In Washington, D.C., the roots of baseball fandom don’t run particularly deep. Sure, there are still a few fans of the old Washington Senators, but the last edition of that club bolted to Texas nearly half a century ago. The Homestead Grays also have a storied history, and an important one — but the Grays last took the field in 1951. Prior to 2005, baseball in Washington was a distant memory, and most fans in the D.C. metro region, many of whom originally hail from elsewhere, held allegiance to teams from different cities.

In 2001, a few months after I was born, my family moved from Northern California to Northern Virginia. We’re a family of baseball fans; my parents recall how when we moved during the 2001 World Series, one of the men who helped us was a diehard Yankees fan, rooting hard for the Bronx Bombers to win their 27th title.

In 2009, just a year after Nationals Park opened in the Navy Yard district, I attended my first ever Nats game — as a fan of the visiting San Diego Padres. My dad grew up in San Diego, and there we were, at Nationals Park, wearing Padres gear. The pitching matchup was star-studded: Chad Gaudin versus John Lannan. I don’t remember many details from the game; apparently an Austin Kearns walk-off single in the 10th won it for Washington. I doubt we were still at the park. Read the rest of this entry »

Jay Bruce loves to hit, and he loves to talk hitting. He’s good at both. The veteran outfielder has a well-earned reputation for being thoughtful and engaging, and the numbers he’s put up over 12 big-league seasons speak for themselves. Bruce has 649 extra-base hits in 6,500 career plate appearances, including 312 home runs.

A first-round pick by the Reds in 2005, Bruce debuted three years later as a 21-year-old and went on to spend eight-plus season in a Cincinnati uniform. The native of Beaumont, Texas has since bounced around, hopscotching from the Mets to the Indians, back to the Mets, from there to the Mariners, and last summer to the Phillies. At age 32, he’ll head into 2020 in the final year of his current contract.

Bruce sat down to talk hitting when the Phillies visited Fenway Park in mid-September.

David Laurila: How have you evolved as a hitter over the years?

Jay Bruce: “As I’ve gotten older and more experienced, a lot has happened in the game in terms of information and hitting philosophy. Numbers have started being attached to thoughts, or assumptions. I definitely pay attention to that. But I wouldn’t say I’m of the launch-angle revolution, or whatever you care to call it. I’ve always hit the ball in the air. I have a problem with hitting the ball on the ground.

“If your fly balls are your misses, that can cause some BABIP issues — there are issues that could potentially zap parts of your game. But if you have power, and are hitting the ball in the air, you’re giving yourself more opportunities to produce a positive outcome. That should be obvious.

“The thing I probably do the most is pull the ball in the air, and that’s one of the, if not the most, successful ways to hit a ball. So for me… I think the outside philosophy of hitting has changed a little bit. When I came up, you were taught to use the other side of the field. Stay up the middle. Even hit the ball on the ground sometimes.” Read the rest of this entry »

After a season that saw the Yankees win 103 games, an AL East title, and get within two victories of reaching the World Series, Aaron Judge called the season “a failure.” Brian Cashman was a little more diplomatic, saying “we failed in our ultimate goal but we did not have a failed season.” If winning the World Series is the only path to satisfaction for a team, failure is almost inevitable. That hasn’t always been true for the Yankees and their 27 titles — even after going a whole decade without a championship, the Yankees’ five World Series wins in 25 years is still the most in the sport. Only the Red Sox, Giants, Cardinals, and Marlins have multiple titles in that time span, with eight franchises boasting a single title and 17 franchises without a ring since the strike.

The Yankees are often known for operating in another financial stratosphere. Forbes put a $4.6 billion valuation on the club, roughly 40% higher than the Los Angeles Dodgers and essentially the same as the White Sox, Mariners, and Blue Jays combined. While the Yankees’ YES Network is valued at around $3.5 billion, 14 other teams’ networks combined recently sold for about one-fifth that cost on a per team basis. Forbes estimates that only two teams (Dodgers and Red Sox) have annual revenues within $200 million of the Yankees. Financially speaking in baseball, there’s the Yankees up top, then 50 feet of swimming pools full of gold, then there’s everyone else. But lately, when it comes to spending on the major league roster, the Yankees haven’t operated as a behemoth and have instead opted to swim in that gold. Such is their choice.

The Yankees don’t have to spend like they used to in order to be successful. They’ve been better with player development, better at holding on to top prospects, better with trades, and better at identifying diamonds in the rough. Getting there cost them several years of playoff baseball, but they are coming off consecutive 100-win seasons, and though those teams didn’t win the World Series, they put themselves in position to have a really good shot. Strengthening the organization overall has allowed them to spend on payroll like they are a run-of-the-mill rich team. They could do more to win even more games and provide a better chance at a title, but it is difficult to know how great the motivation is to do so when they are already winning a lot. It’s also hard to put into perspective just how much they could be spending when they have one of the top payrolls in the game. Read the rest of this entry »

In the first of a six-part series — one piece for each division — I’ll be highlighting each team’s most notable free agents and how it could fill the resulting void on the roster. A player’s rank on our recently released Top 50 Free Agents list, along with Kiley McDaniel’s contract estimates from that exercise, are listed where relevant. In some cases, the team already has a capable replacement ready to step in. In others, it’s clear the team will either attempt to re-sign their player or look to the trade or free agent markets for help. The remaining cases are somewhere in between, with in-house candidates who might be the answer, but aren’t such obvious everyday players to keep the team from shopping around for better options.

Here’s a look at the American League East.

Baltimore Orioles | Depth Chart | Payroll

Mark Trumbo, DH/1B

Trumbo’s expected departure is only notable because it marks the end of a disastrous three-year run that resulted in an 87 wRC+ and 40 homers in 248 games at a total cost of $37.5 million. In his debut season with Orioles in 2016, he had a 125 wRC+ with 47 homers, which led to the contract extension. The particular role Trumbo was supposed to fill, primarily as a designated hitter who could occasionally fill in at first base and the corner outfield spots, now belongs to 25-year-old Renato Nuñez, who will make slightly above the minimum salary next season, is under contract through 2025, and had a 99 wRC+ with 31 homers in his first full big league season.

Total WAR: -0.3

Boston Red Sox | Depth Chart | Payroll

Rick Porcello, SP
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 31
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 2 years, $18M

Chris Sale, David Price, and Nathan Eovaldi combined to make 59 starts in 2019 and there’s not much reason to believe that any of them are likely to give the Red Sox anywhere near 30 starts or 180 innings in 2020. That’s why the potential loss of Porcello, who has made at least 31 starts in eight of his 11 seasons and has never had less than 27, could be a major blow to a team with limited starting pitching depth behind Eduardo Rodriguez and the aforementioned trio.

Badly in need of an innings-eater, it’s possible that the best fit for the Red Sox rotation in 2020 is Porcello, even if he’s nowhere near the pitcher he was when he won the AL Cy Young award in 2016. But even if they cut his 2019 salary of $21.25 million by more than half — Kiley predicted a two-year, $18 million contract for Porcello in our Top 50 Free Agents — Boston is attempting to shed payroll and might be looking for much cheaper options.

Brock Holt, INF/OF
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 33
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 2 years, $15M

After a 1-for-16 start to the season followed by a six-week stint on the Injured List, Holt returned to slash .313/.380/.424 in his final 276 plate appearances while making starts at six different positions. The 31-year-old should be rewarded by a team that can offer him more playing time, which could open the door for Tzu-Wei Lin or one of a handful of prospects, including Chad De La Guerra and C.J. Chatham, to become the team’s next super-utilityman.

Mitch Moreland, 1B

Coming off one of his most productive season at the plate, the 34-year-old Moreland’s price tag could still be less than the two-year, $13 million deal that just expired. Still, the Red Sox have bigger voids to fill than at first base. Some combination of Michael Chavis and possibly an inexpensive veteran — think Yonder Alonso or Logan Morrison — could do the job, with prospect Bobby Dalbec, who slashed .239/.356/.460 with 27 homers between Triple-A and Double-A in 2019, a possibility to help out later in the season.

Andrew Cashner, SP/RP

Since an impressive performance as a relief pitcher with the Padres way back in 2012, Cashner worked almost exclusively as a starter over the next six-and-a-half years. He was very good at times, but was also very bad at others, leading at least some people — well, mostly me — to wonder whether it was time to move him back to the bullpen. That time finally came after he posted an 8.01 ERA and 6.81 FIP in six starts after being acquired from the Orioles in July. Excluding his final appearance of the season, which was disastrous, Cashner had a 2.38 ERA and 3.52 FIP out of the ‘pen with four holds and a save while limiting opponents to a .160 batting average over 22 and two-thirds innings.

It’s unclear what kind of market Cashner would have as a reliever, or if there are still teams interested in him as a starting pitcher, but a return to Boston as a setup man to Brandon Workman could be a nice fit for the 33-year-old.

Total WAR: 3.7

New York Yankees | Depth Chart | Payroll

Didi Gregorius, SS
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 10
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 3 years, $48M

With Gregorius out of the picture, Gleyber Torres could move to shortstop, DJ LeMahieu could get most of his starts at second base, and the corner infield spots should be covered by some combination of Miguel Andujar, Greg Bird, Mike Ford, Gio Urshela, and Luke Voit. It really could be as simple as that.

That doesn’t mean the 29-year-old Gregorius, who was 20th in AL MVP voting in 2017 and 2018, is on his way out. The Yankees don’t have many holes to fill. If they prioritize keeping Gregorius, there’s a good chance he’ll stay put. But the fact that they didn’t give him a qualifying offer, making him much more valuable on the open market, probably means that they’re ready to move on and will focus their offseason efforts elsewhere, possibly in the starting pitching market.

Brett Gardner, OF
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 21
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 1 year, $13M

When Gardner re-signed with the Yankees for the 2019 season, it appeared that his days as a starting outfielder were behind him. Coming off one of his least productive seasons, he was set to fill a part-time role behind Aaron Hicks, Aaron Judge, and Giancarlo Stanton. A year later, things have changed substantially.

The 36-year-old Gardner just had what was one of his best offensive seasons as a major leaguer. He could still be very valuable to the Yankees, who will be without Hicks for at least half of the season as he recovers from Tommy John surgery. If they fail to re-sign Gardner without making a competitive offer, it’s a sign that they believe Mike Tauchman’s breakout season (128 wRC+, 13 HR in 296 plate appearances) wasn’t a fluke and that he’s ready to be penciled in as their Opening Day center fielder.

Edwin Encarnación, DH/1B
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 25
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 1 year, $11M

After a season in which nearly every position player in the Bronx missed time due to an injury, the Yankees might be better off rotating their lineup regulars in and out of the designated hitter spot to keep them well-rested and healthy. Or they could use it early in the season to ease Andujar back into action as he returns from rotator cuff surgery. In either case, Encarnación’s time with the Yankees is likely over even if he still has a lot left in the tank as he enters his age-37 season.

Dellin Betances, RP
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 22
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 1 year, $12M

Betances didn’t make his 2019 debut until September 15, striking out both batters he faced before he was shut down for with a partially torn Achilles’ tendon. The Yankees’ bullpen was still very good without him. Zack Britton and Adam Ottavino both posted sub-2.00 ERAs and Tommy Kahnle bounced back from a disappointing 2018.

The 31-year-old, who had over 15.0 K/9 in three consecutive seasons prior to 2019, could pursue both a multi-year deal and an opportunity to be another team’s closer. But if other teams aren’t willing to offer either of those because of health concerns, he could opt to stay with the Yankees and rebuild his value on a one-year deal in hopes of a big payday next winter. If the Yankees are unwilling to spend much more on their bullpen — Aroldis Chapman, Britton, and Ottavino will make a combined $38 million in 2020 — they could move one of their young starting pitchers to relief. Jonathan Loaisiga or Deivi Garcia would be options.

Cameron Maybin, OF

Like Gardner and Tauchman, the 2019 Yankees brought out the best in the 32-year-old Maybin. After having to settle for a minor league contract last offseason, he’s all but certain to land a major league deal this time around after slashing .285/364/.494 with 11 homers in 269 plate appearances on team that won 103 games.

Total WAR: 7.0

Tampa Bay Rays | Depth Chart | Payroll

Eric Sogard, INF/OF
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 39
Kiley McDaniel contract projection: 1 year, $6M

Acquired in July to help pick up the slack with several key players banged up, Sogard had injury troubles of his own late in the season and was shut down in mid-September. He did return for the post-season, making one start and homering against Gerrit Cole. With a deep Rays team expected to return to full health, the 33-year-old Sogard probably won’t be back. Finding a major league deal shouldn’t be a problem, though, after he finished the season with a .290/.353/.457 slash line in 442 plate appearances while making starts at five different positions.

Avisaíl García, OF
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 30
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 1 year, $10M

With three starting outfielders who don’t figure to sit much in 2020 and Guillermo Heredia in line to be the defensive replacement off the bench, García will likely look elsewhere to cash in on a strong bounce-back season. At age 28, he’s one of the youngest free agents on the market.

Travis d’Arnaud, C/1B
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 27
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 2 years, $14M

d’Arnaud was acquired from the Dodgers to help fill the void shortly after Mike Zunino went on the Injured List with a strained quad in early May. By the end of August, he was the primary catcher on a Rays team that was headed for a 96-win season and a playoff appearance. He also made 16 starts at first base because the Rays didn’t want his bat out of the lineup when he wasn’t catching. After Zunino’s offensive production dipped drastically for the second consecutive year, the Rays could bring back the 30-year-old d’Arnaud to pair with him once again. Or they could make room to re-sign him by non-tendering Zunino, who is entering his final year of arbitration eligibility.

Total WAR: 4.1

Toronto Blue Jays | Depth Chart | Payroll

Clay Buchholz/Clayton Richard, SP

To fill their rotation needs in 2019, the Blue Jays took a chance on a pair of oft-injured right-handers, Buchholz and Matt Shoemaker, as well as veteran lefty Richard, who made 59 starts over the previous two seasons. While Shoemaker pitched brilliantly out of the gate, he suffered a season-ending knee injury in his fifth start while the other two battled injuries throughout the season and combined for only 22 mostly mediocre starts.

In the same boat a year later, looking for veteran starting pitchers that can help bridge the gap to the team’s young pitching prospects, Toronto moved quickly to acquire Chase Anderson in a trade with the Brewers and will likely add at least one more starter who is a safer bet than any of last year’s additions.

Total WAR: -0.1

This post is part of a series concerning the 2020 Modern Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering executives and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon at the Winter Meetings in San Diego on December 8. For an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com, Baseball Prospectus, and Futility Infielder. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

From his matinee-idol good looks as he filled out his red, white, and Dodger blue uniform to the round-numbered triple-crown stats on the back of his baseball card, Steve Garvey looked like a Hall of Famer in the making for much of his 19-year playing career (1969-87). A remarkably consistent and durable player, he had a clockwork ability to rap out 200 hits, bat .300 with 20 homers, and drive in 100 runs, all while maintaining perfectly-coiffed hair and never missing a game. He holds the NL record for consecutive games played (1,207 from September 3, 1975, to July 29, 1983), a streak that’s still the majors’ fourth-longest after those of Cal Ripken Jr., Lou Gehrig, and Everett Scott. He was the most heralded member of the Dodgers’ legendary Longest-Running Infield alongside second baseman Davey Lopes, shortstop Bill Russell, and third baseman Ron Cey, earning All-Star honors in each of the eight full seasons (1974-81) the unit was together while helping the team to four pennants and a championship. After moving on from Los Angeles, Garvey made two more All-Star teams while helping the Padres to their first pennant.

As the most popular player on my favorite childhood team, and the one who seemed to shine most brightly on the biggest stages, Garvey felt larger than life. An Adidas poster of him standing upon what was supposed to be the moon, captioned, “The harder you hit it, the further it goes,” hung on the wall of my younger brother’s bedroom. Yet when I began reading Bill James in the early 1980s, I was struck by the extent to which the new numbers took Garvey down a peg, though to be fair, he’d entered his mid-30s already beginning his decline, postseason heroics aside. Likewise, when I began writing about the Hall of Fame in early 2002, Garvey’s lack of traction on the ballot in his nine previous tries stood out. While I don’t think particularly highly of his chances or his case, I felt it was worth expanding beyond the two or three paragraphs I’ve devoted to him countless times over the years (he was on the writers’ ballot through 2007, and this is his fourth committee appearance).

Born in Tampa, Florida in 1948, Garvey connected with the Dodgers when he was just seven years old. In 1956, his father Joe, a Greyhound bus driver, was assigned to drive charter buses for the defending world champions at their Vero Beach spring training base, and arranged for his son to serve as a bat boy for the team, a position he occupied for the next six springs. Garvey idolized first baseman Gil Hodges and dreamed of playing for Los Angeles. Though small for a high school athlete (5-foot-7, 165 pounds; he would grow to 5-foot-10, 192 pounds), he excelled at baseball and football. Bypassing a chance to join the Twins after being drafted in the third round in 1966, he drew a scholarship to Michigan State University. Read the rest of this entry »

When Will Harris entered Game 7 of the World Series, the Astros were in the driver’s seat. There was only one out in the seventh, and Houston was up by a lone run, but teams in that position usually win — per our Win Expectancy chart, that situation ends in victory 68.7% of the time.

68.7% is notably not 100%, however. When Harris threw Howie Kendrick an 0-1 cutter, Kendrick demonstrated why:

The game wasn’t over after that home run, but it proved decisive nonetheless. The Nationals never relinquished the lead, tacking on insurance runs in the eighth and ninth, and sharked their way to a World Series title. Harris gave up a single to Asdrúbal Cabrera before Roberto Osuna replaced him; after the game, he became a free agent, and may never pitch for the Astros again. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I discussed a few of the qualifying offer decisions facing teams and players this offseason. Yesterday, we learned which players found themselves on the receiving end of a QO. What happened and, given my analysis last week, what are the potential consequences? Let’s take a look.

Received a Qualifying Offer

The Obvious Ones
Anthony Rendon, Gerrit Cole, Josh Donaldson, and Stephen Strasburg all received offers. I think I’m on fairly safe ground by assuming all four will be turned down and that none of these players will have their markets seriously altered or damaged by the loss of a draft pick.

José Abreu
José Abreu is the one player I didn’t address last week who I probably should have. I didn’t actually expect there was much chance of the White Sox making this offer. Abreu should absolutely accept this contract; Nelson Cruz was considerably older last winter, but was had just had a better season and came with no loss of a draft pick, and received just a one-year, $14.3 million deal with a team option.

ZiPS suggests Abreu could fetch a one-year, $10 million contract, considerably less than the qualifying offer; that also doesn’t account for the value of the lost of a draft pick. I suspect Abreu accepts, lest he becomes one of the top candidates this winter for the free agent who doesn’t sign until June.

Madison Bumgarner
Madison Bumgarner was an obvious recipient of a qualifying offer, but he’s worth noting separately due to the likely consequences it will have for his next contract. I didn’t include Bumgarner’s projection in the previous piece, but given that Steamer just came out with a 2.1 WAR forecast for the left-hander in 2020, it’s probably worth demonstrating that Steamer’s not an outlier:

This projection is for a neutral park, which matters for Bumgarner more than most. Bumgarner is more of a fly baller now than he was during his best years and doesn’t throw particularly hard, which is risky in a park that isn’t death to home runs. For his career, Bumgarner has a 58% higher HR/9 on the road than at home and with nearly a decade in the majors, that’s enough of a sample to declare it a concern instead of mere noise. ZiPS doesn’t explicitly use home/road data for individual players but it does see Bumgarner’s tendencies, valuing him at about 0.7 WAR per season more in San Francisco than in a neutral park. When you take the value of the draft pick into account, I’m not sure that Bumgarner is an obvious choice over Wade Miley given otherwise identical contracts.

Jake Odorizzi
The Twins made the smart move and extended a qualifying offer to Jake Odorizzi. The loss of a draft pick for the signing team adds risk to Odorizzi’s decision. The ZiPS projection for the right-hander’s next four years (8.7 WAR) is better than Dallas Keuchel’s four-year projection was entering free agency last winter (8.5 WAR). The situations aren’t identical, but the experiences of Keuchel and other second-tier free agents with compensation attached ought to at least serve as a warning to Odorizzi.

Perhaps I’m being too optimistic, but I still think Odorizzi can get a contract in the four-year, $70 million range, even with the lost draft pick. I’d rather have Odorizzi now than Jake Arrieta after his final season with the Cubs and while it took until March, Arrieta still squeezed a three-year, $75 million deal out of the Phillies. If Odorizzi wants to roll the dice, it may not be the worst idea to take Minnesota’s offer and bet on himself to match 2019’s 4.3 WAR. If he does that two seasons in a row and enters free agency without any strings attached, he might be able to pass the $100 million mark.

Marcell Ozuna
The Cardinals gave Marcell Ozuna his QO and even though I don’t think his next deal will get within spitting distance of $100 million, the market for interesting, young-ish corner outfielders isn’t exactly deep, making Ozuna one of the more compelling options. I’d be surprised if he accepted.

Will Smith
I think the Giants’ decision to make Will Smith an offer was the right one. The question now whether Smith accepts and in this case, I think he should. It’s a fair one-year salary for an excellent closer and if 2019’s crazyball returns, Oracle Park is one of the safest places to be. Playing for the Giants will affect his save totals going into free agency, but really, how many teams are using save totals for evaluation purposes anymore?

Zack Wheeler
There was no trademark Mets unpredictability here, with the team extending a qualifying offer to Zack Wheeler just as it should have. It’s extremely unlikely that Wheeler accepts and, at least based on the ZiPS projections, appears headed for a deal somewhere in the five-year, $100 million range. I would personally have ranked Wheeler as the third-best starting pitcher available after Cole and Strasburg in our 2020 Top 50 Free Agent Rankings rather than Bumgarner, as Wheeler projects better over the next four years, in both their respective home parks and in a neutral one.

Did Not Receive a Qualifying Offer

The Yankees Trio
Suggesting that thrift will remain the watchword in New York, the Yankees did not extend qualifying offers to Didi Gregorius, Brett Gardner, or Dellin Betances. I still think the Yankees ought to have at least made an offer to Gregorius, who averaged 3.7 WAR in his first four seasons in New York. Gregorius will be just 30 for the entirety of the 2020 season and has to be tempting for a team with a short-term shortstop problem.

Kyle Gibson

As expected, the Twins did not extend a QO to Kyle Gibson, though the right-hander will still likely end up with a one-year deal. It might surprise you, but Gibson’s 2.6 WAR in 2019 was identical to his 2018 WAR. ERA-influenced perceptions are still a thing! Like Lance Lynn last winter, I think there’s a chance that Gibson is one of the best value signings for a team this winter.

Cole Hamels
I think Chicago made a mistake by not extending a QO to Cole Hamels. I know the Cubs have decided to do a whole song-and-dance routine about their so-called budget constraints, but they should have jumped at the chance to bring Hamels back so cheaply. There are no internal options that are better bets for 2020 than Hamels, and a better option in free agency will cost more. Would the Cubs be so curiously cheap if they didn’t already have the World Series win?

Rick Porcello
Despite my speculation as to what the case for an offer for Rick Porcello would consist of, I didn’t think there was ever a real chance the Red Sox would take this risk. With J.D. Martinez not opting out of his contract, the Red Sox may not have made the offer even if Porcello was a considerably better pitcher.

Wade Miley
Without a draft pick encumbering Wade Miley, I’d expect him to get a decent-sized, one-year deal in the range of $8-$12 million. Considering the last six weeks of the season, I don’t think he’ll get a multi-year deal.

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers —Jace Fry, Mitch Keller, and Josh Taylor — on how they learned and developed their sliders.

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Jace Fry, Chicago White Sox

“I started throwing a slider when I was about 14, but it was a different grip, and a different kind of pitch. It was more of a big, sweeping slider. After my second Tommy John surgery, I stopped throwing that one and started throwing the slider I have now. J.R. Perdew taught it to me. This would have been in 2016. I gained a little more velocity, and get sharper action.

“Going back to the beginning, I started throwing a curveball when I was 10, and that one I’ve been throwing my whole career. The slider was added once I got into high school. Growing up, there were a lot of good coaches in my area [Beaverton, Oregon]. My pitching coach was Jim Coffman, who is an area scout for Oakland. I went to him for four or five years, and he’s the one who taught me how to spin the ball correctly, and how to be on time. Read the rest of this entry »

When J.D. Martinez signed his five-year, $110 million contract with the Boston Red Sox two years ago, it included multiple opt-outs, the first of which came this offseason. Martinez could continue with his current deal, which will pay $62.5 million over the next three seasons, or take a $2.5 million buyout and become a free agent, likely with a qualifying offer attached. Martinez has elected to stay with the Red Sox under his current contract, as first reported by Jeff Passan and Jon Heyman.

Martinez has certainly lived up to his end of the bargain in its first two years. In 2018, he put up a six-win season thanks to 43 homers and a 170 wRC+ as the Red Sox won the World Series. While Martinez didn’t come close to matching those numbers in 2019, a 139 wRC+ and 3.2 WAR still made him one of the better hitters in the game. As he heads toward his age-32 season, Martinez seems to have found the comfort of a $62.5 million guarantee more inviting than what might have awaited him on the open market. The move is a bit surprising, but with the Red Sox unlikely to pursue him should he have opted out and the Yankees perhaps out of the mix with their focus on pitching, the number of suitors in the American League in need of a designated hitter, even one as good as Martinez, might not have been as great as needed to significantly improve his current contract.

Of next year’s potential contenders, consider that the Astros, Indians, Twins, A’s, and Angels already have designated hitters pretty much locked in. Which teams remain that might have made big bids on Martinez? The Rangers or the White Sox perhaps, though the former would have had to cut bait with Shin-Soo Choo while the latter’s decision to extend Jose Abreu a qualifying offer probably would have made Martinez a less good fit. The Royals and Tigers, as well as the non-Yankees and Red Sox teams in the AL East, are either ultra-frugal (the Rays) or unlikely to be competitive next season (the Orioles and Blue Jays). The Mariners didn’t seem like a great fit for the same reason as that AL East duo, and the National League was likely off limits given Martinez’s defensive issues. The risk of the market drying up was reasonably high, and with another opt-out after next season, a good 2020 would position Martinez to only have to beat two years and just under $40 million.

In our Top 50 Free Agents list, where Martinez ranked fifth assuming that he would opt out, Kiley McDaniel predicted the DH would garner three years and $77 million as a free agent, while the crowd predicted about $10 million more. Those are reasonable forecasts, but the upside seems to have ended up being worth less than the potential downside. This what Kiley had to say:

I prefer Grandal as a player since he’s younger and has a much greater margin for error, but am projecting Martinez for a bit more money since he would be opting out of three years and $62.5 million to hit free agency. With another opt out after 2020, he could also effectively opt in for a one year and $23.75 million before hitting the market again. He’ll only opt out if he had very good reason to believe that there was at least $70 million out there for him.

The decision shows Martinez’s confidence level. Meanwhile, Jay Jaffe, in his free agent blurb for Martinez, raised concerns about his level of play:

Not only did he not hit the ball quite as hard in 2019 — his exit velocity dipped from 93.0 to 91.3, while his xwOBA dropped from .421 to .401 — he did far less damage against four-seam fastballs 95 mph or higher; over the past three seasons, his xwOBA against such pitches has dropped from .505 to .473 to .351, while his xwOBA against all four-seamers has fallen from .535 to .476 to .419. Between the suggestion that his bat is slowing down as he moves into his mid-30s and his defensive liabilities (-15.1 UZR and -17 DRS over the past three seasons), he could find the market less hospitable than his last time around.

While rumors swirl about the future of Mookie Betts, Alex Speier notes that the Red Sox could try to see what the market holds for Martinez.

While Martinez is a good bet to over-perform the value of his contract, the downward trend noted by Jay, plus the potential dearth of suitors as noted above, could make finding a trading partner difficult. If the Red Sox are only interested in dumping the salary, they shouldn’t have to try too hard to find a taker, but if they are looking to add talent in the deal as well, it could prove difficult. (Why the Red Sox feel the need to cut salary and move talent when they have a contending team in a tough division is a reasonable question.)

With Martinez back in the fold, the Red Sox have a luxury tax payroll of roughly $236 million. Taxes will add another $15 million to Boston’s spend if they make no moves. Trading Martinez would save his $23 million salary, plus another $12 million in taxes. Meanwhile, trimming three wins from the roster without an increase elsewhere will reduce Boston’s chances of making the playoffs. The club will have to decide where its priorities lie.

J.D. Martinez is a good hitter who earned his $110 million contract and all the provisions that came with it. He’s elected not to exercise his opt-out this winter and, at least for now, will stay with the Red Sox under the terms of that deal. It’s proved beneficial to both parties, though so some self-imposed budgetary constraints might end up putting Boston in a difficult spot this offseason.

“What about Whitaker?” That question, which has been on my mind for nearly two decades, came to the fore two years ago when longtime Tigers teammates Jack Morris and Alan Trammell, both of whom spent 15 often contentious and sometimes agonizing years on the BBWAA’s Hall of Fame ballot, were finally elected to the Hall by the Modern Baseball Era Committee. With five All-Star selections, three Gold Gloves, and a central role on the Tigers’ 1984 championship squad, Lou Whitaker had accumulated similarly strong credentials to Trammell while forming the other half of the longest-running double play combo in major league history, one that did a fair bit to prop up Morris’ wobbly candidacy. Yet Whitaker, who ranks 13th in JAWS among second basemen, did not get his 15 years on the writers’ ballot because in his 2001 debut — the last Hall of Fame election cycle that I did not cover, but a pivotal one in many ways — he failed to receive at least 5% of the vote from the BBWAA and thus fell off the ballot. Like so many other candidates who have suffered such a fate, he had never received a second look from a small-committee process. Until now.

Whitaker is one of 10 candidates on the 2020 Modern Baseball Era Committee ballot, which was announced on Monday and which covers players and other figures who made their greatest contributions to the game during the 1970-87 timeframe. He’s not the only one emerging from limbo, either. This marks the first small-committee appearance for longtime Red Sox right fielder Dwight Evans, an eight-time Gold Glove winner who lasted just three cycles on the ballot (1997-99) and peaked at 10.4%, and for late Yankees catcher Thurman Munson, a former MVP who lasted 15 years on the ballot (1981-95) but only in his debut year broke double digits. Munson was virtually ignored on the 2003, ’05, and ’07 ballots voted upon by an expanded Veterans Committee consisting of all living Hall of Famers (and assorted stragglers), receiving just 12 votes out of a possible 243 across those three cycles.

The other seven candidates — former Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Marvin Miller, and ex-players Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, and Ted Simmons — have each been considered before, some of them multiple times via the 2018 Modern Baseball ballot and its predecessors, the ’11 and ’14 Expansion Era Committee ballots. Indeed, while this slate includes candidates long overdue for a bronze plaque in Cooperstown, a good chunk of ballot space is occupied by candidates who have repeatedly failed to gain much traction with the voters and who fare poorly via JAWS. The extent to which they have crowded out better candidates has been frustrating. Read the rest of this entry »