Building off of yesterday’s American League conference call agendas, let’s move on to the National League and see what’s on the docket for the teams of the senior circuit.

Arizona Diamondbacks

• We’re over .500 and we’re banged up. This team is better than people on the outside thought. That said, I don’t think we’ll be exceptionally busy in terms of buying this summer. We’re not catching the Padres or Dodgers, and let’s not forget about the Giants. Let’s stick to the plan and just keep getting better long-term.
• The rotation has been up-and-down, and Corbin Martin is probably the only minor league piece with a chance to contribute in that area. Let’s get some ideas going as to how we get through 162 games with depth issues in that department.
• Let’s have some initial talks about draft strategy, as we’re picking sixth. It feels like there is a four-player tier at the top of the draft, so let’s see if there’s a tier-two player we like at six, or if we should be more creative and spread the wealth a bit.
• The offense overall has been good, but our infield is not hitting. There aren’t any immediate moves to make, but it sure would be nice to see Seth Beer get off to a nice start to gauge whether he can get some at-bats up here as a Christian Walker replacement.
• We love having the presence of Eduardo Escobar and Asdrúbal Cabrera, but there should be a market for both this July, and we should be listening. Let’s focus on arms in those discussions.
• The same goes for David Peralta, even though he’s been our second best hitter and is signed for next year as well. That extra year, which is a cheap one at that ($7.5 million), should help generate some interest.

Read the rest of this entry »

It was the first game of the season for the Mets, played in front of an eager, raucous Philly crowd — and for the first six innings, it was a game that belonged to Jacob deGrom. He held the Phillies scoreless, striking out seven, allowing only three hits. He even helped his own cause at the plate, driving in one of the Mets’ two runs — a classically deGrom lack of run support; no wonder he had to do it himself. Even with the number of baserunners the Mets had left stranded, two felt like it could be enough. Even after deGrom left the game, Miguel Castro pitched a clean seventh.

And then came the eighth. Trevor May was on the mound. He struck out Adam Haseley. Then, on his second pitch to Brad Miller, a single. Then Andrew McCutchen drew a walk. A mound visit — it was time for concern — and then, on a pitch well outside the zone, Rhys Hoskins, too, singled. The bases were loaded, and none other than Bryce Harper was coming up to the plate.

May was done. The bleeding needed to stop immediately. So in came Aaron Loup, the veteran lefty whose control has always seemed to be extremely on or extremely off. Harper fouled off Loup’s curveball. Loup’s next pitch hit him in the shoulder. The lead was halved — and, thanks to the three-batter minimum, there was no recourse for Luis Rojas. Loup had to stay in and face J.T. Realmuto. With one more pitch, the lead evaporated. Read the rest of this entry »

Jacob deGrom was his usual sterling self on Wednesday night, striking out nine Red Sox batters against no homers, one walk, and just three hits over his six innings of work. For his troubles, the Mets dropped the game 1-0, leaving deGrom with his second loss of 2021. A month into the season, deGrom now has the same number of losses as total earned runs allowed. He’s upped his Cy Young-worthy game to such a degree that allowing a single run nearly doubled his ERA, from 0.31 to 0.51. And with the Mets’ bats not cooperating, he’s even tried to help his own case, with hits in four of his five starts for a .462/.462/.538 line, though that performance might not continue. It certainly feels like of all the pitchers who have their health, deGrom is the unluckiest in baseball.

The Mets right-hander has never had a poor season, but he’s kicked his career into a new gear in recent years. Since the start of 2018, he sports a very healthy 1.99 ERA, a 2.21 FIP, and nearly 12 strikeouts per game. His total of 20.8 WAR is four more than the next-best pitcher, Gerrit Cole. And though he’s on the wrong side of 30, deGrom has even seen his velocity increase. While that’s not unheard of — Charlie Morton is the most obvious recent example that my brain trudges up — it’s not typical. If the season ended right now, he’d be the only starting pitcher to finish the season with an average fastball velocity of 99 mph of those with 20 innings thrown in a season since 2002. Not bad for a guy who broke into the league averaging 93!

Despite all that good performance, one of baseball’s cruelest stats, pitcher win-loss, has shown little mercy, leaving deGrom with a 27-21 record that looks more like what you’d expect from a good No. 3 starter than an ace. Is deGrom really the unluckiest pitcher in the game, at least when it comes to team support? Read the rest of this entry »

Which players are most essential to their team’s postseason odds? While that list contains many of the best players in baseball, it’s not a strict ranking of the sport’s brightest stars. When looking at who is the most irreplaceable in the short-term, there are questions beyond just how good the player in question is. It becomes a matter of marginal utility. To a team already saddled with a doomed 2021 outlook, losing a star is unfortunate — obviously very much so for the player in question — but won’t really affect their chances of making the playoffs. The Colorado Rockies could build a time machine, kidnap Ted Williams, and stick a very confused Splendid Splinter in their lineup and it still wouldn’t change their near-term fate. And the same goes for teams at the opposite end of the spectrum — you can’t tip over your house with a leaf blower.

Of course, some teams are simply better equipped to deal with these kinds of nasty surprises than others, able to rely on enviable depth to weather absences. Two such nasty surprises have happened recently and illustrate the point well, albeit in opposite directions. Stephen Strasburg of the Washington Nationals was placed on the Injured List with shoulder inflammation after a mess of a start that saw him caught rubbing his shoulder on camera. (For more on the Strasburg injury, check out my colleague Jay Jaffe’s piece discussing what it means to Washington.) Another scare involved Mookie Betts, who took a hard, high-and-in offering from Rafael Montero directly on his forearm.

Luckily, Betts’ injury seems unlikely to sideline his for long — Dave Roberts says he expects him back later this week — but even if it had meant a longer absence, the Dodgers would have had little need to panic. Even in the worst-case scenario, where the team loses him for the rest of the season, it’s hard to derail this playoff train; the ZiPS projections have their playoff probability collapsing from 99.6% to…97.5%. A drop-off of two percentage points is a relatively minor one, smaller than the projection change if the White Sox lost Adam Eaton or the Astros had to suddenly replace Yuli Gurriel. Presumably, we have unanimous agreement that Betts is easily the most valuable player listed here.

The Nationals, on the other hand, are very reliant on their stars. Should they lose any of their key players — mainly Strasburg, Juan Soto, Trea Turner, Max Scherzer — it would nearly doom their October hopes. Soto joined Strasberg on the IL yesterday after suffering a strained left shoulder. Losing him for the duration would cause the club to miss the playoffs in 81% of the simulations in which the Nats would otherwise make it.

As steep as that sounds, from a quantitative standpoint, losing Soto isn’t the biggest possible loss in baseball in terms of playoff probability; ZiPS already sees the Nats having an uphill climb at 12.2%. The teams that have the most to lose are those with two key elements: a playoff fate that is very much undecided and and a lack of ready replacements elsewhere in the organization. So, as of Tuesday morning, here are baseball’s most irreplaceable players. The below changes in playoff odds assume a season-ending injury and the use of an in-house replacement. Just to illustrate how changeable this list is, only two of the top 10 are repeats from 2020.

Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels (-35.5%)

As the best player of his generation, Trout has a way of finishing at the top of lists, but his placement here is actually fairly unusual. He has sometimes missed this ranking completely, as the Angels have an impeccable record of building inadequate teams around their franchise player. But the AL West is open enough, and the Angels are good enough, that this is the year they really can’t afford to lose him. Trout going down would already be a huge loss even if the Angels had an extra league-average outfielder hanging around the roster. But with the likely in-house solution being to shuffle around the outfield, resulting in more playing for Juan Lagares and some combination of Scott Schebler and eventually Taylor Ward, that’s not the team’s situation.

Gerrit Cole, New York Yankees (-29.5%)

That Cole ranks so highly is not a slight on the quality of the Yankees’ starting pitching. They’re actually quite deep with interesting, talented arms who could step in if the worst should happen and they lose their ace. What is a problem is that after Cole, the Yankees have a lot of pitchers with spotty injury records. ZiPS already assumes that the team will have to turn to that depth multiple times before 2021’s final pitch is thrown. To lose the guy they want to set-and-forget at 200 innings would be a big blow. Complicating the picture is that while the Yankees are still the favorite, their slow start does matter and means that they’ve already lost a good chunk of their margin for error over the Rays, Blue Jays, and Red Sox in the division.

Ronald Acuña Jr., Atlanta Braves (-28.3%)

Acuña wasn’t the National League MVP in 2020, but he’s certainly the player I’d least like to lose if I owned the Atlanta Braves. All the projection systems love him for obvious reasons, but none more than ZiPS, which sees him as the only player in baseball to have non-laughable odds of becoming baseball’s first 50/50 club member. Drew Waters, Ender Inciarte, and Guillermo Heredia could replace the at-bats, but none of them have the recipe to replace the awesomesauce Acuña uses to feast on opposing pitchers.

Alex Bregman, Houston Astros (-28.1%)

Houston’s rotation depth over the last four years has descended from utopia to yikes and now the team’s offense is absolutely crucial to the Astros playing October baseball. The franchise’s offensive core may have originally been led by Jose Altuve and then Carlos Correa and George Springer, but Alex Bregman is now The Man, the hitter they can least afford to have missing from the lineup. ZiPS sees Aledmys Díaz and Abraham Toro as better-than-replacement talent, but Houston’s unlikely to run away with the division the way it has in some recent seasons, making every win crucial.

Jacob deGrom, New York Mets (-25.0%)

deGrom drops from first to fourth on the list, but that’s not due to any decline in his performance. Rather, with the Mets under new ownership, the team didn’t go into the season with five starting pitchers who looked good on paper and a roster that couldn’t withstand injuries to the rotation. This time around, the Mets actually have options. None of them could fully replace deGrom, mind you, but plenty could at least be respectable fifth starters on a good team.

Carlos Correa, Houston Astros (-24.1%)

Given Correa’s injury history, the fact that he ranks highly on a list like this should greatly concern the Astros. ZiPS sees Bregman as the clearly superior player but also sees the options after Correa as less enticing. Díaz isn’t a particularly good defensive shortstop, and Toro wouldn’t be an option at the position. Alex De Goti has interesting power but is a massive downgrade from Correa. Houston would likely have to explore a trade if misfortune befell Correa, but the team may have other needs, so that’s not a great scenario either.

Luis Robert, Chicago White Sox (-23.2%)

From a straight-up projection standpoint, Robert falls short of most of the names on this list. Just on the Sox, ZiPS thinks Lucas Giolito is a significantly more valuable player overall, at least when he’s not pitching in the morning. But if something should happen to Giolito, Chicago has spare arms to patch up the hole. If the team loses Robert, let’s just say ZiPS does not have a case of Leurymania or Engelalia. The race with the Twins is likely going to be a tight one and the Royals have shown surprising spunk. The White Sox could ill afford an injury to their center fielder.

Byron Buxton, Minnesota Twins (-22.7%)

Is this the year that Byron Buxton finally stays healthy and is awesome? In just nine games, he’s already collected an impressive 1.5 WAR! Buxton will fall off from his 15-WAR pace, of course, but a lot of the scenarios in which ZiPS sees Minnesota taking down Chicago involve a solid season from Buxton. Even if his offense regressed hard toward his career 93 wRC+, the team would struggle to replace his glove, which has remained a major plus even through his various injuries.

Anthony Rendon, Los Angeles Angels (-21.8%)

To nobody’s surprise, Rendon isn’t quite the player that Mike Trout is. But the Angels have real playoff hopes, and even with the team having better replacements for injured infielders than outfielders, it would struggle to replace Rendon. Franklin Barreto’s elbow is enough to just squeeze Rendon onto this list, where he’d otherwise finish 12th, with Gleyber Torres taking the 10-spot.

Freddie Freeman, Atlanta Braves (-21.7%)

I love Pablo Sandoval, but not as my starting first baseman. Nor would Austin Riley playing first (with Johan Camargo, Orlando Arcia, and Ehire Adrianza pitching in at third) remedy the situation. Freeman’s the best first baseman in baseball, and even if the position isn’t as important as it was 40 years ago, he’s a crucial part of the lineup.

Position: Associate, Professional Scouting

Job Description:

Summary:
The New York Mets are seeking to hire an Associate, Professional Scouting for an opportunity to help support the department’s existing functions and growth initiatives across a variety of domains. This Associate will be exposed to all facets of the department during both the regular season and offseason. Individuals from all backgrounds and experiences that meet the below qualifications are encouraged to apply.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:

• Provide departmental support for key transactional decisions and dates, including but not limited to the Trade Deadline, Waiver Claims, Free Agent Signings, and the Rule 5 Draft
• Monitor affiliated professional player universe to assist in formulation and maintenance of target lists centered around potential in-season and offseason acquisitions; provide frequent updates on relevant players throughout the season and offseason
• Undertake research studies and look-back analyses on topics pertaining to the Professional Scouting landscape
• Build relationships with Pro Scouts, other members of the Baseball Operations department, and the baseball community; serve as point of contact for certain administrative and logistical departmental needs
• Perform other duties and responsibilities as assigned to support the Pro Scouting department and broader Baseball Operations department

Qualifications:

Required:

• Bachelor’s degree or Spring 2021 graduation required
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office (Excel, PowerPoint, Word)
• Basic to intermediate proficiency in SQL
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Demonstrated passion for baseball with understanding of latest baseball rules and landscape trends (pertaining to player evaluation, analytics, and roster construction)
• Strong attention to detail
• Growth mindset with an eagerness to learn and willingness to think creatively
• Ability to work long hours, including evenings, weekends, and holidays

Preferred:

• Advanced proficiency in SQL and database manipulation
• Experience with programming languages used for data analysis and visualization, ideally Python and/or R
• Intermediate Spanish-speaking ability
• Baseball/softball playing background or related work experience is preferred, but not required; outside career experience that can provide value to the department in other ways is also a plus
• Experience and familiarity with baseball-specific technology and platforms (including Trackman, Hawk-Eye, Synergy, etc.)

To Apply:
Please follow this link to apply.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the New York Mets.

There’s a kind of depressing infamy that comes with being a player on the losing end of a lopsided trade. Players like Glenn Davis, Ernie Broglio, and Larry Andersen are more famous for the players they were traded for than anything they did in their own careers. It’s an unfair bit of notoriety, too; there’s not much cosmic justice involved when Harvey Kuenn, who played in 10 All-Star games, is remembered more for a decision to trade Rocky Colavito he didn’t make rather than being a .314/.360/.426, 23.5 WAR hitter in seven full seasons with the Detroit Tigers. Jim Fregosi is another star who’s a member of this unfortunate club.

In the case of Fregosi, his run as an elite shortstop might actually be a distant third in the ol’ memory banks. If you asked a random baseball fan in 2021 what they know about him, at least one who isn’t an Angels fan, you’d likely get one of two responses: his status as the player traded for Nolan Ryan or his 15-year post-playing career as a manager for four teams, most famously those notorious misfits, the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies. But when Mike Trout blew through the Angels record for the most career WAR for a position player, the previous holder wasn’t Tim Salmon or Brian Downing or Darin Erstad or Bobby Grich. It was Jim Fregosi. Read the rest of this entry »

To begin, I want you to take a look at this screenshot from Saturday’s game between the Mets and Marlins at Citi Field. What do you think happened? What might have been the outcome?

First things first: That’s Jacob deGrom on the mound. He’s the best pitcher on Earth, as well as other inhabited worlds we have yet to discover. And as expected, he’s been mowing down the Marlins. In the first inning, he dismantled Corey Dickerson on four fastballs that went 99.9, 99.8, 100.4, and 100.1 mph. Next, he struck out Starling Marte with two fastballs, both above 99 mph, and a wicked slider. Could Jesús Aguilar, the next batter, save face for his team? Nope; unable to keep up with deGrom’s heater, Aguilar popped out to Pete Alonso in foul territory.

After deGrom retired two more Marlins — both on strikeouts — we’re back to the moment in the screenshot. In the batter’s box is Jazz Chisholm, one of Miami’s many promising young players. Today, in addition to manning second base, he’s tasked with facing a pitcher who has been dominant thus far. It won’t be easy.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s docket has several marquee matchups, but we respect your intelligence enough not to explain why Shane Bieber vs. Lucas Giolito or Yu Darvish vs. Dustin May is worth watching. Instead, turn your attention to three games where the visiting pitcher will return to their old stomping grounds, and don’t gloss over Tuesday night’s game in Atlanta either.

Wednesday, April 14, 6:35 PM ET: Joe Musgrove vs. Tyler Anderson

Joe Musgrove is baseball’s hottest pitcher at the moment, and after becoming the first Padres pitcher to throw no-hitter, he’ll try to become the latest ex-Pirates pitcher to make Pittsburgh look silly for having traded him. Musgrove, who Pittsburgh traded to San Diego in January, is looking to join Gerrit Cole and Tyler Glasnow as the latest pitcher to take another leap forward ditching his black and gold threads, and his early-season showing has been superlative. Still only 28, Musgrove was deemed unlikely to help the next good Pirates team (he’s a free agent after the 2022 season), and was traded for prospects. Over his three-year stay in Pittsburgh, during which the team had the majors’ seventh-lowest winning percentage, Musgrove was the Pirates’ best pitcher by nearly two wins. Now, he’s part of a San Diego team built to win a championship, which would already be the second of Musgrove’s underrated career. Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday afternoon, a familiar groan rippled across the baseball world.

The Mets entered the bottom of the ninth down by one against the Marlins, and had put on a showcase of Fun Baseball to tie the game: a Jeff McNeil bat flip on a bomb into the right field stands, Luis Guillorme hustling out an infield single, and Brandon Nimmo slapping a double down the left field line against an extreme shift. Francisco Lindor was intentionally walked, which brought up Michael Conforto to face Marlins pitcher Anthony Bass. A few pitches later, on a 1-2 count, Conforto leaned his padded elbow into the strike zone and was grazed by a ring-him-up slider that home plate umpire Ron Kulpa was midway through calling before reversing course mid ring-up, instead awarding Conforto first base for a game-winning hit-by-pitch.

Here’s a look at where that pitch was:

And here’s a look at the contact being made:

Ouch?

Read the rest of this entry »

This is Matthew’s first post as a FanGraphs contributor. Matthew is a staff writer and podcast host at Lookout Landing, where he ponders great existential questions like, “Why would anyone be a Seattle Mariners fan?” and, “What dark curse did the Mariners conjure to make Mark Canha such an annoyance in their life?” He has written about the lack of Black players in Major League Baseball, recorded parody songs about the Astros’ banging scheme, and interviewed several minor leaguers. In addition to his current role at Lookout Landing, Matthew was previously a writer for Baseball Prospectus and a marginally successful open mic comedian. After a public school and Subaru childhood, Matthew attended the University of San Diego before bravely becoming the first FanGraphs writer to ever live in Seattle.

The first full week of the 2021 season is upon us. To avoid getting trampled in the avalanche of games, let’s focus in on the ones with the juiciest matchups, funniest storylines, and richest histories of batter vs. pitcher ownage. Here are the best pitching matchups in the week’s early going.

Monday, April 5, 7 PM ET: Jacob deGrom vs. Matt Moore

A team’s first game of the season almost always pairs their best starter versus the top of the other team’s rotation. But with a COVID-19 postponement pushing the Mets’ opener back, they get to unleash Jacob deGrom’s fury against a Philadelphia reclamation project. This NL East showdown sets the game’s most dominant pitcher against a guy who hasn’t pitched stateside in two years.

Unable to convince an MLB team to give him a job after knee surgery ended his 2019 renaissance, Matt Moore signed in Japan with the Fukuoka Soft Bank Hawks. He’s back after posting a 2.65 ERA in Nippon Professional Baseball. That’s certainly impressive, but Moore’s ERA in NPB was still not as good as the 2.38 deGrom ran last season (his 2.26 FIP was somehow better), or his 2.43 before that, and especially not the 1.70 from the year before that. Monday’s tilt is a classic story of an established, hegemonic force meeting a redemptive arc on its final curve. Read the rest of this entry »