The NL East is experiencing quite the arms race. The Braves have already signed two catchers, multiple relievers, and most recently, brought lefty Cole Hamels into the fold to add to their rotation. The Phillies, meanwhile, added Zack Wheeler on Wednesday in the largest free agent signing of the offseason to date. The Nationals and Mets have been relatively idle, though I’d expect both teams to make some noise before the offseason is over.

The division is a weird one. As of today, those four NL East teams include the representation of the reigning World Series champions, the back-to-back division winners, the best starting rotation in baseball (at the moment), and the team that has shown the most willingness to spend money on large contracts in each of the past two offseasons.

All of this, of course, excludes the Marlins, who are in the midst of a rebuild after finishing with the worst record in the National League. In the two full seasons since Derek Jeter took control as the team’s chief executive, the Marlins have lost 203 games, with the hope that a full teardown will lead to winning at some point in the near or distant future. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been clear for some time now that the Astros weren’t going to enter the 2020 season with George Springer, Michael Brantley, Josh Reddick, Jake Marisnick, Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez, and Myles Straw all on the roster. There are, after all, only so many spots to fill in the outfield. A trade, then, particularly for Reddick (who’s owed $13 million next year, the last of his contract) or Marisnick (also in the last year of his contract, though for only $3 million) seemed likely. This is that trade, or at least one of them, and it’s with the Mets.

In giving up two minor leaguers (more on them later, with thoughts from Eric) for a year of Marisnick, New York is attempting to shore up what was a black hole of a position for them in 2019. The -0.4 WAR they got from their center fielders was the fourth-lowest mark in the game last year (ahead of only the Mariners, Orioles, and Marlins, who averaged 102 losses), due in large part to Keon Broxton’s horrendous performance in the early part of the season when he managed to accrue -0.5 WAR in just 53 plate appearances. Broxton, who really had no luck at all in 2019, spent the rest of his forgettable season with, funnily enough, the Orioles and Mariners. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday, no other team non-tendered more players than the Brewers. In addition to the 10 free agents lost from their roster, the five players let go earlier this week add to the mass exodus from Milwaukee. Those 15 players accounted for 14 WAR in 2019. More than a third of those wins were accumulated by Yasmani Grandal, their All-Star catcher. The Brewers failed to bring him back on a long-term deal after he signed a four-year pact with the White Sox worth $73 million.

With plenty of holes on their roster and division-rivals gearing up for next year, the Brewers entered this offseason with plenty of work to do. Trading for Luis Urías and Eric Lauer was the first step towards rebuilding their roster. Now they have their replacement for Grandal in hand. Early Thursday morning, Ken Rosenthal reported that the Mariners had struck an agreement to trade Omar Narváez to the Brewers. Greg Johns later reported the return from Milwaukee: RHP Adam Hill and the Brewers’ Competitive Balance draft pick (currently slotted in at 71 overall).

With the catching market rife with buyers and few quality catchers to be had, a number of teams moved quickly to secure a deal with a new backstop. Grandal, Travis d’Arnaud, Tyler Flowers, Yan Gomes, and Stephen Vogt all signed new deals or re-signed with their previous club in November, leaving the free agent market rather bare. With the Mariners basically telegraphing their intent to move Narváez this offseason, the only question was which contender would partner up. Read the rest of this entry »

As part of the parade of non-tenders, the Phillies parted ways with two infielders on Monday: second baseman César Hernández and third baseman Maikel Franco. Both Hernández and Franco played important roles in the Phillies’ transitional phase, but in their first attempt at contention this past season, neither player contributed as the team would have hoped. Alas, they are now free agents.

The Phillies’ 2019 infield issues stretched beyond Hernández and Franco, however. Depth was often a problem. They did sign Sean Rodríguez and Phil Gosselin to minor league deals last offseason, and Rodríguez ultimately accumulated 139 plate appearances over 76 games while Gosselin saw 68 plate appearances across 44 contests. They also traded for Brad Miller in June; he made 130 trips to the plate donning red and white pinstripes. All told, these three players received roughly a half-season’s worth of playing time. They were worth 1.4 WAR — a mark that isn’t actually that bad. Still, considering Hernández and Franco themselves were worth just 1.2 WAR, the issues in the Phillies’ infield ran deep.

Philadelphia will almost definitely make a move this offseason to retool their infield for 2020, whether that be for Anthony Rendon, Josh Donaldson, or even someone like Howie Kendrick. One transaction that they’ve already made to bolster their depth was completed last week when the team agreed to a minor-league deal with veteran infielder Josh Harrison, an agreement that includes an invite to major league spring training. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2020 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2015 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Wherever Gary Sheffield went, he made noise, both with his bat and his voice. For the better part of two decades, he ranked among the game’s most dangerous hitters, a slugger with a keen batting eye and a penchant for contact that belied his quick, violent swing. For even longer than that, he was one of the game’s most outspoken players, unafraid to speak up when he felt he was being wronged and unwilling to endure a situation that wasn’t to his liking. He was a polarizing player, and hardly one for the faint of heart.

At the plate, Sheffield was viscerally impressive like few others. With his bat twitching back and forth like the tail of a tiger waiting to pounce, he was pure menace in the batter’s box. He won a batting title, launched over 500 home runs — 14 seasons with at least 20 and eight with at least 30 — and put many a third base coach in peril with some of the most terrifying foul balls anyone has ever seen. For as violent as his swing may have been, it was hardly wild; not until his late thirties did he strike out more than 80 times in a season, and in his prime, he walked far more often than he struck out. Read the rest of this entry »

On the eve of the winter meetings, a full month and one major holiday into the offseason, it’s a good time to review what we’ve observed on the free agent market thus far and gauge how that activity portends for the rest of the year. It’s always an interesting question, but one that feels particularly relevant now after consecutive cold stoves and increasingly heated rhetoric from both the league and the MLB Players Association about the game’s economic landscape.

Inevitably, most of the action this winter will be viewed through the prism of whether this offseason feels as strange as the last two, which, if you’ve forgotten, were very unusual. Top free agents got their customary nine-figure offers, and we even saw a couple of record-breaking contracts, as Manny Machado and Bryce Harper inked the sport’s first $300 million free agent deals.

But seemingly everyone else had to scramble for work. In an abrupt departure from convention, teams both spent considerably less money than in winters past and waited significantly longer to solidify their roster. Meanwhile, players signed for dimes on the dollars they could have expected in previous years. Nick Markakis made his first All-Star team and took a pay cut to remain in Atlanta, and Mike Moustakas and Yasmani Grandal settled for one-year deals. Useful players like Denard Span faded away entirely. Revenues around the league were up, but teams had less and less to offer free agents. Read the rest of this entry »

In their contribution to the recent flurry of league activity, the Tigers and Pirates quietly made a deal last Monday: Pittsburgh sent right-hander Dario Agrazal to Detroit in exchange for cash considerations.

While the trade didn’t make headlines, it may still provide insight into Detroit’s 2020 plans. Agrazal, who turns 25 in late December, debuted this season with Pittsburgh and appeared in 15 games, making 14 starts. His results were mixed: He posted a 4.91 ERA and a 5.90 FIP over 73.1 innings, striking out only 13% of opponents while walking 6%. Among pitchers who threw at least 70 innings, Agrazal had the third-lowest strikeout rate in the majors.

Upon first glance, pitching to contact seems like a poor strategy in today’s three-true-outcome game, and Agrazal may ultimately be no more than a spare arm in Motown; we’re guessing that he’ll start the season in Triple-A. Still, under the right circumstances, Agrazal has the ability to turn into more than organizational depth. Read the rest of this entry »

When the A’s acquired Jake Diekman for the first time back in July, they hoped that he might pair effectively with a then-recovering A.J. Puk in neutralizing left-handed hitters, who through that point in the season had hit Oakland relievers to the tune of a .305 wOBA — not terrible, but also behind Houston, Tampa Bay, Cleveland, and New York in the American League. They also hoped that 2019 would end up being the first year since 2006 in which the A’s won a postseason series.

Neither of those things happened. Diekman, who has allowed a .293 wOBA to left-handed hitters over the course of his career, allowed a .314 figure to the 47 lefties he faced for Oakland, walking seven and hitting one with a pitch. The A’s, meanwhile, lost the AL Wild Card game to the Rays, 5-1. Diekman faced one batter.

Still, all the potential the A’s saw in Diekman last summer is still there, and so too is Billy Beane’s thirst for a World Championship. If you thought that last week’s Jurickson Profar trade was evidence of a step back from that goal (which I do not), think again. Diekman alone isn’t enough to put the A’s over the top (frankly, three Diekmans wouldn’t be enough) but teams that plan to punt on a season don’t sign relievers to two-year, $7.5 million deals, as the A’s have just done. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2020 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2017 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

A savant in the batter’s box, Manny Ramirez could be an idiot just about everywhere else — sometimes amusingly, sometimes much less so. The Dominican-born slugger, who grew up in the Washington Heights neighborhood of upper Manhattan, stands as one of the greatest hitters of all time, a power-hitting right-handed slugger who spent the better part of his 19 seasons (1993–2011) terrorizing pitchers. A 12-time All-Star, Ramirez bashed 555 home runs and helped the Indians and the Red Sox reach two World Series apiece, adding a record 29 postseason homers along the way. He was the World Series MVP for Boston in 2004, when the club won its first championship in 86 years.

For all of his prowess with the bat, Ramirez’s lapses — Manny Being Manny — both on and off the field are legendary. There was the time in 1997 that he “stole” first base, returning to the bag after a successful steal of second because he thought Jim Thome had fouled off a pitch… the time in 2004 that he inexplicably cut off center fielder Johnny Damon’s relay throw from about 30 feet away, leading to an inside-the-park home run… the time in 2005 when he disappeared mid-inning to relieve himself inside Fenway Park’s Green Monster… the time in 2008 that he high-fived a fan mid-play between catching a fly ball and doubling a runner off first… and so much more. Read the rest of this entry »

Designing a pitch can be an arduous but rewarding process for a pitcher. When you find two or more pitches that have the potential to work well together, it may be worthwhile to make some changes if, for example, one isn’t yielding positive results. It’s not always as simple as it sounds, and sometimes the option of not using the pitch at all ends up being the best choice.

For an older pitcher, this process tends to be harder, though not impossible. They’ve gone through the majority of their career throwing a pitch with certain mechanics or gripping the ball in a particular way. Changes to either of those can be uncomfortable, which may create a developmental roadblock. However, there may come a point when becoming a more dynamic pitcher is necessary, especially as the aging curve starts its downward trend.

At 31 years of age, the Rangers’ Mike Minor put together the best season of his eight-year career. He posted a 3.59 ERA, an almost 3-1 K/BB rate, allowed his lowest ever contact rate in the strike zone, and had career highs in strikeouts (200) as well as innings pitched (208.1).

It might be a stretch to expect Minor to repeat his 4.2 WAR season, but it’s not out of the question. He still possesses a decent fastball and has developed a really good changeup. Yet his curveball and slider both took steps back in 2019, so Minor should consider working on at least one of them prior to the 2020 season. Read the rest of this entry »