On Saturday, the Brewers and Mets continued to reshape their outfields, making a four-player swap headlined by dynamic outfield defender Keon Broxton. Here’s the deal:

Mets get:

Keon Broxton, CF

Brewers get:

Bobby Wahl, RHP
Adam Hill, RHP
Felix Valerio, 2B

Almost by default, Broxton tentatively slots in as the Mets’ starting center fielder, between Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo. There’s a stark lack of outfield depth on New York’s 40-man; Jay Bruce was traded, the org isn’t expecting much from Yoenis Cespedes next season as he recovers from surgery to remove bone spurs from both heels, and Juan Lagares provides very little on offense and is injury prone. Since 2014, he has endured a strained hamstring, an intercostal strain, several thumb injuries, an oblique strain, and a plantar plate tear. In 2018, he was shut down for the year in May due to toe surgery and has only played seven Dominican Winter League games this offseason.

As far as others on the 40-man are concerned, T.J. Rivera and Dom Smith have each played some left field, while Jeff McNeil, who turns 27 in April, has started just five pro games in the outfield. It’s debatable as to whether any of them are actually playable out there. It is not debatable that Broxton, who is an elite defender at all three outfield spots, is simply better than all of them.

Set to turn 29 in May, Broxton’s growth as a player has likely concluded. He struggled badly with strikeouts as a prospect and was traded straight up for cash before being part of a two-player package for half-year big league performer and fringe 40-man talent Jason Rogers. That deal landed him in Milwaukee, where Broxton improved enough in his late-twenties to be rostered as defensive ace and pinch runner.

The strikeout issues remain (his career strikeout rate is 36%), and Broxton’s propensity to whiff undercuts his offensive production enough to make him a bench-quality player, albeit a good one because of the defense. Ideally, he’s not your everyday center fielder, but it’s reasonable to project him as one right now because of the dearth of other outfielders on the Mets roster.

Broxton and Lagares seem, on the surface, like odd bedfellows for a platoon because they’re each right-handed. It’s possible a timeshare might help keep Lagares healthy, or that the two complement one another in harder-to-see ways. For instance, a quick examination of their heats maps on the site shows that Broxton does his damage on pitches middle-in, while Lagares thrives on pitches down-and-in. They could be platooned in accordance with where the opposing starter likes to work. That’s probably not a different enough offensive profile for this type of thinking to matter, but maybe their skill sets with mesh with each other in some other way we can’t see. Or perhaps the Mets will keep an open mind about further upgrading in center field.

From Milwaukee’s perspective, Lorenzo Cain’s defense made Broxton’s best skill redundant in a crowded outfield picture that now projects to see more action from Eric Thames, Ben Gamel, and Tyrone Taylor, who is a sleeper breakout candidate due to a recent swing change that might have altered his power output.

From the Mets, the Brewers receive another immediately relevant relief piece in Wahl, who will likely compete for an opening day bullpen spot in the spring. He was part of the two-player package Oakland sent to the Mets for Jeurys Familia last summer. Wahl, who turns 27 in March, has thrown just 12 career big league innings at this age mostly because he missed extended development time to multiple surgeries, including one in 2017 to remedy thoracic outlet syndrome.

His stuff was back last year. Wahl’s fastball sits in the mid-90s and will touch 99. He has a four-pitch mix but works primarily with the fastball and a power, mid-80s breaking ball that has bat-missing vertical action. A firm cutter and changeup are also folded in on occasion. Wahl has set-up man stuff but below average command and more significant injury risk than most pitching prospects.

The Brewers also acquired Adam Hill, the Mets’ 2018 fourth round pick out of the University of South Carolina. Hill was dominant during the first four starts of his junior year, but his control disappeared once the Gamecocks began conference play. He struggled to throw strikes for two months leading up to the draft and fell to the fourth round.

Hill does have good stuff. He’ll sit 90-94 and his big, 6-foot-6 frame and lower arm slot combine to create a unique look for hitters. His slider breaks late and has good length when located to Hill’s arm side, and his changeup has good action because of his lower arm slot. His limited command probably relegates Hill to the bullpen eventually, but he has No. 4 or 5 starter stuff if he can develop better control in his mid-20s, which sometimes happens to pitchers this size.

Finally, the Brewers also acquired 18-year-old Dominican second baseman Felix Valerio, who hit .319/.409/.433 in the DSL during his first pro season. Valerio is a skills-over-tools type of prospect who is more polished than most of his peers. He has promising feel for contact and is athletically viable at second base but at 5-foot-7 and 165 pounds, he’s less likely to grow into more impressive physical tools than someone with some length and room on their frame. Players like this either hit enough to play second base every day, or don’t and end up as org guys. Valerio walked more than he struck out last year, and those types of peripheral indicators can offer great evidence to support a case that a player will indeed hit enough to play every day, but not when we’re talking about DSL stats. Still, league sources indicated to me that this was not the first time Valerio’s name has come up in trade talks, so it seems that other teams besides Milwaukee have had interest in him.

All three players have been added to the Brewers prospect rankings on The Board. Wahl and Hill are in the 40 Future Value tier, while Valerio will be added to the Others of Note section of the team’s long form writeup.

In 2018, I once again had the pleasure of interviewing hundreds of people within baseball. Many of their words were shared in my Sunday Notes column, while others came courtesy of the FanGraphs Q&A series, the Learning and Developing a Pitch series, the Manager’s Perspective series, and a smattering of feature stories. Here is a selection of the best quotes from this year’s conversations.

———

“My slider will come out and it will be spinning, spinning, spinning, and then as soon as it catches, it picks up speed and shoots the other way. Whoosh! It’s like when you bowl. You throw the ball, and then as soon as it catches, it shoots with more speed and power. Right? “ — Sergio Romo, Tampa Bay Rays pitcher, January 2018

“One of the biggest lessons we learn is that iron sharpens iron. That is 100% how we try to do things with the Rockies — hiring people that are smarter than we are, and more skilled, and have different skills that can complement, and train people to be better at their jobs than I am at my job. That’s how you advance an organization.” — Jeff Bridich, Colorado Rockies GM, January 2018

“We could split hairs and say, ‘Hey, you’re playing in front of a thousand drunk Australians instead of 40,000 drunk Bostonians, and you’re living with a host family instead of at a five-star hotel.’ But The Show is The Show, and in Australia the ABL is The Show.” — Lars Anderson, baseball nomad, January 2018

“Baseball is heaven. Until our closer blows the game.” — Michael Hill, Miami Marlins president of baseball operations, January 2018 Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2019 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2016 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. 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.

Billy Wagner was the ultimate underdog. Undersized and from both a broken home and an impoverished rural background, he channeled his frustrations into throwing incredibly hard — with his left hand, despite being a natural righty, for he broke his right arm twice as a child. Scouts overlooked him because he wasn’t anywhere close to six feet tall, but they couldn’t disregard his dominance of collegiate hitters using a mid-90s fastball. The Astros made him a first-round pick, and once he was converted to a relief role, his velocity went even higher.

Thanks to outstanding lower-body strength, coordination, and extraordinary range of motion, the 5-foot-10 Wagner was able to reach 100 mph with consistency — 159 times in 2003, according to The Bill James Handbook. Using a pitch learned from teammate (and 2018 ballot-mate) Brad Lidge, he kept blowing the ball by hitters into his late 30s to such an extent that he owns the record for the highest strikeout rate of any pitcher with at least 800 innings. He was still dominant when he walked away from the game following the 2010 season, fresh off posting a career-best ERA.

Lacking the longevity of fellow 2016 Hall of Fame ballot newcomer Trevor Hoffman, Wagner never set any saves records or even led his league once, and his innings total is well below those of every enshrined reliever. Hoffman’s status as the former all-time saves leader helped him get elected in 2018, but Wagner, who created similar value in his career, has major hurdles to surmount after receiving a high of 11.1% in three years on the ballot. Nonetheless, his advantages over Hoffman — and virtually every other reliever in history when it comes to rate stats — provide a compelling reason to study his career more closely. Given how far he’s come, who wants to bet against Billy Wags?

Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this month, Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen made the first big splash of his tenure with a blockbuster trade geared towards contending in 2019, bringing Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz from Seattle in exchange for two former first-round picks and some expensive ballast. After considering a variety of trade scenarios involving Marlins catcher J.T. Realmuto, Van Wagenen went a more conservative route to fill one of the team’s glaring needs, signing free agent Wilson Ramos to a two-year, $19 million deal with a club option for 2021. It’s an appropriate bit of restraint that nonetheless provides a solid upgrade.

The 31-year-old Ramos split his 2018 season between the Rays (78 games) and Phillies (33 games), hitting .306/.358/.487 with 15 homers. His 131 wRC+ was tops among catchers, and his 2.4 WAR fifth. He earned All-Star honors for the second time in three seasons but missed the game itself due to a left hamstring strain that sidelined him for a month. During his time on the disabled list, he was traded to Philadelphia for a player to be named later or cash on July 31.

The big knock on Ramos is that he’s had a hard time staying healthy during his nine-year major league career. The 2015 and 2016 seasons are the only ones in the past seven years in which he’s avoided the DL. He’s had three surgeries (two in 2012, one in 2017) to repair the meniscus and ACL in his right knee, served three stints for hamstring strains (2013 and 2014 being the others), and suffered a foul tip-induced fractured hamate that required surgery in his left wrist in 2014. He’s averaged just 92 games a year since arriving for good in the majors in 2011.

The hamate fracture was a fluke injury, but the lower-body woes are of a concern for a catcher who lists at 245 pounds. In our Top 50 Free Agents rankings, Ramos was 17th, nine spots lower than fellow free agent catcher Yasmani Grandal, in part due to his size and durability issues. While he’s been the slightly better hitter of the pair over the past three seasons, with a 120 wRC+ to Grandal’s 116, he’s made 296 fewer plate appearances in that span, including 102 fewer in 2018. He’s also 15 months older, and nowhere near Grandal’s class as a defender. Baseball Prospectus’ pitch framing-inclusive metrics have Ramos 6.1 runs above average over the past three seasons but slightly in the red in both 2017 and 2018. By comparison, Grandal was 79 runs above average in that three-year span, including an MLB-best 15.7 above average in the framing department in 2018; by DRS, the three-year, framing-inclusive tally is -11 runs for Ramos, 39 for Grandal.

Thus you can understand why teams might prefer Grandal, though his postseason pitch-blocking woes might hurt the perception of him. Also working against Grandal is his attachment to a rejected qualifying offer for the Dodgers. Had the Mets signed him, they would have forfeited their second 2019 draft pick and $500,000 of international pool money.

The surprise is in Ramos’ price tag. The New York Times‘ James Wagner reported that Ramos will make $8.25 million in 2019 and $9.25 million in 2020. He’s got a $10 million club option for 2021, with a $1.5 million buyout for a total guarantee of $19 million. The salary is just over half of the $36 million (spread over three years) that both Kiley McDaniel and our crowdsource project estimated he would receive when we made up our free agent list. By comparison, the estimates for Grandal range from $39 million to $45 million for three years.

As for Realmuto, the Mets were reportedly very interested in him, but balked at the possibility of including major league talent such as Michael Conforto, Brandon Nimmo, and/or Amed Rosario in exchange — to say nothing of a rumored three-way trade involving the Yankees that would also have required dealing Noah Syndergaard.

Now that they have Ramos, the key for the Mets is finding another catcher with whom to pair him. Between Kevin Plawecki, Devin Mesoraco, Tomas Nido, Jose Lobaton and Travis d’Arnaud, the team got just an 82 wRC+ offensive showing (.208/.297/.355) from its catchers in 2018, and a total of 0.7 WAR by our measures (0.8 via Baseball-Reference, and 1.5 WARP via Baseball Prospectus). Mesoraco and Lobaton are both free agents, while the going-on-30-year-old d’Arnaud, the best defender of the bunch (41.8 FRAA career, 11.4 FRAA in 2017) is coming off April 2018 Tommy John surgery and has a track record for health that would make Ramos blanch.

All told, our Depth Charts projections suggest that the signing of Ramos eyeballs as about a one-win upgrade over a Plawecki/d’Arnaud pairing. Given that the Mets now project as an 86-win team, this is exactly the type of move they should be making, one that significantly increases their odds of securing a playoff spot without compromising their longer-term resources. When was the last time anybody could say that about a move that the Mets made?

Last season, the relief market was the only aspect of free agency that moved quickly. Of the first 14 free agents to sign last winter among the Top 50 players available, eight were relief pitchers (nine if we count Mike Minor). All eight received similar contracts for two, sometimes three, seasons, and around $7 million to $10 million per year. In “deals that were announced at 2 AM the night before everyone at FanGraphs left the Winter Meetings and spent most of Thursday on airplanes,” we have two free agent reliever signings that meet the qualifications for that standard reliever contract.

Let’s address both Jeurys Familia and Joe Kelly’s new deals in turn. Read the rest of this entry »

The major-league phase of Thursday’s Rule 5 Draft began with its annual roll call of clubs confirming the number of players currently on their 40-man rosters and ended with a total of 14 players being added to new big-league clubs. Dan Szymborski offered ZiPS projections here for the players taken earlier today. Below are brief scouting reports on the players selected, with some notes provided by Kiley McDaniel.

But, first: Our annual refresher on the Rule 5 Draft’s complex rules. Players who signed their first pro contract at age 18 or younger are eligible for selection after five years of minor-league service if their parent club has not yet added them to the team’s 40-man roster. For players who signed at age 19 or older, the timeline is four years. Teams with the worst win/loss record from the previous season pick first, and those that select a player must not only (a) pay said player’s former club $100,000, but also (b) keep the player on their 25-man active roster throughout the entirety of the following season (with a couple of exceptions, mostly involving the disabled list). If a selected player doesn’t make his new team’s active roster, he is offered back to his former team for half of the initial fee. After the player’s first year on the roster, he can be optioned back to the minor leagues.

These rules typically limit the talent pool to middle-relief prospects or position players with one-dimensional skillsets, though sometimes it involves more talented prospects who aren’t remotely ready for the majors. This creates an environment where selections are made based more on fit and team need than just talent, but teams find solid big-league role players in the Rule 5 every year and occasionally scoop up an eventual star. Let’s dive into the scouting reports on this year’s group.

First Round

1. Baltimore Orioles
Richie Martin, SS (from A’s) – Martin was a 2015 first rounder out of the University of Florida, drafted as an athletic shortstop with some pop who was still raw as a baseball player. Martin had really struggled to hit in pro ball until 2018, when he repeated Double-A and slashed .300/.368/.439.

He has average raw power but hits the ball on the ground too often to get to any of it in games. Houston has been adept at altering their players’ swings, so perhaps the new Orioles regime can coax more in-game pop from Martin, who is a perfectly fine defensive shortstop. He should compete with incumbent Orioles Breyvic Valera and Jonathan Villar, as well as fellow Rule 5 acquisition Drew Jackson, for middle infield playing time. But unless there’s a significant swing change here, Martin really only projects as a middle infield utility man.

2. Kansas City Royals
Sam McWilliams, RHP (from Rays) – McWilliams was an overslot eighth rounder in 2014 and was traded from Philadelphia to Arizona for Jeremy Hellickson in the fall of 2015. He was then sent from Arizona to Tampa Bay as one of the players to be named later in the three-team trade that sent Steven Souza to Arizona. McWilliams is pretty raw for a 23-year-old. He spent two years in the Midwest League and posted a 5.02 ERA at Double-A when the Rays pushed him there after the trade.

He has a big fastball, sitting mostly 93-94 but topping out at 97. He’ll flash an occasional plus slider but it’s a rather inconsistent pitch. The industry thought McWilliams had a chance to grow into a backend rotation arm because his stuff is quite good, but he has a much better chance of sticking as a reliever right now.

3. Chicago White Sox (Traded to Rangers)
Jordan Romano, RHP (from Blue Jays) – Romano is a 25-year-old righty who spent 2018 at Double-A. He’s a strike-throwing righty with a fastball in the 91-93 range and he has an average slider and changeup, both of which reside in the 80-84 range. His command is advanced enough that both of his secondaries play up a little bit. He likely profiles as a fifth starter or rotation depth, but the Rangers current pitching situation is quite precarious and Romano may just end up sticking around to eat innings with the hope that he sticks as a backend starter or swingman when they’re competitive once again.

4. Miami Marlins
Riley Ferrell, RHP (from Astros)- Ferrell was a dominant college closer at TCU and was consistently 93-97 with a plus slider there. He continued to pitch well in pro ball until a shoulder aneurysm derailed his 2016 season. Ferrell needed surgery that transplanted a vein from his groin into his shoulder in order to repair it, and the industry worried at the time that the injury threatened his career. His stuff is back and Ferrell is at least a big league ready middle reliever with a chance to be a set-up man.

5. Detroit Tigers
Reed Garrett, RHP (from Rangers)
Garrett’s velo spiked when he moved to the bullpen in 2017 and he now sits in the mid-90s, touches 99 and has two good breaking balls, including a curveball that has a plus-plus spin rate. He also has an average changeup. He’s a fair bet to carve out a bullpen role on a rebuilding Tigers team.

6. San Diego Padres
No Pick (full 40-man)

7. Cincinnati Reds
Connor Joe, 3B (from Dodgers) – The Reds will be Joe’s fourth team in two years as he has been shuttled around from Pittsburgh (which drafted him) to Atlanta (for Sean Rodriguez) to the Dodgers (for cash) during that time. Now 26, Joe spent 2018 split between Double and Triple-A. He’s a swing changer who began lifting the ball more once he joined Los Angeles. Joe is limited on defense to first and third base, and he’s not very good at third. He has seen a little bit of time in the outfield corners and realistically projects as a four-corners bench bat who provides patience and newfound in-game pop.

8. Texas Rangers (Traded to Royals)
Chris Ellis, RHP (from Cardinals)- Ellis, 26, spent 2018 split between Double and Triple-A. One could argue he has simply been lost amid St. Louis’ surfeit of upper-level pitching but his stuff — a low-90s sinker up to 94 and an average slider — did not compel us to include him in our Cardinals farm system write up. The Royals took Brad Keller, who has a similar kind of repertoire but better pure stuff, and got more out of him than I anticipated, so perhaps that will happen with Ellis.

9. San Francisco Giants
Travis Bergen, LHP (from Blue Jays)- Bergen looked like a lefty specialist in college but the Blue Jays have normalized the way he strides toward home, and his delivery has become more platoon-neutral in pro ball. He has a fringy, low-90s fastball but has two good secondaries in his upper-70s curveball and tumbling mid-80s change. So long as he pitches heavily off of those two offerings, he could lock down a bullpen role.

10. Toronto Blue Jays
Elvis Luciano, RHP (from Royals)- Luciano turns 19 in February and was the youngest player selected in the Rule 5 by a pretty wide margin. He was acquired by Kansas City in the trade that sent Jon Jay to Arizona. Though he’ll touch 96, Luciano’s fastball sits in the 90-94 range and he has scattershot command of it, especially late in starts. His frame is less projectable than the typical teenager so there may not be much more velo coming as he ages, but he has arm strength and an above-average breaking ball, so there’s a chance he makes the Jays roster in a relief role. He has no. 4 starter upside if his below-average changeup and command progress. If he makes the opening day roster, he’ll be the first player born in the 2000s to play in the big leagues.

11. New York Mets
Kyle Dowdy, RHP (from Indians)
Dowdy’s nomadic college career took him from Hawaii to Orange Coast College and finally to Houston, where he redshirted for a year due to injury. He was drafted by Detroit and then included as a throw-in in the Leonys Martin trade to Cleveland. He’s a reliever with a four-pitch mix headlined by an above-average curveball that pairs pretty well with a fastball that lives in the top part of the strike zone but doesn’t really spin. He also has a mid-80s slider and changeup that are fringy and exist to give hitters a little different look. He could stick in the Mets bullpen.

12. Minnesota Twins
No Pick (full 40-man)

13. Philadelphia Phillies (Traded to Orioles)
Drew Jackson, SS (from Dodgers)- Jackson is a plus runner with a plus-plus arm and average defensive hands and actions at shortstop. He’s not a great hitter but the Dodgers were at least able to cleanse Jackson of the Stanford swing and incorporate more lift into his cut. He had a 55% ground ball rate with Seattle in 2016 but that mark was 40% with Los Angeles last year. He also started seeing reps in center field last season. He projects as a multi-positional utility man.

14. Los Angeles Angels
No Pick (team passed)

15. Arizona Diamondbacks
Nick Green, RHP (from Yankees)- Green has the highest present ranking on The Board as a 45 FV, and we think he’s a near-ready backend starter. Arizona lacks pitching depth, so Green has a pretty solid chance to make the club out of spring training. He induces a lot of ground balls (65% GB% in 2018) with a low-90s sinker and also has a plus curveball.

16. Washington Nationals
No Pick (team passed)

17. Pittsburgh Pirates
No Pick (team passed)

18. St. Louis Cardinals
No Pick (full 40-man)

19. Seattle Mariners
Brandon Brennan, RHP (from Rockies)- Brennan is a 27-year-old reliever with a mid-90s sinker that will touch 97. He has an average slider that relies heavily on it’s velocity more than movement to be effective. The real bat-misser here is the changeup, which has more than 10 mph of separation from Brennan’s fastball and dying fade.

20. Atlanta Braves
No Pick (team passed)

21. Tampa Bay Rays
No Pick (full 40-man)

22. Colorado Rockies
No Pick (team passed)

23. Cleveland Indians
No Pick (team passed)

24. Los Angeles Dodgers
No Pick (full 40-man)

25. Chicago Cubs
No Pick (team passed)

26. Milwaukee Brewers
No Pick (team passed)

27. Oakland Athletics
No Pick (team passed)

28. New York Yankees
No Pick (full 40-man)

29. Houston Astros
No Pick (team passed)

30. Boston Red Sox
No Pick (team passed)

Second Round

San Francisco Giants
Drew Ferguson, OF- Ferguson is a hitterish tweener outfielder with a good combination of bat-to-ball skills and plate discipline. He has a very short, compact stroke that enables him to punch lines drives to his pull side and he’s tough to beat with velocity. Ferguson doesn’t really run well enough to play center field and lacks the power for a corner, so his likely ceiling is that of a bench outfielder.

You probably don’t need me to remind you of this, but, in the 2018 season, the Mariners won a dozen more games than the Mets. The Mariners, for some time, felt ticketed for the playoffs, and they topped out at 24 games over .500. The Mets were 10 games over .500 in the middle of April, but they were under by the first day of June. By early August they were 46-65. The Mets started strong, and they finished strong, but everything in the middle was a catastrophe, and the overall season was bad. The Mariners won. The Mets didn’t. Those are the facts.

Of course, the Mariners did overachieve. According to BaseRuns, the Mariners were only four games better, by underlying performance. The early offseason projections put both these clubs right around average. And yet, despite that similarity, the organizations are veering away from one another. As of a short while ago, the worst-kept secret in baseball is reportedly official. No more hurdles. The Mariners and Mets have agreed to a blockbuster, with the Mets setting their sights on winning in 2019 while the Mariners continue to tear down.

Mets get:

• Edwin Diaz
• Robinson Cano
• $20 million(ish)

Mariners get:

• Jarred Kelenic
• Justin Dunn
• Gerson Bautista
• Jay Bruce
• Anthony Swarzak

As has been talked about elsewhere, it’s helpful to think of this as two big trades in one. We’ll get to that a little later. What’s immediately clear is that the Mariners are doing more than just “re-imagining” their roster. Moving Diaz puts them in rebuild territory. The Mets, meanwhile, are making a statement acquisition, declaring their intent to win right away under new GM Brodie Van Wagenen. Cano provides short-term help in the infield. Diaz is one of the best closers on the planet. Name value aside, Diaz is the prize in this one, and how he goes will determine how the Mets — and baseball — feel about this decision down the road.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bill Madden of the New York Daily News wrote a column the other day explaining — among other things — why he checked off Placido Polanco’s name on his Hall of Fame ballot. Predictably, the reaction on social media has been anything but kind. There are two reasons for that: 1. While he was a fine player during his day, Polanco falls short of traditional Hall standards. 2. Social media is social media.

Let’s pause for a moment to define a pair of idioms:

“Maddening crowd” means that the crowd is driving one mad.

“Madding crowd” means that the crowd itself is mad.

Back to Madden’s opinion(s).

While his perspective was maddening to many of you, I found it interesting. (Calm down; I don’t view Polanco as being Hall-worthy either. No need to @ me.)

Madden noting that Polanco boasts the highest fielding percentage in history at both second base and third base was especially eye-opening. Does the stat itself need to be taken with a sizable grain of salt? Of course it does. Even so, Polanco having that dual honor is impressive. So are some of the Dominican infielder’s other accomplishments. He was a very good player. Read the rest of this entry »

There has been a fair bit of speculation in the last few days that the Mariners are preparing to move Robinson Cano to the Mets. Last night, most people went to bed expecting an announcement at some point today. Joel Sherman called the deal “near certain” to get done. Here’s his reported potential trade.

Mets Receive:

• Robinson Cano
• Edwin Diaz
• Some Cash

Mariners Receive:

• Jay Bruce
• Anthony Swarzak
• Jarred Kelenic
• Justin Dunn
• Gerson Bautista

On Tuesday, when I engaged in my own speculation and assessed Cano’s current trade value, I discussed how a deal with the Mets might look.

The reported potential framework of a deal involving Cano and $50 million going to the Mets comes close value-wise. The Mets are said to be trying to include Jay Bruce or receive Edwin Diaz or Mitch Haniger. There is a chance Cano could be packaged with Diaz or Haniger for some prospect return, but absent that, those two – particularly Haniger – don’t make sense to include as the Mariners try to rebuild; using those pieces to acquire talent for the Mariners next run at contention would seem to be a far better option than simply having to eat less money. As for Bruce and the $29 million owed to him over the next two seasons, that would likely need to come out of the money the Mariners are paying. Cano plus $30 million for Bruce is a deal that could make sense for both clubs. If the Mets were to insist on Diaz (the more likely supplemental piece to move) in the trade, New York would need to add prospects to the deal, essentially combining two separate trades into one.

Given what we know at this moment, separating this trade into two deals makes sense, so long as the rest of the money sent over to the Mariners is in the $20 million range. The first involves the Mets receiving Cano and whatever the Mariners don’t pick up of the $120 million he is due over the next five years. In turn, they move two contracts they no longer want. Anthony Swarzak is owed $8 million next season after a below replacement-level 2018 and Jay Bruce, who has been a replacement-level player since 2014 (with his pre-free agency 2017 the lone exception), is due $29 million. The Mariners sending somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 to $8 million annually from 2021 to 2023 would make this is a pretty reasonable deal for both sides, though it does lead to some questions about the Mets’ intentions, given both the other ways the club might have spent the money due to Cano and the fact that this trade is roughly salary neutral for the 2019 season, meaning that the Mets haven’t actually spent any more money yet.

Would they have been better off making the same salary commitment to A.J. Pollock, then signing a reasonably priced closer like David Robertson and keeping two of their best prospects? That’s the sort of question that comes with moves made by the Mets organization. Perhaps the club will now spend more money given that they’ve made two solid additions to the roster without adding any salary this season. According to Kiley McDaniel, the plan is to trade Noah Syndergaard — presumably to fill other holes cheaply — and then sign a free agent pitcher. That certainly doesn’t sound like a team getting ready to bust out after years of spending below their market.

As for second part, and arguably the more important part, of the trade, we see an elite reliever with four years of team control and a minimum salary in 2019 moved for a back-end top-100 prospect in first round pick Kelenic, a top-200 prospect in Justin Dunn, and a fungible reliever. The Mariners expressed resistance to the idea of trading Diaz earlier this offseason, but this is the sort of deal a rebuilding team should make given the lack of value their own team would receive on the mound in a losing season, and their need to replenish a depleted farm system.

This deal isn’t final yet. Will Trader Jerry continue his work on the farm? Will Brodie and Robbie reunite under the lights of the big city? Stay Tuned. We’ll have full trade analysis when the deal becomes official.

Seth Lugo has a quality bender, and he relied on it heavily this year. The New York Mets righty ranked seventh among qualified relievers in curveball frequency at 33.9%. It’s hard to argue with the results. Lugo made 54 appearances — all but five out of the bullpen — and logged a 2.66 ERA and a 3.17 FIP while fanning 103 batters in 101.1 innings.

The increased usage — and the effectiveness that went along with it — stood out to Travis Sawchik. My former FanGraphs colleague likened Lugo to a right-handed Rich Hill in this informative piece that ran on these electronic pages back in mid-June.

Two months later, I asked Lugo for the story behind his go-to pitch, and about his approach to attacking hitters.

———

Seth Lugo on learning to throw a curveball: “My dad was my coach growing up. We used to go to a local college — Centenary College, in Shreveport, Louisiana — and the coach there showed my dad how to teach young pitchers to throw breaking balls, curveballs. He showed him what he thought was safe, what would keep your elbow healthy.

“He used a tennis-ball container. You’d throw it, and make sure that it went end-over-end. That way you’d be taking pressure off your elbow. I was throwing a tennis-ball container and making sure it was spinning the same way. Or maybe a Pringles container. Either one. If it started to spin sideways instead of going end-over-end … that’s not how you want to throw it. Anyway, you’d practice that a few times, then switch to a curveball. That’s how I learned. This was when I was 10 or 11 years old. Read the rest of this entry »