Julio Rodriquez has what it takes to become the face of a franchise. Nineteen years old and seemingly on a fast track to Seattle, the top prospect in the Mariners system possesses more than upper-echelon talent. He’s also blessed with a healthy dose of character and charisma. More on that in a moment.

Rodriguez currently sits 44th on The Board, and there’s a decent chance he’ll climb significantly from that slot in the not-too-distant future. MLB Pipeline has him at No. 18, while Baseball America is even more bullish on the tools Dominican-born outfielder. BA ranks Rodriquez as the eighth-best prospect in the game.

The numbers he put up last year between low-A West Virginia and high-A Modesto are eye-opening. In 367 plate appearances, Rodriguez slashed .326/.390/.540, with a dozen home runs. Keep in mind that he did this as an 18-year-old in his first season stateside. A year earlier, he was a precocious 17 and punishing pitchers in the Dominican Summer League.

Rodriguez is listed at 6’ 4”, 225, and Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto expects his right-handed stroke to propel plenty of baseballs over fences in years to come. Just as importantly, Dipoto sees a well-rounded skill set that is augmented by drive and desire.

“I don’t think he’s even scratched the surface of what he’s capable of from a power perspective,” opined Dipoto. “And he’s committed to improving in the areas you can really control, like defense and base running — the small nuances of the game.”

And then there is the aforementioned character and charisma. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Batters

As I noted yesterday, the Twins look a lot like a classic Cardinals team in that there are no real superstars but very few real weaknesses, making the chances of an actually lousy season quite small. In fact, the Twins might be a better Cardinals team than the 2020 Cardinals, as there are holes here, starting in the outfield.

No doubt elbow issues played a role in his down season, but Tyler O’Neill’s 2018 Beast Mode was basically missing in 2019 and as a result, his projection drop-off is massive, to the extent that ZiPS is no longer confident he’ll be a league-average corner outfielder. O’Neill’s contact numbers have been absolutely abysmal in the majors, and his 58.6% career contact rate and 21.4% swinging strike rate would be uncomfortably worse than the entire 2019 leaderboards. For reference, the last-place qualifier in contact rate in 2019 was Franmil Reyes at 65.4%. That’s troubling; to get to his pedestrian .258/.307/.454 line in St. Louis so far, O’Neill has had to maintain a .376 BABIP. That isn’t sustainable.

ZiPS sees Tommy Edman, who will see significant time in the outfield, as above-average overall, though regressing a bit from a surprising rookie campaign. He’s not likely to add enough defense to be valuable in an outfield corner, however. ZiPS is over Dexter Fowler, but does see Harrison Bader having a better offensive season, though it still amounts to a worse projection than the one he received entering 2019. Read the rest of this entry »

Sam Mondry-Cohen was between his junior and senior years at the University of Pennsylvania when he first began working with the Washington Nationals. He’s come a long way since then. An unpaid intern for six week in the summer of 2009, Mondry-Cohen now holds the title of Assistant General Manager, Baseball Research & Development.

His initial front office experience was the epitome of humble. The Nationals didn’t even have an actual internship program at the time. As Mondry-Cohen explained it, “They were basically there to babysit me. I don’t know that anyone was really looking for any work product.”

What they got was a second sabermetric voice at a time when analytics had yet to become mainstream. Mondry-Cohen may have been majoring in English at Penn — African-American literature was his main focus — but he was an avaricious reader of FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus. He’d devoured The Book. In short, he was a nerd-in-training.

“I had the vocabulary, and a way of looking at the game, that wasn’t common back then,” recalled Mondry-Cohen. “The Nationals didn’t have an analytics department or an R&D department. They didn’t have any data analysts. Adam Cromie, who went on to become the assistant GM, was the Assistant Director of Baseball Operations. He was the one who appreciated my world view of baseball, and he did assign me a few projects.” Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Minnesota Twins.

Batters

In my opinion, closing the deal with Josh Donaldson salvaged the Twins’ offseason. The team didn’t make any big moves last winter, disappointingly starting 2019 with a lower payroll than in 2018, but it did make several lower-key additions. With the Indians engaged in crippling levels of inaction, the Twins were able to “steal a march” on Cleveland and surprise them from behind. Minnesota had a quieter winter in the early going of this year and my worry — from their point of view that is — was that the Twins might enabling the White Sox to do to them in 2020 what they did to Cleveland in 2019.

Adding Donaldson, and moving Miguel Sanó to first, closes up the final hole in the starting lineup. Now, the Twins lineup resembles a classic Cardinals lineup, in the very best sense. There are no superstars — not even Donaldson — but the lineup is stacked, with every single starter projected to be at least league average. And there might be some upside remaining in Byron Buxton and Sanó. Like the best St. Louis teams, ZiPS sees the Twins as having ample backup plans at most positions, with Willians Astudillo, Marwin Gonzalez, Alex Avila, and even Jake Cave and Tomás Telis/Ryan Jeffers as more-than-capable fill-ins.

I’m very happy to see that ZiPS, like Steamer, has become a true disciple of Luis Arraez. His 2019 projection of .268/.309/.354 was more than respectable for a player who only had a couple months of Double-A experience and who was on the edges of prospect status. Arraez blew through that quickly, hitting .344/.409/.401 in the minors and .334/.399/.439 in 92 major league games. And remember, the offensive explosion in the minors was home run related, something that didn’t much benefit Arraez, who had all of six professional homers when the Twins called him up (and none in 2019). I didn’t have an American League Rookie of the Year vote, but Arraez would have been either second or third on my ballot. I’m know it’s likely that ZiPS is projecting Arraez to lead the league in batting average, but so be it; I don’t put my thumb on the scale.

Pitchers

While I love the Donaldson signing, I would much rather have seen them sign the Josh Donaldson of pitching. The top of the rotation is solid, with José Berríos and Jake Odorizzi, and Rich Hill and Homer Bailey aren’t bad pickups, especially as the team waits for Michael Pineada to come back from suspension, but there are too many interesting question marks behind Berríos and Odorizzi. That’s a more palatable situation for a rebuilding team than a contending one. The Twins are still one, possibly two pitchers away from me feeling comfortable with their roster. The rotation is unlikely to be a disaster because they also project to have a lot of reasonable back-end options, but the whole complexion of this group changes with Zack Wheeler or Hyun-Jin Ryu in there.

The bullpen looks a lot like the offense in that there’s nobody really dominant apart from Taylor Rogers, but it’s not really weak anywhere either. ZiPS likes a lot of the team’s Triple-A bound relievers, with pitchers like Ryne Harper, Danny Coulombe, Andrew Vasquez, Blaine Hardy, and Cody Stashak all having the potential to add real value to the parent club if needed.

Prospects

While ZiPS still sees Royce Lewis ending up with more career WAR than Nick Gordon, that gap is much narrower than scouts’ perceptions of the two middle infielders would suggest. ZiPS thinks Lewis has a lot more upside than Gordon, but also a fairly large chance of being a total bust; ZiPS translates his 2019 minor league performance at .193/.234/.305, coming off a .228/.276/.339 translation in 2018. ZiPS thinks Gordon is a safer bet, but doesn’t see a great deal of upside, pegging him basically as a one-win starter for most of his career. Given where the Twins are right now, if they can land a real difference-maker on the mound with a package centered around Lewis or Alex Kirilloff, I would pull that trigger in an instant.

ZiPS is more optimistic about the pitching prospects. Both Brusdar Graterol and Lewis Thorpe received projections suggesting they could pitch right now in the majors without the least bit of embarrassment, forming part of the Twins’ ample supply of third-through-fifth starters. And if you’re looking for some interesting names of the fringe prospect variety, ZiPS gives a better than 50/50 shot that either Griffin Jax or Bailey Ober have at least one league-average season as a starter in the majors. Now, I’d be skeptical of Ober until he passes the Triple-A test — he looks like an NBA power forward with a fastball that’s maybe better than Jered Weaver’s — but I like giving players who don’t fit the mold but play well every opportunity to pass or fail on merit.

One pedantic note for 2020: for the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth charts playing time, not the playing time ZiPS spits out, so there will be occasional differences in WAR totals.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned, players who will miss 2020 due to injury, and players who were released in 2019. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in June to form a ska-cowpunk Luxembourgian bubblegum pop-death metal band, he’s still listed here intentionally.

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected 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 which 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.

ZiPS is agnostic about future playing time by design. For more information about ZiPS, please refer to this article.

For an unprecedented seventh year in a row, and as part of a still record-setting surge, the BBWAA elected multiple candidates to the Hall of Fame with the 2020 ballot. Derek Jeter and Larry Walker had very different playing careers and voting paths, but both gained entry via results that carried a fair bit of drama into Tuesday evening’s announcement, as the questions of whether the former would join former teammate Mariano Rivera as the second unanimous selection in as many years, and of whether the latter would end up on the right side of 75%, were both up in the air.

We now know the answers, of course, and I’ve already delved into the ballot’s big take-home points. What follows here is my look at how each candidate fared, with a few lumped together for obvious reasons. Having written so much about the two honorees, I’m starting at the bottom of the results and working my way to the top, though of course I do hope you stick around to the end, if only to meet Robinson Canoe. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s back to business as usual for the BBWAA’s Hall of Fame voting, the results of which were announced on Tuesday evening. The messy and occasionally exasperating tradition of non-unanimity, which took an unprecedented one-year vacation when Mariano Rivera was elected with 100% of the vote last year, has returned. While Derek Jeter appeared on track to join Rivera in that exclusive club, one as-yet-unidentified voter from among the 397 ballots cast in this year’s election chose to throw a wrench in the works. No matter. Ol’ No. 2 will have to settle for the second-highest vote share in Hall history (99.75%) as well as the requisite bronze plaque in Cooperstown. He’ll have some company in the Class of 2020, as the writers also elected Larry Walker with 76.6% of the vote. Walker, the first Canadian-born position player ever elected, follows Tim Raines (2017) and Edgar Martinez (2019) as the third candidate in the last four election cycles to be chosen in his 10th and final year of eligibility.

With “only” two honorees this year, the writers’ unprecedented streak of electing at least three candidates annually has ended at three years; the last time they elected two was in 2016, when Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza were chosen. Even so, this is the seventh consecutive election in which the BBWAA has tabbed multiple candidates; that breaks a tie with the 1951-56 span, which was bracketed by back-to-back shutouts on either side. The 22 candidates elected over the past seven cycles is a record, far outdoing the 16 from the 1950-56 or 1951-57 stretches.

What follows here is my big-picture look at this year’s results; I’ll be back with my candidate-by-candidate breakdown on Wednesday. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Atlanta Braves. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. 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 the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a new feature at the site that offers sortable scouting information for every organization. That can be found here.

Other Prospects of Note

Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.

Power as a Carrying Tool
Kadon Morton, CF
Mahki Backstrom, 1B
Jefrey Ramos, LF
Greg Cullen, 2B
Brendan Venter, 3B
Drew Lugbauer, C/3B/1B

Morton, a two-way high schooler with a great frame and easy plus speed, and Backstrom were two of Atlanta’s Day Three, overslot high schoolers. Backstrom has more power right now, but Morton is toolsier and has the higher ceiling. The rest are big power corner guys of varying ages. Ramos is only 20 but seems poised to be a low OBP hitter. Cullen has pretty strong exit velo data but was old for the level. Venter and Lugbauer are really only first base fits, and it’s a tough profile.

Bench Sorts
Beau Phillip, SS
Andrew Moritz, CF
AJ Graffanino, SS
Justin Dean, CF

Phillip was a second rounder who took a $500,000 haircut. He has utility bench tools. Moritz is a tweener outfielder with good instincts. Scouts really liked Graffanino at times in high school and in college, but he’s been hurt at times and not performed at others. Dean is a 70 runner.

Younger Arms
Darius Vines, RHP
Roddery Munoz, RHP
Jared Johnson, RHP
Kasey Kalich, RHP
Alec Barger, RHP
Lisandro Santos, RHP
Justin Yeager, RHP

There’s a relative lack of arm strength toward the bottom of this system. Vines is TrackMan0friendly reliever with an average heater/breaker combo and a 55 changeup. Munoz is a two-year DSL pitcher up to 97. Johnson was a 2019 overslot high schooler on Day Three. He was up to 92 in pro ball, and is a bigger kid with a stiffer delivery that popped up late in the spring. Kalich spent a year at a JUCO, then was a draft-eligible sophomore at Texas A&M, so he may be an under-scouted, sleeper relief prospect with a mid-90s heater. The last three are all 21-year-olds who were up to 96 at Danville.

Older Arms
Corbin Clouse, LHP
Thomas Burrows, LHP
Daysbel Hernandez, RHP
Josh Graham, RHP
Luis Mora, RHP
Kurt Hoekstra, RHP
Troy Bacon, RHP
Brad Roney, RHP

Clouse and Burrows are both close to the big leagues and profile as the second lefty in a bullpen. Hernandez has mid-90s heat and could be a middle relief piece if his breaking ball becomes more consistent. Graham throws hard but his fastball doesn’t miss bats, and it affects the way his excellent changeup plays. Mora has the highest ceiling of this group, and he’s been up to 101, but he’s very wild. Hoekstra is a conversion arm up to 95 with an average slurve. Bacon isn’t big, doesn’t have huge velo, and operates with small margin for error at the top of the zone, but is getting results. Roney was a conversion arm at Southern Miss that quickly showed upper-90’s velo in pro ball, but command and health have been problems.

System Overview

The tide has receded in this system, and it’s currently shallow due to trades and graduations, and because of the fallout from the previous regime’s scandal, which has kept it from acquiring two years of international talent. Still as top-heavy a system as you’ll find in baseball, Atlanta has several promising, everyday type players at the very top of the farm but very little depth right now.

But wait, let’s talk about their 2019 draft class. Initially, we did not like it. We were lukewarm on Shewmake, and thought Beau Phillip was a reach. But the team took a high-volume approach with a bunch of overslot picks on Day Three, which was a logical approach considering that the International program’s hands were tied, and the class looks pretty interesting now. There’s industry love for Shewmake among clubs that think he’s still growing into his body, Harris and Ball had summers so strong that their stock rose. Suddenly there are some interesting, toolsy types percolating near the bottom of the system.

Triston Casas continues to grow, and not just developmentally on the field. The top prospect in the Red Sox farm system recently told a trio of reporters, yours truly included, that he’s put on 10 pounds of muscle, and gained nearly an inch in height, since the end of the season. Just a few days past his 20th birthday, the 2018 first-round pick is now 6’ 5″, 255.

Casas comes by his size naturally. Asked about his lineage, he explained that his father is “about the same size height-wise, but has put on a little weight and is bigger than me in terms of roundness.”

The hulking youngster is surprisingly agile and well-rounded for someone of his stature. While his long-term position will almost certainly be first base, Casas was drafted as a third baseman and has seen time at both infield corners since turning pro. His athleticism also makes him a candidate for left field.

His role model is a first baseman.

“I emulate Joey Votto as much as I can,” said Casas, who swings from the left side. “He’s my favorite player. I actually choke up on the bat from the first pitch. Every at bat. And with two strikes I’m 4-5 inches up the bat. If you’ve never seen me play, there are pictures with me way up the pine tar.”

There is also footage of the former Plantation, Florida prep propelling baseballs long distances. As Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel wrote in his prospect profile, Casas “participated in multiple home run derbies during his amateur summers, and posted gaudy exit velocities during team pre-draft workouts.” They placed a 65/70 on the young slugger’s raw-power grade. Read the rest of this entry »

Plenty has been written in the last few days about Major League Baseball’s findings during its investigation into the Astros and the pending inquiry into the Red Sox, the penalties that were received or will be, and what these punishments say about baseball. The various (and sometimes divergent) constituencies commissioner Rob Manfred had to satisfy made doing so basically impossible; I’ve made it clear how I feel about the punishments. The Astros dismissed Jeff Luhnow and AJ Hinch following their suspension by MLB. The Red Sox mutually parted ways with Alex Cora on Tuesday; Carlos Beltrán and the Mets followed suit Thursday afternoon. It is and will continue to be a dark time for the league.

But even as the ramifications of the scandal continue to make themselves felt, we can look ahead to how we think the Astros baseball operations group might operate going forward. Houston’s baseball ops groups was already on the small side before Luhnow was fired, both by design and as a result of recent departures. In the last year or so, the club has lost Mike Elias, Sig Mejdal, and Eve Rosenbaum to the Orioles, Mike Fast and Ronit Shah to the Braves, and Oz Ocampo to the Pirates. Colin Wyers departed the organization, but hasn’t yet landed with another team. Brandon Taubman was fired before being placed on baseball’s ineligible list; he can apply for reinstatement after this season. And all of that has come against the backdrop of another scouting purge, and a couple of lower-level departures. So what comes next in Houston? Read the rest of this entry »

Before the offseason started, it looked like a fine time to be in the market for a third baseman. Want to shop at the top of the market? The top position player to reach free agency, Anthony Rendon, calls third base home. The second-best position player in free agency does too. In the market for a Honda rather than a BMW? Mike Moustakas, Eric Sogard, and Starlin Castro all spent time at the hot corner in 2019. Looking for a fixer-upper? Take a gander at Travis Shaw, Maikel Franco, or Brock Holt.

Even if you weren’t going to sign someone out of that group, the trade market seemed open as well. Kris Bryant, who can play a lot of places but is most comfortable at third, was rumored to be available. Nolan Arenado could be had if you could whisper the right words in Jeff Bridich’s ear — presumably words involving the names of a few prospects and maybe a negotiating class about the value of opt-outs. You could have Zack Cozart for cheaper than free (act now and receive a bonus Will Wilson!) if you wanted to bet on an improbable rebound.

But the heady days of third basemen flowing like wine are gone. When Donaldson signed with the Twins, he took the last obvious move away from teams looking to upgrade at third. Rendon is in Anaheim, the mid-tier options have all accepted deals, and Holt and Brad Miller are probably the best two third basemen available. Even the trade markets have cooled; Cozart is now available for free (rather than at a pickup), but Bryant’s market never got going and the Cardinals appear to be Arenado’s only suitor.

For teams still missing a third baseman, it’s looking grim. Because while it felt like there was a tsunami of available talent, baseball is a zero-sum game. Short of some new prospects to fill the ranks, Anaheim’s gain is Washington’s loss, and so on. Yes, there were a lot of third basemen available this offseason, but there were even more teams looking.

There are six teams that can credibly be called contenders and still need help at third base. Let’s walk through each of their situations and see what’s likely to shake out. Read the rest of this entry »