Miguel Vargas couldn’t swing. I don’t mean that in the insulting way that little leaguers sometimes do — “hey batter, you’ve got nothing, you can’t even swing.” I mean that he was medically prohibited from swinging. That didn’t stop the Dodgers from playing him this spring, as Davy Andrews detailed for this very site last month. It did mean, however, that he had to watch every pitch thrown to him, ball or strike, and simply take it. Not exactly the way he expected to enter his first spring training with a big league job nailed down, I’m sure.

The pinky finger fracture that kept Vargas from swinging has healed, but you might not know it from his batting line so far this year, because it seems he took that lesson to heart. Five games into his 2022 season, he’s come to the plate 18 times. In nine of those plate appearances, he’s walked. That 50% walk rate is amazing on its own, and I’ll come back to that, but the way he’s gotten to it is downright stunning.

The key to walking a lot is not swinging at bad pitches, and Vargas is doing that to a fault. Per Statcast, he’s swung at four of the 50 pitches he’s seen outside the strike zone in 2023. That’s the best rate in the majors, which is impressive on its own; 205 batters have seen at least 25 pitches outside the strike zone already this season, and every single one of them has swung at them more frequently than Vargas. We’re talking all the various plate discipline geniuses already enshrined in the pantheon of good eye; they’re all looking up at Vargas’ extreme selectivity. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, we we wrap up my yearly breakouts/bust series with the pitchers I’m pessimistic about in 2023 to some degree. Since any breakouts or busts beyond what a projection system suggests are naturally going to be low-probability outcomes, there’s a high probability of me looking pretty silly — something writers try to avoid. Let’s start by looking back at how smart I was last year… or how foolish.

All in all, this doesn’t look too bad. Karinchak was about at his typical levels, but the rest of the list didn’t generally provide much excitement. Syndergaard was the most valuable of the group, but hardly as the God of Thunder, and a league-average season was certainly a disappointment compared to what we remembered of him. Flaherty may have the been saddest bust on the list, as he was more or less a mess.

From the comments in the hitter articles, there’s still some lingering confusion on what I mean by a breakout or bust. When I pick a player to break out or bust, I’m basing this relative to the general expectations as I perceive them, not relative to the previous season’s performance. For example, Joey Gallo is a bust not because I think he’ll be worse than last season, but because I think he’ll be worse than those baked-in expectations; there has been a lot of speculation that the shift will save him, and I don’t think that’s true. You see this on the financial markets quite a bit, when the market reacts negatively to good news that’s not as good as what was already priced into the valuations, and vice-versa. Also remember that this isn’t necessarily me versus ZiPS; sometimes ZiPS agrees with me, and sometimes it angrily disagrees, or at least it would if I didn’t have the power to delete it from existence.

Without further ado, let’s get to the picks, and may the baseball fates have mercy on my soul. As this piece was completed over the first few days of the season, all eight players were finalized before the season started. A few of these players did have awful 2023 debuts, but that’s just “luck” on my part.

Sandy Alcantara, Miami Marlins

Alcantara is still likely to be one of the better pitchers in the league, and ZiPS certainly likes him, placing him among the leaders in WAR. But ZiPS is explicitly not trying to take into account rule changes, and I think Alcantara is one of the pitchers with the most significant chances to be affected by them. That’s a common theme among several of my bust picks this year, simply because this year, it’s something that causes additional uncertainty.

In this case, Alcantara, by far, had more groundballs hit into shifts than any pitcher in baseball in 2022, with 166; only seven other pitchers were above 100. I still think he’ll be a really good pitcher, but I expect his platoon splits will rise farther than ZiPS does, and before remaining confident he’s in ultra-elite territory, I want to make sure that the changeups that lefties facing Alcantara drive into the ground aren’t sneaking through at high rates.

Robbie Ray, Seattle Mariners

I’m a bit worried about Ray’s strikeout rate. While the dip from 2021 to ’22 wasn’t a big one, his peripherals in this department took a giant splat last year, with his swinging-strike rate falling off by 30%. His contact rate was his worst as an established major leaguer, and his called-strike performance also dropped considerably. ZiPS thought his peripherals, which are a leading indicator of strikeout performance, suggested a whopping 37 fewer strikeouts than were actually reflected in the record. And this isn’t a case of ZiPS having a pattern of underrating Ray’s strikeouts; zSO predicted 1,149 strikeouts for him in 2016–21 versus his 1,152 actual strikeouts. The dropoff in first-strike percentage also tends to mean an increase in walks, though Ray should at least be better than his first start this year!

At least, that is, when he returns from his current flexor strain. If that turns out to be more serious than it looks right now, we’ll have to call this an incomplete; it would be manifestly unfair for me to claim victory in a small sample size.

Corey Kluber, Boston Red Sox

ZiPS already isn’t too bullish on Kluber, so I’m in agreement with the computer in this case. I think what we have here is a perfect storm of risky indicators. He was solid in 2022 but also in a beneficial environment, with the Rays’ defense and the Trop being a good fit for him. He was never a flamethrower, but his limited velocity is getting even worse; he’s lost two mph from 2021, placing him at risk of “going Jered Weaver.” What’s more is that in a year in which there are additional incentives for putting balls in play — already less than ideal for Kluber — Fenway is the best non-Coors park for BABIP, and the Red Sox don’t have a particularly good defense. I think Kluber can still have success as the saavy, groundball veteran in a Chelcie Ross/Eddie Harris sense, but it’s more likely when he has the right support behind him.

Johnny Cueto, Miami Marlins

While Cueto has never been a pitcher who has relied on high strikeout rates, dipping under six last year was quite worrisome, both in its absolute number and the dropoff from the year before with the Giants. A large part of his success was one of his best seasons for home run rate allowed — especially impressive in Guaranteed Rate Field — but ZiPS thought that even his good exit velocity numbers last year should have yielded an additional seven homers. The fact that Cueto is the second Marlin on this list reflects one of the reasons I’m uneasy about the Pablo López trade: I think the Marlins would have been a lot better off had they tried to meet their offensive needs with money instead of lopping off some of their pitcher surplus. If Cueto struggles (and in his first start on Monday, he did, and also had to leave the game with a trainer), that pitcher surplus becomes more and more iffy.

Craig Kimbrel, Philadelphia Phillies

Kimbrel’s occasional implosions are a lot easier to stomach if he’s striking out 15 batters a game. He wasn’t in 2022, with easily the worst strikeout rate of his career, and that’s with the Dodgers, who seem to have a shocking ability to wring good performance out of practically anyone. Once one of the hardest pitchers in baseball to make contact again, he’s gradually degraded towards league average in this number, which isn’t exactly a formula in which he’ll find success given his penchant for occasionally getting hit very hard. While I wouldn’t overreact to his first appearance with the Phillies, I think he’s a very ordinary reliever who is getting by more on reputation than performance.

Mike Clevinger, Chicago White Sox

Clevinger got two starts in the playoffs last year, but his stint with the Padres has to go down as a major disappointment, one somewhat camouflaged by the decline in offense and being in a pitchers’ park. Losing a couple miles on his fastball may not have been fatal in itself, but it was hit quite hard last year, and none of his pitches were able to put away batters effectively on two strikes. I think he’s more of a reclamation project than a bounceback solution, and I don’t think an allegedly competitive team in a home run friendly park is necessarily the best place for that to happen.

Chris Bassitt, Toronto Blue Jays

ZiPS isn’t worried about Bassitt, at least in the short term (it has him dropping off fairly quickly in future seasons). But what ZiPS doesn’t know is that his velocity took a big dip in the spring. Last year, he was regularly in the 93–94 mph range with the occasional pitch at 95 or 96; in Florida, it was 90–92. It’s not unusual for a pitcher to dial it back a bit before the season starts, but he wasn’t just applying the brakes more often; all his fastballs were off. Bassitt’s fastest pitch this spring was 93.5 mph, below his average in more than half of his starts last year. If he were averaging 90–92 but still hitting 95–96, I’d be less worried, but I’m skeptical that he simply chose to go through a whole month without ever throwing his fastest fastball. Velocity drops tend to be red flags, so I think there’s additional risk here.

Kyle Freeland, Colorado Rockies

ZiPS thought that Freeland should have allowed 12 more homers in 2022 than he actually did, a pretty hefty number. To put this into context, zHR has been part of ZiPS since 2015, and over that period, only Madison Bumgarner in 2018 has “underperformed” by at least 10 homers (10.7). This isn’t a case in which Freeland has a history of beating his peripherals here either; zHR has never missed on him by more than two homers over a season. Add in the decline in his velocity, more flyballs than ever, and a park that’s still somewhat of a pinball machine post-humidor, and I think Freeland is a very risky pitcher.

Coming into 2023, the biggest question concerning major league baseball was how the past offseason’s rule changes would impact style of play. For example, would bigger bases and restrictions on pickoff plays tilt the balance of the game in favor of basestealers? If so, by how much? And would offenses, coming off a period of historic league-wide reluctance to run, take advantage?

Enter the Orioles, who in the first weekend of the season came over all Pink Floyd and ran like hell. Baltimore stole 10 bases in the first two games of the season, and though the team settled down on Sunday and did not attempt a stolen base in the series finale, its runners had already done impressive damage: This was the first time in 10 years that any team had stolen 10 bases over two consecutive nine-inning games. The Orioles also became the first team to hit double figures in the first two games of a season; the previous record, nine, had been set by the 1976 Reds and 1983 Dodgers in the stimulants-and-Astroturf era of baseball, when stolen bases were commonplace.

So what got into the Orioles? And if they can go 10-for-10 on stolen bases in two games, why can’t everyone else? Read the rest of this entry »

Zac Gallen has a 3.16 ERA over 82 big-league starts. He also has just 22 wins, a total that deserves to be far higher. On 29 occasions, the 27-year-old Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander has had either a loss or a no-decision while working five or more innings and allowing two or fewer earned runs. In 20 of those games he’s gone at least six innings, and in eight of them he’s gone at least seven. Moreover, there have been no undeserved Ws. The most earned runs Gallen has allowed while being credited with a win is three, and that has only happened twice.

I recently asked the hard-luck hurler about his run of bad fortune.

“I’m aware of it,” responded Gallen, whose career record stands a modest 22-23. “It’s something my family looks at and kind of jokes around with, that I’m an unlucky pitcher in the sense of getting wins. But my job is to throw up as many zeros as I can and keep us in the game. As baseball has gone on, the win has also been, for lack of a better word, devalued. Starters aren’t going as long in games, which contributes to that.”

Not allowing any runs — regardless of the number of innings you throw — is the ultimate goal for any pitcher, and Gallen had baseball’s best scoreless streak last season. Over a seven-start stretch from August 8 to September 11, he went 44-and-third consecutive innings without allowing a runner to cross the plate. That he was credited with a win in all but one of those starts isn’t exactly surprising, but at the same time, Gallen has learned not to to take anything for granted. Four times in his career he’s gone six or more scoreless innings without a decision.

“It was awesome,” Gallen said of his impressive string of zeros. “I’ve kind of taken on the thought that you really have to earn your wins. [Manager] Torey [Lovullo] talks about it all the time. Pitching deep into games is how starters are often going to earn those wins, so that is something I take pride in.”

Gallen went at least seven innings 10 times last year on his way to a 12-4 record — which, like his career ledger, should have been much better. With solid run support, the snake-bitten D-Back could easily have been a 20-game winner. Devalued or not, that number has long been a mark of distinction for starting pitchers. That in mind, is 20 a goal for Gallen this year?

“My goal for us is to make the playoffs,” Gallen told me. “If 20 wins falls within that, great. If it’s 10 wins — whatever the number — that’s fine, too. As long as we’re in the playoffs, I don’t care. I just want to pitch well and help us get there.”

———

RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Bobby Bonds went 2 for 22 against Lowell Palmer.

Jeffrey Leonard went 3 for 23 against David Palmer.

Chuck Hinton went 4 for 24 against Jim Palmer.

Dean Palmer went 6 for 7 against Shane Reynolds.

Luke Easter went 4 for 4 against Cuddles Marshall.

———

Watching Rafael Devers get called out on strikes on Opening Day because the home plate umpire ruled that he wasn’t ready in time brought to mind something Rich Hill said following a spring training start. Asked about the ramifications of the new pitch clock rule, the veteran left-hander aptly brought up common sense — something MLB’s powers-that-be seemingly don’t always consider.

“I’m not against a faster game — there’s no question about that — but I am 100% against an outcome that is a result of non-competitive action,” said Hill. “I think everybody should be.”

“Maybe five more seconds,” added Hill. “Again, I’m not against a fast game, it’s just that it’s tough to watch some of these results, like getting ball four, or a guy striking out [without a pitch being thrown]. It’s not fair to anyone. The fans are booing. They want to see action. They want to see a quicker game — there are positives — but that big drawback is such a negative.”

I’m on board with Hill’s opinions. An extra five seconds on the pitch clock is far from a bad idea, and more importantly, ending a plate appearance without a pitch being thrown is anathema to fair play. That said, if the rule is indeed going to be enforced, I’d like to suggest an official-scoring change. A pitcher isn’t charged with an earned run when an extra-innings zombie runner (the worst rule in the history of professional sports) scores, so why would a pitcher be credited with a K on a pitch he never threw? The hurler who “struck out” Devers did so via a non-competitive action, and statistically speaking, that’s illogical. Accomplishments should be earned, not arbitrarily assigned.

———

A quiz:

The New York Yankees franchise record for career games started is co-held by two pitchers. Who are they?

The answer can be found below.

———

NEWS NOTES

The Midwest League’s Great Lakes Loons have hired John Vicari to work alongside Brad Tunney in their radio booth this season. A 2021 Ithaca College graduate, Vicari was with the High-A Lake County Captains last year.

Roberto Barbon, who spent 1954 in the Brooklyn Dodgers system before becoming Japan’s first Latin American player, reportedly died last month at age 89. A Cuban-born infielder, Barbon played for the Hankyu Braves from 1955-1964, and for the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes in 1965.

——-

The answer to the quiz is Whitey Ford and Andy Pettitte, with 438 starts each.

———

Tyler Rogers had just finished his rookie season with the San Francisco Giants when he led Sunday Notes in October 2019. The subject at hand was the righty’s submarine delivery, which confounds enough hitters to make him effective despite a fastball that ranks, per Statcast, in the first percentile for velocity, and in the second percentile for spin. Thanks largely to his uniqueness, Rogers has a 2.92 ERA and a 3.23 FIP over 195 relief outings comprising 203-and-a-third innings.

What has the twin brother of teammate Taylor Rogers learned about how his stuff plays from analytics?

“Nothing, to be honest,” Rogers told me on my recent visit to Giants camp. “The Rapsodos, and the TrackMans we have in the bullpen, don’t even pick me up. Plus, I never really dive into the numbers. That’s for the coaches, and the people who know what they’re looking at. I just go out there and pitch. I’m pretty much old school in that regard.”

Do hitters ever tell him how his pitches play, particularly when they’re thrown in certain areas of the zone?

“Oh, they tell me,” the right-hander responded with a laugh. “They definitely tell me that”

———

MLB announced that a total of 269 players representing 19 different countries and territories outside of the 50 United States were on Opening Day rosters and inactive lists. The Dominican Republic had the most, with 104, followed by Venezuela (62), Cuba (21), Puerto Rico (19), Mexico (15), Canada (10), Japan (8), Colombia (7), Curaçao (4), Panama (4), South Korea (4), the Bahamas (2), Nicaragua (2), Aruba (1), Australia (1), Brazil (1), Germany (1), Honduras (1), and Taiwan (1).

———

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

The 2023 NPB season kicked off this week with the Rakuten Golden Eagles beating the Nippon Ham Fighters 3-1. Masahiro Tanaka went five-and-two-thirds innings for the win, while Maikel Franco had three hits and drove in a pair of runs.

The Tokyo Yakult Swallows topped the Hiroshima Carp 4-0 behind seven shutout innings by Yasuhiro Ogawa and a home run by Munetaka Murakami. The latter is coming off of a season where he slashed .318/.458/.711 with 56 home runs.

Opening Day in the KBO was highlighted by a 12-10 Doosan Bears win over the Lotte Giants. Jose Rojas hit a walk-off, three-run homer in the bottom of the 11th inning to end the high-scoring affair.

Anthony Alford and Baek-ho Kang combined to go went 7-for-9 with six RBIs to lead the KT Wiz to an 11-6 win over the LG Twins. Wes Benjamin threw six scoreless innings for the winning side.

Shin-Soo Choo homered in SSG Landers’ 4-1 win over the Kia Tigers. The 40-year-old DH was also called out while attempting a straight steal of home.

———

C.J. Cron has had a solid career with the bat, particularly in the power department. Now in his 10th big-league season, and his third with the Colorado Rockies, the 33-year-old first baseman has averaged 28 home runs over the previous four non-COVID campaigns. And he’s off to a stellar start in 2023. Through his first two games, Cron is 7-for-11 with a pair of walks and three bombs.

I first interviewed the right-handed-hitting slugger in 2013 when he was a Los Angeles Angels prospect playing in the Arizona Fall League. When I caught up to him in Rockies camp a few weeks ago, I asked him if his career path has gone much as he’d expected. His response quickly segued into a nod to one of the best hitters of our generation.

“I never really had an idea of what it was going to be like,” claimed Cron. “I kind of just went step by step, always trying to play well and help the team as much as possible. Obviously, when you come into the league playing behind Albert Pujols, the opportunity might be a little more limited than you would love. But it was so great to learn under him. Watching how he went about his business — his solid baseball routine, how he hit in the cage, the way he hit in BP, the way he approached the game — taught me a lot.”

I asked Cron about the degree to which he followed Pujols’s routine.

“Not specific drills, and stuff like that,” Cron responded. “But definitely how often he hit in the cage. He was in there all the time. So yeah, I was in the cage quite a bit too. Little things like that.”

Cron has 177 career home runs to go with a 112 wRC+. He made his first All-Star team last year.

———

FARM NOTES

New York Mets prospect Brett Baty went 4-for-5 with a pair of home runs yesterday as Triple-A Syracuse topped the Worcester Red Sox 16-6. The 23-year-old third baseman is No. 23 on our Top 100.

Keston Hiura, who cleared waivers after being DFA’d by the Milwaukee Brewers last week, homered yesterday in Triple-A Nashville’s 5-4 win over Louisville. The former first-rounder also drew three walks.

Daniel Murphy has signed with the independent Atlantic League’s Long Island Ducks. A veteran of 12 big-league seasons, the 38-year-old (as of yesterday) infielder last played with the Colorado Rockies in 2020.

Kole Cottam signed with the Atlantic League’s Frederick Baseball Club. A 25-year-old catcher out of the University of Kentucky, Cottam has been in the Red Sox system since 2018 and spent last year in Double-A Portland and Triple-A Worcester.

———

When Brandon Hyde met the media following Thursday’s 10-9 win at Fenway Park, the Baltimore manager was asked by The Athletic’s Dan Connolly about Adley Rutschman’s big day. As Connelly pointed out, no Orioles player going back to 1954 — the franchise’s first year in Baltimore — had ever had an Opening Day where he logged five hits and reached base six times. To Hyde, the 5-for-5-with-a-walk-and-a-home-run performance wasn’t so much surprising as it was a sign of what the 25-year-old catcher is capable of.

“If you do anything historical for the Baltimore Orioles, it’s… there have been a lot of great players who have worn this uniform,” said Hyde. “It’s not the only time you’re going to say that about Adley. He’s going to be doing other things that are firsts, as well. He’s just a super special player. He’s a really good hitter and he hasn’t even played a full year yet. Good things are coming.”

Rutschman — the runner-up in last year’s A.L. Rookie-of-the-Year voting — told reporters that he had no idea he’d gone into the record books, only that he was glad they’d won a “well-fought”game. That it was his first big-league Opening Day — the erstwhile Oregon State Beaver made his MLB debut in mid-May — did resonate with Rutschman.

“I’ve had a couple of Opening Days in college, down in Arizona in front of 5,000 people, and this definitely blows that right out of the water,” said Rutschman. “To have that close game in the ninth inning, and the crowd getting so loud, I was sitting there thinking, ‘This is pretty cool.’”

———

LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

Team Japan manager Hideki Kuriyama was critical of WBC organizers for changing the bracket mid-tournament, a decision that scrapped his plans to pitch Roki Sasaki against the United States. Jason Coskrey has the story at The Japan Times.

MLB.com’s Anne Rogers wrote about Melissa Lambert, who as the club’s Director of Behavioral Science is the first-ever woman to be part of the Kansas City Royals’ on-field staff.

The Athletic’s Andrew Baggerly wrote an ode to the recently-retired Sergio Romo (subscription required).

Arte Moreno recently cited economics as the main reason why the Angels aren’t sending their radio broadcasters on the road this year. Sean Keeley wrote about the unpopular owner’s inexcusable decision — and his equally embarrassing explanation — for Awful Announcing.

The editorial board of The Baltimore Sun has issues with Orioles chairman and CEO John Angelos twice stating — unsolicited, no less — that he will share information about the team’s financials, only to then criticize one of the publication’s writers for expecting him to keep his word.

———

RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

Miguel Cabrera played in his 20th career Opening Day on Thursday. The Detroit DH doubled in one of his four at-bats, giving him 3,089 career hits, tying him with Ichiro Suzuki on MLB’s all-time list. Miggy has since recorded hit number 3,090 and is now 24th all-time.

Paul Goldschmidt had a stolen base on Opening Day and has been successful on each of his last 23 attempts. The streak dates back to the 2019 season.

The Chicago White Sox went 19-3 against the Washington Senators in 1909. They beat Walter Johnson six times, by final scores of 1-0, 1-0, 1-0, 2-0, 3-0. and 6-3.

Pete Alexander and Christy Mathewson finished their Hall of Fame careers with 373 wins each. Alexander threw 436 complete games and had a 135 ERA+. Mathewson threw 435 complete games and had a 136 ERA+.

The Detroit Tigers returned Maury Wills, whom they’d purchased on an option basis, to the Los Angeles Dodgers on today’s date in 1959. Wills went on to make his MLB debut that summer, then lead in the National League in stolen bases each year from 1960-1965.

The Milwaukee Brewers signed Willie Randolph as a free agent on today’s date in 1991. The longtime New York Yankees second baseman, who had spent the previous season with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics, went on to slash .327/.424/.374 over 512 plate appearances in his one-year Milwaukee stint.

Players born on today’s date include Dick “The Monster” Radatz, who was one of the game’s most dominant relievers before arm woes curtailed his career. In his first three seasons with the Boston Red Sox (1962-1964), the Detroit native went a combined 40-21 with 76 saves and a 2.17 ERA over 414 innings. Radatz holds the MLB record for strikeouts in a season by a relief pitcher with 181.

Also born on today’s date was Cotton Pippen, who pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Athletics, and Detroit Tigers from 1936-1940. The right-hander from Cisco, Texas had his best season in the Pacific Coast League, winning 20 games with the Oakland Oaks in 1943.

Just 14 hours before the start of the MLB regular season, the league and the MLBPA reached a tentative agreement on the first collective bargaining agreement for minor league baseball players. They could have picked a day when the baseball headlines weren’t as crowded, but when it comes to making labor history, there’s no time like the present.

The headline figures include massive increases in the minimum salary across all levels and reforms in most of the areas that have made minor league baseball’s working conditions a target for criticism. All that just seven months after minor league ballplayers announced their intent to unionize. Read the rest of this entry »

After all the rumors and money and projections and Carlos Correa signing announcements (and un-announcements), here we are, back at 0-0, with every team having at least some technical level of hope for the 2023 season. Until today’s games start the process of turning projections into history, the season is a blank piece of paper or canvas, a fresh layer of snow without a hint of gray, a home improvement project before the moment you remember you barely know how to assemble an IKEA end table. Now before I get too wistful and start sounding like Paul Harvey or weird AI Vin Scully, let’s get down to business.

Since I am the owner, caretaker, and occasional messer-upper of the ZiPS projection system, that’s the system I used to run the 2023 season a million times. The methodology I’m using here isn’t identical to the one we use in our Projected Standings, meaning there will naturally be some important differences in the results. So how does ZiPS calculate the season? Stored within ZiPS are the first through 99th-percentile projections for each player. I start by making a generalized depth chart, using our Depth Charts as a jumping off point. Since these are my curated projections, I make changes based on my personal feelings about who will receive playing time as filtered through arbitrary whimsy my logic and reasoning. ZiPS then generates a million versions of each team in Monte Carlo fashion (the computational algorithms, that is — no one is dressing up in a tuxedo and playing baccarat like James Bond).

After that is done, ZiPS applies another set of algorithms with a generalized distribution of injury risk that changes the baseline PAs/IPs for each player. Of note is that higher-percentile projections already have more playing time than lower-percentile projections before this step. ZiPS then automatically (and proportionally) “fills in” playing time from the next players on the list to get to a full slate of plate appearances and innings. Read the rest of this entry »

1:00	Dan Szymborski: BASEBALL BASEBALL BASEBALL BASEBALL

1:00	Jay Jaffe: Hi everybody and a very pleasant good afternoon (or morning) to you wherever you may be. Happy 2023 baseball season and welcome to our Opening Day chat!

1:01	Jay Jaffe: Honestly, I don’t think it would take all that much — a couple of key rotation injuries to Houston and a few guys having bigger-than-expected seasons for Seattle while the Angels and Rangers don’t quite get there.

1:00	Dan Szymborski: The Mariners win a number of games in 2023 that is a larger number than the number of games that the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Angels win!

Read the rest of this entry »

After an offseason marked by big free-agent contracts, big bases, and the introduction of the pitch clock, the 2023 season is almost upon us; we made it. And on this, the morning of Opening Day, we engage in our annual tradition of asking our staff to open themselves up to public ridicule and predict the year in baseball. Some of these predictions will prove to be prescient; others will make their forecaster feel a little silly. Last year’s Mariners? Our staff thought they’d finally bring an end to the franchise’s playoff drought, and wouldn’t you know it, they did just that. The division-winning Cleveland Guardians? We fared less well. Such is the prognostication business.

We asked the staff to predict the playoff field, pennant and World Series winners, and the individual award recipients. Folks from FanGraphs and RotoGraphs weighed in; here are the results. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back baseball! After an exciting and dramatic World Baseball Classic to whet our appetites, the main course is finally here. I introduced these power rankings a few years ago as a way to think about all 30 teams in baseball and stack them up against each other outside of the rigid structures of leagues or divisions. Nearly every major site has some form of power rankings, usually derived from whatever panel of experts each site employs. These rankings, though, are entirely data driven.

A reminder for how these rankings are calculated: first, we take the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), their pitching (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by starter and reliever IP share), and their defense (RAA) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric. For these offseason power rankings, I’ve used each team’s projected stats based on their Depth Charts projections which are now powered by our blend of ZiPS and Steamer projections. I’ve also used the projected fielding component of WAR that appears on our Depth Charts projections as the defensive component for each team in lieu of RAA.

The Braves haven’t budged from the top of these rankings throughout this offseason. Sure, the Mets spent a ton of money this offseason, and the Phillies just went to the World Series, but Atlanta has owned this division for the last half decade. There are still some lingering questions, however. Orlando Arcia likely isn’t the long-term solution at shortstop, but both Vaughn Grissom and Braden Shewmake were optioned to Triple-A last week; the former has some defensive issues to work through, and the latter needs more exposure to high-level pitching before being handed a job in the big leagues. There are also some injury concerns in their pitching staff, with both Kyle Wright and Raisel Iglesias dealing with shoulder issues this spring and Michael Soroka not fully recovered from his many maladies. Still, this team is loaded with young talent and poised to win its sixth consecutive division title.

The big storyline for the Yankees this spring has been the competition for starting shortstop, with top prospect Anthony Volpe earning a spot on the Opening Day roster. That should provide youthful excitement to cover the very real concerns in the rotation and outfield. Harrison Bader likely won’t be out for long with his strained oblique, but his absence has revealed how shallow the position group is when Aaron Judge has to slide over to center field. And injuries of varying severity to Carlos Rodón, Luis Severino, and Frankie Montas aren’t exactly how you want to start off the season. Read the rest of this entry »

Sean Hjelle has been turning heads this preseason and seems to have pitched his way into a major league job. Then again, Hjelle turns heads everywhere; the former Kentucky Wildcat is the tallest player in baseball, at 6-foot-11, leaving him tied with Jon Rauch as the tallest player in MLB history. Anytime a pitcher above 6-foot-6 or so gets extended major league run, there’s an assumption that with a big body comes big velocity. That might be entirely Randy Johnson’s fault; Rauch sat in the low 90s, and until the end of last season, Hjelle didn’t throw much harder.

But as as he told Alex Pavlovic of NBCSN Bay Area early in spring training, Hjelle had been able to tickle 96 or 97 for one adrenaline-fueled inning in his last appearance of the 2022 season. This winter, his goal was to hold that velocity deeper into games. How? Well, to quote legendary Giants fan Huey Lewis, by working out most every day and watching what he eats. And after almost two months of training camp, Hjelle can look back and see the fruits of his labor. Read the rest of this entry »