When publishing prospect lists — in particular, the top 100 — I am frequently asked who, among the players excluded from this year’s version, might have the best chance of appearing on next year’s version. Whose stock am I buying? This post represents my best attempt to answer all of those questions at once.

This is the third year of this exercise, and last year Kiley and I instituted some rules. First, none of the players you see below will have ever been a 50 FV or better in any of our write-ups or rankings. So while I think Corbin Martin will return from Tommy John and become a 50 FV again later next year, I’m not allowed to include him here (although I just sorta did). The second rule is that I am forbidden from using players who have ever been on this list before, which means no Gilberto Celestino (on the list two years ago) or Lenny Torres (who was on last year’s) even though they might soon be 50s. McDaniel and I were right about 18 of the 63 players we picked the first year, about a 29% hit rate, and we were right about 16 of the 55 players on last year’s list, which is also 29%. Two years still isn’t long enough to know whether that’s good or not, but it does appear as though a baseline is being established.

At the end of the piece, I have a list of potential high-leverage relievers who might debut this year, because readers seem to dig that category. These are not part of the 50+ FV forecasting; it’s just a way to point an arrow at guys I like who might have real big league impact in a smaller role very soon.

I’ve separated the players into groups or “types” to make the list a little more digestible and to give you some idea of the demographics I think pop-up guys come from, which could help you identify some of your own with The Board (with The Board, through The Board, in The Board). For players whose orgs I’ve already covered this offseason, there is a link to the applicable team list where you can find a full scouting report on that player. I touch briefly on the rest of the names in this post. If you want to peek at the previous lists, here is Year 1, and here is Year 2. Read the rest of this entry »

Pitchers and catchers have begun reporting to camps, and all but a small handful of name-brand free agents have found home. From among our Top 50 Free Agents list, one in particular stands out for multiple reasons: Yasiel Puig. The enigmatic 29-year-old right fielder’s current plight and potential matches are worth a closer look.

Signed to a seven-year, $42 million contract after defecting from Cuba in 2012, Puig made an instant impact upon debuting with the Dodgers on June 3, 2013, and was just about the game’s most arresting — and polarizing — presence for his first two seasons in the majors. What’s an article about Puig without some video? Let’s remember some highlights.

Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: This piece has been updated to reflect Jair Camargo’s trade to the Twins from the Dodgers as part of those teams’ Kenta Maeda/Brusdar Graterol swap.

On Tuesday, word got out that Mookie Betts would be traded to the Dodgers. Over the course of the week, the trade moved from a seeming certainty to something less so, as the Red Sox reportedly raised concerns about the health of prospect Brusdar Graterol. With spring training just days away, the players were stuck in limbo as the teams tried to renegotiate. Now it appears those negotiations have borne fruit, with a new deal finalized per reports from Jeff Passan, Ken Rosenthal, and Chad Jennings. And in a bit of good news after the indecision of the last four days, Alex Speier is reporting that the player medical evaluations are done, with only league approval of the money heading to Los Angeles holding up the official finalization of the trade.

The original deal was a three-team swap involving the Dodgers, Twins, and Red Sox, with a follow-up trade between the Angels and Dodgers. But Sunday’s moves involve two discrete trades between the Dodgers and Red Sox, and the Dodgers and Twins. And that Dodgers-Angels deal? It is not happening, per Ken Rosenthal.

Let’s look at the finalized version of each trade.

Trade 1: Dodgers/Red Sox

Dodgers Receive:

• OF Mookie Betts
• LHP David Price
• $48 million to pay David Price’s $96 million salary over the next three years.

Red Sox Receive:

• OF Alex Verdugo
• SS Jeter Downs
• C Connor Wong

What’s new: The Red Sox were previously set to receive Minnesota pitching prospect Brusdar Graterol. With the Twins now out of the deal, the Dodgers will send along Jeter Downs and Connor Wong to complete the trade. We also now know the cash considerations for David Price. Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday night, the Los Angeles Dodgers traded for Mookie Betts and David Price. Assuming the parties involved can hammer out the details, the deal obviously makes the Dodgers a better baseball team, both in the here and now and, to a lesser extent, in the future. For Los Angeles fans tired of October flameouts and agonizing World Series defeats, this is fantastic news: Betts alone is something like a five-win upgrade and he’ll make a long lineup that much more daunting come the playoffs.

As far as simply reaching the playoffs goes though, Betts barely moves the needle. Of all the teams in baseball, it’s not like this one “needed” to get better, at least when it comes to maximizing its playoff chances. Dan Szymborski took great pains to express that the ZiPS projections he’s cooking up are still under-baked and not yet fit for public consumption; that caveat aside, he has the Dodgers projected to win the NL West by 12 games without Betts. With him in the fold, that jumps to 16. Los Angeles has already won the division seven times in a row; with a loaded roster, and a deep farm system, their streak wasn’t in any jeopardy this year and won’t be for some time yet.

Whether or not the trade looks redundant in a competitive sense for the Dodgers, it must feel like just another body blow in Phoenix, Denver, and San Diego. Through the realities of geography, vagaries of expansion, and a league-wide desire to limit travel costs, four other franchises are stuck perpetually competing with the West Coast’s foremost superpower. The Giants have the resources to remain competitive in spite of their southern rival, but the other three teams have looked comparatively hapless. The Giants and Dodgers have captured all but one division title since 2007. In that period, the Padres, Diamondbacks, and Rockies have only reached the playoffs five times combined, never escaping the NLDS. For the little three, the Dodgers are an immovable barrier blocking any real chance of sustained success. That’s a problem in a league that emphasizes postseason glory first and foremost, particularly in a sport that is primarily consumed locally. Read the rest of this entry »

Max Muncy is a Dodgers success story. He’s compiled 10 (10!) WAR over the past two seasons, walking and homering and standing at second base in ways that would have been hard to predict two years ago. What would have been easy to predict, though, is his salary. As a pre-arb player, the Dodgers had absolute discretion over his pay (subject to the major league minimum) and chose to give him $545,000 in 2018 and $575,000 in 2019.

Muncy was scheduled to head to an arbitration hearing with his club. He asked for a $4.675 million salary for 2020, and Los Angeles countered with $4 million. We’ll never know what the outcome of that hearing will be, though, because as Ken Rosenthal reported yesterday, he signed a three-year extension worth $26 million dollars. The contract also includes a team option for a fourth year, at a salary of $13 million, with a $1.5 million buyout (the contract is actually for $24.5 million plus the buyout, which places the option year at $11.5 million net).

At first glance, this looks low. Muncy has been worth 10 WAR over the past two seasons! He’s one of the best hitters on one of the game’s best teams. Look upon his ZiPS, ye mighty, and despair:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Angels quietly made a transaction of their own on Mookiesmas, picking up Joc Pederson, Ross Stripling, and Andy Pages from the Los Angeles Dodgers in return for Luis Rengifo and possibly a second prospect. The exact final names, most prominently if there’s anyone else heading to the Dodgers, are still up in the air at publication time.

If the Mookie trade was a Tuesday night earthquake, the Pederson move is one of its aftershocks. The Dodgers are splashing a lot of dollars onto their 2020 payroll, and whether or not baseball ought to have a luxury tax with steep penalties, that’s the world we live in and teams take it very seriously. Pederson’s exact 2020 salary is still unknown as he’s headed to arbitration, with the Dodgers filing at $7.75 million and Pederson’s camp at $9 million. The MLB Trade Rumors prediction of $8.5 million is the one we’ll go with there.

Sending Stripling to the Angels also removes $2.1 million from the Dodger payroll, putting the total luxury tax number at around $220 million. It does not appear the Dodgers got enough salary thrown in by the Red Sox to get under the first luxury tax threshold, but they do appear to be safely under the second threshold of $228 million. This is important because it leaves the Dodgers some flexibility to make other, small additions, while avoiding the second threshold’s steeper penalties, which could matter if the team’s in a position where they feel they need to pull the trigger on a big trade in July.

[Correction: Our payroll page for the Dodgers previously included Homer Bailey’s buyout and dollar figures for Yasiel Sierra and Hector Olivera in the team’s luxury tax figure. This has since been updated. The Dodgers now appear to have a chance to actually get under the $208 million threshold, not just the $228 million one. The exact amount the Red Sox are sending to the Dodgers to cover David Price’s contract is not yet public, so the situation remains fluid. If the Dodgers get under the $208 million threshold, it seems less likely that they would then spend over that threshold at the deadline. My apologies for any confusion! -DS]

Like Kenta Maeda, Stripling’s a nice player to have around, but with the Alex Wood signing, he’d probably be seventh or eighth in the rotation pecking order, even with Maeda gone to the Twins. Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin, and if healthy, Jimmy Nelson, all have higher upside than Stripling, who sheds a good deal of his utility if he isn’t in a starting role. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, I looked into contending teams with weaknesses in the infield. Today, let’s continue by looking at teams who could upgrade their pitching, plus teams involved in blockbuster trades sending MVP’s to the West Coast.

Los Angeles Angels

The Hole: The Angels had only a single pitcher throw more than 100 innings last year. That’s bad. What’s worse is that it was Trevor Cahill, who had a 5.98 ERA and still beat his FIP (6.13), good for a -0.8 WAR effort over 102.1 innings. He’s a free agent at the moment, and that was the pitcher the Angels used most.

It’s hard to disentangle this from Tyler Skaggs’ tragic death, and I don’t intend this to be an indictment of team building, or a dig at the franchise’s response. The team’s 2019 season was tragic, and those woes need not carry into 2020.

Despite a lot of churn, however, they aren’t exactly running out an inspiring rotation. Shohei Ohtani is back, and projects to be their best pitcher on a rate basis, but he’ll be on a strict innings limit. Dylan Bundy is somehow only 27, but it’s hard to see anything but an average pitcher with injury risk to the downside given his uneven career.

Julio Teheran is probably a FIP beater, but with Steamer projecting him for a 5.47 FIP, that isn’t enough. Andrew Heaney is basically Dylan Bundy, only a year older (somehow) — a guy you’d like as an innings-eater but with a checkered injury history.

If there’s upside in this rotation (aside from Ohtani), it’s Griffin Canning, whose fastball/slider combination has looked good in his short career. He’s also coming off of a season shortened by elbow inflammation, and he had a 4.58 ERA and 4.75 xFIP in 2019 — we’re not talking about an ace with a hurt elbow here. Overall, the team has a bunch of league average starters with downside risk.

The Fix: The team attempted defense in depth by acquiring Bundy and Teheran, but I’d prefer to see them try to go tall rather than wide. Paul Sporer suggested a trade for Mike Clevinger, and if the Indians would take Brandon Marsh plus a couple other notable names for Clevinger, the Angels could improve themselves by a lot quickly.

If you think the Indians plan on contending, however, there isn’t much to do when it comes to ace-upside pitchers. Noah Syndergaard rumors have died on the vine, and the teams at the bottom of the standings don’t have much to offer on the star pitching front. They could try to acquire Matthew Boyd to add to their quintet of average pitchers, but why? No, they’re mostly stuck with what they have — which might work out okay, but certainly feels risky for a team with Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon at the peak of their powers. Read the rest of this entry »

As has been the case for too many October contests since Kirk Gibson homered off Dennis Eckersley, the Dodgers couldn’t seem to win the big ones this winter. They reportedly offered Gerrit Cole $300 million (with deferrals), but were outbid by the Yankees. They expressed interest in Anthony Rendon, but never offered him a contract, and were unwilling to go to a fourth year for Josh Donaldson. Hell, they were even outspent by the Blue Jays — who had spent less than all but four other teams in free agency over the past 14 years — for the services of Hyun-Jin Ryu. They were said to be focused on trades, with a Francisco Lindor/Mike Clevinger package offering one tantalizing possibility. On Tuesday, they finally broke through with a blockbuster, acquiring Mookie Betts and David Price from the Red Sox as part of a three-team, five-player deal that also included the Twins.

Dodgers Receive:

• RF Mookie Betts (from Red Sox)
• LHP David Price (from Red Sox)
• Cash Considerations (from Red Sox)

Red Sox Receive:

• OF Alex Verdugo (from Dodgers)
• RHP Brusdar Graterol (from Twins)

Twins Receive:

• RHP Kenta Maeda (from Dodgers)

Separately, the Dodgers cleared even more space in their outfield by trading Joc Pederson to the Angels for infielder Luis Rengifo, with other players possibly involved. Dan Szymborski will break down that deal on Wednesday.

Though he’ll quite possibly only be around for one year before testing free agency, the 27-year-old Betts fortifies an already robust lineup that led the NL in scoring (5.47 runs per game) and wRC+ (111) in 2019 while powering the Dodgers to a franchise-record 106 wins. The 2018 AL MVP will play alongside reigning NL MVP Cody Bellinger in a lineup that now boasts three of the majors’ 25 most valuable players by WAR from the past year (Max Muncy being the third); all three of those players rank among the top 11 hitters by wRC+ over the past two seasons. The Dodgers’ path to an eighth consecutive NL West title just became even easier, but this is about increasing their odds of getting back to the World Series, which they did in both 2017 and ’18, and finally winning one for the first time since 1988. Read the rest of this entry »

The long-awaited Mookie Betts trade came to pass Tuesday evening, with the 2018 American League MVP heading to Chavez Ravine in a three-way trade that folded the Minnesota Twins into the mix. A free agent at the end of the 2020 season, Betts adds even more heft to a Dodgers team that won 106 games in 2019.

Also heading to the Dodgers is David Price, who went 7-5 with a 4.28 ERA and a 3.62 FIP in 22 starts for the Red Sox in 2019, accumulating 2.3 WAR in 107.1 innings. It’s a bit unusual to see a player of Price’s reputation essentially become a salary dump in a larger trade, but his recent injury history made the $96 million owed to him over the next three years a daunting prospect for Boston to pick up. While the Dodgers no doubt expect to see real contributions from Price, they likely see the money owed to him as a significant chunk of what they’re “trading” for Betts.

The Dodgers were determined to not give up any of their elite prospects in a Betts trade and that’s exactly what they managed to do. Alex Verdugo took a giant step forward in 2019 and hit .294/.342/.475, good for 2.2 WAR for Los Angeles. With Betts and Cody Bellinger in the outfield, A.J. Pollock under contract, and the team still retaining Chris Taylor and Kiké Hernandez (Joc Pederson is leaving in a separate trade), a very good argument can be made that Verdugo was simply more expendable than Gavin Lux or Dustin May. Read the rest of this entry »

As rumors of the various permutations of Mookie Betts trades float around the ether, it’s worth taking a closer look at the Dodgers’ rotation, mainly because of the possibility that David Price is included in what would become an even bigger blockbuster than a “simple” trade of one of the majors’ top five players. Despite losing both Hyun-Jin Ryu and Rich Hill in free agency, the Dodgers don’t lack for options to start, many of them good ones. But between inexperience and injury histories, those options also offer a great deal of uncertainty, and it’s not at all clear that the 34-year-old Price, whose performance has declined of late and who comes with his own recent spate of health woes, helps all that much.

Last year, the Dodgers had by far the NL’s best rotation in terms of ERA and FIP, though they finished behind the Nationals — whose starters ranked second in both categories — in WAR, because the Washington workhorses threw significantly more innings:

By itself, the Dodgers’ lower innings total doesn’t matter, but the loss of Ryu, whose 182.2 innings were the most by any Los Angeles starter since 2015, leaves the team with only three pitchers who threw at least 100 innings last year, namely Walker Buehler (30 starts, 182.1 innings), Clayton Kershaw (28 starts, 178.1 innings), and Kenta Maeda (26 starts, 153.2 innings), the last of whom spent all of September in the bullpen and has been mentioned in at least one version of the Betts trade. Read the rest of this entry »