Second base is deeper than ever this year. A logjam at shortstop — there were more talented free agent shortstops than there were teams that needed someone at the position — pushed talent over to second base. Indeed, two of the top three spots on this list are teams that signed marquee free agent shortstops and parked them at second. That’s part of a broader trend toward a widening of the talent pool that teams see as worthy of a starting job. Not only will you see shortstops like Trevor Story here, but also bat-first mashers like Max Muncy and elite defenders like Nicky Lopez. The old keystone archetype — a contact-first bat with serviceable defense but without the range or arm for short — still shows up in spades, too. Some diminutive second basemen have even started hitting for power — hi, Jose Altuve and Ozzie Albies. It’s a variegated group, but they all stand in the dirt between first and second — or, until next year, in short right field. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday, Meg Rowley introduced this year’s rankings, while Dan Szymborski examined the state of the league’s catchers. Today, we turn our attention to first and second basemen, starting with some first base thumpers.
First base is back, baby! Just two years ago in this space, I lamented that the position ain’t what it used to be, production-wise. Not only had the position’s big boppers from the previous few years fallen upon hard times, but in both 2018 and ’19, first basemen as a group had hit for just a 108 wRC+, their lowest mark since at least 2002 (as far back as our splits for this go). In 2021 however, first sackers combined to put together their best season since 2017, by multiple measures.
Such things tend to run in cycles, with turnover driving changes, and indeed, the overall leader in both wRC+ and WAR among first baseman last year was 22-year-old Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who in his first full season at the position made a run at the Triple Crown. Meanwhile, 27-year-old Matt Olson ranked second in both wRC+ and WAR; not coincidentally, he and Guerrero top the rankings here. But beyond that pair and the routinely excellent Freddie Freeman, the position’s resurgence was driven by the old guard, as Paul Goldschmidt and Joey Votto, two of the game’s best first basemen from 2015-18, rebounded to help provide some thump. Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier today, Meg Rowley introduced this year’s positional power rankings. As a quick refresher, all 30 teams are ranked based on the projected WAR from our Depth Charts. Our staff then endeavors to provide you with some illuminating commentary to put those rankings in context. We begin this year’s series at catcher.
In the era of modern analytics, we’ve deciphered a lot of baseball’s mysteries, but not all of them have been solved, and the catcher position remains one of the game’s most tantalizing unfinished puzzles. Shortstops all hit now and we can value relief pitchers using measures like the leverage index, but a lot of a catcher’s job is still difficult to quantify, even with the vast array of nifty data available in 2022. In some ways, that’s fine. A catcher dressed in full regalia kind of resembles an Arthurian knight, and it’s fun not to have all of our mythology replaced by science; J.R.R. Tolkien didn’t tie up all of his loose ends on purpose. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome to the 2022 positional power rankings! As is tradition, over the next week and a half, we’ll be ranking every team by position as we inch closer to Opening Day. This is always something of a funny exercise. You read FanGraphs regularly, after all — a fact for which we are very grateful — and are well-versed in the goings on of the offseason. You know that Carlos Correa signed with the Twins and that Kris Bryant now calls Denver home, and that the Mets remade part of their rotation and a good bit of their lineup. And yet after a protracted lockout and the subsequent frenetic conclusion to free agency, you’re still keen to know more about the game and what it might look like between now and October. The positional power rankings are our answer to that impulse.
This post serves as an explainer for our approach to the rankings. If you’re new to the exercise, I hope it helps to clarify how they are compiled and what you might expect from them. If you’re a FanGraphs stalwart, I hope it is a useful reminder of what we’re up to. If you have a bit of time, here is the introduction to last year’s series. You can use the navigation widget at the top of that post to get a sense of where things stood before Opening Day 2021, a year during which the projections were feeling the effects of 2020’s COVID-shortened slate.
Unlike a lot of sites’ season previews, we don’t arrange ours by team or division. That is a perfectly good way to organize a season preview, but we see a few advantages to the way we do it. First, ranking teams by position allows us to cover a team’s roster from top to bottom. Stars, everyday contributors, and role players alike receive some amount of examination, and those players (and the teams they play for) are placed in their proper league-wide context. By doing it this way, you can more easily see how teams stack up against each other, get a sense of the overall strength of a position across the game, and spot places where a well-constructed platoon may end up having a bigger impact than an everyday regular who is merely good. We think all of that context helps to create a richer understanding of the state of things and a clearer picture of the season ahead. Read the rest of this entry »
Toronto Blue Jays pitching prospect Hagen Danner is a converted catcher who gets good ride on his four-seam fastball, and he attributes that quality to his former position. Hearing that from the 23-year-old right-hander prompted me to ask Philadelphia Phillies manager Joe Girardi if what I was told made sense.
“I can definitely see that,” said Girardi, who caught for 15 big-league seasons. “But I don’t think it’s a guarantee; some [catchers] have a little tail to their ball when they throw. At times, I would have a little tail. But [Garrett] Stubbs really gets underneath it, really gets that spin. There are a lot of catchers who do. It’s how we’re taught to throw.”
Good ride typically comes with a four-seam grip, but unlike pitchers, a catcher isn’t standing on a mound with ample time to manipulate the baseball in his hand; he has to receive the ball, make the transfer, and get rid of it as quickly as possible. I asked the catcher-turned-manager about that as well.
“You don’t have time to get the grip, but ideally you want to throw it straight,” said Girardi. “And you can still throw it straight, pretty much, if you don’t have a perfect four-seam grip.”
If you weren’t looking for it, you’d miss it. Buried in a blow-by-blow account from The Athletic’s Matt Gelb of how the Phillies ended up signing Kyle Schwarber, FanGraphs newsletter writer Jeffrey Bellone spotted something interesting:
“However, under the new CBA, a traded contract is recalculated to reflect the remaining actual dollars. That means contracts that are backloaded will be harder to trade (if the acquiring team is concerned about the luxury tax threshold).”
This change was an afterthought in the piece, an offhand justification the Phillies made for not acquiring Kevin Kiermaier. His remaining average salary outstrips the average annual value of his deal, which means that under the terms of the new CBA, he’d carry a higher tax hit than he would have in the old regime. The ownership group’s desire to abide by the sport’s soft salary cap made Kiermaier’s salary an untenable addition.
With the benefit of hindsight, it seems that ownership didn’t actually care about the dollars very much, given that they signed Nick Castellanos and ticked over the first CBT threshold anyway. And given that the tax rate is 20%, the difference in Kiermaier’s tax hit under the old and new agreements is a hair under $6 million; the total monetary difference would have been roughly $1 million in assessed tax. That’s a vanishingly small difference on a $230 million payroll.
I’ll level with you: I don’t think this is going to be an earth-shaking change to the economics of baseball. Only five teams look likely to pay any tax this year, with a few other in hailing distance of the barrier. The differences aren’t huge; $6 million a year isn’t quite a rounding error, but it’s hardly a life-and-death number. Remember: teams are not actually paying Kiermaier $6 million more than they would have before. Salary is salary. This is merely an accounting game that affects teams who pay at least some amount of tax.
Still, we analysts love financial tomfoolery, so let’s consider a few contracts that are interestingly shaped now that trades can trigger the re-calculation of tax numbers. First, a quick disclaimer: I haven’t seen the exact text of the new agreement. It’s unclear how the Rays’ CBT number would be affected by trading Kiermaier; I’m assuming no effect, but if that isn’t the case, that obviously changes the calculus. It’s not clear how signing bonuses will be handled, either; it appears that it would be spread evenly across each year, but again, I’m working from the outside. Read the rest of this entry »
I have a schematic in my head for how a major league team can assemble a dominant bullpen. You, as someone who reads FanGraphs, probably have an idea in your head for how a major league team can assemble a dominant bullpen. They’re probably the same ideas – assemble a stable of guys who can throw 98. If that doesn’t work, assemble a stable of guys who can throw 99, and add wipeout sliders until it clicks.
The Mariners had one of the best bullpens in baseball last year, and they nearly rode that unit – and their resulting excellent performance in close games – to the playoffs. You don’t coin “fun differential” if you don’t have a good bullpen. Yesterday, the team bolstered this year’s version by signing Sergio Romo to a one-year deal worth $2 million (or up to $2.25 million with incentives). In doing so, they added to a truly interesting unit that will look to back up last year’s spectacular performance while eschewing the way that their competitors look to combine relievers, at least to a degree.
In 2021, 135 relievers threw at least 20 innings while averaging 95 mph or higher on their fastballs. The Mariners will employ one of them – Diego Castillo – this year, and he’s only on the list due to his rarely-used four-seamer, as his sinker dipped below 95 last year. They have some other flamethrowers in their ‘pen – Andrés Muñoz throws 100, but missed most of 2021 with injury. Ken Giles might qualify as a flamethrower eventually, but his recovery from Tommy John so far has him topping out at 95. Read the rest of this entry »
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Tampa Bay Rays. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the second 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.
A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.
All of the numbered prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details 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 »
Over the weekend, the Rockies cemented another middle-of-the-order player’s status in Denver, signing third baseman Ryan McMahon to a six-year deal that will keep him in town until the end of the 2027 season. The contract guarantee is $70 million and covers four years of free-agent eligibility, as McMahon was still arbitration eligible for 2022 and ’23. The 2021 season was the first time his status as a regular seemed ironclad, and he responded with his best season yet, hitting .255/.331/.449 with 23 homers in 151 games and splitting time between second and third base.
Now, the thought going through your head right now may be, “Uh oh, Szymborski is writing about the Rockies, he must be planning to eviscerate them!” But while that’s frequently a good guess, in this case, this strikes me as a perfectly reasonable contract for them to sign. It’s a long deal for a player who isn’t a star, but like with Steven Matz’s four-year, $44 million deal with the Cardinals, the Rockies aren’t paying McMahon as if he were a star. If three years from now, the relationship between him and ownership has deteriorated, Colorado doesn’t seem likely to send him out of town with a $50 million bonus for his new team.
The Rangers have had a busy offseason. They’ve guaranteed more than half a billion dollars in new free agent contracts — by far the largest outlay in baseball — and made a major trade for a new starting catcher. Yet despite adding Corey Seager and Marcus Semien to vastly improve the top end of their lineup, and Jon Gray to anchor their rotation, the Rangers lacked for depth. So to address some of the lingering holes on their roster, they signed a handful of additional players over the last week. They inked Brad Miller to a two-year, $10 million contract on Thursday, and Garrett Richards to a one-year, $4.5 million deal on Sunday with a $9 million club option for 2023 and a $1 million buyout. They also signed Greg Holland, Charlie Culberson, Matt Carpenter to minor league contracts over the last week. Those five players add some much needed depth to their roster.
Miller, Carpenter, and Culberson all seem like additions to address the loss of top prospect Josh Jung, who was expected to challenge for the starting third base role in camp. He tore the labrum in his left shoulder in late February and underwent surgery to repair the injury, sidelining him for most if not all of the season. After trading Isiah Kiner-Falefa, the in-house options to replace Jung were Andy Ibáñez and Nick Solak, both of whom have shown at least some promise in the recent past. Bringing in some additional spring competition for the position provides the Rangers an opportunity to find the right fit in 2022.
Each of the players above can play multiple positions, giving the Rangers plenty of options to fill out their lineup. There isn’t room for all six of those players on the Opening Day roster, so the competition for those few spots will be fierce during the compressed spring. Read the rest of this entry »
