About 13 months ago, just as everyone was preparing for Thanksgiving, the Mariners and Diamondbacks swung a borderline blockbuster. The big name going to Seattle was Jean Segura. The big name going to Arizona was Taijuan Walker. As the trade happened, both Dave and myself wrote about how, in the end, it could end up being the Mitch Haniger trade. All things considered, Haniger had a fairly successful 2017. There’s another player in there I’m starting to like, though, and, well, my apologies to Zac Curtis. It’s Ketel Marte. I’ve really come around on Ketel Marte.

Perhaps it’s my own fault for having underestimated his talent. In my defense, though, Marte was simply a much-improved player this past season. People have asked me several times in my chats who I think could be poised for a breakout 2018. As such, it’s long past time for me to explain why Marte has captured my attention. He could be part of the Diamondbacks core for a very long time.

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I will admit that I haven’t, at any point this winter, thought about the Diamondbacks trading Zack Greinke. They just won 93 games and reached the NLDS. They have Paul Goldschmidt under team control for two more years, but A.J. Pollock and Pat Corbin for just one. Their window to win with this group is not going to be open very long, but they haven’t made any real noise about rebuilding, at least not publicly. And if they’re going to try to win again in 2018, they probably need Zack Greinke to do it.

Right now, we have the Diamondbacks projected for 84 wins, putting them two wins behind St. Louis for the top Wild Card spot in the NL. The Cardinals are clearly looking to upgrade their roster, and are probably close to landing Marcell Ozuna from Miami, if I’m any good at reading tea leaves. There is a bit of a gap between AZ and the fringe NL contenders, so the Diamondbacks could get worse and still think they’re as good as Colorado or San Francisco, but reducing their chances of making the playoffs would be a weird strategy in Pollock’s walk year.

Of course, if they don’t move Greinke, they have no shot of re-signing Pollock, so perhaps if they thought they could free up enough money to keep Pollock in Arizona past this year, moving a good chunk of Greinke’s contract could make sense. So, yeah, if someone wants to take most of the deal, and you think you can use it to keep the rest of the core together longer, maybe that’s worth thinking about.

But there’s this rumor kicking around that has the Rangers and Diamondbacks talking about a Greinke trade that just doesn’t make much sense to me.

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There are two ways of looking at this. One, the offseason has been so slow that this is a full-length article devoted to a Diamondbacks trade for Brad Boxberger. Baseball needs to get going. Under ordinary circumstances, this might not get much attention at all. Two, thanks to the baseball offseason being so slow, this trade can get the attention it deserves. Every major-league trade is interesting, because every major-league player is talented. And Boxberger in particular could answer the Diamondbacks’ biggest problem.

Both angles have some truth to them. If things were moving faster, this might not be written as it is. But I’m still glad to be able to shed some light on what the Diamondbacks might be thinking. So: the trade!

Diamondbacks get:

• Brad Boxberger

Rays get:

• Curtis Taylor

For the Rays, it’s a matter of cashing in a player running out of team control. You know how they operate. For the Diamondbacks, it’s about trying to upgrade on the cheap. As you don’t need to be told, there’s no such thing as a truly reliable reliever. Everyone comes with a certain amount of risk and unpredictability. Boxberger might be more unreliable than average. Still, the promise is legitimate.

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Every Major League Baseball organization has players who fly below the radar. They add value — or are projected to do so in the future — yet are underappreciated, if not unnoticed, by the vast majority of fans. The same is true for coaches, and even some managers, particularly at the minor-league level. Other behind-the-scenes personnel, such as scouts, are largely invisible. Given their contributions, many of these people deserve more accolades than they get.

With that in mind, I asked a cross section of general managers and presidents of baseball operations if they could point to a person in their organization who stands out as being under the radar. With a nearly across-the-board caveat that it’s hard to name just one, all gave interesting answers.

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Chaim Bloom, Tampa Bay Rays: “I’ll go with two guys who we feel strongly about that are actually no longer on the radar, because we just put them on our big-league staff. That would be Kyle Snyder and Ozzie Timmons. They were with us in Durham for a while and have played a huge role in the development of a lot of our young players. One of the reasons we’re excited about what’s coming was on display with that club. They won a Triple-A championship with a very young team.

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Some of you might be sick of hearing about him by now, I don’t know, but I’m endlessly fascinated by the fact that Aaron Judge just put in a whole season as the best player in baseball. Now, sure, that’s just me looking at WAR, and, sure, it was only possible because Mike Trout got injured, but think about what Judge was before, and think about what he became. We like to tell ourselves that we can see the best players coming. Judge, in spring training, was a major question mark. In his initial cup of coffee, he batted .179 with almost three times as many strikeouts as hits. Judge was terrible, and then, almost without warning, he was the best. That’s incredible!

Judge is endlessly fascinating just in general. One of the other interesting things about him is the sense I get that people remain unconvinced. Like, we all saw what he did in 2017 — it was impossible not to — but the jury’s still out on what Judge really, truly *is*. The playoffs left a certain impression. Judge was a fine hitter, by the results, but he struck out a whole bunch. He almost felt exposed, and there’s some doubt here that remains.

So this is another post built around some polls. There are three polls in here, the last of which will ask who you’d rather have next season: Aaron Judge or Paul Goldschmidt? The question itself is pointless, artificial. No one will actually have to make that choice in real life, certainly not based on WAR. But I want to know what all of you think. Judge is here for obvious reasons. Goldschmidt is here because he’s been super consistent. Nobody out there is a Paul Goldschmidt skeptic. Give this post feedback! Give this post the feedback I so deeply crave.

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I’ve become atypically interested in Clayton Kershaw’s second arm slot. You know, the one where he drops from being so over the top. It is, apparently, Kershaw’s natural arm angle, but it’s not the one he took to the majors. It’s not something he ever used as a Dodger until he felt sufficiently inspired by teammate Rich Hill. Hill also drops down from time to time, and although Kershaw doesn’t drop down by so much, it’s interesting to see him messing around in the first place. Clayton Kershaw is, after all, the best starting pitcher in the world.

Players are always attempting some kind of tweak. They’re forever in search of some kind of leg up. Chris Taylor made the tweak he needed to make in order to become a quality major-league hitter. What interests me about someone like Kershaw is — a player like Taylor is strongly incentivized to improve. His career literally depended on it. Kershaw hasn’t needed to improve. Kershaw has only ever struggled relative to himself. Kershaw didn’t need to start changing up his arm angle. He wanted to try it anyway. Kershaw experimented for the sake of taking his opponent by surprise.

I love that drive that he has. It’s probably suggestive of how Kershaw got so good at all. He doesn’t want anyone to get too comfortable. To bring this all home: Kershaw has unveiled a couple surprises. Late last year, he suddenly started dropping down. And this year, one month ago, Kershaw threw a curveball. It was a special curveball.

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The postseason game is changing around us. Starting pitchers are being asked to go harder for shorter periods of time, allowing teams to begin playing matchups with the bullpen as early as the third inning. And while strategically sound in most cases, this trend has emerged without a major change in how we think about rest and schedules in the postseason. As much as we might love the high-intensity matchups that “bullpenning” provides, is it possible that pitchers are having to endure greater stress than in the past?

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Periodically, I’ll be posting notes from in-person observations at Fall Instructional League and Arizona Fall League play. Each are essentially the scouting calendar’s dessert course, both in their timing and sometimes dubious value. I take bad fall looks with a large grain of salt as players are sometimes fatigued, disinterested, put in difficult situations purposefully so that they’ll fail, or some combination of these or other bits of important context. With that in mind here are links to past notes followed by this edition’s.

Previously: 9/20 (TEX, SD), 9/21-9/23 (SD, CHW, MIL, TEX), 9/24-9/25 (CIN, TEX, LAD, CWS).

9/27

The talent at the Angels complex in Tempe has significantly improved in the last calendar year due to an influx of projectable Latin American pitching and the bevy of athletic outfielders the club has added mostly through the draft. Among those pitching this fall is RHP Stiward Aquino, a 6-foot-6, 18-year old Dominican righty. Aquino’s fastball sat in the 87-92 range but it will bump 95 and there might be more coming as he fills out. His delivery isn’t especially graceful or powerful right now — a byproduct of Aquino’s immature physicality – but it is deceptive and there’s some changeup feel here already. Aquino slots in near the bottom of a suddenly deep hierarchy of low-level Angels pitching prospects, but is worth following.

Chris Rodriguez threw this day as well and struggled. He sat 92-94 with his fastball and was up to 96, but his secondary stuff simply wasn’t as sharp as it had been earlier in the year. Minor League Rule 5 pick Adrian Almeida sat 94-96 with an average curveball, but he continues to struggle with control.

Jo Adell has returned to action in the outfield after DH’ing throughout the summer. He wasn’t throwing well this spring prior to the draft which was disconcerting to some, as Adell was touching 94 as a pitcher the summer before. His arm strength still hasn’t returned — he’s throwing with a 30 arm right now. He looks great in the batter’s box and is running well enough to continue playing center field for a while, but he’ll be limited to left field if his arm strength doesn’t return.

Giants OF Sandro Fabian had a rough year at Low-A, largely due to a hyper-aggressive approach that led to a 2% walk rate. He’s making among the loudest contact at Instructional League, with multiple exit velocities in excess of 100 mph during my in-person looks. He tracks pitches well, has great timing and bat control and can drive balls to all fields. There’s special offensive talent here, and I’m still buying stock in Fabian even after a horrendous season.

10/2

The Diamondbacks play precious few instructional league games this fall– just three, and one of them isn’t open to the public – and as such are a priority on the days that they do. They faced Oakland in their opener. Arizona prospects were robbed of some at-bats this year due to their playoff berth as Ildemaro Vargas, Chris Owings, Yasmany Tomas and Jeremy Hazelbaker have required at-bats to stay sharp in case they’re suddenly needed by the big club. Owings was rusty on this day and looked a bit slow, running in the 4.3s from home to first instead of his typical blazing 4.1.

Arizona LHP Jordan Watson has perhaps the best breaking ball I’ve seen here this fall, a true plus-plus hammer with bat-missing bite. He didn’t throw many, instead focusing on a low-90s fastball and below average changeup during his outing. He’s 24 and hasn’t pitched in a full season league yet due to injury, but he could be a quick-moving lefty relief piece next year.

Oakland RHP Richard Morban sat 90-93 with a fastball that missed bats up in the zone. He also flashed an above-average changeup in the mid-80s and a fringey, low-80s curveball. Morban turns 20 on Christmas Eve and is a modestly framed 6-foot-2. Though not especially explosive, he is athletic and repeats his delivery, and I think he’ll throw enough strikes to start. He has back-end starter ingredients.

Athletics INF prospect Marcos Brito has shown terrific quickness in his bat, as well as his defensive footwork and actions. He diagnoses balls and strikes consistently and has good feel for opposite field contact, though he struggles to turn on and drive the ball to his pull side.

Alex Bregman slashed .337/.409/.514 in three seasons at Louisiana State University, twice earning All-American honors. Displaying outstanding bat-to-ball skills, he fanned just 68 times in 786 collegiate at bats. The Houston Astros rewarded his efforts by selecting him second overall in the 2015 draft.

And then they asked him to change.

“A ton,” answered Bregman, when asked how much he’s evolved as a hitter since signing. “In college, I tried to hit the ball on the ground and low line drives. Up here, there aren’t a lot of hits on the ground with guys like Carlos Correa and Andrelton Simmons playing shortstop. Now I try to not hit ground balls.”

The ink had barely dried on his contract when he was told to alter his approach. Organizations typically let first-year players finish the season before suggesting changes, but Bregman was told “right away” that something else was expected. Before he could get his feet wet at the professional level, he had to “learn on the fly how to drive a baseball.”

He proved to be a quick study. Two short years later, in his first full big-league season, the 23-year-old infielder put up a .284/.352/.475 slash line, and his 63 extra-base hits included 19 home runs. He strikes out more often than he used to — “I never used to swing and miss, and now I do occasionally” — but it’s not as though he’s become all or nothing. His K-rate was a wholly acceptable 15.5%.

The adjustments he made were both mental and mechanical in nature. Read the rest of this entry »

Technically, in Wednesday’s NL wild-card game, the lead never changed hands. The Diamondbacks went up 3-0 on Paul Goldschmidt‘s early homer, and they won by an identical margin. Yet it still felt like something of a roller coaster, because the Rockies refused to go away. A 6-0 game narrowed to 6-5. An 8-5 game narrowed to 8-7. Even Fernando Rodney’s ninth inning wasn’t clean, as the Rockies attempted to rally. The game, overall, delivered on its promise. We didn’t end up with a wild-card clunker.

It’s always fun to break these games down in retrospect. I like to take the win-expectancy angle. The game’s third-most important event was A.J. Pollock‘s triple in the bottom of the eighth. It moved the win expectancy by 11 percentage points. The game’s second-most important event was the first-inning Goldschmidt homer. It moved the win expectancy by 13 percentage points. And the game’s single most important event was Archie Bradley’s triple in the bottom of the seventh. It moved the win expectancy by 16 percentage points. Bradley is a pitcher. Bradley is a relief pitcher.

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