Troy Taylor is an under-the-radar pitcher to keep your eye on in the Seattle Mariners system. A 22-year-old right-hander who was taken in the 12th round of the 2022 draft out of the University of California Irvine, Taylor impressed evaluators in the Arizona Fall League with a two-pitch mix that has him well-positioned for a future role as a big-league reliever.

“I’m a big fan of what he can do athletically, as a mover,” said a scout I spoke to. “His stuff is good. He’s a guy who probably ends up in the bullpen with the Mariners, and sooner rather than later.”

He’s already come a long way. Taylor was an infielder at Rancho Cucamonga’s Los Osos High School, and when he did occasionally take the mound — “I closed a couple of times” — all he really did was throw as hard he could. It wasn’t until he got to Cyprus Junior College, and then to UC-Irvine, that he “actually started learning how to pitch.”

Taylor has understandably learned a lot more about the nuances of his craft since signing with Seattle, but he nonetheless remains anything but a technician. Topping out at 98 mph and typically averaging “five and some change,” he still tries to throw his heater as hard as he can. He identifies as a power pitcher.

Adding a third pitch is a goal — the Mariners have him working on a changeup to use against left-handed hitters — but his fastball-slider combination will always be his bread and butter. The former is not only his best pitch, it has unique characteristics. Read the rest of this entry »

Victor Scott II has received a lot of attention lately, and for good reason. The 22-year-old outfielder swiped 94 bases this past season between High- and Double-A, then added 18 more representing the St. Louis Cardinals in the Arizona Fall League. Moreover, his left-handed stroke produced a .303/.369/.425 slash line over 618 plate appearances against Midwest League and Texas League pitching. Flying below the radar when he was taken in the fifth round of the 2022 draft out of West Virginia University, the speedster is now widely viewed as one of the most promising players in the Cardinals’ pipeline.

The focus the Atlanta native has received lately has understandably centered on his plus-plus wheels and his improved hit tool. Neither of those subjects was broached when I spoke to Scott over the phone in early December — this a few weeks before he graduated from WVU with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies. Instead, we discussed his burgeoning music career. Scott is not only on the fast track to the big leagues, he is also an accomplished rapper.

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David Laurila: You’ve recorded a number of rap songs. Tell me about that.

Victor Scott II: “It’s something I can’t really do in-season, and I couldn’t really do at school, because I didn’t have a studio. Here at home, I can get in there with Quinn Carter — one of my best friends from back in the day — to kind of hang out and make music. It’s therapeutic. It allows me to get whatever off my mind, and also to be imaginative. It’s a cool little outlet, man. It’s great.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Mariners and Rays had a busy Friday last week, combining to make three trades involving seven players. Seattle got things started with a three-player swap with the San Francisco Giants, shipping Robbie Ray to the Bay Area in exchange for Mitch Haniger, Anthony DeSclafani, and cash considerations. Then the M’s and the Rays exchanged José Caballero and Luke Raley, before Tampa Bay finished off the day by sending Andrew Kittredge to St. Louis for Richie Palacios. Both the Mariners and Rays dealt from areas of strength to address areas of need, giving both teams greater roster clarity as the offseason moves towards spring training.

Just two years ago, the three players involved in the first trade of the day would have garnered much bigger headlines. In 2021, Ray, Haniger, and DeSclafani combined to accumulate 9.4 WAR, with Ray winning the American League Cy Young award. In the two seasons since then, however, the trio has combined for just 3.3 WAR, largely thanks to a litany of injuries. Ray was completely healthy in 2022, but he wasn’t able to replicate his award-winning performance in his first season in Seattle and then made just a single start in 2023 before needing Tommy John surgery. Haniger has never been a model of health — he’s played just two full seasons in his seven-year career — and missed time with ankle, back, oblique, and forearm injuries the past two seasons. DeSclafani managed just five starts in 2022 thanks to a recurring ankle injury, then wore down towards the end of last year with shoulder fatigue and forearm inflammation. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2024 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, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

At his listed size of 6-foot-4, 240 pounds, Matt Holliday was built like a football player. He could easily have gone in that direction, having excelled as a quarterback in high school and received scholarship offers from big-time college programs. Holliday came from a baseball-rich family, however, and his heart was on the diamond, so he chose to follow in the footsteps of his father and older brother, both of whom played professionally. He surpassed both not just by reaching the majors but by becoming a star, making seven All-Star teams in a 15-year career spent with the Rockies, A’s, Cardinals, and Yankees. He won a Coors Field-aided batting title as well as NLCS MVP honors while leading the Rockies to their only World Series berth in 2007. Winning seemed to follow Holliday, or perhaps it was the other way around; nine times in those 15 seasons his teams made the playoffs, with three trips to the World Series including a championship in 2011.

Matthew Thomas Holliday was born on January 15, 1980 in Stillwater, Oklahoma. His father, Tom Holliday, spent a year in the Pirates’ organization before pursuing coaching at the collegiate level. From 1978–96, he served as Oklahoma State University’s pitching coach and recruiting coordinator, then took over as head coach from ’97–2003. His oldest son, Josh Holliday (b. 1976), starred at Stillwater High School ahead of Matt; the two played on the same team in 1995. Josh was drafted by the Twins in the 14th round in 1995 but instead chose to go to Oklahoma State, where he played for his father and helped the team to the College World Series in ’96 and ’99. Drafted again by the Blue Jays in the ninth round in 1999, he spent two seasons playing professionally before going the college coaching route; he took over as Oklahoma State’s head coach in 2013, and still holds the job. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 20th 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

For a very long time, the Cardinals were one of the safest bets in baseball. They’ve rarely been a juggernaut in recent decades, but they almost never had disastrous seasons and could almost always be counted on to end up with somewhere between 87 and 92 wins no matter what kind of shenanigans took place during the season.

Then 2023 happened. After posting just one season below .500 in the 21st century, the Cardinals finished with 91 losses, their worst showing since 1990, which was also the last time they finished in last place in the division. Back then, the team quickly recovered and immediately got back to a winning record, though it didn’t make the playoffs again until 1996. Read the rest of this entry »

This year I had the honor of filling out a Hall of Fame ballot for the fourth time, and as was the case with the previous three, I’m taking the time to explain my reasoning. This is something that I feel every voter should do. Filling out a ballot is a privilege that demands not only due diligence, but also transparency. That said, let’s cut to the chase.

My checkmarks went next to the names of 10 players — the maximum number allowed — seven of whom are holdovers from last year, and three of whom are new to the ballot. In alphabetical order, my votes went to Bobby Abreu, Carlos Beltrán, Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, Joe Mauer, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Chase Utley, and Billy Wagner.

Yes, Andruw Jones’s name is missing from that list. No, I am not particularly pleased by his non-inclusion. The erstwhile Atlanta Braves star had received my vote three times prior, and in a perfect world he would have again this year. But it’s not a perfect world. Again, only 10 checkmarks are allowed, and with three worthy newcomers joining eight holdovers from last year’s ballot, someone had to draw the short stick. Ultimately, I decided it would be Jones.

Who might I have dropped instead? That’s a question that would require more words to answer adequately than I have room for in this column, but I will say that a certain amount of strategic thinking went into the decision. As my esteemed colleague Jay Jaffe can attest, any thoughts of my omitting Gary Sheffield (currently polling at 71.9%) were dispelled with a reminder that this is his last year on the ballot. While the likelihood of Sheffield’s reaching the required 75% threshold isn’t high, it’s also not impossible. Conversely, Jones (currently at 62.5%, a few percentage points better than last year), has three more years of eligibility left beyond this cycle. I am likely to resume voting for him 12 months from now. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, Marco Gonzales got traded twice in three days: First from Seattle to Atlanta in the Jarred Kelenic deal, then up the Denny Neagle Highway to Pittsburgh. No one has ever been more traded. You want to know how traded Gonzales is? The only other player he’s ever been traded for, Tyler O’Neill, just got traded too.

The St. Louis Cardinals, sitting on a surfeit of corner outfield types, have sent O’Neill to Boston for pitchers Nick Robertson and Victor Santos. This is not as exciting a trade as it would’ve been two years ago, when O’Neill was coming off a 5.5 WAR season, but it allows the Cardinals to turn a player they probably weren’t going to use into pitching depth. The Red Sox gain some temporary goodwill from the small subset of locals who’ll scan a headline and think that former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill has returned from the dead. Moreover, they’ve added some right-handed power to a pool of outfielders that could use some. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2024 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 kept him from first-ballot election, as he received 46.5% on the 2023 ballot — a share that has typically portended eventual election for less complicated candidates. 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 come around quickly after withholding 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 »

The St. Louis Cardinals were one of baseball’s most disappointing teams in 2023. Favored to win the NL Central, they instead finished with just 71 wins and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2018. Moreover, the losing record was wholly unfamiliar territory. Since John Mozeliak was appointed GM prior to the 2008 season (his title is now President of Baseball Operations), the Cardinals had had nothing but winning records under his watch. They reached the postseason in 10 of those seasons and twice advanced to the World Series, capturing the franchise’s 11th modern-era title in 2011.

To say that St. Louis has had sustained success under Mozeliak would be stating the obvious. Ditto that “The Cardinals Way” — the catchphrase champions the club’s adherence to fundamentals and its player development acumen — has paid dividends on a consistent basis.

What does it mean when sustained success suddenly hits a roadblock? In the Cardinals’ current case, does it represent an anomaly? Was 2023 simply a blip, or is there a need for Mozeliak’s team to change its processes in any way? I asked that question of the executive during last month’s GM meetings.

“I think it would be somewhat foolish to just approach this past year as, ‘Oh, odds have it that you’re going to lose, so it happened,’” replied Mozeliak. “You can learn from some things that happened last year. I hope everybody who is involved in this is having that reflection moment and trying to understand what we could have done differently, what we should have done differently, and what we will do differently going forward.”

Asked if he could share specifics, Mozeliak said that while some have been identified, he preferred not to call any of them out, lest he “make anybody feel bad.” He did say that he was willing to call himself out. “Adding more pitching prior going into camp, would have, in hindsight, made more sense” was the mea culpa he chose to share. Read the rest of this entry »

On the heels of their worst record since 1990, the Cardinals have made early splashes in the free-agent market, adding Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn in moves intended to stabilize their underperforming rotation in unspectacular fashion. On Monday, they made a much more impactful addition, signing Sonny Gray via a three-year, $75 million deal.

Gray, who turned 34 on November 7 and who spent the past two years with the Twins, is fresh off a one of the best seasons of his 11-year career. You wouldn’t know it by his pedestrian 8–8 won-loss record — he didn’t get good support from either his offense or his bullpen — but he made his third All-Star team and finished second to Gerrit Cole in the AL Cy Young voting. In 32 starts and 184 innings (his highest total since 2015), he posted an AL-best 2.83 FIP, placed second to Cole with a 2.79 ERA, and tied with Kevin Gausman for the AL lead with a career-high 5.3 WAR (0.1 more than Cole). All told, it was an ideal campaign for a player hitting free agency.

It’s not hard to spot two big reasons for Gray’s stellar campaign: better health and a reconfigured arsenal. He made just 50 starts in 2021–22 with the Reds and Twins, taking three trips to the injured list in each of those seasons; in ’21, he missed time due to strains of his mid-back, groin, and rib cage, and in ’22, it was his right pectoral and right hamstring (twice). He’s made at least 30 starts in a season just once in the past eight years (31 in 2019), averaging 26 starts and 147 innings in the seven full-length seasons in that span. While it’s possible the Twins just caught lightning in a bottle, he did overhaul his offseason program, as he explained last February following a season in which he felt unprepared after the end of the lockout:

“Started earlier. Changed up a little bit, for sure. Worked out. Physically tried to get stronger. Throwing was earlier. Eating habits. Vitamin habits,” Gray said. “Doing things that I’ve seen people do and I’ve learned from other people and other guys to get farther along in their career. Just changing habits and consciously being aware (that) it’ll pay off in the long run.”

As the Reds’ union representative during the negotiations for the Collective Bargaining Agreement that ended the lockout (shortly after which he was traded), Gray didn’t throw a single bullpen session during the 2021–22 offseason and then battled multiple injuries. By his estimate, he came to camp this past spring having thrown “about 15” bullpen sessions, and the effort clearly paid off. Read the rest of this entry »