As the reliever market picked up over the last week, two right-handers, both former closers, found new homes in the Central divisions. First, last Wednesday, Paul Sewald agreed to a one-year deal with the Cleveland Guardians. Then, on Sunday, Ryan Pressly waived his no-trade clause in order for the Houston Astros to send him to the Chicago Cubs for the final guaranteed year of his contract.

While both of these pitchers are likely past their peaks in terms of stuff, they’ll look to continue being contributors with their new clubs. Let’s examine the potential impact of these moves and discuss how the two pitchers will fit into the bullpens of their new teams.

Sewald Joins Elite Cleveland Bullpen

Coming off a down year relative to his previous three seasons, Sewald’s deal with the Guardians is for one year and $6 million, with a $10 million mutual option for 2026. The move solidifies the middle part of their bullpen, which already was one of the best in the majors. With Emmanuel Clase, Cade Smith, and Hunter Gaddis anchoring the group, Sewald will occupy a lesser role than he’s held over the last few years. That’s not a bad thing for him, as he can work to return to form without the pressure of having to deliver in high-leverage innings.

As velocities have increased over the years, and hitters have adapted to them, the margins for error for pitchers living in the low-90s band have grown thinner and thinner. What we saw from Sewald last season is a good example of what happens when pitchers with such a profile lose even just one tick on their fastballs.

From 2021-23, a three-year stretch during which Sewald was one of the better relievers in baseball, his four-seamer ranged from 92.2 mph to 92.5 mph. It was extremely consistent on that front. Then, in 2024, that number dropped down to 91.4 mph on average, and with that, his performance also dropped. Here is a quick summary of how Sewald’s performance on his heater regressed last season:

As his fastball velocity fell last year, Sewald saw a sharp decrease in its effectiveness by both whiffs and overall performance. This could be related to the pitch’s location and its release angle; over the last four seasons, he’s been throwing his fastball progressively higher and higher in the zone and releasing it closer to the middle of the pitcher’s mound. Combine that with a dip in velocity and, suddenly, the pitch was just more normal than it had been in the past.

Another problem for Sewald last year was his sweeper, the pitch that was most responsible for turning him into a high-leverage reliever upon joining the Mariners in 2021. His overall numbers with it suggest it was still a weapon — he held opponents to a .196 average (.214 xBA) and a .214 wOBA (.258 xwOBA) against it — but a closer look tells a different story.

During his aforementioned three-year stretch of excellence, he was comfortable throwing his sweeper to both lefties and righties as a way to keep them off his fastball. In each of those three seasons, he threw his sweeper at least 45% of the time against righties and at least 35% of the time when facing lefties, and it was effective against both sides. That’s especially important because Sewald is mostly a two-pitch pitcher. Last year, however, lefties teed off on his sweeper. Check this out:

So what changed? Perhaps some of it can be attributed to his diminished fastball velocity, which has cut the velocity gap between his fastball and sweeper to 8.3 mph, down from 9.7 in 2022. Except, the velo difference between the two pitches was also 8.3 mph in 2023, and that season both pitches were still effective against lefties and righties. The greater issue here seems to be the same thing that threw off his fastball: his release point, which also shifted more toward the middle of the mound when throwing his sweeper. As a result, he struggled to command his sweeper in 2024, as you can see in these two heat maps. The first one is from 2023, the second from 2024.

He started throwing the pitch more in the middle plate and less often out of the zone. Even with lesser command, he could still keep righties at bay with his sweeper because the pitch breaks away from them. Against lefties, though, he has less margin for error with his location. Sweepers that remain in the zone against lefties break nicely into their bat paths. That’s not a recipe for success.

It’s worth noting that some of Sewald’s struggles in 2024 could be injury-related, as he dealt with both neck and oblique injuries that could’ve caused his dip in velocity. These ailments might also explain his change in location and horizontal release point, as the neck and oblique muscles are especially important for a pitcher’s upper-body mechanics. Sewald turns 35 in late May, so some of his diminished stuff could be attributed to aging, but if he is healthy, we should expect him to have some sort of rebound — even if he doesn’t get back to the peak performance from his days with the Mariners.

Pressly Takes Over as Cubs Closer

For most of the offseason, the Astros have been trying to trade Pressly to shed some salary, and as they revived their efforts to re-sign Alex Bregman last week, moving Pressly seemed to become an even greater priority. Of course, Houston has not yet brought back Bregman, but either way, trading Pressly gave the Astros more financial flexibility.

Houston sent over $5.5 million to cover Pressly’s salary this season, but nothing if his contract vests for 2026. The Cubs sent back Juan Bello, a 20-year-old pitching prospect who was recently ranked no. 31 on the Cubs’ prospect list. Bello is a 35+ FV starting pitcher who, according to our prospect writers Eric Longenhagen and Travis Ice, “has enough projectability and existing stuff to be forecast in a depth starter role, but he’ll need to harness his secondaries in the zone more often to consistently get more advanced hitters out and turn over a lineup.”

The 36-year-old Pressly had been a valuable member of the bullpen since the Astros traded for him in late July 2018, and during the same three-year stretch in which Sewald shined, Pressly emerged as one of the top closers in the American League. However, Houston’s signing of Josh Hader before last season relegated Pressly to a setup role and ultimately made him expendable this offseason. Astros GM Dana Brown said earlier today that the Hader signing and Pressly’s corresponding demotion in the bullpen pecking order caused a “fracture” in his and Pressly’s relationship. Now with the Cubs, Pressly is expected to return to closing games.

Similar to Sewald, Pressly is coming off a season with a notable decrease in velocity, from 94.7 mph in 2023 to 93.8 mph last year. His diminishing fastball didn’t exactly come as a surpsise, though. In 2022, batters posted a .402 xwOBA against his four-seamer, and in response, he cut its usage from 32.9% that year down to 23.1% in 2023. He leaned more on his slider, which for years has been his best pitch by run value by a wide margin. It’s odd, then, that he used his four-seamer more often than any other pitch in 2024. This pitch mix shift didn’t pay off, as opponents slugged .500 against his heater with a .371 wOBA and a .365 xwOBA, compared to their .333 SLG, .276 wOBA, and .271 xwOBA against his slider. I imagine Chicago will get him back to throwing primarily sliders again next season. For some more context, here is a three-year snapshot of Pressly’s Stuff+ and usage for his three main pitches:

Relievers who switch teams looking for bounce backs are always fun stories to follow. Both Sewald and Pressly are in the later stages of their careers but have an opportunity to be important contributors on contending clubs. I’ll be paying attention to any potential adjustments they make come spring time.

For the 21st consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Houston Astros.

Batters

The 2024 season started terribly for the Astros, with a 12-24 record in the early going and most of their projected rotation on the IL. The hole the team dug was deep enough that even with them playing solid ball after early May, the Astros didn’t get above .500 for good until the end of June. Still, nobody in the AL West managed to take advantage of Houston’s weak start. The Astros built a comfortable lead throughout August, and though the Mariners never fell hopelessly behind in the race, they never made Houston really sweat either. Read the rest of this entry »

The Astros’ facelift continues. One week after trading star outfielder Kyle Tucker to Chicago, Houston has dived into the free agent market and come up with a replacement: first baseman Christian Walker, now the beneficiary of a brand spanking new three-year, $60 million contract.

Walker didn’t establish himself as a major league starter until he was almost 30; he spent the mid-2010s stuck behind Chris Davis, Freddie Freeman, Joey Votto, and Paul Goldschmidt, in that order. But since claiming the Diamondbacks’ first base job after Goldschmidt got traded, Walker has established himself as one of the most consistent players at the position. Over the past three seasons, he’s had wRC+ marks of 122, 119, and 119, and posted WAR totals of 3.9, 3.9, and 3.0. That downturn in 2024 was informed by an oblique strain that cost Walker the month of August. If he’d played 162 games, he would’ve been right back up around 3.9 WAR again.

The former South Carolina star is 33, a bit old for a big free agent signing, especially a first baseman, and even more especially a right-handed first baseman. But he’ll be a tremendous asset to the Astros, and sorely missed by the Diamondbacks. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 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.

With a foundation that centered upon the Hall of Fame triumvirate of Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and John Smoltz, the Braves dominated the NL West and then the NL East, reaching the postseason every year from 1991–2005 save for the ’94 strike season. Nothing lasts forever, though, and as Glavine and then Maddux departed in free agency, the team inevitably had to retool. Among the centerpieces of the next wave of Braves stars was one practically grown in their own backyard, Brian McCann.

A lefty-swinging backstop with rich baseball bloodlines, a strong arm, and a powerful bat, McCann was just 21 years old when he debuted with the Braves in June 2005. Over his first eight full seasons, he made seven All-Star teams and helped Atlanta to three postseason appearances, though the team’s success wasn’t nearly on par with the preceding dynasty. While McCann’s footwork and pitch framing wasn’t initially as polished as that of Russell Martin (who debuted with the Dodgers as a 23-year-old in 2006), he too developed into one of the game’s elite framers, that while providing stronger offense than his West Coast counterpart. Along the way, he also developed a somewhat dubious reputation as an enforcer of the unwritten rules, thanks to high-profile incidents involving José Fernández and Carlos Gómez in September 2013, though both players smoothed things over with McCann. Read the rest of this entry »

I want to start off by saying that I was devastated — devastated — to learn that Nolan Arenado reportedly vetoed a trade to the Houston Astros. I guess it would’ve made some baseball sense, as Alex Bregman’s departure leaves a vacancy at third base, and new acquisition Isaac Paredes could easily slide across the diamond to first. Plus, Arenado is a three-time National League home run leader with a long history of hitting the ball in the air and to the pull side. Surely he’d find something to like about the Crawford Boxes.

But mostly, I wanted this to happen because I had a joke lined up. Read the rest of this entry »

When Juan Soto signed with the Mets this week, there were four parties who should’ve been celebrating: First, the Mets, who nabbed the biggest on-base threat since Barry Bonds, and in the process got to blow raspberries at their old money neighbors. Second, Soto himself, who was already grotesquely wealthy but is now due the kind of lucre that will allow him to oppress multitudes if he so chooses. Third, Scott Boras, who in addition to being paid a handsome commission proved that he still had his mojo after a mortifying 2023-24 offseason.

The fourth winner: Kyle Tucker. The “next-best thing” to a 26-year-old free agent with a .421 career OBP, to someone who is projected by ZiPS to accumulate more than 100 WAR, is… well there’s no such animal. But Tucker is as close as you’ll get these days. If Soto is worth $51 million a year, what is Tucker worth? I don’t know. Neither do the Houston Astros, but they’re clearly not interested in finding out.

On Friday, Houston traded the presumptive top free agent in next year’s class to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for Isaac Paredes, Hayden Wesneski, and third base prospect Cam Smith. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2020 election, 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.

Bobby Abreu could do just about everything. A five-tool player with dazzling speed, a sweet left-handed stroke, and enough power to win a Home Run Derby, he was also one of the game’s most patient, disciplined hitters, able to wear down a pitcher and unafraid to hit with two strikes. While routinely reaching the traditional seasonal plateaus that tend to get noticed — a .300 batting average (six times), 20 homers (nine times), 30 steals (six times), 100 runs scored and batted in (eight times apiece) — he was nonetheless a stathead favorite for his ability to take a walk (100 or more eight years in a row) and his high on-base percentages (.400 or better eight times). And he was durable, playing 151 games or more in 13 straight seasons. “To me, Bobby’s Tony Gwynn with power,” said Phillies hitting coach Hal McRae in 1999.

“Bobby was way ahead of his time [with] regards to working pitchers,” said his former manager Larry Bowa when presenting him for induction into the Phillies Wall of Fame in 2019. “In an era when guys were swinging for the fences, Bobby never strayed from his game. Because of his speed, a walk would turn into a double. He was cool under pressure, and always in control of his at-bats. He was the best combination of power, speed, and patience at the plate.” Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 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.

It’s no secret that we’re in the midst of a lean period for starting pitchers getting elected to the Hall of Fame on the BBWAA ballot. Since the elections of 300-game winners Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and Randy Johnson in 2014 and ’15, just four starters have gained entry via the writers, two of them alongside the Big Unit in the latter year (Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz) and two more in ’19 (Roy Halladay and Mike Mussina). From a demographic standpoint, Halladay is the only starter born after 1971.

It’s quite possible the writers won’t elect another starter born in that shag-carpeted decade unless voters come around on Andy Pettitte (b. 1972) or Mark Buehrle (b. 1979), a pair of southpaws who cleared the 200-win mark during their exceptional careers, producing some big moments and playing significant roles on championship-winning teams. Yet neither of them ever won a Cy Young award, created much black ink, or dominated in the ways that we expect Hall-caliber hurlers to do. Neither makes much of a dent when it comes to JAWS, where they respectively rank 93rd and 91st via the traditional version, about 14 points below the standard, or tied for 80th and 78th in the workload-adjusted version (S-JAWS). Neither has gotten far in their time on the ballot, and both lost ground during the last cycle. Pettitte maxed out at 17% in 2023, his fifth year of eligibility, but slipped to 13.5% in his sixth, while Buehrle, who peaked at 11% in his ’21 debut, fell from 10.8% to 8.3%. Nobody with shares that low at either juncture has been elected by the writers, with Larry Walker (10.2% in year four, 15.5% in year six) accounting for the biggest comeback in both cases but still needing the full 10 years, capped by a 22-point jump in his final one. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a shame that “bunts are bad” has become one of the truisms at the core of the ceaseless, silly battle between old school and new school, stats and scouts, quantitative and qualitative assessment methods. It’s understandable, because “stop bunting so much” was one of the first inroads that sabermetric analysts made in baseball strategy. But that was 25 years ago, and while everyone kept repeating that same mantra, the facts on the ground changed.

Sacrifice bunts by non-pitchers have plummeted over the years, as they should have. In recent years, the bunts that are left, the ones that teams haven’t streamlined out of their game planning, are mostly the good ones. “Bunts are bad” never meant that in totality; it just meant that too many of the times that teams sacrificed outs for bases were poor choices. That’s become much more clear now that pitchers don’t bat anymore. The 2022 season, the first full year of the universal DH, set a record for most runs added by bunting. After a down 2023, this season was right back near those banner highs. So let’s recap the ways teams beat the old conventional wisdom and assembled a year of bunting that the number-crunchingest analyst on the planet could appreciate.

The Death of the Worst Sac Bunts
When is a good time to bunt? It’s complicated! It depends on where the defense is playing, the score of the game, who’s on base, the player at the plate, the subsequent hitters due up, and myriad other minor factors. But there’s one overwhelming factor: There are base/out states where bunts are almost always a bad idea, and the more you avoid those, the better.

Sacrifice bunting with only a runner on first almost never makes sense. You’re getting just a single advancement, and it’s the least valuable advancement there is. Getting a runner to third with only one out is an admirable goal. Moving two runners up is even better. Squeeze plays have huge potential rewards. Moving a guy from first to second just doesn’t measure up.

Likewise, bunting gets worse when there’s already one out in the inning. Plate appearances with runners on base are worth their weight in gold in the modern, homer-happy game. Crooked numbers are tough to come by, and the easiest way to get them is by stacking up opportunities to hit multi-run homers. When you already have a runner on base, bunts are always suspect. Bunts that cut out half of your remaining outs in the inning are even worse.

There are occasional circumstances where these types of bunts make sense. If the batter thinks they’ll beat out a hit fairly often, bunting gets better. The weaker the hitter and the better the subsequent lineup, the more attractive bunts get. Close games and speedy runners can tip the balance. It’s not a universally bad decision to bunt with only a runner on first, or to bunt with one or more outs, but the higher the proportion of bunts that move a runner to third with less than two outs, the better.

To get an idea of how much this has changed while removing pitchers from the equation, I looked at the 2015-2019 seasons and excluded all plate appearances from the ninth spot in the batting order. That’s not a perfect way of removing pitchers, but it gets pretty close. I used this to get an idea for what percentage of bunts came in favorable situations – with at least a runner on second and no one out.

In those years, 23.2% of bunts occurred in the best situations for a sacrifice. After removing bases-empty bunts, which are clearly a different animal, we’re left with bunts in situations where a sacrifice isn’t particularly valuable. Those ill-conceived bunts cost teams roughly 0.1 runs per bunt, a shockingly high number. All other bunts – attempts for a hit or attempts to move a runner to third with only one out – carried positive run expectancy. It’s just that there were so many bunts in bad spots.

In 2024, 31.7% of bunts came in “good sacrifice” situations, with a runner on second and no one out. Increasingly, the “bad sacrifice” situations are now about going for a single with some ancillary benefits of runner advancement. On-base percentage on bunts with runners on base is up. In 2024, 25% of the bunts with runners on base ended with the batter reaching base safely, via hit, failed fielder’s choice, or error. That’s up from 22% (non-pitcher) in the 2015-2019 era, and from 17.7% from 2008 to 2012. If anything, that understates it too: Plenty of the worst hitters in baseball used to bat in front of pitchers, which limited their bunting opportunities.

Impressive Individual Efforts
Jose Altuve bunted 14 times this year. Nine of those turned into singles. That was the best performance by anyone with double-digit bunts, but it was hardly the only exceptional effort. Jake McCarthy bunted 21 times and racked up 10 singles. Luke Raley went 7-for-12. This one from Altuve was just perfect:

That’s not to say there have never been good bunters before. Dee Strange-Gordon consistently turned bunts into singles at a high clip. Altuve has been in the majors for a while. But the high-volume bunters in today’s game are more effective than they were 10 years ago in the aggregate. There are also fewer truly objectionable bunters. Francisco Lindor bunted 20 times in 2015 and reached base safely only three times. Fellow 2024 Met Jose Iglesias bunted 12 times and reached base once. There were still some bad bunters – Kevin Kiermaier and Kyle Isbel had awful results, for example – but it’s become far less common.

Bunting for a single is hardly the only positive outcome, of course. That’s why you bunt in the first place – because bunts lead to more productive outs, on average, than swinging away. Advancement is more likely and double plays are less likely. Individual efforts of the top few bunters have always been net positive. These days, those top bunters are accounting for a bigger share of overall bunts, and the results have improved proportionally.

Bunters Were Already Good
Here’s a secret: The wars were already over. In 2002, bunters batting in the 1-8 spots in the lineup cost their teams 36 runs relative to a naive expectation based on the base/out state when they batted. In 2004, that number swelled to -63 runs. It was negative in 11 of the 12 seasons from 2000-2011, with roughly 2,000 bunts a year from this cohort, which largely excludes pitchers.

The number of non-pitcher bunt attempts declined as the 21st century progressed into its second decade. By 2015, we were down to 1,500 a year or so and steadily declining. The bunts excised from the game were all the lowest-value bunts, the ones most likely to hurt the batting team. From 2012 onward, non-pitchers have produced positive value on their bunt attempts every single year. Meanwhile, bunt attempts have declined and then stabilized, around 1,100-1,200 per year. Teams aren’t dummies – they’ve cut out 800 bunts a year, or more than 25 per team, and those bunts are pretty much all the no-hope-for-a-single sacrifice attempts that drew statistically minded folks’ ire in the first place.

In that sense, you’re not really seeing anything completely new in 2024. The very best bunters in the game are a little bit better than they used to be, but not overwhelmingly so. They’re choosing better spots, but not overwhelmingly so. They’re succeeding more frequently when they aim for a hit, but good bunters have always been good at that. The real change is in the bunts that aren’t happening.

The Mariners
I’ll be honest: I didn’t expect the Mariners to top the list of best bunting teams. They seem too station-to-station, too offensively challenged, too reliant on the home run. What can I say? Appearances can be deceiving. Led by Raley, an unlikely but enthusiastic bunter, the Mariners had a league-best performance. This one was just perfect:

It was a great situation for a bunt. The Astros were shifted over toward Raley’s pull side, which left third baseman Alex Bregman on an island covering third and prevented him from crashing early. Raley disguised the bunt long enough to get everything moving, and then used his sneaky-blazing footspeed to beat it out. It’s a masterpiece of bunting.

Victor Robles is less about masterpieces and more about maximum effort. He bunts too often for his own good. That leads to a lot of iffy bunts, but also some gems:

That’s another one where reading the defense made all the difference. The Rays shifted their middle infielders away from first, which meant a bunt past the pitcher would leave Yandy Díaz helpless. This one also benefited from a bit of defensive confusion, as many good bunts do. Who was covering second when Díaz fielded the ball? More or less no one:

Hey, every little bit helps when you’re bunting. And while plenty of other Mariners contributed to their success as well – Leo Rivas and Jorge Polanco know how to handle a bat – I had to close this out with another gem from Raley. Sure, it’s against the White Sox, but those runs count too. Raley is just vicious when it comes to attacking good spots to bunt:

It’s not every day that you see a squeeze bunt go for a no-throw single. But again, Raley read the defense and placed the ball perfectly. Not much you can do about this:

Altuve might have the advantage in raw numbers, but no one made me sit up in my seat hoping for a bunt like Raley did this year. Hat tip to Davy Andrews for highlighting his hijinks early in the year, and Raley just never stopped going for it.

The Angels
By all rights, this article should be over. The Mariners were the best bunters this year, Raley was their ringleader, and they exemplified the way bunts are making offenses better in today’s game. But the Angels are altogether more confusing and more giffable, so I’m giving them a shout too.

You’d think that Ron Washington’s team would be at the very top of the bunt rate leaderboards, but the Halos attempted only 25 bunts this year, half the Mariners’ tally and seventh-lowest in baseball. The reason why is obvious: They weren’t that good at it. They weren’t the worst team in terms of runs added – that’d be the Nats, who were both prolific and bad at bunting this year – but they were impressively inefficient. No one with so few bunt attempts was nearly so bad in the aggregate.

They bunted in bad spots. They rarely reached base even when the defense was poorly positioned. This might be the worst bunt attempt you’ve seen this year:

Unless it’s this:

The lesson: Stop with all these squeeze bunts. Unless it’s against the White Sox, that is:

See, our story has a happy ending for the bunters after all. I love bunts, and I’m not afraid to use this platform to show it.

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 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.

Carlos Beltrán was the quintessential five-tool player, a switch-hitting center fielder who harnessed his physical talents and became a superstar. Aided by a high baseball IQ that was essentially his sixth tool, he spent 20 seasons in the majors, making nine All-Star teams, winning three Gold Gloves, helping five different franchises reach the playoffs, and putting together some of the most dominant stretches in postseason history once he got there. At the end of his career, he helped the Astros win a championship.

Drafted out of Puerto Rico by the Royals, Beltrán didn’t truly thrive until he was traded away. He spent the heart of his career in New York, first with the Mets — on what was at the time the largest free-agent contract in team history — and later the Yankees. He endured his ups and downs in the Big Apple and elsewhere, including his share of injuries. Had he not missed substantial portions of three seasons, he might well have reached 3,000 hits, but even as it is, he put up impressive, Cooperstown-caliber career numbers. Not only is he one of just eight players with 300 home runs and 300 stolen bases, but he also owns the highest stolen base success rate (86.4%) of any player with at least 200 attempts.

Alas, two years after Beltrán’s career ended, he was identified as the player at the center of the biggest baseball scandal in a generation: the Astros’ illegal use of video replay to steal opponents’ signs in 2017 and ’18. He was “the godfather of the whole program” in the words of Tom Koch-Weser, the team’s director of advance information, and the only player identified in commissioner Rob Manfred’s January 2020 report. But between that report and additional reporting by the Wall Street Journal, it seems apparent that the whole team, including manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow, was well aware of the system and didn’t stop him or his co-conspirators. In that light, it’s worth wondering about the easy narrative that has left Beltrán holding the bag; Hinch hardly had to break stride in getting another managerial job once his suspension ended. While Beltrán was not disciplined by the league, the fallout cost him his job as manager of the Mets before he could even oversee a game, and he has yet to get another opportunity.

Will Beltrán’s involvement in sign stealing cost him a berth in Cooperstown, the way allegations concerning performance-enhancing drugs have for a handful of players with otherwise Hall-worthy numbers? At the very least it kept him from first-ballot election, as he received 46.5% on the 2023 ballot — a share that has typically portended eventual election for less complicated candidates. His 10.6-percentage point gain last year (to 57.1%) was the largest of any returning candidate, suggesting that he’s got a real shot at election someday, though I don’t expect him to jump to 75% this year. Read the rest of this entry »