I updated the Top 100 Prospects list today. This post goes through the pitchers and why they stack the way they do. Here’s a link directly to the list, and here’s a link to the post with a little more detail regarding farm system and prospect stuff and the trade deadline. It might be best for you to open a second tab and follow along, so here are the Top 100 pitchers isolated away from the bats. Let’s get to it. 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.
With just seven days to go until the July 30 trade deadline, let’s round up some news and developments from the last few days and discuss how these nuggets might affect what happens over the next week. Here’s what’s new:
The Mariners Blow Their AL West Lead
Remember when the Mariners had a 10-game lead in the AL West at the end of play on June 18? Well, they surely do, and not fondly, now that it’s gone. They salvaged Sunday’s series finale against the Astros to avoid the sweep and enter the new week in a virtual tie for first, but it took just 24 games for them to blow that double-digit lead. That’s the quickest that any MLB team has ever lost a 10-game lead in its division standings.
Anyone who’s watched even a small handful of Mariners games can tell you that the offense has been the big issue for the team. Potentially making matters worse: Julio Rodríguez was removed from Sunday’s game after twisting his right ankle while leaping for a ball against the wall in center field. X-rays came back negative, and after undergoing an MRI on Monday, he’s listed as day-to-day with a mild ankle sprain. Then, in Monday’s 3-1 loss to the Angels, shortstop J.P. Crawfordfractured his right pinky finger when he was hit by a pitch in the first inning. It was announced after the game that Crawford will be placed on the IL; there is no timetable for his return. Meanwhile, the Mariners placed first baseman Ty France on waivers. Though he can continue to play while he’s on waivers, he was not in the lineup Monday, and after the game he was seen cleaning out his locker, an indication that even if he clears waivers, he is not returning to Seattle.
Also not helping this offense is its home ballpark: T-Mobile Park is the most pitcher-friendly park in the league. But even by park-adjusted stats, Seattle’s offense has been quite poor; only the Pirates have a worse wRC+ among the teams with a winning percentage of at least .500.
The Mariners are still clearly on the buying side of teams entering the deadline, but their playoff hopes largely rest on winning the division outright; entering Monday, our Depth Charts projects them to have a 49.8% chance to make the playoffs and 39.6% odds to win the AL West. Back on June 25, about a weak after Seattle’s high-water mark in the standings, I wrote about the team’s anemic offense and some of the players who could help improve the lineup if the Mariners were to acquire them in a trade. All of those hitters remain with their same clubs, and Seattle’s evaporated division lead should provide the team with even more incentive to add as many impact bats as possible. The Mariners should target players whose skill sets are more “T-Mobile Park proof,” but it’s hard to imagine this offense could be worse off with any of the possible upgrades that it may acquire over the next week.
James Paxton’s DFA Sets up Musical Chairs for the Dodgers
It was a little surprising to see James Paxton get designated for assignment as the Dodgers’ corresponding move to add top pitching prospect River Ryan to their roster ahead of his MLB debut on Monday, but the fact of the matter is that Paxton wasn’t going to last much longer in Los Angeles anyhow. While he’s tied with Tyler Glasnow for the team lead in starts (18), his outings were a mixed bag at best; he averaged under five innings per start and walked 12.3% of batters faced, by far a career worst.
The Paxton-for-Ryan swap is just the first of many rotation moves coming up for the Dodgers, who will welcome Glasnow back from the injured list on Wednesday and Kershaw on Thursday. The Dodgers will have to cut a reliever to make room for Kershaw, setting up a rotation with Glasnow, Kershaw, Gavin Stone, Landon Knack, and either Ryan or rookie lefty Justin Wrobleski. Alex Vesia is the only reliever who can be optioned, and he’s not going anywhere, so the team will have a tough DFA decision afoot. My guess is that Yohan Ramírez and Anthony Banda are the most vulnerable.
But that’s just the first round of musical chairs, with at least one of Walker Buehler (hip discomfort) and Bobby Miller (ineffective and banished to Triple-A) needing a spot at some point, which could leave Knack exposed to getting optioned despite his effectiveness when called upon. There’s also the trade deadline, at which point the Dodgers may well add yet another starter to the mix.
Banged-up Braves Bolstering Bats?
Max Fried and Ozzie Albies recently became the latest in a long line of Braves players to land on the injured list.
Dan Szymborski detailed the specifics of the injuries yesterday, but the upshot is this: Whit Merrifield (who, ironically, hurt his thumb taking grounders before his first game with the Braves and is currently day-to-day) and Nacho Alvarez Jr. probably aren’t enough to paper over the loss of Albies for two months, Atlanta’s strong rotation was already spread thin before Fried got hurt because Spencer Strider is out for the year and Chris Sale and Reynaldo López are often pitching on extra rest as Atlanta monitors their innings.
Fried’s injury is reportedly a best-case scenario, so maybe the Braves feel like they can get by for a month or so with guys like Dylan Dodd, Bryce Elder, AJ Smith-Shawver, and Allan Winans, but as Dan noted, losing Albies creates a not-insignificant hit to their Playoff Odds. It certainly doesn’t help matters that Matt Olson and Orlando Arcia have struggled mightily for most of the year.
Positional flexibility fits best for the Braves, who will have Michael Harris II (and almost certainly Albies) back for the playoffs. Better versions of Merrifield (guys who can slide between the infield and outfield) include Jazz Chisholm Jr., Luis Rengifo, and Amed Rosario.
The Tigers Hold the Keys
The Tigers are on a nice little run of late, but they’re a game under .500, which makes selling at the deadline all but a guarantee. The question is this, though: To what extent will they sell? Jack Flaherty is the best rental starter on the market by far, and fellow pending free agents Mark Canha and Gio Urshela should follow him out the door to make way for younger bats auditioning for roles next year. Andrew Chafin and Shelby Miller, who have club options for 2025, could be on the move as well if the Tigers don’t plan on having them around next season anyhow and want to avoid paying their buyouts. All those players, Flaherty especially, could return something of value, but none would alter the franchise even 10% as much as would a Tarik Skubal trade.
The Dodgers and Orioles are reportedly talking to the Tigers about Skubal, and while it would be shocking to see Detroit trade the best lefty starter in baseball when he has over two years left before he’s scheduled to reach free agency, it’s still worth considering the possibility. Skubal comes with as much club control as the White Sox’ Garrett Crochet, who is far likelier to be traded, and it stands to reason that Skubal would fetch a significantly better return than Crochet.
There’s not a right answer for what the Tigers should do with Skubal. Really, the only wrong answer would be getting an unworthy return package for him because they traded him for the sake of trading him. For this reason, the Tigers are most likely going to let suitors come to them with their best offers for Skubal, and they’ll trade him only if one of them is too good to turn down.
Editor’s Note, 9:37 a.m. ET: This story has been updated to include the latest information about the Mariners’ injuries and Ty France.
The number of Atlanta Braves players on the injured list has reached double digits after two of their core players, starting pitcher Max Fried and second baseman Ozzie Albies, went down over the weekend. Fried had a 3.08 ERA/3.71 FIP across 108 innings for the Braves before landing on the IL with neuritis in his left forearm, which first flared up while he was warming up for his All-Star Game appearance. In Atlanta’s 6-2 loss to the Cardinals on Sunday, Albies broke his wrist when his glove hand collided with a sliding Michael Siani on a stolen base attempt; the second baseman is expected to be out for nearly the rest of the regular season.
To replace Fried and Albies on the roster, the Braves recalled lefty Dylan Dodd and shortstop Nacho Alvarez Jr. from Triple-A Gwinnett and signed veteran 2B/OF Whit Merrifield to a major league contract.
Ozzie Albies today underwent X-rays that revealed a left wrist fracture. He is expected to miss approximately eight weeks.
After missing a good chunk of last year due to forearm pain, the 30-year-old Fried stumbled in his first two starts of this season but has been dominant since then. He’d also stayed healthy through the first half of the season, which was especially crucial for the Braves given the early-season loss of righty Spencer Strider to Tommy John surgery. The silver lining here – important since any mention of a pitcher’s having forearm pain justifiably will send fans into a panicked binge of one of their vices – is that there is no structural damage in his pitching arm and he will not require surgery. Instead, the Braves are choosing to be cautious with Fried because neuritis in the forearm can be related to an underlying problem with the UCL. Fried has already had Tommy John surgery once, about a decade ago when he was still a Padres prospect. Neither the Braves nor Fried have offered a timetable for his return, but Fried was optimistic that this would be a short-term issue. Per The Athletic’s David O’Brien:
“Everything structurally looks great, just a little irritated sensory nerve,” Fried said, “not one of the major muscle-functioning nerves. … Just going to let it calm down, and (I’m) hoping to be back soon.”
That there was no mention of ulnar nerve transposition surgery, which would have kept Fried out for months, has to be considered a good sign. Or, again, at least a less bad one.
After getting off to a hot start in April, Albies has struggled in recent months, and has hit just .235/.285/.376 since the end of April. He may be having arguably the worst year his career, but Atlanta was hopeful that he could return to form over the final two and a half months of the season. Losing even this lesser version of Albies lowers the ceiling of this underperforming offense, which ranks 11th among the 15 NL teams in runs scored.
Atlanta may be punchless, but it’s not witless – or should I say Whitless – as the team quickly signed Merrifield to a major league contract. Merrifield’s peak years with the Royals are long behind him at this point, and he was only available for the Braves because the Phillies released him over a week ago after he’d batted .199/.277/.295 (65 wRC+) across 174 plate appearances in a utility role. The projection systems are not bullish on Merrifield’s performance the rest of the season; Steamer expects Merrifield to post a .250/.303/.362 line over the final months of the year while ZiPS has him slightly worse, at .244/.293/.354. That said, the Braves simply don’t have any good in-house options to turn to instead. I ran the projections for every player at Triple-A or Double-A for Atlanta who has played at least three games at second base this year. I’m also including Alvarez, who has not played second base professionally but appears to be the frontrunner to replace Albies.
ZiPS Projections – Merrifield vs. Braves Minor Leaguers
If ZiPS is correct, the Braves appear to have identified Alvarez as their best short-term option at second base, with Merrifield filling a utility role and serving as the best second-base Plan B.
The Phillies were already overwhelming favorites to win the NL East, with ZiPS giving them an 85% chance of taking the division as of this morning if Fried and Albies had been healthy. Assuming two missed months for Albies and an average of three weeks for Fried, ZiPS drops Atlanta’s chances of running down the Phillies from 14% to 6%. Fortunately, the Braves remain in a commanding position for one of the NL Wild Card spots. These two injuries only drop their playoff probability in ZiPS from 91% to 88%, so while unwelcome, they shouldn’t cause any premature towel-throwing.
In one last bit of looking on the bright side, Atlanta has a lot more options now than it would if these injuries happened in two weeks. We’re just over a week from the trade deadline, and there are a variety of second basemen and pitchers, of varying plausibility, available. A package that included a relief arm – Atlanta is deep here – could conceivably tempt the Orioles into parting with a prospect like Connor Norby. Amed Rosario of the Rays and Isiah Kiner-Falefa of the Blue Jays have both been solid this season. I’m not sure Atlanta could successfully trade its entire farm system and get Garrett Crochet or Tarik Skubal if it wanted to, but the price of Erick Fedde ought to be more reasonable. The Braves might choose to stick with what they have and muddle through, but it’s always nice to be able to make that choice.
It says a lot about the Braves that despite all of their nasty surprises this season, they remain on a pace to win 89 games and comfortably make the playoffs. But with these two latest injuries, the team’s margin for error has been cut thinner than a nice piece of charcuterie.
Strength up the middle is important to any contender, but with so many teams still in the hunt for a playoff spot, it’s no surprise some of them are have some weak spots. Sometimes it’s easier for a team to convince itself that the metrics aren’t fully capturing the strength of a light-hitting player’s defense if they’re playing a premium position, which seems to be the case with the shortstops and some of the center fielders in this year’s batch of Killers. On the flip side, occasionally it’s easier to justify shaky defense if there’s at least a hope of getting adequate offense. Then there are the times that guys get hurt and somebody has to stand out there in the middle pasture looking like they know what’s going on.
While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 9.5%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — I have also incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look.
Willie Mays was already a superstar by the time the Giants moved across the country following the 1957 season, yet the denizens of San Francisco did not exactly embrace him. They took much more quickly to Orlando Cepeda, who homered against the Dodgers in his major league debut on April 15, 1958, the team’s first game at Seals Stadium, its temporary new home. The slugging 20-year-old first baseman, nicknamed “The Baby Bull” — in deference to his father Pedro “The Bull” Cepeda, a star player in his own right in their native Puerto Rico — was a perfect fit for San Francisco and its culture. He helped to infuse excitement into what had been a sixth-place team the year before, winning NL Rookie of the Year honors in 1958 and kicking off a 17-year career that included an MVP award, a World Series championship, and an induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, not to mention a statue outside Oracle Park.
Sadly, 10 days after Mays’ death at the age of 93, the 86-year-old Cepeda passed away as well. The Giants and the Cepeda family announced his death on Friday night — fittingly, during a game against the Dodgers; fans at Oracle Park stood to observe a moment of silence. “Our beloved Orlando passed away peacefully at home this evening, listening to his favorite music and surrounded by his loved ones,” said Nydia Fernandez, his second of three wives, in the statement. No cause of death was provided.
As the second Black Puerto Rican to play in the AL or NL, after Roberto Clemente, Cepeda became a hero in his homeland as well as a favorite of Giants fans. He spent nine seasons with the Giants (1958-66) before trades to the Cardinals (1966–68) and Braves (1969–72), followed by brief stints with the A’s (1972), Red Sox (1973), and Royals (1974) at the tail end of his career. The 6-foot-2, 210-pound righty was a middle-of-the-lineup force on three pennant winners, including the 1967 champion Cardinals, and was selected for an All-Star team 11 times, including two per year from 1959–62; he was the first Puerto Rican player to start an All-Star Game in the first of those seasons. He was the first player to win both the Rookie of the Year and MVP awards unanimously; Albert Pujols is the only one to replicate that feat. Cepeda finished his career with 2,351 hits, 379 homers, 142 steals, and a lifetime batting line of .297/.350/.499 (133 OPS+).
Not everything came easily for Cepeda. If not for the pitcher-friendliness of the Giants’ home ballparks — first Seals Stadium and then Candlestick Park — as well as a series of knee injuries that led to 10 surgeries, he might have hit at least 500 home runs. His path to the Hall of Fame took an extreme detour due to a conviction for smuggling marijuana, which resulted in a 10-month stint in federal prison as well as a humiliating fall from grace in Puerto Rico. Only after his release and his conversion to Buddhism was he able to rehabilitate his image and work his way back into the game’s good graces, a process that culminated with his election to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1999, 25 years after his final game. He was the second Puerto Rican player inducted, preceded only by Clemente. Read the rest of this entry »
Rick Kranitz has seen a lot of good changeups over the years. A minor league pitcher in the Milwaukee Brewers system for five seasons beginning in 1979, he joined the coaching ranks in 1984 and has been tutoring hurlers ever since. As noted when I talked pitching with him for FanGraphs three years ago, “Kranny” has served as the pitching coach for multiple big league teams, including the one he joined in 2019, the Atlanta Braves.
Unlike our 2021 interview, which covered a variety of pitching topics, this one focuses exclusively on one offering. I sat down with Kranitz to talk changeups when the Braves visited Boston earlier this month.
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David Laurila: I want to ask you about a pitcher you were with 40-plus years ago, a guy who had a great changeup.
Matt Tuiasosopo has fond memories of his 2013 season with the Detroit Tigers. An October swing of the bat is responsible for one of the few unpleasant memories. Now the third base coach for the Atlanta Braves, Tuiasosopo was watching from the bench when David Ortiz blasted an eighth-inning, game-tying grand slam, a play that saw Torii Hunter tumble into Fenway Park’s home bullpen in a futile attempt to snare the drive. It was the signature moment of an epic ALCS Game 2 that the Red Sox went on to win, and a catalyst to their eventual capturing of the series.
What was it like to be on the wrong side of such a memorable event, and how does he look back at it now that a decade’s worth of water has passed under the bridge? I asked Tuiasosopo those questions when the Braves visited Boston earlier this month.
“That was an intense moment, “ recalled Tuiasosopo, who while not on Detroit’s ALCS active roster was in uniform for the games. “The whole stadium was going nuts. It was really loud. Of course, my first concern was Torii, because he flew over that wall. When he got up, it was ‘Thankfully he’s okay.’ I mean, there were a lot of different emotions.
“It obviously wasn’t fun,” continued Tuiasosopo. “At the same time, as a baseball fan it was, ‘Big Papi against one of our best relievers — Joaquín Benoit was big for us that season — and there was also everything that happened for the city of Boston [the Marathon bombing] that year. The moment was special, even though it sucked on our end.” Read the rest of this entry »
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Atlanta Braves. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fourth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.
A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.
All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »
Hurston Waldrep is one of my favorite pitchers in the minor leagues. Or rather, he was, because the Braves called him up this weekend and gave him his major league debut on Sunday. Waldrep was the no. 24 overall pick in the draft last year, and I was by no means alone in considering that selection a steal for Atlanta.
A year ago this weekend, Waldrep was pitching the University of Florida to the College World Series; on Sunday, his opponent, the Washington Nationals, was somewhat more challenging. Waldrep’s line in his debut ended up being extremely ugly: 3 2/3 innings, four hits, four walks, only one strikeout, and seven earned runs allowed. Atlanta lost the game 8-5, and Waldrep got charged with the decision, leaving him with a career record of 0-1 and an ERA of 17.18.
Waldrep’s first big league start ended in disaster, but up until the point where it all went wrong, the rookie showed incredible promise. So let’s look a little deeper, because amid the pile of runs, you can see why I’m still so high on Waldrep, and why he could end up being immensely important to the Braves later this year. Read the rest of this entry »
Last Sunday’s column led with Detroit Tigers infielder/outfielder Matt Vierling reflecting on his days as a two-way player in high school and at the University of Notre Dame. This week’s leads with a former two-way player whose career path took a different turn. A native of Saginaw, Michigan who played shortstop and served as a closer at the University of Nebraska, Spencer Schwellenbach is currently a member of the Atlanta Braves starting rotation.
His big-league debut came sooner than expected. The 24-year-old right-hander was drafted in 2021 — Atlanta selected him in the second round — but because of Tommy John surgery he didn’t take the mound until last year. At the time of his May 29 call-up, Schwellenbach had just 110 minor-league innings under his belt. Moreover, he hadn’t thrown a pitch above the Double-A level.
His two-step call-up is something he’ll never forget.
“They actually told me I was going to Triple-A,” said Schwellenbach. “I showed up in Gwinnett, threw a bullpen, and after I got done they asked if I was all packed up to go to Virginia. I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got all my stuff here.’ They were like, ‘Well, unpack your stuff, you’re throwing in Atlanta on Wednesday.’ I was so taken off guard that I didn’t know what to say. It was like, ‘holy crap.’ I called my parents, my fiancee, my brothers, my sister. It was awesome.” Read the rest of this entry »
