The major-league phase of Thursday’s Rule 5 Draft began with its annual roll call of clubs confirming the number of players currently on their 40-man rosters and ended with a total of 14 players being added to new big-league clubs. Dan Szymborski offered ZiPS projections here for the players taken earlier today. Below are brief scouting reports on the players selected, with some notes provided by Kiley McDaniel.

But, first: Our annual refresher on the Rule 5 Draft’s complex rules. Players who signed their first pro contract at age 18 or younger are eligible for selection after five years of minor-league service if their parent club has not yet added them to the team’s 40-man roster. For players who signed at age 19 or older, the timeline is four years. Teams with the worst win/loss record from the previous season pick first, and those that select a player must not only (a) pay said player’s former club $100,000, but also (b) keep the player on their 25-man active roster throughout the entirety of the following season (with a couple of exceptions, mostly involving the disabled list). If a selected player doesn’t make his new team’s active roster, he is offered back to his former team for half of the initial fee. After the player’s first year on the roster, he can be optioned back to the minor leagues.

These rules typically limit the talent pool to middle-relief prospects or position players with one-dimensional skillsets, though sometimes it involves more talented prospects who aren’t remotely ready for the majors. This creates an environment where selections are made based more on fit and team need than just talent, but teams find solid big-league role players in the Rule 5 every year and occasionally scoop up an eventual star. Let’s dive into the scouting reports on this year’s group.

First Round

1. Baltimore Orioles
Richie Martin, SS (from A’s) – Martin was a 2015 first rounder out of the University of Florida, drafted as an athletic shortstop with some pop who was still raw as a baseball player. Martin had really struggled to hit in pro ball until 2018, when he repeated Double-A and slashed .300/.368/.439.

He has average raw power but hits the ball on the ground too often to get to any of it in games. Houston has been adept at altering their players’ swings, so perhaps the new Orioles regime can coax more in-game pop from Martin, who is a perfectly fine defensive shortstop. He should compete with incumbent Orioles Breyvic Valera and Jonathan Villar, as well as fellow Rule 5 acquisition Drew Jackson, for middle infield playing time. But unless there’s a significant swing change here, Martin really only projects as a middle infield utility man.

2. Kansas City Royals
Sam McWilliams, RHP (from Rays) – McWilliams was an overslot eighth rounder in 2014 and was traded from Philadelphia to Arizona for Jeremy Hellickson in the fall of 2015. He was then sent from Arizona to Tampa Bay as one of the players to be named later in the three-team trade that sent Steven Souza to Arizona. McWilliams is pretty raw for a 23-year-old. He spent two years in the Midwest League and posted a 5.02 ERA at Double-A when the Rays pushed him there after the trade.

He has a big fastball, sitting mostly 93-94 but topping out at 97. He’ll flash an occasional plus slider but it’s a rather inconsistent pitch. The industry thought McWilliams had a chance to grow into a backend rotation arm because his stuff is quite good, but he has a much better chance of sticking as a reliever right now.

3. Chicago White Sox (Traded to Rangers)
Jordan Romano, RHP (from Blue Jays) – Romano is a 25-year-old righty who spent 2018 at Double-A. He’s a strike-throwing righty with a fastball in the 91-93 range and he has an average slider and changeup, both of which reside in the 80-84 range. His command is advanced enough that both of his secondaries play up a little bit. He likely profiles as a fifth starter or rotation depth, but the Rangers current pitching situation is quite precarious and Romano may just end up sticking around to eat innings with the hope that he sticks as a backend starter or swingman when they’re competitive once again.

4. Miami Marlins
Riley Ferrell, RHP (from Astros)- Ferrell was a dominant college closer at TCU and was consistently 93-97 with a plus slider there. He continued to pitch well in pro ball until a shoulder aneurysm derailed his 2016 season. Ferrell needed surgery that transplanted a vein from his groin into his shoulder in order to repair it, and the industry worried at the time that the injury threatened his career. His stuff is back and Ferrell is at least a big league ready middle reliever with a chance to be a set-up man.

5. Detroit Tigers
Reed Garrett, RHP (from Rangers)
Garrett’s velo spiked when he moved to the bullpen in 2017 and he now sits in the mid-90s, touches 99 and has two good breaking balls, including a curveball that has a plus-plus spin rate. He also has an average changeup. He’s a fair bet to carve out a bullpen role on a rebuilding Tigers team.

6. San Diego Padres
No Pick (full 40-man)

7. Cincinnati Reds
Connor Joe, 3B (from Dodgers) – The Reds will be Joe’s fourth team in two years as he has been shuttled around from Pittsburgh (which drafted him) to Atlanta (for Sean Rodriguez) to the Dodgers (for cash) during that time. Now 26, Joe spent 2018 split between Double and Triple-A. He’s a swing changer who began lifting the ball more once he joined Los Angeles. Joe is limited on defense to first and third base, and he’s not very good at third. He has seen a little bit of time in the outfield corners and realistically projects as a four-corners bench bat who provides patience and newfound in-game pop.

8. Texas Rangers (Traded to Royals)
Chris Ellis, RHP (from Cardinals)- Ellis, 26, spent 2018 split between Double and Triple-A. One could argue he has simply been lost amid St. Louis’ surfeit of upper-level pitching but his stuff — a low-90s sinker up to 94 and an average slider — did not compel us to include him in our Cardinals farm system write up. The Royals took Brad Keller, who has a similar kind of repertoire but better pure stuff, and got more out of him than I anticipated, so perhaps that will happen with Ellis.

9. San Francisco Giants
Travis Bergen, LHP (from Blue Jays)- Bergen looked like a lefty specialist in college but the Blue Jays have normalized the way he strides toward home, and his delivery has become more platoon-neutral in pro ball. He has a fringy, low-90s fastball but has two good secondaries in his upper-70s curveball and tumbling mid-80s change. So long as he pitches heavily off of those two offerings, he could lock down a bullpen role.

10. Toronto Blue Jays
Elvis Luciano, RHP (from Royals)- Luciano turns 19 in February and was the youngest player selected in the Rule 5 by a pretty wide margin. He was acquired by Kansas City in the trade that sent Jon Jay to Arizona. Though he’ll touch 96, Luciano’s fastball sits in the 90-94 range and he has scattershot command of it, especially late in starts. His frame is less projectable than the typical teenager so there may not be much more velo coming as he ages, but he has arm strength and an above-average breaking ball, so there’s a chance he makes the Jays roster in a relief role. He has no. 4 starter upside if his below-average changeup and command progress. If he makes the opening day roster, he’ll be the first player born in the 2000s to play in the big leagues.

11. New York Mets
Kyle Dowdy, RHP (from Indians)
Dowdy’s nomadic college career took him from Hawaii to Orange Coast College and finally to Houston, where he redshirted for a year due to injury. He was drafted by Detroit and then included as a throw-in in the Leonys Martin trade to Cleveland. He’s a reliever with a four-pitch mix headlined by an above-average curveball that pairs pretty well with a fastball that lives in the top part of the strike zone but doesn’t really spin. He also has a mid-80s slider and changeup that are fringy and exist to give hitters a little different look. He could stick in the Mets bullpen.

12. Minnesota Twins
No Pick (full 40-man)

13. Philadelphia Phillies (Traded to Orioles)
Drew Jackson, SS (from Dodgers)- Jackson is a plus runner with a plus-plus arm and average defensive hands and actions at shortstop. He’s not a great hitter but the Dodgers were at least able to cleanse Jackson of the Stanford swing and incorporate more lift into his cut. He had a 55% ground ball rate with Seattle in 2016 but that mark was 40% with Los Angeles last year. He also started seeing reps in center field last season. He projects as a multi-positional utility man.

14. Los Angeles Angels
No Pick (team passed)

15. Arizona Diamondbacks
Nick Green, RHP (from Yankees)- Green has the highest present ranking on The Board as a 45 FV, and we think he’s a near-ready backend starter. Arizona lacks pitching depth, so Green has a pretty solid chance to make the club out of spring training. He induces a lot of ground balls (65% GB% in 2018) with a low-90s sinker and also has a plus curveball.

16. Washington Nationals
No Pick (team passed)

17. Pittsburgh Pirates
No Pick (team passed)

18. St. Louis Cardinals
No Pick (full 40-man)

19. Seattle Mariners
Brandon Brennan, RHP (from Rockies)- Brennan is a 27-year-old reliever with a mid-90s sinker that will touch 97. He has an average slider that relies heavily on it’s velocity more than movement to be effective. The real bat-misser here is the changeup, which has more than 10 mph of separation from Brennan’s fastball and dying fade.

20. Atlanta Braves
No Pick (team passed)

21. Tampa Bay Rays
No Pick (full 40-man)

22. Colorado Rockies
No Pick (team passed)

23. Cleveland Indians
No Pick (team passed)

24. Los Angeles Dodgers
No Pick (full 40-man)

25. Chicago Cubs
No Pick (team passed)

26. Milwaukee Brewers
No Pick (team passed)

27. Oakland Athletics
No Pick (team passed)

28. New York Yankees
No Pick (full 40-man)

29. Houston Astros
No Pick (team passed)

30. Boston Red Sox
No Pick (team passed)

Second Round

San Francisco Giants
Drew Ferguson, OF- Ferguson is a hitterish tweener outfielder with a good combination of bat-to-ball skills and plate discipline. He has a very short, compact stroke that enables him to punch lines drives to his pull side and he’s tough to beat with velocity. Ferguson doesn’t really run well enough to play center field and lacks the power for a corner, so his likely ceiling is that of a bench outfielder.

The Cincinnati Reds have a strong collection of position players, but have remained near the bottom of the NL Central standings as they’ve struggled to develop pitching from within. It seemed likely that they’d add pitching either via trade or free agency this winter in an effort to compete before their core group of hitters begins to decline. After already adding a few minor pieces (Matt Bowman, Robby Scott), the Reds made their biggest splash of the winter so far by acquiring Tanner Roark from the Washington Nationals in exchange for 25-year-old relief prospect Tanner Rainey.

Roark has been a durable part of Washington’s rotation for six years and has thrown 180 or more innings in four of the last five seasons, only failing to do so in 2015 because he was relegated to the bullpen after Max Scherzer’s acquisition and because he was briefly on paternity leave. That quantity of innings drove mid-rotation WAR production during his tenure in D.C., though he has been declining in that regard (3.3 WAR in ’16, 2.5 in ’17, 1.9 in ’18) despite showing very little decline in stuff. Steamer and Depth Charts both project a continued gradual decline (1.5 WAR) in 2019, Roark’s final arbitration year before hitting free agency. Those projection systems assume Roark’s workload will scale back in his age-32 season, and they have him projected to make just 26 starts. Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections expect similar production.

For now, Roark probably slots into the no. 2 spot in the Reds rotation behind Luis Castillo. The Nationals should be able to back fill for Roark with some combination of Joe Ross, Erick Fedde, or perhaps a quick-moving Wil Crowe, to say nothing of what Washington may add via free agency.

For one year of Roark, the Reds sent relief prospect Tanner Rainey to Washington. Rainey has good stuff, with his fastball sitting in the 95-99 range and touching 100, and his upper-80s slider spinning in at an average of 2600 rpm, which is rare for a pitch of that velocity.

Each of those impact pitches theoretically give Rainey a shot to be a late-inning, high-leverage reliever, but his command, which is not great, might force him into a middle-relief role instead. The chance that one of Rainey or Jimmy Cordero — who is similarly talented and similarly flawed — figure things out and become a real late-inning option are pretty fair, and the Nationals have several years to polish Rainey’s talent. That Rainey is leaving a place that has struggled to develop pitching probably helps his chances of getting there.

Rainey was a 40 FV player on our recent Reds prospect list, ranking 18th. He was one of several hard-throwing Reds relief prospects in their mid-20s who are approaching the Majors. They’ve traded from a position of depth to acquire a player of great need, and the short window of team control over Roark would seem to indicate that they’re going to add more pitching in attempt to field a competitive team.

Earlier this week, Patrick Corbin signed with the Nationals as a free agent, getting six guaranteed years and $140 million. It’s a bigger deal than Yu Darvish got last offseason, as another Tommy John surgery survivor. In part, Corbin got that money because the Nationals felt like spending, as they sometimes do. It’s a way for them to brace for the potential loss of Bryce Harper. But the bigger factor here is that Corbin just pitched like an ace. He doesn’t have a track record of doing so, but obviously, there’s belief in his breakout.

This past year, 140 different pitchers threw at least 100 innings. Corbin threw exactly *200* innings. Out of that group, he finished with a top-ten K-BB%, and he finished with a top-five park-adjusted FIP. Corbin wound up with a lower FIP- than Max Scherzer, if you can believe it. So much of the difference came down to his newfound dominance of righties. His K-BB% against righties two years back was 11%. This past year, he got up to 25%. That’s a hell of a mark for a southpaw.

Read the rest of this entry »

No offense to Josh Donaldson, Steve Pearce, and Kurt Suzuki, but it appears the first big domino has fallen in this winter’s free agent class. Patrick Corbin is reportedly set to sign a six-year contract with the Nationals, per Chelsea Janes. Jon Heyman has reported the deal is for $140 million and, as most Nationals contracts do, it includes deferrals, per Ken Rosenthal, which lower somewhat the actual value of the contract. The Diamondbacks will get a draft pick after the first round for their troubles.

This might not quite qualify as mystery team material, but the industry consensus seemed to be that Corbin was likely to sign with the Phillies or the Yankees, making the Nationals moving in a bit of a surprise. Now, it would be appropriate to say the Nationals didn’t need pitching given that they already have Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg at the top of the rotation. But it would probably be even more appropriate to say every team needs pitching, and signing a pitcher of Patrick Corbin’s quality does a lot to help the Nationals as they try to recapture the division after a disappointing season and the seemingly likely departure of Bryce Harper.

As for how Corbin will perform, our own Dan Szymborksi was kind enough to pass along the following ZiPS projections: Read the rest of this entry »

The Cleveland Indians acquired a player with one of the nuttier tool profiles in the minors yesterday in the following trade:

Cleveland gets:
Daniel Johnson, OF
Jefry Rodriguez, RHP
Player to be Named Later

Washington gets:
Yan Gomes, C

Gomes will have an immediate big league impact as part of a Nationals catching tandem with the newly acquired Kurt Suzuki. The 31-year-old Brazilian backstop hit .266/.313/.449 in 2018, showing a dramatic uptick in power compared to career norms. Our projection systems at FanGraphs anticipate a SLG% regression back to a mark just shy of league-average, but Gomes’ Hard Hit% was way up based on our data, and sites like xStats, which calculate expected offensive output based on ball-in-play metrics like exit velocity and launch angle, indicate Gomes’ 2018 power display may be sustainable.

Gomes can also control the running game. He has a plus-plus arm and routinely posts pop times close to 1.90 seconds. He’s also an above-average receiver. Once constantly injured (knee sprain, concussion, separated shoulder from ’14-’16), Gomes has caught 100 games each of the last two years.

Both Gomes and Suzuki are of advanced age and are likely to share time. Washington’s catching looks to be in good shape for the next two years (the life of Suzuki’s deal), especially given the state of the position, league-wide. Gomes has one year remaining on his contract and then a $9 million team option in 2020 and an $11 million team option in 2021.

The Nationals now have a bit of a catching clog on their 40-man, which also houses 25-year-olds Pedro Severino, Raudy Read and 27-year-old Spencer Kieboom. Read has the most offensive talent of that group and hit for power at Double-A last year, but he’s also coming off a PED suspension and is a below-average defender– he’s a below-average receiving, and his plus raw arm strength also comes with accuracy issues. He’s currently playing in the Dominican Winter League for Toros del Este. This depth means a minor trade or other roster move could be on the horizon.

For Cleveland, 23-year-old outfielder Daniel Johnson has one of the louder tool profiles in the minor leagues. He has elite arm strength, plus-plus speed and plus raw power. He’s so gifted, physically, that he’s very likely to have some kind of big league career, though how impactful that career is will be dictated by the development of bat-to-ball skills that are currently behind what is typical for a 23-year-old prospect at Double-A.

Johnson has been so raw for the duration of his scoutable career that he went undrafted as a junior college freshman in 2014. He transferred to New Mexico State and was still so unpolished as a junior hitter that some area scouts wanted to see him on the mound. He had a breakout junior season .382/.434/.630 in a hitter-friendly conference and was drafted in the 5th round.

Johnson spent all of 2018, his second full pro season, at Double-A Harrisburg where he hit .267/.321/.410 with 21 steals in 25 attempts. His ball/strike recognition and ability to make contact are both below average, but neither is so bad that it might inhibit him from playing a big league role in the next year or two. He sees right-handed pitching well-enough that he can do damage against it, and he has a chance to occupy the larger part of an outfield platoon if he keeps mashing righties the way he has in the minors. His speed would indicate center field is an option, but again Johnson’s lack of feel and instincts cause his physical abilities to play down and he may be better off in a corner, especially with superior defenders like Brad Zimmer and Leonys Martin currently on the Cleveland roster.

Tapping into Johnson’s raw power in games will probably require a swing change that cleans up Johnson’s odd, hooking bat path. If that happens, then a 45 FV projection, which is what we had on Johnson entering the offseason, will be too light. Cleveland has had mixed success changing swings in the past (some recent examples: Yandy Diaz and Erik Gonzalez showed no improvement despite their obvious planar issues, but Frankie Lindor adjusted with ease and exploded) so this could go either way.

Cleveland has already done a lot to fill in their roster after the departure of some of their outfielders and it appears as though they’re going to take a platoon-heavy approach there next year. The recent acquisitions of right-handed hitters Oscar Mercado and Jordan Luplow seem to fit well with some of the left-handed hitting options already on the big league roster, which Johnson is now in place to sustain after the 2019 season when Leonys Martin’s deal is up and Jason Kipnis has a looming $16.5 million team option.

Rodriguez is a 25-year-old who threw 52 big league innings in 2018. He throws hard and will touch 99, sitting comfortably in the 93-96 range even as a starter. He’ll show you an above-average curveball and his changeup has sinking action at times, but Rodriguez’s stiff delivery is hard to repeat and he has scattered fastball control and throws lots of non-competitive changeups. He profiles as a two-pitch reliever.

The Nationals have signed free-agent catcher Kurt Suzuki for two years and $10 million. The Nationals have had Kurt Suzuki before. In August 2012, they got him from the A’s. In August 2013, they sent him back to the A’s. In between, he batted 445 times, with a backup catcher’s slash line. Suzuki is now 35 years old, and he spent a long time as a relatively unremarkable catcher, by major-league standards. Never good enough or bad enough to stand out. I still don’t think Suzuki stands out in any way in the public consciousness, but when you look at the numbers, his career has taken a turn.

Over the past two seasons, out of all regular and semi-regular catchers, Suzuki the hitter ranks fourth in wRC+. First place is only four points away. His wRC+ ranks above that of Gary Sanchez. It ranks above that of J.T. Realmuto. It ranks above that of Willson Contreras. I don’t mean to suggest that Suzuki and Realmuto are one and the same or anything, but statistics reflect performance, and for the most part, performance reflects ability. Suzuki has had the ability to be this productive, over 661 plate appearances.

Read the rest of this entry »

This post is part of a series concerning the 2019 Today’s Game Era Committee ballot, covering executives, managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon at the Winter Meetings in Las Vegas on December 9. Use the tool above to read the introduction and other installments. For an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com and Baseball Prospectus. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Nearly 15 years ago at Baseball Prospectus, I introduced a means of using player value estimates to compare Hall of Fame candidates to those that are already enshrined at their positions — the system that soon became known as JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score). There is no similar comparison method for managers, but a few months ago, when news of Mike Scioscia’s pending retirement broke, my former SI.com colleague Cliff Corcoran made an interesting attempt to figure out the Hall of Fame standards for managers. Cliff calculated the averages above based upon 21 enshrined managers, excluding three 19th-century skippers (Ned Hanlon, Frank Selee, and Harry Wright) as well as the Negro Leagues’ Rube Foster. While the shorter careers of modern managers — shorter relative to Connie Mack and John McGraw, at least — and the ever-expanding playoff format make cross-era comparisons a bit more complicated, the numbers do help as guideposts when it comes to discussing Hall of Fame managerial candidates

Davey Johnson

Like Billy Martin before him — albeit with far less drinking and drama — Johnson was renowned for his ability to turn teams around. He posted winning records in his first full season at four of his five managerial stops and took four of the five franchises that he managed to the playoffs at least once. However, after six-plus seasons managing the Mets, he never lasted even three full seasons in any other job and never replicated the success he had in piloting the 1986 Mets to 108 wins and a World Series victory.

Read the rest of this entry »

I decided while working on the Top 50 Free Agents post that it would make sense to also write up the top trade target on the market. Since new Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen said the team plans to compete in 2019, it seems like Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard are unlikely to be dealt — or, at least not during the offseason. That points to J.T. Realmuto as the clear top trade target in the league (and No. 24 in July’s Trade Value Rankings) — and that’s before nearly half the questions in my chat on Wednesday were asking me how much it would cost for various teams to trade for Realmuto.

I could approach this from an insider-y perspective and tell you what teams are telling me the price probably is, but that approach is limited in a few ways. First off, I’m not sure anyone really knows what the price is: the Marlins have turned down strong offers for a year now and still seem inclined to try to extend Realmuto, even thoughhis agent said he’s not having it. Since Miami has this one major asset left to move in its rebuild, they may act irrationally, but the market pieces may be falling into place for someone to pay a price that justified this delay.

If forced to succinctly describe the current state of catching in the major leagues, I would say it sucks. I’ll let Mike Petriello to provide some details and point you to the positional leaderboard, but if you just tried to predict which catchers would be worth two-plus wins and remain at catcher primarily for the next five seasons, how many would you have? Realmuto is one, and if you think Willson Contreras and Gary Sanchez may play a lot more first base or get hurt or be inconsistent in this span, it’s possible that there isn’t another one. Being charitable, there’s just a handful, and they all cost a lot or aren’t available.

Putting all of this together, Realmuto offers the age-28 and age-29 seasons of the best long- and short-term catcher in the game, and he’ll cost between $15 million and $20 million for those seasons, depending on how his arbitration salaries work out. You have him long enough to make two runs at a title and get a comp pick at the end, an exclusive negotiating window for an extension, a non-risky length of a deal, and cheap enough salaries that any team can afford it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bryce Harper is a (nearly) unrestricted free agent. He is newly 26 years old. He is projected, by Steamer, to be baseball’s second-best hitter next season. According to reports, he’s already turned down a contract offer worth $300 million. According to MLB Trade Rumors, he might end up with a contract worth more than $400 million. We’ve been anticipating this offseason for a while. Harper has been a household name for longer than I can remember, and as the cherry on top here, he’s represented by Scott Boras. Boras will push for some kind of contract record. I expect he’s going to be successful. Harper’s a core player in the prime of his life, and there’s more money in baseball than ever before.

Earlier this morning, almost by accident, I noticed that Harper was worse than Mitch Haniger in 2018, by 1.1 wins above replacement.

The point is not that Haniger is better than Harper is. Age is on Harper’s side. Talent is on Harper’s side. Track record is on Harper’s side. While I don’t know how much of a believer I am in the concept of measurable ceilings, we sort of know what Harper’s ceiling is, because we saw it in 2015. He was unbelievable. He hasn’t become as consistent as one would like, but Harper hits for power and he draws a boatload of walks. He just played in a career-high 159 games.

The Haniger thing got me looking closer, though. And in Harper’s otherwise good-enough contract season, he raised some questions about his defense. We still don’t focus that much on defense when we’re talking about sluggers. But teams don’t ignore it. Teams interested in Harper will have to figure out what happened.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hello friends. You’ll notice this headline refers to the worst called strike of the second half. Late last week, I wrote about the worst called ball of the season. When I write about the worst called balls, I’m obligated to write about the worst called strikes. When was the worst called strike of the season? It turns out it happened pretty early on, and I already wrote about it in July. I figured there wasn’t any sense in writing about the same call a second time, since I’d have all the same stuff to say. So as a compromise, I’m following last week’s post with a more recent called-strike update. The worst called strike of the second half is still the worst called strike in a while.

Let me show you what was almost the worst called strike of the second half. This is determined, for the record, by distance from the nearest edge of the strike zone. The worst called strike of the second half was almost a pitch thrown to Jose Altuve. It was almost a pitch thrown by Jaime Barria. I don’t think I’ve ever actually written a sentence about Jaime Barria. This is as close as I’ve gotten. Barria got the benefit of the doubt in a 3-and-1 count.

Read the rest of this entry »