Did anybody out there have this one? None of us did. While it’s not altogether surprising that either the Padres or the Phillies, two very good teams, made it this deep into the postseason, it’s incredible that both of them have, considering who they had to go through to get here. While a handful of the FanGraphs staff members picked the Padres to beat the Mets in the Wild Card Series, none of us picked them to beat the Dodgers, and even though the vast majority of us thought the Phillies would dispatch the Cardinals, only two of us picked them to beat Atlanta.

This seems foolish in hindsight, especially as it pertains to the Padres. They have a dangerous heart of the order led by MVP candidate Manny Machado and young star Juan Soto, who is starting to heat up. Neither Max Scherzer nor Spencer Strider seemed 100% in their respective postseason outings (key details that allow for some amount of site-wide absolution), making the Padres the lone NL postseason team with three totally healthy premium starting pitchers in Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, and Joe Musgrove. Their bridge to Josh Hader — Robert Suarez and Luis García in high-leverage spots, Tim Hill as a lefty specialist and Steven Wilson as a mid-90s/slider middle inning rock — might be the best relief corps of the remaining playoff teams, depending on whether you value depth (Houston’s bullpen takes the cake in this department) or peak individual nastiness ceiling (give me the Padres or Guardians). Despite Fernando Tatis Jr.’s suspension and a difficult playoff draw, San Diego has now bested the two teams that spent most of the calendar atop the National League and now enjoys home field advantage in a League Championship Series.

The Phillies are also playing with house money. If you had listened to Philadelphia sports talk radio in August (I was visiting home and fell off the wagon), you’d have thought the Phillies were an awful team rather than a good one that’s simply somewhat incomplete. Even though they (along with the Padres) kind of backed into the playoffs, the depth of their lineup and their two elite starters were obviously enough to make them dangerous in October, and in two playoff series those traits were sufficient to overcome a middling bullpen (which may or may not be without veteran David Robertson again in the NLCS) and bad team defense. With the NLCS set to get underway on Tuesday, we’re no more than a week and a half away from one of these two clubs punching a World Series ticket. Read the rest of this entry »

If Phillies fans had known three days ago that their squad would leave Atlanta with a split, they’d all have told you that was swell. It felt as though they were playing with house money after surviving a late onslaught by a Braves lineup that squandered two woulda-coulda-shoulda, difference-making bases loaded situations in Game 1 and escaping with the victory, and they had both Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola looming for the next two games. But at the mercy of Kyle Wright and Atlanta’s bullpen King Ghidorah of A.J. Minter, Raisel Iglesias, and Kenley Jansen, the Phillies were shut out in Game 2, sent packing in a 3–0 loss which didn’t even last as long (two hours and 49 minutes) as the rain delay that preceded it.

While leaving the den of the defending World Series champions even at a game a piece is, in a vacuum, a huge positive for the Phillies, the context of this split is somewhat alarming. The Braves have outscored them 8–1 over the last 14 innings, as Philadelphia mustered just three hits in this shutout loss. A masterful performance by Wright and opportunistic hitting in the sixth inning were pretty much all of what Atlanta needed to tie the series.

Wheeler largely performed as expected for most of the game. Second among big league starters in WAR across the last two seasons, he needed just 27 pitches to knife through three perfect innings at the start, his adrenaline-boosted fastball velocity a full tick above his 2022 regular-season mark. It’s especially encouraging to see that arm strength given that he is just a few starts removed from coming off the IL with forearm tendinitis.

It wasn’t until the sixth, thanks to some self-inflicted damage on Wheeler’s part, that the Braves broke through in a two-out rally. After he dispatched Marcell Ozuna and Eddie Rosario to start the inning, the righty hit Ronald Acuña Jr. with a fastball, resulting in a lengthy delay so the trainer could check on Acuña. (You know what it’s like to hit your funny bone on the door frame? Imagine the door frame is moving at 97 mph.) Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve made an end-of-season update to the top 100 prospects list, which you can now see on The Board. With the season is over, these rankings are frozen in the “2022 Updated” section of The Board, and aside from me pulling off some stray rookie graduates from this season, there will be no more changes until prospect lists start rolling out this offseason. As always, an arbitrary endpoint to the “top 100” list doesn’t make sense — the tier of players who are about as good as the 100th best prospect in baseball extends beyond that — so this is an ordinal ranking of the top 109 prospects in baseball at this time. This group will likely expand to close to 120 players throughout our offseason evaluations.

What might change now that the minor league season is over? We still have five weeks of Arizona Fall League, the tail end of instructs, and all of winter ball in Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. Plus, whatever info and scout/industry opinions are on their way to my ears and brain are on a bit of a lag, which is especially relevant for the prospects who were in the DSL this year and at instructs in Florida.

This update was made with a focus on upper-level players, ones who are on the precipice of the big leagues and could conceivably play a role in 2023. I used a light touch on the Top 100 guys who are in the Fall League (you can see which prospects are playing there over on the Seasonal tab of The Board) since I’ll be evaluating that group in person over the next several weeks, and that includes players who had good seasons (like Jordan Lawlar) and guys who had rough ones (like Luis Matos). The Fall League is stacked, and I hope to see you out there. Read the rest of this entry »

While the postseason drought spanning more than two decades is over, so too is the celebration in Seattle, as the Mariners travel to the other side of the continent to face the slugging, battle-tested Blue Jays, who emerged from baseball’s best division as the top wild card.

Toronto’s lineup is dangerous from top to bottom, stacked with marquee names who have thirteen combined All Star appearances (George Springer has four of his own, Matt Chapman somehow only has one). The group had the fifth-lowest strikeout rate in baseball during the regular season, ranked third in slugging, and were second only to the Dodgers in team wRC+. Except for Raimel Tapia and Whit Merrifield, every member of the Blue Jays’ regular starting lineup posted a wRC+ over 100 on the season, and Merrifield closed the season on a .361/.385/.639 heater. If Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s hamstring is healed in time for him to be inserted in the lineup, he’s an easy offensive upgrade on Tapia, though he may not have his timing immediately due to his lack of at-bats.

While Toronto’s lineup has undeniable star power, it may have an unexpected fault at its core. While his season, overall, was very good, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is ice cold right now. During the last month of the season he slashed a paltry .235/.290/.390 and struggled with plate discipline. Vladdy’s chase rate during September (40%) was a full ten percentage points higher than his career norm (31%), as he struggled to lay off sliders away from him and well off the plate. Two-pitch Robbie Ray should be a great matchup for Vlad, as he doesn’t have a secondary pitch that moves away from right-handed hitters aside from an unfamiliar changeup. But the Mariners have bullpen weapons that are well-suited to exploit his recent issues in Penn Murfee, Diego Castillo, and Matt Brash, who all have sliders that finish in a spot Guerrero can’t seem to get to right now. Streaky Jays shortstop Bo Bichette has been the polar opposite, second only to Aaron Judge in WAR since the calendar flipped to September, slashing .405/.443/.664 and clubbing 19 extra-base hits during that span and entering postseason play as one of the planet’s most dangerous hitters. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Ranked and briefly analyzed below are the prospects who have been traded during the loosely defined “deadline season,” which for simplicity’s sake I consider all of July. Most of the deals these prospects were a part of have been analyzed at length on this site. An index of those pieces can be found here, or by clicking the hyperlink in the “Trade” column below, which will take you to the relevant article. I’ve moved all of the 35+ FV and above players listed here to their new orgs over on The Board, so you can click through to see where they rank among their new teammates and read their full scouting reports. Our Farm Rankings, which update live, also reflect these changes, so you can see where teams’ systems stack up following the draft and the deadline compared to prior to the draft and relevant 2022 prospect graduations.

I’ve included the compensatory draft pick the Cubs will receive after they extend Willson Contreras a qualifying offer and he signs elsewhere, as they will essentially be trading him for that pick if he signs with another team this offseason, which I think is the most likely outcome. Now, on to the rankings. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last two and a half years, the Nationals’ World Series championship roster has deteriorated around Juan Soto, hollowed out by trades and underperformance. After rejecting a 15-year, $440 million extension offer, the club realized Soto’s camp was hellbent on him hitting free agency, an eventuality that put Washington at risk of only receiving draft pick compensation for him, and not until a few years from now. With new ownership looming, the Nationals were unlikely (and the team’s current owners seemingly unwilling) to build a contender around Soto before he hit the market; every passing day, arbitration year, and postseason spent in Washington diminished his trade value. Once the team decided to move on, it made sense to deal Soto now, while the club trading for him could enjoy him for three postseasons instead of two. Still, it’s a painful parting, just as it’s painful for it to have unfolded in public the way that it did, with information leaked to prime fans with the logic I outlined above in the hopes of avoiding blowback.

The Padres, meanwhile, obviously coveted Soto. A.J. Preller tends to press the gas pedal a little harder than other folks in the industry, both in terms of the players he asks for and what he’s willing to give up in return. There are alternate timelines in which this deal doesn’t get done. There are iterations of a Bryan Reynolds trade that could have occurred this past winter that would have put Soto out of reach; there’s a version of the 2020-21 offseason where Nolan Arenado becomes a Padre instead of a Cardinal. But because those (and other deals) didn’t happen, and thanks to James Wood’s emergence, the Padres still had enough at the top of their farm system to trade for a 23-year-old future Hall of Famer and carry several of the most exciting and talented players of this century on their roster at the same time while they’re at it. Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, and Yu Darvish all have enduring baseball significance. The Padres are no-doubt contenders and among the most exciting teams in pro sports.

That comes at a great cost. There are many talented players headed to Washington in this trade: MacKenzie Gore, C.J. Abrams, Robert Hassell III, and Wood are all current or recent Top 100 prospects, while Jarlin Susana might have the nastiest stuff of any pitcher his age in pro baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

Oakland fetched a sizable return in the trade that sent the potent combination of Frankie Montas and Lou Trivino to the Yankees on Monday afternoon. The deal is headlined by two top 100 prospects, lefty Ken Waldichuk and righty Luis Medina, and is supplemented by near-ready backend starter JP Sears and fleet-footed A-ball second baseman Cooper Bowman. All three pitchers are essentially big league-ready, with Medina and Sears already on the 40-man roster, and Waldichuk a lock to be added after the season and likely to debut next year.

The youngest of that trio is Medina, a 23-year-old flamethrower who has been a prospect of import for over half a decade, walking the starter/reliever balance beam all the while. Now at Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre, he has made 17 starts (he typically works four to five innings at a time and has maxed out at six twice this season) while posting a 3.38 ERA, his third consecutive level where he has posted a sub-4.00 ERA. While he’s historically struggled with walks (he’s been at least a five walks per nine guy his entire career) and overall consistency, Medina’s stuff makes him tough to square up and induces lots of groundballs (50% GB%). His fastball has been in the mid-to-upper-90s his entire career and is parked in the 94-98 mph range again this season, peaking at 102. Read the rest of this entry »

With their outfield (and whole roster, really) hit hard by injuries, the Rays acquired 34-year-old left fielder David Peralta from the Diamondbacks for 19-year-old catching prospect Christian Cerda on Sunday. The Freight Train is hitting .248/.315/.457, good for a 109 wRC+, which is in line with his career norm (111 wRC+), even though the shape of his production has totally changed.

Before we get into how that came to be, though, let’s take a moment to appreciate Peralta’s remarkable path here. Originally a left-handed pitcher in the Cardinals organization, he was released amid shoulder issues and played outfield in Independent ball for a couple of years before signing with the Diamondbacks in 2013. It’s borderline offensive to cram that stretch of Peralta’s career into one sentence. Indy ball isn’t exactly glamorous, and Peralta was broke and worked at McDonalds while waiting for the Diamondbacks, who he knew wanted to sign him, to free up the minor league roster space to do so. After he finally signed, it took only about a year for him to reach the big leagues, and Peralta has had one hell of a now nine-year MLB career, during which he’s been one of the better left field defenders in baseball (and has one Gold Glove), won a Silver Slugger during his peak year in 2018 (.293/.352/.516 with 30 bombs), led the league in triples twice, and endured wrist and shoulder surgeries while becoming a cult hero in Arizona. From a baseball role standpoint, the Rays are getting a platoon stick (.268/.325/.496 versus righties this year) and plus defender in a corner spot, but Peralta also brings the parts of himself that helped him grind through injury and Indy ball. Read the rest of this entry »

On Saturday, the Dodgers acquired steady 36-year-old reliever Chris Martin from the Cubs in exchange for utilityman Zach McKinstry, who has spent most of the season at Triple-A Oklahoma City.

This is Martin’s seventh major league organization (Red Sox, Rockies, Yankees, Rangers, Braves, Cubs, Dodgers), but his journey has been even more winding and complex than that. Martin was a draft-and-follow by the Rockies in 2005 but blew out his shoulder during his sophomore year at McLennan Junior College in Texas and needed labrum surgery, so he went unsigned. He was again passed over in the 2006 draft and spent parts of four years in Independent Ball before signing with the Red Sox. He was traded to the Rockies as the secondary piece in a deal for Jonathan Herrera (Franklin Morales was the headline prospect), and then was traded to the Yankees for cash not long after that. He threw 20 innings for the Yankees before spending two seasons in Japan with Hokkaido. There, Martin learned a splitter from a then 21-year-old Shohei Ohtani before returning to MLB with Texas. He was a Braves deadline acquisition in 2019, and was with Atlanta in ’20 and ’21 before signing with the Cubs this past winter. Read the rest of this entry »