If you had Jonathan Lucroy driving in the first runs of the Nationals’ 2021 season, take your ticket to the window and claim your winnings. Due to a COVID-19 outbreak that forced the team to sideline nine players, the 34-year-old backstop, who was unemployed as of last week, suddenly became Max Scherzer’s batterymate for the Nationals’ season opener against the Braves. Things didn’t go well at the outset, but in his first major league plate appearance in about a year and a half, Lucroy helped the Nationals’ ace dig out of an early 3-0 hole with a two-run double.

In their first game in front of fans since winning the 2019 World Series — albeit just 4,801 fans, with Nationals Park only allowed to be filled to about 12% capacity — the Nationals completed a dramatic comeback via Juan Soto’s walk-off single in the ninth for a belated Opening Day win under very strange circumstances.

The situation was the culmination of a sequence of events that served to remind Major League Baseball that yes, there’s still a pandemic going on. Despite just 25 players out of a total of more than 2,000 testing positive for COVID-19 either on intake or during spring training, MLB made it exactly zero days into the regular season before having to deal with its first outbreak. The marquee Opening Day matchup between Scherzer and the Met’s Jacob deGrom was postponed after the test of a Washington player from Monday, the final day of spring training, came back positive. The remainder of the three-game series was scrubbed once the total number of positives climbed to four, with nine other players quarantined following contact tracing. Read the rest of this entry »

Hope springs eternal on Opening Day, it is often said, and that may never be more true than in 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic that stopped the world in its tracks and has thus far killed more than half a million people in the U.S. alone (and nearly three million worldwide) has not yet ended, but vaccinations are becoming more widely available, and the promise of some semblance of normalcy is on the horizon. In marked contrast to last season, major league baseball is starting on schedule, and with a limited number of actual paying customers in ballparks — too many in Texas, and none for at least the first two months in Toronto, but with most teams and their respective municipalities taking a fairly conservative approach. All told, the situation is definitely better than when the 2020 season belatedly kicked off just over eight months ago.

Beyond that, MLB planned to offer MAXIMUM BASEBALL on Opening Day, with all 30 teams set to play their first games of the season on the same day, with no night-before staggered starts and no holding some teams back for the next day. Alas, this potentially historic occasion was pre-empted first by the weather in Boston, as the Red Sox announced on Thursday morning that they’ve postponed their contest until Friday at 2:10 pm ET, and, after the initial publication of this article, by a COVID-related postponement of the evening’s Mets-Nationals contest (and Friday’s as well), yet another reminder of the difficulty of carrying out the season in the middle of a pandemic.

While it was not uncommon for teams to launch their seasons in unison during the pre-expansion era, when there were just 16 teams — it happened 18 times from 1910-56, according to the good folks at Baseball-Reference — it has happened only once since the first wave of expansion in 1961-62. More recently, it almost happened in 2018; while a full slate of 15 games was scheduled for Opening Day, two of those contests were postponed due to rain.

The only time it actually happened during the expansion era was in 1968, and under less-than-ideal circumstances. In the wake of the April 4 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., all of American sports observed a three-day moratorium, though baseball, led by ineffectual commissioner Spike Eckert, left the decision of whether to go ahead with the Opening Day games scheduled on April 8 and 9 up to individual teams. Protests and unrest, and then an uprising by players, led by the Pirates’ Roberto Clemente (one of an major league-high 11 Black players on the team) and the Cardinals’ Bob Gibson, keyed the postponement of those games. Finally, on April 10, all 20 teams got underway. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, Jay Jaffe wrote about the rumors that the Nationals were considering a contract extension for wünderkind Juan Soto, the team’s first step toward keeping him in town for the majority of his career. Though just 22 years old and four years away from free agency, Soto receiving an extension in the $400 million range would hardly be premature. Projection systems — which by their nature are supposed to be dispassionate and shoot for the middle — see him as having a no-doubt Hall of Fame career.

Yet if you’re a Nationals fan, you have cause to be suspicious that an extension gets done. You’ve seen your super-talented homegrown players leave unceremoniously in free agency as soon as they could, and while Soto has a more favorable outlook than Bryce Harper or Anthony Rendon did, you don’t want to see these negotiations drag out any longer than they have to.

It would be enough if Washington had just one young player’s future to stew upon this spring, but in fact, there are two. As Soto has been fielding questions about a possible extension in spring training, so too has shortstop Trea Turner, who at 27 is much closer to free agency; he’s set to hit the market after the 2022 season. That makes any extension decision that much more urgent. Turner knows it, and he’s been open about wanting to get an agreement done. From the Washington Post’s Barry Svrluga:

“I would love to play here my entire career,” Turner said Tuesday. “I’ve said it in the past. I’ve always liked it here, and don’t think the grass is greener on the other side. … I love it here. I love the atmosphere and the ballclub that [General Manager Mike] Rizzo and the coaching staff has put together every single year. We’ll see. I think those talks have happened in the past, and hopefully they’ll happen in the future.”

The Nationals’ position is a tricky one. Turner’s free agency would come two years before Soto’s, but the latter’s contract may still be the most important one, as it will be the larger of the two and must fit within Washington’s payroll. But retaining Turner in 2023 and beyond won’t come cheap. One of the top prospects in baseball when he debuted in 2015, he has slowly but surely started living up to that billing, turning into one of the league’s best shortstops over the last three seasons.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hot takes are famously a huge part of the sports industrial complex, but here at FanGraphs, we’re not very good at them. I took a crack at some American League bold predictions yesterday, but honestly, they were pretty bland. Picking the relative fortunes of a bunch of good-but-not-great teams? Boring. A top prospect might be Rookie of the Year? Boring.

Today, I’m going a little further. If the last takes were jalapeños with some seeds removed, these are serrano peppers. I said I’d be ecstatic hitting half of my predictions from yesterday; today I’d be pleased with one in the first three (the fourth one is relatively unadventurous). As always, these aren’t my median predictions, merely corner cases that I think are being undervalued. Will they happen? Probably not. But they could, and I don’t think people are giving them enough credence. Onward! Read the rest of this entry »

With Fernando Tatis Jr. landing a massive, jaw-dropping contract extension last month, all eyes are now on the game’s other 22-year-old phenom and his next step. Juan Soto has hit at an historical level during his three seasons in the majors, landing himself on leaderboards among legends like Williams, Foxx, Hornsby, Cobb, and Trout. Reportedly, the Nationals intend to offer him a long-term extension, one that could in theory make him the game’s next $400 million man — a contract befitting a player who has already taken significant strides towards Cooperstown.

That may seem like hyperbole, but it’s not. Though Soto has played only one full 162-game season from among his three, the statistical history of players who have done what he’s done at such a young age overwhelmingly suggests a Hall of Fame-level career, and the projections based on his performance… well, we’ll get to those.

The Dominican-born Soto reached the majors on May 20, 2018, still more than five months shy of his 20th birthday. The next day, in his second major league plate appearance, he homered off the Padres’ Robbie Erlin, and he hasn’t stopped hitting, though he did his best to warp the space-time continuum by homering in the June 18 leg of a suspended game that began on May 15. Soto completed his rookie season with 22 homers and a .292/.406/.517 (146 wRC+) line, then followed up with a 34-homer, .282/.401/.548 (142 wRC+) full-season showing. In the pandemic-shortened season, he became not only the youngest player to win a batting title but also the youngest to win the slash-stat triple crown, hitting .351/.490/.695 (201 wRC+) with 13 homers.

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2020 season couldn’t have been much fun for the Nationals or Stephen Strasburg. In the wake of their World Series victory over the Astros, the team sputtered out of the gate, while Strasburg, the MVP of that World Series and a newly-minted $245 million man via his opt-out and re-signing in December 2019, was limited to two starts before undergoing late August surgery to alleviate carpal tunnel neuritis.

On Tuesday, Strasburg took the mound for his first Grapefruit League appearance — against the Astros, coincidentally, albeit a much different team from the one he faced in the World Series, with Jose Altuve, Michael Brantley, Carlos Correa, and Yuli Gurriel the only starters in both games. The 32-year-old righty threw 38 pitches, had good command of a fastball that reportedly sat at 93 mph and ranged from 91 to 93 (he averaged 93.9 mph in 2019, via Statcast), and retired five out of the six batters he faced. He struck out four, including Correa looking at a high fastball to end the first, Kyle Tucker looking at a fastball in the second, and Gurriel check-swinging at a low curveball.

These descriptions come from the Washington Post’s Jesse Dougherty and will have to do, as there was no television or Trackman for the game. The Nationals’ Twitter account did celebrate Strasmas by posting a press box-level video of the four strikeouts:

Time to open up your #Strasmas presents…

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— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) March 10, 2021

Read the rest of this entry »

As the calendar flips to March, exhibition season has begun (!) in both Arizona and Florida, and yet a few top free agents remain unsigned. Atop the list in terms of projected impact is Jake Odorizzi, who’s had the misfortune of mistiming the market, in part due to an injury-wracked 2020 season. Still, there’s no shortage of teams that the veteran righty, who placed 24th on our Top 50 Free Agents list, could help.

Odorizzi, who turns 31 on March 27, spent the past three seasons with the Twins, putting together a solid campaign in 2018 (4.49 ERA,4.20 FIP, and 2.5 WAR in 164.1 innings), and an All-Star one in ’19 (3.51 ERA, 3.36 FIP, and 4.3 WAR in 159 innings). Last year was a near-total loss, though, as he was limited to 13.2 innings by an intercostal strain and a blister. Prior to that, Odorizzi pitched four years and change with the Rays, that after being traded in blockbusters involving Zack Greinke and Lorenzo Cain (2010) — he was originally a supplemental first-round pick by the Brewers in ’08 — and then James Shields and Wil Myers (2012). In Tampa Bay, he totaled 6.5 WAR from 2014 to ’16 before a bout of gopher trouble (1.88 homers per nine) led to a replacement level season in ’17. That hiccup aside, he’s been very solid and (prior to 2020) rather durable, averaging 30.3 starts per year from 2013 to ’19; an oblique strain in ’15 and hamstring and back woes in ’17 kept him to 27 starts in those seasons. As best I can tell, he’s never missed significant time due to an arm injury.

Odorizzi has gone his entire career without signing a multiyear deal. He won back-to-back arbitration cases against the Rays in 2017 ($4.1 million) and ’18 ($6.3 million), the reward for which was being traded to the Twins just two days after the latter decision was announced. After making $9.3 million in 2019, his best season, he received a $17.8 million qualifying offer from the Twins, which apparently put a drag on his market before he could fully test the waters. Via MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park, Odorizzi received “a lot of interest” from other teams at the time, to the point of exchanging dollar figures, “but the uncertainty generated by the timeframe and the draft considerations ultimately led to his return to Minnesota.” The fact that Odorizzi wouldn’t be be subjected to another qualifying offer the next time he reached free agency, and thus wouldn’t have the millstone of draft compensation attached to his signing, was a factor in his decision.

Alas, his 2020 season didn’t pan out as planned. The intercostal strain landed him on the injured list to start the season, and so he didn’t make his season debut until August 8. In his third outing, on August 21, he was hit in the chest by a batted ball, suffering a contusion and landing on the IL again. Upon returning, a blister problem led to another early hook. Though he was on the roster for the AL Wild Card series against the Astros, he did not pitch.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Jarred Kelenic’s beef with the Mariners about alleged service-time manipulation, then preview the 2021 Nationals (25:37) with Jesse Dougherty of The Washington Post and the 2021 Cubs (59:43) with Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic.

Audio intro: Ty Segall, "Manipulator"
Audio interstitial 1: Gary Louris, "D.C. Blues"
Audio interstitial 2: Jason Isbell, "Chicago Promenade"
Audio outro: Van Morrison, "March Winds in February"

Link to USA Today article about Kelenic
Link to Mather video transcript
Link to Craig Goldstein on holding down prospects
Link to Jayson Stark on fixing service-time manipulation
Link to R.J. Anderson on the Bryant grievance
Link to Sahadev on the Darvish trade
Link to Sahadev’s interview with Breslow
Link to Sahadev on Kimbrel
Link to Sahadev on Arrieta
Link to Sahadev on the Cubs’ defense
Link to Alex Chamberlain on Hendricks
Link to Joe Sheehan on hitters in walk years
Link to Jesse on Schwarber getting squatty
Link to Jesse on Kieboom
Link to Jesse on Strasburg
Link to Jesse on Hand
Link to Buzz Saw

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This week may be Prospects Week here at FanGraphs, but for MLB, this has been Minor Signings Week. The long offseason dance is just about over, and everyone’s now at risk of going to homecoming alone. So rather than a long spiel that sees me reference a historical battle or obscure 18th-century literature, let’s get straight to the moves.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the early surprises of the offseason was Cleveland opting to pay Brad Hand a $1 million buyout rather than spend $10 million to pick up his option for the 2021 season. Perhaps even more of a surprise was that Hand cleared waivers, which meant every other team in baseball opted not to commit $10 million despite him putting up his fifth straight one-plus win season even in a shortened slate of games. While Hand was likely seeking more than a one-year deal in free agency given his performance (and both the crowd and I predicted as much), he still did better than the option, getting a $10.5 million deal with the Nationals as first reported by Jon Heyman and Jeff Passan.

Including the buyout, Hand will receive $11.5 million this year, or $1.5 million more than he would have if Cleveland had simply retained his services. Eric Longenhagen wrote his profile in the Top-50 Free Agents piece, noting both the positives and negatives for the lefty:

His velocity fell for the second consecutive year (it trended up throughout the season) but Hand still struck out more than 30% of opposing hitters for the fifth straight season and had a career-best 2.05 ERA and 1.37 FIP. He’s a funky, low-slot lefty who can throw his trademark curveball for strikes whenever he wants and consistently locate it just off the plate to his glove side for swings and misses.

Aside from some elbow soreness that sidelined him late in 2019 (and perhaps limited his workload throughout that season), Hand has also been remarkably durable for a reliever, pitching in excess of 70 innings every year from 2014 to 2018, some of those in a swingman role. His lower arm slot gives Hand rather pronounced platoon splits, which means he may not be universally deployable in high-leverage situations, but his curveball quality and his ability to execute it consistently should still enable him to be a second or third bullpen banana for the next several years, even if his velocity keeps gradually sliding.

Read the rest of this entry »