While we can hope there’s a 2020 season that provides both quality baseball and sufficient safety protocols for players, team personnel, and those who work in the game’s orbit, a lot of things have to come together to make such a season happen. A number of COVID-19-related health concerns and continued issues between labor and ownership could cause the season to stall before it ever starts.

In a very real sense, if this happens, everybody loses. But in a baseball sense, the consequences of a lost 2020 season won’t weigh equally on every team. While we maintain the fiction that every team enters the season with a real chance to win the World Series, our story’s ending is more like that of one of those German fairy tales; even if Ron Gardenhire is unlikely to be eaten by a wolf, the Detroit Tigers were always long shots to go 70-92.

Teams had different ideas about what they wanted to accomplish in 2020, and for some teams, this season was more crucial for their long-term goals — in one way or another — than it was for others.

Cincinnati Reds

Many analysts, myself included, have bemoaned the lack of ambition many teams have displayed the last few offseasons, with winning clubs seemingly most concerned with not paying luxury tax penalties or spinning tales of financial hardship too fanciful even for the Brothers Grimm. Read the rest of this entry »

A pitcher’s swinging strike rate is one of the better measures of how well they are performing. It correlates well to their overall strikeout rate, and is one of the three gold standards I use (along with other methods) to evaluate a pitcher as a whole, in conjunction with O-Swing% (how often a hitter chases) and Z-Contact% (how little hitters make contact with pitches in the zone).

SwStr% can be used to inspect the effectiveness of either an entire arsenal or an individual pitch, and is a strong indicator of how good a pitcher’s “stuff” is. As such, an increased SwStr% is a desirable outcome for a pitcher. Obviously, some pitching styles don’t lend themselves to missing bats, and instead are good for timing disruption and/or weak contact.

One pitcher who fits the mold of a bat-misser is the young lefty prospect from the Oakland Athletics, Jesus Luzardo.

With a minuscule sample of just six games in 2019, amounting to 12 innings pitched, Luzardo had a strikeout rate of 34% (versus a 6.5% walk rate), and held hitters to a .119 batting average with an 0.67 WHIP while posting a 2.36 FIP (1.50 ERA). Luzardo was pretty good during the American League Wild Card game as well. Back in October against the Tampa Bay Rays, he pitched three innings, allowing one hit and two walks while striking out four. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Astros confiscating signs at spring training and Madison Bumgarner’s rodeo alter ego, Mason Saunders, then preview the 2020 Athletics (13:58) with the San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser, and the 2020 Rockies (39:47) with The Athletic’s Nick Groke, plus a postscript on the implications of Luis Severino’s season-ending surgery (1:13:16).

Audio intro: Jonathan Coulton, "I’m a Mason Now"
Audio interstitial 1: Johnny Cash, "Wreck of the Old 97"
Audio interstitial 2: Willie Nelson and Ray Price, "This Cold War With You"
Audio outro: Porcupine Tree, "Sever Tomorrow"

Link to Morning Consult sign-stealing poll
Link to Mason Saunders story
Link to story on Monfort’s 94-wins quote
Link to Ben on spring training elbow injuries
Link to Astros response to cheating lawsuit
Link to order The MVP Machine

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When publishing prospect lists — in particular, the top 100 — I am frequently asked who, among the players excluded from this year’s version, might have the best chance of appearing on next year’s version. Whose stock am I buying? This post represents my best attempt to answer all of those questions at once.

This is the third year of this exercise, and last year Kiley and I instituted some rules. First, none of the players you see below will have ever been a 50 FV or better in any of our write-ups or rankings. So while I think Corbin Martin will return from Tommy John and become a 50 FV again later next year, I’m not allowed to include him here (although I just sorta did). The second rule is that I am forbidden from using players who have ever been on this list before, which means no Gilberto Celestino (on the list two years ago) or Lenny Torres (who was on last year’s) even though they might soon be 50s. McDaniel and I were right about 18 of the 63 players we picked the first year, about a 29% hit rate, and we were right about 16 of the 55 players on last year’s list, which is also 29%. Two years still isn’t long enough to know whether that’s good or not, but it does appear as though a baseline is being established.

At the end of the piece, I have a list of potential high-leverage relievers who might debut this year, because readers seem to dig that category. These are not part of the 50+ FV forecasting; it’s just a way to point an arrow at guys I like who might have real big league impact in a smaller role very soon.

I’ve separated the players into groups or “types” to make the list a little more digestible and to give you some idea of the demographics I think pop-up guys come from, which could help you identify some of your own with The Board (with The Board, through The Board, in The Board). For players whose orgs I’ve already covered this offseason, there is a link to the applicable team list where you can find a full scouting report on that player. I touch briefly on the rest of the names in this post. If you want to peek at the previous lists, here is Year 1, and here is Year 2. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Oakland Athletics.

Batters

The projected highs for the A’s lineup are very high. Matt Chapman has firmly established himself in the top tier of third baseman, and he’s not even reliant on having a +15 glove to be a star. He’s in his prime now and ZiPS gives him a nice chunk of time — five years — until his projection dips below four wins. Now would be a good time to make Chapman a multi-millionaire several times over and extend him a couple years into free agency, practically guaranteeing he spends his best years in Oakland.

ZiPS is all-in on Marcus Semien, forecasting shockingly little regression from the .285/.369/.522, 33 HR, 7.6 WAR line that earned him the bronze medal in the AL MVP race. There’s some regression, especially in the home runs, but there was no BABIP flukiness helping to fuel his big year; ZiPS actually thought he was mildly unlucky there! Signing Chapman to an extension would ease some of the blow in not signing Semien, who is a year away from free agency; the team has little leverage there. Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: Sources have indicated to FanGraphs that Fernando Romero has been awarded an additional option year. This post originally stated that Romero was out of options, and has been updated.

The need to define a scope, to create a boundary of coverage, creates a hole in prospect writing. Most public-facing prospect publications, FanGraphs included, analyze and rank players who are still rookie-eligible because, contrary to what you might think after seeing the length of my lists, you just have to stop somewhere, if only for the sake of your own sanity. Because of this, every year there are players who fall through the cracks between the boundaries of prospect coverage and big league analysis. These are often players who came up, played enough to exhaust their rookie eligibility, and then got hurt and had a long-term rehab in the minors. Some are victims of the clogged major league rosters ahead of them; others are weird corner cases like Adalberto Mondesi.

Regardless, prospect writers are arguably in the best position to comment on these players because they fall under the minor league umbrella, but simply adding them to prospect lists would open a can of worms — what do you do with other young big leaguers? So every year, I examine a subset of the players caught in this limbo to give curious readers an update on where once-heralded prospects stand now. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, I looked into contending teams with weaknesses in the infield. Today, let’s continue by looking at teams who could upgrade their pitching, plus teams involved in blockbuster trades sending MVP’s to the West Coast.

Los Angeles Angels

The Hole: The Angels had only a single pitcher throw more than 100 innings last year. That’s bad. What’s worse is that it was Trevor Cahill, who had a 5.98 ERA and still beat his FIP (6.13), good for a -0.8 WAR effort over 102.1 innings. He’s a free agent at the moment, and that was the pitcher the Angels used most.

It’s hard to disentangle this from Tyler Skaggs’ tragic death, and I don’t intend this to be an indictment of team building, or a dig at the franchise’s response. The team’s 2019 season was tragic, and those woes need not carry into 2020.

Despite a lot of churn, however, they aren’t exactly running out an inspiring rotation. Shohei Ohtani is back, and projects to be their best pitcher on a rate basis, but he’ll be on a strict innings limit. Dylan Bundy is somehow only 27, but it’s hard to see anything but an average pitcher with injury risk to the downside given his uneven career.

Julio Teheran is probably a FIP beater, but with Steamer projecting him for a 5.47 FIP, that isn’t enough. Andrew Heaney is basically Dylan Bundy, only a year older (somehow) — a guy you’d like as an innings-eater but with a checkered injury history.

If there’s upside in this rotation (aside from Ohtani), it’s Griffin Canning, whose fastball/slider combination has looked good in his short career. He’s also coming off of a season shortened by elbow inflammation, and he had a 4.58 ERA and 4.75 xFIP in 2019 — we’re not talking about an ace with a hurt elbow here. Overall, the team has a bunch of league average starters with downside risk.

The Fix: The team attempted defense in depth by acquiring Bundy and Teheran, but I’d prefer to see them try to go tall rather than wide. Paul Sporer suggested a trade for Mike Clevinger, and if the Indians would take Brandon Marsh plus a couple other notable names for Clevinger, the Angels could improve themselves by a lot quickly.

If you think the Indians plan on contending, however, there isn’t much to do when it comes to ace-upside pitchers. Noah Syndergaard rumors have died on the vine, and the teams at the bottom of the standings don’t have much to offer on the star pitching front. They could try to acquire Matthew Boyd to add to their quintet of average pitchers, but why? No, they’re mostly stuck with what they have — which might work out okay, but certainly feels risky for a team with Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon at the peak of their powers. Read the rest of this entry »

Who will man the shortstop position for the Indians once the Francisco Lindor era is over? That largely depends on when Cleveland’s best player moves on, but the down-the-road answer could very well be Brayan Rocchio. The 18-year-old switch-hitter came into last season ranked No.4 on our Indians Top Prospects list.

Borrowing a boxing term, Rocchio punched above his weight in 2019. Listed at 5-foot-10 and 150 pounds, he slashed a wholly respectable .250/.310/.373 for the Mahoning Valley Scrappers in the short-season New York-Penn League. Stateside for the first time, the Caracas, Venezuela native put up those numbers against pitchers typically several years his senior.

Moreover, he did so as a comparable flyweight. With that in mind, I asked Indians GM Mike Chernoff just how impactful Rocchio’s bat can ultimately be, given his whippet-like frame.

“We have a lot of young international players who, when we signed them, were sort of undersized,” said Chernoff. “He’s one of those guys. But we see a ton of potential in his bat-to-ball ability, and in his defensive capabilities. He’s also held his own while super young for his level, and to us that’s a huge indicator of future success. We feel that as Brayan matures, as his body gets stronger and can handle the demands of a full season, he has a chance to be an impact guy.”

But again, just how impactful? While Rocchio’s physique will almost certainly fill out, he’ll be doing so from a 150-pound baseline. That’s water-bug territory, not future-thumper. Right? Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2020 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.

No less an authority than Sports Illustrated anointed Jason Giambi “The New Face of Baseball” on the cover of its July 17, 2000 edition. At a time when balls were soaring over fences in record numbers, the wet, hulking slugger with his bulging biceps and flaming skull tattoo was midway through a season in which he would hit 43 homers while batting .333/.476/.647. His performance not only garnered him the AL MVP award, it helped the upstart A’s win the AL West.

Having gone through lean times since their 1988-92 heyday, the small-market A’s had returned to contention thanks to their resourcefulness and their signature belief in plate discipline. Giambi, a protégé of Mark McGwire who was blessed with extraordinary eyesight and a cerebral approach that belied his hard-partying persona, was just about the the most disciplined hitter in the game, at least this side of Barry Bonds. In 2000, his 137 walks, .476 on-base percentage, and 187 OPS+ all led the AL. He would hit the trifecta again the next year, with league highs of 129 walks, a .477 on-base percentage, and a 199 OPS+ to go with his 38 homers.

Giambi would remain one of the game’s faces during less happy times as well. In early 2004, two years into his seven-year, $120 million contract with the Yankees, his name surfaced in connection to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, which stood accused of distributing PEDs to athletes in several sports. In grand jury testimony that had leaked, Giambi confessed to having injected human growth hormone and testosterone as well as using “the clear” and “the cream,” two undetectable “designer” steroids distributed by BALCO.

Since baseball did not yet have a testing and suspension regimen, Giambi was never punished, but he was cast as a villain for awhile. Unlike so many other high-profile players associated with PEDs, however, he managed to find a way back into the good graces of both fans and the industry after publicly admitting to having used the drugs. He made a non-specific apology in 2005 so as to avoid further legal hassles, but got more specific two years later. The Yankees tried to free themselves of his contract multiple times to no avail, and commissioner Bud Selig threatened to fine and suspend him if he did not speak with former senator George Mitchell for his investigation into the game’s drug problems. Those heavy-handed attempts to shame him instead turned him into something of an antihero. He became a fan favorite all over again in New York, then spent six more seasons bouncing from Oakland to Colorado to Cleveland as a respected clubhouse sage and quasi-coach, finally retiring at age 43 following the 2014 season.

Though he made five All-Star teams, won an MVP award, and hit 440 homers — reaching 20 homers 11 times, 30 homers five times, and 40 homers three times — Giambi doesn’t have strong qualifications for Cooperstown via either traditional or advanced statistics, though he’s not as far off as one might think. He fares much better via WAR and JAWS than this ballot’s other first base/designated hitter types, but that doesn’t mean he’s likely to get enough support even to remain on the ballot, or that he merits it. Note that as with Bonds and McGwire, I don’t see his PED usage as disqualifying, as it’s confined to the period before MLB and the players’ union implemented a testing program.

Read the rest of this entry »

When the A’s acquired Jake Diekman for the first time back in July, they hoped that he might pair effectively with a then-recovering A.J. Puk in neutralizing left-handed hitters, who through that point in the season had hit Oakland relievers to the tune of a .305 wOBA — not terrible, but also behind Houston, Tampa Bay, Cleveland, and New York in the American League. They also hoped that 2019 would end up being the first year since 2006 in which the A’s won a postseason series.

Neither of those things happened. Diekman, who has allowed a .293 wOBA to left-handed hitters over the course of his career, allowed a .314 figure to the 47 lefties he faced for Oakland, walking seven and hitting one with a pitch. The A’s, meanwhile, lost the AL Wild Card game to the Rays, 5-1. Diekman faced one batter.

Still, all the potential the A’s saw in Diekman last summer is still there, and so too is Billy Beane’s thirst for a World Championship. If you thought that last week’s Jurickson Profar trade was evidence of a step back from that goal (which I do not), think again. Diekman alone isn’t enough to put the A’s over the top (frankly, three Diekmans wouldn’t be enough) but teams that plan to punt on a season don’t sign relievers to two-year, $7.5 million deals, as the A’s have just done. Read the rest of this entry »