About two months ago, pitchers and catchers reported to spring training, marking a ceremonial end to the winter and the beginning of a new season. But as players showed up to camp and exhibition games began a couple weeks later, two pitchers were notably absent.

Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery, our fifth and sixth ranked free agents entering the offseason, each signed contracts dangerously close to the start of the season, with the latter coming off the market just two days prior to Opening Day. Both had to settle for much shorter-term deals than they were expecting, with combined guarantees undershooting our crowdsourced projections by $188 million.

As the first to sign, Snell was the first to make his debut, starting the Giants’ 11th game of the year after pitching in simulated games against his teammates. Montgomery reported to Triple-A, making two starts in Reno before being activated by the big club last Friday. His first start of the year, interestingly, came against the Giants and opposite Blake Snell, so it offered an early look at how this unconventional offseason might have impacted each pitcher.

Snell vs. Montgomery was an exciting matchup thanks to their track records of excellence and the intrigue surrounding their offseasons, but also one that came with many unknowns. How would Montgomery fare in his first major league action of the season? Would Snell bounce back after two consecutive poor outings? How much rust would each deal with after a month of ramp up time?

Snell’s top of the first inning was relatively uneventful; he used his slider and changeup to record three straight outs after a leadoff single. Next, it was Montgomery’s turn to face a Giants lineup stacked with right-handed platoon hitters like Austin Slater and Tom Murphy. Slater led off, and Montgomery’s first offering of the year was a sinker that clocked in at 91.4 mph, two ticks shy of last year’s average. He sat in that velocity band throughout the game, a symptom of the late start to his spring. Slater eventually grounded out on a curveball low in the zone, and the next two hitters were also retired on routine grounders.

Outside of being left-handed pitchers on short-term contracts, Snell and Montgomery have little in common, especially with respect to their pitching styles. Snell refuses to conform to the so-called strike zone, rapidly changing batters’ eye levels with fastballs above it and breaking balls below it. His brand of high-strikeout, high-walk baseball has netted him two Cy Young awards, though he ran a more pedestrian 96 ERA- across the four seasons separating them. Montgomery, on the other hand, prefers to live in the zone with his plus command and arsenal of downward-breaking pitches. He’s never reached the heights of Snell’s peak years, but has outproduced him by WAR over the past three years.

Snell pitched a clean second inning, capped off by a seven-pitch showdown against Gabriel Moreno. After falling behind in the count 3-1, he got Moreno to swing and miss below the zone, then foul off the next pitch to keep the count full. He threw two fastballs and four sliders to get here. So what did he do next?

This is an example of Snell at his best, the version that knows where each pitch is going even when not throwing strikes. Primed for a fastball or slider that would have ended up down the middle had it been aimed at the same spot out of the hand, Moreno went down on a curveball that dropped two feet more than any of Snell’s other pitches. Last season, Snell’s 310 swinging strikes on out-of-zone pitches ranked second in baseball, and most of them came on breaking balls that tunneled well with his fastball before falling off the table.

Unfortunately, Snell failed to execute this strategy for the rest of his start, as too many offerings leaked over the middle of the plate. In the third, a slider and changeup down the middle resulted in loud contact from Blaze Alexander and Ketel Marte. In the fourth, Alexander struck again, this time against the fastball. Snell allowed four more hits in the fifth before being pulled mid-inning, failing to complete five frames for the third consecutive start. The Diamondbacks collected nine hits, the most he’s allowed in a start since 2019.

Most of the hits Snell allowed were the result of the Diamondbacks capitalizing on pitches down the middle, which were uncharacteristically frequent from someone whose pitches tend to magnetize away from the zone. But in this three-start sample, Snell has been leaving more pitches over the heart of the plate, resulting in both more loud contact and fewer swinging strikes in the zone.

While Snell’s command certainly isn’t where it was last year, Montgomery had no such issues locating his pitches throughout his start. He landed an impressive 23 of his 30 sinkers in the strike zone, taking advantage of its high groundball rate; batters have slugged under .375 against in each of the past two seasons. With a strike-stealing machine in his arsenal, many matchups against Montgomery ended in either an early groundout or a pitcher-friendly count that allowed him to deploy his curveball and changeup, the latter of which earned four of his eight whiffs on the night. While he spiked a few curveballs in the dirt, he had excellent feel for locating his changeup, consistently landing it on the armside half of the plate.

Without his typical velocity, Montgomery struck out just three batters (one of which came on a pitch clock violation). Instead, he recorded outs by keeping his pitches away from barrels and limiting the quality of contact against him, tallying nine groundouts in six innings of work while allowing a hard-hit rate of just 32%. Aside from a Jorge Soler homer that marked the only blemish on Montgomery’s record, none of the other batted balls he allowed were particularly threatening; over two-thirds of them had an xBA below .200.

Another trend to watch from Montgomery’s start was his increased use of his changeup and curveball. He’s thrown his fastballs about half the time throughout his career, but he dropped that usage to about 40% in his first game with the Diamondbacks. This shift may simply be the result of good advance scouting — Giants’ right-handed hitters currently rank 28th in wOBA against non-fastballs — but it could also be part of Arizona’s teamwide shift toward more diverse arsenals, especially from its starting pitchers. This season, Merrill Kelly has added a slider to his kitchen-sink arsenal while Slade Cecconi is throwing far more splitters at the expense of his fastball. Montgomery’s curveball has been a successful out pitch and could potentially generate even more outs if he continues to throw it 30% of the time; during his career, batters have generated a pitiful .177/.209/.307 line against it.

Montgomery was removed from the game after six innings and 78 pitches, and Arizona’s offense teed off in the late innings of the game, which ultimately resulted in a 17-1 wallop. Both starting pitchers still have more ramping up to do at the big league level, with Montgomery working back to regular season velocity and Snell still searching for his command after three bad outings. That said, I think there’s reason to be optimistic about both pitchers. Even with an 11.57 ERA, Snell’s peripherals are nearly in line with last season’s numbers, and he tends to improve as the year goes on, with a career FIP nearly a run better in the second half of seasons. Montgomery showed off his advanced pitchability despite his diminished stuff, with a possible arsenal change that could lead to improvements.

Welcome to another edition of Five Things, where I highlight some strange and amusing happenings from the last week. We’re getting into the rhythm of the season now; 20 games in, you start to get a feel for how watching your team will feel this year. Are they going to be exasperating? Do they look like a fun group? Have a few new players completely changed the vibe from last year? Are they hitting so many homers that they had to make a new dong bong homer hose?

That’s part of the fun of watching baseball, in my opinion. Playoff odds are one thing, but how you feel watching your guys get from point A to point B matters a lot more in the long run. If you’re reading this article, I’m willing to bet that you’re watching dozens of hours of baseball throughout the year – perhaps even hundreds. The playoffs for your team might last 15 hours of game time. The little things are the point, and there were some great little things this week. As always, I’d like to thank Zach Lowe, whose basketball column inspired this one in both name and content. Let’s get going.
Read the rest of this entry »

The biggest story in baseball this week might be Jackson Holliday’s call-up. If it’s not that, it’s certainly the news that Ippei Mizuhara is set to be charged on allegations, which were detailed in a federal affidavit filed Thursday, that he stole more than $16 million from Shohei Ohtani. Each of those are huge topics, with impacts that will echo through the game far into the future. But a lot of other stuff happened in baseball too this week, so let’s talk about pitchers playing defense and crazy baserunning, shall we?

Welcome to another edition of Five Things, a weekly look into the most entertaining or downright weirdest stuff I saw while doing my day job: watching an ungodly amount of baseball. As always, a big shout out to ESPN’s Zach Lowe, who started writing a similar column years ago and forever changed the way I watch basketball. This is a long one, so let’s get right into it.

1. Elly, Obviously
I mean, did you think anyone else was leading off here? Elly De La Cruz is the kind of player you’d create in a video game, and he was up to his usual tricks this week. You’ve heard about this one already, I’m sure, but he hit the first inside-the-park homer of the year:

If triples are the most exciting play in baseball, what does that make this? Incidentally, that play is a triple for almost everyone. It’s just that De La Cruz is so dang fast. He went home to home in less than 15 seconds, which is absolutely ridiculous. Set a 15-second timer and try to do something around the house. You probably didn’t get very far into what you were doing in the time it took Elly to get around the bases. Just watching him in motion is a joy:

Elly De La Cruz just went home-to-home in 14.96 SECONDS! pic.twitter.com/pTgIYsbPgj

— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) April 9, 2024

In fact, De La Cruz is fourth in the majors in average sprint speed so far this year. I mean, obviously he is! Look at him go. The only guys ahead of him are true burners: Trea Turner, currently chasing the record for most consecutive steals; Victor Scott II, who stole 94 bases in the minors last year; and Bobby Witt Jr., one of the best athletes in the majors. Of course, De La Cruz has way more power than that trio, with only Witt coming anywhere near Elly’s level of power.

Oh, right. He hit a massive bomb in this game too:

That’s what 70-grade power looks like: 450 feet, dead center. And I hope the Reds have home insurance because that wall probably needs fixing now. Pitchers are challenging him more this year because he cut down on his swing rate significantly at the end of last season, and he hasn’t yet adjusted by getting aggressive in the strike zone. When he does offer at something, though, he’s making it count. I’m not sure if his approach can stick, but I’m also not sure if opposing teams are going to keep letting him hit mammoth blasts while they find out whether their plan is sustainable. It’s pretty demoralizing to throw strikes to a guy who can casually swat them out of any park in baseball.

Oh yeah, he did this a few days later:

I’m almost at a loss for words on that one. He absolutely destroyed that ball to the opposite field. Across the majors last year, there were fewer than 40 line drives hit harder the opposite way, pretty much all by household names like Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, and Giancarlo Stanton. This one was hit by the fourth-fastest man in the game. It feels vaguely unfair.

To be clear, it’s still not clear how well this will translate into long-term baseball value. De La Cruz is absolutely mashing so far this year, to the tune of a .318/.375/.659 slash line and a 171 wRC+ entering Friday, but he’s also striking out 35.4% of the time, with his line held up by a .458 BABIP. He looks worse defensively at shortstop than he did last year. But he’s only 22, and he just did all those things up above. I’m pretty excited to watch him try to put it all together.

2. Lamonte Wade, Grinding
Most of the plays that catch my eye in baseball are, by definition, eye-catching. They’re Elly at full speed, or defenders making diving stops, or anything else that makes you stop and stare for a while. But most of baseball isn’t those plays. It’s a long season, and most of it takes place without the bases juiced and the game on the line.

Monday night’s Giants-Nationals clash was one of those quiet times. The Nats put together a three-run inning early against Blake Snell and then piled on against the San Francisco bullpen. Washington took a 6-1 lead into the bottom of the sixth inning, with LaMonte Wade Jr. due up first for the Giants. This was squarely into garbage time; per our win probability odds, the Nats had a 95% chance of hanging on.

There’s not a lot of glory to be found when you’re trailing by five runs late. It still counts, though, and Wade never takes a play off. He faced Derek Law, one of those classic “oh he plays where now?” relievers who sticks around thanks to his excellent stuff but keeps bouncing between teams because of his inability to consistently locate it.

On this particular night, Law was on. He started Wade off with the kitchen sink, a cutter/fastball/changeup combo that ran the count to 1-2 in a hurry:

That’s a tough spot for a hitter, but Wade isn’t the type to give anything up. He switched into defensive mode and fought off Law’s next offering, a surprisingly aggressive fastball:

Wade’s game is heavy on batting eye and patience, built to take advantage of lapses in command from the opposition. That paid off as Law briefly lost command of the zone:

That said, the job wasn’t done. Law regained the strike zone and started attacking the upper third again:

And again:

And again:

Fouling these pitches off matters. Even that last one was too close for comfort. If you want to draw walks and stay in counts, you have to do it. But it’s not glamorous, particularly when the pitcher is hitting his spots. Wade is a great fastball hitter, but part of being a great fastball hitter is staying alive when you don’t catch them clean. Surely, Law would eventually break. And indeed he did, on the 10th pitch of the at-bat:

Hitting is hard! Most of what you do is drudge work. No one wants to foul off a bucketful of 95 mph fastballs when their team is headed for near-certain defeat. But if you want to succeed the way Wade does, by controlling the strike zone and ambushing occasional pitches with power, you can’t take an at-bat off. Law would have beaten plenty of batters on an earlier pitch, but he eventually threw a pretty bad one, 91 mph and with far too much plate. That’ll happen when you have to throw 10 pitches to the same guy.

That at-bat didn’t affect the outcome of the game even a little bit. Law retired the next three batters in order, two via strikeout. He threw another scoreless inning after that for good measure. The Nationals won comfortably, 8-1; no Giants so much as reached second base after Wade’s double. But even though this at-bat didn’t matter in the short run, playing like this in the long run is why Wade has been so successful in the majors. When the game is on the line, he’s Late Night LaMonte. When it’s the lowest-leverage situation you can imagine – down huge to a bad team on a Monday night in April – he’s still working as hard as ever. He’s a joy to watch in good times and bad.

3. The Duality of Corbin Burnes
If you watch Corbin Burnes’ mannerisms, you’re liable to get the impression that he’s a great fielder. This smooth catch against the Red Sox last Tuesday was a great, reflexive play:

His celebration was absolutely wonderful: He completely no-sold it. “Oh, me, catching baseballs? Yeah, that’s just normal, I catch ones like that all the time.” This is the self-assured strut of someone who habitually robs hits:

Burnes is a pitcher, though. They aren’t exactly known for their elite glovework. As best as I can tell, he’s somewhere in the middle of the league defensively. Pitcher defense isn’t particularly well quantified, but he looks average by those metrics, average to my eye, and a Google search for “Corbin Burnes defense” turns up a lot of people writing defenses of his pitching and no one talking about his fielding prowess. He was a Gold Glove finalist once, but didn’t win, and I’m not exactly sure how those awards work anyway.

Does he just act cooler than he is, so to speak? That was my impression after seeing that play; maybe he was just feeling particularly good that day and wanted to have some fun with it. I chuckled a little bit at the play – pitchers, what a funny group! – and went back to watching the game without giving it much thought.

But a few innings later, the ball found Burnes again in a much funnier way. This time, it all started with what looked like an innocent popup to second:

The sun was absolutely blinding at Fenway that afternoon, however. As it turns out, Tony Kemp had been completely bamboozled. The ball was actually making a beeline for Burnes as he stood unawares at the side of the mound. Even as Ryan Mountcastle and Gunnar Henderson turned toward the mound, Burnes sat there coolly. But then the ball got too close:

There was no audible conversation on the field on either broadcast, but I like to imagine Burnes giving a yelp as he got out of the way. It’s so classic. The ball finds you when you’re trying to hide, or trying to look more comfortable than you are. The guy who snags the line drive nonchalantly is also the one ducking away from a harmless popup that he lost track of. Also, he’s maybe the best pitcher in the game. Delightful.

4. On The Other Hand…
I know that I just got finished poking fun at a pitcher’s defensive chops, but we’re going to do another pitcher defense item. Why? Because Bryce Jarvis did this on Wednesday, that’s why:

Jarvis is the very definition of an up-and-down arm. He broke into the majors last year with the Diamondbacks as a long man, throwing 23.2 innings in 11 games. He’s back for more of the same so far this year – eight innings in four appearances. He’s not a star, nor does he ever look likely to be one, despite being a first-round draft pick, ahead of both Slade Cecconi and Brandon Pfaadt on the Arizona board.

Draft picks turn into guys like that all the time. You can’t run a big league organization without the Jarvises of the world, in fact. Those innings aren’t going to fill themselves. The teams who develop C-level guys instead of D-level guys just do better in the long grind of the season.

I’m probably digressing too much, though. Jarvis’ story isn’t particularly remarkable; first-round draft picks don’t pan out as often as you’d think. His athletic talents, on the other hand? They were on full display here. Elehuris Montero’s grounder was hit so softly that Jarvis had to be on a full charge to get to the ball at all:

But getting to the ball was only part of the problem here. It’s not like Montero can fly, but he’s not the slowest runner around either. He could smell an infield hit, too; those weak-contact grounders trigger something in hitter’s brains that says, “Get down the line and claim your luck.” Jarvis had to smoothly pivot from a mad dash for the ball into a throw. Or, well, that’s the theory, at least. In practice, Jarvis ended up with what I like to call falling-backwards-shotput form:

Pitchers miss these throws all the time. They miss them more often than not. Managers would prefer pitchers to hold onto the ball there, if I had to guess. An error seems more likely than an out there, and an injury – hamstrings are tricky beasts – is definitely an option as well. Jarvis is living on the fringes of the majors, though. Every game is a chance to prove himself or be found wanting. Every out makes an extended major league career more likely. Some of them are simply more spectacular than others. And while I’m on the subject, Jarvis should probably buy Christian Walker a drink after he absolutely flattened himself receiving the ball at first base.

5. Tim Anderson, Agent of Chaos
Housing costs in Manhattan are ridiculous these days. Whether you’re looking to lease or own, you’re looking at paying double the national average or more. In price per square foot, it gets even wilder. It’s not a problem for Tim Anderson, though, because he’s living rent free in the Yankees’ heads after Wednesday night.

Anderson didn’t figure into the early parts of Miami’s offensive attack; when he came to the plate in the ninth inning, he was hitless but the team was up 4-2. He led off the inning with an innocuous single to right. Then the fun started. The Yankees decided that Anderson was going to run. He’d swiped a base early the previous night, and this was his first opportunity to double up since then. Dennis Santana checked on him almost right away:

Two pitches later, Jose Trevino followed suit:

Bryan De La Cruz flied out on the next pitch, but the Yankees were still shook. Before the first pitch to Nick Gordon, Santana threw over again:

Then Trevino faked a back-pick:

Then Santana threw over again:

Now Anderson had the upper hand, but he didn’t take off. In fact, he almost got stuck in between, with enough of a secondary lead that Trevino took yet another bite at the apple:

That was almost a disaster for the Marlins. Anderson was just hanging out pretty far off the base, and only beat the throw due to a combination of a good slide and a missed tag:

Meanwhile, Santana completely lost track of what was going on at home plate. He walked Gordon on the next pitch, an uncompetitive fastball low. To make matters worse, Anderson got such a good jump that he would have stolen second easily even if the pitch had been a strike.

Now he was feeling frisky, and started dancing off of the base in Santana’s line of sight. It nearly led to a balk:

Anderson finally got a clean jump for a steal. At first, it looked like it might not matter:

But as it turns out, Anderson’s speed drove the Yankees over the edge. Take a second and watch Anderson, and you’ll realize that he took a hard turn around third. He was thinking about more than a single base, and when Anthony Volpe didn’t look him back, he went for it:

From an overhead view, things get even clearer. When Anderson took off, Anthony Rizzo realized he had to make a phenomenal scoop and also fire the ball home in a single motion. He went for it, but failed. Anderson had essentially conjured a run out of thin air:

Anderson is off to a pretty miserable start to the season. He was downright awful last year. But wow, he’s fun to watch, whether at the plate, in the field, or on the basepaths. I hope he continues to terrify opposing defenses for years to come.

Some 49 hours before their first regular season game, the Arizona Diamondbacks brought up the house lights to end the 2023-24 Hot Stove League. Jordan Montgomery is headed west on a one-year contract with a vesting option.

The 31-year-old Montgomery had been a well-regarded high-volume starter, but the 2023 postseason brought him to the verge of stardom. The Texas Rangers traded for Montgomery at the deadline, and with Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer battling injuries, it was the big South Carolinian who emerged as the team’s ace. He won three games in the postseason, including Game 7 of the ALCS in a multi-inning relief appearance on two days’ rest, and was one of the World Series champion’s breakout stars.

That championship, of course, came at the expense of Arizona, his new team. The Diamondbacks, having come so close to winning it all, had already brought in reinforcements by trading for third baseman Eugenio Suárez and signing outfielder Joc Pederson and lefty starter Eduardo Rodriguez. Last October, this was a team with an improvised rotation; with Montgomery, Rodriguez (once he returns from his season-opening IL stint), Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, a full year of a maturing Brandon Pfaadt, and a healthy Tommy Henry, it’s among the best in the sport. Read the rest of this entry »

Blaze Alexander is on the bubble to break camp with the Arizona Diamondbacks. His spring showing suggests he deserves the opportunity to do so. In 52 Cactus League plate appearances, the 24-year-old infield prospect has slashed .420/.442/.640 with seven extra-base hits and five stolen bases in as many attempts. Moreover, he’s continued to show promise since being taken in the 11th round of the 2018 draft out of IMG Academy. That he’s mostly flown under the radar while doing so is starting to change.

“I hope that’s the case,” Alexander told me in mid-March. “I mean, I’ve been putting on a pretty good performance this spring, so I definitely think I’m opening some eyes. That said, I obviously need to transfer it over to the regular season.”

The likelihood of his doing so in the big leagues was improved on Friday when the D-Backs released Elvis Andrus, a notable roster move given that the 15-year veteran had been inked to a free agent contract as a potential backup for Geraldo Perdomo. As it now stands, there is a good chance that Alexander — “a viable defensive shortstop with a huge arm… [who] hits for enough power” in the words of Eric Longenhagen — will be filling that role.

Hitting for power isn’t one of Alexander’s aims, nor is it part of his process. While he does possess pop — his ledger includes 30 home runs in 734 plate appearances over the past two minor-league seasons — his M.O. is bullets, not blasts. Read the rest of this entry »

Orion Kerkering enjoyed a meteoric rise to the big leagues last year. The 2022 fifth-round draft pick began the campaign in Low-A Clearwater, and when
October rolled around he was taking the mound for the Philadelphia Phillies in the postseason. His numbers along the way were eye-catching. Pitching out of the bullpen at four minor-league levels, the University of South Florida product logged a 1.51 ERA and a 38.9% strikeout rate over 53-and-two-thirds innings. Called up in late September, he proceeded to fan six batters and allow one run in three appearances comprising the same number of innings.

That Kerkering was then entrusted to take the ball in the playoffs was a testament to his talent — a big part of which is a bat-missing offering even more impressive than his 98.6-mph fastball.

“That’s hard for me to do,” Kerkering replied when asked to describe his signature pitch. “I call it a slider and everyone says it’s one of the best ones out there. To that, I’m kind of, ‘OK, whatever. That’s fine.’ I just trust it as much as I can.”

The 22-year-old right-hander started throwing a slider as a Venice, Florida prep. Velocity-wise, it was 78-81 mph early on, and from there it got “faster and faster” to where it is now a crisp 86-87. The shape is basically the same — “with maybe a little more movement” — as is the grip.

“It’s kind of like how you teach a 12-year-old a curveball,” he said of the grip. “But instead of spinning on top of it, I spin on the 1:20-2:00 o’clock axis. If you think of [Clayton] Kershaw’s curveball, it will spin and then drop. Mine is the same way. It has the gyro spin, then it takes off.” Read the rest of this entry »

Almost all professional baseball players played at least one other sport growing up. Moreover, many of them were athletically gifted at a young age and thus excelled against their school-age contemporaries in their formative years, often all the way through high school. Fast forward to today, and many continue to play other sports in a recreational capacity — golf is prominent — especially in the offseason.

Watching other sports is also popular activity for ballplayers. Much as they tuned in to see their favorites on the family TV, they now do so as adults. Like the rest of us, they enjoy sitting on their couches, or hanging out with friends at sports bars, rooting for successful shots, goals, and touchdowns. Temporarily apart from the game they get paid to play, they get to be fans.

With those things in mind, I asked a dozen players about their “other” sport. Besides baseball, what did they most enjoy playing, and what do they now most enjoy watching?

———

Dansby Swanson, Chicago Cubs shortstop: “Basketball. I was pretty good. I could really shoot. My basketball game was somewhat similar to my baseball game. I kind of did the right things. I knew what to do. I knew where to go. I averaged around 15 points in high school. It was [a big school]. We had over 2,000 kids. There are a lot of big schools in Georgia.

“I grew up in very much a sports family. I love watching all sports, honestly. I love watching football. I love watching basketball. Obviously, I watch a lot of soccer; I watch my wife [Mallory Swanson, who plays for the Chicago Red Stars and the U.S. Women’s National Team]. Golf is on the TV. An underrated sport to watch is tennis. I have sports on TV all the time.”

———

Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels center fielder: “I played basketball and football throughout high school. I’d probably say that basketball was my best other sport. I was a small forward and an OK player. Read the rest of this entry »

With the start of the season a little over two weeks away, it’s time for one of my most beloved/hated/dreaded annual traditions: making my picks for breakouts and busts. For those of you who haven’t read one of these pieces in the past, these are my picks for the players who are the most likely to change the general consensus about them over the course of the 2024 season. And since we’re talking about generally low-probability outcomes — this isn’t a list of players with better or worse projections than last year — there’s no exercise with more potential to make me look super smart… or dumb. For every Jordan Montgomery or Dylan Cease who makes the breakouts list, there’s a Yusei Kikuchi or Sam Howard pick that I definitely wish I could forget I made!

As usual, let’s start with a quick table of the triumphs and humiliations of last year’s picks.

It wasn’t a great year for breakouts, as the only one I’d really call a true win was Tanner Scott, who was one of the elite relievers in baseball. While some of the pitchers that didn’t really break out had silver linings — Hunter Greene pitched better than his actual ERA and Brandon Pfaadt had a kick-ass postseason — I can’t say that our collective opinions of any of the other pitchers changed drastically in 2023. Except maybe Roansy Contreras, in the wrong direction. The busts went quite a bit better — for me, anyway — with arguably six of the eight considered disappointments for their teams in 2023. But it’s certainly less satisfying to have your pessimism be confirmed rather than your optimism.

The Breakouts

Edward Cabrera, Miami Marlins
The fact that Edward Cabrera walks a lot of batters is, of course, a Very Big Deal. But there’s so much talent bubbling underneath the surface that it’s hard to not feel that if something clicks, he could be one of the top 10 pitchers in the league. Despite his frequent command problems, Cabrera misses bats, and not just by blowing away batters with velocity. Sometimes, these inconsistent young pitchers with velocity have trouble getting strike three – Nathan Eovaldi was a classic example of this early in his career – or batters don’t actually chase them out of the strike zone. These aren’t Cabrera’s problems, and he isn’t getting hit hard, either. His biggest problem has been falling behind in the count; his first-strike percentages in the majors have been dismal, and that’s an important number in terms of predicting future walks. But at least both he and his team are quite aware of this. The fact that he’s missed a lot of time due to injuries could also explain his command issues. For all of this organization’s flaws in other areas, it has a strong record of developing pitchers with similar profiles to Cabrera. With more experience, he should be able to figure things out at the big league level.

Alas, Cabrera’s case is complicated by a shoulder impingement that was diagnosed recently following an MRI. It remains to be seen how much time he’ll miss, though it seems certain he’ll start the season the IL. I like him enough that I’m still keeping him on this list; hopefully, his prognosis won’t get worse upon further evaluation.

Griffin Canning, Los Angeles Angels
Aside from Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout, the 2023 Angels were rarely watchable. So you’ll be forgiven if you didn’t realize that Griffin Canning quietly had a successful return last season from a stress fracture in his back that had kept him out of action for nearly two years. Not only was he a competent mid-rotation starter, he actually added a tick to his fastball and had a career best strikeout rate. As the season went on, hitters chased him out of the strike zone more frequently than in previous years, which is necessary for a pitcher like Canning, who will never dazzle anyone with pure velocity.

Canning still has a tendency to leave a pitch hanging in the wrong place – especially with his curve – but in his second full season back, I’m hopeful he can make progress there. I think there’s a real shot he ends the season considered a solid no. 2 starter instead of an afterthought.

Graham Ashcraft and Hunter Greene, Cincinnati Reds
Screw it, I’m taking them again! Since I’m sort of cheating by having the same reasoning two years in a row, I’ll make them split a single breakout pick. Both still have two wipeout pitches, but each still has an issue holding him back. Greene had trouble at times last season when he left his four-seamer over the middle of the plate; despite his heater’s 98.3 mph average velocity, nine of the 19 home runs he allowed came on four-seamers in the heart zone. Meanwhile, Ashcraft struggled to strike batters out. Both pitchers have made significant tweaks to their repertoires. Ashcraft added a changeup, and Greene started throwing a curveball and a splitter in the offseason. They can’t both not break out again, right? If it doesn’t work out, I may take them for a third year simply out of stubbornness.

Nick Pivetta, Boston Red Sox
No name at the top of 2023 stuff leaderboard may be more surprising than Nick Pivetta’s, especially if, like most people, you didn’t pay a lot of attention to the Red Sox in the second half of last season. Pivetta lost his starting job in mid-May, went to the bullpen and added a sweeper. The new pitch turned his season around and he returned to the rotation for good in September, making five starts to close the season. In those final five outings, he recorded 38 strikeouts and just five walks across 30 innings. Most encouragingly, Pivetta pitched seven scoreless innings in each of his final two starts. He had the fourth-biggest jump in Stuff+ from the first half to the second half. And you can see it in the results.

ZiPS is less optimistic about Pivetta than I am. I’m going to call ZiPS wrong on this one, and hope I won’t have to eat those words in six months.

Hunter Brown, Houston Astros
With his six-pitch repertoire and top-prospect status, Hunter Brown was an exciting addition to the Astros rotation last year. At times, he looked worthy of the hype — he struck out more than 10 batters per nine innings — but overall he was a bit of a disappointment, as he posted a 5.09 ERA in 31 outings (29 starts). That said, there are signs that he was a bit unlucky: Opponents had a high BABIP against him, and he allowed home runs at a much higher rate (1.50 HR/9) than he had at any point as a professional. Additionally, considering he threw nearly 30 more innings (155.2) than in any previous season (126.1), he may have just been gassed at the end of the year. Through his first 23 games (22 starts), which spanned 125.1 innings, he had a 4.16 ERA and 3.92 FIP. Over his final eight games (seven starts), he posted an abysmal 8.90 ERA and 6.26 FIP, with more than a third of the home runs he gave up (nine of 26) coming during that final stretch.

MacKenzie Gore, Washington Nationals
Of the three true outcomes, home runs have always had a weird relationship with pitchers. Strikeout and walk rates tend to be stable numbers, so it’s typically meaningful whenever they fluctuate drastically, whereas home run rates are extremely volatile. So volatile, in fact, that xFIP, a stat that has one of the more bizarre central conceits — “Let’s just assume that every pitcher has the same ability to prevent homers.” — actually has predictive value relative to stats that take a pitcher’s home run rate as gospel. As a result, “Let’s look for a pitcher who is pretty good but allows too many damn homers,” has proven to be a sneaky good way to predict breakouts, such as Corbin Burnes and Dodgers-era Andrew Heaney. MacKenzie Gore misses bat and he’s made great strides in improving his command, so I’m betting that he’ll wrangle the round-trippers too.

Shintaro Fujinami, New York Mets
OK, it’s admittedly scary to put Mets in the breakout category, especially a Met who had an ERA above seven his first season in the majors. Shintaro Fujinami’s seven starts last year were an unmitigated disaster, but he pitched a good deal better from the bullpen. Now, his 5.14 ERA as a reliever isn’t exactly cause to hang the Mission Accomplished banner, but the .209/.319/.351 line he allowed in relief comes out to a fairly respectable runs created ERA of 3.70. Given that, his velocity, and his history in Japan, I’m willing to give him a mulligan for 2023. A good reclamation project for the Mets.

Kyle Nelson, Arizona Diamondbacks
Have you seen his slider? The double whammy of a very high home run rate (12 in 56 innings) and a high BABIP (.324) served to keep Kyle Nelson’s ERA relatively high in what could very well have been his breakout season. And even then, all it took was a brutal September to dive bomb his seasonal numbers. If Nelson finishes with an ERA above four in 2024 over at least 30 innings, I’ll eat a full order of Cincinnati chili, and as those that are familiar with my can attest, that’s not something I relish doing. No, I’m not promising something crazy like eating my hat or a 1995 Ford Taurus.

The Busts

Gerrit Cole, New York Yankees
Let’s get two things out of the way first: This has nothing to do with the sudden MRI for his elbow, and this doesn’t mean I think Gerrit Cole will be a lousy pitcher. But there are some warning signs in his 2023 profile, despite his winning the AL Cy Young, and I think all the projection systems have been picking up on it. A sudden drop in strikeout percentage is usually a blaring klaxon, and it was supported by a similar decline in his plate discipline stats; the contact rate against Cole was his highest since he played for the Pirates. And whereas he had a couple weirdly high home run seasons while pitching well, that metric was oddly low in 2023 and it was not matched with changes in exit velocity or fly ball/groundball tendencies. In other words, his low home run rate hid several indicators of a looming decline, and we can’t count on that coverup to continue. I still think Cole is a top 10 pitcher, but it’s hardly a guarantee that he’ll be a five-win pitcher again this season.

Blake Snell, Someone Eventually
Hey, if I’m going to pick one Cy Young winner, why not go for the pair? Blake Snell will keep striking out tons of guys, but he gives up a lot of free bases, and one of the key factors that kept his ERA so low was some fairly extreme splits with runners on vs. bases empty, and that isn’t a long-term characteristic. Also, his .256 BABIP allowed won’t be easily repeated. Sidestepping the WAR vs. RA9-WAR fights after about five months of them, Snell’s not likely to be the best pitcher in the league in 2024. And it doesn’t appear that teams are jumping at the opportunity to pay him as if that were the case, either; I doubt his agent, Scott Boras, would be publicly expressing Snell’s willingness to sign a short-term contract otherwise. Snell’s a very good pitcher, but he’s just not this good.

Bryan Woo, Seattle Mariners
I’m a fan of Bryan Woo, and he certainly had a terrific rookie season for a pitcher with almost no experience in the high minors. He advanced so quickly that I didn’t even have a preseason projection for him last year! But despite the success and little grumbling from any of the projection systems, I’m not quite sure he’s a finished product yet. One worry is how fastball reliant he was. Lefties absolutely torched Woo in the majors last year, and it’s easier to simply dismiss that when it’s not from a pitcher without a killer offering to fight against the platoon disadvantage. At least he’s certainly aware that he needs to develop his changeup more. If Bryce Miller’s splitter works out, maybe Woo should consider cribbing his notes.

Matt Manning, Detroit Tigers
I buy the Tarik Skubal dominance, but with Matt Manning, not so much. Low strikeout pitchers can survive in the majors, but the ones who do are generally the ones who keep the ball down and don’t get hit very hard. Manning doesn’t really do either at this point. The numbers ZiPS uses aren’t the same as Statcast’s xStats, but Manning’s 5.00 zFIP was nearly as bleak as the xERA that Statcast produced (5.48). I’d say “when in doubt, learn a splitter,” but that’s mostly because of my long-term stanning of Kevin Gausman. I’m generally optimistic about the Tigers this year, but I think Manning’s ceiling looks pretty low from here.

Emilio Pagán, Cincinnati Reds
I’ve already talked about Emilio Pagán this offseason, but it wouldn’t show a lot of guts if I didn’t put the pitcher I deemed “my least favorite signing of the offseason” on my busts lists, now would it? If anything Pagán is the exact reverse of the Burnes-Heaney rule I talked about in the breakouts. It’s true that last year, he set career worst marks in contact rate against, average exit velocity, and strikeout rate, but he also had the lowest home run rate of his career, allowing five homers instead of his normal baker’s dozen or so. And he’s going to play his home games in a bandbox (the Great American Ballpark) for the first time ever. Pagán had the fifth-lowest batting average against in the majors on barrels/solid contact hits last year, and compared to the four pitchers ahead of him (Alexis Díaz, Will Vest, Trevor May, and Devin Williams), Pagán allowed those types of contact at nearly twice the rate. As a whole big leaguers batted .614 on barrels and solid contact hits in 2023. Pagán is likable and generally popular with fans, and I’m certainly not rooting against him, but he has a history of being worse than Bill Murray at stopping gophers.

When free agent Matt Chapman signed with the Giants this past weekend, most of my analysis focused upon the ups and downs of his 2023 season and the nature of his contract, which looks comparatively team friendly. One thing I underplayed in the analysis was the extent to which San Francisco’s winter stands out relative to the competition. Even before the addition of Chapman, the Giants had spent more money on free agents than any other team besides the Dodgers, and likewise project to receive more WAR from those additions than any team besides their longtime rivals.

Based on the data in our Free Agent Tracker, the Giants have now committed $261.25 million in guaranteed salaries: $113 million to center fielder Jung Hoo Lee, $44 million to righty Jordan Hicks, $42 million to DH/outfielder Jorge Soler, and $8.25 million to catcher Tom Murphy; this accounting does not include the major league salaries that shortstop Nick Ahmed or lefty reliever Amir Garrett will get if they make the big league roster; last month, they each signed minor league deals as non-roster invitees. San Francisco’s additions may not be as eye-catching as signing either Carlos Correa or Aaron Judge would have been last offseason, and the team still projects for a middle-of-the-pack 82 wins after going 79-83 last year, but the Giants may not be done spending some of the money that was burning a hole in their pockets. They remain interested in Blake Snell, especially in the wake of injuries within their rotation.

Of course, the Dodgers blow the field away when it comes to spending, even if we stick to the adjusted salaries once deferred money is factored in, with a total of $853.2 million: $437.83 million to Shohei Ohtani (down from a sticker price of $700 million), $325 million to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, $20.434 million to outfielder Teoscar Hernández (down from $25 million), $10 million to Clayton Kershaw (with incentives that can increase the value significantly for both 2024 and ’25), $9 million apiece to Ryan Brasier and Jason Heyward, $8 million to Joe Kelly, $7 million to James Paxton, and $4 million to Enrique Hernández.

Here’s a look at the 30 teams’ free agent spending. Note that, as above, these figures factor in the applicable deferrals but not incentives, escalator clauses, or split-contract salaries from minor league deals:

As you can see, five teams committed less than $10 million each this winter, and of the bottom seven teams, four (the Orioles, Rays, Twins, and Marlins) made the playoffs last year. Free agency isn’t the only route to improve a team, but particularly with regards to the Orioles, one can empathize with fans who are disappointed that last year’s success hasn’t translated into a shopping spree to improve their odds of getting back to the postseason.

The 30 teams have committed a total of $2.74 billion to free agents so far, and even though that figure will increase once Snell and Jordan Montgomery sign, overall spending will still be lower this offseason than in recent ones. Based on the data at RosterResource, teams spent $4 billion last offseason ($2.22 billion on the top 12 free agents alone) and $3.22 billion in the lockout-interrupted offseason of 2021–22. For this winter, spending works out to an average of $91.38 million per team, but that figure is skewed by the top teams to such an extent that the median is just $49.25 million; only nine teams exceeded the mean.

Beyond the dollars, I thought it would be worth revisiting some free agent accounting we’ve done in the past, regarding WAR added and lost in free agency. This isn’t quite as straightforward as it sounds, as we’ll soon see.

This is the most basic accounting, lumping together players signed to major league deals and those who had to settle for minor league ones; the latter inflates the counts of some of these teams well into double digits. It’s worth noting that where players spent time with multiple teams in 2023, I’ve only counted their WAR with their last team on the outgoing side, but their full-season WAR on the incoming side. Consider the case of Jeimer Candelario, who produced 3.1 WAR for the Nationals and then 0.2 WAR for the Cubs. To these eyes, crediting the Reds as adding a 3.3-WAR player properly conveys the impact of a substantial addition. The question is whether to count the Cubs as losing 3.3 WAR (via a player they acquired without intending to retain) or 0.2 WAR (reflecting the transient nature of a late-season addition). I went with the latter option.

The total number of outgoing free agents shown above (277) doesn’t include 11 additional players from the KBO and NPB, eight of whom have signed (all but Trevor Bauer, Adam Plutko, and Yasiel Puig), meaning that from among that total, 73 — about 25% — are unsigned. Most of the unsigned are fairly low impact players, in that just 13 produced at least 1.0 WAR last year, with Montgomery (4.3), Snell (4.1), Brandon Belt (2.3), Mike Clevinger (2.2) and J.D. Martinez (2.2) the only ones above 2.0. Meanwhile, 35 of them produced zero or negative WAR, though to be fair, that was often in limited opportunity.

While the eight foreign players who have signed are counted in the total number of signed free agents above, they didn’t produce any WAR within MLB. Thus, the fact that three teams outrank the Dodgers in terms of net free agent WAR comes with the caveat that the Los Angeles total doesn’t include Yamamoto.

I’ll come back to that issue, but first let’s note the teams at the extremes. Ahead of the Dodgers are three teams who had a bunch of players hit the open market, but who were at best minimally productive in 2023, and who all went out and made at least a few solid moves. Of the dozen Reds to test free agency, including the still-unsigned Joey Votto, only Harrison Bader produced even 1.0 WAR in 2023, and he nonetheless was 0.2 wins below replacement after being acquired from the Yankees. On the other side, in addition to Candelario, the team shored up its pitching by adding starters Nick Martinez and Frankie Montas, relievers Brent Suter and Emilio Pagán, and more — not big moves, but enough to put them at the top. The Cardinals shed five players, most notably Dakota Hudson, and overhauled their rotation by adding Sonny Gray, whose 5.3 WAR as a Twin tied Kevin Gausman for the AL lead, as well as Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn; they also added Keynan Middleton to the bullpen and staffed their bench with Brandon Crawford and Matt Carpenter. Of the eight Royals who became free agents, only Zack Greinke produced 1.0 WAR, but they beefed up their pitching, with starters Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha; their lineup, with Hunter Renfroe; and their bench, with Adam Frazier and Garrett Hampson to their bench. These moves won’t win them the division, but they’re at least proof of life.

The Dodgers’ figures on both sides of the ledger are inflated by their keeping Brasier, Enrique Hernández, Heyward, Kelly, and Kershaw, but they did shed the still-unsigned J.D. Martinez and Julio Urías, replacing them with the market’s two most expensive players. The Diamondbacks re-signed Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and didn’t lose anybody who produced at least 1.0 WAR for the team, while the only departing Giant to meet that threshold was Sean Manaea.

At the other end of the spectrum, it’s striking that the bottom five teams include three AL postseason participants plus one NL team that barely missed it. Whether they won it all or fell short, their offseasons have resulted in some downsizing of payrolls and perhaps expectations.

In the wake of last year’s $255 million flop, the uncertainty regarding their local broadcast deal, and the death of chairman Peter Seidler, the Padres gutted their pitching staff, with Snell, Lugo, Martinez, Wacha, and closer Josh Hader among those departing, along with catcher Gary Sánchez, whom they plucked off the scrapheap and who had his best season since 2019. Most of the money they’ve spent this offseason was on their bullpen, with Wandy Peralta, Japanese lefty Yuki Matsui and Korean righty Woo-Suk Go joining the fold. The Twins shed Gray, Kenta Maeda, and Tyler Mahle from their rotation, and both Donovan Solano and Michael A. Taylor remain unsigned but unlikely to return; meanwhile their most impactful addition is first baseman Carlos Santana. The Blue Jays let Chapman depart, along with Belt, Hicks and Whit Merrifield; they cobbled together a lower-cost third base solution, which includes the incoming Justin Turner and Isiah Kiner-Falefa, retained center fielderKevin Kiermaier, and took a flier on Cuban righty Yariel Rodriguez, who spent three seasons in NPB. The Rangers may still re-sign Montgomery, but for now he counts only on the outbound side, and they also shed relievers Aroldis Chapman, Chris Stratton, and Will Smith, plus catcher/DH Mitch Garver. Their rotation is full of question marks as they bank on Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, and Mahle having strong returns from surgery. Veteran righty David Robertson should bolster the bullpen, and Garver’s departure is mitigated by the eventual arrival of top prospect Wyatt Langford.

Since the impact of the foreign free agents isn’t reflected in the table above, I took one more look at the landscape using projected WAR on the incoming side. Instead of taking it straight from our Free Agent Tracker — that uses Steamer, which is available in time for the opening bell of the offseason, but not ZiPS, which takes longer to prepare — I took the more labor-intensive route by swapping in our Depth Charts projections, which takes an average the two systems:

Despite accounting for Yamamoto, the Dodgers actually fall in the rankings due to known injuries (Ohtani won’t pitch in 2024, while Kershaw could be out until August) and regression (Brasier and Heyward, particularly), while the Giants surpass them with the addition of Lee. Also notable on the upper end are the Mets, mainly due to anticipated rebounds from Manaea, Bader, and Luis Severino. On the other side, the Orioles stand out more than in the previous table, mainly because the only free agent they signed to a major league deal, Craig Kimbrel, is projected to regress. Given that both Kyle Bradish and John Means have been sidelined with elbow injuries to start the season, it seems possible the O’s could add a low-cost starter who might boost their standing here a bit.

Thanks to our tools at FanGraphs, free agency is easy to track, even if I’ve made it more labor-intensive for this exercise. It’s hardly the only route by which teams improve, however. For example, the Orioles traded for Corbin Burnes, who may outproduce any of the starters who were signed. But in the big picture, the patterns I’ve illustrated offer us plenty of hints about what to expect from the upcoming season.

Spring training is in full swing, and while there’s still a trickle of higher-profile free agents such as Cody Bellinger and Tim Anderson finding homes — not to mention a handful of unsigned ones, from NL Cy Young winner Blake Snell and postseason stud Jordan Montgomery on down — most teams are taking shape, albeit with plenty to sort out while in camp. Still, all but the powerhouses have some lineup holes remaining, and while they may not be likely to open their checkbooks to land the likes of Matt Chapman, it’s worth keeping their vulnerabilities in mind.

To that end, I wanted to revisit an exercise I performed last year, one that bears more than a passing resemblance to the annual Replacement Level Killers series I roll out prior to the trade deadline. This one is a little different, as it comes prior to the season and relies entirely on our projections, which combine ZiPS and Steamer as well as playing time estimates from RosterResource. Those projections also drive our Playoff Odds.

There are a couple of wrinkles to note here. Where last year and for the in-season series I have generally used a 10% chance of reaching the playoffs as a cutoff for what we might loosely define as a contender, this year’s odds are distributed such that only four teams (the A’s, Nationals, Rockies, and White Sox) fall below that threshold. Thus I’ve raised the cutoff to 25%, leaving the Angels, Pirates, and Royals below the bar but including the Red Sox (25.6% at this writing) and Reds (25.7%), both of which forecast for 80 wins. Gotta love this expanded playoff system, right? Ugh. Read the rest of this entry »