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

Remember when the Mets started their season with five straight losses? It sure seems like they don’t. They’ve since gone 12-4, including a six-game winning streak that was snapped by Tyler Glasnow and the Dodgers on Sunday.

Nothing can come easily for any team, though, even one on a roll, and they’ll now have to keep their winning ways going without Francisco Alvarez. The 22-year-old catcher tore a ligament in his thumb on a slide into second base on Friday, and will ultimately need surgery that could keep him out as long as eight weeks; a return in early June looks like a best-case scenario. Alvarez has struggled at the plate so far this season; he had just one home run and an 86 wRC+ after clobbering 25 dingers and posting a 97 wRC+ last year as a rookie. While he has struck out less often, his balls in play have been far less dangerous, with downturns in average launch angle, sweet spot percentage, and hard hit rate. Still, it goes without saying that his upside is far greater than that of the current tandem, Omar Narváez and Tomás Nido, especially in the power department. Alvarez’s 25 homers last year were more than Narváez has hit since the start of 2020 (though he did hit 22 in 2019) and more than Nido has in entire MLB career (over 800 plate appearances).

That all sounds pretty bleak, but the Mets are hoping that in the absence of Alvarez, they will continue to get production from several unlikely contributors whose strong starts have propelled the team’s early success. In addition to Pete Alonso, who has six home runs and a 126 wRC+, the offense has been driven by — of all people — Tyrone Taylor (122 wRC+) and DJ Stewart (172 wRC+). Stewart leads the team in wRC+ even though he was the last man to earn a 26-man roster spot and was initially viewed as likeliest to be sent down whenever the Mets were ready to bring up J.D. Martinez, who signed toward the end of spring training and needed to ramp up for big league action in the minors. But Stewart has earned his stay with the way he’s slugging. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things, where I highlight some strange and amusing happenings from the last week. We’re getting into the rhythm of the season now; 20 games in, you start to get a feel for how watching your team will feel this year. Are they going to be exasperating? Do they look like a fun group? Have a few new players completely changed the vibe from last year? Are they hitting so many homers that they had to make a new dong bong homer hose?

That’s part of the fun of watching baseball, in my opinion. Playoff odds are one thing, but how you feel watching your guys get from point A to point B matters a lot more in the long run. If you’re reading this article, I’m willing to bet that you’re watching dozens of hours of baseball throughout the year – perhaps even hundreds. The playoffs for your team might last 15 hours of game time. The little things are the point, and there were some great little things this week. As always, I’d like to thank Zach Lowe, whose basketball column inspired this one in both name and content. Let’s get going.
Read the rest of this entry »

Three out of every four FanGraphs and RotoGraphs staff members picked the Twins to make the playoffs, with 18 of us predicting them to win the AL Central. (Yes, I was one of them.) And who could blame us? Sure, Minnesota lost Sonny Gray and Kenta Maeda from last year’s division-winning team, but the Twins would also get a full season of Chris Paddack, a revamped and improved bullpen, and — hopefully — a full year of Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa, and Royce Lewis anchoring what looked like a strong lineup.

So, naturally, those plans went awry almost right away. The bullpen has been ravaged by injuries, Lewis hurt himself on Opening Day and will be out for yet another extended stretch, and Correa, who was off to a strong start after recovering from his plantar fasciitis that bugged him all of last year, is now on the IL with a strained oblique. Not helping matters is that Buxton isn’t hitting, striking out 36.1% of the time with an anemic wRC+ of 51. The injuries to Lewis and Correa (not to mention Max Kepler, though his stay looks like it’ll be for the minimum 10 days) have eroded Minnesota’s depth, and Buxton’s poor performance is emblematic of the lack of production from the rest of the lineup.

Entering Thursday, the 6-11 Twins had the league’s third-worst wRC+, at 80, and that’s with Correa’s 165 wRC+ in 44 plate appearances. Young lefties Edouard Julien (99 wRC+) and Alex Kirilloff (151 wRC+) are doing their part, which may make you think (as I did when I started researching this column) that the Twins are awfully exposed against left-handed pitching. But they’re actually doing fine (95 wRC+) against southpaws, with both of those lefties beating up on same-handed pitching, albeit in small samples. Additionally, Buxton’s struggles have not carried over to his 13 plate appearances against lefties, and Ryan Jeffers and Manuel Margot are also hammering them.

You probably know where this is heading, then. The Twins are horrible against righties (76 wRC+). In fact, the bumbling White Sox (73 wRC+) are the only team that has been worse against righties than Minnesota. Buxton has a 31 wRC+ across 48 plate appearances vs. righties, and Willi Castro’s 50 wRC+ against righties would look good only in comparison to the marks of some of his teammates and because it is significantly better than his -24 wRC+ vs. lefties. Meanwhile, Margot, Christian Vázquez, and Kepler have all been essentially useless against righty pitching, with wRC+ numbers below zero.

So, what exactly can the Twins do? It’s an uninspiring answer, but not much. Correa and Lewis won’t be back anytime soon. Buxton is going to be given every chance to swing his way out of his slump, and as long as he stays healthy, the Twins should be cautiously optimistic that he’ll turn things around. Aside from that, their best hope is that Kepler will be much more productive when he returns from his knee contusion, which may well have affected his hitting. Matt Wallner was optioned to Triple-A after starting his season terribly (2-for-25 with 17 strikeouts), and surely there’s hope that he’ll come back looking more like the guy who had a 144 wRC+ in 254 plate appearances last year. Otherwise, there won’t really be any saviors rising up from within. Austin Martin is already up in the majors, and Brooks Lee hurt his back and has yet to play a minor league game this year. The Twins will have to make due with what they have until guys get healthy or they find a way to swing a trade or two sometime this summer. In the meantime, it’s not looking great.

Meet the Mets’ Breakout Reliever

Early season leaderboards are always fun, and in just about all cases they shouldn’t be viewed as indicative of what’s to come for the remaining 90% of the season. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take note of surprising players at or near the top of them. So, who leads all relievers in strikeout percentage? The resurgent Craig Kimbrel? The hellacious Mason Miller? Nope, atop the list is Reed Garrett, who didn’t even make the Mets’ Opening Day roster. He wasn’t even one of the last cuts; he was optioned on March 15, a full two weeks before the season started. But since getting the call on April 1 he’s been nearly unhittable, with a ridiculously low wOBA allowed of .177.

Garrett, 31, put up a 7.11 ERA in 44.1 MLB innings before this year, and there wasn’t really anything that we were publicly aware of that made anyone think a breakout was coming. But it’s not hard to see where Garrett’s success has come now that we’ve got the data. He’s deemphasizing his two fastballs, throwing his four-seamer and sinker a combined 26% of the time, with his sweeper, splitter, and slider giving hitters fits.

The splitter — which he’s nearly tripled in usage since 2022 — has been especially lethal, with two-thirds of swings against the pitch coming up empty. The radically different pitch mix makes for changes that look sticky and should allow Garrett to continue his rapid ascent up the bullpen hierarchy. Once viewed as an up-and-down pitcher by virtue of having an option remaining, he looks here to stay.

Leiter Gets Lit Up in Poor Debut

Well, not every MLB debut can go swimmingly. Jack Leiter’s first game as a Ranger started off well enough, with two strikeouts in a scoreless first. But the wheels came off soon after; he allowed four runs in the second and three more in the third and his day ended after just 11 outs.

To my eye, the stuff looked just fine, with his fastball up to 98 mph and averaging 96, but he just didn’t have feel for his offspeed pitches. Hitters really weren’t fooled overall. His 28% CSW rate was right at league average, but it was only 21% on his curveball, slider, and changeup, which made up 47 of his 85 pitches.

Whether Leiter sticks around in the rotation remains to be seen. The Rangers already have six healthy starters as it is, and Cody Bradford’s IL stay should be a short one. And let’s not forget that Tyler Mahle, Max Scherzer, and Jacob deGrom are all lurking for returns later in the season as well.

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

Finally, after what felt like the longest less than two weeks of our lives, the moment has arrived: The Baltimore Orioles are calling up shortstop Jackson Holliday, the top prospect in baseball. He will make his MLB debut with the Orioles as soon as Wednesday, sliding in at second base because Baltimore already has Gunnar Henderson, another former no. 1 overall prospect, at shortstop.

The 20-year-old Holliday exceeded even the rosiest of expectations in spring training, hitting .311/.354/.600 with two home runs in 48 plate appearances. But he didn’t make the Opening Day roster despite all that, with general manager Mike Elias citing Holliday’s performance against lefties in the minors and his need to further acclimate to the keystone as reasons to delay his big league career. But, with Holliday off to a bonkers start at Triple-A (.333/.482/.605 with a 189 wRC+) and the Orioles, at 6-4, in need of a jolt, now was the right time to bring him up.

Like both Adley Rutschman and Henderson before him, Holliday is great at everything but perhaps not truly elite at anything. No, he doesn’t have the raw power or speed of Wyatt Langford, the American League’s other tantalizing rookie, but Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin grade Holliday as a future five-tool star with plenty of development still ahead of him.

Ben Clemens wrote that it would be the wrong decision for Baltimore to keep Holliday down past the Super Two deadline (typically 30 or so days into the season), not only because it would be a bad-faith gesture to Holliday, but also because it would be a terrible baseball move. With the Orioles’ offense looking more good than great in the early going, they’re making the right choice to call him up now: Holliday is simply better than the players he’s replacing; Jorge Mateo is best used as a super-utility man and Ramón Urías has struggled to start the season. Moreover, the O’s had little service-time incentive to keep him stashed in the minors; if he wins the AL Rookie of the Year award, they will be rewarded with an additional draft pick and Holliday will receive a full year of service, no matter how long he’s on the big league roster. Assuming he’s ready for the majors, the Orioles stand to benefit more from having him on the roster for as long as possible.

So now, and apologies for what you’re about to read… What a bright time, it’s the right time to call up Holliday.

Blake Snell Will Be Fine

From a results standpoint, Blake Snell’s Giants debut was not a good one. Facing the Nationals at home on Monday, he allowed three runs on three hits and two walks while striking out five, and it took him 72 pitches to get through three innings. But with his late signing, lack of a true spring training, and relatively quick ramp-up, San Francisco should consider the start a muted success. Sure, the Giants lost 8-1, but Snell got through the outing without injury — something that is hardly a guarantee for any pitcher, especially so far this season — and he should be built up for about 90 or so pitches his next time around. Overall, that’s encouraging.

Besides, it wasn’t all bad when you take a look under the hood. Snell’s stuff didn’t look too far off from the arsenal that won him his second Cy Young award last year. As you’d expect, his average velocity for all four of his pitches was down, but none alarmingly so: His fastball dipped just 0.1 mph, while his slider had the biggest velocity drop, at 1.1 mph. As a result, his spin rates also decreased, but again, this shouldn’t be concerning.

Additionally, Snell got 11 misses on 25 swings (44%), and 33% of his pitches resulted in either a called strike or a whiff; both rates were higher than his marks from last year. The quality of contact against him was anemic as well, with the seven balls in play averaging an exit velocity of just 80 mph. This is who Snell is: an elite contact suppressor and whiff-inducer who will more often than not run into high pitch counts because he avoids the middle of the plate.

As recently as a month ago, I was lamenting the state of the Giants rotation, but things are looking up now. Snell joins Logan Webb to give them a formidable frontline duo, one that is as strong as any other in baseball. Meanwhile, their decision to convert offseason acquisition Jordan Hicks into a starter has gone better than anyone could’ve expected, and they also have top prospect Kyle Harrison. And let’s not forget that San Francisco’s staff has more reinforcements on the way. Alex Cobb was initially on track to return from offseason hip surgery ahead of schedule, perhaps as soon as sometime this month, before he suffered a mild flexor strain; the setback will keep him out until early May. Lefty Robbie Ray, the 2021 AL Cy Young winner, could make at least a handful of late-season starts once he’s back from Tommy John surgery; and Tristan Beck and Sean Hjelle could be factors as well.

To be clear, this team still has flaws — its offense has been one of the worst in the National League and its relievers collectively were below replacement level entering Tuesday — but Snell and the starting staff will be just fine.

The Free-Swinging Giancarlo Stanton

I’m confident in saying Snell is the same player he was at last season’s peak, but I have no idea how to evaluate Giancarlo Stanton, the most enigmatic player in baseball. He is still hitting the crap out of the ball despite overhauling his conditioning in the offseason and coming to camp noticeably slimmer, and his surface-level numbers so far are good: .250/.268/.550 with three home runs and a 134 wRC+.

But as the OBP foreshadows, Stanton’s plate discipline has eroded, and I’m just not sure he can make this work. He’s chasing 45.7% of the pitches he sees outside the zone, which is the worst rate of his career by 15 points. His contact rate is also down, and his overall swing percentage is above 50% for the first time in his career. Stanton has always been streaky, but usually his plate discipline is indicative of where his results will be.

The concern here is that this solid start is nothing more than luck, that Stanton is flailing but essentially running into a few homers with guesswork. If that’s the case, it might be wise for pitchers to stop throwing him anything near the zone to see if he’ll keep chasing. In the meantime, it’s too soon to know what to make of Stanton.

The 40-Year-Old Legend

I really thought it might be curtains on Jesse Chavez’s career when he got rocked in his first spring training outing, and I really, really thought it was when the White Sox released him last month. After all, if he couldn’t crack the bullpen that sure looked like it was going to be the worst in baseball, whose would he join?

Well, of course, I discounted both the Braves connection and his apparent comfort pitching in Atlanta. Soon after being released, Chavez signed a minor league deal, and later had his contract selected to give him a spot on the Opening Day roster. And as he’s done whenever he’s worn an Atlanta uniform, he’s piling up outs.

The 40-year-old has allowed just one run in 6.1 innings across three appearances, helping to save the rest of the bullpen in each outing. Indeed, he’s still kicking in what’s set to be his last season, all while pitching with guile and a funky arm action (and wearing sunglasses no matter the lighting or time of day). Each outing brings him closer to retirement, but I’m convinced Chavez’s vibes will live forever.

Well, That Didn’t Last Long

Some quick finality on the Julio Teheran signing, which I wrote about on Friday: He was DFA’d after just one start, in which his former Braves squad trounced him for four runs on just eight outs, with six hits and a couple of walks to boot.

We’ve since learned that his $2.5 million contract is not, in fact, for the full $2.5 million, but that it’s rather a split contract that pays him at that rate in the majors but only $150,000 in the minors. Still, the MLB split makes it implausible that anyone claims him, and it also makes it a near-guarantee that he accepts an outright assignment to Triple-A, since he’d be forfeiting his right to earn that hefty rate if he’s needed back in the bigs again.

Welcome to the triumphant return of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week, the longest-named column in baseball. Rogers Hornsby famously stared out his window all winter waiting for baseball to return. I can’t claim to have done the same, but I’m still overjoyed it’s back, and what better way to celebrate than by talking about some weird and delightful things that caught my eye while I soaked in baseball’s opening week? As always, this column is inspired by Zach Lowe’s basketball column of a similar name, which I read religiously.

1. Non-Elite Defenders Making Elite Defensive Plays
Great defenders make great plays. I’m sure you can picture Nolan Arenado making a do-or-die barehanded throw or Kevin Kiermaier tracking down a line drive at a full sprint. That’s why those guys are such storied defenders; they make the exceptional seem expected. There are plenty of other players in baseball, though, and many of them make the exceptional seem, well, exceptional. When someone you wouldn’t expect turns in a web gem, it feels all the better, and this week had a ton of them.

There’s the Juan Soto throw, of course:

That was brilliant, and it came at the perfect time. Plenty has already been written about it, but that doesn’t make it less impressive. Soto is at best an average outfielder and likely worse than that, and his arm is one of the weaker parts of his game. But he’s capable of brilliance out there from time to time, particularly when accuracy matters, and this one delivered.

But there were so many more! How about Brett Baty doing his best Arenado (or Ke’Bryan Hayes, shout out to the real best third base defender) impression on a tough grounder:

That’s phenomenal work. The combination of a weakly hit ball and fast runner meant that Baty had to make every instant count. Any wasted movement on a gather or pivot would’ve made Matt Vierling safe. This wasn’t your normal plant your feet and make a strong throw kind of out; Baty was either going to fire off balance or eat the ball. Check out his footwork, courtesy of the always-excellent SNY camera crew:

That throw came against his momentum and with his left leg completely airborne. As an added bonus, fellow lightly regarded defender Pete Alonso received the throw perfectly. Baty was a top prospect because of his hitting. If he keeps making plays like this, we might have to tear up that old scouting report.

Speaking of prospects who aren’t known for their fielding, Jordan Walker was one of the worst outfield defenders in baseball last year – understandable for a 21-year-old learning a new position in the major leagues. He’s fast and has a powerful throwing arm, so the building blocks are there, but the numbers don’t lie: He was out of his element in the outfield.

Maybe this year is different, though:

Simply put, that’s a great play. Jackson Merrill’s liner was headed toward the gap, which meant that Walker had to come in almost perpendicular to the ball to make a play. A bad step early in the route likely would’ve left him high and dry. But he got it right and turned a double into an out.

These guys won’t always make the right plays. In fact, they often won’t. That only makes it more fun when they nail it. Even bad major league defenders are capable of brilliance. Stars – they’re absolutely nothing like us!

2. Location, Location, Location
Pop ups are death for hitters. Infield pop ups are particularly so. Every other type of hit has some chance of finding a hole, but the combination of short distance and long hangtime mean that if you hit the ball straight up and it doesn’t go far, you’re going to be out. Batters hit .006/.006/.006 on infield fly balls from 2021 through 2023 – 12,583 pop ups led to 74 hits. You generally need some wild wind, a collision, or perhaps an overzealous pitcher trying to field for himself to have any shot at a hit. Mostly, though, it just turns into an out.

So far, 2024 has had other ideas. In the first five days of games, two infield pop ups turned into singles. One even turned into a double. It’s silly season for bad contact, in other words. It all started with Eddie Rosario:

That’s one of the hardest-hit infield pop ups of the year, one of only two hit at 95 mph or harder. That meant that the Reds had all day to camp under it, but unfortunately for them, it was a windy day in Cincinnati on Saturday. Gameday reported 17 mph winds from right to left, and you can see Santiago Espinal and Christian Encarnacion-Strand struggle to track the ball. If your infield pop up is going to drop, that’s a common way for it to happen.

Another unlikely but possible option is to hit the ball extremely softly, as Matt Carpenter demonstrated on April Fool’s Day:

That was a pop up, but it didn’t go very far up. With the infield playing at medium depth and Graham Pauley guarding third base after an earlier bunt single (yeah, Carpenter had quite a day), there was just no time to get to it. Maybe Matt Waldron could have made a play, but pitchers generally stay out of the way on balls like those for good reason. Even then, it would have required going over the mound and making a running basket catch. Sometimes, your pop ups just land in the exact right spot.

But wait, there’s one more. This one was a real doozy by René Pinto, also on April 1:

This one is the last pop up hit archetype: a Trop ball. There’s no wind in Tampa Bay’s domed stadium, but there is a blindingly white roof. White, conveniently enough, is the color of a baseball. So when you really sky one, as the Rays catcher did here, things can get dicey.

How easy of a play was this? In some ways, it was phenomenally easy. After all, five different fielders had time to converge on the ball, and Corey Seager easily could have made it there if he weren’t covering third. That ball hung in the air for more than six seconds, plenty of time for everyone to judge it. It didn’t carry very far, and there was no pitcher’s mound to stumble on.

Leaguewide, hits like this are the least likely of any pop up to land. Even at the Trop, batters are hitting only .011/.011/.011 on them in the Statcast era. But in other ways, it’s not a probability but a binary. This was Jonah Heim’s ball, but he just plain couldn’t see it:

From there, it was academic. And the Rangers’ diligence in heading for the ball meant that no one was covering second, so Pinto got to jog an extra 90 feet with no one stopping him. That might be the slowest home to first time on an in-play double that I’ve ever seen. That screenshot up above was only a few seconds before the ball landed, and Pinto was still near home plate.

In the long run, these things will even out. Most infield fly balls get caught. But sometimes things get really weird – and weirdness can be sublime. Naturally, Yandy Díaz smoked the next pitch for a 331-foot frozen rope – and made the last out of the game. What a sport.

3. Oneil Cruz Is Chaotic, and Good
I watched Saturday’s Pirates-Marlins tilt closely to write about Jared Jones, but my eyes kept straying. Catch a Pittsburgh game, and I’m pretty sure you’ll feel the same way. Oneil Cruz isn’t always the best player on the field. Sometimes, in fact, he’s a hindrance for Pittsburgh’s chances. But one thing you can never say is that he’s boring.

When Cruz is on the basepaths, his speed means trouble. For who? It’s not always clear, because he’s aggressive to a fault. When he’s on third base and the ball is hit on the ground, you better believe he’s going home:

I think that was a good decision, but it’s close. A perfect throw from Josh Bell probably gets him there; Bell had already thrown out Michael A. Taylor at the plate on a similar play earlier in the game, for example. But the throw wasn’t quite perfect, and Christian Bethancourt couldn’t corral it anyway. Cruz would have been safe even if Bethancourt caught it cleanly, but the ball rolled to the backstop to bring in another run.

In the long run, pressure like that tends to pay off, at least in my opinion. Taylor would have been out at first if Cruz didn’t go for it, and the difference between second and third with two outs (Cruz stays) and first and third with two outs (Cruz tries for home and makes an out) isn’t particularly huge. Sure, it’s a chaotic play, but it’s a positive for the Pirates.

Cruz’s defense is a work in progress, but no one can doubt his tools. Sometimes he’ll make a mess of a play that should be easy:

I’m not in love with his decision to stay back on that ball, but Jesús Sánchez is slow enough that it all should have worked out anyway. But staying back meant Cruz had to crow hop and fire a laser to first. He has a huge arm, but it’s not the most accurate, as you can see here. A different setup would have made that play far easier.

On the other hand, sometimes he’ll make a mess out of a play, only to recover because of that cannon arm. This is definitely not how Tom Emanski would teach it:

Cruz handcuffed himself on the initial attempt; instead of being able to make a clean backhanded pick, he got stuck with the ball coming straight at him and flubbed the scoop. For most players, that would be the end of the play, even with a catcher running. But Cruz has a get out of jail free card: He can pick the ball up barehanded and then unleash havoc. The NL Central has a ton of big shortstop arms: Masyn Winn set the tracked record for an infield assist at the Futures Game last summer, and Elly De La Cruz is no slouch. But Cruz might have them both beat when he can set his feet and get into one. Even flat-footed, that throw got on Connor Joe in a hurry.

This game had a ton of Cruz action; not every Pirates game is like that. I watched Monday’s Pirates-Nats tilt hoping for an encore, but Cruz held onto a ball rather than attempt to turn an outrageous double play and was restrained on the basepaths. At the plate, he’s striking out so much that hard contact is barely keeping him on the right side of a 100 wRC+. His trajectory in the majors is still extremely uncertain. Still, I’m going to keep tuning in and hoping for some excitement. You never know what will happen next when Cruz is on the field.

4. The White Sox Get Feisty
It’s going to be a rough season on the south side. The White Sox are a bad team, they don’t have any obvious reinforcements in sight, and they got swept in the season-opening series against the Tigers. The Braves were due up next – after treating the White Sox like a de facto farm system over the winter – and Atlanta romped to a 9-0 rain-shortened victory Monday.

Tuesday promised more of the same. The temperature at game time was a miserable 44 degrees. Remarkably, 12,300 courageous fans showed up, but not all of them were there for the home team. After all, rooting for a club that seems likely to get battered by the best team in baseball on a frigid Tuesday night doesn’t sound particularly appealing, so a meaningful percentage of the audience was audibly cheering for Atlanta. Things were looking grim, in other words.

Something funny happened, though. The White Sox and their fans made a game out of it. Garrett Crochet spun an absolute gem in his second start of the season: seven innings, eight strikeouts, one walk, and one lone run on a Marcell Ozuna homer. When pinch hitter Paul DeJong smacked a solo shot of his own, it gave Chicago a 2-1 lead with only two frames left to play.

That set the stage for an explosive finish. Almost immediately, Atlanta threatened again. Jarred Kelenic worked a one-out walk in the top of the eighth, bringing Ronald Acuña Jr. to the plate. “MVP! MVP!” The Atlanta fans in attendance made their presence known as Acuña worked a walk to put the tying run in scoring position.

But Chicago’s fans, few though they might be, weren’t going quietly. They drowned out the MVP chant in a series of boos, then started a “Let’s go White Sox” cheer as a counter. After a sleepy start, the game suddenly had some juice.

Michael Kopech came in to relieve John Brebbia after that walk, and he promptly walked Ozzie Albies to load the bases. But Yoán Moncada turned a slick double play to keep the Pale Hose out in front. The dugout loved it:

The Sox tacked on an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth, and it turned out they needed it. Kopech had a tough time closing things out. Ozuna smashed his second solo shot to cut the lead to 3-2 before Kopech walked Michael Harris II after an extended plate appearance in which Harris fouled off a string of high fastballs and spit on a low slider. Orlando Arcia wouldn’t go down quietly, either. Kopech again missed with the one slider he threw, and Arcia eventually slapped a cutter through the infield to put the tying run in scoring position for the second inning in a row.

Was this fated to be a crushing loss? Kopech couldn’t find the zone against Travis d’Arnaud, falling behind 3-1 with four straight elevated fastballs. The slider was totally gone; perhaps the adrenaline that came with the potential for his first big league save was too much. The crowd and players were rowdy now, treating this early April game like one with huge implications. Boos rained down after not particularly close pitches got called balls. Braves fans tried to start their own cheers but got repeatedly drowned out by the Sox faithful.

With Acuña on deck, walking d’Arnaud was unacceptable. Kopech tickled the strike zone on 3-1, which brought it all down to a full count pitch. He hit his spot perfectly, and d’Arnaud could only pop it up:

The crowd roared. The lights dimmed as fireworks went off. Kopech looked relieved more than excited as the team celebrated around him. For a day, at least, Chicago’s best was enough to hold off the best team in baseball.

This isn’t how the year will go for the White Sox. They’re headed straight into a rebuild with an unpopular ownership and front office group. I’m not sure that the fans will be able to muster up the same excitement for a July tilt against the Pirates. For a day, though, the atmosphere felt electric and the underdogs came up big. What a magical sport that lets us find moments of excitement even in seasons of despair.

5. Nolan Jones Tries To Do Too Much
Nolan Jones is one of my favorite young players to watch. He’s what you’d get if you took a garden variety power hitting outfielder and stapled a bazooka to his right arm. His outfield defense is below average if you ignore his throws, but you can’t ignore throws. Statcast has him in the 100th percentile for arm strength and runs saved with his arm; in other words, he’s a highlight reel waiting to happen when he picks the ball up. He had 19 outfield assists last year in less than 800 innings, leading baseball while playing 500 fewer innings than second place Lane Thomas.

This year, things haven’t gone quite so well. Jones already has more errors than he did in all of last season. One sequence against the Cubs summed up what I think is going wrong. Everyone knows Jones has a cannon, and so when Christopher Morel singled to left, Ian Happ wasn’t thinking about trying to score from second base:

That’s just smart baserunning. There’s no point in testing the best arm in the game when he’s running toward the ball from a shallow starting position. Only, did you see what happened out in left? Let’s zoom in:

Jones planned to come up firing. He absolutely didn’t need to; as we saw, Happ had already slammed on the brakes. But if you have the best arm in the game, every play probably feels like a chance to throw someone out, the old “every problem looks like a nail to a hammer” issue. He tried to make an infield-style scoop on the run and paid for it. That’s a particularly big error given the game state and location on the field; there’s no one backing Jones up there, and with only one out, it’s not *that* valuable to keep the runner at third anyway.

The ball rolled all the way to the wall, which was bad enough. Happ and trail runner Seiya Suzuki both scored easily. But Jones compounded the error. Let’s see what happened next from Morel’s perspective:

Like Happ, Morel slammed on the brakes as he got to third. After all, Jones has a huge arm and there’s still only one out, so trying to squeeze in the last 90 feet doesn’t make that much sense. Even with his eyes on the play the whole time, he decelerated to a stop. But Jones overcooked his relay throw:

I’m not quite clear about what happened there. That was a situation for a lollipop; the play was over, and all he had to do was return the ball to the infield. Maybe he got a bad grip on the ball, maybe he slipped as he was throwing it, but he just spiked it into the ground and Ryan McMahon couldn’t handle the wild carom.

This feels to me like a clear case of Jones trying to do too much. He appears to be pressing, trying to throw the world out after last year’s phenomenal performance. But part of having a huge arm is knowing when you don’t need to use it. That experience comes with time, and I’m confident that he’ll figure it out, but his aggression has hurt the Rockies so far. Oh, and those other errors? Sometimes you just miss one:

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

Injuries are unfortunately nothing new in Josh Jung’s short major league career. The Rangers third baseman emerged during the first half of last season as one of baseball’s top young talents until a fractured thumb in early August kept him out of action for six weeks and limited him to 122 games. His overall numbers — 110 wRC+ and 2.5 WAR — were strong enough for him to finish fourth in the AL Rookie of the Year balloting despite a rough final stretch upon his return; he had a 38 wRC+ in his 54 plate appearances to close out the regular season. He rebounded just in time for the postseason, hitting three home runs and posting a 128 wRC+ in 70 plate appearances as he helped lead Texas to the franchise’s first World Series championship.

Despite missing almost all of spring training with a calf strain, Jung looked poised to take another step forward in 2024, coming out of the gates hot with a .412/.474/.941 batting line in his first 19 plate appearances. But regrettably, that potential breakout came to a crashing halt on Monday when Jung was hit by a pitch at which he swung and broke his wrist. The injury requires surgery that could keep him out of action for six to 10 weeks.

The Rangers, who over the last two offseasons decided not to significantly augment their offense through trades and free agency, have interesting internal options to fill in for Jung. Infielder Justin Foscue was called up from Triple-A earlier this week when Jung was placed on the injured list. Foscue, who can also play first and second, is not a premier prospect, but he grades out as a 70 hitter and has walked more than he’s struck out at Triple-A, making for a high-floor hitter who can slide in nicely at the bottom of the order. For now at least, it looks like he and Ezequiel Duran will be on the short side of platoons in the corner infield with first baseman Jared Walsh, who is filling in for the injured Nathaniel Lowe, and Josh Smith at third.

Jung’s injury is a big blow for a Texas team that was relying on its potent lineup to carry the load while four of its starting pitchers — Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, Tyler Mahle, and Michael Lorenzen — work their way back from injuries of their own. That was never going to be easy in the competitive American League West, but the Rangers had the offensive talent to make it work. They were banking on Jung to build upon his solid rookie campaign, top prospect Wyatt Langford to make an immediate impact, and Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, and Adolis García to play up to their All-Star pedigrees. Instead, with Lowe and now Jung hurt, the Rangers are not at full strength on either side of the ball. Their margin for error in the playoff race, which was already expected to be thin, just got even smaller.

…

The Mets have unmatched vibes thus far this season, and I don’t mean that in a good way. Fortunately for them, they scratched out a win in game two of their doubleheader against the Tigers on Thursday at Citi Field despite being no-hit into the eighth inning. But they’re still a 1-5 team that has been rained out three times already this year.

That said, I’m not here to talk about the Mets coming out of the gate colder than any team besides the Marlins; I’m here to talk about Julio Teheran. The veteran right-hander debuted in 2011, and since then he’s pitched in every major league season except for 2022. While he’ll probably always be best known for his nine seasons in Atlanta, he’s bounced around quite a bit after leaving the Braves. He pitched 10 atrocious games for the Angels in 2020, made one start for the Tigers in 2021 before going down with injury, and delivered 71.2 perfectly decent innings (0.3 WAR) with the Brewers last year.

With that underwhelming of a recent track record combined with his age (33) and lack of stuff (his sinker averaged under 90 mph last year), it was surprising to see the Mets sign him to a $2.5 million contract for the remainder of the season, even though he couldn’t make the Orioles out of spring training. With the Mets in the highest tax bracket, the $2.5 million contract will effectively cost them $5.25 million, assuming he’s a Met for the entire season.

But the Mets have the financial muscle to flex, and they’ll continue to make moves like this ad infinitum as long as Steve Cohen will sign the checks. Teheran is an entirely unsexy pitcher, but he gives the Mets something that teams need more and more desperately in each successive season: relatively high-floor innings. He’s probably not better than prospects like Christian Scott and José Buttó — and, frankly, I probably would have just gone with one of those two instead — but depth isn’t a bad thing, even if one has to overpay for it. (Teheran will cost the Mets more, including taxes, than the Rangers will pay Michael Lorenzen.) As the Mets look to rebound from a rough start without ace Kodai Senga, they’re taking the quantity approach to pitching, and pitchers like Teheran go a long way in solving the season-long innings puzzle.

Enrique Bradfield Jr. has good wheels, and he can also hit a bit. Drafted 17th overall last year by the Baltimore Orioles out of Vanderbilt University, the 22-year-old outfielder not only slashed .311/.426/.447 over three collegiate seasons, his table-setter batting style translated smoothly to pro ball. In 110 plate appearances versus A-ball pitching, Bradfield batted .291 with a Bonds-esque .473 OBP.

The chances of Bradfield’s ever being comped to Barry Bonds are basically nonexistent. At 6-foot-1 and 170 pounds, the erstwhile Commodore is, in the words of our prospect co-analysts Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin, “a contact-oriented speedster who will also play plus defense.” Power isn’t a meaningful part of his game. Bradfield went deep just 15 times at Vandy, and not at all after inking a contract with the O’s.

He doesn’t expect that to change. When I asked him during spring training if he’s ever tried to tap into more power, Bradfield said that has never been a focus, adding that he’d “be going in the wrong direction if it was.” That seems a shrewd self-assessment. A line-drive hitter who swings from the left side, Bradfield will ultimately reach Baltimore by continuing to propel balls from foul pole to foul pole. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not a bold predictions kind of guy. Maybe it comes with the territory of writing so much: On average, my views are pretty down the middle because I just have so many views. There’s so much baseball bouncing around in my brain all the time that it tends toward the mean. Or maybe that’s just a cop out, a way to pre-excuse my lack of boldness. Because it’s time for my annual attempt at it. Here are five things I think will occur that hopefully will shock you a little – but not too much, because I’m hoping that at least two or three of these actually will transpire.

1. The Mets Will Lead Baseball in DH WAR
Our projections hate J.D. Martinez, and there’s a reason why: He’s 36 and squarely in the back half of his career. Over the past four years, he’s posted a 120 wRC+, which is great but not otherworldly, and he struck out 31.1% of the time in 2023. This kind of general trajectory is what projections feast on; they recognize early and commonly shared signs of decline and then extrapolate from there.

Doubting those projections wouldn’t really count as a bold claim in my book, though, because Martinez is a very good hitter. Also, the way that projections work means that he’ll exceed those numbers roughly 50% of the time even if they’re a good approximation of his true talent. We need to be much bolder than that. So let’s kick it up a notch and imagine how good Martinez could feasibly be.
Read the rest of this entry »

The regular season starts in about a week, which means there isn’t much time left to sign free agents and integrate them into the team before games start to count. In some cases, in fact, there’s no time; Blake Snell won’t be ready for Opening Day, so any pitchers who haven’t signed yet surely won’t be either. But there’s one player who could probably fall out of bed and into a starting lineup next Thursday, and the Mets just signed him:

Breaking: JD Martinez to Mets. $12M

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) March 22, 2024

J.D. Martinez is offense in a can. He plays DH, so he doesn’t need to learn who he’s throwing to or catching from. He’s well traveled, so this isn’t his first rodeo. And the Mets could use some offense, which means this signing lines up on many axes. At one year and $12 million, the contract is right. There’s just one question: How good will he be?

If you listen to our projections, Martinez is squarely on the downside of his career. ZiPS and Steamer project him for a 106 and 105 wRC+, respectively, with a ton of strikeouts offsetting strong power numbers. All DHs across baseball racked up a collective 106 wRC+ last year. It’s not exactly replacement level, but it doesn’t seem particularly hard to find someone capable of putting up that level of offense.

A counterpoint, though: Martinez just finished a season where he hit .271/.321/.572, good for a 135 wRC+. The year before that, he was at 119, and 126 the year before that. Sure, he’s not the fearsome, MVP-caliber hitter he was in 2017 and 2018, but there’s plenty of room to be worse than that and still great. His statline didn’t look particularly fluky; he posted a .301 ISO, meaningfully higher than his career mark, but he earned that production with a ton of hard contact. He posted the second-highest barrel rate of his career, the highest hard-hit rate, and put the ball in the air frequently to take advantage of all that thunder.

There are a lot of components to analyze, but at the end of the day, it all boils down to one question: Should we trust 2023, or the projections of 2024? If the Mets get some semblance of what the Dodgers got, this is a whale of a deal. If they get something closer to league average, the whole package is a lot less exciting. Let’s see if we can pick up on any patterns that suggest one or the other.

The big worry with Martinez’s game is that he strikes out a lot. His 31.1% mark in 2023 represented a new career high, but he’s always been a high-risk, high-reward hitter. Nearly every contact frequency and swing decision metric declined from the prior year:

That didn’t really harm Martinez last year. It seems like his plan was pretty straightforward. Swing hard, because you might hit it, more or less. You can live with a lot more misses if you downright wallop the ball when you connect, and that’s just what Martinez did. Those strikeouts have never sunk his offense; he has a career 132 wRC+ with a career 24.7% strikeout rate. Projection systems think he’ll strike out quite a bit next year — because of course they do — but that’s never stopped him from crushing.

Are Martinez’s lack of walks last year behind his lackluster projections? They’ve never been a huge part of his game in the first place, but 2023 marked one of the lowest walk rates of his decade-long offensive renaissance. No sweat from either Steamer or ZiPS there, though; they think he’ll rebound toward career norms.

No, the place they think Martinez will fall short is what happens after he hits the ball. I’m talking 10 fewer homers in 70 extra plate appearances, an epic power outage. I think the reason is pretty simple; 2023 was an outlier for him when it came specifically to power. He’s always run a high BABIP. He’s always hit a lot of doubles, particularly in Boston. But he hit homers on 6.9% of his plate appearances last year, the second-highest rate of his career, behind only his torrid 2017 season (.303/.376/.690, 167 wRC+). You probably can’t bet on that continuing.

In other words, the projections are based on a grain of truth, as they always are. If you’re trying to figure out how this signing will fail, it’s the general passage of time combined with regression. Martinez will keep striking out a lot, because those tend to be sticky. He’ll hit fewer bombs, because those are more variable. He’ll hit for a bit less BABIP, too, and of course he’s getting older, so sprinkle in a bit of decline everywhere, and presto change-o, you’ve turned Martinez into merely a decent hitter instead of a great one.

I don’t really buy that interpretation of the data, though. Projection systems obviously do a great job in the aggregate, but I think they’re missing the arrow of causality here. I don’t think Martinez struck out more, sustainably, and happened to hit the ball hard, unsustainably. I think that the two are linked, and that he took an attack-heavy approach understanding the inherent tradeoffs. I think it’s reasonable to project more power this year, though probably not last year’s Baseball Savant-incinerating red flames:

Split the difference between our projections and last season, and you get roughly what I’m expecting. Bunches of homers, bunches of strikeouts, and plenty of hard contact for singles and doubles mixed in. The Mets could use that kind of offense to anchor their lineup, which we think will end up in the middle of the pack in run scoring despite some excellent hitters at the top of the lineup.

The plate appearances that Martinez will soak up wouldn’t have been great, to say the least. There would’ve been a lot of Mark Vientos in there, and perhaps a heaping helping of Tyrone Taylor. Francisco Alvarez was always going to get his fair share of DH at-bats when he’s not catching, and maybe Martinez cuts down on those, but there are limits to how often you should play your catcher at DH from a rest perspective. Brandon Nimmo was the other likely beneficiary of DH time. He’s a great hitter, but who would cover for him in the outfield? This is a meaningful offensive upgrade, is my point.

Does this signing make the Mets playoff favorites? Not to me. I think they’re still a little bit short, largely because their pitching staff is somehow risky in terms of both talent and availability. But I like this signing a lot anyway. It’s the kind of move that David Stearns frequently made in Milwaukee, and it usually paid off there. If you build your team in such a way that it can add players who fetch less than expected in free agency, then go out and add those guys opportunistically, you end up with a good roster, though not always in the way you expected.

I never would have linked Martinez to the Mets at the start of this offseason. They seemed more likely to dip their toes into the pitching market, which is exactly what they did, signing Sean Manaea and Luis Severino. They traded for Adrian Houser and Taylor when the Brewers wanted to shed 40-man spots. In doing all of that, the Mets saved some money, which meant that when Martinez was available for less than initially forecast, they had the room to add, and the team composition to make it work.

I don’t think this deal will change the course of the 2024 season. I don’t think that his posting a 105 or 115 wRC+ will move mountains. I do think, however, that this move makes a ton of sense. It’s not a standalone attempt to fix the team. It’s not a blockbuster contract. It’s just a part of a larger philosophy of team construction: Getting good players on reasonable deals tends to pay off. And one added benefit to throw in at the end of this list, since I’ve already made my case that it’s a good signing: Everyone seems to love working with Martinez. He’s a student of hitting who would make Ted Williams proud. If you can justify the deal before adding that, that’s quite the throw-in.

With the start of the season a little over two weeks away, it’s time for one of my most beloved/hated/dreaded annual traditions: making my picks for breakouts and busts. For those of you who haven’t read one of these pieces in the past, these are my picks for the players who are the most likely to change the general consensus about them over the course of the 2024 season. And since we’re talking about generally low-probability outcomes — this isn’t a list of players with better or worse projections than last year — there’s no exercise with more potential to make me look super smart… or dumb. For every Jordan Montgomery or Dylan Cease who makes the breakouts list, there’s a Yusei Kikuchi or Sam Howard pick that I definitely wish I could forget I made!

As usual, let’s start with a quick table of the triumphs and humiliations of last year’s picks.

It wasn’t a great year for breakouts, as the only one I’d really call a true win was Tanner Scott, who was one of the elite relievers in baseball. While some of the pitchers that didn’t really break out had silver linings — Hunter Greene pitched better than his actual ERA and Brandon Pfaadt had a kick-ass postseason — I can’t say that our collective opinions of any of the other pitchers changed drastically in 2023. Except maybe Roansy Contreras, in the wrong direction. The busts went quite a bit better — for me, anyway — with arguably six of the eight considered disappointments for their teams in 2023. But it’s certainly less satisfying to have your pessimism be confirmed rather than your optimism.

The Breakouts

Edward Cabrera, Miami Marlins
The fact that Edward Cabrera walks a lot of batters is, of course, a Very Big Deal. But there’s so much talent bubbling underneath the surface that it’s hard to not feel that if something clicks, he could be one of the top 10 pitchers in the league. Despite his frequent command problems, Cabrera misses bats, and not just by blowing away batters with velocity. Sometimes, these inconsistent young pitchers with velocity have trouble getting strike three – Nathan Eovaldi was a classic example of this early in his career – or batters don’t actually chase them out of the strike zone. These aren’t Cabrera’s problems, and he isn’t getting hit hard, either. His biggest problem has been falling behind in the count; his first-strike percentages in the majors have been dismal, and that’s an important number in terms of predicting future walks. But at least both he and his team are quite aware of this. The fact that he’s missed a lot of time due to injuries could also explain his command issues. For all of this organization’s flaws in other areas, it has a strong record of developing pitchers with similar profiles to Cabrera. With more experience, he should be able to figure things out at the big league level.

Alas, Cabrera’s case is complicated by a shoulder impingement that was diagnosed recently following an MRI. It remains to be seen how much time he’ll miss, though it seems certain he’ll start the season the IL. I like him enough that I’m still keeping him on this list; hopefully, his prognosis won’t get worse upon further evaluation.

Griffin Canning, Los Angeles Angels
Aside from Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout, the 2023 Angels were rarely watchable. So you’ll be forgiven if you didn’t realize that Griffin Canning quietly had a successful return last season from a stress fracture in his back that had kept him out of action for nearly two years. Not only was he a competent mid-rotation starter, he actually added a tick to his fastball and had a career best strikeout rate. As the season went on, hitters chased him out of the strike zone more frequently than in previous years, which is necessary for a pitcher like Canning, who will never dazzle anyone with pure velocity.

Canning still has a tendency to leave a pitch hanging in the wrong place – especially with his curve – but in his second full season back, I’m hopeful he can make progress there. I think there’s a real shot he ends the season considered a solid no. 2 starter instead of an afterthought.

Graham Ashcraft and Hunter Greene, Cincinnati Reds
Screw it, I’m taking them again! Since I’m sort of cheating by having the same reasoning two years in a row, I’ll make them split a single breakout pick. Both still have two wipeout pitches, but each still has an issue holding him back. Greene had trouble at times last season when he left his four-seamer over the middle of the plate; despite his heater’s 98.3 mph average velocity, nine of the 19 home runs he allowed came on four-seamers in the heart zone. Meanwhile, Ashcraft struggled to strike batters out. Both pitchers have made significant tweaks to their repertoires. Ashcraft added a changeup, and Greene started throwing a curveball and a splitter in the offseason. They can’t both not break out again, right? If it doesn’t work out, I may take them for a third year simply out of stubbornness.

Nick Pivetta, Boston Red Sox
No name at the top of 2023 stuff leaderboard may be more surprising than Nick Pivetta’s, especially if, like most people, you didn’t pay a lot of attention to the Red Sox in the second half of last season. Pivetta lost his starting job in mid-May, went to the bullpen and added a sweeper. The new pitch turned his season around and he returned to the rotation for good in September, making five starts to close the season. In those final five outings, he recorded 38 strikeouts and just five walks across 30 innings. Most encouragingly, Pivetta pitched seven scoreless innings in each of his final two starts. He had the fourth-biggest jump in Stuff+ from the first half to the second half. And you can see it in the results.

ZiPS is less optimistic about Pivetta than I am. I’m going to call ZiPS wrong on this one, and hope I won’t have to eat those words in six months.

Hunter Brown, Houston Astros
With his six-pitch repertoire and top-prospect status, Hunter Brown was an exciting addition to the Astros rotation last year. At times, he looked worthy of the hype — he struck out more than 10 batters per nine innings — but overall he was a bit of a disappointment, as he posted a 5.09 ERA in 31 outings (29 starts). That said, there are signs that he was a bit unlucky: Opponents had a high BABIP against him, and he allowed home runs at a much higher rate (1.50 HR/9) than he had at any point as a professional. Additionally, considering he threw nearly 30 more innings (155.2) than in any previous season (126.1), he may have just been gassed at the end of the year. Through his first 23 games (22 starts), which spanned 125.1 innings, he had a 4.16 ERA and 3.92 FIP. Over his final eight games (seven starts), he posted an abysmal 8.90 ERA and 6.26 FIP, with more than a third of the home runs he gave up (nine of 26) coming during that final stretch.

MacKenzie Gore, Washington Nationals
Of the three true outcomes, home runs have always had a weird relationship with pitchers. Strikeout and walk rates tend to be stable numbers, so it’s typically meaningful whenever they fluctuate drastically, whereas home run rates are extremely volatile. So volatile, in fact, that xFIP, a stat that has one of the more bizarre central conceits — “Let’s just assume that every pitcher has the same ability to prevent homers.” — actually has predictive value relative to stats that take a pitcher’s home run rate as gospel. As a result, “Let’s look for a pitcher who is pretty good but allows too many damn homers,” has proven to be a sneaky good way to predict breakouts, such as Corbin Burnes and Dodgers-era Andrew Heaney. MacKenzie Gore misses bat and he’s made great strides in improving his command, so I’m betting that he’ll wrangle the round-trippers too.

Shintaro Fujinami, New York Mets
OK, it’s admittedly scary to put Mets in the breakout category, especially a Met who had an ERA above seven his first season in the majors. Shintaro Fujinami’s seven starts last year were an unmitigated disaster, but he pitched a good deal better from the bullpen. Now, his 5.14 ERA as a reliever isn’t exactly cause to hang the Mission Accomplished banner, but the .209/.319/.351 line he allowed in relief comes out to a fairly respectable runs created ERA of 3.70. Given that, his velocity, and his history in Japan, I’m willing to give him a mulligan for 2023. A good reclamation project for the Mets.

Kyle Nelson, Arizona Diamondbacks
Have you seen his slider? The double whammy of a very high home run rate (12 in 56 innings) and a high BABIP (.324) served to keep Kyle Nelson’s ERA relatively high in what could very well have been his breakout season. And even then, all it took was a brutal September to dive bomb his seasonal numbers. If Nelson finishes with an ERA above four in 2024 over at least 30 innings, I’ll eat a full order of Cincinnati chili, and as those that are familiar with my can attest, that’s not something I relish doing. No, I’m not promising something crazy like eating my hat or a 1995 Ford Taurus.

The Busts

Gerrit Cole, New York Yankees
Let’s get two things out of the way first: This has nothing to do with the sudden MRI for his elbow, and this doesn’t mean I think Gerrit Cole will be a lousy pitcher. But there are some warning signs in his 2023 profile, despite his winning the AL Cy Young, and I think all the projection systems have been picking up on it. A sudden drop in strikeout percentage is usually a blaring klaxon, and it was supported by a similar decline in his plate discipline stats; the contact rate against Cole was his highest since he played for the Pirates. And whereas he had a couple weirdly high home run seasons while pitching well, that metric was oddly low in 2023 and it was not matched with changes in exit velocity or fly ball/groundball tendencies. In other words, his low home run rate hid several indicators of a looming decline, and we can’t count on that coverup to continue. I still think Cole is a top 10 pitcher, but it’s hardly a guarantee that he’ll be a five-win pitcher again this season.

Blake Snell, Someone Eventually
Hey, if I’m going to pick one Cy Young winner, why not go for the pair? Blake Snell will keep striking out tons of guys, but he gives up a lot of free bases, and one of the key factors that kept his ERA so low was some fairly extreme splits with runners on vs. bases empty, and that isn’t a long-term characteristic. Also, his .256 BABIP allowed won’t be easily repeated. Sidestepping the WAR vs. RA9-WAR fights after about five months of them, Snell’s not likely to be the best pitcher in the league in 2024. And it doesn’t appear that teams are jumping at the opportunity to pay him as if that were the case, either; I doubt his agent, Scott Boras, would be publicly expressing Snell’s willingness to sign a short-term contract otherwise. Snell’s a very good pitcher, but he’s just not this good.

Bryan Woo, Seattle Mariners
I’m a fan of Bryan Woo, and he certainly had a terrific rookie season for a pitcher with almost no experience in the high minors. He advanced so quickly that I didn’t even have a preseason projection for him last year! But despite the success and little grumbling from any of the projection systems, I’m not quite sure he’s a finished product yet. One worry is how fastball reliant he was. Lefties absolutely torched Woo in the majors last year, and it’s easier to simply dismiss that when it’s not from a pitcher without a killer offering to fight against the platoon disadvantage. At least he’s certainly aware that he needs to develop his changeup more. If Bryce Miller’s splitter works out, maybe Woo should consider cribbing his notes.

Matt Manning, Detroit Tigers
I buy the Tarik Skubal dominance, but with Matt Manning, not so much. Low strikeout pitchers can survive in the majors, but the ones who do are generally the ones who keep the ball down and don’t get hit very hard. Manning doesn’t really do either at this point. The numbers ZiPS uses aren’t the same as Statcast’s xStats, but Manning’s 5.00 zFIP was nearly as bleak as the xERA that Statcast produced (5.48). I’d say “when in doubt, learn a splitter,” but that’s mostly because of my long-term stanning of Kevin Gausman. I’m generally optimistic about the Tigers this year, but I think Manning’s ceiling looks pretty low from here.

Emilio Pagán, Cincinnati Reds
I’ve already talked about Emilio Pagán this offseason, but it wouldn’t show a lot of guts if I didn’t put the pitcher I deemed “my least favorite signing of the offseason” on my busts lists, now would it? If anything Pagán is the exact reverse of the Burnes-Heaney rule I talked about in the breakouts. It’s true that last year, he set career worst marks in contact rate against, average exit velocity, and strikeout rate, but he also had the lowest home run rate of his career, allowing five homers instead of his normal baker’s dozen or so. And he’s going to play his home games in a bandbox (the Great American Ballpark) for the first time ever. Pagán had the fifth-lowest batting average against in the majors on barrels/solid contact hits last year, and compared to the four pitchers ahead of him (Alexis Díaz, Will Vest, Trevor May, and Devin Williams), Pagán allowed those types of contact at nearly twice the rate. As a whole big leaguers batted .614 on barrels and solid contact hits in 2023. Pagán is likable and generally popular with fans, and I’m certainly not rooting against him, but he has a history of being worse than Bill Murray at stopping gophers.