Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

With just seven days to go until the July 30 trade deadline, let’s round up some news and developments from the last few days and discuss how these nuggets might affect what happens over the next week. Here’s what’s new:

The Mariners Blow Their AL West Lead

Remember when the Mariners had a 10-game lead in the AL West at the end of play on June 18? Well, they surely do, and not fondly, now that it’s gone. They salvaged Sunday’s series finale against the Astros to avoid the sweep and enter the new week in a virtual tie for first, but it took just 24 games for them to blow that double-digit lead. That’s the quickest that any MLB team has ever lost a 10-game lead in its division standings.

Anyone who’s watched even a small handful of Mariners games can tell you that the offense has been the big issue for the team. Potentially making matters worse: Julio Rodríguez was removed from Sunday’s game after twisting his right ankle while leaping for a ball against the wall in center field. X-rays came back negative, and after undergoing an MRI on Monday, he’s listed as day-to-day with a mild ankle sprain. Then, in Monday’s 3-1 loss to the Angels, shortstop J.P. Crawford fractured his right pinky finger when he was hit by a pitch in the first inning. It was announced after the game that Crawford will be placed on the IL; there is no timetable for his return. Meanwhile, the Mariners placed first baseman Ty France on waivers. Though he can continue to play while he’s on waivers, he was not in the lineup Monday, and after the game he was seen cleaning out his locker, an indication that even if he clears waivers, he is not returning to Seattle.

Also not helping this offense is its home ballpark: T-Mobile Park is the most pitcher-friendly park in the league. But even by park-adjusted stats, Seattle’s offense has been quite poor; only the Pirates have a worse wRC+ among the teams with a winning percentage of at least .500.

The Mariners are still clearly on the buying side of teams entering the deadline, but their playoff hopes largely rest on winning the division outright; entering Monday, our Depth Charts projects them to have a 49.8% chance to make the playoffs and 39.6% odds to win the AL West. Back on June 25, about a weak after Seattle’s high-water mark in the standings, I wrote about the team’s anemic offense and some of the players who could help improve the lineup if the Mariners were to acquire them in a trade. All of those hitters remain with their same clubs, and Seattle’s evaporated division lead should provide the team with even more incentive to add as many impact bats as possible. The Mariners should target players whose skill sets are more “T-Mobile Park proof,” but it’s hard to imagine this offense could be worse off with any of the possible upgrades that it may acquire over the next week.

James Paxton’s DFA Sets up Musical Chairs for the Dodgers

It was a little surprising to see James Paxton get designated for assignment as the Dodgers’ corresponding move to add top pitching prospect River Ryan to their roster ahead of his MLB debut on Monday, but the fact of the matter is that Paxton wasn’t going to last much longer in Los Angeles anyhow. While he’s tied with Tyler Glasnow for the team lead in starts (18), his outings were a mixed bag at best; he averaged under five innings per start and walked 12.3% of batters faced, by far a career worst.

The Paxton-for-Ryan swap is just the first of many rotation moves coming up for the Dodgers, who will welcome Glasnow back from the injured list on Wednesday and Kershaw on Thursday. The Dodgers will have to cut a reliever to make room for Kershaw, setting up a rotation with Glasnow, Kershaw, Gavin Stone, Landon Knack, and either Ryan or rookie lefty Justin Wrobleski. Alex Vesia is the only reliever who can be optioned, and he’s not going anywhere, so the team will have a tough DFA decision afoot. My guess is that Yohan Ramírez and Anthony Banda are the most vulnerable.

But that’s just the first round of musical chairs, with at least one of Walker Buehler (hip discomfort) and Bobby Miller (ineffective and banished to Triple-A) needing a spot at some point, which could leave Knack exposed to getting optioned despite his effectiveness when called upon. There’s also the trade deadline, at which point the Dodgers may well add yet another starter to the mix.

Banged-up Braves Bolstering Bats?

Max Fried and Ozzie Albies recently became the latest in a long line of Braves players to land on the injured list.

Dan Szymborski detailed the specifics of the injuries yesterday, but the upshot is this: Whit Merrifield (who, ironically, hurt his thumb taking grounders before his first game with the Braves and is currently day-to-day) and Nacho Alvarez Jr. probably aren’t enough to paper over the loss of Albies for two months, Atlanta’s strong rotation was already spread thin before Fried got hurt because Spencer Strider is out for the year and Chris Sale and Reynaldo López are often pitching on extra rest as Atlanta monitors their innings.

Fried’s injury is reportedly a best-case scenario, so maybe the Braves feel like they can get by for a month or so with guys like Dylan Dodd, Bryce Elder, AJ Smith-Shawver, and Allan Winans, but as Dan noted, losing Albies creates a not-insignificant hit to their Playoff Odds. It certainly doesn’t help matters that Matt Olson and Orlando Arcia have struggled mightily for most of the year.

Positional flexibility fits best for the Braves, who will have Michael Harris II (and almost certainly Albies) back for the playoffs. Better versions of Merrifield (guys who can slide between the infield and outfield) include Jazz Chisholm Jr., Luis Rengifo, and Amed Rosario.

The Tigers Hold the Keys

The Tigers are on a nice little run of late, but they’re a game under .500, which makes selling at the deadline all but a guarantee. The question is this, though: To what extent will they sell? Jack Flaherty is the best rental starter on the market by far, and fellow pending free agents Mark Canha and Gio Urshela should follow him out the door to make way for younger bats auditioning for roles next year. Andrew Chafin and Shelby Miller, who have club options for 2025, could be on the move as well if the Tigers don’t plan on having them around next season anyhow and want to avoid paying their buyouts. All those players, Flaherty especially, could return something of value, but none would alter the franchise even 10% as much as would a Tarik Skubal trade.

The Dodgers and Orioles are reportedly talking to the Tigers about Skubal, and while it would be shocking to see Detroit trade the best lefty starter in baseball when he has over two years left before he’s scheduled to reach free agency, it’s still worth considering the possibility. Skubal comes with as much club control as the White Sox’ Garrett Crochet, who is far likelier to be traded, and it stands to reason that Skubal would fetch a significantly better return than Crochet.

There’s not a right answer for what the Tigers should do with Skubal. Really, the only wrong answer would be getting an unworthy return package for him because they traded him for the sake of trading him. For this reason, the Tigers are most likely going to let suitors come to them with their best offers for Skubal, and they’ll trade him only if one of them is too good to turn down.

Editor’s Note, 9:37 a.m. ET: This story has been updated to include the latest information about the Mariners’ injuries and Ty France.

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) this week. This is a strange week for the column. The All-Star break cut into the number of games available to watch; mathematically speaking, fewer games means fewer chances for weird things to happen. I took a weekend trip and didn’t watch any MLB games on Friday or Saturday. I’m also hard at work on the upcoming trade value series, which comes out between the All-Star game and the deadline every year – check back Monday for that annual exercise’s kickoff. In any case, that means this is a hodgepodge list: some stuff from this week, sure, but also plays and series that got left out last week, and some low-level baseball to boot. Thanks, as always, to ESPN’s Zach Lowe for the format idea. And two quick programming notes: I won’t be doing my regular Monday chat or Five Things next week; instead, I’ll be doing a jumbo-sized chat Friday morning.

1. The New Derby Format
The modern swing-happy Home Run Derby has been a great success, at least as far as I’m concerned. It’s more fun to see sluggers launch as many home runs as they possibly can than it is to see them agonize over every single swing. The format wasn’t perfect, though. I’m not trying to be a grump about it – is it even possible to be a grump about the Home Run Derby? – but there was one downside to the timed-round format: not enough drama.
Read the rest of this entry »

Today the Killers list turns the corner — or rather turns to the teams receiving less-than-acceptable production in the outfield corners. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (Playoff Odds of at least 9.5%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — I have also incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look.

As noted previously, some of these situations are more dire than others, particularly when taken in the context of the rest of their roster. I’ve batched the two corners together into one supersized roundup because three of the seven teams below the WAR cutoff for left field also make the list for right field, and because there’s plenty of crossover in play with regards to personnel. The capsules are listed in order of their left field rankings first, while noting those three crossover teams with an asterisk. As always, I don’t expect every team here to go out and track down upgrades before the July 30 deadline, but these are teams to keep an eye on. All statistics are through July 14.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s start with a riddle: Team A and Team B have both played 98 games this season. Due to the vagaries of extra innings and unplayed bottoms of ninths, Team A’s pitchers have thrown four more innings than Team B’s pitchers. However, Team B’s pitchers have faced 259 more batters than Team A. How is this possible?

OK, yeah, so this was actually a pretty easy riddle. The answer is that Team B’s pitchers stink, while Team A’s pitchers are very good. Team A gets a higher percentage of batters out, which means that it faces fewer batters per inning. Let’s put some names and numbers to our hypothetical, shall we? Allow me to introduce you to the Mariners and the White Sox.

The Mariners have better pitchers and a better defense behind them. Consequently, the White Sox have allowed a whopping 130 more runs. But take a look at the last row of that table. The White Sox have thrown the most pitches in baseball, while the Mariners have thrown the second fewest. Having good pitching and good defense has allowed them to throw 1,477 fewer pitches than the South Siders. The average team throws 146 pitches per game, so we’re talking about 10 entire games’ worth of pitches. Ten games! That is a huge number, and these teams still have 64 games left to go. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, we turn our attention to the second base Killers. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 9.5%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — I have also incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin; as you can see by the table below, four of the six teams listed here project to receive more than a win from their current cast of second base options. Even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look, and the incumbent may no longer appear to be the best option.

Particularly in light of those projections, I don’t expect every team to go out and track down an upgrade before the July 30 deadline, though I’ll note that some of the players cited within for their poor performance are themselves change-of-scenery candidates; one team’s problem may be another team’s solution, albeit not necessarily an ideal one. Either way, I’m less concerned with those solutions – many of which have more moving parts involved than a single trade — than I am with the problems. Unless otherwise indicated, all statistics are through Sunday.

Read the rest of this entry »

Josh Rojas has turned himself into a plus defender. My colleague Ben Clemens chronicled that advancement last month, citing the Mariners infielder’s improved ability to go to his left as a primary reason for his markedly-better metrics. Exactly what type of adjustments have allowed the 30-year-old third baseman to turn the proverbial corner with his glove? I happened to be in Cleveland when Seattle began a road series against the Guardians on the day Ben’s article ran, so was able to get the answer right from the horse’s mouth.

“It was a matter of adjusting what works best for me reacting to balls left and right,” Rojas told me. “It has to do with my preset. Not getting down too early, not getting down too late. Picking up contact points. Another thing that helps is knowing how the ball usually comes off guys’ bats when certain pitchers are throwing. There is constant communication between me, the pitching coaches, and Bone [infield coach Perry Hill] on what the plan is for the series.”

The preset is what I was most interested in, so I asked the erstwhile Arizona Diamondback — Rojas became a Mariner at last July’s trade deadline — if he could elaborate. Read the rest of this entry »

In a race for a playoff spot, every edge matters. Yet all too often, for reasons that extend beyond a player’s statistics, managers and general managers fail to make the moves that could improve their teams, allowing mediocre production to fester at the risk of smothering a club’s postseason hopes. In Baseball Prospectus’ 2007 book, It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over, I compiled a historical All-Star squad of ignominy, identifying players at each position whose performances had dragged their teams down in tight races: the Replacement-Level Killers. I’ve revisited the concept numerous times at multiple outlets and have adapted it at FanGraphs in an expanded format since 2018.

When it comes to defining replacement level play, we needn’t hew too closely to exactitude. Any team that’s gotten less than 0.6 WAR from a position to this point — prorating to 1.0 over a full season — is considered fair game. Sometimes, acceptable or even above-average defense (which may depend upon which metric one uses) coupled with total ineptitude on offense is enough to flag a team. Sometimes a club may be well ahead of replacement level but has lost a key contributor to injury; sometimes the reverse is true, but the team hasn’t yet climbed above that first-cut threshold. As with Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of hardcore pornography, I know replacement level when I see it.

For this series, I’ll go around the diamond, pointing out the most egregious examples of potential Killers at each position among contenders, which I’ll define as teams that are above .500 or have Playoff Odds of at least 9.5%. That definition covers 20 teams, down from 22 last year. I’ll include the rest-of-season projections from our Depth Charts, and while I may mention potential trade targets, I’m less focused on these teams’ solutions than I am the problems, because hey, human nature. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Seattle Mariners. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fourth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Julio Rodríguez is having a down year with the bat. Three months into the season, the 23-year-old Seattle Mariners center fielder is slashing just .257/.308/.343 with seven home runs and a 92 wRC+, numbers that are well below the .279/.338/.495 with a 135 wRC+ and 60 home runs he put up over his first two big league campaigns. There are a pair of silver linings, though. One is that Rodríguez was markedly better in the second half of the 2023 season (a .942 OPS) than he’d been in the first half (.721). The other is Seattle’s record. Even with the superstar performing at less than his usual standards, the Mariners are 45-36 and sitting atop the AL West standings. If Rodríguez were to repeat last season’s second-half resurgence — something you might not want to bet against — that surely would go a long way toward helping propel Seattle’s postseason push.

In the 104th installment of our Talks Hitting series, Rodríguez discussed his early development as a hitter, how he balances staying the course with a need for change, and the perspective he takes when looking at his stat sheet.

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David Laurila: How did you first learn to hit?

Julio Rodríguez: “Little League. I just picked up a bat with my dad and started swinging it.”

Laurila: Do you consider yourself a natural hitter?

Rodríguez: “Kind of, yeah. I could say that. In Little League, I had my coach and all that, but my dad was a big part of it too. There was a point where he was kind of my coach before I went to this academy in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic. He, as well as some other coaches, helped me out.”

Laurila: What is your father’s baseball background?

Rodríguez: “He just played amateur — he didn’t do professional — but he loved the game. That’s why I started playing.”

Laurila: What about hitting instruction when you went to the academy? Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

The Mariners are in the driver’s seat in the AL West, with a 5.5-game lead over the Astros, and an 80% chance of making it back to the playoffs after narrowly falling short last season. And considering that they just played their 81st game last night, a tough 4-3 loss to the Rays in which they led 3-1 entering the eighth, now seems like a good time to evaluate what moves president of baseball operations — and notorious trader — Jerry Dipoto should make between now and the July 30 trade deadline.

Seattle’s success has been driven by its pitching, especially its starting five. Only the Phillies, Yankees, and Orioles have gotten lower ERAs out of their rotation, and after play concluded on Sunday, Mariners starters had pitched 23 more innings than Yankees starters in the same number of games. The M’s arguably have three aces in Luis Castillo, George Kirby, and Logan Gilbert; their fourth and fifth starters, Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo, aren’t too shabby either. Woo’s innings will probably have to be managed carefully down the stretch after he began the season on the IL due to forearm issues, which also have caused him to leave a few starts early. He was removed in the fourth inning of Monday’s game with right hamstring tightness, though it’s unclear yet how much time, if any, he will miss. Either way, the Mariners can withstand a limited or absent Woo because of how many innings the front three are able to cover.

Their relievers are generally doing their jobs as well, with the group ranking 13th in bullpen ERA entering Monday, and co-closers Andrés Muñoz and Ryne Stanek have done a solid job finishing off games. The depth of the bullpen was supposed to be a strength entering the season, but with Matt Brash and Jackson Kowar out for the season and Gregory Santos yet to throw a pitch this year, the Mariners are a little thin in the middle innings. Still, Santos is expected to start a rehab assignment soon, and the lower-level bullpen issues ought to be easy to address with minor moves between now and the trade deadline.

Seattle’s tepid offense, on the other hand, won’t be such a simple fix. Its 97 wRC+ ranked 17th entering this week, and the guys who were supposed to be carrying the lineup (Julio Rodríguez, J.P. Crawford, Cal Raleigh, and offseason additions Mitch Garver and Jorge Polanco) have all been below average over the first half of the season. Strong contributions from Luke Raley, Dominic Canzone, Dylan Moore, and Josh Rojas — along with a resurgence from Ty France — have kept the offense from being even more disappointing, but this lineup still isn’t good enough for the Mariners to make a deep playoff run.

Raleigh is the only Mariners player with at least 10 home runs at the halfway point of the season; he’s pacing for 26 homers, four fewer than last year. Rodríguez’s power is also down this season. He’s launched just seven home runs after putting up his first 30-homer campaign last year. It’s worth noting that Rodríguez struggled through the first half of 2023 as well. At this point last year, he had 13 home runs and a 104 wRC+ before exploding for 19 dingers and a 145 wRC+ the rest of the way, so the Mariners should be confident that the 23-year-old phenom will turn things around. However, even with Julio at his best, Seattle needs more offense.

There will, as always, be rental bats available. Guys like Tommy Pham or Josh Bell (especially if he’s on one of his yearly hot streaks) would certainly help the Mariners add depth and lengthen their lineup, but they need a game-changer, someone to make pitchers sweat, and nobody like that exists on the rental market unless the Mets are willing to trade Pete Alonso. So Dipoto might have to go big, even if he has to give up Miller or Woo or a top prospect like Harry Ford or Cole Young in such a move. Here are some of the players the Mariners should target in a trade:

Risky Rooker

Brent Rooker is good at one thing: hitting the crap out of the ball. He’s best suited as the DH instead of playing the outfield. He also walks at a solid clip and strikes out a ton. But when he does connect, few hitters in the league make more optimal contact. Rooker is above the 90th percentile for xSLG, barrel rate, hard-hit rate, and sweet-spot percentage (he’s better than Luis Arraez there!), helping him pop 43 homers since the start of 2023 after being claimed off waivers by the A’s in the 2022-23 offseason. Most importantly, his power plays anywhere: He’s got 13 home runs this year, and he’d actually have a couple more if all of his batted balls were in Seattle, per Statcast.

The thing about Rooker is he’s streaky. Last year, he had a bonkers 232 wRC+ in March/April and then posted monthly marks, in order, of 77, 74, 144, 94, and 159 the rest of the way. This season has been a similar story. He had a 122 wRC+ over the first month and a 185 mark in May, but he’s down to 84 in June. Still, even a streaky Rooker would benefit the Mariners, especially because he’s under club control through the 2027 season.

Trading With A Familiar Team

The Rays are never ones to shy away from trading off their big league roster, even when they’re in contention for a playoff spot. And they’re certainly never ones to shy away from trading with the Mariners, with last offseason’s José Caballero-for-Luke Raley deal the most recent example in a long line of swaps between the two teams.

While the Mariners were interested in Rays third baseman Isaac Paredes last offseason, I’d argue that acquiring him wouldn’t work out well. Paredes has made a name for himself with his signature pull-side power, but that approach wouldn’t be as beneficial if he were playing his home games in Seattle. According to Statcast, only six of Parades’ 11 home runs this season would’ve been gone at T-Mobile Park, which has extremely hitter-unfriendly park factors; this year, the environment is reducing batted ball distance by an average of six feet, not good for a hitter like Paredes who relies on optimal horizontal spray angle.

Randy Arozarena has struggled mightily this season, and Brandon Lowe is too injury-prone to be relied upon as a true lineup-lengthener. But how about Josh Lowe? He’s missed some time this year due to injuries, but he’s mashed when healthy and boasts plus power and speed. Like Rooker, Lowe is controllable; he isn’t set to reach free agency until the after the 2028 season. For this reason, the Rays would ask for a lot in return. But Lowe would be an excellent fit for the Mariners, essentially the lite, left-handed version of our next and final trade possibility.

The White (Sox) Whale

Injuries are always going to be at the forefront of any discussion about dynamic White Sox center fielder Luis Robert Jr. Most recently, he missed 55 of Chicago’s first 79 games this season after re-injuring the same hip that limited him to 68 games in 2021. But what he did last year, in his first and only full season, should make teams looking to upgrade their lineup drool at the possibility of acquiring him. Robert has 40-homer power and the speed to swipe 20 bases. He’s also an excellent defensive center fielder with a strong throwing arm, tools that should make him an elite right fielder — where he’d almost certainly slide because Seattle already has Rodríguez in center.

Robert is not without his flaws; in addition to his injury history, he strikes out a ton and doesn’t really take walks. But he would clearly be the second-best position player on the Mariners and the game-changing force they most desperately need. And while he’d cost a king’s ransom that might decimate the Seattle farm system, this is the type of move that fits the Mariners perfectly. They would get a player whose raw talent equals that of Rodríguez and one who is under club control through 2027, courtesy of two $20 million club options that they would surely pick up.

Will the White Sox move him? There doesn’t seem to be anyone untouchable on Chicago’s roster, but general manager Chris Getz has every right to ask for the moon. Are the Mariners willing to fork it over to get another star? They should be.