If you know a Mets fan, you’re probably familiar with the speech. The speech starts like this: “Francisco Lindor is the most underrated player in baseball.” The pronunciation is really important here. You have to pronounce the so that it rhymes with he, and you have to put a big long pause between under and rated. Those are the rules. From that starting point, the speech generally continues for somewhere between 30 seconds and six hours, touching on offense, defense, MLB Network rankings, and at least two versions of WAR. I’ve never been all that sure whether the speech was necessarily true. Lindor’s greatness has always struck me as impossible to ignore. As one of the game’s premier defenders, according to both the advanced metrics and the eye test, he’s always on the highlight reels. He’s received MVP votes in six different seasons and won two Gold Gloves, one Platinum Glove, and three Silver Sluggers. He’s just 30 years old, and he’s already got the 25th-best JAWS score among all shortstops. He’s still adding to his seven-year peak, too. When I started writing this article yesterday, he ranked 26th.
But maybe I’m part of the problem. Maybe while I’ve been taking it for granted that everyone knows about Lindor’s greatness, other people have actually been taking Lindor’s greatness for granted. That would be uncool. As such, this is your annualreminder of just how great Francisco Lindor is. Because we’ve done this before, we’ll take a different tack and focus on things Lindor hasn’t done.
Be an Average Hitter
Lindor is now in his 10th big league season, and he’s never once put up a wRC+ below 101. We’ve seen Lindor have a down year at the plate, but even at his worst, he’s still been an above-average hitter. He graced the pages of FanGraphs for the first time in 2012 in an article with a title that fit perfectly with the auspiciousness of the moment: Midwest League Prospect Update. In it, Mike Newman called Lindor “A gold glove shortstop in the making,” but also wrote, “Lindor may wind up being a bit BABIP dependent.” As it turns out, even in 2021, when Lindor’s BABIP fell all the way to .248, seventh lowest among all qualified players, he managed to be an above-average hitter. I don’t bring that up to rag on Mike. If you remember the beginning of Lindor’s career, you know that although he hit throughout the minors, the hype around his glove was understandably louder. But the consistency is remarkable, especially from a switch-hitter. His career wRC+ is 126 from the right side and 115 from the left side. He’s only put up a below-average wRC+ from either side of the plate twice: He had a 94 wRC+ from the right side in 2016, and a 96 mark in ’21. According to our database, there have been 549 primary shortstops who made at least a thousand plate appearances in the AL and NL since 1903. Lindor’s career 119 wRC+ ranks 19th.
This season, Lindor’s 125 wRC+ puts him on pace for his fifth career season above 120. Read the rest of this entry »
As I sit down to write today, the Mets rank fourth in the majors with a 113 wRC+ and sixth with 19.7 position player WAR. They’re outperforming their star-studded division rivals in Philadelphia and Atlanta in both metrics. If you had told me on Opening Day that the Mets would have a higher wRC+ than the Braves after the trade deadline, I’d have scoffed at your ignorance. If you had told me at the end of May that the Mets’ lineup would surpass that of the Phillies in WAR within eight weeks, I’d have laughed in your face. After all, the Mets ranked 13th in wRC+ (99) and 16th in position player WAR (6.2) two months into the season. At that time, they had a 24-33 record to show for their efforts, and they were trending toward a second straight midsummer sell-off.
Yet, since the first of June, the Mets rank first in the majors with a 130 wRC+ and second with 13.6 position player WAR. They have gone 33-18 in that span, the best record in baseball. Not only did David Stearns hold onto potential trade chips Pete Alonso, J.D. Martinez, and Luis Severino at the deadline, but he made several additions, bringing Jesse Winker, Paul Blackburn, Phil Maton, Huascar Brazoban, and Ryne Stanek into the fold. According to ZiPS, the Mets increased their playoff odds by 8.2% at the deadline. And according to our Playoff Odds page, the Mets increased their postseason chances by 36.0% between May 31 and today. They are one of only two teams whose odds have risen from below 10% to above 50% at any point this season. The other is the Royals, who were at 9.9% for about 24 hours at the end of March: Read the rest of this entry »
Another year, another frenetic trade deadline. This year’s bonanza was light on top talent relative to recent years, but it made up for that in volume. With tight races in both leagues and plenty of teams looking to shore up clear weaknesses, it was a seller’s market, particularly when it came to pitching. Now that the dust has settled, I’m here to hand out some judgment.
These are going to be inherently subjective, but that doesn’t mean I don’t put a little rigor into my system. I’m focusing on two things here when I look at individual teams. First, and more important: Did a team’s moves match up with its needs? This is easy to gauge, and since it’s the whole point of the deadline, it carries the most wait. Second: How’d teams do on the trades they made? I think this part is inherently more subjective – there’s no unified prospect ranking or database where we can see how traded players will do the rest of the season, and we’re working with less information than teams have. That doesn’t mean I’m not crediting teams for trades I like or docking them for moves I don’t, just that I’m weighting it slightly less than the first category. Let’s dive right in. Read the rest of this entry »
You didn’t really think teams were done swapping relievers after Friday and Saturday, did you? If you thought maybe they were tapped out for late relief help on Sunday and Monday, well, you thought wrong! If your bullpen doesn’t look like there are enough dudes to capture Helm’s Deep, you’re woefully short-armed.
The San Diego Padres acquired LHRP Tanner Scott and RHRP Bryan Hoeing from the Miami Marlins for LHSP Robby Snelling, RHSP Adam Mazur, 3B/2B Graham Pauley, and 3B/SS Jay Beshears
As one of baseball’s elite closers on an expiring contract, Tanner Scott was arguably the best short-term option available among relievers. His walk rate has peeked up a little to the numbers of the bad old days, but his first-strike percentage has stayed firmly in positive territory, which is an important indicator of where walk numbers will settle. Scott is likely to help the Padres in a very tight NL Wild Card race, but he’ll probably be even more important for them in the playoffs if they can get there. In San Diego, he teams up with Robert Suarez to asphyxiate opposing lineups late in the games. As far as elite closers who occasionally walk a few too many batters go, Scott is one of the less stressful of the genre, because he’s so hard to hit against with any authority, giving him a good shot at escaping jams following those free passes.
Bryan Hoeing is a sinker/slider reliever who has never quite clicked, as he’s never really been able to induce many swings-and-misses, nor has he mastered the art of inducing weak groundballs. He strikes me mostly as a depth guy who has plenty of years of club control left, and barring a breakout, he seems destined to be shuffled back and forth between San Diego and Triple-A El Paso a lot over the next few years. This trade is about Scott. Read the rest of this entry »
Being Mets-y has been an insult for years, a description of a team combining bad execution and bad luck to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It’s the kind of thing that describes poor decisions but also poor circumstances. Kodai Senga spraining his calf in his first game all year and missing the remainder of the season? That’s Mets-y. Trading a huge haul to replace him and then getting nothing from the big name replacement? That’d be Mets-y too, but things have changed in Queens. Instead of splashing out prospects for Yusei Kikuchi or going after a toolsy young arm, as the Orioles did for Trevor Rogers, the Mets are doing the MLB equivalent of shopping at Costco. They acquired Paul Blackburn from the A’s in exchange for Kade Morris, their 17th-best prospect, as Will Sammon reported.
Blackburn is definitely not a name you’d put on a marquee. He’s pitched to a 4.83 ERA and 4.36 FIP in his major league career. You know how Yu Darvish is so fun because he throws seven pitches and they’re all above average? Blackburn is like that – only all of his pitches are below average. He has six different options, but our stuff models think that only his slider and cutter are even decent. He makes up for that lack of raw juice with command and with the willingness to throw any pitch in any count. Read the rest of this entry »
The Pirates have made three trade in the last two days. Yesterday, they swapped post-hype prospects with the Red Sox — struggling right-handed pitcher Quinn Priester for Triple-A 2B/LF Nick Yorke — and added veteran southpaw Jalen Beeks from the Rockies in exchange for minor league lefty Luis Peralta. Then, earlier today, Pittsburgh acquired 29-year-old lefty Josh Walker from the Mets for DSL pitcher Nicolas Carreno. Read the rest of this entry »
Generally speaking, late Saturday night is not the time for rational decisions. Late Saturday night is when people make the kinds of decisions that they won’t even remember until halfway through their eggs on Sunday and whose logic they’ll struggle to puzzle out for years to come. But just before midnight on Saturday, Jeff Passan revealed that the Nationals and the Mets made a perfectly reasonable swap. The Mets, currently half a game ahead of the Diamondbacks for the final NL Wild Card spot, bolstered their outfield and added a much-needed left-handed bat by sending 24-year-old right-handed pitching prospect Tyler Stuart to the Nationals in exchange for half a season of the resurgent Jesse Winker. After putting up a dreadful -0.8 WAR in an injury-shortened 2023 campaign, Winker is running a 126 wRC+ and has put up 1.3 WAR, fourth-best among Washington’s position players. Winker also spent his early childhood in upstate New York and has been vocal about his appreciation for Mets fans.
Winker got into Sunday’s game with his new team, entering as a replacement and playing left field, though his ultimate destination might be in right. Winker hasn’t played more than 100 innings in right field since 2019, but with Starling Marte out since June 22 due to a knee injury, that seems like the most logical fit. The Mets are currently platooning Jeff McNeil and Tyrone Taylor out there. Against righties, Winker could allow McNeil to move second base, pushing Jose Iglesias, who started out red-hot but has just one hit over his past six games, back into a bench role. Read the rest of this entry »
While trades of relievers at the deadline are rarely the hottest moves featuring the best prospects, there are usually a lot of them. As the summer reaches its peak, contenders start to think about their bullpens down the stretch and beyond, and with modern bullpens seemingly as densely populated as the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s, there’s always room to add a quality arm. Let’s dig through them!
Editor’s Note: This reliever roundup doesn’t include the more recent trades for Carlos Estévez, Nick Mears, and Jason Adam. Ben Clemens will cover those moves in a separate post.)
The Arizona Diamondbacks acquired LHRP A.J. Puk from the Miami Marlins for 1B/3B Deyvison De Los Santos and OF Andrew Pintar
Don’t focus too much on the raw ERA or unimpressive walk rate when judging the merits of Arizona’s trade for A.J. Puk. Partially in response to their myriad rotation injuries in the spring, the Marlins took Puk’s attempt to get back into the rotation seriously, and he started the season there after a successful spring. I still think that was a well-founded experiment, but it didn’t pay dividends for Miami. Puk was absolutely dreadful as a starter, and it wasn’t long before he landed on the IL with shoulder fatigue. His four starts resulted in a 9.22 ERA, a 6.29 FIP, and an alarming 17 walks in 13 2/3 innings. He was moved back to the ’pen upon his return in mid-May, but the damage to his seasonal line was so significant that it still looked underwhelming at the time of the trade (4.30 ERA, 3.62 FIP, 44 IP).
As he has the last few years, Puk has dominated as a reliever; across 30 1/3 relief innings with the Marlins, he had 33 strikeouts and, perhaps most importantly, only six walks. The result was a 2.08 ERA/2.42 FIP, with batters managing a bleak .159/.204/.252 against him. The Diamondbacks are short on lefty relievers, with Joe Mantiply shouldering a very large share of the southpaw burden. Puk has historically been better against righties than Mantiply, so he can be used in more situations.
In return, the offense-starved Marlins pick up a couple of possible bats to add to their farm system. With a .325/.376/.635 and 28 homers combined at two levels in the high minors this year, Deyvison De Los Santos looks impressive at first look, but it’s important to contextualize those numbers. He’s playing in some very high offensive environments and there’s a lot of hot air to remove from those numbers to turn them into expected MLB performance. ZiPS translates his 2024 minor league performance to .263/.302/.428 in the majors and projects for wRC+ lines between 95 and 110 in the coming years with the Marlins. Now, that’s enough for the Marlins to be interested in him and chase any upside, but don’t be shocked if he’s not an offensive force.
Similarly, ZiPS translates Andrew Pintar’s season at .235/.302/.365 and doesn’t see a ton of growth from him offensively, viewing him as most likely to be a spare outfielder if he reaches the majors. I talked a bit with my colleague Eric Longenhagen about him on Friday and Eric still grades Pintar as a fifth-outfielder type, which is about how ZiPS evaluates him. Still, as with De Los Santos, Pintar’s interesting enough for a team like the Marlins to take a chance on him and give him an extended look; projections are frequently wrong, after all, by design!
The Seattle Mariners acquired RHRP Yimi García from the Toronto Blue Jays for OF Jonatan Clase and C Jacob Sharp
With the Blue Jays as short-term sellers, it’s hardly surprising to see them trade Yimi García, who is a free agent at the end of the season. His three-year, $16 million deal turned out to be a success for the Jays; he’s been worth 2.7 WAR and put up a 3.44 ERA/3.28 FIP over 163 appearances across two-plus seasons. This season has arguably been his best, as he’s striking out nearly 13 batters per nine innings. With Gregory Santos limping a bit after a knee injury – not believed to be severe – García slots in behind Andrés Muñoz in the Mariners’ bullpen pecking order. Seattle’s relief corps has been in the middle of the pack, but adding García to a group that features Muñoz, a healthy Santos, and Taylor Saucedo gives the M’s an excellent quartet of high-leverage guys, which could be crucial in what’s shaping up to be a tight AL West race.
Jonatan Clase was listed with a FV of 40 earlier this month when Eric ran down the top Mariners prospects, but with Julio Rodríguez entrenched in center field and backed up by other outfielders who can capably cover the position (namely Victor Robles, Cade Marlowe, and even, in a pinch, newly acquiredRandy Arozarena), Clase’s ability to do so was simply less valuable in Seattle. Beyond that, the team needs more thump in its lineup at this point, and that’s not Clase’s speciality. For the Jays, Kevin Kiermaier is a free agent after the season and the organization has a real lack of center field candidates anywhere near the majors. ZiPS projects Clase at .218/.291/.373 with an 84 wRC+ for 2025 but views him as an above-average defensive center fielder, suggesting that he’s at least a reasonable stopgap option or a useful role player for Toronto. Jacob Sharp has been off the radar as a prospect, a fairly small catcher who is hitting decently well, albeit as a 22-year-old in A-ball.
The New York Mets acquired RHRP Ryne Stanek from the Seattle Mariners for OF Rhylan Thomas
The Mets have an extremely unimpressive bullpen once you get past Edwin Díaz, and now that they are firmly in contention for an NL Wild Card spot this season, they are looking to improve their relief corps. Ryne Stanek hasn’t excelled in Seattle, but the veteran reliever still throws in the high-90s, is durable, and misses bats. Guys like that will always resurface. Especially after trading for García, the Mariners have better options than Stanek to pitch in high-leverage, non-save situations. But that’s not the case in Queens, and he’s a welcome addition to the bullpen.
Rhylan Thomas isn’t a high price to pay and he largely fills a similar role to the departed Clase in Seattle’s organization, though he’s a different type of player. As a high-contact hitter, Thomas may fare well in pitcher-friendly T-Mobile Park. ZiPS sees Thomas as a .263/.313/.333 hitter with plus defense in the corners in 2025.
The Tampa Bay Rays acquired RHRP Cole Sulser from the New York Mets for cash
Cole Sulser is a relative soft-tosser who relies on deception. He had a big breakout season in 2021, but after a trade to the Marlins, he struggled with his command in ’22 and had his season marred by a lat injury that landed him on the 60-day IL. A shoulder injury ruined his 2023 and he’s spent ’24 trying to rehabilitate his value in the minors for the Mets, with mixed results. This is the third time the Rays have traded for Sulser in his career, so they seem to see something in him, and given Tampa Bay’s record with random relievers, I wouldn’t be shocked if he became useful for the Rays next season.
Cash is slang for currency, which can be exchanged for goods and services. It can be vulnerable to inflation, and because of this, it doesn’t represent a stable medium of exchange in some countries. But cash also has the benefit of being very flexible.
The Chicago Cubs acquired RHRP Nate Pearson from the Toronto Blue Jays for OF Yohendrick Pinango
Nate Pearson was rightly a hot prospect back in the day, and there were good reasons to think he’d play a key role in Toronto. Both scouts (he graduated at a FV of 55 here) and projections (ZiPS was a fan) thought a lot of his abilities, but the question was how he’d hold up physically as a starter. This worry turned out to be a real issue, and for the most part since 2019, his seasons have been marred by a wide variety of nagging injuries, costing him significant development time. Pearson throws hard, but he’s still rather raw, a problem given that he turns 28 in a few weeks and he has only two years left of club control after this one — not a lot of time for a reclamation project. The Cubs have decided to take a shot at fixing him. They are short-term sellers, but if Pearson pays off, he could be a significant player for their ’pen in 2025 and ’26.
Yohendrick Pinango is rather raw as well, a corner outfielder with decent power upside who hasn’t really shown that home run pop in the minors so far. The Cubs are kind of stacked with raw, interesting outfield prospects, while the Jays are rather short of them, making Toronto a better home for Pinango. ZiPS only translates Pinango’s 2024 season to a .344 slugging percentage; he hit well in High-A, but that was as a 22-year-old in his third stint there. Like Pearson, Pinango’s a lottery ticket.
I updated the Top 100 Prospects list today. This post goes through the pitchers and why they stack the way they do. Here’s a link directly to the list, and here’s a link to the post with a little more detail regarding farm system and prospect stuff and the trade deadline. It might be best for you to open a second tab and follow along, so here are the Top 100 pitchers isolated away from the bats. Let’s get to it. 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.
