On September 3, 2024, Tommy Edman swung through an 0-2 fastball to end the top of the ninth inning of a game against the Angels. Witness, please.

Back when I was a kid, all anyone talked about was fastball velocity. Mark Wohlers could hit 100, and that was a big deal. Never mind that while velocity is important, it’s arguably the third-most significant tool in a pitcher’s tackle box, after location and movement. But even in the days of fuzzy over-the-air TV and print media, you could quantify velocity and share it simply. It was possible to describe the exquisite movement on Greg Maddux’s low-90s two-seamer, but it was hard and took up a lot of time. I think that’s got something to do with George Will being the way he is. But I digress. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a Milwaukee Brewers fan, you probably know the volume and quality of Colin Rea’s work the past two seasons. Last season, only 58 pitchers qualified for the ERA title, and Rea was among them. Over the past two seasons, Rea is second among Brewers pitchers in starts, innings, wins, and strikeouts, trailing only Freddy Peralta in those categories.

If you’re not a Brewers fan, you might have seen the news that Rea signed with the Cubs and thought, “Oh, is this guy the Padres tried to trade with a torn UCL? Is he back from Japan?”

In an offseason defined by the scarcity of starting pitching, it’s a bit jarring to see a starter sign for one year and $5 million. Especially one who just threw 167 2/3 innings in 2024. There aren’t enough of those guys in the entire league for every team to have two. Roughly 15 times as many people summited Mt. Everest in 2024 as qualified for the major league ERA title. And Rea got just $5 million? What gives? Read the rest of this entry »

What does it cost to sign a living legend? About $15 million, it turns out. Three-time Cy Young winner Justin Verlander is taking his talents to the West Coast for the first time, having inked a one-year deal with the San Francisco Giants for that aforementioned sum.

It’s another bold signing for newly appointed supreme prefect of baseball operations Gerald D. “Buster” Posey, who officially took charge a little over three months ago. And yet — if we give Posey the credit he’s reportedly due for the Matt Chapman extension — more than a quarter of San Francisco’s payroll (according to CBT math) is now devoted to players Posey is responsible for signing.

But Verlander could very well have cost more. He made nearly three times as much last season, and had he hit the 140-inning threshold in 2024, he would’ve been able to activate a player option worth $35 million, not $15 million. So why take such a big haircut? This is Justin Verlander, for God’s sake. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rangers’ busy offseason continues with their biggest (if only literally) signing yet: right-handed pitcher Chris Martin. It’s a nice landing spot for the 38-year-old reliever, who was born and raised in Arlington and previously spent a season and a half with his hometown team at the end of the 2010s. Those links are more than just trivia; Martin reportedly was so eager to return to the site of his birth (kind of like a salmon) that he signed for the fabled hometown discount: $5.5 million over one year. That’s a 42% pay cut from his salary with the Red Sox last season.

At 6-foot-8, he’s also one of the very few active players who can look GM Chris Young in the eye. Here’s a fun fact from the Department of I Looked This Up So You’re Going to Hear About It: There are 52 right-handed pitchers in major league history who have been listed at 6-foot-8 or taller. Four of them are named Chris, and the Rangers are halfway to collecting the full set. If Texas trades for Cardinals righty Chris Roycroft next, surely Chris Volstad will be waiting by the phone expecting a call about a scouting job. Read the rest of this entry »

Those of you who followed Premier League soccer in the 2010s surely remember the “Like a New Signing” meme that dogged Arsenal back then. At that time, London’s coolest and bougiest soccer team was managed by an erudite Frenchman named Arsene Wenger, who’d led the club to enormous success in the first decade of his tenure by the strength of his own wits and Thierry Henry’s legs.

But in Wenger’s latter days, Arsenal was overtaken by richer rivals. Manchester United, Chelsea, and later, Manchester City. Arsenal had rich owners, but not Russian oligarch or Emirati sovereign wealth fund rich. That left Wenger to compete with a more modest budget, and his limitless belief that his own intellectual superiority would compensate for any deficit in resources. Read the rest of this entry »

Another year, another star from one of Asia’s major leagues comes over to play in Los Angeles. KBO infielder Hye-seong Kim is trading his burgundy Kiwoom Heroes uniform for Dodger blue. Kim, who turns 26 at the end of this month, has won four straight KBO Golden Glove Awards — one at shortstop, three at second base. He comes to the United States after a year in which he posted a 118 wRC+ and stole 30 bases, with career bests in home runs, RBI, strikeout rate, and slugging percentage.

What’s the price for this golden Adonis of an infielder? Just $12.5 million guaranteed over three years, plus a $2.5 million release fee due to Kim’s old club. And if the Dodgers like what they see, they can keep Kim for an another two seasons — 2028 and 2029 — for an additional $9.5 million.

How do they keep getting away with this? Read the rest of this entry »

It’s important in life, as well as in baseball, to know when a relationship has run its course and it’s time to shake hands and part on good terms. Equally, if conversely, it’s important to know when not to screw with something that works.

So Teoscar Hernández is coming back to Los Angeles. The hard-hitting outfielder will make $22 million per year for three years, with a club option for a fourth at $15 million. Because this is the Dodgers, there’s all sorts of accounting rigmarole baked into the contract: a $23 million signing bonus, and another $23 million in deferred money, which will drop the value of the contract for CBT purposes (by exactly how much, we don’t know quite yet). Read the rest of this entry »

The Astros’ facelift continues. One week after trading star outfielder Kyle Tucker to Chicago, Houston has dived into the free agent market and come up with a replacement: first baseman Christian Walker, now the beneficiary of a brand spanking new three-year, $60 million contract.

Walker didn’t establish himself as a major league starter until he was almost 30; he spent the mid-2010s stuck behind Chris Davis, Freddie Freeman, Joey Votto, and Paul Goldschmidt, in that order. But since claiming the Diamondbacks’ first base job after Goldschmidt got traded, Walker has established himself as one of the most consistent players at the position. Over the past three seasons, he’s had wRC+ marks of 122, 119, and 119, and posted WAR totals of 3.9, 3.9, and 3.0. That downturn in 2024 was informed by an oblique strain that cost Walker the month of August. If he’d played 162 games, he would’ve been right back up around 3.9 WAR again.

The former South Carolina star is 33, a bit old for a big free agent signing, especially a first baseman, and even more especially a right-handed first baseman. But he’ll be a tremendous asset to the Astros, and sorely missed by the Diamondbacks. Read the rest of this entry »

I want to start off by saying that I was devastated — devastated — to learn that Nolan Arenado reportedly vetoed a trade to the Houston Astros. I guess it would’ve made some baseball sense, as Alex Bregman’s departure leaves a vacancy at third base, and new acquisition Isaac Paredes could easily slide across the diamond to first. Plus, Arenado is a three-time National League home run leader with a long history of hitting the ball in the air and to the pull side. Surely he’d find something to like about the Crawford Boxes.

But mostly, I wanted this to happen because I had a joke lined up. Read the rest of this entry »

Seiya Suzuki has been in the news as a trade candidate all offseason — partially because the Cubs can’t stop shipping outfielders in and out — and at the Winter Meetings, his agent, Joel Wolfe, sprinkled some enlightening details into a massive throng of onlooking reporters. Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer and Wolfe have had conversations about the 30-year-old outfielder’s future. The Cubs aren’t desperate to trade a player who hit .283/.366/.482 in 2024, but Suzuki apparently isn’t particularly keen on being a full-time DH, which is the most natural landing spot for him after the Cubs traded for Kyle Tucker.

If the Cubs were to trade Suzuki, they’d have to have a pretty good idea of how valuable he is. In fact, they would have to have a firm belief in Suzuki’s value, and a good idea of the rosiest possible picture they could sell to a potential trade partner, as well as the difference between those two numbers. Read the rest of this entry »