’m talking about. Soto came up first, and he engaged Yoshinobu Yamamoto right away. Soto has a plan in every at-bat. It’s quite often the same plan: find a fastball, preferably high or inside, and hit it for a home run. He got started right away with a rip at a first-pitch fastball:

Advantage Yamamoto – but not that much of an advantage. Soto took two straight curveballs low – it’s really hard to fool him. Then Yamamoto came back with another fastball and Soto tried to hit it to Pasadena:

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What a game. This series has been so hyped that a scoreless tie through four innings felt like a letdown. But then the party got started. In the end, we got everything we wanted: stars, steals, defensive gems and gaffes, and even a walk-off home run to evoke Kirk Gibson. But my beat is writing about managerial decisions, so let’s get a quick 1,100 or so words in on that before it’s time for Game 2. Specifically, I’m interested in the bottom half of the 10th inning in Game 1 of the World Series, and the decisions that led to Freddie Freeman’s colossal walk-off grand slam and lifted the Dodgers to a 6-3 win over the Yankees.

Using Nestor

Hated it. The pitch for why it’s a bad decision is pretty easy, right? Nestor Cortes hadn’t pitched in a month, a trusted lefty reliever was also warm, and the scariest possible guy was due up. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where this was the lowest-risk move. There’s not much I can say about the pitch-level data, because he threw only two pitches, but there are myriad reasons to opt for a reliever over a starter in that situation.

A lot of Cortes’s brilliance is in his variety. He throws a ton of different pitches. He has a funky windup – several funky windups, in fact. He changes speeds and locations. That’s how a guy who sits 91-92 mph with his fastball keeps succeeding in the big leagues. But many of those advantages are blunted when you don’t have feel for the game.
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Rihanna said it best. Or maybe it was Russell Crowe. This is the main event. The top seed in the American League meets the top seed in the National League. The presumptive AL MVP is leading his team against the presumptive NL winner. Those guys, coincidentally, are the two biggest free agents in history – Shohei Ohtani broke the bank this past offseason, only a year after Aaron Judge signed a historic deal of his own. Juan Soto might eclipse them both this winter. And while those three are the biggest stars in the game right now, they have three previous MVP winners – Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Giancarlo Stanton – as sidekicks. Oh yeah, and the two highest-paid pitchers in history are the aces of their respective teams. Heck, I’ve allowed this paragraph to run to a ridiculous length, and I’m only now mentioning 2024 Home Run Derby winner Teoscar Hernández.

By any objective measure, this World Series matchup is absolutely loaded with star power. But the current players are only half the story. This is the 12th Yankees-Dodgers matchup in World Series history – the Dodgers have played in 22 of these things, and they’ve faced one team more than half the time. This isn’t quite Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Fall Classic anymore, where the two preeminent teams are a subway ride apart, but the next best thing is a rivalry between the two biggest cities in the country.

Want an example of how good the players in this series are? Here are the top five hitters in baseball by wRC+ this year:

Jay Jaffe dove into how rare it is to see the best player in each league in the World Series – turns out, it’s quite rare! Fifty-homer sluggers have also never faced each other in the Series before now, and that leaves out the fact that Ohtani stole 50 bags too. Soto is an absurdly over-qualified second banana. Betts isn’t on this list, and he was in the MVP running before missing time with injury. The star power on display is simply staggering, as Davy Andrews noted Wednesday. Read the rest of this entry »