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Cleveland Forces Game 5 With a Tightly Fought Road Win

Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images

The postseason is at its most fun when both teams have something to prove. The ZiPS projections may have been bullish on the Cleveland Guardians coming into the season, but the computer was in the minority, with most observers thinking the Minnesota Twins were the clear favorites in the division. The Guardians are no longer the habitual losers they were from the 1960s-80s, but their last World Series championship was still in 1948. For their part, the Detroit Tigers dominated the AL Central 15 years ago, but lost both of their World Series, dropping eight of nine games. And Detroit wasn’t even supposed to be here; the team traded Jack Flaherty at the deadline and if someone had bowled them over with an offer, Tarik Skubal might be wearing a different uniform this month.

Game 4 was do or die for Cleveland, with the Tigers’ plan of “Tarik Skubal and then pitching chaos” winning two of the first three games. With a bullpen whose second-half performance led the American League with a 2.50 ERA and 3.0 WAR (the Tigers weren’t far behind with a 3.00 ERA and 2.8 WAR), the Guardians had high hopes that they’d be able to send the ALDS back to Cleveland for one winner-take-all showdown. And that’s precisely what they did, winning a closely fought game that was one of the most entertaining we’ve seen so far this October.

Cleveland struck first and in old-school fashion, with a single and a stolen base from Steven Kwan, and singles by Kyle Manzardo and Lane Thomas, the latter of which scored Kwan. But Will Brennan’s groundout on a low changeup allowed Detroit starter Reese Olson to escape the first having only surrendered one run. Read the rest of this entry »


National League Division Series Preview: San Diego Padres vs. Los Angeles Dodgers

Gary A. Vasquez and Denis Poroy-Imagn Images

The NL West race may have been settled in favor of the Dodgers this year, but everybody goes back to the starting gate in the playoffs. The only difference is the possible extra home game the Dodgers get in each individual series, though home field advantage has been far from a valuable perk for teams except for sales of tickets, hot dogs, and $59 foam fingers. With Los Angeles getting a few extra days to try and heal up a little more, the Padres got here the hard way, having to win the best-of-three Wild Card Series against the Atlanta Braves, a team that still managed to squeeze out 89 wins without Spencer Strider and mostly missing Ronald Acuña Jr.

While some of baseball’s best rivalries are the classic ones that have endured for the last century, such as Yankees-Red Sox and Dodgers-Giants, this one between the Dodgers and Padres is a good example of how new rivalries can pop up and be a lot of fun, too. Despite the fact that the two teams have played in the same division for more than five decades, only in recent years has the so-called I-5 Rivalry really heated up. San Diego has infrequently sustained runs of relevance – this is only the second version of the Friars to string together three winning seasons in a row – leaving Dodgers fans with few nightmares featuring a brown-and-mustard palette. But these Padres have been aggressive, and unlike in the past when short-term bursts of ambition were tempered quickly with brutal fire sales, they’ve consistently tried to make the Dodgers uncomfortable at the top of the NL West. Even as the Padres traded Juan Soto over the winter, they acquired their Wild Card Series Game 1 starter Michael King in that deal and then traded for Dylan Cease, who’ll start Game 1 of the Division Series, just before Opening Day. Yet, ultimate success has proven elusive for San Diego, with two disappointing playoff misses in 2021 and 2023 and still no returns to the World Series since 1998’s debacle.

The Dodgers enter the Division Series with something to prove as well. While they do have a World Series trophy from the COVID-shortened 2020 season, with five 100-win seasons in the last seven normal years, they crave to have more hardware to show for their success. Sure, we’re used to the idea that when you have large playoff formats, winning the World Series takes a lot of luck, but neither fans nor history care much about that. Winning the World Series this year would wipe out most, if not all, of that disappointment; taking care of business in this series would get the Dodgers one step closer to that while also giving them a little revenge against the Padres for knocking them out in the 2022 NLDS, after Los Angeles won a franchise-best 111 games.

So, how do the teams stack up? Let’s start with the ZiPS projections. As I type this, Joe Musgrove has been officially ruled out for the NLDS due to his elbow injury, which has now been confirmed to require Tommy John surgery. That means no Musgrove this postseason – or next season – but for now, we’ll just deal with the impact of the news on this series.

ZiPS Game-by-Game Probabilities – NLDS
Team Gm 1 Gm 2 Gm 3 Gm 4 Gm 5
LAD Yoshinobu Yamamoto Jack Flaherty Walker Buehler Landon Knack Yoshinobu Yamamoto
SDP Dylan Cease Yu Darvish Michael King Martín Pérez Dylan Cease
LAD Odds 57.6% 57.9% 44.9% 54.2% 57.6%
SDP Odds 42.4% 42.1% 55.1% 45.8% 42.4%

ZiPS NLDS Probabilities
Team Win in Three Win in Four Win in Five Victory
Dodgers 15.0% 21.8% 21.5% 58.3%
Padres 9.8% 16.0% 15.8% 41.7%

For contrast, here are the projections for if Musgrove had been able to pitch in this five-game set.

ZiPS Game-by-Game Probabilities – NLDS (Healthy Musgrove)
Team Gm 1 Gm 2 Gm 3 Gm 4 Gm 5
LAD Yoshinobu Yamamoto Jack Flaherty Walker Buehler Landon Knack Yoshinobu Yamamoto
SDP Dylan Cease Yu Darvish Michael King Joe Musgrove Dylan Cease
LAD Odds 57.6% 57.9% 44.9% 48.1% 57.6%
SDP Odds 42.4% 42.1% 55.1% 51.9% 42.4%

ZiPS NLDS Probabilities (Healthy Musgrove)
Team Win in Three Win in Four Win in Five Victory
Dodgers 15.0% 19.4% 21.7% 56.1%
Padres 9.8% 18.1% 16.0% 43.9%

Replacing Musgrove with Martín Pérez, likely the next man up, basically flips the win probabilities for Game 4. Where every game previously favored the home team in the projections, now the Dodgers are expected to win on the road against Pérez.

Even though the Dodgers are favored to win with Musgrove out, it would still be wrong to call them overwhelming favorites. This is a close series overall, but also a swingy one, with four of the five games projecting to be at least a 55-45 split, meaning that for the most part, these games aren’t projected to be coin flips despite the tightness of the series as a whole. “Breaking serve” here by winning on the road has quite a lot of value. If the Padres can get to Yoshinobu Yamamoto or Jack Flaherty and win one of the first two games, they would expose one of the Dodgers’ current weaknesses: a thin rotation due to injuries. Walker Buehler had only three quality starts out of his 16 outings since returning from Tommy John surgery in May; his performance was shaky enough that in mid-June the Dodgers optioned him to the minors, where he spent two months trying to get right, before they brought him back up to start on August 20. And despite a superficially appealing ERA, Landon Knack would be about the 12th choice for Los Angeles if everyone were healthy. If the Dodgers are able to get out to a 2-0 lead without any bullpen-exhaustion events, like an 18-inning game, they might be in a position of strength to run a bullpen game and axe one of their uncertain starters from the NLDS rotation.

Where the Dodgers have the advantage is their front-line offensive talent, which gives them what appears to be the superior offense overall, an edge large enough that it isn’t erased if you view players such as Jurickson Profar and Donovan Solano with less skepticism than ZiPS does.

ZiPS Batter vs. Pitcher, Game 1
Batter Pitcher BA OBP SLG
Shohei Ohtani Dylan Cease .269 .384 .558
Freddie Freeman Dylan Cease .291 .406 .482
Max Muncy Dylan Cease .212 .358 .442
Mookie Betts Dylan Cease .242 .351 .415
Gavin Lux Dylan Cease .253 .339 .399
Tommy Edman Dylan Cease .244 .314 .378
Will Smith Dylan Cease .212 .309 .360
Teoscar Hernández Dylan Cease .221 .283 .385
Miguel Rojas Dylan Cease .219 .272 .303
Batter Pitcher BA OBP SLG
Jackson Merrill Yoshinobu Yamamoto .263 .297 .444
Fernando Tatis Jr. Yoshinobu Yamamoto .231 .271 .445
Luis Arraez Yoshinobu Yamamoto .290 .322 .381
Manny Machado Yoshinobu Yamamoto .233 .266 .407
Jake Cronenworth Yoshinobu Yamamoto .224 .283 .375
Jurickson Profar Yoshinobu Yamamoto .221 .293 .360
Xander Bogaerts Yoshinobu Yamamoto .238 .275 .363
Donovan Solano Yoshinobu Yamamoto .228 .274 .316
Kyle Higashioka Yoshinobu Yamamoto .190 .217 .357

Dylan Cease is a terrific pitcher, but ZiPS thinks the Dodgers’ Big Four of Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, and the good platoon side of Max Muncy has a fighting chance of getting to him. It’s more of an uphill climb against Yamamoto; ZiPS has Luis Arraez as the only San Diego batter projected to have a .300 OBP against Yamamoto, and it gives none of the Padres a .450 SLG projection against him. Now, contrast that with the projections at home against Knack and Buehler.

ZiPS Batters vs. Pitchers, Padres Hitters Game 3 and Game 4
Batter Pitcher BA OBP SLG
Jackson Merrill Landon Knack .282 .344 .505
Fernando Tatis Jr. Landon Knack .284 .337 .506
Manny Machado Landon Knack .288 .331 .469
Xander Bogaerts Landon Knack .296 .344 .430
Jurickson Profar Landon Knack .240 .358 .412
Jake Cronenworth Landon Knack .242 .339 .428
Luis Arraez Landon Knack .294 .351 .401
Donovan Solano Landon Knack .287 .343 .382
Kyle Higashioka Landon Knack .233 .270 .406
Batter Pitcher BA OBP SLG
Fernando Tatis Jr. Walker Buehler .281 .342 .543
Jackson Merrill Walker Buehler .309 .359 .506
Luis Arraez Walker Buehler .337 .384 .439
Manny Machado Walker Buehler .279 .329 .490
Jurickson Profar Walker Buehler .267 .371 .423
Jake Cronenworth Walker Buehler .269 .354 .438
Xander Bogaerts Walker Buehler .283 .340 .435
Donovan Solano Walker Buehler .271 .341 .377
Kyle Higashioka Walker Buehler .227 .270 .428

One of San Diego’s other advantages, at least in the eyes of the computer, is its bullpen. While ZiPS has both teams performing similarly overall, it much prefers the depth of the Padres’ unit. To test their bullpens, in each simulation, ZiPS was instructed to knock out both starters after two innings in one game and have another game last 15 innings; in these scenarios, the odds of the Padres winning the series go from 42% to 47% – nearly a coin flip. In a short series, things like roster construction can make a real difference. Look at the way the Nationals were configured in 2019, with four good starters, two relievers they trusted, and a dumpster fire behind them. That kind of distilled performance meant that even when Washington won 13 fewer regular-season games than Los Angeles that year, ZiPS projected the teams as nearly equal when they met in the 2019 NLDS.

Here’s what I get from these reams of data: The Dodgers should stay the course with what’s worked for them all year, trust their elite hitters, and avoid the temptation to get too cute with their managing tactics, but the Padres ought to be aggressive. If they see an opening to get to Yamamoto or Flaherty, treat that game like it’s Game 7 of the World Series. San Diego can’t afford to save any wacky tricks for later. If the Padres can push the Dodgers back on their heels quickly and early, the latter may run out of time to right themselves.

One thing you’ll hear a lot (in all four series), especially early on, is the claim that the layoff is a big disadvantage for teams. Don’t believe it. If the Padres upset the Dodgers here in the five-game series, it won’t be because Los Angeles was too rested. Instead, it’ll be because the Padres played better.


Five Hits at Freddy’s Advance Mets to NLDS

Benny Sieu-Imagn Images

For eight innings on Thursday night, the New York Mets’ bats barely spoke above a whisper. Unfortunately for the Milwaukee Brewers, the ninth inning was the charm in Game 3, as the Mets loudly ended the Brew Crew’s 2024 season with a 4-2 win, largely thanks to a dramatic opposite-field homer from Pete Alonso.

The climactic action may have involved a trio of round-trippers, but for six innings, we got a classic pitchers’ duel between two starters with very different styles. Starring for the Mets was Jose Quintana, who played the crafty veteran lefty trope to perfection here, throwing leisurely fastballs and sinkers where hitters could neither drive them or ignore them, while mixing in a healthy dose of changeups and curves that threatened the dirt.

ZiPS was a bit worried about how Quintana matched up against the Brewers coming into the game; while he’s maintained enough of a reverse platoon split over a long career to be confident in it, Milwaukee has a lot of right-handed hitters who can make a southpaw’s evening unpleasant in a hurry. But William Contreras and Rhys Hoskins went hitless, and ultimately it was the lefties who provided most of the team’s offense. It certainly wasn’t from lack of trying; Brewers hitters offered at 60% of Quintana’s fastballs, including more than half of the ones thrown out of the zone. What’s more, they connected with every Quintana fastball they swung at, but it only resulted in two hits. Quintana didn’t throw a single fastball for a called strike all evening. Read the rest of this entry »


Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 9/26/24

12:02
Avatar Dan Szymborski: It’s a chat!

12:02
No longer a Ms fan: Does ZIPs think the Seattle Mariners should disband as a baseball team? What a disappointment they are.

12:02
Avatar Dan Szymborski: If the White Sox get to stay together, the M’s certainly do

12:03
Avatar Dan Szymborski: Maybe they should bring back the trident logo as primary

12:03
Chooch: Do you have an opinion on home/away splits for starters? I’m not trying to say he hasn’t pitched well this year, but the Phillies seem to be entertaining the idea of throwing Sanchez game 2 to get him a home start.

Does that enter your calculus going into a series; how would you go about planning your starters in the playoffs?

12:03
Avatar Dan Szymborski: I haven’t found that much value on it

Read the rest of this entry »


Which Teams Are Best Equipped for the Playoffs?

John Froschauer-Imagn Images

Which characteristics cause a team to either excel or struggle in the postseason? It’s a long-standing debate, and most baseball fans have a preferred theory. Some think it’s having an ace. Others think good contact hitting, or a team’s momentum, is what pushes a club over the top. Some people — the ones most likely to get annoyed when they read my work — think that clutch performances or having veterans with playoff experience on the roster is what causes a club to shine in October. Sadly, the best answer is rather boring: What makes a team play well in the postseason is simply being the better team overall. In 2022, I examined 63 team characteristics throughout baseball history to see if any of them presaged clubs’ fall fates. Outside of leaning more heavily on home runs to score — top pitchers who struggle in the playoffs are far more likely to be felled by homers than issuing walks or failing to strike hitters out — and a barely significant tendency for younger teams to overperform, there just wasn’t much there, there.

But that’s not to say that playoff baseball is identical to regular season baseball. After all, the former is a sprint while the latter is a marathon, and the challenges in each scenario are different. When I ran the numbers for the aforementioned article, the focus was on how the playoff teams played, rather than who played. I specially used a playoff model that estimated team quality as being different in the regular season due to roster construction considerations. Teams are better able to leverage their front-end talent over a few crucial weeks than a six-month period. The qualities of a team’s fifth starter (not to mention their sixth, seventh and eighth) are less crucial to their success come October, and the key bats in the lineup (if healthy) are almost always going to be playing, thanks to the additional days off that clubs get in the postseason. As the 2019 Washington Nationals demonstrated, you can even paper over half your bullpen being a train wreck. Read the rest of this entry »


Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 9/19/24

12:00
Avatar Dan Szymborski: Chat Time Great Action Copter Passion Justice GO!!!!!

12:01
Champdo: Chances Parker Meadows plays this well next season?

12:01
Avatar Dan Szymborski: Depends on what you call well!

12:02
Avatar Dan Szymborski: But ZiPS does have him up to 2.3 WAR in like 540 PA

12:02
Avatar Dan Szymborski: That he *appears* to be at least a mild positive in CF really makes him playable

12:02
Guest: Who is the biggest sleeper prospect for 2025 season based on ZiPS?

Read the rest of this entry »


Reassessing the Future for This Season’s Disappointing Rookies

Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports

Projecting the future is always difficult and full of inevitable misses, and I’m not just saying this because I have a vested interest in having you think I’m good at my job. We have a vague idea of a player’s broad future, enough so that nobody would trade Jackson Holliday for, say, Patrick Corbin. However, there’s always a great deal of uncertainty in prognosticating, and assuming for the sake of this opening paragraph that multiverse theory is correct, there will be planes of existence in which Corbin wins the NL Comeback Player of the Year award in 2025 when the Dodgers somehow fix his slider after a five-minute conversation. That’s not the way to bet, of course, and it’s likely that struggling rookies, especially ones with immaculate pre-2024 credentials — such as Holliday — will see this season as a bump in the road rather than a nasty car-destroying pothole.

Turns out, this was the season for longshot Rookie of the Year picks, especially in the American League. Of the top 17 AL rookies based on the preseason Rookie of the Year betting odds, only two players, Colton Cowser and Wilyer Abreu, ever had a plausible argument for being in the conversation once games started. Luis Gil and Austin Wells were nowhere to be found. For the table below, I’ve included 15 of the 17 players who were given AL Rookie of the Year awards odds by DraftKings before the season, sorted by their preseason ranking in descending order, along with their actual 2024 stats. I’m citing these rankings to get a general sense of who the favorites were back in March, not because I think they are more or less accurate than any other sportsbook odds.

(I’ve excluded the two other players, outfielder Everson Pereira and pitcher Ricky Tiedemann, because neither of them have reached the big leagues this season.)

Top AL Rookies Preseason 2024 vs. Actual Performance
Rank (DK) Name G PA HR SB AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
1 Jackson Holliday 51 184 5 4 .170 .223 .298 47 -0.2
2 Evan Carter 45 162 5 2 .188 .272 .361 79 0.1
3 Wyatt Langford 122 503 11 15 .249 .318 .391 100 1.8
4 Junior Caminero 32 133 3 2 .248 .316 .388 101 0.4
5 Colt Keith 138 528 13 7 .263 .313 .385 99 2.0
6 Nolan Schanuel 139 576 13 9 .252 .344 .365 104 0.7
7 Parker Meadows 71 252 8 9 .238 .307 .441 110 1.6
8 Wilyer Abreu 120 405 15 8 .262 .326 .482 120 3.0
9 Colton Cowser 142 518 20 8 .242 .322 .434 116 3.5
10 Heston Kjerstad 29 83 3 1 .254 .361 .408 121 0.2
11 Kyle Manzardo 43 126 3 0 .229 .270 .407 89 -0.1
12 Jasson Domínguez 6 23 0 2 .150 .261 .150 28 -0.1
13 Coby Mayo 15 40 0 0 .086 .200 .086 -6 -0.5
16 Brooks Lee 40 155 3 3 .229 .271 .333 68 0.1
17 Ceddanne Rafaela 143 539 15 19 .250 .277 .398 82 0.9

Only six of these 17 players played even a half-season’s worth of games in the majors. It’s not just sportsbooks and bettors that got it wrong; by the time voting is official, we will have gone 0-for-25 here at FanGraphs.

I’ve done the same thing for the 19 NL players who were given preseason Rookie of the Year odds, with one table for hitters and another for pitchers. (All of the AL rookies who received preseason odds and actually played in 2024 are position players.) Things went significantly better for senior-circuit rookies.

Top NL Rookies Preseason 2024 vs. Actual Performance (Hitters)
Rank (DK) Name G PA HR SB AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
2 Jung Hoo Lee 37 158 2 2 .262 .310 .331 84 0.2
3 Jackson Chourio 136 527 21 20 .273 .329 .474 121 3.7
4 Jackson Merrill 146 555 24 16 .290 .322 .504 130 4.7
6 Michael Busch 141 531 20 2 .255 .337 .450 121 2.5
9 Masyn Winn 139 586 13 11 .271 .317 .408 103 3.2
13 Hunter Goodman 64 202 12 1 .190 .233 .418 63 -1.1
14 James Wood 67 284 7 13 .273 .363 .426 123 1.2
16 Tyler Black 18 57 0 3 .204 .316 .245 68 -0.1
17 Pete Crow-Armstrong 111 365 10 27 .242 .292 .408 94 2.7
18 Dylan Crews 19 81 3 8 .216 .272 .378 80 0.3

Top NL Rookies Preseason 2024 vs. Actual Performance (Pitchers)
Rank (DK) Name G GS IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 ERA FIP WAR
1 Yoshinobu Yamamoto 16 16 82.0 10.43 2.09 0.66 2.63 2.54 2.7
5 Shota Imanaga 28 28 166.3 9.20 1.52 1.46 3.03 3.80 2.8
7 Kyle Harrison 24 24 124.3 8.54 3.04 1.30 4.56 4.34 0.8
8 Paul Skenes 21 21 126.0 11.29 2.29 0.71 2.07 2.58 3.9
10 DL Hall 9 7 36.7 9.33 4.91 1.23 4.91 4.83 0.2
11 Max Meyer 11 11 57.0 7.26 3.00 2.21 5.68 5.91 -0.3
15 Yuki Matsui 61 0 61.0 9.74 3.84 1.18 3.84 3.99 0.3
19 AJ Smith-Shawver 1 1 4.3 8.31 4.15 0.00 0.00 2.71 0.2

So, what’s next for the rookies who are out of the awards picture? To get an idea of the change in their futures, I re-ran their projections for the next five years to compare to what their outlooks were during the preseason, using data as of Tuesday morning. I left out the players who have at least two WAR in 2024, as well as Matsui, who is a reliever and performed right in line with expectations, giving us a group of 21. In the interests of full disclosure, I am a National League Rookie of the Year voter this year, so I will not express any of my personal feelings regarding who should win that award.

ZiPS Projections, Preseason vs. Today
Player 2025 WAR Preseason Chg 2025-2029 WAR Preseason Chg
Evan Carter 1.7 2.6 -0.9 9.7 15.2 -5.5
DL Hall 0.8 1.6 -0.8 5.4 9.8 -4.4
Jasson Domínguez 1.0 1.7 -0.7 7.3 11.4 -4.1
Wyatt Langford 2.6 3.1 -0.5 14.9 17.2 -2.3
Hunter Goodman 0.4 0.7 -0.3 2.7 4.9 -2.2
Nolan Schanuel 1.4 1.9 -0.5 9.0 10.4 -1.4
Max Meyer 1.3 1.5 -0.2 7.0 8.2 -1.2
AJ Smith-Shawver 1.3 1.5 -0.2 8.8 9.8 -1.0
Jung Hoo Lee 2.2 2.6 -0.4 11.1 12.0 -0.9
Kyle Harrison 1.5 1.7 -0.2 9.2 9.9 -0.7
Jackson Holliday 3.5 3.6 -0.1 20.7 21.3 -0.6
Ceddanne Rafaela 2.1 2.2 -0.1 13.0 13.3 -0.3
Coby Mayo 2.6 2.6 0.0 17.2 17.0 0.2
Tyler Black 2.0 1.9 0.1 10.5 10.2 0.3
Brooks Lee 1.8 1.7 0.1 10.5 9.8 0.7
Junior Caminero 1.3 1.0 0.3 9.0 7.8 1.2
Parker Meadows 2.3 1.7 0.6 11.5 9.4 2.1
Kyle Manzardo 1.9 1.5 0.4 11.5 8.4 3.1
James Wood 2.5 1.7 0.8 16.1 12.6 3.5
Heston Kjerstad 1.9 1.3 0.6 8.8 5.2 3.6
Dylan Crews 2.2 0.5 1.7 13.6 2.8 10.8

In the projections, Evan Carter took the biggest hit. With a rather short, walk-heavy pedigree, ZiPS already saw him as riskier than the other top projected rookies, and then he had a rough early-season performance and a back injury that ruined his 2024. Taking all of this into account, ZiPS drops his 2025 line to .244/.338/.399; with a decent glove, that’s enough to be an average corner outfielder in this offensive environment, but well short of his preseason .259/.358/.412 projection. Carter’s teammate, Wyatt Langford, was a source of much projection disagreement entering the season, with Steamer and ZiPS quite excited, and THE BAT being rather meh about the situation. So far, meh has been closer, though he has hit much better (.258/.326/.424 in 91 games) since returning from an injury in late May.

Jasson Domínguez mainly makes this list for two reasons, more time on the injured list, causing ZiPS to take a foggier view of his health, and the fact that he didn’t have the major breakout yet, which is one of the things that ZiPS was banking on for him. His performance in Triple-A was good, but minor league offense is still crazy; ZiPS has his minor league translation at .263/.320/411, compared to his actual .309/.368/.480 line. That said, Domínguez should be starting every day for the Yankees over Alex Verdugo.

ZiPS is definitely bearish on Nolan Schanuel, and it’s increasingly confident that he won’t develop enough power, or enough secondary skills to compensate for his lack of power, to be a real plus at first base. The projections never bought into Hunter Goodman; he hit even worse than expected this year, and is not particularly young. I’m actually surprised DL Hall didn’t take an even bigger hit; back in a starting role, the walks came back with a vengeance, to the extent that returning to the bullpen for good might be the far better fit for him now.

Jackson Holliday’s numbers didn’t take a big hit for a few reasons. First, and most importantly, despite a really lousy debut in the majors, he played well enough in the minors — plus he’s so young and his résumé is so strong — that his small-sample struggles barely register. By reverse-o-fying Holliday’s major league woes into an untranslated minor league line and including it in his overall Triple-A production, ZiPS estimates that he would’ve had a 118 wRC+ in Triple-A this season, down from his actual mark of 142. A 20-year-old shortstop with a 118 wRC+ in Triple-A would still top everybody’s prospect list.

Several of these players simply didn’t get enough playing time to make a real impression. Coby Mayo and Heston Kjerstad never really had significant chances to grab starting roles with the Orioles this year, and James Wood and Dylan Crews were both midseason call-ups. Even so, the two Nationals rookies received some of the biggest bumps in their new projections. For Crews, the improvement was massive, largely because ZiPS has very little to go on and didn’t translate his college numbers as positively as Wyatt Langford’s, meaning that with a good first impression, Crews had a lot of room to grow in the eyes of ZiPS. Wood added nearly 200 points of OPS at Triple-A from his previous season — a combined .874 mark between High- and Double-A — at the time of his call-up; it was such a drastic improvement that if I had re-done the ZiPS Top 100 prospect list then, he would have come out on top.

None of these 21 players is in contention for the Rookie of the Year awards that will be announced in a few months. But for most of them, the lack of hardware in 2024 doesn’t represent a setback that changes their future outlooks too much.


Sophomore Slumps Aren’t a Thing

Denis Poroy-Imagn Images

Even in an age in which baseball – and most sports to an extent – has become an extremely data-driven enterprise, the stew of conventional wisdom, mythology, and storylines could still feed a pretty large family. That’s not to say that this is a bad thing; even an old, jaded stat nerd like me gets excited to enjoy such a stew from time to time. But at the end of the day, an analyst has to focus on what’s true and what is not, and very few bits of baseball orthodoxy are more persistent than that of the sophomore slump. Coined for underperforming second-year high school or college athletes, the meaning in baseball is roughly parallel it: After a successful rookie season, a player finds it difficult to maintain the performance from their debut and are weighed down by the greatly increased expectations. As an analyst, the inevitable follow-up question is whether the sophomore slump is actually real.

While I entered this article with some rather developed skepticism, there’s no denying that high-performing rookies do occasionally have pretty wretched follow-up campaigns. Every longtime baseball fan can probably rattle off a dozen or so names instantly after reading the title of the article. For me, visions of Joe Charboneau, Pat Listach, Mark Fidrych, Jerome Walton, and Chris Coghlan dance in my head. And the list goes on and on. However, a second-year skid doesn’t mean there’s a special effect that causes it. The fact of the matter is that you should expect a lot of regression toward the mean for any player in baseball who can be optioned freely to the minors. The way baseball’s minor league system works accentuates the selection bias; underperforming rookies are typically demoted while the ones crushing reasonable expectations get to stay.

Looking at the sophomore slumpers, the story is typically more complicated than the cautionary tale. ZiPS has minor league translations going back to 1950 at this point, and while Super Joe (Charboneau) hit very well in the season before his debut (.352/.422/.597 for Double-A Chattanooga), at 24, he wasn’t young for the level, and ZiPS takes enough air out of that line to drop his translated OPS below .800. ZiPS thought he’d be an OK lefty-masher, but not much more than that.

ZiPS Projection – Joe Charboneau
Year BA OBP SLG AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB OPS+ WAR
1980 .290 .350 .454 449 74 130 26 3 14 66 41 69 4 118 1.5
1981 .276 .335 .421 463 72 128 25 3 12 63 40 71 3 119 1.8
1982 .284 .348 .456 465 76 132 29 3 15 64 45 72 3 119 1.8
1983 .296 .360 .481 466 79 138 31 2 17 69 46 68 3 124 1.9
1984 .297 .361 .461 462 79 137 27 2 15 71 46 72 3 124 1.7
1985 .273 .337 .429 443 69 121 26 2 13 62 42 72 3 109 1.4
1986 .275 .342 .443 411 66 113 23 2 14 67 42 72 2 114 1.2
1987 .290 .359 .483 373 63 108 23 2 15 56 40 70 2 118 1.1
1988 .268 .334 .406 355 53 95 20 1 9 42 35 62 2 102 0.6
1989 .274 .341 .398 299 44 82 17 1 6 32 30 54 1 106 0.5
1990 .269 .336 .408 238 35 64 13 1 6 32 24 44 1 108 0.3
1991 .267 .330 .390 172 23 46 10 1 3 16 16 31 1 98 0.1

Charboneau had a solid offensive rookie season, winning the AL Rookie of the Year award, but in his case, the fates didn’t really give him a fair opportunity to repeat that season. He injured his back in spring training and played through the injury, as was the style of the time. Across a couple of stints in the majors after his rookie breakout, he combined to bat .210/.247/.362 over 147 at-bats, and he was never healthy or trusted enough to make good. He didn’t hit again in the minors, either, with the only exception a walk-heavy .791 OPS as a 29-year-old in A-Ball (!).

As quick as Charboneau’s fall from grace was, it was far from the biggest rookie WAR drop-off. Using the definition of rookie in our leaderboards, which doesn’t know about roster service time days but is suitable for the approach of identifying rookies rather than specific Rookie of the Year eligibility, here are the biggest sophomore slides by WAR since 1901.

Worst Sophomore Skids – Hitters Since 1901
Player Rookie Year Rookie WAR Sophomore WAR Diff
Coco Laboy 1969 2.63 -2.83 -5.46
Mike Aviles 2008 4.35 -0.92 -5.27
Danny Santana 2014 3.90 -1.34 -5.24
Marlon Byrd 2003 3.61 -1.46 -5.08
Dots Miller 1909 4.80 -0.06 -4.86
Miguel Andujar 2018 3.87 -0.92 -4.79
Troy Tulowitzki 2007 5.18 0.46 -4.72
Nolan Jones 2023 3.74 -0.89 -4.63
Mitchell Page 1977 6.24 1.86 -4.38
Chris Sabo 1988 4.77 0.39 -4.38
Mike Caruso 1998 1.68 -2.70 -4.38
Bernie Carbo 1970 5.64 1.36 -4.28
Red Barnes 1928 3.32 -0.95 -4.26
James Outman 2023 3.95 -0.27 -4.21
Chris Singleton 1999 4.62 0.41 -4.21
Walt Dropo 1950 3.25 -0.82 -4.07
Chet Ross 1940 3.62 -0.40 -4.03
Austin Kearns 2002 4.96 0.95 -4.00
Hal Trosky Sr. 1934 5.39 1.42 -3.97
Del Bissonette 1928 4.71 0.78 -3.94
Bobby Byrne 1907 2.75 -1.16 -3.91
Stan Rojek 1948 3.68 -0.21 -3.89
Freddie Maguire 1928 2.30 -1.58 -3.88
Carlos Beltrán 1999 4.27 0.44 -3.83
Milt Cuyler 1991 3.30 -0.52 -3.82

Worst Sophomore Skids – Pitchers Since 1901
Player Rookie Year Rookie WAR Sophomore WAR Diff
Jim Archer 1961 4.90 -0.53 -5.43
Mark Langston 1984 4.37 -0.66 -5.03
Kerry Wood 1998 4.39 0.00 -4.39
Mark Eichhorn 1986 4.94 0.80 -4.15
Rick Ankiel 2000 3.43 -0.56 -3.99
Brian Matusz 2010 2.79 -1.13 -3.92
Horace Lisenbee 1927 3.99 0.08 -3.92
Charles Wensloff 1943 3.88 0.00 -3.88
Bobby Miller 2023 2.85 -0.95 -3.80
Johnny Beazley 1942 3.77 0.00 -3.77
Michael Soroka 2019 4.01 0.26 -3.76
Marino Pieretti 1945 2.25 -1.48 -3.73
Francisco Liriano 2006 3.62 0.00 -3.62
Lucas Harrell 2012 2.70 -0.86 -3.57
Michael Pineda 2011 3.52 0.00 -3.52
Roger Erickson 1978 3.90 0.40 -3.50
Edinson Volquez 2008 3.67 0.21 -3.45
Stan Bahnsen 1968 4.41 0.97 -3.44
Trevor Rogers 2021 4.26 0.88 -3.38
Mike Fiers 2012 2.75 -0.62 -3.38
Gustavo Chacin 2005 2.93 -0.42 -3.35
Wilcy Moore 1927 2.87 -0.48 -3.35
Leon Cadore 1917 3.65 0.31 -3.34
Steve Sparks 1995 2.44 -0.88 -3.32
Joe McClain 1961 2.57 -0.75 -3.32

Some of these players recovered to have solid major league careers and some of these slumps resulted from serious injury, such as Kerry Wood’s, but for some of the players, that was the end of the road for them in the big leagues. As for Super Joe, his skid was the 100th worst in history among hitters!

So, how do we extract a sophomore-slump effect from simple sophomore slumps? At this point, I’ve been running projections for two decades, so I have a decent-sized database of projections calculated contemporaneously (as opposed to backfilling before ZiPS existed). I certainly haven’t told ZiPS to give a special penalty to solid rookies having bad follow-up campaigns, so I went back and looked at the projections vs. realities for every hitter with a two-WAR rookie season and every pitcher who eclipsed 1.5 WAR. (Rookie pitchers tend to have more trouble grabbing playing time.) That gave me 166 hitters and 207 pitchers. Let’s start with the hitters.

ZiPS Projections – Two-WAR Rookie Hitters
Rookie WAR # Average WAR Average Projection, Next Year Actual Average, Next Year
4.0+ 26 5.13 3.54 3.71
3.0-4.0 44 3.50 2.51 2.30
2.0-3.0 96 2.41 1.79 1.90
All 2.0+ 166 3.12 2.26 2.29

The 26 players in the top bucket averaged 5.1 WAR in their rookie seasons and 3.7 WAR in their sophomore seasons. That’s a pretty significant drop-off, but they were projected for an even steeper decline. The next group — 44 players who accumulated 3-4 WAR as rookies — underperformed its projection by about two runs per player, while the 96 rookies who finished with 2-3 WAR slightly overperformed their projections, but it was very close. As for the entire sample of 166 hitters, ZiPS projected a decline from an average 3.1 WAR as rookies to 2.3 in their sophomore seasons. Their actual average in their second year was… 2.3 WAR. Let’s look at the pitchers.

ZiPS Projections – 1.5-WAR Rookie Pitchers
Rookie WAR # Average WAR Average Projection, Next Year Actual Average, Next Year
3.5+ 17 3.92 2.35 2.51
2.5-3.5 51 2.87 2.10 2.10
1.5-2.5 139 1.91 1.37 1.48
1.5+ 207 2.31 1.63 1.71

This is the same story, with the decline for pitchers being about as predictable as it was for hitters: ZiPS underestimated their second-year WAR by about 0.08 wins on average.

That’s not the end of it, however. I wanted to see if ZiPS has projected a similar decline for players who were coming off their second through fifth seasons, because that would determine whether ZiPS was capturing a sophomore-slump effect or if this was just a more general regression to the mean for players with less major league experience.

Average ZiPS Projection Decline by Service Time for Hitters
Service Time Average Projection Decline
Rookie 0.86
Sophomore 0.88
Third Year 0.73
Fourth Year 0.89
Fifth Year 0.92

Average ZiPS Projection Decline by Service Time for Pitchers
Service Time Average Projection Decline
Rookie 0.68
Sophomore 0.59
Third Year 0.72
Fourth Year 0.63
Fifth Year 0.66

In sum, ZiPS didn’t knock more performance off high-performing rookies than it did for sophomores, juniors, seniors, and guys who stayed a fifth year because they had to drop too many 8 a.m. classes that they slept through. That’s because the sophomore-slump effect doesn’t exist.

So yes, projections will likely project fewer WAR next season from this year’s standout rookies, such as Jackson Merrill, Jackson Chourio, and Masyn Winn. But that dip is likely to be the result of the typical regression toward the mean that any high performer with a limited track record is expected to experience.


Francisco Lindor Is Already a Plausible Hall of Famer

Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports

Last week, my colleague Jay Jaffe noted that Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor had just entered the list of top 20 shortstops in JAWS, his system for assessing players’ Hall of Fame worthiness, which factors in a mix of career value (WAR) and peak value (WAR over their seven best seasons). That’s not the only notable thing about Lindor’s season, of course, as after a slow start to 2024, he has forced his way into the NL MVP conversation. With a .270/.339/.492 line, 135 wRC+, and 7.2 WAR, he may be having his best season in a career that has him looking increasingly Cooperstown-bound.

It seems almost absurd, but Lindor’s OPS didn’t take even the tiniest of peeks over .700 until June 5 — he’s been so hot that you’d think he was produced in Brookhaven’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. With Shohei Ohtani fighting for the first ever 50-50 season, Lindor may now be the biggest obstacle to the former’s coronation. Given the relatively modest impact even the biggest baseball stars have in comparison to their peers in football or basketball, no individual can really carry a team, but Lindor is certainly trying his best: The Mets have the second-most wins in baseball since the start of June (54), with the offense going from 17th to sixth in seasonal wRC+ over the same timeframe:

NL Position Player WAR Leaders since June 1
Name HR SB BA OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
Francisco Lindor 21 18 .300 .371 .557 160 5.7
Elly De La Cruz 14 30 .271 .340 .504 126 3.9
Shohei Ohtani 31 33 .264 .360 .617 162 3.8
Ketel Marte 20 5 .323 .415 .631 181 3.7
Jackson Merrill 19 9 .295 .322 .575 147 3.5
Jackson Chourio 14 13 .313 .372 .545 151 3.4
Corbin Carroll 17 17 .253 .338 .513 132 3.3
Matt Chapman 14 9 .257 .351 .469 130 3.2
Eugenio Suárez 21 0 .266 .339 .549 140 3.0
Dansby Swanson 10 11 .256 .327 .423 110 2.9
Tyler Fitzgerald 13 13 .308 .364 .567 159 2.9
Ian Happ 17 9 .260 .357 .510 142 2.9
Willy Adames 21 10 .252 .335 .487 126 2.8
Manny Machado 20 6 .301 .350 .544 147 2.8
Bryce Harper 13 2 .292 .370 .518 144 2.6
Oneil Cruz 11 17 .289 .346 .491 126 2.6
Mark Vientos 21 0 .279 .335 .552 147 2.5
Marcell Ozuna 21 0 .304 .374 .545 152 2.5
Seiya Suzuki 14 11 .279 .365 .505 142 2.4
Freddie Freeman 15 5 .290 .379 .527 149 2.4

In that stretch, Lindor has edged out the other NL hitters by nearly 2 WAR. One of the odder consequences of the shape of Lindor’s performance is that it may result in a Hall of Fame player having missed the All-Star Game in the best season of his career. In fact, despite ranking fifth in WAR among hitters since the start of 2020 (behind Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Freddie Freeman, and José Ramírez), Lindor hasn’t made an All-Star squad since 2019. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for a player who plays in baseball’s largest market and has a $341 million contract to be underrated, but here we are!

Ranking 20th at your position in JAWS is already a mighty impressive feat, but it’s even more impressive when you’re only 30 years old, meaning there’s a lot of time left to add heft to your career WAR, which makes up half of JAWS. With Lindor’s (relatively) disappointing 2021 Mets debut even farther back in the rear-view mirror, it seems like a good time to provide an update on his rest-of-career projections:

ZiPS Projection – Francisco Lindor
Year BA OBP SLG AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB OPS+ WAR
2025 .263 .334 .461 601 98 158 34 2 27 94 55 126 23 119 6.6
2026 .259 .331 .447 580 93 150 32 1 25 86 53 121 18 115 5.8
2027 .250 .324 .421 549 85 137 29 1 21 77 51 116 15 106 4.7
2028 .242 .315 .401 516 76 125 26 1 18 68 47 110 12 99 3.8
2029 .237 .311 .386 472 67 112 23 1 15 59 43 103 9 93 3.0
2030 .231 .306 .368 424 58 98 20 1 12 50 39 96 7 88 2.2
2031 .230 .304 .364 374 50 86 18 1 10 42 34 86 5 86 1.7
2032 .228 .300 .354 325 42 74 15 1 8 36 29 75 4 82 1.2
2033 .223 .297 .343 309 38 69 14 1 7 33 27 72 3 78 0.9
2034 .222 .293 .331 239 29 53 11 0 5 24 20 57 2 74 0.5
2035 .211 .283 .307 166 19 35 7 0 3 16 14 40 1 65 0.0

Even projecting a typical decline through his 30s — there’s a reason the vast majority of Hall of Fame cases are largely built when players are in their 20s — Lindor’s mean ol’ ZiPS forecast offers ample opportunity for him to put up some seriously gaudy career totals. The median ZiPS projection has Lindor finishing with 400 career homers on the nose, enough to rank him as one of the best power-hitting shortstops in baseball history:

Career Home Runs for Shortstops (40% of Games at SS)
Player HR From To BA OBP SLG
Alex Rodriguez 696 1994 2016 .295 .380 .550
Ernie Banks 512 1953 1971 .274 .330 .500
Cal Ripken Jr. 431 1981 2001 .276 .340 .447
Miguel Tejada 307 1997 2013 .285 .336 .456
Hanley Ramirez 271 2005 2019 .289 .360 .486
Derek Jeter 260 1995 2014 .310 .377 .440
Robin Yount 251 1974 1993 .285 .342 .430
Jose Valentin 249 1992 2007 .243 .321 .448
Vern Stephens 247 1941 1955 .286 .355 .460
Francisco Lindor 245 2015 2024 .274 .342 .476
Marcus Semien 233 2013 2024 .256 .323 .440
Jimmy Rollins 231 2000 2016 .264 .324 .418
Nomar Garciaparra 229 1996 2009 .313 .361 .521
Troy Tulowitzki 225 2006 2019 .290 .361 .495
Rico Petrocelli 210 1963 1976 .251 .332 .420
Jhonny Peralta 202 2003 2017 .267 .329 .423
Corey Seager 200 2015 2024 .290 .360 .512
Juan Uribe 199 2001 2016 .255 .301 .418
Barry Larkin 198 1986 2004 .295 .371 .444
Jay Bell 195 1986 2003 .265 .343 .416
Asdrúbal Cabrera 195 2007 2021 .266 .329 .423
J.J. Hardy 188 2005 2017 .256 .305 .408
Rich Aurilia 186 1995 2009 .275 .328 .433
Carlos Correa 186 2015 2024 .275 .353 .472
Alan Trammell 185 1977 1996 .285 .352 .415
SOURCE: Baseball-Reference

Home Runs While Playing Shortstop
Player From To HR G BA OBP SLG
Cal Ripken Jr. 1981 1997 345 2297 .278 .347 .455
Alex Rodriguez 1994 2005 344 1264 .308 .382 .581
Miguel Tejada 1997 2011 291 1937 .288 .340 .466
Ernie Banks 1953 1961 269 1076 .291 .355 .558
Derek Jeter 1995 2014 255 2668 .310 .378 .441
Francisco Lindor 2015 2024 238 1342 .273 .341 .473
Jimmy Rollins 2000 2016 229 2211 .265 .325 .420
Troy Tulowitzki 2006 2019 223 1265 .291 .361 .496
Barry Larkin 1986 2004 194 2075 .295 .371 .445
Jose Valentin 1993 2005 192 1182 .245 .324 .453
Corey Seager 2015 2024 191 967 .292 .363 .515
J.J. Hardy 2005 2017 188 1526 .257 .306 .409
Nomar Garciaparra 1996 2008 187 1052 .318 .366 .541
Carlos Correa 2015 2024 184 1085 .275 .353 .472
Alan Trammell 1977 1996 177 2106 .286 .352 .416
Hanley Ramírez 2005 2014 174 1074 .304 .376 .506
Vern Stephens 1941 1953 174 1071 .285 .359 .470
Jhonny Peralta 2003 2016 173 1442 .271 .334 .432
Xander Bogaerts 2013 2024 168 1331 .296 .361 .463
Trevor Story 2016 2024 159 774 .270 .337 .513
Alex Gonzalez 1998 2014 156 1534 .247 .292 .399
Willy Adames 2018 2024 147 831 .249 .323 .449
Brandon Crawford 2011 2024 145 1587 .250 .318 .395
Trea Turner 2015 2024 141 949 .292 .347 .471
Edgar Renteria 1996 2011 140 2092 .286 .343 .399
SOURCE: Baseball-Reference

Whether you look at players who primarily played shortstop or only consider performance while playing the position, Lindor features prominently. His 30 home runs this season gives him 245 for his career, 10th all-time among shortstops, while finishing with 400 would be enough to put him fourth all-time. If we look only at home runs while playing short, Lindor is sixth and is just over 100 homers behind Cal Ripken Jr. for the top spot. Given that Lindor is an elite defensive player, it doesn’t seem like he’s ticketed for an easier position anytime soon, short of a serious injury that necessitates a move.

Before last season, I gave ZiPS the ability to project career JAWS. In an era that’s rich in star shortstops, Lindor is currently projected to finish at the top of this generation. Here’s a projected JAWS chart, once all the currently active major league players have headed off into the sunset:

ZiPS Projected Shortstop JAWS Leaders
Player JAWS
Honus Wagner 98.3
Alex Rodriguez 90.9
Cal Ripken Jr. 76.1
Arky Vaughan 65.5
George Davis 64.7
Francisco Lindor 62.5
Robin Yount 62.4
Luke Appling 61.1
Ernie Banks 59.9
Ozzie Smith 59.7
Alan Trammell 57.7
Bill Dahlen 57.7
Barry Larkin 56.9
Derek Jeter 56.8
Bobby Wallace 56.2
Lou Boudreau 56.1
Pee Wee Reese 55.2
Carlos Correa 54.5
Joe Cronin 54.2
Jack Glasscock 51.5
Joe Sewell 46.1
Corey Seager 45.2
Bobby Witt Jr. 45.1
Bert Campaneris 44.9
Xander Bogaerts 44.9
Jim Fregosi 44.8
Luis Aparicio 44.3
Dave Bancroft 44.0
Nomar Garciaparra 43.7
Joe Tinker 43.1
SOURCE: Baseball-Reference + ZiPS

Even just the median projection would make Lindor a shoo-in on his first Hall of Fame ballot and put him meaningfully ahead of the other shortstops who debuted in the 21st century — for now, at least. If Bobby Witt Jr. keeps his beast mode switched on, he’ll rocket up this list fairly quickly (Gunnar Henderson just missed the list, along with Trea Turner). Given his already impressive place in history, I think Lindor would still make the Hall pretty easily even if his career ended tomorrow, as the Sandy Koufax of shortstops. The Mets’ penchant for sudden, often hilarious implosions makes watching them sometimes feel like an especially cringe-inducing episode of The Office. But if you aren’t tuning into their games, you’re missing out on the peak of a possible future Hall of Famer. And as countless players from Mike Trout to Miguel Cabrera to Ken Griffey Jr. have demonstrated, the opportunity to see these players at their best is frequently far more fleeting than we hope.


Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 9/5/24

12:01
Tech support: Embedding on fangraphs website is broken. Missing opening <

12:01
Avatar Dan Szymborski: Uh oh

12:03
Avatar Dan Szymborski: OK, this seems to be fixed now

12:03
Avatar Dan Szymborski: But I’ll have to type pretty slowly since nobody’s in here yet

12:04
Oddball Herrera: So I was looking at Dylan Crews’ first home run.  It was a homer in 30/30 parks, but had an expected BA of like .330…I understand that a 30/30 homer may not have a 1.000 xBA, but isn’t it a little odd that what was apparently a no-doubter was by xBA much more often than not an out?

12:04
Oddball Herrera: My last question makes me wonder what the ‘worst’ 30/30 ballparks home run by xBA looked like

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