The Mets, in their shopping spree of an off-season, have brought back yet another player from last year’s squad. Joining the already re-signed Brandon Nimmo and Edwin Díaz, Adam Ottavino has also agreed to run it back with a team clearly willing to upgrade wherever necessary in pursuit of a championship. He will earn $14.5 million over the next two seasons, with the opportunity to opt out after 2023.

Ottavino is coming off of arguably the best full season of his career and a major rebound from his previous two years. From 2013 to ’19, he had a 2.90 ERA and 3.34 FIP as one of the only pitchers who could figure out the nightmare of Coors Field. He spent 2020 with the Yankees and ’21 with the Red Sox, where his performance declined a bit but his peripherals were still above average. His 2022, with a 2.05 ERA and 2.85 FIP, was certainly a return to form, but he did so with a newfound skill that he’s excelled in for the first time in his career: limiting walks.

For the first time since 2016, Ottavino had a single-digit walk rate, and in the span of just one offseason he went from dreadful (seventh percentile) to very good (77th percentile) at avoiding free passes. In addition to bringing his strikeout rate back to the level of his Rockies days, he posted the best full-season K-BB% of his career. Not only are these improvements impressive in the context of his own career, but the jump is also an outlier among all major league pitchers; between 2021 and ’22, only three other pitchers had their K-BB% improve more than Ottavino. Read the rest of this entry »

The Royals may have gotten a steal when they acquired Jacob Wallace from the Red Sox last week in exchange for Wyatt Mills. The “may have” comes with a sizable caveat, as the 24-year-old right-hander has big-time stuff, but also command issues. Pitching for the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs this year, he walked 49 batters in 56.2 innings.

Wallace is overpowering when he’s in the strike zone, though. The 100th overall pick in 2019 — he was drafted by the Rockies out of the University of Connecticut, then swapped to Boston a year later in exchange for Kevin Pillar — fanned 76 batters and allowed just 35 hits. As Tess Taruskin and Kevin Goldstein wrote last spring, “It’s not too complicated: If he can throw more strikes, he has a path to the big leagues.”

Wallace, who prior to the trade was No. 23 in our Red Sox prospect rankings with a 40 FV, discussed his overpowering arsenal and his mother-influenced interest in pitching analytics late in the season.

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David Laurila: Before we talk about your repertoire, you told me that your mother is big into analytics?

Jacob Wallace: “She reads and absorbs everything. She would tell me, ‘Oh, your FIP is this’ — all these numbers — and I’d be like, ‘Well, I have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m just out there playing.’ I’d know my ERA and the other basic stuff, but not the more advanced-stats. This was back in high school. Once I got to college and started learning more… I mean, it was really cool to realize how much she had already learned.”

Laurila: I’m guessing that your mother reads FanGraphs?

Wallace: “Yeah, I would say she does. She is a director of plant operations for [Proctor & Gamble], so numbers and learning are definitely things she definitely loves.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Padres continued has been a productive offseason on Monday, closing a deal with veteran right-hander Seth Lugo for two years at just over $15 million, with a player option after the 2023 season, according to The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya. After 12 years with the Mets, the 33-year-old leaves the only club he’s ever known for an opportunity to start in San Diego after spending the bulk of the last five seasons out of the bullpen. The Padres, meanwhile, add another versatile arm in a winter during which, in addition to signing Xander Bogaerts, they’ve already agreed to new contracts with a pair of 2022 postseason standouts in swingman Nick Martinez and setup man Robert Suarez, who earned himself a five-year, $46 million commitment after an excellent rookie campaign. Lugo, who comes at a similar AAV but a shorter commitment, has an opportunity to slot into the back end of a starting rotation that lost Sean Manaea and Mike Clevinger after underwhelming short stints with the club.

For the Padres, the addition of Lugo also represents a victory over the rival Dodgers, who were reported to have been in the mix for the right-hander right up until A.J. Preller sealed the deal. San Diego, well on its way to owing more in luxury tax payments in 2023, seems intent on making a run for the division title after ousting the 111-win Dodgers from the postseason last year. Per our depth charts, Lugo’s projected 1.2 WAR improved the Padres’ starting staff — one led by Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove, and Blake Snell — from a projected ranking of 14th in the majors to 12th, leapfrogging the Dodgers and the Verlander-less Astros, and drawing them just about even with the Giants. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I wrote about what I consider to be a key driver in the recent uptick in long-dated contracts: rising interest rates. It was a math-y and abstract article, and I wouldn’t blame you for getting a few paragraphs in, noting the sheer volume of numbers and calculations, and moving on with your life. But if you didn’t do that, hold onto your butts, because it’s time to take the financial angle up a notch.

The main takeaway of that previous article was that when interest rates are high, money in the future is worth less in present value, so teams that look at their books in terms of net present value will perceive long-term contracts as a smaller liability. The easy way of thinking about this is by imagining a team funding a contract upfront by buying bonds and holding them to pay out each future year of a player’s contract. You have to spend much less money today to fund future obligations than you would’ve had to spend if interest rates were much lower, as they were for the entire previous decade.

That’s not realistic, though, because teams don’t pre-fund contracts with treasury bonds. They have better stuff to do with any money sitting around, like buying real estate developments or lobbying senators. Most teams have debt outstanding, too; if they had a huge chunk of change sitting around, they’d look for new investments first, then think about retiring debt, then think about buying out minority owners, and probably prioritize buying treasury bonds only slightly higher than lighting the money on fire. Read the rest of this entry »

Andrew Benintendi presents as a good table-setter option for the White Sox. Signed by Chicago’s American League entry on Friday, the no. 17 player on our 2023 Top 50 Free Agent rankings is a good fit for an underachieving team that could use better on-base percentages near the top of its lineup. While batting average-heavy Tim Anderson will presumably remain the leadoff hitter — this despite a career 3.6% walk rate and .316 OPB — someone who can consistently get on base in front of the thumpers can only help.

Benintendi had a better 2022 season than a lot of people realize. In 521 plate appearances split between the Kansas City Royals and the New York Yankees, the left-handed-hitting outfielder logged a 122 WRC+ — this despite a .399 SLG and only five home runs — which was a mere point lower than his career high. Matching that wRC+, as well as his .373 OBP, would be worth the reported five-year, $75 million deal.

Benintendi will turn 29 next July, so there is a real possibility that his best years are ahead of him. Cecil Cooper presents as a best-case comp. Through age 28, Cooper — a left-handed-hitting first baseman who established himself in Boston before playing two seasons in Milwaukee — had 73 home runs and a 116 wRC+ (Benintendi currently has 73 home runs and a 109 wRC+.) From age 29 through age 33, Cooper put up a 141 wRC+ with 123 home runs. Read the rest of this entry »

During the offseason, teams largely split into three groups. The first are the big spenders, teams that are aware of the holes on their roster and make aggressive efforts to patch them. Next are the more thrifty clubs, ones who dedicate themselves to marginal upgrades – signing a reliever here, a fourth outfielder there, often single-handedly dictating the market for the middle tier of free agents and below. Last are the window shoppers, who for some reason whiff on every single free agent despite having “tried their best.” That’s generally ownership-speak for “I don’t really wanna spend,” but I digress. The point is, teams are somewhat predictable, and the moves they make are indicative of their internal situation.

This offseason, the Red Sox have defied such categorization. As a big market team, it seemed they would focus on retaining their star shortstop (or at least replacing him with a similarly talented infielder) and bolstering their rotation. One month later, Xander Bogaerts is a San Diego Padre, and Boston has yet to add a starting pitcher; Nathan Eovaldi, who rejected a qualifying offer, remains in free agency limbo. These aren’t omissions typical of a team of their stature, which calls into question the Red Sox’s goals for next season and beyond.

Are they planning on tearing it down? That doesn’t seem likely, given that they signed Chris Martin and Kenley Jansen to two-year contracts. So are they a thrifty spender, intent on being neither a contender nor an intentionally terrible mess? Probably not, because they signed Masataka Yoshida to a deal that blew even the most optimistic projections out of the water. It’s confusing indeed. If I had to place the Red Sox into an offseason bucket, it’d be the throw-anything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks group. Population: one. Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry, but this is going to be kind of a bummer. Our topic today is the crushing weight of statistical determinism. In researching this article, I learned something that increased my knowledge but also decreased my sense of the possible, and it made me a little bit sad. I would now like to share my sadness with you. We’re going to be studying the Victor Robles Problem.

You might not remember the days when Victor Robles was a star prospect. After short, impressive stints in 2017 and ’18, he had a breakout season in 2019, putting up a 92 wRC+ and 3.5 WAR, and finishing sixth in NL Rookie of the Year voting. ZiPS projected him for 3.3 WAR in 2020. If he could take the next step offensively, he’d be a star; if his offense remained just a bit below average, he’d still be a very productive center fielder. Instead, he turned in three straight seasons with a wRC+ under 70. Here are the Statcast gearboxes for his rookie season and 2022:

There’s a whole lot of blue in the top two rows. Plate discipline was the concern when Robles was first called up, and that was certainly an issue, but the lack of power stands out much more. Although his max exit velocity indicates that he has the capacity to hit the ball hard, Robles’ average exit velocity has been in the first percentile in each of his big league seasons, and his hard-hit rate has never been better than fifth percentile. The Victor Robles Problem is a question: Can a player who didn’t hit the ball hard as a rookie ever turn into a good hitter? Read the rest of this entry »

Masataka Yoshida is MLB’s latest NPB import, having been inked to a five-year, $90M contract by the Boston Red Sox earlier this week. A 29-year-old, left-handed-hitting outfielder, Yoshida is coming off of a season where he slashed .335/.447/.561 with 21 home runs for the Orix Buffaloes… and it wasn’t a breakout season. He’s been one of the best hitters in Japan’s top league in each of the last five years.

Who is the best pitcher in NPB? I asked Yoshida that question on Thursday following his introductory press conference at Fenway Park.

“Probably Kodai Senga,” replied Yoshida, citing the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks right-hander who recently signed a 5-year, $75M deal with the New York Mets. “I think he was the best pitcher in Japan.”

Intrigued by that answer, I followed up by asking, via interpreter Keiichiro Wakabayashi, if he feels that Senga is actually better than his former Orix teammate, 24-year-old Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Read the rest of this entry »

The Cubs added to their bullpen on Thursday, signing veteran journeyman Brad Boxberger to a one-year deal with a mutual option for a total guaranteed value of $2.8 million. The 34-year-old right-hander is coming off an effective stint just up I-94 in Milwaukee, where he served as a reliable middle-innings complement to Devin Williams and Josh Hader for the bulk of two seasons after signing as a minor league free agent in spring training of 2021. In those two campaigns, he made 141 appearances, posting a 3.15 ERA, a 3.61 FIP, 10.56 K/9, and 1.5 WAR. Despite his effectiveness with the Brewers, Milwaukee declined to bring him back on a $3 million team option last month, and instead he’ll join a young Chicago bullpen that could use some help after ranking 28th out of 30 bullpens in 2022 in WAR, 25th in situational wins, and second in blown saves.

Thanks to the circumstances of his contracts, Boxberger will end up with a higher guarantee moving forward than he would have if the Brewers had picked up his extra year. According to president of baseball operations Matt Arnold, Boxberger was exposed to waivers and went unclaimed prior to Milwaukee’s decision, which told him that “the market did not value him at the level of the option value.” After they declined, Boxberger was issued a $750,000 buyout and signed for a guarantee of just $200,000 less than the option value, giving him an effective guarantee of over $3.5 million. The structure of his new deal fits the Cubs’ somewhat recent signature of a one-year deal with an unlikely mutual option, giving him a base salary of $2 million in 2023 with an $800,000 buyout on a $5 million dollar mutual option for 2024. Read the rest of this entry »

Masataka Yoshida is an extremely cool ballplayer. The 29-year-old has hit .300/.400/.500 six seasons in a row, and despite 20-homer power and plenty of walks, he never strikes out. I’m serious: in 508 Pacific League plate appearances in 2022, Yoshida walked 80 times and struck out just 41 times. That’s a BB% and K% of 15.7% and 8.1%, respectively. He makes Alejandro Kirk look like Dave Kingman. Now, will a 5-foot-8 left fielder be able to keep hitting 20 homers a year on this side of the Pacific? I don’t know, but I’m excited to find out.

Yoshida is, so far, the crown jewel of the offseason for the Red Sox. Between his five-year contract and posting fee, he cost Boston $105.4 million, a significant outlay for any team. If you roll in the posting fee, that’s within rounding distance of the AAV Brandon Nimmo and Kyle Schwarber got in free agency; that indicates Boston views Yoshida as an impact player at his position.

On Thursday, the Red Sox officially announced Yoshida’s signing and added him to the 40-man roster. In order to make room, they designated Jeter Downs for assignment. And suddenly what should have been a joyous day was dampened by the weight of reflection. Read the rest of this entry »