In 2019, the Atlanta Braves were the class of the NL East, buoyed by the star tandem of Ronald Acuña Jr. and Josh Donaldson. But the division is hardly locked up for 2020 — the rival Nationals won the freaking World Series, and the Mets and Phillies are no pushovers. With Donaldson stocking up on winter clothing, the Braves had a hole in the lineup to fill. The early signings of Will Smith, Travis d’Arnaud, and Cole Hamels were nice enough, but they didn’t replace Donaldson’s WAR or his lineup-anchoring bat.

Well, the Braves came closer to replacing the Bringer of Rain’s production yesterday, signing Marcell Ozuna to a one-year, $18 million contract. The details are straightforward: one year, no options, and no incentive bonuses. As the Cardinals offered Ozuna a qualifying offer, the club will forfeit their third round draft pick (having forfeited their second round pick to sign Will Smith), though they’ll receive a slightly earlier pick back (after Competitive Balance Round B) due to Donaldson’s declined offer.

At surface level, this deal is a tremendous win for the Braves. The NL East, as mentioned above, is wildly competitive. Our Depth Chart projections peg the team as roughly a win behind the Nationals and Mets, the part of the win curve where additional talent is most valuable. And the Braves are making a clean upgrade; before signing Ozuna, their likely outfield consisted of Acuña, a diminished Ender Inciarte, a whatever-is-past-diminished Nick Markakis, and if you’re being generous in your definition of major leaguers, perhaps Adam Duvall.

Ozuna is better than all of those non-Acuña guys, and better by a lot. ZiPS projects him for 2.8 WAR in 2020:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Rangers beefed up their infield depth over the weekend, signing third baseman Todd Frazier to a one-year contract. The former Reds All-Star will be guaranteed at least $5 million, with a base salary of $3.5 million in 2020 along with a $1.5 million buyout if the team doesn’t pick up his $5.75 million option in 2021.

Adding Frazier is just the latest addition to a team that has been slowly reconfiguring its roster for contention over the last 18 or so months. Adding Frazier to the infield gives the team flexibility to deal with their remaining roster questions in ways that the returning Danny Santana does not. With Delino DeShields gone to the Indians in the Corey Kluber trade, Santana figures to get playing time in center field, making him less available on the infield.

Ronald Guzmán as the starting first baseman presents a significant lineup problem, for whom Frazier represents a fallback. Even if Guzmán doesn’t lose his job completely, the fact that he’s hit .179/.242/.315 against lefties in the majors leaves Frazier as a compelling timeshare candidate — he has a.246/.322/.491 career line against lefties. Frazier’s no longer a Gold Glove candidate at third base, but he’s solid enough at the hot corner to give the Rangers a free hand to play Nick Solak at second — Rougned Odor doesn’t have the longest rope — or in the outfield. Read the rest of this entry »

On July 5, in his last start before the All-Star game, Alex Wood was dealing. The Diamondbacks couldn’t touch him with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole. Over seven dominant innings, he struck out 10 batters, walking only two in a scoreless outing. Wood didn’t start the All-Star game, but he could have; his 2.04 FIP, 30.9% strikeout rate, 1.67 ERA, and 10-0 record had something for every stripe of fan. As he walked off the mound, the crowd at Chavez Ravine roared.

Wait — Chavez Ravine? Oh. Yeah. I left something out. That was July 5, 2017. It’s been a minute since Alex Wood was at his world-devouring best. In the second half of that season, he was ordinary, potentially sub-ordinary. His strikeout rate fell 12 points, his FIP more than doubled, and the Dodgers started managing his workload. The culprit? It can often be hard to pin one down, but in this case, well:

Not what you like to see. The Dodgers skipped his spot in the rotation once, hoping he’d recover, but never put him on the IL. He averaged 90.4 mph on his fastball in the playoffs, and while he was mostly effective, the early-season magic never came back. Read the rest of this entry »

Héctor Rondón made a ton of appearances last year for a solid Houston bullpen. The Astros had a top 10 bullpen in both ERA and WAR, and Rondón made the third-most appearances on the team. If you only knew those two things, then, it would look like quite the deal when the Diamondbacks signed Rondón for a mere $3 million, with a club option for 2021 tacked onto the back end, as Nick Piecoro reported yesterday.

Of course, I cleverly avoided telling you anything about how good Rondón was last year aside from his appearances. And while he wasn’t abysmal, at least not completely — he had a 3.71 ERA, racked up positive WPA, and still sat 97 mph with his fastball — some of the underlying metrics looked rough. His FIP was a career-worst 4.96, his strikeout rate cratered to 18.7%, and he was below replacement level on the year in our FIP-based WAR accounting. By the playoffs, he was buried in the bullpen — seven relievers in the Houston ‘pen faced more batters, and his average entry leverage was a piddling 0.16.

So before we decide if this was a good signing for the Diamondbacks, we need to decide if Rondón is still good. At his peak on the Cubs, he was an impact reliever with pretty good stuff and great control. He’s still only 31 — this isn’t some kind of Fernando Rodney situation here, where there’s a picture in his attic with an increasingly tilted cap that keeps him in baseball shape. He’s still, age-wise at least, in his prime.

So what’s changed for Rondón? We can rule out the normal way relievers break. He’s been extremely durable, making at least 50 appearances for six straight years. He hasn’t lost velocity, either: he throws as hard now as he did when he was on the Cubs. And his postseason banishment wasn’t a matter of him losing steam at the end of a long slog of a year; his fastball averaged 96.8 mph in the playoffs, barely down from 96.9 during the regular season. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night, the Texas Rangers made another nifty signing in their humble but effective winter. Robinson Chirinos, coming off a career season in his Houston sojourn, will return to his roots this spring. He inked a one-year deal worth $5.75 million, with a $6.5 million team option for 2021; the contract also includes a $1 million buyout if the Rangers choose not to exercise the option.

Chirinos is one of those players who’s both older and better than you think. A career part-timer until 2018, the 35-year-old has quietly emerged as one of baseball’s best hitting catchers at an age most players fade into retirement. He has a very modern offensive game: He’s content to work the count, draw a few walks, take a few more strikeouts, post the occasional Insta, and smack a dinger every 10 days or so. He’s finished with a wRC+ above 100 in each of the last five campaigns, and among catchers with at least 1,000 plate appearances over the last three years, only seven have been better with the stick:

If all of that sounds like a way to avoid talking about his glove, guilty as charged. Per our framing metrics, Chirinos is one of the worst receivers in the league. This is not a minority view either, as Baseball Prospectus’s framing numbers track very similarly. He’s given away nearly 50 runs over his career from his framing alone, and while he improved a bit last season, he’s very much a bat-first option behind the plate. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not a new insight to point out that the Dodgers decided a few years ago that one helpful thing they can do with all their money is take fliers on a ton of injured or otherwise unreliable starting pitchers, only some of whom will work out. Other teams do this too, of course, but only the Dodgers do it at a scale that leaves their starting pitchers’ depth chart looking quite this crowded year after year:

Jimmy Nelson, row seven, is the newest addition to the Dodgers’ crop of injured arms, as he reportedly signed with Los Angeles for $1.25 million in guaranteed dollars with a litany of incentives and option years (up to $13 million over two years, according to reports). That structure has the effect of capping Nelson’s earnings through the end of 2021 if he comes back healthy — starting pitchers have signed for a median of $8.25 million a year so far this offseason, which puts Nelson’s cap of $6.5 million well below average — while committing the Dodgers to very little guaranteed money in the event Nelson fails to bounce back. Read the rest of this entry »

Once blessed with the greatest run of consistency ever achieved at shortstop, it’s now been a few years since the Baltimore Orioles have seen solid all-around play at that position. That probably won’t shock you, given how badly the Orioles have performed all over the diamond in recent seasons, but it has affected the shortstop spot as badly as it has anywhere else. J.J. Hardy still had big league defensive skills in 2017, but his 49 wRC+ that year dragged him down nearly a full win below replacement level. Manny Machado was the reverse of that in 2018 — an MVP-caliber hitter, but bad in the field, though a rebound in his defensive numbers after a trade to Los Angeles suggested he was better than a half season’s worth of defensive metrics made it appear. And Richie Martin might be a productive big league player someday, but bumping him from Double-A to the majors in 2019 after making him the first selection of the 2018 Rule 5 draft resulted in an ugly 50 wRC+ and -1.0 WAR.

With Martin likely better served to start next season in the minors and no one else on the roster with substantial major league experience at shortstop, the Orioles were left with little choice but to go get someone who could field that position. The Orioles opted for competence, signing José Iglesias to a one-year contract, as first reported by MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. Read the rest of this entry »

The Washington Nationals made two signings Monday afternoon, re-signing relief pitcher Daniel Hudson and inking former Brewers first baseman Eric Thames to contracts.

Hudson’s two-year, $11.5 million deal reunites the Nationals with one of their most reliable relievers in 2019. After being picked up at the trade deadline from the Blue Jays, Hudson put up a 2.47 ERA and 3.97 FIP for Washington. The Nats originally acquired him up as a setup man for closer Sean Doolittle, but after Doolittle went on the Injured List with a sore knee, Hudson picked up most of the save opportunities. This state of affairs persisted as the team eased Doolittle back into the bullpen in September. Hudson was one of the few relievers Washington trusted come the playoffs, with four of his nine appearances registering an average leverage index of two or higher.

It’s a fair price for one of the few quality relievers available in free agency. Of the major league free agent relievers still looking for a new team, only Aaron Loup projects to have an ERA under four by Steamer. Washington’s bullpen still isn’t particularly deep, but with Hudson set to join Doolittle and Will Harris, the Nats will start 2020 with solid choices at the top of the ‘pen. Wander Suero ought to have a better 2020 season, and while Tanner Rainey’s command is still a huge work in progress, I’d rather see him work it out in D.C. than become the umpteenth fascinating, youngish Nationals reliever to bloom in his next uniform. Read the rest of this entry »

In December, the free agent signings flowed like wine. You could hardly finish reading about one marquee free agent’s landing spot before another domino fell. Stephen Strasburg, Gerrit Cole, and Anthony Rendon signed on consecutive days, and Edwin Encarnación signed with the White Sox on literal Christmas. It was a hectic month, to say the least.

Of course, taking so many names off the board in December portends a slower January, and that was certainly the case this weekend. Take the Padres. In November, they signed Drew Pomeranz, the sabermetric darling of the offseason, whose relief work in 2019 makes him a potential bullpen ace. In December, they went wild with trades: they added Tommy Pham, Trent Grisham, Zach Davies, and Jurickson Profar to the team over three deals.

In January — well, January has barely started, but so far, they’ve moved down a rung on the urgency ladder. This Saturday, they signed Craig Stammen to a two year, $9 million dollar deal, with a club option for a third. Stammen has been a valuable part of the Padres bullpen over the past two seasons, and he’ll likely continue to appear in high leverage situations for the team, albeit now behind Pomeranz and Kirby Yates rather than just Yates. Read the rest of this entry »

The Washington Nationals have had a busy winter. The defending champs had several departing free agents to negotiate with, and while they couldn’t hang on to Anthony Rendon, they had better luck with Stephen Strasburg, Howie Kendrick, and (as of two days ago) Asdrúbal Cabrera. Washington has also inked a few non-incumbents, most recently infielder Starlin Castro. Last Friday afternoon, the Nationals and Castro shook hands on a two-year agreement worth a total of $12 million. It’s a short-term contract for the (somehow only) 29-year-old, and there are no options or incentives to lengthen or sweeten the deal.

It feels like an eon since Castro debuted as a 20-year-old hit-tool wonder for the Cubs. At the time, the consensus on the Dominican was that, given his lack of power and solid glove at short, he’d have to hit .300 to be a good player. Initially, the projection held: In the early years of his career, he made All-Star teams when his average neared or crested .300 and was approximately replacement level when it didn’t.

But Castro’s post-Chicago tenure has played out a little differently. He slid over to second upon joining the Yankees in 2016, and has barely featured at short since. He’s also grown into more power with age, twice topping 20 homers in the last four seasons. That extra power has partially compensated for a dwindling average, and ultimately the overall value of his production hasn’t dipped too much even as its shape has shifted quite a bit. Read the rest of this entry »