There’s a report out today about Manny Machado:

Manny Machado remains unsigned, but the Chicago White Sox have made at least one pitch to the superstar shortstop.

Multiple sources told ESPN’s Buster Olney that the White Sox have a seven-year, $175 million offer on the table for Machado.

I do think there’s something important to understand here. Machado hasn’t yet signed anywhere. The idea that he would sign for $175 million seems almost preposterous, but then again, he hasn’t signed for $175 million. If the reported terms are true, they do seem too small, but that’s how a negotiation is conducted. The player side asks for X, which is ultimately too high. The team side proposes Y, which is ultimately too low. If an agreement is reached, it’s for Z. We’re going to learn the most information when Machado actually has a new employer. Then, and only then, will we have a fuller understanding of what his market looked like. Said understanding still won’t be complete.

So Machado is still out there, available. Bryce Harper is also still out there, also available. Machado’s age is 26 and six months. Harper’s age is 26 and three months. There was thought that, through free agency, they might be able to reach some record contracts. Those contracts might still be out there in front of them. Increasingly, however, it feels like they might not be. Which is why this little post is going up.

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There was a minor trade on Tuesday night as the Angels acquired recently DFA’d righty John Curtiss from Minnesota for 18-year-old Dominican infielder Daniel Ozoria.

The Curtiss addition is the latest of many examples of relief pitcher diffusion happening on the fringe of the Angels 40-man roster. Since November, the Angels have been part of eleven transactions involving relief pitchers, either via trade, waiver claim, or DFA. The likes of Austin Brice, Parker Bridwell, Luke Farrell, and Dillon Peters have been on and off the roster, sometimes more than once (Bridwell, who was DFA’d for Curtiss, has now been DFA’d three times since this offseason), as the Angels try to patch holes in their bullpen for free.

Curtiss, who is 25, has thrown an unsatisfying handful of innings during each of the last two seasons, totaling 15 big league frames. He throws hard, 92-96 with the occasional 7 or 8, and can really spin a power, mid-80s slider (he averaged 2600 rpm in 2018). His command backpedaled last season and is the biggest thing standing between Curtiss and a steady middle relief gig. Perhaps the change of scenery will be good for him.

Ozoria spent his second professional season as a 17-year-old in the AZL, and at times he looked like he could have used a second pass at the DSL. Listed at 5-foot-9, 135 pounds, Ozoria struggled with the pace and comparably mature athletes of Arizona. He does have interesting tools, though, and played hard throughout a tough summer on a team that was really struggling. He’s an above-average runner and athlete. Though not a polished, instinctive defender, he has good range and hands, and enough arm for the left side of the infield.

Because Ozoria so lacks present strength, he needs to take max-effort, full-body hacks just to swing the bat hard, and sometimes things can get out of control. His swing also has some length, but I’m not sure it matters as much for hitters this size, because their levers aren’t. Much of Ozoria’s offensive potential just depends on how much growing he has left to do. He’s small enough that I believe that were he a high school prospect, scouts would rather he go to college to get a better idea of how his body might mature than sign him now. The realistic upside is probably a utility infielder, and even that depends on significant growth that may not materialize, but Ozoria is so uncommonly young for a pro prospect that it’s fair to like the things he can already do and project heavily on the stuff he can’t. He will likely spend all of 2019 in Fort Myers and is probably four or five years away from the big leagues.

A number of years ago, when I had reason to watch the Tigers, I got to see a bit of a young Avisail Garcia. From a young age, Garcia was referred to as “Mini Miggy,” that being a reference to regular Miggy, Miguel Cabrera. Garcia is from the same country as Cabrera, and he played for the same team as Cabrera, and he had a build and swing somewhat reminiscent of Cabrera. You probably know how it’s worked out to this point. Garcia was Mini Miggy in the same way so many small Dominican righties have been Mini Pedros. Cabrera will eventually end up in the Hall of Fame. Garcia was non-tendered by a bad baseball team at the age of 27.

But today is January 15, and these are trying days to be a baseball writer. The start of the season still feels ages away, and there’s only so much one can write about Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. And so, here we are. Garcia is finalizing a contract with the Rays, a one-year contract worth at least $3.5 million and at most $6 million. Garcia doesn’t seem ticketed for a starting role — he’ll probably bounce around, getting opportunities to hit against lefties. The better he does, the more he’ll play, but he’s joining a team with too many talented players for there to be a long leash. Just because Garcia will start the season in Tampa Bay doesn’t mean that’s where he’ll end it.

The Rays have wanted a right-handed hitter. I assume they wanted a better right-handed hitter. But this is the right-handed hitter I’ve been given a reason to write about right now. So if you’ll join me, I have three things I’d like to share with you. Three fun facts, if you will, three ways in which Garcia is unusual.

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Late last week, free-agent infielder DJ LeMahieu signed for two years and $24 million. LeMahieu is going into his age-30 season, and not that long ago, I wrote about his offensive upside. Given where we are in the information era — and the player-development era — I find LeMahieu intriguing, and so I’m a fan of the terms. I think he can be a lot more valuable than this, although to his agent’s credit, he’s also a member of baseball’s veteran middle class, so it’s good to lock down a multi-year contract at all.

The one thing that’s somewhat surprising is that LeMahieu didn’t sign with, say, the Brewers. He signed with the Yankees. The Yankees already had a player at LeMahieu’s primary position, just as the Mets already had a player (two of them, in fact) at Jed Lowrie‘s primary position. So, just like with Lowrie, LeMahieu is expected to move around the diamond. It makes it all the more difficult to fit Manny Machado with the Yankees. It also makes you wonder at least a little bit about Miguel Andujar’s future as the Yankees’ third baseman. In LeMahieu, the Yankees signed a talented player, but it raises new questions. It also re-raises old ones.

For the next few minutes, though, let’s forget all of that. Let’s forget about how the Yankees’ infield all works together. Let’s forget about Machado, and Andujar, and Troy Tulowitzki. Let’s just talk about DJ LeMahieu’s hitting. Does he remind you of anyone?

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I’ll grant that trying to answer this is unavoidably subjective. The Nationals just signed Brian Dozier, and a bone bruise might’ve clipped four wins from his WAR. The Braves are crossing their fingers for a healthy season from Josh Donaldson. Corey Seager is returning to the Dodgers after missing almost the whole year. The Cubs are looking for Yu Darvish to rebound. The Angels are looking for Zack Cozart to rebound. Dustin Pedroia should be coming back. Michael Pineda should be coming back. Buster Posey should be coming back. And so on and so forth. Baseball players get hurt. They try to put those injuries behind them. They try to get back to being what they were.

But as I think about this — certain recoveries are more predictable than others. Certain recovering players have bigger error bars than others. In a sense, the purpose behind this post is simply to remind you of the existence of Jimmy Nelson. But I think he really is the biggest injury wild card for the season ahead. The Brewers will play in a division with at least three and possibly five competitive teams. As of this moment, the Brewers are projected to have a below-average starting rotation. Jimmy Nelson might be a zero, as he was in 2018. Or he might be an ace, as he was in 2017. I don’t know which it’s going to be. The Brewers don’t, either.

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Free agent Yasmani Grandal reached a one-year agreement with the Brewers, worth $18.25 million. Grandal’s contract — while surprising — is not proof that baseball is broken. Not in an offseason where Lance Lynn got $30 million. Not in an offseason where Zach Britton got $39 million. Not in an offseason where Andrew McCutchen got $50 million. Nathan Eovaldi got $68 million. Patrick Corbin got $140 million. And even in Grandal’s specific case, it’s been reported he turned down an offer of $60 million or so from the Mets. Now, there’s reason to believe that didn’t happen exactly as so. It feels more than a little far-fetched. But the conversations, at least, were productive, before the Mets opted for Wilson Ramos instead. Grandal had a chance to do better than this.

But still, Yasmani Grandal signed a one-year contract barely worth more than the qualifying offer he declined. He signed a one-year contract with a competitive team, but a competitive team that happens to play in baseball’s smallest market. This could ultimately work out just fine — with a big season ahead, Grandal would re-enter free agency, and maybe next winter he’d find a larger guarantee. There’s nothing wrong with bringing home $18.25 million in the meantime. It’s just surprising there wasn’t greater demand. The Brewers lucked out; a good player just fell into their lap. It probably shouldn’t have happened.

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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 more than half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Batters

This is a bit awkward, as the most interesting Blue Jays batters essentially sit in the Bench and Prospects section. Probably the starkest difference between ZiPS and Steamer comes in the form of Lourdes Gurriel, Jr., who has such an unhappy projection from ZiPS that I went back and ran it a second time to make sure I hadn’t goofed anything. From his minor league hit data, ZiPS doesn’t think Gurriel will be able to maintain his minor-league BABIP. And the poor defensive projection isn’t just ZiPS overreacting to Gurriel’s fairly poor BIS and UZR defensive numbers; as rudimentary as even play-by-play minor league defensive measures are, Gurriel’s estimates come in below-average there as well.

The larger problem with the Blue Jay offense is that ZiPS essentially sees little upside remaining among the established players. Tulowitzki and Donaldson were both gone, and while they weren’t stars in 2018 by any stretch of the imagination (and Tulo didn’t even get in a game), they at least represented the possibility of star-level performance going into 2018. Smoak’s 2017 was probably his high-water mark and he’s now a designated hitter on the wrong side of 30, while Devon Travis is another year further away from when he looked like he could be a borderline star. Toronto was 10th in the AL in runs scored in 2018, but outside of the admittedly super-exciting addition of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., I just don’t see much of a hope for this unit doing much more than last year. Read the rest of this entry »

Some of you might not realize that, if you hover over the search bar up there, you’ll see which player pages have recently been the most popular. Let’s give it a spin, shall we?

Willians Astudillo. Between Astudillo and Vlad, I don’t know which has been more popular, but I strongly suspect it’s the former, and it’s definitely the former among major-league players. People have been losing their minds over Astudillo of late. Now, I did write about him last week. Playing winter ball down in Venezuela, Astudillo has performed like a deserving MVP candidate. But also, there’s a clip that’s been making the rounds. Willians Astudillo hit a home run.

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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.

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The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2019 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.

Yet another installment of our quick look at the 14 players on this year’s Hall of Fame ballot who are certain to fall below the 5% threshold — with most of them being shut out entirely — but are worth remembering just the same.

Kevin Youkilis

At the major league level, Youkilis’ reputation — “Euclis: the Greek god of walks,” as nicknamed by Michael Lewis in the 2003 bestseller, Moneyball — preceded his arrival by over a year. First a source of friction between the A’s analytically-minded front office and their scouts ahead of the 2001 draft, and later a player they coveted as a potential acquisition, Youkilis was Billy Beane’s white whale, forever eluding Oakland’s general manager. Though he lasted just 10 years in the majors, he hit .281/.382/.478 (123 OPS+) while making three All-Star teams, and winning a Gold Glove and two championship rings, one as the Red Sox’s starting first baseman.

Born in Cincinnati on March 15, 1979, Youkilis did not have any actual Greek ancestry. Via Sports Illustrated’s Mark Bechtel in 2007:

Youk’s family history reads like a Michael Chabon novel: Back in the 19th century in Romania, males were conscripted at the age of 16. The Cossacks in the region weren’t known for their tolerance, so many Jews tried to avoid enlisting in the army. Youk’s great-great-great-grandfather—no one is sure what his first name was, but the family name was Weiner (it’s actually pronounced WINE-er)—moved to Greece, where the family had friends. After a year or two he got homesick and returned to Romania, but he assumed a Greek name so he could avoid the army and jail. And with that, the Youkilis family was born.

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