If I asked you to visualize the prototypical stolen base, you’d probably picture a runner taking off for second. Conversely, if I asked you to conjure up the most thrilling stolen base you could imagine, you’d pick a play at the plate. Stolen bases at third, then, are the neglected middle child — too infrequent to warrant much conversation or analysis, but not unusual enough to drum up excitement. But third is more than just the base between second and home, and stealing third regularly and efficiently is a distinct skill.

For one thing, steals of third base make for a faster showdown between catcher and runner. The average pop time on a throw to second last season was 1.97 seconds; on a throw to third, it was 1.55 seconds — nearly half a second quicker. The distance between bases, however, is the same all around the diamond, which means a runner needs a much better jump when he’s going for third. Thus, stealing third is less of a race and more of a mind game. Pure speed is less important, but the perfect lead and a well-timed jump are invaluable. Read the rest of this entry »

Chaim Bloom’s plan to replace Trevor Story began to take shape Wednesday morning, as the Boston Red Sox signed outfielder Adam Duvall to a one-year, $7 million deal. Duvall can earn an additional $3 million in playing time incentives; he missed the second half of the 2022 season with an injured wrist, and the Red Sox are hedging their bets against another IL stint.

A couple of weeks ago, this signing wouldn’t have made much sense. Boston’s outfield looked all set with Masataka Yoshida in left field, Enrique Hernández in center, and Alex Verdugo in right, plus Rob Refsnyder on the bench and Jarren Duran at Triple-A. But then their second baseman/potential shortstop underwent major surgery on his throwing arm, and the Red Sox were thrown for a loop. The versatile Hernández, who’s played every position save for catcher, became the shortstop by default, and Boston needed a new center fielder. Enter Duvall.

Duvall took up center field late in life, making his first appearance there a few weeks before his 32nd birthday. He started his first game there the following April and didn’t become a primary center fielder until last year, his age-33 season. In 2023, he’ll attempt to play his first full season as a center fielder at an age when most players are already moving down the defensive spectrum. Read the rest of this entry »

After five seasons and four different teams, Andrew McCutchen is returning to the ballclub where it all began. On Friday morning, the 36-year-old outfielder came to terms with the Pirates on a one-year, $5 million contract. The deal is pending a physical, but the official hype video is already up on Twitter.

McCutchen was remarkable in his first stint with Pittsburgh, putting up 46 WAR from 2009 to ’17. Only five players were more valuable during those nine years: Mike Trout, Buster Posey, Joey Votto, Miguel Cabrera, and Robinson Canó. McCutchen hit 203 home runs, stole 171 bases, and led the Pirates to three straight postseason appearances, including their first in more than 20 years. He’s the best player in the history of PNC Park and the greatest Pirate since Barry Bonds. Read the rest of this entry »

Bo Bichette burst onto the scene in 2021, proving to be every bit the star he looked like as a prospect. His bat was dynamic, and he hit for both power and average. His defense at shortstop was passable, which was all anyone could have hoped for. He was durable, too, ranking among the league leaders in both plate appearances and defensive innings. Yet despite all that, the most exciting aspect of his game wasn’t his bat, or his glove, or his resilience; I’d argue it was his baserunning.

According to BsR, the comprehensive baserunning metric we use here at FanGraphs, the young phenom was electric on the bases. He finished with the seventh-highest BsR in baseball, ahead of names like José Ramírez, Myles Straw, and Trea Turner. Meanwhile, he ranked just 37th among qualified players in wRAA and 72nd in OAA. In other words, his value on the bases was where Bichette stood out most from the rest of the league. The metrics from other sources support this point — Baseball Reference had Bichette tied for 11th in baserunning, while Baseball Prospectus had him at 16th. Only six other players ranked among the top 20 on all three sites: Read the rest of this entry »

The 2022 AL Comeback Player of the Year Award went to Justin Verlander, but were it not for Verlander’s historic return from Tommy John surgery, the hardware could have gone to Johnny Cueto instead. In 2022, Cueto signed a minor league contract with the White Sox on Opening Day. There was little doubt he would eventually make the major league roster, but it was still telling that the former All-Star and Cy Young finalist was forced to sign a non-guaranteed deal. He hadn’t thrown a full season since 2016, and as he entered the back half of his 30s, the once great pitcher’s career seemed to be winding down.

The veteran right-hander went on to pitch 25 games for Chicago, tossing 158.1 innings with a 3.35 ERA and 2.4 WAR. Only two AL hurlers, Framber Valdez and Shane Bieber, averaged more innings per start (min. 100 IP). Best of all, Cueto kept off the injured list, and from his debut on May 16 through the end of the season, he never missed a start. As a reward for his bounce-back performance, he earned himself a big league contract with the Marlins worth $8.5 million. The deal comes with a $10.5 million team option for 2024 (or a $2.5 million buyout). Read the rest of this entry »

The hot corner got a little hotter in the Valley of the Sun last Friday, as the Diamondbacks topped off a busy holiday season with the acquisition of a new third baseman. Evan Longoria is heading to Arizona on a one-year, $4 million contract with an additional $1 million in incentives. He figures to play most of his games at third base, with opportunities to DH as well.

These two sides are a good fit for several reasons, chief among them that Longoria simply wanted to play in Arizona. Heading into the offseason, he stated that he would only consider offers from the Giants, Rays or Diamondbacks (in other words, places he already had homes). It’s likely he lost some leverage by showing his hand so early — $4 million is a tad low for a player who posted 3.0 WAR over the last two seasons — but it’s hard to imagine Longoria is losing any sleep. He gets to play close to home (one of them, anyway) for a team that will give him a real opportunity to prolong his career. The D-backs aren’t true contenders, but if Longoria plays well enough, he’ll find himself in a new uniform by the trade deadline anyway. Read the rest of this entry »

As of sundown on December 18, Chanukah has officially begun. Meanwhile, barring any more surprises from Steve Cohen, the peak of the hot stove season is winding down. There are still several talented players up for grabs, but the top 10 of our top 50 free agents are all off the board, and only three remain from the top 25. After a busy month, things are starting to settle into place.

Thus, as the holidays begin and the busiest part of the offseason comes to a close, now seems like the perfect time to share a couple of minute and trivial statistical tidbits with a Chanukah connection. Here is a close look at grounding into double plays, the three true outcomes, and baseball miracles in honor of the Jewish festival of light. (No prior knowledge of Chanukah, Judaism, or the Talmud required.) Read the rest of this entry »

Catchers are not the swiftest of ballplayers, yet they’ve been moving around this winter like hot potatoes. Willson Contreras went to St. Louis as the heir to Yadier Molina’s throne. Sean Murphy, William Contreras, and Manny Piña switched places in the biggest trade of the hot stove season. Veterans Christian Vásquez, Mike Zunino, and Luke Maile changed uniforms as well. As things currently stand, more than a dozen clubs will have a new primary catcher in 2023.

The shuffle continued within the past week, with the news that three more backstops are moving teams. On December 15, the Mets signed Omar Narváez to a one-year, $8 million contract with a $7 million player option for 2024. Two days later, the Pirates signed Austin Hedges on a one-year, $5 million deal. Then, late on December 21, the Mets sent James McCann to the Orioles for a player to be named later. Hedges and McCann have already been added to the Pirates and Orioles rosters, respectively; the Mets have yet to announce Narváez. Read the rest of this entry »

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: the Detroit Tigers signed a veteran starting pitcher with (a) experience as a reliever and (b) a troubling injury history to a single-year deal worth (up to) $10 million. Two weeks after signing 31-year-old Matthew Boyd to such a contract, the Tigers came to terms with soon-to-be 31-year-old Michael Lorenzen on a similar deal. Lorenzen will make $8.5 million guaranteed, with the chance to earn an additional $1.5 million in performance incentives.

One year and $8.5 to $10 million is just what you’d expect for Lorenzen, who was worth 1.0 WAR last season and projects to be worth another 1.0 WAR (per Steamer) in 2023. When he was on the mound, he was a league-average starter in 2022, with a 4.24 ERA and a 4.31 FIP. Unfortunately, a shoulder strain kept him out for two months in the middle of the year. He has yet to prove he can last a full season in a starting role.

Lorenzen was a closer in college, but the Cincinnati Reds saw his potential as a starter and stretched him out as such. Then he struggled in the role in his rookie season, and after an elbow injury kept him out for much of his sophomore campaign, he returned to the bullpen. Not one to be easily discouraged, Lorenzen advertised his services as a starting pitcher when he reached free agency last winter. The Angels took him up on his offer and invited him to join their six-man rotation for the 2022 season. It was a good landing spot for a pitcher who had barely worked as a starter since 2015:

The Angels did not, however, take Lorenzen up on his other offer: in addition to starting ballgames, he wanted regular plate appearances and reps in the outfield. He had not been a two-way player since 2019, when he played 89 innings in the outfield and hit .208/.283/.313. One might have thought the Angels were the perfect team to give him that opportunity, but in hindsight, it was a bit of a pipe dream. The Angels entered the season with a strong outfield alignment of Mike Trout, Taylor Ward, and Brandon Marsh, and they certainly didn’t have any at-bats to spare at DH. By the time Trout was injured and Marsh was traded, Lorenzen was wasting away on the injured list.

As it turns out, focusing on one aspect of his game was the smartest choice for Lorenzen, and the man himself seems to agree. “Now that I am a starter, I’m pretty happy about that,” he told the Orange County Register in April. “Of course, if they want me to hit, I’m willing to do it, but it’s not something that I’m fighting for.”

After years spent mainly in the bullpen, Lorenzen made 18 starts in 2022 and looked more than capable while doing so. By WAR, it was the second-best season of his career. Any time he might have spent training at the plate would only have taken away from time spent refining his pitch repertoire.

To that point, Lorenzen clearly put a great deal of work into his pitches this season. Back in April, Jake Mailhot wrote about Lorenzen’s return to the starting rotation and how he was adjusting his repertoire to find success. Yet Lorenzen wasn’t done making changes – not even close. His pitch mix morphed as the season continued, and many of the adjustments Jake wrote about completely disappeared. The sinker, Lorenzen’s most-thrown pitch in April, became less and less of a factor. By the end of the year, he was using it only 8% of the time. His slider, meanwhile, lost about four inches of horizontal movement from April to September. The first clip here is from April 18, while the second is from September 9:

Lorenzen’s primary pitches also changed throughout the year. From April to June, his go-to offering against left-handed batters was the four-seam fastball, but his changeup earned a bigger role as the year progressed. By September, he was throwing the change to lefties nearly half the time:

Similarly, his sinker was his primary pitch against righties early on, but his slider overtook it by season’s end:

Lorenzen also vastly reduced his cutter usage and adding in a curveball. Until September, he had thrown just five curveballs all year. Over his final five starts, he threw 30. As for his individual pitches, Lorenzen added spin to every one of his offerings throughout the season, and he also started throwing a noticeably slower changeup. All this to say, late-season Lorenzen was a vastly different pitcher than his early-season counterpart. He changed his approach, and he had better outings as a result:

Lorenzen did well to concentrate on his pitching in 2022. He saw especially positive results in September, and he’ll look to build upon that success in a healthy 2023 season. It’s probably best if he continues to resist the call of the bat – even if he has a much better chance of cracking the lineup with his new team. Lorenzen’s career OPS (small sample size warning) is higher than the Steamer projections for half of Detroit’s starting lineup:

It’s funny that I find myself advocating against Lorenzen, the two-way player. I promise I’m not anti-fun! In fact, I was inspired to write about him in the first place precisely because of his experience on both sides of the ball. A little part of me was hoping to find an argument that might compel him to pick up the bat once again. However, the more I learned about his 2022 season, the more invested I became in Lorenzen, the one-way player. He spent the year altering his approach and refining his individual pitches, and the season ended before we could tell if he found a pitch mix to stick with.

That being the case, I look forward to watching his development continue into 2023. With the Tigers, Lorenzen should have a low-stress environment to tinker, adjust, and grow as a starting pitcher. If he’s happy with the approach he took in September, I’m interested to see how it plays out over a full season. And if he isn’t done adjusting, I’m excited to keep up with whatever changes he makes next.

Kevin Kiermaier is a Toronto Blue Jay. If that sounds like old news, it’s because it is, but now, after four days spent in limbo (a dangerous activity for those recovering from hip surgery), we finally have the contract details to prove it. The deal is for one year and $9 million, which pushes the Blue Jays payroll over the first luxury tax threshold of $233 million – a threshold they have never crossed before.

Pending further moves, Kiermaier figures to take over center field duties from George Springer, while Springer replaces Teoscar Hernández in right. This represents a significant offensive downgrade for Toronto – Hernández is one of the top 30 hitters in the majors, and Kiermaier is… not – but with Kiermaier in center and Springer moving to a corner, the Jays hope to field one of the better defensive outfields in baseball. Springer was worth 1 Out Above Average in 86 center field games last season, with above-average arm strength and outfielder jump. He figures to be an excellent protector in right. Kiermaier, for his part, is one of the most talented gloves of his generation. He ranks first among active center fielders in career DRS and UZR, and his 71 Outs Above Average lead all outfielders since the stat was introduced in 2016.

And as impressive as his career totals already are, Kiermaier isn’t exactly slowing down. Entering his age-33 season, he’s yet to show worrisome signs of decline in the field. We can’t read too much into his defensive metrics from last season (he only played 60 games), but his sprint speed was elite and his arm continues to be one of the strongest in the league. He was worth just 1 OAA, but his Statcast outfielder jump metrics were all in line with the year before, when he ranked in the 97th percentile for outfielder jump and 98th percentile for OAA:

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