This will sound ridiculous, but I have a hipster-ish choice for my favorite Los Angeles Angel. Trout and Ohtani? They’re fine, I guess, if you like generational superstars. Rendon? Ward? If we’re really reaching, Tyler Anderson? Again, I’m not against them, they’re just not exactly my taste. My favorite Angel? It’s none other than David Fletcher, a man ripped from the Deadball era and placed on the infield dirt in Anaheim.

How could you not love Fletcher? His skill set is delightful and also mind-boggling. In a power-mad era, he has none to speak of; he’s managed nearly as many triples as homers in his career. He hits nearly anything he swings at, particularly when he cuts his already short swing down with two strikes; he has a career strikeout rate in the single digits and comically low swinging strike rates. Fletcher often looks like he’s playing a different sport than the other guys on his team, but he’s so good at what he does that he was able to put together a three-year run of above-average play with first-percentile exit velocity.

Sadly, those three years are now in the past. Fletcher was ineffective in 2021 and then injured in 2022. His high-wire act worked for a long time, but in the end the numbers didn’t quite add up. Pitchers pounded the zone so much that he started swinging more to protect himself from called strikeouts, but that eventually drove his chase rate up and walk rate down, and the rest was history. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 18th 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 St. Louis Cardinals.

Batters

Yesterday, I compared the Seattle Mariners to the St. Louis Cardinals. Today, it’s time for the real thing. The Cardinals possess that extra thumper I wish the Mariners had in the form of Paul Goldschmidt. Otherwise, the lineups don’t look all that dissimilar: Nolan Arenado plays an older superstar third base version of Julio Rodríguez while the rest of the lineup is low-key, solid, and not particularly exciting, at least at the plate. The Cardinals are rarely a bad team, and it would be tremendously challenging for them to be one in 2023. Want to know one of my favorite freak stats? The last time the Cardinals ranked worse than 20th in baseball in wRC+ was in 1978. From Whiteyball to Jockettynomics to Moneyball to Mozeliakanalia, the Cards almost always manage to score runs.

In any given season, Arenado and Goldschmidt will compete to be the best at their respective positions. Still, I would take the under on our depth charts’ playing time projections, as both are at the age where declines in playing time due to injury are expected, especially Goldschmidt. Add in Tommy Edman, who may be the most underrated shortstop in baseball, and better-than-league average performances pretty much everywhere else, and this is a team that should dominate every NL Central team other than the Brewers.

The Cards are so solid that they’re almost uninteresting, just as Mike Trout can sometimes seem a bit boring compared to more volatile (and flawed) stars. If there’s a weakness here, it might be the lack of usable depth in the high minors to serve as midseason reinforcements. Jordan Walker’s projection looks a little disappointing on the surface, but ZiPS has him with huge upside numbers in 2024 and beyond. The role player depth is thinner, though; a lot of the usual cast of Triple-A hangers-on have moved on in minor league free agency and ZiPS isn’t particularly impressed with additions like Taylor Motter and Juniel Querecuto. But there’s still time for the Cardinals to add more NRIs, so I wouldn’t necessarily call this a done deal.

Pitchers

You’ll notice a bit of a disconnect between the pitching staff’s projected WAR and ERA figures, with the latter a lot more fun than the former. This is a relic of the team’s outstanding defensive projections, even with Harrison Bader in New York. As a result, the ERAs are a lot lower than the FIPs across the board, and while ZiPS WAR gives more credit to a pitcher than just using FIP, in this case it’s mostly the defense.

That’s not to say the Cards have a bad rotation — it just lacks the exciting highlights the offense possesses. Once you accept that there’s a good chance that peak Jack Flaherty isn’t coming back, there’s nobody here who really blows you away, except maybe Jordan Montgomery during his run late last summer. It’s a quietly competent starting five and there’s more depth in the upper minors than there is with the lineup.

The biggest disagreements between ZiPS and Steamer appear to be in the bullpen. Where Steamer views the team’s bullpen as middle of the pack, ZiPS much prefers the team’s second-tier relievers, seeing Chris Stratton, Génesis Cabrera, and Andre Pallante as plus contributors, while Steamer thinks of them as closer to replacement level. Only the season will sort out which computer is correct.

My think the Cards are a 89-93 win team and not quite in the tier of the very best in baseball, but ZiPS disagrees, putting St. Louis in the same range as the Padres, Astros, Braves, Dodgers, and Mets. My personal feeling is that the Cards really need a true ace at the top of the rotation, but perhaps that’s just my inclination to play devil’s advocate. ZiPS has beat me before (see the Tigers last year!).

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2023 due to injury, and players who were released in 2022. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Death Dixieland Bubblegum Ska-Funk band, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.22, above 2022’s level of offense but lower than other years. Pitchers who appear to have a fairly definite change in the majors from start-to-relief or vice-versa from these projections will receive reconfigured updates in the spring.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 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.

A bat-first shortstop with some pop and a first name that some writers interpreted as a typographical error, Jhonny Peralta spent 15 seasons in the majors (2003-17) while helping all three franchises he played for — Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis — make the playoffs at least once. Though he struggled in his first exposure to the majors, he soon supplanted longtime fan favorite Omar Vizquel, impressing teammates and executives with his poise and establishing himself as part of a contending club’s youthful core.

Peralta made three All-Star teams, all in his late 20s and early 30s, though his career was tarnished due to a 50-game suspension for receiving performance-enhancing drugs from Biogenesis, the Miami-based anti-aging clinic whose most famous baseball client, Alex Rodriguez, received a full-season suspension. That Peralta was able to return to the Tigers in time to participate in their 2013 playoff run, and that he signed the biggest contract of his career shortly afterwards, caused controversy within the game and played a part in increasing PED penalties — which might be the most lasting part of his legacy. Read the rest of this entry »

Along with Johnny Evers and Joe Tinker — they of Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance fame — Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker are the most-storied double-play combination in baseball history. As well they should be. The Detroit Tigers duo played more games together (1,918) than any middle-infield duo in history. Moreover, they combined for 11 All-Star appearances, seven Gold Gloves, seven Silver Sluggers, and they won a World Series together. Both are icons for a franchise that has played in the American League since 1901.

Tinker and Evans, who played together with the Chicago Cubs from 1902-1912, are both in the Hall of Fame. So is Trammell. Meanwhile — this for reasons best explained as inexplicable — Whitaker is not. His exclusion stands as one of Cooperstown’s most glaring omissions.

Whitaker has more WAR and a higher JAWS score than a number of Hall of Fame second basemen, but that can be a debate for another day. For now, let’s focus on how he compares to Evers.

Whitaker: 2,369 hits, 244 home runs, 118 wRC+, 68.1 WAR.
Evers: 1,659 hits, 12 home runs, 109 wRC+, 49.0 WAR.

While Evers’s numbers are anything but great, it should be noted that he won an MVP award and played for three World Series-winning teams (the Cubs twice and the Boston Braves once). That said, it’s highly unlikely that he would be in the Hall of Fame were he not part of a legendary double-play combination (he and Tinker were Old-Timers-Committee selections in the same year). How they became legendary is, of course, a big part of the story. The poem penned in 1910 by sportswriter Franklin Pierce Adams reads: Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 1006

In the first show of 2023, we welcome back a beat writer friend to talk Cardinals before introducing a new series on the podcast.

• At the top of the program, David Laurila is joined by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (and The Best Podcast in Baseball), who last appeared on episode 903. The duo discuss whether Nolan Arenado deserves the title of the best all-around player in the National League, while contemplating if Paul Goldschmidt may have claim as the best hitter in the circuit. David and Derrick also talk about players on this year’s Hall of Fame ballot like Bobby Abreu and Gary Sheffield, and how Derrick has been listening to FanGraphs Audio in recent weeks for insight while preparing his own ballot. [4:34]
• In the second half, Ben Clemens debuts his new series FanGraphs Backstories. Ben will be interviewing FanGraphs staff to discuss how they came to the site and what their favorite baseball memories are, and senior writer Jay Jaffe is first up. Jay shares how he never would have imagined he’d end up at FanGraphs after his early days at Baseball Prospectus, what his time at Sports Illustrated was like, and how truly unforgettable Nolan Ryan was to a young fan. [43:32]

To purchase a FanGraphs membership for yourself or as a gift, click here.

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Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @dhhiggins on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximate 1 hour 9 minute play time.)

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The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 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.

Francisco Rodríguez wasn’t the only rookie who played a key part as the Angels won their lone championship in 2002. John Lackey, a 24-year-old former second-round pick, had arrived in late June and spent the rest of the season in the rotation, then pitched credibly in a swingman role in the postseason. After the Angels rallied to overcome a 5-0 deficit and win Game 6 of the World Series, it was Lackey who got the call for Game 7, and he delivered, throwing five strong innings and departing with a 4-1 lead that the bullpen — Brendan Donnelly, Rodríguez, and Troy Percival — held. Lackey was the first rookie to win a Game 7 since the Pirates’ Babe Adams in 1909.

That was the first of three times Lackey started for a World Series winner over the course of his 15 major league seasons, making him just the third pitcher ever to do so. He only made one All-Star team, but as a rotation regular for 10 teams that reached the playoffs, Lackey earned a reputation as a big-game pitcher. His 23 postseason starts are tied for seventh among Wild Card-era pitchers, and tied for fourth since the turn of the millennium; in the latter span, he’s the only pitcher to start and win two World Series clinchers. In 134 postseason innings, he pitched to a 3.29 ERA, 0.63 runs per nine lower than his regular season mark. In the final start of his career, he pitched a gem to help the Cubs clinch the 2017 NL Central title.

Standing 6-foot-6 and 235 pounds, Lackey was an intimidating presence, even with a fastball that topped out in the low 90s. He was a fierce competitor but sometimes a polarizing figure, particularly for his mannerisms on the mound, which were sometimes interpreted as showing up his fielders. “Perhaps no man is more hated in the AL East — or more troubled,” wrote Grantland’s Chris Jones in 2011. That may have been over the top, but “a noted red-ass,” to use the words of ESPN’s Tim Keown? Surely. Read the rest of this entry »

Jordan Walker is no. 8 on our Top 100 thanks largely to his bat. As our lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen wrote in July, the 6-foot-5, 220-pound St. Louis Cardinals outfield prospect “is one of the most exciting young hitters in the minors, with elite power potential and superlative on-paper performance at Double-A while he’s still not old enough to have a beer.” At season’s end, the 20-year-old Stone Mountain, Georgia native boasted a .306/.388/.510 slash line, with 19 home runs and a 128 wRC+.

His tool set also includes a plus arm, which this writer witnessed firsthand during an Arizona Fall League game. Fielding a ball deep in the right field corner, Walker gunned a strike to second base that had me harkening back to the days of Dwight Evans and Dave Parker. A throw I wasn’t on hand to see was arguably even more impressive. As MLB.com’s Jesse Borek reported in mid-October, Walker “cut the ball loose at 99.5 mph, a throw harder than any by a St. Louis Cardinals outfielder since Statcast began to keep track in 2015.”

Shortly after talking to Walker’s close friend and AZL teammate Masyn Winn — featured here at FanGraphs on Tuesday — I approached the organization’s top-rated prospect to talk about his two most eye-catching assets: his bat and his arm. Read the rest of this entry »

Masyn Winn has a high ceiling as a position player. Rated the best athlete in the St. Louis system by Baseball America, the 20-year-old shortstop is No. 2 in our Cardinals prospects rankings and No. 55 in our Top 100. Drafted 54th overall in 2020 out of Kingwood (Tex.) High School, Winn is coming off of a season where he slashed .283/.364/.468 with 12 home runs and 43 stolen bases between High-A Peoria and Double-A Springfield. His summer included an appearance in the 2022 All-Star Futures Game.

He could very well be a pitcher… or a two-way player. As our lead prospect evaluator Eric Longenhagen explained back in July, Winn “was a two-way amateur with huge arm strength,” and while no one was projecting him as the next Shohei Ohtani — a unicorn, he’s not — there is no denying his unique skillset. Winn had a throw from shortstop clocked at 100.5 mph during the Futures Game.

Winn discussed his pitching background and the possibility of him one day returning to the mound during his October/November stint in the Arizona Fall League.

———

David Laurila: I’m especially interested in your positional background. Why are you an infielder now, and not a pitcher?

Masyn Winn: “I’m not a pitcher because the Cardinals and I decided that’s the easier route to go. Hitting… I mean, it’s a lot easier to pick the glove back up and go back on the mound than it is to pick a bat back up. In our thought process, if I make it as a hitter, that’s fantastic. If not, I’ll just fall back to pitching. I think that’s a good plan because of how hard hitting is. Taking a couple years off and then trying to go back to it would be a little tough.”

Laurila: When was the decision made?

Winn: “I ended up throwing one inning at the end of last year. We were going to do a throwing program the last six weeks or so, but I ended up tweaking my arm a little bit, so during the offseason we decided to shut it down and just focus on hitting.” Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe catching isn’t as demanding and difficult a profession as lumberjacking or deep sea fishing, but it’s hard, man. There aren’t many people out there who can live up to the position’s enormous physical and intellectual demands, fewer still can do all that and hit at a level that registers as more than “automatic out” to opposing pitchers.

Even in the latter reaches of this year’s postseason, guys like Austin Hedges, Yadier Molina, and Martín Maldonado kept getting starts because they were a safe pair of hands behind the plate, even as the outs piled up at a rate that would’ve been unacceptable at any other position. Surefire two-way stars like J.T. Realmuto, Will Smith, and Adley Rutschman are rarer than at any other position, and the ranks of first-division starters swell and wane as a Jose Trevino suddenly learns how to hit, or an Austin Nola’s throwing becomes problematic.

So when a catcher comes along who can hit — like, really hit — that’s a rare thing. Even if the defense isn’t ideal, a catcher with a dangerous bat is worth, well, let’s ask the St. Louis Cardinals. Turns out they think it’s worth the five years and $87.5 million they just gave Willson Contreras. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 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 homers 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 Hallworthy numbers? At the very least it appears likely to keep him from getting elected this year. What remains to be seen is whether voters treat him like Rafael Palmeiro and banish him for a big mistake (a positive PED test) in the final season of an otherwise impressive career, or like Roberto Alomar and withhold the honor of first-ballot induction for an out-of-character incident (spitting at an umpire) before giving him his due. Read the rest of this entry »