With the avalanche of transactions crashing down during the Winter Meetings, I wouldn’t blame you for missing the Orioles’ signing of Kyle Gibson. General manager Mike Elias confirmed on Monday that the deal was official for one year and $10 million, identical to one that Gibson reportedly turned down from Toronto. But while you may not have noticed the deal, Orioles fans certainly did, as it was the club’s most significant move of the offseason thus far. In fact, apart from a pair of minor league signings in Josh Lester and Nomar Mazara, Gibson’s deal was Baltimore’s only move made in San Diego.

Yet, despite a reputation as a smaller-market team, the O’s seem to be on the precipice of competing, and they have been in on bigger names in the free-agent pitching market. They have been linked to all of Jameson Taillon, Carlos Rodón, and Noah Syndergaard. In the same breath as his confirmation of the Gibson deal, Elias indicated that the Orioles were not done spending just yet.

That’s good news for a club whose starting pitching ranked 19th in WAR last year. The group’s 3.97 ERA came in at 17th, but Baltimore outperformed its FIP, xFIP, and SIERA, and its K-BB% ranked 21st. That’s hardly a playoff-caliber rotation, despite missing out on the last AL Wild Card spot to the Rays by just three games. By contrast, Tampa Bay’s starters ranked 11th in WAR. Read the rest of this entry »

During the playoffs, Nick Castellanos made a few noteworthy catches, darting and diving to his left. I wondered whether the Phillies’ right fielder, with his mitt on his left hand, was alone in relishing plays to his gloveside. After all, Castellanos didn’t have to reach across his body to make the catch when moving in this direction. I also wondered what, if any, implications this would have on outfield positioning and alignment.

In terms of directional Outs Above Average (OAA), my findings demonstrated that right-handed outfielders actually performed marginally better moving to their armside than their gloveside. But they were considerably stronger to their left than left-handers, who in turn performed much better to their own gloveside. If that word salad confused you, not to worry. These numbers might be easier to digest:

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On Friday, the rebuilding Pirates took a $6.7 million flier on 36-year-old Carlos Santana, who at this point in his career splits his time between DH and first base. In Pittsburgh, he joins the recently acquired Ji-Man Choi and Lewin Díaz as 1B/DH options; regardless of a positional surplus, perhaps Pittsburgh felt he was too tempting to pass up with the shift ban going into effect next season. It’s hard to think of a player who has more to gain from that rule change than the switch-hitting former catcher, who is a pull hitter on grounders from both sides of the plate: 61.9% from the right side and 70.6% from the left.

As a switch-hitter, Santana sees most of his plate appearances as a lefty, his even more pull-happy side. That brings his overall pulled-grounder percentage up to 67.2%, a mark that puts him sixth among the 203 players with at least 1,000 grounders since his debut in 2010; the only active player ahead of him, Eugenio Suárez, has hit 1,100 fewer grounders in his career. Moving the threshold to 1,500 puts Santana squarely at the top of that list (inactive players included). Read the rest of this entry »

Nick Castellanos was not good during the 2022 regular season. He was especially bad on defense, costing the Phillies an estimated eight runs. In the playoffs, however, he made a few impressive catches. In fact, his four best plays of the season came in the postseason. His October excellence began in Game 1 of the NLDS, when he made this snag in the bottom of the ninth inning to help preserve a one-run Phillies lead:

He would go on to make two similar grabs in the World Series. This one came in Game 1, with two outs and the winning run on second the bottom of the ninth: Read the rest of this entry »

The Rockies and Braves wasted little time in kicking off the offseason trade market. On Sunday, just one day after the World Series came to a thrilling conclusion, the clubs made a one-for-one swap: Sam Hilliard for Dylan Spain. And while the move’s significance paled in comparison to the the major transaction of the day, Edwin Díaz’s extension with the Mets, there is more to it than meets the eye.

For many Braves fans, their biggest concern might be how the team chooses to fill the Dansby Swanson-shaped hole at shortstop. Currently, our depth charts have rookie standout Vaughn Grissom soaking up 74% of the innings at short. But though he fared quite well with the bat in his major league audition, to the tune of a 121 wRC+, the 21-year-old graded out as a net negative at second base this year. His mark of -5 Outs Above Average (OAA) at the position, typically thought to be the easier of the middle infield spots to defend, does not portend success at short.

The larger question mark for the Braves might be in left field, though. Ronald Acuña Jr. and Michael Harris II are locked into right and center, but there is no clear choice for the club in left. As Marcell Ozuna and Eddie Rosario floundered, Atlanta’s left fielders this year cost the team 0.8 WAR, tied with the lowly Rangers for the worst mark in the league. Hilliard can play all three outfield spots but has played the most in left and grades out best there in terms of OAA, Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), and Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR). He provides the Braves with meaningful depth at their weakest position, well worth the cost of a 24-year-old relief prospect in Spain, who spent the year amassing a 5.30 ERA in High-A. Read the rest of this entry »

Two weeks ago, Rawlings and MLB announced this year’s Gold Glove finalists. The inclusion of Juan Soto, who posted the worst OAA among qualified outfielders but ran a 145 wRC+, prompted me to examine the link between Gold Glove finalists and offense. I found that Soto’s selection was likely due to the halo effect, a cognitive bias which may have led voters to extend a positive overall impression of him to his fielding.

Fast forward to this week, when Rawlings and MLB announced this year’s Gold Glove winners. While Soto was not among the 20 victors, the 16 non-pitcher, non-utility winners out-hit the other 32 finalists 115 to 107 in wRC+. Last year, the winners out-hit the other finalists 114 to 107 (I excluded this year’s utility finalists/winners to make the comparison). In my previous article on Gold Gloves, I also found that finalists out-hit other qualified fielders 109 to 103 in wRC+ last year and 110 to 102 this year. Read the rest of this entry »

How much should a team’s postseason strategy differ from its regular-season tactics? Overall, probably not that much; if your club makes it to the postseason, it ain’t broke, so to speak. Further, I generally believe the postseason is not the time to experiment with new gameplans that always carry some heightened risk. But historically, there are myriad ways that teams have shaken things up come October.

This especially seems to be the case when a team is down in a series. Take the Yankees in the ALCS this year — that squad went with three different leadoff hitters in four games, moves that had little to do with platoon splits. They faced one lefty starter during the series, Framber Valdez, and had righty Harrison Bader lead off that game, but Bader also led off in Game 4 against fellow righty Lance McCullers Jr.; lefty Anthony Rizzo and righty Gleyber Torres led off the other two games against right-handers. The Yankees also had three different starting shortstops in the series. Read the rest of this entry »

When Juan Soto was announced as a finalist for the Gold Glove this year, I was perplexed. To say that the right fielder struggled with his defense this season would be an understatement. As recently as Game 2 of the NLCS, he was still making (or, failing to make) plays like this:

So I turned to Rawlings’ official website to get a better understanding of how Gold Gloves are won. In order to qualify for a Gold Glove, infielders and outfielders must have played in the field for at least 698 innings through their teams’ first 138 games. Maybe Soto grades out better in this subsample. In the absence of custom date ranges for advanced fielding statistics, I compared Soto to the 76 other players who were in the outfield for at least 698 innings on the season. Here is where he ranked:

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After striking out 17 times Wednesday night, the Yankees ran that number up to 30 for the Championship Series, taking another tough loss in Game 2, this time 3-2. This time, Framber Valdez, the second half of Houston’s two-headed ace monster, was responsible; he struck out nine across seven strong innings. Typically known for his groundball prowess, Valdez racked up a career-high 25 whiffs Thursday night, with 16 of them coming via a nasty curveball. Those curveball whiffs, another career-best and a playoff record since the pitch-tracking era began in 2008, exceeded the next-highest mark from this season (including the playoffs) by three. (For context, three was also the gap between the outings with the second- and 12th-most curveball whiffs this year.)

But Valdez didn’t look all that sharp out of the gate. While his velocity was up 1.3 mph on the sinker, his primary offering, three of the first four and four of the first six hitters he faced went up in the count 2-0. In addition to possibly causing command issues, that extra zip may have led to higher exit velocities for the Yankees: their first three hitters each put 100-mph screamers in play. Luckily for Valdez, they were all hit pretty close to fielders, but with two down in the second, he wasn’t as fortunate; Josh Donaldson hit a perfectly placed 92.1-mph liner — the Yankees’ softest-hit ball to that point — into short right field for a double. But Valdez registered his first strikeout of the game when the next batter, Kyle Higashioka, went down after five straight curveballs, whiffing on the last:

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Yesterday, on the brink of an upset, Gerrit Cole put the Yankees and their shaky bullpen on his back. The righty went seven strong, sparing the Yankees the Dodgers’ and Braves’ fate for at least another day. Despite showing slightly diminished fastball velocity (he was down 0.8 mph for the second start in a row) and despite a recent reliance on offspeed pitches, Cole’s heater was crucial to his success. While his one major blemish, a solo shot off the bat of Josh Naylor, came on the pitch, its plate discipline statistics were on par with those of his breaking balls:

For his part, Cal Quantrill kept the Guardians in the game after giving up three runs through the first two frames. He settled down, at one point retiring nine straight Yankees. But the Guardians could only muster two runs on six hits, failing to bail Quantrill out against Cole for the second time this week. Read the rest of this entry »