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For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Los Angeles Angels.

Batters

Let’s get the good news out of the way first: The 2023 Angels, at 73–89, finished with far fewer wins than you would expect from the available talent. This year, they ought to get a full slate of games from Zach Neto, whom ZiPS likes very much and sees significant growth from, and Nolan Schanuel, whom both ZiPS and Steamer like going forward. It’s also likely that Logan O’Hoppe, recovered from a torn labrum that required surgery, beats his 51 games played last season. Even Anthony Rendon has a chance to be significantly healthier in 2024. Mike Trout only managed 82 games last season, and while we should no longer be bullish about his health, he certainly has a fighter’s chance at playing more often. ZiPS thinks Michael Stefanic would be a good stopgap option at second — kind of the Angels’ version of peak Joey Wendle, if they let him play 120 games and see what happens. I’d be tempted to go with Stefanic at second, Luis Rengifo at third, and then Rendon as the primary DH until he shows that he can actually remain healthy, leaving Brandon Drury in a kind of supersub role.

But now we have the bad news: The 2023 Angels may have played under their abilities, but that team also had Shohei Ohtani, so the loss of that production will cancel out a good chunk of the bounceback. The depth chart doesn’t look so bad, but it’s also paper-thin, with ZiPS having little faith in most of the emergency fill-ins. O’Hoppe’s contributions get held back by Matt Thaiss, and the numbers at first take a hit from the projected playing time for Drury and Evan White.

Also, help isn’t on the way with one noticeable exception: Kyren Paris, one of only seven hitters in the entire organization that projects to at least five WAR over the next five years (and all of them have already been mentioned). ZiPS agrees with my colleague Eric Longenhagen, who has the Angels with baseball’s worst farm system. That’s a big issue for a disappointing team that has to replace a generational talent. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Cleveland Guardians.

Batters

Going through the Guardians’ projections this winter reminds me quite a bit of going through the Diamondbacks’ projections last year, when I wrote:

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: ZiPS really, really likes the Diamondbacks. As I mentioned in the early standings run I did a few weeks ago, I actually went back and re-checked everything that was Arizona-specific to make sure that the optimism was correct, and while I can’t say for sure that the computer’s love for this roster is warranted, I can at least say that it was properly generated!

Obviously, Cleveland and Arizona aren’t in identical situations — the Guardians don’t have a Corbin Carroll equivalent about to hit the majors — but there’s a surprising lot to like about this team if you’re a believer in the ZiPS projections. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the San Francisco Giants.

Batters

If they don’t make any other moves this offseason, the Giants would enter 2024 without any serious holes in the lineup and pretty good depth at most spots. Problem is, they would also enter 2024 without a whole lot of ceiling in the offense. It’s certainly not from lack of trying; the Giants were within striking range of landing Aaron Judge last winter and Shohei Ohtani this one. But the bottom line is that they’re short on impact offensive talent. While Jung Hoo Lee and Patrick Bailey have the best overall projections, a lot of that is defensive value. Wilmer Flores‘ .265/.337/.446 triple-slash is the best on the roster, and even at Oracle Park, that’s rather underwhelming. And the awkward thing is that there really aren’t players available in free agency who can flip this script. The Giants can only upgrade the offense with a legitimate star, yet the only way left to get one is to trade for one. Read the rest of this entry »

Craig Breslow is restructuring the Red Sox pitching program. Hired in October to replace Chaim Bloom as Boston’s Chief Baseball Officer, the 43-year-old erstwhile reliever is doing so in multiple ways, and that includes having effectively cloned himself with a Twin. Earlier this month, Boston’s new top executive lured Justin Willard away from Minnesota to be the team’s Director of Pitching — the same role Breslow held in Chicago when he worked to revamp the Cubs’ pitching development process just a few years ago.

That Breslow’s approach is largely data-driven and comes with an adherence to bat-missing qualities is a big reason why Willard was brought on board. Much like the Yale graduate who hired him, Willard — a former college hurler with an MBA from Radford University — is both well-versed in analytics and an advocate of arsenals rife with plus raw stuff. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the New York Yankees. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fourth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

In January 2011, the Rays traded a good young starting pitcher who was about to get into his expensive pre-free agency years. They received a five-player package that included another good young starting pitcher, who himself went on to pitch well for the Rays for several years. In 2018, they traded that pitcher for a package that included another young starting pitcher, who gave the Rays several good seasons of service. And last week, they traded him for a package that included another promising young pitcher.

It’ll probably be a minute before 26-year-old Ryan Pepiot is ready to buy a house. Interest rates being what they are, even the major league minimum salary doesn’t go as far as it used to anymore. It’s just as well, because he should rent until sometime in late 2026, I suspect.

See, this started as a joke about how the Rays always trade their good young players before they hit free agency. Turns out the Rays are so systematic about this sort of thing that they defy parody. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, the Padres had a clear approach to the offseason. They came in badly needing innings, but with a decorated and devastating lineup – particularly after they signed Xander Bogaerts to add to their shortstop treasure trove. They did have a few holes, though, so they shopped in volume for complementary bats and mid-rotation arms. Their two preferred pitching targets: Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha. Clearly, the Royals were taking notes.

That’s right: After signing Lugo earlier this month, the Royals turned around and inked Wacha to a two-year, $32 million pact last week. They also addressed some of their outfield deficiency by signing Hunter Renfroe to a two-year, $13 million deal of his own. Both contracts feature player opt-outs for the second year. By sheer number of major league deals signed this offseason, the Royals are now lapping the field. Read the rest of this entry »

Jed Bradley had just walked away from baseball when I featured him here at FanGraphs in May 2017. Six years removed from being a first-round draft pick, and seven-plus months after making the last of his half dozen big-league pitching appearances, the southpaw had decided that he “wasn’t happy doing it anymore, and life is too short to do something that doesn’t make you happy.” At age 26, Bradley set out to write the next chapter in his life.

Term papers followed, but so too did one last attempt to resurrect what had once been a promising career. Despite a still-balky shoulder that had factored into his farewell, the erstwhile 15th-overall pick couldn’t help but give the game he loves another shot.

“I had every intention of moving on with my life and never looking back,” recalled Bradley, who has since earned a law degree and is now a corporate attorney. “I re-entered college at Georgia Tech — the first time in over two decades I was outside of baseball entirely — and the hiatus lasted approximately three months before I found myself watching old World Series games on Youtube and following the latest trade rumors. Soon I was researching the efficacy of stem cells on shoulder injuries. I ended up flying to south Florida for stem cell injections, and from there I was driving to rehab sessions after classes trying to get my arm back in shape.”

Bradley graduated from business school, but the corporate world would have to wait. Armed with last-hope inspiration, he spent that summer on the mound for the New Britain Bees of the independent Atlantic League. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2024 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.

As befits a player who spent 21 seasons in the majors and ranks 15th all-time in games played, Adrián Beltré really had two careers. In the first one, he was the prodigy who didn’t quite live up to expectations. Signed (illegally) by the Dodgers out of the Dominican Republic at age 15, he reached the majors at 19, became a free agent at 25 after one of the greatest walk years of all time, and disappointed at his next stop in Seattle. Through his age-30 season, he hadn’t made a single All-Star team, and he’d played in just one postseason series.

In his second career, which began with a brief stop in Boston before a longer stay in Texas, Beltré was a well-decorated and even beloved superstar. His elite defense carried over, and he emerged as a prolific slugger with exceptional contact skills, a team leader, and a fan favorite who won five Gold Gloves and made four All-Star teams while helping the Rangers to four playoff appearances and a pennant. He became the first Dominican-born player to reach the 3,000-hit milestone, as well as the career leader in hits among players born outside the United States, a surefire Hall of Famer in waiting. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend, the Dodgers hit the motherlode, signing Shohei Ohtani to a landmark 10-year contract. Turns out, though, MLB didn’t award them the 2024 World Series just for doing that. There’s still baseball to be played, and while the Dodgers certainly aren’t short on tremendous hitters, they do need some serious help on the pitching side. Enter the Rays:

BREAKING: The Los Angeles Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays are in agreement on a trade to send RHP Tyler Glasnow and OF Manuel Margot to the Dodgers for RHP Ryan Pepiot and OF Jonny Deluca — contingent on Glasnow signing an extension with L.A., which is expected, sources tell ESPN.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 15, 2023

I’m not sure that I’m making a strong enough statement. The Dodgers need help on the pitching side, and they need it badly. Before this trade, their depth chart looked like this:

That’s dire. It’s a mixture of injury risk, light workloads, unproven arms, and pitchers who check multiple of those boxes at once. Ohtani obviously won’t pitch next year. Walker Buehler hasn’t pitched since June 2022, looked bad in that 2022 season, and is their nominal ace. Bobby Miller is the only other guy the team seems to trust, and they’ll need plenty of volume from him, but he made 26 starts last year to get to his 138.2 innings, so it’s not like there’s a ton more in the tank. If the Dodgers’ lineup is Boardwalk and Park Place, their rotation looks more like Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues. Read the rest of this entry »