There’s no lockout on the podcast, which means Chin Music keeps going. This week I’m joined by returning co-host C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic and even without much baseball news, we find plenty to talk about. We begin with a non-update on the lockout and discuss how we’ve each gotten a bit more pessimistic about how this thing ends. Next, since the lockout means no Winter Meetings, we instead dip into our memory banks for a few fun stories from Meetings past, while sharing what we miss (and don’t) about the annual event. Finally, as there was Hall of Fame news this week, Jay Jaffe joins the show to discuss the six newly elected inductees, as well as some new faces on this year’s ballot. Then it’s your emails on minor league team purchases, the potential for an international draft, and domain squatting, followed by a few light-hearted and easy-on-the-brain Moments Of Culture.

As always, we hope you enjoy, and thank you for listening.

Music by Rid Of Me.

Have a question you’d like answered on the show? Ask us anything at chinmusic@fangraphs.com.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes/Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Warning One: While ostensibly a podcast about baseball, these conversations often veer into other subjects.

Warning Two: There is explicit language.

Run Time: 2:29:25

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As last week’s free agent frenzy entered its final day in anticipation of a lockout by the owners, a pair of clubs entered the fray by filling clear needs for late-inning relievers.

Beginning with the move that is far more likely to impact the standings in 2022, the Philadelphia Phillies signed right-hander Corey Knebel to a one-year, $10 million deal. Knebel will seemingly replace the recently departed Héctor Neris as the club’s closer, but that makes quite an assumption about Knebel’s availability for a full 162-game schedule.

Knebel’s ability to close has never been in question, at least based on his pure stuff. In 2017, he had one of the most un-hittable seasons out of the ‘pen in recent memory, striking out 126 over 76 innings while allowing just 48 hits en route to 39 saves, a 1.78 ERA and a 2.53 FIP for the Milwaukee Brewers. He saw a minor decline in 2018 as he struggled with knee and hamstring issues, and just hasn’t really pitched that much since. Between Tommy John surgery in 2019 and an extended issue with a lat injury in ’21, Knebel has pitched just 39 innings over 42 games in the last three seasons combined, with mixed results: he fared poorly in 13.1 innings with Milwaukee in 2020, but when he was on the mound for the Dodgers last season, the results were good, posting a 2.45 ERA and a 2.90 FIP. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

The season is over, but Chin Music rolls on, as Lindsey Adler of The Athletic takes a spin in the revolving co-host chair. We sure have plenty to talk about, and we begin with (what else?) the lockout, though not in the sense of how we got here or how it ends. Instead, we consider what is or isn’t going on in front offices and throughout baseball right now, and just how draconian the league has been in enforcing its lockout rules. Then we discuss the insanity that was the free agent frenzy in the days leading up to the lockout, as we try to figure out why teams behaved the way they did and what it might mean. Then we get away from baseball for a bit with our guest segment, as professional poker player Brandon Shack-Harris joins the show to talk about his recently concluded World Series, catching COVID, wearing bear suits at the table, and how he learned how to play from the lead singer of Muse. Then it’s your emails on the Winter Meetings, drugs, and scouting scales, followed by some high- and low-brow entries in the Moment Of Culture.

As always, we hope you enjoy, and thank you for listening.

Music by Rid Of Me.

Have a question you’d like answered on the show? Ask us anything at chinmusic@fangraphs.com.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes/Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Warning One: While ostensibly a podcast about baseball, these conversations often veer into other subjects.

Warning Two: There is explicit language.

Run Time: 2:38:28

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Raisel Iglesias, who ranked 24th on our annual list of the top 50 free agents, inspired one of the biggest gaps between the contract projection of Ben Clemens, who pegged him for three years and $15 million, and that of our readers, who had the same length, but a median AAV of just $10 million. Ben was right and then some: the best reliever on the market is returning to the Los Angeles Angels on a four-year, $58 million deal reached in the final days of the league’s pre-lockout free agent frenzy.

Iglesias rejected a qualifying offer from these same Angels two weeks ago, and in the end received a deal consistent with that of other elite late-inning relievers. He’s coming off his best season as a professional, combining a career-high strikeout rate with a career-low walk rate to give him a phenomenal 103-to-12 K/BB ratio over 70 innings during which he posted a 2.57 ERA and 2.83 FIP.

Iglesias’ entry into professional baseball was a difficult one. A native of Cuba, he spent his ages-20-22 seasons pitching in the Industrial League in his native country; he was able to leave Cuba in late 2013. Establishing residency can often be a struggle for Cuban players, and that was the case for Iglesias, who was ultimately forced to settle in Haiti. Read the rest of this entry »

Under General Manager Kim Ng, the Miami Marlins have said a lot of positive things about investing in their roster in order to be a factor in what is becoming a highly competitive National League East. Over the past few days, they’ve begun to put their money where their collective mouth is.

On Tuesday, the club formally announced a five-year, $56 million extension for right-handed starter Sandy Alcantara; the deal, which was initially reported last week, includes a $21 million option for a sixth year, buying out his three arbitration years and as many as three years of free agency. It’s easy to forget that when the Marlins acquired Alcantara from the Cardinals as part of a four-player package received in return for outfielder Marcell Ozuna, he was not seen as the best prospect in the trade (for that matter, neither was right-hander Zac Gallen, who was also acquired in the deal). Instead, the real prize was speedy outfielder Magneuris Sierra. Sierra hasn’t worked out, but the deal has still been very fruitful for Miami.

At the time of the trade, Alcantara was seen by many as a likely future reliever due to his plus-plus arm strength, sloppy command and a shallow arsenal. To the credit of the Marlins pitching group, and more importantly, Alcantara himself, he has turned into a strike thrower, maintained his velocity, and developed a much more effective complement of off-speed pitches. That combination has turned him into one of the better (and more durable) young starters in the game, one who also has several underlying indicators that portend future improvements. Read the rest of this entry »

Few people probably anticipated the kind of spending frenzy we’ve seen this offseason leading up to a likely lockout. Nobody assumed the Rangers would be leading the way. They’ve now committed over $500 million in salary in the last 48 hours, with the biggest chunk of that coming on Monday afternoon in the form of a 10-year, $325 million deal for shortstop Corey Seager, who finished second in our top 50 free agent rankings. The deal includes a $5 million bonus and no opt-outs.

(A quick note before we move on: When you get into these numbers, state taxes make a difference. Playing in Texas and the AL West, Seager will play nearly two-thirds of his games in tax-free states. The Dodgers, who play nearly two-thirds of their games in the state with the highest tax rate in the country, could have offered $350 million and still not matched the Rangers in overall money.)

In Seager, the Rangers get a face-of-the-franchise–level talent — when he’s healthy, which has been depressingly rare of late. He missed more than a third of the 2021 season due to an errant pitch breaking a bone in his hand, lost nearly three weeks of the ’19 season to a hamstring strain, and was absent for the majority of of the ’18 season due to Tommy John and hip surgeries.

That said, the healthy version of Seager (and to be far, the broken hand was an accident) has shown that he’s capable of seasons worthy of MVP votes and is the best offensive shortstop on the market, and yes, that includes Carlos Correa, No. 1 in our top 50. Seager’s power is a seemingly underrated aspect of his game that every bit matches Correa’s in terms of exit velocities, and the former’s pure hit tool exceeds the latter’s, who is ultimately the better overall player thanks to his incredible defensive prowess. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

There are two narratives to consider with Steven Matz, who signed with the Cardinals last Wednesday. There’s the straight-up baseball story of a solid pitcher joining the rotation of a good team. Then there’s the seemingly never-ending soap opera that is the Mets, whom he spurned in the final moments of his free agency for St. Louis.

Let’s start with the baseball side of things. Matz immediately fills a rotation spot for a Cardinals team that will likely be in the thick of things in the NL Central in 2022. At four years and $11 million per, with the chance to earn an additional $4 million over the life of the contract via performance bonuses, he topped the length and total value, though not AAV, predicted by Ben Clemens in our top 50 free agents list, on which he ranked no. 31, and beat the crowd-sourced numbers in each category.

The lefty will slot somewhere in the middle of the St. Louis starter group, certainly following Adam Wainwright and Jack Flaherty, and if there’s anyone on the market who fits the definition of middle-rotation starter, it’s Matz. As 2020 gets further away in our collective rear-view mirrors, we’ve learned how much data from that season is an outlier, and an extreme one at times, as was the case with him; he was northing short of miserable in his nine appearances that season. And while he had his share of health issues in his earlier years, if you take his three most recent full seasons, he’s been the roughly the same player in terms of both consistent performance and availability.

He doesn’t have the kind of high-spin, bat-missing stuff that teams tend to look for in the modern game, but Matz keeps the ball on the ground at roughly a 50% rate and should benefit greatly from a Cardinals defense that represents a significant upgrade from what was behind him in Toronto. He leans primarily on his 93–96-mph sinker and throws a pair of breaking balls roughly a quarter of the time, preferring his curve over his slider, and for good reason, considering the quality of the pitch. Changeups are rare but shouldn’t be, as he’s added a few inches of drop on the pitch over the past few years, leading to an offering that performs quite well.

During those previously mentioned three full seasons, Matz averaged 30 starts and 155 innings per, so he’s been taking the bump every five days, but going deep into games is not something he brings to the table, as he got more than 18 outs just three times in 2021. He can throw a strike when he has to but needs to play around the edges in order to succeed with his arsenal, leading to deeper counts, more than 100 pitches per six innings, and the need for multiple relievers to finish the job.
Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s do a quick podcast, I said to Jon Tayler. We’ll just do listener emails and give people a little something going into the holidays, I added. More than two hours later, here we are. We talk about the breaking news of a Wander Franco extension, give a quick labor update, and then it’s your emails — 17 of them to be exact. From free agent decisions, to Total Bases Ball updates to difficult music decisions, we ramble on and on, while hoping that said ramblings help get you through an enjoyable and safe holiday. We’ll be back next week with a more normal episode, whatever that means.

As always, we hope you enjoy, and thank you for listening.

Music by Kowloon Walled City.

Have a question you’d like answered on the show? Ask us anything at chinmusic@fangraphs.com.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes/Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Warning One: While ostensibly a podcast about baseball, these conversations often veer into other subjects.

Warning Two: There is explicit language.

Run Time: 2:10:52

Podcast (chin-music): Play in new window | Download

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