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 — Jon Duplantier, Carl Edwards Jr., and Sal Romano — on how they learned and developed their curveballs.

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Jon Duplantier, Arizona Diamondbacks

“I learned my curveball in college. Rice is a big breaking ball school — at least it was when I was there — and depending on where you are, you call it a different thing. It’s a spiked curveball, but I know that at Southern Miss, they call it a Rice slider. Essentially, it’s just a concept where you’re looking for this general break. You spike the curveball, with the idea being that you want something hard, with depth.

“My freshman year, I threw a slurve. The velocity on it was fine — it was 76-78 [mph] — but I would lose feel for it every now and then. When I’d lose feel for it, teams would start sitting on my heater. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball is a game of failure, forcing players to find, utilize, and ultimately rely on their strengths. It is hard to find someone who exemplifies that more than Rick Ankiel. He pitched for the Cardinals in 2000 and was so good that he finished second in Rookie of the Year voting. Then the NLDS came along and Ankiel could not throw strikes. He gave up four runs on two hits, four walks, and five wild pitches. It could have been a fluke, just the nerves of his first postseason appearance, pitching against Greg Maddux, no less. Totally understandable, except he could not get through the first inning of his next start. It was the second game of the NLCS and Ankiel was pulled after twenty pitches, five of which went to the backstop.

Things never got much better. In 2001, he threw 24 major league innings and walked 25 batters. He was demoted all the way to Rookie League that year, sat out the 2002 season, then had Tommy John surgery in 2003. He returned as a reliever in 2004 and posted a 4.75 FIP in ten innings. Things were bleak until the Cardinals offered to play him at a different position. Rick Ankiel came back in 2007 as an outfielder and he was good! He was known for making unbelievable throws, but also managed to hit 74 home runs during his seven seasons. Not bad for a former pitcher. He retired after the 2013 season, having made a comeback for the ages.

And he wants to do it again.

Rick Ankiel is working to return to the majors as a left-handed reliever at age 39. He played in one game during the Bluegrass World Series last year, where he racked up two hits and four RBI in four plate appearances, not to mention that he threw out a runner at the plate. But then, he did the one thing few people ever thought he would do again: he took the mound. He only faced one batter, but he struck him out on four pitches. It was enough for Ankiel to wonder whether he could get a chance to once again experience the game from at the position that had been so cruel to him.

All of this is bananas. The astonishingly quick rise and then fall from pitching stardom. Reinventing himself as an outfielder. Succeeding in the major leagues for seven seasons after contemplating retirement. As if that was not challenging enough, last October Rick Ankiel had an ulnar collateral ligament repair with internal brace construction. A UCL tear generally results in Tommy John surgery, which has a 12 to 18 month recovery time. If Ankiel had required another Tommy John, any potential comeback would have been pushed into his age-40 season and, as he mentioned on a recent Cardinals spring training broadcast, likely would not have happened at all. “If it had been a total reconstruction, he said, “I probably would’ve passed and just moved on. I would’ve missed all this year and then we’re all the way to next spring training and that’s just a long time.” When I heard Ankiel’s interview, I wondered whether primary repair surgery would help or hinder his comeback effort, and went searching for an answer.

Primary repair surgery is still fairly new. The first major league pitcher to have it was Seth Maness during the 2016 season. There is very little data about how it compares to Tommy John and not all UCL tears are eligible for primary repair. If a ligament is torn in the middle, a player will require Tommy John which involves creating a new ligament out of tissue taken from another part of the body. If it is torn near the bone, however, primary repair comes into play. It involves minor repairs and providing a sort of abutment around where the ligament is anchored to the bone. The recovery timeline ranges from seven to nine months, or nearly half of what it takes to rehab from the Tommy John procedure.

Seth Maness is the only case study I could find at the major league level. He is not a one-to-one comparison, since his arm had gone through about four major league seasons while Ankiel’s played somewhere around nine. Given Ankiel’s 2003 Tommy John, his surgeon actually repaired a reconstructed ligament. There are a lot of questions and variables to consider.

First, let’s take a look at Maness’s numbers before and after his surgery. He hit the “dead arm” phase in 2016, so the data below includes the 2014 and 2015 seasons, plus the 2017 season following his surgery, which would parallel Ankiel’s planned return. The sample size from the major leagues in 2017 is small, so our conclusions will rely heavily on Maness’s time with the Royals’ Triple-A affiliate.

The first thing that pops out are the consistencies. Maness’s strikeout rate in the minor leagues was consistent with what it had been during the 2014 and 2015 seasons. Hitters continued to pull the ball at the same rate, and the number of walks he issued was fairly similar as well. These are good signs.

However, Maness relied heavily on groundballs for his success. It felt like every time he was on the mound, he would induce a double-play. His groundball percentage dropped significantly, 4% in the majors and 9% in the minors. Naturally, his flyball rate jumped, rising to 9% in the minor leagues. His FIP jumped an entire point from 2015 to 2017, as he relied increasingly on the defense behind him. He also lost about two miles per hour on his sinker, slider, and fastball during the 2016 season. He never regained that velocity. If Ankiel wants to be major-league ready, he will need one of these secondary pitches. Can he avoid the slowdown that plagued Seth Maness? Only time will tell.

Maness was released by the Royals in 2018 and currently plays in the Atlantic League. He never quite regained the effectiveness he had prior to the injury. That said, it does not spell disaster for Rick Ankiel.

First, Ankiel relied more on strikeouts than groundballs, which may surprise some given his difficulty throwing strikes. While the outcome Maness relied on took a hit, his strikeout rate held fairly steady. His ability to put the ball in the zone was not impacted, which is obviously great news for Rick Ankiel. Second, Maness relied most heavily on his sinker, then fell back on his changeup or fastball when needed. Ankiel has said he would rely on a curveball and high fastball. Maness did not have a curveball so there is no available data to compare. As for the fastball, there was a dip in velocity which is cause for concern.

Things are looking up since Ankiel hit 89 mph in the Bluegrass World Series last year when he was not even “in pitching shape.” That outing, such as it was, also occurred before the primary repair surgery, so the ligament was weakened. That velocity tops Maness’ fastball average at 88 MPH in 2017. However, because Ankiel has historically been more reliant on this pitch, he will need to achieve a significant uptick in velocity (or undergo a significant change to his repertoire) in order to compete, especially because he wants to compete not only in the minor leagues as Maness did, but in the majors.

Finally, though it is difficult to isolate the surgery’s effect, it did not appear to increase the rate at which Maness walked hitters. He was not suddenly wild, nor did his control evaporate. After the onset of the yips, Ankiel could rarely throw strikes. If he has overcome the anxiety, which he says he has, then it all comes down to his ability to control the location of his pitches. Can he do that as effectively as he did in 2000? The answer is yet to be determined, but using Seth Maness as a case study indicates that the primary repair surgery may not necessarily be what undermines Ankiel’s pitch control.

The only narrative in sports that is better than a comeback story is a second comeback. It’s something fans tend to root for. The first time he was challenged in this sport, Ankiel’s solution was to climb a different mountain, and conquer the outfield instead of the pitching mound. This time, things will likely be harder. There are many questions yet to be answered, questions that we would have even without the additional red flag of a surgery. The chances here are remote. Could this be the year he overcomes the very problem that hindered him in the first place? That remains to be seen, but Seth Maness provides a hopeful if narrow blueprint for Rick Ankiel’s return to the major leagues, or at least, he offers a limited answer on one important part of Ankiel’s journey that could hold him back. I sure hope he makes it.

By now, you already know – thanks to Dan Szymborski’s breakdown – that Major League Baseball and the MLB Players’ Association agreed to rule changes for the 2019 and 2020 seasons. Dan provided an analysis of the on-field repercussions of these new rules, but there are other consequences as well – for the first time, it appears the MLBPA might be making inroads in its cold war with the league.

Let’s start with the most momentous development – one that actually had nothing to do with the rule changes. Per Jeff Passan at ESPN:

Perhaps the most important part of the deal isn’t the elimination of August trades, the tweaking of All-Star Game starter selections, the incentives for stars to participate in the derby, the elimination of one-out relievers or the addition of a 26th player next year. It’s the provision that the sides will begin discussing labor issues imminently, far earlier than they typically would with a CBA that doesn’t expire until December 2021.

Those discussions, sources told ESPN, will center on the game’s most fundamental economic tenets — not only free agency but other macro issues with deep consequences. The bargaining over distribution of revenue could be the most difficult gap to bridge, with teams clearly paring back spending on aging players while players chafe at the notion that those 30 and older are no longer worthy of the deals they received in the past. While a compromise could be reached in distributing more money to the younger players whom the current system underpays, the complications of doing so warrant a long runway for discussions.

Now, if you’re a cynic, you might think that merely getting the league to the table doesn’t constitute much of an accomplishment, as the league doesn’t actually have to agree to anything. After all, the Collective Bargaining Agreement gives MLB the right to unilaterally change virtually any on-field rule it wants to without the permission or agreement of the union.

That said, the league doesn’t really have anything to gain financially from beginning negotiations now; record profits and the current CBA term mean it doesn’t have to negotiate anything. If the league had no intention of making at least a few concessions, it might not come to the table at all. And beginning negotiations simply for public relations might not be a good legal strategy because bad faith talks – where one side basically tells the other why they’re wrong – are a waste of money and tend to inflame tensions, not tamp them down. An MLBPA spokesman provided me with a statement from Executive Director Tony Clark, who considered the deal “an important initial step towards a broader dialogue about meeting the more substantive challenges our industry faces in the near and long-term.” (As an aside, I wonder if the reference to “the industry” instead of the “league” might suggest a focus beyond just the major leagues; it will be fascinating to see if minor league salaries become a focus of the new talks, especially given the Blue Jays’ decision to raise minor league wages and recent reports that the issue may finally be of interest to MLB.)

Further, guaranteeing a 26th roster spot all season is a big win for the union, as it essentially creates at least thirty more full-time jobs. These are jobs the league didn’t have to agree to create – remember, Rob Manfred could have just imposed the remaining rules himself, without the union’s agreement – but it did so, without a corresponding concession. The winner of the All-Star game gets a guaranteed million dollars, which is a lot of money considering that this award is nearly twice the major league minimum, and more than the salary of most of 2018’s participants.

So why make these concessions? It’s obviously early, and I’m not privy to the actual dialogue within the league office. But it at least appears that the league is finally considering a work stoppage, and the legal battles that would come along with it, as both a possible and unacceptable outcome. Part of that undoubtedly has to do with the union’s new chief negotiator, Bruce Meyer. Meyer is in no small part responsible for the percentage of revenue guarantees for players in the NFL, NHL, and NBA collective bargaining agreements. Major League Baseball is the only one of the four major North American mens’ sports leagues without such a guarantee, and the league is probably concerned that Meyer would make such a guarantee a sticking point in 2021 talks. Extending an olive branch now allows for the league to take a harder line on this issue later, particularly from a public relations perspective, particularly given Meyer’s history with MLB’s attorneys.

Major League Baseball is chiefly represented by (among other attorneys and law firms) a firm called Proskauer Rose.

There are a handful of law firms that strike fear in the sports world. None, though, is quite like Proskauer Rose. The New York-based firm has represented all of the major sports leagues — NBA, WNBA, NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer — produced two commissioners (David Stern and Gary Bettman) and trained a legion of attorneys to outmaneuver players’ advocates. Many Proskauer attorneys eventually work for leagues, teams or key companies in sports. To the extent professional sports connects to one law firm, it’s Proskauer.

Proskauer represented the Marlins when Jeffrey Loria sold the team to the group led by Bruce Sherman and Derek Jeter. They’ve represented the league when it’s been sued, including in the minor league minimum wage cases. When the league gets in trouble, it hires Proskauer.

And Bruce Meyer has had success against Proskauer before. In 2016, for example, when Meyer worked for the National Hockey League, player Dennis Wideman was suspended 20 games by commissioner Gary Bettman. Wideman appealed and the suspension was cut in half by a neutral arbitrator, pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement Meyer helped to negotiate. (The arbitrator in question, James Oldham, also handles baseball arbitrations.) Proskauer, on behalf of the NHL, fired the arbitrator and sued the union, arguing that Bettman’s initial suspension should stand. Meyer, representing the union, won handily.

Now, Meyer, as good as he is, isn’t a panacea for labor unions, as he himself admits. He’s lost to Proskauer more than once, and he is the first to concede that protracted legal battles between leagues and unions have a lot of collateral damage for players.

Adversaries criticize Proskauer for what one described as its “lock out first, ask questions later” approach. But they concede that such tactics have produced results. “It’s been an effective strategy,” said Bruce Meyer, a partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, who has represented players’ unions. Although, he adds, “I don’t think it’s a magic pill.”

The current absence of major clashes is probably short-lived, said Mr. Meyer. “There’s a lot of money at stake for both sides. When there’s a lot of money at stake, you see these big battles.”

But part of that is also due to the structural mismatch inherent in labor disputes: the league will always have more money and more resources, while the players have to miss paychecks and potentially decide whether to dissolve their union in order to seek recourse in court. As a result, Meyer’s talents notwithstanding, the league will always have a significant advantage in labor disputes. In the event of a lockout or work stoppage, ownership is far better equipped to deal with a long-lasting impasse than the players are – particularly young, pre-arb players, who would face legitimate financial pressure should their $550,000 annual salaries disappear for more than a few weeks. Recent call-ups from the minors would be in even worse shape. So this agreement shouldn’t be taken as a sign that MLB is quaking in its proverbial boots at the thought of a confrontation with Meyer and the MLBPA. This could be a bit of strategy on MLB’s part, offering small concessions now while preparing for larger fights ahead. It may be a sign of nothing more than the league taking the union more seriously as an adversary. After all, not everything went the MLBPA’s way. The three-batter rule certainly isn’t good for players, the union notably didn’t agree to it, and Manfred imposed it unilaterally.

But that’s still progress. In a very real sense, that MLB was willing to come to the table at all could demonstrates a real breakthrough in the cold war between the league and union, even if merely agreeing to negotiate isn’t a guarantee that the labor disputes of the past couple of years are behind us. For fans dreading the very real prospect of a work stoppage, it’s hard to not be at least cautiously optimistic in the wake of these developments.

Where Chris Sale’s extension provides a long-awaited windfall for a pitcher who has been significantly underpaid for years, Justin Verlander’s puts him back near the top of the pay scale. The 36-year-old Astros righty, who could have become a free agent after this season, has agreed to a two-year, $66 million extension that will take him through the 2021 season. The deal’s $33 million average annual value surpasses that of every pitcher but Zack Greinke, whose $34.417 million per year actually has an AAV of just $32.5 million for Competitive Balance Tax purposes.

Verlander is currently in the final guaranteed year of a seven-year, $180 million extension that was the largest ever for a pitcher at the time it was signed with the Tigers in March 2013. That deal surpassed the seven-year, $175 million pact of Felix Hernandez, and trailed only Roger Clemens’ one-year, $28,000,022 million contract for 2007 in terms of AAV. Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, David Price, and Greinke have since surpassed both the size of Verlander’s old deal and the AAV of Clemens.

What’s keeping Verlander near the top of the pay scale, of course, is performance. Thanks in part to an increase in slider usage and an accompanying decrease in the pitch’s velocity — producing a larger separation from a fastball that still averages 95.4 mph according to Pitch Info — he’s pitching about as well as he has at any point in his 14-year major league career. In 2018, his 214 innings, 290 strikeouts, 34.8% strikeout rate, 30.4% K-BB%, and 6.7 WAR all led the American League, while both his 2.52 ERA and 2.78 FIP ranked third. His strikeout total set a career high and marked the fifth time he’s led the league, while his strikeout and walk rates (4.4% for the latter), their differential, and his FIP were all career bests. His ERA was his lowest mark since 2011, when he won both his lone Cy Young award and the AL MVP, and his WAR was his highest mark since 2012. For the second time in three years, and the third time in his career, he finished as the runner-up in the Cy Young race.

Over that 2016-18 span, a period that represents a rebound from a two-year dip that suggested his time as an ace had passed, Verlander led the majors in starts (101) while ranking second in innings (647.1), third in strikeouts (763), fourth in WAR (16.3), and fifth in K-BB% (23.1%). His surge has pushed him past the 200-win mark and towards the 3,000 strikeout milestone (he’s at 2,706) while strongly advancing his Hall of Fame case (he could surpass 2019 honoree Roy Halladay in the JAWS rankings this year). His return to ace form helped the Astros win their first World Series in 2017 — Verlander pitched to a 2.21 ERA in five starts and one relief appearance that fall, winning ALCS MVP honors — and set a regular season wins record (103) in 2018 while advancing to the ALCS.

With the Astros geared to contend for another championship, it’s no wonder that they want to keep the pitcher, whose August 31, 2017 arrival from the Tigers helped put them over the top, around for even longer, and it’s no wonder he wants to stay. “I wasn’t scared of free agency or what’s going on. I just thought this was a good situation,” Verlander said on Sunday. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

The Astros aren’t broke or broken, but nonetheless, Verlander’s wording is striking, because in February, while the free agencies of Bryce Harper and Manny Machado appeared to be stalled, and so many other players were unsigned, he was openly critical of the current state of affairs, calling the system “broken.”

Verlander isn’t the only star who has expressed concern about the state of free agency this winter on Twitter. Jake Arrieta (here), Sean Doolittle (here), and Evan Longoria (here) come to mind as well, and many more have made their feelings known through reporters when it comes to the inefficiencies in the game’s economic structure. One can read Verlander’s decision to re-sign with the Astros as wariness of entering the free agent market, but as with Sale re-upping in Boston, it’s not hard to imagine either player looking at their current surroundings, seeing a perennial contender awash in resources, and deciding that they were in no hurry to depart, particularly while being well-compensated for staying.

For the players’ union, the decisions of Verlander, Sale, Nolan Arenado, Paul Goldschmidt, and Mike Trout to sign extensions with their current teams means fewer stars are available to raise the bar salary-wise in free agency since no other team is bidding directly on those players’ services. But this isn’t exactly new. According to Cot’s Contracts, 15 of the 30 largest contracts of all time (unadjusted for inflation) were signed as extensions, and the same is true for 15 of the top 29 (or 16 of the top 33, since four players are tied for 30th) in terms of AAV, with the aforementioned players near the top of at least one of the two lists. Adjusted for inflation (by Craig Edwards’ methodology), it’s 10 of the top 25 for the former.

For teams in search of that missing piece in free agency, the thinner inventory means a lower likelihood of wild spending, and could lead to changes in roster management strategies. Hypothetically speaking, if the Astros entertained thoughts of pursuing Sale — a dominant pitcher six years younger than Verlander — after this season, their desire to extend Verlander might be higher once the apple of their eye is off the market. In that light, will be interesting to see, for example, how the Yankees treat Aaron Judge (whom they’re said to want to extend) now that they know they won’t have a shot at Trout.

As it is, the free agent market after this season could still include Verlander’s teammate, Gerrit Cole; while he’s an extension candidate, recent talks between the Astros and his agent, Scott Boras, reportedly didn’t get far. Madison Bumgarner, Rick Porcello, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Zack Wheeler head the pitchers’ list, with Jake Arrieta, Yu Darvish, and Stephen Strasburg all holding opt-outs, and pitchers such as Chris Archer, Corey Kluber, and Jose Quintana having club options.

That actually looks like a deeper market than this winter, where Partrick Corbin, the still-unsigned Dallas Keuchel, Nathan Eovaldi, and Charlie Morton were the top starters on our Top 50 Free Agents List. But if, in theory, a lesser inventory isn’t just a cyclical development, well, it’s difficult to imagine too many fans bemoaning the decline of free agency as we know it, given the tendency of beloved homegrown players to depart for bigger-spending teams. Then again, one can only hear so many Twins fans complain about the salary of Joe Mauer or Reds fans about that of Joey Votto before wishing that those two stars had gotten their chances for even bigger paydays from the likes of the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, or Cubs. Of course, the real issue is the expectation and tendency of teams to pay free agents for what they’ve already accomplished, rather than what they will accomplish; the players’ need to cash in given their vast underpayment (relatively speaking) in their pre-free agency years. Getting back to Verlander’s point, that’s quite clearly a system in need of a fix.

As for Verlander, the $66 million isn’t unreasonable as far as paying for what he might yet accomplish. He’s projected to produce 5.2 WAR this year according to our depth charts projections, and if we simply presume a half-win annual drop-off from there, and apply the conservative assumptions about the market ($8 million per win for this winter, with 3% inflation) that I’ve used in examining other extensions, that’s already an estimate of $74.4 million worth of production via 8.9 WAR. The break-even point under those conditions is about 8.0 WAR, and less if the dollars per win rate is higher. This isn’t that complicated.

For the Astros, retaining Verlander means guaranteeing the presence of at least one front-of-rotation type beyond this season, important given Cole’s pending free agency. The current unit is rounded out by Collin McHugh, Wade Miley, and Brad Peacock, all solid but unimposing, with prospects Forrest Whitley (number four on our Top 100 Prospects list), Joshua James (number 98) and Framber Valdez waiting in the wings, and Lance McCullers Jr. out for the year due to Tommy John surgery. Even with Verlander in the fold, that’s a lot of uncertainty heading into 2020. Meanwhile, Keuchel, a mainstay of the Astros’ rotation from 2012-18, remains a free agent.

So the Astros will have more to sort out regarding their rotation even having taken care of business with Verlander. Nonetheless, they’ve locked up one of the best in the game at a price that he should be pleased with.

Brian Duensing’s future in the game was tenuous when I talked to him in June 2016. Struggling with the Orioles after being cut loose by the Twins and Royals, he was on the brink of being sent to Triple-A. Moreover, he was flirting with baseball oblivion. And he knew it. As Duensing told me at the time, “If the Orioles send me back down… I don’t know what I’d do. I’d have to talk to my family.”

Thirty-three months and 125 big-league appearances later, the resilient reliever is proof that lefties really do have nine lives. His career may well be dog-eared — Duensing turned 36 last month — but he’s nonetheless still pitching.

I asked the southpaw — after first reminding him of our 2016 conversation — how that’s come to be.

“Good question,” responded Duensing, who is heading into his third season with the Chicago Cubs. “I really don’t know, to be honest. But if anything sticks out, I guess it would be that we made it to the playoffs after I ended up with Baltimore. Getting that sense of winning again kind of rejuvenated me.”

The five previous seasons had been difficult. Not only had he gone from starter to middling reliever during that stretch, he did so on a Twins team that lost 90-or-more games four times. His body was willing, but his mind wasn’t in the right place. Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Sale has long been one of the top pitchers in baseball — not only for pure performance but for bang for the buck, as he’s been working under one of the game’s most team-friendly contracts since 2013, which runs through this season. After an uneven season in which he reprised his 2017 dominance until shoulder inflammation limited his availability down the stretch, before capping a rocky October by closing out the World Series-clinching Game 5 against the Dodgers, the wiry southpaw has become the latest star to lock in big money early instead of testing the free agent market next winter or the one after that, following in the footsteps of Nolan Arenado, Mike Trout, and Paul Goldschmidt, all of whom have agreed to nine-figure extensions over the past four weeks. On Friday, Sale and the Red Sox agreed to a five-year, $145 million extension that will take him through 2024, his age-35 season. The deal reportedly includes some deferred money that lessens the impact on the Red Sox’s payroll for tax purposes, as well as an opt-out and a vesting option.

[Update: As some of the details regarding the structure of the contract were not reported until after this article’s original publication on Friday, I have revised this where necessary.]

Sale’s new deal succeeds the five-year, $32.5 million extension he signed in March 2013, his first year of arbitration eligibility. Via the two club options tacked onto that contract, he made $12.5 million in 2018 and will make $15 million in 2019, for a total of $59 million. That’s not exactly chump change, but it’s far below what the White Sox and Red Sox would have paid on the open market for the 34.7 WAR he’s delivered so far under that deal, the third-highest total among all pitchers. The two pitchers ahead of him, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer, signed seven-year contracts worth $215 million and $210 million in 2014 and 2015, respectively. A similar payday for Sale has been long overdue, something the Red Sox had to know when they acquired him from the White Sox in a December 2016 blockbuster that cost the team infielder Yoan Moncada (who topped our prospect list the following spring and ranked second on that of Baseball America), pitcher Michael Kopech (21st on our list), outfielder Luis Basabe (now sixth on the White Sox list), and pitcher Victor Diaz.

Taking that initial extension, which Sale signed on the heels of a 192-inning age-23 season, wasn’t “the wrong” decision, necessarily. It was a move that guaranteed security for a pitcher whose mechanics and injury risk had already become the subject of much debate throughout the industry, and those concerns didn’t abate even after he signed his deal. Nonetheless, he’s avoided any disaster scenarios, throwing the fifth-highest total of innings in that 2013-18 span (1,196) while never dipping below 4.9 WAR even in the seasons in which he fell short of 200 frames.

In 2017, Sale’s first season with the Red Sox, he became the first AL pitcher to notch 300 strikeouts in a season since the turn of the millennium (308, all told) while leading the majors in innings (214.1), FIP (2.45), and WAR (7.5), though he faded somewhat down the stretch and finished second in the AL Cy Young voting behind Corey Kluber, whose 2.25 ERA (and 8.2 bWAR) carried the day. It was the sixth consecutive season in which Sale had earned All-Star honors and received Cy Young consideration.

Through the first four months of last season, Sale appeared to be on track to finally win the award, starting the All-Star Game for the AL and carrying a 2.04 ERA and 2.08 FIP into late July before missing two starts with shoulder inflammation. Upon returning, Sale threw five innings of one-hit shutout ball against the hapless Orioles, striking out 12 — his 11th double-digit game of the year — on just 68 pitches. But he went back on the DL before he could start again, and the Red Sox, who were running away with the AL East at the time, chose to play it safe. Sale pitched just 12 innings in four September appearances, and finished with 158 innings, four short of qualifying for the ERA title; his 2.11 mark would have ranked second in the league and his 1.98 FIP first, and even with the limited work, his 6.2 WAR ranked second. The shortfall of innings cost him the Cy Young, as Blake Snell and his 21 wins and 1.89 ERA in 180.2 innings brought home the hardware.

The Red Sox’s cautious handling of Sale extended into the postseason, as he totaled just 13.1 innings in three starts, with only his Division Series Game 1 turn against the Yankees lasting longer than four innings. He made two one-inning relief appearances, one in Game 4 of that series and the other in the ninth inning of Game 5, where he struck out the side to seal the Red Sox’s fourth championship in the past 15 seasons.

Repeatedly, Sale and the Red Sox have expressed confidence in the pitcher’s condition. In late August, Sale said that his shoulder felt “like Paul Bunyan’s ox” and in September he said he had no plans to fuss over his mechanics because his shoulder was structurally sound. “There was never any major issue with my shoulder,” he said. “This wasn’t something that happened on a single pitch or a mechanical issue or anything.” As of January, he felt “normal again. Being able to throw free and easy and feel loose … obviously is a nice feeling.”

Apparently the Red Sox are still confident enough in the condition of Sale’s shoulder to commit to him for five years beyond this one, at a salary near the top of the scale for pitchers. While initial reports regarding the contract contained no word of the various bells and whistles beyond some unspecified amount of deferred money, the structure has since been clarified by multiple sources. Sale will be paid $30 million per year for the first three seasons (2020-22), after which he can opt out; if he does not, he will receive $27.5 million per year for 2023-24. His annual salaries can increase by up to $2 million per year based upon his finishes in the Cy Young voting, and a $20 million option for 2025 will vest if he finishes in top 10 in the 2024 Cy Young vote and does not finish the season on the injured list. The deferrals lower the average annual value of the deal to $26.5 million for tax purposes. Based upon that figure, Sale’s AAV trails only those of Justin Verlander ($33 million, for a 2020-21 extension announced hours after Sale’s) Zack Greinke ($32.5 million after deferrals), Kershaw’s latest extension and teammate David Price (both $31 million), Kershaw’s previous extension, which he opted out of after the 2018 season ($30.71 million), Scherzer ($30 million), Jon Lester ($25.83 million), and Verlander again ($25.71 million via his current deal). That said, according to Craig Edwards’ recent inflation-adjusted look at the largest contracts in history, Sale’s deal would actually rank eighth behind the deals of Kevin Brown, Kershaw and CC Sabathia (both pre-opt out), Scherzer, Verlander, Mike Hampton, and Felix Hernandez.

As with Arenado and Goldschmidt, running Sale’s numbers through our contract estimation tool using even conservative parameters ($8.0 million per WAR and just 3% average annual inflation, as opposed to $9 million or more, and 5%) yields an eye-opening valuation:

Where Goldschmidt’s estimate using the same parameters came in 20% higher than his actual deal, the estimate for Sale is around 40% higher. But unlike in the case of Goldschmidt, where applying estimates of $9 million per win and 5% inflation to a ZiPS projection — which is generally more conservative than this model — provided by Dan Szymborski produced a figure that more closely resembled his actual contract, sticking with $8 million per win and 3% inflation for Sale in this model overshoots the mark by even more:

Even while projecting relatively low innings totals, ZiPS sees Sale as half a win more valuable over that timespan than our contract estimation tool does. Indeed, Szymborski says that only Luis Severino and German Marquez (!) project to produce more WAR over the remainder of their careers. Dan’s computer is so sweet on the southpaw that it’s probably sending heart-shaped boxes of chocolate to his locker as I type. Remember, for both of Sale’s estimates I’ve lopped off his 2019 performance, in which he projects to deliver something around $47-$49 million of value while being paid just $15 million.

Based upon that $145 million figure, either the Red Sox are significantly underpaying Sale or expecting a lot less, performance-wise, than the projection systems (for what it’s worth, Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA system projects Sale for 22.1 WARP over the 2020-24 period). Which doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable, as they’re the ones with access to his medical file, and the risk of a career-altering injury for a pitcher is ever-present. Working backwards with the ZiPS projection and our conservative $8 million and 3% parameters, a five-year forecast of 17.0 WAR produces a valuation of $147.7 million. At $9 million per win and 5% inflation, 14.0 WAR produces a valuation of $144.2 million.

Regardless of the projections, the contract adds one more hefty salary to the Red Sox payroll, which for tax purposes already has $105.5 million worth of commitments for 2020 and $106.0 million for 2021, primarily via the deals of Price (an AAV of $31 million), J.D. Martinez ($22 million), Nathan Eovaldi ($17 million), Dustin Pedroia ($13.75 million), and Christian Vazquez ($4.517 million). That’s before any extension or arbitration raise for Mookie Betts (who has just one more year of club control), and without counting the pending free agencies of Rick Porcello or Xander Bogaerts, though it’s worth noting that Martinez can opt out after this season. If the Red Sox, who already project to be about $31.6 million over this year’s Competitive Balance Tax threshold — so far over that they incur a surtax — are going to avoid progressively larger tax bills, they’ll have to make some tough choices in the near future, and find some lower-cost players to fill out their roster. Keeping Sale, alongside Price and Eovaldi, almost certainly means letting Porcello walk, and Bogaerts, too, because as a Scott Boras client, the likelihood of his agreeing to a team-friendly extension appears to be slim.

As for Sale, he doesn’t have to remain in perennial Cy Young contention to make this deal worthwhile, but the fact that he’s been able to do so is what’s made him so attractive a player in the first place. He’s earned his big payday, and while he might have received an even bigger one by going on the market, the inherent risks of pitching make this a sensible move for him as well.

Killing time used to be an art for children of my generation. We didn’t have a smartphone in our hands. The internet was still some kind of sorcery unavailable in our towns, and the TV offered just four channels, where soap operas ruled the air time. Time, as you can imagine, kept taunting us as he slowly passed by outside, while we stayed indoors.

Because of that, I personally craved my parents’ permission to go out. When I was fortunate enough to receive it, my friends and I played “Quemado” (something like Pelota Vasca but where we fielded the ball and threw it to the wall) or “Pelotica de Goma” (this Baseball5 thing is flat out plagiarism for us Venezuelans). And when we got tired or lost the ball to an unfriendly neighbor, we just went ahead and bantered.

In these exchanges full of imaginary exercises, my brain decided to create a habit that still haunts me to this day. I called it the “Voltron Game,” and, as in the famous Japanese cartoon of the 80s, it consists of assembling a perfect entity using the outstanding parts of other things that were perfectly fine separately.

I did this with dinosaurs, cities, and cars. I did this with super heroes and super villains. And, of course, I did it (and still do it) with baseball.

Omar Vizquel once helped me assemble the perfect Venezuelan shortstop. Henry Blanco once helped me assemble the perfect Venezuelan pitcher. And now, because springs training for MLB and in Mexico are awfully long, I wanted to play again with Ramón Hernández, current Diablos Rojos del Mexico bench coach, as my new partner. Read the rest of this entry »

Extension fever is gripping major league baseball. In the wake of deals that short-circuited the highly anticipated free agencies of veterans Nolan Arenado and Mike Trout, and delayed the onset of those of Alex Bregman, Aaron Hicks, Eloy Jimenez, Miles Mikolas, Luis Severino, Blake Snell, and others, the latest player to take himself off the market is Paul Goldschmidt. The 31-year-old Cardinals first baseman has reportedly agreed to a five-year, $130 million extension for the 2020-24 seasons, a generous-looking deal in light of the past two winters’ frosty free agent proceedings.

Three and a half months after he was traded by the Diamondbacks in exchange for Carson Kelly, Luke Weaver, Andy Young, and a Competitive Balance B pick, it still feels weird to type “Cardinals first baseman” in connection to Goldschmidt, who over the course of his eight-year major league career had become the face of the Diamondbacks’ franchise. An eighth-round pick out of Texas State University who barely grazed prospect lists — Baseball Prospectus ranked him 10th in 2011 (a “Two-Star Prospect”), while Baseball America ranked him 11th, good enough to make their annual Prospect Handbook but not even the team top 10 published over the winter — he nonetheless made six All-Star teams, won three Gold Gloves, finished in the top three of the MVP voting three times, and helped the team to two playoff berths during his run in Arizona. However, the Diamondbacks couldn’t get past the Division Series either in 2011 or ’17 despite Goldschmidt homering four times and slugging .688 in eight postseason games.

Even given Arizona’s lack of postseason success, that’s the type of player most teams would try to lock up long-term. The Diamondbacks did ink Goldschmidt to a five-year, $32 million extension circa March 2013, and in February 2017, team CEO Derrick Hall spoke of hoping that “he’s here for the long haul,” but by January 2018, it appeared that they were gearing up for life without their star slugger. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Arizona Diamondbacks acquired Luke Weaver in the deal that sent Paul Goldschmidt to the St. Louis Cardinals, they brought on board a 25-year-old right-hander with a crisp fastball and a plus changeup. What Weaver has lacked is a quality third option to augment his go-to offerings. While he went to his hook 12.7% of the time last year, the pitch was more of a show-me than a weapon. Improving it was a primary focus over the offseason, and it has remained one this spring.

It’s not the only pitch the former first-round pick has been working on. Weaver is also hoping to reintroduce a cutter-slider to his arsenal. The extent to which that qualifies as one or two pitches — i.e. cutter and/or slider — isn’t an easy question to answer. At least, that wasn’t the case when I sat down with Weaver a few weeks ago in D-Backs camp.

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David Laurila: It’s been a few years since we talked about your repertoire. What’s changed since that time?

Luke Weaver: “Fastball and changeup are still my primaries, but I’ve been developing a slider, and a better curveball. Both are turning into what they want to be. I’m not trying to force them into being any specific thing — I’m just seeing what the break is doing, trusting it, and going for it. With a cutter and a curveball to go with my main two, I have four legit pitches.”

Laurila: You first said ‘slider,’ but then called it a cutter. Which is it? Read the rest of this entry »

The Tampa Bay Rays announced this afternoon that they’ve come to terms on a long-term contract extension with the team’s ace, Blake Snell. At five years and $50 million, Snell’s new deal buys out all of his arbitration years and nets the Rays, or the team he’s eventually traded to, an extra year until he hits free agency. There are no team-friendly option years tacked into the end, a common feature in pre-arbitration long-term deals such as this. The deal will take Snell through his age-30 season.

Yes, it’s less than Snell would make if he were a free agent today, but in the big picture, it’s the MLBPA’s job to negotiate a fair system of compensation with major league teams. Snell has to do what’s best for himself under the system that’s currently in place. And as these contracts go, it’s hardly a poor one for the 2018 American League Cy Young winner. The contract goes into effect immediately, crushing the $15,500 raise that Snell was assigned by the team, a situation that was primed to leave lingering bad feelings between player and team. (See Gerrit Cole and the Pirates for a situation in which fighting over a few thousand dollars led to long-term bad feelings.) Per Jeff Passan, it’s the largest deal ever given to a player with just two years of service time, surpassing those signed by Gio Gonzalez as a Super 2 (five years, $42 million) and Corey Kluber (five years, $38.5 million); both of those deals contained option years.

The ZiPS projections don’t usually get too excited about single seasons, but Snell’s emergence was stunning one. No, he’s not really the pitcher that the 1.89 ERA suggests, but then, nobody really is so it’s not part of anybody’s realistic expectations. With the downside risks in both performance and injury factored in ZiPS, the projections still see him averaging just under four WAR a year over the terms of the contract. That’s enough to rank him comfortably in the top projected starting pitchers over the next five seasons. Read the rest of this entry »