Christian Yelich has emerged as one of the game’s elite players while playing under a very club-friendly contract. Now it appears as though the Brewers’ right fielder will be paid like the superstar he’s become, even while staying put in the game’s smallest market. According to The Athletic‘s Ken Rosenthal (with a substantial assist from the New York Post’s Joel Sherman), the Brewers and Yelich are nearing agreement on an extension that will cover nine years and be worth around $215 million, with a mutual option for a 10th year.

Yelich won NL MVP honors in 2018 while leading the Brewers to a division title and helping them come within one win of a trip to the World Series. He hit .326/.402/.598 with 36 homers and league bests in batting average, slugging percentage, wRC+ (166) and WAR (7.6), then followed that up with another MVP-caliber campaign that featured even better numbers, including a slash-stat Triple Crown (.329/.429/.671), 44 homers, and again league bests in both wRC+ (174) and WAR (7.8). Alas, on September 10, he fracture his right kneecap by fouling a pitch off of it (OUCH), ending his season and, as it turned out, his MVP hopes; he finished second to Cody Bellinger, over whom he had a slight statistical advantage at the time of the injury.

Including his 2016 and ’17 seasons, which were worth a combined 10.0 WAR, Yelich has been the majors’ third-most valuable player over the past four years. You can probably guess who’s first and second:

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Back in December, the Braves signed Cole Hamels to a one-year, $18 million deal, a move that effectively replaced one grizzled, championship-tested southpaw with another, namely departing free agent Dallas Keuchel. As with the former Astro, who didn’t sign with the team until last June, the Braves apparently aren’t going to get a full complement of starts from the former Phillie, as Hamels is well behind schedule due to an offseason shoulder injury, a move that opens the door for the Braves to test their vaunted pitching depth.

Recall that after a stellar first three months of last season (2.98 ERA, 3.59 FIP, 99.2 IP), Hamels left his June 28 start with an oblique strain, and after missing five weeks, he struggled upon returning. Lasting five innings or more in just four of 10 starts, he was touched for a 5.79 ERA and 5.29 FIP while losing a bit of velocity (0.9 mph per PitchInfo) and swing-and-miss, and made just one start after September 16 due to shoulder fatigue. Still, thanks to a much-improved changeup, his full-season 4.09 FIP and 2.5 WAR were his best marks since 2015, and he reportedly generated interest from at least 13 teams before signing with the Braves.

The shoulder is apparently still a problem. As camp opened on February 12, the Braves revealed that the 36-year-old lefty “irritated” (manager Brian Snitker’s word) his shoulder doing weighted ball exercises over the course of the winter, was going to be behind schedule, and would be reevaluated in three weeks. Ten days later, after undergoing treatment from Dr. Keith Meister of TIM Sports Medicine and Orthopedics in Dallas, Hamels described what sounds like garden-variety shoulder inflammation:

“I know I’m behind the 8-ball,” he said. “But once I knock (the inflammation) out right away, I know I’ll be able to be the best pitcher I can and put up good numbers.

…“It hit a point where I couldn’t get past (the pain),” Hamels said. “Soreness is good but you have to know what’s good and what’s bad. I wasn’t feeling as good as I thought I should and I couldn’t overcome it without asking the right questions.”

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It’s only March 2, but between Yoenis Céspedes‘ media blackout, J.D. Davis‘ shoulder scare, and Brandon Nimmo’s irregular heartbeat, the Mets’ outfield has already enlivened the spring with a fair bit of drama and a few eye-catching headlines. Thankfully none those events has turned into a worst-case scenario, and as Opening Day approaches, the unit looks to be a potential source of strength on a contending team — though as ever, it could be a challenge to fit all of the parts together.

Indeed, assembling the pieces into a coherent whole has been a perennial shortcoming for the Mets, even before Brodie Van Wagenen took the reins as general manager; this team hasn’t had a true two-way center fielder — as opposed to a misplaced corner who could outhit his mistakes in the middle pasture — since the heyday of Ángel Pagán, if not Carlos Beltrán. Last year’s roster, the first one assembled by Van Wagenen, had such a surplus of infielders that its six most common outfield configurations (from among 27 different permutations in all) involved at least one infielder who had little major league experience as a flychaser:

Coming into 2019, McNeil had never played the outfield in the majors and had just eight games of minor league experience there, while Davis’ outfield resumé amounted to five major league games plus 31 in the minors, with Smith notching 13 in the majors and 26 in the minors. One had to scroll down to the team’s seventh most commonly-used configuration to find a trio of seasoned outfielders playing in the same unit. The mismatches contributed to ongoing defensive woes, as the team ranked 13th in the NL in defensive efficiency (.677), 14th in UZR (-12.8), and last in DRS (-86). Read the rest of this entry »

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While the heavily-favored Yankees deal with the loss of Luis Severino, the Red Sox have a rotation problem of their own, albeit on a significantly smaller scale. On Thursday, interim manager Ron Roenicke told reporters that Chris Sale will begin the year on the injured list. While his delay is related to a bout of pneumonia rather than the elbow injury that curtailed his 2019 season, it’s yet another reminder of the concerns that surround the going-on-31-year-old lefty.

Last year, Sale made just 25 starts, the final one on August 13. He was then shut down due to what was termed elbow inflammation, and while he paid a visit to Dr. James Andrews for a second opinion, he avoided surgery, though he did receive a platelet-rich plasma injection. The headlines at the time were to the tune of “avoids Tommy John surgery,” but there’s never been any indication that Sale’s complaint or his PRP injection were related to his ulnar collateral ligament. His elbow is now said to be fine; he’s been throwing bullpen sessions and is scheduled to throw an extended batting practice session this weekend. However, he’s behind the schedule of his rotation-mates due to back-to-back cases of the flu and pneumonia that he contracted earlier this month. Here’s what Roenicke said, via ESPN:

“With the sickness, it cost him two weeks’ time, and that two weeks is what we’d like to give him to make sure that he’s right,” Roenicke said. “He’s worked hard on getting his arm right, and we didn’t think four starts in spring training was fair to him.

…”Nothing at all with the arm. He’s doing really good with that,” Roenicke said. “We’re really happy with that.”

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While it was understandably overshadowed by Gerrit Cole’s pinstriped premiere, Gary Sánchez made his Grapefruit League debut on Monday. In doing so, he showed off a new stance behind the plate, one that’s intended to shore up the defensive inconsistencies that have cut into his value while making him the brunt of so much criticism during his tenure with the Yankees.

The game wasn’t televised, and the only video I could find was rather rough, shot from the press box and thus showing the catcher’s back, but here you can see what’s going on:

Sánchez now sets up in his crouch with his right knee on the ground, a stance whose purpose the New York Post’s George King III explained succinctly earlier this month:

The lower setup is designed to improve Sánchez’s ability to frame borderline pitches in the bottom of the strike zone but not interfere with his improved blocking skills or take anything away from an above-average throwing arm. It also may reduce the stress on Sánchez’s legs, which have suffered muscle injuries the past two seasons that landed him on the injured list a combined four times.

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The 2019 Yankees won 103 regular season games despite receiving just three starts from Luis Severino. The 2020 Yankees will have to make do in an even more extreme fashion. On Tuesday, general manager Brian Cashman announced that doctors have recommended that the 26-year-old righty undergo Tommy John surgery; he will do so on Thursday. His injury further depletes a rotation that was already slated to start the season without either James Paxton or Domingo Germán, taking a bite out of the Yankees’ playoff hopes — though they’re still heavily favored to win the AL East.

More than anything, losing an electrifying two-time All-Star for a full season or perhaps even longer is just a bummer. Pitchers, man…

The latest turn in the ongoing Severino saga began last Thursday — coincidentally, the pitcher’s birthday — when the Yankees announced that he had been shut down due to forearm soreness, an issue that he’d first reported following his ALCS Game 3 start against the Astros last October but one the team believed to be transient. When Severino continued to experience soreness in the offseason before beginning his throwing program, the team had him travel to New York to undergo MRI and CT scans, neither of which revealed any significant problems. In the wake of last week’s shutdown — during which manager Aaron Boone revealed that Severino had a loose body in his elbow that had previously been asymptomatic — Severino underwent a dye contrast MRI, which revealed a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament as well as pain in the area. Thus, Severino will go under the knife of Dr. David Altchek at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. Read the rest of this entry »

Spring training results are basically meaningless, and yet as portents of things to come are concerned, Ketel Marte homering on Sunday, in his first plate appearance of the Cactus League season, was a positive. The 26-year-old Diamondback is coming off a breakout, MVP-caliber season, albeit one that ended with him on the sidelines. Marte didn’t play a single game after September 17 due to a stress reaction in his lower back, and while he didn’t need surgery, his recovery was something of an abstraction until that first knock; the same can be said for baseball in general.

Behold, let the new season begin:

Primer turno y primer jonrón para Ketel Marte. ? #MLBDominicana ?? pic.twitter.com/CJVoZGevEx

— MLB Dominicana (@MLBDominicana) February 23, 2020

The switch-hitting Marte enjoyed a dazzling 2019, setting career highs in virtually every key offensive category. He hit .329/.389/.592, numbers that respectively ranked second, seventh, and fourth in the NL; his 150 wRC+ ranked fourth as well, behind only Christian Yelich (174), Cody Bellinger (162), and Anthony Rendon (154). That performance wasn’t anything that could have been expected given his previous history, as he entered the season a career .263/.324/.389 hitter, one fresh off a modest .260/.332/.437 (106 wRC+) showing in 2018. Marte’s 32 homers more than doubled his previous total of 22, compiled in over 1,500 plate appearances from 2015-18. Read the rest of this entry »

12:03

Jay Jaffe: Hey hey, folks! Welcome to another edition of my Monday chat. I’m back from a week spent in sunny Siesta Key, Florida — no baseball, just family stuff like watching my daughter and her cousin splash in a swimming pool and build sandcastles on the beach. I just finished making a presentation about baseball to my daughter’s preschool class, which was wild. We gave out baseball cards, popcorn, and sunflower seeds, and sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Did not get into the various flavors of WAR. Jay Jaffe @jay_jaffe About to give a presentation about baseball to a bunch of 3-4 year olds in my daughter’s preschool class. Trying to decide first topic 24 Feb 2020

12:03

Jay Jaffe: Gah, the poll didn’t post there.

12:05

Jay Jaffe: Hmmm. I can’t see mustering much sympathy for the players who were involved if they’re getting razzed about it daily. I do think I’d reserve my sympathy for those who weren’t part of the 2017-18 teams and may catch some collateral damage.

12:07

Jay Jaffe: It varies from publication to publication and sometimes from writer to writer. At Baseball Prospectus, the rights for each piece reverted to me after a period (18 months I think). At Sports Illustrated, they retain the copyright but are pretty cooperative about granting permission to re-use, such as for my book or to update as part of my JAWS series. Here, I retain the rights to my work.

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On Wednesday, Major League Baseball made official a handful of rule changes that had been in the works for nearly a year. In case you missed it while following the latest twists and turns of the Astros’ sign-stealing saga or the excitement of pitchers and catchers reporting, here’s the full press release, which spares us from having to retype it:

Rule changes for the 2020 season were announced today by @MLB. pic.twitter.com/cXZrFzHv3F

— MLB Communications (@MLB_PR) February 12, 2020

The three-batter minimum rule — and the existential threat it poses to lefty specialists — has been the most discussed of these changes. Our own Ben Clemens illustrated that it won’t matter all that much, a conclusion supported by Sam Miller’s examination, while other analysis such as this article by Tom Verducci and this one by Cliff Corcoran suggest it could have a negative impact.

The changes to the injured list and the service time tradeoffs that come with the permanent 26th man and the limited September roster size can bear closer analysis, but the rules that have my attention today — and this should be no surprise if you’ve been reading my work here — are the ones concerning position players and two-way players. By themselves, they won’t amount to much, and while they do close the loopholes that come with the 13-pitcher limitations on the new 26-man rosters, those are some pretty narrow loopholes to begin with. What they really do is stamp out a bit of novelty, not that the sport needs further encroachment by the Fun Police. Read the rest of this entry »