With just hours to go until Tuesday’s trade deadline, the Twins shored up their bullpen, acquiring All-Star closer Jorge López from the TwinsOrioles for four pitching prospects. López, a 2020 waiver claim who was once a big part of a Mike Moustakas trade, has blossomed in 2022 upon being converted to a full-time reliever, saving 19 games for the O’s and putting up a 1.68 ERA and 2.99 FIP. Heading to Baltimore are Cade Povich, Yennier Cano, Juan Nunez, and Juan Rojas.

Not to be outdone, the Brewers made a relief addition of their own, picking up Matt Bush for pitcher Antoine Kelly and second baseman/third baseman Mark Mathias. Finally back after the second Tommy John surgery of his career, Bush has been sterling in his return, striking out 11 batters per game with his fastball returning to the upper 90s. Read the rest of this entry »

The Padres pulled off a blockbuster on Monday afternoon, though it wasn’t the Juan Soto trade that so much of the industry expects. Instead, San Diego sent a four-player package headlined by closer Taylor Rogers, an All-Star last year, to Milwaukee in exchange for closer Josh Hader, an All-Star in four of the past five seasons, including this year.

On the surface, this appears to be something of a challenge trade: a pair of contenders swapping southpaws whose holds on the ninth inning had loosened due to shaky performances over the past month, sending their ERAs north of 4.00:

But there’s more to the deal when it comes to its respective impacts on the two teams’ 40-man rosters and payrolls, all of which is worth bearing in mind as Tuesday’s deadline approaches. Read the rest of this entry »

Bryan Shaw will reach two milestones the next time he takes the mound. The 34-year-old Guardians reliever has made 499 regular-season appearances in a Cleveland uniform, and he’s thrown 999-and-two-thirds professional innings. Neither should come as a surprise. Shaw has never been a star, but he’s always been a workhorse. Moreover, he’s a Terry Francona favorite.

“He’s like a lineman,” the Guardians manager said of Shaw. “When they allow a sack, everybody notices. When [Shaw] gives up runs, people want to bury him. But he saves our ass, time and time again. He pitches when other guys can’t… He’s been a trouper for a long time.”

Now in his 12th big-league season, and in his second stint with Cleveland, Shaw has led the American League in appearances in four different seasons, each time with his current club. The right-hander has appeared in 733 games overall — he’s also pitched for the Diamondbacks, Rockies, and Mariners — which ranks fifth-most among active pitchers.

He knows where he stands among his peers. Read the rest of this entry »

The trade deadline is nearly here and once again, team behavior will be affected by 40-man roster dynamics. Teams with an especially high number of currently-rostered players under contract for 2023 and prospects who need to be added to the 40-man in the offseason have what is often called a 40-man “crunch,” “overage,” or need to “churn.” This means the team has incentive to clear its overflow of players by either packaging several to acquire just one in return, or by trading for something the club can keep — international pool space, comp picks, or, more typically, younger players whose 40-man clocks are further from midnight — rather than do nothing and later lose some of those players to waivers or in the Rule 5 Draft. Teams can take care of this issue with transactions between the end of the season and the 40-man roster deadline in November, but a contending team with a crunch has more incentive to do something before the trade deadline so the results of those deals can bolster the club’s ability to reach the postseason.

In an effort to see whose depth might influence trade behavior, I assess teams’ 40-man futures every year. This exercise is done by using the RosterResource Depth Chart pages to examine current 40-man situations, subtracting pending free agents using the Team Payroll tab, and then weighing the December 2022 Rule 5 eligible prospects (or players who became eligible in past seasons and are having a strong year) to see which clubs have the biggest crunch coming. I then make an educated guess about which of those orgs might behave differently in the trade market as a result.

Some quick rules about 40-man rosters. Almost none of them contain exactly 40 players in-season because teams can add a player to the 40 to replace one who is on the 60-day injured list. In the offseason, teams don’t get extra spots for injured players and have to get down to 40 precisely, so if they want to keep some of their injury fill-ins, they have to cut someone else from the 40-man to make room. Read the rest of this entry »

Again, the focus of this series remains on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 10%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less thus far, which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season. With most contenders reasonably well-situated at third base, I’ve loosened the criteria a bit for reasons that will become clear. As noted previously, some of these situations are more dire than others, particularly when taken in the context of the rest of their roster. I don’t expect every team on these lists to upgrade before the August 2 deadline, and I’m less concerned with the solutions – many of which have more moving parts involved than a single trade — than the problems.

Read the rest of this entry »

In a race for a playoff spot, every edge matters. Yet all too often, for reasons that extend beyond a player’s statistics, managers and general managers fail to make the moves that could improve their teams, allowing subpar production to fester at the risk of smothering a club’s postseason hopes. In Baseball Prospectus’ 2007 book It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over, I compiled a historical All-Star squad of ignominy, identifying players at each position whose performances had dragged their teams down in tight races: the Replacement-Level Killers. I’ve revisited the concept numerous times at multiple outlets and have presented it at FanGraphs in an expanded format since 2018.

When it comes to defining replacement level play, we needn’t be slaves to exactitude. Any team that’s gotten less than 0.6 WAR from a position to this point — prorating to 1.0 over a full season — is considered fair game. Sometimes, acceptable or even above-average defense (which may depend upon which metric one uses) coupled with total ineptitude on offense is enough to flag a team. Sometimes a team may be well ahead of replacement level but has lost a key contributor to injury; sometimes the reverse is true, but the team hasn’t yet climbed above that first-cut threshold. As with Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of hardcore pornography, I know replacement level when I see it.

For this series, I’ll go around the diamond, pointing out the most egregious examples of potential Killers at each position among contenders, which I’ll define as teams who are above .500 or have playoff odds of at least 10.0%. That definition covers 17 teams, all of which have odds above 25% thanks to the new playoff structure (thanks for not saving me any work, Rob Manfred). And while I may mention potential trade targets, I’m less focused on these teams’ solutions than I am the problems, because hey, human nature.

This first installment will cover first basemen. All statistics within this piece are through July 20. Read the rest of this entry »

Ryan Fuller taught high school English in Higganum, Connecticut for four years before becoming the hitting coach of the Baltimore Orioles. An infielder at the University of Connecticut before spending a year in the Arizona Diamondbacks system, the 32-year-old Fuller went on to earn a Master’s degree in Education from the University of New Haven. Books, and the lessons they provide, remain a big part of his life.

Asked about his favorites to teach, Fuller began with Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

“That was a big one for me in 10th-grade honors,” said Fuller, who has tutored hitters at different levels for over a decade. “From a morality standpoint, there are so many things that I connect with. Kids love reading the book and being able to tie it in with what it means to be a good person. They think about other people — about walking in their shoes, as Atticus put it —and the values and morals are still the same today.”

Fuller cited Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” and Stephen Crane’s “The Red Badge of Courage” as other books he’s seen impact specific age groups in particular ways. The lessons are analogous to his current job.

“It’s kind of the same thing we’re doing with our hitters,” explained Fuller, who is well-schooled in hitting analytics. “We’re taking sometimes complex, abstract things that maybe the hitters aren’t really grasping, and turning them into something tangible. They’ll say, ‘Oh, man, that makes sense.” That’s what I enjoy most about being a teacher.” Read the rest of this entry »

This season, Eric and Tess Taruskin will each have a minor league roundup post that runs during the week, with the earlier post recapping some of the weekend’s action. You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.

Jared Shuster, LHP, Atlanta Braves
Level & Affiliate: Double-A Mississippi Age: 23 Org Rank: TBD FV: 45
Weekend Line: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 8 K

Notes
Shuster’s velocity fluctuated wildly from start to start in 2021, and altogether he averaged just 89-90 mph last year, about three ticks below his typical velo in the lead up to the 2020 draft. It has been more consistent so far in 2022 but had still resided in the 88-91 mph range until Shuster sat 91-93 in his weekend outing. Except for that brief run up to the 2020 draft, Shuster has shown below-average fastball velocity, and while it’s worth continuously monitoring for change (especially because things were up a tad in this most recent start), Shuster’s history as a player points toward this velo band being where he’ll sit for the long haul. His fastball has other characteristics that help enable it to punch above its weight, but it isn’t a plus pitch at its current velocity. Instead, he continues to rely on his plus changeup, of which he has plus command. Shuster locates his cambio down and to his arm side with remarkable consistency, and it is by far his best offering. In part because of how well he hides the ball, Shuster’s slider has some in-zone utility, especially against left-handed hitters, though he struggles to locate it in that enticing, off-the-plate location where most sliders play best. While Shuster doesn’t have a tool for every situation, he is a lefty with a plus changeup whose fastball has sneaky utility despite medium velocity, the skillset of many a No. 4/5 starter. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I discussed some of the young, pre-free agency players who teams should be trying to sign to long-term contract extensions. I hadn’t been planning for there to be a part two, but you guys had so many additional players you wanted to talk about, and I can’t remember the last time I got more DMs about a piece than that one — well, about a piece for which everyone isn’t mad at me, at least!

So, let’s oil up and turn the crank on the ol’ ZiPS-o-Matic and get this projection mill hopping for seven more players.

Walker Buehler, Los Angeles Dodgers: Eight years, $204 million

Buehler is currently in the second and final year of an extension with the Dodgers that pays him $4 million a year. His next deal will be a tad more pricey. Clayton Kershaw is still around in Dodger blue, but his injury history and mild decline resulted in 2021 being the year that Buehler became The Man in the rotation, reducing Kershaw to the role of deuteragonist. And while Los Angeles still has a rocking rotation, the depth isn’t quite what it was in recent years, so there should be more than slight concern that the franchise’s most valuable pitcher is unsigned. With Buehler two years from free agency, the Dodgers aren’t likely to get any massive discounts, but this is the best time to sign him if you don’t want to pay him Gerrit Cole money later. The Dodgers don’t necessarily have to stop at this figure, either; what’s the fun of being wealthy if you don’t use that cash to pay for cool things?

There may be some concern in some places about the dropoff in Buehler’s strikeout rate, but while strikeout rate changes do tend to stick very quickly, they stick far more when the underlying stats support the drop-off than when they don’t. In this case, the contact rates and swinging-strike rates haven’t worsened at all, nor has his velocity fallen off a cliff, suggesting that it’s a blip rather than a plunge. You can make a similar argument for the Dodgers signing Julio Urías to an extension, likely for a significantly lesser haul, but given the workload Buehler has shown he can handle, he’d be my priority. Read the rest of this entry »

The Brewers are atop the NL Central thanks in large part to a rotation that has ranked among the game’s best, but the team’s postseason hopes took a hit this week with the news that righty Freddy Peralta will miss “a significant amount of time” due to a posterior shoulder strain. Milwaukee, which is additionally dealing with multiple injuries in its lineup, believes that Peralta will avoid surgery and return this season, but his loss is a disappointment given the 25-year-old’s recent return to form.

Peralta left Sunday’s start against the Nationals after three-plus innings due to tightness in his left shoulder. He failed to retire any of the three batters he faced in the fourth inning, and all three came around to score, the last two on reliever Brent Suter’s watch along with three others. The five runs that Peralta was charged with were as many as he had allowed over his previous five starts.

Indeed, Peralta had been on a roll. After starting the season by allowing nine runs in seven innings in his first two turns, he went on the aforementioned five-start run. In 28.2 innings, he struck out 38 (a 34.2% rate) and walked six (5.4%) without allowing a single homer, a run capped by his seven-inning, two-hit, 10-strikeout game against the Braves on May 16. Granted, the competition he faced during that strech wasn’t fierce, as the Phillies, Pirates, Reds (twice), and Braves are all below .500, and only Philadelphia has a team wRC+ higher than 94, but such is the schedule of an NL Central contender.

Peralta underwent an MRI on Monday, which revealed the strain. The Brewers expect the injury will heal with rest, but it will take some time. “He will be back this season but it’s going to be a lengthy absence,” manager Craig Counsell told reporters on Monday. “We’re confident that there’s gonna be no aftereffects to this thing but it’s going to take a while to heal and then build it back up.”

Through the ups and downs of his season so far, Peralta’s ERA is a gaudy 4.42, but among the 66 NL pitchers with at least 30 innings through Monday (the cutoff point for all stats here unless otherwise noted), his 2.10 FIP was the league’s lowest, his 0.23 homers per nine ranked third (teammate Adrian Houser was first at 0.21), his 1.3 WAR and 30.3% strikeout rate were sixth, his 22.4% strikeout-walk differential was seventh, and his 2.88 xERA was 14th.

Those peripherals are in line with the All-Star campaign he put up last season. After three years of careful workload management — a span during which he struck out 258 in 192.2 innings but never threw over 85 innings in a season — Peralta broke out with career highs of 27 starts and 144.1 innings in 2021. Among NL pitchers with at least 140 innings, his 2.81 ERA placed sixth and his 3.12 FIP was seventh. His 33.6% strikeout rate was third behind only teammate Corbin Burnes and Max Scherzer, and his 24.0% strikeout-walk differential was good for fourth behind that pair and Aaron Nola. Only a late-season bout of shoulder inflammation, for which Peralta spent 15 days on the injured list and had a few shortened starts on either side, put a damper on his strong campaign and prevented him from down-ballot consideration in the Cy Young voting. Read the rest of this entry »