Pablo López has a pair of good throwing partners as he waits for baseball to return. The 24-year-old Miami Marlins right-hander has a Colombian catcher in his neighborhood, and a retired Venezuelan physician encamped in his spare bedroom. His relationship with the former is paramount to his future, and with the latter, a portrait of his past.

López is living in Miami, where he returned after spring training was abruptly halted by the COVID-19 pandemic. His priorities in camp had been a continuation of his offseason efforts, which came on the heels of a promising, albeit uneven, 2019 campaign. Despite a queasy 5.09 ERA — his FIP was a healthier 4.28 — López is projected to land a spot in the Marlins’ starting rotation.

For now, all he can do is keep his arm fresh with the help of the backstop and doctor.

“I’m going to this warehouse that has a turf area about 150 feet long,” López told me late last week. “They have portable mounds we can use, and I’m there three times a week. Outside of those three days, there’s a green area close to my community and I go out and play catch with my dad.”

Danny López grew up playing baseball in Venezuela. His own father, Pablo’s grandfather, coached him during his teenage years. Medical school then squelched any possibility of pursuing a professional career, but he did continue as an amateur. According to Pablo, his father “played for a company — big companies had their own league — and while I never got to watch him play, I hear that he was pretty good.”

Rather than follow in his father’s footsteps, Pablo went in the opposite direction. Accepted to medical school upon graduating from high school — at age 16, no less — the multi-talented son opted instead to sign with the Seattle Mariners. Five years later, he was traded to Miami. Read the rest of this entry »

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Anthony Kay, Pablo López, and Zac Lowther — on how they learned and developed their changeups.

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Anthony Kay, Toronto Blue Jays

“I’ve been throwing this changeup ever since I’ve been pitching. I never really had a curveball until I was 16 or 17 years old. Growing up, it was mainly just fastball-changeup because my dad didn’t want me [throwing curveballs]. My older brother played, and he also didn’t have a curveball until he got older.

“I first learned a circle change, and I still pretty much throw it to this day. Of course, there has been a little bit of variation. When I came back from [Tommy John surgery] in 2017 it was pretty inconsistent, and I was trying to find a grip that made it more reliable. I used to be on the seams, like a two-seamer, and now I’m kind of moved over to where it’s almost the same, but just off the seams. I was cutting it a lot, and I think being on the seams was a big reason for that. Now that I’m off them, I feel I get a truer release to it.

“It was mostly an inconsistency issue. There were some days where it would be really good, and there were days where it wouldn’t be good at all; it would cut. So I figured I might as well just mess around with it a little bit and try and get it more consistent. I don’t know that I really understand why [the adjustment makes made it more consistent], but it did. Read the rest of this entry »

“We feel like we’ve got starting pitching depth, we have impactful championship caliber players at every position that will allow us to compete for multiple championships.” — Marlins president Michael Hill

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This isn’t a bad time for Marlins fans. There aren’t many organizations you could credibly make that claim about following a 105-loss campaign and consecutive last place finishes, but this is Miami, where the standards are comparatively low.

Much of the positivity stems from an absence of negatives: Jeffrey Loria isn’t the owner, there’s no fire sale in progress or on the horizon, no scam contract extension on the books, no stars desperate for greener pastures, no silly stories about management bilking fans out of their premium parking spaces. This franchise usually trades in disappointment, and there are comparatively few sources of it right now.

There are also a few actively good signs. The club has cobbled together a functional pitching staff from spare parts, and have turned Brian Anderson and Sandy Alcantara into, if not building blocks, then at least the kind of productive players who wouldn’t look out of place in a contender’s lineup. The farm system itself seems rejuvenated: The Fish landed seven prospects on our most recent Top 100 list, most of whom already have Double-A experience. The organization as a whole is teeming with depth for the first time in ages, and they’ll add more impact talent in June’s draft. Read the rest of this entry »

Miami Marlins right-hander Sandy Alcantara showed a lot of promise when he was given a spot in the starting rotation last year. His 2.3 WAR and 3.88 ERA were impressive, but there’s much more going on that meets the eye. Alcantara has a very cohesive pitch ecosystem; the design of each offering makes for a lot of interchangeable parts. Being able to adapt to situations with flexible pitch options gives Alcantara an edge that a lot of pitchers don’t have with their arsenal.

Most pitchers have one, maybe two, pitch combinations that pair well together. Alcantara actually has four, which can allow him to easily flex and keep hitters on their toes.

Alcantara operates with five pitches: two fastballs (four-seam and sinker), a slider, a tight, classic curveball, and a heavy, fading changeup.

Below is the 2019 data on all five pitches: Read the rest of this entry »

When publishing prospect lists — in particular, the top 100 — I am frequently asked who, among the players excluded from this year’s version, might have the best chance of appearing on next year’s version. Whose stock am I buying? This post represents my best attempt to answer all of those questions at once.

This is the third year of this exercise, and last year Kiley and I instituted some rules. First, none of the players you see below will have ever been a 50 FV or better in any of our write-ups or rankings. So while I think Corbin Martin will return from Tommy John and become a 50 FV again later next year, I’m not allowed to include him here (although I just sorta did). The second rule is that I am forbidden from using players who have ever been on this list before, which means no Gilberto Celestino (on the list two years ago) or Lenny Torres (who was on last year’s) even though they might soon be 50s. McDaniel and I were right about 18 of the 63 players we picked the first year, about a 29% hit rate, and we were right about 16 of the 55 players on last year’s list, which is also 29%. Two years still isn’t long enough to know whether that’s good or not, but it does appear as though a baseline is being established.

At the end of the piece, I have a list of potential high-leverage relievers who might debut this year, because readers seem to dig that category. These are not part of the 50+ FV forecasting; it’s just a way to point an arrow at guys I like who might have real big league impact in a smaller role very soon.

I’ve separated the players into groups or “types” to make the list a little more digestible and to give you some idea of the demographics I think pop-up guys come from, which could help you identify some of your own with The Board (with The Board, through The Board, in The Board). For players whose orgs I’ve already covered this offseason, there is a link to the applicable team list where you can find a full scouting report on that player. I touch briefly on the rest of the names in this post. If you want to peek at the previous lists, here is Year 1, and here is Year 2. Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: Sources have indicated to FanGraphs that Fernando Romero has been awarded an additional option year. This post originally stated that Romero was out of options, and has been updated.

The need to define a scope, to create a boundary of coverage, creates a hole in prospect writing. Most public-facing prospect publications, FanGraphs included, analyze and rank players who are still rookie-eligible because, contrary to what you might think after seeing the length of my lists, you just have to stop somewhere, if only for the sake of your own sanity. Because of this, every year there are players who fall through the cracks between the boundaries of prospect coverage and big league analysis. These are often players who came up, played enough to exhaust their rookie eligibility, and then got hurt and had a long-term rehab in the minors. Some are victims of the clogged major league rosters ahead of them; others are weird corner cases like Adalberto Mondesi.

Regardless, prospect writers are arguably in the best position to comment on these players because they fall under the minor league umbrella, but simply adding them to prospect lists would open a can of worms — what do you do with other young big leaguers? So every year, I examine a subset of the players caught in this limbo to give curious readers an update on where once-heralded prospects stand now. 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 Miami Marlins.

Batters

I’ll share the good news first: The Marlins won’t have a good offense, but there are fewer gaping holes now than there were in 2019, when the team was able to outscore the Detroit Tigers, but couldn’t say the same of anyone else. (The team with the third-fewest runs, the San Francisco Giants, scored nearly half a run more per game than Miami did.) A lot of the team’s worst offensive performances — Curtis Granderson and Martín Prado combined for more than 600 plate appearances for some odd reason, hitting .183/.281/.356 and .233/.265/.294, respectively — are being replaced by players the Marlins brought in this winter. In Marlins terms, adding Corey Dickerson, Jesús Aguilar , Matt Joyce, Brandon Kintzler, and Francisco Cervelli constitutes a veritable orgy of spending. Along with players like Matt Kemp and Sean Rodríguez, who are signed to minor league deals, all of these guys are veterans, known quantities with few surprises. Read the rest of this entry »

Yasiel Puig’s first appearance in the majors had been fabled for some time. Matt Kemp, the young Dodgers star the team had just signed to an eight-year deal, was hurt for the third time in 14 months, and doubts of his superstardom were already creeping in. “Derek Jeter appeared on the disabled list twice during his 10-year contract with the Yankees,” Bill Shaikin noted in the L.A. Times, for some reason.

Where, it was being asked, would the Dodgers be expected to find their power with Kemp trying to swing through a shoulder injury and maintaining the lowest slugging percentage (.335) in the league among starting outfielders? What silhouette would appear on the horizon, a bat slung over his shoulder, and take the Dodgers to the Promised Land?

“He is not in the major leagues,” Shaikin wrote. “His name is Yasiel Puig.”

Seven years later, his name is still Yasiel Puig, and he is still a ball player, only now, he is available to play for your team. His biblical foretelling led to an explosive debut and a thrilling first two years of his major league career. Puig has gone through a lot since then; his uniform has changed multiple times and his numbers have fallen away so that only his reputation, the parts earned and unearned, has remained. Now, at age 29 and dragging 20.0 career WAR behind him over seven seasons, he is filling an odd little niche on the 2020 free agent market: He is the dream acquisition of last place teams. To invent a word on the spot, we might say that he can increase the “fan-ability” of three teams that could really use it in 2020. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2020 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Given their propensity for injuries, even the best pitchers will break your hearts. The impact of so many hard throws takes its toll on the body, and no matter how talented, not every pitcher can survive long enough to build a resumé worthy of Hall of Fame consideration. In the latest installment of my completest series, two big righties who could dial it up to the high 90s with their fastballs teamed up at the outset of their careers to help the Marlins capture an unlikely championship, and while both excelled further, to the point of making multiple All-Star teams, the ups and downs of the job took their toll, sidelining both by their mid-30s.

Josh Beckett

At his best, when healthy, Josh Beckett was an All-Star, a Cy Young contender, and a championship-caliber pitcher who offset his high-90s heat with a filthy, knee-buckling curve. Indeed, he played a vital role on two World Series winners, first the upstart 2003 Marlins and then the ’07 Red Sox. Alas, injuries — particularly recurrent blisters and shoulder woes — limited him to just four seasons of at least 30 starts, and prevented him from reaching the heights expected of him. The grind of pitching was just too much for his body to stay in working order for two years in a row, and sometimes even for a full season; he developed a notable tendency to excel in odd-numbered years while struggling in even-numbered ones. But when he was good, he was very, very good. Read the rest of this entry »

The Marlins have spent this offseason quietly adding a number of high-upside veterans on the cheap. They’ve traded for Jonathan Villar after Baltimore unceremoniously dumped him, claimed Jesús Aguilar on waivers, and added Francisco Cervelli on a one-year contract worth just $2 million. They continued to upgrade their roster just after Christmas, signing Corey Dickerson to a two-year deal worth $17.5 million.

The left-handed outfielder fills a big need on the Marlins roster. In 2019, Miami utilized the uninspiring trio of Harold Ramirez, Curtis Granderson, and Austin Dean for the lion’s share of the innings in left field. They collectively cost the Marlins 1.7 wins, with just Ramirez rating above replacement level. For a rebuilding club, this isn’t necessarily concerning or surprising. In Dean and Ramirez, the Marlins were simply looking to see if either minor league veteran could make it in the big leagues, and Granderson was a classic clubhouse veteran playing out the last days of a long career.

But with the Marlins looking to break free from their endless rebuilding phase, adding Dickerson is a savvy move. He immediately upgrades their outfield and provides the club with a much-needed left-handed bat in the lineup. Since his debut in 2013 for the Rockies, he’s posted a 117 wRC+ and 11.5 WAR. After a good start to his career in Colorado, a strikeout problem and getting traded away from the Rays forced him to make some changes to his approach in 2018. In Pittsburgh, he started choking up regularly in an effort to make much more contact. The adjustments worked and he cut his strikeout rate by almost 10 points. Read the rest of this entry »