It’s a bit of a cliché that all-time great basketball players like to add an element to their game every offseason. You come back from summer vacation and Tim Duncan has a new post move or LeBron’s shooting three-pointers now. This truism informs something I like to ask baseball players during breakout seasons: Do you have an eye on the next thing you want to learn? Sometimes you get some banality about being more consistent, or just an outright “no,” but on occasion a pitcher will reveal a hitherto hidden desire to learn a palmball, so it’s worth asking.

Nobody has embodied this drive for self-improvement like Shohei Ohtani. The man who already does everything showed up at the start of 2024 and decided to turn his plus running speed from a curiosity into a weapon. Shotime had previously topped out in the 20-steal range, and usually with pretty ugly success rates. In 2022, he needed 20 attempts to swipe just 11 bags; that year, he also stole the George Springer Trophy for Most Mystifyingly Bad Basestealer for a Fast Guy. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, at FanGraphs dot com, we’re turning over a new leaf. The last two times Aroldis Chapman changed teams — when he signed with the Pirates last January and when he was traded from Kansas City to Texas seven months prior — Jay Jaffe and I both referenced the Tattoo Infection Incident of 2022. It’s memorable and useful as a shorthand for the ignoble end to Chapman’s tenure with the Yankees — though both of his stints in New York were to a greater or lesser extent ignoble throughout.

More than that, Lindsey Adler’s story on the situation introduced a novel clause to the sportswriting canon, a literary construction so vivid it clearly fascinated both Jay and myself for months after the fact. But no more. I’m going to write an Aroldis Chapman story without quoting the phrase, “veritable moat of pus.”

Oh crap, I said the phrase that pays. What a pity; with that said, I’ll surely have another opportunity to write a clean transaction story about the veteran left-hander when he changes teams again. Because if Chapman is still able to command a one-year, $10.75 million contract from the Red Sox, it seems major league teams are determined to keep giving chances to a player who ought to have exhausted the sport’s patience by now. Read the rest of this entry »

The Chicago Cubs got their offseason into gear Monday morning, with the reported signing of veteran left-handed pitcher Matthew Boyd to a two-year contract worth $14.5 million per year, plus incentives. Hey, Boyd is a name people know, and he had that one really good year a while back, didn’t he? There’s got to be a reason the Cubs are handing out a multi-year deal for almost $30 million to a pitcher who made eight starts in 2024, hasn’t broken 80 innings in a season since 2019, and turns 34 before the start of spring training.

It makes sense, but you have to work a little to see it. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s always nice when something works out perfectly, right away. At the trade deadline, the Dodgers insinuated themselves into a three-way deal with the White Sox and Cardinals, acquiring Michael Kopech and Tommy Edman in exchange for infielder Miguel Vargas and a smattering of minor leaguers. Edman, who hadn’t played an inning all year to that point because of a wrist injury, was of little use to the Cardinals and zero use to the White Sox, so Los Angeles was able to acquire him on the cheap.

The wrist healed; the former Stanford standout debuted in late August, posted a 98 wRC+ in 37 regular-season games, then played every inning of the Dodgers’ successful World Series run. He started games at both center field and shortstop, hit .328/.354/.508 with five stolen bases in 16 appearances, and went home with NLCS MVP honors.

So you’d understand why both sides would want to run it back. On Friday night, the Dodgers announced that they and the 29-year-old Edman had agreed to a contract extension. This five-year, $72 million deal supersedes the final year of Edman’s previous two-year contract, worth $9.5 million. Should this partnership continue to bear fruit through the end of the decade, the Dodgers have a $13 million club option for 2030 as well. Read the rest of this entry »

The Cleveland Guardians are a pretty tightfisted organization. They spend infrequently, frugally, and deliberately. So I was amused when, some three weeks ago, they jumped to re-sign backup catcher Austin Hedges to a one-year, $4 million contract. That’s roughly 4% of what the Guardians spent on player payroll in total this past season — and on a backup catcher?

Now, Hedges is one of the league’s best defenders, at the position where defense is of the utmost performance. And by all accounts he’s the best clubhouse guy since Spanky from The Little Rascals. But he’s the worst hitter in the league. That’s not an exaggeration; Hedges hasn’t posted a wRC+ over 50 since 2018, and in his past two seasons he hasn’t broken 25.

Since 2019, Hedges is hitting .171/.234/.273. Of the 364 players who have taken 1,000 or more plate appearances over that time, Hedges is dead last in wRC+ by a huge margin. Jackie Bradley Jr. is in second-to-last place with a wRC+ of 67; Hedges is at 39. (Which speaks to how far you can get in baseball if you’re an elite defender and everyone likes you.) Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I wrote about Paul Goldschmidt’s prospects in free agency, but didn’t speculate on a landing spot for the 2022 NL MVP. Not to worry — when the FanGraphs Bluesky account recirculated the piece on Monday, the public weighed in. One respondent thought the Yankees made sense, and while I don’t think the fit is ideal for either player or club, the underlying logic is reasonable enough. And here I’ll add my own spin on a potential Goldschmidt-Yankees partnership: It sure feels like the Yankees love old first basemen.

In 2024, 34-year-old Anthony Rizzo and 35-year-old DJ LeMahieu combined for 548 plate appearances and 1017 2/3 defensive innings at first base for the Yankees. (All ages in this piece are relative to the standard June 30 cutoff date unless otherwise specified.) That’s 81.5% of the Yankees’ playing time by plate appearances and 70.0% by defensive innings. Over the past five years, Yankees first basemen have the highest average age in the league. Since Don Mattingly turned 30 in 1991, the Yankees’ most-used first baseman has been in his age-30 season or older in 28 of 34 seasons. In 12 of those seasons, the Yankees’ most-used first baseman has been 33 or older, including in 2023 and 2024.

This got me thinking about the idea of the old first baseman. Read the rest of this entry »

This year’s free agent class features a recent — as in the past two years — MVP. He’s playing the same position he has his entire career and has suffered no recent major injuries: 151 games played in his MVP campaign, 154 in each of the two that followed. And yet interest in this legend of the game is expected to be limited.

On the Top 50 free agents list, Ben Clemens ranked him 41st, which is third at his own position and lower than eight — EIGHT! — relief pitchers. I don’t know why I’m being coy about this player’s identity, actually, because presumably you can see the headline and header image and already know I’m talking about Paul Goldschmidt. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been working at FanGraphs long enough — more than two full years now — that I’ve started to build a track record. By that I mean that when I get something right, I can go back and gloat about it.

In February 2023, I wrote about Rangers outfielder Adolis García: A power-over-hit player who struggled to get on base and did not play a premium position. Some years ago, I was at a Starbucks a couple blocks from my house when I saw someone who looked like an ex-girlfriend of mine a few tables away. On further reflection, I don’t think it was really her, but I packed up my computer, downed my macchiato, went home, and never came back. You can never be too careful.

I would ordinarily avoid players like García with even greater alacrity. Nevertheless, I reasoned that the Rangers, having invested much more heavily in pitching than hitting, needed their right fielder to be at his best if they hoped to achieve anything in 2023. And García had made very good contact the previous season, but had not been rewarded accordingly. So despite my trepidation regarding his overall skill set, I predicted that García would take a step forward. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s play a little guessing game. See if you can identify the pitchers who produced the two seasons below.

Got your guesses ready? Awesome. The answer is… after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

The best-case scenario for a sports team owner is rare, but clear: A local businessman runs the team as a community institution. Rather than an absentee landlord, the owner should be a community leader. That’s the vision new Orioles owner David Rubenstein is selling. During the playoffs, rather than sequestering himself in a luxury box, Rubenstein sat in the stands, among the people. OK, he was right by the home dugout, so he was among the richest subset of the people, but it’s good optics.

And less than a year into his tenure, Rubenstein is showing himself to be a builder of bridges. Or a tearer-down of walls. Or a mover of walls, at any rate. One of baseball’s most foolishly conceived and widely derided architectural features is on its way out. Mike Elias, the Orioles’ executive vice president and general manager, announced Friday that the left field wall at Oriole Park at Camden Yards is getting a haircut and moving toward the plate.

Glory, glory, hallelujah. Read the rest of this entry »