Well, here it is, folks. This is our final transaction analysis piece of the 2025 trade deadline, and we’re covering two outfielders who will now be in position to help playoff contenders. On Thursday, the Dodgers acquired outfielder Alex Call from the Nationals in exchange for pitching prospects Eriq Swan and Sean Paul Liñan. And the Reds traded with the A’s for veteran Miguel Andujar, sending back pitching prospect Kenya Huggins, so under no circumstances can we accuse Cincinnati of prospect hugging.

We’ll start with the Dodgers-Nationals deal. Here’s my analysis: Alex Call is pretty good. He can help the Dodgers win. You are welcome. ESPN’s Jeff Passan broke news of the deal, while Andrew Golden of the Washington Post reported the names of the pitchers headed to Washington.

To the continued and possibly eternal chagrin of Baseball Prospectus editor-in-chief Craig Goldstein, Call will not be simply taking over Michael Conforto’s spot in left field. Earlier on Thursday, the Dodgers traded the lefty-hitting James Outman to the Twins in exchange for reliever Brock Stewart, leaving a space for the right-handed Call as a fourth outfielder and likely platoon partner for Conforto. If you put the two trades together to compare apples to apples, you get Call for Outman (and Stewart for two prospects). Call is three years older than Outman, with roughly the same amount of service time. He’s hitting much better than Outman right now and allows the Dodgers to get another right-handed bat in the lineup, but he offers a bit less upside in the future.

Call is 30 years old, and he has a career 102 wRC+ in 920 plate appearances. He’s been significantly better this season, running a 118 wRC+. He doesn’t have wild platoon splits either. This season, he has a 124 wRC+ against lefties and a 115 wRC+ against righties. Over his career, those numbers are 110 against lefties and 97 against righties. Conforto has much better career numbers against righties, but this season, he only has a wRC+ of 85 against them. It wouldn’t be unreasonable at all to just plug Call in as the starting left fielder and call it a day, and it would make Craig so happy.

Call has a reputation for speed and defense, but it’s worth at least noting that his sprint speed has declined some this season, and his defense has graded out closer to average so far. It’s possible that he’ll get some of that speed back, as he’s less than a year out from a tear in the plantar fascia of his left foot. Regardless, he should be able to hold down all three outfield positions when called upon. With James Wood, Dylan Crews, and more recently, call-up Daylen Lile in the outfield, Call no longer looked like a part of Washington’s future. On the other side, the Dodgers have made a decent upgrade to an outfield that has come up just a bit short all season.

Swan is a 23-year-old right-handed starter, and at 6-foot-6 with a fastball that hits 100 mph and iffy control, he certainly looks like a Washington Nationals prospect. He didn’t put up good numbers in college, and he hasn’t put up good numbers in the minors due to wild walk totals, but did you hear me say that he was 6’6” and can throw a hundo? Swan’s 4.43 ERA and 4.34 FIP this season mark big improvements from 2024, but he’s still a big development project. Eric Longenhagen ranked him 13th in the Dodgers system with a 45 future value back in April, but he now downgraded Swan to a 40+ because he looks more likely to end up as a reliever.

That said, Swan could be a pretty good reliever. Right now, Eric has a 70-grade on Swan’s slider. He can hit the zone with it, and its whiff rate is approaching 50%. The fastball is sitting 96, but it’s playing down and he isn’t throwing strikes with it. It might end up as a pitch that’s only good for trying to attract whiffs above the zone. But that’s as a starter. If Swan ends up as a max-effort reliever, a plus-plus slider and a high-90s fastball could work just fine.

The Venezuelan-born Liñan is 20 years old, and you won’t read anything about him that doesn’t start and end with his changeup. Eric put a 55 present value on the pitch back in April, when he ranked Liñan 30th in the Dodgers system with a 40 FV. Liñan has moved around the minors a bit this season, beginning in Low-A, making two spot starts in Triple-A, then going down to High-A. He got shelled in one of those Triple-A starts, but even so, he’s got an overall ERA of 2.78 and FIP of 3.29 in 18 appearances and 14 starts across those three levels. He’s walking more than 10% of the batters he’s facing, but he’s also striking out nearly a third of them. It’s worth noting the environment, too, because they make Linan’s ERA- of 61 and FIP- of 74 look even better. Jeffrey Paternostro of Baseball Prospectus wrote a very fun article about how to evaluate Liñan back in May, and I strongly recommend it. For now the question is how Liñan will develop and whether he can come up with anything else to complement his changeup. Eric wrote up a new blurb for him today, so I’ll give it to you verbatim:

Liñan had a dominant start to his 2025 season and was promoted out of Low-A Rancho after just a half dozen starts. He made two emergency starts at Triple-A before heading to High-A Great Lakes, where he had been good (but no longer dominant) in 10 outings prior to the Alex Call trade. Liñan’s best pitch is his tail-action changeup, which moves enough to have overwhelmed A-ball hitters so far. He beats a lot of hitters with his fastball for a guy sitting 91-92, but Liñan’s command may not be fine enough for that to be true against big league hitters. Strike-throwers with great changeups like this tend to pan out in the fifth starter range, at least, and if Liñan can exceed this projection it’ll be because he’s either sharpened his fastball command to thrive with 40 velocity, or he’s found a much better breaking ball than the cutter he’s throwing now.

This seems like a pretty good haul for Call. He’s a good player, but he fits better in the Dodgers’ current plans than he does in the Nationals’ future plans. Swan and Liñan are genuinely intriguing prospects who could contribute in the majors, but they’ve both got a lot of developing to do.

Now let’s get to the other deal. After trading with the Pirates for third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes and getting starter Zack Littell from the Rays, the Reds kept on adding, sending Huggins to the A’s in exchange for Andujar. Ari Alexander of KPRC2 first reported the deal. Andujar is a nine-year veteran, but he’s finally on the brink of free agency and is performing, which meant that at the deadline, the A’s could turn him into a pitching prospect, the highest level of reincarnation a being can attain according to the religion practiced by the baseball team in Sacramento.

Andujar is no one’s idea of a star, but he’s crushing left-handed pitching, and for a Reds team with a 79 wRC+ against lefties, sixth worst in baseball, he must look like a piña colada in the desert. Andujar put up a 129 wRC+ and 3.9 WAR with the Yankees as a 23-year-old rookie in 2018, finishing second in the Rookie of the Year voting behind some guy named Shohei Ohtani. In the seven years since, injuries and inconsistency have limited Andujar to fewer than two seasons’ worth of games, and he’s put up -0.4 WAR with a combined 86 wRC+. That said, Andujar has looked better recently. He’s running a 107 wRC+ in 2025 and a combined 105 wRC+ over the last three years. Andujar is batting .422 with a 186 wRC+ in 48 plate appearances against lefties this season. Those numbers will play in any lineup.

This season, Andujar has split his time between third base and left field. The Reds have gotten just 0.4 WAR from the third base position and 1.9 WAR from the three outfield positions, both of which rank 26th among all teams. With Hayes joining the club, Andujar won’t see too much time at third, but he can combine with Noelvi Marte, who has now been moved from third base to the outfield, to platoon with lefty batters Gavin Lux and Jake Fraley. Connor Joe or Will Benson will need to be sent down once TJ Friedl returns from the paternity list. It’s a lot of moving parts for a small upgrade, but it is an upgrade nonetheless.

The Reds drafted Huggins, a Louisiana Tech commit, out of junior college in 2022, and Eric ranked him 26th among the organization’s prospects this May, with a 40 FV. However, Eric now has a 40+ grade on him, because after recovering from Tommy John surgery that torpedoed most of his 2023 and 2024 seasons, Huggins looks more like a starter. His changeup improved in a major way, giving him a third pitch, but there’s more behind it. “This guy’s conditioning totally changed during his TJ rehab,” Eric said. “He’s not as big as Sean Manaea, but he’s built like young Manaea, just an absolute unit. The better conditioning might be why his delivery is more under control now and he’s throwing strikes.”

Huggins is 22, and after the injury, he’s in his third attempt at Low-A with fewer than 40 professional appearances under his belt. There’s still reliever risk here. However, he has a 3.69 ERA and 3.64 FIP through just over 63 innings so far this season in Low-A Daytona, which gives him an ERA- and FIP- of 87. “He’s a little behind the developmental curve and still at Low-A,” Eric said, “but Huggins hasn’t been shy about mixing in all of his pitches; he’s throwing his sinking changeup (which might end up being his best pitch) to righties, and he can land a backdoor slider for strikes reliably. He has a lot of No. 4/5 starter ingredients now.”

This is a minor deal, but it’s easy to see the appeal on either side. Andujar’s skill set is somewhat limited, but it fits in Cincinnati and he comes at a reasonable price. The injuries make it hard to know how much Huggins will be able to offer, but there’s certainly enough to dream on.

It’s a big deadline for relief pitchers, even for teams that aren’t operating in the Mason Miller or Jhoan Duran tier. The Orioles bullpen continues to get picked over like a charcuterie board: Andrew Kittredge is Chicago-bound, with the Cubs sending Wilfri De La Cruz the other way.

The Tigers beefed up their bullpen by picking up Paul Sewald from the Guardians in exchange for a player to be named later or cash. A few hours later, Detroit sent minor league pitchers Josh Randall and R.J. Sales to Washington for Kyle Finnegan and added Codi Heuer from Texas for minor league depth. Finally, the Dodgers are bringing Brock Stewart back from Minnesota, with James Outman going in the other direction.

Let’s take those in order. Read the rest of this entry »

The Cubs sit just one game back of the Brewers in the NL Central, but the two division rivals exist as almost perfect inverses of one another when it comes to on-field performance. Chicago ranks second in wRC+ at 117 and 15th in ERA- at 98, while Milwaukee ranks 13th in wRC+ at 102 and fifth in ERA- at 89. Their common ground is on defense, where both teams are top three in defensive value.

Coming off a series loss against the Brewers and with the trade deadline bearing down, the Cubs added some depth to their weaker side of the ball on Wednesday by acquiring pitcher Michael Soroka from the Nationals. Soroka will be a free agent at the end of this year, after signing a one-year $9 million dollar deal with the Nats last December. In return, Washington received Triple-A outfielder Christian Franklin, Chicago’s fourth-round pick in 2021, and 18 year-old shortstop Ronny Cruz, whom the Cubs selected in the third round of the 2024 draft. Read the rest of this entry »

Winners of three straight games to lift their record to 53-55, the Angels are suddenly acting like contenders. On Wednesday, a day before this year’s trade deadline, the team bolstered its bullpen — which has been one of the majors’ worst this season — by acquiring relievers Andrew Chafin and Luis García from the Nationals in exchange for reliever Jake Eder and first base prospect Sam Brown.

This is the third stop of the season for the well-traveled García, a 38-year-old righty who has pitched for eight different teams — and the third time he’s joined the Angels. Not only did he spend the 2019 season in Anaheim, but he also re-signed with them as a free agent in December 2023 and spent the first four months of ’24 with them. In fact, the Angels traded him to the Red Sox in exchange for four prospects exactly one year ago.

García’s odyssey has since continued. He signed with the Dodgers in mid-February and made 28 appearances totaling 27 1/3 innings before being designated for assignment on June 29 and released on July 4. He missed about a month from late May to late June with a right adductor strain, then returned for two appearances before getting DFA’d. That last outing was abysmal; he allowed three runs in one-third of an inning against the Royals on June 28, capping a stretch in which he gave up nine runs and 19 hits in his final 10 2/3 innings with the Dodgers and ballooning his ERA to 5.27. Four days after being released, he signed with the Nationals. Since then, he’s gone on a roll, allowing just one run and five hits in 10 innings. Despite the contrast in ERAs, García’s 3.57 FIP with the Dodgers and 3.59 FIP with the Nationals suggest he’s basically the same pitcher, a worm-killing machine (54.6% groundball rate overall) who doesn’t miss many bats (19.5% strikeout rate) but keeps the ball in the park (0.48 homers per nine). Read the rest of this entry »

Last night, exactly one week before they’re slated to make the first overall pick in the 2025 draft, the Nationals fired president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez. After ESPN’s Jeff Passan broke the news, the team announced assistant general manager Mike DeBartolo will serve as interim GM. Bench coach Miguel Cairo was named interim manager this afternoon.

Rumors that Rizzo and Martinez might finally be on the hot seat had made the rounds over the past several weeks, but the timing is less than ideal. According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the last time a team fired its GM before the trade deadline was when the Twins got rid of Terry Ryan on July 18, 2016. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale provided an explanation, reporting that both Rizzo and Martinez had contract options for 2026, with mid-July deadlines for those decisions. Even for a franchise that just fired its POBO and manager, it’s a bad look to let money dictate the timing of the decision when so much is at stake. Read the rest of this entry »

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

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

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

A piece that ran here at FanGraphs just over a week ago elicited a good suggestion. Commenting on A Conversation With Max Scherzer on the Importance of Conviction, reader muenstertruck wrote the following:

“If you’re taking follow up questions, I’d like to hear how he differentiates intention and conviction from physical effort. How difficult is it to mentally commit to the pitch but only give it 90% so you keep some gas in the tank? Is it even possible to do so?”

Fortuitously, an opportunity to circle back with the future Hall of Famer came just a few days later when the Blue Jays visited Fenway Park for a weekend series. As expected — Scherzer likes talking ball — he was amenable to addressing said followup.

“Effort level and conviction are different,” Scherzer answered. “You can throw a pitch at 100% effort and still be mentally indecisive about it. You can also put out less than 100% effort and be mentally convicted in what you’re doing. Can things go hand-in-hand? Yes, but it’s not ‘more effort means more conviction.’ You can just be more mentally convicted.”

Scherzer had opined in our earlier conversation that you’re more likely to miss your spot when not fully convicted. What about throwing with full conviction at a 90% effort level? Does that make it easier to pinpoint your command? Read the rest of this entry »

With the caveat that his last outing was his worst of the 2025 campaign — seven earned runs over three innings against the Syracuse Mets — Cade Cavalli appears ready to return to the big leagues. Once he does, Washington Nationals fans will see a somewhat different pitcher than the one who made his last (and only) appearance in the majors on August 28, 2022. Going under the knife has a lot to do with that. After initially landing on the shelf with shoulder inflammation, Cavalli blew out and had Tommy John surgery in March 2023. At the time, the right-hander was his team’s top prospect and no. 63 on our Top 100 as a 50 FV. (Cavalli will be assigned a 45 FV on our forthcoming Nationals list.)

His return to full health was both long and arduous. After missing all of 2023, Cavalli made just a smattering of appearances a year ago, none above High-A, and he went through a dead arm phase this spring and didn’t take the mound until mid-April. Since then, he has been solid more often than not. While his ERA over 10 starts with Triple-A Rochester is 5.27, the now-26-year-old has gone five or more innings while allowing two or fewer runs on four occasions.

When we got reacquainted last month — I first interviewed him in July of 2021 when he was in Double-A — Cavalli explained how he has deviated from his pre-surgery days. Read the rest of this entry »

On Sunday, the Angels made 22-year-old James Wood the first player to receive four intentional walks in a single game since Barry Bonds in 2004. You could argue the plan worked, too, as Wood came up with at least one runner in scoring position all four times, and the only one of those runners to score did so on a bizarre, inning-ending double play. If the Angels’ goal was to avoid the big inning, then they nailed it. If their goal was to win the game, well, hope springs eternal; the Nationals won, 7-4, in 11 innings. The obvious takeaway is the 6’7” Wood is a terrifying talent, but just as obvious is how out of step with current baseball thinking – or really any baseball thinking – this move was.

Wood is having an incredible season, launching 22 home runs, walking 14.5% of the time, and batting .283. His 156 wRC+ makes him the eighth-best hitter in the game this season and a genuine contender for the National League MVP. However, it’s impossible to argue that he’s in Bonds territory. Bonds earned four IBBs four different times that year. He was in the midst of his fifth straight 45-homer season and 13th straight 30-homer campaign. He held the single-season home run record and was closing in on the all-time one. He put up a 233 wRC+ en route to an absurd 11.9 WAR in 2004. He was in his own league. Moreover, the game has progressed in its thinking since 2004, and it’s now widely understood that an intentional walk is rarely the smart move.

Stathead, which uses Retrosheet data from back before intentional walks were an official stat, lists 12 instances in which a player received at least four intentional walks in a game. This John Schwartz article from the 1980 Baseball Research Journal can teach you even more about the earlier history of the IBB, including the contention that Mel Ott received five intentional passes during the second game of a doubleheader on October 5, 1929 (though Retrosheet only lists three of Ott’s five walks that day as intentional). So this is an extraordinarily rare feat, and fully a third of the times it has happened in baseball history, it was specifically happening to Bonds in 2004. Read the rest of this entry »

You’re probably familiar with the saying, “Happiness equals reality minus expectations.” Maybe because your Aunt Debbie shared a post from her favorite social media influencer. Maybe because you passed the time during a layover at the airport perusing the self-help books in the Hudson News near your gate. Like most self-help tropes, whether or not it hits for you depends a little on your life circumstances and a little on how you choose to apply it. When it comes to sports fandom, emotional hedging can be a useful tool to avoid disappointment, or maybe you prefer projecting confidence to manifest a desired outcome. And if you’re a Phillies fan, you’ve perfected the art of oscillating wildly between the two over the course of a single game. You even have a handy meme with a meter that only ever points to one extreme or the other:

(Please excuse the mismatched needle sizes and logo alignment. These images are precious internet relics that have been downloaded, clumsily edited, re-uploaded, compressed, and decompressed hundreds, if not thousands, of times. The pixelation is earned like callouses on the hands of a skilled laborer.)

But the formula seems to assume that expectations are set and controlled by the person in search of a happy existence. The entire notion is upended when mathematical models based on historical outcomes become the source for baseline expectations. In this scenario, if your team is outperforming expectations, then you can enjoy the banked wins, but you do so in fear of the rainier days that surely lie somewhere in the team’s future forecast. Whereas if your team is underperforming expectations, things might feel dire, but there’s reason to believe sunnier days lie ahead. Read the rest of this entry »