As is tradition at FanGraphs, we’re using the lead-up to next week’s trade deadline to take stock of the top 50 players in baseball by trade value. For a more detailed introduction to this year’s exercise, as well as a look at the players who fell just short of the top 50, be sure to read the Introduction and Honorable Mentions piece, which can be found in the widget above.

For those of you who have been reading the Trade Value Series the last few seasons, the format should look familiar. For every player, you’ll see a table with the player’s projected five-year WAR from 2023-2027, courtesy of Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections. The table will also include the player’s guaranteed money, if any, the year through which their team has contractual control of them, last year’s rank (if applicable), and then projections, contract status, and age for each individual season through 2027, if the player is under contract or team control for those seasons. Last year’s rank includes a link to the relevant 2021 post. Thanks are due to Sean Dolinar for his help in creating the tables in these posts. At the bottom of the page, there is a grid showing all of the players who have been ranked up to this point.

One note on the rankings: particularly at the bottom of the list, there isn’t a lot of room between the players. The ordinal rankings clearly matter, and we put them there for a reason, but there’s not much of a gap between, say, the 35th ranked player and 50th. The magnitude of differences in this part of the list is quite small. Several folks I talked to might prefer a player in the honorable mentions section to one on the back end of the list, or vice versa. I think the broad strokes are correct — but with so many players carrying roughly equivalent value, disagreements abounded. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball’s annual rituals have been around for so long that they feel like an immutable part of the fabric of life. Pitchers and catchers reporting, the All-Star break, September playoff chases and, of course, FanGraphs leaving your favorite player off of our top 50 trade value rankings, which we do to spite you (and them) specifically.

I kid, of course, but today does mark the first installment of our annual Trade Value Series. In the following days, we’ll release our list, taking performance, age, and contract into account. Dave Cameron, Kiley McDaniel, and Craig Edwards all helmed this exercise at various points in the past, and after tag-teaming with Kevin Goldstein last year, I’ve taken over on my own.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t gotten help. I considered a broad range of inputs: estimates of current value, projections of future value, age, contract status, positional scarcity, Statcast data, and anything else I could dream up. From there, I solicited feedback from the rest of the FanGraphs staff (special thanks are due to Dan Szymborski for his ZiPS assistance and Sean Dolinar for his technical wizardry) and consulted with several outside sources, both public- and team-side, to compile the final order. Make no mistake, this is still my list, and it’s an inherently subjective estimation, but I’d like to think it’s an informed one. Read the rest of this entry »

Hunter Mense had some talented teammates during his relatively brief playing career. None were more talented than a teenager who went by one of his middle names. Now the assistant hitting coach for the Toronto Blue Jays, Mense played alongside Giancarlo Cruz Michael Stanton during their time together as Florida Marlins farmhands.

“I knew him as Mike,” Mense said of the the 2022 All-Star Game MVP, who began going by his given first name after reaching the big leagues. “I remember reading about, and him telling me that he could have played D1 basketball or D1 football. He looked more like a D1 football player than he’s ever looked like a baseball player.”

It goes without saying that the Brobdingnagian superstar is a stupendously good baseball player. According to Mense, who doubles as Toronto’s minor-league hitting coordinator, Stanton’s work ethic was off the charts. Wanting to improve defensively, the 6-foot-6, 245-pound outfielder would often “drag a coach out to the field” and have him hit balls in his dirction before batting practice.

Not surprisingly, Stanton also went the extra mile as a hitter. Read the rest of this entry »

In a race for a playoff spot, every edge matters. Yet all too often, for reasons that extend beyond a player’s statistics, managers and general managers fail to make the moves that could improve their teams, allowing subpar production to fester at the risk of smothering a club’s postseason hopes. In Baseball Prospectus’ 2007 book It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over, I compiled a historical All-Star squad of ignominy, identifying players at each position whose performances had dragged their teams down in tight races: the Replacement-Level Killers. I’ve revisited the concept numerous times at multiple outlets and have presented it at FanGraphs in an expanded format since 2018.

When it comes to defining replacement level play, we needn’t be slaves to exactitude. Any team that’s gotten less than 0.6 WAR from a position to this point — prorating to 1.0 over a full season — is considered fair game. Sometimes, acceptable or even above-average defense (which may depend upon which metric one uses) coupled with total ineptitude on offense is enough to flag a team. Sometimes a team may be well ahead of replacement level but has lost a key contributor to injury; sometimes the reverse is true, but the team hasn’t yet climbed above that first-cut threshold. As with Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of hardcore pornography, I know replacement level when I see it.

For this series, I’ll go around the diamond, pointing out the most egregious examples of potential Killers at each position among contenders, which I’ll define as teams who are above .500 or have playoff odds of at least 10.0%. That definition covers 17 teams, all of which have odds above 25% thanks to the new playoff structure (thanks for not saving me any work, Rob Manfred). And while I may mention potential trade targets, I’m less focused on these teams’ solutions than I am the problems, because hey, human nature.

This first installment will cover first basemen. All statistics within this piece are through July 20. Read the rest of this entry »

After taking their quest to end their 20-year playoff drought down to the final day of the 2021 season, the Mariners had high hopes for this year, but they mostly sputtered during the first two and a half months of the season, squandering an 11-6 start with separate 1-10 and 2-8 skids. Since June 19, when they were 10 games under .500, they’ve caught fire, winning 22 out of 25 games and entering the All-Star break riding a 14-game winning streak, one that has pushed them into the second American League Wild Card slot with a 51-42 record.

The Mariners aren’t the only AL team that will start the second half with renewed optimism. The Orioles, who have lost at least 108 games in a season three times since 2016, their last season above .500, and appeared headed for another triple-digit loss total through the first quarter of the season, went on a 10-game winning streak starting on July 3, briefly nosing them above .500 for the first time this year. They entered the break 46-46, tied with the White Sox at 3.5 games out of the third Wild Card spot.

The two teams have surged while the Blue Jays and Red Sox have stumbled. While Toronto is still clinging to that last Wild Card spot, at the very least the race has become a four-team fight instead of simply a three-team one, with the AL Central’s second- and third-place teams (the Guardians are only two games behind the Twins, the White Sox three) lurking in the weeds as well, and the Orioles at least showing a pulse. A picture is worth a thousand words:

Read the rest of this entry »

Matt Vierling has been a versatile player for the Philadelphia Phillies this season. Primarily a center fielder, the 25-year-old University of Notre Dame product has also seen action in the outfield corners, as well as at first, second, and third base. He’s also capable with the bat. While not yet fully established against big league pitching, Vierling has a 95 wRC+ in 229 plate appearances with the NL East club, plus the potential to produce at a higher level as he matures.

Vierling discussed his simple-meets-cerebral approach, and how he’s evolved since entering pro ball as fifth-round draft pick four years ago, during spring training.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with one of my favorite Talks Hitting openers. Do you approach hitting as more of an art, or as more of a science?

Matt Vierling: “I would lean more towards art, although I see both sides. It’s definitely science with the mechanics; if you don’t make the right swing, there’s a mechanical reason why. But when you’re up there and in the flow of things, it’s more like an art. I’d have to lean more in that direction.”

Laurila: This is maybe a hard question to answer, but how would you describe your art?

Vierling: “That is a hard one. I guess it would be being in rhythm — a lot of rhythm and a lot of timing. It’s not so much dancing with the pitcher, but kind of just being in his rhythm, being on time with him.” Read the rest of this entry »

This weekend in Cooperstown, six Era Committee candidates will be inducted alongside the BBWAA-elected David Ortiz. Among them are some of the most long-awaited honorees whose supporters agonized for decades over their being shut out, both before and after their deaths. Negro Leagues player/manager/scout/coach/ambassador Buck O’Neil and Negro Leagues and American League star Minnie Miñoso both hung on well into their 90s hoping they could see the day of their induction but died before it happened. Star first baseman and manager Gil Hodges died of a heart attack at age 47, before his candidacy became the ultimate “close-but-no-cigar” example, both via the BBWAA and Veterans Committee processes. Black baseball pioneer Bud Fowler, who was raised in Cooperstown, went largely unrecognized until the centennial of his death in 2013. Tony Oliva and Jim Kaat, both of whom are 84, are thankfully alive to experience the honor, but they, too, had a long wait, after falling one and two votes short, respectively, on the 2015 Golden Era ballot.

The festivities will be tinged with more than a hint of bittersweetness due to the deferred honors, but there won’t be any shortage of joy and catharsis that these men are finally being recognized. Yet even as they take place, it feels as though a gate is swinging shut behind them — one that may not open again for awhile given the the shakeup of the Era Committee process that the Hall announced in April which reduced the numbers of committees, candidates, and votes available. I won’t rehash the road to this point (you can see the gory details in the aforementioned link), but here’s the new format, which will roll out in this order over the next three years starting in December:

• December 2022 (for Class of 2023): Contemporary Baseball – Players. For those who made their greatest impact upon the game from 1980 onward and have aged off the BBWAA ballot.
• December 2023 (for Class of 2024): Contemporary Baseball – Managers, Umpires, and Executives. For those who made their greatest impact upon the game from 1980 to the present day.
• December 2024 (for Class of 2025): Classic Baseball. For those who made their greatest impact upon the game before 1980, including Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues Black players

The Classic Baseball Era Committee now has purview over all of the candidates previously covered by the Early Baseball (1871–1949) and Golden Days (1950–69) committees — the two that produced this weekend’s honorees and which otherwise weren’t scheduled to convene again for 10 and five years, respectively — as well as about half of those covered by the Modern Baseball (1970–87) one. In other words, voters for that ballot now have to weigh candidates whose contributions may have taken place over a century apart. What’s more, where there were 10 candidates apiece for each of those ballots under the older system, the new ones contain only eight, and where the 16 committee members (a mixture of Hall of Famers, executives, and writers/historians) could previously vote for four of those 10 candidates, that number has been reduced to three. Candidates will still need to receive a minimum of 75% of votes to be elected.

In other words, there’s a new bottleneck in place for the older candidates, and it has happened just as the Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues candidates — players and non-players alike — finally returned to eligibility after the books were closed on that period following the aforementioned 2006 election, which produced 17 honorees but froze out O’Neil. For those who make it to the ballot, the math that was already very tough is undeniably tougher. Instead of a maximum of 64 votes spread across 10 candidates (an average of 6.4 per candidate), there are now 48 spread across eight candidates (six per candidate). Electing four candidates from a single slate, which happened for the first time on the 2022 Golden Days ballot, would require each of those four to receive exactly 12 votes. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a good thing that baseball writers don’t get tested on our ability to do fractions. Since time immemorial, we’ve called the All-Star break the halfway mark of the season. It’s not. Every team has played at least 90 games, even in a season with a delayed start. In fact, this is the season where calling the All-Star break the halfway mark would make most sense, and it’s still wrong.

Why do we do it? Partially, it’s because it sure would be convenient if the break really did mark the halfway point. Dividing the season into two halves makes for some fun analysis, and it works a lot better when the division occurs at a point with an event around it, rather than some random Tuesday in early July. It’s also because it creates something interesting to write about during a gap when game play would otherwise be stopped. There’s dead air every year around this time; filling it with “in the first half of the season” stories makes good sense.

I’m rambling, though. The point is, it’s the All-Star break, and I want to write an article about terrible swings. What was I going to call it, the worst swings of the first 55.5% of the season? That’s not catchy enough. “First half” just sounds better. And so here, perpetuating a bad sportswriter generalization, are the worst swings of the first half of the season.

A few ground rules: I’m focusing on swings at fastballs. Bad swings at breaking pitches are funny, but they’re understandable. Those pitches were designed to deceive, and they accomplished their goal. Sure, maybe swinging at a slider that bounces in the opposite batter’s box isn’t a good look, but I can understand how a hitter might end up there. Baseball is an unfair game. The pitches move funny.
Read the rest of this entry »

When he was first featured here at FanGraphs three years ago, I wrote that Nestor Cortes “barely registers a blip on the national radar.” With his multiple windups in mind, I called the then-24-year-old southpaw “probably the most unique member of the 2019 New York Yankees.”

A lot has changed since that time. Cortes is still unique — the funkiness and deceptive deliveries remain part of his M.O. — but he’s otherwise a much different pitcher. He’s also become a household name. Traded to Seattle in November 2019, Cortes returned to New York in free agency prior to last season and has since been remade into one of the top starters in the American League. A first-time All-Star with a 2.63 ERA and 99 strikeouts in 95-and-two-thirds innings, Cortes attacks hitters with a different arsenal than the one he employed as an obscure reliever.

How has Cortes evolved, and just as importantly, can he continue to thrive if he doesn’t evolve further? Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake addressed those questions when the team visited Fenway Park earlier this month.

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David Laurila: You’ve obviously been asked about Nestor Cortes numerous times already this season. That said, why has he been so good?

Matt Blake: “When he first started going last year, the league didn’t really know who he was. I mean, they knew of Nestor, but they hadn’t necessarily seen this version of him, where there’s a little bit more velocity [and] the fastball has kind of a true riding profile, one that’s a little bit closer to cut than run. And then the cutter off of that creates a really tough visual for hitters to identify. He’d also added the sweeper slider to be able to slow guys down and steal some strikes. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is team-by-team analysis of last night’s draft activity. Remember that you can find more detailed scouting reports and tool grades for the players drafted over on The Board.

Arizona got the consensus best player in the draft in Druw Jones, and he stands a chance to help alter the course of their franchise. Folks in the game think drive and determination is a separator when it comes to successfully rehabbing from Tommy John, and if his on-mound presence is any indication, Comp Pick bulldog righty Landon Sims seems to have that. Ivan Melendez has among the most raw power in this draft and was the most outstanding player in college baseball in 2022 after making adjustments that led to fewer strikeouts.

Atlanta had a remarkable first day, taking three high school pitchers and a late-season pop-up college arm. Owen Murphy and JR Ritchie both have prototypical prep pitching profiles as projectable righties with vertically-oriented fastball/breaking ball combinations. Phillips had a huge velo boost this spring, into the upper-90s, then blew out. The Braves will need to polish his secondaries after his TJ rehab. Burkhalter’s stuff was incredible during the College World Series, another “tip-of-the-iceberg” prospect for the Braves. He could end up with three above-average pitches. Part of why he fell is because his delivery features a lot of effort that points to the bullpen. Read the rest of this entry »