Cesar Valdez’s name has graced this column a handful of times over the past year, most recently a month ago when I asked him about his powerful paralyzing perfect pachydermous percussion pitch. (No, the Baltimore Orioles reliever doesn’t actually call it that, but given that Bugs Bunny changeups make up the lion’s share of his deliveries, he arguably should). Since the start of last season, Valdez has thrown the mesmerizing offering an eye-popping 83.1% of the time.

The Red Sox have faced the 36-year-old slow-baller on three occasions so far in April, so I asked Boston hitting coach Tim Hyers what kind of advice he gives his charges when Valdez is on the bump.

“First, it is totally different in the batter’s box than it is watching video,” responded Hyers. “I can tell you that.The first time we faced him, the hitters were like, This is not your typical changeup.’ It’s almost like a unique curveball, because it gets to home plate and just dives. And at times it can dive both ways; it can break in, or break out. The guys have probably talked about him more than anybody else so far this season.

“It’s kind of an illusion,” continued Hyers. “You have to wait one tick longer in the contact point to get your swing off. It’s been helpful for us to face him [multiple times in a short time period], but it’s definitely very unique and challenging for hitters to face a guy like that.” Read the rest of this entry »

After pitching his way back from the outskirts of oblivion last year, Trevor Rosenthal fared relatively well via free agency, landing a one-year, $11 million deal from the A’s. Unfortunately, he has yet to take the mound for the team, and now it appears that it could be awhile before he does, even in a best-case scenario. On Thursday, Rosenthal underwent surgery to alleviate thoracic outlet syndrome, a loss that hardly helps an A’s pitching staff that’s off to a rough start this season.

The 30-year-old Rosenthal spent 2020 with the Royals and Padres, notching 11 saves while tossing 23.2 innings with a 1.90 ERA and 2.22 FIP; both his 41.8% strikeout rate and 33.0% strikeout-walk differential ranked sixth in the majors among relievers with at least 20 innings. He made an impressive rebound from a rough 2 1/2-year stretch that began with late-2017 Tommy John surgery that cost him the last quarter of that season and all of ’18; when he returned, he struggled greatly with his control, walking 26 batters in 15.1 innings while being rocked for a 13.50 ERA, and getting released in mid-season by both the Nationals and Tigers.

Rosenthal agreed to a deal with the A’s on February 18, making him the last reliever from among our Top 50 Free Agents (where he was 36th) to find work. Among free agent relievers, only the pitcher he was expected to replace, Liam Hendriks, received a contract with a higher average annual value, and only Hendriks, Blake Treinen, Trevor May, and Pedro Báez received larger guarantees. Though slowed by a groin strain in early March, Rosenthal appeared to be on track to open the season with the A’s until a bout of shoulder inflammation led to his placement on the injured list on April 1. Read the rest of this entry »

It took until the late innings of their seventh game of the season, but the 2021 A’s have finally showed they have some fight in them. After losing the first six games of the season by a combined score of 50–13, Oakland was en route to loss No. 7 in a listless Wednesday matinee against the Dodgers, entering the bottom of the seventh with just a single hit and trailing 3–1. Then Matt Chapman halved the deficit with his first homer of the season and, two innings later, opened the ninth with a single to center. A walk, bunt and sacrifice fly scored him to tie the game, and a walk-off single by Mitch Moreland ended things in the 10th, at long last etching a “1” into the Athletics’ win column.

Oakland was the last team in baseball to secure its first win of the season, and by facing Houston and Los Angeles right out of the gate, those wins were always going to be hard to get. But the A’s aren’t a bottom feeder; they were division champs last year and 97-game winners in each of the two previous seasons. But the first week of the season shows how much weaker this year’s edition may be, and that can be traced directly to the effort, or lack thereof, that went into building this roster.

Read the rest of this entry »

Most of the time, I don’t like to make predictions. For one thing, they’re hard! The amount of public information out there is borderline overwhelming. Beating the wisdom of the crowd isn’t easy, particularly when the crowd is using fancy models and copious batted ball data to be wise.

The other big problem with making predictions is that they’re usually wrong if they’re bold. That’s the nature of the game — a bold prediction can’t be the majority of the probability mass, or it wouldn’t be bold. How fun can it possibly be to read a list of things that probably won’t happen?

Well, hopefully very fun, because I’m going to make some this week. These aren’t going to be completely wild guesses, of course, because I do have some idea what I’m doing, but I’m not expecting to go 100% on these. If I go two for four, I’ll definitely call that a win. These are merely the synthesis of some observations that I’ve made over the past year or so, sprinkled with a little bit of boldness dust where necessary to make them exciting instead of milquetoast. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley preview the 2021 Athletics with Alex Coffey of The Athletic and the 2021 Phillies (30:13) with Matt Gelb of The Athletic.

Audio intro: The Divine Comedy, "Come Home Billy Bird"
Audio interstitial: George Harrison, "Stuck Inside a Cloud"
Audio outro: The Apples in Stereo, "Play Tough"

Link to Alex on Beane
Link to Alex on players’ reactions to Semien leaving
Link to Ken Rosenthal on Semien’s exit
Link to Alex on Oakland’s offseason and finances
Link to Alex on the 1955 Mays/Aaron exhibition team
Link to Sam on the Phillies’ rebuild
Link to Matt on the Phillies’ revamped player dev
Link to Matt on the Phillies’ rebuilt bullpen
Link to Matt on Kingery
Link to Matt on Fuld’s promotion
Link to Matt on Dombrowski’s front office
Link to Matt on Harper and the Phillies’ offseason
Link to R.J. Anderson on Mathis
Link to Matt on the Phillies’ outfield failures
Link to Matt on the Phillies’ new roster

 iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)
 Sponsor Us on Patreon
 Facebook Group
 Effectively Wild Wiki
 Twitter Account
 Get Our Merch!
 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

While it’s not quite the cakewalk that the NL Central projects to be in 2021, the AL West is up for grabs this year. The Astros project as comfortable favorites, but that’s just one team. The Rangers and Mariners aren’t likely to be competitive. That leaves room for the A’s and Angels to take a crack at the division. On Thursday, Oakland took a stab at it, signing Trevor Rosenthal to a one-year, $11 million deal, as Jon Heyman first reported.

If you glanced at our list of the top 50 free agents, you won’t find this deal particularly odd. Projector emeritus Craig Edwards saw a two-year, $16 million deal for Rosenthal, while crowdsourcing came in at two years and $13 million. One year and $11 million is a better deal than those, but not by a huge amount, and Jeff Passan reported that he turned down multi-year deals in that range. Rosenthal’s contract includes deferrals — he’s due $3 million in 2021, $3 million in 2022, and $5 million in 2023. That’s essentially $11 million, though; at a 2% interest rate, it’s the same as $10.75 million in 2021. Don’t focus too much on that — it’s mere window dressing, and the interesting part of the contract is Rosenthal himself.

Rosenthal is hardly a standard free agent, and the fact that he’s signing a perfectly ordinary contract is in itself remarkable. This time last year, he had reported to camp with the Kansas City Royals on a minor league contract. The deal wasn’t for the league minimum — it guaranteed him $2 million if he made the major league roster, with another $2.25 million in incentives. Earnable money is different from a guaranteed contract, however, and if he’d had a bad spring training or tweaked something before camp ended, he’d never see the money.

With the benefit of hindsight, that deal was great for both Rosenthal and the Royals. He appeared in 14 games and struck out 21 opponents, good for a 37.5% strikeout rate that echoed his best years with the Cardinals. Did he walk 12.5% of opposing batters? Sure, but you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet, and he had been plenty effective in St. Louis even with slightly elevated walk rates. The Royals dealt him to San Diego in exchange for Edward Olivares and Dylan Coleman, two mid-level prospects, and everyone walked away happy.

Wait, hold up. Rosenthal has a career 2.75 FIP (and a 3.46 ERA and 3.32 xFIP, it’s hardly smoke and mirrors). He had a career 2.79 FIP before his solid 2020. He got flipped for two real prospects after 13 innings of relief work, after 233 pitches. Teams seemed to agree that he had value. Why did he have to take a minor league deal to prove himself? Read the rest of this entry »

The A’s continued to stockpile relievers over the weekend, signing free agents Yusmeiro Petit and Sergio Romo to one-year contracts, both for a little over $2 million for the 2021 season.

Petit is a familiar face in Oakland and will likely play a similar role as he has since 2018: pitching mostly mid-leverage innings, mainly in the sixth through eighth innings. He was rarely used for longer than an inning in 2020; the odd shape of the season and the more expansive roster made this less desirable and less necessary. Still, in the past, he’s been one of the closest players to the old long reliever archetype that has largely faded out of baseball.

Among active pitchers, only Stammen has made more two-inning relief appearances. Compared to history, though, 106 appearances only gets Petit into a tie for 323rd all-time, behind the relief stars primarily from the 1960s, 70s and 80s who dominated this usage.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last Friday, the Dodgers traded reliever Adam Kolarek and right-fielder Cody Thomas to Oakland in exchange for third baseman Sheldon Neuse and right-hander Gus Varland. While it’s unusual to see a division favorite flip a major leaguer for prospects with another contender, the move makes sense for both parties. The A’s get a little better in the here and now, while the Dodgers can dream on Neuse as another breakout candidate for the club’s stellar player development staff to work with.

Kolarek is the lone established big leaguer in this swap. The sidearming southpaw has been a stable part of the Dodgers’ bullpen since his acquisition from Tampa Bay 18 months ago, running an 0.88 ERA over 30 innings of work in Los Angeles — a fun bit of trivia that shouldn’t distract from otherwise normal peripherals. He primarily works with a high-80s, low-90s sinker out of a funky slot and has generated a 62% ground-ball rate over his career. Between that, a supposedly deadened ball this year, and a cavernous new home park, he may never allow a homer again.

He joins a very good bullpen in Oakland. The Athletics’ relief corps had the league’s best ERA and third-best FIP in 2020, and that group was pretty good the previous two seasons as well. Still, Kolarek fills a hole, as the ‘pen otherwise leaned heavily toward right-handers; Jake Diekman is the only other lefty likely to crack the Opening Day roster. With the A’s set to contend again this year, Kolarek adds depth to a strong unit that should see plenty of work in relief of Oakland’s young starters.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend, the Rangers sent long-time shortstop Elvis Andrus, catcher Aramis Garcia, and $13.5 million dollars to the Athletics for DH Khris Davis, catcher Jonah Heim, and pitching prospect Dane Acker. The deal was surprising for a few superficial reasons (two fan favorites being traded within the AL West), but when you strip away the uniforms, it makes sense for both clubs.

The biggest names in the trade are Andrus and Davis, but the biggest pieces in the deal are Andrus and Heim. The Athletics needed to find a way to replace departed shortstop Marcus Semien, and Andrus joins a host of potential internal options (Chad Pinder, Sheldon Neuse, Vimael Machín, maybe Nick Allen fairly soon) who are unlikely to equal Semien’s production but might be enough to keep the A’s in the postseason hunt.

After an outlier 2017 during which he homered about as many times as he had in the previous four seasons combined, Andrus returned to Earth in ’18 and ’19, producing like a low-end regular at shortstop before he had a lousy 2020 season based on surface-level stats. But in addition to whatever COVID-related personal weirdness may have contributed to his lackluster year, there’s underlying evidence that he was his typical self and was instead subject to small sample variation caused by limited playing time. Andrus played in just 29 games last year and ran a .200 BABIP, but his average exit velocity and HardHit% stayed the same, and his .390 expected Slugging%, per Baseball Savant, was higher than his actual career mark of .370.

Andrus did struggle in other areas that might indicate real physical decline. Again per Savant, he was nearly a full tenth of a second slower from home to first, his top-end speed (Sprint Speed) fell, and he regressed (on paper) defensively. But I don’t believe Elvis is actually dead. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that, because he’s 32, the weird start-stop-sprint sequencing of the 2020 season had an outsized impact, and that playing for a non-competitive team didn’t aid his level of motivation. A normal lead up to the season and playing for a contending club could lead to a revival, to say nothing of the new financial motivators that are now at play. Remember, Andrus had to waive a no-trade clause to go to Oakland; he wants to be there. And per the terms of the contract he signed with Texas, what was supposed to be a 2023 mutual vesting option is now a vesting player option that Andrus can trigger by either accruing 550 plate appearances in 2022 or 1,100 appearances in ’21 and ’22 combined. He’s owed just over $14 million each of the next two years, while the player option year in 2023 is set for $15 million. I believe the A’s will be getting the best of whatever is left of Elvis Andrus as he chases control of that vesting option.

Read the rest of this entry »

It feels like a long time ago that the Oakland A’s won the AL West. Partially, that’s because everything feels like it lasted forever in 2020 — the last year has been the longest decade of our lives. Partially too, though, it’s because the team has spent the vast majority of the offseason doing nothing.

Marcus Semien, Liam Hendriks, Joakim Soria, Yusmeiro Petit, Mike Minor, and Tommy La Stella all left in free agency. On Saturday, the A’s made their first major transaction of the offseason, trading Khris Davis and Jonah Heim for Elvis Andrus. Later that day, they issued their first (!) major league contract of the offseason, signing Mike Fiers to a one-year, $3.5 million deal, as Ken Rosenthal and Alex Coffey first reported.

Fiers was an important but unsung part of a run-prevention monster in 2020. He made 11 starts for the A’s, who reached the playoffs on the back of a simple strategy: prevent some runs with starting pitching, hold some leads with a phenomenal bullpen, and sprinkle excellent defense around it to make it all play up. Fiers wasn’t an ace, and he didn’t need to be.

That appears to be Oakland’s plan again this year. Their projected rotation is close to unchanged (Minor started a handful of games, but the other five top starters are all back):

Fiers will be the worst everyday starter, like he was last year, but he’ll take the ball every five days, and the A’s would have struggled on that front otherwise. Daulton Jefferies, A.J. Puk, and Grant Holmes are the next three starters up, and all have had serious injury issues in the past few years; the team will likely want to limit all of their innings this year. Read the rest of this entry »