This holiday season, everybody wants a new catcher. Between free agency and the trade market, over a third of the league’s teams have added to their catcher mix this offseason, with most of those moves coming in the last few weeks. Catchers are finding new homes so fast that yesterday, my colleague Leo Morgenstern covered the Mets signing Omar Narváez and dealing James McCann to Baltimore, and Austin Hedges inking a one-year deal with Pittsburgh – and then two more backstops signed that afternoon. In Cincinnati, the Reds announced an agreement with Curt Casali (as well as first baseman/outfielder Wil Myers), designating Mike Moustakas for assignment in the process. And elsewhere in the NL Central, former Red and Tiger Tucker Barnhart got set to continue his tour of the teams closest to his home city of Indianapolis, joining the Chicago Cubs on a two-year, $6.5 million contract with a player option after the coming season. The two-time Gold Glover will pair with Yan Gomes to form a catching platoon after the Cubs lost three-time All-Star Willson Contreras to the rival Cardinals in free agency.

Barnhart did well to secure himself a two-year guarantee with the player option – of the eight free agent catchers who have signed major league deals this offseason, Contreras (five years), Christian Vázquez (three), Narváez (two), and Barnhart have earned multi-year commitments. Those other three are much more significant adds, as is reflected in their significantly higher total contract values. But Barnhart may have had extra motivation to lock down a second year – with a couple of months over eight years of service, he heads into this contract within reach of the 10-year service threshold that the Players Association calls the “holy grail for players.” Of course, while the money is guaranteed, the service time isn’t, but if Barnhart can remain healthy and productive enough to reach 10 years of service, his MLB pension will fully vest and he will notch a coveted milestone. The option adds another layer of player friendliness – if Barnhart bounces back from a down year in 2022, he’ll have a shot to test free agency again next winter, when, to be fair, the catcher market may once again be busy. Read the rest of this entry »

There have been a lot of transactions this past week. There’s been a lot of drama, too, involving a top free agent, a medical issue, and boatloads of cash. The long weekend is just around the corner. It’s been an exhausting year, and we’d all like to get on with our lives. Between relaxing on the sofa and reading up on Drew Rucinski, deciding on which is the more appealing option doesn’t seem like a difficult task.

Which, fine, I understand. My livelihood isn’t affected by page views, so we’re cool here. But Rucinski isn’t just some random starter the Athletics chose as their annual innings-eater. When he last appeared in a major league game, he was a lackluster middle reliever for the Marlins. Since then, he’s undergone quite the transformation. Four years later, there’s an argument to be made that he was the best starting pitcher during his time in Korea. That’s a testament to how much he’s improved, in terms of stuff, command, and durability. Read the rest of this entry »

As of sundown on December 18, Chanukah has officially begun. Meanwhile, barring any more surprises from Steve Cohen, the peak of the hot stove season is winding down. There are still several talented players up for grabs, but the top 10 of our top 50 free agents are all off the board, and only three remain from the top 25. After a busy month, things are starting to settle into place.

Thus, as the holidays begin and the busiest part of the offseason comes to a close, now seems like the perfect time to share a couple of minute and trivial statistical tidbits with a Chanukah connection. Here is a close look at grounding into double plays, the three true outcomes, and baseball miracles in honor of the Jewish festival of light. (No prior knowledge of Chanukah, Judaism, or the Talmud required.) Read the rest of this entry »

On May 24, the Angels were 27-17 and just a game behind the Astros in the AL West. Their roster was relatively healthy, and a breakout from Taylor Ward alongside standout performances from Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani had helped them leap out to a strong start through the first month and a half of the season. Two weeks later, their win total was still stuck at 27, having fallen below .500 after an ugly 14-game losing streak. Of the nine players who accumulated more than 100 plate appearances for the Angels through mid-May, just three reached at least 300 plate appearances afterwards. Los Angeles cycled through 32 different position players from May 24 onwards, struggling to find any sort of competent depth to cover for their injured and ineffective players.

The Angels’ lack of depth isn’t isolated to this season either — it’s been a constant thorn in their side for the past decade. They haven’t posted a winning record since 2015 and have only reached the playoffs once over the last 13 seasons despite employing two of the best baseball players to ever play the game, one of whom has been an Angel for most of that stretch. With Ohtani’s free agency just a year away and the potential sale of the franchise by owner Arte Moreno looming, the 2023 season feels like a significant hinge point for the Angels.

So far this offseason, they’ve been aggressive in bringing in the type of talent that complements their superstars while avoiding any long-term commitments that could complicate the sale of the club. They signed Tyler Anderson and Carlos Estévez to bolster their pitching staff and traded for Hunter Renfroe and Gio Urshela to lengthen their lineup. And on Tuesday, they inked Brandon Drury to a two-year, $17 million contract. That deal brings the Angels’ total projected 2023 payroll to $206 million, the highest in franchise history. Read the rest of this entry »

When José Abreu signed with the Astros earlier this offseason, there was a lot to like. He fits their overall team construction, he’s a great hitter, and the contract looks more reasonable every day in the context of the rest of the free agent market. In several corners of the baseball internet, though, there was one worrisome note: Abreu’s performance against fastballs, particularly of the high-velocity variety, declined markedly in 2022.

I’m not crediting one person in particular with this observation, only because I’ve seen it in so many different places. It’s incontrovertibly true. Here are Abreu’s numbers against both all four-seamers and all fastballs thrown 95 mph or harder, per Baseball Savant:

Oh no! The trends seem quite clear; Abreu didn’t hit fastballs very well in 2022, and he’d already started to decline against them somewhat the season before. Is he just cooked? Is this fastball performance the proverbial canary in the coal mine, alerting us that bad times are coming? Read the rest of this entry »

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 »