With a 115 wRC+, the 2024 Orioles were the best offensive team in franchise history, outperforming even the most dominant Baltimore lineups from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Their 115 wRC+ was also good for second in the AL last season, trailing only their pennant-winning division rivals in New York. A couple thousand miles away, the Diamondbacks also finished with a best-in-franchise-history 115 wRC+. That wRC+ was good for second in the National League, trailing only Arizona’s World Series-winning division rivals in Los Angeles. How’s that for symmetry?

On Tuesday, the Birds and the Snakes continued to parallel one another, at least as far as their lineups are concerned. In the afternoon, the Orioles announced they had signed righty-batting outfielder Ramón Laureano, reportedly to a one-year, $4 million deal. Not long after, the D-backs confirmed they had re-signed righty-batting outfielder Randal Grichuk, reportedly for one year and $5 million guaranteed. Both deals also come with options for 2026. Laureano’s is a $6.5 million team option, while Grichuk’s is a $5 million mutual option with a $3 million buyout. His salary for 2025 is technically only $2 million, with that buyout making up the rest of his $5 million guarantee. There was a time when both Laureano and Grichuk were promising, multi-talented, everyday players. These days, however, they’ve each become role players with two primary jobs: handle a part-time gig in the outfield and hit well against left-handed pitching. That should be exactly what the Orioles and Diamondbacks ask them to do in 2025. Read the rest of this entry »

It was a bit of a weird assignment: “Hey, one of our most popular projections drops this week, would you mind telling everyone where you think it’s wrong?” Sure thing, bossman!

Joking aside, I get it. Playoff odds are probabilistic; if you asked me how many teams would miss their projected win total, I’d say half are going to come in high and the other half are going to come in low. They follow a set methodology that you can’t tweak if the results look off. That means the standings page is blind to factors human observers can see. It doesn’t know who’s getting divorced, who made a conditioning breakthrough over the winter, and who just really freaking hated the old pitching coach who got fired.

Nevertheless, these numbers are valuable because the projection system doesn’t mistake anecdotes for data and overrate the intangible. It’s a reminder to trust your gut, but only to an extent. Read the rest of this entry »

Jared Koenig’s path to big-league success was anything but smooth. The southpaw didn’t throw his first pitch in affiliated baseball until he was 27 years old, that coming in the Oakland Athletics organization after three seasons on the indie-ball circuit. And while he made his MLB debut the following year, he appeared in just 10 games, logging a 5.72 ERA and losing three of four decision. That was in 2022. Subsequently signed by San Diego, he put up nothing-special numbers in Triple-A and was cut loose by the Padres midway through the 2023 campaign.

The Brewers gave him another opportunity. Milwaukee inked the 6-foot-5 left-hander to a contract prior to last season, and they’re certainly glad they did. Working primarily out of the bullpen — he served as an opener on six occasions — Koenig made 55 appearances for the NL Central champs, putting up a 2.47 ERA and a 3.28 FIP over 62 frames. Moreover, he was credited with nine wins and one save. Seemingly out of the blue, he’d come into his own as a 30-year-old rookie.

How he go from relative obscurity to providing quality innings for a playoff team? Read the rest of this entry »

Some people run away from their bad opinions. Not me. When I’m wrong I build a monument to my own foolishness and dance around it like a child around a maypole. So I think what I’m going to do from now on is just write about Trevor Rogers every few months from now until the end of his career.

I was all-in on Rogers when he came up with the Marlins. The combination of easy lefty velocity and starter volume is the forbidden fruit of scouting, and nobody is immune to its temptations. Think about how James Paxton kept getting eight-figure contract offers five years after he stopped being an effective major league starter. Or how it took about eight starts last year for Garrett Crochet to go from “maybe a reliever” to “definitely prime Chris Sale, no questions asked.” Rogers was no different. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a team looking for a bounce-back corner outfielder with a league-average bat, your search just got a little bit harder. On Monday, Jon Heyman reported that the Orioles had signed Dylan Carlson to a one-year, $975,000 deal, and on Tuesday, Ken Rosenthal reported that the Reds had signed former Oriole Austin Hays to his own one-year, $5 million deal. Both players were selected in the 2016 draft, both players got traded at the deadline only to be non-tendered after the season, and both players are projected to put up a wRC+ somewhere between 93 and 102 in 2025. In a reflection of the uncertainty surrounding Carlson, a $25,000 incentive will raise his salary to a cool million if he reaches 200 plate appearances in Baltimore. Hays’ deal has its own $1 million in incentives, but the terms have not yet been reported. These are two small-risk, small-reward moves, but context is key. The way we look at them depends a whole lot on the needs of the respective teams. Hays has more upside, but he’s joining a Cincinnati team that needs way more than a small reward in order to be a contender. Carlson has a much trickier path to playing time, but he makes sense as a depth piece in Baltimore.

Let’s start with Hays, who has a history of big league success under his belt and a much bigger role to play in 2025. Despite a strained calf, he managed to put up a 104 wRC+ with the Orioles in 2024. After a deadline trade to the Phillies, however, a hamstring strain and a debilitating kidney infection that went undiagnosed for weeks kept him to 85 wRC+ down the stretch, with zero walks in 80 plate appearances. Rather than keep Hays for an estimated $6.4 million in his last year of arbitration, the Phillies non-tendered him. Until the infection, Hays had been very consistent (and consistently average).

From 2021-23, Hays played at least 131 games each year while posting a wRC+ between 106 and 112. A hot start to the 2023 season even earned him his first All-Star nod. Going forward, however, his defensive limitations are going to keep him in left field and, in all likelihood, just below the 2.0-WAR mark, even if his bat bounces all the way back. There’s no doubt that his pull-side power and lack of range make him better suited for Cincinnati’s form-fitting left field than the blousy Baltimore outfield he’s used to. Still, Hays is entering his age-29 season, and while he could easily explode for 30 home runs in his cozy new environs, it’s hard to imagine him surpassing his career-high 2.5 WAR from 2023.

What does Hays do for Cincinnati’s depth chart? Assuming he gets plugged in as the left fielder, he moves Spencer Steer back to the infield. With Jonathan India in Kanas City, the Reds were in serious danger of merely having too many infielders rather than their usual way, way too many. However, now that Steer can rejoin Elly De La Cruz, Matt McLain, Jeimer Candelario, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, and newcomer Gavin Lux on the dirt, this infield is even more crowded than it was before the India trade. If Hays goes back to hitting like he’s capable of hitting, he could represent an upgrade in left field — not nearly enough to make the Reds look like more than a .500 ball club, but still an upgrade. If he does anything less, he will blend right into the bottom half of a Reds lineup that Dan Szymborski recently christened, “a giant bucket of ‘meh.’”

Turning our attention to Baltimore, it’s probably too late to keep dreaming on Dylan Carlson. Nonetheless, this move makes a lot of sense both for him and the Orioles. Carlson was a first-round draft pick by the Cardinals in 2016, and he eventually rose to 16th on our top 100 prospects list. He struggled in his 2020 debut — though he got hot enough down the stretch that the Cardinals batted him cleanup in their three-game Wild Card Series loss to the Padres — but put up a promising full-season campaign in 2021. That season, he batted .266/.343/.437 with 18 home runs and a 111 wRC+ across 149 games, good for 2.4 WAR and a third-place finish in the Rookie of the Year voting. And then he plunged into a spiral of injury and underperformance. He made two trips to the injured list in both 2022 and 2023 for four separate injuries; he missed a combined 29 days in 2022 with a hamstring strain and a thumb strain, and then in 2023, an ankle sprain and an oblique strain cost him a total of 76 days. While he was out with the oblique strain, he underwent season-ending arthroscopic surgery on the same ankle he’d sprained earlier that year. During spring training in 2024, he sprained the AC joint in his left shoulder in an outfield collision with human mountain Jordan Walker. That injury kept him out for the first 38 days of the season.

Carlson put up an xwOBA between .301 and .322 in every season between 2020 and 2023, and a DRC+ between 97 and 104 in every season between 2021 and 2023. When he returned from that shoulder injury, he wasn’t himself. If you don’t count his 35-game rookie season in 2020, Carlson’s 2024 season featured career worsts in walk rate, strikeout rate, contact rate, all three slash line stats, all the wOBAs, hard-hit rate, and, just for good measure, all the advanced defensive stats. He ended the season with a 67 wRC+, .209 batting average, -7 fielding runs, and -1.0 WAR. The Cardinals traded him to the Rays at the deadline, and the Rays non-tendered him after the season rather than pay him a couple million dollars in arbitration. Now, the Orioles have decided that they like him better than the $975,000 they used to have.

The projections see Carlson bouncing back to the league-average bat he was over the first four years of his career, and that’s presumably what the Orioles are expecting. However, let’s take just a moment to dream. We don’t know how much speed and power Carlson would have if he were to finally have the chance at a full, healthy season. His zone swing rate and contact rate plummeted in 2024, and you have to imagine that had something to do with his physical limitations at the plate. Over the course of his career, he’s got a solid .330 wOBA against fastballs, but Statcast puts his run value against them at -17, which speaks to an approach issue. He takes too many fastballs and whiffs at way too many fastballs, but when he hits them, he has a great deal of success. So why isn’t he looking for them more often?

Between Cedric Mullins, Tyler O’Neill, and Colton Cowser, the Orioles have a starting outfield. Between Heston Kjerstad, Daz Cameron, Jorge Mateo, and now Carlson, they have plenty of backups too, and because they’re loaded with infielders, they probably don’t have enough roster spots to keep all of them in Baltimore. The switch-hitting Carlson still has three options left, and it would make plenty of sense to see how he looks during spring training, keep him far away from any particularly mountainous teammates, and let him try to figure things out in Norfolk to start the season.

Carlson is now far removed from his days as a top prospect, but he’s still only 26 and has only once reached 500 plate appearances in a season. He’s always run solid chase and walk rates, and he showed a renewed ability to pull the ball in the air last season. The Orioles are on a pretty great run when it comes to developing young hitters. This seems like a low-risk move for them and a good landing spot for Carlson. Even if all he does is bounce back to being a league-average hitter and an average left fielder, that’s makes him a useful depth piece for a contending team.

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Adam Jones was Mr. Baltimore. Though he was born in San Diego and began his major league career in Seattle, Jones took to Baltimore upon being traded to the Orioles in 2008. On the field, he set an example for younger teammates during lean years, and his combination of power, speed, and graceful defense eventually helped the team end an epic streak of futility. He served as a starter on the Orioles’ first three playoff teams in this millennium, winning four Gold Gloves and making five All-Star teams. Off the field, Jones invested in the city, annually donating a significant chunk of his salary to the local Boys & Girls Club and other charitable endeavors. He emerged as a civic icon, a Black athlete who could relate to the hardships experienced by the city’s Black population, and one who wasn’t afraid to speak out regarding the injustices he saw both locally and nationally.

Jones’ national prominence reached its zenith in 2017 when he made a memorable, iconic catch to rob Manny Machado of a home run while playing center field during the World Baseball Classic — a key moment in helping Team USA win the tournament for the only time thus far. Read the rest of this entry »

Charlie Morton met with the Baltimore media over Zoom a few days ago, and as would be expected, the 41-year-old right-hander was equal parts thoughtful and engaging. That’s who Morton is. Much for that reason, I made it a point to join in on the session.

His response to a question from Matt Weyrich was classic Morton. The Baltimore Sun scribe asked the introspective veteran of 14 big-league seasons if he sees himself as a role model and/or mentor for a comparably inexperienced staff.

“I’d love to say that I have the answers,” replied Morton, whom the Orioles inked to a one-year deal worth $15 million. “I don’t. I think that, as an individual, you fit in in different ways with different groups of guys. I’m not going to be the same guy that I was with the Rays, in the clubhouse. I’m not going to be the same guy I was with the Astros or the Braves. Each person in those rooms, they’re just a piece of that larger puzzle. While I am the same person, there are different factors that direct you towards behaving a certain way… the value to a person, in the clubhouse, is the human being that they are.”

As much as baseball is in his blood, Morton is a family man. In August 2023, shortly before his 40th birthday, I asked him how much longer he could continue to defy Father Time and excel against baseball’s best hitters. He told me that he doesn’t think about it that way. Rather, he viewed it as “When am I going to go home?” Blessed with a wife and kids, Morton has pondered walking away from the game he loves for several years running. As the 2024 campaign was winding down, he once again thought there was “a really good chance [this] was going to be my last year.”

That’s he’s continued to perform well enough to not have the decision made for him is a big part of his story. Going from “Ground Chuck” to a pitcher who misses bats helped allow that to happen. Echoing what he told me back in 2017, his first season with the Astros, Morton related to the Baltimore beat writers that his career-altering transformation took place upon his arrival in Houston.

“They had a little board room and a projection screen with charts and graphs, and they were suggesting to me to throw pitches in locations where I would get no swings, or a swing-and-miss,” explained Morton, who has enjoyed markedly more success since revamping his pitching style. “For seven years with Pittsburgh, I was trying to get the ball on the ground with three pitches or less, and now they’re telling me, ‘Don’t let them hit it’… you’re not relying on the fate of where the ball is going, you are relying on your stuff.”

Which brings us back to where he’s going now, which is Baltimore and at least one more season on a big-league mound. Morton admitted to having been on the fence as to whether he even wanted to hear if there were any offers this winter, but when the Orioles called, the situation sounded right. Not only would he be getting a chance to pitch for a legitimate World Series contender, it would “work logistically with myself and my family.”

When Morton does finally decide to “go home,” saying goodbye to the game will come with a heavy heart. Given the way he approaches life, it will also come with a healthy dose of reflection.

“I don’t know about the desire to play baseball going away,” said Morton, who had a 4.19 ERA and a 4.46 FIP over 165-and a -third innings with the Atlanta Braves in 2024. “I don’t think that will ever happen. I think it’s just a recognition that it’s time.”
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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Ben Zobrist went 10 for 25 against Andy Pettitte.

Manny Ramirez went 14 for 24 against CC Sabathia.

Adam Jones went 16 for 41 against Mark Buehrle.

Jimmy Rollins went 4 for 11 against Francisco Rodriguez.

Ian Kinsler went 6 for 18 against Fernando Rodney.

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Several people have asked me why I put a checkmark next to Andy Pettitte’s name, and not next to Mark Buehrle’s, on my Hall of Fame ballot. Here is a brief explanation:

Pettitte had 68.2 fWAR, four seasons with a fWAR of five or higher, a 3.74 FIP, and 256 wins, Buehrle had 52.3 fWAR, one season with a fWAR of five or higher, a 4.11 FIP, and 214 wins. Pettitte also has the more robust postseason resume. (The degree to which postseason should be valued — ditto win totals — is obviously subjective. Nonetheless, each is part of a player’s résumé.) With all due respect to Buehrle — an accomplished pitcher who made five All-Star teams and was awarded four Gold Gloves — I feel that Pettitte is the more deserving of the two, As for whether I should have voted for both, the 10-player limit is an obstacle. My voting for Buehrle in the future remains a possibility.

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Who was better, Félix Hernández or Jon Lester? The latter becomes Hall-eligible in two years — King Felix debuted this year and got my vote — so I asked that question in a Twitter poll. The results weren’t close. Lester received a paltry 16.7% of the votes cast, while Hernández got a whopping 83.3%. Given their respective numbers — put up in nearly the same number of innings — as well as their awards and honors, I expected a closer race.

Hernández went 169-136 with a 117 ERA+, a 3.52 FIP, and 54.0 fWAR. Lester, who pitched for better teams, went 200-117 with a 117 ERA+, a 3.78 FIP, and 46.2 fWAR.

Hernández was a six-time All-Star, won a Cy Young Award, a pair of ERA titles, and threw a perfect game. Lester was a five-time All-Star who won three World Series rings (two with the Red Sox, one with the Cubs). His Fall Classic résumé includes a 4-1 record and a 1.77 ERA, while his overall postseason ERA was 2.51 over 154 innings. He also has an LCS MVP to his credit.

Will Lester get my vote when he becomes Hall-eligible? That’s yet to be determined. He has a valid argument, regardless of whether his career is deemed as impressive as Félix’s.

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I also ran a poll asking which of Derek Jeter or Ichiro Suzuki was better. I won’t bother to cite any of their numbers — what the first-ballot Hall of Famers did over of the course of their careers is well known — but I will pass along the results.

Ichiro garnered 79.1% of the votes cast. Jeter received just 20.9%. Make of that what you will.

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One more on the Hall of Fame:

I’m of the opinion that Firpo Marberry deserves a plaque in Cooperstown. The first MLB pitcher prominently utilized as a “closer,” Marberry led the American League in saves six times, and in appearances another six times. Moreover, he did so while also serving as a starter. Playing primarily for the Washington Senators — the right-hander also took the mound for the Detroit Tigers, and very briefly the New York Giants — Marberry logged a 148-88 won-lost record, 101 saves (B-Ref has him with 99), and a 116 ERA+ across the 1923-1936 seasons . His best year was 1929, when he went 19-12 with 11 saves while starting 23 games and coming out of the bullpen 26 times. His top saves totals were 22, 16, and 15, those in seasons where no other hurler reached double digits.

Given his body of work and pioneer status, Frederick “Firpo” Marberry would be a worthy Hall of Famer.

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A quiz:

Cal Ripken Jr. drew 1,129 walks, the most in Baltimore Orioles history. Which Oriole has drawn the second most walks? (A hint: He is the franchise’s all-time leader in reaching base via HBP.)

The answer can be found below.

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NEWS NOTES

Bob Veale, a left-hander who won 120 games while pitching primarily for the Pittsburgh Pirates in a career that spanned the 1962-1974 seasons, died on January 7 at age 89. A flame-throwing Birmingham, Alabama native who made a pair of NL All-Star teams, Veale led the senior circuit with 250 strikeouts in 1964.

Felix Mantilla, a native of Isabela, Puerto Rico who spent the first six of his 11 big-league seasons with the Milwaukee Braves, died on Friday at age 90. An infielder/outfielder, Mantilla had his best year in 1964 when hit 30 home runs with the Boston Red Sox. Two years earlier, he was in the starting lineup when the New York Mets played their first game in franchise history.

Brian Matusz, a left-hander who pitched in 280 games for the Baltimore Orioles, and in one game for Chicago Cubs, from 2009-2016, died earlier this month at age 37. No cause of death has been reported.

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The answer to the quiz is Brady Anderson, who walked 927 times as an Oriole. His franchise-most HBP total was 148.

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A random obscure former player snapshot:

Ray Culp was a shrewd trade acquisition for the Red Sox in November 1967. Less than two months after losing the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals, Boston received the 26-year-old right-hander from the Chicago Cubs in exchange for Bill Schlesinger and a PTBNL (Al Montreuil), a nondescript duo whose combined careers comprised all of six games and one hit in a dozen at-bats. Culp’s career was far more distinguished. At his best in his first four Boston seasons — this before arm woes entered the equation — the Elgin, Texas native went 64-44 with a 3.34 ERA over 937 innings. All told, Culp won 122 games pitching for the Cubs, Red Sox, and initially the Philadelphia Phillies, from 1963-1973.

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

NPB’s Seibu Lions signed a pair of players who saw action in MLB this year. Right-hander Trey Wingenter made a smattering of appearances with the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs, while Tyler Nevin played in 87 games for the Oakland Athletics.

Hiroto Takahashi is working to add a two-seamer to his repertoire (per Yahoo Japan). The Chunichi Dragons right-hander went 12-4 with a 1.38 ERA, and just 107 hits allowed in 143-and-two-thirds innings, this past season. Takahashi turned 22 in August.

Alex Wells is 5-1 with a 1.56 ERA over 52 innings for the Australian Baseball League’s Sydney Blue Sox. The 27-year-old southpaw made 13 appearances with the Baltimore Orioles across the 2021-2022 seasons.

Brennon McNair is slashing .254/.361/.574 with a circuit-best 11 home runs in 145 plate appearances for the ABL’s Brisbane Bandits. The 21-year-old infielder/outfielder in the Kansas City Royals organization had a .660 OPS last year with the High-A Columbia Fireflies.

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What has been the best game of your life? I asked that question to a number of players this past season, originally for a standalone piece that ran in early June, and subsequently for inclusion in a handful of Sunday Notes columns. Pittsburgh Pirates reliever Colin Holderman was among those to share his memories.

“I was at Heartland Community College, it was one of our first games of the year, and we were playing Walters State,” Holderman told me at PNC Park in late September. “I went eight innings, and I think I struck out 12. I also went 3-for-4 with two homers, one of them a go-ahead homer in the eighth. They were the No. 1 team in the country for junior college, and we were No. 2, so it was a pretty big matchup. That put us on top of the leaderboard. It’s something I think about often, so that would probably have to be my best overall game.”

The right-hander considers an immaculate inning he threw against the Tampa Bay Rays on May 4, 2023 his “biggest big-league moment.” It was his first immaculate inning at any level, and he turned the trick throwing “one sinker, the rest were cutters and sweepers.”

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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

At CBS Sports, Mike Snyder addressed a number of false Hall of Fame narratives, including the misguided belief that the Hall is getting watered down.

Baseball America gave us minor league park factors for 2024 (subscription required).

Baseball America surveyed evaluators on the current state of scouting (unlike most BA articles, this is not behind a paywall).

The Kansas City Royals had Brent Rooker on their roster late in the 2022 season, only to lose him to the Oakland Athletics via the waiver wire. Max Rieper wrote about the ill-fated decision to cut Rooker loose, at Royals Review.

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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

Justin Verlander is 24-24 with a 4.42 ERA in his career against the Cleveland Indians/Guardians. The 24 losses are his most against any team. The most losses Verlander has against any other club is 14, against the Chicago White Sox.

Clayton Kershaw is 11-0 with a 2.03 ERA in 17 career starts against the New York Mets. He is 4-7 with a 2.73 ERA in 17 career starts against the Philadelphia Phillies.

In 1968, Baltimore Orioles left-hander Dave McNally went 22-10 with a 1.95 ERA over 273 innings. He had a 5.3% walk rate and a .202 BABIP-against.

Melvin Mora had a three-year stretch (2003-2005) with the Orioles where his average season included a .312/.391/.513 slash line, 23 home runs, a 142 wRC+, and 5.1 WAR.

Juan Marichal and Brooks Robinson were elected to the Hall of Fame on today’s date in 1983. Robinson was on the ballot for the first time. Marichal was on the ballot for the third time.

On today’s date in 1982, the Minnesota Twins selected Kirby Puckett third overall in the January phase of the MLB draft out of Triton College. The first two picks were Kash Beauchamp, by the Toronto Blue Jays, and Troy Afenir, by the Chicago Cubs.

Players born on today’s date include Nigel Wilson, an outfielder who had three hits in 35 at-bats while playing for the Florida Marlins, Cincinnati Reds, and Cleveland Indians across parts of the 1993-1996 seasons. The Oshawa, Ontario native had far more success in Japan, logging 37, 33, and 37 home runs in his three full seasons with NPB’s Nippon Ham Fighters.

Also born on today’s date was Togie Pittinger, a right-hander who went 115-113 pitching for the Boston Nationals and Philadelphia Phillies from 1900-1907. The Greencastle, Pennsylvania native won 27 games in 1902, then lost an NL-worst 22 games the following year. His 1903 season also saw him surrender the most earned runs, hits, home runs, and walks. Pittinger did hit his only career home run that year, going yard against left-hander Luther Taylor, who won 116 games after signing with the New York Giants out of the Kansas School for the Deaf.

The Orioles finally got tired of being poked with a stick to choruses of “Do something!” and signed Charlie Morton to a one-year deal worth $15 million. Will this move silence those voices? Probably not! But as Baltimore’s GM, Mike Elias seems impervious to external feedback, so those still crowing may as well be talking to a wall. Then again, maybe a wall would have a better understanding of the importance of balance when it comes to construction, making it better equipped to construct a big league roster. But more on that in a minute.

In a vacuum, signing Morton to an affordable, short-term deal is a positive addition. Though 2025 will be his age-41 season, Morton has logged at least 160 innings in each of the last four years and put up league average (or better) numbers. Given the scarcity of healthy, quality pitching over the last few years, pitchers who post are extremely valuable. And if one didn’t know Morton had already crested 40, scanning his production wouldn’t yield any obvious giveaways. He has become more of a finesse pitcher, relying on command and weak contact over strikeouts, but the shift has been subtle. Over the last four seasons, he’s thrown his curveball more than his four-seamer and his groundball rate has gradually grown, while his strikeout rate has slowly dwindled. Morton’s curve is easily his best pitch by Stuff+ at 122, and that’s what he uses to induce whiffs and groundballs. His other offerings have Stuff+ scores ranging from 72 to 86, but he locates them well and they mirror the spin of his curveball to keep hitters off balance.

As a pitcher relying on his ability to keep the ball on the ground, it would make Morton’s life easier to take the mound in front of a strong infield defense. In 2024, the Orioles infielders logged -20 OAA and -14.3 defensive runs, but there is reason to think they’ll do better moving forward. Last season’s numbers include a lot of Jordan Westburg playing second base instead of third, where he’s a much stronger defender, and Ramón Urías looking at times overcooked while covering the hot corner after Westburg went down with a fractured hand. Meanwhile, this is a young team that still has room for growth. Ryan Mountcastle’s defense at first has seen small year-over-year improvements since 2022, when he made the move from the outfield permanent. Ideally, Jackson Holliday will get settled in at second, and though Gunnar Henderson’s play at shortstop is the least of anyone’s concern, given that he’s still only 23, there’s no reason to think he’s done leveling up his game. Read the rest of this entry »

Which player had a better career, Dustin Pedroia or David Wright? I asked that question in a Twitter poll a few days ago, with the erstwhile Boston Red Sox second baseman outpolling the former New York Mets third baseman by a measure of 58.8% to 41.2%. Results aside, how they compare in historical significance has been on my mind. Both are on the Hall of Fame ballot I will be filling out in the coming days, and depending on what I decide to do with a pair of controversial players that have received my votes in recent years, each is a strong consideration for a checkmark. More on that in a moment.

It’s no secret that Pedroia and Wright were on track for Cooperstown prior to injuries sidetracking their seemingly clear paths. Rather than having opportunities to build on their counting stats, they finished with just 1,805 and 1,777 hits, and 44.8 and 51.3 WAR, respectively. That said, each has a resumé that includes an especially impressive 10-year stretch (Wright had 10 seasons with 100 or more games played. Pedroia had nine).

To wit:

From 2007-2016, Pedroia slashed .303/.368/.447 with an 118 wRC+ and 45 WAR. Over that span, he made four All-Star teams, won four Gold Gloves, and earned both Rookie of the Year and MVP honors. Moreover, he was an integral part of two World Series-winning teams.

From 2005-2014, Wright slashed .298/.379/.492 with a 134 wRC+ and 48.1 WAR. Over that span, he made seven All-Star teams and won two Gold Gloves. Unlike his Red Sox contemporary, he captured neither a Rookie of the Year or MVP award, nor did he play for a World Series winner. That said, as Jay Jaffe wrote earlier this month, “Wright is the greatest position player in Mets history.” Read the rest of this entry »

Hi, I’m Ben Clemens. You might know me from such articles as “C’mon, Orioles, Do Something”, “Why Are the Orioles’ Playoff Odds So Low?”, and “Wait, FanGraphs Is Too Low on the Orioles Again?!”. In my spare time, I also write about the rest of the league, but today I’m focusing on Baltimore yet again given their latest signing: The O’s and right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano have agreed to a one-year, $13 million contract.

Sugano has been one of the best pitchers in NPB for more than a decade. The 35-year-old won the Central League MVP in 2014, and he’s added two more MVP awards since then. He also won two Sawamura Awards – think the Cy Young, only for the entire league and with minimum criteria – neither in any of his three MVP seasons. In other words, he’s been racking up hardware like no one else for his entire career.

Reading a scouting report on Sugano is like chicken soup for my command-obsessed soul. If pitching was entirely about hitting a tiny target, Sugano might be the best pitcher in the world. Saying that he has the ball on a string would be offensive to Sugano; I can’t control a yo-yo as well as he can spot his five-pitch arsenal. He walked 16 of the 608 batters he faced last year, a 2.6% rate that would make George Kirby jealous.

It’s not just walk avoidance that sets Sugano apart from the crowd, though. He works the corners and tunnels his pitches off of each other to great effect. He can add or subtract from everything he throws, so his five-pitch mix can feel even deeper when a hitter is trying to figure out what’s coming next. He might not inspire the physical discomfort batters experience when facing triple-digit heat that could come right at their ribcage if the pitcher misses his location, but facing Sugano is like solving a Saturday crossword puzzle, if crossword puzzles threw splitters. Read the rest of this entry »