Author Archive: Jake Mailhot

It has been a pretty quiet offseason in Seattle. The Mariners got things moving fairly quickly, trading for Teoscar Hernández and Kolten Wong to cover the holes left by a couple of departing free agents, but things slowed down after that. They’ve brought in a couple of veterans to provide a bit of depth, but are otherwise largely banking on a repeat of their success last year and some continued growth from their young core. They made one more last minute addition yesterday, signing Kole Calhoun to a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training.

Bringing in an 11-year veteran like Calhoun is the type of move that plenty of teams make during the spring, but they rarely work out for the player involved. Most ball clubs are content to roll out whatever internal depth they already have instead of clearing a 40-man roster spot to add a player on a minor league deal. But every once in a while, a veteran will show that he has just enough left in the tank during spring training to break camp on the Opening Day roster.

If you squint, you can see how Calhoun could be primed for a bounce back season in 2023. A long-time Angel, he really started to struggle during his final seasons in Anaheim. From 2017–19, he put up a 94 wRC+ and accumulated 3.5 WAR, with a career-high 33 home runs in his final season for Los Angeles. He joined the Diamondbacks in free agency the following year and produced a career-high 125 wRC+ and 1.5 WAR during the shortened season. The last two years haven’t been kind to him, however. A recurring hamstring injury cut short most of his 2021 season and his production cratered last year after signing a one-year deal with the Rangers, with his wRC+ falling to a career-low 67. Read the rest of this entry »

The Dodgers have had a fairly quiet offseason by their recent standards. Because they are set to exceed the competitive balance tax threshold for the third consecutive season, any spending over the $233 million limit will carry a 50% tax. As a result, Los Angeles has settled for smaller moves, bringing in Miguel Rojas via a trade with the Marlins and signing a couple of veterans to one-year deals. They added another free agent to that group on Friday, inking David Peralta to a one-year, $6.5 million contract with incentives that could bring the total to $8 million.

A long-time member of the Diamondbacks, Peralta peaked in 2018 with a 130 wRC+ and a career-high 30 home runs. In the three years after that breakout, he fell back to being a league average hitter with good plate discipline and decent power. A late-ish bloomer who converted away from the mound after he had already made his professional debut, the 35-year-old was never going to fit into Arizona’s rebuilding plan despite becoming a fan favorite in the desert. Read the rest of this entry »

The beginning of spring training is just a week away, and the majority of the big moves this offseason have already happened. There are a few free agents left looking for a new home, but for the most part, teams have set their spring rosters and are looking forward to sifting through their guys as they work toward Opening Day. Now that the ZiPS projections have been plugged into the site and the hot stove is set to a preseason simmer, I thought it would be a good time to revisit these power rankings to check in on how teams did over the offseason. You could think of the Delta column as a rough grade, since it reflects the change in ranking from the last time these ran in mid-November.

A reminder for how these rankings are calculated: first, we take the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), their pitching (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by starter and reliever IP share), and their defense (RAA) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric. For these offseason power rankings, I’ve used each team’s projected stats based on their Depth Charts projections which are now powered by our blend of ZiPS and Steamer projections. I’ve also used the projected fielding component of WAR that appears on our Depth Charts projections as the defensive component for each team in lieu of RAA. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in 2020, MLB implemented a number of rule changes, both planned and forced by the pandemic-shortened season. Among them, none had the potential for dramatic change but with little actual effect on the game as the three-batter minimum rule. It was an inelegant solution to an infrequent problem: Subsequent investigation after its implementation has shown that the rule hasn’t addressed the pace-of-play issues at the heart of its intended effects.

Where the rule has had an outsized effect is in roster construction. Upon implementation, the value of a certain type of reliever — the Lefty One Out Guy (LOOGY) — was extinguished. Not that there were many LOOGYs left anyway, and the impact they had on games was fairly negligible in the grand scheme of things. This side effect of the rule was foreseen but still unfortunate nonetheless.

While the left-handed specialist has all but disappeared from major league rosters, left-handed relievers in general have felt the effects of this rule change as well. In 2022, southpaw relievers pitched around a quarter of all relief innings, which is right in line with the previous decade of usage. Unsurprisingly, more and more of those outings have come against right-handed batters. In 2013, nearly half of the batters left-handed relievers faced were left-handed as well. Last year, that rate fell to just over a third. Read the rest of this entry »

Since breaking into the big leagues back in 2011, Lance Lynn has featured one of the most fastball-heavy approaches in the majors. Now, that’s a little reductive, as he throws three different fastballs that he can ride, cut, or sink depending on what the situation calls for. Still, over 80% of the pitches he’s thrown in his career have been classified as a four-seamer, sinker, or cutter; that’s the third-highest rate of hard stuff thrown by a starter since his debut. And Lynn’s approach has only been amplified in recent seasons. In the last five years, over 85% of his pitches have been fastballs; no other pitcher has crossed the 80% mark.

When Lynn isn’t throwing a heater, he mixes in a curveball and a changeup, though neither pitch has been all that effective during his career. His four-seamer is a devastating pitch up in the zone, and his cutter and sinker allow him to work laterally to either side of the plate if needed. Utilizing all three of his fastballs effectively leaves little room for secondary offerings in his pitch mix. Why change an approach that’s worked for more than a decade?

Baseball is a game of constant adjustments, particularly in the context of the pitcher-batter duel at its center. In December, after announcing he’ll be pitching for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, Lynn gave a fascinating quote about the adjustments he’s had to make in an interview with The Athletic’s James Fegan:

“People get so caught up in ‘Oh, you just throw fastballs.’ If you actually pay attention to the game, there’s speed differentials, there’s bigger breaks or smaller breaks. Part of evolving as a pitcher is giving the hitters different looks. Over time, you’re locking in the things that make you good, and you’ve got to figure out things that are maybe not as good as they can be. Over the last couple of years, Ethan [Katz] and I have been able to really concentrate on grips, different spin axes, and things of that nature that have really helped develop a pitch that comes out of a slot where it gives hitters difficulty.”

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After a promising end to their 2021 season, the Detroit Tigers made a few big splashes in free agency to support a wave of young prospects on the verge of making their big league debuts. Instead of continuing to build on that momentum, however, Detroit took a huge step backwards last year, losing 96 games while scoring the fewest runs in the majors. Their new additions, Javier Báez and Eduardo Rodriguez, combined for just 2.6 WAR, and their top position player prospects, Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene, had rough introductions to the big leagues. This cyclone of disappointment led to the dismissal of long-time general manager Al Avila and a bevy of questions about the direction of the franchise.

There are plenty of problems new president of baseball operations Scott Harris needs to address on the roster and in the organization. The early-career struggles and future development of Torkelson and Greene loom the largest, however. As prospects, those two were seen as can’t-miss, heart-of-the-order bats who would form the core of the next great Tigers lineup. Instead, their disappointing rookie seasons were a significant contributor to that league-worst offense in 2022.

Torkelson and Greene are both under 24 years old and will have plenty of opportunities to develop into the kind of contributors that reflect their status as former top prospects. Still, it would behoove Detroit to give them every advantage to succeed in the big leagues, leaving no stone unturned. To that end, the Tigers announced on Wednesday that they would be making some adjustments to the dimensions of Comerica Park ahead of Opening Day:

We’re adjusting @ComericaPark’s outfield dimensions and lowering wall heights in key areas prior to Opening Day 2023.

— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) January 11, 2023

Read the rest of this entry »

Last January, inspired by Cedric Mullins’s 2021 decision to stop switch-hitting, I tried to identify other switch-hitters who might benefit from swinging from one side or the other. Going beyond simply calculating the largest platoon splits, I relied on handedness splits for some of the players’ key underlying batted ball and plate discipline metrics. The idea was that there could be a path to improvement if these switch-hitters eliminated their severe underperformance from one side of the plate. Of course, the other option is simply to work on their weaker swing and become a better overall switch-hitter.

One of the batters I identified as a candidate to hit left-handed full-time was Ian Happ. Through 2021, Happ had posted a 55 point platoon split, the second-highest among the 25 switch-hitters in the sample. Happ crushes right-handed pitching from the left side, but all of his batted ball peripherals are significantly weaker when swinging from the right. Instead of taking my advice (thank goodness), Happ posted the best season of his career against left-handed pitching in 2022:

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On May 24, the Angels were 27-17 and just a game behind the Astros in the AL West. Their roster was relatively healthy, and a breakout from Taylor Ward alongside standout performances from Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani had helped them leap out to a strong start through the first month and a half of the season. Two weeks later, their win total was still stuck at 27, having fallen below .500 after an ugly 14-game losing streak. Of the nine players who accumulated more than 100 plate appearances for the Angels through mid-May, just three reached at least 300 plate appearances afterwards. Los Angeles cycled through 32 different position players from May 24 onwards, struggling to find any sort of competent depth to cover for their injured and ineffective players.

The Angels’ lack of depth isn’t isolated to this season either — it’s been a constant thorn in their side for the past decade. They haven’t posted a winning record since 2015 and have only reached the playoffs once over the last 13 seasons despite employing two of the best baseball players to ever play the game, one of whom has been an Angel for most of that stretch. With Ohtani’s free agency just a year away and the potential sale of the franchise by owner Arte Moreno looming, the 2023 season feels like a significant hinge point for the Angels.

So far this offseason, they’ve been aggressive in bringing in the type of talent that complements their superstars while avoiding any long-term commitments that could complicate the sale of the club. They signed Tyler Anderson and Carlos Estévez to bolster their pitching staff and traded for Hunter Renfroe and Gio Urshela to lengthen their lineup. And on Tuesday, they inked Brandon Drury to a two-year, $17 million contract. That deal brings the Angels’ total projected 2023 payroll to $206 million, the highest in franchise history. Read the rest of this entry »

A few days after signing Jacob deGrom to lead their rotation, the Texas Rangers continued to bolster their pitching staff, signing Andrew Heaney to a two-year contract that could be worth up to $37 million total. The base salary is $25 million with up to $12 million in additional incentives; the deal also includes an opt-out after 2023.

After limping to a 5.83 ERA in 2021 while pitching for the Angels and Yankees, Heaney signed a one-year, bounce-back deal with the Dodgers, and bounce back he did. With a 25.4% career strikeout rate, he’s had no problems sending batters down on strikes over the years. He took that ability to new levels in 2022, pushing his strikeout rate to a career-high 35.5% while also logging career bests in ERA (3.10) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.79).

However, that penchant for Ks comes with a really nasty habit of allowing far too many home runs. Over the last five seasons, his 27.2% strikeout rate ranks 28th among all qualified starting pitchers, while his 1.64 HR/9 ranks 12th. He was able to offset some of that damage with his improvements this year, but it’s a real sticking point that has held him back from becoming one of the premiere starters in baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

Matthew Boyd has been on quite the baseball journey over the last few years. After spending the bulk of his career with the Tigers as a promising member of their rotation, an unfortunate elbow injury in 2021 resulted in Detroit non-tendering him after the season. He signed a one-year deal with the Giants and spent the first half of this year rehabbing from his flexor tendon surgery. He was traded to the Mariners at the trade deadline and returned to the big leagues to pitch 13.1 innings for his hometown team in September as they worked towards breaking their infamous playoff drought.

Hear what it means to @mattboyd48 ? pic.twitter.com/lDdXd1q5yZ

— ROOT SPORTS™ | NW (@ROOTSPORTS_NW) October 1, 2022

With his childhood dream fulfilled and a clean bill of health, Boyd will now return to the Tigers on a one-year, $10 million deal with the potential for an additional $1 million in performance bonuses.

With his recent injury history, the one-year contract doesn’t come without its share of risk. And even if Boyd’s elbow is completely healthy, he wasn’t exactly the most consistent performer in Detroit. In 2019, he posted a career-best 3.2 WAR behind a 30.2% strikeout rate and an above-average walk rate. Unfortunately, both his ERA and FIP sat above 4.00 that year because he also led the league in home runs allowed. The long ball had been a consistent problem for him throughout his career, but the improvements he made to his strikeout-to-walk ratio seemed like they could offset the number of balls flying over the fence. Read the rest of this entry »