When we released our Top 100 Prospects list last month, one of the questions we heard most frequently was, “Where is Seiya Suzuki?” It was the subject of considerable internal debate, but the larger discussion revolved around whether or not the Japanese superstar even belonged on a prospect list.

While in terms of service time and rookie eligibility, Suzuki is technically a prospect, it just doesn’t feel right to rank him amongst unfinished products. He is not a player who requires development, or one where we’re talking about the gap between who he is now and what he can become. At 27, Suzuki is a player in his prime, with an impressive track record of performance at Japan’s highest level since his teens. This is not a prospect; this is an established talent who just hasn’t played in Major League Baseball yet.

That’s about to change. After a flurry of inaccurate Twitter reporting on Tuesday, Suzuki ended all speculation about his future on Wednesday morning by signing with the Cubs on a five-year, $85 million deal (when combined with his posting fee, Chicago will spend nearly $100 million for his services), where he’ll step right into the middle of the lineup as the everyday right fielder.

Suzuki’s performances in Japan have been nothing short of outstanding, with an OPS north of 1.000 in each of the last four seasons, including a career high of 1.073 with Hiroshima in 2021, when he hit .317/.443/.639 in 132 games with 38 home runs. Still, statistical projections for him can be challenging, as is the case with any player who has never been in the big leagues; there are skills, tools and traits that may lead to success elsewhere yet not translate at the game’s highest level. Still, Dan Szymborski gave it his best shot and in the end nearly hit a bullseye with a contract projection of five years and $83 million.

Scouts are just as optimistic as Dan as to Suzuki’s ability to produce in the big leagues. He’s a well-rounded player, but the beginning of any discussion about his potential begins with what he can do with a bat in his hands, and luckily for the Cubs and their fans, there’s a lot to like. He features the much desired combination of excellent swing decisions with a very good contact rate and rarely chases outside the zone, which you can reasonably expect will continue with the Cubs; breaking balls in Japan, while rarely matching the velocity he will see in the majors, do move just as much, if not more. Read the rest of this entry »

Fifteen months ago, the Cubs non-tendered Kyle Schwarber following a subpar season, because they didn’t think he would be worth paying something in the neighborhood of $10 million. He landed on his feet with the Nationals, went on an epic home run binge in June, made his first All-Star team, and, after being traded to the Red Sox at the deadline, helped Boston make a run to the ALCS. On Wednesday, the 29-year-old slugger parlayed that big season into an agreement on a four-year, $79 million deal with the Phillies.

Schwarber set career bests across the board with a .266/.374/.554 (145 wRC+) line for the Nationals and Red Sox in 2021, thumping 32 homers en route to 3.1 WAR. He packed that production into just 471 plate appearances; among players with at least 400 PA in both leagues, he ranked 10th in slugging percentage and 11th in wRC+. He fell short of qualifying for the batting title because he lost six weeks to a right hamstring strain and was still on the injured list when he was sent to the Red Sox for pitching prospect Aldo Ramirez on July 29.

Schwarber’s season was actually a bit more uneven than those robust numbers suggest. Coming off a subpar .188/.308/.393 (89 wRC+) campaign with the Cubs in the pandemic-shortened 2020, he signed a one-year, $10 million deal with the Nationals but hit for just a 103 wRC+ with nine homers in April and May. He didn’t add his 10th homer until June 12, but from that point to the end of the month, he pounded 16 in just 83 plate appearances, a run that included four two-homer games and a three-homer game (his six multi-homer games overall tied Joey Gallo, Aaron Judge, and Salvador Perez for the major league lead). On June 19 and 20 against the Mets, he tied the major league record with five homers in two games, homering twice and driving in four runs in the seven-inning nightcap of a doubleheader, and then hitting three homers and driving in four runs the next day. From June 19 to 29, he mashed 12 taters in 10 games, tying Albert Belle for the major league record.

Unfortunately, just three days later, Schwarber strained his right hamstring and landed on the injured list, which put a damper on his first All-Star selection, announced just two days later. The Nationals, who went 19–9 in June to nose above .500 (40–38), sank to 8–18 in July and cleaned house at the end of the month, trading eight players off the major league roster, including franchise cornerstones Max Scherzer and Trea Turner. Flipping Schwarber as part of that housecleaning was a no-brainer. Read the rest of this entry »

As stars are being signed and traded, the Yankees went the low-key route on Tuesday, re-signing first baseman Anthony Rizzo to a two-year deal worth $32 million. Rizzo, who turns 33 in August, hit .249/.320/.428 with eight homers in 49 games after coming to New York from the Cubs in a three-player trade at the deadline.

Last year was Rizzo’s comeback season from a down 2020, but his bounce wasn’t as significant as that of his then-teammates Javier Báez and Kris Bryant. Part of it is due to his disappointing year being less of a disaster, but Rizzo was also the oldest of that trio. Signing a seven-year, $41 million contract while still in his pre-arbitration years gave him a guaranteed income, but the deal worked out better for the Cubs in the end, as he only now hits free agency for the first time. If he had been a free agent after 2018, ZiPS projects he would have made $101 million over the last four seasons rather than the approximately $42 million he earned. For how much you’d expect him to get paid in 2022, this seems like an opportune moment to crank out the projection:

ZiPS projects a two-year, $35 million contract or a three-year, $47 million one, so $32 million over two years seems about in line with at least this computer’s expectations. This actually represents a bit of a performance uptick; one of my biggest sources of negative feedback from projections this cycle was Rizzo’s overall triple-slash being in the neighborhood of Giancarlo Stanton’s. Much of that is due to Yankee Stadium, one of the best stadiums for him in the projections, thanks to being a friendly home for lefty sluggers. Steamer is likely picking up on this as well, as it also gives Rizzo a similar boost over his 2021 line in New York. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve had some titanic trades that lived up to the hype of a post-lockout pandemonium, but it’s always nice to acknowledge the smaller signings as well. On that note, here are two pitchers who, despite their modest contracts, should be familiar to baseball fans. A few days ago, Aníbal Sánchez agreed to a minor league deal with the Nationals. He’ll be paid $2 million if selected and can earn up to $1.5 million in performance bonuses, per Joel Sherman of the New York Post. And on Tuesday, the White Sox announced that they had signed Vince Velasquez to a one-year, $3 million pact.

Maybe it’s because of a global pandemic that warped our sense of time and space, but it seems not too long ago that Sánchez was making starts for a championship team. A lot has happened since then: The veteran righty’s numbers plummeted in 2020, and he spent the following year away from baseball as the Nationals began their teardown.

Sánchez is now back, but for a different purpose. Instead of serving as a fourth starter for a contending team, he looks to offer some stability to a fractured rotation. Its ace, Stephen Strasburg, has thrown just 26.2 innings in the past two seasons due to injury. Patrick Corbin still has potential, but he’s shown signs of precipitous decline. Erick Fedde isn’t great, and Joe Ross will be sidelined for six to eight weeks after undergoing surgery to remove a bone spur. Maybe Josiah Gray takes a step forward, but that’s hardly a guarantee.

How might Sánchez try to accomplish his mission? For one, it may be time to ditch the four-seamer. The pitch averaged an alarmingly low 89.2 mph in 2020, and without enough movement to make up for such a shortcoming, hitters feasted against it. Thankfully, the rest of his repertoire is still brimming with life. His cutter features an ample amount of late vertical drop; it’s basically a mini slider, but with the velocity associated with a fastball. The signature split-change still induced whiffs last time it saw action. To Sánchez’s credit, he made an attempt to rely on his offspeed stuff more often two years ago. But pitching doesn’t occur in a vacuum, and a handful of poor fastballs were all it took to undo those efforts. Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, the Pirates finally got in on the post-lockout frenzy, signing a pair of lower-cost free agents who both have interesting bits of upside. First baseman and designated hitter Daniel Vogelbach signed a one-year, $1 million deal that comes with the possibility for $400,000 more in performance incentives and a $1.5 million option for 2023. In the bullpen, the Pirates inked Heath Hembree to a one-year, $2.125 million deal. These might not be big-money moves, and Pittsburgh’s payroll still sits at a shockingly low $44 million, but it’s worth taking a closer look at Vogelbach and Hembree to see what inspired the team to finally open its wallet. We’ll start with Vogelbach.

After a few fits and starts, Vogelbach burst onto the scene in 2019 for the Mariners, slugging prolific home runs on his way to a 30 homer season and a 112 wRC+. Late in the season, though, he fell on hard times that carried over into 2020. The Mariners decided they’d seen enough and shipped him to the Blue Jays, who themselves cut him after just five plate appearances; Milwaukee became his third uniform of 2020. He ended the season strongly enough to be brought back in a platoon role in 2021, putting up near league average offensive numbers (101 wRC+ in 258 PA), while also losing two months in the middle of the season to a pretty bad hamstring injury. The Brewers chose to non-tender him this offseason.

Given his distinctive physique (6-foot-0, 270 pounds) and success in high-leverage spots (137 wRC+), he’s become something of a fan favorite everywhere he’s been. Take this walk-off grand slam he hit last September:

Vogelbach possesses a lot of the skills that modern front offices like, namely, a patient approach and great bat-to-ball skills. Calling him patient is underselling it a bit, as only Yasmani Grandal swung less often than Vogelbach last year (32.9% swing rate). He’s perfectly comfortable falling behind in the count and hunting for a mistake up in the zone. As you can imagine, this approach leads to plenty of walks and strikeouts but Vogelbach actually has the bat-to-ball skills to maintain a roughly league average strikeout rate. Take a closer look at how his plate discipline stacks up to both league average and Juan Soto – the gold standard of plate discipline:

It’s a very impressive skill set and that’s before you even get to the part where he hits the ball quite hard. Vogelbach had an 88th percentile exit velocity last year and his HardHit% was good for the 89th percentile. Interestingly, though, having those skills has only led to a 103 wRC+ and 1.2 career WAR in 1,098 plate appearances, and that’s because there are some pretty big holes in his game.

Vogelbach has really struggled against lefties, with a 46 wRC+ for his career (versus 117 against righties); last season, he put up a wRC+ of one against southpaws, albeit in just 34 plate appearances. His performance against lefties has prevented him from securing everyday playing time, and it can be hard to dig your way out of a platoon role once you stop getting regular exposure. Another big weakness has been Vogelbach’s production against breaking balls: He has a .196 wOBA on curveballs and sliders in his career compared to a robust .374 wOBA against fastballs. Interestingly, he actually sees a league average number of fastballs; I think his extreme patience has allowed him to force pitchers to come into the zone more than what their game plan may suggest. Finally, Vogelbach has proven to be a poor defender at first base, putting up -15 Defensive Runs Saved in a little less than a full season’s worth of opportunities.

Vogelbach’s lack of defensive skill is the easiest problem for the Pirates to mitigate. The Pirates’ current first baseman, Yoshi Tsutsugo, has shown a better feel for the position (-1 DRS / +1 OAA), albeit in an even smaller sample than Vogelbach. Tsutsugo also doesn’t have notable platoon splits, so all signs seem to point to him starting nearly every day at first while Vogelbach has the inside track on the DH role. Perhaps the Pirates will even give him some run against lefties to see if there is any improvement to be had with his splits, but it’s likely that he’ll be ceding at-bats to someone like a Michael Chavis. The good news for Vogelbach and the Pirates is that the NL Central lacks standout left-handed starters, with only Wade Miley, Eric Lauer, and Steven Matz looking like locks for a rotation spot in the division.

On to the bullpen, and the signing of Heath Hembree. The 33-year-old right-hander spent parts of seven seasons with Boston as a reliable workhorse reliever who never quite ascended to being a go-to high-leverage option. He started bouncing around in 2020; the Pirates will be his fifth big league team, after stints with the Phillies, Mets and Reds in the last couple of years. That bouncing around is due to a stark drop in performance from his early days in Boston, as he put up the two worst run prevention seasons of his career with a 9.00 ERA in 2020 and a 5.59 ERA in ’21. Looking forward, though, there’s some reason to believe he has more left in the tank than his last two years might suggest.

The most eye-popping change for Hembree last season was the increased zip on his fastball, which gained more than a tick from the previous year. Thanks to his 92nd percentile spin rate, his fastball drops very little and he also gets above average run, helping to turn it into a popup machine (37.0% popup rate). It’s worth noting that he was dealing with a recurring elbow issue in 2019 and ’20 that required three separate IL stints, so good health could be enough to explain the velocity increase.

To go along with more velocity, Hembree pretty drastically altered his breaking ball in 2021 and the results were promising. Where once his arsenal contained a distinct slider and curveball, he now throws one breaking ball, and while it’s officially logged as a slider, it’s quite different from the version he used to throw. Velocity-wise it comes in around 86 mph, nearly in the middle of his old slider (89 mph) and his old curveball (81 mph), though calling it a slurve doesn’t feel quite right as its movement is very horizontal. This new breaker allowed only a .283 wOBA and he started working it in quite a bit, even lowering his fastball usage to accommodate throwing it more.

That new slider doesn’t keep the ball on the ground and neither does his high-spin fastball, so cavernous PNC Park will be a welcome site for Hembree and his 53.7% fly ball rate. Hembree brings plenty of experience to a young and largely underwhelming Pittsburgh bullpen that finished 26th in ERA- and 24th in K-BB% last season. David Bednar and his 2.23 ERA is the standout performer in the ‘pen; Hembree will likely be getting plenty of high-leverage innings setting him up this season, alongside workhorse reliever Chris Stratton. This move gives the Pirates a pretty talented top three in their bullpen, especially if Hembree can carry forward some of those interesting developments from last season.

If you think back through the mists of time to last October, the Braves had one calling card on their march to the World Series: a bullpen that answered the bell day after day and either kept them in games or closed the door, depending on the situation. The core four members of that bullpen – Will Smith, Tyler Matzek, Luke Jackson, and A.J. Minter – will return, but some peripheral members of the team’s pitching staff left in free agency, and you can always use more pitching. To that end, Atlanta signed Collin McHugh today:

#Braves Sign RHP Collin McHugh: pic.twitter.com/MjLGaejG0h

— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) March 15, 2022

As far as I’m concerned, the terms of the deal – two years and $10 million, with an additional team option for $5 million net of buyout – are an incredible deal for the defending champions. McHugh was one of the best relievers in baseball last year on a rate basis, and he’s getting less this year than Brad Hand, who bounced through three teams on his way to a below-replacement-level season.

I could just tell you that McHugh looks like a good bet to provide strong relief work, but I’ll do slightly better than that. As Jon Tayler noted in our free agent preview, McHugh made one key change to his pitch mix in 2021: he rediscovered an old friend. He threw his cutter 33% of his time, a rate he hadn’t approached since he was a full-time starter in 2016. In addition to that, he maxed out on slider usage; he threw it 52.9% of the time, by far a career high. He was essentially a cutter/slider pitcher, with the occasional four-seamer mixed in for the element of surprise.
Read the rest of this entry »

It would be fun, if you were running a team, to go out and sign the best available player at every position where you had even a specter of a question. Need a shortstop? Call Carlos Correa. First baseman? Freddie Freeman awaits. Second baseman? Science now allows us to regrow and clone Rogers Hornsby. If you’re spending at the completely fake top end of the market that I just made up, you might as well spring for the very best available.

Sadly, the real world doesn’t quite work that way. For one, teams don’t have infinite money; more importantly, cloning and reanimating technology doesn’t exist yet unless you’re interested in making Scottish sheep. Even good teams have to sign players who aren’t perennial MVP contenders, or even perennial All Stars. The Dodgers signed Jake Lamb and Hanser Alberto this week, and the White Sox signed Josh Harrison. None will be the best player on their team. None will be an MVP frontrunner. All three are interesting fits that will help their teams, though.
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Last year, the Brewers, buoyed by their phenomenal pitching staff, easily won the National League Central in what was their fourth consecutive postseason appearance. But those four playoff teams all had the same flaw, one that led to October frustration: a weak offense that struggled to score runs consistently. The Brewers 2018 roster was the last unit to post a wRC+ at or above league average (they were right at 100); since then, they’ve put up marks of 97, 89, and 91. To address those run scoring issues, the Brewers have been focused on adding some firepower to their lineup this offseason. They traded for Hunter Renfroe and Mike Brosseau before the owners’ lockout, and on Monday, they reportedly brought Andrew McCutchen into the fold. (The details of his deal have not been disclosed as of publication.)

From 2009-17, McCutchen made a name for himself as a member of the division-rival Pirates. Traded before the 2018 season, he spent time that year with the Giants and Yankees before signing a three-year, $50 million deal with the Phillies prior to the ’19 season. He accumulated 2.5 WAR during his Phillies tenure, a stretch that saw him deal with a torn ACL and the pandemic. Entering his age-35 season, McCutchen has clearly declined from his peak, but he should continue to provide solid production for the Brewers as they shore up their lineup.

Last season, McCutchen posted an almost aesthetically perfect .222/.334/.444 slash line that ended up being seven percent better than league average. A career 12.2% walk rate gives him a solid offensive floor and his power production bounced back a bit after a slight dip in 2020. His plate discipline is a clear strength that hasn’t deteriorated. His 18.6% chase rate was the seventh lowest among all qualified batters last year. He did just post the highest strikeout rate of his career, with a corresponding jump in his swinging strike rate (up to 10%). But those additional strikeouts weren’t the result of poor swing decisions; instead, he had trouble making consistent contact, particularly with two strikes. McCutchen struck out 43.6% of the time when a plate appearance reached a two-strike count, a huge jump from the 35% rate he had posted over the previous four years. Read the rest of this entry »

While titans of industry like Matt Olson, Nelson Cruz, and Josh Donaldson were changing teams, a few other things happened in the baseball world. For example: Sean Doolittle, Brad Hand, Ian Kennedy, and Chad Kuhl all found new teams. Sure, they weren’t the headliners of the last few days, but they’re all interesting in their own way. Let’s run down these signings alphabetically and maybe tell a joke or two while doing so.

Nationals Sign Sean Doolittle

When the Nationals traded for Sean Doolittle in 2017, he brought much-needed bullpen stability to an already-competitive team. Things aren’t quite the same for either side in their reunion. Doolittle had a down 2020, then signed a one-year, $1.5 million deal with the Reds. With Cincinnati out of the running and Doolittle losing high-leverage opportunities, they put him on waivers, and he finished his season as a middle reliever in Seattle. Read the rest of this entry »

I hope you’ll allow a quick personal story. In December of 2018, while I was still working for the Astros, I engaged in talks with then-free agent Nelson Cruz’s representatives. Like many teams, the Astros were hesitant to give anything more than a one-year deal to a designated hitter who had turned 38 during the previous season. Ultimately, there was no multi-year pact to be had, and the Twins ended up winning a fierce competition for Cruz’s services with a one-year, $14 million deal that included a $12 million 2020 club option. Cruz would go on to have one of the best seasons of his career in 2019, making exercising that option a no-brainer; following the 2020 season, he signed another one-year, $13 million deal with Minnesota. Heading into this offseason, Cruz was still a much in-demand bat, particularly after it became clear that the National League would adopt the designated hitter, with the rumor mill linking him to as many as six teams. On Sunday, he landed with the Washington Nationals on a one-year, $12 million deal that includes a mutual option (which in reality isn’t really an option at all, but we’ll get to that in a bit).

Cruz has been an ageless wonder. From 2015-20, his age 34-to-39 seasons, he posted wRC+ marks ranging from 133 to 164. He slipped to a 122 wRC+ in 2021, including a 96 wRC+ in 55 games following a trade to the Rays; while a partial season, that represented his first sub-100 mark since 2007. It’s difficult to figure out exactly what went wrong while he was with the Rays, but it feels silly to simply assume that father time suddenly caught up to him after a strong first half of the season with the Twins. Read the rest of this entry »