Spiritually, the Orlando Arcia era in Milwaukee came to an end when the team acquired Luis Urías from San Diego in a four-player swap back in November 2019. Urías, then 22, had been one of the top prospects in the Padres’ farm system before his rookie eligibility expired the season prior and was expected to take over as the Brewers’ starting shortstop. Such a move would likely mean benching Arcia, a former top prospect himself who had put up rather anemic numbers in his first four big league seasons. Alas, Milwaukee’s starting infield hit a number of road blocks in the year that followed that trade, and when all was said and done, Arcia appeared in all but one of the team’s games last year, as well as each of the first four in 2021.

Now, it would appear that era has formally come to a close once and for all. On Tuesday, the Brewers traded Arcia to the Braves, who immediately optioned him to the team’s alternate training site as the infielder undergoes necessary COVID protocols. Two pitchers, Chad Sobotka and Patrick Weigel, were sent to Milwaukee to complete the deal.

Braves acquiring Orlando Arcia from Brewers, source tells @TheAthletic. First on talks: @JonHeyman and @ByRobertMurray.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) April 6, 2021

When word first got out that the Brewers were discussing a deal involving Arcia, there was naturally speculation that the team on the other end might be San Diego. After all, just night before, the Padres had watched in horror as franchise shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. crumpled to the ground after injuring his left shoulder following through on a swing, and as of Tuesday morning remained unaware of how much time he was likely to miss. San Diego has ready replacements for Tatis in-house, but for a team as committed to accumulating depth as the Padres are, the timing of the news seemed all too convenient. Read the rest of this entry »

This is Justin’s first piece as a FanGraphs contributor. Justin has always been a baseball fan and a writer, but it wasn’t until Hyun Jin Ryu began dominating in 2019 that he started to fuse those interests together. He’s written for a few places since then, including Prospects365 and Dodgers Digest, and is now hoping to pester the good people of FanGraphs with his deep-dives into niche topics. Outside of the baseball blogosphere, he’s a student at Washington University in St. Louis.

Jack Leiter has been outstanding. So far this college baseball season, the sophomore from Vanderbilt University is sporting a minuscule 0.25 ERA in 36 innings pitched. He’s struck out 59 batters. Oh, and fun fact: He had a no-hit streak that lasted 20 innings. That’s largely thanks to a masterful no-hitter against South Carolina on March 21, during which he fanned 16 batters and allowed just a single walk. In his next start, he had seven no-hit innings going against Missouri but was pulled due to concerns over his ballooning pitch count.

At this point, to call Leiter outstanding might even be an understatement. Of course, the ERA seems unsustainable, and it wouldn’t be surprising if the right-hander runs into a bad day – it’s a volatile sport, after all. But regardless of what happens in the future, he’s already made a lasting impression on fans and scouts. In the months leading up to the college baseball season, however, Leiter was at times overshadowed by teammate and fellow pitcher Kumar Rocker. And though Leiter was obviously well-regarded, his placement on public draft boards ranged. He was (and still is) No. 1 on our draft board, while MLB.com placed Rocker first and Leiter sixth in a ranking published in mid-December and Prospects Live featured Rocker first and Leiter fifth in their own mock draft published in January. Kiley McDaniel had Leiter second on his February board, ahead of Rocker, and noted that ranking Leiter above Rocker is “the consensus view after they’ve each made their first start of the season.”

There’s no doubt that Jack Leiter is good. However, it can be tricky to evaluate him because some of the standard metrics undersell his greatness. For example, let’s consider his four-seam fastball. It averaged around 92 mph last season, a mark that hardly stood out. He’s bumped it up to 93-94 mph this season, and he does top out at 98, but it’s possible to have overlooked him in favor of more eye-catching flamethrowers. His raw spin rates are between 2200 and 2400 rpm, a range that would appear light-blue if displayed on a Baseball Savant page. You might have expected more from a top pitching prospect, and that’s understandable. Read the rest of this entry »

What unfolded in the bottom of the sixth at Coors Field on Friday night was melodrama of the highest tier. There was the astonishingly rapid unraveling of Trevor Bauer‘s no-hitter: a walk, a homer, a walk, a homer — within 10 minutes, what had been a dominant performance was utterly spoiled. Then came David Price’s first on-field appearance with the Dodgers, his first pitching appearance since 2019 — and within 10 more minutes, the Rockies had hit another two long balls. What had been an unassailable 10-0 lead became, out of nowhere, an entirely assailable 10-6 lead.

As Price pitched, a grey blur darted across the backstop. “Did you see the cat?” my brother texted me — and I hadn’t seen it. A moment of inattention was enough to miss it. But it didn’t matter, because, in a matter of minutes, the cat bolted onto the field. The baseball game had been one thing; quickly, without warning, it had become another. And now, it had stopped. The field was transformed into a venue for people to watch the cat.

The cat was an ominous figure, a fluffy gray shadow, its teeth bared in fear as it loped over the infield dirt. It stopped, eventually, in the outfield, where it assumed a defensive resting position. For a moment it sat there, panting, while the thousands of people surround it roared, willing it onward to whatever escapade might lie ahead. The cat was very frightened, as one might well expect.

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Working in a baseball front office is a 365-days-a-year gig, but April is a relatively slow month if your focus is on roster construction. Opening weekend is a chance to take a breath after a very long, very repetitive month and a half of spring training. It’s also an opportunity to see how your squad looks, as barring something unexpected, it’s the team you are stuck with, at least for the next two months or so. There’s much to be done to prepare for the various storms ahead. Here are just some of the tasks teams have in store this month.

How Do We Look?

This is no time to over-react. One game is 0.6% of a club’s season. One three-game series? Less than 2%. Still, one time through the rotation and the bullpen can help answer a lot of questions. How do guys look? Are the changes we saw (or didn’t see) in spring training carrying over now that the games matter? How is a starter’s velocity in full starts? How does that ‘pen arm look in back-to-back outings? And, most importantly, are guys healthy? Whether it’s the result of performance, concerning underlying metrics, or just being a bit banged up, every team has plenty of questions to answer, and how concerned they need to be about the state of their roster becomes much clearer once the real action gets going.

Minor Depth Moves

No team is satisfied with its depth. Not one! There is virtually no trade market this time of year but there are still some second-level big league free agents and a handful of minor league free agents available. And with injuries sometimes forcing roster crunch decisions, teams also eagerly await the daily transaction email to see if a player who can help make them a little bit deeper suddenly appears on the waiver wire. At the same time, teams have to weigh the value of that improvement against the cost of a roster spot. They’re in tweak mode, but those tweaks can pay big dividends later in the season. Read the rest of this entry »

Collin McHugh is cerebral both on and away from the diamond, and that attribute was on full display in a recent Zoom call with reporters. The Tampa Bay Rays right-hander fielded questions on multiple topics, most notably his craft and the possibility of MLB’s moving this summer’s All-Star Game from Atlanta to another locale. I asked McHugh how his new team compares to one of his old ones in terms of pitching analytics.

“The behind-the-scenes things are a little different,” responded McHugh, referring to his tenure with the Houston Astros from 2014-2019. “I think they probably have a more well-versed staff over here, in total, of being able to communicate the advanced information to guys. I worked a lot with [Brent Strom] in Houston, and Strommy and I got to know each other really well. He was kind of my guru, or whatever you want to call it. If I had questions, I went to him.

“Here, it feels, at least to this point, like there is a more holistic approach,” continued McHugh. “From [pitching coach] Kyle Snyder — starting with him — and the pitchers, to Stan [Borowski] in the bullpen, all the way through the data-analytics system, then all the way up the ladder. I’ve had conversations with [General Manager] Eric Neander about these things, and have since we were in negotiations. So it feels like a very top-to-bottom system over here.”

McHugh signed a free-agent contract with the Rays in late February. Asked if he was approached about the possibility of tweaking any facet of his game, he said that wasn’t the case at all. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the New York Mets. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. As there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was gleaned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been meaningfully altered begin by telling you so. Each blurb ends with an indication of where the player played in 2020, which in turn likely informed the changes to their report if there were any. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside of a given org than those within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there, and the context of that data, in my opinion, reduces how meaningful it is. Lastly, in an effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both on my lists and on The Board: MIRP, or multi-inning relief pitcher, and SIRP, or single-inning relief pitcher.

For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed, you can click here. For further explanation of Future Value’s merits and drawbacks, read Future Value.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.

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1:00	Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to the 2021 baseball season and this, our Opening Day marathon chat.

1:01	Jay Jaffe: I’ll be joined here by Kevin Goldstein and David Laurila for the first leg of today’s action, and other colleagues will take the ball as the day (and night) continues.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, after a winter spent fretting over the pandemic and the free agent market’s glacial pace (and what both might mean for baseball), the 2021 season is upon us. We made it. And on this, the morning of Opening Day, we engage in our annual tradition of asking our staff to open themselves up to public ridicule and predict the year in baseball. Some of these predictions will prove to be prescient; others will make their forecaster feel a little silly. Despite the 11th-hour format switcheroo, the FanGraphs staff ended up doing pretty well when it came to last year’s playoff field, though with eight teams in each league advancing to the postseason, the odds were in our favor. Still, with the exception of the Marlins (we thought the Nationals would do a better job defending their World Series title) and the Blue Jays (whither the Angels we picked instead?), we had October pretty well pegged. The 2020 individual awards? A big goose egg! Such is the prognostication business.

Folks from FanGraphs and RotoGraphs weighed in; here are the results.

American League

The American League once again appears to be stratified into the haves and the yet-to-arrives, though our writers see two of the three divisions as competitive at the top. Twenty of our voters submitted ballots with Houston and New York as division winners; their Central votes were split between the Minnesota (12 votes) and Chicago (eight). Meanwhile, four teams received no playoff votes (the Mariners, Rangers, Tigers, and Orioles), while two more (Royals and Red Sox) received just one. I expected Kansas City to be a more popular sleeper pick. I’m don’t think they’re ready to compete in earnest with the AL’s other Wild Card contenders, but they certainly seem to think they are, and it’s always good to have a little zag in a ballot full of zig. Better luck next year, Royals. Read the rest of this entry »

Burn After Reading, an oft-overlooked part of the Coen Brothers oeuvre, is quietly one of their best films and includes some of Brad Pitt and George Clooney’s the finest work ever captured on celluloid. I’m not going to spoil the ending by giving you the film’s last bit dialogue (you really shouldn’t worry about spoilers for a 12-year-old flick), but the final exchange is one I think about a lot, as it applies to numerous aspects of life.

CIA Supervisor: What did we learn, Palmer?
Palmer: I don’t know sir.
CIA Supervisor: I don’t f***ing know either. I guess we learned not to do it again.
Palmer: Yes, sir.
CIA Supervisor: I’m f***ed if I know what we did.
Palmer: Yes sir, it’s hard to say.

Spring training is not especially informative. Team records don’t matter. Players’ performances rarely predict what will happen during the regular season, although access to underlying metrics like those provided by Statcast can help a bit in figuring out what’s small sample and what’s a real change in ability. Still, we all watch spring ball and try our best to glean some kind of insight from the six weeks leading up to real baseball. Here’s what I got from it this year.

Injuries will be the defining factor of the 2021 season

It’s already happening. The Blue Jays will likely be without George Springer on Opening Day due to a strained oblique, while their big offseason bullpen fix, Kirby Yates, is out for the year following Tommy John surgery. The Rays will be without first baseman Ji-Man Choi for a month following knee surgery, and already have five relievers on the 60-day IL due to a smorgasbord of elbow issues. The Yankees will begin the year without slugger Luke Voit and two crucially important lefties out of the pen in Zack Britton and Justin Wilson. Eduardo Rodriguez, Boston’s scheduled Opening Day starter, has a dead arm. Baltimore outfielders Anthony Santander and DJ Stewart are dealing with muscle strains. And that’s just the American League East. Read the rest of this entry »