In a move that had become a foregone conclusion, on Monday Yadier Molina and the Cardinals finalized a one-year deal that returns the iconic catcher to the only team he’s ever known. The agreement caps an eventful 11-day stretch that included the return of longtime Cardinals righty Adam Wainwright, who was also a free agent, as well as the blockbuster trade that landed Nolan Arenado. While Molina’s new deal doesn’t ensure that he’ll end his career in St. Louis, it’s clear that the 38-year-old backstop is eying the finish line.

Drafted out of a Puerto Rico high school by the Cardinals in the fourth round in 2000, Molina had never tested free agency before thanks to a trio of multiyear extensions, the latest of which was a three-year, $60 million deal signed in April 2017. His new contract thus represents a significant pay cut, as he’ll get $9 million for the 2021 season, with no additional incentives or options. Then again, with 1,989 games caught so far — a total that’s sixth on the all-time list — he’s not the player he once was.

Molina hit a thin .262/.303/.359 with four homers in 156 PA in 2020, and walked a career low 3.8% of the time. His on-base percentage was his lowest mark since 2006, and both his slugging percentage and his 82 wRC+ were his lowest since 2015. His 84.7 mph average exit velocity was his lowest of the Statcast era; that figure placed him the fourth percentile overall, as did his 25.4% hard-hit rate. You’ll be shocked to learn — unless you’ve been following more than a decade’s worth of jokes on my Twitter account about the glacial movement of Molina and his older brothers José and Bengie — that his sprint speed finally reached the first percentile after years of… slow decline. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this offseason, Dan Szymborski wrote about the Giants’ remade rotation and the strategy behind it. In short: Alex Wood and Anthony DeSclafani were interesting free agents, and without much chance of reaching the playoffs, the team opted to buy low and hope to catch lightning in a bottle. In the weeks since, San Francisco has repeated the same project, only this time for the bullpen, highlighted by Jake McGee’s two-year, $7 million dollar deal announced on Tuesday.

McGee joins a sampler platter of relievers who might be good on cheap deals. In early December, the Giants signed Matt Wisler to a one-year deal. Later that month, they signed John Brebbia, who will spend at least the first half of the year rehabbing from Tommy John surgery but could be a late-season bullpen piece. They’ve also extended minor league deals to Dominic Leone, James Sherfy, Silvino Bracho, and Zack Littell. Spaghetti, meet wall.

McGee is the most interesting member of this group, which explains why he got two years and real money while everyone else got only a single year. He combines three things that teams look out for in relievers: he strikes out more batters than average; he walks fewer batters than average; and he’s left-handed. Those three traits alone are enough to get a job, and indeed, the Dodgers signed McGee to a one-year deal before 2020 when he was coming off back-to-back -0.3 WAR seasons.
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In 2020, for the first time in three seasons, the Miami Marlins finished above dead-last in the majors in home runs. You can blame some of that bad stretch on Marlins Park, which is decidedly pitcher-friendly in the way it suppresses homers. But mostly, it’s because the team just hasn’t had good power hitters. From 2018-19, just three players logged 20 homers in a season, with the highest total being Starlin Castro’s 22. The additions of Jesús Aguilar and Corey Dickerson helped to bolster the team’s totals in 2020, but the Marlins still only out-homered four other teams. It isn’t as though the team can’t hit — Miguel Rojas, Jon Berti and Garrett Cooper were all well above-average hitters last year despite combining for just 12 homers. Miami just lacked an true established slugger in the middle of the order.

On Tuesday, the Marlins took a step toward remedying that by signing free agent outfielder Adam Duvall. The deal is an interesting one — it guarantees Duvall $5 million, but will only pay him $2 million in 2021. The rest will come in 2022, either in the form of a mutually agreed-upon second-year at $7 million, or a $3 million buyout. The mutual option cost, if exercised, would award Duvall a decent chunk of money — the same amount that Adam Eaton and Joc Pederson signed for this winter. Even if it isn’t, however, the $5 million guarantee itself isn’t bad for a slugger in his 30s who just two years ago spent the majority of the season in Triple-A.

The Marlins are hoping the version of Duvall they get is similar to the one who broke out with the Reds back in 2016. That year, he was a surprise All-Star, and finished the season with a .241/.297/.498 line, 33 homers, a 104 wRC+ and 2.4 WAR. He knocked out 31 more homers and notched 1.6 WAR the following year, further establishing the kind of player Duvall could be when things were going his way. He was a right-handed power bat capable of good defense in an outfield corner, but one who was also going to strike out a lot without walking enough to salvage a league-average on-base mark.

In 2018, we found out what kind of player Duvall is when things aren’t going his way. The power that comprised all of his value fell off considerably, and he finished the year with just 15 homers and a 69 wRC+. He was particularly bad after being traded to Atlanta in July (.132/.193/.151 with zero homers in 57 PAs), and started the 2019 season in Triple-A. It seemed like a sign of where Duvall’s career was headed — his weaknesses exposed, he was now a luxury power bat for playoff teams to keep on the fringes of their roster, never to be trusted with a full-time opportunity.

And yet, he’s since earned that trust back. He was a force at Triple-A, hammering 32 homers in 101 games. The Braves couldn’t fit him into their crowded outfield until the last week of July, but once they did, he was suddenly an everyday player in the majors again. He hit .267/.315/.567 with 10 homers in 41 games to finish the season. With the helpful addition of the DH in the National League, Duvall kept that everyday role in 2020, slashed .237/.301/.532, and homered 16 times, making him one of just 14 hitters to hit at least that many last year. That included one torrid stretch during which he recorded two three-homer games just one week apart.

Being able to capitalize on his power with this kind of frequency is what helps Duvall make up for his low batting average and walk rates. Because of the limits placed on his playing time over the last couple years — first because of the Braves prioritizing other outfielders, then because of the pandemic — his 26 big league homers since the start of 2019 have him tied for just 124th in the majors. But if you take all players with at least as many home runs as Duvall in that time and divide those totals by their number of plate appearances, he emerges as one of the best bang-for-your-buck power hitters of the last couple seasons.

Keep in mind, this leaves out the 32 homers he hit in 429 Triple-A plate appearances at the start of 2019 — a HR/PA rate of 7.45%. And as you may have noticed in the last video clip above, the Marlins have had a front row seat to Duvall’s most explosive performances. That kind power output is what Miami is hoping to acquire in this deal, and while the transition to the more pitcher-friendly ballpark may pose some challenges, there’s some reason to believe it shouldn’t hamper him too much. According to Statcast’s Expected Home Runs by Park feature, the number of home runs Duvall would have hit in Miami since the start of 2019 (28) is the same number he actually hit for Atlanta.

As for as the rest of the Marlins lineup, there are all sorts of effects signing Duvall can have. Right now, our RosterResource page has him starting in right field, with Dickerson in left and Starling Marte in center. Such a construction, however, would signify a huge step toward giving up on Lewis Brinson, the former top prospect who headlined the Christian Yelich trade return, but has been 2.8 wins below replacement level in three seasons with Miami. Abandoning plans for Brinson could prove too unnerving for management to go through with, though, and the above arrangement would also leave out Magneuris Sierra and Cooper. Instead, it seems likely that without the designated hitter in 2021, the Marlins will platoon the outfield quite heavily — with Dickerson and Duvall splitting up left and some combination of Brinson, Sierra and Cooper taking right, with Cooper also splitting first base reps with Aguilar.

The logistics of adding Duvall, then, are a headache the Marlins didn’t really need to volunteer for. He does, however, make them better, which makes this a fun move. Even after a surprise entry into the second round of last year’s playoffs, a run at contention for Miami in 2021 still feels far-fetched, and Duvall doesn’t change that. But for an offense that managed to be close to league-average last year while getting by on little more than spunk, his muscle will be a welcome addition — especially for Marlins fans who have waited years for another fearless slugger to swing it for their side.

The Mets missed out on signing Trevor Bauer, and they didn’t sign J.T. Realmuto or George Springer, either. That’s not to say they’ve had an unsuccessful winter — their blockbuster deal for Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco significantly upgraded the team, and they’ve made other solid moves as well, but center field remains an area of need. Jackie Bradley Jr. is clearly still the top center fielder available, and would make for a sensible fit, but the Mets aren’t the only team pursuing him. Over the weekend, they made a smaller-scale addition signing center fielder Albert Almora Jr. to a one-year deal worth $1.25 million plus incentives. The question is whether that constitutes an insurance policy or an all-too-familiar half-measure.

Almora is best remembered as the player who scored the go-ahead run for the Cubs in the 10th inning of Game 7 of the 2016 World Series. Pinch-running for Kyle Schwarber after a leadoff single, he alertly tagged up and took second base on a Kris Bryant fly ball to deep center field, and came home on Ben Zobrist’s double. He was a 22-year-old rookie at that point, a 2012 first-round pick who had arrived in midsummer and made a solid showing as a bench player. After the Cubs won the World Series, they let Dexter Fowler depart as a free agent and handed the keys to center field to Almora.

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It feels like a long time ago that the Oakland A’s won the AL West. Partially, that’s because everything feels like it lasted forever in 2020 — the last year has been the longest decade of our lives. Partially too, though, it’s because the team has spent the vast majority of the offseason doing nothing.

Marcus Semien, Liam Hendriks, Joakim Soria, Yusmeiro Petit, Mike Minor, and Tommy La Stella all left in free agency. On Saturday, the A’s made their first major transaction of the offseason, trading Khris Davis and Jonah Heim for Elvis Andrus. Later that day, they issued their first (!) major league contract of the offseason, signing Mike Fiers to a one-year, $3.5 million deal, as Ken Rosenthal and Alex Coffey first reported.

Fiers was an important but unsung part of a run-prevention monster in 2020. He made 11 starts for the A’s, who reached the playoffs on the back of a simple strategy: prevent some runs with starting pitching, hold some leads with a phenomenal bullpen, and sprinkle excellent defense around it to make it all play up. Fiers wasn’t an ace, and he didn’t need to be.

That appears to be Oakland’s plan again this year. Their projected rotation is close to unchanged (Minor started a handful of games, but the other five top starters are all back):

Fiers will be the worst everyday starter, like he was last year, but he’ll take the ball every five days, and the A’s would have struggled on that front otherwise. Daulton Jefferies, A.J. Puk, and Grant Holmes are the next three starters up, and all have had serious injury issues in the past few years; the team will likely want to limit all of their innings this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Amidst the blizzard of free agent deals announced last Friday, Jonathan Schoop re-signed with the Detroit Tigers. It’s a one-year deal worth $4.5 million per Jeff Passan and, as far as I can glean, there are no performance incentives.

The second baseman is coming off of a productive 2020, when he hit .278/.324/.475 (114 wRC+) while racking up 1.4 WAR in just 44 games. Despite that, his salary for the upcoming year is actually a small cut from the $6.1 million contract he signed last winter, though he’ll wind up earning more money in 2021 than the prorated earnings he accrued in last year’s shortened season.

You probably haven’t thought all that much about Schoop lately. If he wasn’t on your fantasy squad or real-life team of choice, you may have a vague impression of him as a once-promising Oriole who gradually faded into irrelevance. At a glance, that’s about right. He had a breakout campaign as a 25-year-old back in 2017, when he made the All-Star team, notched 3.7 WAR, homered 32 times, and posted career highs in just about every offensive category. A slow start the following year spiraled into a miserable summer after a mid-season trade to Milwaukee. Minnesota picked him up for 2019, where he played a competent if forgettable second base before ultimately losing his job to Luis Arraez. Soon after, he signed on with the Tigers and all of the obscurity that that implies. Read the rest of this entry »

Just as the baseball industry was catching its breath following the news of Trevor Bauer signing with the Dodgers, the free agent market’s top hitter, Marcell Ozuna, agreed to a deal as well. After a monster season in which he helped the Braves come within one win of their first trip to the World Series this millennium, he’ll stay in Atlanta on a four-year, $65 million deal. If that contract — which includes a club option for 2025 that can take the total package to $80 million — seems light compared to what the free market’s other top players have received, your eyes aren’t deceiving you.

Consider for a moment that Bauer, a 30-year-old righty who won the NL Cy Young award during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, has yet to put together a 30-start season with an ERA or FIP below 4.00 in parts of nine major league seasons, during which he’s been about nine or 10 percent better than average according to FIP- and ERA-. Via the structure of his three-year, $102 million deal with the Dodgers, he’ll set single-season records for salary in the first two years ($40 million and $45 million), with an average annual value of $34 million if he doesn’t opt out after years one or two.

The 30-year-old Ozuna is coming off the best season of an eight-year major league career during which he’s been 17 percent better than average according to wRC+. In 2020, he set across-the-board career highs in his slash stats, hitting .338/.431/.636, all of which ranked third in the NL, as did his 179 wRC+. Additionally, his 18 homers, 56 RBI, 145 total bases and 267 plate appearances all led the league, while his 2.5 WAR — which matched that of Bauer, interestingly enough — ranked seventh. Yet the $16.25 million AAV of his contract isn’t half that of Bauer, and it’s well below those of two of the four other position player free agents who have landed deals of at least four years:

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The top free agent pitcher in baseball is no longer a free agent. After an interminable PR tour, Trevor Bauer has signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers, as Jon Heyman first reported. The deal, a three-year, $102 million pact with opt outs after each year, bolsters an already-stout Dodgers rotation and ups the NL West arms race after the Padres’ busy offseason.

It would hardly be honest to write about Bauer without mentioning who he is as a person, so let’s do that first. For lack of a better way to say it, he’s a jerk, a troll. That’s not harsh enough, but it points in the right direction. “Troll” undersells it: time and again, Bauer has stepped up to the line and then gone past it, lashing out and inducing his fans to harass someone before acting shocked at the fallout, claiming innocence.

I won’t detail each individual incident, but suffice it to say that this goes beyond your typical Twitter sniping. The pattern is shockingly similar each time: Bauer takes offense at some perceived slight on social media, berates and otherwise insults the source of that slight (sometimes at great length), and then with a quote tweet, points his fans and followers in the woman’s direction (and it’s almost always a woman), who then proceed to harass her.

Eventually, Bauer issues a banal non-apology about how he never intended to harm anyone and doesn’t believe he did anything wrong, despite the glib falsity of that statement. This isn’t an isolated incident, a poor decision made in his rash youth. It’s a pattern, and a well-documented one.

I’m not here to legislate how you feel about that. I’ll simply invite you to consider how it feels to root for someone who repeatedly takes advantage of his popularity and power to make life worse for people without those things; how it feels to be one of those people. For the remainder of this article, though, I’m going to talk about what this means on the field, on the days where Bauer is pitching, though that hasn’t always been without conflict either. Read the rest of this entry »

After sitting idly by for most of the winter, the Phillies suddenly sprung into action last week. They finally got their long-term deal done with J.T. Realmuto, emphatically answering one the biggest lingering questions of their offseason. They re-signed Didi Gregorius, addressing another major area of need at shortstop. But those moves overshadowed two smaller ones aimed at shoring up the back of their starting rotation, with Philadelphia signing Matt Moore to a one-year, $3 million deal with additional performance bonuses last Friday, then adding Chase Anderson on Thursday on a one-year contract worth a guaranteed $4 million. It’s no secret that many teams are worried about the workload of their pitching staffs after the abbreviated season last year, and a number have already committed to using six-man rotations to lighten the load on their starters. It appears the Phillies could be pursuing a similar strategy.

With Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler leading the way, the Phillies’ rotation was actually a strength in 2020. That duo accumulated a combined four WAR last year, and both are returning for 2021. Zach Eflin’s revamped curveball, meanwhile, translated into a breakout season for the 26-year-old, making him a solid mid-rotation starter if those adjustments hold.

But the rest of the starting five is filled with question marks. Jake Arrieta’s three-year deal expired this offseason, so he’s out of the picture. Vince Velasquez continued to be an unpredictable enigma, posting an ugly 5.56 ERA that far outpaced his 4.16 FIP. Top pitching prospect Spencer Howard made his MLB debut in 2020, but it was an experience he’d like to forget. Poor conditioning and the delayed start to the year sapped him of his stamina during the season, with his fastball velocity noticeably dropping as the innings wore on in each of his starts. With two shoulder injuries in his recent past, it’s hard to say what to expect from Howard in 2021.

So while neither Moore or Anderson are projected to be better than back-end starters at best, they do give the Phillies some options when filling out their rotation.

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On September 4, 2020 in Kansas City, Alex Colomé had one of those nights where he just didn’t have it. It took him 40 pitches, only 23 for strikes, to get four outs and preserve a White Sox 7-3 victory over the Royals. With one out in the ninth, he missed a location with the second best of his two pitches. James McCann set up in and Colomé missed out with a 94 mph fastball, which Jorge Soler nailed with an exit velocity approaching 110 mph. If Soler had pulled the ball, it would have been in the seats, but he thankfully couldn’t get around on it; the ball went oppo, and a well-positioned Nomar Mazara easily jogged it down. Check out the end of the video as Colomé shakes his head, knowing he made a mistake, and maybe a couple, in terms of both location and pitch type.

Ten days later in Chicago, Colomé wasn’t especially sharp but kept runs off the board to finish up a 3-1 win over the Twins, who became his new team this week as he inked a one-year deal with a unique mutual option. With two outs in the ninth and looking to end the game, Colomé had the rare extreme miss with his signature cutter. Yasmani Grandal wanted one down and out, knowing Buxton couldn’t do much damage there, but Colomé delivered a center-cut meatball that the center fielder hammered. The good news was that the ball was a line drive to the left fielder. The bad news? That left fielder was Eloy Jiménez, who absolutely zooed the ball, resulting in an inside-the-park home run that was later reversed to a ground-rule double.

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