The Milwaukee Brewers were already coming out of this offseason with more unanswered questions than a contending team would typically like. They’ve lost their top two starting pitchers to trade or injury, they’ve changed managers, and their big offseason free agent signing hasn’t played a meaningful game since the 2022 postseason.
And the questions continue to pile up. Devin Williams, one of the best closers in baseball and arguably Milwaukee’s best player, is going to be out for the next three months. The good news is it’s not an arm or shoulder injury that would lead to long-term problems or a multi-year absence. But it’s a pretty gnarly-sounding injury nonetheless: Not one but two stress fractures in his back.
Williams pitched through back soreness since at least last September — and with two fractures in a vertebra at the bottom of his ribcage, “soreness” is probably an understatement. Williams won’t need surgery, but he’ll be totally shut down for the next six weeks. The long ramp-up to game fitness will take at least another six weeks, which puts the target date for his return sometime in late June. Read the rest of this entry »
I saw Dylan Cease’s start on Monday night and wanted to pass along some notes and video of him following his trade to the Padres. I also wanted to share fresh spring notes on the new White Sox prospects acquired yesterday. Let’s start with Cease. Here is my video from his unbroadcast start:
Almost all professional baseball players played at least one other sport growing up. Moreover, many of them were athletically gifted at a young age and thus excelled against their school-age contemporaries in their formative years, often all the way through high school. Fast forward to today, and many continue to play other sports in a recreational capacity — golf is prominent — especially in the offseason.
Watching other sports is also popular activity for ballplayers. Much as they tuned in to see their favorites on the family TV, they now do so as adults. Like the rest of us, they enjoy sitting on their couches, or hanging out with friends at sports bars, rooting for successful shots, goals, and touchdowns. Temporarily apart from the game they get paid to play, they get to be fans.
With those things in mind, I asked a dozen players about their “other” sport. Besides baseball, what did they most enjoy playing, and what do they now most enjoy watching?
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Dansby Swanson, Chicago Cubs shortstop: “Basketball. I was pretty good. I could really shoot. My basketball game was somewhat similar to my baseball game. I kind of did the right things. I knew what to do. I knew where to go. I averaged around 15 points in high school. It was [a big school]. We had over 2,000 kids. There are a lot of big schools in Georgia.
“I grew up in very much a sports family. I love watching all sports, honestly. I love watching football. I love watching basketball. Obviously, I watch a lot of soccer; I watch my wife [Mallory Swanson, who plays for the Chicago Red Stars and the U.S. Women’s National Team]. Golf is on the TV. An underrated sport to watch is tennis. I have sports on TV all the time.”
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Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels center fielder: “I played basketball and football throughout high school. I’d probably say that basketball was my best other sport. I was a small forward and an OK player. Read the rest of this entry »
There are so many great defenders in the majors right now. In the infield, there are elite shortstops, like Francisco Lindor and Dansby Swanson. In the outfield, there are the dudes who don’t let anything drop, such as Brenton Doyle and Harrison Bader. But none of these players are projected to lead baseball in Def, according to ZiPS. That title belongs to San Francisco Giants catcher Patrick Bailey.
Last year, Bailey led all players in Def with 26.8 runs. On the Statcast side of things, he was second in Fielding Run Value with +18, behind Doyle. He is unquestionably one of the most valuable defenders in the game, and much of that is due to his elite framing. He accumulated +16 framing runs and recorded a 52.9% strike rate – both the highest marks in baseball.
If you look at the Statcast framing leaderboard, you’ll notice one color for Bailey: red. He is above average in all nine parts of the shadow zone. That is simply unheard of. Typically, for catchers to be elite in one area, they tend to sacrifice another part of the zone. Take Adley Rutschman, for example. He is elite at the top of the zone but slightly below average at the bottom. Sean Murphy has the opposite tendency. He steals at the bottom while losing some at the top. Bailey is a departure from the norm. He can steal strikes in any part of the zone without sacrificing elsewhere.
That’s an impressive skill that made Bailey stand out last season. It’s also the exact kind of statistical quirk that warrants a video deep dive to uncover how he does it. Before jumping in, let’s discuss the two things we’ll be paying attention to here: Bailey’s pre-pitch stances and glove turns. To be this efficient around the strike zone, catchers not only have to have multiple stances, but they also have to know when to use them. By understanding their pitching staff and their movement profiles, they know when to deploy what stance and how to best use their hands.
The following clips will display how Bailey switches up his approach depending on the pitcher and/or location. Let’s start with Logan Webb – the sinkerballer and command artist:
Sinker
Where Bailey sets up behind the plate dictates his stance. He favors his inside knee down most of the time, but there is some variance depending on the pitcher and pitch. More so than when he is catching other pitchers, he has no problem setting up closer to the edges of the plate for Webb.
The key difference between the two sinkers is how he uses his glove turn in preparation for the pitch. On the arm side sinker, he uses more of a straight down quarter turn. Whereas with the glove side sinker, you’ll notice a more deliberate rounded turn. As a catcher, matching the plane of the pitch leads to the smoothest reception. If you don’t alter the rotation of your glove as you catch the ball, it appears as natural as possible to the umpire, resulting in a better chance at a strike call. Bailey has a perfect understanding of this, which can also be seen when he receives sliders:
Slider
On the arm side, it’s pretty standard. The glove side is where the quarter turn sticks out. Pushing a breaking ball back toward the middle of the plate can often look forced. But if a catcher is already tracing that movement before he receives the ball, it appears natural and can lead to stolen strike calls. Additionally, Bailey’s ability to switch which leg is down lets him be as loose as possible with his movements after the pitch is released. This allows him to smoothly shift his positioning to ensure that he catches the pitch closer to the center of his body, which makes it look more like a strike to the umpire.
While the one-knee catching stance has swept through the league, it’s still not common for catchers to switch from knee to knee as often as Bailey does. It puts him in a better position to handle pitches coming in from different angles. When a catcher has his inside knee up, that leg can sometimes make it difficult for him to reach across his body. Since Bailey almost always has his inside knee down for horizontal moving pitches, that’s not a concern. But there are some situations in which Bailey will alter this approach, such as when Webb throws his changeup:
Changeup
He switched from his typical stance, with his outside knee up, when catching the changeup with the lefty-hitting Jonah Heim at the plate. Bailey is most likely more comfortable putting his right knee up when Webb throws his changeup because that pitch doesn’t get much horizontal movement, and his glove turn probably feels more natural when he has space on his glove side. However, he is forced to switch his stance when there is a runner on first and second base is vacant because he can’t make throws with his left knee down. But that isn’t an issue for him, because he is comfortable flipping his stance.
Now, let’s see how Bailey handles Camilo Doval, whose arsenal — 100 mph rising cutters, 98 mph sinkers, 90 mph sliders — is completely different than Webb’s repertoire. Bailey knows that, so he takes a slightly different approach:
There are a few things to note here. First, Bailey gets in a lower stance with the slider coming and a runner on third, which puts him in a better position to block anything in the dirt. His low glove turn also prepares him to either flip his mitt over to get into a blocking stance or quickly shift it for a backhand pick. With high velocity sliders, a pick can often be more effective than a traditional chest block because there isn’t much time for a catcher to drop to his knees and get in front of the pitch. Meanwhile, Bailey hardly moves his glove in preparation for the cutter. Doval probably needs the high target for a visual marker, and an exaggerated glove turn isn’t needed for high pitches anyways.
Watching Bailey handle all types of high pitches is one of his best skills as a framer. No matter if it’s a heater or breaker, he knows when to attack pitches and when to be more patient. Doval’s cutter is one example of that, but the way he receives high sinkers and high sweepers perfectly displays that dichotomy:
Sinkers
Sweepers
Since Bailey sets up on the edges, it’s important his glove gets to the spot where the sinkers are going before they arrive, so long as that location is within the width of his shoulders. Anything outside of his frame will clearly look like a ball to an umpire, and the whole point of framing is to be inconspicuous. So when he’s expecting a backdoor sinker from Taylor Rogers (top left), he receives the pitch in the middle of his body while slightly pointing his shoulders toward the batter, Corbin Carroll. The pitch was out of the zone but appeared right on the edge because of how Bailey presented it. On the pitch from Alex Wood (top right), Bailey knows to keep his posture high and eyes over the squared bunt. That lets him beat the pitch from going too far out of the zone while giving the umpire a clear look at it. It was a great mid-pitch adjustment that led to another strike on a borderline pitch.
His approach to sweepers is much more patient. This is a pitch that will keep moving as long as the catcher lets it. If it starts out of the zone, letting it travel as much as possible gives it a better chance to scratch the edge of the plate. Even if the pitch passes the plate out of the zone – like against Randal Grichuk (bottom left) – the catcher can let it get deep enough so that it still looks like a strike when he catches it behind the plate. This is a good time to refocus on Bailey’s stances. It’s more difficult for a catcher to let these pitches travel with his leg or knee in the way. Keeping the inside knee down lets him adjust his upper body as needed while giving his arm the space it needs to move freely. The more space for smooth movement, the better prepared he is to let the pitch get deeper into the zone.
It’s hard to consistently do what Bailey does when it comes to switching stances. Not all players have the mobility on both sides of their body. On top of that, Bailey demonstrates an advanced understanding of pitch movement and matching planes with glove turns no matter who is one the mound. It’s the full pitch framing package. With a full season of work, I’m excited to see how much defensive value Bailey can bring. We could be in store for one of the best defensive seasons in recent memory.
After a pair of runner-up finishes in 2019 and ’21, Gerrit Cole finally won a Cy Young Award last year, but it doesn’t look like he’ll become the first American League pitcher to repeat since Pedro Martinez in 1999–2000. On Wednesday, the New York Post’s Jon Heyman reported that the 33-year-old righty will miss at least one to two months of the regular season due to an elbow issue, and is heading to Los Angeles for an in-person consultation with Dr. Neal ElAttrache, one of the industry’s top orthopedic surgeons — a move that has fueled speculation his injury could be even worse. At the very least, the loss of Cole exposes the Yankees’ lack of rotation depth and jeopardizes their chances of returning to the playoffs after missing out in 2023.
In one of the most nerve-wracking days in recent Yankees history, the team sent both Cole and Aaron Judge — two players making a combined $76 million in 2024 — for an MRI on Monday. The slugger had been experiencing discomfort in his abdominal area, which he believes stems from work he did over the offseason to correct his mechanics in the wake of his right big toe injury. He got a clean bill of health and expects to return to the lineup this weekend. As for the ace, his difficulties in recovering from his starts sent him to the MRI tube. Said manager Aaron Boone, “He described it as his recovery before getting to his next start has been more akin to what he feels during the season when he’s making 100 pitches… When he’s throwing 45 and 55, he usually doesn’t have the recovery issues he’s having.”
The exact nature of Cole’s diagnosis has yet to be reported, only that he’s experienced inflammation and “a twinge in his elbow.” It’s not uncommon for a team to get input from multiple doctors and have a player undergo additional tests, such as a dye contrast MRI to get a better look before determining a course of action; at the very least, Cole reportedly had x-rays and a CT scan on Tuesday. As this has played out, the high stakes and the Yankees’ opacity in handling the extended absences of Judge, Anthony Rizzo, Carlos Rodón, Luis Severino and other players in recent years has fed into a cottage industry that presumes cover-ups and worst-case scenarios. That Boone and general manager Brian Cashman have sometimes downplayed initial concerns ahead of prolonged outages in such cases has further fanned those flames. Read the rest of this entry »
Just like always, everyone in the room had offered an opinion. The December 2022 move the Royals were discussing was hardly a blockbuster – right-handed reliever Wyatt Mills to the Red Sox for relief prospect Jacob Wallace – but the process leading up to it was still time-tested and thorough. One by one, members of the Kansas City brain trust chimed in with their thoughts. Then, they turned toward Royals general manager J.J. Picollo.
Three months earlier, with the previous season winding down, the Royals had dismissed longtime GM Dayton Moore and elevated Picollo after years as Moore’s top deputy. Small as it was, the Mills-Wallace deal was to be the first of his administration. He’d been in that room for countless trade discussions and he’d listened as each department in baseball operations weighed in. Except now, the final say was his and his alone.
Every team heads into spring training with The Plan for their roster. February is a time to dream about what could be, as new offseason acquisitions mix with the holdovers in camp. Then the reality of March settles in, spring injuries start to mount and The Plan is suddenly compromised or needs to be thrown completely out the window. For the Mariners, The Plan for their bullpen included some combination of Andrés Muñoz, Matt Brash, and Gregory Santos locking down the final few innings of any game they were leading. Unfortunately, the latter two of those three relievers are now dealing with injury issues that will keep them from being ready come Opening Day.
Brash had been dealing with elbow inflammation this spring after making more appearances (78) than any other reliever in baseball last year. Thankfully, surgery isn’t on the table yet, but the M’s are taking an understandably cautious approach to a key member of their ‘pen. Santos ended last season on the injured list due to an elbow issue and showed up in Arizona this spring with a sore shoulder. He had just started to ramp up his throwing program when he strained his lat on Tuesday. It doesn’t appear to be a serious issue, but it’s another setback for a pitcher who appeared to be a key offseason acquisition. In addition to losing Brash and Santos to start the season, Seattle’s bullpen depth took a hit when Jackson Kowar was diagnosed with a UCL tear last week; he will undergo Tommy John surgery, sidelining him until 2025.
To provide some insurance for their sudden lack of high-leverage options, Seattle signed Ryne Stanek to a one-year, $4 million deal on Friday. A setup man for the Astros over the last three years, Stanek compiled a solid 2.90 ERA during that time, though his 3.91 FIP wasn’t as pretty thanks to a very high walk rate. Still, his 27% strikeout rate and elite stuff allow him to be effective despite all the traffic on the basepaths. Read the rest of this entry »
On Monday, I dove into Kevin Gausman’s fast and furious two-strike fastball approach. Last season, Gausman led the majors in terms of the velocity gap between his normal fastballs and his two-strike offerings, and he prospered with that approach. In 2022, however, he had the same juicy gain in velocity and was one of the worst pitchers in baseball with two strikes.
In that article, I mused that it was really difficult to know what pitchers were doing differently with two strikes. Short of using a stuff model, I said, trying to figure out relative pitch quality between two-strike fastballs and their early-count brethren wouldn’t work. Then I had an epiphany. We have a stuff model. We have two, in fact, one of which is entirely in-house. So like a kid asking for the keys to the candy store, I went to David Appelman and asked if I could get pitch-by-pitch stuff grades.
Now I have those! It turns out that running a giant data-focused baseball website comes with access to a tremendous amount of baseball data. I pulled every four-seam fastball thrown in 2023 and broke them into two categories for every player: two-strike counts and all other counts. Read the rest of this entry »
When Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin blurbed Ben Brown in last month’s Names To Know: 100 More Relevant Prospects feature, they noted his “monster mid-90s fastball/breaking ball combo.” Power is the defining characteristic of Brown’s arsenal. The 24-year-old righty ranks among the top pitching prospects in the Chicago Cubs organization, and following an impressive in spring training, he is expected to make his big league debut in the forthcoming campaign.
Brown began coming into his own in 2022 — the year he was acquired by the Cubs from the Philadelphia Phillies in exchange for David Robertson — and he made further strides last year. Across 92.2 innings between Double-A Tennessee and Triple-A Iowa, the 6-foot-6 righty logged a 12.6 strikeout rate while holding opposing hitters to a .215 batting average. His command faltered at times — a health-related speed bump was a contributing factor — but the power remained a constant.
Brown discussed his repertoire and approach at the Cubs’ spring training facility in Mesa, Arizona last week.
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David Laurila: You consider yourself a pitching nerd. How did that come about?
Ben Brown: “I’ve been one my entire life. I was coached really well growing up, but I also loved to watch YouTube videos of guys throwing. Roy Halladay. Josh Beckett. I was a big Red Sox fan, so I watched Beckett, Jon Lester, Daniel Bard, [Jonathan] Papelbon. I picked up a lot from that.
“I also spent some time at Driveline after I had Tommy John surgery [in 2019], and got introduced to that whole community in Seattle. I can be the hardest critic on myself, because I know what looks good, as well as the numbers you aspire for analytically. I feel like I’m pretty well versed on all that. And I’ve definitely had a lot of really good discussions with pitching coordinators and whatnot about analytics since getting traded over to the Cubs.”
With the start of the season a little over two weeks away, it’s time for one of my most beloved/hated/dreaded annual traditions: making my picks for breakouts and busts. For those of you who haven’t read one of these pieces in the past, these are my picks for the players who are the most likely to change the general consensus about them over the course of the 2024 season. And since we’re talking about generally low-probability outcomes — this isn’t a list of players with better or worse projections than last year — there’s no exercise with more potential to make me look super smart… or dumb. For every Jordan Montgomery or Dylan Cease who makes the breakouts list, there’s a Yusei Kikuchi or Sam Howard pick that I definitely wish I could forget I made!
As usual, let’s start with a quick table of the triumphs and humiliations of last year’s picks.
It wasn’t a great year for breakouts, as the only one I’d really call a true win was Tanner Scott, who was one of the elite relievers in baseball. While some of the pitchers that didn’t really break out had silver linings — Hunter Greene pitched better than his actual ERA and Brandon Pfaadt had a kick-ass postseason — I can’t say that our collective opinions of any of the other pitchers changed drastically in 2023. Except maybe Roansy Contreras, in the wrong direction. The busts went quite a bit better — for me, anyway — with arguably six of the eight considered disappointments for their teams in 2023. But it’s certainly less satisfying to have your pessimism be confirmed rather than your optimism.
The Breakouts
Edward Cabrera, Miami Marlins
The fact that Edward Cabrera walks a lot of batters is, of course, a Very Big Deal. But there’s so much talent bubbling underneath the surface that it’s hard to not feel that if something clicks, he could be one of the top 10 pitchers in the league. Despite his frequent command problems, Cabrera misses bats, and not just by blowing away batters with velocity. Sometimes, these inconsistent young pitchers with velocity have trouble getting strike three – Nathan Eovaldi was a classic example of this early in his career – or batters don’t actually chase them out of the strike zone. These aren’t Cabrera’s problems, and he isn’t getting hit hard, either. His biggest problem has been falling behind in the count; his first-strike percentages in the majors have been dismal, and that’s an important number in terms of predicting future walks. But at least both he and his team are quite aware of this. The fact that he’s missed a lot of time due to injuries could also explain his command issues. For all of this organization’s flaws in other areas, it has a strong record of developing pitchers with similar profiles to Cabrera. With more experience, he should be able to figure things out at the big league level.
Alas, Cabrera’s case is complicated by a shoulder impingement that was diagnosed recently following an MRI. It remains to be seen how much time he’ll miss, though it seems certain he’ll start the season the IL. I like him enough that I’m still keeping him on this list; hopefully, his prognosis won’t get worse upon further evaluation.
Griffin Canning, Los Angeles Angels
Aside from Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout, the 2023 Angels were rarely watchable. So you’ll be forgiven if you didn’t realize that Griffin Canning quietly had a successful return last season from a stress fracture in his back that had kept him out of action for nearly two years. Not only was he a competent mid-rotation starter, he actually added a tick to his fastball and had a career best strikeout rate. As the season went on, hitters chased him out of the strike zone more frequently than in previous years, which is necessary for a pitcher like Canning, who will never dazzle anyone with pure velocity.
Canning still has a tendency to leave a pitch hanging in the wrong place – especially with his curve – but in his second full season back, I’m hopeful he can make progress there. I think there’s a real shot he ends the season considered a solid no. 2 starter instead of an afterthought.
Graham Ashcraft and Hunter Greene, Cincinnati Reds
Screw it, I’m taking them again! Since I’m sort of cheating by having the same reasoning two years in a row, I’ll make them split a single breakout pick. Both still have two wipeout pitches, but each still has an issue holding him back. Greene had trouble at times last season when he left his four-seamer over the middle of the plate; despite his heater’s 98.3 mph average velocity, nine of the 19 home runs he allowed came on four-seamers in the heart zone. Meanwhile, Ashcraft struggled to strike batters out. Both pitchers have made significant tweaks to their repertoires. Ashcraft added a changeup, and Greene started throwing a curveball and a splitter in the offseason. They can’t both not break out again, right? If it doesn’t work out, I may take them for a third year simply out of stubbornness.
Nick Pivetta, Boston Red Sox
No name at the top of 2023 stuff leaderboard may be more surprising than Nick Pivetta’s, especially if, like most people, you didn’t pay a lot of attention to the Red Sox in the second half of last season. Pivetta lost his starting job in mid-May, went to the bullpen and added a sweeper. The new pitch turned his season around and he returned to the rotation for good in September, making five starts to close the season. In those final five outings, he recorded 38 strikeouts and just five walks across 30 innings. Most encouragingly, Pivetta pitched seven scoreless innings in each of his final two starts. He had the fourth-biggest jump in Stuff+ from the first half to the second half. And you can see it in the results.
ZiPS is less optimistic about Pivetta than I am. I’m going to call ZiPS wrong on this one, and hope I won’t have to eat those words in six months.
Hunter Brown, Houston Astros
With his six-pitch repertoire and top-prospect status, Hunter Brown was an exciting addition to the Astros rotation last year. At times, he looked worthy of the hype — he struck out more than 10 batters per nine innings — but overall he was a bit of a disappointment, as he posted a 5.09 ERA in 31 outings (29 starts). That said, there are signs that he was a bit unlucky: Opponents had a high BABIP against him, and he allowed home runs at a much higher rate (1.50 HR/9) than he had at any point as a professional. Additionally, considering he threw nearly 30 more innings (155.2) than in any previous season (126.1), he may have just been gassed at the end of the year. Through his first 23 games (22 starts), which spanned 125.1 innings, he had a 4.16 ERA and 3.92 FIP. Over his final eight games (seven starts), he posted an abysmal 8.90 ERA and 6.26 FIP, with more than a third of the home runs he gave up (nine of 26) coming during that final stretch.
MacKenzie Gore, Washington Nationals
Of the three true outcomes, home runs have always had a weird relationship with pitchers. Strikeout and walk rates tend to be stable numbers, so it’s typically meaningful whenever they fluctuate drastically, whereas home run rates are extremely volatile. So volatile, in fact, that xFIP, a stat that has one of the more bizarre central conceits — “Let’s just assume that every pitcher has the same ability to prevent homers.” — actually has predictive value relative to stats that take a pitcher’s home run rate as gospel. As a result, “Let’s look for a pitcher who is pretty good but allows too many damn homers,” has proven to be a sneaky good way to predict breakouts, such as Corbin Burnes and Dodgers-era Andrew Heaney. MacKenzie Gore misses bat and he’s made great strides in improving his command, so I’m betting that he’ll wrangle the round-trippers too.
Shintaro Fujinami, New York Mets
OK, it’s admittedly scary to put Mets in the breakout category, especially a Met who had an ERA above seven his first season in the majors. Shintaro Fujinami’s seven starts last year were an unmitigated disaster, but he pitched a good deal better from the bullpen. Now, his 5.14 ERA as a reliever isn’t exactly cause to hang the Mission Accomplished banner, but the .209/.319/.351 line he allowed in relief comes out to a fairly respectable runs created ERA of 3.70. Given that, his velocity, and his history in Japan, I’m willing to give him a mulligan for 2023. A good reclamation project for the Mets.
Kyle Nelson, Arizona Diamondbacks
Have you seen his slider? The double whammy of a very high home run rate (12 in 56 innings) and a high BABIP (.324) served to keep Kyle Nelson’s ERA relatively high in what could very well have been his breakout season. And even then, all it took was a brutal September to dive bomb his seasonal numbers. If Nelson finishes with an ERA above four in 2024 over at least 30 innings, I’ll eat a full order of Cincinnati chili, and as those that are familiar with my can attest, that’s not something I relish doing. No, I’m not promising something crazy like eating my hat or a 1995 Ford Taurus.
The Busts
Gerrit Cole, New York Yankees
Let’s get two things out of the way first: This has nothing to do with the sudden MRI for his elbow, and this doesn’t mean I think Gerrit Cole will be a lousy pitcher. But there are some warning signs in his 2023 profile, despite his winning the AL Cy Young, and I think all the projection systems have been picking up on it. A sudden drop in strikeout percentage is usually a blaring klaxon, and it was supported by a similar decline in his plate discipline stats; the contact rate against Cole was his highest since he played for the Pirates. And whereas he had a couple weirdly high home run seasons while pitching well, that metric was oddly low in 2023 and it was not matched with changes in exit velocity or fly ball/groundball tendencies. In other words, his low home run rate hid several indicators of a looming decline, and we can’t count on that coverup to continue. I still think Cole is a top 10 pitcher, but it’s hardly a guarantee that he’ll be a five-win pitcher again this season.
Blake Snell, Someone Eventually
Hey, if I’m going to pick one Cy Young winner, why not go for the pair? Blake Snell will keep striking out tons of guys, but he gives up a lot of free bases, and one of the key factors that kept his ERA so low was some fairly extreme splits with runners on vs. bases empty, and that isn’t a long-term characteristic. Also, his .256 BABIP allowed won’t be easily repeated. Sidestepping the WAR vs. RA9-WAR fights after about five months of them, Snell’s not likely to be the best pitcher in the league in 2024. And it doesn’t appear that teams are jumping at the opportunity to pay him as if that were the case, either; I doubt his agent, Scott Boras, would be publicly expressing Snell’s willingness to sign a short-term contract otherwise. Snell’s a very good pitcher, but he’s just not this good.
Bryan Woo, Seattle Mariners
I’m a fan of Bryan Woo, and he certainly had a terrific rookie season for a pitcher with almost no experience in the high minors. He advanced so quickly that I didn’t even have a preseason projection for him last year! But despite the success and little grumbling from any of the projection systems, I’m not quite sure he’s a finished product yet. One worry is how fastball reliant he was. Lefties absolutely torched Woo in the majors last year, and it’s easier to simply dismiss that when it’s not from a pitcher without a killer offering to fight against the platoon disadvantage. At least he’s certainly aware that he needs to develop his changeup more. If Bryce Miller’s splitter works out, maybe Woo should consider cribbing his notes.
Matt Manning, Detroit Tigers
I buy the Tarik Skubal dominance, but with Matt Manning, not so much. Low strikeout pitchers can survive in the majors, but the ones who do are generally the ones who keep the ball down and don’t get hit very hard. Manning doesn’t really do either at this point. The numbers ZiPS uses aren’t the same as Statcast’s xStats, but Manning’s 5.00 zFIP was nearly as bleak as the xERA that Statcast produced (5.48). I’d say “when in doubt, learn a splitter,” but that’s mostly because of my long-term stanning of Kevin Gausman. I’m generally optimistic about the Tigers this year, but I think Manning’s ceiling looks pretty low from here.
Emilio Pagán, Cincinnati Reds
I’ve already talked about Emilio Pagán this offseason, but it wouldn’t show a lot of guts if I didn’t put the pitcher I deemed “my least favorite signing of the offseason” on my busts lists, now would it? If anything Pagán is the exact reverse of the Burnes-Heaney rule I talked about in the breakouts. It’s true that last year, he set career worst marks in contact rate against, average exit velocity, and strikeout rate, but he also had the lowest home run rate of his career, allowing five homers instead of his normal baker’s dozen or so. And he’s going to play his home games in a bandbox (the Great American Ballpark) for the first time ever. Pagán had the fifth-lowest batting average against in the majors on barrels/solid contact hits last year, and compared to the four pitchers ahead of him (Alexis Díaz, Will Vest, Trevor May, and Devin Williams), Pagán allowed those types of contact at nearly twice the rate. As a whole big leaguers batted .614 on barrels and solid contact hits in 2023. Pagán is likable and generally popular with fans, and I’m certainly not rooting against him, but he has a history of being worse than Bill Murray at stopping gophers.
