On Wednesday, the Baltimore Orioles signed two veterans — pitcher Julio Teheran and second baseman Kolten Wong — to minor league contracts with non-roster spring training invites. The Teheran signing has a pretty obvious logic: The veteran right-hander hasn’t been anything like a frontline starter in the majors since about 2016, or even a reliable rotation option since 2019.

But despite having come up with the Braves around the same time as Lew Burdette, Teheran is still only 33. He threw 71 2/3 competent innings for the Brewers last year, with only a 17.4% strikeout rate but a 4.40 ERA, which will play for a guy on a tryout. After the Corbin Burnes trade, the Orioles — who wanted badly for starting pitching in 2023 — had assembled a formidable front four of Burnes, Kyle Bradish, Grayson Rodriguez, and John Means. But Bradish and Means both suffered health setbacks that’ll at the very least delay their ramp-up for the season.

In short: The Orioles just had two rotation spots open up suddenly and Teheran was available, presumably cheap, and capable of sucking up major league innings. It’s a bit harder to see the need for Wong, who last year had a wRC+ of just 48 and was nearly a win below replacement in just 250 plate appearances.

More to the point, the Orioles need another infielder like they need a poke in the eye. Read the rest of this entry »

We will not be breaking new ground today. What you read in this article won’t change the way you understand baseball. However, it might help you to appreciate a few baseball players for who they are, and that strikes me as a noble goal. A couple weeks ago, Ben Clemens introduced Whomps Per Whiff, a stat that divides barrels by whiffs in order to show “how often you absolutely whomp the ball, as compared to how often your swing results in nothing but a tiny gust of air.” It was a remarkably simple way of looking at hitting, and the leaderboard featured some of the best hitters in baseball. It was also a fun article, and I agreed with several of its underlying premises:

• If there’s one thing baseball doesn’t have enough of, it’s statistics.
• Anybody can make up a statistic, as long as they have a dream in their heart and a copy of Microsoft Excel.
• It’s important that those statistics have silly names. That’s why I’ve been lobbying to have people pronounce wRC+ as “Work-Plus,” preferably in a Rihanna voice.
• The word whomp is decidedly fun.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, the Giants had a bit of a run scoring problem. Still, for much of the season, their middle-of-the-pack offense proved to be sufficient thanks to an excellent pitching staff; in early August, our playoff odds had them with an 80% chance of reaching the postseason. But from there, the bats went silent, as San Francisco rounded out the season with a team wRC+ of 83, losing out on not just a playoff spot but also a winning record. These struggles gave the Giants a clear area to upgrade during the offseason, and they did just that, kicking off their winter by signing contact machine Jung Hoo Lee, then later adding thunderous slugger Jorge Soler to the mix.

With these new faces on the roster, let’s think about what the Giants’ everyday lineup will look like. They have clear starters at each up-the-middle position, with Lee in center field, Thairo Estrada and Marco Luciano as the double play combo on the infield, and Patrick Bailey catching. Thanks to comments from general manager Farhan Zaidi, we know the outfield corners will primarily be manned by Mike Yastrzemski and Michael Conforto, with Soler serving as an everyday DH. This leaves the corner infield spots to be staffed by LaMonte Wade Jr., Wilmer Flores, and J.D. Davis. Read the rest of this entry »

The Colorado Rockies are a bit of a laughingstock at the moment. I say this intending no undue disrespect; from a player evaluation and roster-building standpoint, they’re one of the handful of organizations in baseball that doesn’t meet the bare standard of competence. They’ve missed the playoffs five years running and lost 197 games over the past two seasons.

Unfortunately, this fallow period is the historical norm in Colorado. The Rockies strung together a pair of surprising playoff appearances in 2017 and 2018; apart from those two campaigns, which netted a total of one playoff win, the Rockies haven’t finished over .500 since 2010. In 31 seasons, they’ve never won the NL West.

And there isn’t really an end in sight. No Orioles-style bumper crop of prospects that can turn 100 losses to 100 wins in 18 months. Our playoff odds didn’t give the Rockies the dreaded goose egg, but it came down to the wire. The Rockies are projected to go 63-99, with a 0.1% chance of making the postseason. Both numbers are the worst in baseball. The projected 31-game gap to first place isn’t the largest in the league, if only because the Nationals are just as bad and the computers see the Braves as better than the Dodgers. (So do I, Ohtani and all, for what it’s worth.) Read the rest of this entry »

Zack Wheeler has arguably been the best pitcher in baseball over the past four seasons. Since joining the Philadelphia Phillies prior to the truncated 2020 campaign, the 33-year-old right-hander has made 101 starts and boasts a 3.06 ERA, a 2.90 FIP, and a 26.7% strikeout rate. Moreover, his 19.3 WAR over that span is tops among his contemporaries.

A thirst to continually get better has helped bring Wheeler to the pinnacle of his profession. Never entirely satisfied with the depth and quality of his arsenal, he’s always looking for a new edge, whether it’s an additional weapon or an upgrade to one already in his toolbox. Just last year he added a sweeper, and opposing hitters can expect to see yet another option when he takes the mound in 2024.

Wheeler discussed his growth as a pitcher, as well as his goals going forward, last week at the Phillies’ spring training complex in Clearwater.

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David Laurila: How have you evolved as a pitcher over the years?

Zack Wheeler: “I’ve developed more pitches since I got drafted. Everything has gotten crisper. After my TJ [in 2015], I was able to gain some command, which I didn’t have before. So pairing the repertoire with command took me to that next level. Really, a lot of it has just been repetition and learning, and from there putting it all together.” Read the rest of this entry »

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.

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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 »