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.

Chapman sticking around further solidifies a Giants core that also includes Logan Webb, Patrick Bailey, LaMonte Wade Jr., Heliot Ramos, Jung Hoo Lee, and Ryan Walker, as well as complementary players like Robbie Ray, Jordan Hicks, and Taylor Rogers, all of whom are under contract next year. Mike Yastrzemski, Tyler Rogers, and Camilo Doval should all stick around through the arbitration process as well. That’s a good start, but obviously not quite enough for a team that isn’t making the playoffs this year and is set to lose some key players to free agency. Barring something catastrophic, Blake Snell seems sure to opt out, and Michael Conforto and Mark Canha are also set to hit the open market.

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.

The Dodgers Get Their Game 1 Starter (Hopefully)

Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman finally have their full supporting cast back, as Max Muncy, who missed three months due to an especially pesky oblique strain, rejoins a group headlined by Teoscar Hernández, Will Smith, and Gavin Lux.

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.

Walker was reinstated from the IL on Tuesday, with Marte’s return a possibility on the team’s current road trip and Moreno expected to take a bit longer, though the team is optimistic he’ll be ready before the regular season ends.

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 Rodriguez could 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

— Jon Becker (@jonbecker_) August 14, 2024

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.

— Bryan Hoch ⚾️ (@BryanHoch) July 28, 2024

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.

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.

For Friday’s column, I took the time to run down a long list of players who could be placed on irrevocable waivers and claimed prior to September 1, which is the deadline for them to be playoff eligible with their new teams.

The Rangers were the most intriguing of the teams I covered in that piece, for the obvious reason that they are the reigning World Series champs. Many of the players from last year’s club are still around, though some of them are currently injured, and even as Texas struggled this season, the organization and its fans held out hope a surge wasn’t far off. That said, the Rangers are simply running out of time. The trade deadline has passed and their playoff odds are below 2%. The reality of their situation has led me to ask the following question: Could the team that just won the World Series become the Angels less than a year later?

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.

Last week, I explained how players can still change teams even as trades are no longer allowed. Now that we’re a week-plus into August, I’d like to run down the list of players who could be placed on irrevocable waivers before the month ends, which is the latest that a team can claim them and still have them be eligible for the playoffs. Players placed on waivers are first offered to the worst team in the league, then to the other clubs in ascending order all the way up to the one with the best record at the time of the waiver placement.

I’ll be focusing on teams with playoff odds below 5%, though contending teams teams could see if a rival wants to bite on an onerous contract. (Spoiler alert: they will not.) As a reminder, when a player is claimed off waivers, it’s a straight claim. The team that loses the player gets nothing more than salary relief, as the new team is responsible for the remainder of the contract. 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.

By now, you’re surely aware that the Marlins were busy, to say the least, ahead of last week’s trade deadline. Miami dealt 10 players — Jazz Chisholm Jr., Josh Bell, Bryan De La Cruz, Trevor Rogers, Tanner Scott, Bryan Hoeing, A.J. Puk, JT Chargois, Huascar Brazobán, and let’s not forget Luis Arraez, who was traded in early May — to teams looking to make the postseason, an admirable goal that the 2024 Marlins do not share. But that doesn’t mean the players who remain with Miami have nothing to play for the rest of the way. President of Baseball Operations Peter Bendix is in full evaluation mode, with spots aplenty up for grabs in 2025. That might even include manager Skip Schumaker, who is in his lame duck year and could decide to skip out of town for a job — wait for it — skippering a better team next season.

Since the Marlins are looking ahead to next season, we’ll do the same thing here today. Let’s take stock of the players currently vying for spots on next year’s Opening Day roster.

Position Players

Even before all the trades, the Marlins lineup was anemic, ranking second-worst by wRC+ from the beginning of the season through July 26, the day before Chisholm was traded to the Yankees.

With the team doing so poorly in the aggregate, it’s unsurprising that there have been few individual bright spots. Looking around the diamond, the only positions that look pretty locked in for next year are shortstop, one of the corner infield spots, and one of the corner outfield spots. Xavier Edwards, who has excelled at short since Miami released Tim Anderson at the end of June, is batting .383/.456/.470 (163 wRC+) to go along with 12 stolen bases for the season. Slugger Jake Burger rebounded from a horrid start to put up a 166 wRC+ in July. He’s continued that production so far in August, and he’s currently bouncing between DH, first, and third. Lastly, Jesús Sánchez’s raw power remains tantalizing, but he’s always hovered between 10 points (in either direction) of being league average by wRC+. Still, there’s no reason not to give him more run as long as he’s on the squad.

As for the other spots, well, there are plenty of contenders! The quality of the personnel is up for debate, but the quantity is indisputable. Here are all the position players auditioning for roles on the 2025 roster, either down the stretch or come spring training:

• Catchers Nick Fortes, Ali Sánchez, Jhonny Pereda, and Agustin Ramirez
• Infielders Jonah Bride, Emmanuel Rivera, Tristan Gray, Troy Johnston, and Deyvison De Los Santos
• Outfielders Kyle Stowers, Cristian Pache, Dane Myers, Forrest Wall, Derek Hill, Victor Mesa, and Griffin Conine
• Infielder/outfielders Otto Lopez, Vidal Bruján, David Hensley, Connor Norby, Graham Pauley, and Javier Sanoja

That doesn’t even include any future trade acquisitions or buy-low free agent signings the Marlins could make during the offseason. Either way, they’ll have plenty of position players to choose from next season.

Starting Pitchers

Assuming the Marlins don’t make any more trades between now and Opening Day, this is the most straightforward group. Sandy Alcantara will be about 16 months removed from his Tommy John surgery when the 2025 season begins, so he should be good to go. He’ll definitely be joined by Jesús Luzardo, with only a small handful of arms fighting for the final three rotation spots, which will become two spots once Eury Pérez returns from his own Tommy John surgery later in the year.

The four big names in contention are healthy hurlers Max Meyer and Edward Cabrera, as well as the currently injured Braxton Garrett and Ryan Weathers. Weathers is out with a finger strain that will certainly be cleared up by next season, but he only just began playing catch late last month, leaving his status for the rest of this season unclear. Garrett’s flexor strain is an even scarier injury, but he should be OK for 2025 if his arm doesn’t require any surgical intervention.

With Alcantara’s innings perhaps being managed coming off of surgery, it’s possible that the Marlins could go with a six-man rotation. If that’s what they decide to do, recent trade acquisitions Adam Mazur and Robby Snelling, as well as Darren McCaughan, likely would be the running for that sixth spot.

Relief Pitchers

As with any team, the bullpen is going to have the most players contending for spots on next year’s roster. If they are still members of the organization on Opening Day, Calvin Faucher, Anthony Bender, Andrew Nardi, and Declan Cronin will have their spots locked in, but considering all four were bandied about as trade options prior to the deadline, I’d be surprised if all of them started spring training as members of Marlins.

Beyond those four, there’s an absolute cavalry of arms currently on the big-league roster, out hurt, or down on the farm. A loser of the rotation battle could find himself in the bullpen as well, leaving perhaps dozens of pitchers competing for a precious few spots once the team adds to the roster via further non-roster invites, waiver claims, or, yes, trades. In looking for the next Scott — basically, a guy who is acquired for relatively little and then turns into a Dude — Bendix surely will cast a wide net.

In looking ahead to 2025, there are a couple of key caveats to keep in mind. As mentioned before, there will be other trades; several of the players I listed above will be on other teams come February. There will also, of course, be injuries, opening even more spots.

Lastly, there will be a lot of procedural moves removing players from contention for roster spots before the offseason even begins in earnest. The 60-day IL is not usable during the offseason, and the Marlins currently have seven players on it. That means that between now and the onset of the offseason, Miami will have to free up seven 40-man spots, and because the team has no pending free agents to clear space, the organization will have to designate seven players for assignment. Some of those players will clear waivers and be invited to spring training with a chance to earn their spots back, but there will also be some who get claimed by other clubs or are outrighted to the minors and then exercise their right to free agency — which is an option for outrighted players with three-plus years of service time, those who have been outrighted previously, or both. All of this is to say that for as much as the Marlins’ roster has changed from Opening Day to now, there will be even more roster turnover between now and the start of the 2025 season.