Today the Killers take a turn to the left side of the infield. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 10%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — this year I have incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look.
As noted previously, some of these situations are more dire than others, particularly when taken in the context of the rest of a team’s roster. I don’t expect every team to go out and track down an upgrade before the August 1 deadline, and I’m less concerned with the solutions – many of which have more moving parts involved than a single trade — than the problems. Unless otherwise indicated, all statistics are through Monday. Read the rest of this entry »
Today, we turn our attention to the second base Killers. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 10%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — this year I have incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look.
As noted previously, some of these situations are more dire than others, particularly when taken in the context of the rest of a team’s roster. I don’t expect every team to go out and track down an upgrade before the August 1 deadline, and I’m less concerned with the solutions – many of which have more moving parts involved than a single trade — than the problems. Unless otherwise indicated, all statistics are through Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »
In a race for a playoff spot, every edge matters. Yet all too often, for reasons that extend beyond a player’s statistics, managers and general managers fail to make the moves that could improve their teams, allowing subpar production to fester at the risk of smothering a club’s postseason hopes. In Baseball Prospectus’ 2007 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 it at FanGraphs in an expanded format since 2018.
When it comes to defining replacement level play, we needn’t hew too closely to exactitude. Any team that’s gotten less than 0.6 WAR from a position to this point — prorating to 1.0 over a full season — is considered fair game. Sometimes, acceptable or even above-average defense (which may depend upon which metric one uses) coupled with total ineptitude on offense is enough to flag a team. Sometimes a club may be well ahead of replacement level but has lost a key contributor to injury; sometimes the reverse is true, but the team hasn’t yet climbed above that first-cut threshold. As with Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of hardcore pornography, I know replacement level when I see it. Read the rest of this entry »
A double-whammy of injuries and underperformance has hampered the Angels in their bid to make the playoffs before Shohei Ohtani hits free agency, but one bright spot has been the play of Mickey Moniak. The former number one pick of the 2016 draft looked like a bust when the Phillies included him as one of two outfielders in last year’s deadline acquisition of Noah Syndergaard, and his late-season cup of coffee in Anaheim didn’t exactly dispel that notion. But since his promotion in mid-May, he’s been one of the majors’ most productive hitters, producing a 170 wRC+ in 165 plate appearances.
Moniak sent the struggling Yankees reeling with a big night on Tuesday in Anaheim. In the first inning, he clubbed a two-run homer off Domingo Germán, and while he struck out in the third with the bases loaded, he followed Ohtani’s RBI triple with an RBI single in the fifth to cap the scoring at 5–1. He also added a single of Albert Abreu in the eighth, giving him three three-hit games in the first five of the second half and extending his hitting streak to 10 games. Read the rest of this entry »
Kyle B: Hey Jay! Over the all star break we heard a ton of talk about the new CBA and started hearing whispers about the next one….do you think we are staring down another lockout in 2026? Possibly missed games in 2027?
We began this series with Craig Kimbrel striking out José Ramírez to close out the All-Star Game, and I’ll admit, my original intent was to cover all of the pitchers in Part II. But as anyone who reads (or edits) my work knows, when it comes to the Hall of Fame and its candidates, I can go on, and on… and on. In part that’s because I like to use this series as an annual clearinghouse, covering the vast majority of the active players whom readers most frequently ask me about during the course of the year. It may not be a one-stop shop, but with the added volume comes some context for comparisons (Has Freddie Freeman caught up to Paul Goldschmidt? Who has a better shot, Carlos Correa or Francisco Lindor? And what about Trea Turner?) In part, it’s also because in the 20 years (!) since I introduced it, my JAWS system has become more complicated and more nuanced, requiring a bit of additional introduction. That’s particularly true when it comes to pitching, where during the 2022 election cycle, I formalized S-JAWS for starting pitchers and R-JAWS for relievers.
I had been messing with the latter since the 2019 cycle, in the context of Billy Wagner’s candidacy. The short version of the story is that while Baseball Reference’s flavor of WAR (which I use in JAWS) features an adjustment for leverage — the quantitatively greater impact on winning and losing that a reliever has at the end of the ballgame than a starter does earlier — to help account for the degree of difficulty, it’s not the only way to measure reliever value. Win Probability Added (WPA) is a context-sensitive measure that accounts for the incremental increase (or decrease) in the chances of winning produced in each plate appearance given the inning, score, and base-out situation. WPA can be additionally adjusted using a pitcher’s average leverage index (aLI) for a stat variably called situational wins or context-neutral wins (referred to as WPA/LI). Both of those are now in the sauce; R-JAWS is the average of a reliever’s WAR (including his time as a starter and a hitter, if any), his WPA, and his WPA/LI. The rankings, which I used to have to create by hand, are now on Baseball Reference, and Wagner, who ranks sixth and is the best reliever outside the Hall, is trending towards election after receiving 68.1% on the 2023 ballot, his eighth year of eligibility. Read the rest of this entry »
Shohei Ohtani is a unicorn. No player in 20th- or 21st-century AL/NL history, not even Babe Ruth in his last two seasons with the Red Sox (1918–19), has been able to sustain regular duty in both a rotation and a lineup over a full season, let alone excel at both endeavors. At this writing, the 29-year-old superstar leads the majors in homers (34), slugging percentage (.665), and wRC+ (179), and he’s got the AL’s second-best strikeout rate (32.2%) and lowest batting average against (.191). He currently ranks among the AL’s top 10 in Baseball Reference’s position player WAR (4.0, fourth) and pitching WAR (2.5, ninth), and just over a full win ahead of Ronald Acuña Jr. for the major league lead in combined WAR. Over the past two and a half seasons, he’s been worth 25.0 WAR, 5.9 more than the top position player, Aaron Judge.
Some day, Hall of Fame voters will have to reckon with Ohtani. If he reaches the kind of career numbers that Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS system forecast for him over the winter — 1,809 hits, 404 homers, 124 OPS+, 158 wins, 2,329 strikeouts, 122 ERA+, and 72.1 WAR — the decision will be a no-brainer. I’m already of the mind that if he gets to his 10th season (2027) and is still doing double duty, he’ll have my vote when he lands on the ballot regardless of what the numbers say, because what he’s doing is so utterly remarkable. WAR and JAWS weren’t really built to handle a case like his, and not only because his ability to save his team a roster spot is probably worth some uncounted fraction of a win per year, too. Read the rest of this entry »
On Thursday, I took the first swing for my annual roundup of active players who may or may not be building their cases for the Hall of Fame. With one exception, all of the ones I examined were in their age-30 seasons or later, but for this installment of shortstops and outfielders, I’ll take a look at some who are still in their 20s and have further to go before they reach Cooperstown.
For this exercise, unless otherwise indicated, I will be referencing bWAR for season and career totals, my JAWS metric, and the ZiPS rest-of-season projections, since one of the goals here is to give an idea of where these players will stand at the end of the season, having banked a full complement of WAR instead of just 80-some games worth. These future candidates are already dealing with suppressed WAR totals from the 60-game 2020 season (which hardly makes them the first to experience such scheduling limitations and career interruptions due to wars and strikes). Unlike last year, I’ll cover pitching in one installment. Note that I am by no means predicting that every player here will make it to Cooperstown or even suggesting that all are worthy; in some cases I’m particularly pessimistic, but these are the names that get tossed around
If you’re just arriving, I’d encourage you to at least read the introduction in Part 1. The important take-home point was my finding that nearly three-quarters of the position players who have reached a 40.0-WAR peak score (best seven seasons, aka WAR7) have eventually been enshrined, and so inevitably a good bit of the focus throughout this exercise has been on the math required to improve those scores. There is and will be far more to those cases, and to appreciating these players’ skills and accomplishments, but for the purposes of space I’ve had to cut to the chase. Here again is the table related to those 40.0-WAR peaks:
The 40+ Peak Club
Position
40+ Peak
HOF 40+
Not Elig
Pct HOF
C
16
10
2
71.4%
1B
22
13
4
72.2%
2B
16
12
3
92.3%
SS
21
15
1
75.0%
3B
20
10
5
66.7%
LF
11
9
1
90.0%
CF
19
10
1
55.6%
RF
20
14
3
82.4%
Total
145
93
20
74.4%
SOURCE: Baseball-Reference
Peak = player’s best seven seasons using bWAR. Not Elig = includes active or recently retired players as well as those on the permanently ineligible list.
At every position, I’ve counted the total number of players with a peak WAR of at least 40.0; the number of Hall of Famers meeting that criterion; and the number of such players who are not yet eligible, either because they’re active, too recently retired to appear on a Hall of Fame ballot, or on the permanently ineligible list, like Pete Rose (whom JAWS classifies as a left fielder) and Shoeless Joe Jackson (right field). For catchers, I used a 32.0-WAR threshold instead of 40.0, as their values are constrained by the limits of playing time and pre-framing measures. Read the rest of this entry »
It wasn’t quite up to the level of Shohei Ohtani versus Mike Trout with the 2023 World Baseball Classic championship on the line, but the final plate appearance of Tuesday night’s All-Star Game did feature a memorable matchup. On the mound trying to secure a 3–2 victory — the National League’s first since 2012 — was Craig Kimbrel, he of the 408 career saves. Working to bring home the tying run from second base (or at least keep the line moving) was José Ramírez, already playing in his fifth All-Star Game at age 30. Ramírez fell into an 0–2 hole by taking a fastball and then chasing a curveball in the dirt but battled back to even the count before Kimbrel struck him out with a high fastball.
Someday we may talk about that matchup as one between two future Hall of Famers. Kimbrel has had his ups and downs in recent years, but he’s been dominant enough to earn a spot on an All-Star squad for the second year out of three and the ninth time overall. Earlier this year, he became the eighth pitcher to collect 400 saves, and he’s overtaken Kenley Jansen (who also recently reached 400) in the Reliever JAWS rankings. As for Ramírez, he’s hitting .289/.364/.506 (132 wRC+) and ranking among the AL’s top 10 in WAR for the sixth time in seven seasons (3.4 fWAR, 3.3 bWAR). While he’s only 30 years old, if all goes well during this season’s second half, he’ll reach an important milestone that strongly suggests future election to the Hall.
Thus far in his 11-year career, Ramirez has accumulated 43.7 WAR (I’m sticking with bWAR throughout the rest of this article unless otherwise indicated), which is impressive but not itself remarkable. Of more importance is that he already has tallied 38.4 WAR in his best seven seasons — his peak score (aka WAR7) for the purposes of calculating his JAWS. One of those seasons is this one:
José Ramírez Best Seasons by bWAR
Year
Age
PA
WAR
2018
25
698
7.5
2017
24
645
7.0
2021
28
636
6.8
2022
29
685
6.0
2016
23
618
4.8
2023
30
385
3.3
2019
26
542
3.1
2020
27
254
2.5
2014
21
266
1.5
2015
22
355
1.2
2013
20
14
0.1
SOURCE: Baseball-Reference
Via Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, Ramirez is forecast to produce another 2.4 WAR this year, pushing his seven-year peak score to 40.8. While that’s still 2.3 WAR shy of the Hall standard for third basemen (43.1), he has at least one other season that shouldn’t be too hard to improve upon; indeed, his preseason three-year ZiPS projection forecasts him to produce 5.6 WAR in 2024 (which would take him to 43.3) and 4.9 WAR in ’25 (inching him to 43.4).
Even without looking that far ahead, the 40-WAR peak score is significant. For a position player, it’s a strong indicator of future election to the Hall:
The 40+ Peak Club
Position
40+ Peak
HOF 40+
Not Elig
Pct HOF
C
16
10
2
71.4%
1B
22
13
4
72.2%
2B
16
12
3
92.3%
SS
21
15
1
75.0%
3B
20
10
5
66.7%
LF
11
9
1
90.0%
CF
19
10
1
55.6%
RF
20
14
3
82.4%
Total
145
93
20
74.4%
SOURCE: Baseball-Reference
Peak = player’s best seven seasons using bWAR. Not Elig = includes active or recently retired players as well as those on the permanently ineligible list.
At every position, I’ve counted the total number of players with a peak WAR of at least 40.0; the number of Hall of Famers meeting that criterion; and the number of such players who are not yet eligible, either because they’re active, too recently retired to appear on a Hall of Fame ballot, or on the permanently ineligible list. The last of those classifications applies to Pete Rose (whom JAWS classifies as a left fielder) and Shoeless Joe Jackson (right field). For catchers, I’ve used a 32.0-WAR threshold instead of 40.0, as their values are constrained by the limits of playing time and pre-framing measures.
As you can see, nearly three-quarters of the eligible players with at least 40.0 WAR in their seven best seasons are enshrined, a higher percentage than even I would have guessed before I dug through the numbers. That percentage would be even higher if I were also to remove the players whose PED-related allegations and suspensions have effectively blocked their elections, but let’s not dwell upon them today.
Currently, eight active position players have peak scores of at least 40.0, with two more besides Ramírez on the verge: Jose Altuve (39.8) and Aaron Judge (39.6). The former’s injuries will likely prevent him from reaching the mark this year (more on which below), but the latter has already produced one of his seven best seasons (he’s appeared in only parts of eight, including his -0.3-WAR cup of coffee from 2016) and needs just 0.4 WAR once he returns from his toe injury.
With that, it’s time to launch my more-or-less annual Hall of Fame progress report. This may not seem like an obvious time to check in on such players, but the July logjam on the baseball calendar includes the Hall’s induction weekend (July 21–24) as well as the draft, the All-Star Game and its high-profile auxiliary events (the Futures Game and the Home Run Derby), and the run-up to the August 1 trade deadline. It’s a time that I get a lot of questions about active players vying for future elections, and in the interest of providing a one-stop shop — er, in three parts, so let’s call it a department store — here we are.
For this exercise, unless otherwise indicated, I will be referencing bWAR for season and career totals, my JAWS metric, and the ZiPS rest-of-season projections, since one of the goals here is to give an idea of where these players will stand at the end of the season, having banked a full complement of WAR instead of just 80-some games worth; these future candidates are already dealing with suppressed WAR totals from the 60-game 2020 season — which hardly makes them the first to experience such scheduling limitations and career interruptions due to wars and strikes. Unlike last year, I’ll cover pitching in one installment; we’ll return to Kimbrel. Note that I am by no means predicting that every player here will make it to Cooperstown or even suggesting that all are worthy; in some cases I’m particularly pessimistic, but these are the names that get tossed around. Read the rest of this entry »
Jay Jaffe
