The trade deadline is nearly here and once again, team behavior will be affected by 40-man roster dynamics. Teams with an especially high number of currently-rostered players under contract for 2023 and prospects who need to be added to the 40-man in the offseason have what is often called a 40-man “crunch,” “overage,” or need to “churn.” This means the team has incentive to clear its overflow of players by either packaging several to acquire just one in return, or by trading for something the club can keep — international pool space, comp picks, or, more typically, younger players whose 40-man clocks are further from midnight — rather than do nothing and later lose some of those players to waivers or in the Rule 5 Draft. Teams can take care of this issue with transactions between the end of the season and the 40-man roster deadline in November, but a contending team with a crunch has more incentive to do something before the trade deadline so the results of those deals can bolster the club’s ability to reach the postseason.

In an effort to see whose depth might influence trade behavior, I assess teams’ 40-man futures every year. This exercise is done by using the RosterResource Depth Chart pages to examine current 40-man situations, subtracting pending free agents using the Team Payroll tab, and then weighing the December 2022 Rule 5 eligible prospects (or players who became eligible in past seasons and are having a strong year) to see which clubs have the biggest crunch coming. I then make an educated guess about which of those orgs might behave differently in the trade market as a result.

Some quick rules about 40-man rosters. Almost none of them contain exactly 40 players in-season because teams can add a player to the 40 to replace one who is on the 60-day injured list. In the offseason, teams don’t get extra spots for injured players and have to get down to 40 precisely, so if they want to keep some of their injury fill-ins, they have to cut someone else from the 40-man to make room. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rays’ injury tally continued to climb over the weekend as the team added two key parts of its lineup — shortstop Wander Franco and center fielder Kevin Kiermaier — to the injured list. Not to be outdone by the hitters, pitcher Jeffrey Springs joined them after his first game back from a family emergency. If the season ended today, the Rays would be the American League’s second Wild Card team, but five other clubs, including the blazing hot Orioles, are within five games.

#Rays Franco looks to be headed for hamate surgery, Kiermaier is sidelined again with left hip problems as injuries continue to mount https://t.co/JxJD3gZO9A

— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) July 10, 2022

Franco’s injury is the most concerning, both in terms of its severity and the resulting loss of production. The team’s franchise player broke his hamate bone on Saturday in the first inning against the Reds while fouling off a 100 mph Hunter Greene fastball. While having a fastball explosive enough to indirectly break bones probably adds to the flame-thrower’s mystique, for Franco, it’s a massive setback, one that comes just a couple of weeks after missing a month with a quad injury. With an expected recovery in the six-to-eight week range, it’s unlikely the Rays will have their shortstop back in the lineup much before September, and any significant setback could end his season.

Year-in and year-out, Tampa prides itself on having one of the deepest rosters in baseball, but replacing Franco is a tall order. Indeed, a few weeks ago, ZiPS actually projected him as the AL player who would be the sixth-hardest to replace due to a theoretical season-ending injury. With a .260/.308/.396 line over 58 games (good for a 104 wRC+), his production has been down compared to his rookie season, but would be considered a massive achievement for any other 21-year-old shortstop. He projected as a five-win player coming into the season, and his play so far hasn’t changed that much; all of our projection systems here anticipated at least a 120 wRC+ the rest of the way, and Franco was underperforming the peripheral estimates of both Statcast’s xStats and ZiPS’ zStats. Read the rest of this entry »

You can call the Rays unlucky, if you’d like. After amassing the second-most WAR from position players in all of baseball last year, 2022 has been a huge step back. They’re 18th in the league, with an aggregate wRC+ below 100, and injuries have taken a huge toll on the lineup they planned to run out at the start of the year.

Wander Franco, their wunderkind shortstop, hasn’t played since May 30. Brandon Lowe, perhaps the best hitter on the team, has been out two weeks longer than Franco. Manuel Margot had been picking up some of the offensive slack, but now he’s out with a knee injury that may cause him to miss significant time, and fellow outfielder Kevin Kiermaier hit the IL the same day. Mike Zunino was ineffective and is now hurt. Josh Lowe and Taylor Walls, two of the team’s top reinforcements coming into the year, have a combined 51 wRC+. Read the rest of this entry »

This season, Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin will have periodic minor league roundup post that run during the week. You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.

Before we get to this post’s analysis, some housekeeping. I’m continuing to trudge through the last few team lists, and hope readers will understand that part of why this has taken so long is because a) we lost multiple writers to teams during the process and b) it takes a lot for me to compromise my vision for the depth and quality of my work. I’m on pace to finish just before the draft while also updating and expanding the draft prospect list so that draftees can quickly be added to their club’s pro list right after they’re picked. I realize that continuing this way during future cycles would leave valuable and relevant info unpublished for too long, and that I need to make changes. For instance, I don’t have a Cardinals list out yet while guys like Andre Pallante, Brendan Donovan and Juan Yepez are all playing big league roles. I’ve had well-formed thoughts on that group of guys since they were part of last year’s Arizona Fall League, and need to find a way to shorten the lag between when I’m taking those notes and when they’re turned into actionable info on the site, especially when it comes to short-term big leaguers.

My approach for in-season updates (which have already underway — duh, you are reading this post) will again be to group teams based on the geographic location of their spring training facility (for example, teams with East Valley facilities in Arizona are already being updated) and drill down deepest on contending clubs (within that East Valley cluster, the Giants) as they’re more likely to part with prospects ahead of the trade deadline. There will still be à la carte updates where I see a player and add them, or where someone’s performance prompts me to source info from scouting and front office contacts and brings about a change in their evaluation or valuation. Read the rest of this entry »

This season, Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin will have periodic minor league roundup post that run during the week. You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.

I noticed what felt like an unusually high number of rehabbing big leaguers (and some prospects) in the box scores over the last several days, so I called around to get info on how these pitchers have looked on their way back from injury.

The Rays have two prominent members of their pitching staff currently working back through the minors: former top prospect Luis Patiño and current top prospect Shane Baz. Patiño, who was put on the IL on April 12 with an oblique strain, has only just begun his climb through the minors. He threw one inning in the Florida Complex League on Monday night and sat 94–96 mph with his sliders in their usual 84–87 range. He threw just one changeup. Baz, who is coming off of arthroscopic surgery of his right elbow, has been rehabbing at Triple-A since the end of May, working on four days rest and ramping up to about 80 pitches in his most recent outing, in which he struck out 10 hitters in 4.1 innings on Sunday. He looks like his usual self, sitting 94–97 and touching 99, and is poised to rejoin the Rays’ rotation within the next week.

(Another Rays note: former first rounder Nick Bitsko, who is coming off of a prolonged rehab from labrum surgery, was sitting 92–95 during his Extended Spring outings and has moved up into the 40+ FV tier now that he’s shown his arm strength is mostly back to pre-surgery form.)

Also set to return to a big league rotation is Nationals righty Stephen Strasburg, who has made three rehab starts with Triple-A Rochester, also on four days rest, recovering from thoracic outlet surgery. While he’s still showing plus secondary stuff, especially his changeup, his velocity has been way down, hovering in the 88–92 range with poor shape. Of all the pitchers who I’ll cover today, he’s the only one who hasn’t looked anything like himself. Read the rest of this entry »

This season, Eric and Tess Taruskin will each have a minor league roundup post that runs during the week, with the earlier post recapping some of the weekend’s action. You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.

Jared Shuster, LHP, Atlanta Braves
Level & Affiliate: Double-A Mississippi Age: 23 Org Rank: TBD FV: 45
Weekend Line: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 8 K

Notes
Shuster’s velocity fluctuated wildly from start to start in 2021, and altogether he averaged just 89-90 mph last year, about three ticks below his typical velo in the lead up to the 2020 draft. It has been more consistent so far in 2022 but had still resided in the 88-91 mph range until Shuster sat 91-93 in his weekend outing. Except for that brief run up to the 2020 draft, Shuster has shown below-average fastball velocity, and while it’s worth continuously monitoring for change (especially because things were up a tad in this most recent start), Shuster’s history as a player points toward this velo band being where he’ll sit for the long haul. His fastball has other characteristics that help enable it to punch above its weight, but it isn’t a plus pitch at its current velocity. Instead, he continues to rely on his plus changeup, of which he has plus command. Shuster locates his cambio down and to his arm side with remarkable consistency, and it is by far his best offering. In part because of how well he hides the ball, Shuster’s slider has some in-zone utility, especially against left-handed hitters, though he struggles to locate it in that enticing, off-the-plate location where most sliders play best. While Shuster doesn’t have a tool for every situation, he is a lefty with a plus changeup whose fastball has sneaky utility despite medium velocity, the skillset of many a No. 4/5 starter. Read the rest of this entry »

By now, you know how the Tampa Bay Rays operate: Due to their small budget, their success hinges on whether they can replace formerly cost-controlled and talented players with currently cost-controlled and talented players. The process works (even as we wish they would flex their financial muscle more often), and the Rays have been to every postseason since 2019.

But inevitably, the Rays’ way results in a few bumps in the road. Sometimes, prospects or trade acquisitions don’t pan out as hoped. This season in particular, their rotation has suffered a spate of injuries. Shane Baz is injured. Luis Patiño is injured. Tyler Glasnow might miss the entire season. As for internal options, Josh Fleming failed to impress as a starter and was recently optioned to Triple-A Durham. Fortunately, the Rays always seem to materialize at least one good player out of thin air each season. Their latest trick? Making a starter out of Jeffrey Springs.

What’s surprising is that unlike Fleming, Springs had virtually zero prior experience starting in the big leagues, save for two opportunities in his rookie year. Nonetheless, his workload has begun to increase. He tossed 4.2 innings against the Blue Jays on May 15, followed by 5.2 innings against the Orioles on May 21. And in his latest start, Springs pitched a full six innings, striking out six Yankees while giving up just two runs. But it was their B-squad! I know, yankeesfan0567. But what matters to the Rays is that Springs passed with flying colors, his spot in the rotation now all but entrenched. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Saturday, Jalen Beeks had a thoroughly unimportant day at the ballpark. With the Rays trailing Toronto 5-1, he came in to pitch the top of the ninth inning. The stakes? Helping the team hit the showers 10 or 15 minutes earlier, I’d say – he wasn’t going to catapult Tampa to a win with a good performance, what with a four-run deficit and only three outs remaining, but everyone on the team would surely appreciate an efficient outing.

He did it! He got three straight groundball outs. After that, while he presumably changed into his street clothes in the clubhouse, the Rays failed to score in the bottom half of the inning, and the game ended. Thank you for coming to this episode of “FanGraphs Narrates Low-leverage Relief Outings.”

But wait! After this humdrum appearance, an anonymous tipster lit the FanGraphs signal (it’s like the Bat Signal, only with the FanGraphs logo instead). There was more to this half inning than first met the eye. I was on the case. Read the rest of this entry »

The main reason why the Astros have been able to survive and thrive despite the departure of a large percentage of the core of their 2017 World Series-winning team is their success in developing their young talent. One of the most prominent of these players, Kyle Tucker, had his breakout season in the shortened 2020 and cemented those gains with a .294/.359/.557, 4.9 WAR 2021 campaign that saw him get his first MVP votes. With Tucker heading to arbitration this winter for the first time, the Astros discussed a long-term contract with their incumbent right fielder in recent weeks, but the deal has apparently fallen through.

The Astros recently spoke with Kyle Tucker’s camp about a contract extension, but the sides were unable to come to a deal and are no longer engaged, sources tell me and @brianmctaggart. Tucker will become arbitration-eligible for the first time at the end of this season.

— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) May 16, 2022

While it hasn’t worked out, it’s the right idea. Teams want to lock up their best young players, and many players, especially before they get that first big arbitration bump, are interested in mitigating their personal risk. Wander Franco was more likely than not to beat the $182 million he’ll receive from the Rays and the team they trade him to around 2029, but it also provided him some real security, given he’s still a couple years from arbitration. These types of deals can be win-win.

So who should be the next players to get inked for the long haul? Here are my favorite picks. For each, I’ve included their ZiPS projections for both performance and a fair contract; after all, I don’t own a team, so I don’t have the motivation to pitch any absurdly team-friendly agreements like the one Ozzie Albies signed with the Braves. I’ve also omitted Juan Soto since we’ve already talked about him and a long-term deal quite a bit, most recently in Jay Jaffe’s piece before the season that already has the ZiPS projections. If you want a figure, let’s just say 10 years and all circulating US currency. Read the rest of this entry »

If there’s anything as inevitable as the Tampa Bay Rays trading away a top starting pitcher, typically for salary reasons, it’s their development of the next one. Shane McClanahan looks a lot like their next one. The Baltimore native was highly effective in his rookie season, putting up a 3.34 ERA and 3.31 FIP with 10 strikeouts per nine over 25 starts in 2021. Even more impressive, he did it with minimal professional experience, with only four games in the high minors before becoming the first pitcher to make his major league debut in a playoff game.

2021 was a fine rookie season for McClanahan, but 2022 is looking like something special. In seven starts, his ERA stands at 2.52, and with a FIP of 2.67, it’s not a BABIP-fueled mirage. His strikeout percentage has jumped by about 40% year-on-year, from 27% to 38%, a notable improvement even in a very pitcher-friendly season. Batters are making both less contact than last year (dipping from 70.4% to 63.6%) and worse contact — their average exit velocity declined from 91.7 mph to 89.3, while their Statcast sweet spot percentage dipped from 36.8% to 26.5%. Among all pitchers with at least 20 innings thrown this season, only Corbin Burnes and Michael King have lower contact rates.

One of the primary differences between this season and last season for McClanahan has been the development of his changeup. Despite a fastball that can hit the high-90s with some nasty late break, McClanahan does not use his heat to finish off batters the way pitchers like Brandon Woodruff or Lance Lynn tend to. In fact, when batters get to him, it’s usually on the fastball, with a batting average well over .300 and 12 of his 19 career home runs allowed coming on the heater. Read the rest of this entry »