I updated the Top 100 Prospects list today. This post goes through the pitchers and why they stack the way they do. Here’s a link directly to the list, and here’s a link to the post with a little more detail regarding farm system and prospect stuff and the trade deadline. It might be best for you to open a second tab and follow along, so here are the Top 100 pitchers isolated away from the bats. Let’s get to it.
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Today, we have a two-fer of Killers lists covering a couple of key defensive positions, specifically the hot corner and behind the plate. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 9.5%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — I have also incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. That may suggest that some of these teams will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because their performance at that spot thus far is worth a look.

Cubs

Following the free agent departure of Willson Contreras, last year the catching corps of Yan Gomes, Tucker Barnhart, and rookie Miguel Amaya ranked 21st in WAR. Heading into this season, it made at least some sense on paper to have the 25-year-old Amaya — a former Top 100 prospect who lost significant development time to the pandemic and November 2021 Tommy John surgery — get more playing time while moving the 37-year-old Gomes, whose framing metrics had declined, into a backup role. Unfortunately, both have been terrible. Amaya has hit just .201/.266/.288 (59 wRC+) with average-ish defense (good blocking, poor throwing) en route to -0.1 WAR. Gomes was even worse both at the plate (.154/.179/.242, 15 wRC+) and behind it (-5 DRS, -4 FRV, -3.9 FRM) before getting released on June 21, replaced by Tomás Nido, who had just been released by the Mets. Nido has hit .202/.229/.331 (57 wRC+) overall but is just 4-for-41 as a Cub. Defensively, he’s got a mixed bag of metrics, though he’s been a whisker above average framing-wise. Read the rest of this entry »

The National League Wild Card race is wide open, with eight of the league’s 15 teams separated by a grand total of four and a half games in the standings. Five of those teams are currently below .500, their flaws on display on a daily basis — and some of those teams are at a particular disadvantage when it comes to their defenses.

On Wednesday, I investigated what a handful of the major defensive metrics — Defensive Runs Saved, Ultimate Zone Rating, Statcast’s Fielding Run Value (FRV), and our catcher framing metric (hereafter abbreviated as FRM, as it is on our stat pages) — told us about the teams with the best defenses. Some of them appear to be playoff-bound, while others are barely hanging onto hope thanks in part to those defenses, among them the Diamondbacks. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been five weeks since Major League Baseball unveiled its first trove of bat tracking data. In that time, we’ve learned that Giancarlo Stanton swings hard, Luis Arraez swings quickly, and Juan Soto is a god who walks among us unbound by the irksome laws of physics and physiology. We’ve learned that Jose Altuve really does have the swing of a man twice his size, and that Oneil Cruz has the swing of a slightly less enormous man. Mostly, though, we’ve learned when and where batters swing their hardest. This is my fourth article about bat tracking data, and in gathering data for the previous three, I constantly found myself stuck in one particular part of the process: controlling for variables.

As baseball knowledge has advanced from the time of Henry Chadwick to the time of Tom Tango, we first found better, more descriptive ways to measure results. We went from caring about batting average to caring about OPS. We found better ways to weight the smaller results that add up to big ones, going from ERA to FIP and from OPS to wRC+. Then we got into the process behind those results. We moved to chase rates and whiff rates, and the ratio of fly balls to groundballs. With the advent of Statcast, we’ve been able to get deeper than ever into process. We can look at the physical characteristics of a pitch, just a single pitch, and model how well it will perform. Within a certain sample size, we can look at a rookie’s hardest-hit ball, just that one ball, and predict his future wRC+ more accurately than if we looked at the wRC+ from his entire rookie season.

Similarly, when I looked at average swing speed and exit velocity from the first week of bat tracking, I found that swing speed was more predictive of future exit velocity. Exit velocity is the result of several processes: You can’t hit the ball hard unless you swing hard and square the ball up, and you can’t square the ball up if you pick terrible pitches to hit. Between 2015 and 2023, our database lists 511 qualified batters. I measured the correlation between their average exit velocity and their wRC+ over that period. R = .63 and R-squared = .40. But because bat tracking takes us one more step away from results and toward process, it’s further divorced from overall success at the plate. The day after bat speed data was first released, Ben Clemens ran some correlation coefficients between some overall metrics of success. He found a correlation of .11 between average swing speed and wRC+. Now that we have more data, I re-ran the numbers and found that correlation has increased to .25. That’s a big difference, but over the same period, the correlation between wRC+ and average exit velocity is .47.

If you want to know how hard a batter is swinging, you’ll find that it’s dependent on the count, the type of pitch, the velocity of the pitch, the location of the pitch, the depth of contact, and whether contact takes place at all. As a result, if you want to measure any one factor’s effect on swing speed, you need to control for so, so many others. The more I’ve sorted through the data, the more I’ve come to appreciate the old adage that pitchers control the action. Bat tracking shows us just how right people are when they say that hitting is reactive. It shows us that different pitches essentially require different swings.

When Tess Taruskin started putting together her Visual Scouting Primer series, she asked around for scouting terms and concepts that people had a hard time picturing. Barrel variability was at the top of my list. I know that Eric Longenhagen is giving a glowing compliment when he says that a player can move his barrel all around the zone, but I’ve always had trouble picturing that. Maybe it’s because of the way I played the game when I was younger, but I’ve never really understood the concept of a grooved swing. When I was digging through the bat tracking data, seeing the effect of the pitch type, the location, and where in space the batter has to get the barrel in order to make solid contact, it finally clicked.

There’s obviously a reason that every hitter has a book, a certain way that pitchers try to get them out. I’m just not sure I ever connected it quite so clearly to the physical act of swinging, the flexibility, quickness, strength, and overall athleticism required to execute a competitive swing on different kinds of pitches in different locations. And that’s before we even get to the processing speed, judgment, and reaction time that comes with recognizing the pitch and deciding not just whether to swing, but how to attack the ball. Bat tracking highlights the how.

There are a million ways to succeed at the plate. Derek Jeter used an inside-out swing to send the ball the other way. Isaac Paredes uses an inside-even-further-inside swing, reaching out and hooking everything he can down the line. Chas McCormick and Austin Riley time their swings in order to drive a fastball to the right field gap and pull anything slower toward left. Arraez, like Tony Gwynn before him, stays back and places the ball in the exact spot that he feels like placing it. Ted Williams preached a slightly elevated swing, making him the progenitor of today’s Doug Latta disciples, who try to get on plane with the ball early and meet it out front, where their bat is on an upward trajectory. Some players talk about trying to hit the bottom of the ball in order to create backspin and carry. I could go on and on. But no matter what school of thought batters subscribe to, they’re not the ones who decide what kind of pitch is coming. Bat tracking data show us just how adaptable their swing has to be. Here’s a map of the 13 gameday zones, broken down by the average speed of competitive swings in each zone for right-handed batters.

The batter can bend at the waist and drop his bat head on a low pitch, especially inside. A high pitch requires a flatter swing, and it’s much more about pure rotational speed. An outside pitch requires hitting the ball deeper, where the bat might not have reached full speed yet, but it also allows the batter to get his arms extended. I just described three different skills, and there are plenty more that we could dive into. Because every batter is an individual, each will be better or worse at some of them than others.

At the moment when all this clicked, I thought of Shohei Ohtani. Ohtani hits plenty of balls that are very obviously gone from the second he makes contact. But he also hits some of the most awkward home runs imaginable, swings that end up with his body contorted in some weird way that makes it seem impossible that he managed to hit the ball hard. He looks like he’s stepping in the bucket and spinning off the ball, he looks like he’s simply throwing out his bat to foul off an outside pitch, or he looks like he’s just not swinging very hard, and yet the ball ends up over the fence. Somehow this ball left the bat at 106.4 mph and traveled 406 feet.

It might appear that this swing was all upper body. However, a swing is a little bit like cracking a whip, where you’re working from the bottom up to send all of the energy to the very end of the line. Some hitters are better than others at manipulating their bodies to time that energy transfer perfectly. Here’s another way of looking at this.

On the left are the 26 homers that Cody Bellinger hit in 2023. On the right are Ohtani’s 44 homers. I realize that because Ohtani hit 18 more, his chart looks more robust. But it’s not just about the number of dots. It’s about the spread. I’m not trying to pick on Bellinger. I used him in part because he had a great season. I found his pitch chart by searching for players with the highest percentage of home runs in the very middle of the strike zone. At 46%, Bellinger had the highest rate of anyone who hit 20 home runs. If you make a mistake in the middle of the zone, he’ll destroy it. On the other hand, Ohtani is capable of hitting the ball hard just about anywhere. It’s even clearer if you look at the two players’ heat maps on hard-hit balls from last season.

Bellinger has never been the same player since his 2019 MVP campaign, and it’s generally assumed that the significant injuries that followed affected his swing. He can still do major damage, but on a smaller subset of pitches. This is one of the reasons that scouts focus so much on flexibility and athleticism and take the time to describe the swings of prospects as grooved or adaptable, long or short, rotational or not, top-hand or bottom-hand dominant. These things may not matter much in batting practice, but if there’s any kind of pitch you can’t handle, the game will find it. The best hitters find a way to get off not just their A-swing, but a swing that can succeed against whatever pitch is heading toward them.

These are the saddest of possible words,
Bryant to Báez to Rizzo.
Seeing projected WAR cut into thirds,
Bryant to Báez to Rizzo.
Quickly declining in other team’s hats,
by plate discipline or by powerless bats,
concussions and sore backs turn comebacks to splats,
Bryant to Báez to Rizzo.

The 2016 season was one of the greatest in the history of the Chicago Cubs, a franchise that dates back to 1870, before the National League even existed. After winning the World Series and ending a championship drought that dated back to 1908, there were a lot of reasons to think this team would continue to make deep playoff runs for another five or six years. Sure, they had a fairly old starting rotation, with only Kyle Hendricks expected to stick around for a while, but the lineup looked like it was equipped for a long stretch of dominance. Addison Russell was 22, Javier Báez and Kyle Schwarber were each 23, Kris Bryant, Jorge Soler, and Willson Contreras were all 24, and Anthony Rizzo was still just 26. The team’s big free agent signing from the previous winter, Jason Heyward, didn’t have a good first season in Chicago, but at 26, a bounce-back campaign wasn’t out of the question. Still, this version of the Chicago Cubs would turn out to only have four postseason wins and a single playoff series win (the 2017 NLDS) left in them. What’s more, the three brightest stars in that constellation, Bryant, Báez, and Rizzo, were all traded at the 2021 deadline ahead of reaching free agency. Now, years later, each faces a very uncertain future. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) this week. I’m not sure if this is by design or simply a scheduling coincidence, but this week was full of compelling matchups between current rivals. The Cubs and Cardinals squared off. So did the Yankees and Orioles. The Guardians and Mariners aren’t exactly rivals, but their series rocked too, and I’m sad I couldn’t find a way to squeeze them in this week. That said, there’s a ton to talk about, so let’s get to it, after our usual nod to Zach Lowe of ESPN, who is surely enjoying a well-deserved vacation after the conclusion of the NBA season. To baseball!
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Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

Things have taken a rough turn for the Chicago Cubs since the end of April. Over the weekend, they lost three of their four games against the Reds, lowering their record to 32-34 ahead of their upcoming a three-game set against the Rays in Tampa Bay.

The Cubs started strong, with a 17-9 record that ranked third in the National League, but their 17-0 loss to the Red Sox on April 27 kicked off a nightmarish 15-25 run. Since then, only the putrid White Sox have fewer wins than their crosstown rivals during that 40-game stretch. So what’s gone wrong? And what can the Cubs do to fix it? We’ll get to that second, more complicated question a bit later, but before we do, let’s answer that first one because it’s pretty simple. What’s gone wrong? Pretty much everything.

Since April 27, the Cubs rank 25th in the majors with an 87 wRC+, down from the sixth-ranked 112 wRC+ they posted across their first 26 games. Meanwhile, over their last 40 games, their pitching staff has a 4.14 ERA, which ranks 19th. Their bullpen has been especially bad, with a 4.90 ERA that is the fourth-worst mark in the majors during that span. Even fielding the ball has been a struggle; despite having reigning Gold Glovers Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner at the middle infield positions, Chicago has been among the seven worst defensive clubs in the majors, with -20 DRS and -10 OAA.

Jed Hoyer’s tenure as president of baseball operations has been defined by building depth and accruing volume rather than star power. Despite running one of the four franchises valued at $4 billion or more, Hoyer hasn’t signed a player to a contract larger than Swanson’s $177 million, and as things stand, he has not doled out a deal worth $30 million for a single season. (If Cody Bellinger opts out after the season, the Cubs will pay him a total of $30 million, but that technically wouldn’t be $30 million for one year; rather, Bellinger would earn $25 million in 2024, with a $5 million buyout allocated to 2025.)

Obviously, there aren’t any marquee free agents to sign right now, and it remains to be seen if the Cubs will be in the market for the best available players this coming offseason. (As of now, Juan Soto and Corbin Burnes look like the only two who’ll command average annual values of $30 million or more.) But letting perfect contract terms be the enemy of good teams has arguably been what’s prevented the Cubs from making the postseason in every non-COVID year since 2019. The team was at least loosely connected to Bryce Harper, Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts, and Carlos Correa in their free agent years, all of whom besides Bogaerts would be the Cubs’ best player right now. Of course, there are more factors to signing a free agent besides offering the most money — Turner preferred being out east, for example — but the Cubs’ inability, or perhaps lack of desire, to even get close to finalizing deals with elite free agents may well be directly contributing to what has been a middling team for the past handful of seasons.

This is not to say that all the Cubs’ recent signings haven’t worked out. The Swanson deal looked great last year when he hit 22 home runs, posted a 104 wRC+, and was worth 4.4 WAR; we shouldn’t lose sight of that just because he’s struggled this year. Similarly, Chicago’s decision to sign Shota Imanaga was brilliant. Although he didn’t come to the U.S. with the same hype as Yamamoto, and therefore came cheaper, Imanaga has been arguably the best pitcher from last offseason’s free agent class.

But along with those two astute signings, there are plenty of others for “middle-class” free agents that haven’t worked out, among them are the deals for pitchers Jameson Taillon, Drew Smyly, Michael Fulmer, Brad Boxberger, first baseman/DH Trey Mancini, and catcher Tucker Barnhart. Settling for these value deals for mid-tier players has led to Chicago’s middling performances. The Cubs can afford to spend more than they have under Hoyer, and part of the reason why they are floundering now is because they don’t have enough high-end talent to contend with the best teams. To get star-level players, you need to pay star-level prices. Maybe those prices are excessive and don’t make sense according to dollars-per-WAR calculations, but they’re often necessary to assemble a winning roster, especially for the clubs that have the financial flexibility overpay for players. As Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman once said, being rational doesn’t consummate many deals. That sentiment can also be applied to trades — the Cubs haven’t swung a significant one on the buying side since acquiring Jose Quintana during the 2017 season.

Andrew Friedman: "If you're always rational about every free agent, you will finish third on every free agent."

— Andy McCullough (@ByMcCullough) December 6, 2016

That hesitation to swing major trades has had a positive effect, though, in that it’s given the Cubs an incredibly deep farm system. In their piece on the Cubs’ top prospects, Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin described the organization’s minor league system as “one of the very best” in MLB, noting that the franchise has more top 100 prospects (9) than any other team.

But, having a great farm system doesn’t mean much if you’re not going to use your prospects either to beef up your big league club or trade them for impactful players on other teams.

The Cubs have already tried the former, to mixed results. Three of their nine top 100 prospects are already on the major league roster: first baseman Michael Busch, who has a solid 123 wRC+ at first base; Pete Crow-Armstrong, who has struggled at the plate (60 wRC+) but is already one of the league’s finest center fielders (4 OAA, 6 DRS); and Jordan Wicks, whose peripherals (4.01 xERA and 3.23 FIP) indicate that he’s been better than his 4.44 ERA in five starts and a relief appearance would suggest. The problem is that none of them, at least right now, are enough to help the Cubs break through.

So where do the Cubs go from here? Well, they probably can’t look within the organization to stop the bleeding. Outfielder Owen Caissie, their sixth-ranked prospect and no. 69 overall, is tearing it up in Triple-A right now (130 wRC+ in 238 plate appearances), but he’s the only one of their six top 100 prospects still in the minors who is close to being ready for the big leagues. Instead, the best way to fix things for this season would probably involve trading away at least one of their top four prospects: Crow-Armstrong, right-hander Cade Horton (currently out with a lat strain), infielder Matt Shaw, and outfielder Kevin Alcántara.

If the Cubs don’t think they can sign Soto or Burnes, trading for established stars is really their only path to acquiring a player who could drastically improve the floor and ceiling of a roster that’s more quantity than quality, with Bellinger, Christopher Morel, and Seiya Suzuki showing flashes of stardom but not on a consistent basis. The Cubs haven’t had consistent All-Star performers on offense since the days of Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo; on the pitching side, they haven’t had a single ace-level starter since Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta and Kyle Hendricks in their peaks — though Imanaga certainly appears on his way. They haven’t had a closer last an entire season in the role since Wade Davis in 2017.

Ultimately, if the goal is to win — and with Craig Counsell at the helm for $8 million a year, it certainly ought to be — then acquiring a true anchor for the roster is paramount. But if the team appears too flawed for a single star player like Luis Robert Jr., or Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to make a difference, then the best course of action might be to further augment the farm system by selling before this year’s trade deadline, even if they only trade rental relievers like Smyly and Héctor Neris. They could then finally make this coming offseason the one where they get aggressive rather than shrewd, going to the market instead of waiting for it to come to them. If they went all in and signed Soto, he’d be the best hitter they’ve had in decades. And despite some of the questions about the long-term viability of Pete Alonso, he’d certainly be the team’s biggest power threat since Sammy Sosa. With either or both of those stars on the roster, the Cubs would be able to let the top players in their farm system develop while contributing in supporting roles instead of having to fulfill their potential right away.

Whether it comes now, at the deadline, or in the offseason, the Cubs need to do something different. Going back to the well with good-not-great players is how you get good-not-great teams.

Matt Vierling has been swinging a hot bat with the Detroit Tigers. Over his last 11 games, the 27-year-old third baseman/outfielder is 16-for-41 with four doubles, a triple, four home runs, and 13 RBIs. His slash line over the span is .390/.435/.829 bringing his seasonal mark to a solid .292/.324/.509. While by no means an offensive force, he has nonetheless been an integral part of the lineup. Since being acquired by Detroit from Philadelphia prior to last season as part of the five-player Gregory Soto swap. Vierling has the second-most hits (175) on the team, and a respectable 106 wRC+.

Defensive versatility adds to Vierling’s value — his big-league ledger includes games at 3B, 2B, CF, RF, and LF — and there is a chance that another non-DH position could eventually be added to the list. Given the right circumstances, he might even pitch. It would be familiar territory. Vierling thrived on the mound as a prep, then was a two-way player at the University of Notre Dame from 2016-2018.

A Perfect Game showcase in Minneapolis is a standout memory for the St. Louis, Missouri native. Vierling recalls Carson Kelly’s brother, Parker, being one of his teammates, while Ke’Bryan Hayes and Josh Naylor — “I pitched against him if I remember correctly” — were among his notable opponents. Playing well against that type of talent garnered him attention from colleges and professional scouts alike, and while his bat showed promise, it was the arm that stood out the most. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. I’m not sure that Zach Lowe, the progenitor of this format and an incredible NBA writer, ever thought that it would get spun off into baseball. I’m certain that he didn’t think it would get spun off into baseball by someone who likes both popups and bunts an unhealthy amount. But here we are. Speaking of which, I know what you’re thinking: What does Ben think about the two catcher’s interference infield flies from this week? I thought they were more annoying than amusing, and that’s not what we’re about here at Five Things. So let’s talk about a far more delightful popup, plus some infield hits, pretty pitches, and exciting series.

1. A Schwarbloop
Kyle Schwarber hits majestic home runs. Sometimes they hang in the air for an improbable length of time. Sometimes they get out of the park before you can blink. Not only is there a name for them – Schwarbombs – but Wawa even makes a drink named after them. You can’t get any more Philadelphia than that.
Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

The Blue Jays haven’t yet crashed into a windowpane, never to recover, but 23-26 certainly isn’t what was expected of them entering the season. Before the season, our playoff odds gave them 49% chance to make the postseason. Toronto’s odds peaked at 57.9% on April 22, but since then, the team has fallen off. As of this morning, the Blue Jays have a 24.0% probability to make the playoffs. That leaves them with some serious decisions to make over the next two or so months before the July 30 deadline. Considering their current situation, let’s take a look at their options if they choose not to bolster their big league roster by the end of July.

Stand Pat

This is the most straightforward option: Don’t do anything and hope for some improvements. Every hitter other than Daulton Varsho, Davis Schneider, and Danny Jansen has underperformed this year, and maybe the Blue Jays can stay in the hunt long enough for their bats to catch fire. The organization may determine this is its best option simply because their players probably would have less trade value while they are playing below expectations. If the return package isn’t what the Blue Jays want, why not stay they course?

Only Sell The Rentals

The Blue Jays have a whole bunch of free agents after the 2025 season. And while they could decide to trade those guys (more on this later), Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins may find it best to hold on to them and go for one last run next season. But that doesn’t take the Blue Jays out of the action at the deadline; they have several enticing players on expiring contracts to dangle to contenders.

Justin Turner has slumped horribly recently — entering last night’s game, his wRC+ in May was -21, after 152 in March/April, bringing his seasonal wRC+ down to 96 — but if he can rebound to being solidly above average, contenders would be happy to acquire his righty bat and postseason experience. The Twins, Rangers, and Rays all have gotten wRC+ values below 80 from their designated hitters, and Turner can also fill in at third base, second base, and first.

Yimi García has been one of baseball’s best relievers this season, allowing just one run in 19 innings. He’s also struck out 35% of opponents, and his xERA (1.44) and FIP (2.24) both back up his solid performance. He would make any contender’s bullpen better, and he’s always bounced around between roles, so he doesn’t have to be pigeonholed into a particular inning or situation. It is worth noting that García has never been this good before, and as Ben Clemens wrote in his column yesterday, “you can’t trade your newfound reliever for a shiny prospect,” so it’s unlikely that García alone would net the Blue Jays a strong return package. That said, if Toronto is out of the race, it might as well get something for a 33-year-old reliever who might not be with the team next year anyway.

Lefty Yusei Kikuchi is rather quietly pitching the best he ever has in the majors, with a 2.64 ERA across 10 starts and a career-low walk rate of 5.5%. Teams always need starting pitching, and his above-average rate of inducing grounders and popups will play anywhere.

Rounding out this group is Jansen, who on a rate basis has hit better than any other catcher in baseball, with a 191 wRC+ in 82 trips to the plate entering last night’s game. His injury history should scare teams a little bit; he’s never had more than 384 plate appearances in a season, and that was back in 2019. It’s also worth noting, as our associate editor Matt Martell wrote last year for the New York Times, that teams rarely trade for a catcher during the season because of the particular challenges that come with the position. Even so, I think Jansen is well-suited for the role Mitch Garver held last year with the Rangers: catching sometimes but also getting plenty of plate appearances at DH to make sure his bat stays in the lineup.

Defensive whiz Kevin Kiermaier, righty changeup specialist Trevor Richards, and lefty power bat Daniel Vogelbach round out the group of seven Blue Jays who get to fly freely at the end of the season.

Blow It Up

OK, but what if the Jays do decide to more or less tear it down? After all, it is the struggling big three hitters — Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, and George Springer — who deserve at least a decent chunk of the blame for Toronto’s underperformance. The team didn’t even get a homer from a cleanup hitter until Bichette hit one on Wednesday — 48 games into the season!

I don’t think the Blue Jays would go so far as to trade Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt, or José Berríos, since Berríos is the only one pitching particularly well this year and his opt out after 2026 may complicate things too much to work out a trade, but the rest of that group of players with club control beyond this season could be on the block, headlined by Guerrero Jr. and Bichette.

Vladdy continues to tantalize with his bullet home runs (though he has only five this year) and massive exit velocity, but as we move further and further away from it, his MVP-caliber 2021 campaign looks more like an outlier than a sign of things to come, as it surely appeared to be in its immediate aftermath. Still, he’s in just his age-25 season, and it’s absolutely plausible that another team could bring out the best in him. I’m puzzled trying to figure out what he’d bring back in a trade, since he’s making $19.9 million this year and will probably be up around $25 million next year, but let’s not overthink things. He’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and if his suitors aren’t going to give up at least one top 100 prospect for him, the Blue Jays should tell them to get lost.

Bichette is more or less the same guy at the end of every season, with a wRC+ between 120 and 130 in each of the last four years; over the last three, he’s hit 29, 24, and 20 home runs, respectively. His fielding is always below average (but not terrible), and the only skill that’s on the decline is his base-stealing, with 25 stolen bases in 2021 followed by 13 in ’22 and just five last season, though he already has four this year. On the surface, the man is a metronome, but things get … weird … under the hood. Last year, his first-half wRC+ was 132, followed by 109 in the second half. The year prior, it was just 106 in the first half before he surged to 164 after the All-Star break. That streakiness is why I’m really not concerned about his performance thus far this year; the dude is bound to get hot at some point! It would be foolish of teams to just assume things will even out, but they shouldn’t read too much into his slow start, either. A contending team in need of a shortstop this year, such as the Giants or Guardians, would certainly be interested.

The Blue Jays would get far more modest returns for right-handed closer Jordan Romano, righty relievers Chad Green and Erik Swanson, lefty relievers Tim Mayza and Génesis Cabrera, and utilitymen Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Cavan Biggio, but they could be used as an add-on piece to sweeten the return in a trade for one of Toronto’s top players or to acquire prospect depth in a separate deal. After all, the Blue Jays’ farm system has just two Top 100 Prospects: lefty pitcher Ricky Tiedemann and infielder Orelvis Martinez.

I’m not here to advocate for Toronto to take any particular path; I’m just laying out the options. The worst plan for the Blue Jays would be not having one.

Weekend Windup

Here are some things to keep an eye on as we head into the long Memorial Day weekend:

• Ketel Marte looks to extend his 21-game hitting streak — the longest in the majors this season — when the Diamondbacks begin a three-game set at home tonight against the Marlins. Lefty Braxton Garrett gets the start for Miami, which bodes well for Marte, who is hitting .347 against lefties this year.

• The Cubs and Cardinals will finally meet for the first time this year, opening a three-game set tonight at Busch Stadium. The Cardinals have looked cooked for most of the first quarter of the season, but they enter the weekend just five games out of first place in the NL Central after winning eight of their last 10 games — including being the first team to sweep the Orioles in the regular season since Adley Rutschman came up two years ago.

Meanwhile, the Cubs are trending in the opposite direction after going 3-7 in their last 10 games. Still, they’re only two games behind the first-place Brewers. After a run of facing plenty of high octane starting pitchers (Jared Jones, Paul Skenes, Max Fried, Chris Sale, AJ Smith-Shawver), they’ll get to see three lower-velocity guys in Miles Mikolas, Matthew Liberatore, and Sonny Gray.

• Juan Soto returns to San Diego for the first time since the Padres traded him to the Yankees last December, and comes back to town on fire. Over his last six games, Soto is 9-for-23 (.391) with four home runs and seven RBIs. After a mini-slump dropped his average to .301 and his OPS to .917, those numbers are back to .312 and .972, respectively. He’ll be flanked in the lineup as usual by Anthony Volpe, who’s got a 16-game hitting streak, and Aaron Judge, who homered yet again on Thursday for his 15th of the season.

• Once his 10-game suspension for pitching with “sticky stuff” is over, Ronel Blanco is set to return on Sunday against the A’s. While he asserted the substance he got caught using was just rosin mixed with sweat, he’ll surely be under increased scrutiny. Blanco, who has a 2.09 ERA in eight starts so far in 2024, was the first pitcher to be suspended for foreign substances this season after four were suspended last year.

• Nick Lodolo is aiming to return to the Reds rotation on Monday, and boy could they use him. The Reds have floundered to a 4-16 record in their last 20 games, and Lodolo had a 3.34 ERA and 2.90 FIP in six starts before hitting the IL with a groin injury. That was his second IL stint this year, after he missed the season’s first couple weeks while recovering from the leg fracture that cost him most of 2023.