The wild card round is already short enough, and this year, all four matchups ended in sweeps. That’s not much postseason baseball for the Rays, Blue Jays, Brewers, and Marlins. Suffice it to say, none of those teams took October, despite what the t-shirts promised.
While I feel a twinge of heartache for the losing side in any postseason matchup, I feel especially bad for the first-round exits. After a 162-game slog with the playoffs as the only goal, their season is over in the blink of an eye. With time, some will be forgotten as contenders entirely. That seems a shame, considering how well each of these teams performed in the regular season.
With that in mind, I wanted to take one last moment to recognize the playoff performances of Miami, Milwaukee, Toronto, and Tampa Bay, before the winds of the postseason blow on to the Division Series matchups. To be clear, there isn’t a ton to celebrate; they were each swept, after all. Still, every eliminated team had at least one player whose postseason showing deserves a pat on the back. Read the rest of this entry »
While most of the baseball world was focused on the playoff race, the Nationals got an early start to their offseason on Wednesday, avoiding arbitration with veteran utility man Ildemaro Vargas. The terms of the contract have not yet been announced, but it’s safe to presume the journeyman will earn a raise over his $975,000 salary from the current season. He set a new career high in plate appearances this year, playing in 84 games at five different positions. What’s more, the 2023 campaign marked the first of his career in which he wasn’t optioned, traded, or designated for assignment; apart from a three-week stint on the injured list and a few rehab games at Triple-A, he spent the entire season on Washington’s big league roster.
I’ll be honest: when the Nationals first broke the news about Vargas, I didn’t think it warranted a full write-up. Still, I wanted to do my due diligence, so I began my typical process of cursory player research. First, I checked his FanGraphs page. A 77 wRC+ and -0.1 WAR? Sure, sounds about right. Next, I went to Baseball Savant. 16th-percentile xwOBA? Yeah, that tracks. Then, I looked on Baseball Prospectus. A 144 DRC+ and 2.0 WARP? Okay, nothing out of the… wait, what?
After refreshing the page a couple dozen times and checking to make sure there isn’t a second Ildemaro Vargas out there, I realized this guy might be just a little more interesting than I initially thought. DRC+ is only one metric, and like any metric, it’s vulnerable to small sample size trickery. Be that as it may, I can’t ignore the fact that DRC+ ranks Vargas as the fourth-best hitter in the National League; it goes Ronald Acuña Jr., Mookie Betts, Juan Soto, and Vargas. He’s ahead of names like Matt Olson, Luis Arraez, and Freddie Freeman. Small sample size or no, this is a player who deserves our attention: Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been fascinated by the idea of mirror image twins since the Giants signed Taylor Rogers last December, pairing him up with his brother Tyler and illuminating me to their unusual genetic connection. As monozygotic (i.e., identical) twins, they come from the same fertilized ovum and, thus, the same DNA. Taylor, however, is left-handed, and Tyler is right-handed, a manifestation of their mirror image relationship.
Mirror image twinship makes for a perfect metaphor, and as a writer, nothing excites me more. It’s like a real-world example of a contronym, a word that can have two opposite meanings in different contexts; the word “dusting” always looks the same, but sometimes it means to remove dust, and other times it means to sprinkle it on. It’s the same thing with the Rogers twins. They look exactly the same until they take the mound. Read the rest of this entry »
Perhaps it’s too soon to say that Drew Smyly has turned his season around from the bullpen, but he’s certainly on the right track. In 22 starts this year, he pitched to a 5.40 ERA and a 5.32 FIP. Opposing batters slashed .274/.337/.501 against him; in other words, he turned the average hitter into Austin Riley. On the flip side, Smyly has a 3.72 ERA and 3.41 FIP in 19.1 innings of relief. Over the past month, he has looked even better. The small sample size disclaimer applies, but even so, his 2.61 ERA and 2.29 FIP are notable. His opponents are slashing .237/.293/.421; that’s less Riley and more Hunter Renfroe.
As a starter, Smyly wasn’t a big strikeout threat. Yet, as a reliever, he has struck out 27 of the 80 batters he has faced. That’s a 33.8% strikeout rate, or 12.57 K/9. Since his first relief appearance on July 22, he ranks among the top ten qualified NL relievers in both metrics. Even better, he has upped his strikeouts without giving out any more free passes. His 8.0% walk rate was run-of-the-mill for a starting pitcher, but his 7.5% rate is significantly better than average for a bullpen arm.
The pitch-level data helps to explain Smyly’s transformation into a strikeout artist. He’s throwing all three of his pitches with increased velocity and using his best whiff pitch, his curveball, more often. His zone rate is up, as is his chase rate, and as a result, he’s earning more whiffs and first-pitch strikes.
Now that I’ve thoroughly impressed you with tales of Drew Smyly reborn, it’s time to come clean. The veteran southpaw’s performance as a reliever isn’t the real reason I’m writing about him today. As good as he’s been, I need to see more than 11 appearances before I dub him the next Dennis Eckersley. But while I was comparing Smyly’s stats between the bullpen and rotation, one number stood out more than any other — more than the velocity, more than the walks, and even more than the strikeouts. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve always been fascinated by players whose skill sets don’t match their physical makeup. Look at Mookie Betts, a prolific slugger at a mere 5-foot-9. Conversely, there’s Oneil Cruz, a legit shortstop towering over the infield at 6-foot-7. Spencer Strider is one of the smallest starters in the league, and Zach Eflin is one of the tallest, yet the former is the power pitcher, and the latter thrives on finesse. Don’t get me wrong: It’s fun to watch Aaron Judge sock dingers, too. Still, I’ll always have a soft spot for the players who don’t fit the prototype. I suppose a childhood filled with sports movies has conditioned me to root for the underdog.
In the same vein, I’m a fan of slow runners who nonetheless wreak havoc on the basepaths. These players aren’t nearly as common as their opposite; there are far more fast runners who struggle to contribute on the bases. After all, it’s much easier to fail at something despite possessing a natural advantage than to succeed without one. We’ve all met a tall person who stinks at basketball, but you can count the number of average-height players in the NBA on one thumb. And indeed, the scarcity of such players is a big part of what makes them so easy to root for.
Of the 50 slowest runners by sprint speed in 2023, only six have provided positive value on the bases, and only one has a BsR that wouldn’t round down to zero: Ji Man Choi, who has been worth all of 0.6 BsR. Similarly, of the 50 most valuable runners by BsR, only four have a sprint speed below the MLB average of 27 feet per second: Freddie Freeman, Kyle Tucker, Jose Altuve, and Josh Rojas. Of those four, only Freeman and Rojas have accrued positive baserunning value according to every other major source; Tucker has been below average per Baseball Prospectus, and Altuve has negative scores at both BP and Baseball Savant.
BsR remains my metric of choice, but my point is to highlight just how few players with below-average speed have positive baserunning numbers across the board. Out of 225 qualified runners with a sprint speed below 27 ft/sec, only two are consensus plus baserunners. Freeman and Rojas prove that speed isn’t everything, but the other 223 players show that it’s still pretty darned important. Read the rest of this entry »
Carlos Correaseems like he should be a good baserunner. He’s a young shortstop with great instincts in the field. He’s tall and lean, with a long pair of legs. In his rookie season, he stole 32 bases in 37 attempts across Double-A, Triple-A, and the majors. Yet despite what you’d think, Correa is decidedly not a good baserunner. In fact, he’s been the least valuable runner in the game this season. Over the past two years, he has been worth -13.6 baserunning runs (BsR); only Christian Vázquez (-14.0 BsR) has been worse. Surrounded by catchers, first basemen, and aging veterans, Correa is a fish out of water at the bottom of the BsR leaderboards.
The Twins shortstop recently opened up about his baserunning to Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com, calling himself “slow as f–k.” It’s no surprise Correa is down on himself amid a career-worst season. Moreover, in a textual medium, it’s hard to gauge just how tongue-in-cheek his comment was. Still, whether he was dramatizing, joking, or a bit of both, it’s worth clarifying that Correa isn’t quite that slow. His sprint speed, as measured by Statcast, ranks in the 34th percentile – slow, sure, but it’s not like he’s walking around the bases. There are 177 players with a slower sprint speed this season (min. 10 opportunities) and 115 with a slower home-to-first time. If Correa is “slow as f–k,” I don’t even want to know what expletives he’d use to describe Miguel Cabrera and Yasmani Grandal. Correa may not have much speed to work with, but even so, his problem is that he isn’t making the most of the speed he’s got.
Correa isn’t the only player guilty of squandering speed, either. Indeed, there are much faster players who have hurt their teams on the basepaths this season, guys who can’t rely on the “slow as f–k” defense. Inspired by Correa’s comments, I looked at the sprint speed for the 50 worst players by BsR this season and took note of some interesting names. I also conducted my search the other way around, checking out the BsR for each of the 50 fastest runners by sprint speed. These are the guys who stood out. Read the rest of this entry »
In the 1991 comedy King Ralph, an American lounge singer becomes the King of England when the entire royal family is electrocuted in a freak photography accident. Despite its Academy Award-winning screenwriter and a cast of well-respected actors, the film fell flat, making it an apt comparison for the 2023 Mets, although that’s not why I bring it up today. After a series of unfortunate and unexpected injuries, Aaron Civale finds himself a key cog with the Rays and, therefore, in the race for the AL East crown. Tampa Bay’s rotation doesn’t have much in common with the British monarchy (there’s far too much turnover and not nearly enough silly hats), but just like Ralph Jones, Civale wouldn’t be in this position if so many others in front of him hadn’t bit the dust.
On the other side of the equation, the Guardians entered the season under no pressure to trade Civale. On Opening Day, their postseason odds sat at 44.7%. Two-thirds of the FanGraphs staff picked them to make the playoffs, myself included. Now, this is the Guardians we’re talking about, so high postseason odds won’t stop them from trading a talented, young player, but Civale was set to make only $2.6 million this season, and he’s arbitration-eligible for two more years. Cleveland had little incentive to trade him unless the offer was too good to refuse. Considering his injury history, his 4.92 ERA last season, and the oblique strain he suffered this April, the chances of such an offer materializing seemed slim. Read the rest of this entry »
June 23, 2023, was a rough day for the Braves. They scored 10 runs but gave up 11 in a hard-fought battle with the Reds. It was the first time they’d given up more than ten runs all season, and the first time they’d scored double-digit runs and still lost in over a year. They blew two leads and couldn’t quite pull off the comeback at the end of the night.
Yet in the grand scheme of things, June 23, 2023, was an insignificant day for the Braves. By that point in the season, their playoff odds were 99.5%. Sure, they lost the game, but it was one of only four losses they would suffer all month. They went on to win the series and sweep their next two, increasing their playoff odds to 100% within the week. The Braves have about as much reason to worry about losses as I have to worry about werewolf attacks. It’s not worth agonizing over something that only happens once in a blue moon.
But for one particular Brave, June 23, 2023, was an excellent day. Ronald Acuña Jr. went 3-for-5 with a home run and a stolen base. He made a great catch, too, covering 78 feet in 4.6 seconds to rob Tyler Stephenson of a hit. The following morning, he rose to first place in the National League in WAR, a position he has held ever since.
First place on the WAR leaderboard isn’t necessarily meaningfully different from second, third, or even fourth. At times, Acuña’s lead was so slight that you had to add another decimal place just to see it. Still, leading the league for 53 days (and counting) is an impressive accomplishment. Plenty of guys can get hot and amass a high WAR in a short stretch, but maintaining such a high degree of excellence over eight weeks is something else. Four others occupied second place in that time, and nine shuffled through spots three to five. But Acuña has yet to give up his lead. Read the rest of this entry »
Shohei Ohtani and Ronald Acuña Jr. have been the MVP frontrunners for quite some time. They lead the majors in WAR, and to make things nice and easy, there’s no need to specify which kind; they’re the top dogs here at FanGraphs, as well as Baseball Reference and Baseball Prospectus. MLB.com has conducted three MVP polls throughout the season, asking over 40 writers and analysts to fill out a ballot. Ohtani and Acuña won all three, and in the latest iteration, released on July 13, they were unanimous choices. The NL Rookie of the Year is just as cut and dry, with Corbin Carroll the hands-down favorite. Meanwhile, Gunnar Henderson is pulling ahead in the AL, and Josh Jung’s fractured thumb likely takes him out of the race.
Thankfully, at least one of the major awards will provide a compelling race down the stretch. There is no clear-cut frontrunner for Cy Young in the AL or the NL, and if the season ended today, five or six pitchers could earn first-place votes in either league. Read the rest of this entry »
Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer were the stars of the trade deadline, along with prospects Drew Gilbert, Kyle Manzardo, and Luisangel Acuña. The Mets, White Sox, and Cardinals were the biggest sellers, and the Rangers were the most active buyers of the season. These were the names and teams that dominated the headlines on the busiest days of the baseball calendar. But as always, some teams stood pat and some stars stayed put, and a few of the trades that did not happen were just as interesting as many that did.
The most surprising non-trade of the deadline was that of Eduardo Rodriguez, who will remain with the Tigers through the end of the season. Detroit had every reason to shop the veteran, who’s in the midst of a career year with a 2.95 ERA and 3.17 FIP in 15 starts. His performance caught the eye of several suitors, including the Dodgers, Rays, Padres, Rangers, Reds, Diamondbacks, and Phillies. The Tigers, meanwhile, are already out of contention, and Rodriguez is certain to exercise his opt-out at the end of the year. And having already received the qualifying offer once, he cannot receive it again; if/when he leaves in free agency, the Tigers will receive no compensation at all. On top of all that, it was clearly a seller’s market for starting pitching, so although the Tigers had little leverage, they could have still secured a sizeable return for their best trade chip.
With the clock ticking on Tuesday, word came out that the Tigers and Dodgers had reached an agreement to trade Rodriguez. But he exercised his partial no-trade clause and vetoed the deal; as per his contract, he has the right to refuse a trade to 10 different teams, and the Dodgers are one of them. Rodriguez reportedly rejected the trade to L.A. to stay closer to family; his wife and children live in Miami. (Editor’s Note: this piece has been updated to reflect reporting on Rodriguez’s reasoning in rejecting a trade.) However, his reasoning for turning down the deal is hardly relevant, nor does it say anything about his value on the field. His no-trade protection is a part of his contract, just like his salary, bonuses, and option years. He has every right to use his no-trade clause however he sees fit, just as he has every right to collect his paycheck and exercise his opt-out.
Still, it’s hard not to view this turn of events as a failure on the part of Scott Harris and the Tigers front office. There are 19 teams that Rodriguez could not have refused a trade to, and there’s a good chance at least one of them would have liked to add a frontline starting pitcher. Yet the Tigers wasted their time crafting a deal that would never come to be; by the time it fell through, it was too late to change their plans.
Harris justified the outcome, explaining, “There were some contractual headwinds that influenced [Rodriguez’s] market. There were a couple of terms in his contract that disqualified a lot of markets from pursuing him. So we were working with the market that we had.” Those vague excuses may well be true, but they still come across as a poor defense. The Tigers blew their best opportunity and came away from the deadline with only a single prospect of note: Hao-Yu Lee, received in exchange forMichael Lorenzen. Impending free agents José Cisnero and Chasen Shreve remain with the Tigers, as do bigger trade chips like Alex Lange, Jason Foley, and Kerry Carpenter, all of whom popped up in rumors ahead of the deadline.
As Harris also mentioned, there are worse fates than having “one of the best left-handed starters in baseball on the mound every five nights.” Be that as it may, one of the very few benefits of being a crappy baseball team is the chance to sell at the deadline. The Tigers couldn’t even manage that.
The White Sox dangled an ace of their own on the trade market, but unlike the Tigers, they faced little pressure to finalize a deal. Dylan Cease is arbitration eligible through 2025; if Rick Hahn wants to trade him, he still has plenty of time to do so. Furthermore, Chicago had several other players to sell, including Lucas Giolito, Jake Burger, Lance Lynn, and a cornucopia of relievers. Still, considering the prospects the Mets got back for Scherzer and Verlander, the White Sox could have fetched a pretty penny for the 2022 Cy Young runner-up. They seemed to pick up on this, because after days of rejecting inquiries about Cease, they suddenly started listening to “more serious offers” hours before the deadline. Ultimately, however, it all came to nothing, and Cease will make his scheduled start this evening against the Rangers at Globe Life Field.
All things considered, Cease never seemed that likely to be traded. The White Sox had higher priorities this summer and no reason to sell low on Cease after his slow start in 2023. Neither his 4.15 ERA nor his 3.57 FIP reflect the ace-level pitcher he can be. Over his last ten starts, he has a 3.34 ERA and a 2.66 FIP; if he pitches more like that down the stretch, his trade value will be even higher in the offseason. What’s more, it’s possible Chicago could be looking to sign him to a long-term extension. Still just 27 years old, there’s little risk that he’ll start to decline before the White Sox next field a competitive team. They play in the AL Central, after all, and with a good offseason, they could be contenders again as soon as next season.
With Rodriguez and Cease staying put, the only frontline arms to change hands at the deadline were Scherzer and Verlander, leaving several contending teams with holes in their rotations high and dry. The Orioles turned to Jack Flaherty, a fine pitcher but hardly the ace they were searching for. The Dodgers struck a last-minute deal for Ryan Yarbrough; the former Royal will provide them with left-handed depth but not much more. Meanwhile, the Rangers, who secured the services of Scherzer and Jordan Montgomery, come out looking even better than they did when the trades were first announced.
Neither Hernández nor Duvall made much sense as trade candidates either; they play for contending teams, and they’re both struggling to hit as of late. Given the dearth of right-handed bats on the market, they each came up in their fair share of rumors, but ultimately, the Mariners and Red Sox didn’t receive any offers they liked enough to pull the trigger, and it’s not hard to see why. The potential benefit of a hot-hitting Hernández or Duvall down the stretch far outweighs whatever return they could get for two months of a slumping veteran.
Thomas and his 114 wRC+ could have garnered a stronger return, but Washington never seemed too keen to trade him. He is arbitration eligible through 2025, and if the Nationals think he can prove himself as an everyday corner outfielder, and not just the short side of a platoon, they’d be wise to hold onto him a little longer. The Nats had a quiet deadline this year, trading Jeimer Candelario, the piece they needed to sell, but holding onto other trade chips like Thomas and Kyle Finnegan.
The Cardinals, on the other hand, were anything but quiet. Carlson and O’Neill were never obvious trade chips, but once rumors of the impending fire sale began, their names popped up as young, controllable alternatives to the likes of Hernández, Duvall, Randal Grichuk, and Tommy Pham. St. Louis would have been selling low on both, though, and with each under contract past this season, there was little pressure to make a move. Indeed, the only players the Cardinals dealt were impending free agents: Montgomery, Flaherty, Jordan Hicks, Chris Stratton, and Paul DeJong. Carlson and O’Neill survived the deadline, as did reliever Giovanny Gallegos, who is under contract through 2024. Unsurprisingly, superstars Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt are also staying in St. Louis. In other words, the Cardinals don’t plan to be down in the basement for long. The prospects they got back point to a similar conclusion.
Like the Cardinals, the Mets were supposed contenders who ended up selling big, but it doesn’t look like they will be back in contention in 2024, and they certainly weren’t just trading rentals. That being so, it’s a little surprising they didn’t find a new home for reliever Brooks Raley. The left-hander has a reasonable $6.5 million club option for 2024, and given his 2.37 ERA in 46 games, he seemed like a safe bet to be dealt. Then again, buyers might have been scared by his unsustainable 88.1% strand percentage, declining velocity, and high fly ball rate. He has still done an excellent job limiting hard contact, but his xFIP and SIERA are more than a full run higher than last season. That’s not to say he wouldn’t improve several contending teams’ bullpens, but he may not have been in as high demand as his surface stats would have you believe.
With impact trade candidates at such a premium, the deadline could have gone one of two ways. We could have seen a buying frenzy, where contending teams handed over piles of prospects for any upgrade they could get their hands on. Instead, however, we got one of the more placid deadlines in recent memory. Rodriguez is still on the Tigers. Cease is still on the White Sox. And it’s time for the stretch run to begin.
