I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it’s been a slow week for deadline trades. The way the haves and have-nots line up this year, impactful additions are few and far between. The teams out of the playoff picture don’t have a lot to give up, and the teams with intriguing rental players are mostly already in the race. But the Pittsburgh Pirates, consistent innovators in ways to do weird things without contending, have entered the fray by trading Ke’Bryan Hayes to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for Taylor Rogers, minor leaguer Sammy Stafura and cash considerations, as Mark Feinsand first reported.

Hayes is about as far from a deadline rental as you can imagine. He signed a lengthy contract extension in April 2022 and is still on that deal; he’s under team control through as long as 2030, in fact, and for cheap! He’s due an average of $7.5 million annually for the next four years, and the pact’s 2030 club option is for just $12 million with a $6 million buyout. That’s the kind of deal that gets teams salivating: long team control at rates that would barely get you a good middle reliever in free agency.

It gets better! Hayes is one of the best defenders in baseball. Since his 2020 debut, he leads all major leaguers with 73 Outs Above Average. Think that’s a fluke? He leads all major leaguers in Defensive Runs Saved – by 28 runs! The distance between him and second place is the same as the distance between second place and 25th. There are plenty of good third basemen with good defensive numbers. Hayes is head and shoulders ahead of all of them, unquestionably, and he’s lapping the third base field again this year, with 15 OAA (second place is four guys tied with four). Read the rest of this entry »

At the outset of Sunday’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Cooperstown, chairman of the board Jane Forbes Clark invoked the words of 2005 honoree Ryne Sandberg, who was not among the 52 returning Hall of Famers onstage for the festivities:

“As I have said many times before, the National Baseball Hall of Fame is an extraordinary place, and no one has described our game and what the Hall of Fame means better than Ryne Sandberg, Chicago Cubs legend and member of the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2005,” began Clark. “During his induction speech, he said, ‘The reason I am here, they tell me, is that I played the game a certain way, that I played the game the way it was supposed to be played. I don’t know about that, but I do know this: I had too much respect for the game to play it any other way. And if there is a single reason I am here today, it is because of one word: Respect.'”

As she continued, Clark’s voice audibly cracked, but she pushed through. “There is not a man seated behind me this afternoon who didn’t play the game the same way Ryno did. It is that respect, character, sportsmanship, integrity, and excellence that leads to just one percent of those that have ever played major league baseball to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.”

Her message — which referenced the Hall’s own voting rules, the so-called “character clause” — was evergreen, but the absence of Sandberg, who had attended the last two induction ceremonies, was conspicuous. So was Clark’s display of emotion, and now we know why. Sandberg, who was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer in January 2024, died on Monday at age 65. Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Wednesday. Would you like some sad news? Are your cheek muscles getting tired from constantly smiling because everything in the world keeps humming along so smoothly? Let’s bring you down with a roundup of star outfielder injury news. We’ll go in ascending order of scariness, so if you don’t feel sufficiently depressed at the beginning, just stick with it. We’ll get you there.

We start in Minnesota, where Byron Buxton is headed to the IL with left ribcage inflammation. Buxton was removed from Saturday’s game after experiencing pain in his ribs while he was running. At the time, the Twins said Buxton would be day-to-day with “left side soreness.” He hasn’t spoken to the press since Friday, so all updates have come from manager Rocco Baldelli. On Saturday, Baldelli told reporters, “We’re just going to get an image tomorrow morning just to see what we’re dealing with. He actually felt it more running than anything else.” The MRI delivered good news, revealing only “cartilage irritation” rather than structural damage to the ribs. The team again classified Buxton as day-to-day. “It’s a good outcome,” said Baldelli. “We’ll see how he is tomorrow and so on, but to be day-to-day with what he left the game with, it’s a good thing. We’ll measure him out, get him looked at by the trainers each day, get him a lot of treatment and hopefully he’ll be back very soon.”

Unfortunately, Buxton hasn’t gotten back into a game and the Twins have lost three of four, cementing their status as deadline sellers. Harrison Bader has taken over in center field, but he’s widely expected to be moved at the deadline. Buxton has a no-trade clause and recently reiterated his stated desire to say with the Twins for life, but the injury seems likely to silence any remaining whispers about the possibility that he could be traded too. Read the rest of this entry »

Jordan Hicks wasn’t yet reaching triple digits when our 2017 St. Louis Cardinals Top Prospects list was published in January of that year. Ranked 14th in the system at the time, the 2015 third-round pick out of Texas’s Cyprus Creek High School was throwing — per Eric Longenhagen — a comparably modest 96 mph. That soon changed. The high-octane right-hander went on to eclipse the 100 mark that summer, and early the next season he was clocked at 105 while pitching in the big leagues against the Philadelphia Phillies.

He’s since ridden a bit of a rollercoaster. Hicks followed a solid 2018 rookie campaign by logging 14 saves and a 3.14 ERA over two-plus months in 2019, but he blew out his elbow in June and underwent Tommy John surgery. As a Type-1 diabetic, he sat out the entire 2020 pandemic campaign. More elbow woes cropped up in 2021, limiting him to just 10 big league innings.

Changes of address have been notable in Hicks’ subsequent seasons, as have his job descriptions. The righty remained a reliever throughout 2023 — a year that saw him dealt from the Cardinals to the Toronto Blue Jays at the trade deadline — but he was then converted to a starter after signing as a free agent with the San Francisco Giants prior to last season. His success in that role having been a mixed bag, Hicks now finds himself back in the bullpen — with yet another team. Acquired by the Boston Red Sox as part of last month’s Rafael Devers trade, he has gone on to make nine appearances and register a pair of saves while allowing four earned runs over seven 1.3 innings. His fastball velocity has topped out at 101.5 mph.

What did his 2017 FanGraphs scouting report look like? Moreover, what does he think about it all these years later? Wanting to find out, I shared some of what Eric wrote and asked Hicks to respond to it.

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“A relatively undercooked prep arm from the 2015 draft.”

“Undercooked? I guess if you’re cooking a steak and you want it medium, I was rare,” Hicks said of that quote. “I didn’t have a lot of innings. At that point I had only thrown around 50 innings, and another 50 in high school. So, it was maybe 50 varsity innings and 50 pro innings. I think that’s probably what he meant by that.”

“His fastball sits 90-94, will touch 96, and comes in at an odd angle with some late sink.” Read the rest of this entry »

Some transactions are epic sagas that unfold over weeks or months, while others are compact little one-act plays that are over and done with in an afternoon.

On Tuesday, the Blue Jays lost Game 1 of a doubleheader to the Orioles by a score of 16-4. Chad Green, the team’s second-most expensive reliever, surrendered four of those runs in one inning, bringing his ERA to 5.56 and his home run total to 14 in just 43 2/3 innings. Before Game 2, the Blue Jays DFA’d Green and traded for Orioles right-hander Seranthony Domínguez, an unused substitute in Game 1.

Cutting ties with Green, who makes $10.5 million this year, will be expensive, but the Blue Jays did save a few hundred bucks on airfare by trading for a guy who was already in the building. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rays have shuffled up their catchers just a few days before the trade deadline, first sending their starter Danny Jansen to the Brewers along with some cash in return for infielder Jadher Areinamo. Then, Tampa Bay followed it up with a second swap, this time bringing in Nick Fortes from the Marlins for outfielder Matthew Etzel.

While Jansen’s bat has fallen off significantly from his 2021-2023 seasons, when he posted a 120 wRC+ over 754 plate appearances for 6.0 WAR, he’s still an adequate part of a catching tandem and provides the occasional round-tripper. He’s slashing .204/.314/.389 with 11 home runs and a 98 wRC+ this season. His framing numbers have been down considerably the last few years, as well, enough to knock off just under a WAR per season or so from his overall value. Considering the Rays were practically certain to pay out Jansen’s $500,000 buyout rather than pick up their side of a $12 million mutual option, this looks like them getting what they can while the getting was good. Read the rest of this entry »

The Tigers didn’t wait long. On Monday, the team announced that starter Reese Olson would miss the rest of the season (and possibly the postseason) with a right shoulder strain, and that same day, Detroit filled Olson’s rotation spot by swinging a trade within the division for Minnesota right-hander Chris Paddack. The full deal brought Paddack and reliever Randy Dobnak to the Tigers in exchange for 19-year-old catching prospect Enrique Jimenez. The trade represented an attempt to stabilize an increasingly banged-up Detroit rotation for an increasingly important stretch run. For the Twins, the move kicked off what has the potential to be a significant sell-off.

We’ll start with the Twins side. “It’s just crazy how fast it can turn around,” Paddack told Dan Hayes of The Athletic, who initially reported news of the deal along with Ken Rosenthal. “World just got twisted upside down, to say the least. It stinks. This business is out of our control sometimes. I was really pulling for us, as a Twin. I was hoping we would make some moves and go get that Wild Card spot. I’m excited for this new opportunity with a new team.” It’s not immediately clear who will take Paddack’s spot in the Minnesota rotation. The Twins have a bullpen game planned for today. Paddack will start tomorrow, and he’s lined up to face his old squad when the Tigers and Twins face off a week from today. The Twins broadcast made a point of circling the date on the calendar during last night’s game. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s been a lot of chatter about surplus value around these parts in recent days. As Ben Clemens wrote last week, surplus value informs a large part of a given player’s appeal as a trade target. Count up all the projected WAR remaining on a player’s deal, multiply it by the price of a single win, subtract the remaining cost of the contract, and what’s left over is an estimate of the player’s surplus value. Anything less than zero, and the contract can be considered underwater; if a contract is underwater, a team seeking to offload that player would expect to receive nothing of value in a trade return.

A couple of months back, my assumption was that Mitch Keller’s contract was ever-so-slightly underwater. The right-hander inked a five-year, $77 million extension in February of 2024. His first year on that deal was thoroughly mediocre: He made nearly every start, but posted a so-so 4.25 ERA/4.08 FIP. Over the two years preceding the deal, it was much of the same. His 4.13 ERA between 2022 and 2024 ranked 68th out of 106 pitchers with at least 300 innings pitched; his 3.92 FIP ranked 51st. The strikeout and walk rates were nearly dead-on league average.

Is a roughly 2-WAR starter worth tens of millions of guaranteed dollars? Your mileage may vary. Patrick Corbin went to the Rangers for $1.1 million after posting a 1.8-WAR season last year. Andrew Heaney got two years and $25 million after delivering 2.2 WAR. Nick Pivetta, notably younger than both of those guys but still three years older than Keller, signed with the Padres for four years and $55 million. If Keller had hit the open market after the 2024 season, when he put up 2.2 WAR in 31 starts (178 innings), I’d imagine he would have received a contract similar to what Pivetta earned after his 2.0 WAR and 145 2/3 innings. Perhaps Keller’s deal wasn’t terrible, but it also wasn’t something teams would be dying to get on their books.

But now it’s the peak of trade deadline season, and the 29-year-old Keller is a hot commodity. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported last Tuesday that the Blue Jays are in on Keller. That’s in addition to reported interest from the Cubs, Mets and Yankees. Nearly half of the most serious World Series contenders are in on the Keller sweepstakes, suggesting that contract is now perceived as having surplus value. Perhaps this has something to do with the haggard state of these teams’ rotations, but I’m inclined to believe that isn’t the entire reason. Read the rest of this entry »

Every time I hear the name Robbie Ray, I think about the bar scene from 2002’s Sweet Home Alabama, where Reese Witherspoon’s character Melanie drunkenly stumbles up to an old friend as he’s about to attempt a pool shot. Through a fit of giggles she says, “Bobby Ray! Don’t blow this one, OK?”

Most recently, this happened when I read that Robbie Ray had been named to the National League All-Star team. Because Robbie Ray has not been blowing it this season. In fact, he’s been posting numbers not far off the pace from his 2021 Cy Young season. But despite the Cy Young on his résumé, I probably think about Bobby Ray more often than Robbie Ray, because Robbie followed up his award-winning performance with a merely average 2022, and then spent much of 2023 and 2024 on the IL. Overall, Ray’s career has been a bit of an up-and-down journey, and if we’re comparing career arcs to character arcs, Ray’s is more akin to Melanie’s than Bobby Ray’s, despite the similar name.

Dropping in on Ray’s 2021 season is roughly equivalent to where we drop in on Melanie Carmichael at the beginning of Sweet Home Alabama. Melanie (whose real last name is Smooter, but she chose to adopt a more sophisticated persona after leaving Alabama for the big city) is a fashion designer fresh off a successful debut at New York Fashion Week and newly engaged to the mayor’s son (Patrick Dempsey). Melanie has accumulated career accolades and social status, just as Ray spent his 2021 season reeling in award votes and leveling up his status as a starting pitcher. Read the rest of this entry »

COOPERSTOWN, NY — During his 19-year major league career, Ichiro Suzuki rarely spoke English in public unless it was to express his thoughts about the temperature in Kansas City in August as it pertained to certain rodents. On Sunday in Cooperstown, however, he flawlessly delivered his 19-minute Hall of Fame induction speech in his second language, showing off his sly sense of humor while speaking about the professionalism, respect, and love for the fans that drove his career. “Today, I am feeling something I thought I would never feel again. I am a rookie,” he began, referring to his first seasons with the Orix Blue Wave in 1992 and the Seattle Mariners in 2001. “But please, I am 51 years old now. Easy on the hazing. I don’t need to wear a Hooters uniform again,” he quipped to the 52 returning Hall of Famers, four fellow entrants in the Class of 2025, and the estimated 30,000 people who attended the ceremony at the Clark Sports Center.

“The first two times, it was easier to manage my emotions because my goal was always clear: to play professionally at the highest level,” continued Suzuki. “This time is so different, because I could never imagine as a kid in Japan that my play would lead me to a sacred baseball land that I didn’t even know was here. People often measure me by my records: 3,000 hits, 10 gold gloves, 10 seasons of 200 hits. Not bad, eh?

“But the truth is, without baseball, you would say this guy is such a dumbass. I have bad teammates, right, Bob Costas?”

Elsewhere, Suzuki poked fun at having fallen one vote short of becoming just the second Hall candidate elected unanimously: “Three thousand hits or 262 hits in one season are achievements recognized by the writers. Well… all but one. And by the way, the offer for that writer to have dinner at my home has now expired.” On a more serious note, he advised distinguishing between dreams and goals: “Dreams are not always realistic, but goals can be possible if you think deeply about how to reach them. Dreaming is fun, but goals are difficult and challenging… If you are serious about it, you must think critically about what is necessary to achieve it.” Read the rest of this entry »