For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Miami Marlins.

Batters

While the Marlins’ lineup, 15th in the NL in runs scored in 2023, didn’t technically prevent them from making the playoffs, it would be dangerous to expect that happy circumstance to repeat in the future. Winning nine more games than your Pythagorean record is not something that can be counted on to continue; Miami had a good bullpen, but bullpen quality actually correlates poorly with one-run record or Pythagorean overperformance.

What this means is that the Marlins need to search for more offensive talent. Though the depth chart image has them safely above replacement at all positions, the offensive output just isn’t very exciting in most of those, with no one hitter on the roster projecting with even a 20% chance of a 140 OPS+. Luis Arraez is terrific, and you’ve got to love such a throwback, but he’ll be hard-pressed to better his .354/.393/.469 line. Just being extraordinarily lucky with the injuries probably doesn’t get the Marlins above 12th or so in the NL in runs scored, and they have to figure out how to replace Jorge Soler’s 2023 performance — which, again, still didn’t suffice to get them out of last place in runs scored in the NL. And none of the prospects who are good possibilities to provide oomph in the majors someday, like Joe Mack, Kemp Alderman, or Jacob Berry, are likely going to have any impact on the lineup this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Bob Melvin feels that the San Francisco Giants could use more star power. Hearing the team’s new manager say as much when he met with the media in Nashville earlier this week prompted a question from yours truly. Prefacing it by pointing out that the San Diego Padres team he led last year had no shortage of it, I asked the veteran skipper if it is possible to have too much “star power.”

“Not necessarily,” replied Melvin, whose 2023 Padres underachieved to the tune of an 82-80 record. “It just depends on the makeup. Look, the year before we went to the NLCS in my first year there. Last year was a disappointing season, but I don’t think there’s anything to make of it being a poor year because there was too much star power. They have some really good players there, it just didn’t work out as well.

“I am big on incorporating,” Melvin added. “I think everybody needs a role and everybody needs to feel they’re a part of it. That makes for a much better clubhouse. Everybody feels they’re important. There’s an enthusiasm to that. I think there’s a place for both.”

Scott Harris largely agrees with Melvin. When the subject of impact free agents such as Shohei Ohtani came up, I asked Detroit’s President of Baseball Operations the same question that I’d asked his San Francisco contemporary. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2024 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

It’s no secret that we’re in the midst of a lean period for starting pitchers getting elected to the Hall of Fame via the BBWAA. Since the elections of 300-game winners Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and Randy Johnson in 2014 and ’15, just four starters have gained entry via the writers, two of them alongside the Big Unit in the latter year (Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz) and two more in ’19 (Roy Halladay and Mike Mussina). From a demographic standpoint, Halladay is the only starter born after 1971.

It’s quite possible we won’t get another starter born in that shag-carpeted decade unless voters come around on Andy Pettitte (b. 1972) or Mark Buehrle (b. 1979), a pair of southpaws who cleared the 200-win mark during their exceptional careers, producing some big moments and playing significant roles on championship-winning teams. Yet neither of them ever won Cy Young awards, created much black ink, or dominated in the ways that we expect Hall-caliber hurlers to do. Neither makes much of a dent when it comes to JAWS, where they respectively rank 92nd and 90th via the traditional version, about 14 points below the standard, or tied for 80th and 78th in the workload-adjusted version (S-JAWS). Neither has gotten far in their time on the ballot; Pettitte maxed out at 17% last year, his fifth, and Buerhle returned to double digits with 10.8% in his third year of eligibility — still a couple eyelashes short of his debut share.

After updating both pitchers’ profiles last year, I’ll stick to excerpting them this time before getting back to my latest thinking on the subject. Read the rest of this entry »

Jim Leyland is headed to Cooperstown. The 78-year-old former manager of the Pirates, Marlins, Rockies, and Tigers was the only candidate elected by the 2024 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee for Managers/Executives/Umpires, which met on Sunday at the Winter Meetings in Nashville to consider eight figures who made their greatest impact from 1980 to the present. In his first appearance on an Era Committee ballot, the 78-year-old former skipper received 15 of 16 votes (93.8%) from a panel of Hall of Famers, executives and media members/historians.

In a 22-year managerial career with Pittsburgh (1986–96), Florida (197–98), Colorado (1999) and Detroit (2006–13), Leyland led his teams to the playoffs eight times, winning a World Series with the Marlins in 1997, a pair of pennants with the Tigers in 2006 and ’12, and six division titles. He ranks 18th in career regular season wins (1,769) but was only 41 games above .500 for his career, with a .506 winning percentage; his record included some lean years with teams that had been torn down and weren’t likely to compete. When given the resources to do so by ownership, he was quite successful, guiding seven teams to at least 90 wins. He was a three-time Manager of the Year, winning the NL award with the Pirates in 1990 and ’92 and with the Tigers in 2006. He’s one of 10 managers to win pennants in both leagues and just the second to lead two teams to a World Series in his first year on the job; Bucky Harris was first, with the 1924 Senators and ’47 Yankees (h/t @AlmostCoop).

Jim Leyland is among 10 managers to win both the AL and NL pennant. pic.twitter.com/9ZciBDdIYQ

— MLB Stats (@MLBStats) December 4, 2023

Leyland was his era’s archetype of an old-school manager. Prematurely gray, he went from looking ancient at the start of his career to actually being ancient, at least in baseball terms. Known for sneaking cigarettes between innings, he cut an indelible image in the dugout and in front of a microphone, where his dry wit made him a media favorite. Despite a gruff exterior and a knack for getting his money’s worth from umpires when the situation merited it, he earned a reputation as a players’ manager rather than an old-school hard-ass. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2024 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2015 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Wherever Gary Sheffield went, he made noise, both with his bat and his voice. For the better part of two decades, he ranked among the game’s most dangerous hitters, a slugger with a keen batting eye and a penchant for contact that belied his quick, violent swing. For even longer than that, he was one of the game’s most outspoken players, unafraid to speak up when he felt he was being wronged and unwilling to endure a situation that wasn’t to his liking. He was a polarizing player, and hardly one for the faint of heart.

At the plate, Sheffield was viscerally impressive like few others. With his bat twitching back and forth like the tail of a tiger waiting to pounce, he was pure menace in the batter’s box. He won a batting title, launched over 500 home runs — he had 14 seasons with at least 20 and eight with at least 30 — and put many a third base coach in peril with some of the most terrifying foul balls anyone has ever seen. For as violent as his swing may have been, it was hardly wild; not until his late 30s did he strike out more than 80 times in a season, and in his prime, he walked far more often than he struck out.

Bill James once referred to Sheffield as “an urban legend in his own mind.” Off the field, he found controversy before he ever reached the majors through his connection to his uncle, Dwight Gooden. He was drafted and developed by the Brewers, who had no idea how to handle such a volatile player and wound up doing far more harm than good. Small wonder then that from the time he was sent down midway through his rookie season after being accused of faking an injury, he was mistrustful of team management and wanted out. And when he wanted out — of Milwaukee, Los Angeles, or New York — he let everyone know it, and if a bridge had to burn, so be it; it was Festivus every day for Sheffield, who was always willing to air his grievances.

Later in his career, Sheffield became entangled in the BALCO performance enhancing drug scandal through his relationship with Barry Bonds — a relationship that by all accounts crumbled before he found himself in even deeper water. For all of the drama that surrounded Sheffield, and for all of his rage and outrageousness, he never burned out the way his uncle did, nor did he have trouble finding work.

Even in the context of the high-scoring era in which he played, Sheffield’s offensive numbers look to be Hall of Fame caliber, but voters have found plenty of reasons to overlook him, whether it’s his tangential connection to PEDs, his gift for finding controversy, his poor defensive metrics, or the crowd on the ballot. In his 2015 debut, he received just 11.7% of the vote, and over the next four years, he gained barely any ground. But from 2019 to ’21, he jumped from 13.6% to 30.5% to 40.6%, with the fifth-largest and third-largest gains on the ’20 and ’21 ballots. After repeating with the same percentage in 2022, he jumped to 55% in ’23, with the cycle’s fourth-largest gain. His share of the vote is now larger than any player who’s been linked to PEDs via BALCO, the Mitchell Report, or a suspension except for Bonds or Roger Clemens. Still, as he enters his final year of eligibility on the writers’ ballot, he’ll need a Larry Walker-like jump to get to 75%. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I covered the American League half of the flurry of transactional activity that occurred as a result of the 40-man roster and non-tender deadlines. Is any one move here as impactful as signing a Yoshinobu Yamamoto or a Matt Chapman? No, but when your favorite team experiences a rash of injuries in June, whether or not they have the depth to scrap and compete is often dictated by the people and processes that surround this day. Below are my thoughts on the National League, with some quick scouting snippets on most of the added players and thoughts about roster construction where I had something to say.

Arizona Diamondbacks

The Diamondbacks lone addition was lefty Blake Walston, a former $2.5 million high school signee who, despite being young for his class and physically projectable as an amateur, has seen his fastball velocity plateau and slightly decline since he signed. He’s had fits and starts where he’s thrown harder, but for the most part, Walston’s fastball still sits 89-92 mph and his performance peripherals took a nosedive in 2023, though part of that was likely because of the PCL hitting environment. The lanky 22-year-old is still a fair long-term prospect because of his age and what one could reasonably hope will still be late-arriving physicality, but for now, I’d consider him at the very back of Arizona’s 40-man starting pitching depth chart. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is part of a series covering the 2024 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee Managers/Executives/Umpires ballot, covering candidates in those categories who made their greatest impact from 1980 to the present. For an introduction to the ballot, see here. The eight candidates will be voted upon at the Winter Meetings in Nashville on December 3, and anyone receiving at least 75% of the vote from the 16 committee members will be inducted in Cooperstown on July 21, 2024 along with any candidates elected by the BBWAA.

Jim Leyland

Jim Leyland was his era’s archetype of an old-school manager, as he went from looking ancient at the start of his career to actually being ancient, at least in baseball terms. Prematurely gray — at 42, he looked 20 years older — and known for sneaking cigarettes between innings, he cut an indelible image in the dugout and in front of a microphone. His dry wit made him a media favorite, and despite a gruff exterior and a knack for getting his money’s worth from umpires when the situation merited it, he earned a reputation as a players’ manager rather than an old-school hardass. That sometimes worked against him, as he was prone to sticking with struggling players longer than most other managers — a vulnerability in a short series. His success will garner him strong consideration for the Hall of Fame, but his case may be haunted by the number of times his teams came up just short. Read the rest of this entry »

Kim Ng broke ground as both the majors’ first female general manager, and its first of East Asian descent, the culmination of a three-decade rise through the front offices of the White Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, and Major League Baseball. But after a three-season run during which she guided the Marlins to just their fourth postseason appearance ever, not to mention their first full-season finish above .500 since 2009, she and the team have parted ways. Reportedly, while the Marlins exercised their end of a mutual option for 2024, she declined her end, believing she had earned a stronger commitment from ownership.

After a decade and a half of interviews that put her on the cusp of history, Ng became the first female GM of a men’s team in any major league North American professional sport when the Marlins hired her in November 2020. She took over on the heels of the pandemic-shortened season, during which the Marlins went 31-29 and made the expanded playoffs, their first postseason appearance of any kind since 2003. The Marlins backslid to 67-95 in 2021 and 69-93 last year amid considerable organizational upheaval, but this year’s team broke through, winning 84 games (albeit with a -57 run differential) and drawing 1.16 million fans, the NL’s lowest total but the team’s highest since 2017, when it was still under the ownership of Jeffrey Loria. The Marlins finished third in the NL East, and through a tiebreaker claimed the fifth playoff seed. They dropped two games to the Phillies and were eliminated on October 4.

Generally such breakthroughs elicit extension offers that provide security instead of placing executives in lame-duck positions. Ng did receive an offer, according to ESPN’s Buster Olney, but it came with a catch. Owner Bruce Sherman is seeking to bring in a president of baseball operations, a senior executive to whom Ng would have reported. Understandably, moving down the pecking order wasn’t what Ng had in mind, as she had hopes of expanding and reshaping the front office under her own vision, cutting ties with holdovers in the scouting and player development department “with whom she did not reach a good working relationship,” according to the New York Post’s Joel Sherman. Read the rest of this entry »

Alas, even throwbacks get injured. For all of the excitement about the extent to which Sandy Alcantara bucked recent trends by piling up innings and pitching complete games en route to the 2022 NL Cy Young award, his combination of volume and velocity — both at the outer edge of what pitchers of recent vintage have shown they could sustain — placed him at risk for an arm injury. His season ended about a month before those of his Marlins teammates, who made it as far as the NL Wild Card Series, and on Friday the 28-year-old righty announced that he had undergone Tommy John surgery, which will sideline him for the 2024 season.

Alcantara missed just one start over the first five months of the season due to a bout of “very mild” biceps tendinitis in late April, but after throwing eight innings in his September 3 start against the Nationals, he landed on the injured list with what was initially diagnosed as a flexor strain. On September 13, Marlins manager Skip Schumaker told reporters that an MRI revealed that Alcantara had actually sprained his ulnar collateral ligament. Even so, he soon resumed a throwing program. After multiple pain-free bullpen sessions, he was allowed to make a rehab start for Triple-A Jacksonville on September 21. He threw four scoreless innings, but afterwards told the team that he felt renewed tightness in his forearm. The Marlins announced that he was being shut down for the remainder of the season.

While the Marlins hadn’t offered any indication that Alcantara’s sprain was significant enough to merit surgery, it’s not terribly surprising; after all, a sprain is a tear, and with a UCL sprain, it needn’t be a full thickness tear to require surgery. It’s unclear whether the injury worsened with that rehab outing, but the more likely explanation is that as with the Orioles and Félix Bautista, the Marlins qualifying for the postseason made it worth seeing whether Alcantara could pitch through a partial tear. The answer, sadly, was no. Read the rest of this entry »

Caleb Ferguson is far from the biggest name on a Los Angeles Dodgers team that won 100 games during the regular season. Much for that reason, people who don’t closely follow the perennial NL West powerhouse probably don’t know how effective he’s been. To little fanfare, the 27-year-old southpaw made 68 appearances and went 7-4 with three saves while posting a 3.43 ERA and a 3.34 FIP over 60-and-a-third innings. Moreover, his numbers were even better if you discount the seven times he served as an opener. As a reliever, Ferguson won seven of nine decisions with a 3.02 ERA and a 3.07 FIP. His K-rate out of the pen was a tasty 27.5%.

Home cooking has been to his liking. Pitching at Chavez Ravine — Dodger Stadium if you will — the Columbus, Ohio native logged a sparkling 1.10 ERA while holding opposing hitters to a paltry .190/.258/.267 slash line.

Those things said, Ferguson is a square peg in a round hole when it comes to one of the organization’s well-known strengths. Analytics aren’t his thing.

“I guess it has the characteristics of a high-spin fastball,” Ferguson replied when I asked about the movement profile of his mid-90s four-seamer, a pitch he relied on 66.5% of the time this year. “But I don’t really look at the metrics, to be honest. I just come in and try to make good pitches. More than anything, I try to throw the ball in the safest spot to each guy. When I look at scouting reports, it’s basically just the safe zones and the danger zones.”

Ferguson likewise claimed not to know the metrics on his 33.5 percent-usage slider (Baseball Savant classifies the pitch as a cutter). Nor is he interested in knowing. Read the rest of this entry »