In 2016, Matt Shoemaker had a career year. He made 27 starts, threw 160 innings, and compiled 3.5 WAR on the back of a 3.88 ERA, 3.52 FIP, and truly pinpoint control (4.5% walk rate). In the four years since, he’s thrown 166 innings — total. That’s been worth 1.3 WAR, with his 4.12 ERA, 4.73 FIP, and 8.2% walk rate all representing steps back from his peak form.

Of course, as a pitcher, his services are still in demand: There are never enough arms to cover the innings that teams need, and you can always dream on someone returning to their peak form. This year, that need and dream belong to the Twins, who signed Shoemaker on Sunday to a one-year deal worth $2 million as he attempts to reprise his former success.

From late 2016 to ’20, everything that could go wrong for Shoemaker did. On September 4, 2016, he was hit in the head with a line drive that fractured his skull. He rehabbed from that injury in time for the 2017 season, only to have his year cut short by forearm tightness; he eventually had a compressed nerve surgically corrected. When he returned to the field, his arm still hurt, and he missed most of 2018 after surgery on an elbow tendon.

That was enough for the Angels, who non-tendered Shoemaker, but his woes were only beginning. After signing with the Blue Jays, he tore his ACL during a rundown (as a fielder, but still!) after only five starts. After yet another rehab, he returned for an abbreviated 2020. Even then, he couldn’t stay on the field, missing the better part of a month with shoulder inflammation.

That’s a truly grim five-year stretch, the kind of injury past that some pitchers can’t recover from. But while some pitchers’ arms are never the same after that kind of luck, Shoemaker has been effective when he’s taken the field. It hasn’t been great — as I mentioned above, his ERA, FIP, and walk rate have all been worse — but he’s still been playable, and it’s easy to convince yourself that a healthy Shoemaker might add back some velocity and pick up where he left off.
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The average innings per start across MLB has been in decline for a few years now. The last time starting pitchers threw more innings than they did the previous season was in 2014, at 5.97 per start. Just five years later, that number had dropped all the way to 5.18, a loss of nearly 400 starter innings league-wide. At the forefront of this were the Rays, who began using openers in 2018 and finished the year with their starters throwing nearly 200 fewer innings than those of any other team.

Two seasons later, a pandemic-shortened season introduced a number of factors — injuries, larger rosters, seven-inning doubleheaders, and more — that helped the rest of the majors take a step toward Tampa Bay’s minimization of the starter’s responsibilities.

With the 2021 season two months away, it seems apparent that those two lines are about to diverge. With roster sizes being trimmed back to 26 and a somewhat more typical offseason hopefully leading to fewer injuries, I would guess that the average starter workload will go up for the first time in seven years. The Rays, however, appear to be heading for a season of pitching management even more extreme than what they had in 2018, after signing two pitchers over the holiday weekend: 40-year-old lefty Rich Hill and 33-year-old right-hander Collin McHugh, each at one year apiece, with the former set to make $2.5 million and the latter $1.8 million. Read the rest of this entry »

For the second time in his career, Jake Arrieta will join a rebuilding Cubs team. The soon-to-be 35-year-old righty spent four seasons and change with the Cubs from mid-2013 to ’17, joining a team en route to 96 losses and helping Chicago to four straight playoff berths, including a long-awaited championship in 2016. During that stretch he emerged as an ace, throwing a pair of no-hitters and winning a Cy Young. This time around, he’s trying to re-establish himself as a reliable starter via a one-year, $6 million deal, that for a team that’s in the process of blowing up the roster that won the NL Central in the abbreviated 2020 season.

The contract is a big step down from the complex three-year, $75 million deal Arrieta just completed with the Phillies, but then he struggled mightily while trying to live up to that contract. Over the course of those three seasons, he delivered a 4.36 ERA, 4.55 FIP and 3.7 WAR in 352.2 innings, making a full complement of starts only in 2018. The recurrence of a bone spur in his right elbow, which had bothered him the previous year as well, limited him to 24 starts in 2019 before he underwent season-ending surgery in mid-August. While Arrieta could have opted out and sought a larger payday at that juncture, it clearly wasn’t in the cards for him amid the diminishing returns.

Those returns continued to diminish in 2020, as Arrieta made just nine starts before being shut down in mid-September due to a right hamstring strain. His 5.08 ERA was his highest mark since 2012, when he was still trying to find himself with the Orioles; the season was his fifth straight with an ERA that increased from the previous year. He broke a similar streak in the FIP department with a 4.66 mark, down from 4.89 in 2019 and in the vicinity of league average (101 FIP-). Read the rest of this entry »

The A’s continued to stockpile relievers over the weekend, signing free agents Yusmeiro Petit and Sergio Romo to one-year contracts, both for a little over $2 million for the 2021 season.

Petit is a familiar face in Oakland and will likely play a similar role as he has since 2018: pitching mostly mid-leverage innings, mainly in the sixth through eighth innings. He was rarely used for longer than an inning in 2020; the odd shape of the season and the more expansive roster made this less desirable and less necessary. Still, in the past, he’s been one of the closest players to the old long reliever archetype that has largely faded out of baseball.

Among active pitchers, only Stammen has made more two-inning relief appearances. Compared to history, though, 106 appearances only gets Petit into a tie for 323rd all-time, behind the relief stars primarily from the 1960s, 70s and 80s who dominated this usage.

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A few days after signing Ken Giles to bolster their bullpen of tomorrow, the Mariners signed a free agent who should help the team this year, and it’s a big one for Seattle fans. On Saturday, the M’s agreed to a one-year, $8.5 million deal with James Paxton, with incentives that could bring the total outlay to $10 million. With spring training just a few days away, it’s a reunion that makes a lot of sense for both parties.

Paxton was originally drafted by the Mariners in 2010 and worked his way through the organization to make his major league debut in 2013. A litany of injuries prevented him from making an impact during the first three years of his major league career, but he broke out in 2016 when he suddenly started throwing 97 mph. He was traded to the Yankees prior to the 2019 season and was a solid presence in their rotation that year, but the injury bug struck again in 2020, limiting him to just five starts. Now, he returns to the Mariners and will share the rotation with the headlining prospect — Justus Sheffield — that came to Seattle from New York in that trade two years ago.

Paxton’s ability to stay on the mound has always been a lingering concern. The last time he made it through an entire season without at least one trip to the injured list was 2013, when he made a full slate of starts for the Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers and then made his major league debut in September. Last year, it was a strained flexor in his left forearm that sidelined him (that after offseason back surgery). The year before that it was a knee injury. He’s also dealt with arm contusions, back inflammation, and muscle strains in his fingers, arm, and torso. If you were to map out the parts of his body that have been hurt, the entire left side of his body would glow red.

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While the Dodgers spent plenty of the offseason upgrading their roster, they conspicuously avoided one spot. Third base, which has been Justin Turner’s domain since Los Angeles signed him before the 2014 season, lay fallow. With Turner on the market, it always felt like a foregone conclusion that the two sides would reunite. On Saturday, they made it official; the 36-year-old is returning on a two-year deal worth $34 million with a club option for a third year, as… well, as Justin Turner first reported.

When Turner last left the field as a Dodger, the moment was bittersweet. His team had just won the World Series after years of failure, but he was removed during the clinching Game 6 after testing positive for COVID-19. Despite that, he returned to the field, maskless, to celebrate with his teammates. Rumors of discipline swirled, though MLB eventually declined to enforce any punishment. Days later, he became a free agent.

Despite that strange backdrop, Turner always looked like a good bet to return to the Dodgers. As a native of Southern California, he has ties to the city; heck, they have a Justin Turner day there. In addition, the team’s only roster hole was at third base, where it had left Edwin Ríos atop the depth chart despite only 139 plate appearances in the majors — a weak link in an otherwise monstrous lineup.

No longer. Turner has been almost metronomically consistent since joining the Dodgers in 2014. His lowest WAR total (excluding the shortened 2020 season) was 3.4, and his highest 5.4. His worst batting line was still excellent: .275/.339/.493 in 2016. His best batting line fell just short of true superstar territory — .312/.406/.518 in 2018, or maybe .340/.404/.493 in a half-season in ’14. He’s simply been a great hitter, year in and year out, by walking, limiting strikeouts, and making solid contact.
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Addressing a historically bad bullpen was the primary goal of the Mariners this offseason. Going back to 1969 — the year MLB lowered the mound — the 2020 Mariners bullpen posted the second worst league-adjusted FIP and the fourth worst league-adjusted ERA in a single season. They’ve already made a number of moves to strengthen their relief corps, including trading for Rafael Montero and bringing in a ton of relievers on minor-league deals. Yesterday, they capped off their offseason plan by signing a big-name closer to a multi-year deal. They locked up Ken Giles to a two-year deal, though the specific financials have yet to be reported at time of publication. The only problem is that Giles recently underwent Tommy John surgery and likely won’t pitch until 2022. Elbow troubles have plagued Giles over the last two years. He pitched through inflammation in 2019 but all that wear and tear on his arm caught up to him a season later. He threw just 3.2 innings in 2020 and went under the knife on October 1.

He’s the latest player to sign a deal like this. Garrett Richards and Michael Pineda are the two biggest names who have signed multi-year deals soon after undergoing major arm surgery. It’s an interesting move for the Mariners who have had a rather quiet offseason. They’re not quite ready to break out of their rebuild and have avoided opening the purse strings to make a splash this year. By locking up Giles now, they have him committed to their 2022 roster when they’re hoping to be more ready to compete. Read the rest of this entry »

As we near the opening of spring training, two more players have found new homes, as utility players Brad Miller and Marwin Gonzalez signed major league contracts for the 2021 season. Gonzalez’s deal is a one-year contract with the Red Sox worth $3 million; Miller signed with the Phillies for similar compensation.

Utility players have always been a part of baseball, but they got a special showcase in the 2020 World Series, as the Dodgers and Rays are two teams that highly value defensively flexibility. Role players of this type tend to live a fairly anonymous existence, though there have always been special cases such as Tony Phillips. For Los Angeles, Enrique Hernández (now with Boston) and Chris Taylor were both key members of the team in recent years, and even in big seasons, the team’s been willing to have star players like Cody Bellinger and Max Muncy play extensively at multiple positions. Tampa Bay, on a self-imposed shoestring budget, has utilized Joey Wendle, Mike Brosseau, Yandy Díaz, and Yoshi Tsutsugo (among others) at multiple positions. The Padres appear to be showing few qualms about using last year’s NL Rookie of the Year runner-up, Jake Cronenworth, at multiple positions, as well as the recently re-signed Jurickson Profar.

To look at how this has changed historically, I went back to 1950 (when we started getting dependable outfield positional breakdowns every year) and tried to make a definition of a “supersub” season. I used seasons in which a player played at least four positions for at least 10 games apiece, not including DH, with those limits reduced proportionally for seasons with fewer than 162 games. In 2019, 17 players fit this description, more than the entire 1950s combined; as recently as 1990, there were only three supersub seasons total (Lance Blankenship, Casey Candaele, Eric Yelding). Both Miller and Gonzalez are among this group.

There was a bit of a downtick in 2020, but it was also an odd year, and teams had fewer roster constraints that necessitated supersubs. The trend towards teams valuing versatility is real, though, and in some ways, it comes full-circle to early baseball history, when positions were considered more fluid, even for Hall of Famers like Honus Wagner.

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Greg Bird hasn’t been right since 2015. The Rockies haven’t gotten acceptable production from their first basemen since 2014. This could be the start of a beautiful relationship — or it could amount to nothing, as most minor league deals do. We’re about to find out, as the Rockies announced on Thursday that they’ve signed Bird to a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training.

Bird, who’s still just 28 years old, is coming off a more miserable 2020 than most of us. Bad luck in the injury department, a constant throughout his major league career, continued to dog him to the point that he didn’t take a single competitive plate appearance for either of the two organizations with whom he signed minor league deals. Cast adrift by the Yankees in November 2019 — we’ll get to the saga that led there — he initially signed with the Rangers last February, and after getting called up from the alternate training site in late July, before he could play a single game, he strained his right calf. After a 10-day stint on the Injured List, he was designated for assignment and elected free agency. Upon signing with the Phillies in mid-September, he came up positive for COVID-19 during his intake testing, and never even made it to the alternate site.

That Bird has landed with the Rockies makes sense given his area ties. He’s a graduate of Grandview High School in Aurora, Colorado, where he caught Kevin Gausman, who was a year ahead of him. Shortly after earning the Gatorade Player of the Year award for Colorado in 2011, Bird was drafted by the Yankees in the fifth round, and soon moved to first base. His major league career, which began on August 13, 2015, started with great promise, for soon after arriving, he became a lineup regular once Mark Teixeira suffered a season-ending fracture after fouling a ball off his right leg. Bird, 22 at the time, proceeded to launch a flurry of home runs — 11 in 178 plate appearances while batting .261/.343/.529 (137 wRC+), making him the clear heir apparent as the 36-year-old Teixeira limped into the final season of his eight-year contract.

Unfortunately, the story unravels from there. Bird missed all of 2016 after undergoing surgery on his right (throwing) shoulder to repair a torn labrum, the recurrence of an injury he’d suffered the previous May. Towards the end of a promising spring in 2017, he fouled a ball off his right ankle and played through it, going on the DL on May 2 after starting the season in a 6-for-60 skid, then undergoing surgery to remove the os trigonum bone in his ankle, which sidelined him until late August. Though his final numbers were dreadful (.190/.288/.422, 87 wRC+), he hit a respectable .253/.316/.575 with eight homers in 98 PA upon returning, and then .244/.426/.512 with three homers in 54 PA during the postseason, highlighted by an upper-deck solo homer off Andrew Miller that provided the only run in Game 3 of the Division Series. Greg Bird was back, baby! Read the rest of this entry »

The 2020 season wasn’t entirely full of the doom and gloom that has been the norm in Detroit over the last half decade. Offensively, the Tigers improved over a dismal 2019 performance, and much of that was driven by Jeimer Candelario’s breakout. After emerging as a top prospect with the Cubs and joining the Tigers in a 2017 trade deadline deal, he had a tough time establishing himself in the majors, but he seemingly put everything together last year, posting career-best marks in ISO, wRC+, and strikeout rate.

But even though Candelario looked like he was making good on the promise he showed as a prospect, there were some concerns. As Tony Wolfe wrote when he looked into his breakout back in September:

“Behind the slash line, there is a mix of positives and negatives. His strikeout rate is down, but so is his walk rate. His isolated power is way up, but his BABIP is a flashing yellow caution light. There have certainly been more foolproof 44-game breakouts than Candelario has had, so it’s fair to wonder what his line looks like once we’re further removed from his recent homer surge and his BABIP returns to earth’s atmosphere.”

There are enough positive developments in Candelario’s plate approach and his quality of contact that these concerns might be forgotten this summer. But just in case things turn sour, the Tigers invested in a discount insurance policy by signing ex-Orioles infielder Renato Núñez to a minor league deal with an invitation to spring training.

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