For the 18th 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 today’s team is the Toronto Blue Jays.

Batters

When you look at Toronto’s lineup, there isn’t much to complain about. ZiPS disagrees with Steamer on some of the individual players, but the overs and unders are pretty even, meaning that ZiPS thinks this will be as potent a run-scoring squad as Steamer does. Among the most notable projections? Many of the worries ZiPS had about Matt Chapman were resolved in 2022, while my system is a bit concerned about Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s output after his Statcast data dropped back down to its 2020 levels. It’s still the projection of an All-Star first baseman, but it’s distinctly behind last year’s and certainly well off 2021’s elite performance.

Still, there are a couple of things to gripe about. Slowly transitioning George Springer to right field is a good idea given his age, and with Kevin Kiermaier signed, they’re at least moving him for an excellent defensive center fielder. Kiermaier has his own injury concerns, but there’s nothing keeping Springer from getting plenty of time in center as the Plan B. I think Springer is moving because the Jays have an option and the team is considering his health, as he’s actually held up very well defensively out there. But left field still projects as a “meh” position. ZiPS has never been a Gurriel fan, and the system agrees with Statcast that his 2022 batting average was a bit inflated; the loss of power is also very concerning. I’d love to see the Jays take a stab at a better option here, though players have been coming off the board quickly. Read the rest of this entry »

Gabe Kapler was asked about next season’s more-balanced schedule when he met with the media during the Winter Meetings. More specifically, he was asked about not having to play as many games against powerhouse division rivals like the Dodgers and Padres. His response began with an unexpected nod to the team that finished in fourth place with a record of 74-88.

“The Diamondbacks were really tough on us this year,” said the Giants manager, whose club went 9-10 versus Arizona. “They’re a really challenging team. I think about the Diamondbacks a lot, because they’re so gifted and athletic, and they’re all so young. Torey [Lovullo] does a great job, and Mike Hazen… their whole front office is a good group.”

Arizona’s young talent on the position player side includes Corbin Carroll, Alek Thomas, Jake McCarthy, and Geraldo Perdomo, with more reinforcements on the way. Carroll, who debuted at the end of August, is No. 4 on our Top 100 — a list that includes five D-Backs — and the farm system that Hazen oversees as Arizona’s GM ranks sixth-best among the 30 organizations.

How does this group compare to the young talent Lovullo worked with as Boston’s bench coach from 2013-2016, and before that as the team’s Triple-A manager? Read the rest of this entry »

The Mets, who had gone some three days since singing a top free agent, went shopping again on Thursday evening. Brandon Nimmo was a sort of Aaron Judge situation-in-miniature: a New York team flirted with losing its best outfielder before realizing it’d be more trouble than it was worth to replace him. Best just to bring him back, even if it meant making him rich beyond the wildest fantasies of avarice.

Nimmo, the no. 9 player overall on our top 50 free agent list and no. 2 outfielder behind Judge, got paid quite a bit more than our projections, which is emerging as something of a theme this offseason. The readers thought he’d make an even $100 million over five years; Ben Clemens had Nimmo penciled in for $110 million over the same time frame. Instead, Nimmo has signed for eight years and $162 million.

To put that number in context: for $162 million, Nimmo could buy this 15-foot-by-25-foot inflatable water slide for every single one of the 578,000-plus residents of his native Wyoming. (Wayfair says two-day shipping is free for a purchase of this size. We shall see.) He’d then have enough left over to pay the $10 million the Mets agreed to pay relief pitcher David Robertson in their second major signing of the evening. And even after that he’d have some $1.2 million left over. Maybe he could spend that on a new garden hose or swim trunks so as to get the most out of the water slide. Read the rest of this entry »

For most of Winter Meetings, the San Diego Padres vigorously pursued a few of the best free agents available only to come up short on Trea Turner and Aaron Judge. Well, they finally made their big splash after most of the reporters and analysts had returned to their climatologically inferior home cities, signing shortstop Xander Bogaerts, formerly of the Boston Red Sox, to a monster 11-year contract. Bogaerts now stands an impressive $280 million richer and a lot of the Padres’ positional dominoes have fallen into place for the 2023 season.

If you’re ever prone to thinking that a player opt-out is mere frippery, like Roy Oswalt’s tractor or the mustache wax benefit that Rollie Fingers received, Bogaerts’ prior contract extension ought to firmly disabuse you of the notion. Bogaerts would have originally hit free agency after the 2020 season, but he came to terms with the Red Sox on a six-year, $120 million deal to keep him in Boston for what was likely to be the rest of his prime. Here’s what the projection looked like if we go back to that blessed time when we might have mistaken “Covid” for the first name of a Swedish scientist:

Read the rest of this entry »

SAN DIEGO — The early hours of Wednesday morning at the Winter Meetings brought a giant-sized deal for baseball’s latest home run giant… but not from the Giants. After a day in which it appeared as though Aaron Judge had decided he was not in fact prepared to be “a Yankee for life,” as he had previously professed, and would instead leave the Bronx to sign with the the team for which he grew up rooting in Linden, California, about two hours from the Bay Area, the 2022 AL MVP has returned to the Bronx via a record-setting nine-year, $360 million deal.

The move happened only after Judge arrived in San Diego on Tuesday night and heard overtures from a third team, the Padres, who had reportedly offered Trea Turner a $342 million deal before the shortstop signed with the Phillies on Monday. Via USA Today‘s Bob Nightengale, San Diego offered Judge $40 million per year over 10 years; whether either deal included deferred money isn’t known. According to the New York Post’s Jon Heyman, the Yankees had offered Judge eight years and $320 million — about $90 million more than the offer that he spurned just before Opening Day. “Once Judge told Hal Steinbrenner he wanted to be a Yankee (but had more $ on table elsewhere — SF and SD) Hal sealed the deal by bumping it another $40M and one year,” Heyman wrote. Read the rest of this entry »

Eight months ago, Aaron Judge turned down a seven-year contract extension worth more than $200 million. Judge’s dice roll has officially paid off for him as, after a brief flirtation with the NL West, he remains with the Yankees on a nine-year, $360 million deal that ensures that he’ll spend most, if not all, of his career in pinstripes.

$213 million wasn’t an unreasonable offer given the facts on the ground in April. While Judge had a rookie season of mega-ultra-super-duper-star quality in 2017, he had failed to come close to that level in recent years. It would be an enormous stretch to say he struggled or was disappointing, but Judge entered 2022 with only one full, healthy season in the last four campaigns. To land a huge upgrade on that pre-season contract offer as a free agent entering his age-31 season, Judge would basically need to match his .284/.422/.627, 8.7 WAR rookie year.

He did more than that. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 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.

Carlos Beltrán was the quintessential five-tool player, a switch-hitting center fielder who harnessed his physical talents and became a superstar. Aided by a high baseball IQ that was essentially his sixth tool, he spent 20 seasons in the majors, making nine All-Star teams, winning three Gold Gloves, helping five different franchises reach the playoffs, and putting together some of the most dominant stretches in postseason history once he got there. At the end of his career, he helped the Astros win a championship.

Drafted out of Puerto Rico by the Royals, Beltrán didn’t truly thrive until he was traded away. He spent the heart of his career in New York, first with the Mets — on what was at the time the largest free-agent contract in team history — and later the Yankees. He endured his ups and downs in the Big Apple and elsewhere, including his share of injuries. Had he not missed substantial portions of three seasons, he might well have reached 3,000 hits, but even as it is, he put up impressive, Cooperstown-caliber career numbers. Not only is he one of just eight players with 300 homers and 300 stolen bases, but he also owns the highest stolen base success rate (86.4%) of any player with at least 200 attempts.

Alas, two years after Beltrán’s career ended, he was identified as the player at the center of the biggest baseball scandal in a generation: the Astros’ illegal use of video replay to steal opponents’ signs in 2017 and ’18. He was “the godfather of the whole program” in the words of Tom Koch-Weser, the team’s director of advance information, and the only player identified in commissioner Rob Manfred’s January 2020 report. But between that report and additional reporting by the Wall Street Journal, it seems apparent that the whole team, including manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow, was well aware of the system and didn’t stop him or his co-conspirators. In that light, it’s worth wondering about the easy narrative that has left Beltrán holding the bag; Hinch hardly had to break stride in getting another managerial job once his suspension ended. While Beltrán was not disciplined by the league, the fallout cost him his job as manager of the Mets before he could even oversee a game, and he has yet to get another opportunity.

Will Beltrán’s involvement in sign stealing cost him a berth in Cooperstown, the way allegations concerning performance-enhancing drugs have for a handful of players with otherwise Hallworthy numbers? At the very least it appears likely to keep him from getting elected this year. What remains to be seen is whether voters treat him like Rafael Palmeiro and banish him for a big mistake (a positive PED test) in the final season of an otherwise impressive career, or like Roberto Alomar and withhold the honor of first-ballot induction for an out-of-character incident (spitting at an umpire) before giving him his due. Read the rest of this entry »

After overcoming a slow start and firing manager Joe Girardi, the Phillies made it all the way to the World Series for the first time since 2009. On Monday, they took a significant step toward improving their chances of returning, and of upgrading their oft-shaky defense, signing shortstop Trea Turner to an 11-year, $300 million deal, one that includes a full no-trade clause.

Turner, who turned 29 on June 30, spent the past season and a half with the Dodgers after coming over from the Nationals in the 2021 trade deadline blockbuster that also brought Max Scherzer to Los Angeles. In 2022, he earned All-Star honors for the second time, batting .298/.343/.466 (128 wRC+) with 21 homers, 27 steals (in 30 attempts), and 6.3 WAR. He played 160 games and led the NL in plate appearances (708) and at-bats (652) and ranked fourth in steals.

While Turner’s offensive performance represented a dip from his 2021, when he won the NL batting title (.328/.375/.536, 142 wRC+), led the league in steals (32), and ranked third in WAR (6.8), he was still an impressive ninth in the last of those categories in ’22. Bolstered by average defense at shortstop — no small accomplishment or attraction for a team that has employed Didi Gregorius in the recent past — he was third in WAR among shortstops behind Francisco Lindor (6.8) and fellow free agent Dansby Swanson (6.4), but his longer track record for strong production than Swanson, and the added dimension of his speed, had to make him the more attractive of the two for a long-term deal. Toward that end, it’s worth noting that Turner placed second on our Top 50 Free Agents list below only Aaron Judge, one spot ahead of Carlos Correa, four ahead of Xander Bogaerts, and six ahead of Swanson.

The size of Turner’s contract outdid both our median crowdsource estimate (seven years, $210 million) and that of listmaker Ben Clemens (nine years, $288 million), a common theme from among the early deals so far. That should’t surprise us within an industry that appears to have set a record in revenues (just shy of $11 billion) and that just got a $900 million windfall ($30 million per team) from MLB selling its remaining 15% stake in the BAMTech streaming platform to Disney. Read the rest of this entry »

Just three days ago, there was gnashing of teeth and rending of garments in the blue-and-orange tinted sectors of the New York metropolitan area. Jacob deGrom, light of the world, oppressor of batters, had taken the money and run to Texas. This was a black eye for the conspicuously moneyed regime of hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen, who’d promised to do for the Mets what Gulf state sovereign wealth funds are doing for European soccer teams. Instead, he’d been outbid for the best pitcher in baseball, a homegrown superstar the likes of which the Mets hadn’t produced since… is it sacrilegious to say Tom Seaver?

Fear not, because the Mets have secured a hell of a fallback option. On Sunday night, former Met Carlos Baerga announced on Instagram — because sure, why not? “Carlos Baerga’s Instagram” is my favorite Bo Burnham song — that Justin Verlander was signing with the Mets for two years and $86.8 million, with a mutual option for a third year. On Monday morning, ESPN’s leading scoop man, Jeff Passan, reported substantially similar news: Verlander to New York for two years and $86 million, with a vesting option for 2025.

Depending on how you feel about Carlos Rodón, there are either two or three legitimate difference-making no. 1 starters in this year’s free-agent class. (And even a Rodón superfan such as myself will acknowledge that deGrom and Verlander are a step above.) The Mets lost one but gained another. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 18th 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 today’s team is the San Diego Padres.

Batters

When you look at the Padres’ depth charts, there’s a kind of clarity when trying to decide what the team needs to do this winter. The strengths of the offense are obvious: Juan Soto, Manny Machado, and a healthy Fernando Tatis Jr. enter any season as top-notch MVP contenders. And unlike a certain seraphim-themed organization I won’t name with a few mega-stars at the top, there isn’t a huge drop-off to the next tier, whether it’s Jake Cronenworth, Ha-Seong Kim, or Trent Grisham after you’ve threatened him with torture if he tries to bunt for a hit at an awkward moment.

The team’s needs here are also quite obvious; I can’t imagine the Padres actually enter the season with Taylor Kohlwey and José Azocar splitting playing time in left field. The problem is, I also couldn’t imagine Nomar Mazara actually getting 41 starts in 2022, but that’s just what he did.

San Diego would also benefit from some figuring out what to do about Tatis’ position long-term. Right now, we have him splitting time in several places, but I think that the Padres are best served by figuring out whether Cronenworth or Kim are the answer at second, determine where they can put Tatis, and then find a full-time upgrade over Eguy Rosario or Brandon Dixon, whom I see more as complementary talent.

Another thing that is obvious here is that the Padres do need to spend some time this winter fattening up their organizational depth. The high minors are fairly empty at the moment — a combination of graduating talent, traded talent, and a bunch of minor league veterans now in free agency or in other organizations. Most of the players here who look like “break in case of fire” emergency options like C.J. Hinojosa or Domingo Leyba are no longer in the organization. This isn’t necessarily an expensive thing to do, either, and adding a left fielder and a couple of pitchers wouldn’t hinder this. Read the rest of this entry »