Justin Verlander wasn’t scheduled to start on Thursday, but he couldn’t even make it to the first pitch of his first Opening Day as a Met unscathed. The 40-year-old righty officially opened the season on the injured list due to a low-grade strain of his teres major, and while his absence isn’t expected to be a lengthy one, it comes at the tail end of a spring in which the Mets already lost starter José Quintana for about half the season and closer Edwin Diaz for most if not all of it.

Unfortunately, Verlander isn’t the only frontline starter to be sidelined by a teres major strain this week, as the Guardians’ Triston McKenzie recently suffered a more serious strain of the same muscle. Likewise, Verlander isn’t the only big-name hurler for a New York team who was sidelined this week (the Yankees’ Luis Severino is out again), nor is he the only NL East starter to turn up lame on Thursday (the Braves’ Max Fried took an early exit), or the only over-40 star whose plans took a turn (the Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright missed his Opening Day assignment). If it’s not a party until something gets broken, it’s not a new baseball season until a star pitcher goes down. Perhaps the only consolation to be had in this round-up is that all of these injuries are muscle strains of some sort rather than ligaments or tendons. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, Andrés Giménez enjoyed quite a breakout season, helping to lessen the sting of the Francisco Lindor trade by emerging as one of the top second basemen in the game. He made his first All-Star team, won his first Gold Glove, and helped the Guardians win the AL Central for the first time since 2018. Now, the team has guaranteed that he’ll stick around for a good long while. On Tuesday, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that Giménez has agreed to terms on a seven-year, $106.5 million extension that also includes an option for an eighth season.

The full details of the contract have not yet been reported, but the deal appears to cover the 2023-29 seasons, with a $4 million signing bonus and a $23 million club option for 2030 that comes with a $2.5 million buyout. Via as-yet-unspecified escalators, that option can increase to $24 million (note that Passan has reported the option year as 2031, meaning that the guaranteed portion of the deal wouldn’t begin until next season). At its maximum, the extension could pay Giménez $128 million over eight years, his ages 24-31 seasons.

The guaranteed portion of the contract is the second-largest in team history after José Ramírez’s five-year, $124 million extension signed last year. The extension is the latest manifestation of what has practically become a Cleveland tradition, one that traces back to the rebirth of the franchise. In the mid-1990s, general manager John Hart pioneered the practice of signing young stars such as Sandy Alomar Jr., Carlos Baerga, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, and Omar Vizquel to extensions that ran through at least some of their arbitration years and kept them in the fold when they would have hit free agency. It’s a strategy that enabled the team to save millions of dollars while maintaining a competitive nucleus, and one that has become popular with several other teams, most notably the Braves (for whom Hart served as president of baseball operations from late 2014 to late ’17). Long after Hart left Cleveland, successors Mark Shapiro and Chris Antonetti continued to sign players such as Ramírez, Michael Brantley, Travis Hafner, Jason Kipnis, Corey Kluber, Carlos Santana, and Grady Sizemore to deals along those lines.

That’s an incomplete list of players who went this route, but it never included Lindor, who went year-to-year during his arbitration years until the team decided it couldn’t afford him at a full market price. On January 7, 2021, Lindor and Carlos Carrasco were traded to the Mets in exchange for the then-22-year-old Giménez, shortstop Amed Rosario, outfielder Isaiah Greene and righty Josh Wolf.

Giménez had hit an impressive .263/.333/.398 (105 wRC+) in 49 games with the Mets during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, but he struggled in his first year with Cleveland, batting .218/.282/.351 (74 RC+) in 68 games sandwiched around a detour to Triple-A Columbus that lasted nearly three months. He did hit much better after returning (.245/.320/.382, 94 wRC+) than before (.179/.226/.308, 43 wRC+) even if he didn’t actually make better contact. As I noted last fall, he held his own after returning despite lacking a consistent approach at the plate. “Last year [2021] he’d deviate after like a bad game,” manager Terry Francona told the Akron Beakon Journal’s Ryan Lewis in May. “You’d have different stance, you have a leg kick you didn’t have, you get a toe-tap.”

Guardians hitting coaches Chris Valaika and Victor Rodriguez helped Giménez ditch the leg kick, which they felt was hindering his pitch recognition and his timing. He fared better against every major pitch type in 2022 than ’21, and overall batted .297/.371/.466 with 17 homers and 20 steals. His 140 wRC+ finished in a virtual tie with Rafael Devers and Carlos Correa for eighth in the AL (one point ahead of Ramírez) and among second basemen of either league trailed only Jose Altuve and Jeff McNeil. On the other side of the ball, Giménez’s 16 DRS, 9 OAA and 6.5 UZR each ranked second among all second basemen, and overall, his 6.1 WAR tied Xander Bogaerts for fifth in the AL, and among second basemen trailed only Altuve. That’s some fine company.

Giménez’s performance included a few areas of concern, notably a 40.8% chase rate, 6.1% walk rate, and Statcast contact numbers (87.8 mph average exit velocity, 6.2% barrel rate, 37.6% hard-hit rate) that placed only in the 29th–36th percentiles. Thanks in part to his 94th-percentile speed, he was nonetheless one of the majors’ most productive hitters on groundballs, ranking among the top half-dozen in both batting average and wRC+:

As noted last fall, hitters combined for a .235 AVG and 35 wRC+ on grounders; based on that, Giménez netted an extra 17 hits, without which he’d have finished with a .263 AVG and .433 SLG, much closer to his expected numbers.

While I do wonder about the sustainability of that aspect of his game, in all, that’s a pretty impressive showing for a 23-year-old. In fact, it’s one of the best age-23 seasons of the past decade:

Again, fine company even given the presence of a few players who have flamed out; Bellinger and Bryant have both dealt with a series of injuries, while Puig’s decline has been an ugly mixture of on- and off-field issues. The book isn’t closed on any of the above players, but several are Cooperstown bound. It’s worth noting that the two other Cleveland players on the list have turned out quite well, and that Giménez’s 140 wRC+ is actually higher than all of the other non-first base infielders — even those who out-homered him by a significant margin.

Because Giménez spent so long in the minors in 2021, he’s accrued only two years and 106 days of major league service time, 66 short of reaching three full seasons (which would have made him eligible for free agency after the 2025 season) and 22 short of becoming an arbitration-eligible Super Two. Thus, his contract for 2023 was among the 28 the team recently renewed; most of those salaries haven’t even been published yet, but Giménez was only set to make $739,400. The $4 million signing bonus bumps him up to something closer to what a star-caliber player in his first year of arbitration eligibility might make. For example, Bichette, who’s heading into his age-25 season with 3.063 years of service time, is making $2.85 million in salary plus a $3.25 million signing bonus as part of his three-year, $33.6 million extension, while the Padres’ Jake Cronenworth, who has exactly three years of service time, is making $4.225 million coming off back-to-back 4.1-WAR seasons. Had he reached three years, Giménez might be somewhere in that ballpark.

Via Dan Szymborski, here’s Giménez’s projection through 2030, the year with the club option:

Even with some regression to 4.5 WAR per year at his peak, the ZiPS contract projection for Giménez if he were a free agent comes to a whopping $287.2 million, which is more than Bogaerts received from the Padres as a 30-year-old free agent (and spread out over 11 years, at that). Even with the expected discounts for his arbitration years, Giménez projects to be worth $139.5 million through 2029, and $170.8 million through ’30; through that lens, this looks like a rather club-friendly deal. It’s not an out-and-out steal the way Ramírez’s five-year, $26 million deal for 2017-21 — over which the third baseman produced 28 WAR, made three All-Star teams and finished in the top three in AL MVP voting three times — turned out to be, but it’s clear that Giménez traded some risk for financial security. If he’s still even close to being a three-win player in 2030, he’ll stand to make tens of millions more, though he’s unlikely to approach the windfall he might have reaped if he’d spent all of 2021 in the majors and hit free agency after 2025, his age-26 season.

All of which is to say that this is A Very Guardians Deal, and while we can again bemoan the salary structure that prevents players short of six years of service time from getting anything approaching their full market value, it takes two sides to tango. And we shouldn’t be surprised if at least a couple more extensions follow in short order. Via The Athletic’s Zack Meisel, the team is in “advanced negotiations” with multiple players including Rosario, Triston McKenzie, Steven Kwan, and Trevor Stephan, hoping to complete extensions by Opening Day (Stephan’s is reportedly nearing completion). Meanwhile, Emmanuel Clase (five years, $20 million) and Myles Straw (five years, $25 million) signed such deals last spring, albeit at a scale much smaller than that of Giménez. If some of those extensions come though, they’ll probably increase the team’s payroll — estimated at around $90.7 million even with several of those aforementioned extension candidates’ salaries unknown — by a few million dollars. They’re still likely to rank among the bottom third of the 30 teams, even while contending for another AL Central title or at least a playoff spot. This approach has worked for the Guardians before, and at least in terms of establishing generational wealth for Giménez, it will work for him as well.

With Opening Day on the horizon, three teams are planning to enter the season with exclusively right-handed rotations: the Guardians, the Twins, and the White Sox. As I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, that’s not the only thing these clubs have in common; they’re also the three contenders for the AL Central crown. An all-righty rotation isn’t unheard of, but it is uncommon, and it’s particularly unusual to see three within the same division. Here’s how they each stack up:

Around this time last season, there were likewise three teams planning to deploy all-righty rotations: the Guardians, the Twins, and the Mets. The Mets, however, had lefty in David Peterson at Triple-A, and it was only a matter of time before they needed him. Indeed, he was called up two days into the season and made his first start a week later. As for the Guardians and Twins, they also had lefties waiting in the wings. Konnor Pilkington was the first man called up when Cleveland needed a sixth starter; Devin Smeltzer wasn’t the first call-up for Minnesota, but he was soon to follow.

This year, the White Sox have joined the all-righty ranks. In fact, they haven’t had a left-handed starter since releasing Dallas Keuchel last May. Meanwhile, the Guardians and Twins have more right-handed depth than last season. Pilkington is still around for Cleveland, but he had a poor showing this spring, and several right-handed prospects are moving their way up the depth chart. As for Minnesota, Smeltzer elected free agency in October, and every new starter the team acquired this offseason has been a righty. Read the rest of this entry »

Director, Baseball Software Engineering

Department: Baseball Systems
Reporting To: Assistant GM / Vice President
FLSA Classification: Excempt
Employment Type: Full-Time

Primary Purpose:
The Director of Baseball Software Engineering will manage a growing department – presently about a dozen engineers – in its effort to develop cutting-edge software and data solutions that directly impact the organization’s ability to acquire players, develop their skills, and optimize their performance. The products we build help answer questions such as “Which trades should we execute?”, “Who should we select with our next pick in the draft?”, and “How can we help players use data from yesterday’s game to improve?” Those products facilitate operations and enhance decision-making across all areas of the organization to support the Cleveland Guardians accomplish their ultimate mission of winning the World Series.

This job might be for you if you have a passion for leading teams that work with ever-expanding data sets, build high-leverage data visuals, and witness the impact of their work while watching baseball games. The position offers the unique opportunity to work with a variety of emerging technologies that span the entire applications stack. From data warehousing to web design, you will have the opportunity to craft innovative solutions to challenging problems.

We are seeking candidates with excellent technical backgrounds, track records of guiding innovation, and deep enthusiasm for developing people within a collaborative learning culture. If you align with our values of People, Collaboration, Learning, and Excellence and have a track record for building high-performing teams, we want to hear from you.

Responsibilities & Duties

• Hire top engineering and technical talent, and support the growth and development of team members, setting the conditions for them to flourish both personally and professionally
• Cultivate a collaborative learning culture where individuals are inspired to continuously improve, be their best, and make significant impact
• Interface with key stakeholders and organizational leaders to align on priorities that allow the team to build and maintain products, databases, and platforms that fuel our work
• Facilitate the day-to-day work of the team and its integration across Baseball Operations
• Guide the department in its effort to build transformational software products that drive the organization’s most important baseball decisions
• Provide technical perspective and develop processes that help service the software, data, and technology needs of the organization
• Help redefine the technology stack to shape the organization’s platform infrastructure that provides the foundation to build and support industry-changing software products
• Manage the team’s transition to the cloud, helping to take advantage of the explosion of data across the industry

Education & Experience Requirements and Preferences

• Management Experience: Multiple years of experience in a management role, supporting the growth of software engineers, data engineers, and/or related roles
• Technical Experience: 5+ years of experience in software engineering with a background in multiple of the following areas:
  • Front-End Development: Working in modern, component-based frameworks, ideally in monorepo architectures
  • Cloud: Developing software in a hybrid, multi-cloud environment
  • Data Engineering: Modeling and integrating disparate data sources into a data platform that supports analytical and transactional workloads, ideally in hybrid, multi-cloud environments
  • API Development: Working in RESTful monolithic and microservice architectures, ideally across multiple languages
  • Platform: Building internal developer platforms, enabling engineers to produce higher-quality output with a better developer experience

Role Requirements

• Role will be based out of Cleveland, Ohio

Organizational Requirements

• Reads, speaks, comprehends, and communicates English effectively
• Represents the Cleveland Guardians in a positive fashion to all business partners and the general public
• Ability to develop and maintain successful working relationship with members of the Front Office
• Ability to act according to the organizational values and service excellence at all times
• Ability to work with diverse populations and have a demonstrated commitment to social justice
• Ability to work extended days and hours, including holidays and weekends
• Ability to work in a complex and changing environment

The Cleveland Guardians are committed to developing and maintaining an environment that embraces all forms of diversity to enrich our core values, enhance our competitive position, strengthen our impact within our community, and foster a greater sense of belonging for our employees.

In this spirit, we know studies have shown that people from historically underserved groups – including women and people of color – are less likely to apply for jobs unless they believe they meet every one of the qualifications as described in a job description. We are most interested in finding the best candidate for the job and understand that candidate may bring certain skills and experiences to the role that are not listed in our job description, but that would add tremendous value to our organization. We would encourage you to apply, even if you don’t believe you meet every one of our qualifications described.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Cleveland Guardians.

Triston McKenzie recorded double-digit strikeouts three times last season. That puts him in some good company — other pitchers who did so include Framber Valdez, Taijuan Walker, and Shane Bieber — but hardly elite territory. Carlos Rodón led the way with 11 double-digit strikeout games, and 19 different pitchers had at least four such outings.

Now let’s bump up the strikeout threshold. McKenzie recorded at least 11 strikeouts in a game three times last season. This feat was a little more unusual; other starters with three 11-strikeout games were breakout star Nestor Cortes and Cy Young winner Sandy Alcantara. Only nine pitchers had four or more appearances with 11-plus strikeouts. Shohei Ohtani led the way with seven such starts.

Let’s keep going. McKenzie recorded at least 12 strikeouts in a game three times last season. No pitcher in baseball had more such starts. The only pitchers to match his total were Ohtani, Rodón, Gerrit Cole, and Spencer Strider. That’s a damn good group to be a part of:

Hopefully, you’re starting to pick up on something atypical about McKenzie. He had three games with 12 or more strikeouts but never topped eight in his 28 other outings. He was one of only six pitchers to twirl a 14-strikeout game, yet he averaged seven strikeouts per start with a median of six. His name and numbers look wildly out of place in the company of Ohtani, Rodón, Cole, and Strider. Read the rest of this entry »

Josh Barfield had a relatively short big league career. Now the farm director for the Arizona Diamondbacks, the 40-year-old son of 1980s outfielder Jesse Barfield played for the San Diego Padres in 2006, and for the Cleveland Indians from 2007-2009. I asked the erstwhile infielder whom he considers the most talented of his former teammates.

“I think I’d have to say Grady Sizemore,” replied Barfield. “He was ridiculously talented. He could do just about everything on the field. Probably the best player overall — the best career — was Mike Piazza, but for pure talent it would be Grady.”

Sizemore debuted with Cleveland and accumulated 27.3 WAR — — only Albert Pujols, Chase Utley, and Alex Rodriguez had more — from 2005-2008 in his age 22-25 seasons. He made three All-Star teams, won two Gold Gloves, and logged a 129 wRC+ with 107 home runs and 115 stolen bases over that four-year-stretch. A string of injuries followed, torpedoing what might have been a brilliant career. When all was said and done, Sizemore had just 29.7 WAR.

Other former teammates who stand out for Barfield were Adrian Gonzalez, Mike Cameron, and Victor Martinez, the last of whom he called the most gifted hitter of the group. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley lament the newly codified permanence of the zombie runner, rededicate themselves to “ghost runner” reeducation, and banter about a new position-player-pitching limitation, Andrew Chafin’s surprisingly modest contract, Derek Jeter joining Fox Sports, baseball’s leading newsbreakers vs. the leading newsbreakers in other sports, baseball officiating vs. football officiating, the schedule for Triple-A robo umps, and a 1937 proposal for baseball photo finishes. Then they continue their 2023 season preview series by discussing the Cleveland Guardians (35:09) with MLB.com’s Mandy Bell and the Texas Rangers (1:12:18) with The Athletic’s Levi Weaver, plus Past Blasts (1:55:08) from 1873 and 1968 and a few follow-ups.

Audio intro: Dawes, “Everything is Permanent”
Audio interstitial 1: 10cc, “I’m Mandy Fly Me”
Audio interstitial 2: Levi Weaver, “Dark Clay”
Audio outro: Dr. Dog, “Ebenezer Scrooge”

Link to rules announcements
Link to extra-innings pace study
Link to Ben on TLOU
Link to Eric Stephen thread
Link to Eno on pos. player pitchers
Link to WaPo on PPP
Link to Royals Review on PPP
Link to MLBTR on Chafin’s option
Link to MLBTR on Chafin’s signing
Link to Stathead on leading LHRP
Link to Leo Morgenstern on Chafin
Link to Jake Mailhot on LHRP
Link to Sheehan on NFL/MLB calls
Link to Super Bowl holding play
Link to MLB.com on Jeter
Link to Katie Baker on Fox pregames
Link to robo ump schedule
Link to Max Bishop SABR bio
Link to Craig Wright on Bishop
Link to 1937 photo finish source
Link to article on photo-finish camera
Link to film development source
Link to other film development source
Link to FG team projections
Link to payroll rankings
Link to Guardians offseason tracker
Link to Guardians depth chart
Link to Rangers offseason tracker
Link to Rangers depth chart
Link to Levi’s wins prediction
Link to Levi’s author archive
Link to FG’s SP projections
Link to FG’s LF projections
Link to 2022 LF WAR by team
Link to Bochy’s W-L record
Link to 1873 article source
Link to Rob Arthur on OF shifts
Link to Rob on OF depth
Link to 1968 article source
Link to second ’68 article source
Link to third ’68 article source
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack
Link to CBA AAV rule
Link to NHL contract rules
Link to old CPBL logo
Link to Brännboll wiki
Link to Brännboll video
Link to 1796 proto-baseball text
Link to baseball exceptionalism wiki
Link to A Christmas Carol ending

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Late last week, the Reds and Guardians swapped young outfielders, with Cincinnati acquiring 24-year-old Will Benson from Cleveland in exchange for 21-year-old Justin Boyd, a 2022 second-round pick. The trade gives the Reds’ outfield mix a source of left-handed power, which they sorely lacked, as the Guardians pick up a long-term prospect in exchange for a player who was going to have a hard time emerging from a crowded field of similarly skilled young players on their own roster.

The 14th overall pick in the 2016 draft, Benson made his big league debut in 2022 and was in the majors long enough to exhaust rookie eligibility. Deployed almost entirely against right-handed pitchers — he took 55 of his 61 plate appearances against righties — he only managed to hit .182 in a small big league sample. Benson has had contact-related question marks since he was drafted; “will he hit enough?” was the big question about his prospectdom. Plus-plus raw power and arm strength gave him an everyday right fielder’s ceiling if he can.

Benson traversed the minors striking out at a 30% clip and never hit better than .238 at any level. But even as he struck out at an alarming rate, he has typically walked enough and gotten to enough power to perform above league average at each stop. In 2022, his age-24 season, his strikeout rate was suddenly a manageable 22.7%. There has not been a change to his swing that I can identify, though it’s worth noting that his raw swing rate is a measly 37%, which would be one of the lowest in all of MLB; in 2021, per Synergy Sports, it was 46%. It’s possible he has become discerning within the strike zone in a way that has helped his bat-to-ball skills play at a 40- or 45-grade, but visual assessment of his swing still generates a lot of concern around in-zone swing and miss, especially against fairly common letter-high fastballs. The 35+ FV grade with which Benson graduated (a grade befitting a narrow, situational big leaguer with one premium tool) would not change given this new information about his approach. Read the rest of this entry »

Colt Keith started to tap into his power last year. After going deep just twice in 2021 — his first professional season — the 21-year-old third baseman homered nine times in 48 games with High-A West Michigan before landing on the injured list with a dislocated shoulder in early June. Returning to action in October, Keith proceeded to hit three bombs in 19 Arizona Fall League games.

The increased power production by one of the top position-player prospects in the Detroit Tigers organization was by design.

“I changed my approach a little bit,” Keith told me during his stint in the AFL. “I started trying to hit balls out in front, and backspin them to all fields, looking for a little bit more power. A lot of people had told me I just needed to keep doing what I was doing, but looking at guys in the big leagues that I want to play like, they’re hitting 25-30 homers a year. I felt like I needed to move in that direction. At the same time, I want to keep my hit tool. Batting .300 with some home runs is what I’d like to do.”

That is what he did this past season. The 6-foot-3, 238-pound infielder — Keith has added meaningful size and strength since entering pro ball — augmented his regular-season round-trippers with a .301/.370/.544 slash line. In 2021, he’d slashed .320/.437/.422 with Low-A Lakeland before scuffling over the final month as a 19-year-old in the Midwest League. Read the rest of this entry »

When a pitcher throws the third ball of a plate appearance, it can start to feel like his back’s against the wall quickly. First base starts to seem awfully close without any more pitches to spare and a walk lingering. The batter knows this, too, and he’s digging in looking for a juicy pitch, thinking about doing more damage than just a walk if he sees it. It’s a stressful position for any pitcher: aim for the edge of the plate, and you risk a miss and a free pass; catch a little more of the plate, you risk getting clobbered by the barrel of an increasingly comfortable and aggressive hitter.

In 2022, the Guardians didn’t get the memo. In plate appearances that reached three balls, opposing hitters posted a .197/.500/.311 batting line, good for a best-in-baseball wOBA of .397. There’s a big difference between production levels on 3–0, 3–1, and 3–2, but Cleveland handled each about as well as anybody else; its .336 wOBA on 3–2 counts and .512 mark on 3–1 were each second in baseball, and its .630 clip on 3–0 ranked fourth. The club’s starters were even better, limiting opponents to a .165/.464/.289 line and a .371 wOBA. With all unintentional walks coming on three-ball counts, these are still ultimately pretty productive lines — ask (almost) any major leaguer if he’d sign up for a .371 wOBA next year — but by comparison with staffs across the league, Cleveland’s was able to limit damage in these tight spots better than any of its peers.

Baseball Reference carries a nifty splits statistic they call sOPS+, which compares a player’s OPS (or in pitchers’ cases, opponent OPS) under the conditions of a certain split to his peers, with 100 representing league average. It’s a helpful way to contextualize splits — that Trea Turner had a .601 two-strike OPS in 2022 is less intuitive than his 137 sOPS+ with two strikes, which tells us he was 37% more productive with two strikes than the league average. By sOPS+, Guardians pitchers were again the strongest in the league with their backs against the wall. In three-ball counts, they had an sOPS+ of 75, the seventh-lowest in 300 team seasons over the last decade. Read the rest of this entry »