This season, Eric and Tess Taruskin will each have a minor league roundup post run during the week, with the earlier post recapping some of the weekend’s action. Those posts will typically run Monday or Tuesday (since Monday is widely an off day for the minors), though they will occasionally be featured later in the week, as Eric’s notes are here.

Christian Encarnacion-Strand, 3B, Minnesota Twins
Level & Affiliate: High-A Cedar Rapids Age: 22 Org Rank: HM FV: 35
Line: 10-for-14, 3 HR, 2 2B, 1 SB, 15 RBI (!)

Notes
Wow! Encarnacion-Strand ended up at the bottom of our Twins list because we think he’s destined for first base and has more swing-and-miss going on than we’re comfortable with at that position. After transferring from Yavapai to Oklahoma State, he only struck out in about 19% of the plate appearances during his lone Division-I season, which is less than I’d have guessed based on my in-person notes on his contact ability. He certainly has big power, though. The universal DH helps Encarnacion-Strand’s cause since there are more 1B/DH jobs in the majors now, and teams are more open to platooning there and/or carrying a positionless bopper on their bench. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve had some titanic trades that lived up to the hype of a post-lockout pandemonium, but it’s always nice to acknowledge the smaller signings as well. On that note, here are two pitchers who, despite their modest contracts, should be familiar to baseball fans. A few days ago, Aníbal Sánchez agreed to a minor league deal with the Nationals. He’ll be paid $2 million if selected and can earn up to $1.5 million in performance bonuses, per Joel Sherman of the New York Post. And on Tuesday, the White Sox announced that they had signed Vince Velasquez to a one-year, $3 million pact.

Maybe it’s because of a global pandemic that warped our sense of time and space, but it seems not too long ago that Sánchez was making starts for a championship team. A lot has happened since then: The veteran righty’s numbers plummeted in 2020, and he spent the following year away from baseball as the Nationals began their teardown.

Sánchez is now back, but for a different purpose. Instead of serving as a fourth starter for a contending team, he looks to offer some stability to a fractured rotation. Its ace, Stephen Strasburg, has thrown just 26.2 innings in the past two seasons due to injury. Patrick Corbin still has potential, but he’s shown signs of precipitous decline. Erick Fedde isn’t great, and Joe Ross will be sidelined for six to eight weeks after undergoing surgery to remove a bone spur. Maybe Josiah Gray takes a step forward, but that’s hardly a guarantee.

How might Sánchez try to accomplish his mission? For one, it may be time to ditch the four-seamer. The pitch averaged an alarmingly low 89.2 mph in 2020, and without enough movement to make up for such a shortcoming, hitters feasted against it. Thankfully, the rest of his repertoire is still brimming with life. His cutter features an ample amount of late vertical drop; it’s basically a mini slider, but with the velocity associated with a fastball. The signature split-change still induced whiffs last time it saw action. To Sánchez’s credit, he made an attempt to rely on his offspeed stuff more often two years ago. But pitching doesn’t occur in a vacuum, and a handful of poor fastballs were all it took to undo those efforts. Read the rest of this entry »

While titans of industry like Matt Olson, Nelson Cruz, and Josh Donaldson were changing teams, a few other things happened in the baseball world. For example: Sean Doolittle, Brad Hand, Ian Kennedy, and Chad Kuhl all found new teams. Sure, they weren’t the headliners of the last few days, but they’re all interesting in their own way. Let’s run down these signings alphabetically and maybe tell a joke or two while doing so.

Nationals Sign Sean Doolittle

When the Nationals traded for Sean Doolittle in 2017, he brought much-needed bullpen stability to an already-competitive team. Things aren’t quite the same for either side in their reunion. Doolittle had a down 2020, then signed a one-year, $1.5 million deal with the Reds. With Cincinnati out of the running and Doolittle losing high-leverage opportunities, they put him on waivers, and he finished his season as a middle reliever in Seattle. Read the rest of this entry »

I hope you’ll allow a quick personal story. In December of 2018, while I was still working for the Astros, I engaged in talks with then-free agent Nelson Cruz’s representatives. Like many teams, the Astros were hesitant to give anything more than a one-year deal to a designated hitter who had turned 38 during the previous season. Ultimately, there was no multi-year pact to be had, and the Twins ended up winning a fierce competition for Cruz’s services with a one-year, $14 million deal that included a $12 million 2020 club option. Cruz would go on to have one of the best seasons of his career in 2019, making exercising that option a no-brainer; following the 2020 season, he signed another one-year, $13 million deal with Minnesota. Heading into this offseason, Cruz was still a much in-demand bat, particularly after it became clear that the National League would adopt the designated hitter, with the rumor mill linking him to as many as six teams. On Sunday, he landed with the Washington Nationals on a one-year, $12 million deal that includes a mutual option (which in reality isn’t really an option at all, but we’ll get to that in a bit).

Cruz has been an ageless wonder. From 2015-20, his age 34-to-39 seasons, he posted wRC+ marks ranging from 133 to 164. He slipped to a 122 wRC+ in 2021, including a 96 wRC+ in 55 games following a trade to the Rays; while a partial season, that represented his first sub-100 mark since 2007. It’s difficult to figure out exactly what went wrong while he was with the Rays, but it feels silly to simply assume that father time suddenly caught up to him after a strong first half of the season with the Twins. Read the rest of this entry »

As expected, the first weekend after the end of the lockout gave us a flurry of moves. Relievers in particular were a hot commodity, with teams trying to bolster their bullpens as the pool of quality pitchers continues to shrink. Let’s take a closer look at a few of these moves from over the weekend.

White Sox Sign Joe Kelly

Kelly comes to Chicago on a two-year, $17 million deal with a club option for a third year. At 33, the veteran is coming off of a great season with the Dodgers, probably his best as a reliever. Underneath his 2.86 ERA, he posted a career-best swinging-strike rate (11.6%) and exit velocity (85.5 mph), as well as his lowest walk rate (8.2%) ever. Even with all the success, a pair of injuries raise questions about his durability moving forward. Kelly got a late start in 2021 because of an offseason surgery to clean up his shoulder, and his year ended with him walking off the mound in the playoffs after suffering a forearm injury. Luckily, he avoided the worst case scenario; all reports have him ready for the upcoming season.

Kelly’s successful 2021 came on the back of a dominant low-spin sinker. In each of the previous five seasons, his four-seam fastball was his most used heater, but after years of middling results with the pitch, he all but shelved it in 2021. A new sinker-heavy pitch mix helped increase his groundball rate over the years; his three primary pitches — sinker, curveball, and changeup — all generate grounders more than 55% of the time. Read the rest of this entry »

Don Mattingly had 2,153 hits, 222 home runs, a .361 wOBA, a 124 wRC+, and 40.7 WAR. Statistically, the New York Yankees legend is similar to a Minnesota Twins legend who a few months ago was voted into the Hall of Fame by the Golden Days Committee. Tony Oliva had 1,917 hits, 220 home runs, a .365 wOBA, a 129 wRC+, and 40.7 WAR.

And then there is Brian Giles, who received nary a vote in his lone year on the BBWAA ballot, and quite possibly will never appear on an era-committee ballot. Perennially flying under the radar while playing in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and San Diego, the underrated slugger had 1,897 hits, 287 home runs, a .388 wOBA, a 136 wRC+, and 54.8 WAR.

What about peak, you might be wondering? Giles was better there, too.

Mattingly had a six-year peak before back injuries began eroding his skills. Over that stretch, he logged a .388 wOBA, a 143 wRC+, and 31.7 WAR. Meanwhile, Oliva and Giles had seven-year peaks that produced these numbers: Read the rest of this entry »

Amid a dearth of baseball news, the Nationals took a starring role this week, not only via the retirement of franchise cornerstone Ryan Zimmerman but also the report that before the lockout, the team offered Juan Soto a 13-year, $350 million extension. While we’ve now seen nine deals of at least $300 million in recent years — not to mention a report of a pending extension offer to Soto in the wake of Fernando Tatis Jr.’s $340-million deal last March — the price tag produced the usual sticker shock on social media, as well as incredulity given that the slugger declined it.

Via ESPN Deportes’ Enrique Rojas, the 23-year-old Soto confirmed the news, saying, “Yes, they made me an offer a few months ago, before the lockout. But right now, my agents and I think the best option is to go year by year and wait for free agency. My agent, Scott Boras, has control over the situation.” Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Washington Nationals.

Batters

You can divide Washington’s offense into two distinct parts. The first part is Juan Soto, who got Ted Williams as his top offensive comp. That’s the straight-up, pure, 100% unadulterated Ted Williams comp, too. There’s no trick here; I’m not going to say, “Ha ha! ZiPS was talking about 1980s minor league outfielder Ted Williams.” Soto’s plate discipline is other-worldly. In his best season, Joey Votto was still nearly a quarter more likely to swing at an out-of-the-zone pitch than Soto was as a 22-year-old in 2021. Read the rest of this entry »

Please note, this posting contains three positions.

Position: Analyst

Summary:
The Washington Nationals are seeking an analyst to join our Baseball Research & Development team. The role focuses on using data science to derive insights from baseball datasets to support player evaluation, player development, roster construction, and in-game strategy. The analyst will largely work on long term research projects under the supervision of a senior R&D member, and report to the Senior Director of R&D. Analysts should be able to communicate findings well to all audiences, technical and non-technical. The department is flexible enough to accommodate analyst candidates with particular strengths or areas of interest, but we are seeking applicants with general ‘baseball feel’ and data science experience. Read the rest of this entry »

After a one-year hiatus due to the oddity and non-celebratory feeling of a season truncated by a raging pandemic, we’re bringing back the Elegy series in a streamlined format for a 2021 wrap-up. Think of this as a quick winter preview for each team, discussing the questions that faced each team ahead of the year, how they were answered, and what’s next. Do you like or hate the new format? Let me know in the comments below. We’ve already tackled the AL and NL Central, the NL and the AL West, and the AL East. We wrap up this series for 2021 with the NL East. Read the rest of this entry »