It can be difficult to find the thing you didn’t realize you needed until you didn’t have it when it counted, or to offload it when you realized you had more of it than you could use. That thing, in this case: production from the catcher position.

Catchers are unlike infielders or outfielders, in that you can only one can play at a time. Or rather, two catchers can play at once, if one slides over to first base or DH, in which case the thing that makes them so special — the ability to slap on some plastic padding and soak up foul tips and 58-foot curveballs five nights a week — essentially goes to waste.

Consider Oakland’s situation; after developing Sean Murphy into one of the top catchers in the game, the A’s landed former top-10 pick Shea Langeliers in the Matt Olson trade. Langeliers reached the majors this year and hit fairly well, but not so well that he’s an ideal DH, which is where he made most of his starts on account of being blocked by Murphy.

Or how about the Blue Jays, who have not one but three starter-quality catchers? Alejandro Kirk emerged as a star in 2022, and Danny Jansen put up 2.6 WAR and a 140 wRC+ in just 72 games. That left Gabriel Moreno, one of the top prospects in baseball, even more blocked than Langeliers when he emerged as big league-ready late this season.

It makes sense, therefore, that trade rumors swirl around both Oakland and Toronto, as both teams could stand to cash in their surfeit of backstops for help elsewhere. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve been aware of either the Baltimore Orioles or FanGraphs Dot Com in the past nine months, you already know the two entities have not always played nice with one another. On the eve of the 2022 season, our playoff odds gave Baltimore just 0.1% chance of making the playoffs, meaning that out of 20,000 simulated universes, the Orioles would only reach the Wild Card round 20 times. (I’ve been to one of those universes. Chick-fil-A is open on Sundays, Ryan Reynolds owns Twitter, and the airlines never got deregulated. It’s heaven.)

As late as September, when the Orioles had clearly surpassed any reasonable expectations and were still in the hunt, our playoff odds were still quite pessimistic relative to other projections systems. Sure enough, Baltimore finished 83-79, three games behind Tampa Bay. But for a team that hadn’t finished at or above .500 since 2016 and hadn’t even won 55 games in a full season since 2017, that’s a good year. Something to build on, particularly considering the wellspring of young talent bubbling up from the minors like the Clampett family’s oil well.

And yet the Orioles aren’t exactly keeping the band together. After moving Jorge López and Trey Mancini at the trade deadline, the first week of the offseason proper has seen several more departures, including Robinson Chirinos, Rougned Odor, and Jordan Lyles. That’s three starting position players (at least for part of the season), as well as Baltimore’s leaders in saves and innings pitched. Read the rest of this entry »

Wednesday marked the return of one of baseball’s blessed traditions: Scott Boras Comedy Hour. At most major industry conferences, the sport’s most powerful agent has developed a habit of leaning against a wall in some hotel hallway with dozens of the BBWAA’s leading lights before him like children at the foot of Christ in the illustrations from a Sunday School tract. This year’s GM meetings are no exception.

Over the years, the erudite Boras has modulated the form of his address; what was once a straightforward press scrum became a vehicle for one-liners. Now, Boras uses his time to rip off a series of bodged-together puns and rhyming couplets in praise of his top clients.

It’s an odd spectacle with little precedent in American sports apart from — and I make this comparison advisedly — Muhammad Ali. But it is nevertheless an important one. Minutes after Boras got through his set, President Biden addressed the nation after Tuesday night’s pivotal midterm elections, and I was so wrapped up in Boras Chat I forgot there was another thing happening. Read the rest of this entry »

“Mike from Shamong you’re on 94.1 WIP.”

“Hey, Joe, first time long time, thanks for having me on.”

“I hear you want to talk some Phillies. What’s on your mind, brother?”

“Joe, the Phils gotta get rid of Rhys Hoskins. I know he’s been around a while and people say he’s a nice guy but I just can’t stand to watch him anymore. He struck out 10 times in the World Series, he drops every third ball that comes to him, he’s the reason we lost!”

“Well Mike, most of the Phillies lineup went missing at the end of the Wo—”

“I HATE HIS STINKING GUTS JOE! I CAN’T STAND TO LOOK AT HIM!”

“So you want to trade him, then?”

“I do, Joe. Hoskins only has one year left before free agency, and we can’t lose him for nothing. Look, Nola was pretty bad in the World Series too. Maybe we can trade Hoskins for a no. 2 starter? How about that kid from San Diego, Musgraves? Yeah, Hoskins to the Padres for Musgraves and a first-round pick. What do you think about that? I’ll take my answer off the air.”

Read the rest of this entry »

PHILADELPHIA — In the aftermath of Houston’s Game 4 win over the Phillies, as reporters started to file into the visiting clubhouse and mill around the lockers of the three relievers who’d closed out the game, Justin Verlander was pulling on his shoes and heading for the exit. When someone asked him to stop for a chat, he politely declined, saying he needed to get to bed early before his start in Game 5.

What followed probably wasn’t the biggest game of Verlander’s life; he’s started clinchers and elimination games, and win or lose on Thursday, the Astros were going to head back home with plenty of reason for optimism. But at 39 years old, in possibly his last game for the team that he’s taken to the deepest reaches of the playoffs every year since his arrival in 2017, this might have been his last chance to win a World Series game.

Verlander’s ineffectiveness in the World Series has been one of baseball’s great mysteries for 16 years. Despite innumerable accomplishments and accolades not only in the regular season but also in the ALDS and ALCS, he entered Game 5 with a career World Series record of 0–6 and a 6.07 ERA in eight starts, the worst record in MLB history.

That ended on Thursday in Philadelphia. Verlander evaded, inveigled, and scattered just enough to stay out of big trouble. He allowed just one run over five eventful innings, which was just enough to scratch the zero off the front of his Fall Classic record and move the Astros, with a 3–2 win, to within a game of their second World Series title. Read the rest of this entry »

PHILADELPHIA – Momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher, and once Cristian Javier is in motion, he tends not to stop. The 25-year-old, nominally Houston’s no. 4 starter, had one of the best high-stakes starts you’ll ever see. He and three relievers threw the second no-hitter in World Series history, and the first combined no-hitter in any round of the MLB playoffs.

Just 24 hours ago the Phillies teed off on Lance McCullers Jr., sending 45,000 fans at Citizens Bank Park into a lusty froth. Five home runs for the Phillies and an offensive no-show from the Astros made an upset run to a title seem as real a possibility as ever. But Javier and the Astros came back with a vengeance, giving as good as they got and then some to win 5-0 and level the series.

Astros right-hander Ryan Pressly, who closed out the game, called Javier one of the most underrated starters in baseball.

“There’s not a moment that’s big enough [for him],” Pressly said. “He just goes out there and does what he wants to do… He doesn’t get the credit [for] how he goes out there and handles his business. The lights aren’t big enough. I mean, we’re on the biggest stage in baseball and he goes out there and does what he normally does.” Read the rest of this entry »

PHILADELPHIA – It’s not just that Bryce Harper homered on the first pitch he saw in Game 3. For a first-pitch home run to put his team up in the first inning of his first career home World Series game — and a 402-foot bomb at that — it was a pretty casual event on Harper’s end. Almost nonchalant. This is what he does:

But when he got back to the dugout, he shouted for Alec Bohm, the on-deck hitter, to come back to him. It was reminiscent of the famous shot of Carlos Correa and Alex Bregman chatting in the on-deck circle as the Astros teed off on Tyler Glasnow in Game 5 of the 2019 ALDS. Bohm led off the next inning and hit the first pitch he saw into the left field seats.

If you’d turned off the game then, you would’ve seen a representative sample of what turned into a 7-0 rout. The Astros couldn’t get out of first gear against Ranger Suárez and the four relievers who followed him. And while Lance McCullers Jr. threw the kitchen sink at the Phillies, he got the sink, the faucet, and the backsplash kicked right back at him. Philadelphia managed six hits and a walk against the veteran right-hander, but five of those six hits were home runs and every single baserunner scored. Read the rest of this entry »

All day, the weather radar predicted that the skies would open at a particularly inconvenient time for the Phillies and Astros. While MLB waited as long as it could to see if the wind shifted, by 7 p.m. local time, it was clear the weather would not cooperate. (Rain in late October in the Mid-Atlantic region? Whoever could have foreseen such a thing?) As such, Game 3 of the World Series has been postponed 24 hours, with better weather ahead; the nighttime forecasts for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are for clear skies and temperatures in the 50s and 60s. Ideal Fall Classic weather, in other words.

Game 3 of the #WorldSeries has officially been postponed. Here is an updated look at the Series schedule:
– Game 3: Tuesday
– Game 4: Wednesday
– Game 5: Thursday
– Travel Day: Friday
– Game 6 (If Necessary): Saturday
– Game 7 (If Necessary): Sunday pic.twitter.com/a61nzKUBM5

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) October 31, 2022

Moreover, if neither team sweeps all three games in Philadelphia, the scheduled off day between Games 5 and 6 will remain intact. That pushes a potential Game 6 to Saturday night and Game 7 to Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »

Through the first three rounds of the playoffs, two competing storylines took shape: The Astros, indomitable, sheared through the American League undefeated. The Phillies, resilient, ebullient, and unpredictable, shocked the National League by dominating the senior circuit’s best.

When these two narratives finally intersected in Houston Friday night, spraying hits and disorder all over the field like debris from a train crash, the result was an instant classic. The Astros dominated early, staking out an early five-run lead that by all rights ought to have demoralized their opposition. But the Phillies, a $255 million monument to not knowing when you’re beaten, struck right back for a historic comeback win:

How historic? The Phillies’ 6-5 win was the biggest comeback by an NL team in the World Series since 1956. When Houston’s win probability peaked with one out in the top of the fourth, they were roughly 16-to-1 favorites to win the game. Instead, the Phillies erased that lead in two innings, hung around long enough for J.T. Realmuto to win the game in the top of the 10th, and survived a Houston rally that came within 180 feet of turning a series-changing Phillies win into a crushing loss. Read the rest of this entry »

No matter how many photo ops he posed for with the retiring Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina, no matter how many cameos he made in the broadcast booth, Adam Wainwright never actually said that 2022 would be his last season in professional baseball. And sure enough, as first reported by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Wainwright will return to the Cardinals in 2023.

Surely, if Wainwright were to pitch anywhere this year, it would be here. The Cardinals, perhaps by dint of producing so many memorable players in this century, do seem to be uniquely sentimental about their old guys. And Wainwright has been pitching there so long he probably still refers to Missouri as “French Louisiana.” Still, this is no mere victory lap. Wainwright is not the all-spinning, all-conquering ace he was 10–12 years ago, but he can still pitch. This past year, in a season during which he turned 41, he finished second on the Cardinals in innings and strikeouts and 13th and 32nd in the entire league in innings and ERA-, respectively. That’s quite impressive for someone who’s older than Blade Runner.

There are two main questions regarding Wainwright’s outlook this year: What can one last season do for him; and what can he do for the Cardinals? Read the rest of this entry »