A lot of time and words are spent here and elsewhere on the split of baseball revenue between players and owners; we spend less time comparing revenue between franchises. Sure, we make distinctions between small-market teams and large-market teams, putting the Yankees and Red Sox in one corner and Cleveland, Kansas City, and Pittsburgh in another. But we don’t spend a lot of time talking about what that actually means. There are a few good reasons for that. One is that we don’t have access to much of the data that would make meaningful analysis possible. But I suspect the main reason is probably that fights between billionaires who don’t take the field aren’t that interesting to a lot of fans. Add in rising revenues and $50 million windfalls from MLBAM, and for some, exactly how much money owners have isn’t all that important when we just know that they have a lot.

Many fans don’t even care about the fight between millionaires and billionaires. That’s their prerogative, but it’s important to consider these things carefully. The latest CBA wasn’t just a loser for the players for the obvious reasons, those were multiple: a competitive balance tax that barely increased, tax penalties that get progressively worse, small minimum salary increases, no universal designated hitter, only minor changes to free agent compensation, no concessions when it comes arbitration, no additional roster spots, hard international spending limits, and no help at all for the minor leaguers. The CBA also hurt the players when it comes to revenue sharing.

Wendy Thurm’s post from 2012 does a good job explaining the system under the old CBA and it is worth revisiting, but in sum: Teams took 34% of their net local revenue (local revenue minus stadium expenses), pooled it together, and divvied it up equally among all the teams. This was the base plan, and as is probably obvious, teams like the Yankees paid more into the pool than they received as part of it. There was also a supplemental plan. A pool of 14% of total net local revenue is created, with revenue taken from big-market teams like the Yankees and Red Sox and given to small-market teams like Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay. The supplemental plan worked to take a greater percentage away from high-revenue teams like the Yankees, and give it in higher percentages to the small-market teams.

Here’a a hypothetical under the old system.

• Total Local Net Revenue is $3 billion, averaging $100 million per team.
• Yankees Local Net Revenue is $400 million
• A’s Local Net Revenue is $50 million

Under the old system, 34% of the *total* local net revenue is $34 million per team. For the Yankees, 34% of their local net revenue is $136 million; they end up making a net payment to the pool of $102 million once their distribution is taken into account, bringing other clubs up to $34 million. For the A’s, 34% of local net revenue is around $17 million; they end up receiving around $17 million in revenue sharing from the pool. Under the supplemental plan, 14% of $3 billion is $420 million. The Yankees pay about a quarter of that total with the Red Sox, Dodgers, Cubs, and Mets paying another 50%, so the Yankees put another $105 million in the pool. The A’s receive around 8% of the supplemental pool, so they get another $34 million to up their total to around $51 million. The Yankees end up with $193 million in net local revenue minus revenue sharing and the A’s end up with $101 million in net local revenue plus revenue sharing. These numbers are meant to be illustrative and provide a rough example of how revenue sharing worked.

The current CBA is much simpler, with a single 48% pool divided equally so that the same percentage of revenue is shared, but it is distributed differently. It takes less money away from the richest teams by eliminating the supplemental pool. In the example above, every team gets $48 million from the pool. The Yankees 48% figure comes to $192 million, so that they pay in $144 million. The A’s 48% figure is $24 million, so they receive $24 million. In this scenario, the Yankees get to keep a lot more of their money and the A’s get less. While we don’t know what the actual numbers are, the A’s did receive more than $30 million in 2015 and 2016, and at one time expected their 2019 payment to be greater than $40 million. The A’s won’t be getting that $40 million, however, as they will receive just a fraction of that amount. Most of that $40 million will stay with the Yankees, Cubs, Red Sox, and Dodgers.

In the last CBA, which went from 2012-2016, MLB phased in restrictions on teams receiving revenue sharing payments. All teams started on equal footing, able to receive revenue sharing based solely on their local net revenue numbers. (The Marlins were treated slightly differently, essentially unable to collect in 2012 after refusing to spend any money prior to 2012, resulting in a threatened grievance by the players.) The CBA phased in restrictions so that larger-market teams could only collect a portion of the revenue sharing owed to them, and by the time the new CBA rolled around, none of the large-market teams were allowed to collect revenue sharing money if their revenue was low except for the A’s, who despite their famously spendthrift ways and decaying ballpark, signed a billion dollar local TV deal in 2009. They’re low-revenue due to their stadium issues, but not quite small-market. The A’s were given an exception under the previous CBA, so that the restrictions didn’t apply until the team got a new ballpark. The new CBA removed those restrictions and began phasing in reduced revenue sharing payments for the A’s. Per the CBA:

Notwithstanding the foregoing, the revenue sharing disqualification of the Oakland Athletics shall be phased in as follows: 25% disqualified in the 2017 Revenue Sharing Year; 50% disqualified in the 2018 Revenue Sharing Year; 75% disqualified in the 2019 Revenue Sharing Year; and fully disqualified in the 2020 and 2021 Revenue Sharing Years.

This means that if, for example, the A’s had received $40 million in revenue sharing in 2016, they would only have received $30 million in 2017, then $20 million last year, $10 million this year, and then would get nothing in 2020 and 2021. So who gets the A’s money? The teams paying into revenue sharing receive it, but there’s a catch: teams get more money if they don’t go over the competitive balance tax.

Let’s say the Yankees pay about 20% of the money in revenue sharing that goes to other teams. That means that for next season, they will receive $6 million more dollars than they would have because the A’s can’t receive revenue sharing. The Dodgers will get something less than that. The Cubs, too. The Red Sox will receive 75% of their potential share because they will have gone over the tax threshold two years in a row next season. In 2020 and 2021, the clubs stand to gain even more money. Even If the Yankees go above the tax threshold the next two seasons, they might end up holding on to around $15 million that would have gone to the A’s in the previous CBA. That money might make its way to players, but given the incentives here and the teams publicly stated desires to stay under the threshold, there’s cause to be skeptical.

The amounts we are dealing with aren’t huge sums, but they are an added benefit to keeping spending low despite having to pay significantly less in revenue sharing. These aren’t speculative amounts if some big market team have lower revenues. We know where Oakland will be the next few years. And it isn’t just Oakland that ends up with less money, though they certainly bear the brunt of the losses. All of the lowest-revenue, smaller-market teams are likely receiving less money from revenue sharing than they used to under prior CBAs. It’s not an excuse for Cleveland to cut payroll given the increases in national television money, but it is likely that the have-mores are taking a bigger piece of the revenue pie than the have-a-decent-amounts.

Ahead of the last round of CBA negotiations, I thought there would be a fight among the owners over revenue sharing. Likely because the players didn’t demand enough concessions, that fight never took place. Small-market teams were willing to take less revenue sharing because negotiations with the players were too easy, and national revenues from television deals and money from MLBAM were good enough at the time. It’s not a big part of the player loss in the last CBA, but it doesn’t help when the teams with more money refuse to spend it. Revenue sharing might not seem like an important issue for the players, but spreading money around might have yielded a bit more spending at the bottom of the league.

Let’s continue the 2019 search for free talent with the pitching staff for the Ken Phelps All-Stars. The position players, split into two parts, can be found here and here.

Starting Pitcher 1: Justin Haley

A couple of years ago, David Laurila, in one of his fantastic Sunday notes columns, talked to Haley about his unique delivery.

Haley sets up on the third base side of the rubber, with his other foot straddling the rubber. With the ball in his glove raised in front of his face, he looks in for the sign with his pitching hand cocked at his waist, fingers dancing back and forth like Wyatt Earp ready to draw.

Haley is 27, right-handed, and despite being listed at 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds, is a relative soft-tosser with a fastball that struggles to top 90 mph consistently. Soft tossing, fastball-heavy righties aren’t exactly a hot commodity, and that explains why he’s yet to establish himself in the majors. If you remember him, it’s probably because he was a Rule 5 draft pick back in 2017; he spent all of 18 big league innings with the Twins before being shipped back to Boston. But there’s probably more here than you might think.

First of all, Haley has a very good curveball.

And Haley’s repertoire – slow fastball, curveball, and pinpoint command – is reminiscent of another big, soft-tossing righty who didn’t establish himself until his late 20s.

In fact, Haley actually led the International League in xFIP in 2018 (just ahead of Michael Kopech), finishing fourth in FIP, K-BB%, and K/BB, and with the eighth-best BB% in the league. Haley, in other words, had good command and missed bats (14th in the league in SwStr%) without really walking anybody, and that’s a really good combination.

Unfortunately for Haley, pitchers who can’t break a pane of glass with their fastballs aren’t often really prospects, despite his gaudy Triple-A numbers. As a result, Haley ended up signing with the KBO’s Samsung Lions this offseason. I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if he ended up coming back.

Starting pitcher 2: Drew Gagnon

After years of struggling to control his low-nineties fastball and power breaking balls, Gagnon quietly broke out last year in – of all places – Triple-A Las Vegas, where pitching prospects go to die. He’d always had the ability – see, for example, his Adam Wainwright-like curveball.

But Gagnon walked more than 8.5% of the hitters he faced at every minor league assignment he had between 2014 and 2017 (including three stops with double-digit walk rates), torpedoing his value. Picked up by the Mets before the 2018 season, the 28-year-old former third rounder walked far fewer batters in Las Vegas, giving out free passes to just 6.7% of the batters he faced, while still striking out more than a quarter of opponents. All of a sudden, Gagnon had a 19.2% K-BB% and a 3.88 K/BB, with the latter being the best figure of Gagnon’s career. As a result, Gagnon shot up the Triple-A leaderboards, finishing fourth among all Triple-A pitchers (IL and PCL) in K%, 14th in BB%, and second in K-BB%. The showing was enough to land a brief cameo in Flushing, during which he didn’t distinguish himself.

Still, Gagnon’s progress is such that it’s worth seeing if he has actually turned a corner. In real life, he’s probably best suited for a middle-relief slot, and if his gains are for real, he could probably help a bullpen-needy team like the Angels. For us, we’ll see if he can consolidate his gains in the rotation, where he made 27 starts last year at Triple-A. For what it’s worth, Steamer loves Gagnon, projecting a mid-3’s ERA and FIP and better than a strikeout per inning.

Starting Pitcher 3: Onelki Garcia

Garcia might be the single most fascinating player on this list. Not only is he left-handed and breathing, he was once a prized prospect in the Dodgers’ system, with a deep arsenal and bright future. This is what Mike Newman said about Garcia back in 2012:

Listed at six-foot-three, the big-bodied Garcia boasts a power arsenal. The Cuban pitcher’s deception comes from staying tall in his delivery with a high release point. . . . Garcia features a 91-93 mph fastball, only with more consistent sinking action. In this appearance, he was wild in the zone which kept Jackson hitters off-balance. . . . Garcia’s primary off-speed pitch was an 83-85 mph “slurve” with 1 to 7 break. The pitch is a swing-and-miss offering at present — Flashing plus when down in the zone. His changeup also flashes potential and supports a starter profile should Garcia’s durability return after a long layoff.

It didn’t work out, of course; Garcia battled injuries – a bone spur in his elbow, meniscus tears in both knees – which limited him to just 162 innings across four seasons between 2013 and 2016, but he still flashed the plus stuff that had made him such a blue-chip prospect. But by the time he returned to the mound for good in 2017 in the Royals’ system, his effectiveness had cratered due to increasing command issues and a diminished arsenal; a 5.04 ERA for the Royals’ Triple-A affiliate in 2017 and disastrous six innings for the varsity club sealed Garcia’s fate, and he spent 2018 in Japan.

But once again healthy, Garcia found himself in NPB, tossing 168.2 innings for the Chuinichi Dragons – more than he’d thrown between 2013 and 2016 combined – en route to a 2.99 ERA while limiting both homers and hard contact. His command remained an enigma, as he walked an unacceptably high 73 hitters against 132 strikeouts. But the tantalizing stuff returned, with Garcia making multiple no-hit bids over the course of the season.

The Hanshin Tigers signed Garcia this offseason, but it was just a one-year deal, as the lefty still wants a shot at the big leagues. If Garcia could get his walks under control, it will be fascinating to see if a major league team takes a chance on him next offseason.

Starting Pitcher 3: Jake Paulson

If there were an exact baseball opposite to Onelki Garcia, Paulson is probably it. Unlike the power lefty, Paulson makes his hay with a heavy sinking fastball that he uses to induce ground balls. The sinkerballer induced grounders at a rate of at least 52% every year in the minors, including two stops above 60%, and has yet to allow even thirty percent of balls in play against him to be hit in the air to the outfield. More intriguingly, Paulson may have a skill inducing pop-ups, with a double-digit IFFB% every year since 2016.

Paulson achieves soft contact with his sinker, a fastball with ridiculous movement. Movement like this:

We’ve seen sinkerballers be effective mid-rotation starters before – Justin Masterson, Jake Westbrook, and Chien-Ming Wang come to mind. And like Wang, some sinkerballers can be late bloomers. So why is Paulson in the minors? For one thing, being a sinkerballer means relying on your defense – and in the minors, that can be a risky proposition. In 2016, he posted a 6.40 ERA despite a 3.38 FIP and 3.59 xFIP, and, owing to all the ground balls not fielded by his defenders, his LOB% didn’t even eclipse 70% until this year. In other words, Paulson got ground balls and his infield just didn’t field them, making the righty look worse than he actually was.

On the other hand, though Paulson was dominant for the Indians’ Double-A affiliate this year, he was supposed to dominate there; after all, he is already 26. And his sinker produced fewer ground balls this year; while still above 50%, he was routinely running ground ball rates above 60% in Hi-A.

Still, what evidence we have suggests that Paulson is closer to the pitcher he was at Double-A in terms of true talent and results. Paulson has consistently shown he can get ground balls without walking people, and that makes him interesting. He’ll probably struggle against lefties like many sinkerballers do, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t big league material. Also interesting is that his two-seam/curveball combination and 6-foot-7 build are reminiscent of early-career Charlie Morton.

Starting Pitcher 4: Enderson Franco

Franco, 26, has gone from interesting prospect to enigma to forgotten. Way back in 2014, right after Franco had been picked up by Tampa Bay from Houston in the minor league Rule 5 draft, Kiley McDaniel wrote that the youngster “has impressed, likely fitting in pen due to below average curveball, but with a fastball that sits 92-95, hitting 96 mph and a solid average changeup.” Since then, Franco has pitched in the minors for the Rays, Marlins, and Braves, flashing the same stuff that made him touted in 2014 but without the results to match.

Until, that is, 2018, when Franco impressed in his first taste of Double-A. Across 127.2 innings, Franco struck out better than a batter per inning (23.7% of hitters overall), on the back of that fastball.

More notably, Franco kept his walk rate to a manageable if not amazing 7.7%, good for a K/BB rate better than three to one and a K-BB% of 16.1%. And Franco kept one trait which he’s showed at every level: despite being a fly ball pitcher – his ground ball rate hasn’t been even 45% since A-ball – he kept the ball in the park, giving up less than a homer per nine for the eighth straight year, and generated pop-ups at a rate of 18%, a feat he’s accomplished or bettered every year since 2012.

Missing bats and generating pop-ups is an intriguing skill set for a starter, and he’s shown that he can withstand a starter’s workload. Franco is also relatively young; though he’s been laboring in obscurity for the past few years, he just turned 26. It makes sense to use those mid-90s bullets in the big leagues and see what Franco can do.

Starting Pitcher 5: William Cuevas

Cuevas, 28, has pitched for the Red Sox, Marlins, and Tigers organizations, but has seen just 22.1 innings at the big league level. In the minors, he’s functioned as organizational depth and a veteran innings eater, bouncing between the rotation and the bullpen depending on what “real” prospects that team had. But being in the rotation seems to agree with Cuevas; he’s flashed the ability to miss a few bats and limit walks and hard contact.

Cuevas does not throw hard – his fastball barely breaks 90 mph – but he features a cutter, sinker, changeup, and slider, and he’s shown an uncanny ability to paint the corners for strikes.

So what are Cuevas’ strengths? He generates weak contact, especially pop-ups; his IFFB% was a whopping 34.8% this year at Triple-A, and has never been below 17% at any level where he threw more than five innings. He has that fastball that he can run and sink. He’s not an ace, and probably never will be more than a depth starter. But he deserves a spot on a big league roster after the Red Sox released him this offseason, even if it’s as a middle reliever.

Relief Pitcher 1: Victor Payano

Victor Payano is a lefty with electric stuff. He can do this:

And then he can come back and do this:

Oh, by the way, that was his 13th strikeout of the night. In 2017, in the Marlins’ system, Payano struck out 38.2% of hitters he faced at Double-A (14.92 K/9), and 26.7% of hitters he faced at Triple-A (10.08 K/9). In 2018 in the Reds’ system, Payano struck out 32.1% of all hitters he faced at Double-A (12.66 K/9). Since 2016, at four minor league stops, his batting average against has looked like this: .175, .156, .197, .198. In other words, Payano is a strikeout machine who doesn’t give up hits.

So why is the big 6-foot-5 lefty still in the minors at 26? Because most nights, he really has no clue where the ball is going, and never has. In 2016, he walked 14% of hitters. In 2017 at Double-A, he walked 18.2% of hitters. In 2017 at Triple-A, he walked 14.5% of hitters. And in 2018 at Double-A, he walked 16.4% of hitters. Payano doesn’t give up hits and his swinging strike rate is fantastic, but he walks the world while he’s doing it.

The Marlins and Reds have spent the last couple of years bouncing him between the rotation and bullpen, but we’re going to put him in the bullpen full-time. We can do worse as a lefty specialist, and he may very well grow into more. Payano might be a left-handed Dellin Betances – he’ll always fight his mechanics and he’ll never have good command, but when you’re striking out 35% of the batters you’re facing, that becomes less important. At least you can guarantee he’ll never be a comfortable at-bat.

Reliever 2: D.J. Johnson

Johnson has a classic reliever’s profile: a high-octane, mid-90s fastball and a power breaking ball. He misses bats, striking out 35.7% of all hitters he faced this year for Triple-A Albuquerque and a third of all hitters he faced during a brief 6-inning cup of coffee with the Rockies. But like many relievers with this profile, he’s on this list because of longstanding struggles with control, walking more than 10% of all hitters he faced at Double-A between 2015 and 2016.

Quietly, though, Johnson flipped the script as Albuquerque’s closer last year. He walked just 6.4% of hitters he faced across 55.1 innings for the Isotopes, and appeared, at least, to keep those gains in his tiny big league cameo. He was also effective despite an altitude and PCL-driven .390 BABIP in 2018; the newfound lack of walks meant all those extra hits didn’t hurt him as much.

Johnson is another pitcher who generates lots of popups off of his fastball, and weak flyballs and swinging strikes are a good combination for a reliever. If Johnson’s command gains are real, he could have closer potential. If not, he’s still too good of a pitcher to be striking out minor leaguers by the bushel. He’s a perfect fit for the new era of power-driven bullpens.

Reliever 3: Brendan McCurry

If McCurry’s name is familiar, that’s because the Athletics traded him to the Astros for Jed Lowrie a few years back. At the time, Chris Mitchell took a look at McCurry and said this:

An undersized reliever, McCurry fell all the way to the 22nd round in 2014’s amateur draft, but his minor league performance has since lifted him to fringe prospect status. McCurry worked in relief at High-A and Double-A last season, where he pitched exceptionally well. He struck out 32% of his batters faced last season, and finished up with a 2.44 ERA.

McCurry’s numbers are excellent, but plenty of minor league relievers put up excellent numbers, especially in the lower levels. Throw in that he’s nearly 24, and he’s about as fringy as they come.

The thing is that nobody told McCurry that he was so fringy. Despite a relatively small stature – just 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds – the 26-year-old righty has spent the last three years obliterating minor league hitters. He’s yet to strike out fewer than 23% of all hitters he’s faced at any level, and he’s been above 26% the last two years. Each of the last two years, he’s posted a K-BB% of 20% or better and a K/BB of better than 4. Even in this extremely bad video, you can see the kind of off-balance swings he generates.

The Astros’ bullpen has no room for McCurry right now, but if Brad Peacock or Colin McHugh end up in the rotation, suddenly there might be room for a power reliever, regardless of size. McCurry is big-league ready and probably better than several members of the Angels’ and Orioles’ bullpens right now. It simply remains to be seen if he’ll get an opportunity, but we’ll make sure he gets one with us.

Relief Pitcher 4: Joe Broussard

Broussard, at least, looks the part of a late-inning reliever in the Dodgers’ organization; squint, and you might think you’re seeing Jonathan Broxton. But Broussard yet to see the mound for the big club, even after dominating the upper minors and leading some Dodgers fans to clamor for a call-up for the big righty. Broussard hasn’t struck out less than a batter per inning since A-ball; in 2018, he whiffed 26% of hitters he faced for the second year in a row and posted a K-BB% of 18% for the second year in a row, all in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. In Double-A, he was even better, striking out nearly a third of all hitters with a K/BB better than 4 with a nasty fastball-curveball combination.

Broussard is buried by the Dodgers’ deep bullpen, but the big righty is ready for the Show.

Next time, we’ll project how this team might actually do if assembled.

Let me explain how I landed on Jose Alvarado. Alvarado is a reliever for the Rays. I actually wrote about him last June, but not because of his pitching.

Right. So why Alvarado, on today of all days? It’s not like he’s been showing up in trade rumors. Here’s the explanation: I’m a guy who loves looking at bullpens. I was also looking at the Twins last night, considering them as a possible sleeper. One guy they should be getting back is Michael Pineda. Another guy they already got back is Trevor May. May is going to pitch out of the Minnesota bullpen, and when he returned in 2018, he put up some encouraging numbers. I went into the leaderboards, to see how his numbers stacked up. That’s where I came across Alvarado. That’s what prompted all of this work.

Almost completely off the radar, Alvarado broke out late in the season. There’s no need to be complicated here. This is a very simple table:

That’s a list of some talented pitchers. Down the stretch, Alvarado struck out almost literally half of his opponents. He struck out the same rate of opponents as Edwin Diaz. I’ve written before about Ryan Pressly’s breakout. I’ve written before about Jose Leclerc’s breakout. What happened with Alvarado? Did anything happen with Alvarado? The answer is yes. He changed on the fly, and became something dominant.

Read the rest of this entry »

This year’s free agent class was supposed to be historic, but with Clayton Kershaw pitching only really well, Josh Donaldson and Andrew Miller hurt, David Price and Jason Heyward not performing well enough to opt out of their deals, and Matt Harvey taking a nosedive, this class only turned out to be pretty good. Manny Machado and Bryce Harper are two superstars hitting free agency in their mid-20s. Having one of the two would make for a great headliner; signing both would provide multiple teams with the opportunity to transform their franchise. After those two, we’ve seen starting pitchers do pretty well so far, and a bunch of relievers sign solid deals, but the talk of a slow offseason has returned.

Some of last winter’s slowness was mitigated by star players receiving contracts close to expectations. Yu Darvish, Eric Hosmer, J.D. Martinez, and Lorenzo Cain all signed deals that seemed fair as spring approached. Jake Arrieta didn’t come that far off when we consider his opt-out. Machado and Harper are still likely to sign very big contracts, while some in the middle might end up getting squeezed. But with this free agent class the supposed justification for teams saving their money on the heels of MLB payrolls going down despite soaring revenues, another slow winter is cause for concern for the players.

In examining the slow market, Ken Rosenthal recently called the system broken and floated some differing perspectives on the causes, effects, and solutions. One paragraph, in particular, caught my eye. Read the rest of this entry »

Here, in Part 2 of our series, we will crown the infielders for the 2019 Ken Phelps All-Star Team, a team of guys who, for whatever reason, have mastered the highest levels of the minors but are organizational depth at best, or forgotten entirely at worst, and yet have skills that might (might!) make them useful on a big-league team. Part 1, featuring the members of our outfield, can be found here. The pitchers will follow later.

Third Base: Damek Tomscha

For the second year in a row, our third baseman will be someone from the Philadelphia Phillies’ minor league system. Tomscha was a fiftieth-round pick (seriously!), declined to sign, and was drafted twice more before finally turning pro after being taken in the 17th round. In Dan Szymborski’s latest ZiPS projections for the Phils, Tomscha’s top comp was the immortal Brennan King.

Tomscha is already 27, but he’s done nothing but hit pretty much everywhere he’s gone. His wRC+ numbers between 2014 and 2018 at every level where he’s spent more than 100 plate appearances go like this: 126, 127, 131, 152, 123, 125. (His foray into Triple-A was less encouraging, good for a 60 wRC+ in 93 plate appearances.)

Now, to be fair, Tomscha has only ever shown power like that at Double-A Reading, a level somewhat legendary for inflating power numbers and turning players like Dylan Cozens and Darin Ruf into reincarnations of Babe Ruth. That said, Tomscha has been a good hitter even when he’s not hitting for power, even in the low minors, and has long shown off defensive skills as well.

And he’s a pretty good contact hitter too, with the 17.2% strikeout rate he posted in a small sample at Triple-A this year being the worst of his career.

So what is the package? A big, strong right-handed contact hitter, who doesn’t strike out much and might have some power potential. That’ll work for us at third base.

Shortstop: Arismendy Alcantara

Back in the day, Alcantara was a hot commodity as a prospect who flashed power and speed in the Cubs’ minor league system. It didn’t work out, though – in 459 major league plate appearances, the switch-hitter hit 11 homers and stole 14 bases, but struck out at a rate that would make Mark Reynolds blush, on his way to a .189/.235/.315 triple slash and 49 wRC+. A 1.9% walk rate and 35.2% strikeout rate with the Reds in 2017 – good for a 5 wRC+ (!!) – sealed his fate, and he hasn’t played in affiliated baseball since.

But something happened in 2018 when Alcantara spent three stints in the Mexican League: he started drawing walks. A lot of walks, especially by Alcantara’s standards. Despite being four years younger than the average player at his level – after all, Alcantara is still just 26 – he walked at a 9.5% rate or better at three different Mexican League stops. To put that in perspective, Alcantara’s 38 walks in 397 plate appearances was more than he’d had at any level since he was a 21-year-old at Double-A in 2013. The result was a .285/.353/.527 line with 18 homers and 15 steals, showing the tantalizing power-speed combination is still in there. But what’s also in there is this defense at shortstop.

Now, it’s entirely possible that Alcantara’s newfound plate discipline is a mirage, or that it won’t translate back to affiliated baseball. That said, the package is intriguing enough, and Alcantara is still young enough, that he may just be a late bloomer. Major league baseball might have given up on him, but we won’t.

Second Base: Jack Mayfield

Unlike Alcantara, here’s a name you might never have heard before. Mayfield, 28, is no one’s idea of a real prospect – he wasn’t even drafted. But during his time in the Astros’ farm system, he seems to have developed one tool that’s hard to fake: power.

The breakout came in 2016 at Double-A, when Mayfield obliterated opposing pitchers to the tune of a 132 wRC+ and a .288 ISO. Despite faltering in his first taste of Triple-A later that year, Mayfield rebounded and in 2018 proved he was in Fresno to stay, with a .270/.324/.457 triple slash, .341 wOBA, and .187 ISO, his second consecutive year at the level with an ISO above .185 and a wOBA above .340. And even more intriguingly, Mayfield can play defense. Here he is flashing the leather at third base:

And here he is at second base – adding a pretty awesome flip to shortstop:

Now, Mayfield isn’t without his warts – no one on this list is, after all. His plate discipline is lackluster, to put it mildly; he’s never posted a double-digit walk rate, and even in his second-best season, 2016, he struggled to reach a .300 OBP. Still, there have been signs of growth there as well. His BABIP in 2016 was unsustainably low (.226 at both Double- and Triple-A); he’s run BABIPs consistently above .300 both before and since. Mayfield may never walk more than 6% of the time in the big leagues, and he’ll probably strike out a ton. Still, the power and defense are real, and his profile is similar to another 5-foot-11, 190 pound infielder: Brandon Inge. Mayfield doesn’t have Inge’s upside, of course (when Inge was Mayfield’s age, he already had four big league seasons under his belt). But a poor man’s Brandon Inge still has some value, and given a full season’s worth of plate appearances, Mayfield might surprise.

First Base: Joey Meneses

Quick: who led the International League in home runs in 2018? If you guessed top Tigers prospect Christin Stewart, you’d only be half right, as Stewart shared the honor with Philadelphia Phillies minor leaguer Joey Meneses, 26. Another player who was never drafted, Meneses slashed an impressive .311/.360/.510 in 2018, good for a 143 wRC+ and .381 wOBA. Now, it would be easy to conclude that Meneses is a product of where Phillies’ minor leagues affiliates play – after all, Darin Ruf and Dylan Cozens both posted inflated numbers as a result of the hitter-friendly parks in the Phils’ system. But Meneses might be different. For one thing, while 2018 was his first year in the Phillies’ organization, he’s hit everywhere he’s gone. In 2016, while playing for the Carolina Mudcats, the Braves’ Hi-A affiliate, he hit .342/.401/.490 – offense which amounted to a 146 wRC+ and .401 wOBA. He struggled in his first taste of Double-A, but returned to his mashing ways in his second go-around in 2017, with a 124 wRC+ and a career-high walk rate (9.5%).

Now, given Meneses’ gaudy stats, the obvious question is why he isn’t a prospect, even at 26. The answer is that while he has always hit the ball hard, 2018 was the first time he’d shown consistent power. But there’s reason to hope he wasn’t just a Phillies’ minor league mirage. Here he is, hitting a long home run away from Lehigh Valley.

Do you notice the uppercut? Meneses is a swing-changer. Until 2018, the big right-handed first baseman had hit the ball primarily on the ground, with ground ball rates above 50% at every stop but one since 2014. But in 2018, he flipped the script, dropping his ground ball rate to 44.7%, a career low, and upping his flyball rate to 32.9%, his highest rate since rookie ball. That wasn’t Meneses’ only change; after being an all-fields hitter in 2016 and 2017, hitting at least 40% of his balls in play to right field, he started pulling the ball in 2018, hitting fewer balls to right field and more fly balls to left. The result was a career-high HR/FB%, and the second-highest pull rate of his minor-league career.

Of course, even launch-anglified Joey Meneses wasn’t going to displace burgeoning star Rhys Hoskins in Philadelphia, and so the Phillies released him at the end of the season after he received an offer to play in Japan for the Orix Buffaloes. Still, it looks like Meneses made some legitimate changes to his offensive game – changes that, while not likely to make him a star, certainly make him more interesting.

Infield: Corban Joseph

Joseph, 29, was immortalized as the Guy Who Took Over First Base from Chris Davis (TM) last year in Baltimore, a job that lasted all of 19 plate appearances. In reality, however, Joseph probably has something to offer a team that’s willing to look past the obvious flaws. Joseph has the ability to stand at every defensive position on the dirt except shortstop. And Joseph has plate discipline, contact ability, and a bit of pop, which has helped him rack up more than a thousand minor league hits. In a sense, that’s damning with faint praise; Joseph has been in the minors for more than a decade, but has a grand total of 26 major league plate appearances to his name.

In 2018 for Double-A Bowie, Joseph walked more (9.9%) than he struck out (8.2%) with a .185 ISO and 143 wRC+, his second consecutive year at Double-A with a wRC+ of 120 or higher on the back of that skillset. Oh well, you might say, he was a 29-year-old at Double-A; he’s supposed to do that. And that’s certainly true, but he has also shown the same ability at Triple-A – in 2016 for Norfolk, Joseph hit .305/.362/.435 with an 8.3% BB% and 10.2% K%, good for a 129 wRC+.

So what is Corban Joseph? The profile is a bit similar to John Jaso, minus the catching ability, of course. Still, though, Joseph might be better than some of the utility infielders entering 2019 with guaranteed jobs. And there’s an argument to be made Joseph is better than David Fletcher, who will, barring other moves, open 2019 with a starting job in the Angels’ infield. Joseph is probably good enough for a big league job somewhere; he’s just never gotten the opportunity.

Catcher: Beau Taylor

Here’s a guy who, given the state of catching in the major leagues, could probably have a major league job somewhere on opening day, even though he probably won’t. Taylor is 28 and a career member of the Oakland Athletics’ minor league system, where he has been since 2011. He’s also no one’s idea of a prospect, accruing just six major league plate appearances, all in 2018. Why? For one thing, he doesn’t hit for power; this was his last of just three home runs he hit in the A’s system in 2018, after he hit 5 in 2017, and 5 in 2016.

He doesn’t really hit for average, either; despite a .341 BABIP in 2018, he hit just .248 in 2018. And he doesn’t really control the running game, throwing out just 12 of 73 attempted baserunners in 2018.

So why is Taylor here? Because he has plate discipline. Indeed, quite good plate discipline. In 2018, he walked in 14% of his plate appearances at AAA. In 2017, he walked in better than 12% of his plate appearances. In fact, Taylor hasn’t had a walk rate below 10% since a 2014 half-season at Double-A, when he posted a 9.7% walk rate. And owing to all the walks, Taylor has posted a wRC+ above 90 at every stop but one since 2014.

Steamer doesn’t think much of Taylor, projecting just a 69 wRC+ for 2019 at the big league level. But Jonathan Lucroy just posted a 70 wRC+ for the Athletics, and at least Taylor might still have some upside.

Designated Hitter: Neftali Soto

Once upon a time, Neftali Soto was a big-time Reds prospect who, despite underwhelming numbers, possessed exciting tools. The good news is that Soto, now 29, mashed .310/.364/.644 in 2018 with 41 homers in just 459 plate appearances, fulfilling his longstanding prospect status. The bad news is that he posted those video game numbers in Japan, and went totally ignored stateside.

That’s a shame, because Soto’s transformation from failed prospect to power hitter began in 2017, when he (all together now) started hitting more fly balls. An increased fly ball rate – he went from just 16% in the White Sox organization in 2015 to 34.9% for the Nationals’ Triple-A affiliate in 2018 – led to a power surge, and across two levels of the Nats’ system he destroyed minor league pitching to the tune of a .311/.364/.528 triple-slash, and an ISO above .200 at both levels. Soto’s new look can be captured in this game for Syracuse, when he homered three times, one to each part of the outfield.

Despite his newfound power and contact abilities, the book on Soto remains below average plate discipline; his 29-to-100 strikeout to walk ratio last year in the NPB demonstrates that nicely. Still, bats with this kind of power have some value and could merit a major league opportunity. After all, it’s a safe bet Soto would outhit Chris Davis, and wouldn’t a rebuilding team like the Rangers be better off seeing what he could do with 550 at-bats than giving them to Ronald Guzman?

Next time, we’ll look at the Phelpses’ pitching staff.

Brian Anderson knows who he is as a hitter; he’s less sure of what kind of hitter he’ll be in the years to come. At 25 years of age with just 765 big-league plate appearances under his belt, the fourth-place finisher in last year’s NL Rookie of the Year balloting has a lot of growth in front of him.

Drafted by the Marlins out of the University of Arkansas in 2014, Anderson has displayed reliability, versatility, and a smooth right-handed stroke since arriving in Miami in September 2017. Manning both third base and right field, he finished the 2018 campaign with a .273/.357/.400 slash line and a team-high 34 doubles. Moreover, he was a mainstay in Don Mattingly’s lineup. Anderson was a spectator in just five games.

One thing he didn’t do often was leave the yard. Partly the result of playing in pitcher-friendly Marlins Park, Anderson homered a paltry 11 times. Which circles us back to the “what kind of hitter he’ll be in the years to come?” question. Anderson doesn’t lack raw power. It’s a matter of tapping into it more consistently as he continues to mature as a hitter.

Anderson discussed his gap-to-gap approach, as well as his long-ball potential, when the Marlins visited Fenway Park late last August.

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Brian Anderson on hitting: “It’s about getting my pitches to hit. More specifically, getting good pitches within my approach and putting a good swing on them. It starts with my work in the cage, and then BP is for working on barreling the ball to all parts of the field. It’s for making sure that I’m hitting the ball the right way.

“Once I’m in the box, it kind of depends on the pitcher. Certain pitchers don’t throw to certain spots, and some pitchers are most vulnerable in certain spots. I like the ball more out over the plate. I like it more down in the zone and middle to middle away. That’s kind of the zone I try to lock in on, and I’ll try to drive that ball to right center. If I get hanging off-speed, or a heater in, then I’m (pulling the ball). Generally speaking, I’m more focused on the middle of the field. Read the rest of this entry »

The White Sox have made a series of minor moves this offseason to prepare themselves for contention at some point in the future; that might be as soon as next year, but it’s more likely in 2020 or later. The team added Ivan Nova from the Pirates to provide innings in the rotation. They added Alex Colome from the Mariners to help the pen. Chicago acquired Yonder Alonso from Cleveland to improve the offense and let Jose Abreu spend more time at designated hitter. If there was a $7 million to $10 million unwanted player, the White Sox have seemed willing to take on the salary in exchange for a fringe prospect. That strategy took on a different form today, as the team snapped up free agent reliever Kelvin Herrera on a two-year, $18 million deal with a vesting option, per Jeff Passan.

Herrera, not unlike many relievers, has had an inconsistent career. In 2012, 2014, and 2016, he put together very good seasons, with a sub-3.00 FIP and at least one win above replacement. In 2013 and 2015, he was closer to average. In 2017, when he took on closer duties in Kansas City, he just wasn’t very good. Last season, he put together a very good first half, which prompted Kansas City to trade him to Washington at just the right time. In DC, Herrera pitched poorly, and was sidelined with a rotator cuff injury and then a foot problem that ended his season. He’s missed time due to right arm injuries in 2014, 2017, and last year, also not uncommon for a reliever throwing in the high-90s. This is what his velocity looks like by season.

Velocity isn’t everything, and at 29 years old, Herrera is still young, but the drop is concerning. Here’s a similar graph showing his strikeout and walk rates.

Herrera’s walk rate has always been fine aided by a career 60% first strike rate, including 67% last year. It is interesting that his strikeout rate doesn’t necessarily correlate with his fastball velocity. He wasn’t striking out a lot of batters in 2014 and 2015, when he still had great velocity, and then when his velocity first dipped in 2016, he struck out batters at the highest rate of his career. In ranking the Top 50 free agents this offseason, Kiley McDaniel put Herrera 49th overall and 10th among relievers. McDaniel pegged Herrera for a one-year deal at nine million dollars, roughly half the guarantee he ended up receiving. Dan Szymborski wrote Herrera’s report in that post and came to a similar conclusion. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this winter, the New York Mets were looking to upgrade their catching situation. The team was dissatisfied with Travis d’Arnaud, Kevin Plawecki, and Tomas Nido as the frontline options, and after rumors of a J.T. Realmuto trade, the team ended up signing Wilson Ramos to give them four, major league-caliber catchers. Cleveland has moved in the opposite direction. The team traded top prospect Francisco Mejia to San Diego for Brad Hand and Adam Cimber over the summer to aid their bullpen. Then, when winter began, Cleveland moved Yan Gomes to the Nationals to save money. That left Cleveland with the ultra-light hitting Roberto Perez and the all-or-nothing Eric Haase, whose projections lean more toward the “nothing” side than the “all.” That made the two teams pretty good trading partners, and this is the result:

Cleveland receives:

• C Kevin Plawecki

New York receives:

• RHP Walker Lockett
• 2B Sam Haggerty

Read the rest of this entry »

It was just a little over two years ago that the Orioles lost to the Blue Jays in the AL wild-card game. At that point, Zach Britton was one of the greatest per-inning pitchers in the world, yet the Orioles left him in the bullpen while they lost in extra innings. Before they got to Britton, they went to Donnie Hart. Before they got to Britton, they went to Brian Duensing. Before they got to Britton, they went to Ubaldo Jimenez. It was as inexplicable then as it still is today –Britton was too good of a weapon to ignore, when the stakes were so high. There’s nothing to wait for in a game of that magnitude.

For Britton now, it might feel like ancient history. He moved on to a different team, and in 2018 he made it back to the playoffs, where this time he actually pitched. And Britton has elected to re-sign with that team, agreeing with the Yankees for $39 million over three years. The idea, from the Yankees’ perspective, is to again build out a bullpen that already included Aroldis Chapman, Dellin Betances, Chad Green, and Jonathan Holder. Britton will pitch in the seventh and eighth innings, this being further evidence of how teams are coming to reward non-closers. Something else is different, however. Britton will be paid more than he was in 2016. And yet he also hasn’t been that pitcher ever since. The Yankees are rolling the dice on a hard-to-hit sinker.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, I started a new tradition here at FanGraphs: the Ken Phelps All-Star Team, a 21st century revival of my favorite part of Bill James’ Baseball Abstracts. Ken Phelps was a talented hitter who nevertheless toiled for years in the minors, not exhausting his rookie eligibility until age 28. As Jeff Bower characterized it for Baseball Prospectus, the Phelps All-Star team represented “an assemblage of players with skills that made them useful, but who were generally not given a fair opportunity to prove their worth in the majors or had been given unwarranted labels they couldn’t shake.” Basically, the idea behind our exercise was to identify minor leaguers who, like Phelps himself, were not considered notable prospects (though some may technically still have prospect eligibility) and had earned a Quad-A label, and yet might be competent (or better) big leaguers if given the opportunity.

Last year’s team proved quite successful by the modest standards set for Quad-A players. Our team was projected to go 57-105, which was just one win worse than the actual record of the 2018 Royals and was ten wins better than the 2018 Orioles, who (unlike the Phelpses) had the benefit of a half-season of Manny Machado. And several players I identified also established themselves as legitimate major leaguers, led by Richard Rodriguez, who posted a 63 ERA- and 64 FIP- across 69.1 innings, striking out a third of all the hitters he faced. Deck McGuire received an extended look (38 innings) in the major leagues, and despite his relatively poor results, showed flashes with a 94-mph fastball and an above-average sinker and change-up. Ryan Carpenter showed his plus command and minuscule walk rate could translate to the big leagues across five starts with Detroit, though he was hurt by a home run problem. Mitch Walding, Brandon Snyder, Jabari Blash, and Scott Copeland all saw major league time in 2018, with Walding making his major league debut. All in all, this might not sound like much, but remember that we’re talking about free talent – these are guys who, in essence, aren’t supposed to be doing much at all.

So with that, we bid adieu to the 2018 team and turn to the 2019 team, which we’ll unveil over the next few days. First, let’s review the criteria for selection. Remember, these players are not supposed to be prospects, so this isn’t like Carson’s Fringe Five series. The Quad-A label earned by these players may very well be accurate, and we’re not expecting this fictional team to go and win 100 games. Instead, we’re looking for free talent – guys who, for whatever reason, have mastered the highest levels of the minors but are organizational depth at best, or forgotten entirely at worst, and yet have skills that might (might!) make them useful on a big-league team.

And because scouting and analytics are better than ever before, the idea behind this team has to change a bit. Major-league equivalencies have become mainstream, which means that we have to do more than simply project big-league performance. For that reason, we’re going to tweak James’ original criteria slightly. To qualify for our team, a player cannot have had more than 550 plate appearances or 50 innings pitched in the major leagues, which we’ll use as proxies for a season’s worth of MLB time. He also cannot have appeared on any of FanGraphs’ organizational top prospect lists or the Fringe Five in the past two years (2017-18), and must be 25 or older. Oh, and just to make things fun, we won’t re-use anyone from the 2018 team.

Today we begin our look at the 2019 Ken Phelps All-Star Team by examining at the outfield. The balance of the position players (Part 2), as well as the pitching staff (Part 3), will follow later.

Left Field: Rusney Castillo

Here’s a blast from the past! Once upon a time, Castillo, now 31, was the Red Sox’s hot new offseason addition, a player considered dynamic enough that Boston paid $72 million to play him in the team’s outfield. It didn’t work out – Castillo was handed a big league job in 2015 and fell flat, posting just 0.1 fWAR and a 73 wRC+ across 80 games. The Red Sox removed him from their 40-man roster in 2016, and since then he’s labored in Boston’s minor league system, with his most notable accomplishment being the ignominy of landing on a list of baseball’s worst contracts. He has seen all of eight plate appearances, all of which came in 2016.

Whether it was the decreased pressure, simple player development, easier competition, or Castillo adjusting to his new environs, he’s quietly broken out for Pawtucket over the last couple of years, following a .378 wOBA and 138 wRC+ in 2017 with a .348 wOBA and 120 wRC+ in 2018. His line drive rate and the percentage of balls he sent to the opposite field both spiked in 2018, as Castillo became more of an all-fields hitter.

Now Castillo still has his warts, as every player on this list does. His power never really developed or been consistent – he followed fifteen homers and a .193 ISO in 2017 with five and a .097 in 2018. Even his improved plate discipline was still subpar, with just a 5.7% walk rate. His in field fly ball rate spiked in 2018 and, despite still having above-average speed, his base-running deteriorated, and he was relegated to a corner spot in the outfield.

Still, Steamer suggests that at least some of Castillo’s gains were legitimate, projecting a 90 WRC+, and despite the move to the corner, his defense remains above-average. Further, his coaches at Triple-A are convinced he could hold his own in the major leagues, a combination of his improved performance and commitment to conditioning.

“He’s a big leaguer,” said [Pawtucket Manager Kevin] Boles. “He’s a big leaguer on a Triple A field. You coach at third. The third baseman says, ‘How is this guy still here?’ Everybody knows it. Everybody knows he’s major league-quality.”

Castillo may be a forgotten man in Boston — the outfield spots in Fenway are spoken for — and his salary will likely strike most clubs as pretty rich considering what he is at present, but the tools that made him enticing in 2014 seem still to be there, and perhaps improved. We’ll start him in our outfield.

Center Field: Cole Sturgeon

Sturgeon, 27, has the distinction of having played in three hundred games for Boston’s Double-A affiliate across four seasons before finally being called up to Triple-A for good late in 2018. He raked at Double-A in 2018 to the tune of a .443 wOBA and 178 wRC+, which was most likely the result of having been at the level for the aforementioned 300 games, but also showed some legitimate growth that he carried to Triple-A. After seldom walking in the low minors – across two levels in 2015 and 2016, Sturgeon never eclipsed a 6% walk rate – the outfielder improved both his strikeout and walk rates in 2017 and 2018, posting an 8.6% BB% and 14.3% K% at Double-A in 2018 before keeping most of the gains in his walk rate in Pawtucket.

What makes Sturgeon interesting for our purposes, though, isn’t his hitting. It’s his above-average defense, which he manages despite not having plus speed.

The Red Sox have given Sturgeon a shot in spring training before, largely to see if he can be a fourth outfielder. The sum of Sturgeon’s parts isn’t a star, and probably isn’t even a big league regular. But there might be a poor man’s David DeJesus here, and that’s enough to be interesting. We’ll take him on our team.

Right Field: Yadiel Hernandez

Hernandez, a 31-year-old Cuban émigré, is probably the player on this list most likely to make a major league impact in 2019. When the Nationals signed Hernandez in 2016, they considered him to be a “high-floor, low-ceiling type who . . . could serve as a left-handed hitter off the bench or a defensive replacement late.” MLBTradeRumors cited Baseball America’s Ben Badler in calling Hernendez a “small and not overly toolsy player who profiles as a corner outfielder,” which MLBTR’s Jeff Todd called “a rather unexciting profile.” And even with the likely departure of Bryce Harper this offseason, he is well behind rookie sensation Juan Soto, top prospect Victor Robles, and established major leaguers Adam Eaton and Michael Taylor on the Nationals depth chart; there’s been understandably little talk of him entering Washington’s 2019 outfield mix, even in spite of Eaton’s lengthy injury history. He’s seen just one plate appearance in major league spring training.

Still, Hernandez’s performance thus far suggests he might have upside beyond what was originally thought. For one thing, he draws walks. His 9.9% walk rate at Triple-A in 2018 was his lowest thus far in the minor leagues, and he posted an 11% walk rate across two levels this year. He’s shown an above-average contact tool, and has yet to post a BABIP less than .320. And perhaps most interestingly, Hernandez is showing some burgeoning pop, with 18 homers and a .171 ISO across two levels in 2018. Here he is showing some impressive opposite-field power early last year:

Patience, contact, a bit of pop, and passable defense are an intriguing mix, and on a team with less outfield depth, he might be considered for a starting spot. In any event, he fits nicely in our lineup.

Outfield: Zoilo Almonte

Once upon a time, Almonte, now 29, was a toolsy fringe prospect in the Yankees’ system with an 80-grade name. But despite flashing power and speed in the minors, he cratered in a 34-game cameo with the big club in 2013 (56 wRC+) despite a reasonably good strikeout rate (16.8%). He returned to the minors, where he continued to hit in the Yankees and Braves’ systems, before mashing in the Mexican League in 2016 (123 wRC+ and .207 ISO), and turning into a bona fide middle-of-the-order monster in 2017 (.355/.421/.536 triple-slash, 148 wRC+, .425 wOBA). Intriguingly, Almonte proved his 2017 metamorphosis wasn’t a fluke when he took his talents to the NPB’s Chunichi Dragons in 2018, hitting .321/.375/.486 with a lot of nights like this one:

Almonte finished sixth in the league in batting, second in doubles, fifteenth in OPS, fifteenth in on-base percentage, ninth in hits, tenth in total bases, and fifteenth in homers (all among 65 qualifiers), an impressive showing for the former prospect.

Now, just because Almonte can hit in the Mexican League and in Japan doesn’t mean he can hit in the majors. But Almonte has hit everywhere he’s been except the bigs, and he’s now shown the ability to hit for power and average at Triple-A, in the Mexican League, and in Japan, all of which serves our purposes well. Plus, Almonte has begun to show steady improvements in his plate discipline; in his 2018 season, he was eighteenth in the league in walks, only one of which was intentional. Given his ability to play all three outfield positions capably, he’ll do fine as a fourth outfielder, and, given a big league opportunity, there’s a chance he could outproduce Melky Cabrera in 2019.

Parts 2 and 3 to follow.