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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

Read the rest of this entry »


What’s Next for the Cincinnati Reds?

Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

While the book isn’t completely shut on the 2024 Cincinnati Reds, with a 0.3% projected chance of making the postseason entering this week, only a plot twist out of left field could change the story. At 82-80, the 2023 Reds weren’t exactly good, but after entering the season with a bleak outlook, they comfortably beat most expectations. Given that their improvements last year largely came from their young talent rather than short-term signings, it wasn’t unreasonable back in March to believe this team could contend for a postseason berth. Five months later, as the Reds look more likely to play the role of spoiler in September than make it to October, now seems like a fine time to consider where they should go from here.

The first step would be to ask ourselves what were the reasonable expectations for the Reds in 2024. The ZiPS projections gave them an 80-82 record, but with enough uncertainty that if things broke their way, they could make a playoff push (35.1% odds). One man’s digital monstrosity isn’t the only fair outlook, of course, but our depth charts and Baseball Prospectus both had Cincinnati in a similar position, at 79 wins.

Right now, our depth charts and ZiPS have the Reds finishing with a 77-85 record, a disappointing result, but not exactly a massive miss relative to the projections above. If we’re going to figure out where the Reds go from here, we first have to understand how they got to this point, and that means looking back at the lessons they drew from their 82 wins last year.

Based on their offseason moves, it appears the organization decided – no doubt some unknown combination of ownership and the front office – that the general approach was to stay the course with their young talent and make mid-tier free agent signings to fill the team’s most pressing holes. The Reds made no significant trades over the winter, unless you count sending pitcher Daniel Duarte to the Rangers for cash in January after designating him for assignment as significant. It wasn’t until nearly Opening Day that the team made a move that would have an actual effect on the roster, picking up Santiago Espinal from the Blue Jays in the aftermath of the Noelvi Marte suspension.

Excluding the Espinal trade, the players signed in free agency made up the entirety of the external improvements from 2023 to 2024. Suffice it to say, I was not a fan of the specific signings they made. To sum up my general feelings at the time, I thought Jeimer Candelario was the right player for the wrong team. It doesn’t make much sense for a team overloaded with third basemen to sign a player who is most valuable as a third baseman and then make him a mediocre first baseman. On the pitching side, Emilio Pagán was a disaster waiting to happen, and $13 million was a lot to give Nick Martinez. Other pitcher signings made more sense: Brent Suter was a good addition and Frankie Montas was a reasonable gamble. The signings didn’t go exactly as I expected – some were worse, some were better – but they certainly didn’t do much to improve the club.

2023-2024 Free Agent Signings – Cincinnati Reds
Player Projected Depth Chart WAR 2024 WAR Depth Chart Final 2024 WAR Contract AAV
Jeimer Candelario 1.9 -0.3 -0.2 $15.0M
Nick Martinez 1.8 2.2 2.8 $13.0M
Brent Suter 0.2 0.2 0.2 $3.0M
Emilio Pagán 0.5 0.3 0.4 $8.0M
Buck Farmer 0.1 0.4 0.4 $2.3M
Luke Maile 0.6 -0.5 -0.5 $3.5M
Austin Wynns 0.0 0.4 0.4 $900K
Frankie Montas 2.1 0.8 0.8 $16.0M
Justin Wilson 0.1 0.8 0.8 $1.5M
TOTAL 7.3 4.3 5.1 $63.2M

As a group, the free agents have performed a bit worse than projected, but not alarmingly so. By the end of the year, we project these nine free agents to be worth 5.1 WAR to the Reds, compared to the 7.3 WAR that was predicted. Two wins would not have salvaged Cincinnati’s season.

Injuries to some of the young talent has certainly hindered the Reds. Matt McLain, who made a convincing case for being one of the team’s foundational talents last year, injured his shoulder in the spring and has yet to play for Cincinnati this season. Christian Encarnacion-Strand didn’t get the chance to make up for his cold start because he underwent season-ending surgery in July after fracturing his right wrist in May, and while it’s not an injury, the team went without Marte for 80 games after he was suspended for performance-enhancing drugs.

However, the Reds also got some impressive breakouts on the flip side to compensate. For as exciting as they are, Elly De La Cruz and Hunter Greene weren’t expected to be in this year’s MVP and Cy Young races, though that’s where they stand in late August.

Moreover, injuries alone didn’t stop Cincinnati in its tracks. I ran the numbers on time lost to injuries two weeks ago, and the Reds ranked 11th out of 30 teams in potential value lost to injury, at 6.46 wins, right in line with the mean (6.5 wins) and a half-win more than median (six wins).

That leaves us with the conclusion that the Reds didn’t struggle this season because they were unlucky; rather, they did so because they were a roughly .500 team in terms of talent and didn’t get lucky. The path forward, then, is for ownership and the front office to recognize this so they can work to improve the team in the offseason instead of staying the course again and hoping for better results.

One part of this year’s plan — relying on the young talent — was justified and is worth doing again next season, as long as the Reds reinforce their core with more impactful veterans. Looking at the projections for 2025 now versus where they were six months ago, the Reds have lost a few wins, but their foundation is still quite solid.

ZiPS 2025 Now vs. Preseason
Player 2025 ZiPS WAR Preseason 2025 Projection
Elly De La Cruz 5.1 2.8
Hunter Greene 3.4 2.2
Matt McLain 3.1 3.6
Andrew Abbott 2.6 2.2
Spencer Steer 2.6 2.0
Graham Ashcraft 1.5 1.5
Christian Encarnacion-Strand 0.9 1.8
Will Benson 0.9 1.4
Brandon Williamson 0.8 1.4
Blake Dunn 0.8 1.4
Edwin Arroyo 0.7 1.3
Chase Petty 0.6 1.0
Jacob Hurtubise 0.5 0.4
Lyon Richardson 0.4 0.8
Connor Phillips 0.3 1.2
Noelvi Marte 0.2 1.6
Christian Roa 0.2 0.7
Michael Trautwein 0.2 0.1
Rece Hinds -0.1 -0.2
Yosver Zulueta -0.2 0.1
Total 24.4 27.4

(Rhett Lowder is not included here because he didn’t get a preseason ZiPS projection this year for 2025, so there would be nothing to compare with his current projection for next season.)

When I run some very preliminary projections for the NL Central in 2025, based on players who are under team control for next season, the division looks a lot like it did in this year’s the preseason projections, with all five teams roughly clustered around the .500 mark. That indicates that, with the right moves, the Reds could boost their playoff odds considerably this offseason.

Their plan to paper over holes this season by moving third basemen around has not been successful: The team ranks 25th in outfield WAR and 28th both in first base WAR and designated hitter WAR. Upgrading those positions with players who actually play them would go a long way toward turning things around. The rotation hasn’t been bad this season, but it is not good enough as it’s currently constructed.

It’s worth mentioning that the Reds did spend money on their roster entering this season, but they just didn’t do so effectively. Signing mid-tier free agents again this offseason won’t remedy the team’s woes. Yes, ownership almost certainly would balk at the idea of giving Juan Soto a blank check to play for Cincinnati, but it would be even more preposterous to spend the same amount to sign six players who are slightly above replacement level, which is kind of what the Reds did last winter.

Looking ahead, even though the upcoming class of free agents isn’t particularly deep, Cincinnati’s front office needs to strike the right balance of quality and quantity. Corbin Burnes is one of the best players available, and the Reds should make a serious push to sign him. Blake Snell has been on such a roll after his rough start to this season that it seems nearly certain that he will opt out of his Giants contract. The Braves have yet to extend Max Fried, so he seems bound for free agency, too. And while they might fall short, why shouldn’t the Reds go after Roki Sasaki if he gets posted this winter? After all, they made a bid to land Shohei Ohtani back when he was coming over from Japan.

On the offensive side, Anthony Santander would give the Reds the legitimate middle-of-the-order bat in the outfield that they currently lack, as would Tyler O’Neill and Teoscar Hernández

We currently have the Reds with a guaranteed payroll of just under $50 million for 2025, though that’s not including arbitration awards. They certainly have the ability to go after players who would make a real difference and still have a payroll well below that of the average team. A repeat of last winter’s approach would be a disaster; more of the same will likely lead to more of the same. The Reds quite possibly have more upside than any other team in the NL Central, but the time’s come for them to pick a direction rather than treading water.


Joey Votto’s Career Is a Banger of a Story

Sam Greene-USA TODAY NETWORK

On Wednesday, Joey Votto officially announced his retirement from a major league career that spanned parts of 17 seasons, all with the Cincinnati Reds. He hit free agency for the first time last winter before signing a minor league contract with the Toronto Blue Jays, his hometown team. During his first spring training game with Toronto, he stepped on a bat and twisted his ankle, and it took him until June to get back into games. He eventually reached Triple-A at the start of this month but struggled there, hitting .143/.275/.214 with 22 strikeouts in 51 plate appearances with Buffalo.

“Toronto + Canada, I wanted to play in front of you,” Votto wrote on Instagram. “Sigh, I tried with all my heart to play for my people. I’m just not good anymore. Thank you for all the support during my attempt.”

“Anymore” is the key word there, because for the bulk of his career, Joey Votto banged. He retires with a .294/.409/.511 slash line, a 145 wRC+, 58.8 WAR, 356 home runs, and 2,135 hits. He made six All-Star teams, won the NL MVP award in 2010, and ranks 40th all-time in career MVP shares at 3.08.

I will be very surprised if Votto isn’t inducted into the Hall of Fame fairly quickly after he debuts on the ballot in four years. (He didn’t play in the majors this season, so for the purposes of eligibility, he retired after 2023.) Assuming he does, he’ll mainly get in on the basis of his tangible career accomplishments, with no controversy to counterbalance. My vote for him, so long as I haven’t prematurely shuffled off to eternity, will be based on his accomplishments as a player, but when it comes to Votto, his legacy is more than just his on-field performance.

As a baseball player, Votto was very much a 21st-century slugger, rather than the classic power hitter archetype. A phenomenally disciplined hitter, Votto swung at just 19% of pitches thrown to him outside the strike zone from 2012 to ’20 (using the Sports Info Solution data), second only to Alex Avila. It’s no coincidence that Votto was one of the most disciplined hitters around; you would be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t think of Votto as one of the game’s most thoughtful people. Whether hanging out at chess clubs, learning Spanish just to communicate better with teammates, or using his Players’ Weekend nickname to pay tribute to Canadian soldiers who died in World War I — by way of Canadian poet John McCrae’s famous poem, “In Flanders Fields” — he was always interesting, in the best possible way. Votto was a constant tinkerer of his swing and his approach at the plate, and when his career was on the definite downslope, he took the bold step of becoming more aggressive at the plate, a pretty big change for a player in his late 30s, squeezing out one last great offensive season in 2021 (36 homers, 140 wRC+).

Votto also spoke out about his experiences with grief and anxiety, back in 2009, when it was taboo for an athlete to talk publicly about their mental health. As Julie Kliegman reported in her recent book, Mind Game: An Inside Look at the Mental Health Playbook of Elite Athletes, players today are more open about their struggles with mental illness and more willing to seek the help that they need than they were 10-15 years ago; that’s because of stars like Votto and Zack Greinke, among others from across the sports landscape, who came forward at a time when mental-health conversations in sports were rare. This kind of thing has always resonated with me because my dad was severely psychologically affected by his experiences in Vietnam, and rather than being able to accept assistance — no matter how often and vigorously it was offered to him — he spent 25 years trying to drink away his memories, which he managed to do permanently in 1997. I’ll always have a very soft spot for someone who speaks up so that others can get help.

It’s bittersweet when a beloved player retires. It represents a sudden change in a player’s life, but also in ours. Suddenly, athletes have to accept that they will never again do the thing that they were best at doing for so long, and we realize we’ll never get to watch them do it again, either. As was the case with Buster Posey, Votto’s retirement hit me harder than I expected it would. There’s a real feeling of mortality when people you were writing about as young players are now old (in baseball terms) and out of baseball.

Okay, that’s enough sentimentality for this stathead; back to Votto’s career and Hall of Fame profile. Let’s look at his career numbers and see how they compare to other first basemen. Classifying players by position is never neat, but for the purposes of this piece, any player who appears on Jay Jaffe’s First Base JAWS leaders list will be considered a first baseman. However, I’ve removed any data from before 1901, simply because professional baseball in the 1800s was as much carnival sideshow as competitive sport. You could argue for a later – or even much later – starting point, but this deep into an article about Joey Votto isn’t the best place to have that fight.

First Base WAR Leaders, 1901-2024
Player BA OBP SLG wRC+ WAR H HR
Lou Gehrig .340 .447 .632 171 115.9 2721 493
Jimmie Foxx .325 .428 .609 156 101.4 2646 534
Albert Pujols .296 .374 .544 141 89.9 3384 703
Jeff Bagwell .297 .408 .540 149 80.2 2314 449
Eddie Murray .287 .359 .476 127 72.0 3255 504
Frank Thomas .301 .419 .555 154 72.0 2468 521
Rafael Palmeiro .288 .371 .515 130 70.0 3020 569
Jim Thome .276 .402 .550 145 69.0 2328 612
Miguel Cabrera .306 .382 .518 139 68.7 3174 511
Johnny Mize .312 .397 .562 155 68.1 2011 359
Willie McCovey .270 .374 .515 145 67.4 2211 521
Mark McGwire .263 .394 .588 157 66.3 1626 583
Joe Torre .297 .365 .452 129 62.3 2342 252
Freddie Freeman .301 .388 .513 142 60.7 2241 338
Hank Greenberg .313 .412 .605 153 60.6 1628 331
Keith Hernandez .296 .384 .436 131 59.4 2182 162
Tony Perez .279 .341 .463 121 58.9 2732 379
Joey Votto .294 .409 .511 145 58.8 2135 356
John Olerud .295 .398 .465 130 57.3 2239 255
Bill Terry .341 .393 .506 136 57.2 2193 154
Fred McGriff .284 .377 .509 134 56.9 2490 493
Paul Goldschmidt .288 .382 .510 139 55.6 2018 359
Todd Helton .316 .414 .539 132 54.9 2519 369
Norm Cash .271 .374 .488 139 54.6 1820 377
George Sisler .340 .379 .468 122 52.1 2812 102
Will Clark .303 .384 .497 136 52.0 2176 284
Orlando Cepeda .297 .350 .499 131 50.3 2351 379
Jason Giambi .277 .399 .516 140 49.8 2010 440
Ed Konetchy .281 .346 .403 119 49.3 2150 74
George Burns .307 .354 .429 118 45.9 2018 72

By career WAR alone, Votto’s résumé isn’t that overwhelming, and it doesn’t help his case that he has just over 2,000 hits and fewer than 400 homers at an offense-first position, but one has to take peak performance and career length into consideration. I’m a big believer in looking at peak value — how good they are at their best over an extended period, divorced from the bulk counting stats at the start and end of their careers — so long as we’re talking about a peak that’s beyond just a couple of years. I think Aaron Judge is a Hall of Famer right now, and had I been a voter at the time, I would have cast my vote for Johan Santana. I’m also not positive that Félix Hernández shouldn’t be a Hall of Famer. It isn’t a flaw in the data that Jack Morris has more career WAR than Sandy Koufax, but if you’re using WAR to make the case that Morris was just as good as or better than Koufax, the flaw is how you’re using the tool.

The Hall is about greatness, so I tend to prefer measures that include a peak run — such as WAR7 — and/or focus on wins above average rather than replacement. The table above is sorted by our version of WAR, but for the rest of this piece, I’m going to use Baseball Reference’s WAR, which ranks Votto slightly higher (64.5, 11th) than ours does, because that’s what Jay uses for JAWS. I am also using Baseball Reference’s wins above average to keep things consistent. Excluding anything that happened before 1901, Votto ranks seventh at the position in both WAA (37.7) and WAR7 (46.9) and ninth in JAWS (55.7). Except for those who were busted for performance enhancing drug use, all of the Hall of Fame-eligible players who rank in the top 15 by First Base JAWS have been inducted. Simply, Votto belongs in the Hall of Fame.

Votto’s fairly rapid decline kept him from gaudier WAR numbers. After a big drop-off in his power in 2018, his age 34 season, his resurgent 2021 campaign was a real outlier. But as Orson Welles once said, in one of my favorite quotes – and my desired epitaph – if you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop the story. Yes, many of us wanted another chapter, but Joey Votto’s career amounts to a banger of a story.