In 2024, 11 years after he was the consensus no. 1 prospect in the game, Jurickson Profar finally broke out, setting career highs in home runs (24), wRC+ (139) and WAR (4.3), making his first All-Star team, and helping the Padres to an NL Wild Card berth. He cashed in that winter; after never making more than $7.75 million in a season, Profar signed a three-year, $42 million deal with the Braves. Four games into his tenure with his new team, however, he drew an 80-game suspension for violating the Joint Drug Agreement. While he was productive upon returning and figured prominently in the plans of a team expected to contend for the NL East title this season, on Tuesday, the 33-year-old outfielder drew a second PED suspension, this one for the entire 2026 season.

Profar wasn’t the only player reported to be facing a PED suspension on Tuesday, or even the only NL East outfielder who had run afoul of the game’s drug policy. According to multiple sources, the Phillies’ Johan Rojas has an 80-game suspension looming for a first-time offense. While MLB officially announced Profar’s suspension in a press release sent at 6:47 p.m. ET on Tuesday — over six hours after ESPN’s Jeff Passan first broke the news — Rojas’ is not yet official.

Both players are reportedly appealing their suspensions. An hour after Passan’s tweet, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that the Major League Baseball Players Association is filing a grievance on Profar’s behalf. It’s not clear yet on what grounds the union is challenging the suspension, but such a case would be heard by MLB’s independent arbitrator, Martin F. Scheinman. Later that afternoon, The Athletic’s Charlotte Varnes and Matt Gelb reported that Rojas is appealing his suspension, as well. He is starting in center field and batting seventh in Philadelphia’s exhibition game on Wednesday against Team Canada. Read the rest of this entry »

If you spend some time poking around the nooks and crannies of FanGraphs, you’ll eventually encounter one weird thing. Go to our Depth Charts Team WAR Totals page, and you’ll see all 30 teams arranged by the amount of WAR we project them to accrue this season. Go to our Projected Standings page, and you’ll see the winning percentage we expect for each team. Sometimes, those two pages seem to be displaying the exact same information. Sometimes, they don’t quite line up.

Take right now, for instance. We project the Padres for 40.8 WAR, the Giants for 38.7 WAR, and the Diamondbacks for 38.2 WAR. Look at the projected standings, however, and we have the Padres down for a .490 winning percentage, the Giants at .504, and the Diamondbacks at .501. That doesn’t feel right. Shouldn’t the team with the most projected WAR also project for the best record? Well, buckle up, because to explain how this works, we’re going to have to do some math.

We’ll break this one down into two parts. First, what does a team WAR projection mean? Most basically, it’s the sum of each player on that team’s WAR projection, but we’ll have to get more specific than that. Our projection systems can spit out a WAR, but that’s not their real output. They project actual on-field baseball results. Manny Machado’s Depth Charts projection is for 644 plate appearances, 28 doubles, 26 homers, 127 strikeouts, and so on. The WAR part of it gets calculated after the fact. Read the rest of this entry »

After 14 seasons in the majors, Starling Marte has signed with the Royals on a one-year contract for $2 million. The 37-year-old Marte brings a proven bat to an outfield that should look at least a little bit different than it has in recent years. Between one-year deals for Marte and Lane Thomas and trades for Isaac Collins and Kameron Misner, Kansas City has now added more than an entire outfield to its roster, even though the team has two returning incumbents in Kyle Isbel and Jac Caglianone.

Marte’s career is maybe too easy to overlook; after being a core member of three Pirates playoff teams during his first three full seasons, both he and his team faded into obscurity until he was traded three times between the start of 2020 and the end of July 2021. Then, for the past four years, he was a role player on a star-studded Mets roster. For that reason, let’s make sure we appreciate just how great he’s been. He has a career wRC+ of 115, 361 stolen bases, and 35.9 WAR to his name. He’s had eight different seasons of at least 3.0 WAR and earned a couple of Gold Gloves, a couple of All-Star nods, and even an MVP vote. You might be surprised to learn that JAWS ranks him 46th among left fielders. He’s not in Hall of Fame territory, but he’s a lot closer than you might think. Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, Team USA played its first tuneup game before the World Baseball Classic, thrashing the Giants 15-1 in a scheduled 10-inning exhibition. This came on the heels of Monday’s announcement lining up the American rotation for pool play in the WBC.

The WBC is a bit unusual for an international best-on-best sporting tournament in that it takes place during the preseason, rather than during a dedicated break (as in Olympic ice hockey or the 2022 FIFA World Cup) or the offseason. Therefore, the best active managers and coaches for each country are unavailable to coach in the tournament, as they would be in hockey and soccer.

For the first four tournaments, USA Baseball got around this by hiring either unemployed or recently retired managers — Buck Martinez, Davey Johnson, Joe Torre, and Jim Leyland. Highly successful and well-respected managers, in the latter three cases. For 2023, they went with Mark DeRosa. Read the rest of this entry »

Jamie Arnold has a six-pitch mix that plays up thanks to outlier traits. He also has a lofty ceiling. Drafted 11th overall last year by the Athletics out of Florida State University, the 21-year-old southpaw will debut professionally this season having just missed out on our 2026 Top 100 Prospects list. And while he didn’t quite make that cut, Arnold did merit inclusion on the prospect team’s Picks to Click list, which highlights players expected to make next year’s Top 100. (Eric Longenhagen was present for Arnold’s spring training debut last Friday, video of which can be seen here.)

His delivery plays a role in his effectiveness. As Michael Baumann wrote prior to last summer’s draft, “Arnold’s long arm swing and extreme low release point make it hard to find an easy comp for him.” My colleague also referred to him as “a pitchability lefty,” which is notable given that the 6-foot-1 Tampa native possesses plus raw stuff. He certainly dominated at the amateur level. Over his last two collegiate seasons, Arnold went 19-5 with a 2.96 ERA while allowing just 153 hits over 190 1/3 frames. Moreover, he punched out 278 batters and issued just 53 free passes.

Arnold discussed his arsenal — which currently includes two changeups — as well as the mindset he takes with him to the mound, at the A’s spring training facility in Mesa, Arizona.

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David Laurila: I’ve read the reports, but how would you describe yourself as a pitcher? How do you get guys out?

Jamie Arnold: “I’m in the zone a lot; I’m a strike-thrower and like to limit walks. You could say that I’m a groundball pitcher, but I also put up strikeout numbers. So I like to play both roles: a pitcher who gets quick outs, and a pitcher who punches guys out.” Read the rest of this entry »

Everybody remembers the biggest moment from the 2023 World Baseball Classic. In the championship game, with Japan leading the United States 3-2 in the top of the ninth, Mike Trout stepped into the box as the tying run. Even though he was the Mike Trout – the surefire Hall of Famer with 71 WAR to his name who was coming off a 176 wRC+ in 2022 – he looked a little nervous. Before he even dug his cleats into the dirt, he sneaked four different peeks out toward the pitcher’s mound.

He did so for good reason. Out on the mound was Shohei Ohtani, the most fearsome player in the game, as well as Trout’s teammate. The endgame was a chess match. Ohtani started Trout with a ferocious sweeper just below the zone, but Trout took an absurdly easy take. No longer nibbling, Ohtani blew a center-cut fastball right by Trout at 100 mph. He touched 102 on the next pitch. At the end, with the count full, Ohtani threw a sweeper that started out over the heart of the plate and then took a left turn so sharp you’d think it had just read A People’s History of the United States. Trout couldn’t lay off it. Japan had won. Pandemonium reigned in the Tokyo Dome.

We could easily get another best-on-best matchup to end the 2026 WBC. Whether you believe that the best pitcher in baseball right now is Tarik Skubal or Paul Skenes, either one of them could find himself trying to close out the championship against Ohtani or Juan Soto (or Ronald Acuña Jr., or Vladimir Guerrero Jr., or Fernando Tatis Jr.; those Juniors really can hit). We could just as easily see Yoshinobu Yamamoto or Cristopher Sánchez facing down Aaron Judge. Read the rest of this entry »

As I write this, I’m watching a spring training game on my other monitor, which is a good reminder that another season of baseball will soon begin. Forty-eight of the Top 50 free agents of the winter have signed, with Zack Littell and Lucas Giolito the lone holdouts. That means it’s time for my annual review of contract predictions, mostly mine and the crowd’s.

I like to evaluate my own predictions so that I can get better at making them in the future. I like to evaluate your crowdsourced predictions because it’s fun, and because everyone likes hearing how smart they are. Our crowdsourced predictions have been consistently excellent, arguably better than any industry expert, and that makes displaying them particularly enjoyable.

To evaluate our accuracy, I broke the signings down into three categories: hitters, starting pitchers, and relievers. I also examined the entire Top 50, without positional separation. I used a formula that I discussed earlier this winter as my chief metric of accuracy, but I also checked how close we came on average annual value, total guarantee, and number of years. I looked at how the predictions matched the overall amount of money spent in the market, and also considered how close each individual prediction came. That way, I was able to evaluate two things: Who did the best job predicting the broad market, and who predicted what each free agent would get with the greatest accuracy. Read the rest of this entry »

A key part of developing as a baseball analyst is knowing one’s own scouting blind spots. So here’s one of mine: I will go absolutely berserk for any prospect who shows even a hint of life against older competition in international play. I can’t help myself.

Brett Lawrie makes the Canadian Olympic team just out of high school in 2008, and plays regularly in the tournament. (This tournament featured lights-out pitching by 21-year-old Hyun Jin Ryu and 20-year-old Stephen Strasburg, the latter the only college player on Team USA.) Lawrie then plays for Canada again in the 2009 WBC, before making his professional debut.

Also on Team Canada in 2009: 20-year-old Single-A right-hander Phillippe Aumont comes into a jam with the bases loaded and nobody out against Team USA, and blows up David Wright, Kevin Youkilis, and Curtis Granderson in succession. Read the rest of this entry »

When pitchers and catchers report, joy abounds. Who doesn’t love grainy cellphone video of a pitcher mounting the slab in the early days of February? But as far as I’m concerned, baseball doesn’t truly start until the first pitch plot surfaces on social media. Not much in spring training matters, but pitch data does. One or two pitches is all it takes to establish the birth of a new pitch or velocity peak. Results — ERA, strikeouts — take a while to stabilize, and in any case, they mean little in the “just trying things out” context of spring ball. But the pitch data — that’s real, man. Nobody throws a new pitch on accident. (For the most part.)

And so, like the well-adjusted baseblogger I am, I’ve spent the first week of spring games knee-deep in the data. Would you believe that as of the final day of February, there have been precisely 4,500 unique pitcher/pitch type combinations? That’s a lot of potential trends to suss out. You, reader, surely don’t want to wade through all of that, so let me present you with a handful of things that have caught my attention in the pitch plot portion of spring training. They fall into three categories: under-the-radar prospects with at least one bonkers pitch, established starters soft-launching new shapes, and relievers with limited big league time popping like potential leverage guys.

Under-the-Radar Prospects

Ryan Lambert, Mets

Okay, this one was slightly more under the radar before Lambert went viral for his “30 raw eggs a day” shenanigans. From that story, you surely learned that he throws a fastball with considerable velocity. But what Anthony DiComo’s excellent report elided was the shape of that fastball. In his lone spring outing, Lambert showed off a 98-mph heater with 21.5 inches of induced vertical break. Outside of Lambert’s arm, that pitch doesn’t exist. Only three pitchers topped even 20 inches of induced vertical break on their heater in 2025 — Alex Vesia, Triston McKenzie, and Yaramil Hiraldo (more on Hiraldo later) — and none of them broke 95 on the radar gun. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Yankees re-signed Cody Bellinger in late January, they more or less committed to running back the same outfield they used in 2025. And why not? Even with limited contributions from their reserves, the primary trio of Bellinger, Trent Grisham, and Aaron Judge combined to produce a major league-high 16.6 WAR. But with secondary roles still up for grabs, New York added outfielder Randal Grichuk to its options last week, signing the 34-year-old veteran to a minor league deal with a non-roster invitation to spring training.

The signing of Grichuk isn’t exactly out of left field, so to speak. While the Yankees do have 23-year-old switch-hitter Jasson Domínguez — who spent all of last season with the Yankees and made 93 starts in left but was reduced to a bench role by September — and 24-year-old prospect Spencer Jones on their 40-man roster, both have minor league options remaining (two for the former, three for the latter). If the primary trio is healthy, and if primary designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton is able to answer the bell often enough (yes, that’s a load-bearing if), the Yankees would prefer that their youngsters continue to develop by playing regularly, if not in the Bronx than at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes Barre.

“I would concede it’s in his best interest to be getting everyday reps,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said in mid-February regarding Domínguez, who placed 16th on our Top 100 Prospects List last spring as a 55-FV prospect despite having been moved from center field to left, then hit a modest .257/.331/.388, (103 wRC+) in 429 plate appearances. While the Yankees tolerated worse from left fielder Alex Verdugo in 2024, when Domínguez was coming off Tommy John surgery on his right (throwing) elbow, between his league-average offense and his struggles in left field (-7 DRS, -9 FRV in 793 innings), he was an afterthought in September. He made just four starts and totaled 20 plate appearances in the final month of the regular season, before getting just one postseason plate appearance. (He made the most of it, lacing a leadoff double into the right-center gap in the bottom of the ninth inning of an elimination game with the Yankees down four runs.) Domínguez’s 0.6 WAR — which matched Verdugo’s 2024 output in about 200 fewer plate appearances — indicates he still has enough to work on to justify another stint in the minors. Read the rest of this entry »