Earlier today, we looked at the teams in the bottom half of the league’s rotations. Now to close out the positional power rankings, we look at the game’s best.

The ever-changing landscape of pitching is present throughout the upper tier of the rotation rankings. With fewer workhorses across the league, rotations are often relying on upwards of eight guys to make a significant impact, as teams now understand that the six-month grind will churn their staff and could leave their April and October iterations looking very different. The margins are tiny, with the top three teams separated by fractions of a win and the next 11 split by a mere 1.6 WAR. Six of the teams ranked 16-30 last year have graduated into the upper class, but a key injury or an overperforming prospect from one of clubs in this year’s bottom tier could be enough to flip things drastically. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, we ranked baseball’s bullpens. Today, we turn our attention to the starters, beginning with the rotations that project in the bottom half of the league.

It’s not every day that you get to quote Tolstoy in an article that primarily consists of short descriptions of fifth starters, but trust me, I have a good reason for doing so. You know which quote I’m going for, presumably. “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” It’s trite, but it does such a good job of describing major league rotations that I couldn’t resist. I’m sure you’ll love the top 15 rotations when they get released. There’s a shiny ace at the top. He’s accompanied by a fairly good second banana, maybe even someone you could call a borderline number one starter. The guys behind them? They’re a mix of interesting young pitchers and accomplished veterans. If the team is lucky, they might even be a super-rotation, health permitting. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today, Dan Szymborski kicked off our reliever rankings. Now we’ll take a look at the bullpens projected to be baseball’s best.

There are some positions for which a cleaner, wider WAR gap exists between the top teams and the bottom, where we can more definitively say that some teams are better than others. For instance, the combination of talent and depth that the Yankees and Braves have in right field separates them from the rest of baseball in a substantial way: There’s a projected 4-5 WAR gap between those clubs and the teams projected/ranked as high as sixth in right field. The projected WAR gap between the Phillies’ bullpen and that of the White Sox, ranked all the way down at 30, is only about that much, at 4.5 WAR. Relief pitching is not one of those positions with clear, WAR-driven demarcation from team to team, and bullpens on clubs with better rotations (and starters who eat up innings) are going to be punished for throwing fewer innings than those on teams that frequently deploy long relievers since WAR is a counting stat influenced by playing time. Read the rest of this entry »

After wrapping up our position player rankings with the league’s designated hitters, we turn our attention to the pitchers, starting with the bullpens in the bottom half of the reliever rankings.

One of my favorite jokes, which I’ve probably beaten into the ground at this point, is that there are three teams a year whose fans think they have a great bullpen, while those who root for the 27 other clubs are convinced that their team’s bullpen is the worst in baseball history and the primary reason they aren’t going to win the World Series. Read the rest of this entry »

Blaze Alexander is on the bubble to break camp with the Arizona Diamondbacks. His spring showing suggests he deserves the opportunity to do so. In 52 Cactus League plate appearances, the 24-year-old infield prospect has slashed .420/.442/.640 with seven extra-base hits and five stolen bases in as many attempts. Moreover, he’s continued to show promise since being taken in the 11th round of the 2018 draft out of IMG Academy. That he’s mostly flown under the radar while doing so is starting to change.

“I hope that’s the case,” Alexander told me in mid-March. “I mean, I’ve been putting on a pretty good performance this spring, so I definitely think I’m opening some eyes. That said, I obviously need to transfer it over to the regular season.”

The likelihood of his doing so in the big leagues was improved on Friday when the D-Backs released Elvis Andrus, a notable roster move given that the 15-year veteran had been inked to a free agent contract as a potential backup for Geraldo Perdomo. As it now stands, there is a good chance that Alexander — “a viable defensive shortstop with a huge arm… [who] hits for enough power” in the words of Eric Longenhagen — will be filling that role.

Hitting for power isn’t one of Alexander’s aims, nor is it part of his process. While he does possess pop — his ledger includes 30 home runs in 734 plate appearances over the past two minor-league seasons — his M.O. is bullets, not blasts. Read the rest of this entry »

We conclude our rankings of the game’s position players with a deep dive on designated hitters.

Back when the DH rule was introduced in 1973 (has it really been five decades?), the role was often filled by aging and/or physically compromised sluggers who were in the lineup on a regular basis. Boston’s Orlando Cepeda played in 142 games, while Minnesota’s Tony Oliva played in 146 and the California Angels’ Frank Robinson saw action in 147. All were in their mid-to-late 30s, and save for Robinson’s 17 games in left field, all were exclusively designated hitters. The Tigers differed in that they platooned at the position, but it was with an otherwise similar script. Gates Brown and Frank Howard, both at the tail end of their careers, combined to play in just three games with a glove in hand. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, Leo Morgenstern and Davy Andrews previewed left and center field. Now we round out the outfield positions with a look at right field.

Last year, right field boasted the two best players in the National League… sort of. While Ronald Acuña Jr. finally picked up where he left off before tearing his right ACL in July 2021, becoming the first player to combine at least 40 homers and at least 70 stolen bases in the same season, Mookie Betts had his best season as a Dodger. The pair finished first and second in the majors in wRC+ (170 to 167 in Acuña’s favor) and virtually tied for the lead in WAR (8.3 apiece). The wrinkle was that the diminutive Dodger — who had already banked six Gold Gloves and an MVP award while climbing to ninth in JAWS as a right fielder — did a substantial amount his work as a middle infielder, starting 62 games at second base and another 12 at shortstop without missing a beat. That versatility helped the Dodgers compensate for the loss of Gavin Lux to his own ACL tear, and it was enabled by an impressive comeback by 33-year-old Jason Heyward, whom the Dodgers plucked off the scrapheap and slotted into a well-defined platoon role in right. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today, Leo Morgenstern examined the state of left field. Now we turn our attention to those who roam center.

Well, it’s finally happened. The picture at the top of this page is not an accident. For the first time since 2013, the Angels no longer sit at the top of the center field positional power rankings. Mike Trout has officially been dethroned. It’s not just that Julio Rodríguez has usurped Trout’s role as the High King of All Center Field. Trout isn’t even in the top three. This occasion is momentous enough that I’ve devoted a separate article to Trout’s decade-long reign, but our purposes here, let’s take a look at what this shift says about the state of center field in 2024. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, we wrapped up our analysis of the league’s infielders with third base and shortstop. Today, we shift our attention to the outfield, starting in left field.

Left field has been one of the weaker positions in the game for several years, but the outlook for 2024 is especially bleak. For the first time since 2017 (excluding 2020), we don’t have a single team projected to surpass four wins. The Astros’ 3.7 WAR projection is the lowest total for the top team at any non-pitching position on the power rankings this year. In fact, it’s the lowest total for the top team at any non-pitching position since 2019, when we projected Red Sox designated hitters for a mere 3.4 WAR. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today, Michael Baumann gave an accounting of the league’s shortstops. Now we turn our attention to the third basemen.

Welcome to the ultimate tweener position. Like shortstop, the hot corner was a glove-first position in the early days of baseball, but it has evolved to the point where it’s hard to be competitive if you don’t offer something with both the glove and the bat. This kind of hybridization has probably hurt third basemen in their quest for legendary status. Baseball’s classic ways of evaluating talent — Triple Crown stats and Gold Gloves/defensive reputation — tend to diminish well-rounded players without a single standout skill to point to, creating a very high bar for third basemen to get attention. Measures like WAR can remedy this problem by putting one estimate on a player’s total contribution, but even with an increased focus on WAR-type measures, eight of the top 20 third basemen by Jay Jaffe’s JAWS who are eligible for the Hall of Fame (and who are without PED whispers) aren’t enshrined in Cooperstown. Contrast that with first base, where only on player in the top 20 isn’t in the Hall (Keith Hernandez). Hitting a bit worse than first basemen and fielding a bit worse than shortstops aren’t great plaudits for your sizzle reel. Read the rest of this entry »