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FanGraphs Spotlight: Positional Splits

Jonathan Dyer-USA TODAY Sports

If you’ve been reading me with any frequency for the past 20-some years — the last six of them here at FanGraphs — you may have noticed that I’m prone to dropping the occasional number into my prose. In fact, Statcast says I do so in 57.6% of my sentences, which ranks in the 93rd percentile even among my FanGraphs colleagues. Admittedly, I just made that part up, but the point is that I’m someone who tends to present a fair bit of data to the reader in support of my analysis.

At this site, we feature a lot of data, and as a consequence, not all of it is easy to find, but we do our best to organize it logically so that users can do so. Once again, I’d like to highlight a particular area as part of our series on the useful site features you’ll find at FanGraphs.

Back in 2007, for the Baseball Prospectus book It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over, I compiled a historical All-Star squad of ignominy, identifying players at each position whose performances had dragged their teams down in tight races: the Replacement-Level Killers. I’ve revisited the concept numerous times at multiple outlets and have adapted an expanded form of it into a midsummer series that serves as a trade deadline preview, highlighting the particular trouble spots on each contender. Read the rest of this entry »


The Yankees Are in a Precarious Spot After Losing Gerrit Cole

Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

After a pair of runner-up finishes in 2019 and ’21, Gerrit Cole finally won a Cy Young Award last year, but it doesn’t look like he’ll become the first American League pitcher to repeat since Pedro Martinez in 1999–2000. On Wednesday, the New York Post’s Jon Heyman reported that the 33-year-old righty will miss at least one to two months of the regular season due to an elbow issue, and is heading to Los Angeles for an in-person consultation with Dr. Neal ElAttrache, one of the industry’s top orthopedic surgeons — a move that has fueled speculation his injury could be even worse. At the very least, the loss of Cole exposes the Yankees’ lack of rotation depth and jeopardizes their chances of returning to the playoffs after missing out in 2023.

In one of the most nerve-wracking days in recent Yankees history, the team sent both Cole and Aaron Judge — two players making a combined $76 million in 2024 — for an MRI on Monday. The slugger had been experiencing discomfort in his abdominal area, which he believes stems from work he did over the offseason to correct his mechanics in the wake of his right big toe injury. He got a clean bill of health and expects to return to the lineup this weekend. As for the ace, his difficulties in recovering from his starts sent him to the MRI tube. Said manager Aaron Boone, “He described it as his recovery before getting to his next start has been more akin to what he feels during the season when he’s making 100 pitches… When he’s throwing 45 and 55, he usually doesn’t have the recovery issues he’s having.”

The exact nature of Cole’s diagnosis has yet to be reported, only that he’s experienced inflammation and “a twinge in his elbow.” It’s not uncommon for a team to get input from multiple doctors and have a player undergo additional tests, such as a dye contrast MRI to get a better look before determining a course of action; at the very least, Cole reportedly had x-rays and a CT scan on Tuesday. As this has played out, the high stakes and the Yankees’ opacity in handling the extended absences of Judge, Anthony Rizzo, Carlos Rodón, Luis Severino and other players in recent years has fed into a cottage industry that presumes cover-ups and worst-case scenarios. That Boone and general manager Brian Cashman have sometimes downplayed initial concerns ahead of prolonged outages in such cases has further fanned those flames. Read the rest of this entry »


Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 3/12/24

2:03
Avatar Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to another edition of my FanGraphs chat. I’ve got my head buried in Positional Power Rankings assignments but came up for air to write about Noelvi Marte’s PED suspension yesterday https://blogs.fangraphs.com/noelvi-martes-ped-suspension-simplifies-re…, and last Friday wrote about Brayan Bello’s extension https://blogs.fangraphs.com/red-sox-hope-brayan-bello-deal-is-the-star…

2:03
Avatar Jay Jaffe: With that, let’s get going.

2:03
wheelhouse: I’m trying to rebalance here, but if Cole is out for the season, do you think the Yankees are:
A) a threat for the third wild card
B) 100% dead in the water, stick a fork in them

2:05
Avatar Jay Jaffe: To borrow from Monty Python for a line that’s often quoted in our household, “A fair question and one that in recent weeks ‘as been much on my mind.”

2:07
Avatar Jay Jaffe: I think the answer to that depends upon how close to the best versions of themselves other starters such as Cortes, Rodón and Stroman are in 2024. If the two holdovers pitch as they did last year, the Yankees will be toast

2:08
Avatar Jay Jaffe: if the three of them pitch up to their capabilities and if they get a decent fill-in, all isn’t lost, but it may very well cost them down the road — either via a trade or a necessary payroll cut if they were to add a big salary to this year

Read the rest of this entry »


Noelvi Marte’s PED Suspension Simplifies Reds’ Infield Picture

Noelvi Marte
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

With the Reds’ roster overflowing with talented young infielders, it appeared that manager David Bell would have the pleasant challenge each day of figuring out how to fit as many of them into the lineup as possible. That task, though, just got a bit easier — at least for the first half of the season. On Friday, the team announced that Major League Baseball has suspended Noelvi Marte for the first 80 games of the regular season following a positive test for a performance-enhancing drug.

The 22-year-old Marte made his major league debut on August 19, just over a year after he was acquired from the Mariners in the Luis Castillo blockbuster. After playing exclusively at shortstop from 2019–22, last year he split his time between short and third base at Double-A Chattanooga, played third exclusively at Triple-A Louisville, and then made 29 of his 34 appearances for the Reds at the hot corner, including 26 starts. In all he hit .279/.358/.454 (110 wRC+) with 11 homers and 18 steals in 92 minor league games and then a sizzling .316/.366/.456 (120 wRC+) with three homers and six steals in 35 games for the Reds.

Because he finished with just 114 at-bats and 44 days on the active roster, Marte is still considered a rookie. He placed 41st on this year’s Top 100 Prospects list (up from 94th in 2023), good for no. 1 in the Reds’ system. He’s a well-rounded player who projects as an everyday third baseman, with a shot to be more impactful if he can tap into his 60-grade raw power with greater frequency.

Alas, it will be a few months before he gets a chance to do so. Marte tested positive for boldenone, an anabolic steroid that’s illegal under the game’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment program. While he can still participate in spring training, his 80-game suspension takes effect at the start of the regular season. During his suspension, he can work out at the Reds’ complex in Goodyear, Arizona for extended spring training, and will be eligible to return to the majors on June 21, before which he can go on a minor league rehab assignment. If the Reds reach the postseason, something they’ve done just once (2020) over the past 10 seasons, Marte would not be eligible to participate.

PED suspensions have become increasingly uncommon at the major league level in recent seasons, which isn’t to say that the drugs’ usage has been entirely eradicated. Last year, just one major leaguer tested positive and was suspended, Brewers reliever J.C. Mejía, and his suspension wasn’t handed down until September 20. He drew a 162-game suspension as a second offender, as he was also suspended in 2022. More notably, Padres shortstop-turned-outfielder Fernando Tatis Jr., who was suspended on August 12, 2022, finished serving out his suspension during the ’23 season. Here’s a look at the number of major league suspensions for PEDs for each season since 2012:

In November 2022, the New York Times’ James Wagner reported that players from the Dominican Republic account for half of the positive tests in the majors and minors every year, but the frequency is even greater at the major league level. Including Marte, 15 of the last 18 suspensions handed down to major leaguers since the start of 2020 have gone to Dominican players; the U.S-born Paul Campbell and Héctor Santiago (both 2021) and Venezuela-born José Rondón (2022) were the exceptions.

The high frequency likely owes to the fact that old-fashioned anabolic steroids such as boldenone and stanozolol are easily available without prescriptions in the DR, and are easily detected through MLB’s existing testing program. Seven of the aforementioned 18 suspensions were for boldenone, while five were for stanozolol; all but Rondón (boldenone) are Dominican. Designer steroids, which are harder to detect, are more expensive. One concern within the game right now regarding the dearth of recent suspensions is that the testing program hasn’t caught up to whatever’s in vogue.

As for the Reds, this likely isn’t the scenario that they envisioned when they amassed and then augmented this stable of talented young infielders, but because of their depth, they’re built to withstand the loss of any of them. Marte was one of four Reds infielders who debuted in the majors last year, along with Elly De La Cruz (the only one younger than Marte, and our no. 6 prospect entering the 2023 season), Christian Encarnacion-Strand, and Matt McLain. The glut also includes 2019 NL Rookie of the Year Jonathan India, late-’22 debutant Spencer Steer (no. 47 on the 2023 Top 100), and free agent addition Jeimer Candelario, who signed a three-year, $45 million deal during the Winter Meetings. All of them are capable of playing multiple positions, which set up quite a puzzle as spring began, as Michael Baumann explored last month. Candelario and De La Cruz are both switch-hitters, the rest of them righties.

While India, Steer, and Encarnacion-Strand all primarily played third base in the minors, on Saturday, Bell told reporters that Candelario would be the regular third baseman in Marte’s absence. Even so, the manager is keen to take advantage of the flexibility the group affords him, saying, “We’re gonna create as many options over there as we can for that… There’s just so many different ways that our lineup can come together that we’ll just create the options and kind of let that play out a little bit.”

Here’s how Baumann pieced together the situation as camp opened last month, based upon what Bell and president of baseball operations Nick Krall had said, including the expectation that McLain and De La Cruz would be the primary middle infield combo:

Reds Preliminary Depth Chart (February)
Position Starter Backups
1B Candelario Encarnacion-Strand Steer India
2B McLain India Steer
3B Marte Candelario India Steer
SS De La Cruz McLain
LF Steer India Encarnacion-Strand
DH India Candelario Encarnacion-Strand Steer

And here’s my best guess as to how it looks now in the wake of Bell’s statements:

Reds Preliminary Depth Chart (March)
Position Starter Backups
1B Encarnacion-Strand Candelario India Steer
2B McLain India Tony Kemp
3B Candelario India Steer De La Cruz Marte
SS De La Cruz McLain
LF Steer Jake Fraley India Encarnacion-Strand
DH India Jake Fraley Encarnacion-Strand Steer Candelario
Accounting for Noelvi Marte’s 80-game PED suspension.

Encarnacion-Strand, a 24-year-old righty, hit .270/.328/.477 (112 wRC+) with 13 homers in 241 plate appearances for the Reds last year after absolutely tearing up the International League (.331/.405/.637, 20 HR, 152 wRC+ in 316 PA). Thirty-two of his 36 non-DH starts at the major league level came at first base, and that figures to be his primary position to start the season. India, who hit .244/.338/.407(99 wRC+) with 17 homers and 14 steals last year, hasn’t played anywhere besides second in the majors, but he is now going to add first, third (his regular position at the University of Florida), and left field to his repertoire while also getting time at DH. Steer, who hit .271/.356/.464 (118 wRC+) with a team-high 23 homers and 15 steals in 2023, is probably the best hitter of the bunch but something of a defensive liability no matter where you put him; that said, his -14 RAA last year was well below his -5 DRS and -4 UZR, when he split time between five positions: first base (501 innings), second base (124), third base (350.1), left field (311), and right field (11). He DHed in only six games last year, and doing so more often this year probably depends upon how well India takes to the outfield.

On the subject of platooning, as Baumann pointed out, both Encarnacion-Strand and India had reverse platoon splits in the majors last year, with India’s persisting as far as his career goes (99 wRC+ against lefties, 110 against righties) but Encarnacion-Strand’s leveling out once you include the minors. The lack of lefty hitters in this group puts a couple of other players in the picture, as noted above. Likely to get substantial playing time against righties in both outfield corners and DH is the lefty-swinging Fraley, who hit .256/.339/.443 with 15 homers and 21 steals in just 380 PA last year. With former prospect Jose Barrero placed on waivers and claimed by the Rangers on Saturday, Kemp, who also bats left-handed, is the leading candidate to claim the roster spot vacated by Marte. A non-roster invitee, he hit just .209/.303/.304 (77 wRC+) with five homers and 15 steals for the lowly A’s last year; he can play second and left field, and while his bat is hardly his best asset, he owns a career 100 wRC+ against southpaws, compared to 93 against righties, which could be useful to Bell. Versatile righty Josh Harrison, who hit a limp .204/.263/.291 (51 wRC+) in 114 PA for the Phillies last year before being released and spending time with the Rangers’ Triple-A Round Rock affiliate, is another NRI competing for the open infield spot, but his handedness probably puts him at a disadvantage.

All told, the loss of Marte is a blow to the career of a bright prospect, particularly in a season where he was hoping to solidify his spot at the major league level. While it won’t help the Reds either, they were built to withstand such contingencies, and in Marte’s absence, they’ll get a chance to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of their other young players.


Red Sox Hope Brayan Bello Deal Is the Start of Something Bigger

Jamie Sabau-USA TODAY Sports

While it’s a major blow that Lucas Giolito is likely to be out for at least the entire 2024 season due to a double whammy of elbow injuries, the Red Sox are making efforts to stabilize their already-thin rotation for the longer term. On Thursday, righty Brayan Bello agreed to a six-year, $55 million extension with a $21 million club option for his seventh season. In a well-timed touch, the formal announcement of the deal is expected on Saturday before the Red Sox play the first of two exhibition games against the Rays in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where Bello will be surrounded by family and friends.

The guaranteed portion of Bello’s contract covers the 2024–29 seasons, the last of which would have been his first year of free agent eligibility. The total value of the deal is the second-largest ever for a pre-arbitration pitcher, just surpassing Hunter Greene’s six-year, $53 million extension, which he signed last April with comparable service time and which also includes a club option. Spencer Strider’s similarly structured deal, which came in at $75 million for six years plus a club option, is the record. (Hat tips to ESPN’s McDaniel and the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier for those comps).

The 24-year-old Bello, whom the Red Sox signed out of the Dominican Republic on July 2, 2017 for a bonus of just $28,000, solidified his spot in the majors last year after debuting in mid-2022. Last spring training he was pencilled in as the team’s sixth starter behind Corey Kluber, Nick Pivetta, Chris Sale, James Paxton, and Garrett Whitlock, and he began the season on the injured list recovering from a bout of elbow inflammation. But as injuries and/or ineffectiveness took hold of each member of the planned starting five, he moved up in the pecking order; after making his first start of the year on April 17, he remained in the rotation for the rest of the season, though he was briefly optioned following his second start before an injury to Whitlock brought him back for good. Bello’s 28 starts and 157 innings — the most by a homegrown Red Sox starter since Clay Buchholz in 2014 — both led the staff, while none of the aforementioned five made more than 23 starts or totaled more than 107.2 innings in the rotation.

In terms of run prevention, Bello was unremarkable, with final numbers straddling league average: a 4.24 ERA (93 ERA-) and 4.54 FIP (105 FIP-). However, those numbers are inflated by a pair of bad starts at each end of the season, in which he allowed 20 runs, 10 walks, and six homers across 16.1 innings. Even with his bad season-opening starts against the Angels and Brewers, he was much stronger in the first half than the second, when his home run rate more than doubled and his strikeout and walk rates inched in the wrong directions:

Brayan Bello’s 2023 Splits by Half
Split IP K% BB% K-BB% HR/9 BABIP ERA FIP
1st Half 80 20.8% 6.5% 14.3% 0.90 .279 3.04 3.74
2nd Half 77 18.7% 6.9% 11.7% 1.87 .333 5.49 5.36

Perhaps not surprisingly given that he set a career high in innings (163, including a rehab start at Triple-A Worcester, up from 154.2 between the majors and minors in 2022), Bello wore down late in the year. Via the Boston Globe’s Julian McWilliams:

Fatigue and heavy legs began to set in. His slider didn’t quite have the sharp break to deter hitters from his two dominant pitches. His four-seam fastball played more as a show-me pitch, but Bello had difficulty locating it above the zone where opponents couldn’t do damage.

While Bello’s sinker/changeup combo turned heads, he’s far from a finished product, as the numbers attest. His sinker, which averaged 95 mph, kept righties at bay (.245 AVG, .381 SLG, 19.3% whiff), but not lefties (.341 AVG, .537 SLG, 8.2% whiff), which helped to account for one of the largest platoon splits for any righty pitcher:

Largest Platoon Splits Among Righty Pitchers
Pitcher Tm TBF RH wOBA vs RH TBF LH wOBA vs LH Dif
Bryce Miller SEA 282 .239 255 .387 +.148
Chris Bassitt TOR 423 .253 403 .357 +.104
Shane Bieber CLE 269 .258 264 .356 +.098
Zack Greinke KCR 325 .288 268 .385 +.098
Tyler Glasnow TBR 219 .221 266 .311 +.090
Tanner Houck BOS 223 .277 240 .366 +.089
Clarke Schmidt NYY 350 .292 344 .376 +.083
Brayan Bello BOS 346 .294 322 .377 +.083
Jameson Taillon CHC 329 .281 326 .363 +.082
Lance Lynn 2 Tms 407 .311 401 .384 +.073
Cristian Javier HOU 315 .277 372 .350 +.072
Zack Wheeler PHI 374 .240 413 .311 +.071
Grayson Rodriguez BAL 294 .291 221 .359 +.068
Jake Irvin WSN 244 .298 286 .366 +.068
Pablo López MIN 394 .260 407 .327 +.067
Colin Rea MIL 270 .282 247 .346 +.064
Luis Severino NYY 215 .360 202 .422 +.063
José Berríos TOR 376 .270 406 .332 +.062
Nick Pivetta BOS 346 .271 241 .333 +.062
Dean Kremer BAL 398 .290 337 .349 +.059
Min. 200 right-handed and 200 left-handed batters faced.

As you can see, this was a particular problem for Red Sox starters, with Houck — who ranked third on the team with 21 starts, helping to fill the void left by so many injuries — having an even larger split than Bello, and Pivetta cracking the top 20, too.

Meanwhile, Bello’s signature changeup befuddled hitters, who managed just a .196 average and .291 slugging percentage against the pitch while whiffing on 38.7% of their swings. Less effective were his slider and four-seamer, with batters posting a .304 AVG and .457 SLG against the former and a .310 AVG and .646 SLG against the latter, which averaged 95.5 mph but just 2,083 rpm, placing him in the fifth percentile for spin rate.

Bello and the Red Sox are quite aware that his arsenal needs refinement, with chief baseball officer Craig Breslow telling reporters on Wednesday, “We still think that his best years are ahead of him. We recognize some opportunities to further optimize the repertoire and we’re super excited about having him.” The pitcher spent the offseason working on elevating his four-seamer above the zone to change the eye level of hitters and get more chases outside the strike zone. He also threw a few sessions under the watchful eye of Hall of Famer and Red Sox special assistant Pedro Martinez, who offered Bello pointers on sharpening his slider with a different grip. To improve his stamina, he worked to strengthen his legs, not that we haven’t heard that one before.

Via Dan Szymborski, here’s a look at Bello’s ZiPS projection percentiles for 2024:

2024 ZiPS Projection Percentiles – Brayan Bello
Percentile ERA+ ERA WAR
95% 134 3.32 4.0
90% 126 3.53 3.6
80% 116 3.81 3.1
70% 111 3.98 2.8
60% 107 4.15 2.5
50% 104 4.28 2.2
40% 99 4.48 1.9
30% 95 4.66 1.6
20% 89 5.00 1.1
10% 83 5.34 0.6
5% 76 5.84 -0.1

As for the extension, it’s literally pretty much right on the money according to Dan’s model:

ZiPS Projection – Brayan Bello
Year W L ERA G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA+ WAR
2024 11 11 4.28 28 27 147.3 154 70 16 54 134 104 2.2
2025 11 10 4.26 27 26 143.7 148 68 16 50 130 104 2.2
2026 11 9 4.25 26 25 144.0 147 68 16 48 130 104 2.3
2027 11 9 4.23 26 24 140.3 142 66 15 47 126 105 2.2
2028 10 10 4.35 26 24 140.7 144 68 16 46 125 102 2.1
2029 10 10 4.39 24 23 135.3 140 66 16 45 117 101 1.9
2030 9 9 4.45 23 22 127.3 132 63 15 43 109 100 1.8

The ZiPS contract recommendation for the first six years of that deal is $50 million, so while the Red Sox see him as a potential no. 1 starter, Bello doesn’t have to be much better than average to match that valuation. He could wind up delivering a whole lot more value if he approaches his ceiling, but as a hard-throwing young hurler who’s years away from what he hopes will be his biggest payday, he’s got protection if things go south.

For the Red Sox, this is a positive move following a dreary and disappointing winter. Despite chairman Tom Werner’s assertion that the team would go “full throttle” in its efforts to improve after dismissing chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, Boston has signed just two free agents to major league deals, Giolito (two years, $38.5 million) and Liam Hendriks (two years, $10 million). The former may be headed for Tommy John surgery, while the latter is expected to miss most or all of the season recovering from his own August 2023 Tommy John procedure. The team did make some trades, most notably dealing away Alex Verdugo, acquiring Tyler O’Neill, and swapping Sale for Vaughn Grissom, but that’s hardly a radical makeover for a team that has missed the playoffs in four of the past five seasons and projects to finish last in the AL East for the third straight year.

What particularly stands out about this Bello move is that the Red Sox have just one other pre-arb or arb-eligible player signed to an extension (Whitlock), which is a rather scathing indictment of their player development pipeline — though they did lock up Rafael Devers last year as he entered his final year of arb eligibility. This is at least a step in the right direction, and hardly an exorbitant amount of money. It won’t hamper them the way that, say, getting 11 starts from Sale from 2020–22 at a cost of about $71 million did. Which isn’t to say that Bello’s going to be as good as Sale, but let’s also remember that the White Sox (and later the Red Sox) got the best years of the wiry lefty’s career under a five-year, $32.5 million extension (2013–17) that had two club options tacked on.

Indeed, the Red Sox’s failure to develop quality homegrown pitching has been a particularly sore spot that has doomed multiple regimes. Again, it had been nine years since a pitcher they produced — as a draft pick or as an international free agent — threw as many innings in a season as Bello did in 2023. If Red Sox are to compete in the AL East while trying to live with midsized payrolls, they need to grow pitchers from within and hope some of them flourish to the point of being worth building around. They believe Bello can be one of them, and well, it’s a start.


FanGraphs Spotlight: Plus Stats

Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports

Writing a book is a Herculean task to begin with, and in my inimitable way, I made it even harder when writing my 2017 book on the Hall of Fame, The Cooperstown Casebook, by challenging myself to compose concise 200–250 word summaries of the 220 major league players who were enshrined at that point as well as a few dozen past, present, and future candidates. My goal in doing so was to give the reader a thumbnail guide to these players’ careers while shining some fresh light on even the most familiar ones using advanced statistics. I had no shortage of options, but even so, I wish I had all the tools then that I do now. Here I’d like to highlight one of them as part of our series on useful site features you’ll find at FanGraphs.

Consider the case of Dazzy Vance, a colorful and dominant right-hander who made his name with the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1920s and ’30s. Vance was 24 years old when he debuted with the Pirates in 1915, but a variety of arm troubles limited him to just 33 major innings through his age-30 season. Finally pain free after elbow surgery (probably to remove bone chips), he resurfaced with Brooklyn in 1922, and on the strength of his combination of a blazing fastball and a sharp overhand curve “with a sweep that would shame a windmill,” as one writer described it, he led the NL with 134 strikeouts that season, and proceeded to repeat the feat in each of the next six seasons as well. His 262 strikeouts in 1924 was the highest total by any NL pitcher besides Christy Mathewson in the 1901–1960 span, and the highest by any pitcher in either league between the start of the Live Ball era (1920) and the United States’ entry into World War II (1941).

While I had enough confidence in my research to lead Vance’s Casebook capsule with, “Relative to his league, Vance struck out batters at a higher rate than [Nolan] Ryan, [Roger] Clemens, [Pedro] Martinez — any of them…” I worried that by explicitly quantifying his skill in this area that I’d either open myself to error or make even more work for myself, since the temptation was to go into further detail on the subject and perhaps calculate such data for every enshrined pitcher. Little did I know that within a year of the book’s publication that I would not only join the staff of FanGraphs but propose the creation of a leaderboard to tackle such questions with a few easy clicks. Read the rest of this entry »


Accounting for Free Agency’s Biggest Gainers and Losers

Jim Rassol-USA TODAY Sports

When free agent Matt Chapman signed with the Giants this past weekend, most of my analysis focused upon the ups and downs of his 2023 season and the nature of his contract, which looks comparatively team friendly. One thing I underplayed in the analysis was the extent to which San Francisco’s winter stands out relative to the competition. Even before the addition of Chapman, the Giants had spent more money on free agents than any other team besides the Dodgers, and likewise project to receive more WAR from those additions than any team besides their longtime rivals.

Based on the data in our Free Agent Tracker, the Giants have now committed $261.25 million in guaranteed salaries: $113 million to center fielder Jung Hoo Lee, $44 million to righty Jordan Hicks, $42 million to DH/outfielder Jorge Soler, and $8.25 million to catcher Tom Murphy; this accounting does not include the major league salaries that shortstop Nick Ahmed or lefty reliever Amir Garrett will get if they make the big league roster; last month, they each signed minor league deals as non-roster invitees. San Francisco’s additions may not be as eye-catching as signing either Carlos Correa or Aaron Judge would have been last offseason, and the team still projects for a middle-of-the-pack 82 wins after going 79-83 last year, but the Giants may not be done spending some of the money that was burning a hole in their pockets. They remain interested in Blake Snell, especially in the wake of injuries within their rotation.

Of course, the Dodgers blow the field away when it comes to spending, even if we stick to the adjusted salaries once deferred money is factored in, with a total of $853.2 million: $437.83 million to Shohei Ohtani (down from a sticker price of $700 million), $325 million to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, $20.434 million to outfielder Teoscar Hernández (down from $25 million), $10 million to Clayton Kershaw (with incentives that can increase the value significantly for both 2024 and ’25), $9 million apiece to Ryan Brasier and Jason Heyward, $8 million to Joe Kelly, $7 million to James Paxton, and $4 million to Enrique Hernández.

Here’s a look at the 30 teams’ free agent spending. Note that, as above, these figures factor in the applicable deferrals but not incentives, escalator clauses, or split-contract salaries from minor league deals:

Free Agent Spending, 2023-24 Offseason
Team Free Agents Major Minor $ (Millions)*
Dodgers 12 9 3 $853.2
Giants 7 5 2 $261.3
Phillies 6 4 2 $183.0
Cubs 8 3 5 $142.0
Diamondbacks 7 4 3 $136.5
Reds 10 8 2 $112.7
Royals 10 8 2 $110.5
Cardinals 6 6 0 $107.6
Astros 2 2 0 $107.0
Brewers 9 8 1 $77.3
Braves 6 4 2 $71.4
Blue Jays 6 4 2 $70.5
Mets 16 10 6 $69.2
Angels 15 8 7 $52.3
Padres 4 4 0 $50.0
Red Sox 6 2 4 $48.5
Tigers 6 5 1 $47.5
Rangers 12 5 7 $40.6
Yankees 4 3 1 $40.5
White Sox 16 6 10 $30.1
Pirates 7 5 2 $29.2
Mariners 3 1 2 $24.0
Rockies 5 3 2 $16.5
Orioles 4 1 3 $13.0
A’s 3 3 0 $12.3
Nationals 8 3 5 $9.3
Rays 5 3 2 $9.1
Twins 4 3 1 $7.7
Marlins 5 1 4 $5.0
Guardians 3 1 2 $4.0
SOURCE: RosterResource
* = Total salares adjusted for deferred money, but not including incentives or split-contract salaries for players on minor league contracts.

As you can see, five teams committed less than $10 million each this winter, and of the bottom seven teams, four (the Orioles, Rays, Twins, and Marlins) made the playoffs last year. Free agency isn’t the only route to improve a team, but particularly with regards to the Orioles, one can empathize with fans who are disappointed that last year’s success hasn’t translated into a shopping spree to improve their odds of getting back to the postseason.

The 30 teams have committed a total of $2.74 billion to free agents so far, and even though that figure will increase once Snell and Jordan Montgomery sign, overall spending will still be lower this offseason than in recent ones. Based on the data at RosterResource, teams spent $4 billion last offseason ($2.22 billion on the top 12 free agents alone) and $3.22 billion in the lockout-interrupted offseason of 2021–22. For this winter, spending works out to an average of $91.38 million per team, but that figure is skewed by the top teams to such an extent that the median is just $49.25 million; only nine teams exceeded the mean.

Beyond the dollars, I thought it would be worth revisiting some free agent accounting we’ve done in the past, regarding WAR added and lost in free agency. This isn’t quite as straightforward as it sounds, as we’ll soon see.

Net 2023 WAR Added and Lost
in Free Agency
Team Out FA Out WAR In FA In WAR Net WAR
Reds 12 -1.0 10 8.7 9.7
Cardinals 5 -0.5 6 8.6 9.1
Royals 8 -0.1 10 8.0 8.1
Dodgers 16 9.0 12 (1) 17.1 8.1
Diamondbacks 9 2.6 7 7.7 5.1
Giants 11 3.5 7 (1) 6.9 3.4
Yankees 11 0.4 4 3.6 3.2
Astros 4 0.2 2 2.8 2.6
Nationals 6 -0.6 8 1.8 2.3
A’s 5 -0.4 3 1.9 2.3
Guardians 8 -1.6 3 -0.2 1.3
Tigers 7 3.5 6 4.7 1.3
Brewers 14 2.6 9 3.4 0.8
Pirates 3 1.9 7 2.7 0.8
Mariners 6 2.4 3 2.7 0.4
Phillies 6 4.4 6 4.4 0.0
Rays 6 1.5 5 (1) 1.0 -0.5
Mets 12 0.7 16 -0.1 -0.8
Marlins 11 -0.7 5 -1.7 -1.0
Cubs 10 6.7 8 (1) 5.5 -1.2
Braves 11 3.3 6 2.0 -1.3
Rockies 6 2.6 5 0.5 -2.1
Red Sox 7 4.0 6 0.8 -3.2
Orioles 7 4.2 4 0.8 -3.4
Angels 12 5.9 15 2.1 -3.8
White Sox 11 2.6 16 (1) -2.3 -5.0
Rangers 14 6.2 12 1.2 -5.0
Blue Jays 8 9.2 6 (1) 2.8 -6.5
Twins 11 12.6 4 1.9 -10.7
Padres 20 10.8 4 (2) -2.5 -13.2
Outgoing and incoming counts include players on minor league contracts. WAR figures cover only players who were in MLB in 2023; numbers in parentheses represent players signed from NPB and KBO

This is the most basic accounting, lumping together players signed to major league deals and those who had to settle for minor league ones; the latter inflates the counts of some of these teams well into double digits. It’s worth noting that where players spent time with multiple teams in 2023, I’ve only counted their WAR with their last team on the outgoing side, but their full-season WAR on the incoming side. Consider the case of Jeimer Candelario, who produced 3.1 WAR for the Nationals and then 0.2 WAR for the Cubs. To these eyes, crediting the Reds as adding a 3.3-WAR player properly conveys the impact of a substantial addition. The question is whether to count the Cubs as losing 3.3 WAR (via a player they acquired without intending to retain) or 0.2 WAR (reflecting the transient nature of a late-season addition). I went with the latter option.

The total number of outgoing free agents shown above (277) doesn’t include 11 additional players from the KBO and NPB, eight of whom have signed (all but Trevor Bauer, Adam Plutko, and Yasiel Puig), meaning that from among that total, 73 — about 25% — are unsigned. Most of the unsigned are fairly low impact players, in that just 13 produced at least 1.0 WAR last year, with Montgomery (4.3), Snell (4.1), Brandon Belt (2.3), Mike Clevinger (2.2) and J.D. Martinez (2.2) the only ones above 2.0. Meanwhile, 35 of them produced zero or negative WAR, though to be fair, that was often in limited opportunity.

While the eight foreign players who have signed are counted in the total number of signed free agents above, they didn’t produce any WAR within MLB. Thus, the fact that three teams outrank the Dodgers in terms of net free agent WAR comes with the caveat that the Los Angeles total doesn’t include Yamamoto.

I’ll come back to that issue, but first let’s note the teams at the extremes. Ahead of the Dodgers are three teams who had a bunch of players hit the open market, but who were at best minimally productive in 2023, and who all went out and made at least a few solid moves. Of the dozen Reds to test free agency, including the still-unsigned Joey Votto, only Harrison Bader produced even 1.0 WAR in 2023, and he nonetheless was 0.2 wins below replacement after being acquired from the Yankees. On the other side, in addition to Candelario, the team shored up its pitching by adding starters Nick Martinez and Frankie Montas, relievers Brent Suter and Emilio Pagán, and more — not big moves, but enough to put them at the top. The Cardinals shed five players, most notably Dakota Hudson, and overhauled their rotation by adding Sonny Gray, whose 5.3 WAR as a Twin tied Kevin Gausman for the AL lead, as well as Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn; they also added Keynan Middleton to the bullpen and staffed their bench with Brandon Crawford and Matt Carpenter. Of the eight Royals who became free agents, only Zack Greinke produced 1.0 WAR, but they beefed up their pitching, with starters Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha; their lineup, with Hunter Renfroe; and their bench, with Adam Frazier and Garrett Hampson to their bench. These moves won’t win them the division, but they’re at least proof of life.

The Dodgers’ figures on both sides of the ledger are inflated by their keeping Brasier, Enrique Hernández, Heyward, Kelly, and Kershaw, but they did shed the still-unsigned J.D. Martinez and Julio Urías, replacing them with the market’s two most expensive players. The Diamondbacks re-signed Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and didn’t lose anybody who produced at least 1.0 WAR for the team, while the only departing Giant to meet that threshold was Sean Manaea.

At the other end of the spectrum, it’s striking that the bottom five teams include three AL postseason participants plus one NL team that barely missed it. Whether they won it all or fell short, their offseasons have resulted in some downsizing of payrolls and perhaps expectations.

In the wake of last year’s $255 million flop, the uncertainty regarding their local broadcast deal, and the death of chairman Peter Seidler, the Padres gutted their pitching staff, with Snell, Lugo, Martinez, Wacha, and closer Josh Hader among those departing, along with catcher Gary Sánchez, whom they plucked off the scrapheap and who had his best season since 2019. Most of the money they’ve spent this offseason was on their bullpen, with Wandy Peralta, Japanese lefty Yuki Matsui and Korean righty Woo-Suk Go joining the fold. The Twins shed Gray, Kenta Maeda, and Tyler Mahle from their rotation, and both Donovan Solano and Michael A. Taylor remain unsigned but unlikely to return; meanwhile their most impactful addition is first baseman Carlos Santana. The Blue Jays let Chapman depart, along with Belt, Hicks and Whit Merrifield; they cobbled together a lower-cost third base solution, which includes the incoming Justin Turner and Isiah Kiner-Falefa, retained center fielderKevin Kiermaier, and took a flier on Cuban righty Yariel Rodriguez, who spent three seasons in NPB. The Rangers may still re-sign Montgomery, but for now he counts only on the outbound side, and they also shed relievers Aroldis Chapman, Chris Stratton, and Will Smith, plus catcher/DH Mitch Garver. Their rotation is full of question marks as they bank on Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, and Mahle having strong returns from surgery. Veteran righty David Robertson should bolster the bullpen, and Garver’s departure is mitigated by the eventual arrival of top prospect Wyatt Langford.

Since the impact of the foreign free agents isn’t reflected in the table above, I took one more look at the landscape using projected WAR on the incoming side. Instead of taking it straight from our Free Agent Tracker — that uses Steamer, which is available in time for the opening bell of the offseason, but not ZiPS, which takes longer to prepare — I took the more labor-intensive route by swapping in our Depth Charts projections, which takes an average the two systems:

Net WAR Added and Lost
in Free Agency (Projection Version)
Team Out FA OutWAR In FA In WAR Proj Net WAR Proj
Royals 8 -0.1 10 9.6 9.7
Cardinals 5 -0.5 6 8.0 8.5
Reds 12 -1.0 10 6.6 7.6
Giants 11 3.5 7 (1) 10.1 6.6
Dodgers 16 9.0 12 (1) 15.2 6.2
Mets 12 0.7 16 6.4 5.7
Brewers 14 2.6 9 7.4 4.8
Diamondbacks 9 2.6 7 6.3 3.6
Guardians 8 -1.6 3 1.4 2.9
Pirates 3 1.9 7 4.4 2.5
A’s 5 -0.4 3 1.9 2.3
Nationals 6 -0.6 8 1.8 2.3
Astros 4 0.2 2 2.4 2.2
Marlins 11 -0.7 5 1.4 2.1
Yankees 11 0.4 4 2.2 1.9
Phillies 6 4.4 6 5.7 1.3
Tigers 7 3.5 6 4.6 1.1
Rays 6 1.5 5 (1) 1.2 -0.3
Cubs 10 6.7 8 (1) 6.2 -0.6
White Sox 11 2.6 16 (1) 2.0 -0.6
Mariners 6 2.4 3 1.7 -0.7
Braves 11 3.3 6 2.4 -0.8
Rockies 6 2.6 5 1.4 -1.2
Red Sox 7 4.0 6 1.2 -2.8
Angels 12 5.9 15 2.2 -3.6
Orioles 7 4.2 4 0.5 -3.7
Blue Jays 8 9.2 6 (1) 4.4 -4.8
Rangers 14 6.2 12 1.2 -5.0
Padres 20 10.8 4 (2) 1.8 -9.0
Twins 11 12.6 4 1.0 -11.6
Outgoing and incoming counts include players on minor league contracts. WAR figures cover only players who were in MLB in 2023; numbers in parentheses represent players signed from NPB and KBO

Despite accounting for Yamamoto, the Dodgers actually fall in the rankings due to known injuries (Ohtani won’t pitch in 2024, while Kershaw could be out until August) and regression (Brasier and Heyward, particularly), while the Giants surpass them with the addition of Lee. Also notable on the upper end are the Mets, mainly due to anticipated rebounds from Manaea, Bader, and Luis Severino. On the other side, the Orioles stand out more than in the previous table, mainly because the only free agent they signed to a major league deal, Craig Kimbrel, is projected to regress. Given that both Kyle Bradish and John Means have been sidelined with elbow injuries to start the season, it seems possible the O’s could add a low-cost starter who might boost their standing here a bit.

Thanks to our tools at FanGraphs, free agency is easy to track, even if I’ve made it more labor-intensive for this exercise. It’s hardly the only route by which teams improve, however. For example, the Orioles traded for Corbin Burnes, who may outproduce any of the starters who were signed. But in the big picture, the patterns I’ve illustrated offer us plenty of hints about what to expect from the upcoming season.


Giants Deal Puts Matt Chapman in a Corner

Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

Less than a week after Cody Bellinger signed a three-year deal that allows him to opt out after each of the first two seasons, Matt Chapman has done the same. The 30-year-old third baseman, who spent the past two seasons with the Blue Jays, has agreed to a three-year, $54 million deal with the Giants, with a mutual option for a fourth year — a deal that looks significantly less favorable than that of Bellinger.

Chapman placed seventh on our Top 50 Free Agents list in November, and like Bellinger (who was third on the list) sought and seemed likely to land a larger contract, particularly given the track record of their mutual agent, Scott Boras. That said, Chapman hit free agency after an uneven season, with his overall numbers (.240/.330/.424 for a 110 wRC+ with 3.5 WAR) representing a slight falloff from his 2022 performance (.229/.330/.433, 118 wRC+, 4.2 WAR). A closer look shows that last year Chapman had just two productive months and four bad ones, as well as difficulties hitting with runners in scoring position.

I’ll explore those details below, but the overarching impression I get from this deal — far more so than from Bellinger’s contract, in fact — is that Chapman and Boras overestimated how robust the market for his services would be and had to settle for much less. According to TSN Sports’ Scott Mitchell, the third baseman declined a six-year, $120 million extension offer from the Blue Jays at some point within the past year. His new contract falls short of that average annual value, even though it is half the length.

As initially reported, Chapman is guaranteed $20 million for 2024, $18 million for ’25, and $16 million for ’26, but the breakdown is more complicated. He’ll receive a $2 million signing bonus and a $16 million salary for 2024, with a $17 million player option and $2 million buyout for ’25, an $18 million player option and $3 million buyout for ’26, and then a $20 million mutual option and $1 million buyout for ’27. So if this winds up being a one-year deal, he’ll make $20 million ($2 million signing bonus, plus $16 million salary, plus $2 million buyout); for the two-year deal, it’s $38 million (the initial bonus, salaries of $16 million and $17 million, and a $3 million buyout); and for the three-year deal, it’s $54 million (bonus, salaries of $16 million, $17 million, and $18 million, $1 million buyout). If the mutual option is picked up — which is certainly no guarantee, considering he’ll be entering his age-34 season — the total value of the four-year deal will be $73 million (that $54 million, minus the $1 million buyout, plus $20 million). Got all that?

Chapman’s $18 million AAV is 25% below Ben Clemens’ estimate from our Top 50 list. Ben figured that Chapman would get $24 million per year (five years, $120 million), while our median crowdsource estimate came in at a $20 million AAV (four years, $80 million). By comparison, Bellinger’s $26.7 million AAV actually topped the estimates of $25 million per year by Clemens and $24 million per year by our crowd. What’s more, where Bellinger’s deal appeared to be a slight overpay relative to Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS-projected contract of three years and $70 million, Chapman’s deal falls short of the three-year, $79 million contract projected by the ZiPS model:

ZiPS Projection – Matt Chapman
Year BA OBP SLG AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB OPS+ DR WAR
2024 .241 .333 .438 502 73 121 27 3 22 65 65 160 3 112 8 3.8
2025 .236 .329 .424 474 68 112 25 2 20 59 61 152 2 107 6 3.2
2026 .232 .324 .409 440 60 102 23 2 17 52 56 143 2 102 5 2.6

For both deals, Dan also provided contract valuations with the opt-outs priced in: three years and $58 million for Bellinger, and three years and $66 million for Chapman. The former exceeded the model’s estimate by about 38%, but the latter fell short by about 18%. That’s quite a haircut, particularly when one considers the questions of sustainability of Bellinger’s performance given his dreadful 2021–22 stretch and last year’s batted ball stats, which reflected a more contact-based two-strike approach. By comparison, for Chapman — who is more than two years older, which is already reflected in ZiPS — the concerns are more garden variety ones about season-to-season variance and aging.

Traditional numbers amplified the perception that Chapman’s decline from 2022 to ’23 was steeper than the advanced stats suggest; his 17 home runs and 54 RBIs last season were a considerable dip from his 27 home runs and 76 RBIs the year before. His career-low full-season RBIs total was in large part the product of a .215/.320/.299 (77 wRC+) performance with runners in scoring position. It was an anomalous showing — he produced a 122 wC+ in 170 PA with runners in scoring position in 2022, and owned a 128 wRC+ in that capacity for the first six years of his career — but it was poorly timed.

Situational hitting aside, Chapman’s monthly splits further shed light on why his season may have been viewed as worse than it actually was:

Matt Chapman 2023 Splits
Split PA HR AVG OBP SLG wRC+
Mar/Apr 114 5 .384 .465 .687 216
May 121 2 .202 .273 .312 63
June 101 3 .200 .277 .356 75
July 102 4 .247 .402 .506 154
August 82 1 .197 .256 .276 49
Sept/Oct 61 2 .167 .262 .370 75
Through August 12 485 15 .255 .346 .449 121
After August 12 96 2 .163 .250 .302 54

Chapman’s strong start was impossible to sustain — he had a 32.9% barrel rate over the first month of the season — but his production didn’t regress so much as it cratered. He posted a .205/.298/.361 (84 wRC+) line after April. The split on the bottom two lines illustrates Chapman’s numbers before and after spraining his right middle finger in a weight room mishap; he initially missed three games after suffering the injury, then went just 5-for-32 with a 40% strikeout rate in nine games before landing on the injured list. He missed 15 games and continued to be unproductive in the 15 games he played between his return and the end of the regular season, though he barreled the ball at a 16.2% clip, with a 51.4% hard-hit rate in that final stretch.

Chapman’s strikeout rate crept up one point from 2022, to 28.4%, but when he made contact, he absolutely pasted the ball. He produced average exit velocities of 92.5 mph or higher and hard-hit rates of at least 51.4% or higher in every month except August (90.0 mph and 42.6%, respectively), while his barrel rates were 10.5% or higher in every month except May (9.2%). His full-season 93.4 mph average exit velocity and 17.1% barrel rate both placed in the 98th percentile, while his 56.4% hard-hit rate trailed only that of Aaron Judge among all hitters. He was unlucky in the power department, in that he fell 3.7 home runs short of his expected total based upon the batted ball specs of his biggest flies, a gap that ranked eighth in the majors. He fell 33 points short of his .457 expected slugging percentage.

Chapman did play very good defense, with 12 DRS, 4.5 UZR, and 3 RAA. Those numbers all represented improvements on his 2022 metrics, even in about 130 fewer innings. That performance didn’t escape recognition, as he took home his fourth Gold Glove.

In all, it was a good-not-great season, one with an arc that didn’t particularly help Chapman’s cause. It was reported back in May that he and the team were both interested in an extension, though it’s not clear when the Blue Jays offered him the $120 million deal. Chapman turned down Toronto’s $20.325 million qualifying offer as well, but in mid-November, the team was still reportedly “making a big push” to keep him.

Yet the Blue Jays, who at one point thought they had landed Shohei Ohtani, and who were viewed as being the favorites to sign Bellinger, instead chose to make a series of smaller moves: They re-signed Kevin Kiermaier to a one-year deal in late December, signed Isiah Kiner-Falefa to a two-year deal soon afterward, and added Justin Turner on a one-year deal in late January. With Kiner-Falefa, Turner, Santiago Espinal, and Cavan Biggio all in the fold, the Blue Jays figured they had third base covered, even if that quartet doesn’t make up for the production that Chapman would have provided. Our Depth Charts projects the Blue Jays to finish with 2.1 WAR at third base; Chapman is projected for 3.3 WAR by Depth Charts. In addition to the roster crunch, Chapman’s salary, even at a discount, was more than what the team was comfortable paying after pivoting to those other players. The Blue Jays’ luxury tax payroll is estimated to be just under $12 million above the first Competitive Balance Tax threshold ($237 million), and they will be paying the tax for a second straight season.

With half a dozen teams — the Angels, Braves, Cardinals, Guardians, Padres, Red Sox — already committing at least $20 million to their third basemen on deals that extend through at least 2026, plus the Dodgers and Yankees prioritizing spending elsewhere and the Mets looking to cut expenses, Chapman only had a limited number of options for landing spots. The Mariners, Cubs, and Giants were the only teams other than the Blue Jays that were publicly connected to him.

This is the latest move for the Giants in a winter that also included a six-year, $113 million deal for center fielder Jung Hoo Lee , four years and $44 million for righty Jordan Hicks, three years and $42 million for DH/outfielder Jorge Soler, and two years and $8.25 million for catcher Tom Murphy. The signing of Chapman bumps J.D. Davis — his college teammate at Cal State Fullerton, incidentally — out of the lineup and provides San Francisco a solid upgrade, particularly in the field, where he’ll be playing behind a staff with three projected starters (Logan Webb, Alex Cobb, and Hicks) who last year had groundball rates above 57%.

Davis hit .248/.325/.413 (104 wRC+) while playing 116 games at third base (105 of them starts), 15 at first base, and 14 at DH. Long saddled with a reputation as a below-average defender, he put in considerable work to improve, and in a career-high 915.2 innings at the hot corner produced a mixed bag of metrics (-11 DRS , 0.8 UZR, 4 RAA). With lefty-hitting LaMonte Wade and righty Wilmer Flores the most likely combination at first base and Soler taking the bulk of the playing time at DH, Davis doesn’t have a clear path to playing time and could be a trade candidate. President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi acknowledged the team’s surplus of infielders, telling reporters, “We’ll explore different things. It’s certainly possible that a move or two happens before the end of camp.’’

Perhaps more notably, Zaidi refused to rule out another free agent addition and indicated that the team could go over the $237 million CBT threshold. (RosterResource places their payroll at $230.5 million for tax purposes.) With the team already waiting for Cobb and Robbie Ray to return from surgeries at some point during the season, and having just lost Tristan Beck to aneurysm surgery, sources told the San Francisco Chronicle that the Giants remain in the mix for Blake Snell, another Boras client.

As for Chapman, here’s his ZiPS percentile breakdown:

ZiPS Projection Percentiles – Matt Chapman
Percentile 2B HR BA OBP SLG OPS+ WAR
95% 39 34 .295 .379 .553 151 6.4
90% 36 31 .280 .367 .532 143 6.0
80% 33 28 .269 .356 .493 132 5.2
70% 31 26 .258 .345 .474 123 4.6
60% 29 24 .249 .339 .455 117 4.2
50% 27 22 .241 .333 .438 112 3.8
40% 26 21 .235 .325 .422 105 3.3
30% 24 19 .226 .318 .405 99 2.9
20% 22 18 .216 .307 .387 93 2.5
10% 19 15 .203 .289 .361 81 1.6
5% 17 13 .188 .279 .335 72 1.0

It’s not hard to envision Chapman putting in a strong enough season to opt out, but it is worth remembering that Oracle Park particularly tends to suppress right-handed power, which is Chapman’s calling card on offense. All of which is to say that next winter, he could suffer from a similar perception problem if his counting stats don’t rebound, and so to these eyes, he’s carrying a greater share of the risk than he otherwise might have. However much this gets spun as a win-win deal like that of Bellinger, this looks like a case where Boras and his client came up short.


The Weakest Spots Among Better-Positioned Contenders

Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports

Earlier this week, I took a projection-driven two-part look at the trouble spots on National League and American League contenders. The exercise — a sibling of my annual pre-trade deadline Replacement Level Killers series — primarily highlighted clubs in the middle of the table, based on our Playoff Odds, with many of the best teams, such as the Braves and Dodgers, going completely unmentioned.

In that regard, the exercise worked as I had intended, focusing on the teams and spots where a marginal addition from outside the organization or even a modest breakout from within it could have a sizable impact on their chances of making the postseason. To be considered contenders, teams needed Playoff Odds of at least 25%, and roughly speaking, all but one of those mentioned fell in the range of 80-85 wins. Under the 12-team playoff format, that certainly counts as contention once you consider that two of last year’s NL Wild Card teams, the Diamondbacks and Marlins, qualified with just 84 wins, nosing out the 83-win Cubs and the 82-win Padres and Reds. At each position, I highlighted the two lowest-ranked teams from within that subset, so long as they projected to produce less than 2.0 WAR, after an adjustment: I applied a 20% reduction to counter the general tendency to overestimate playing time at this point in the season. In other words instead of having a total of 1,000 WAR projected across the 30 teams, and 57% of that (570 WAR) allocated to position players, our Depth Chart values currently add up to about 682 WAR, an inflation of about 20%.

Because the mid-table teams almost invariably had some glaring weakness, seven teams escaped scrutiny. The Braves (98.5% odds), Dodgers (94.6%), and Cardinals (53.5%) — three of the NL’s top four teams by those odds, each favored to win their respective divisions — were absent from the Senior Circuit roundup, while the Yankees (75.6%), Rays (62.5%), Orioles (50.6%) and Rangers (36.3%) missed out on the fun in the Junior Circuit piece. Only one of the top four NL teams showed up with trouble spots (the Phillies at 58.5%), but the AL distribution was more haphazard, in that the Astros (86.8%), Twins (64.9%), Mariners (58.6%), and Blue Jays (47.4%) each had at least one representative within my roundup.

In response to the feedback I received, I thought it would be worthwhile to do one more roundup in this format, this time limiting it to those otherwise unexamined teams and going only one layer deep at each position. I couldn’t quite call this “The Weakest Spots Among the Powerhouses” or “… Among the Top Contenders,” hence the title. Note that not every position had a team fall below the threshold, though I do mention the lowest-ranked ones in passing for those spots. It’s worth keeping in mind the tendency for even the game’s top prospects to have fairly tepid projections based upon limited minor league data and a higher risk of being farmed out if they start slowly; those players don’t always hit the ground running. For team totals, I’ve cited the adjusted WARs, but where I reference individual player projections I’ve stuck to the published figures.

Catcher

Rays (21st, 1.9 adjusted WAR)

My AL roundup contained only the Red Sox catchers, and while I’m not sure what happened since I composed the list to move the Rays from right at the 2.0 minimum to below it, here we are. Since landing on last summer’s Replacement Level Killers list, they’ve basically turned over their tandem, with René Pinto and Alex Jackson replacing Christian Bethancourt and Francisco Mejía. The 27-year-old Pinto did the bulk of the catching in the second half, hitting .252/.267/.456 (98 wRC+) in 105 PA, with an eye-watering 34-to-2 strikeout-to-walk ratio. It’s true that he hits the ball hard, but the Rays seem to like him more for his defense than his offense — or, more specifically, his framing, which was 1.7 runs above average by our framing metric and two above by that of Statcast. Meanwhile, the latter system rated him at seven runs below average in blocking and one below in caught stealing.

The 28-year-old Jackson didn’t play in the majors last year, and he owns a .141/.243/.227 line and 48.1% strikeout rate in 185 PA in the majors, mostly from 2021. Nonetheless, he tore up Triple-A (.284/.347/.556 with 16 homers in 248 PA) with the Brewers and Rays’ affiliates before being sidelined by a shoulder injury. Defensively, he’s been a bit below average in framing but is otherwise average-ish. The 28-year-old Mejía, back in the organization on a minor league deal after a brief odyssey with the Angels, probably has his work cut out to regain a share of his old job. He hit just .227/.258/.400 (80 wRC+) last year and hasn’t come close to fulfilling the promise he showed at the plate in the minors.

First Base

Yankees (17th, 1.4 WAR)

Anthony Rizzo got off to a hot start in 2023, hitting for a 146 wRC+ through May 28, when he collided with Fernando Tatis Jr. and missed his next three games due to what the Yankees called a neck injury. Upon returning, he hit for just a 43 wRC+ over the next two months before the team shut him down with post-concussion symptoms; he didn’t play again, and finished at .244/.328/.378 (100 wRC+). The 34-year-old Rizzo is said to be healthy now, but he projects for just a .238/.332/.426 line, a 111 wRC+ — right at the major league average for first basemen last year — and 1.3 WAR, which won’t be a huge help to the Yankees lineup. The most likely backup is DJ LeMahieu, who’s slated to be the starting third baseman and who’s coming off his second 101 wRC+ in three years, though he did post a 129 wRC+ after the All-Star break compared to a 77 before, when he was still dealing with the effects of a right big toe injury. Oswaldo Cabrera, a switch-hitting utilityman who was very good in a late-2022 stint and terrible last year, is another alternative for first.

Second Base

Oddly enough — or perhaps fittingly, as we are talking about good clubs — none of these teams has a second base situation that falls below the threshold. Orioles second basemen project to rank 14th in the majors with an adjusted 2.4 WAR, the lowest mark from among this group, but that’s with 20-year-old Jackson Holliday, the no. 1 prospect on our Top 100 list, 25-year-old Jordan Westburg, and 29-year-old Ramón Urías projected to account for most of the playing time, with all projecting to be average or better — which particularly for Holliday would be no small achievement, even with his pedigree. Note that this is Baltimore’s only appearance within this exercise, even though the team has a lower projected value at the first base and DH slots than it does at second base; the O’s just don’t stand out relative to their competition’s weaknesses.

Shortstop

Braves (24th, 1.6 WAR)

The Braves project to be the majors’ top team, but they do have their weaknesses, and this is one. After letting Dansby Swanson depart as a free agent, they turned shortstop duties over to Orlando Arcia, who had spent five and a half seasons with diminishing returns in Milwaukee, plus another season and a half as a utilityman for Atlanta, playing a grand total of 24 innings at shortstop. The team nonetheless signed him to a three-year, $7.3 million extension — practically peanuts — and he handled the position reasonably well, hitting .264/.321/.420 (99 wRC+) with a career-high 2.3 WAR despite a mixed bag of defensive metrics. Given that he netted just 0.2 WAR from 2018–22, the projection systems are understandably skeptical he can sustain such production; if he can’t, who knows what kind of magic pixie dust the Braves can sprinkle on backups Luis Guillorme and David Fletcher to try and turn them into league-average regulars.

Third Base

Here’s another spot where none of these teams falls below the threshold, with the Dodgers (15th at 2.1 WAR) the lowest ranked. Neither Max Muncy’s fielding at third base nor his low batting averages are pretty, but he’s a disciplined hitter who can absolutely crush the ball and justify his spot in the lineup; last year, he matched his career high of 36 homers while netting 2.9 WAR. Chris Taylor and the freshly re-signed Enrique Hernández are around for those times when Muncy’s banged up or the team could use more defensive support.

Left Field

Dodgers (21st, 1.4 WAR)

This is the NL West juggernaut’s weakest spot, even after taking steps to address it. Newcomer Teoscar Hernández, who joined the fold on a one-year, $23.5 million deal, hits the ball very hard… when he makes contact. In 2023 he posted an average exit velocity of 91.3 mph (80th percentile), a 13.8% barrel rate (88th percentile), and a 49.4% hard-hit rate (90th percentile). The problem was that he struck out 31.1% of the time opposite a 5.6% walk rate, so he hit an uninspiring .258/.305/.435 (105 wRC+). To be fair, he did say he had trouble seeing the ball at the Mariners’ T-Mobile Park, where he slugged just .380, so it’s hardly out of the question that a change of scenery could drive a rebound for the 31-year-old slugger. The aforementioned Taylor and Enrique Hernández will see time here as well, but both are a few years removed from their best work. Taylor rebounded from a bad season and a slow first half to hit .237/.326/.420 (104 wRC+) but struck out 32.6% of the time himself, while Hernández perked up after returning to Los Angeles, posting a 59 wRC+ with the Red Sox and a 96 wRC+ with the Dodgers.

Center Field

One more where everybody is above the threshold, with the Rays (19th at 2.1 adjusted WAR) the lowest ranked among those here, based primarily on the projections’ skepticism that Jose Siri can repeat last year’s extreme performance. (See Davy Andrews’ piece on Tromps Per Womp.)

Right Field

Cardinals (14th, 1.8 WAR)

Given his plus-plus raw power, few people doubted Jordan Walker’s offensive ability, hence his no. 12 ranking on last year’s Top 100 Prospects list. At age 21, with no Triple-A experience, he made the Cardinals out of spring training and immediately reeled off a 12-game hitting streak. But when the league quickly adjusted, he struggled briefly and was sent to Memphis to work on his approach, particularly so he could elevate the ball with greater consistency. Even with a 46.9% groundball rate, he finished at a respectable .276/.342/.445 (116 wRC+), but his defense was another matter. Blocked by Nolan Arenado at third base, he moved to the outfield and was absolutely brutal according to the metrics (-16 DRS, -12 RAA, -11.8 UZR), and the visuals weren’t much better, even with the occasional impressive play. Thus he netted just 0.2 WAR. He does project to improve to 1.6 WAR, with Dylan Carlson getting time in right field as well — presumably when the Cardinals mercifully slot Walker at DH — and I’d bet that Walker far outhits the 116 wRC+ for which he’s projected.

Designated Hitter

Rangers (13th, 1.2 WAR)

With all but the Dodgers and Yankees projected to produce less than 2.0 WAR out of the DH spot (that’s after adjustment), this category is shooting fish in a barrel, and with the Cardinals and Rangers virtually tied, I’m focusing on the defending champions. This is hardly a bad situation, not only because Texas ranks among the upper half of the 30 teams, but also because about half the playing time projects to go to 22-year-old Wyatt Langford, who was chosen fourth in last year’s draft and rocketed through four levels to reach Triple-A, hitting .360/.480/.677 (190 wRC+) with 10 homers in 200 PA along the way. He just placed second only to Holliday on our Top 100 list as “perhaps the most complete hitter in the minors.” The problem is that he’s a 30-grade defender, with the speed for center field but a fringe-average arm and a poor feel for outfield play in general, at least at this stage; meanwhile, the outfield of Evan Carter, Leody Taveras, and Adolis García features strong defenders at all three spots. Langford could make the roster out of spring training, but it’s not a guarantee. With the possible exception of Corey Seager, who’s working his way back from January hernia surgery, no other Ranger projects to have much impact at this spot, hence the middling ranking.


The Weakest Positions on American League Contenders, 2024 Edition

Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports

Even with an extra day in February this year, Matt Chapman remains unsigned, his free agency having lingered past the start of exhibition season. Admittedly, the soon-to-be-31-year-old third baseman is coming off of an uneven season marked by a late slump related to a finger injury, but he’s been reliably productive throughout his seven-year career, with good-to-great defense bolstering his value at the plate. Meanwhile, his former (?) team, the Blue Jays — who reportedly offered him a nine-figure extension before he hit free agency — have cobbled together an uninspiring solution at third base.

Chapman isn’t the only remaining free agent who could provide a significant upgrade, but he’s by far the best position player remaining on the shelves, and the combination of his absence and the Blue Jays’ needs stands out as I turn to the American League edition of my roundup of the most glaring holes on contending teams (the National League edition is here). For this exercise, I’ve highlighted the spots that per our projections — which combine ZiPS and Steamer as well as playing time estimates from RosterResource — fall below a combined 2.0 WAR on teams whose Playoff Odds sit at or above 25%.

Why 2.0 WAR? That’s the rough equivalent of average play across a full season, but because of the general tendency to overproject playing time and keep even the weakest teams with positive WARs at each position (in reality over 10% of them will finish in the red), our position player Depth Chart values at the team level are inflated by about 20%. That is, instead of having a total of 1,000 WAR projected across the 30 teams, and 57% of that (570 WAR) allocated to position players, our Depth Chart values currently add up to about 682 WAR. Thus, I am discounting the team values that you see on the Depth Chart pages by 20%, and focusing on the lowest-ranked contenders among those whose adjusted values fall below that 2.0 WAR threshold. The individual WAR values cited will remain as they are on the Depth Chart pages, however, and it’s worth noting that many of the players here — particularly youngsters with shorter track records, including some from our Top 100 Prospects list — don’t project particularly well but still have considerable upside. Read the rest of this entry »