Last year’s Cardinals were successful. Thanks to a solid rotation, a good bullpen, and excellent defense and baserunning, St. Louis won the division and advanced to the NLCS. The Cardinals’ main weakness was at the plate, where they were mostly average. Excluding pitchers, the team’s wRC+ for the season was 100, and ranked 14th in the game. The team’s outfield was no exception; the group put up an identical 100 wRC+, which ranked 17th among major league outfields, with their 7.0 WAR occupying that same ranking. Despite allowing Marcell Ozuna to leave in free agency and trading Randy Arozarena and José Martínez to the Rays, the team still has a glut of outfielders competing for roles this spring. They have quantity and they might have quality as well, but sorting out playing time could be a mess.

The Cardinals have three players who accumulated at least 100 plate appearances in the outfield last season. Here’s how those players performed:

That trio probably doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence. Fowler had a bounce-back season, but with an average batting line and most of his time spent in a corner outfield spot, he was slightly below average overall and turns 34 years old before Opening Day. Bader saw his walk rate improve, but hitting in the eighth spot the majority of the time probably helps account for some of that uptick, and might have made Bader too passive. His overall numbers against righties last season were in line with his breakout 2018 at about 10% below league average, but his numbers against lefties plummeted, unusual given he has hit well against them his entire career, including in the minors. Despite Bader’s weak year at the plate, his fantastic defense makes him an above-average player. As for O’Neill, he struggled mightily as a pinch hitter last season; he put up a slightly above-average line as an outfielder and a 116 wRC+ in July in more regular starting duty before he injured his wrist. Given his somewhat inconsistent minor league history — sometimes crushing, sometimes hitting closer to average — it’s fair to say we still don’t know much about O’Neill’s abilities as a hitter against major league pitcher or how he might fare given extended playing time.

So the incumbents, if you want to call them that, consist of an aging, should-be fourth outfielder, a glove-first center fielder, and a 24-year-old with a lot of power and strikeouts who may or may not be capable of starting at an average to above-average level. The outfield situation is emblematic of an offseason that seems to have passed St. Louis by. The Cardinals do have other outfield options in camp, including one of the better prospects in baseball, Dylan Carlson. Here are the 2020 projection for Carlson and a few other options who are in the mix:

Projections aren’t perfect, but they don’t paint a sunny picture for the Cardinals’ outfield. One of the better projected players is Tommy Edman, and he is a better fit on the infield; he’s likely to be more of a super-utility player this season, which would take him out of a starting role. While Lane Thomas, Austin Dean, and Justin Williams are in the mix for roster spots, Thomas has put up mostly average numbers in Triple-A, Dean is a 26-year-old with defensive issues, and Williams hasn’t been able to put the ball in the air consistently. That leaves four starters for three spots.

Bader plays center field so well, it’s tough to see him not getting the starting spot out there. While O’Neill, Fowler, and Carlson have all shown some ability to play center, those days are mostly behind Fowler, O’Neill has been a corner outfielder for most of his career between the majors and minors, and Carlson might not be a center fielder long-term, as Eric Longenhagen noted in his prospect write-up when he placed Carlson 39th on this year’s Top 100:

Carlson is an average runner and a large dude for a 20-year-old. His instincts in center field are okay, but not good enough to overcome long speed that typically falls short at the position. Because of where we have his arm strength graded, we think he fits in left field or at first base.

So if we put Bader in center at least most of the time, there are two starting spot for Carlson, Fowler, and O’Neill. The projections say Carlson is the better outfielder of the three, and his prospect status indicates his ceiling is probably higher as well. There are going to be some service time considerations; Carlson could be held down in the minors for a few weeks to gain an extra year of service time, though that’s not a tactic that has been used by the Cardinals in the past. Carlson is not yet on the 40-man roster, but that’s an obstacle easily overcome.

A neutral evaluation of the three players would give Carlson one of the remaining corner spots, creating a toss-up between O’Neill and Fowler. While spring stats aren’t indicative of talent level (given the small sample size of plate appearances and the potential disparity in opponents’ skill levels), it should be noted that none of the play so far this spring has served to change the order of the projections, with O’Neill and Carlson producing and Fowler not. It’s reasonable for the Cardinals to want to actually see what they might have in O’Neill; while perhaps less reasonable to play Fowler due to his contract status, it is something that teams do all the time. It’s possible those two factors might be enough to keep Carlson in the minors.

Carlson isn’t a sure thing, but his projections make him out to be a clear rung ahead of the other potential outfielders. The “path of least resistance” so often used by the Cardinals would put the veteran in one corner outfield spot and the young, but uncertain talent already on the 40-man ahead of a top prospect with a high floor. But the Cardinals as a team already have a pretty high floor. It’s the ceiling that is in issue. If the club is going to beat their 82-win projection this season, the outfield provides the biggest opportunity. The outfielder with the lowest ceiling also makes the most money. Dexter Fowler would make a solid fourth outfielder for the Cardinals as the team looks to see just how good a young outfield of Bader, O’Neill, and Carlson could be, but that’s a tough conversation to have with a veteran whose been starting for more than a decade. It’s a bit messy, but in order for the Cardinals to see what they have, they have to play the most promising players who project to have the best performance.

For the Chicago White Sox and their fans, this past winter was a very different experience than other recent offseasons. While the team more than dipped its toes into the waters of the Manny Machado sweepstakes after 2018 — seemingly signing every free agent who was a relatives, friend, or neighbor of the eventual Padres third baseman — that effort was a targeted strike at a free agent of rare quality. Outside of that chase, the Sox, still in their rebuilding phase, were not particularly aggressive when it came to adding talent in free agency. Kelvin Herrera was the only player signed who received a contract guaranteeing $10 million, and the White Sox are probably second-guessing that one.

This winter changed this tale. The 2019 White Sox were surprisingly competitive throughout the first half of the season and were within a game of .500 as late as early July. Any unrealistic playoff hopes were dashed by a 7-17 July, but that was still the only month of the season during which the team lost at least three more games than they won. This was a mediocre team, but a mediocre team that was at least playing watchable baseball for most of the season. In the end, the team added 10 wins to their 2018 total of 62.

Of note is that the White Sox didn’t net these 10 games from having a bunch of top prospects graduate to the majors. Of the team’s top 30 prospects from last year, only Eloy Jiménez made a positive impact on the team’s win total in 2019. And even Jiménez’s impact was relatively small, as on-base and defensive struggles kept his WAR to a merely adequate 1.9. The White Sox could legitimately point to their improvements and claim that the best was very much yet to come. Read the rest of this entry »

In April of 2018, Trevor Bauer conducted an experiment. While he never admitted it, he mysteriously threw the ball with significantly more spin for an inning. Given Bauer’s repeated insistence that adding pine tar or some other equivalent foreign substance could increase his spin rate by 200-300 rpm, and the fact that his spin rate was almost exactly 300 rpm higher in the first inning as compared to the rest, he might as well have winked.

So, uh, let’s talk about last September. The following graph is Bauer’s average four-seam fastball spin rate by game:

Now, I’m not a baseball scientist. But short of Alan Nathan and Meredith Wills and David Kagan, those are in short supply. So I thought I’d conduct a non-rigorous but still curious investigation of these September starts to see if I could get to the bottom of what happened.

Let’s get something out of the way first: my base case, before I started investigating, is that Bauer got back into the sticky stuff. The jump is just so clean, so consistent within each game, that it doesn’t look at all accidental. In a single earlier game, on August 19, Bauer seemingly discovered some spin, posting his then-highest single game average spin rate, just over 2500 rpm. For the rest of 2019, however, he lived between 2250 and 2500 rpm. Then, like magic, every single pitch Bauer threw in September had a spin rate higher than 2500 rpm.

What could cause this, if it isn’t some type of sticky substance? It’s a long shot, but maybe Bauer started cutting the pitch. What does that mean? If you already know, you can skip this section, but I’ll go over it quickly. Picture a tire rolling down the road. Now, picture that same motion by a ball in air, with no road in the way. That’s transverse spin. Picture the baseball with that tire-style spin, with the car in reverse, and you have a 100% spin efficiency fastball. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s only March 2, but between Yoenis Céspedes‘ media blackout, J.D. Davis‘ shoulder scare, and Brandon Nimmo’s irregular heartbeat, the Mets’ outfield has already enlivened the spring with a fair bit of drama and a few eye-catching headlines. Thankfully none those events has turned into a worst-case scenario, and as Opening Day approaches, the unit looks to be a potential source of strength on a contending team — though as ever, it could be a challenge to fit all of the parts together.

Indeed, assembling the pieces into a coherent whole has been a perennial shortcoming for the Mets, even before Brodie Van Wagenen took the reins as general manager; this team hasn’t had a true two-way center fielder — as opposed to a misplaced corner who could outhit his mistakes in the middle pasture — since the heyday of Ángel Pagán, if not Carlos Beltrán. Last year’s roster, the first one assembled by Van Wagenen, had such a surplus of infielders that its six most common outfield configurations (from among 27 different permutations in all) involved at least one infielder who had little major league experience as a flychaser:

Coming into 2019, McNeil had never played the outfield in the majors and had just eight games of minor league experience there, while Davis’ outfield resumé amounted to five major league games plus 31 in the minors, with Smith notching 13 in the majors and 26 in the minors. One had to scroll down to the team’s seventh most commonly-used configuration to find a trio of seasoned outfielders playing in the same unit. The mismatches contributed to ongoing defensive woes, as the team ranked 13th in the NL in defensive efficiency (.677), 14th in UZR (-12.8), and last in DRS (-86). Read the rest of this entry »

One area of potential weakness for the 2020 New York Mets is their bullpen. Even the seemingly strong backend of Seth Lugo, Dellin Betances, and Edwin Díaz leave more questions than answers. Lugo has been the most stable, but he may be competing for the fifth spot in the rotation. The Mets took a chance on Betances, who pitched in one game last season before going down again with a “freak injury” — what he’ll be capable of in 2020 is anyone’s guess. Díaz, whom the Mets traded for back in December 2018, and who was once one of the most dominant closers in baseball, ended up becoming a major liability for the bullpen.

The supporting cast of Brad Brach, Robert Gsellman, and Justin Wilson present some uncertainty as well. Brach pitched well after being released by the Chicago Cubs, but projects for less than a win. Gsellman is an average reliever, and Wilson is an injury concern after missing 10 weeks in 2019 with elbow soreness.

And if things do go south for the bullpen, the Mets’ reinforcements are limited. Among them is 29-year-old righty Paul Sewald, who might be an option in 2020, but there are some adjustments he’ll have to make before he can be a meaningful contributor. As it stands, Sewald may not even make the 2020 Opening day Roster. Sewald possesses good command of his three-pitch arsenal, which consists of an average four-seamer and changeup, with an above-average slider. Sewald mainly goes to the fastball and slider, with some changeup cameos from time to time:

Read the rest of this entry »

Last winter, a whopping 33 contract extensions were signed between the end of the World Series and early April, nearly as many as the previous two offseasons combined. In all, over $2.2 billion in new money was guaranteed to these 33 players, with seven of those extensions crossing the nine figure mark. It was the largest total outlay for contract extensions in a single offseason in baseball history, beating the previous record set during the 2011-2012 offseason.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the rash of extensions signed last year was the diversity of the types of players teams extended. Established stars like Mike Trout, Paul Goldschmidt, and Chris Sale all signed massive contracts befitting their status as legitimate stars. Then there were players like Nolan Arenado, Xander Bogaerts, and Jacob deGrom, all members of the most common group of players to sign extensions: young, established players on the verge of hitting free agency.

In recent seasons, we’ve seen more and more players sign long-term contracts before reaching arbitration, like Alex Bregman, Blake Snell, and German Márquez all did last year. The newest frontier for contract extensions moves even earlier on the arbitration timeline. Some teams are now extending their top prospects before or not long after they make their major league debuts — Eloy Jiménez, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Brandon Lowe all fell into that category last year. Read the rest of this entry »

My first ever conversation with Jarren Duran took place prior to spring training when the Red Sox held their annual rookie development camp. Things started off clumsily. The speedy outfield prospect has a certain intensity about him, and his responses to my initial inquiries came couched with edgy caution.

Duran has a 50% ground-ball rate since turning pro, and when I noted that worm-killing isn’t exactly de rigueur in today’s game, his reply was a terse, “Yeah, but I can’t beat out a fly ball. That would be a waste of my speed, so why not use the tool that I have?”

Fair enough. Duran has plus-plus wheels — he swiped 46 bags last season — and he profiles as a table-setter as opposed to a bopper. Even so, is a willingness to stay on the ground really in his best interest?


“I’m willing to accept any ball that will give me a hit,” Duran proclaimed. “Ground balls. Line drives. Even fly balls. I’m just trying to make hard contact.”

Again, fair enough. But it’s not as though the 23-year-old Long Beach State product is wholly without pop. The 2018 seventh-round pick did leave the yard five times between high-A Salem and Double-A Portland, and he’s by no means built like a beanpole. Plus, fence-clearing ability is a quality any hitter should aspire to. Right?

“Bobby Dalbec is the big guy, the home run hitter,” Duran said of his muscular minor-league teammate. “I’m the little guy who gets on for the bigger guys.” When I pointed out that he’s bigger than Mookie Betts, Duran shrugged and deadpanned, “He’s got more power than me.” Asked if power is something he’s hoping to grow into, his response was an equally-shrug-worthy, “If it comes it comes. If it doesn’t it doesn’t.” Read the rest of this entry »

Around this time last year, Scooter Gennett was unhappy. He was coming off the best season of his career, and entering his final year of team control with the Cincinnati Reds, the team that claimed him off waivers from the Milwaukee Brewers two years prior. In an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Jon Fay last February, Gennett said he wanted to stay in Cincinnati, and that he and his agent had communicated a desire for a contract extension to the Reds’ front office. He was miffed, though, because he said the Reds hadn’t responded. The state of free agency seemed incredibly bleak at the time, and Gennett was a 28-year-old middle infielder with a short, and somewhat complicated, track record of success. It was reasonable for him to be motivated to lock in a deal that would keep him off the market for the foreseeable future.

The deal never came, and before the regular season could begin, Gennett’s circumstances suddenly turned south. He tore his groin while diving for a groundball in a spring training game on March 22, an injury that caused him to miss the first three months of the season. Upon returning in late June, he struggled through 21 games with the Reds before being traded to San Francisco, where he continued to flounder until the Giants released him after just 21 more games. Six months later, a new round of spring training games have begun, but Gennett still hasn’t found a new home. It’s understandable that clubs are hesitant to give a job to a middle infielder with a limited skillset who might be in questionable health. It’s also a magnificent bummer to see a player who seemed so close to landing life-changing money be unable to get a job just a year later.

The ups and downs of the last few years of Gennett’s career are enough to give you whiplash. A 16th round pick in 2009, he worked his way into being a good-not-great prospect with Milwaukee before his 2013 debut, when he impressed with a 129 wRC+ and 2.0 WAR in just 69 games. In each of the next three seasons, however, he regressed, accumulating a total of just 0.4 WAR from 2015-16. As the Brewers sorted through their infield options the following spring, Gennett didn’t make the cut, and was waived by the team less than a week before the season started, with the Reds claiming him on March 28, 2017. Read the rest of this entry »

While the heavily-favored Yankees deal with the loss of Luis Severino, the Red Sox have a rotation problem of their own, albeit on a significantly smaller scale. On Thursday, interim manager Ron Roenicke told reporters that Chris Sale will begin the year on the injured list. While his delay is related to a bout of pneumonia rather than the elbow injury that curtailed his 2019 season, it’s yet another reminder of the concerns that surround the going-on-31-year-old lefty.

Last year, Sale made just 25 starts, the final one on August 13. He was then shut down due to what was termed elbow inflammation, and while he paid a visit to Dr. James Andrews for a second opinion, he avoided surgery, though he did receive a platelet-rich plasma injection. The headlines at the time were to the tune of “avoids Tommy John surgery,” but there’s never been any indication that Sale’s complaint or his PRP injection were related to his ulnar collateral ligament. His elbow is now said to be fine; he’s been throwing bullpen sessions and is scheduled to throw an extended batting practice session this weekend. However, he’s behind the schedule of his rotation-mates due to back-to-back cases of the flu and pneumonia that he contracted earlier this month. Here’s what Roenicke said, via ESPN:

“With the sickness, it cost him two weeks’ time, and that two weeks is what we’d like to give him to make sure that he’s right,” Roenicke said. “He’s worked hard on getting his arm right, and we didn’t think four starts in spring training was fair to him.

…”Nothing at all with the arm. He’s doing really good with that,” Roenicke said. “We’re really happy with that.”

Read the rest of this entry »

As consumers have been given more and more entertainment options, their choices have become more fragmented when choosing what to watch and how to spend their time. Cable television took away the absolute dominance of network television, and due to its ubiquity, viewing options for most Americans were readily available and universal. Whether someone preferred to watch sports, home and garden shows, Mad Men, cable news, or Friends re-runs, all were available, and the customers of one preference subsidized the viewing habits of the others in a cable bundle. (This is the third piece in this series with first one covering MLB’s prior reliance on national television money, and the second one on MLB’s massive rise in revenues since the strike).

That bundled philosophy is still strong, and even newer streaming entrants to the market like Sling, Hulu, and YouTubeTV stuck with the bundle. However, as HBO, Disney+, Netflix, and Amazon Prime begin to siphon off customers, and with NBC joining the fray as well, the bundle is threatened. While the solution to the slow dwindling of cable subscribers is not readily apparent for content producers and providers, it’s representative of the difficult decisions Major League Baseball faces with their television contracts, their attendance, and their ability to bring in new fans. Unfortunately, MLB seems to be focused on short-term gains at the potential expense of the long-term health of the sport.

As streaming services grow in popularity, MLB is well-positioned with their technology and their reach. In 2017, MLB.TV was the fourth-biggest OTT service, behind only Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu, and ahead of HBO Now, which reportedly had close to five million subscribers at the time. MLB has the ability to serve fans with a streaming-only option and keep or maintain revenue levels even if every team were to lose their cable television contracts tomorrow. If we assume there are around five million customers paying $120 per year for MLB.TV, and teams receive $1.8 billion under their local RSN contracts, they would need just 12 million customers nationally who were willing to pay $200 a year to sustain revenues before considering advertising that mostly goes to cable companies right now. The problem with that plan is that it denies access to close to 100 million potential or actual fans who were able to watch the teams on their standard cable package. Long-term, that’s an awful idea if the goal is to create new fans. Read the rest of this entry »