There are some big trades percolating around baseball today. Trea Turner and Max Scherzer were merely the opening salvo; the Cubs have gone into full everything-must-go mode, José Berríos got swapped for two top 100 prospects, and the Phillies are shelling out for multiple starters. It’s a time for big trades — unless you’re the St. Louis Cardinals, who mostly shuffled the deck chairs on Friday in a trade with the Minnesota Twins. Our analysis of the acquisition of Jon Lester is forthcoming, but that’s not all they did. You’re gonna want to be sitting down for this one, because it might put you to sleep, and that would be dangerous if you were standing:

JA Happ goes to Cards for Gant

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) July 30, 2021

J.A. Happ (pronounced “Jay”, just for value) is not what you’d call a great pitcher, at least this year. His 6.77 ERA could have told you that — but if you hate ERA for some weird reason, what about his 5.40 FIP, 5.28 xFIP, or 17.3% strikeout rate and 1.9 HR/9? He’d been interesting in previous years — lefty starters with control tend to be valuable — but as his velocity went, so did his effectiveness, leading to this year’s horror show.

That’s not to say there’s nothing redeemable about Happ; even in a greatly reduced state, he’s an innings eater, having completed seven innings four times this year in 19 starts. That’s useful for the Cardinals, because their bullpen is a castle made entirely of brutal, gut-wrenching walks. With so few arms to choose from, the top three relievers have been worked hard, and injuries have decimated their rotation; even after acquiring Happ, it prominently features Wade LeBlanc, with four reasonable starters on the shelf at the moment (Jack Flaherty, Miles Mikolas, likely gone-for-the-season Carlos Martínez, and definitely gone-for-the-season Dakota Hudson). Read the rest of this entry »

If it feels like the Blue Jays have been on the cusp of breaking through for years, that’s because they have. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and crew have put together a fearsome offense (with some help from the friendly confines of Dunedin and Buffalo). Hyun Jin Ryu and Robbie Ray have provided some pitching, but not enough; only three teams have gotten fewer innings out of their starters, and the Jays’ bullpen has been no great shakes either.

To compete this year, Toronto needed another starter, and now it has one. Per Ken Rosenthal, the Jays have acquired José Berríos from the Twins in exchange for prospects Austin Martin and Simeon Woods Richardson, a move that will have implications for both teams for years to come.

As is customary when prospects of such lofty stature are involved, Kevin Goldstein and Eric Longenhagen will cover the specifics of the two in a separate piece. In this one, you’re stuck with me, and we’ll try to assess how this trade affects the two squads without diving into the nitty-gritty of what Martin has been doing with the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

The Jays have conflicting interests at this deadline. They’re 4.5 games out of the second wild card spot and had a 25.9% chance of reaching the playoffs before adding Berríos to the mix. That’s a great reason to go for it, but it also merits caution; the team is so stacked and so young that this might be the worst Toronto squad of the next three or four years, not the best. Trading for a bevy of rentals two years too early would hardly be a crippling blow, but with such a talented roster, building for the future and the present would beat doing only one or the other.
Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past 10 or so years, the Dodgers have built a juggernaut, with enough talent to withstand both divisional rivals and injury woes. They’ve won the last eight NL West titles and been to three of the past four World Series. This year, though, it looked like that hegemony might finally, finally come to an end. Corey Seager is hurt. Mookie Betts has been banged up and is on the IL. Gavin Lux is out. Dustin May tore his UCL. Cody Bellinger missed a long stretch with a hairline fracture in his leg before suffering a hamstring injury. Clayton Kershaw hasn’t pitched in nearly a month. But with the Giants overperforming and the Dodgers facing an onrush of injury (and suspension), maybe this could be the year.

That feels less likely now, because the Dodgers just flipped the trade market on its head in one fell swoop, acquiring Max Scherzer and Trea Turner from the Nationals for a kingly ransom of prospects (update: the trade is now official)– Josiah Gray, Keibert Ruiz, Gerardo Carrillo, and Donovan Casey. The deal isn’t final yet, but it appears all but done and will likely be officially announced Friday. Turner was the best position player on the market. Scherzer was the best pitcher on the market. They’re both Dodgers now, more cogs in the most powerful machine in baseball, one that looks increasingly likely to dispatch the Giants and bring home the NL West crown yet again.

As is customary with such a big deal, we’ll cover it in two parts. Here, Eric Longenhagen gives Nats fans a piping-hot helping of prospect analysis — there’s plenty of it in a deal of this magnitude. I’ll focus on the major league side of things, which is to say the Dodgers’ side of things; Washington was already dead in the water in the NL East, but now they’re super dead. Read the rest of this entry »

Most deadline trades follow a familiar coda. A team with fading hopes and eyes full of prospects gets rid of an overperforming reliever, or perhaps a soon-to-depart slugger. A contender who needs more pitching (so, all of them) gives up on its prospect-hugging ways long enough for a few to slip through its grasp. Wham-o! It’s a trade. This one is … well, it’s not that:

Source confirms: Astros acquire RHPs Kendall Graveman and Rafael Montero from Mariners for IF Abraham Toro and RHP Joe Smith. Montero had been designated for assignment. First: @brianmctaggart

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 27, 2021

Kendall Graveman is definitely the aforementioned overperforming reliever. He’s been incredible this year, one of the best closers in the game. No longer a middling starter, he converted to relief in 2020, added velocity and started dominating. His 0.82 ERA is better than he’s actually been — shocker, that — but he’s cooked up an enviable mix of strikeouts and grounders, and he’s done it when it counts; he’s recorded 18 shutdowns this year (adding at least 6% of win probability) and only three meltdowns (losing 6%).

Rafael Montero? He hasn’t been that. He has 12 of those fancy shutdowns, but 12 meltdowns to match. The Mariners are 23–8 in one-run games, but it’s been because of Graveman, not Montero. In fact, they’ve swapped roles; Graveman now finishes games, and Montero sets him up. He, too, is a capable pitcher. But he’s been dicey this year, even at the underlying metric level, and that 7.27 ERA — ew!

Anyway, neither of them are Mariners anymore. The Astros snapped them both up, and they’ll fold them into their middle-of-the-road relief corps; they’ve been only 16th in baseball in park-adjusted ERA and 20th in park-adjusted FIP. Ryan Pressly has been great, but he’s a man, not an entire bullpen. Houston could certainly use the help.
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s July, which means the A’s are trading to improve their bullpen. Whether it’s Jake Diekman, Mike Minor, Jeurys Familia, or any of a seemingly unending number of other moves, they always seem to find an arm they can bring in to redo their leverage roadmap and provide a little extra playoff oomph. Last night, they acquired Andrew Chafin in exchange for Greg Deichmann, Daniel Palencia, and cash, as MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand first reported.

Chafin has been downright spectacular this year. In 39.1 innings, he’s allowed only nine runs, good for a 2.06 ERA. He’s done so by limiting home runs; he’s only given up one all year, and while that’s unlikely to persist, he does plenty of things right that should continue to limit homers. He gets grounders, with a 50% groundball rate so far this year. He’s limited hard contact, too: opponents have barreled up only 5.1% of their batted balls and have hit only 32.3% of them 95 mph or harder.

Do those two things, and homers are harder to come by. Baseball Savant’s xHR, which is a descriptive estimate of home runs based on contact quality, thinks Chapin “should” have allowed only 1.1 dingers so far this year. That doesn’t mean it will keep happening — it’s based on the actual contact allowed, which is volatile — but it’s a good sign that he hasn’t given up 20 warning track blasts or anything of that nature.
Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

As of Thursday night, the Mets’ starting rotation featured Marcus Stroman, Taijuan Walker, Tylor Megill, and a sentient ball of string who showed promise in Low-A. Fine, I made up the last one, but if you told the Mets front office about this ball of string, they’d at least ask you for its Trackman data. A seemingly unending string of injuries left the team grasping for pitching — any pitching at all. Enter Rich Hill, in a trade with the Rays:

We’ve acquired left-handed pitcher Rich Hill from Tampa Bay in exchange for right-handed pitcher Tommy Hunter and minor league catcher Matt Dyer. https://t.co/P24Fo2HoYd

— New York Mets (@Mets) July 23, 2021

At a very basic level, the Mets had to make this trade. Jacob deGrom is on the shelf. David Peterson broke his foot walking around. Carlos Carrasco and Noah Syndergaard aren’t ready. Joey Lucchesi tore his UCL. Robert Stock, who was already 10th or so on the depth chart, strained his hamstring. Forget replacement level — Hill represents an upgrade from subterranean level. To some extent, any trade at all would be a win, in that it would leave them able to field a roster.

But Hill isn’t merely roster depth. He’s one of the most interesting pitchers in baseball, a curve-and-fastball machine who has spent years pumping sub-90 mph gas past hitters while bamboozling them with a dazzling array of breaking balls. Heck, earlier this year he was named the AL Pitcher of the Month (it’s not the most prestigious award, but it’s an award) in May, when he posted a 0.78 ERA over 34.2 innings.

Of course, there are other months in the year, and the rest of Hill’s 2021 hasn’t gone nearly so well. In total he sported a 3.87 ERA and 4.55 FIP with the Rays, both of which are the highest marks he’s posted since bursting back onto the scene in 2015. His 9.9% swinging strike rate is better only than his abbreviated 2020 season, and he wasn’t exactly great then either. There’s a strong chance that Hill’s 2021 season will be his last stand. Read the rest of this entry »

Who’s the best catcher in the NL Central? Before the season, this was a good way to start an argument between Cardinals and Cubs fans. Was it Willson Contreras, the cannon-armed, cannon-batted Chicago backstop who has worked hard to improve his framing of late? Was it Yadier Molina, the stalwart St. Louis lifer with legendary defense who continued to hit long past when most thought he’d fade?

Neither! The best catcher in the NL Central this year is Omar Narváez, and it hasn’t been particularly close. By WAR, his 3.0 mark is nearly double Contreras, and that undersells it; he’s played in nine fewer games and has 64 fewer plate appearances. His 137 wRC+ is the second-best among catchers, trailing only Buster Posey’s incandescent season. He’s sixth in baseball in framing runs and third in total defensive value for catchers. A year after his worst offensive season, he’s turned it all around, and the Brewers are reaping the rewards.

Narváez came to Milwaukee with a reputation as a defensive butcher who could hit. He popped 22 homers in 2019 in only 482 plate appearances, his lone season in Seattle. Not only that, but he also struck out only 19.1% of the time — with a walk rate of nearly 10%. More walks than average, fewer strikeouts than average, plus power … he sounded like a match made in heaven.
Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

We probably don’t write enough about the Giants. That’s not to say that we don’t write about the Giants here — we do, quite frequently. Back in May, Kevin Goldstein looked into their complicated future. Jake Mailhot and Dan Szymborski wrote about the starters. Jay Jaffe and Luke Hooper talked veteran hitters.

So yes, we write about the Giants quite a bit here. But to my eyes, it’s still not enough. This team is the biggest surprise in baseball this year. We’re nearly to the All-Star break, and they’re leading the NL West, the toughest division in baseball. All those articles above focused on Giants exceeding expectations, but I’m more interested in another group: the bullpen, which has been one of the better units in baseball despite a pedigree that could best be described as mixed.

This isn’t a case of spending money and trading players to assemble a monster bullpen. It isn’t a case of prioritizing relievers in the draft and getting it done that way. It’s a motley crew of arms that have turned into far more than we expected — we pegged them 18th in our preseason positional power rankings, and they’ve DFA’ed the player we pegged for the most WAR. This group feels like it came from a script, so let’s treat this like a heist movie and assemble the squad. Read the rest of this entry »