John Means is the best pitcher on the Baltimore Orioles. In a different world, that might be exciting to Baltimore fans as the team builds a contender. An 11th round draft pick in 2014, Means climbed the minor league ladder, burst into the majors with a 3.60 ERA in 2019, and started throwing harder over the subsequent years. Can he be the best pitcher on a playoff team? I’m skeptical. But can he be the third-best? Definitely, and that’s a really cool outcome for someone who was never supposed to make it this far.

Of course, modern baseball being what it is, Means likely won’t be on the next playoff team in Baltimore. Instead, he’ll probably get traded for whatever the O’s can get, because he’s arbitration-eligible and only three years from free agency. You don’t build generational team wealth by passing up the opportunity to trade your good players for future considerations, at least not the way Baltimore is attempting to build for the future. The team is reportedly looking to trade Means, and I think they’ll find a match. So let’s talk about what the team that wins the Means bidding will be getting for their prospects and salary relief.

If you trade for Means, you’re not doing it for the strikeouts. You could look at his career numbers to tell you that, or you could look at his performance in his last 14 starts after returning from an IL stint. He struck out only 20% of the batters he faced, which isn’t cover-your-eyes bad but definitely shouldn’t top your rotation. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Batters

I feel a bit of disquietude when projecting the 2022 Giants. Following up on your biggest team projection miss in nearly 20 years of making said projections doesn’t feel great. Even worse is when your current projection is far closer to the previous year’s very wrong forecast than it is to the previous season’s actual win total. It’s a challenge to convince people that I didn’t write a model for sour grapes and reassure them that I’m an egalitarian who hates every team equally, no matter which one you root for!

In this case, I generally agree with ZiPS that the most significant regressions toward the mean will come on the offense. Let’s start with catcher. At least with the bat, Buster Posey matched some of his best seasons with his stunning 2021 campaign, this despite sitting out the entire 2020 season. With a 35-year-old catcher, it was already likely that some of those wins were going to melt off San Francisco’s total, but Posey’s retirement makes the position even more uncertain. Joey Bart is an outstanding prospect, but even just replacing Posey’s 2022 projection is going to be a tall order. ZiPS does like Bart’s bat a little better than Steamer does, but I don’t think he’s going to make fans forget their retired franchise player particularly quickly. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Seattle Mariners.

Batters

This is one case where just taking a glance at the depth chart graphic could lend the wrong impression. In the below graphic, two of the four most valuable ZiPS-projected hitters have their contributions split among multiple positions, with lesser players bringing down their overall numbers, and a third isn’t even on the depth chart. What’s more, the Mariners have reasonably good depth, especially offensively, and while the ceiling on most of the lineup isn’t exceptionally high, I do think they have a pretty high floor. I also don’t believe that Evan White has anywhere near enough remaining rope to get 300 plate appearances in 2022 if he matches his projection below. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Baltimore Orioles.

Batters

The history of the post-Earl Weaver Orioles has not been a happy one. Over his first stint with Baltimore, from 1968 to ’82, they were the winningest team in baseball, with 1,570 total wins, and averaged four wins per season more than the next-best team, the Reds, during that stretch. At no time during this era did the O’s finish below .500, and that even leaves out their last World Series championship in 1983. Weaver wasn’t just one of the best managers in baseball, but a very modern manager who used what analytics were available at the time.

But the failure of the O’s isn’t just a failure of managing. Weaver was great, but the team’s assembly line of young talent was a pivotal piece to the puzzle. While there are certainly some notable successes, the Orioles simply haven’t produced that much talent over the last 20–30 years. It certainly didn’t help that they placed a low priority on finding talent in Latin America for a long time, depriving them of a source that pretty much everyone else in baseball happily accessed. Read the rest of this entry »

You already basically know how these free agent pieces go. Team signs player! The player makes sense for the team, because, well, that’s why they signed him. If you look on the bright side, it could be a great fit. If you inject a little realism, there’s certainly a chance it doesn’t end up in smiles all around. Throw in some analysis and projections, and bam, you’ve got an article going.

As is probably clear from that introduction, I’m not doing that today. Baseball is a real bummer right now. I might spend the next week trying to understand the phrase “defensive lockout,” which makes about as much sense as the Rockies’ personnel decisions. There won’t be much news at all, and what news there is will feature headlines like “League accuses MLBPA of witchcraft.”

Forget all that. Before the curtains closed, the Red Sox signed Rich Hill to a one-year deal for $5 million plus incentives. Good God, does Rich Hill love the Red Sox. This is already his seventh time signing with them (2010, 2010 again, 2011, 2014, 2014 again, 2015, and now 2021). He’s from Milton, 10 miles (or 45 minutes in miserable traffic on the 93) from Fenway Park. He attended the 2004 championship parade with his dad, for crying out loud. Read the rest of this entry »

For all of the sound and fury coming from Steve Cohen last week upon being spurned by Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz, the Mets’ owner has put his money where his mouth is since then. After signing a trio of midmarket position players — outfielders Starling Marte and Mark Canha, plus infielder Eduardo Escobar — over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, New York landed a marquee hurler on Monday, agreeing to terms with Max Scherzer on a three-year, $130 million deal.

The contract will pay Scherzer $43.33 million annually for his age 37–39 seasons, marking this as quite a high-risk move. The deal, which includes an opt-out after 2023 as well as a full no-trade clause, is a record-setter, with an average annual value 20% higher than the $36 million per year won by the Yankees’ Gerrit Cole, the previous standard-bearer. And — in a bit that’s sure to be schadenfreude-licious for a certain segment of the Mets’ fan base — while Scherzer is pulling down that massive salary, he’ll also be receiving the first three of seven $15 million deferred payments from the Nationals during the span of his contract with the Mets.

The move comes as something of a surprise given that Scherzer refused to consider waiving his 10-and-5 rights for a potential deal to the Mets in July. On top of that, the Dodgers, to whom he was ultimately dealt, were presumed to have the inside track on retaining the 37-year-old righty given their status as contenders, their seemingly limitless resources, and a sense of unfinished business after coming up short in their quest to defend their 2020 title. But whether it was because Los Angeles wouldn’t go beyond two years or because Scherzer, who purchased a mansion in Jupiter, Florida in 2020, preferred a return to the East Coast, New York was able to close a deal ahead of the December 1 expiration of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement and the lockout that’s likely to follow.

In the final year of his seven-year, $210 million contract with the Nationals — perhaps the most fully realized free-agent mega-deal to date, featuring two Cy Young awards, two no-hitters, a championship, 39.7 WAR, and probably a curly W on the cap of his Hall of Fame plaque — Scherzer pitched like a man in search of more hardware. In his first nine starts after being dealt to the Dodgers, he posted astounding numbers (0.78 ERA, 1.36 FIP, 36.6% strikeout rate), and on September 12, during that run, he became the 19th pitcher in history to collect 3,000 career strikeouts, doing so while taking a perfect game into the eighth inning. Even after a couple of bumpy starts at the end of the regular season, he finished second in the NL in ERA (2.46), strikeouts (236), strikeout rate (34.1%) and K-BB% (28.8%), third in WAR (5.4), and fourth in FIP (2.96) in 179.1 innings. In the year’s Cy Young voting, he placed third behind Corbin Burnes and Zack Wheeler, receiving six first-place votes.

Even so, those bumpy starts turned out to be an ominous portent of things to come. Scherzer failed to complete five innings in two of his three postseason starts, including the NL Wild Card Game. After closing out the Giants in the ninth inning of Game 5 of the Division Series, he admitted that he was battling arm fatigue, and was able to make only one NLCS start; he could only watch as a similarly gassed Walker Buehler struggled on three days of rest in Game 6 against the Braves. Still, Scherzer’s problem was believed to be nothing more than arm fatigue — understandable given his 128.2-inning workload increase relative to 2020.
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For years, 2022 has loomed large in the Minnesota Twins’ long-term planning. Their two franchise cornerstones, Byron Buxton and José Berríos, were both due to hit free agency after the 2022 season, which meant the team constructed many of its long-term plans with that year as a pivot point. Even when they traded Berríos for prospects at the 2021 deadline, next year still looked like a potential last hurrah with the current core before turning the team over to new blood.

Forget that idea. On Sunday, the Twins and Buxton agreed to a seven-year, $100 million contract extension that will keep him in Minnesota through the 2028 season; it also includes a full no-trade clause. The gem of Minnesota’s last rebuild will now be the face of the franchise throughout the peak of his career.

2021 was a microcosm of Buxton’s career to date. He was electric when he played, batting .306/.358/.647 with 19 home runs in only 254 plate appearances. He clubbed 19 doubles, stole nine bases (against just a single time getting caught), and channeled his aggression on pitches in the zone without flailing wildly. In the field, he was as good as ever, which is pretty darn good. Buxton is perennially one of the best center fielders in baseball, and this year was no exception. Every defensive metric agreed he was one of the best per-game defenders in the majors. Combine that with his offense, and he was worth 4.2 WAR in only 61 games. Read the rest of this entry »

There are two narratives to consider with Steven Matz, who signed with the Cardinals last Wednesday. There’s the straight-up baseball story of a solid pitcher joining the rotation of a good team. Then there’s the seemingly never-ending soap opera that is the Mets, whom he spurned in the final moments of his free agency for St. Louis.

Let’s start with the baseball side of things. Matz immediately fills a rotation spot for a Cardinals team that will likely be in the thick of things in the NL Central in 2022. At four years and $11 million per, with the chance to earn an additional $4 million over the life of the contract via performance bonuses, he topped the length and total value, though not AAV, predicted by Ben Clemens in our top 50 free agents list, on which he ranked no. 31, and beat the crowd-sourced numbers in each category.

The lefty will slot somewhere in the middle of the St. Louis starter group, certainly following Adam Wainwright and Jack Flaherty, and if there’s anyone on the market who fits the definition of middle-rotation starter, it’s Matz. As 2020 gets further away in our collective rear-view mirrors, we’ve learned how much data from that season is an outlier, and an extreme one at times, as was the case with him; he was northing short of miserable in his nine appearances that season. And while he had his share of health issues in his earlier years, if you take his three most recent full seasons, he’s been the roughly the same player in terms of both consistent performance and availability.

He doesn’t have the kind of high-spin, bat-missing stuff that teams tend to look for in the modern game, but Matz keeps the ball on the ground at roughly a 50% rate and should benefit greatly from a Cardinals defense that represents a significant upgrade from what was behind him in Toronto. He leans primarily on his 93–96-mph sinker and throws a pair of breaking balls roughly a quarter of the time, preferring his curve over his slider, and for good reason, considering the quality of the pitch. Changeups are rare but shouldn’t be, as he’s added a few inches of drop on the pitch over the past few years, leading to an offering that performs quite well.

During those previously mentioned three full seasons, Matz averaged 30 starts and 155 innings per, so he’s been taking the bump every five days, but going deep into games is not something he brings to the table, as he got more than 18 outs just three times in 2021. He can throw a strike when he has to but needs to play around the edges in order to succeed with his arsenal, leading to deeper counts, more than 100 pitches per six innings, and the need for multiple relievers to finish the job.
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After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Batters

Like most teams that lose 110 games, the 2021 Diamondbacks were lousy. But they’re not completely hopeless. Indeed, when perusing the projections from top to bottom, the overall feeling you get isn’t one of a lineup full of disasters and voids but rather an overpowering rush of underwhelmedness, which I’m not sure is an actual word. There are some 20 organizational players listed here (some are now minor league free agents) with projected WARs between 0.5 and 1.5 wins. These are players who have value and can contribute to a winning team, but who aren’t going to win divisions on their own. Ketel Marte projects to stand clearly above the rest of the lineup in 2022, giving Arizona’s offense the look of a bowl of Lucky Charms that has had all the marshmallows picked out. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Chicago White Sox.

Batters

The White Sox offense projects similarly to how it did prior to the 2021 season, which is good news for the team considering how easily they made the playoffs. But that also means the fundamental problems in the offense remain, with an additional issue compared to last year. ZiPS may be underestimating Eloy Jiménez — it’s always hard to evaluate players coming back from injury — but we can’t pretend that there isn’t some risk involved there. The remaining outfield position and DH are thornier concerns, and ZiPS is more pessimistic here than Steamer is. This is not a popular opinion, but if the White Sox plan to use Andrew Vaughn like our depth charts indicate they will, I really hope they just let him crush Triple-A pitching for a few months rather than juggling him with Gavin Sheets and Adam Engel. The basic problem is that though Vaughn was deservedly a terrific prospect, and 2020’s lost season of course did him no favors, he still doesn’t have a professional season in line with what you would expect from a top first base prospect. Read the rest of this entry »