In the offseason, there’s no live major league baseball to watch. I’m a lazy consumer, so I don’t watch much LIDOM action; I catch bits and pieces here and there, but for the most part, the winter is when I recharge my baseball batteries and do a little film study.

I can hear what you’re saying: film study? I don’t play, and I don’t coach. I can’t develop some secret sauce that will help me win next year by grinding in the film room in December. For me, though, it’s just fun. Other than the fact that I’m nothing like Roger Federer, I completely identify with what he said about studying tape: “I used to do a lot of video analysis early on, but more for pleasure and looking at my own technique.”

Fine, I’m not watching my own technique, but I do like rewatching games from this year for my own enjoyment. I’m not so much trying to fix something for 2024 as trying to look back at 2023 and smile. Oh, you’d like an example? I’m glad you asked. Here’s the video I’ve been watching most recently: three delightfully ridiculous umpiring calls. Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday, the estimable and exquisitely coiffed Jeff Passan reported that MLB is considering a small change to the pitch clock for 2024. In its first year, the pitch clock counted down from 20 seconds with runners on base; MLB wants to bring that number down to 18 seconds. The proposal also includes a reduction in mound visits from five per team to four. MLB’s competition committee will deliberate over these proposals and then — considering more than half of the body is appointed by the league — most likely rubber-stamp them.

As for the headline change? It’s two seconds. It’s nothing. Two Mississippi. The Astros’ pitching staff alone has two Mississippi guys. (Okay, two Mississippi State guys.) MLB has already made the single biggest change it’s ever going to make to the timing of the game by instituting the pitch clock in the first place. How much can two seconds possibly matter? Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s 40-man roster deadline was less eventful than usual (we only had one trade on deadline day), but as always, a number of young players became big leaguers in a certain sense, and teams had no choice but to indicate what they think of lots of fringe prospects who they either did or did not choose to roster. This day of clerical activity is the culmination of the efforts of the players themselves, the people in player development who have helped turn them into big leaguers, and the scouting and decision-making portions of each org that put their stamp of approval on the prospects. Is any one move here as impactful as signing a Yoshinobu Yamamoto or a Matt Chapman? No, but when your favorite team experiences a rash of injuries in June, whether or not they have the depth to scrap and compete is often dictated by the people and processes that surround this day. I’m more focused on analyzing roster depth, fit and flexibility in this space than on scouting players (especially when they’re star prospects you already know well). I’ll have a separate post on the National League. Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe you’ve heard, but the Diamondbacks bunted a lot this postseason. I’m underselling it, of course — you definitely heard it. Maybe you saw Michael Baumann’s blow-by-blow recap of all the bunts. Maybe you read about Evan Longoria’s freelancing. Maybe you read Patrick Dubuque’s breakdown of teams trying to copy Arizona. Just yesterday, Russell Carleton actually went through all the math of which bunts are getting more popular league-wide in a typically excellent article. Maybe you read any of the countless other takes on it. But I have a different view. I think the Diamondbacks are being misrepresented. I think that it was more a case of a few opportunistic bunters than a team policy, and that their bunts didn’t alter the course of their offensive destiny much at all.

You’ve surely heard, in all that recounting, that the Diamondbacks led the majors in sacrifice bunts this year. It’s true! They also bunted a lot – either 68 or 69 times, depending on which bunt classification database you want to use. Corbin Carroll and Geraldo Perdomo combined to bunt 36 times this regular season. Perdomo was second in the majors in bunt attempts; Carroll was in the top 15. Read the rest of this entry »

Brooks Raley has been an effective reliever since returning to MLB in 2020 after five seasons as a starter with the KBO’s Lotte Giants. He’s been especially good for the past two. Taking the mound for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2021 and for the New York Mets this past season, the 35-year-old left-hander has logged a combined 2.74 ERA and a 3.21 FIP over 126 relief appearances. Moreover, he’s allowed just 81 hits and fanned 122 batters in 108.1 innings. Working primarily in a setup role, he’s been credited with a pair of wins and nine saves.

Raley is also a bona fide pitching nerd. That wasn’t the case when he got cups of coffee with the Chicago Cubs in 2012 and ’13, but then came a career-altering adoption of analytics when he was overseas. Looking to optimize his talents, the Texas A&M University product schooled himself on how his pitches played best, and what he could add, subtract or tweak in order to attack hitters more effectively. The result was a successful return to the big leagues, and not only has he put up a good FIP and a solid SIERA, but he also knows exactly what those acronyms mean.

Raley discussed his analytics-influenced evolution as a pitcher when the Mets visited Fenway Park this summer.

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David Laurila: You played five years in Korea. What was that experience like?

Brooks Raley: “I loved it. I learned a lot. We’re talking analytics, and I went over there not very polished. I was a starter but didn’t have a changeup or a cutter, so I started watching YouTube videos of all the different shapes, spin rates, tilts, extension — all that stuff. For a little bit, I tried to throw like Chris Sale. I kind of leaned over and tried to create some different angles and see what kind of shapes I could get. I really got into that side of the sport. I found my cutter, found my arm slot, and then the sinker got better. My slider also got better. That all happened when I was in Korea. It’s how I got back [to MLB].”

Laurila: Why hadn’t you gotten into analytics and begun making changes prior to going to the KBO?

Raley: “I wouldn’t change anything about my career, but coming across analytics and what defines your strengths better… when I was coming through the minors, it was ‘sinkers down and away are safe’ and ‘ground balls over strikeouts.’ But I actually and naturally pitch better inside. That’s to both sides. To righties, I throw the cutter and the slider and have the changeup and sinker to keep them honest. To lefties, I’ve got the running sinker. It’s been inconsistent this year, I can’t really figure that out, but it’s been between 14 to 19 horizontal and probably anywhere from eight to two vertical. It’s kind of a unique pitch because it spins 2,400 [RPMs] or so. It’s got some life and late dart to it.

“I always struggled with changeups before I went over there, because I’d always try to throw the 10 miles an hour off [from the fastball]. Now I throw a Viulcan change, so I don’t really kill spin but I put it on the horizontal axis. I get around 19 and I’m either on the line or under the line. Basically, I found some unique shapes to really broaden my left and right, because I can throw a slider at 22 inches of horizontal and a changeup at 20 [in the opposite direction].” Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today, the Philadelphia Phillies and Milwaukee Brewers made a swap ahead of this year’s 40-man roster deadline, the last day teams have to either add eligible minor league players to their 40-man roster or expose them to December’s Rule 5 Draft. In this trade, the Brewers acquired 26-year-old second baseman Oliver Dunn and added him to their 40-man roster, while the Phillies received two prospects in return, 21-year-old infielder Robert Moore and 20-year-old outfielder Hendry Mendez.

Let’s start with Milwaukee’s end of this, as we’re most likely to see 2024 big league impact from Dunn, who is coming off an Arizona Fall League stint in which he won the league’s Breakout Prospect award. Dunn, whose brother Ross is in the Twins system, was a Yankees 2019 11th round pick out of Utah. He hit .196 coming out of the lost 2020 season, and spent a significant portion of both 2021 and 2022 on the IL dealing with multiple injuries, including a fractured jaw, an abdomen strain, and a hamstring strain.

The Phillies drafted him in the minor league phase of the 2022 Rule 5 Draft and Dunn had a huge power breakout in 2023 at Double-A Reading, where he hit .271/.396/.506 and slugged 21 homers, more than he had hit throughout his entire career entering 2023. Reading is a hitter’s haven and Dunn was in his age-25 season, so there are good reasons to be skeptical of his sudden change in output, but his underlying power metrics also took a leap, with his average and peak exit velocities (92 mph and 112 mph, respectively) cresting above the big league average. This isn’t gigantic, impact power, but it’s meaningful pop for a second baseman. Dunn swings and misses quite a bit, especially within the strike zone (you can see him struggling with velo up and away from him, a Fall League theme for Dunn, in the video below), but he’s a dangerous all-fields hitter because of his power and ability to catch some fastballs deep in the hitting zone and punish them the other way. Read the rest of this entry »

Here at FanGraphs, Ben Clemens ranked Kyle Gibson 25th on our Top 50 Free Agents list, 12th-highest among starting pitchers. I can’t imagine that produced much controversy, and a quick search of the comments section and Ben’s Top 50 Free Agents chat suggests the same.

Of all the other major baseball publications’ top free agent lists, though, none had Gibson ranked as highly. Sports Illustrated was the only other site to feature the veteran righty on its official top 50, ranking him 18th among starters and 33rd overall. To be fair, Jordan Shusterman of Fox Sports had Gibson 22nd on his list of the top 30 starting pitchers, though he left him off the overall Fox Sports top 30. Similarly, The Athletic only included 40 players on its staff consensus list, but Gibson likely would have landed somewhere between 41–50 had they continued on; Jim Bowden and Keith Law each included him as the final starter on their personal rankings.

Moreover, as I’m sure Ben would tell you, the precise ranking for each player isn’t always significant, especially the further you move down the list. I’d argue that the difference between the players ranked one and two on our list is bigger than those ranked 25–50. Following that logic, there isn’t necessarily a meaningful difference between ranking Gibson 25th and leaving him off entirely. Read the rest of this entry »

The first of MLB’s major awards to be announced for 2023, the Rookie of the Year awards, were given out Monday evening, with Arizona’s Corbin Carroll and Baltimore’s Gunnar Henderson taking the laurels in the NL and AL races, respectively.

Getting inappropriately annoyed with year-end awards — more specifically in 1995, the year Mo Vaughn beat Albert Belle in the AL and Dante Bichette confusingly finished second in the NL — was one of the things that got me reading Usenet. A high schooler at the time, I had little idea that it was the start of a surprising career path. And even back then, I was frustrated that the writers who voted for these awards didn’t always make convincing arguments about their picks and, occasionally, offered no justifications at all.

I still believe that this kind of transparency is crucial for the legitimacy of any type of award. This is ostensibly an expert panel; if it’s not, there’s no purpose for the award to exist. As such, a secret ballot is not appropriate the way I believe it is for, say, a presidential or parliamentary election. So, as usual, this is my explanation (or apologia depending on your point of view) of why I voted the way I did. I don’t expect 100% of people to agree with my reasoning, which I doubt has happened for any opinion I’ve expressed ever, but that doesn’t mean I don’t owe you, the reader, the details of my vote.

This is my fifth Rookie of the Year vote. Previously, I gave my first-place votes to Spencer Strider, Trevor Rogers, Pete Alonso, and Corey Seager. This year, my ballot, starting at the top, was Carroll, the Mets’ Kodai Senga, and the Reds’ Matt McLain. Let’s start at the top. I’m also including preliminary 2024 ZiPS projections because, hey, why not? (They didn’t have any bearing on my vote, nor did the preseason projections.)

The Easy Part: Corbin Carroll

My last two first-place votes were close for me, and it took a while to decide on them. But this one was the easiest since Seager in 2016 (and I’m not forgetting Alonso versus Michael Soroka). Everyone expected Carroll to steamroll the league, and that’s just what he did. And while he didn’t have a Mike Trout-esque rookie season, who does?

For much of the season, Carroll logically was part of the MVP discussion, though by the time September rolled around, Ronald Acuña Jr. and Mookie Betts had an obvious advantage, with Freddie Freeman and Matt Olson being clearly superior, too. But if I had voted for the NL MVP, Carroll would have still landed somewhere in the back of my ballot. He hit .285/.362/.506, clubbed 25 homers and stole 50 bases, and played all three outfield positions at least respectably. He is the type of player for whom the phrase “speed kills” makes sense, because his skill set is broad enough that he can actually weaponize that speed. For the season, he was seventh in sprint speed, had dominating baserunning numbers beyond stolen bases, and in 90-foot splits, he was bested only by Elly De La Cruz.

The Still Pretty Easy Part: Kodai Senga

I’m inclined to like Senga considerably more than his WAR simply because he has a significant history of outperforming his peripherals in Japan as well, so there’s more basis for believing in his ERA than for the typical pitcher in this position. Because of that, I’m closer to bWAR on Senga (4.4) than I am to fWAR. If forced at gunpoint to name the Dan’s Brain WAR for Senga, I’d probably put him at 3.8–4.0 or so. Also, that’s a very weird use of a firearm.

There’s always a writer or two who complains about Japanese players being eligible for the RoY award, but I think the idea that they shouldn’t be is preposterous. Nippon Professional Baseball appears a bit closer to the majors than Triple-A ball in the U.S. is — something like Triple-A 1/2 — but it’s a very different kind of league. While Triple-A hitters may be easier than NPB hitters, you’re also facing a rather different style of play and plate approaches, and now that some of the recent rule changes have hit in the majors, Triple-A ball is roughly a not-as-good MLB.

Despite facing different types of hitters, a spate of different rules, and against the backdrop of New York pressure and a collapsing team behind him, Senga was one of the few players who could really be counted on there. He had some issues with walks early on, and to his credit, he adjusted. But it wasn’t actually his control that was the issue; he actually threw more strikes earlier in the season! Instead, the issue was that after putting up an out-of-zone swing rate above 30% in each of his last two seasons in Japan, he was down in the low-20s early on with the Mets. As time went on, he got a better feel on how to lure MLB batters to their doom; in the second half, his 31.1% out-of-zone swing rate was right where it was in Japan.

The Excruciating Part and the Fifth Wheel: Matt McLain versus Nolan Jones versus James Outman

I don’t see Rookie of the Year as necessarily meaning Most Valuable Rookie, but as Best Rookie. As such, in a kind of small-scale examination of Hall of Fame candidates’ peak versus career numbers, I don’t necessarily think measures against replacement are as important as in the MVP voting, which has directions that more strongly imply an emphasis on quantity.

Outman was probably the most valuable of the three hitters I listed above, but he also got a lot more playing time, winning the job from the start. Both McLain and Jones out-hit him from a quality standpoint, with a 128 wRC+ from McLain, a 135 from Jones, and a 118 from Outman. I might discount this if there were evidence from their minor league time that the major league time was flukier, but both played in Triple-A just about how you’d expect from their actual major league performances. Outman was an excellent player and a big part of why the Dodgers survived the loss of a lot of players, but I would have him fifth in a larger ballot because he wasn’t quite as good as McLain or Jones. Per WAA on Baseball-Reference, both McLain and Jones were well ahead of him.

McLain versus Jones was very difficult for me, and I went back and forth on it the entire Sunday I made my vote (the last day of the season). And it still wasn’t an obvious result, more a 51%–49% judgment; if asked on a different day, I might have said Jones instead of McLain. But at the end of the day, I had to pick one. McLain hit almost as well as Jones did and played the hardest non-catcher defensive position. I don’t like deciding based on small things, but it’s inevitable if the big things can’t settle the score. The slight nudge to McLain comes on the balance of having the more valuable defensive versatility (2B/SS for him versus 3B/OF for Jones) and the fact that he played for a team that was playing higher-leverage games all season, with a deep roster of prospects that could push him off a job at any time. The Rockies, meanwhile, were a basement dweller without a lot in the cupboard.

Jones may have just missed my ballot, but it’s no negative reflection on what was an excellent season. I was quite perturbed that he didn’t start the season in Colorado, with the Rockies apparently deciding that Mike Moustakas was nine years better in age than Jones, but they at least weren’t stubborn after he crushed pitchers in the Pacific Coast League. That wRC+ of 135 was an OPS+ of 138 if you like the simpler approach, and both numbers are park-adjusted, so he was Actual Good, not merely Coors Field Good.

Short on Pitching: Bobby Miller, Eury Pérez, and Andrew Abbott

Outside of Senga, no pitcher was close to making my ballot, though these three came closest. The Dodgers should be greatly pleased about having Miller’s services, but his numbers weren’t enough to balance out a rather low innings total. Pérez not being called up until May was a handicap, and while the Marlins being cautious with his workload to the extent of giving him a bit of a mini-vacation in July may be good for his future, it’s hard to give a Rookie of the Year vote to someone who threw less than 100 innings. Abbott’s mid-rotation performance was absolutely needed by the Reds, but again, not quite enough.

The Sixth Man: Patrick Bailey

Of the rest of the field, the closest to making my ballot was Bailey, who was absurdly good defensively in 2023. I could have voted for a player short on playing time; I clearly did with McLain and was close with Jones. But to vote for a hitter at any position who slashed .233/.285/.359 over Outman, McLain, and Jones, I’d need a lot more certainty with defensive numbers than I have. We’ve made great progress in evaluating defense, but it remains extremely volatile, meaning that we simply can’t count on a small sample of defensive data to the same degree as a small sample of offensive data.

I have little doubt that Bailey is an elite defensive catcher, but just how elite is crucial to advancing him over the others with only 97 games played. And it was just a bridge too far for me; if he had been the catcher at the start of the season, there would have likely been a little more flexibility on how to deal with a defense-only candidate.

The Best of the Rest: Spencer Steer, Francisco Alvarez, Elly De La Cruz, Ezequiel Tovar

Steer played the entire season but was basically a league-average starter — something that had value, but he was clearly behind several others in quality. Alvarez hit a lot of homers (25) but was rather one-note in his offensive contributions, though he really surprised with his framing numbers. Tovar was brilliant defensively, and it was nice to see him as a Gold Glove finalist, but his offense was well behind his glove.

De La Cruz was arguably the most exciting of the prospects, maybe even more than Carroll, but he still has some serious holes in his game that were exposed with time in the majors. At the very least, he’s going to need to shore up his plate discipline or become better at effectively connecting with junk in the way Tim Anderson was able to do at his peak.

Reese Olson has a chance to be a top-of-the-rotation starter in Detroit, and it is notable that the Tigers acquired him via trade. On July 30, 2021, then-general manager Al Avila dealt Daniel Norris to the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for the now-24-year-old right-hander, who at the time had a 4.30 ERA in High-A and was flying below most prospect radar. Talented but raw, he ranked seventh in a system that wasn’t particularly well-regarded.

Olson made his MLB debut this past June, and by season’s end he was showing signs that he could emerge as a No. 1 or a No. 2.on a promising young staff. Over his last six starts, the plain-spoken Gainesville, Georgia native allowed just 18 hits and six earned runs in 35-and-two-thirds innings. On the year, he had a 3.99 ERA and a 4.01 FIP to go with a 24.4% strikeout rate and a .214 BAA. He fanned 102 batters in 103-and-two-thirds innings.

Scott Harris doesn’t believe in labels like No. 1 starter or No. 2 starter. He does believe in the fast-rising righty.

“Reese has three distinct secondary pitches that miss bats,” Detroit’s President of Baseball Operations told me at this week’s GM meetings. “That’s really hard to find. He also has two different fastballs that reach the upper 90s. I also think he did some things this summer that reminded me of what other really good pitchers do in their first year in the big leagues. I’m not going to throw those expectations on him, but his ceiling is as high as anyone’s.” Read the rest of this entry »

FanGraphs’ Top 50 free agents of the 2024 offseason went live on Thursday, and you might have noticed a starting pitcher or 20 among the group. Even though Shohei Ohtani won’t fit the description until 2025, the top of the market is just brimming with rotation talent, from Aaron Nola to Cy Young finalists Blake Snell and Sonny Gray, playoff hero Jordan Montgomery, and Japanese phenoms Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shota Imanaga. And the list goes on; beyond the cream of the crop are plentiful second and third tiers. Suffice to say, the market will be active this winter.

Amidst all the fray, a 30-year-old who finished sixth in the Cy Young voting two years ago will have comparably little attention on him. Frankie Montas lost almost all of 2023 to surgery on his right throwing shoulder, returning on the final weekend of the regular season to get four outs – and a win – for the Yankees in Kansas City on September 30. Read the rest of this entry »