Teams generally pay little heed to the torrent of ZiPS projection posts every winter, rudely making changes to their rosters with no thought to the consequences of making my graphs and tables obsolete! This has been less of a problem than usual as this offseason has been a rather quiet one: 18 of the top 20 free agents on our offseason top 50 are still unsigned with just six weeks to go until the scheduled opening of spring training. The Padres have been the rare exception to this dreadful stasis. Rather than sitting quietly on their hands, hemming and hawing about the state of baseball’s finances, they’ve aggressively sought to make improvements that increase the payroll. In a holiday flurry of moves, they added Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, Ha-seong Kim, and Victor Caratini, setting up what could be the most anticipated divisional race in recent memory. It’s a nice change of pace from teams that have practically issued press releases informing fans of just how much worse the product will be in 2021.

That’s not to say that ZiPS didn’t like the Padres before their latest series of moves. In fact, my labyrinthine tangle of algorithms thought that the boys in brown combined to make up the second-best team in the National League. But there was also a clear space between them and the reigning World Series champs, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Now, I’m not so sure.

Let’s start by refreshing the team’s depth chart:

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If the Brewers had their druthers, Orlando Arcia wouldn’t have played much this year. After the 2019 season, they acquired Luis Urías from the Padres with the intention of making him their starting shortstop. Arcia, a former top prospect whose bat had stagnated, would be relegated to a backup and defensive replacement — or at least, that was the plan.

Things don’t always work out so cleanly, and 2020 had a way of ruining everything. Urías contracted COVID-19 in July and didn’t debut until August 10. The third base situation didn’t quite work out; Brock Holt and Eric Sogard struggled, and Jedd Gyorko played mainly first base — the addition of the universal DH meant that their brief Ryan Braun experiment at first never amounted to much.

In the end, Arcia racked up 189 plate appearances, nearly a full-time slate. That doesn’t sound great for Milwaukee — Arcia put up a 54 wRC+ in 2018 and a 61 in 2019, plumbing the depths of offensive futility. Those are bad numbers even for a glove-first shortstop, but hey, with a DH, you can just bat him at the bottom of the lineup and limit the leverage of those plate appearances, right? Read the rest of this entry »

Hours after trading for Blake Snell, and hours before swinging a deal for Yu Darvish, the Padres continued their remarkable post-Christmas shopping spree by signing Ha-seong Kim. Kim, a 25-year-old infielder who spent last season with the KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes, was listed as our eighth-best free agent in our top 50 roundup this fall, just ahead of Didi Gregorius and Justin Turner. Per Kevin Acee of the San Diego Tribune, it will be a four-year, $25 million deal. Additionally, Kiwoom will collect a bit of a tax, taking a $5 million release fee from San Diego.

In Kim, the Padres get a player who should claim a starting job right away, and potentially ascend from there. The best way to characterize his recent KBO production is to say that he’s outgrown the league. As the starting shortstop for one of the circuit’s better clubs, Kim has notched a 140 wRC+ in each of the last two seasons. He produced a .306/.397/.523 line last year, with 30 homers and more walks than strikeouts. He’s also swiped 56 bases in 62 tries over the last two years, a 90% clip. Mel Rojas Jr.’s absurd power production deservedly won him the KBO MVP award last season, but make no mistake: Kim was the brightest prospect in the league.

The scouting report backs up the numbers. A tremendous athlete, Kim’s a plus runner with quick hands and a plus throwing arm. At the plate, he has a mature approach, displaying good patience without being passive. Most of his power comes to the pull side, and he adeptly hunts pitches he can drive: Both his swing rate and whiff rate were above average last year, notable in a league that runs a lot of deep counts. Read the rest of this entry »

Late last night, the Padres and Rays consummated a blockbuster trade that is a microcosm of the two orgs’ approaches to contention. Tampa Bay sent electric lefty Blake Snell to the pitching-hungry Padres for a collection of four young players: Luis Patiño, Blake Hunt, Cole Wilcox, and Francisco Mejía. The move bolsters a San Diego rotation that was beset by injuries so late and so severe in 2020 that the club’s rotation depth and quality for next season was clearly still lacking despite their trade deadline efforts to improve it. The Padres have spent most of the last several years building one of the most impressive collections of minor league talent in the sport and, now that they’ve closed much of the gap between themselves and the Dodgers, have begun cashing in their prospect chips for elite big leaguers, while the Rays continue to bet on their ability to scout minor leaguers who can turn into long-term pieces for their club given its limited payroll. Below are my thoughts on the prospects headed back to the Rays in the trade; Ben Clemens will assess the Snell side of the deal later today.

The obvious headliner here is Patiño, who turned 21 in October. He’s coming off a rocky rookie year during which the Padres promoted him to work in a multi-inning relief role. In mostly two-ish-inning outings, Patiño threw 17.1 innings, struck out 21, walked 14, and amassed a 5.19 ERA. Despite the poor surface-level performance in a small sample, Patiño’s stuff was strong. His fastball sat 95-99 all year, his mid-80s slider was often plus, and his power changeup, which is often 87-91 mph, also has the look of a bat-missing pitch.

Despite his velocity, Patiño’s fastball wasn’t generating frequent swings and misses, perhaps because it sometimes has a little bit of natural cut, especially when Patiño is locating it to his glove side. Fastballs with cutting action tend to run into more bats than ones with a combination of tail and rise. The Rays altered Pete Fairbanks’ heater in such a way that they were able to correct this for 2020 and got an extra gear out of him. It’s possible they’ll do the same with Patiño. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2013 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Like Mark McGwire, his rival in the great 1998 home run chase, Sammy Sosa was hailed at the height of his popularity as a hero, a Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, and a great international ambassador for baseball. In the same year that McGwire set a new single-season record with 70 home runs, Sosa hit 66 and took home the National League MVP award. Three times in a four-year stretch from 1998 to 2001, he surpassed Roger Maris‘ previously unbreakable mark of 61 homers, and he hit more homers over a five- or 10-year stretch than any player in history. In 2007, he became just the fifth player to reach the 600-home-run milestone after Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Barry Bonds.

As with McGwire, the meaning of Sosa’s home runs changed once baseball began to crack down on performance-enhancing drugs, with suspicions mounting about his achievements. He was called to testify before Congress in 2005, along with McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, and several other players. Sosa denied using PEDs, but while he never tested positive once Major League Baseball began instituting penalties for usage, The New York Times reported in 2009 that he was one of more than 100 players who had done so during the supposedly anonymous survey tests six years prior. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Earlier in this series, I profiled 2021 Hall of Fame candidates Tim Hudson and Barry Zito, who together made up two-thirds of the “Big Three” starters who helped the Moneyball-era A’s make four straight postseason appearances from 2000-03 despite their shoestring budgets. Inevitably, the economic realities of playing in Oakland forced general manager Billy Beane to trade away Hudson and Mark Mulder, the third member of the Big Three, as they grew more expensive, and to let Zito depart via free agency.

In doing so, Beane was able to replenish his roster, keeping the A’s competitive for a few more years before heading into rebuilding, and then repeating the cycle. The two players in this installment of my One-and-Done series were part of that endless process. Dan Haren was one of three players acquired from the Cardinals in exchange for Mulder in December 2004, and a key starter on the AL West-winning A’s in ’06. Nick Swisher, the team’s 2002 top first-round pick — compensation for losing center fielder Johnny Damon to free agency — was the starting left fielder on that ’06 squad. Both players were subsequently traded away in the winter of 2007-08, with two players acquired from the Diamondbacks in exchange for Haren, namely lefty Brett Anderson and first baseman Chris Carter, contributing to their 2012 AL West champions, and one player acquired from the White Sox for Swisher, namely lefty Gio González, traded again to net catcher Derek Norris and left-hander Tommy Milone, contributors to the team’s 2012-14 run. And the cycle continued… Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2013 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

If Roger Clemens has a reasonable claim as the greatest pitcher of all time, then the same goes for Barry Bonds as the greatest position player. Babe Ruth played in a time before integration, and Ted Williams bridged the pre- and post-integration eras, but while both were dominant at the plate, neither was much to write home about on the base paths or in the field. Bonds’ godfather, Willie Mays, was a big plus in both of those areas, but he didn’t dominate opposing pitchers to the same extent. Bonds used his blend of speed, power, and surgical precision in the strike zone to outdo them all. He set the single-season home run record with 73 in 2001 and the all-time home run record with 762, reached base more often than any player this side of Pete Rose, and won a record seven MVP awards along the way.

Despite his claim to greatness, Bonds may have inspired more fear and loathing than any ballplayer in modern history. Fear because opposing pitchers and managers simply refused to engage him at his peak, intentionally walking him a record 688 times — once with the bases loaded — and giving him a free pass a total of 2,558 times, also a record. Loathing because even as a young player, he rubbed teammates and media the wrong way (occasionally, even his manager) and approached the game with a chip on his shoulder because of the way his father, three-time All-Star Bobby Bonds, had been driven from the game due to alcoholism. The younger Bonds had his own issues off the field, as allegations of physical and verbal abuse of his domestic partners surfaced during his career.

As he aged, media and fans turned against Bonds once evidence — most of it illegally leaked to the press by anonymous sources — mounted that he had used performance-enhancing drugs during the latter part of his career. With his name in the headlines more regarding his legal situation than his on-field exploits, his pursuit and eclipse of Hank Aaron’s 33-year-old home run record turned into a joyless drag, and he disappeared from the majors soon after breaking the record in 2007 despite ranking among the game’s most dangerous hitters even at age 43. Not until 2014 did he even debut as a spring training guest instructor for the Giants. The reversal of his felony obstruction of justice conviction in April 2015 freed him of legal hassles, and he spent the ’16 season as the Marlins’ hitting coach, though he was dismissed at season’s end.

Bonds is hardly alone among Hall of Fame candidates with links to PEDs. As with Clemens, the support he has received during his first eight election cycles has been far short of unanimous, but significantly stronger than the showings of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Rafael Palmeiro, either in their ballot debuts or since. Debuting at 36.2% in 2013, Bonds spun his wheels for two years before climbing to 44.3% in ’16 and 53.8% in ’17 thanks to a confluence of factors. In the wake of both Bonds and Clemens crossing the historically significant 50% threshold, the Hall — which in 2014 unilaterally truncated candidacies from 15 years to 10 so as to curtail debate over the PED-linked ones — made its strongest statement yet in the form of a plea to voters from vice chairman Joe Morgan not to honor players connected to steroids. The letter was not well received by voters, but in the three cycles since, Bonds has gained just 6.9 percentage points. As with Clemens, the resistance may be too entrenched for him to reach 75% before his eligibility runs out with the 2022 ballot.

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There’s the FanGraphs Arcade T-shirt, to commemorate Sean Dolinar’s actual home made NES game.

Additionally, we still some of the standard FanGraphs T-shirts, in a new dark grey color, and the FanGraphs hoodie available for purchase.

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for nine years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the San Francisco Giants.

Batters

There have been many unpleasant stories in baseball over the last year, but Mike Yastrzemski’s tale is one of the exceptions. Never really considered a prospect — not even close enough to the fringe for a legendary last name to get him undeserved chances — Yastrzemski had to sweat out his opportunities the old-fashioned way, slowly improving his game in the minors. Hard work can always use a bit of good fortune, and Little Yaz got it when the Orioles traded him to the Giants, a team that has generally needed two or three starting outfielders. The best defensive corner outfielder in the minors in 2017-2018 according to the Gameday-based coordinate system ZiPS uses for minor league defense, he hit enough to earn a starting job in 2019. 2020 saw Yastrzemski get MVP votes, and if there had been an All-Star Game, he likely would have added that accolade as well. There’s a real disagreement between ZiPS and Steamer over just how good he is — ZiPS projects him for a 120 OPS+ while Steamer foresees a more modest 101 wRC+ — but he’s a real major leaguer and one of the few current starters who seems likely to be on the team in a few years.

But what will the Giants look like in a few years? The crystal ball is rather foggy on this point. While San Francisco has been surprisingly competitive the last two seasons, flirting with playoff contention both times, it hasn’t actually been a good team. Ownership not blowing up the entire organization has given the franchise breathing room to improve from the 2017 nadir, but it’s still hard to see a lot of short-term upside. There are more adequate starters in the lineup than a couple of years ago, but the offense remains very, very old. Brandon Belt, Buster Posey, and Brandon Crawford all project to still have their moments, but they’re the past, not the future. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, as part of the negotiations over a new Professional Baseball Agreement (PBA) with Minor League Baseball, Major League Baseball introduced a proposal that would dramatically reimagine the minor leagues. The proposal included plans to shift the timing of the amateur draft and realign some parent-club affiliations, league geographies, and club levels. Most importantly, it proposed stripping more than 40 clubs of their affiliated status, though it also suggested that some of the newly unaffiliated teams would assume other formats, either as so-called professional partner leagues, or as amateur summer wood bat leagues. The plan got us thinking about how access to in-person baseball across the United States would change. We were interested in how many people would lose their ability to watch affiliated baseball in person, or would see that access shift from the relatively affordable confines of the minor leagues to more expensive major league parks.

Those studies relied on a New York Times list of teams reportedly slated for contraction, as well as Baseball America’s excellent reporting. Thirteen months, a pandemic, and one extremely contentious negotiation later, MLB has informed minor league teams of their proposed fates, with 120 franchises “invited” to be part of the new, MLB-developed minor league system. Many are still reviewing the terms of their “invitations”; several find themselves occupying a new rung on the minor league ladder, or with a different parent club than before.

Meanwhile, 25 clubs find themselves ticketed either for summer wood bat leagues, including the newly formed MLB Draft League, or for pro partner leagues for undrafted players and released minor leaguers. Eighteen teams face futures that are, as of this writing, uncertain, though as Baseball America’s JJ Cooper notes, “Major League Baseball has indicated that it will pay entry fees for these teams that were left out of affiliated baseball to join new leagues. MLB will pay their way in, but as a condition those teams are expected to waive a right to sue.” The complete list of the 43 franchises slated to lose their affiliated status can be found below. Of the 43, 11 are full-season clubs:

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