Gavin Williams came as advertised when I saw him pitch earlier this month. The 24-year-old rookie right-hander’s fastball topped out at 99.3 mph, while his slider sat in the mid-80s and occasionally topped 90. Allowing one hit and a lone run over five rain-delayed innings against the Minnesota Twins, Williams was all about power.

He also came as advertised when I spoke to him on the day preceding his outing. I was told that the 6-foot-6, 255-pound Cleveland Guardians hurler is a man of few words, and that was pretty much the case. While accommodating, Williams was anything but verbose. No matter. I largely got what I was looking for: a self-appraisal of what he brings to the table.

“Most people know me for my fastball, really,” the righty replied when I asked for a self scouting report. “That’s the main thing people know me as, and it’s what I know myself as.”

The Fayetteville, North Carolina native first hit triple digits during his freshman year at East Carolina University, and as meaningful as that milestone was to his identity on the mound, he recognizes that retiring big-league hitters takes more than pure velocity.

“I don’t think 96 to 100 is that big of a difference,” Williams said. “If it’s down the middle it can get hit. Putting it where you want to is a bigger thing. It also matters how it moves.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Baltimore Orioles have the best record in the American League, and youthful talent is a big reason why. Gunnar Henderson is the odds-on favorite to capture Rookie-of-the-Year honors, while Adley Rutschman has already reached star status in just his second MLB season. The dynamic duo are the first-place team’s co-leaders in WAR.

They aren’t the only players making an impact. The well-balanced Mike Elias-constructed club has also received meaningful contributions from the likes of Anthony Santander, Ryan Mountcastle, and Austin Hays. On the pitching side, a mix of veterans and less-established arms have more than held their own, in some cases outperforming expectations. From the better-known to the lesser-known, a multitude of players have played important roles in the 90-wins-and-counting success.

With that in mind, who has been the most-underrated player on the 2023 Orioles? I asked that question to four people who see the squad on an everyday basis — two broadcasters and a pair of beat writers — prior to yesterday’s game at Fenway Park.

Nathan Ruiz, who covers the team for the Baltimore Sun, chose Danny Coulombe.

“A lot was made of the All-Star combo of Yennier Cano and Felix Bautista, but Coulombe has come in and kind of been that main left-handed reliever all season,” said Ruiz. “He’s been really good with inherited runners, which is something they have generally struggled with. Cionel Pérez was really good for them last year, but they felt they needed another lefty so they acquired him [from the Minnesota Twins] for cash around the cusp of the season and he became a solid piece for them right away. He’s been dependable at the back end of the bullpen.”

Melanie Newman went with Kyle Bradish.

“He’s got an ERA that’s sitting there with Gerrit Cole right now,” the Orioles broadcaster opined. “We all talk about Yennier Cano and Felix Bautista, and our back end — what they’ve been able to do so far — but Kyle has been consistent. For whatever reason, when we’re on the road in a big spot, those are his best moments. That’s what you want out of a guy, and you forget that he’s only in his second year. His breaking pitches are disgusting. I don’t think he gets enough credit.”

Danielle Allentuck opted for Ryan O’Hearn.

“He has kind of been the guy who, whenever they need the big hit — he’s either coming off the bench or already in the lineup — has been providing it,” the Baltimore Banner reporter told me. “He’s been that kind of spark for them. He’s turning his career around here. We’re talking underrated, and I don’t think a lot of people know about him. He’s not the big name. He wasn’t a big superstar, but he’s come here and turned things around for himself, and the team.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Angels surprised everyone on Tuesday when they placed six veterans from their big league roster on waivers. Four of the players — Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo López, Randal Grichuk, and Dominic Leone — were recently acquired by the Angels at the trade deadline, while the final two — Hunter Renfroe and Matt Moore — had been picked up last offseason. The Yankees followed suit by placing center fielder Harrison Bader on waivers. With waiver claim priority going from the team with the worst record to the best, the teams at the back end of the playoff races got first dibs. The Cleveland Guardians and Cincinnati Reds, two teams that would miss the playoffs if the season ended today, scooped up five of these seven players, with the Mariners grabbing a sixth in Leone. Only Grichuk went unclaimed. Carlos Carrasco, José Cisnero, and Mike Clevinger also joined the waiver wire without attracting any interest.

The Guardians were the most active team, adding Giolito, López, and Moore. Giolito was one of the bigger names traded at the deadline, and the Angels thought enough of him at the time to give up Edgar Quero, our 51st-ranked prospect, and former second-rounder Ky Bush in order to bring him and López to LA for one last-gasp attempt to grab a playoff spot. Giolito was a disaster for the Angels. His ERA and FIP were both near seven, and he only managed quality starts in two of his six attempts. López fared somewhat better, but was rather adventure-prone, only throwing a clean 1-2-3 inning once in 13 games for the Halos. Moore had a solid year in Los Angeles, but he can be fairly tricky to use, as he doesn’t have the typical profile of a lefty reliever, with his changeup and his knuckle-curve significantly tougher for righties to hit than lefties these days. Read the rest of this entry »

With Instructional League underway in Arizona (casts look of disappointment toward Florida) and Fall League rosters likely about two weeks out, the time has come to line the coffers with data and re-worked scouting reports in preparation for another round of farm system audits. Especially at the up-the-middle positions, defense is both very important and also a bit of a black box for readers, as there aren’t many publicly available minor league defensive stats and so much of evaluating defense is visual. I’ve recently been working on a video deep dive on the position players currently graded as 50 FV prospects or better, specifically to evaluate their defense in detail. Here I’ve taken a pass at the shortstops, providing video supplements for the prospects who I’ve evaluated in the 55 FV tier and above. I’ve made changes to their defense and arm tool grades over on The Board as a result of this exercise, and highlight the instances where this has caused a change to the player’s overall FV grade in the analysis below.

I’ve cut the videos in such a way that you can see each shortstop making similar plays one right after another. The videos feature plays to their left where I want to see them flip their hips and throw, plays that show the extreme end of their range, backhand plays in the hole to their right, plays coming in on the grass, and double play attempts. The fewest balls in play I watched for an individual player was 36 (Colson Montgomery and Dyan Jorge) and the most was closer to 70 (Jackson Holliday, Carson Williams and Marcelo Mayer). Read the rest of this entry »

In the 1991 comedy King Ralph, an American lounge singer becomes the King of England when the entire royal family is electrocuted in a freak photography accident. Despite its Academy Award-winning screenwriter and a cast of well-respected actors, the film fell flat, making it an apt comparison for the 2023 Mets, although that’s not why I bring it up today. After a series of unfortunate and unexpected injuries, Aaron Civale finds himself a key cog with the Rays and, therefore, in the race for the AL East crown. Tampa Bay’s rotation doesn’t have much in common with the British monarchy (there’s far too much turnover and not nearly enough silly hats), but just like Ralph Jones, Civale wouldn’t be in this position if so many others in front of him hadn’t bit the dust.

The Rays entered the season with one of the best rotations in the American League: Shane McClanahan, Tyler Glasnow, Drew Rasmussen, Jeffrey Springs, and Zach Eflin. No other team could boast a projected ERA and FIP under 3.80 for all five of its primary starting pitchers. On top of that, no. 37 overall prospect Taj Bradley was nearing his big league debut, and Josh Fleming, Yonny Chirinos, and Luis Patiño were around to provide depth. Our positional power rankings had the Rays rotation third in the AL and eighth overall.

On the other side of the equation, the Guardians entered the season under no pressure to trade Civale. On Opening Day, their postseason odds sat at 44.7%. Two-thirds of the FanGraphs staff picked them to make the playoffs, myself included. Now, this is the Guardians we’re talking about, so high postseason odds won’t stop them from trading a talented, young player, but Civale was set to make only $2.6 million this season, and he’s arbitration-eligible for two more years. Cleveland had little incentive to trade him unless the offer was too good to refuse. Considering his injury history, his 4.92 ERA last season, and the oblique strain he suffered this April, the chances of such an offer materializing seemed slim. Read the rest of this entry »

Charlie Morton just keeps chugging along. Three months shy of his 40th birthday, and in his 17th big-league season, the right-hander is 12-10 with a 3.54 ERA over 24 starts with the Atlanta Braves. His most recent outing was especially impressive. Relying heavily on his knee-buckling bender, but also topping out at 96.9 mph with his heater, he dominated the New York Yankees to the tune of six shutout innings with 10 strikeouts.

How much longer can he continue to defy Father Time and excel against baseball’s best hitters?

“I don’t think about that,” Morton replied in response to that question. “I think about, ‘When am I going to go home?’ I always thought the game was going to dictate when I went home. If you look at my career, there was no reason why I wouldn’t think that. There was no reason to think that I was going to start having the best years of my career at age 33, or that my best years would be in my late 30s. There was no reason to think I would still be throwing the ball like I am now. It would have been illogical.”

Morton’s career has indeed followed an unforeseeable path. From 2008-2016, playing primarily with the Pittsburgh Pirates, he went 46-71 with a 4.54 ERA over 161 starts. Since his 2017 age-33 season, he has gone 82-40 with a 3.54 ERA over 185 starts. Morphing from “Ground Chuck” into more of a power pitcher played a major role in the turnaround, but whatever the reason, Morton went from mediocre to a mainstay in frontline rotations. Since his transformation, only six pitchers have started more games, and only two (Gerrit Cole and Max Scherzer) have been credited with more wins. Read the rest of this entry »

Among all 30 big league franchises, the Guardians have one of the richest recent histories of developing pitchers. Dating back to the days of CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee, Cleveland always seems to be churning out young pitching from a stockpile of talent acquired through the draft, international free agency, and the trade market. Coming into the 2023 season, the team’s rotation already featured four former Guardians draft picks — Shane Bieber, Aaron Civale, Zach Plesac, and Triston McKenzie — and the onslaught doesn’t show signs of stopping.

In April, the Guardians promoted a pair of top-100 prospects to their starting rotation in Logan Allen (No. 63 on The Board at the beginning of 2023) and Tanner Bibee (No. 74). In June, Gavin Williams (No. 76) made his big league debut. With Bieber, McKenzie, and Cal Quantrill missing time to injury and Civale traded to Tampa Bay at the deadline, a full 47 starts have gone to this trio of 24-year-old rookies – plus another 17 to less-highly touted prospects Peyton Battenfield, Hunter Gaddis, and Xzavion Curry:

Read the rest of this entry »

Jeff Montgomery faced some formidable Cleveland teams while pitching for the Kansas City Royals from 1988 to ’99. Thanks largely to a robust offense, Cleveland averaged 94.2 wins annually from ’95 to ’99, making the playoffs all five years and twice playing in the World Series. No team in either league scored more runs over that span.

Montgomery, whose 304 saves are the most in Royals franchise history, now serves as one of the team’s broadcast analysts. He sat down to discuss the erstwhile Cleveland powerhouse prior to a recent game at Fenway Park.

———

David Laurila: Mark Gubicza told me earlier this summer that the 1984 Detroit Tigers were the best team he played against. Which was the best team you faced?

Jeff Montgomery: “I look back at teams by how they stacked up against me personally, which is maybe a little different perspective. But those mid-to-late ‘90s Cleveland teams were really deep. They had so many different weapons. It seemed like every time you played against them, if you had a lead, there was a pretty good chance they were going to find a way to cut into it or even overtake that lead. I think their fanbase played a part in that. They created an environment that was almost hostile when you went to Cleveland to play them.

“One game in particular stands out. Our manager told me that I had the night off, so I was sitting out in bullpen that day. We had a left-handed reliever named Billy Brewer, and he goes in and gets what I think was his first major league save. After the game, he came up to me in the clubhouse and said, ‘Man, you can have that job. That’s not a lot of fun.’ [Closing] is different. Personally, it made me better in regard to focus, concentration, and eventually execution, because I knew how great it felt to be shaking teammates’ hands after a game was over. I also knew how bad it felt not to get that last out and feel like you’ve let your teammates down, that you’ve let the fanbase down.

“But again, going back to those days in Cleveland, they had the Alomar brothers, Carlos Baerga, Kenny Lofton, Travis Fryman, Omar Vizquel, Jim Thome, Paul Sorrento, Manny Ramirez… I mean, you could go on with the players they had during that stretch. That was right around the time the divisions were reorganized and there was now a Central Division. They became the team in the Central that was going to be a force, year in and year out. I’m not sure how many years they made it to postseason, but I know they were always contenders. For me personally, going into a game against Cleveland, especially on the road, was a real challenge.”

Laurila: Which player on those teams did you most respect when he came to the plate?

Montgomery: “Well, Albert Belle was such professional hitter. He could hit for power, he could hit for average, and he was also one of those players that loved to be in that big situation. I feel like he kind of got… I don’t want to say a bad rap, but from a personality standpoint… I mean, he was a really bright individual. I got to know him a little bit over the years, us having spring training close to where [Cleveland did], and playing some All-Star games with him. Again, a very bright guy. But he was a beast. He was a guy that was going to do everything he possibly could to try to beat you and help his team win a baseball game. So, he stands out quite a bit for the impact he had, how good he made their lineup.

“Another one, obviously, was Manny Ramirez. The way he was able to handle a bat from the right side… I mean, he was one of the best right-handed batters in baseball for a long time.”

Laurila: Can you share any Albert Belle stories?

Montgomery: “Again, he was a beast. I remember one time, I’m going to guess around 1989 or 1990, I forget the exact year, we had a benches-clearing brawl in Cleveland. Albert Belle put a hurt on one of our pitchers. Well, in spring training the next year, our pitching coach indicated that it was a good time to take care of business with Belle. I threw a pitch that was probably going to hit him in the neck if he didn’t swing. He swung and hit a line drive home run out of our spring training facility in Haines City, Florida. It almost tore out three rows of bleachers. It was an embarrassing moment for me, because here’s a guy that turns on my best fastball, one that’s supposed to knock him down, and he hits it for a home run.”

Laurila: Knocking Belle down and having him charge the mound wouldn’t be an enviable scenario for a pitcher.

Montgomery: “Neal Heaton did that once. We’d had a benches-clearing brawl the day before, and Neal was trying to retaliate. I don’t think he actually hit him, I think he threw three balls behind him. After the third one, Belle took off after Neal. I remember Mike Macfarlane grabbed him, and he pretty much just drug Mac out to the pitcher’s mound. It was one of those crazy, crazy brawls. There was some blood shed in that one.”

Laurila: It sound like McFarlane saved Heaton from some serious damage.

Montgomery: “Well, Neal still got a pretty good beating out there. And I actually did hit him once. It wasn’t Albert Belle’s fault, but I had to hit him. I hit him right in the cheeks. They had a guy named Mark Whiten. Do you remember him?”

Laurila: I do. Hard hittin’ Mark Whiten.

Montgomery: “Yes. Well, Whiten hits a ball to the first baseman, and I’m covering the bag. Whiten veers off to fair territory to give me the bag, I’m a half step ahead of him, and he pushes me, flips me into right field. My rule of thumb was that if you were trying to hurt or embarrass me or one of my teammates, I was going to take care of business. The next batter was Albert Belle. I think everybody in the ballpark knew what was going to happen. I drilled him. But I did it the right way; I hit him right in the wallet. He dropped that bat and stared out at me, I thought he was coming after me, but luckily he didn’t. Thankfully he just jogged to first base.”

“There’s something about his swing that looks odd and unnatural, but DeLauter otherwise looks like a middle-of-the-order bat from a tools perspective.”

Eric Longenhagen shared that scouting perspective when describing Chase DeLauter back in January. Ranking him No. 9 on our Cleveland Guardians Top Prospects list as a 45 FV prospect, our lead prospect analyst also opined that the 2022 first rounder was “a fascinating draft case,” in part because he played just 66 games over three seasons at James Madison University. Moreover, the broken foot that prematurely ended his final collegiate season delayed DeLauter’s professional debut until this past June. Initially assigned to the Arizona Complex League, the 21-year-old outfielder has slashed .356/.373/.548 with one home run in 75 plate appearances since being promoted to the High-A Lake County Captains.

DeLauter discussed his swing, and the approach that goes with it, prior to a recent game. Read the rest of this entry »

The Marlins, who acquired some thump earlier on Deadline Day in the form of Jake Burger, went out and acquired some more right after the bell rang, picking up Josh Bell in exchange for Jean Segura and prospect Kahlil Watson. Nearly simultaneously, news broke that the Marlins were trading Garrett Cooper and pitching prospect Sean Reynolds to the Padres for left-hander Ryan Weathers. (The Marlins are also paying down Cooper’s salary to the league minimum.)

Burger’s addition made Segura surplus to requirements; if the Marlins had seen enough of him, it made sense to trade him to the only team that loves slap hitters more than they do. But the Guardians are releasing Segura and in the process eating the remainder of his salary for 2023 and ’24 ($8.5 million), plus a $2 million buyout for ’25. In exchange, they pick up a prospect and jettison Bell’s even more expensive salary for next year. Here, I made a handy chart:

I explored the Marlins’ reasons for jettisoning Segura in the Burger piece, but it’s pretty easy reasoning to follow: They want to make the playoffs, and Segura is hitting .219/.277/.279.

The swap of first basemen is the most interesting piece of this trade for me. Both Cooper and Bell had highly decorated 2022 campaigns — the former made the All-Star team, and the latter won a Silver Slugger — but have disappointed in ’23. On the surface, this looks like the Marlins are swapping one moderately disappointing first baseman/DH for another more expensive one.

So why would the Marlins do this? I can think of a few reasons. First, Bell is a switch-hitter, and Cooper is a righty with similar weaknesses to Burger — namely, lots of strikeouts and relatively few walks. And Bell has attributes that make him more attractive than Cooper as a bounce-back candidate. He walks more, he strikes out less, he’s two years younger, and he has superior raw power, even if accessing it in games has always been an uncertain proposition.

Then there’s the contract. Cooper makes $3.9 million this year and is a pending free agent. Bell is in the first season of a two-year deal that pays him $16.5 million annually. If the Marlins consider Segura a sunk cost — i.e., if they were going to release him anyway — what they’ve done is essentially bought a one-year, $6 million flyer on Bell as a bounce-back candidate for 2024, assuming he doesn’t opt out. That strikes me as a pretty reasonable gamble.

From the Padres’ perspective, why would they want Cooper? First of all, they are only giving up Weathers. Yes, he is just 23, is a former top-10 pick, and is under team control until 2027. But he made his major league debut in the 2020 playoffs and has been given numerous opportunities to claim a spot on San Diego’s pitching staff over the three seasons that followed, and he simply has not done so. Right now, over 143 big league innings, he has a 5.73 ERA, a 5.54 FIP, and a K% of just 16.8. Maybe the potential that inspired the Padres to draft him is still in there, but if it is, they would’ve been able to access it by now if that were within their capability.

The Marlins, meanwhile, have made young change-of-scenery lefthanders into their side hustle over the past couple years, with Jesús Luzardo and A.J. Puk among their current examples. They’d have reason to be optimistic that they can right whatever is wrong with Weathers. But for the Padres? Now feels like a good time to let him go.

In exchange, San Diego gets a prospect, Reynolds (more on him later), plus Cooper. Earlier, I wrote about the Padres’ acquisition of Ji Man Choi, a player who was built to form the left-handed side of a platoon at either first base or DH. At the time, the most logical platoon partner for him seemed to be whichever of the team’s two catchers wasn’t wearing the tools of ignorance on that particular evening. Cooper is well-suited to that role. And with the Marlins kicking in a little over $1 million to even out the salaries, the Padres get to try him out basically for free.

As for Reynolds, he’s a 25-year-old conversion project currently at Triple-A. The 6-foot-8-inch righty was once a first baseman himself and has got mid-90s velocity with good feel for both a breaking ball and a changeup. The no. 22 prospect in Miami’s system before the trade, he’s hardly a headliner, but he’s close to the majors now and could be a useful big league reliever under the right circumstances. That, plus a bat the Padres could use, is a suitable return for a pitcher they can’t use.

Now for Cleveland. A cynical reading of this trade says the Guardians are dumping a disappointing contract for a moderately less expensive one. Two years at $16.5 million per isn’t a backbreaker for most ownership groups, but it is for the Dolans. They save about $9 million, all-in, by swapping Bell for the right to release Segura. Raise a banner.

But Watson is an interesting prospect. The no. 16 overall pick as a North Carolina high schooler in 2021, he has explosive tools and was the no. 49 global prospect on the 2022 preseason top 100. Switch-hitting middle infielders who can get on base don’t come along every day. Since then, unfortunately, he has been suspended by the Marlins for using his bat to pantomime shooting an umpire and failed to hold his own against older competition in the Midwest League. As is the case with so many talented high school position players, Watson still needs to prove he can hit professional pitching. At the time of the trade, he was the no. 8 prospect on our Marlins list, with a FV of 45.

For taking on the less useful and slightly expensive end of a bilateral salary dump, Cleveland could’ve done worse. The modal outcome for Watson is probably that he doesn’t have a meaningful big league career, so in that respect acquiring him is a risk. But if he even comes close to figuring things out and reaching his potential, he’ll be the best player in the trade, unless Bell gets first-half-of-2022 hot again. Suffice it to say, there’s a lot going on here.

If I were to criticize this trade from Cleveland’s perspective, it would be on the grounds that the Guardians got cheaper and worse while they were a game out of a playoff spot. Yes, they’re under .500 and half their rotation (the good half, in fact) is on the IL, but they are just as much in the playoff race than the Padres are. And as disappointing as Bell has been so far this year, if the Guardians had a better internal replacement, they would’ve used him already. That’s disappointing. The rebuttal to that argument is that Bell has been so close to replacement level that losing him doesn’t hurt that much, and Watson and that $9 million in savings could be meaningful down the road. So it goes.

The Marlins have a decent shot at getting better now, the Guardians might get better in the long term, and the Padres stay about the same but with a player pool that better suits their immediate needs. Plus everyone’s accountants get some extra work. Everyone has the opportunity to win.