Gary Sanchez finally has a team… sort of. Last week, he was one of two catchers named to Team Dominican Republic’s roster for the 2023 World Baseball Classic, which gets underway next month. Meanwhile, although pitchers and catchers have reported to major league camps this week, Sanchez still doesn’t have a destination, as he remains a free agent.
By our count, Sanchez is one of just four position players who put up at least 1.0 WAR last year but remain on the market, along with shortstop Elvis Andrus (3.5), outfielder Jurickson Profar (2.5) and infielder José Iglesias (1.0). Admittedly, he’s not coming off a great season with the Twins, but Sanchez’s 1.3 WAR was respectable, his 89 wRC+ matched the major league average for catchers, and he had his best defensive season since 2018, reversing a multiyear decline.
Aside from rumors of interest from the Giants in January and the Angels earlier this month, the Sanchez burner of the hot stove has barely flickered this winter, but things heated up a bit in the wee hours of Wednesday after Sanchez and strength and conditioning coach Theo Aasen shared a short Instagram video of the 30-year-old backstop doing some exercises and baseball activities while wearing a shirt with the Yankees’ insignia. Read the rest of this entry »
On Monday, Major League Baseball’s Joint Competition Committee dealt a double blow to anybody who enjoys baseball’s weirder late-inning turns, with the 11-man body making the runner-on-second extra innings rule permanent for all regular-season games and placing further restrictions on the use of position players to pitch. Both votes were unanimous, according to ESPN’s Jesse Rogers, and both rules will go into effect for this season alongside the previously adopted ones adding a pitch clock and regulating pickoff throws, prohibiting defensive shifts, and enlarging the bases.
First put into place as part of the COVID-19 health and safety protocols introduced for the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, the extra-innings rule mandates that each inning after the ninth begin with a runner on second base; some call it the ghost runner, but the zombie runner (named by our own digital dandy, Dan Szymborski) or Manfred Man (christened by Reds statistician Joel Luckhaupt) are more apt. The increased ease of scoring runs is designed to bring tied games to a quicker conclusion, thereby saving wear and tear on pitchers’ arms and reducing the amount of roster churn that occurs after lengthy extra-innings contests; often the reward for a less experienced reliever stepping up to throw multiple innings in extras is a ticket to Triple-A in favor of a fresher arm.
The new restrictions on position players pitching allow teams to turn to non-pitchers only when down by eight or more runs, up by 10 or more runs, or in extra innings. In the spring of 2019, a year before the pandemic began, MLB announced a version of this rule with a permissible margin of at least eight runs in either direction, but that was revised to “more than six runs” (i.e., at lest seven runs) the following spring before all hell broke loose. The rule was suspended under the 2020 and ’21 health and safety protocols but restored last year; in a June 4 game last season, Dodger manager Dave Roberts was prevented by umpires from using utilityman Zach McKinstry to pitch while trailing 9–4, a five-run margin. On the other side of the coin, Roberts used utilityman Hanser Alberto to pitch 10 times last season, including eight where the Dodgers held a lead, two of which occurred with margins of less than 10 runs.
The 11-member Joint Competition Committee was created as part of last year’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Whereas MLB could previously implement rules unilaterally with one year’s notice to the players’ union, the new committee gives the players a voice in the form of four player representatives, but they’re outnumbered by the six owners on the committee; one umpire is also on the committee as well. Thus the players’ power only goes so far. Last September, the bloc of players voted unanimously against the banning of shifts and the introduction of the pitch clock, but they were outvoted on both matters, and both rules will go into effect this season despite their protestations. With both of these matters, however, the players were onboard, with Rogers reporting, “Players had concerns, as statistics were beginning to be dramatically affected by so many position players pitching.” Read the rest of this entry »
As the Blue Jays attempt to build upon last year’s 92-win season — their best since 2015 in terms of won-loss record — they’ve locked up one of their young, homegrown stars. Earlier this week, Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson Smith reported that the team had agreed to a multiyear extension with Bo Bichette, thereby avoiding what could have been a contentious arbitration hearing. The terms of the deal were unclear at the time, but on Thursday, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that Bichette will receive a three-year, $33.6 million guarantee, with escalators and incentives that can increase the total value of the deal to as much as $40.65 million.
Via the Associated Press, Bichette is guaranteed $6.1 million this year ($3.25 million as a signing bonus and $2.85 million in salary) and then $11 million in 2024 and $16.5 million in ’25. Winning an MVP award would increase his next salary by $2.25 million, while finishing second or third would add $1.25 million, and finishing fourth or fifth would add $250,000. The extension buys out all three of his arbitration years — his age-25 through 27 seasons — without delaying his free agency, as he enters 2023 with three years and 63 days of service time. Without the deal, he and the Blue Jays would have headed into arbitration with the two sides as far apart as any in the majors this year. According to MLB Trade Rumors, the $2.5 million gap between the filings of Bichette ($7.5 million) and the Blue Jays ($5 million) matched that of the Astros and Kyle Tucker; Houston won that hearing on Thursday.
Bichette is coming off a very good season, albeit something of an inconsistent one. He set a full-season high with a 129 wRC+ via a .290/.333/.469 line with 24 homers and 13 steals. His 4.5 WAR tied with Corey Seager for 14th in the American League and second among AL shortstops behind Xander Bogaerts, 0.1 WAR ahead of Carlos Correa. That said, his season was an uneven one that exposed concerns in several areas of his game. He hit just .213/.237/.298 (50 wRC+) in April and .257/.302/.418 (105 wRC+) through the first half — missing the AL All-Star team where he made it in 2021 — before batting .337/.378/.543 (163 wRC+) in the second half, capped by a .406/.444/.662 (217 wRC+) September. Fourteen of his 24 homers came before the break, but so did 100 of his 165 strikeouts; he trimmed his K% from 24.3% before the break to 19.2% after. Read the rest of this entry »
Third basemen have been underrepresented within the Hall of Fame since the institution’s inception, but one of the greats finally gained entry last week, when the BBWAA electedScott Rolen in his sixth year of eligibility. Four days before the Hall called Rolen’s name, the baseball world lost another great third baseman when Sal Bando died at the age of 78 due to cancer. With better luck and timing, Bando might have been enshrined as well, with his passing felt far beyond Oakland and Milwaukee, the two cities where he spent his 16-year major league career.
Plenty of onlookers and even somevoters had a hard time wrapping their heads around the election of Rolen, a great two-way third baseman whose all-around excellence — power, patience, elite defense, good baserunning — and stardom for two Cardinals pennant winners (one a champion) somehow wasn’t enough for those who expected him to measure up to Mike Schmidt, his predecessor in Philadelphia. Or Chipper Jones, his longer-lasting contemporary. Or… Don Mattingly or even Mark Gracebecause, uh, reasons. To them the notion of Bando as a Hall of Famer might seem even more unthinkable, but then they’d merely have a lot in common with the crusty scribes of four or five decades ago who helped to give Hall voting its bad name.
Bando spent 16 years in the majors (1966-81) with the A’s and Brewers, making four All-Star teams while most notably serving as the team captain and regular third baseman for an Oakland powerhouse that won five straight AL West titles from 1971-75 and three straight World Series from ’72 to ’74. An intense competitor with a high baseball IQ and a quiet lead-by-example style, he didn’t have quite the popularity or flair of teammates Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, or Vida Blue, but within the green-and-gold’s three-ring circus, he had those stars’ respect. “Sal Bando was the godfather. Capo di capo. Boss of all bosses on the Oakland A’s,” wrote Jackson in his 1984 autobiography. “We all had our roles, we all contributed, but Sal was the leader and everyone knew it.” Read the rest of this entry »
Zack Greinke will likely wind up in the Hall of Fame sooner rather than later, but it won’t be via the 2028 ballot. No sooner had I speculated about the (admittedly slim) possibility that he would join Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina on a top-heavy BBWAA slate five years from now than Kansas City radio station host Bob Fescoe reported that the 39-year-old righty would in fact return to the Royals for one more year, capitalizing on mutual interest that had been apparent since the start of free agency.
The exact terms of the contract have yet to be disclosed, but via MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand, the deal includes a base salary in the $8–10 million range, plus performance bonuses. Greinke’s 2022 pact with the Royals guaranteed him $13 million, with another $2 million available via performance bonuses, though the exact innings thresholds and payouts were never publicly disclosed. The Royals had been active this month in freeing up space within their expected $85–90 million payroll, trading both Michael A. Taylor (to the Twins) and Adalberto Mondesi (to the Red Sox), freeing up about $7.5 million in guaranteed money and turning the page on two players from last year’s 65-win juggernaut.
It was just over 10 months ago that the Royals’ prodigal son returned to the team that drafted him in 2002 and stuck with him through thick and thin over the next eight years, the high point of which was in ’09, when he made the AL All-Star team and won the AL Cy Young Award. Traded to the Brewers in December 2010 for a four-player package that included Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar, Greinke spent the 2011–21 stretch passing through the hands of five teams. He signed two huge contracts, made five more All-Star teams, pitched in a couple of World Series, nearly won another Cy Young, and compiled a resumé fit for Cooperstown.
Back in Kansas City, the Greinke of 2022 was far removed from that heyday, but he pitched credibly. In 26 starts totaling 137 innings, he posted a 3.68 ERA and 4.03 FIP en route to 1.9 WAR; those last three figures all represented improvements upon his work in 2021 with the Astros. He did land on the injured list twice in 2022, first for a flexor strain in late May, costing him most of June, and then for forearm tightness in late August. Even so, he returned in September and posted a 1.91 ERA and 3.11 FIP, his best marks of any calendar month. Read the rest of this entry »
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
For the second year in a row, BBWAA voters elected just one player to the Hall of Fame. While the results may feel underwhelming — at least, beyond the fact that Scott Rolen is a very solid addition to Cooperstown — the advances made by a handful of candidates who didn’t get to 75% this year bolster the likelihood that they will someday, whether it’s via the writers’ ballot or a small committee to be named later. Looking ahead, there’s nothing to suggest that we’re about to see another wave that brings to mind the record-setting 22 candidates the writers elected over the 2014-20 span, but the next few ballots will be more crowded than the last couple, and should make for some lively election cycles.
Underlying this is a change in the dynamics of Hall of Fame candidacies, one that I’ve been noting in this space in recent years. From 1966 to 2005, only three candidates recovered from debuts below 25% and eventually reached 75%, even with 15 years of eligibility: Duke Snider (17.0% in 1970, elected in ’81), Don Drysdale (21.0% in 1975, elected in ’84) and Billy Williams (23.4% in 1982, elected in ’87). Since then, we’ve seen six players elected despite such slow starts, including three from 2017-23. From the 15-year eligibility period came Bruce Sutter (23.9% in 1994, elected in 2006) and Bert Blyleven (17.5% in 1998, elected in 2011), and then once the Hall unilaterally decided to cut eligibility from 15 years to 10 — less to clean up the ballots than to try moving the intractable debate over PED-related candidates out of the spotlight, and give voters less time to soften their attitudes — Tim Raines (24.3% in 2008, elected in ’17), Mike Mussina (20.3% in 2014, elected in ’19), Larry Walker (20.3% in ’11, elected in ’20), and now Rolen, whose 10.2% in 2018 represents the lowest debut share of any modern candidate elected by the writers. Read the rest of this entry »
Jay Jaffe: I’ll have my five-year HOF election outlook piece on Monday, and another FGA spot for next Friday as well.
2:04
Tacoby Bellsbury: Who gets inducted first: Jeff Kent or Chase Utley?
2:06
Jay Jaffe: My guess is Kent, even though he has to cool his heels for the next three years. Utley’s facing quite a crowd on the next two ballots, and while I’ll find room for him, I don’t know that everybody who wants to vote for him necessarily will get to right off the bat.
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
Until the moment Hall of Fame president Josh Rawitch beamed at the cameras on Tuesday evening and said, “Tonight we are pleased to announce the addition…” most of us expected to hear that the BBWAA voters had pitched their second shutout in three years. Happily we were wrong, and Scott Rolenbeat the odds. While many of us certainly would have preferred him to have company in reaching the 75% threshold instead of becoming the second one-man class in as many years, the election of one candidate is far better than none. Particularly given the shortage of third basemen in the Hall, the institution will be a better place with one of the hot corner’s best enshrined.
As for the other 27 men on this year’s ballot, the voting results have left us plenty to digest, so as promised, here’s my candidate-by-candidate breakdown of the entire slate. Read the rest of this entry »
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
There’s joy in Cooperstown after all. Amid considerable pessimism heading into Tuesday regarding the prospect of any candidate receiving at least 75% from the writers on this year’s Hall of Fame ballot, Scott Rolen gained entry after all. The top returning candidate on this year’s ballot received 76.2% of the vote from the writers, thus completing one of the greatest comebacks in modern electoral history. When he debuted on the 2018 ballot, Rolen received just 10.2% of the vote; no other post-1966 candidate has rallied from such meager beginnings to cross the 75% threshold via the BBWAA voters.
A masterful, athletic defender with the physical dimensions of a tight end (he was listed at 6-foot-4, 245 pounds), Rolen excelled on both sides of the ball. The 1997 NL Rookie of the Year went on to make seven All-Star teams, earn eight Gold Gloves, and star for two pennant-wining Cardinals teams, with a World Series performance that helped the Redbirds win it all in 2006. He ranks third among third basemen in Baseball Reference’s version of fielding runs, and by most measures he also ranks among the position’s top 15 or 20 hitters. Even given that injuries significantly curtailed several of his seasons, and that he played his final game at age 37, that offense/defense combination is enough to place him 10th among third basemen in both career WAR (70.1) and JAWS (56.9). Read the rest of this entry »
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
It’s no secret that this year’s BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot hasn’t captured the public imagination in the same manner as recent ones. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling, and Sammy Sosa all “graduated” after contentious 10-year runs that spurred widespread public debate — often lively, at times prickly, perhaps even exasperating. In their stead arrived a crop of 14 newcomers, none of whom was a slam dunk. Just one has a strong shot at eventual election, namely Carlos Beltrán, and only one other (Francisco Rodríguez) is likely to receive enough support even to remain on the ballot, whose official results will be announced on Tuesday, January 24, at 6 PM ET on MLB Network.
Given that turnover and the possibility that the ballot’s top returnees, Scott Rolen and Todd Helton, might not get to 75% — thus leading to the second shutout in three years from the writers — it’s understandable why this ballot hasn’t been at the center of attention the way recent ones have. Throw in a lively early free agent season (particularly when compared to last year’s lockout and the previous year’s post-COVID fallout) and our site largely going dark for a much-needed break between Christmas and New Years, and it’s not hard to understand why participation in our annual Hall of Fame crowdsource ballot tailed off. Read the rest of this entry »
Jay Jaffe
