Hello, my name is Brendan Gawlowski. I could do the Troy McClure thing and list all of my previous bylines, but I’d prefer to just say that it’s a pleasure returning to FanGraphs after nearly four years away. Back in early 2022, I took a job as a pro scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates and I’ve been scouting minor leaguers ever since. In a few cases, I had a role in bringing players to Pittsburgh. It was a blast and I am grateful for the experience.

But for as much fun as I had, the job wore on those around me. I spent more than 80 nights on the road last year, a grueling schedule that’s rough on families in any situation and was increasingly unreasonable in mine. When I joined the Pirates, I was 30, childless, and ready to stretch my legs after two years of lying low and masking up. In the intervening years, a series of significant events made it hard to balance my passion for scouting with my responsibilities at home. My wife and I had a baby. A year later, we found ourselves facing a cancer diagnosis and long-term treatment. Our parents started battling their own medical problems. Through it all, I tried to be around as much as I could, but the realities of my schedule led to stressful compromises. The logistics of doing the job while being more than a replacement-level family member were hard to manage. This past July, I pulled an all nighter and drove from Corpus Christi to Houston to catch a 6 AM flight back home to Seattle, stepped inside for a quick shower, and then bolted two hours north to Bellingham for a birthday party. During that last stretch, my wife made her annual gentle suggestion that another path was possible.

And what a path this is. FanGraphs’s reputation as a leader in baseball analysis is well earned, particularly in the prospect space. For as long as he’s been at it, Eric has done an incredible job of covering the landscape. From my perspective, the breadth, depth, and nuance of his analysis is worth the price of a Membership all by itself. I learned plenty from him before, during, and after our time working together in my first stint here. The listing for this position came at the perfect time and I applied with gusto: I loved working as a scout, but the opportunity to join Eric in a full-time capacity, to continue evaluating baseball players while also getting another couple of months at home, was too enticing to pass up. Read the rest of this entry »

In an accord between familiar and frenetic trading partners, the San Diego Padres sent Adam Frazier to the Seattle Mariners on Saturday in exchange for prospects Ray Kerr and Corey Rosier. It’s a bit of an odd move. The Padres, nominally in win-now mode, just shipped off a 3.5-win player for prospects. Meanwhile, the Mariners beefed up their thin infield, but at the risk of incurring a considerable opportunity cost in a free agent market that seemed tailor made for their needs.

Let’s touch on San Diego’s side first, since it’s the more perplexing one at a glance. Frazier is the big name in the deal. The National League’s starting second baseman in last summer’s All-Star Game, the 29-year-old hit .305/.368/.411 last season while accruing the aforementioned 3.5 WAR, though his production dipped following the trade. Always a good contact hitter, Frazier joined the game’s elite in 2021 with a 10.8% strikeout rate — only Michael Brantley, David Fletcher, and Kevin Newman whiffed less often. While 2021 may well have been his peak, Frazier’s been a pretty good player for a long time: Since debuting in 2016, he’s notched a 103 wRC+ and has averaged 2.4 WAR per 162 games. Contending teams looking to gain ground don’t usually trade away this kind of production, particularly from a player they just acquired last July.

Despite that, you can understand why the Padres considered him surplus to requirements. With no path to a starting job in the infield, and Ha-Seong Kim around to fill a multi-positional utility role, Frazier was a bit of a square peg on a roster of round holes. Yes, the Friars could have used him in the outfield — as they sometimes did last summer — but it’s not the best use of his skills. In theory, exchanging him for players who could offer the Pads more stick in the outfield or depth in the bullpen makes sense. Read the rest of this entry »

The last time we saw Justin Verlander pitch, he looked like his usual, dominant self. In six innings against Seattle, he allowed only three hits and two runs while striking out seven. As had been the case in his Cy Young season, he was a little dinger-prone, surrendering two blasts to an otherwise overmatched Mariners lineup. But in an Opening Day start played in unusual circumstances, his stuff looked as sharp as ever.

Unfortunately, that last outing was in July of 2020. Within the week, Verlander landed on the injured list with a forearm strain. Two months later, the future Hall of Famer announced that he was undergoing Tommy John surgery. The procedure sidelined him for all of 2021, his last season prior to reaching free agency.

The timing gave the Astros a difficult decision. With no recent performance to evaluate, Houston nonetheless extended their ace a qualifying offer, which forced Verlander to pick between testing a very uncertain free agent market and taking a $10 million pay cut. He ultimately turned down the QO, but not the Astros themselves. In news amusingly broken by his brother Ben, Verlander re-signed with Houston yesterday on a one-year, $25 million deal that includes a $25 million player option for a second year. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, veteran reliever Joakim Soria hung up his spikes. In his typically understated fashion, he didn’t so much as announce his retirement as have it done for him, through his agent and a Ken Rosenthal tweet.

Soria was a two-time All-Star. He pitched for nine teams during his 14-year career, racking up 15.4 WAR and 229 saves, alongside a tidy 3.11 earned run average. In his first spell with the Royals, Soria established himself as one of the sport’s premier closers and was a bright spot on several forgettable Kansas City teams. He never quite recaptured that early-career form after an elbow injury in 2012, though he remained a dependable late-inning reliever for most of the last decade.

For all his success, Soria’s unusual path to stardom remains perhaps the most notable part of his career. Born to schoolteachers in Monclova, Soria grew up in Mexico. He signed with Los Angeles as a teenager, but pitched only four times for the Dodgers, all in the AZL back in 2002. After going two seasons without appearing in a game, Los Angeles released Soria in 2004 and he spent all of the 2005 season in the Mexican League. After posting solid but hardly spectacular numbers, San Diego took a flier on him. He only threw 11 innings in Low-A that next summer, though, and the Padres understandably left him off of their 40-man roster. Read the rest of this entry »

To calm everyone down from that saucy title, we’re going to start with a few simple facts. Starting in the postseason, Cody Bellinger has made a few adjustments. He’s shifted his position in the box, he’s striding more toward the pitcher (as opposed to the first base dugout), and he’s shown an ability to flatten his bat path on high fastballs. Anecdotally, he looks a little less stiff to me and his swing decisions seem better, but let’s ignore those last two for today and focus on the mechanical aspect.

Alongside these adjustments, Bellinger has been a better hitter in the playoffs. In 28 plate appearances, he’s batting .291/.392/.458, all against very good pitching. It’s not vintage Bellinger or anything, and it’s worth noting that he’s struck out plenty, nine times in nine games thus far. Still, it’s a heck of a lot better than the 48 wRC+ he spewed up in the regular season.

Let’s take a closer look at what he’s been doing lately, how it differs from his setup in the regular season, and why it may actually be significant. Read the rest of this entry »

A pizza stain on the new Armani. A chocolate chip cookie, fresh out of the oven, adorned with nine chips and one cat droplet. The middle five wishes of Elliot Richards. Game 5 of the 2021 NLDS.

The Dodgers won 2-1 in as tense and dramatic a contest as we’ve seen all year, one that ended with an inexplicable call from first base umpire Gabe Morales on Wilmer Flores’ check swing. For Los Angeles, it’s a fifth trip to the NLCS in six seasons, a triumph only made sweeter by the circumstances. In vanquishing their rivals, the Dodgers get the last laugh in a brilliantly played season series. Tonight’s game is vindication for Dave Roberts and his lineup choices, redemption for Cody Bellinger, and another line on Hall of Famer Max Scherzer’s remarkable resume. Fans of all stripes were treated to an exquisite contest in nearly every respect.

But like most neutrals, that last pitch is stuck in my craw. With two outs, Kris Bryant on first, and Flores at the plate, Scherzer fired a 1-2 slider. Flores started his swing but appeared to check it well in advance of the imaginary and arbitrary breaking point at which a take (usually!) becomes a swinging strike:

Read the rest of this entry »

There isn’t much missing from Freddie Freeman’s sterling career. He’s won an MVP, hit for the cycle, racked up 42 WAR, captured a pair of Silver Sluggers, and has already made five All-Star teams. That’s not quite enough for Cooperstown on its own, but he’s probably only a few more star caliber seasons away from a pretty good Hall of Fame case, and given that he’s only 32, he’s got time to pad his resume. With apologies to a criminally under-photographed snowmobile ride with Chipper Jones, the only thing missing from Freeman’s career has been an iconic moment.

No longer. In the eighth inning of a 4-4 tie in Tuesday’s NLDS Game 4, Freeman stepped to the plate against Josh Hader. Hader, of course, is the sport’s best relief pitcher and an absolute terror against lefties. He hadn’t given up a homer to a lefty all year, hadn’t surrendered a run since July, and hadn’t given the two previous hitters much of a chance to hit his nasty fastball/slider combo. On his first pitch to Freeman though, his bender caught too much plate and one chance was all that Freeman needed:

Milwaukee mustered a leadoff single in the ninth, but never got any closer to tying the game. Freeman’s late dinger ultimately clinched the series, and ensured the Braves wouldn’t rue a day that could have been defined by risky gambles and opportunities missed. Read the rest of this entry »

This could have been Tampa Bay’s night. In an alternate, presumably domed and cat-walked universe, starter Shane Baz shakes off a tough start, and builds on his escape from a first-inning jam. The Rays, invigorated by their five-run rally off of Chris Sale in the bottom of the first, pour it on against Boston’s beleaguered bullpen.

It didn’t go that way. Jordan Luplow’s go-ahead grand slam off of Sale was just about the last highlight of the night for Tampa, as Boston outscored the division-winners 13-1 the rest of the way. Boston’s offensive explosion pulled the Red Sox back from the brink of a 2-0 series deficit, and ensured that ace Nathan Eovaldi gets to start in front of the Fenway faithful with a chance to take the lead in the ALDS. And while Boston’s offense did the heavy lifting, the key to the game may have come all the way back in the second inning, when Alex Cora pulled Sale in favor of Tanner Houck.

For my money, Houck is the most compelling player in the series. He pitched brilliantly down the stretch, notching a 2.52 FIP over 69 innings split between the bullpen and the rotation, and capped his season off with five perfect innings in a start last weekend against Washington. For the year, he struck out more than 30% of hitters while also generating more grounders than flies. Beyond the numbers, he’s just a real bastard to face. His low slot and deadly, sweeping slider draw inevitable comparisons to Sale, and he has one of the most devastating sinkers in the game. Read the rest of this entry »

“I was at dinner with our scout in Japan and he made a comment that even truck drivers throw 95 over here,” said Oakland’s Assistant General Manager Dan Feinstein. “That caught my attention. I said, ‘If that’s true, maybe we should be trying out some of these truck drivers.'”

Feinstein soon decided to run an experiment. Oakland advertised an open tryout for pitchers and invited players with a college pedigree to send video to the A’s scouting department. From there, the team invited 60 of them to throw in front of scouts. One of them, right-hander Shohei Tomioka, bumped 95 on the gun, which impressed Oakland enough to offer him a contract then and there. “We call it the truck driver tryout,” Feinstein said with a chuckle.

Tomioka’s story was only possible because of a brilliant combination of scouting and technology, with a dash of luck mixed in. His signing is also an indication that the international talent market is laden with players just waiting to be discovered. See, Tomioka wasn’t simply a truck driver with a live arm. He was an experienced pitcher, a graduate of one of Tokyo’s top baseball programs — he was just never seen at the right time by the right people. By the time Oakland discovered him, he was loitering in a small local league. “There’s a lot of independent ball over there,” Feinstein says, “and he had been pitching in one of these kind of obscure leagues. He was free to try out and was throwing 95 so we signed him.”

For anyone lamenting the rise of big tech in baseball or the demise of the scout, Tomioka is living proof that, for good and for ill, an element of the unpredictable remains in the game. His signing demonstrates the value of having a robust international department, while also highlighting how fertile the international market is today, and how teams that invest abroad now stand to reap a competitive advantage in the years to come. To get a better sense of how that might develop, let’s take a deeper dive into how teams scout internationally today. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from Brendan Gawlowski. Read previous installments of the Daily Prospect Notes here.

Orelvis Martinez, SS, Toronto Blue Jays
Level & Affiliate: High-A Vancouver Age: 19 Org Rank: 3 FV: 50

After he torched A-ball, the Blue Jays promoted Martinez to High-A Vancouver for the last six weeks of the season. He’s found the waters much choppier out west, batting just .158/.198/.329 in his first 82 plate appearances, and while he’s hitting for some power (five dingers) and boasts an above-average strikeout rate, pitchers are luring him out of the zone in most directions. Breaking balls are harder and sharper at this level, and he’s chasing them in the dirt; he’s also being a little too aggressive on fastballs in on his hands. He’s consistently out front on anything slow, as his coiled leg kick and timing mechanism leave him off balance against anything that isn’t a fastball. Sometimes he makes contact, sometimes he doesn’t, but it’s hard to impact the ball when you’re lunging.

Defensively, Martinez looks rough at shortstop. He clanged a few balls in my looks, and on a turf surface, too. He’s quick once he gets going, but his initial step is a bit slow, and given his size, I’d guess he’ll grow off of shortstop in time anyway.

Despite the struggles, there’s a lot to be excited about here. Martinez is very young for the level, and growing pains are to be expected at this stage in his journey. His bat-to-ball skills are well ahead of most of his teammates, which is encouraging, and the physical tools are potentially special. His hands are extremely explosive, and when he hits a ball well, it stays hit. There’s a little bit too much hit tool volatility for him to be a sure-thing type of prospect, but I’m nonetheless bullish. Even if he hasn’t found his defensive home yet, I suspect that when he returns to the Northwest for a second spin at High-A, he’ll do plenty of damage at the plate.

Sam Bachman, SP, Los Angeles Angels
Level & Affiliate: High-A Tri-Cities Age: 21 Org Rank: 6 FV: 45

Bachman wasn’t quite as high-octane as when Kevin Goldstein saw him this spring, but there’s clearly a lot to like about the Angels’ most recent first-round pick. In my viewing, he sat 94–95 mph with a tailing fastball. His slider was excellent — a modern hard one with relatively short break but in the upper-80s with late movement, capable of missing bats in and outside of the zone. He also has a fading changeup in a similar velo band, and it’s a pitch that he can also throw for strikes.

The long-term question is whether Bachman will start. The Angels are taking it easy with him for now, letting him face the lineup once and then getting him out of the game. That usage makes it difficult to evaluate how his stuff plays over the course of an outing. While he found the zone more often as a college junior this season, Bachman doesn’t have a long history of throwing strikes, and his delivery is a bit jerkier than your average starter’s. Between that and a low slot that gives his fastball more sink and run than the carry that’s in vogue these days, there’s a decent chance the Angels decide everything plays better in relief.

Sebastian Espino, SS/3B, Toronto Blue Jays
Level & Affiliate: High-A Vancouver Age: 21 Org Rank: NR

Espino has all the makings of a divisive prospect. Let’s start with the good. He’s 21, strong and lanky with room for growth, plays on the left side of the infield, and is already hitting for power. He’s hitting for everything, come to think of it, slashing .300/.359/.521 in 58 High-A games.

The bad news is that he has no approach to speak of. He’s very aggressive and doesn’t have much feel for the zone. He’s not helpless against offspeed — he made an adjustment on an inside changeup and lined it over the fence in a game last week — but spin gets him off balance, and his swing looks ugly when it does. Both that swing and his contact rates are notable for the wrong reasons.

Eric Longenhagen has written previously about how binary hit tool evaluations can make a non-prospect out of otherwise athletic players (Anderson Tejeda, for instance). Espino is flirting with danger here, particularly because his 8% walk rate is more the product of a low contact rate than patience or plate discipline. And yet, you can’t write him off, because he’s hitting .300 with power as a 21-year-old at High-A. For what it’s worth, a scout I spoke with raved about him and questioned how in the world the Mets lost this kind of player in the Rule 5 draft.

If we’re to continue a sort of shadow comparison with Tejeda, it’s worth mentioning that Espino’s numbers are superior at this stage in their respective development. Even so, he has a lot of work to do in refining his approach. While I don’t think he’s a high probability big league starter, he’s an interesting one to follow, and a guy who will certainly appear on our next Blue Jays list.

Jordyn Adams, CF, Los Angeles Angels
Level & Affiliate: High-A Tri-Cities Age: 22 Org Rank: 3 FV: 50

After a dreadful start, Adams has played better over the last six weeks, hitting .260 with 16 steals, and if you squint, you can make the case that he’s hitting for as much power as his cavernous and windy home park — they’re not the Tri-City Dust Devils for nothing — will allow. His swing decisions have improved a bit since my first viewing, and in my last look, he had a nice approach in an at-bat that ended with a hard-hit opposite field single. If you’re feeling particularly charitable, you might notice that he has a 93 wRC+ since July 16th, which isn’t good but is a step in the right direction.

The overall picture isn’t particularly rosy, though. Even if you lop off the first month of the year, Adams has struck out in more than a third of his plate appearances. He’s doing better with fastballs in the zone but is still easily enticed to swing at breaking stuff outside of it. And if we’re playing the arbitrary endpoints game, it’s only fair to point out that he has a 79 wRC+ since July 20th. I’ve spoken with four scouts about him this summer, and none are excited about his offensive potential.

Bets on athleticism are tricky. Sometimes the two-sport star who joins the travel circuit late in the game looks like a natural in pro ball; others are late bloomers. But there are also plenty of guys who just never figure out how to hit. There’s still time for Adams to wind up in bucket two: He’s only 21, he hasn’t played a ton of baseball, and both last year’s layoff and a calf injury probably dampened his production in 2021. He’s also obviously an incredibly gifted athlete, and that alone gives him a long developmental runway. At the end of the day, though, he has to hit, and he hasn’t shown he can yet.

CJ Van Eyk, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays
Level & Affiliate: High-A Vancouver Age: 22 Org Rank: 8 FV: 40+

Depending on when you catch him, Van Eyk can look like a future rotation piece or a guy who won’t get out of Double-A. I saw the latter version back in July, when he had trouble keeping the fastball out of the righties batter’s box and was knocked out in the third inning. He looked much better in my second viewing in Hillsboro last week. He touched 97, comfortably sat 92–95, dominated the lineup with a plus 12–6 curve, and missed bats with a sweeping slider. His control drifted on him in the fourth, but he made an adjustment and looked as sharp as ever the following inning.

A little more mechanical consistency could go a long way here, because Van Eyk clearly has the arm strength and stuff to start. His control has faltered from inning to inning dating back to his time at Florida State, though, and it’s fair to wonder if there’s a fix here. Right now he’s a low probability starter with higher upside than normal given the first part of this sentence.