For the 21st 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 Boston Red Sox.

Batters

I have mixed feelings about the Red Sox. As a baseball fan, it galls me to see Mookie Betts in another uniform, and their complacency these past few trade deadlines has been frustrating. Yes, it’s good that they extended Rafael Devers to a long-term deal, but more often than not their forays into free agency end up in the We Tried bin.

But at the same time, even though Boston isn’t throwing its weight around like most large-market teams, this is a highly competent organization that makes smart moves. The Red Sox have developed a significant number of players internally – and more are on the way – and they’ve put those players positions to succeed. I have to admit that Jarren Duran and Wilyer Abreu have become far better than I expected, and though the experiment of moving Ceddanne Rafaela back to shortstop in the majors didn’t really work out, his upside was worth the gamble.

If anything, the Red Sox now look a lot like a 2010s St. Louis Cardinals roster. Not a single player in the lineup is projected to be an MVP candidate – no, ZiPS is not that high on Duran – but by the same token, almost every player is projected to be average or better, with decent depth at most positions. Even at catcher, which is projected to be their worst position (now that they’ve traded Kyle Teel), the Red Sox should get an acceptable level of mediocrity.

ZiPS holds out hope for Rafaela being just good enough offensively for his glove to play, and his WAR projection is a full win higher in center field than it would be at shortstop. A Trevor Story revival would be nice, but ZiPS isn’t particularly taken with him these days, and David Hamilton actually has a similar projection. It’s not something they’d announce, but I suspect the Red Sox would be happy to see Marcelo Mayer seize the shortstop job soon. At second base, ZiPS thinks Kristian Campbell would be one of the most accomplished offensive players to debut in the majors in 2025. Campbell and Roman Anthony project to be Boston’s third- and fourth-best offensive players, respectively.

Pitchers

Naturally, ZiPS doesn’t expect Garrett Crochet to carry an ace’s workload, but if he throws only his projected 135 innings, he should still be the best member of Boston’s rotation, which also features Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford, and Brayan Bello. That group looks like one of the better starting staffs in baseball, though it’s a tier below the elite rotations of the Phillies and Dodgers.

I’m higher than ZiPS on Crawford, but I think it’s right about Houck as a borderline ace and Bello as a solid no. 2 or 3 starter. ZiPS is a bit of concerned with how Lucas Giolito will perform coming back from internal brace surgery, but he and Richard Fitts both project as reasonable fifth starters. Quinn Priester and Garrett Whitlock also project to be decent fifth starters, but Whitlock is also returning from an internal brace procedure, and I expect the Red Sox will use him conservatively once he’s healthy. It seems likely that he’ll see more innings out of the bullpen than in the rotation next season.

The bullpen projects to be solid, though ZiPS doesn’t rank them quite as highly as Steamer does. There’s some natural skepticism about Michael Fulmer coming off injury, and ZiPS is down on Justin Wilson and Luis Guerrero. But after these players, the projections see pretty much everyone else as either good or very good — but not elite — even edge options like Zach Penrod or Priester.

Like those Cardinals teams, these Red Sox can’t do much upgrading unless they get a superstar to raise their ceiling. The big problem here is the Red Sox play in the AL East, not the NL Central. ZiPS projects them to finish with a win total in the mid-80s. That’d be good enough to contend for a playoff spot, but it probably won’t cut it if they want to win the division. Still, considering the Yankees are trying to figure out how to fill the Juan Soto-sized hole in their lineup and the Orioles could be without Corbin Burnes, the Red Sox have improved enough to make those two teams sweat at least a little bit.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time. The final team projections may differ considerably from our Depth Chart playing time.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2025 due to injury, and players who were released in 2024. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Ukulele Dixieland Jazz band that only covers songs by The Smiths, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.11.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR. It is important to remember that ZiPS is agnostic about playing time, and has no information about, for example, how quickly a team will call up a prospect or what veteran has fallen into disfavor.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by misinformation, a non-pragmatic reality, or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter or on BlueSky.

It’s probably been an awkward few weeks for Cody Bellinger. It’s been an open secret that the Chicago Cubs were trying to move him despite having signed him to a three-year, $80 million contract just one offseason ago. The emergence of Pete Crow-Armstrong as a credible hitter had already made Bellinger (and/or Seiya Suzuki) expendable, and once the Cubs won the Kyle Tucker sweepstakes, it was just a matter of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And what a grand, stripey shoe it is. The New York Yankees have graciously agreed to take Bellinger off the Cubs’ hands, and to absorb all but $5 million of his remaining contract. Chicago also gets right-handed pitcher Cody Poteet in the deal. Thus the Great Cosmic Balance of Codys remains undisturbed. Read the rest of this entry »

The Winter Meetings always feature trades, but two stood above the fray last week. First, the Guardians traded Andrés Giménez to the Blue Jays in a two-part transaction that briefly left Cleveland with three lefty-hitting first basemen. Then the White Sox traded Garrett Crochet to the Red Sox for four prospects. The best of that group, Kyle Teel, happens to play catcher, the same position as Chicago’s top prospect Edgar Quero. They even have the same future value grade of 50, which is the cutoff for top 100 prospects.

The Guardians made an extra trade to avoid doubling up on similar archetypes, sending Spencer Horwitz to the Pirates for three young pitchers, but the White Sox just kept both catchers. I heard a lot of murmured questioning of that decision as I walked around the Dallas hotel that briefly hosted the center of the baseball universe. But I think both teams were acting rationally, and that worrying about Teel and Quero overlapping is silly. I can’t prove it for you – but I did come up with some data that will hopefully sway your opinion.

Cleveland’s case was straightforward. Steamer projects Horwitz as a 2.5 WAR/600 PA player. It projects Kyle Manzardo as a 1.8 WAR/600 PA player. Josh Naylor? Steamer has him down for 2.4 WAR/600 PA. Three players for two positions — first and DH. (Yes, Horwitz has played second base, too, but he really shouldn’t be a second baseman, and I don’t think the Guardians would’ve used him there.) One of them would ride the bench despite being an above-average contributor, a poor decision for a team that’s trying to maximize its resources. Something had to give.

On the other hand, there are the White Sox. They, too, traded a young star, and the best player they got back plays a position where they already had a similar option. Teel was our 42th-ranked prospect on our updated Top 100 list in 2024, a polished all-around catcher who we expect to reach the majors at some point in the next two years. Quero was our 40th-ranked prospect, and you’re never going to believe this, but he’s a polished all-around catcher who we expect to reach the majors at some point in the next two years.
Read the rest of this entry »

Proposition No. 1: Identifying the smartest front office in baseball would be a difficult task even if it weren’t such a loaded question to start. How do you weight scouting versus development? How do you factor the influence of ownership, for good or ill? Or injuries, or luck, or other elements of force majeure?

So I’ll state my premise this way: The Braves seem to be a competently run organization. They’ve made the playoffs seven years running — six of those by winning the NL East — and are set up well to continue contending in the future. They’ve had internal developmental successes, savvy trade wins, and the occasional opportunistic buy-low move for a veteran free agent. Are they the best-run team in the league? I don’t know, but I’d hear out an argument to that effect.

Surely they wouldn’t go out of their way to acquire a player coming off a historically bad season. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 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.

Before he’d ever thrown a major league pitch, cracked a prospect list, or reached legal adult status, Félix Hernández had a nickname: King Felix. Dubbed as such by U.S.S. Mariner blogger Jason Michael Barker Dave Cameron on July 17, 2003, when he was just a 17-year-old in the Low-A Northwest League, he was already overpowering much older hitters. Still a teen when he reached the majors, he quickly came to represent the hopes and dreams of a franchise that had fallen short of a World Series despite four playoffs appearances from 1995–2001; parted with superstars Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr., and Alex Rodriguez along the way; and capped that run with a record-setting 116 wins but a premature exit in the ALCS.

Though slow to embrace the royal moniker, Hernández grew into it. His dazzling combination of an electrifying, darting sinker, a knee-buckling curve, and a signature hard changeup propelled him to a Cy Young Award, two ERA titles, six All-Star appearances, and a perfect game. From 2009–14, he was the best pitcher in the American League by ERA, FIP, strikeouts, and WAR, parlaying that into a contract commensurate that made him the game’s highest-paid pitcher. Unfortunately, a heavy workload — more innings than any pitcher 23 or younger since Dwight Gooden two decades earlier — sapped the sizzle from his fastball, with injuries and a cavalier approach to conditioning taking their toll as well. The Mariners struggled to surround him with a quality roster, and changed managers and pitching coaches every couple of years. The team didn’t reach the playoffs once during Hernández’s career, finishing above .500 just five times, with a pair of second-place showings in the AL West as good as it got. Read the rest of this entry »

When addressing his team’s acquisition of Garrett Crochet at the Winter Meetings, Craig Breslow said that the 25-year-old southpaw’s relationship with the Red Sox’ analytics group will be important, so that he “can continue to understand how he can get the best out of his stuff.” I subsequently asked Boston’s Chief Baseball Officer if, based on their pre-trade homework, they have identified any specific adjustments Crochet might want to make, or if they plan to mostly just let him keep doing what he does.

“I think the answer is probably both,” replied Breslow. “Right? We want to lean into what he does particularly well, and he does a lot of things really, really well. You look at the strikeouts, and especially the strikeouts relative to the walks; that’s a pretty good underpinning for a really successful starting pitcher. Once we have a chance to get to know him, have conversations with him, we’ll lean on [pitching coach Andrew Bailey] and the rest of the group. But it’s probably not fair to talk about what adjustments we might make before we’ve had a chance to have that conversation with him.”

Crochet is looking forward to the conversation. He expects it to take place in the coming week, and he’ll go into it with thoughts he’s been formulating since last summer. When I talked to Crochet in late August, he spoke of usage percentages and how he’d begun tinkering with a sinker. I reminded him of that earlier exchange when he met with the Boston media over Zoom on Friday, then proceeded to ask about his forthcoming discussions with the Red Sox pitching department. Read the rest of this entry »

When Juan Soto signed with the Mets this week, there were four parties who should’ve been celebrating: First, the Mets, who nabbed the biggest on-base threat since Barry Bonds, and in the process got to blow raspberries at their old money neighbors. Second, Soto himself, who was already grotesquely wealthy but is now due the kind of lucre that will allow him to oppress multitudes if he so chooses. Third, Scott Boras, who in addition to being paid a handsome commission proved that he still had his mojo after a mortifying 2023-24 offseason.

The fourth winner: Kyle Tucker. The “next-best thing” to a 26-year-old free agent with a .421 career OBP, to someone who is projected by ZiPS to accumulate more than 100 WAR, is… well there’s no such animal. But Tucker is as close as you’ll get these days. If Soto is worth $51 million a year, what is Tucker worth? I don’t know. Neither do the Houston Astros, but they’re clearly not interested in finding out.

On Friday, Houston traded the presumptive top free agent in next year’s class to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for Isaac Paredes, Hayden Wesneski, and third base prospect Cam Smith. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a ritual as old as time. The Brewers develop an intriguing young player into an All-Star, and a fun one at that. Next, that player approaches free agency – that’s how time works. The Brewers then trade that player to a contending team, getting back a few players with multiple years of team control. Finally, the Brewers develop those players into stars, spin the wheel again, and the band plays on. Today’s edition: Milwaukee traded Devin Williams to the Yankees in exchange for Nestor Cortes and infield prospect Caleb Durbin, as Jeff Passan first reported.

Williams is the rare pitcher who isn’t even as famous as his best pitch. His screwball/changeup hybrid is nicknamed The Airbender, and it’s been making major leaguers look like overmatched kids for years. On the back of that pitch and a plus fastball, he’s compiled a career ERA of 1.83 over five-plus seasons of dominance. His 39.4% career strikeout rate reads like a typo. He rose to prominence during the 2020 season, and he’s been the second-best reliever in baseball since then, trailing only Emmanuel Clase.

It doesn’t matter what you call the pitch; Williams’ results speak for themselves. “Changeup-first dominant closer” only sounds fluky until you look at the raw data. He misses more bats than Josh Hader. He might even be better than his run-prevention numbers would suggest, because the runs he gives up come in bunches. In 2023, for example, he gave up 10 earned runs all year, and four were in a single game. The upshot: He’s first among relievers in win probability added by a ton, because a truly outrageous number of his games end in scoreless innings. He’s not Mariano Rivera, but he might be the closest thing in today’s game: an automatic ninth inning.
Read the rest of this entry »

For the 21st 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 New York Yankees.

Batters

The Yankees’ big problem on offense is an obvious one: Juan Soto is no longer in the lineup. Their position players are projected for 23.3 WAR, about 10 fewer wins from their 2024 total. Much of that is due to Soto’s absence, but ZiPS is also projecting Aaron Judge’s production to dip by three or four wins. That’s not a knock on Judge; remember, he put up 11.2 WAR last season, and no projection system worth anything would expect him not to regress in 2025.

Judge’s projection is still a dynamite one, but unfortunately for the Yankees, he stands alone in stardom in the lineup. There are a lot of good projections here. The Austin Wells/Jose Trevino catching tandem and shortstop Anthony Volpe are projected to eclipse 3.0 WAR. ZiPS expects Jazz Chisholm Jr. to be their second-best position player, and outfielders Jasson Domínguez and Trent Grisham to have solid campaigns. The problem is this group isn’t that exciting. Except for Judge, of course. The Yankees had the no. 2 offense in baseball (117 wRC+) in 2024, but unless they make some significant upgrades between now and Opening Day, expect them to take a step back at the plate.

ZiPS sees DH and first base as the two biggest problems in this lineup. The projections are tremendously unexcited about a Ben Rice/DJ LeMahieu timeshare at first. Giancarlo Stanton had a terrific postseason – and ZiPS factors in that production – but he was still only a .233/.298/.475 hitter in the regular season. Moreover, considering he turned 35 last month, he’s more likely to decline than improve moving forward. Barring injury, Stanton is going to be the Yankees’ regular DH in 2025, but the team could (read: should) add a first baseman over the next few months.

On the plus side, ZiPS thinks New York’s patchwork of second base options should adequately replace free agent Gleyber Torres if he signs elswhere.

The last concern ZiPS has is the organization’s minor league depth, especially on offense. The projections for Spencer Jones are much worse than the scouting consensus.

Pitchers

The Yankees overpaid this week when they agreed to sign Max Fried to the largest contract ever for a lefty pitcher, but that doesn’t mean it was a bad deal. On the contrary, because there is a lot of injury risk in this rotation, it was crucial for the Yankees to add a top-of-the-rotation starter, and ZiPS projects Fried to be their best pitcher this season by WAR. Some of Gerrit Cole’s projected dip is due to his missing a chunk of time in 2024 with an elbow injury, but that’s far from the only source of concern here. Now 34, Cole is allowing more contact these days, a trend that started in his 2023 Cy Young season, not this past year. ZiPS also projects Luis Gil to regress toward the mean, and it sees Carlos Rodón as an injury risk. Don’t get me wrong, the Yankees have a good starting rotation, especially if their pitchers stay healthy, but this group is a step or two below the top-shelf units of the Phillies and Dodgers.

ZiPS is more optimistic than Steamer is about New York’s bullpen. You won’t actually find relievers with projected ERAs above four until you get very deep in the pen, where you’ll see names like JT Brubaker and Yerry De Los Santos. While an extra relief arm or two would be welcome, I don’t think boosting the bullpen ought to be the team’s biggest priority.

All told, the Yankees are projected to finish with a win total in the high-80s or low-90s. That’s not ideal, of course, but that’s about where the Orioles sit right now as well, and nobody else in the division has a better projection. It’ll be interesting to see what the Yankees do the next few months.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time. The final team projections may differ considerably from our Depth Chart playing time.