Spring training is in full swing, and while there’s still a trickle of higher-profile free agents such as Cody Bellinger and Tim Anderson finding homes — not to mention a handful of unsigned ones, from NL Cy Young winner Blake Snell and postseason stud Jordan Montgomery on down — most teams are taking shape, albeit with plenty to sort out while in camp. Still, all but the powerhouses have some lineup holes remaining, and while they may not be likely to open their checkbooks to land the likes of Matt Chapman, it’s worth keeping their vulnerabilities in mind.

To that end, I wanted to revisit an exercise I performed last year, one that bears more than a passing resemblance to the annual Replacement Level Killers series I roll out prior to the trade deadline. This one is a little different, as it comes prior to the season and relies entirely on our projections, which combine ZiPS and Steamer as well as playing time estimates from RosterResource. Those projections also drive our Playoff Odds.

There are a couple of wrinkles to note here. Where last year and for the in-season series I have generally used a 10% chance of reaching the playoffs as a cutoff for what we might loosely define as a contender, this year’s odds are distributed such that only four teams (the A’s, Nationals, Rockies, and White Sox) fall below that threshold. Thus I’ve raised the cutoff to 25%, leaving the Angels, Pirates, and Royals below the bar but including the Red Sox (25.6% at this writing) and Reds (25.7%), both of which forecast for 80 wins. Gotta love this expanded playoff system, right? Ugh. Read the rest of this entry »

Travis Bazzana, the no. 2 draft prospect on The Board at the moment, had a big day Sunday against Oklahoma State. In four at-bats, the Oregon State second baseman hit four balls 108 mph or harder, coming away with a double and two home runs for his trouble. The first of those home runs was crushed so hard that the outfielders didn’t bother chasing it — one of baseball’s great subtle aesthetic signifiers. More than that, the DJ at Globe Life Field was able to spin up the theme from The Natural before the ball even landed:

And now Travis Bazzana gets in on the action!https://t.co/a1pkN1nG65#GoBeavs pic.twitter.com/SOlYsavVyZ

— Oregon State Baseball (@BeaverBaseball) February 25, 2024

That’s how you know it’s gone. Read the rest of this entry »

To understand why Baltimore Orioles shortstop Jackson Holliday is the no. 1 prospect on our Top 100 list, look no further than Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin’s writeup of the 20-year-old phenom. They describe Holliday, the first overall pick in the 2022 draft, as “a sweet-swinging shortstop with above-average feel for contact and burgeoning power,” and close their evaluation by predicting that he “is very likely to become a 5-WAR shortstop who does everything well.” He has been spending time at second base this spring, because the O’s already have last year’s no. 1 overall prospect Gunnar Henderson at shortstop, but either way, stardom is seemingly in Holliday’s future.

That the promising youngster is the son of former big league slugger Matt Holliday is well known. It is also a primary factor in his advanced approach to hitting, as well as his overall understanding of his craft. Last season, which he began in Low-A and ended in Triple-A, the lefty-hitting Holliday produced a .323/.442/.499 slash line and 159 wRC+ across four levels of the minor leagues.

Holliday sat down to talk hitting over the weekend prior to a Grapefruit League game in Sarasota.

———

David Laurila: How do you approach hitting?

Jackson Holliday: “As far as guessing pitches… that’s not something I’m great at. But I really enjoy learning about swings — different guys’ swings — how they work, and little things that can help, like cues. My dad has been around baseball for so long, and is such a hitting guy, and I got that from him. But yeah, my approach is pretty simple. I try to stay in the middle of field, stay on my backside, and hit the heater.”

Laurila: Are you basically hunting fastballs and adjusting from there?

Holliday: “Yeah. I sit fastball. I don’t sit offspeed unless there is a real outlier. That’s something I learned from my dad. He would sit heater and try to hit it to the middle of the field. If you’re in a good spot to hit a fastball to the middle of the field you can adjust to the offspeed pitch a lot better than you can sitting offspeed and trying to hit a heater.”

Laurila: How hard is it to be diligent with that? There are going to be times where your subconscious brain tells you, “He’s not going to throw a fastball here.” Read the rest of this entry »

With spring training games in full swing, the pressure is mounting for baseball’s remaining free agents to find homes. After all, nobody wants to miss out on the weather in Florida or Arizona this time of year, and Opening Day is just a few weeks away. Now Tim Anderson won’t have to fret. Anderson is heading to the Miami Marlins on a one-year, $5 million deal. With a clear path to the starting shortstop role, the 30-year-old will no doubt hope to re-enter free agency this winter having bounced back from his disappointing final season in Chicago.

Anderson’s fit in Miami is an interesting one. If he can stay healthy and return to his prior form, he could help to stabilize the shortstop position in Miami. But he also constitutes a risky addition to an already uncertain Marlins lineup. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where neither Anderson nor Jazz Chisholm Jr. has an offensive bounce-back, Luis Arraez regresses, and Jake Burger’s contact overhaul proves to be just a flash in the pan; it could all go sideways pretty quickly. But if it goes right, this could be an exciting lineup. If nothing else, the top three of Arraez, Anderson, and Chisholm make for a very fun group. Still, in order for things to go right for Anderson, he needs to recover some of the BABIP skills that were a key reason for his success. Let’s focus on how exactly that might happen.

From 2019-2022, Anderson led the majors in batting average with a .318 mark. On a hit per plate appearance basis, nobody was more productive. Then in 2023, he cratered. Knee, shoulder, forearm, and neck injuries all contributed to the contact hitter dropping to a 60 wRC+ and -0.5 WAR in 123 games. Add to that concerns about his ability to stick at shortstop, and you have yourself a player who fell $3 million short of his median crowdsourced contract prediction. The shape of Anderson’s production through his successful four-year run was inherently volatile. He definitely possessed skills that propelled him to run above-average BABIPs, but the margin for error for that hitting style is razor thin; a handful of injuries and some loss of strength can make an otherwise productive profile almost unplayable. Read the rest of this entry »

I write about the Rays a lot. I just wrote about them signing Amed Rosario, for example. Earlier this month, I wrote an article titled “The Rays Can’t Keep Getting Away With This, Can They?”, and in another, I wrote that I had recently daydreamed about one of my favorite Rays players during a root canal. I’m endlessly impressed by how this team does it. But this year? I cannot put into words how wild I find this version of its team construction. In other words, I’m writing about the Rays because they deserve it – or at least I think so.

Last year, they won 99 games. They had both one of the best offenses and one of the best pitching staffs in the American League. They did a little bit of everything, and nearly overtook the Orioles for first place in the AL as a result. But that was last year. Three of Tampa Bay’s top six players aren’t returning.

There’s Wander Franco, of course. He may never play another game of major league baseball. Tyler Glasnow, who looked downright indomitable in his first year back from Tommy John surgery, got traded to the Dodgers. Shane McClanahan is having Tommy John himself. Heck, Jeffrey Springs came into the season as one of the team’s best pitchers, and his own surgery will keep him out until after the All Star break this year.
Read the rest of this entry »

In terms of rankings and projection, Mick Abel is much the same pitcher he was 24 months ago. When the now-22-year-old right-hander was featured in February 2022 during our annual Prospect Week, he was No. 1 in the Philadelphia Phillies system and No. 20 on our Top 100. Fast forward to the present, and he is No. 2 in the Philadelphia Phillies system and No. 22 on our Top 100. As Eric Longenhagen explained in his recent writeup, “Abel didn’t have an especially good 2023… [but] still has most all of the ingredients needed to be an impact starter, he just isn’t totally baked yet.”

How has the 2019 first-rounder out of Beaverton, Oregon’s Jesuit High School matured the most since our conversation two years ago? I asked him that question at Philadelphia’s spring training facility in Clearwater, Florida on Friday.

“I’d say it’s the separation of over-the-rubber and over-the-plate mentality, knowing how to distinguish between the two,” replied Abel, who had a 27.5% strikeout rate but also a 13.5% walk rate in 108-and-two-third innings with Double-A Reading last year. “Whether it’s in the bullpen or on the game-mound, knowing when and how to make adjustments without getting too deep in my head about it.

“Staying more direct and knowing that if I get too long with my arm action in back I’m going to be a little later to the plate,“ Abel said when asked to elaborate on the actual mechanics. “I want to make sure that everything is on time going down the hill.” Read the rest of this entry »

After the trades of Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander last summer, Kodai Senga assumed the role of the Mets’ staff ace, and figured to be the team’s Opening Day starter this year. Already, however, the Mets are in the position of having to adjust. A day after Senga missed a team workout due to what was initially described as arm fatigue, president of baseball operations David Stearns revealed that the 31-year-old righty will start the year on the injured list with a shoulder strain. For as tantalizing as the possibility of a free agent addition may be, the team plans to stay in-house to absorb his absence.

In Wednesday’s media session, manager Carlos Mendoza said that after Tuesday’s side session, Senga told Mets trainers he was experiencing arm fatigue, which is hardly uncommon at this time of year as pitchers build up their workloads. This wasn’t the first time this spring that he had reported fatigue, however, and so the Mets sent him for an MRI, which revealed a moderate posterior capsule strain. He’ll be shut down from throwing, but this isn’t an injury that suggests he’ll need surgery. Even so, Stearns would not offer a timeline for his return. “What I can say at this point, comfortably, is we don’t expect Opening Day,” he told reporters on Thursday. “But I do expect him to make a bunch of starts for us this year… Hopefully we caught it early enough that this is just a speedbump.”

While not presented as a worst-case scenario, that’s still pretty vague as far as what Senga might contribute in 2024, and when. If there’s good news, it’s that this isn’t the type of shoulder injury that Kyle Wright and Brandon Woodruff suffered. As Under the Knife’s Will Carroll pointed out, they had anterior capsule tears that required surgical repair, costing them most of 2023 and likely all of this season. Nonetheless, however long Senga is out, the Mets will have a tough time replacing him.

After 11 seasons with the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks of the Japan Pacific League, Senga joined the Mets on a five-year, $75 million contract. Given his history of pitching only every sixth or seventh day in Japan, the team did its best to provide him a bit of extra rest between starts; only three times did he take a turn on four days of rest, with 17 starts coming on five days, six on six days, and three on more than that. All told, he acquitted himself in impressive fashion, posting a 2.98 ERA and 3.63 FIP in 166.1 innings, making the NL All-Star team, and placing second in the Rookie of the Year voting behind Corbin Carroll and seventh in the Cy Young voting. That ERA ranked second in the league behind Blake Snell’s 2.20, while his 202 strikeouts placed eighth and his 3.4 WAR tied for ninth. Among Japanese-born pitchers who have come stateside, only Hideo Nomo and Yu Darvish had stronger debuts in terms of WAR or strikeouts, with the former totaling 5.2 WAR and 236 K’s for the Dodgers in 1995, while the latter had 4.7 WAR and 221 K’s for the Rangers in 2012.

When Senga joined the Mets, he figured to be the third starter on a contending team behind a pair of three-time Cy Young award winners, but that changed when they traded Scherzer and Verlander. With the Mets’ decision to rein in their payroll — still the majors’ largest in terms of annual salaries ($315 million) and Competitive Balance Tax ($328 million) — this winter, he now fronts a rotation with a much lower ceiling on a team projected to finish around .500. Currently ranked 23rd in projected starting pitcher WAR by our Depth Charts, this group is full of pitchers aspiring to stay healthy, available, and productive for a full season.

The most experienced of the group is 35-year-old lefty José Quintana, who after making at least 31 starts annually from 2013–19 has done so just once in the past three seasons. Last year, his first of a two-year, $26 million deal with the Mets, he was limited to 13 starts by a stress fracture in his rib, one that was revealed to be caused by a benign lesion that required bone graft surgery. He was solid upon his return just after the All-Star break, posting a 3.57 ERA and 3.52 FIP in 75.2 innings. He did a great job of avoiding hard contact, and his sinker was particularly effective, holding hitters to a .198 AVG and .253 SLG in 105 PA. Even if he’s just a five-and-fly guy — he’s averaged less than 5 1/3 innings in each of his last three full seasons (2018, ’19, ’22) — he should provide some welcome stability for the rotation while fulfilling the role of the sage veteran.

The most accomplished of the group is 30-year-old righty Luis Severino, a two-time All-Star who has finished as high as third in the Cy Young voting. But due to shoulder inflammation (2019), Tommy John surgery (2020-21), and a pair of lat strains (2022 and ’23), he’s managed just 40 starts and 209.1 innings over the past five seasons. When he was available last year between a season-opening lat strain and a season-ending oblique strain, he generally struggled, posting a 6.65 ERA and 6.14 FIP in 89.1 innings while serving up a gruesome 2.32 home runs per nine. His four-seam fastball still averaged 96.5 mph, but hitters slugged .680 against it, a problem that may be attributable to his tipping pitches with men on base. Even so, he did have the occasional start that offered hope he could find his way out of such a mess. The Mets signed him to a one-year, $13 million deal on the belief that it’s possible, particularly if he can avoid tipping.

Also tantalizing in terms of velocity is 32-year-old lefty Sean Manaea, who split last season between the bullpen (27 appearances, many of them following an opener) and rotation (10 starts) for the Giants, putting up a 4.40 ERA and 3.90 FIP in 117.2 innings. After spending time at Driveline after the 2022 season, Manaea increased his average four-seam velocity from 91.3 mph to 93.6, and was able to maintain that gain even during his longer outings. He also added a sweeper that held hitters to a .158 AVG and .184 SLG in 42 PA while generating a 36.3% whiff rate. This year, after more work at Driveline, he’s planning to introduce an improved changeup. His existing one held hitters to a .208 AV and .333 SLG in 2023, but generated just an 18.7% whiff rate; with an adjusted grip, he’s hoping to get batters to chase more. He’s also adding a new cutter to serve as a weapon against righties, who hit for a .333 wOBA against him in 2023, compared to the .256 wOBA he allowed to lefties.

The other newcomer from outside the organization is 31-year-old righty Adrian Houser. Acquired from the Brewers on December 20 along with outfielder Tyrone Taylor in a trade that sent righty prospect Coleman Crow to Milwaukee, Houser posted a 4.12 ERA and 3.99 FIP in 111.1 innings last year, making 21 starts and two relief appearances. He didn’t make his season debut until May 7 due to a groin strain, and missed a couple of weeks in late August and early September with elbow inflammation. Houser throws a heavy sinker, generates lots of groundballs, and does a decent job of keeping the ball in the park, though last year’s 1.05 HR/9 was his highest full-season rate since 2019.

Stearns said the battle to replace Senga features Tylor Megill, Joey Lucchesi, and José Butto, all of whom have at least one minor league option remaining. By now the 28-year-old Megill is a familiar face, as he’s pitched for the Mets on and off since debuting in June 2021. In fact, he was pressed into duty as the Opening Day starter in 2022, and three weeks later, he threw the first five innings of a combined no-hitter. His 25 starts last year ranked second on the team, but unfortunately, he was erratic to the point of getting sent down to Triple-A Syracuse for about six weeks. He finished with a 4.70 ERA and 4.96 FIP as he struggled to throw strikes and avoid hard contact. He walked 10.2% of hitters while striking out just 18.5%; between that and the 9% of his batted balls that were barreled, he ended up with a 5.89 xERA. He can bring it with a mid-90s fastball and great extension thanks to his 6-foot-7 frame, but maintaining his velocity has been a challenge. In his final outing of last season, he broke out a split-fingered fastball that he learned from Senga, and he spent the winter working to hone it; he calls it “The American Spork,” referencing Senga’s “Ghost Fork.” “Got a lot of reps with it and it’s working well,” he told reporters this week. “It’s definitely part of the arsenal now.”

Lucchesi, a 30-year-old lefty, has spent parts of five seasons in the majors. He made nine starts totaling 46.2 innings for the Mets last year, turning in a tidy 2.89 ERA that was hardly supported by his peripherals; he struck out just 16.4% of hitters and served up a 10.4% barrel rate en route to a 4.22 FIP and a 5.48 xERA. Butto, a 25-year-old righty, is the least experienced of the three, still a rookie actually. He throws a 93-95 mph fastball with a plus changeup and a good slider; the secondaries both miss bats at an above-average rate. Used as a spot starter last year, he made seven starts and two relief appearances totaling 42 innings, turning in a 3.64 ERA and 4.02 FIP, walking a gaudy 12.8% of hitters (against a modest 21.2% strikeout rate) but holding them to a 2.5% barrel rate and 0.64 HR/9.

Unlikely to figure into the Mets’ season-opening plans but perhaps in play later this year are righties Christian Scott, Mike Vasil, and Dominic Hamel, all of whom Eric Longenhagen covered in the team’s Imminent Big Leaguers piece earlier this month (along with Butto). None of those three are on the 40-man roster; Scott and Hamel are entering their age-25 seasons but haven’t pitched above Double-A, while Vasil is entering his age-24 season and took 16 turns at Syracuse last year, as well as 10 at Binghamton. Via Longenhagen, Scott grades out as the best of them, a 50 FV prospect who projects as a mid-rotation starter thanks to his combination of a 94-95 mph fastball, a plus slider, and a splitter. He’s 6-foot-4, weighs 215 pounds and gets great extension. Hamel, a 45 FV prospect, throws a 92-96 mph fastball and two good breaking balls but has iffy command. Vasil, a 45 FV prospect, projects as “a rock steady no. 4/5 starter on a good team,” per Longehagen; he throws a 92-95 mph fastball, a plus slider, an average curveball and a changeup.

While the free agent market still has no shortage of pitchers who could help the Mets, from expensive options, such as Snell and Jordan Montgomery, to more affordable ones, such as righties Mike Clevinger, Michael Lorenzen, and Zack Greinke, the team’s tax situation makes a signing highly unlikely. Given that they’re already above the fourth-tier threshold of $297 million, the Mets will pay a 110% tax on the salaries of anybody they add. “We’re asking people to step up,” said Stearns, speaking of his internal options.

If enough of those pitchers do step up, the Mets could have an interesting summer, because even with Senga down, they currently project to have a 30.6% chance of making the playoffs. But those odds still depend upon him making a substantial contribution to the team, and right now, that’s anything but guaranteed.

Well, Mike Rizzo wasn’t joking. At the Washington Nationals’ spring training facility, behind each of the 11 home plates in the bullpen, there are signs posted, and they’re not printed on paper. Somebody in the organization shelled out to have “I don’t care how fast you throw ball four” printed on canvas, in team colors, with a border all around and a logo at the bottom. The grommets at each corner, which allow them to be zip-tied tightly to the fence, probably cost extra. No National will throw a bullpen without seeing those signs for the next month. Whenever the team decides to remove them, somebody is going to have a rough a time cutting through all that thick plastic. It’ll take some doing.

Mike Rizzo was not joking when he said they would have these signs at spring training.

“I don’t care how fast you throw ball four.” pic.twitter.com/tT9x1Pv6yi

— Andrew Golden (@andrewcgolden) February 14, 2024

Rizzo road tested the line at the team’s annual hot stove event in January, and it brought down the house, earning sustained laughter and an applause break. In the absolute most literal sense, he’s right. If a pitch ends up as ball four, who cares how hard it was thrown? You might as well huck it up there underhanded like a cricket bowler. But that’s not really how baseball works. The pitcher doesn’t know beforehand whether the batter is going to swing, so let’s take Rizzo a shade less literally and look at how fastballs perform when they’re thrown in three-ball counts. The graph below shows four-seamers and sinkers, bucketed in one mile per hour increments. I went back and checked the numbers a second time because the line is so straight that the graph looks like it was airbrushed:

Read the rest of this entry »

While many of my colleagues here at FanGraphs have spent the last two weeks discussing prospects, I’ve been thinking about veteran starting pitchers. I usually do. Perhaps it’s because I’m just young enough that there are still a couple of starters left from the earliest days of my fandom. Technically, the last starting pitcher to debut before I was born retired this past September… although the last one before him retired a full decade earlier. Still, I can’t really remember the days before Zack Greinke was a big league hurler, and Justin Verlander was already one of the best in the game by the time I started following baseball closely. This is the first year that I’m older than every prospect on our Top 100 list, but as long as Greinke and Verlander are still in the league, I can convince myself that I’m still a kid.

There’s no easy way to decide the age at which a “pitcher” becomes an “older pitcher.” There is evidence that certain skills start dropping off as early as age 26, while the average MLB player retires before his 30th birthday. On the other hand, in almost any other industry, some of baseball’s elder statesmen would still be considered young. Clayton Kershaw is barely old enough to run for president, while Jacob deGrom could probably still get cast as a teenager on The CW. Personally, I think of 36 as the age when a player enters “older” territory. There isn’t anything scientific about it (and believe me, I tried to find a more scientific answer – there’s just no magic number), but 36 is the entry point into the late 30s. It’s an age at which no one is too surprised to see a player retire, nor is anyone overly shocked to see a talented player sign a lucrative, multi-year deal.

In 2022, pitchers age 36 and older were amazing. Relievers in that age range did well (especially Daniel Bard, Chris Martin, and Adam Ottavino), but it was the starters who did most of the heavy lifting. They combined for a 3.53 ERA, 3.66 FIP, and 23.8 WAR (1.77 WAR per 100 IP). The last time starters age 36 and older produced more than 23 WAR was 2007, when John Smoltz, then 40, Tom Glavine, then 41, and Greg Maddux, then 41, helped older starters throw nearly twice as many innings as they did in 2022. The last time older starters were so valuable on a per-inning basis was all the way back in 2001, when Randy Johnson, then 37, and Roger Clemens, then 38, took home their fourth and sixth Cy Young awards, respectively.

For comparison, the average starter under 36 had a 4.07 ERA, 4.06 FIP, and was worth just 1.24 WAR per 100 IP in 2022. The older cohort will always benefit from survivorship bias, but even so, it’s rare to see older starters perform so much better (if better at all) than their younger counterparts. The last time older starters were this much better than the younger ones, in terms of FIP and WAR/IP, was 2003; if you go by ERA, 2002 was the last time.

To be sure, the top two arms in the cohort, Verlander and Max Scherzer, deserve the lion’s share of the credit. Verlander won the AL Cy Young with one of the best age-39 seasons in recent memory, while Scherzer, then 37, could have seriously challenged Sandy Alcantara for the NL award were it not for a couple of stints on the injured list. However, six more veteran starters threw over 120 innings with at least 1.5 WAR: Greinke, Corey Kluber, Adam Wainwright, Johnny Cueto, Rich Hill, and Charlie Morton.

While the strong performance of older starters in 2022 was unexpected, that’s not to say it came out of nowhere. Every year since the start of the 2019 season, pitchers age 36 and older have thrown a higher percentage of all starter innings than they did the year before. Their collective ERA and WAR/IP were better than those of their younger counterparts in every season from 2019–22. Older starters were getting more opportunities and making the most of them.

Then the 2023 season happened. Heading into the year, there were plenty of reasons to believe older starters would continue to thrive. All eight of the aforementioned veterans were set to return. At least some decline was expected from the Elder Eight — especially from Verlander and his 1.75 ERA — but reinforcements were on the way, with five younger talents aging into the group. Joining the fold were three recent All-Stars and Cy Young vote-getters, Lance Lynn, Yu Darvish, and Hyun Jin Ryu, as well as two lesser but typically dependable pitchers, Wade Miley and Carlos Carrasco. Those were some top prospects! Unfortunately, even as the workloads for older pitchers continued to rise, their collective performance did not.

Morton was the only member of the Elder Eight who improved in 2023. After finishing 2022 with a 3.10 ERA and 4.1 WAR, Darvish posted a 4.56 ERA last year, though that was still enough for a respectable 2.4 WAR, and missed the final 37 days of the season with an elbow injury. Carrasco was below replacement level last season, as his ERA ballooned to 6.80, and had two IL stints that cost him a combined 60 days. And then there was Lynn, whose decline was perhaps the most astonishing of the older pitchers. Last year, he gave up 44 home runs, the most by any pitcher in a season since Bronson Arroyo (46 homers) in 2011; after averaging 0.9 HR/9 over his first 11 big league seasons, Lynn allowed 2.16 HR/9 last year, the second-worst rate ever for a qualified starter in a single season, behind only Jose Lima and his 2.2 rate in 2000.

Meanwhile, Miley had a sweet-as-pie 3.14 ERA, but his 4.69 FIP wasn’t so nice, and although Ryu pitched well (3.46 ERA), he made only 11 starts because he missed the first four months of the season as he rehabbed from Tommy John surgery.

Ultimately, the biggest problem was how poorly the worst members of the age group performed, but it also hurt that the guys at the top (Verlander and Scherzer) took a step back, and no new aces emerged in their place. It’s worth mentioning that the table below includes only what these pitchers did as starters last season, though four of them (Kluber, Hill, Cueto, and Greinke) pitched in relief, as well.

Overall, starters age 36 and older saw their WAR nearly slashed in half. Their ERA- rose from 89 to 111, while their FIP- climbed from 93 to 111. Only twice in the last 50 years have older starters had a worse FIP compared to league average; similarly, only four times have they produced less WAR/IP. On the bright side, older starters made an additional 49 starts and threw nearly 200 more innings than they did the year before. Thus, they continued the trend of older starters taking on heavier workloads for the fifth consecutive season. We haven’t quite reached the levels of the early 2000s, when older starters were throwing 9-10% of all starter innings, but we have returned from the dark days of the mid-2010s when it looked like older starting pitchers were becoming an endangered species. However, if this trend is to continue, older starters will need to provide better results.

So, what are the prospects for older starters in 2024? Once again, there is reason for optimism. A couple of last season’s worst performers, Wainwright and Kluber, have retired. A few more, such as Cueto and Carrasco, are unlikely to make many starts unless they earn the opportunity. Moreover, while it would be fair to assume that some of the top performers from last year will take a step back, some bounceback candidates can make up the difference. Darvish had much better peripherals last year (3.74 xERA, 4.03 FIP) than his 4.56 ERA would suggest, while Lynn projects to have a large positive regression after his uncharacteristically bad season; his 2.2 projected Depth Charts WAR would be a tremendous improvement upon his 0.5 WAR in 2023.

Even better, several (relatively) young guns are entering their age-36 season. Joining the club are Kershaw, deGrom, Alex Cobb, Kenta Maeda, and Kyle Gibson (and, uh, Dallas Keuchel). Gibson is quite reliable, though his ceiling is not as high as the others in this group, and the same is true for Maeda if he can stay healthy. Both should help raise the cohort’s floor. Meanwhile, Keuchel probably won’t pitch enough to have a strong effect either way. Kershaw, deGrom, and Cobb will all start the season on the injured list, but perhaps between the three of them, they could provide a full season’s worth of starts. If they do, the three-headed monster of deCobbshaw might be the best pitcher in the whole age group. Our Depth Charts projections have deCobbshaw making 34 starts with a 3.60 ERA and 3.8 WAR. Could Verlander or Darvish match that level of production? It’s possible, but I wouldn’t call it likely, and the projections seem to agree. Here is what our Depth Charts have to say:

That 22.1 WAR figure is awfully close to the 23.8 WAR older starters produced in 2022, and the 1,766 IP projection would make 2024 the sixth straight season in which older starters took on a heavier workload. I’d take the playing time estimates with a grain of salt for the pitchers who haven’t signed yet, but still, the projections are enough to get me excited about an old guy revival. They may not quite reach the heights of the 2022 season, but this group features future Hall of Famers padding their résumés, pitchers who could be All-Stars this year, and beloved journeymen still chugging along. After several disappointing seasons for older starters in the 2010s, we’re lucky to be watching so many talented pitchers prolong their careers in 2024. And I’m happy to feel like a kid for at least one more year.

It’s been a quiet winter in Pittsburgh. The Pirates lost almost no one from last year’s 76-86 team, but they didn’t add many players either. Their biggest acquisition is probably Aroldis Chapman. After that, it’s Marco Gonzales, Rowdy Tellez, Yasmani Grandal, or Martín Pérez. They’re competent major leaguers all, but hardly exciting additions. But as it turns out, the Pirates had another move to make, and it’s a welcome one:

BREAKING: Right-hander Mitch Keller and the Pittsburgh Pirates are in agreement on a five-year contract extension, sources tell me and @kileymcd. After a breakout season in which he struck out 210, the 27-year-old Keller will anchor the rotation for the team that drafted him.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) February 22, 2024

This is both exciting and necessary, at least in my opinion. The Pirates haven’t developed many effective starting pitchers in the last, well, ever. Only one Pirates starter in the past decade has eclipsed 10 WAR with the team: Gerrit Cole with 13. After that, their success stories are Jameson Taillon, Joe Musgrove, and, well… Iván Nova is sixth on the list, and that came in 2.5 years after the Yankees traded him to Pittsburgh. As Stephen Nesbitt and Ken Rosenthal recently chronicled in The Athletic, it’s been an ugly decade for baseball in the Steel City.

Mitch Keller has already accrued the third-most starting pitching WAR in the past decade with 7.5. He’s entering his sixth big league season this year, though ups and downs early in his career mean that it’s only his fifth year of service time. The road to success has been bumpy — from 2019 through 2021, he compiled a 6.02 ERA and only racked up 170 innings of major league work. Things have gotten better since then, though. He threw 159 solid innings in 2022 and then made 32 starts in 2023, both times looking like a consistently effective starter rather than the roller coaster ride of earlier years. Read the rest of this entry »