The Dodgers couldn’t have asked for much more from Clayton Kershaw than what he gave them in his first start of the 2022 season, and so they didn’t. Faced with the unenviable choice of letting the future Hall of Famer push himself into the red in pursuit of a perfect game — under frigid conditions in Minnesota, no less — or take a more prudent course with a 34-year-old hurler whose last regular-season appearance placed his future in doubt, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts went against all sentimentality. He pulled Kershaw after seven spotless innings and 80 pitches, a move that the pitcher later called “the right choice,” and the Dodgers settled for a combined one-hitter and a 7-0 victory at Target Field.

For those seven glorious innings, it felt as though the three-time Cy Young winner had turned back the clock. Kershaw struck out 13 of the 21 batters he faced, generating 20 swings and misses, including 17 (out of 27 swings) with his slider. He added another 13 called strikes, including four with the slider and seven with his four-seam fastball, which averaged a modest 90.6 mph, 0.7 mph below last year’s mark. His 41% CSW% for the day was a mark he surpassed only twice last year, first with a 44% CSW% in his 13-strikeout June 27 outing against the Cubs — his last unfettered start of the season, as he landed on the injured list with inflammation in his left forearm following a four-inning start on July 3 — and then a 42% CSW in his September 19 start against the Diamondbacks, the best outing of his abbreviated September. Read the rest of this entry »

This season, Eric and Tess Taruskin will each have a minor league roundup post run during the week, with the earlier post recapping some of the weekend’s action. Those posts will typically run Monday or Tuesday (since Monday is widely an off day for the minors), though they will occasionally be featured later in the week, as Eric’s notes are here.

Christian Encarnacion-Strand, 3B, Minnesota Twins
Level & Affiliate: High-A Cedar Rapids Age: 22 Org Rank: HM FV: 35
Line: 10-for-14, 3 HR, 2 2B, 1 SB, 15 RBI (!)

Notes
Wow! Encarnacion-Strand ended up at the bottom of our Twins list because we think he’s destined for first base and has more swing-and-miss going on than we’re comfortable with at that position. After transferring from Yavapai to Oklahoma State, he only struck out in about 19% of the plate appearances during his lone Division-I season, which is less than I’d have guessed based on my in-person notes on his contact ability. He certainly has big power, though. The universal DH helps Encarnacion-Strand’s cause since there are more 1B/DH jobs in the majors now, and teams are more open to platooning there and/or carrying a positionless bopper on their bench. Read the rest of this entry »

One of my favorite yearly preseason pieces is also my most dreaded: the breakout list. I’ve been doing this exercise since 2014, and while I’ve had the occasional triumph (hello, Christian Yelich), the low-probability nature of trying to project who will beat expectations means that for every time you look smart, you’re also bound to look dumb for some other reason.

Let’s start things off with a brief look at last year’s breakout hitter list and see how they fared.

• Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: .311/.401/.601, 166 wRC+, 6.7 WAR
• Alex Kirilloff: .251/.299/.423, 93 wRC+, 0.3 WAR
• Kyle Schwarber: .266/.374/.554, 145 wRC+, 3.1 WAR
• Gary Sánchez: .204/.307/.423, 99 wRC+, 1.5 WAR
• J.P. Crawford: .273/.338/.376, 103 wRC+, 3.1 WAR
• Nathaniel Lowe: .264/.357/.415, 115 wRC+, 1.6 WAR
• Ryan McMahon: .254/.331/.449, 95 wRC+, 2.5 WAR
• Luis Urías: .249/.345/.445, 111 wRC+, 2.7 WAR

On the plus side, nobody really embarrassed me. Alex Kirilloff came closest, but in his defense, he was playing with a wrist injury that eventually required surgery. Read the rest of this entry »

Having lost Kenley Jansen to the Braves via free agency, the Dodgers felt that they needed a closer, and that they had an outfielder to spare. Feeling uncertain about outfield depth in the wake of Andrew Vaughn’s hip injury, the White Sox were willing to part with a pricey setup man. Fittingly, then, the two contenders teamed up on a trade on Friday, with Chicago sending Craig Kimbrel to Los Angeles in exchange for AJ Pollock.

The 33-year-old Kimbrel spent less than half a season with the White Sox after being acquired from the Cubs in a crosstown deal at last year’s trade deadline, in exchange for second baseman Nick Madrigal and righty reliever Codi Heuer. Where Kimbrel had built on a late-2020 rebound and dominated for the Cubs — posting a 0.49 ERA, converting 23 out of 25 save chances, and making his eighth All-Star team — he slotted into a setup role in front of All-Star closer Liam Hendricks with the White Sox, notching just one save and getting hit for a 5.09 ERA. At least on paper, the Sox appeared ready to utilize a similar arrangement this year, though paying Hendriks $13 million and Kimbrel $16 million made for a particularly pricey late-inning combination.

Even with the late-season hiccups, Kimbrel still finished with his best rate stats since 2017 via a 2.26 ERA, 2.43 FIP, 42.6% strikeout rate, 9.8% walk rate, and 32.8% strikeout-walk differential. Among relievers, only Josh Hader had a higher strikeout rate, and only Hendriks, Hader, and Raisel Iglesias had a better strikeout-walk differential.

The 59.2-inning workload was Kimbrel’s largest since 2018; after helping the Red Sox win the World Series in what was a comparatively lackluster season, he didn’t sign with the Cubs until June 6, 2019, after the draft pick compensation that encumbered his free agency had expired. He threw just 36 innings in 2019–20, with a 6.00 ERA and 6.29 FIP, but during the latter season, the Cubs identified a mechanical issue. “Kimbrel was getting too rotational and was flying open early,” as The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma described it in March 2021. “This led to multiple issues, all connected in various ways: his arm slot dropped, he was pulling his fastball, his velocity was dipping and he had no control of his breaking ball.” Read the rest of this entry »

While the Dodgers reached the peak of their offseason in signing Freddie Freeman to a mega deal, they aren’t one to stop after reaching a certain threshold. What’s next after building an impenetrable offense? Adding pitching depth! There’s no such thing as enough pitchers, a truism the Dodgers themselves can attest to after dealing with a myriad of absences last season. Maybe it’s no surprise they’ve not only signed Tyler Anderson to a one-year deal worth $8 million, but also Danny Duffy to an estimated one-year, $3 million contract that includes a club option for 2023 and performance bonuses.

In a rapidly shrinking pool of free agent starters, Anderson was arguably the best remaining option. Working for the Pirates and later the Mariners last season, he took the mound 31 times and compiled 167 innings to go along with about league-average results (4.37 FIP). Consistency and durability matters, and that’s what the Dodgers are hoping to get out of Anderson. Outside of a 2019 season plagued with injury, this is who he’s been: good workload, decent results.

One of Anderson’s greatest strengths is his solid command, which helps him get through games even without swing-and-miss stuff. To wit, if we look at the 115 pitchers who threw at least 100 innings last season, his walk rate of just 5.4% ranked 17th, tying him with Zack Wheeler and Sean Manaea. We can also afford a more granular look. This is an imperfect measure, but the table below shows Anderson’s rate of pitches located in the “Shadow” (i.e. edges) of the zone compared to the league average:

Read the rest of this entry »

Freddie Freeman went out on top in 2021, riding in a parade through Atlanta as the unquestioned leader of a franchise he’d taken to World Series glory. He’s coming into 2022 on top, but in a different way. This time, he’s headed to Los Angeles as the newest member of a team he beat in the playoffs last year. But more importantly, he’s doing it with $162 million:

BREAKING: Freddie Freeman has agreed to terms with the Dodgers on a six-year, $162 million deal according to @JeffPassan and me.

— Kiley McDaniel (@kileymcd) March 17, 2022

With this signing, the Dodgers are taking another crack at what they briefly built midway through last season: an offense with an All-Star at every position, the kind of team that doesn’t just have depth but also enviable breadth. Cody Bellinger? He’ll likely bat eighth. Will Smith? He’ll be the most overqualified six hole hitter in the game.

It feels like too much. It feels like overkill. But that’s because we’ve all become accustomed to a style of team-building focused on risk mitigation. Have the best team in baseball? Recent orthodoxy would tell you to consolidate your gains and focus on signing one of your stars to an extension, or fortify your minor league system to help develop the next crop of stars. It’s a popular method because it works; no less a team than the Dodgers showed the benefits of this strategy as they built a powerhouse throughout the middle of the last decade. Read the rest of this entry »

It would be fun, if you were running a team, to go out and sign the best available player at every position where you had even a specter of a question. Need a shortstop? Call Carlos Correa. First baseman? Freddie Freeman awaits. Second baseman? Science now allows us to regrow and clone Rogers Hornsby. If you’re spending at the completely fake top end of the market that I just made up, you might as well spring for the very best available.

Sadly, the real world doesn’t quite work that way. For one, teams don’t have infinite money; more importantly, cloning and reanimating technology doesn’t exist yet unless you’re interested in making Scottish sheep. Even good teams have to sign players who aren’t perennial MVP contenders, or even perennial All Stars. The Dodgers signed Jake Lamb and Hanser Alberto this week, and the White Sox signed Josh Harrison. None will be the best player on their team. None will be an MVP frontrunner. All three are interesting fits that will help their teams, though.
Read the rest of this entry »

Brett Wisely flies under the radar in a Tampa Bay Rays farm system where it’s easy to get overlooked. A 15th-round pick in 2019 out of Gulf Coast State College, the 22-year-old infielder is coming off a first full professional season where he augmented a .301/.376/.503 slash line with 19 home runs and 31 stolen bases between Low-A Charleston and High-A Bowling Green. Despite those eye-opening numbers, Wisely is unranked — albeit within a deep, talent-laden minor-league system — by Baseball America (our own list is forthcoming).

His low-profile status dates back to the day he was drafted. A two-way player at Jacksonville’s Sandalwood High School, and again in junior college, Wisely wasn’t even sure that his phone would ring.

“I didn’t think I was going to go at all, really,” Wisely admitted late last season. “I was playing summer ball and planning to go to USF the following year. But then the call came, and I got all excited. It was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up.”

It’s not as though the opportunity came out of the blue. Wisely had been in contact with Tampa Bay’s area scout, and he’d filled out pre-draft questionnaires for “four or five teams,” the Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox included. The interest shown by the Rays differed from the others.

“They were the only one for hitting,” Wisely explained. “Everything else was for pitching. The other teams preferred my arm over my bat.” Read the rest of this entry »

On October 1, in the 160th game of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 2021 season, Clayton Kershaw faced 10 Milwaukee Brewers batters and recorded just five outs. He didn’t look right, and it would soon be revealed that he was experiencing left forearm discomfort. Three weeks later, the Dodgers watched from the dugout as the Atlanta Braves celebrated winning the National League pennant. It marked the conclusion of a disappointing postseason run that did not feature an appearance from Los Angeles’ rotation stalwart.

The public speculation about his future began. Was that the last time we would see Kershaw in Dodger blue? Would the proud Texan and dedicated family man decide to spend the latter part of his career with his hometown Rangers? As it turns out, the answer to both of those questions was “no.” On Friday afternoon, the pitcher signed a one-year deal to return to the only team he’s ever known, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. He’ll receive a base salary of $17 million, with incentives that could get him closer to the $20 million-plus AAV most projected for him. Read the rest of this entry »

Robert Van Scoyoc has diligently built a reputation as one of the best hitting coaches in the game. Hired by the Los Angeles Dodgers in November 2018 after first having served as a consultant (with a year spent as a hitting strategist with the Arizona Diamondbacks in between), the 36-year-old Santa Clarita, California native is respected both for his communication skills and his nuanced understanding of the craft. Well-versed in technology and modern-day concepts while still being an adherent of proven old-school practices, he honed his knowledge base working alongside longtime hitting instructor Craig Wallenbrock.

In the latest installment of our Talks Hitting series, Van Scoyoc addressed several philosophies and principles, including the importance of angles and the relationship between process and outcome.

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David Laurila: Since coming to pro ball, the two titles you’ve held are “hitting strategist” and “hitting coach.” What’s the difference?

Robert Van Scoyoc: “In Arizona, the strategist role was more broad. I was involved in multiple departments, along with doing some of the major league advancing work. Being the hitting coach, my responsibilities are just with the major league team. That being said, we have a very collaborative organization where all three hitting coaches — me, Brant Brown, and Aaron Bates — are all working with [player development], and will even talk with amateur scouting and some of the guys watching our players. So my day-to-day responsibilities are with the major league staff, obviously, but with us being very collaborative, I’m involved with many different parts.”

Laurila: The Dodgers have a three-headed machine in charge of assisting hitters… Read the rest of this entry »