The New York Yankees added outfield help on Wednesday night, closing a deal with the Kansas City Royals to acquire outfielder Andrew Benintendi in return for three lower-level pitching prospects. Coming off his first career All-Star appearance, Benintendi is having what is easily his best season since 2018, fortunate timing for him given that he’ll hit free agency for the first time this fall. In 93 games for the Royals, Benintendi has hit .320/.387/.398 for a career-best 126 wRC+, and his 2 WAR already makes 2022 his second-best full season.

It would be hard to argue that much has gone wrong for the Bronx Bombers in 2022 — even after a month of .500 ball, the Yankees remain on a 108-win pace. But I doubt anyone would claim that Joey Gallo’s annus horribilis is what they had in mind when they sent four prospects to the Rangers for him and Joely Rodríguez almost exactly a year ago. Over his time in New York, Gallo has hit .160/.293/.371, good for an 89 wRC+ and 0.9 WAR. While that’s a pretty robust line for a .160 average, secondary skills can only go so far. There was an argument to be made that Gallo’s lousy stint at the end of 2021 was a BABIP-related blip, but this year, his approach at the plate has completely fallen apart. Always a brutally poor contact hitter, Gallo has to be selective to survive, and in what might be him reacting to his poor August/September last year, he’s been aggressive at the plate in a bad way. How bad? He’s been about 80% more likely to swing at an out-of-zone pitch than he was in 2021 — not a great approach when you miss as often as Gallo does. Even his exit velocity numbers have dropped off the charts. Gallo’s not officially gone yet, but I’d be astonished if he’s Benintendi’s teammate for more than a few days. Read the rest of this entry »

12:00

Dan Szymborski: It’s chat time!

12:01

Dan Szymborski: And yes, that’s a Gordon Solie reference in the teaser for the link on the main page to this chat.

12:01

Dan Szymborski: I saw it too and in fact retweeted it! Whether it’s the factor or not is a trickier matter. Causation is a cruel mistress. But it’s at least *interesting* and worth a deeper exploration

12:02

Dan Szymborski: Maybe I’ll look at it in August at some point. But this week is TRADE DEADLINE MADNESS~!

12:02

Dan Szymborski: or it better be!

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re just about a week from 2022’s trade deadline, and so far, it’s been a quiet one. This weekend’s trade of Daniel Vogelbach for Colin Holderman is the most significant swap yet this July unless you’re a fierce partisan for Christian Bethancourt or Tyler Wade.

It would be highly unusual if we didn’t get a lot more trades of far more significance this week, but knowing what happens will involve some waiting. And since waiting to talk about moves isn’t fun, it’s about time for my yearly feature in which I kick things off with some trade imagineering. None of these are predictions of what actually will happen, but kind of a kickoff exercise where we have a lot of fun discussions — hopefully not too many of them involving people being mad at ol’ Szym!

The San Francisco Giants acquire OF Juan Soto from the Washington Nationals for SS Marco Luciano, P Kyle Harrison, OF Luis González, OF Heliot Ramos, and the privilege of not being P Patrick Corbin’s employer

I’m actually unconvinced that the Nationals trade Soto at all this week and expect a trade to be more likely in the winter than right now. While the Yankees seem to be the clearest target, I think them making a deal is the most likely at a point where they have more clarity on the status of Aaron Judge and how much money exactly they have to play with, especially with Washington’s apparent insistence on including Corbin in a deal.

Corbin is a giant monkey wrench; this is not a simple case of a small amount of money going one way or another, but a deal with more than $60 million remaining, with little hope of it being anything but a de facto charge. I think the inclusion opens the way for a team in a better situation to eat the $60 million rather than give another top prospect. For me, that makes trying to conjure a deal with the Giants work. San Francisco has payroll room to play with and doesn’t have the depth in top prospects that teams like the Yankees and Mariners can offer. Plus, it may just be my memory playing tricks with me, but I remember the Giants having a long relationship with another franchise corner outfielder with tremendous power and nearly clairvoyant plate discipline.

Ramos is basically one of the extras at this point, and González is included because Washington also appears to want current major league talent in return for some odd reason. If Washington’s red line is Logan Webb, I politely thank them for my time and look elsewhere; if I’m starting with a trade of three years of Webb for two years of Soto and a forced acquisition of Corbin, I’m not sure I’d include any prospects of interest. Two top-50 prospects and picking up Corbin’s deal, the financial equivalent of a 65 FV prospect, plus a decent MLB-ready player and an extra or two is as far as I would go if I’m the Giants. Read the rest of this entry »

In what has been a relatively quiet July so far on the trade front, the Mets made two minor trades over the weekend, both with the Pirates. First, they picked up designated hitter Daniel Vogelbach in return for reliever Colin Holderman. In a separate transaction, Pittsburgh also sent catcher Michael Perez to Queens in return for the team’s favorite kind of player: cash.

As a power-and-walks hitter without much defensive value, Vogelbach was not a favorite of prospect-watchers, but the internet at least partially fell in love with him due to his Rubens-esque proportions. While his major league career hasn’t exactly resulted in any Large Adult MVP memes, he’s established himself in the big leagues as a power-hitting DH, albeit one with a fairly limited role. You don’t want him in a game against a left-handed pitcher, and ideally, you don’t want him standing in the field with a glove, either. If you need a part-time DH who can also come off the bench and ruin a right-handed reliever’s evening, though, then Vogelbach is your man. His .228/.338/.430 triple-slash in Pittsburgh is hardly eye-popping, but in 2022, that’s enough to get you a perfectly serviceable wRC+ of 118.

As a Met, Vogelbach’s line should look even better than that, as he’s joined a team that has less of a reason to let him face lefties. With an extremely thin roster, the Pirates started him 14 times against left-handed starters, about 40% of the time. They had no lefty-masher on hand to serve as a complement to Vogelbach, and when he wasn’t starting, they regularly turned to Yoshi Tsutsugo, another left-handed hitter, or used the position to rest other players. The Mets, on the other hand, are quite content to use J.D. Davis against lefties — he’s started all 35 games against them — and appear to have finally decided that his best position is DH. If Dominic Smith had been hitting at all, a trade like this would not have been necessary, but with a .560 OPS this year after last year’s .667, the team is basically at wits’ end when it comes to getting consistent production out of him. I’d actually be surprised if Smith is on the roster after the deadline, and at this point, a divorce may be best for both parties. Read the rest of this entry »

Compared to the never-ending trudge of MLB’s CBA negotiations this winter, the 2022 season feels like a drag car race; I find it difficult to believe we’re already just two months away from the playoffs. But while playoff-relevant teams and their players are primarily thinking about October right now, it would be a lie if they claimed there was no peeking ahead to free agency. After all, decisions to sign or not sign will be among the most significant that players will make in their professional lives, and the right contract can change the fate of a franchise, for good or ill.

As we reach baseball’s trade deadline, the point of no return, I thought I would enlist ZiPS to the task of projecting which possible free agents have helped their cases this year. After all, the salaries players can expect to get in free agency can change decisions teams make right now. Just to keep everything on an even playing field, the exact order is based on theoretical four-year contracts.

1. Aaron Judge, New York Yankees (+$32 million)

Judge made a massive gamble on himself entering the season by turning down a deal worth $230.5 million over eight years, and while I don’t think there’s any possible season that would have actually catapulted him into the $300 million-plus territory that’s generally populated by younger players playing more crucial positions, he’s done about all he can to make his case. The projection systems all have his mean outlook getting him just over that 50-homer line for the second time in his career, and in a much more difficult environment for home run hitting than existed in 2017.

ZiPS isn’t convinced, though, that Judge is going to do better than the Yankees’ initial offer, and as great as he’s been, I still share that skepticism. He’s establishing a higher baseline for himself from which to decline throughout his 30s, but some of the reasons that hold down his value still remain: he’ll be 31 in 2023, and he’s a corner outfielder. I don’t think there’s any team in baseball that will give Judge more money than the Yankees will be willing to, and I don’t think the Yankees have any intention to offer him $280 million. Feel free to pop back into the comments in six months if I’m wrong!

Read the rest of this entry »

12:02

Dan Szymborski: Good afternoon!

12:02

Dan Szymborski: I think he’s more likely to be traded in the offseason

12:03

Dan Szymborski: I think the Padres might make a push

12:03

Dan Szymborski: Though I think where he ends up depending on how insistent they are in “bundling” Patrick Corbin in

Read the rest of this entry »

All-Star Week may be a relaxing midseason respite for most players, but for front offices, it’s business as usual. For the Padres, it may be a high-stakes one, as they’re reportedly closing in on a long-term deal with their best starting pitcher, Joe Musgrove. Without a deal, he hits free agency for the first time in his career, and there’s not much that teams like less than being drawn into a bidding war over their ace.

The starting pitchers the Padres have acquired over the last few years have mixed in many lows with their highs, but Musgrove has been rock-solid in mustard-and-brown, putting up a 2.90 ERA, a 3.48 FIP, and a hair under six WAR in 47 starts since coming over from the Pirates. During last season’s late-year debacle that saw San Diego in desperate enough straits to sign Jake Arrieta as a free agent and throw him into the rotation, Musgrove was a rare example of solidity, with only one truly awful start in the last month of the season. While he’s lost some strikeouts from 2021, he’s also bid adieu to some of the walks — not an unpleasant tradeoff, given that he ranks fifth among qualifying starters in lowest average exit velocity at 86.7 mph.

Fewer walks and strikeouts have allowed Musgrove to get through innings slightly more efficiently. As a result, he’s averaged almost a full inning per start more than last year while throwing just three more pitches per outing. Getting through the sixth more often has resulted in his quality start percentage shooting up from 48% to 88%; among MLB qualifiers, only Framber Valdez has racked up a higher rate. Musgrove’s five-inning loss to the Rockies last Wednesday was the first time he failed to finish six innings this season. This durability and consistency are crucial to the Padres, given their experience last season when they tried to keep the rotation’s inning count low in the early going, resulting in an exhausted bullpen breaking down by July.

With the trade deadline fast approaching, getting some certainty about Musgrove’s future with the club has quite a bit of value. The Padres seem likely to add a bat, and getting a better idea of how many pitchers they’ll need to replace over the next few years should provide some guidance on which prospects they can afford to give up. Sean Manaea and Mike Clevinger are also free agents after this season, and Blake Snell and Yu Darvish will be after 2023, so getting Musgrove inked for most of the rest of the decade takes at least one problem off their plate.

So, what kind of deal is Musgrove likely looking at? Let’s fire up ZiPS and run him through the mathematical wringer. Read the rest of this entry »

In my opinion, the least interesting part of All-Star Week is the All-Star Game itself. The Home Run Derby has surpassed it in terms of energy, and the Celebrity Softball Game, which mashes together celebrities and former big leaguers, has more enjoyable silliness. The Futures Game is the week’s most normal actual game of baseball, and even if its players are less accomplished than the ones in the Midsummer Classic, it’s fun to get a glimpse of the future. You should pay attention to everyone in the game (full scouting reports and tool grades for the entire roster can be found on The Board), but as the ZiPS guy, I wanted to highlight eight players who have had huge breakouts in terms of their projections. Three of the eight made this year’s preseason ZiPS Top 100; next year, all of them figure to rank in the top 50.

Gunnar Henderson, 3B/SS, Baltimore Orioles

I’ve talked about Gunnar Henderson recently, but I’d be remiss if, in a piece talking about breakouts, I didn’t address the biggest one in ZiPS in 2022. Henderson fared quite well on the ZiPS Top 100 entering the season, but he’s gone on to absolutely terrorize the upper minors this season, propelling him higher in the rankings. Suppose I were to stuff Henderson’s projection into the preseason top 100. In that case, he’d now rank as the fourth-best prospect in baseball, with Bobby Witt Jr. just a hair ahead of him. Henderson’s improvements this year have been broad, from plate discipline to power, and at 21, he’s still on the young side for Double- and Triple-A. There’s still some uncertainty about his future home in the field, but the Orioles are wisely keeping their options over and aren’t pegging him or Jordan Westburg to definite positions yet. Read the rest of this entry »

12:03

Dan Szymborski: Welcome to chat!

12:04

Dan Szymborski: Feel free to flood with questions, no matter how goofy, because this didn’t appear on the site until five minutes ago, so my queue is looking rather ribsy.

12:05

Dan Szymborski: That’s Eric’s department! I’m sure he has stuff planned

12:06

Dan Szymborski: I think generally, considering how many games there are, it wouldn’t really change things much

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Bashing the White Sox is commonplace these days, and you can’t say the negativity hasn’t been earned. Widely expected by fans, reporters, pundits, and computer projection systems (as well as their sarcastic creators) to steamroll one of the worst divisions in baseball, the Pale Hose have struggled to consistently stay at .500, let alone stay ahead of the Twins and Guardians. Yet there are still reasons to think that the Sox, if not the team they were believed to be, can still salvage the 2022 season without divine intervention.

They’re Still Relevant in All the Projection Systems

Yes, when you look at the White Sox, you see some major, gaping holes, many of which are problems of the team’s own making, whether because of poor evaluation or inaction. Coming into the season, they were near the bottom of the league in our positional power rankings at second base and right field despite an offseason that saw a plethora of good options at those positions. They also didn’t assemble much in the way of depth in places where they had injured players or underwhelming options. Similar to my approach to mowing my backyard, they did the bare minimum.

But all of this is already baked into the cake, so to speak. The projection systems still assume that Leury García is awful and that Chicago needs another bat; the forecasts for players like Yoán Moncada, Yasmani Grandal, Eloy Jiménez, and Lance Lynn have already taken major hits. As for the team’s lack of depth, the ZiPS projected standings use a methodology that attempts to properly discount teams with underwhelming Plan Bs. Read the rest of this entry »