Almost inexplicably, the proposed contraction of 42 minor league teams has largely become second-page news. Baseball’s biggest story just a few short months ago, a potentially cataclysmic alteration of the game’s landscape has found itself overshadowed by cheating scandals, managerial mayhem, and the controversial trade of a superstar by a deep-pocketed team. In arguably one of the most-tumultuous off-seasons ever, a hugely-important issue lies almost dormant within the news cycle.

Here at FanGraphs, we’re doing our best not to let that happen. My colleague Craig Edwards is taking an in-depth look at the situation — expect those articles in the coming days — and what you’re seeing here serves as a lead-in to his efforts. My own opinions aren’t included. What follows are the thoughts of a handful of high-ranking MLB executives, the bulk of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.

In the opinion of one GM, lawsuits are likely, if not inevitable. Speaking on the record would thus be an invitation to trouble. Another pointed out that the ongoing discussions are at the league level, and independent of individual teams. For that reason, offering a public opinion wouldn’t be in his best interest.

With no exception, each executive expressed that his organization’s bottom line is to optimize player development, regardless of the structure of the minor leagues. An American League GM put it this way: Read the rest of this entry »

By now, you know the drill. Earlier this week, I highlighted contending teams with weak points in the infield and on the mound. We’ve still got eight teams to cover today, so there’s no time to waste. Let’s dive in!

St. Louis Cardinals

The Hole: Two years ago, the Cardinals were so overloaded with outfielders that they traded Tommy Pham to open up playing time for promising youngsters Harrison Bader and Tyler O’Neill. This offseason, they had enough of an outfield surplus that they traded Randy Arozarena and José Martínez, but the top-end talent the team hoped for still hasn’t materialized.

That’s not to say that the Cardinals don’t have outfielders. O’Neill and Bader are still around. Dexter Fowler is solidly in his decline phase, but will likely take up a season’s worth of plate appearances. Tommy Edman will see some time in the outfield in addition to sharing third base with Matt Carpenter.

But while they have bodies, they’re lacking in upside. Bader looks like a long-shot to ever recapture his 2018 offensive line, O’Neill’s 2019 was gruesome (35.1% strikeout rate), and Fowler is subsisting on walks at this point. They might field an entire outfield of sub-100 wRC+ batters, and only Bader can make up for that with his glove. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Cleveland Indians.

Batters

The bad news is that the Indians have a very run-of-the-mill offense with an outfield that has been, is, and ought to be a significant hole, one that they’ve done little to fill. The good news is that the Indians have a very run-of-the-mill offense with an outfield that has been, is, and ought to be, a significant hole, one that they’ve done little to fill, but an offense that also features Francisco Lindor and José Ramírez.

There’s little doubt at this point that Lindor, the slick-fielding shortstop prospect whose bat profiled a bit like Luis Alicea’s, has evolved into Francisco Lindor, the best shortstop in baseball. After all, Manny Machado‘s a third baseman, Carlos Correa has an injury record to overcome, Corey Seager’s a step behind, and Xander Bogaerts can’t match the glove. Alicea was a perfectly good player for a long time, but this Lindor is on a Hall of Fame trajectory, with ZiPS now projecting him to finish with around 80 wins, a .279/.339/.490 career line, 443 homers, and 2600 hits. He’s become the kind of player Cleveland will have a hard time doing without, which is why fans of the 2020 team should be worried about the trade rumors. Read the rest of this entry »

Triston Casas continues to grow, and not just developmentally on the field. The top prospect in the Red Sox farm system recently told a trio of reporters, yours truly included, that he’s put on 10 pounds of muscle, and gained nearly an inch in height, since the end of the season. Just a few days past his 20th birthday, the 2018 first-round pick is now 6’ 5″, 255.

Casas comes by his size naturally. Asked about his lineage, he explained that his father is “about the same size height-wise, but has put on a little weight and is bigger than me in terms of roundness.”

The hulking youngster is surprisingly agile and well-rounded for someone of his stature. While his long-term position will almost certainly be first base, Casas was drafted as a third baseman and has seen time at both infield corners since turning pro. His athleticism also makes him a candidate for left field.

His role model is a first baseman.

“I emulate Joey Votto as much as I can,” said Casas, who swings from the left side. “He’s my favorite player. I actually choke up on the bat from the first pitch. Every at bat. And with two strikes I’m 4-5 inches up the bat. If you’ve never seen me play, there are pictures with me way up the pine tar.”

There is also footage of the former Plantation, Florida prep propelling baseballs long distances. As Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel wrote in his prospect profile, Casas “participated in multiple home run derbies during his amateur summers, and posted gaudy exit velocities during team pre-draft workouts.” They placed a 65/70 on the young slugger’s raw-power grade. Read the rest of this entry »

Next week, the Dolan family, owners of the Cleveland Indians, are being honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Greater Cleveland Sports Awards. The criteria for determining the winner of that particular prize is vague; it usually goes to a retired player. The Dolans are the only ownership group to have won it.

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The Cincinnati Reds are a proud franchise in the midst of a tough run. A small market team in one of the league’s smallest cities, they’ve posted a losing record in each of the past six years. They haven’t won a playoff series in 30. TV ratings are solid — nothing attracts more eyeballs on a summer night in Cincinnati than Reds baseball — but fans haven’t had much to cheer lately. Franchise icon Joey Votto appears to be playing out the string. The Reds, even in a mediocre division, were buried in fourth place last season.

The Cleveland Indians are also a proud franchise, and they’re on a splendid run. They too are a small market team in one of the league’s smallest cities. But they’ve been plucky. The Tribe have notched seven consecutive winning seasons, and were a game away from a championship back in 2016. TV ratings are robust, the second-highest in all of baseball. Promising young players line the roster and shortstop Francisco Lindor is one of the game’s precious few superstars. The Indians missed the playoffs last season, but were relevant into the season’s final week and entered the winter with plenty of talent on hand.

So far this winter, Cincinnati has spent $100 million on Mike Moustakas, Wade Miley, and Shogo Akiyama. Cleveland has spent less than $10 million and dealt Corey Kluber for a reliever and an extra outfielder. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, I asked our readers to rank the star players rumored to be on the trade block. I asked just two questions. The first asked readers to rank the players by how good they are right now. The second asked readers to rank the players by their trade value.

The first question proved to be an easy one, as 42% of the more than 2,500 responses had the exact same ranking.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ethan Hankins has one of the highest ceilings in Cleveland’s pitching pipeline. The 6-foot-6 right-hander possesses a first-round pedigree — he went 35th overall in 2018 — and a heater that sits mid-90s with late life. Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel ranked him 15th in Cleveland’s system last year. Moreover, he’s wise beyond his years. Still just 19 years old, Hankins is studious enough about his craft that he could reasonably be referred to as a pitching nerd.

Hankins split his first full professional campaign between Short-season Mahoning Valley and Low-A Lake County, logging a 2.55 ERA and fanning 71 batters in 60 innings. No less impressive are the strides he’s continued to make between the ears. The former Forsythe, Georgia prep may have bypassed Vanderbilt University to sign with the Indians, but his quest for knowledge has by no means waned. Influenced heavily by his off-season experiences at Full Count Baseball, it continues unabated.

Hankins discussed his cerebral approach, and the improvements he’s made to his repertoire, late in the 2019 season.

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David Laurila: Is pitching more of an art, or more of a science?

Ethan Hankins: “The game we’re playing right now, with all the analytical stuff we have access to, and use — especially with the Indians — it’s starting to become more of a science. I feel like it used to be more an art. Even a few years ago. But it’s been growing into something that can be called a science, because of the average velocities, the spin efficiencies, true spin, 2D spin, 3D spin. There are all of these numbers that can be beneficial if you know how to use them in the right way.“

Laurila: It sounds like you lean science.

Hankins: “Yes, but that’s not because the Indians have thrown it in my face. It’s because I’ve taken to learning how these numbers can benefit you. Granted, the Indians help a lot. They obviously have all of this knowledge. But not everybody uses it. We don’t get pressured to use it.”

Laurila: How do you use it?

Hankins: “There are a million different ways that… oh gosh. I’d say that I’m using it to develop my offspeed, more than anything. My curveball has made a huge jump over the past year. I don’t credit that solely to the Rapsodo, or any of the other technology we have access to, but that does give you a lot of insight. It tells you, ‘This is where you are.’ From there, you’re able to say, ‘OK, I want to be here; I want this pitch to have this much efficiency. This is the direction I want.’ Read the rest of this entry »

Who will man the shortstop position for the Indians once the Francisco Lindor era is over? That largely depends on when Cleveland’s best player moves on, but the down-the-road answer could very well be Brayan Rocchio. The 18-year-old switch-hitter came into last season ranked No.4 on our Indians Top Prospects list.

Borrowing a boxing term, Rocchio punched above his weight in 2019. Listed at 5-foot-10 and 150 pounds, he slashed a wholly respectable .250/.310/.373 for the Mahoning Valley Scrappers in the short-season New York-Penn League. Stateside for the first time, the Caracas, Venezuela native put up those numbers against pitchers typically several years his senior.

Moreover, he did so as a comparable flyweight. With that in mind, I asked Indians GM Mike Chernoff just how impactful Rocchio’s bat can ultimately be, given his whippet-like frame.

“We have a lot of young international players who, when we signed them, were sort of undersized,” said Chernoff. “He’s one of those guys. But we see a ton of potential in his bat-to-ball ability, and in his defensive capabilities. He’s also held his own while super young for his level, and to us that’s a huge indicator of future success. We feel that as Brayan matures, as his body gets stronger and can handle the demands of a full season, he has a chance to be an impact guy.”

But again, just how impactful? While Rocchio’s physique will almost certainly fill out, he’ll be doing so from a 150-pound baseline. That’s water-bug territory, not future-thumper. Right? Read the rest of this entry »

In an article that ran here 10 days ago, Chicago White Sox GM Rick Hahn was quoted as saying that people in his role tend to “spend a lot more time trying to unpack what goes wrong, as opposed to examining all the things that may have gone right.”

Danny Mendick fits firmly in the ‘right’ category. Unheralded coming into the 2019 season — he ranked No. 26 on our White Sox Top Prospects list — the 26-year-old infielder earned a September call-up and proceeded to slash .308/.325/.462 in 40 plate appearances. As the season came to a close, Sunday Notes devoted a handful of paragraphs to his Cinderella-like story.

Mendick’s story deserves more than a handful of paragraphs. With the calendar about to flip to 2020, let’s take a longer look at where he came from. We’ll start with words from Hahn.

“When we took him in the 22nd round, as a senior [in 2015], I think we all knew he’d play in the big leagues,” the ChiSox exec said when I inquired about Mendick at the GM Meetings. “OK, no. I’m messing with you. We didn’t know.”

Continuing in a serious vein, Hahn added that the White Sox routinely ask their area scouts to identify “one or two guys they have a gut feel on.” These are draft-eligible players who “maybe don’t stand out from a tools standpoint, or from a notoriety standpoint, but are true baseball players; they play the game the right way and have a positive influence on others.”

In other words, organizational depth. And maybe — just maybe — they will overachieve and one day earn an opportunity at the highest level. Read the rest of this entry »

Managers and front office executives have media obligations at the Winter Meetings, and here at FanGraphs we do our best to engage in, and report on, as any those sessions as possible. Today we’ll share some of what I learned in San Diego, with the five American League Central teams front and center.

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How do trade talks typically work at the Winter Meetings? Twins President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey touched on that subject as things were winding down in San Diego.

“A lot of it is continuation of previous conversations,” Falvey told a small group of reporters. “End of season, everyone kind of takes a breath and looks at what’s going on. Then you have the GM meetings and start a lot of the conversations. This is just an extension of that. In many ways, we sit in our suites and text, and call, other teams. We’re not necessarily even walking down the hall, or going to another floor.”

The Twins aren’t unique in that respect. I subsequently overheard an executive from a National League team saying he’s not sure if anyone came to their suite all week.

As for the level of non-face-to-face exchanges, some clubs were more engaged than others. The AL Central champs fit into the “less” category, their attention directed more toward non-trade acquisitions.

“Last year was a little bit slower Winter Meetings,” Falvey said of expectations going in. “Could it be slower again? We weren’t sure. If anything, this gave us some more clarity around what our next few weeks will look like. We’ve already assessed the players. I’ll say this: The conversations with teams seemed a little less frequent than the free agent conversations.” Read the rest of this entry »