Matt Duffy is in camp with the Kansas City Royals on a minor-league contract, and as is common for veteran players in his situation, he has multiple opt-out clauses. Whether he ends up exercising any of them remains to be seen. The 32-year-old infielder is on the bubble with days left before the start of the regular season, and even if he doesn’t make the Opening Day roster, there is a chance that he would accept a Triple-A assignment with a call-up in mind. All Duffy knows for certain is that he wants to keep playing.

“I’ve kind of made the decision that they are going to have the rip the jersey off of me,” said Duffy, who has battled injuries throughout his seven big-league seasons. “If I were to call it a career at some point in the next five years, I would find myself saying, ‘Man, I wish I’d have played one more year.’ Life post-baseball is going to be so much longer than anything the grind can throw at me. At the end of the day, I really enjoy what this game does for me in terms of pushing me to learn something new.”

Duffy is 12-for-36 on the spring, and he can provide more-than-adequate defense at multiple positions. Assuming he can stay healthy, he can help a big-league team — be it the Royals or someone else — for the foreseeable future. Even so, he knows that the clock is ticking. While many players who are asked about their post-baseball plans deflect the question, Duffy is forthcoming on the subject. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Toronto Blue Jays. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the third year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Gerrit Cole faced Jordan Walker for the first time on Wednesday, and he came away impressed. The New York Yankees ace induced a ground-ball out from the top prospect in the St. Louis Cardinals system in the first inning, but then surrendered a line-drive single to him on a 95-mph heater a handful of frames later. When Cole met with members of the media mid-game — standard fare for starters during spring training — I asked him about his matchups with the fast-rising phenom.

“I thought he put a good swing on it,” Cole said of Walker’s knock. “It was a good adjustment from the first at-bat. It was a good pitch, a borderline ball, and one of the better swings of the day, for sure.”

Cole needed clarification as to whom he was opining on before offering the praise. Understandably focusing on preparing for the regular season, he admitted — this with the caveat that he wasn’t being disrespectful — he didn’t know where Walker was hitting in the St. Louis lineup.

Walker was understandably very aware of Cole. Asked about what the five-time All-Star had said — the question came from a St. Louis scribe whom I’d shared the quotes with — he was equal parts pleased and humble.

“It means a lot, man,” said Walker, who is No. 12 on our Top 100 and at age 20 has a legitimate chance to break camp with the Cardinals. “He’s a helluva pitcher. His stuff was really electric today. His stuff was really jumping. His slider was good. So it means a lot to hear that from him. A wonderful pitcher.”

As Cardinals fans are discovering, the 6-foot-5, 220-pound Stone Mountain, Georgia native is more than just a star in the making. He also exudes fun. I asked the effervescent outfielder how he is balancing that trait alongside being hyper-focused in his quest to earn a big-league job. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about catcher Grayson Greiner’s height, Shohei Ohtani’s titanic homers, tight t-shirt, and pepper-grinding in WBC exhibitions, and a few preview-related trivia questions, then continue their 2023 season preview series by discussing the Toronto Blue Jays (15:02) with Kaitlyn McGrath of The Athletic, and the Kansas City Royals (55:25) with Anne Rogers of MLB.com, plus a Past Blast from 1977 (1:23:45) and trivia answers (1:32:46).

Audio intro: Yo La Tengo, “Shades of Blue”
Audio interstitial: The Joy Formidable, “Into the Blue”
Audio outro: Don Gibson, “Blue, Blue Day”

Link to tall-catchers EW episode
Link to Sam’s Substack
Link to first Ohtani dinger
Link to longer dinger video
Link to second Ohtani dinger
Link to side view of first swing
Link to side-by-side swings
Link to Japan News on homers
Link to MLB.com on the homer
Link to 2022 pepper-grinder story
Link to Nootbaar WBC story
Link to other Nootbaar story
Link to Ohtani’s tight t-shirt
Link to “Shoebae” account
Link to FanGraphs playoff odds
Link to FG payroll breakdown
Link to Blue Jays offseason tracker
Link to Blue Jays depth chart
Link to Kaitlyn’s spring preview
Link to Kaitlyn on the OF dimensions
Link to Travis on the OF dimensions
Link to Statcast park factors
Link to Kaitlyn’s author archive
Link to Royals offseason tracker
Link to Royals depth chart
Link to 2022 rookie PA by team
Link to profile of Quatraro
Link to story on throwing strikes
Link to Anne on “Raid the Zone”
Link to Anne on Royals pitchers
Link to story on KC ballpark sites
Link to 1977 article source
Link to Five Seasons on Goodreads
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack
Link to Ryan Nelson’s Twitter
Link to Ward on pitch-calling
Link to Richard Hershberger’s book

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Alejandro Kirk slashed a solid .285/.372/.415 with 14 home runs and a 129 wRC+ last year in his first full big-league season. Moreover, the 24-year-old Toronto Blue Jays catcher drew 63 free passes while going down by way of the K just 58 times. His 10.7% strikeout rate was third best in the junior circuit, behind only Steven Kwan’s 9.4% and Luis Arraez’s 7.1%.

How similar of a hitter is Kirk to Arraez? I asked that question to Blue Jays manager John Schneider prior to Thursday’s game in Dunedin.

“When you talk about contact, not a lot of swing-and-miss, yeah, they’re similar,” replied Schneider. “There’s a little more damage potential with Kirky. But more walks than strikeouts is tough to do at any level, [especially] the big leagues. So, I think when it’s just strike zone command, on-base, and contact-ability, they are pretty similar.”

Arraez, now a member of the Miami Marlins, won the American League batting title with the Minnesota Twins while slashing .316/.375/.420 with eight home runs and a 131 wRC+. Following up on my initial question, I asked Schneider if Kirk has the potential to capture a title of his own. Read the rest of this entry »

Ricky Tiedemann is one of the fastest-rising pitching prospects in the game. Drafted 91st overall by the Toronto Blue Jays in 2021 out of a Huntington Beach junior college, the 20-year-old southpaw not only finished last season in Double-A, he dominated at all three levels where he saw action. Over 78-and-two-thirds innings, Tiedemann logged a 2.15 ERA while fanning 117 batters and allowing just 39 hits. No. 24 on our recently released Top 100, he possesses, in the words of Tess Taruskin, “three potential plus pitches and front-end upside.”

Tiedemann discussed his M.O. on the mound and his power arsenal prior to Thursday’s spring training game in Dunedin.

———

David Laurila: How would you describe yourself as a pitcher? Give me a self-scouting report.

Ricky Tiedemann: “I like to use the fastball a lot — I work off of that — especially now that I’m throwing a little bit harder. Throwing a lot of strikes is my big thing, just keeping it in the zone, along with my slider and changeup. I also try not to keep a rhythm that guys can catch on to; I try to mix it up and work backwards sometimes, starting with a slider and then going fastball in. But I do work with my fastball more than my other pitches.” Read the rest of this entry »

From a pure talent perspective, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is special. Only 10-15 players in any given season run a strikeout rate in the mid-teens while posting an ISO of .200 or better. Guerrero has done so in each of the last two seasons (his .290 ISO in 2021 was fifth among qualified hitters). I try to keep that context in mind when I analyze players of Guerrero’s caliber. While I think it’s fair to say that his 132 wRC+ in 2022 was underwhelming, that mark is still quite impressive — indeed, it ranked 29th among qualified hitters last season. He was still productive despite running a 52.1% groundball rate, a mark exceeded by just six qualified hitters, none of whom came close to matching his year at the plate. If he continues to hit like this for the rest of his career, he’ll be a perennial All-Star. Still, given his talent and the lingering expectations of his prospect pedigree, I suspect the Blue Jays are looking for ways to get Guerrero back to something resembling the superlative 2021 version of himself. So let’s do the same.

Now you may be thinking, “Esteban, we all know Vlad Jr.’s problems come when he gets too groundball happy. Why not just tell him to hit more fly balls?” That’s good advice, but I’m more interested in the finer details. For example, Guerrero’s increased groundball rate is the result, but his process has an effect on that outcome. Depending on the hitter, swinging at pitches in zones that don’t match up with their spectrum of swing planes can lead to a change in their batted ball profile. Alternatively, a hitter’s swing decisions could be roughly the same, but a slight mechanical change could alter their bat path. For the Blue Jays first baseman, I think there was a combination of both. Let’s start with how his batted ball profile changed from 2021 to 2022:

Read the rest of this entry »

As the Blue Jays attempt to build upon last year’s 92-win season — their best since 2015 in terms of won-loss record — they’ve locked up one of their young, homegrown stars. Earlier this week, Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson Smith reported that the team had agreed to a multiyear extension with Bo Bichette, thereby avoiding what could have been a contentious arbitration hearing. The terms of the deal were unclear at the time, but on Thursday, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that Bichette will receive a three-year, $33.6 million guarantee, with escalators and incentives that can increase the total value of the deal to as much as $40.65 million.

Via the Associated Press, Bichette is guaranteed $6.1 million this year ($3.25 million as a signing bonus and $2.85 million in salary) and then $11 million in 2024 and $16.5 million in ’25. Winning an MVP award would increase his next salary by $2.25 million, while finishing second or third would add $1.25 million, and finishing fourth or fifth would add $250,000. The extension buys out all three of his arbitration years — his age-25 through 27 seasons — without delaying his free agency, as he enters 2023 with three years and 63 days of service time. Without the deal, he and the Blue Jays would have headed into arbitration with the two sides as far apart as any in the majors this year. According to MLB Trade Rumors, the $2.5 million gap between the filings of Bichette ($7.5 million) and the Blue Jays ($5 million) matched that of the Astros and Kyle Tucker; Houston won that hearing on Thursday.

Bichette is coming off a very good season, albeit something of an inconsistent one. He set a full-season high with a 129 wRC+ via a .290/.333/.469 line with 24 homers and 13 steals. His 4.5 WAR tied with Corey Seager for 14th in the American League and second among AL shortstops behind Xander Bogaerts, 0.1 WAR ahead of Carlos Correa. That said, his season was an uneven one that exposed concerns in several areas of his game. He hit just .213/.237/.298 (50 wRC+) in April and .257/.302/.418 (105 wRC+) through the first half — missing the AL All-Star team where he made it in 2021 — before batting .337/.378/.543 (163 wRC+) in the second half, capped by a .406/.444/.662 (217 wRC+) September. Fourteen of his 24 homers came before the break, but so did 100 of his 165 strikeouts; he trimmed his K% from 24.3% before the break to 19.2% after. Read the rest of this entry »

There are a lot of ways to look at the numbers George Springer put up in 2022. Here’s the simplest: He had an All-Star season, posting a 132 wRC+ and piling up 4.2 WAR. That’s excellent. On the other hand, you could argue that he has been slipping for a while now. His wRC+ has declined in three consecutive seasons, and now that Kevin Kiermaier and Daulton Varsho are both Blue Jays, his days as a center fielder are officially over.

Analyzing Springer is tricky because he’s always been a great hitter no matter what was going on under the hood. He reached his offensive peak in 2019, posting a 155 wRC+ with the help of a career-high 43.2% hard-hit rate. Then in 2020 and ’21, his hard-hit rate came back to earth a bit, his pull rate spiked, and he literally doubled his launch angle. Despite the drastic changes, his wRC+ fell by just over 10 points, dropping him from elite all the way down to very nearly elite. Read the rest of this entry »

The Blue Jays have been busy this offseason, acquiring Daulton Varsho, Chris Bassitt, and Erik Swanson. Now, they’ve added right-handed reliever Chad Green to the mix, one of the bigger names still on the market. While a full-strength Green is probably the best reliever in this free-agent class who didn’t sign a nine-figure extension to jumpstart the offseason, he was shut down after just 15 innings in 2022 and underwent Tommy John surgery in a contract year. Because his rehab will sideline him for the majority of the upcoming season, he was relegated to 41st on our Top 50 free agent list, with a median crowdsourced projection of just one year and $5 million. Our readers came pretty close on the AAV, but the number of years on his deal is still to be determined.

Let’s go over the complex details of this contract. Green will earn $2.25 million in 2023. At the conclusion of the season, the Blue Jays can pick up a three-year option that will keep him in Toronto through the end of 2026, paying out $9 million per season. Should they decline this team option, he has the option to tack on one more year to the deal worth $6.25 million, but if he’s not interested, the Jays get the chance to exercise yet another team option, this one for just two years and $21 million with some escalators based on playing time. In short, if the Blue Jays are satisfied with Green’s arm health, he could be wearing blue for four years, but if they’re not, he could test free agency again as soon as this November. He can guarantee himself $8.5 million over the next two seasons, provided he accepts the player option for 2024. The nested levels of team and player options are reminiscent of Julio Rodríguez’s mega-extension signed last August (although with fewer years and fewer zeroes on the total value), which Dan Szymborski dubbed “the most expensive Choose Your Own Adventure book ever.” Green’s deal doesn’t warrant that distinction, but it’s still one of the more complicated baseball contracts in recent memory.

Green debuted in the majors in 2016 as a starter with the Yankees, demonstrating his excellent strikeout stuff but surrendering 2.4 home runs per nine. ERA estimators like SIERA and xFIP correctly forecasted that the flyball luck would start going his way, but these improvements came alongside a change in role. The next season, he was moved to the bullpen, where he lowered his home run rate to acceptable levels and improved upon his elite strikeout rate, becoming possibly the best multi-inning reliever in the years since. That’s a tough claim to make, but I think I can defend it. To be a multi-inning weapon, you (obviously) have to pitch multiple innings per appearance, and in the past six seasons, no reliever has done that more than Green. Read the rest of this entry »