We will not be breaking new ground today. What you read in this article won’t change the way you understand baseball. However, it might help you to appreciate a few baseball players for who they are, and that strikes me as a noble goal. A couple weeks ago, Ben Clemens introduced Whomps Per Whiff, a stat that divides barrels by whiffs in order to show “how often you absolutely whomp the ball, as compared to how often your swing results in nothing but a tiny gust of air.” It was a remarkably simple way of looking at hitting, and the leaderboard featured some of the best hitters in baseball. It was also a fun article, and I agreed with several of its underlying premises:

• If there’s one thing baseball doesn’t have enough of, it’s statistics.
• Anybody can make up a statistic, as long as they have a dream in their heart and a copy of Microsoft Excel.
• It’s important that those statistics have silly names. That’s why I’ve been lobbying to have people pronounce wRC+ as “Work-Plus,” preferably in a Rihanna voice.
• The word whomp is decidedly fun.

Read the rest of this entry »

Zack Wheeler has arguably been the best pitcher in baseball over the past four seasons. Since joining the Philadelphia Phillies prior to the truncated 2020 campaign, the 33-year-old right-hander has made 101 starts and boasts a 3.06 ERA, a 2.90 FIP, and a 26.7% strikeout rate. Moreover, his 19.3 WAR over that span is tops among his contemporaries.

A thirst to continually get better has helped bring Wheeler to the pinnacle of his profession. Never entirely satisfied with the depth and quality of his arsenal, he’s always looking for a new edge, whether it’s an additional weapon or an upgrade to one already in his toolbox. Just last year he added a sweeper, and opposing hitters can expect to see yet another option when he takes the mound in 2024.

Wheeler discussed his growth as a pitcher, as well as his goals going forward, last week at the Phillies’ spring training complex in Clearwater.

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David Laurila: How have you evolved as a pitcher over the years?

Zack Wheeler: “I’ve developed more pitches since I got drafted. Everything has gotten crisper. After my TJ [in 2015], I was able to gain some command, which I didn’t have before. So pairing the repertoire with command took me to that next level. Really, a lot of it has just been repetition and learning, and from there putting it all together.” Read the rest of this entry »

To understand why Baltimore Orioles shortstop Jackson Holliday is the no. 1 prospect on our Top 100 list, look no further than Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin’s writeup of the 20-year-old phenom. They describe Holliday, the first overall pick in the 2022 draft, as “a sweet-swinging shortstop with above-average feel for contact and burgeoning power,” and close their evaluation by predicting that he “is very likely to become a 5-WAR shortstop who does everything well.” He has been spending time at second base this spring, because the O’s already have last year’s no. 1 overall prospect Gunnar Henderson at shortstop, but either way, stardom is seemingly in Holliday’s future.

That the promising youngster is the son of former big league slugger Matt Holliday is well known. It is also a primary factor in his advanced approach to hitting, as well as his overall understanding of his craft. Last season, which he began in Low-A and ended in Triple-A, the lefty-hitting Holliday produced a .323/.442/.499 slash line and 159 wRC+ across four levels of the minor leagues.

Holliday sat down to talk hitting over the weekend prior to a Grapefruit League game in Sarasota.

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David Laurila: How do you approach hitting?

Jackson Holliday: “As far as guessing pitches… that’s not something I’m great at. But I really enjoy learning about swings — different guys’ swings — how they work, and little things that can help, like cues. My dad has been around baseball for so long, and is such a hitting guy, and I got that from him. But yeah, my approach is pretty simple. I try to stay in the middle of field, stay on my backside, and hit the heater.”

Laurila: Are you basically hunting fastballs and adjusting from there?

Holliday: “Yeah. I sit fastball. I don’t sit offspeed unless there is a real outlier. That’s something I learned from my dad. He would sit heater and try to hit it to the middle of the field. If you’re in a good spot to hit a fastball to the middle of the field you can adjust to the offspeed pitch a lot better than you can sitting offspeed and trying to hit a heater.”

Laurila: How hard is it to be diligent with that? There are going to be times where your subconscious brain tells you, “He’s not going to throw a fastball here.” Read the rest of this entry »

For as strong as his 2023 campaign had been, and for as well positioned as he was in this winter’s market, Cody Bellinger‘s free agency was always hampered by questions of sustainability. His debut season with the Cubs followed two unsettlingly bad years with the Dodgers, and the metrics underlying last season’s resurgence were comparatively modest relative to his production, raising the possibility if not the likelihood of regression. In light of those issues, even as he placed third on our Top 50 Free Agents list heading into the offseason and reportedly sought a contract as high as $250 million, it seemed quite likely he’d come away with considerably less. He did, agreeing to return to the Cubs on a three-year, $80 million deal, one that contains opt-outs after the first two seasons, and one that was still pending a physical as of this writing.

Effectively, this is a pillow contract, negotiated by the agent who created the term, Scott Boras. The 28-year-old Bellinger will get the opportunity to show that his 2023 performance was no fluke, with two chances before his age-30 season to secure a much bigger payday. He’s guaranteed $30 million in 2024, with salaries of $30 million in ’25 and $20 million in ’26 if he hasn’t exercised his opt-outs, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

Bellinger came to the Cubs after an eventful 10-year run in the Dodgers’ organization, one that began when the son of former utilityman Clay Bellinger was drafted in the fourth round out of an Arizona high school in 2013. He hit 39 home runs while winning NL Rookie of the Year honors in 2017, and smacked 47 homers two years later while taking home the NL MVP award. His timely hitting and spectacular fielding during the 2020 postseason helped the Dodgers to their first championship since 1988, but one of those timely hits precipitated his fall. Celebrating what proved to be the decisive home run in Game 7 of the 2020 NLCS against the Braves, the exuberant Bellinger dislocated his right (non-throwing) shoulder after bashing forearms with teammate Enrique Hernández. He underwent arthroscopic labrum surgery after the World Series, started slowly in spring training, and then in the fourth game of the season suffered a hairline fracture in his left fibula, knocking him out for eight weeks. Unable to find his rhythm as he recovered from both shoulder and leg issues, he hit a gruesome .165/.240/.302 (47 wRC+) with -1.0 WAR in 350 plate appearances, though he showed signs of life during the playoffs when he adopted a shortened swing with lower hand placement; he hit .353/.436/.471 (146 wRC+) across 39 plate appearances in 12 postseason games. While he got off to a solid start in 2022, he couldn’t maintain it despite endlessly tinkering with his swing. Exceptional defense in center field kept him in the lineup, but he hit just .210/.265/.389 (83 wRC+) with 1.8 WAR, and was nontendered following the season.

Less than three weeks later, Bellinger agreed to a one-year deal with the Cubs, one that paid him $12.5 million for 2023 with a $1 million bonus for winning NL Comeback Player of the Year honors (which he did) and a $5 million buyout on a $25 million mutual option for ’24. He declined his end of the option as well as the $20.325 million qualifying offer he received, and entered the market as the top free agent position player, behind only pitcher/designated hitter Shohei Ohtani and pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto on our list.

For Bellinger, last year’s change of scenery proved to be just what the doctor ordered. Reuniting with Cubs hitting coach Dustin Kelly and assistant Johnny Washington, both of whom he had worked with in the Dodgers’ system, Bellinger focused on adjusting his mechanics, particularly with regards to his hand placement and back hip, allowing him to use his lower body better. He further adapted his approach by pulling the ball with less frequency than at any time since his rookie season, and shortening his swing with two strikes to focus on contact. The result was his best season since 2019, as he hit .307/.356/.525 (134 wRC+) with 26 homers and 20 steals in 130 games — he missed nearly four weeks with a left knee contusion — while cutting his strikeout rate from 27.3% to 15.6%. Coupled with solid defense in center field, his 4.1 WAR tied for 20th in the NL and was the second-best showing of his career.

Bellinger’s intent is worth noting when digging into his underlying metrics, as he sacrificed some power in exchange for contact en route to the lowest exit velocity, barrel rate, and hard-hit rate of his career:

Bellinger’s barrel rate placed in just the 27th percentile, his exit velo in the 22nd percentile, and his hard-hit rate in the 10th percentile. He outdid his expected slugging percentage by 91 points, and his expected wOBA by 43 points; both gaps ranked third in the majors among batting title qualifiers (502 PA). On the other hand, his .279 AVG and .312 wOBA with two strikes ranked second and seventh in the majors, thanks in large part to his consistency in collecting hits despite soft contact, a topic that MLB.com’s Mike Petriello and our own Esteban Rivera both investigated.

All of that created something of a puzzle for Bellinger’s suitors — most prominently the Blue Jays (considered the favorites to sign him as of mid-December) and Giants, with the Mariners and Yankees also connected to him via rumors. Bellinger’s deal always seemed unlikely to approach the hot air of the $200 million-plus Borasphere, but in our Top 50 exercise, Ben Clemens projected him to get a six-year, $150 million contract, and our crowdsource expected a six-year, $144 million one. Other outlets went even higher.

As the Blue Jays dragged their feet this winter, the Giants turned to Jung Hoo Lee, and the Cubs refused to act like a large-market team, Bellinger’s anticipated market never fully materialized, with the aforementioned issues undoubtedly playing a part, as well. By ZiPS, he did well to get as much as he did:

ZiPS projects just a three-year, $70 million contract for that forecast, per Dan Szymborski, though perhaps that’s not surprising given that Bellinger has had just one good season out of the last three. Based on the percentile breakdowns, it appears the system gives him only about a 10% to 20% chance of matching or exceeding last year’s performance:

Bellinger probably doesn’t have to match his 2023 numbers to justify opting out, and he does have two chances to decide when to enter the market again. Still, a mediocre 2024 followed by a strong ’25 would probably leave teams with similar questions to the ones they confronted this winter.

As for how he fits into the Cubs, the key word is flexibility. The team already had Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki, both entering their age-29 seasons and on multi-year deals, set for the outfield corners. Prior to Bellinger’s re-signing, Pete Crow-Armstrong, the 20th-ranked prospect on our Top 100 list, appeared likely to take over as the Chicago’s regular center fielder. A 2020 first-round pick acquired from the Mets in the Javier Báez trade at the ’21 deadline, Crow-Armstrong hit a combined .283/.365/.511 (127 wRC+) in 73 games at Double-A Tennessee and 34 games at Triple-A Iowa. He went just 0-for-14 with three walks and two sacrifice hits in a cup of coffee with the Cubs, though to be fair, he started just three of the 13 games in which he appeared. He’s considered an elite center fielder who’s fearless on the basepaths and should produce at least average power. “If he can plug that hole over time, he’ll be a five-tool superstar,” wrote our prospect team of Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin. “More likely, he’ll have some 20-25 homer seasons amid a ton of strikeouts and a low OBP, with peak years resembling Mike Cameron’s (though almost certainly not to that level of annual consistency).”

Given Crow-Armstrong’s age (he turns 22 on March 25) and modest amount of upper-level experience, it always seemed possible that he would start the season in the minors before rejoining the Cubs. Now it would appear even more likely. If he hits his way back to the majors in a hurry, the Cubs could use him in center field and play Bellinger at first base, where lefty-swinging rookie Michael Busch was slated to be the starter or at least the long half of a platoon with righty Patrick Wisdom. The 26-year-old Busch, no. 84 on our prospect list, is considered a bat-only prospect who last played first base regularly at North Carolina, and who may be better suited to DH duty. Alternately, Bellinger has experience in both left field (315.1 innings, though none since 2018) and right (989 innings, the bulk of them in 2019), and Happ has experience at every defensive position except shortstop and catcher, though he hasn’t played the infield since 2021, when he totaled 36 innings, mostly at second base. Also in the category of moving parts is Christopher Morel, who last year saw time at all three outfield positions plus second base, shortstop, and third base; he was projected to get the bulk of the work at DH but also to be in the third base mix along with Nick Madrigal. Suffice to say that new manager Craig Counsell will have options for how to piece his lineup together, and that a clearer picture may emerge during spring training.

Via our Depth Charts projections, here’s a comparison of how the situation looked before the signing and immediately after, in terms of estimated plate appearances:

In terms of overall playing time, the real loser of the Bellinger deal is Mike Tauchman, a capable center fielder who hit .252/.363/.377 (107 wRC+) last year, with Crow-Armstrong, Madrigal, and Wisdom also losing substantial time. Keep in mind that all of this is based on best guesses just as exhibition season has opened, and before the Cubs have even confirmed the deal. A lot could still change.

Particularly with the Cardinals, Brewers, Cubs, and Reds each projected to win between 79 and 85 games, the NL Central is expected to be a dogfight. Any impactful addition could be the difference between reaching the postseason — something the Cubs haven’t done since 2020 — and staying home. By bringing back Bellinger, the team has given itself a better shot at playing in October without assuming a huge long-term risk. Bellinger, for his part, gets to return to a comfortable situation with a contending team, while also knowing that he can play his way into a bigger contract. It will be fascinating to see how this all unfolds.

In terms of rankings and projection, Mick Abel is much the same pitcher he was 24 months ago. When the now-22-year-old right-hander was featured in February 2022 during our annual Prospect Week, he was No. 1 in the Philadelphia Phillies system and No. 20 on our Top 100. Fast forward to the present, and he is No. 2 in the Philadelphia Phillies system and No. 22 on our Top 100. As Eric Longenhagen explained in his recent writeup, “Abel didn’t have an especially good 2023… [but] still has most all of the ingredients needed to be an impact starter, he just isn’t totally baked yet.”

How has the 2019 first-rounder out of Beaverton, Oregon’s Jesuit High School matured the most since our conversation two years ago? I asked him that question at Philadelphia’s spring training facility in Clearwater, Florida on Friday.

“I’d say it’s the separation of over-the-rubber and over-the-plate mentality, knowing how to distinguish between the two,” replied Abel, who had a 27.5% strikeout rate but also a 13.5% walk rate in 108-and-two-third innings with Double-A Reading last year. “Whether it’s in the bullpen or on the game-mound, knowing when and how to make adjustments without getting too deep in my head about it.

“Staying more direct and knowing that if I get too long with my arm action in back I’m going to be a little later to the plate,“ Abel said when asked to elaborate on the actual mechanics. “I want to make sure that everything is on time going down the hill.” Read the rest of this entry »

Well, Mike Rizzo wasn’t joking. At the Washington Nationals’ spring training facility, behind each of the 11 home plates in the bullpen, there are signs posted, and they’re not printed on paper. Somebody in the organization shelled out to have “I don’t care how fast you throw ball four” printed on canvas, in team colors, with a border all around and a logo at the bottom. The grommets at each corner, which allow them to be zip-tied tightly to the fence, probably cost extra. No National will throw a bullpen without seeing those signs for the next month. Whenever the team decides to remove them, somebody is going to have a rough a time cutting through all that thick plastic. It’ll take some doing.

Mike Rizzo was not joking when he said they would have these signs at spring training.

“I don’t care how fast you throw ball four.” pic.twitter.com/tT9x1Pv6yi

— Andrew Golden (@andrewcgolden) February 14, 2024

Rizzo road tested the line at the team’s annual hot stove event in January, and it brought down the house, earning sustained laughter and an applause break. In the absolute most literal sense, he’s right. If a pitch ends up as ball four, who cares how hard it was thrown? You might as well huck it up there underhanded like a cricket bowler. But that’s not really how baseball works. The pitcher doesn’t know beforehand whether the batter is going to swing, so let’s take Rizzo a shade less literally and look at how fastballs perform when they’re thrown in three-ball counts. The graph below shows four-seamers and sinkers, bucketed in one mile per hour increments. I went back and checked the numbers a second time because the line is so straight that the graph looks like it was airbrushed:

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a quiet winter in Pittsburgh. The Pirates lost almost no one from last year’s 76-86 team, but they didn’t add many players either. Their biggest acquisition is probably Aroldis Chapman. After that, it’s Marco Gonzales, Rowdy Tellez, Yasmani Grandal, or Martín Pérez. They’re competent major leaguers all, but hardly exciting additions. But as it turns out, the Pirates had another move to make, and it’s a welcome one:

BREAKING: Right-hander Mitch Keller and the Pittsburgh Pirates are in agreement on a five-year contract extension, sources tell me and @kileymcd. After a breakout season in which he struck out 210, the 27-year-old Keller will anchor the rotation for the team that drafted him.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) February 22, 2024

This is both exciting and necessary, at least in my opinion. The Pirates haven’t developed many effective starting pitchers in the last, well, ever. Only one Pirates starter in the past decade has eclipsed 10 WAR with the team: Gerrit Cole with 13. After that, their success stories are Jameson Taillon, Joe Musgrove, and, well… Iván Nova is sixth on the list, and that came in 2.5 years after the Yankees traded him to Pittsburgh. As Stephen Nesbitt and Ken Rosenthal recently chronicled in The Athletic, it’s been an ugly decade for baseball in the Steel City.

Mitch Keller has already accrued the third-most starting pitching WAR in the past decade with 7.5. He’s entering his sixth big league season this year, though ups and downs early in his career mean that it’s only his fifth year of service time. The road to success has been bumpy — from 2019 through 2021, he compiled a 6.02 ERA and only racked up 170 innings of major league work. Things have gotten better since then, though. He threw 159 solid innings in 2022 and then made 32 starts in 2023, both times looking like a consistently effective starter rather than the roller coaster ride of earlier years. Read the rest of this entry »

Below we’ve compiled scouting snippets for 100 interesting prospects to monitor in 2024. Readers should think of this piece as dessert for the Top 100 Prospects list. Similar to the structure of the Other Prospects of Note section of the team lists, we have grouped players into buckets by prospect type. We tried to touch on players who we thought readers might be curious about for one reason or another, often guys who could have a meaningful 2024 impact, or whose development this season could be key for their careers. We tried to focus on players from orgs whose lists haven’t run yet this cycle. For those whose lists have been published, there is a link to their full scouting report next to their name in lieu of us taking up more space in this post. In some cases, we end up going into the reasons why a player was excluded from the Top 100, which is an attempt to anticipate your questions, not us trying to knock the player. After all, everyone here is considered a prospect. Read the rest of this entry »

Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick wants many things. Mostly, hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money with which to renovate his team’s aging and leaky home ballpark, but also, incidentally, a World Series. The D-backs came close last year, and even though they fell at the final hurdle, the outlook of the ballclub is optimistic. Their entire core is back, and young stars like Corbin Carroll and Gabriel Moreno should only improve with time. This offseason, Arizona has traded for third baseman Eugenio Suárez and signed lefty starter Eduardo Rodriguez to improve its rotation. Brandon Pfaadt should have a stronger sophomore season, and global top-10 prospect Jordan Lawlar should break into the lineup at some point this season.

Finally, the Diamondbacks have upgraded their designated hitter spot, which was a bit of a wild card last October. The most recent addition came this weekend, when they signed Randal Grichuk to a one-year deal worth $2 million in guaranteed money. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m biased when it comes to Michael A. Taylor. I know that. I’ve watched him hit too many big homers and unleash too many rockets from deep center not to root for him. For a long time, that meant rooting for him to figure it out at the plate. A Taylor who could just lay off a few more balls, who could just whiff a bit less – OK, a lot less — would have been an incredible weapon. But Taylor is entering his age 33 season, and those dreams died long ago, one flailing strikeout at a time. These days, rooting for Taylor doesn’t mean wishing for him to develop new skills; it means hoping that he finds a nice comfortable place to demonstrate the ones he actually has.

In 2021, Taylor took home a Gold Glove and rated as the best defender in all of baseball according to multiple defensive metrics. Over the past two seasons, he still rated as a plus defender (except according to DRP, which rated him as a net negative defensively 2023). Taylor is also coming off the second-best offensive season of his career; he put up a 96 wRC+, balancing out a strikeout rate that jumped all the way to a calamitous 33.5% by launching 21 homers in just 388 plate appearances. There’s no telling whether this approach will stick, but it certainly makes sense for Taylor. Who better to sell out for power than someone who’s not going to make enough contact no matter what he tries? Taylor boasts one other important skill: health. According to Baseball Prospectus, when Taylor missed 15 days with a hamstring strain last season, it marked the longest absence of his entire big league career.

In all, Taylor has spent 10 years in the big leagues, and despite his 82 wRC+, he’s averaged 1.6 WAR per 150 games. If you want to be generous, you could discount the -0.1 WAR Taylor totaled in his 2014 cup of coffee and 2015 rookie season, leaving you with 1.9 per 150 games. Over the past three seasons, that number is nearly 2.0 on the dot. Surely, there’s a team out there that could use no. 34 on our Top 50 Free Agents list, a league-average center fielder who doesn’t get on base but has a great glove and some pop. Read the rest of this entry »