Reese Olson has a chance to be a top-of-the-rotation starter in Detroit, and it is notable that the Tigers acquired him via trade. On July 30, 2021, then-general manager Al Avila dealt Daniel Norris to the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for the now-24-year-old right-hander, who at the time had a 4.30 ERA in High-A and was flying below most prospect radar. Talented but raw, he ranked seventh in a system that wasn’t particularly well-regarded.

Olson made his MLB debut this past June, and by season’s end he was showing signs that he could emerge as a No. 1 or a No. 2.on a promising young staff. Over his last six starts, the plain-spoken Gainesville, Georgia native allowed just 18 hits and six earned runs in 35-and-two-thirds innings. On the year, he had a 3.99 ERA and a 4.01 FIP to go with a 24.4% strikeout rate and a .214 BAA. He fanned 102 batters in 103-and-two-thirds innings.

Scott Harris doesn’t believe in labels like No. 1 starter or No. 2 starter. He does believe in the fast-rising righty.

“Reese has three distinct secondary pitches that miss bats,” Detroit’s President of Baseball Operations told me at this week’s GM meetings. “That’s really hard to find. He also has two different fastballs that reach the upper 90s. I also think he did some things this summer that reminded me of what other really good pitchers do in their first year in the big leagues. I’m not going to throw those expectations on him, but his ceiling is as high as anyone’s.” Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the offseason. As is customary, FanGraphs’ annual top 50 free agent rankings come out the week after the World Series. In recent years, we’ve rotated through the writers principally responsible for the list – first Dave Cameron, then Kiley McDaniel, Craig Edwards, and, more recently, me. I’m back this year and I’ve brought help: the FanGraphs staff contributed mightily to this piece.

Below, I’ve provided contract estimates and rankings of the winter’s top free agents, along with market-focused breakdowns for the top 25 players. That could be a quick discussion of where a player might sign, what a team might look for, or even just statistical analysis masquerading as market analysis – I’m an analyst at heart and never stray far from my roots. Meanwhile, a combination of Davy Andrews, Michael Baumann, Chris Gilligan, Jay Jaffe, Kyle Kishimoto, David Laurila, Eric Longenhagen, Leo Morgenstern, Dan Szymborski, and Esteban Rivera supplied player-focused breakdowns, which are designed to provide some context for each player at this moment in his career. Special thanks to David Appelman, Sean Dolinar, Jason Martinez, and Meg Rowley for their help behind the scenes.

The players are ranked in the order in which I prefer them. That’s often the same as ranking them in contract order, but not always. In some cases, I prefer a player I expect will get less money over one who stands to make more. I’ll generally make note of that in the accompanying comment, but just to reiterate, this list isn’t exclusively sorted by descending average annual value or anything like that. All of the dollar amounts are estimated guarantees. Plenty of contracts will include team options or player incentives, but those aren’t included here. Player opt outs are similarly not included. Unless otherwise noted, the projections below are Steamer 2024 projections, but use our Depth Chart playing time allocations. The listed ages indicate the age-season the player is about to play. Every player’s crowdsourced projection will appear alongside my projection, with the exception of Yariel Rodriguez, who we did not poll on due to a slip up on my and Meg’s part. Read the rest of this entry »

In case you were on sabbatical on Monday and missed the news, it’s manager hirin’ season. As much as player evaluation is an inexact science, identifying good potential managers is even more so. Even previous success as a manager is no guarantee. Dusty Baker and Bruce Bochy both won titles almost immediately after being hired to their last jobs, but consider how badly things went for Joe Girardi in Philadelphia or Joe Maddon in Anaheim.

So much of this job is either intangible or inscrutable to outsiders; more than that, there are several different ways to become qualified for it. Monday’s new hires — Craig Counsell of the Cubs, Stephen Vogt of the Guardians, and Carlos Mendoza of the Mets — represent three different paths to managerial candidacy. That got me thinking about managers less as individuals than as classes of individuals. Read the rest of this entry »

An entire offseason’s worth of managerial reshuffling took place early Monday afternoon, as the most coveted managerial role was filled and the most coveted managerial candidate found a home — just not how you’d think.

The Guardians first announced the hiring of Mariners bullpen coach and golden-voiced baritone Stephen Vogt. Shortly thereafter, news broke that the Cubs were hiring outgoing Brewers manager Craig Counsell, despite already having David Ross under contract for that position. Counsell had been expected to follow former Brewers baseball ops boss David Stearns to the Mets, but when he landed in Chicago, the Mets unveiled Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza as their new manager.

Counsell, regarded as one of the top skippers in the sport, has reset the market for manager salaries with a five-year, $40 million contract. A free agent after his Brewers contract expired, he interviewed with both New York and Cleveland and was regarded as both teams’ top choice. When he made his unexpected switch to Chicago, that made the other teams’ decisions easier, and thus followed the busy afternoon on the coaching carousel. Read the rest of this entry »

In the five days between the World Series and the start of free agency, there’s plenty of paperwork to do — exercising or declining options, sorting out 40-man roster spots, that sort of thing — before a team starts the offseason in earnest. Sometimes, that shuffling reveals a landing spot for a player who was going to be turned loose anyway, and we get a trade.

Mark Canha, your friendly neighborhood on-base machine, is headed from Milwaukee to Detroit, with 25-year-old Double-A reliever Blake Holub headed in the opposite direction. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Rice led all New York Yankees minor leaguers with a 183 wRC+ this past season. Given the degree to which he’s flown under most prospect radar, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for you to read those words and ask, “Who the heck is Ben Rice?“

Here is a snapshot answer to that question:

A 24-year-old left-handed-hitting catcher, Rice grew up in Massachusetts and went on to attend Dartmouth College, from where the Yankees selected him in the 12th round of the 2021 draft. His first full professional season was solid but not especially notable; in 68 games with Low-A Tampa, he logged an .810 OPS and went deep nine times. This year was particularly notable. Playing at three levels — the majority of his games were at Double-A Somerset — he slashed .324/.434/.615 with 20 home runs in 332 plate appearances.

My own knowledge of Rice was admittedly next to nil prior to talking him in Portland, Maine in early September. Somerset broadcaster Steven Cusumano suggested Rice as a deserving interview subject, and as circumstances would have it, that conversation came moments later. Outside of having been told that the backstop had been tearing up the Eastern League — I later saw that his OPS was north of 1.000 — I basically went in blind.

I asked the erstwhile psychology major about his breakout. More specifically, why was he was enjoying such a boffo season with the bat? Read the rest of this entry »

You might have noticed a surfeit of bunting in this postseason, or at least it seemed that way because Geraldo Perdomo was in the World Series. I, the man who launched an impromptu Bunt Week two months ago, could not let the opportunity pass to sit in judgment of these bunts.

We often decry the sacrifice bunt as a needless waste of outs, but a bunt for a hit can be one of the most audacious, skilled plays in the sport, as beautiful in its own way as a light-tower home run. In fact, every bunt is distinctive and wonderful, and so each must be examined — all 26 of them — for procedural and results-based value, tactical and strategic context, as well as aesthetic value. These are just the 26 bunts that resulted in action, according to Baseball Savant, so be warned: failed bunt attempts are not featured. If you’re looking for that failed Trea Turner push bunt in Game 7 of the NLCS, you will not find it here. (Though for the record, I didn’t hate it.)

Let us judge the bunts. Read the rest of this entry »

The last of the extant pre-divisional era franchises to not have won the World Series has finally hoisted their own trophy, as the Texas Rangers shut down the Arizona Diamondbacks, 5-0, to score the team’s first championship. Texas’ starter, Nathan Eovaldi, was shaky in the early going, but every last one of Arizona’s runners were stranded on the basepaths, and the shelling of Paul Sewald in the ninth sealed the deal with insurance runs.

If you just watched the starting pitchers, Eovaldi and Zac Gallen, for the first five innings on Wednesday night, you might be surprised that the series didn’t find its way back to Texas. The Rangers entered Game 5 having won all five of Eovaldi’s starts this postseason, but it was Gallen who looked to have the advantage early on. Eovaldi’s control was spotty. He allowed five walks over five innings, the most free passes he’s issued in a decade, going back to when he was a hard-throwing Marlins prospect who had trouble putting away batters. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you like pitchers? Of course you do – you’re reading a recap of a World Series game on FanGraphs. Good news, then: Game 4 had so many pitchers. Swingmen, high-leverage guys, LOOGYs, ROOGYs, forgotten starters who had accumulated a light covering of dust throughout the playoffs, closers, setup men. You name it, this one had it. Unless, of course, you were rooting for the Diamondbacks.

When bullpen games work, a whirling mass of relievers traipse onto the mound and befuddle the hitters. When bullpen games don’t work, a whirling mass of relievers still traipse onto the mound, but with significantly less befuddling. Tuesday was one of those nights.

Joe Mantiply started off smoothly for the Diamondbacks, with four outs among the first six hitters. The bottom of the lineup was up, but Mantiply had already thrown 28 pitches, and Torey Lovullo started the bullpen carousel. Miguel Castro came in – and then things fell apart.

Castro retired the first batter he faced, but he just didn’t have it. Even that at-bat featured spotty command, and things got worse from there. With Leody Taveras batting, Castro uncorked a wild pitch that allowed a run to score. Then he walked Taveras. Then Travis Jankowski, who had only batted twice this postseason and was only in the lineup due to Adolis García’s oblique injury, laced a line drive single. Suddenly Texas’ best hitters were up with a chance to do damage. Read the rest of this entry »

While Monday night’s World Series Game 3 victory might not qualify as Pyrrhic, it definitely came at a price for the Rangers. After three scoreless innings, starter Max Scherzer left with back tightness, forcing Jon Gray into an impromptu piggyback start. Adolis García, who is in the midst of a jaw-dropping, record-setting postseason run, left after seven innings with left side tightness. Meanwhile, two days removed from stealing one on the road in Texas, the Diamondbacks must feel deflated, losing 3-1 despite outhitting the Rangers, six hits to five. Texas now boast a 2-1 series lead.

Coming in, the question was about Scherzer’s thumb, which had developed a cut just below the base of the nail. He reportedly kept the wound from reopening with a concoction of super glue and cotton. It’s hard to say, but it could have had an effect on his pitching. Scherzer’s spin rate was below his season average on all five of his pitches (even during the first two innings, when his velocity was above his season average), and his curveball, slider, and changeup all had less movement than usual. Until his injury, Scherzer seemed to be benefitting from luck. He walked two and allowed two hits over his three innings, but he kept the Diamondbacks off the scoreboard by virtue of a double play, an outfield assist on some bad baserunning in the second inning, and a fortunate bounce on a comebacker. Read the rest of this entry »