Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
After taking a look at the qualifying offer decisions that have to be made shortly after the conclusion of the World Series, I figured now would be as good a time as any to run down the team and player option decisions. We’ll start with the National League, with the American League following on Friday. Here’s what’s on the table. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
Tight playoff races, milestone and award chases, and looking ahead to the offseason — these are the things I love about September baseball. One of the first decisions to be made after the World Series is determining who will receive qualifying offers, which currently projects to be valued at $21.2 million.
As a quick reminder before we continue, the qualifying offer is set at a price of the mean average annual value of the 125 highest-AAV players in the league. Once it’s offered to a player, he has 10 days to decide whether to accept or decline the offer. If the player accepts, he’s locked into 2025 at that salary, though he can always negotiate a contract extension that may override the qualifying offer. If the player declines and signs with a new team, his new team will forfeit at least one 2025 draft pick, and his old team will receive exactly one ’25 draft pick.
With less than three weeks left in the regular season, let’s run through which pending free agents could be getting qualifying offers come November.
Paul Goldschmidt is a tough act to follow, but Christian Walker has done well since taking over for him after the Diamondbacks traded Goldschmidt to the Cardinals in December 2018. Walker has been especially great the last three years, with 10.9 WAR, a 122 wRC+, and excellent defense at first base. He’s not spectacular, but he’s very good, and if the Diamondbacks are fine with running a record payroll again, they’d be wise to keep him around.
Walker’s got one big drawback, though: his age. Next year will be his age-34 season, and while he’d certainly like to earn a multi-year deal in free agency, the qualifying offer might tamp down his market to the point that accepting it would net him more money in 2025. He also might not want to risk rejecting it, hanging out on the open market for months, and then having to sign a prove-it deal. He’s a core member of a team that went to the World Series last year, is almost certainly going to return to the playoffs again this season, and is built to contend next year, too. Additionally, he seems comfortable in the desert. For all of these reasons, he is probably the player most likely to return to his team on a qualifying offer.
Likely to Receive, Likely to Reject
Tyler O’Neill has popped 30 home runs in his best and healthiest season since 2021, with his wRC+ just one point away from tying that career year. On the surface, that makes him seem like a slam dunk to receive the qualifying offer, and a slam dunk to reject it. He’s entering his age-30 season, and coming off his strong performance this year, he could look to get a three- or four-year deal on the open market. The one thing that gives me pause, though, is O’Neill’s injury history and how that might influence teams’ willingness to offer him a multi-year deal worth an average annual value of roughly $20 million. Understanding this, if the Red Sox give O’Neill the qualifying offer, he could decide it’s in his best interest to accept it. Meanwhile, Boston might not want to pay him $22.1 million next year, instead opting to use that money to bolster other areas of its roster. I still think the Red Sox will extend him a qualifying offer, and that he will turn it down, but it’s not a sure thing.
There’s an argument to be made that Michael Wacha is having the best season of his career; it’s definitely his healthiest since 2017. Provided he avoids injury the rest of the way, he’ll eschew his $16 million player option in favor of hitting the open market once again, leaving the Royals with a tough decision. On the one hand, this version of Wacha is worth $22.1 million; on the other, the injury concerns don’t just go away just because he’s been mostly healthy this year. As unlikely as Wacha would be to accept, the Royals might also prefer to eliminate any chance that he’d do so and instead allocate that money to lengthen their lineup. Having a rotation anchored by Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo would make losing Wacha an easier pill to swallow.
Total Toss-Ups
If Ha-Seong Kim had reached free agency before this season instead of after it, he probably would have earned a deal of at least $100 million following his 4.3 WAR, 110 wRC+ campaign in 2023. But right shoulder inflammation could keep him on the sidelines for the rest of the season, and his run values as a hitter, fielder, and baserunner have all gone down considerably in 2024. That said, even in this down year, he’s put up 2.6 WAR and is still only 28; that is probably worth $22.1 million. However, considering the Padres have a glut of infielders already, they may not want to give Kim the option to accept a qualifying offer.
Luis Severino is having his healthiest season since 2018, when he put up 5.4 WAR across 191 1/3 innings, made the All-Star team, and received Cy Young votes as the ace of the Yankees. But he’s a completely different pitcher now than he was then. His velocity is still there, but he no longer has the swing-and-miss stuff to anchor a rotation. Even with the Mets expected to lose two other starters to free agency, I don’t think they’d want to pay him the salary of a no. 2 starter when, at this point, he profiles more like a no. 3 or 4.
There may be no starter in the league more enigmatic than Nick Pivetta. The stuff has always been great, but the command has been … less so. I’m of the opinion that he’d do surprisingly well on the open market, and in my head I’m comparing him to Yusei Kikuchi, who got three years and $36 million from the Blue Jays coming off a similarly uneven (and probably worse) few years. But the Red Sox already have Brayan Bello, Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford, and Lucas Giolito (assuming he recovers well from internal brace surgery) locked into next year’s rotation, and they may invest the $22.1 million elsewhere.
Unlikely to Receive
For other teams, I’d say that it would be a no-brainer to extend Shane Bieber a qualifying offer, but $22.1 million is a lot of money for the Guardians. If Bieber were to accept it, he could represent 20% or more of their payroll for 2025, and he might not be available until the second half of the season anyway after undergoing Tommy John surgery in April. Considering his track record and how well he pitched in his first couple starts of the season, a multi-year deal at a lower average annual value — with the cash backloaded pretty heavily — should be easy for Bieber to secure.
There aren’t any pending free agent relievers with the pedigree of Josh Hader, who was an obvious qualifying offer recipient and rejector last offseason. Clay Holmes started his season pitching like he’d end up receiving one, but he’s lost his closer job and has probably worn out his welcome in New York, frankly. On the other side of the coin is Jeff Hoffman, who’s been nothing short of excellent for two seasons in Philadelphia. But he’s entering his age-32 season and doesn’t have nearly the track record of other relievers who have received qualifying offers in the past. I’d be shocked if he gets one.
Ineligible to Receive
As a reminder, players who’ve appeared for multiple teams in the same season are ineligible to be tendered a qualifying offer. That eliminates Kikuchi and Jack Flaherty. Also ineligible are players who’ve received one in the past, so that rules out Joc Pederson, Max Scherzer, Nathan Eovaldi (assuming he declines his player option), Cody Bellinger (ditto), and, should he opt out, Gerrit Cole.
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
The final stretch of the season is now upon us, and it sure is going to be fun. The Orioles and Yankees are jockeying for the AL East title, with a first-round bye almost certainly going to the winner. The NL Wild Card is a beautiful mess, with four teams fighting for the three spots and two other clubs, the Cubs and Cardinals, still lurking in the distance. And the under-the-radar Tigers are roaring, trying to pull out a last-minute postseason berth after selling at the trade deadline.
Last month, when I wrote about the players who were added off the waiver wire, I mentioned that another batch of waiver claims would come at the end of August, after more teams fell out of contention. So now that we’re well into September, let’s take a look at some of the notable players who’ve switched teams over the last few weeks.
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
It takes a lot to get a Scott Boras client to eschew free agency in favor of an extension, but Matt Chapman’s new pact with the Giants certainly qualifies. Chapman’s first trip through free agency culminated in him signing a below-expectations three-year deal for $54 million that allowed him to opt out after each season. The late signing led to an understandably slow start (a 79 wRC+ in April after signing the deal in March), but he’s more than made up for it since. In fact, his 4.5 WAR is his best since 2019. As a result, Chapman was rewarded with a six-year, $151 million deal, with a $1 million signing bonus and annual salaries of $25 million across the six years.
Fortunately for Farhan Zaidi and the rest of the Giants front office, they have plenty of payroll flexibility with which to backfill the roster. Including Chapman’s new contract, we project the Giants’ 2025 luxury tax payroll at just under $136 million. That’s $117 million below this year’s number, and $104 million below the first luxury tax threshold — a threshold the Giants may view as something of a cap since they’ll be over the tax line this year.
Of course, some of that $104 million gets eaten away rather quickly. Wilmer Flores will almost certainly exercise his $3.5 million player option after a trying and injury-plagued year, and Yastrzemski, Wade, Doval, and Tyler Rogers are all arbitration-eligible. At minimum, that’ll add another $20 million to the club’s payroll. Nonetheless, $80 million is a big chunk of change, one that Zaidi needs to allocate appropriately to turn the Giants back into a contender and perhaps even save his job.
The most pressing need for the Giants, as it has been since the end of Barry Bonds‘ career, is power hitting. Not since Bonds’ 2004 season has a Giant hit 30 or more home runs, an ignominious streak that’ll hit 20 years at the conclusion of this season unless Ramos or Chapman pop off this month. Fortunately for San Francisco, the upcoming free agent class has plenty of power bats: Juan Soto and Anthony Santander should finish the year with at least 40 home runs, and Pete Alonso, Teoscar Hernández, Willy Adames, and perhaps Tyler O’Neill ought to end up somewhere in the 30s. Oracle Park’s unfriendly dimensions — augmented by the marine layer around McCovey Cove — doesn’t make hitting homers easy, so we can’t simply transfer a big bat’s statistics to Oracle Park and call it good. But any of the listed hitters, especially Soto and Santander, have the pop to end the 30-homer-hitter drought. Wade and Yastrzemski are the only lefties locked into starting roles for next year, so the lefty Soto or switch-hitting Santander would fit better from that perspective. Other non-righties set to become free agents include Josh Bell, Carlos Santana, Cody Bellinger (if he opts out), and old friend Joc Pederson.
The top of the rotation is in better shape entering the offseason than the lineup; no Giant bat is as impactful as Webb is on the mound. He’s one of the best and most durable pitchers in baseball, and he’ll be joined in the rotation by Ray, upstart youngster Kyle Harrison, and likely Hicks. To go along with that quartet, the Giants have a stable of young pitchers who could fill out the rotation, including Hayden Birdsong, Mason Black, and Tristan Beck; Birdsong is especially intriguing.
The depth is pretty good as there are options aplenty, but that doesn’t mean that the Giants shouldn’t look to replace Snell. While San Francisco is going to miss out on October baseball this year, the co-ace plan of pairing Webb and Snell worked well as soon as Snell finally got rolling in the second half. The Giants have the cash to try the same thing again, whether it means bringing Snell back, or adding Corbin Burnes or Max Fried. Neither Burnes nor Fried is nearly as prolific as Snell at inducing swings and misses, so the Giants would have to be cognizant of how they build their defense; they currently rank 14th in OAA and 20th in defensive runs saved.
The number of options that Zaidi and co. have on both sides of the ball is pretty overwhelming, and the front office is almost certainly doing pre-work right now to determine who exactly to go after. With $80 million or more to play with, the offseason could go in a ton of different directions. Chapman’s extension is just the first step in what will be a consequential winter for the Giants, especially if they aren’t able to wait out the market like they did with Snell and Chapman. That could lead to San Francisco tying up a whole bunch of money beyond 2025, decisions that could make or break the front office’s future, not to mention the team’s.
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
The long weekend gave me an opportunity to do a few things: (a) eat a whole bunch of food, (b) watch a whole bunch of baseball, and (c) take a look at the injured list and identify some players from around the league who ought to be helpful down the stretch or into the playoffs. Here are a few to keep an eye on.
But while the lineup has stabilized, the pitching remains far less settled, especially as we look ahead to how the Dodgers might construct a postseason rotation. Jack Flaherty is sure to be a member, and Gavin Stone is a strong option towards the back of a three- or four-man rotation. Beyond those two, however, things get pretty bleak. Walker Buehler‘s return from Tommy John surgery has been difficult. It would be unfathomable for him to be left off the playoff roster if he’s healthy, but the extent of his availability is unclear. Meanwhile, Clayton Kershaw’s first seven starts back from shoulder surgery were up and down, and now he’s back on the injured list with big toe inflammation related to a bone spur that he’s been dealing with for years. Even when he returns, Kershaw is entering the complementary phase of his career; he’s not enough on his own.
Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto could certainly provide an impact in the playoffs, but Dave Roberts‘ latest update was uninspiring, at least as it pertains to Glasnow. Reading tea leaves, it sure looks as if Glasnow will once again fail to qualify for the ERA title, something he’s yet to accomplish in nine years in the majors. I can’t say for sure that his barking elbow is the cause, but he pitched to a 5.29 ERA in his last six starts before hitting the injured list for the second time this season.
Yamamoto sounds as if he’s closer to returning, and was probably having a better season than Glasnow in his first 14 major league starts anyway. His starts were often truncated, as he averaged just under 5.2 innings per start even when ignoring his one-inning outing in South Korea, but he also threw 100 pitches in each of his four starts prior to the two-inning outing before his trip to the IL. A true workhorse would benefit the Dodgers greatly in October, lessening the load for a bullpen that, no matter the personnel, always seems to be beleaguered come the playoffs.
It might be a little overdramatic to say that the Dodgers’ playoff hopes hinge on Glasnow and Yamamoto making an effective return, but at the same time, wouldn’t you much rather have Glasnow/Yamamoto/Flaherty/Kershaw as your playoff rotation than Flaherty/Kershaw/Stone/Buehler?
The Arizona Three
The Diamondbacks have continued to perform pretty well lately, with a series loss to the Dodgers over the long weekend halting a nice run during which they’d won seven of eight games and two-thirds of their 27 games in August.
That they won many of those games without Christian Walker, Ketel Marte, and Gabriel Moreno is all the more impressive, but that of course doesn’t mean that they haven’t missed those three. Josh Bell has performed well enough at the plate in Walker’s stead and rookie Adrian Del Castillo has done the same for Moreno, but Bell’s fielding is a big step down from Walker’s Gold Glove first base defense and Del Castillo has thrown out just one of 22 attempted base stealers. Marte, of course, has been the club’s best and most consistent performer all season, with his 150 wRC+ tying a career high and his 5.3 WAR buoyed by strong defense at the keystone.
But as one player comes back from the IL, another takes his place, with Lourdes Gurriel Jr. laid up due to a calf strain; the hope is that it’ll only keep him out 10 days. That leaves Jorge Barrosa and Randal Grichuk to cover left field, with Bell now likely to get DH plate appearances against lefties while Joc Pederson sits.
Once Moreno is back, Del Castillo will, like Bell, transition to being a valuable bench bat. Bell’s value as a switch-hitter is especially useful to Torey Lovullo’s in-game strategy.
Baltimore’s Bevy of Bats
The Orioles won’t be getting much more help on the mound than they have already. Zach Eflin just returned from shoulder soreness and Grayson Rodriguezcould return at some point, but Kyle Bradish, John Means, Félix Bautista, and Tyler Wells are all out for the season. The soon-to-return Jacob Webb and Danny Coulombe are useful relief arms, but they aren’t a panacea to the club’s bullpen woes of late.
Fortunately, the Birds might just be able to outhit everybody once all their bats are healthy. Speedster Jorge Mateo is out for the rest of the season following elbow surgery, leaving Cedric Mullins and Gunnar Henderson as the team’s only big basestealing threats, but there really aren’t any other holes to poke in a full-strength O’s offense once Ryan Mountcastle, Jordan Westburg, Ramón Urías, and Heston Kjerstad come back. In fact, there might be too many options for 13 spots, not that that’s a bad thing.
Henderson, Adley Rutschman, Anthony Santander, Westburg, and Colton Cowser should be in the lineup every game during the playoffs, though Cowser could sit against a tough lefty. Backup catcher James McCann, righty masher Ryan O’Hearn, Mountcastle, and Mullins are sure to be on the roster no matter what, as manager Brandon Hyde can mix and match depending on the opposing starter. That leaves just four spots (unless they go with 14 hitters, which is plausible) for the still inconsistent Jackson Holliday, lefty-mashers Austin Slater and Eloy Jiménez, Kjerstad, and top prospect Coby Mayo, who’s yet to find his footing in the majors but very well could in the remaining weeks. These things often have a way of sorting themselves out, and the first order of business for Hyde is winning the AL East, with the extra September position player spot helpful in evaluating candidates for the playoff roster.
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
September roster expansion isn’t nearly as supercharged as it was when teams could have up to 40 players in the dugout. Nowadays, clubs are limited to one extra position player and one extra pitcher, so in conjunction with the universal DH and the ghost runner in extra innings, we’ll forever be deprived of crazy box scores like this one.
With rosters more gently inflated than bloated, next month is likely to see more moves than there were back when teams didn’t have to be quite so discerning; those two extra spots are valuable, and teams will surely cycle through guys to fill them. Let’s take a look at which players could make a difference for their club come September. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
While esteemed FanGraphs writer Michael Baumann has spent this season anchored to South Jersey, the same can’t be said about the right-handed pitcher of the same name. Since that linked interview from July 2023, pitcher Mike Baumann (hereafter referred to as “Baumann”) has thrown 60 innings with a 5.10 ERA, with his 49 strikeouts, 26 walks, and 11 home runs producing a similar 5.39 FIP. Nothing special, and certainly nothing either Baumann is too happy about.
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
Jordan Montgomery has been bad in his first season with the Diamondbacks. A 6.44 ERA is bad, a 5.23 xERA is bad, a 15.5% strikeout rate is bad, a .377 wOBA allowed is bad. We all know these things. (Dad, if you’re reading this, and I know you are: You now know these things. All those stats are bad.) So I’m not going to spend too much time belaboring that point. But Montgomery’s badness has cascading effects beyond just how long to stick with him in the rotation or if he’ll even be on the playoff roster the Diamondbacks almost certainly will be constructing.
Montgomery agreed to a deal with the Diamondbacks just before Opening Day for a contract paying him a guaranteed $25 million this year, and it crucially came with a vesting player option for Montgomery, as negotiated by his agent at the time, Scott Boras. (Montgomery has since left Boras for Joel Wolfe and Nick Chanock at Wasserman.) If Montgomery had made fewer than 10 starts this year, he simply would’ve become a free agent after the World Series; this was meant to limit Arizona’s risk if Montgomery sustained a long-term injury while ramping up after his late signing.
But what it didn’t protect the Diamondbacks from was ineffectiveness, and Montgomery’s 2025 is now in his hands. The option value began at $20 million, when Montgomery made his 10th start, and then went up to $22.5 million upon his 18th start. It will reach its maximum value of $25 million with four more starts. Since Montgomery is very much in the “he would probably have to take a one-year pillow contract” territory, I’d be absolutely shocked if he didn’t take the $25 million payday. The best he can hope for now is that next year, after getting a normal offseason and a full spring training, he pitches more like he did when he dominated during the 2023 postseason, so that his value rebounds when he becomes free agent again after the 2025 season.
The downstream effects on any team’s payroll would be notable — $25 million is a lot! — but especially so for the Diamondbacks. The Snakes currently have $171 million committed to this season, their highest payroll ever, and $63 million committed to next year. If Montgomery makes four more starts and elects to stay with the team, next year’s figure would jump to $88 million. On the surface, you’d think that would give Arizona a ton of room to build a team just as good as this one, but the payroll can increase very sharply, very quickly.
That $63 million number is only what’s actually committed to players as of this second, mainly the guaranteed money to Eduardo Rodriguez, Ketel Marte, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., and Corbin Carroll. Also included are the presumed buyouts of the mutual options (which are virtually never exercised) for Joc Pederson, Randal Grichuk, and Scott McGough. That $63 million also includes the combined $3 million in buyouts that the D-backs would need to pay if they don’t pick up their club options on Eugenio Suárez and Merrill Kelly. Suárez’s option could go either way, so for now we’ll just assume that it’s declined, but Kelly’s seems like a no-brainer to get picked up for just $7 million. Working off of that (adding the $7 million and subtracting the $1 million buyout they won’t have to pay him), we’re now at $69 million, or $94 million with Montgomery. That figure would be about 55% of this year’s franchise-record payroll for just six players.
Onto the arbitration-eligible players: Zac Gallen, A.J. Puk, Ryan Thompson, Kevin Ginkel, and Joe Mantiply have gone through arbitration before and should all stick around; they’re making about $14.3 million combined this year. If we conservatively assume that in the aggregate they get raises of 25%, that’s another $18 million or so added to next year’s payroll, for a total of $112 million. Throw in $3 million combined for the guys who’ll be in their first year of arbitration — Alek Thomas and Geraldo Perdomo — and we’re all the way up to two-thirds of this year’s payroll. Pre-arbitration players should account for, at absolute minimum, another $10 million or so, and boom, that brings the figure up to $125 million, 70% of where it’s at this season.
All of that would leave the D-backs plenty of room to build another really good team if they didn’t have any significant free agents to replace, but of course, they almost certainly will. Pederson has been quietly elite as a platoon DH; despite playing exactly zero games in the field and facing lefties only 30 times, he’s compiled 3.1 WAR because he’s just so darn good at mashing righties. Christian Walker, currently on the IL with an oblique strain, is set to hit free agency entering his age-34 season, so he’s not in line for a huge deal, but he’d still probably reject Arizona’s qualifying offer and look for a longer contract.
Perhaps 7th-ranked prospect Jordan Lawlar is able to factor into the infield, making Suárez’s possible departure easier to swallow, but there’s no heir apparent to Walker at first or Pederson at DH. The D-backs traded away their offense-first prospects Andrés Chaparro and Deyvison De Los Santos, and Tommy Troy — their other top-100 prospect — is struggling in High-A and years away from the majors. Perhaps Gurriel Jr. spends more time at DH next season to keep him fresh, with a speedy outfield of Carroll, Thomas, and Jake McCarthy, though without Pederson and Walker, that certainly makes for a worse offense. Signing at least one starting-caliber player would cost (again, conservatively) at least $12 million, which would bring them to 80% of this season’s payroll.
Again, all of these estimates are conservative, and I’m including only the bare minimum investment that the Diamondbacks would have to make to continue to have a competitive, complete roster. All of this to say: They may have to get creative. With Montgomery and Kelly both expected to be around next season, Arizona will have six starters (Montgomery, Kelly, Rodriguez, Gallen, Ryne Nelson, and Brandon Pfaadt) for five rotation spots. The D-backs could trade from that surplus to fill a position of need, just as they did a couple offseasons ago when they dealt Daulton Varsho for Gabriel Moreno and Gurriel Jr.
Teams would line up for Pfaadt, Nelson quietly has been worth a solid 2.0 WAR, and even if he hasn’t pitched like an ace for over a year now, Gallen still has notable trade value as he enters his final year before free agency. I’m not saying the Diamondbacks definitely will trade a starter, but it’s something they should consider. The Orioles, for example, are rich in young position players and have just three rotation spots (Grayson Rodriguez, Dean Kremer, and Trevor Rogers) locked in for next year.
Of course, if Montgomery bounces back next season, Arizona won’t regret paying him $25 million, but unless ownership decides to increase payroll, things are going to be tight. The primary focus for the Diamondbacks right now is on defending their National League title, but regardless of how long they last during their probable return to the postseason, tough decisions may be awaiting them on the other side of October.
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
As we’ve covered in this column a few times, the only way to acquire major league players from other teams for the rest of the season is via waivers. We have yet to see an Angels-level dumping of impact players en masse this season, but there has still been some movement since the trade deadline passed. Let’s take a look at some of the notable players who changed teams recently, as well as some guys in DFA limbo who could get claimed in the coming days.
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
As a massive roster construction and player usage wonk, I probably spend more time than anyone looking at lineups and bullpen usage, especially for someone who’s not in a single fantasy baseball league. My latest focus has been on the incredulity with which some teams construct their lineups, specifically the Yankees’ continuing to bat Alex Verdugo leadoff. But for as much as some Yankees fans may want to believe that lineup construction is a failing of their manager specifically, this problem isn’t limited to one team.
I wish I could say this was just Boone but almost every manager makes wild lineup decisions stick for weeks, no matter if the team is good (CLE cycling through no. two hitters, none of them good) or bad (Nationals cleanup hitters) https://t.co/DWF5Trx6JW
To be clear, putting together a perfectly ordered lineup is not the most important part of a manager’s job, and more than just the Yankees, Guardians, and Nationals run with questionable batting orders, but few things irk fans more than poorly constructed lineups. So today, let’s focus on the lineup-construction woes of these three teams, because their issues represent crucial spots at [insert Rick Dalton pointing meme here] … the top of the order:
The Yankees’ Leadoff Spot
No team has gotten less production from its leadoff spot than the Royals, but Yankees leadoff batters have been downright dreadful in their own right (80 wRC+).
Whereas the Royals’ woes there can be pinned on mostly one guy (Maikel Garcia, who’s batted first in 96 of the team’s 132 games), the Yankees have given four players significant run there: 76 starts for Anthony Volpe, 17 each for Verdugo and Gleyber Torres, and 10 for Ben Rice.
Of those four, only Rice has been above average batting first, with his 133 wRC+ in that spot buoyed by his three-homer game against the Red Sox in early July.
There’s also Volpe and Torres, neither of whom has taken to the leadoff spot well. Both players have been below league-average hitters overall this season — Volpe’s wRC+ is at 94, Torres’ 88 — but they’ve been even worse hitting leadoff. Volpe has an 83 wRC+ batting first; Torres’ leadoff wRC+ is 59. That’s more small sample funkiness than anything, but it seems that, at least for the time being, the Yankees are better off having the two of them bat lower in the order.
Verdugo, as mentioned in the intro, has been the guy lately, leading off in each of the Yankees’ last six games, including against three fellow lefties. In that small sample he’s hit just .240/.310/.280, giving him a 77 wRC+ in his 17 games in the leadoff spot, even worse than his overall season line.
While there’s really nothing redeeming for Verdugo himself out of that spot, the Yankees have managed to win when he’s there regardless; New York is 12-5 when he leads off. And since Verdugo started hitting mostly leadoff on July 26, his wRC+ (including in other spots) is 106, 16 points better than his 87 mark for the season. The Yankees have gone 12-6 in that time, and Verdugo has led off in 14 of those 18 games. So I don’t necessarily blame Boone for rolling with him, but it’s not like Verdugo is lighting the world on fire batting first. Rearranging the order shouldn’t be out of the question.
Aaron Judge wouldn’t get first-inning intentional walks batting leadoff (at least, I don’t think so), and he’s taken just fine to batting first in the past, with a gaudy .352/.466/.711 line across his 35 starts as the leadoff man. Juan Soto has led off just twice in his career (one start as a rookie in 2018 and another in ’21), but his OBP-heavy approach would certainly play well there. Still, the Yankees are vying for the best record in baseball this season because Soto and Judge have dominated for them batting second and third, respectively, all year, and I can understand why Boone wouldn’t want to change that up. That said, why not move current cleanup batter Austin Wells up to the top spot?
As long as we’re talking about not moving hitters away from where they’re doing well, we have to acknowledge how good Wells has been since his first game in the cleanup spot on July 20. Including a couple pinch-hit appearances and three games hitting fifth against lefties, Wells has hit .341/.404/.524 (160 wRC+) since then.
Even just at a glance, Wells looks like a great candidate to bat leadoff, with a .347 OBP and 12% walk rate giving him ample opportunity to reach base ahead of Soto and Judge. Zooming into more recent games, though, he looks even better: Since the start of June, well before he began hitting fourth, his OBP is .382. He’s walking about as frequently, but over the past two and a half months, he’s having much more success on the balls he puts in play (.336 BABIP, compared to .238 through the end of May). Wells seems to enjoy hitting cleanup, for what it’s worth, even though his hot stretch began well before that:
“[Hitting cleanup has] actually helped me,” Wells told the reporters. “Getting to watch Soto and Judge before me allows me to see a lot of pitches up close and gives me a lot of confidence to have a quality at-bat and try to put a good swing on a good pitch. For me, I welcomed it and enjoyed it.” But knowing that Wells has been hitting well in different lineup spots for months now, he shouldn’t have to be anchored there.
Hitting a catcher leadoff may not be traditional, but I’d argue it’s the best option for the Yankees and may even give Judge better protection hitting behind him in the form of Giancarlo Stanton, who came off the IL nine days after Wells began cleaning up.
All of these machinations underscore the unfortunate loss of Jazz Chisholm Jr., whose excellent beginning to his Yankees career has been halted by a UCL injury. If he’s able to return this season, he could be another leadoff option if Boone wants more dynamism than Wells, Verdugo, Volpe, or Torres atop the lineup. At the time of the trade, Boone seemed to like the idea of Jazz in the middle of the lineup.
Aaron Boone said he sees Jazz Chisholm Jr. hitting in the middle of the order, since they are seeing good signs from Alex Verdugo & Gleyber Torres at leadoff. Chisholm will soon begin working out at 3B, as will Torres.
The depth that Chisholm provided in his handful of games as a Yankee was obvious, and his is a tough loss to paper over, but that doesn’t change the issues I have with how the Yankees lineups are being constructed, with or without him. Yes, the Yankees are winning again after their abysmal month-and-a-half skid, and they might not want to switch things up too much while things are going well, but that doesn’t change the fact that they should be hitting their best four batters — Judge, Soto, Stanton, and Wells — in the top four lineup spots.
The Guardians’ Second Spot
Stephen Vogt has done a fantastic job managing the Guardians this year, to be clear. I watch a lot of their games, and the rookie manager really knows how to get the most out of his bench and bullpen; he pinch-hits aggressively to get the platoon advantage and presides over the league’s best bullpen by ERA. Where there’s room for improvement, though, is in writing the initial lineup card.
Cleveland is getting the fourth-worst production out of its two-hole hitters, but we can’t blame Vogt for not trying. Eight — count ’em, eight! — different players have started at least four games there, and the team’s most frequent no. 2 hitter, Andrés Giménez, hasn’t started there since June 26.
This comes with an even more straightforward solution than the Yankees’ leadoff woes: Bat your best hitter second. For the Guardians, that means moving José Ramírez up from third to second. That may just create further issues lower down the lineup — Josh Naylor would probably move up to third in this scenario — but the key words there are “lower down.” Wouldn’t you rather have Ramírez hitting rather than left in the on-deck circle in a key spot? David Fry can mash lefties and makes perfect sense to hit fourth in that scenario, and big Jhonkensy Noel is hitting well against everyone to start his major league career and is certainly formidable enough for the cleanup spot. If Vogt doesn’t want to mess with his three-four duo of Ramírez and Naylor, Noel could also fit batting second too, even if he’s more of your prototypical cleanup-hitting masher.
The Nationals’ Cleanup Spot
Of the lineup spot/team combos I highlighted in my initial tweet, the Nationals actually fare best, with a group of cleanup batters that ranks 23rd in baseball.
So this is more anecdotal and just an opportunity for me to vent about my displeasure with Dave Martinez’s lineups, which have lately included hitting Keibert Ruiz fourth in seven of his last nine starts, even as the switch-hitter has a 72 wRC+ with no real advantage from either side of the plate. His 80 wRC+ in 13 games as a cleanup hitter isn’t much better, and batting someone who is 20% worse than league average — who hits a ton of ground balls and doesn’t have much pop — in a key run production spot just defies logic. Over the last two games, Martinez has finally moved Ruiz down to sixth, and the catcher has responded well there so far; he hit two home runs last night’s game, which the Nats lost 13-3. Hopefully, Martinez doesn’t use that as a reason to move Ruiz back to batting fourth, a role for which he is not well suited. Instead, Ruiz should remain in the six-hole, because Washington isn’t lacking for quality clean candidates.
The obvious man for the job is rookie James Wood, who surely is more fearsome to opposing pitchers than is Ruiz. Just as Joey Meneses hit cleanup basically up until he was sent down to the minors, Martinez stuck far too long with a struggling bat right in the middle of things. Rookies Wood and Andrés Chaparro should be anchoring things instead as the Nats work to develop their next winning team.
