With less than a week to go in the regular season, writers will soon vote on end-of-season awards, and the shortened season makes for some very tight races. That’s certainly true for American League MVP. Through play on Sunday, here’s the WAR Leaderboard for American League position players:

That’s a fine list of players, to be sure, but it doesn’t include one of the top players by AL WAR at the moment. Shane Bieber has made 11 starts and pitched 72.1 innings good for a 2.13 FIP, 1.74 FIP, and 2.9 WAR. He’s struck out 41% of batters, given up three runs in three starts, two runs in two starts, one run in one start, and no runs in five starts. He pitched at least six innings in every start but one, when he threw five frames against the Brewers on September 6, striking out 10 against one walk, giving up a single run. Given Bieber’s runs’ allowed, there is no real difference between his FanGraphs’ WAR and his mark at Baseball-Reference. He also leads the league in xwOBA over at Baseball Savant. Read the rest of this entry »

Without a true minor league season on which to fixate, I’ve been spending most of my time watching and evaluating young big leaguers who, because of the truncated season, will still be eligible for prospect lists at the end of the year. From a workflow standpoint, it makes sense for me to prioritize and complete my evaluations of these prospects before my time is divided between theoretical fall instructional ball on the pro side and college fall practices and scrimmages, which will have outsized importance this year due to the lack of both meaningful 2020 college stats and summer wood bat league looks because of COVID-19.

I started with the National League East; below is my look at the American League West, covering players who have appeared in big league games. The results of the changes made to player rankings and evaluations can be found over on The Board, though I try to provide more specific links throughout this post in case readers only care about one team.

Houston Astros

A rash of injuries has necessitated several pitching prospect promotions in Houston. Cristian Javier (ranked second in org) and Brandon Bielak (fifth) have been up the longest, and both have struggled in unexpected ways. Bielak, who threw lots of strikes in the minors, has wrestled with walks. He might be nibbling with his fastball because it’s getting crushed to the tune of a 90% in-zone contact rate and a .674 xSLG according to Baseball Savant. He’s been bullpenned for now, but I still consider him a likely No. 4/5 starter (45 FV), albeit one who probably has to pitch more heavily off his secondary stuff. Even though he’s walked more hitters than usual, Bielak has still shown a consistent ability to execute his changeup and breaking balls to good locations, especially against lefties.

Javier’s walk rate is actually better than usual, but he hasn’t missed bats at anything resembling his career norm, and a whopping nine of the 27 hits he’s surrendered this year have been home runs. That home run rate will likely regress across a larger sample, but if Javier is going to keep starting then he still needs to find a better way to deal with left-handed hitters because his splits have been pretty extreme. Because of an off day, Houston opted to skip Javier’s turn in the rotation over the weekend and use him out of the bullpen, where he had five strikeouts in two innings. I think he’s a candidate to move the ‘pen during the playoffs, and potentially long-term, and he projects as a high-leverage reliever if he does. Read the rest of this entry »

As you read this, Albert Pujols is still trying to hit his 660th home run, tying him for fifth all-time with Willie Mays. This round-tripper will very likely be 40-year-old Albert’s last big career milestone. He could still catch Alex Rodriguez, next in the home run gauntlet at 696, or even get the roughly 200 RBIs needed to catch Hank Aaron’s all-time record, but at his age and advanced state of decline, these will likely need a minimum of two more full-time seasons. So why does a player like this find his way into a ZiPS Time Warp? The cruelty of time ensures that most Hall of Famers surpass milestones when they’re well into their declining years, but in the case of Albert Pujols, we have that rare all-time great who was a shadow of himself for half of his career.

The greatness of 2000s Pujols hardly needs to be restated, so we won’t dwell on it too long. Through the first decade of his career, he hit .331/.426/.624 with 408 home runs, 1230 RBIs, and a sterling 70.6 WAR. Through age 30, that comes out to sixth all-time in homers, eighth in RBIs, and eighth in WAR (Mike Trout has pushed him back to ninth in the last number). The first time he ended a season as a major leaguer and didn’t tally an MVP vote was in 2013, the 13th season of his career. That’s short of the 15-year streak of Barry Bonds, but he didn’t get his first MVP tally until age 25.

Unlike many of these all-time greats, Albert emerged in the majors fully formed with little need for adjustment. As impressive as a .329/.403/.610, 37 HR, 7.2 WAR debut was for a 21-year-old, it’s stunning how he managed having only played three games above A-ball. Even Trout, our gold standard for phenomitude, only hit .220/.281/.390 in his first 40-game cameo; after his 40th game in the majors, Pujols had a 1.150 OPS. It was this quick burst into the majors at such a young age, along with his steep decline, that fueled the rampant speculation that Pujols, originally born in the Dominican Republic before later moving to New York and then Missouri, was a few years older than his birth certificate claimed. While the actual truth of this story remains a mystery, no evidence has ever been presented that is robust enough for me to dignify with even a hyperlink. Read the rest of this entry »

Dave Raymond knows the West. The team he does play-by-play for, the Texas Rangers, not only competes in the American League West, their inter-league schedule this year comprises solely the National League equivalent. As a result, Raymond has been getting regular looks at two of the game’s most talent-rich divisions. In terms of powerhouse clubs and marquee players, the West is arguably baseball’s best.

How would Raymond rank the teams and players he’s seen this season? That was the crux of a conversation I had with the TV voice of the Rangers prior to last night’s game.

———

David Laurila: Which is the best team you’ve seen this year?

Dave Raymond: “I’ve been really impressed with the Padres. They looked really good against us [in mid-August]. We may have gotten them right on the way to their peak — and that might have been us headed right to the trough — but they were really impressive. They have so much great young talent. There are guys like Jake Cronenworth who are hardly even noticed in the shadow of Fernando Tatis Jr. I mean, Cronenworth has to be the top rookie-of-the-year candidate right now, and he doesn’t even stand out on that team.

“Even Manny Machado. It looked like the energy of some of the young players is lifting him a little bit. He made some plays against the Rangers that were were pretty neat. You got a glimpse again of that young Manny Machado who won a Gold Glove and was more of the all-round player.

“But here’s my thought about the Padres: if you look at that lineup, find me the homegrown guy. He’s not there. It’s made up of all these pieces that were plucked from different organizations in trades and free agent signings. In kind of a perverse way, it’s really remarkable. I don’t think anybody sets out to build a championship team almost exclusively from other teams, but that’s kind of what they’ve done. And we just saw them, at the trade deadline, going out and aggressively bringing in even more guys from other organizations. Read the rest of this entry »

A .441 winning percentage and fourth place in one’s division on the day of the trade deadline aren’t typical characteristics of a buying team, but 2020 is anything but a typical season. Even after a disappointing 15-19 start, the Cincinnati Reds are just 1 1/2 games out of a playoff spot. Considering the number of moves the team had already made in an effort to make this a contending season, that’s a gap the organization thought was worth trying to close with a pair of deals completed just ahead of Monday’s 4:00 pm deadline.

The Reds acquired outfielder Brian Goodwin from the Angels and closer Archie Bradley from the Diamondbacks within just a few minutes of each other on Monday, with the list of total exits and entrances appearing as follows:

• Reds get: RHP Archie Bradley and OF Brian Goodwin
• Diamondbacks get: INF Josh VanMeter and OF Stuart Fairchild
• Angels get: LHP Packy Naughton, and PTBNL or cash

We’ll start with Bradley, as he’s likely to have the biggest impact considering Cincinnati’s relief woes. The Reds’ bullpen has been a far cry from their stellar starting rotation this season, allowing the fourth-worst ERA and fifth-worst FIP in the majors. The unit hasn’t had any trouble striking out batters, leading the majors with 11.9 strikeouts per nine, but it has allowed opponents to rack up walks and homers with similar frequency — only four teams have a higher walk rate in their bullpens than Cincinnati’s, and only the Phillies have a higher home run rate. Read the rest of this entry »

It had been hours — hours! — since A.J. Preller and the San Diego Padres made a trade, so they were more than due. To fix that nearly unthinkable drought, they stayed within the state of California — Jason Castro is headed from the Angels to the Padres:

Sources: The Padres are trading for catcher Jason Castro, sending righty reliever Gerardo Reyes to the Angels in return. Deal is pending medicals.

— AJ Cassavell (@AJCassavell) August 30, 2020

Catcher has been the main weak spot for San Diego this year. Austin Hedges is hitting .167/.262/.352, and that’s actually better than last year’s batting line. He needs to be more or less perfect behind the plate to make up for that, and he’s fallen short of that this year. The depth chart behind him looks even worse; Francisco Mejía combines the defense of someone the Padres have been hiding in left field to avoid his catching butchery with a line that would make Hedges blush; .079/.146/.184. He’s also on the Injured List with a thumb injury. Third-stringer Luis Torrens has been acceptable in 13 plate appearances, but he’s hardly a solid stopgap.

Enter Castro, whose .192/.323/.385 slash line this year, good for a 98 wRC+, would be the best offensive contribution the Padres have received from a catcher in quite some time. That’s not a good thing, per se — he’s striking out 37.1% of the time with a gross 15% swinging strike rate — but as the saying goes, any port in a storm. Perhaps no position player in baseball this side of Jeff Mathis projects to be worse than Hedges on offense.

Castro’s offensive production, while it would be an upgrade, isn’t the reason teams value his services. He’s made a career out of hitting enough to be playable while saving runs behind the plate, a sort of halfway version of Hedges, who has been one of the worst hitters in baseball his entire career but arguably the game’s best defensive catcher. Read the rest of this entry »

An Oakland Athletics offense that was already fourth in baseball in WAR has acquired Tommy La Stella — a man who has hit .265/.361/.461 this year (.287/.350/.480 over the last two), and who has the lowest strikeout among baseball’s qualified hitters at a paltry 5.6% (7.9% combined the last two years, also the lowest in baseball) — to solidify a second base situation that has been molten since Jed Lowrie’s most recent departure. The A’s traded 24-year-old infielder Franklin Barreto to the Angels in exchange for La Stella.

As his now twice former manager Joe Maddon once said when he was a Cub, La Stella could roll out of bed and hit, a notion he has since further reinforced, as La Stella’s strikeout and barrel rates have each trended in a positive direction since he left the north side. He makes the A’s lineup a top-to-bottom threat for the rest of the year before he hits free agency this winter.

La Stella is a clear upgrade over incumbent keystone Tony Kemp, who emerged from a crowded preseason group mostly made up of disappointing prospects. Kemp is hitting just .250/.377/.281, with the OBP portion of his line driven by an unusually high walk rate and BABIP compared to the five-year big leaguer’s career norms. Kemp, who also has experience in the outfield, is likely to shift to a bench role as a situational lefty bat, and a late-inning replacement for La Stella, who is neither a good defender nor runner.

There will likely also be some instances when La Stella serves as Oakland’s designated hitter in lieu of the struggling Khris Davis (who is hitting .155/.269/.241 this season, and .213/.290/.371 over the last two combined), with either Kemp or Chad Pinder starting at second base. In essence, La Stella bolsters the second base and DH spots simultaneously as he himself is an upgrade, and his addition means Bob Melvin can choose from whichever of Pinder, Kemp or Davis he thinks is more likely to do damage that day. For instance, Pinder could play more often versus lefties, Kemp versus righties, and Davis against pitchers who throw a lot of fastballs. I think this move may put Rule 5 pick Vimael Machín‘s roster spot in jeopardy, especially in light of Marcus Semien’s recent injury, which could leave Oakland without a viable defensive shortstop on their 40-man, perhaps necessitating a deal or Nick Allen’s addition to the active roster for a brief stretch. Read the rest of this entry »

Folks, it brings me no pleasure to report that Mike Trout is broken.

Okay, I’m kidding. He’s still great at baseball. He owns a 138 wRC+ with 10 homers and a .309 ISO that is right in line with where he’s sat the last few seasons. Trout’s power output, specifically since the birth of his first child on July 30, has been the subject of many comments about his new “Dad Strength.” But when you hear people describe what it’s like to become a parent, you usually don’t encounter them saying they can suddenly knock the snot out of a baseball. They describe gaining other virtues, such as patience. In baseball, one can display patience by drawing walks. If we truly wished to go to the silly trouble of speculating on what a milestone in one’s personal life could do for their on-field abilities, the idea of a hitter being more relaxed in the batter’s box after he has been made wise and humble by fatherhood seems like a natural step to take. Read the rest of this entry »

David Fletcher is 5 feet and 9 inches tall. By the standards of professional baseball, that’s quite short. He makes up for it a bit by standing upright in the batter’s box, but no one is going to confuse him for Aaron Judge anytime soon. That makes it all the more confusing that on Friday night, he did this:

First of all, wow! Are you kidding me? That ball was nearly five feet off the ground. Halfway to home plate, it was unclear whether Fletcher was taking a swing at a major league pitch or a piñata:

If you’ve been paying attention throughout his career, Fletcher making contact with that pitch will be less surprising. He’s a singular player, a contact machine who will defend the strike zone at all costs when the count reaches two strikes. So far this year, he’s swung at 51 pitches outside the strike zone and only missed nine of them. That 87.3% out-of-zone contact rate is higher than the league contact rate on pitches in the strike zone. Read the rest of this entry »

Dylan Bundy’s first four starts last season were emblematic of a few different things. They told the story of the 2019 Orioles, a team that would set records for pitching futility. They told the story of last year’s juiced ball, which helped facilitate the highest league-wide home run rate in history. And they told the story, once again, of how far Bundy’s star had fallen. Once considered a generational pitching prospect, a Tommy John surgery combined with other injuries wedged three whole years between Bundy’s first season of big league action and his second. As time passed, dreams of him becoming a bona fide ace faded, as he instead turned into something closer to an average back-end starter — from 2017-18, his first two years as a full-time starter, he had an ERA- of 110 and a FIP- of 106, below-average marks that could usually be blamed on problems with the long ball. Through four starts in 2019, those issues persisted; he threw just 17.1 innings and allowed 15 runs on 18 hits, with a whopping seven homers allowed to go with nine walks and 22 strikeouts.

It is that backdrop that has made Bundy’s first four starts of this season almost entirely unrecognizable. He’s thrown 28.2 innings and allowed just five runs on 15 hits, three walks, and two homers. He has struck out 35 hitters. Pick a pitching category right now, and Bundy, 27, is probably either leading it or trailing only a handful of guys.

Read the rest of this entry »