When Carl Pavano threw the first official pitch at the brand new Target Field on April 12, 2010, there was no Target logo on the mound. Mind you, there were Target logos aplenty all around the ballpark — on the wall behind home plate, just below the press box, up above the bleachers in right and center field, on the signs the fans brought and the hats they wore, and on the video boards on the façade of the upper deck, which often displayed rows of alternating baseballs and Target logos, hundreds of them wrapping around the entire stadium — just not on the pitcher’s mound. Later that year, the interlocking T and C of the Twins logo began appearing in the dirt behind the rubber; the Target logo didn’t start gracing the mound until 2016.

Still, in the early years of 2016 and 2017, the mound was often completely targetless. Even today, there are games where there’s no logo whatsoever — and not just nationally televised games, when the advertising rights can change. Sometimes it’s just the pitcher all alone up there (aside from the rubber, the cleat cleaner, and a couple rosin bags):

I don’t have any good guesses that explain the logo’s occasional absence, but I have so, so many bad guesses. Maybe the grounds crew is hiding the target somewhere else on the field and we’re supposed to be looking for it. Maybe Target leases the space on a per-game basis, and sometimes whoever is in charge of delivering that day’s check gets lost during the half-mile walk from Target Plaza Commons headquarters to Target Field. Maybe — and hear me out on this one — maybe the grounds crew just gets busy sometimes. I don’t know why it’s not always there, but if it’s supposed to be there every game, I hope this paragraph doesn’t get anybody in trouble. Read the rest of this entry »

Few positions on the Brewers depth chart are more set than catcher. William Contreras, whom they acquired before last season, was their best player in 2023. He led Milwaukee in hitting and finished third on the team in plate appearances despite shouldering a full-time catching load, which normally limits playing time. Most impressively, he delivered a sensational defensive performance a year after he was one of the worst receivers in baseball. On a team that struggled to generate offense, Contreras was a rare and brightly shining exception.

Naturally, the Brewers just signed the best free agent catcher on the market, give or take DH Mitch Garver. That’d be Gary Sánchez, who is joining the team on a one-year, $7 million contract, as Jon Heyman reported. It sounds bizarre – and it may well be bizarre. But there’s a method to Milwaukee’s madness, so let’s try to figure it out together.

There’s one obvious thing going for the Brewers: They really needed a second catcher. Before they signed Sánchez, the plan was to use Eric Haase, he of the 42 wRC+ in 2023, as their second backstop. That plan was not great, to put it succinctly. Haase probably isn’t that bad offensively, but he’s also not particularly good behind the plate. In his best years in Detroit – he hit a career-high 22 home runs in 2021 and topped out at 1.3 WAR in 351 plate appearances the following season – he wasn’t used as a pure catcher, dabbling in the outfield and at DH and racking up meaningfully negative framing numbers when he did don the tools of ignorance.
Read the rest of this entry »

The best pitch in baseball is a well-located four-seam fastball. It is the rhythm guitar of pitching, the rock upon which the church is built. To establish the fastball first is fundamental; to pitch any other way is backwards.

Maybe you don’t need it at all.

In the late 20th century, rock and roll evolved into different popular forms that either de-emphasized the role of the guitar or eliminated it altogether. Some artists went forward and embraced electronic instruments; others went back in time and rediscovered the piano. Of the 603 pitchers who threw at least 250 pitches last year, 49 didn’t throw a single four-seamer. Many of them were quite successful. The anti-four-seamer crowd includes top relievers like Josh Hader, Camilo Doval, and José Alvarado, as well as elite starters like Corbin Burnes and Framber Valdez. Read the rest of this entry »

With the additions of Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto on deals lasting 10 and 12 years, respectively, the Dodgers are entering a new era when it comes to their headlining superstars — not to take anything away from Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, both of whom remain at or near the top of their respective games. On Monday, we learned that the next stage of Dodger baseball will also include another familiar superstar: The New York Post’s Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman reported that free agent Clayton Kershaw will return to the only team for which he’s ever pitched.

The exact terms of the deal — which is pending a physical on Thursday — have yet to emerge at this writing, but USA Today‘s Bob Nightengale reported that the deal is a “one-year, incentive-laden contract,” while The Athletic’s Andy McCullough added that the contract includes a player option for 2025. If exercised, that would allow Kershaw to join Ohtani — who won’t pitch in 2024 after undergoing reconstructive surgery on his UCL this past September — in the Dodgers’ rotation.

Player options tend to carry advantages when it comes to Competitive Balance Tax accounting, a significant concern for the Dodgers, who rank second in payroll (both actual and CBT-based) only to the Mets and are nearly $12 million over the fourth-tier tax threshold of $297 million even before adding Kershaw’s salary. For example, Justin Turner’s two-year, $21.7 million deal with the Red Sox last year called for a base salary of $8.3 million for 2023, then a $13.4 million option and $6.7 million buyout. By opting out, Turner made $15 million on a deal whose average annual value was just $10.85 million. Read the rest of this entry »

“Jose Altuve will be an Astro for life,” read the club’s announcement on Tuesday afternoon. Under different circumstances, that could be construed as a threat. But Altuve will be well-remunerated for the remainder of his time in Houston: His new contract extension will run for five years, starting in 2025, and pay him a guaranteed $125 million.

This is the third long-term contract Altuve has signed with the Astros, the club that signed him as a 16-year-old out of Venezuela all the way back in 2007. By the time it’s over, he will have spent some 23 seasons in the organization, 19 of them in the major leagues. The phrasing of the announcement is a little more concrete than any prediction about 2029 ought to be. It’s possible that Altuve will continue playing once his deal expires. But when it does, he’ll be seven months short of his 40th birthday. That seems like as good a time as any to plan on wrapping things up. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday night, just four days after the Brewers traded perennial Cy Young candidate Corbin Burnes to the Orioles for a package of promising young players and a competitive balance draft pick, Milwaukee signed a pitcher with an even better FIP to take his spot at the front of their rotation.

Sorry, that was misleading. Let’s try this again: After spending five years in Kansas City and two years in San Francisco, right-handed pitcher Jakob Junis has agreed to a one-year, $7 million deal with the Milwaukee Brewers. Kiley McDaniel reported the signing, which according to Ken Rosenthal includes a $4 million salary in 2024 along with a $3 million buyout on a mutual option for the 2025 season. While the Giants moved Junis to the bullpen in 2023, the 31-year-old is expected to join Milwaukee’s starting rotation. After the team non-tendered the injured Brandon Woodruff and traded Burnes, the rotation was looking particularly threadbare, relying on Freddy Peralta and a series of other pitchers with question marks surrounding their health, stuff, age, or some combination of the three.

Peralta, who was worth 3.0 WAR over 30 starts and 165.2 innings in 2023, had excellent stretches last season, including taking home NL Pitcher of the Month honors in August. Still, his 3.86 ERA, 3.85 FIP, and 1.41 HR/9 were all the worst marks he’d put up since the shortened 2020 season. Wade Miley, back on a one-year deal, has been fantastic over the last three seasons, but the Brewers will need him to continue his contact suppression sorcery at age 37. Colin Rea put up 0.8 WAR in 2023; the Brewers are hoping he can post back-to-back seasons with a sub-5.00 ERA for the first time since 2015 and 2016. DL Hall, who came over in the Burnes trade, is a truly exciting young pitcher, but he’s also dealt with injuries over the last two years and ended up in Baltimore’s bullpen in 2023. After a shoulder injury, Aaron Ashby pitched just seven minor league innings last year, while Joe Ross, coming off his second Tommy John surgery, threw 14 minor league innings and hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2021. Read the rest of this entry »

The Pirates have an above-average farm system that includes a number of high-ceiling pitching prospects. Paul Skenes is the most notable — the 21-year-old right-hander was selected first overall in last summer’s draft — but he’s far from the only electric arm in Pittsburgh’s pipeline. As many as half a dozen hurlers will populate the first 10 names when our Pirates top prospects list comes out this spring. Whether any of them will help propel the Bucs to playoff contention remains to be seen, but in terms of potential, the group presents a tantalizing mix of talent.

I asked Pirates General Manager Ben Cherington about a few of those promising young arms during November’s GM Meetings.

———

David Laurila: How happy are you with your pitching pipeline?

Ben Cherington: “We’re excited about it. We also know that pitching development never stops and there are things ahead of all those guys. Part of the reason we’re excited is the talent, but the truth is, no matter how well you do in pitching development there is usually attrition of some kind. You need some volume to make it work, and we think we’re starting to develop some volume. So again, we’re excited. Every one of those guys has targets that we’re working on this offseason, and we’re anxious to see where they’re at come spring training.”

Laurila: Has your pitching program evolved in the last few years?

Cherington: “We believe so. We’ve got some signal on that. It’s improving in some areas, and in other areas we still need to be better. We can’t ever be satisfied with it. But we’ve made some strides with things like breaking ball pitch design, pitch usage, sequencing in the minor leagues. We’ve made some strides with deployment, getting better at identifying what skills fit in different roles and getting guys into those roles. At the same time, there are more things to get better at. All of it is important.”

Laurila: Which of your pitching prospects most stands out for his stuff? I’m thinking pitch metrics. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley introduce the 12th annual Effectively Wild season preview series, then banter about the Royals extending Bobby Witt Jr., the Dodgers reuniting with Clayton Kershaw (and Ryan Brasier), the Red Sox (sort of) reuniting with Theo Epstein, and the latest hitter who’s converting to pitching. Then they preview the 2024 Miami Marlins (33:33) with Fish on First’s Kevin Barral and the 2024 New York Mets (1:09:12) with The Athletic’s Tim Britton.

Audio intro: Nate Emerson, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 1: Nate Emerson, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 2: Benny and a Million Shetland Ponies, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Indoor Recess, “On-Field Mics”

Link to preview series wiki
Link to FG depth charts standings
Link to Dan S. on Witt
Link to MLBTR on Witt
Link to Baumann on Peralta
Link to MLBTR on Kershaw
Link to FG on Brasier
Link to info on Brasier’s cutter
Link to MLBTR on Peters
Link to Ben on Taylor Swift
Link to Caribbean Series wiki
Link to Marlins offseason tracker
Link to Marlins depth chart
Link to team SP projections
Link to team RP projections
Link to Fish on First
Link to Fish on First podcast
Link to Kevin’s Fish on First archive
Link to Mets offseason tracker
Link to Mets depth chart
Link to Mauricio ACL news
Link to 2023 framing leaders
Link to “transitory” comment
Link to Mets fan survey
Link to Tim’s The Athletic archive
Link to MLBTR on Altuve

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The reliever merry-go-round rarely stops spinning, and one team’s castoff might be another’s potential cog. Case in point: on Monday the Dodgers re-signed righty Ryan Brasier, whom they plucked from the scrapheap in mid-2023, to a two-year deal. To add him, they dealt lefty Caleb Ferguson to the Yankees for itinerant lefty Matt Gage and righty prospect Christian Zazueta Jr.

The 36-year-old Brasier, who made $2 million last year, his final one before free agency, is guaranteed $9 million for 2024–25, with a maximum of $4 million in incentives possible as well. At this writing, the specifics of the annual breakdowns and the benchmarks for those bonuses aren’t known, but suffice to say, this represents a big upgrade in his standard of living. The Angels, Cardinals, Red Sox, and Yankees all showed interest in him this winter as well, according to The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya.

Such an outcome would have been almost unthinkable back in May, when Brasier lost his job with the Red Sox, for whom he’d pitched since 2018 with varying degrees of success. Though he made 68 appearances for Boston in 2022, he posted a 3.61 FIP but a 5.78 ERA in 62.1 innings, with a .335 BABIP — owing to too many hard-hit balls — playing a significant role in the discrepancy between those two run prevention figures. Through the first six weeks of his 2023 season with the Red Sox, it was more of the same: a 7.29 ERA, a 4.35 FIP, and a .344 BABIP in 21 innings.

On May 15, a day after Brasier had allowed three runs in a season-high 2.1 innings of garbage-time duty against the Cardinals, the Red Sox designated him for assignment; six days later, they released him. The Dodgers signed him to a minor league deal in early June, with Rob Hill, the team’s director of minor league pitching, and Brent Minta, their pitching analytics coordinator, suggesting he add a cut fastball to a repertoire that also includes a four-seamer that averages almost 96 mph and mid-80s slider.

Brasier spent about two weeks working on the new pitch at Camelback Ranch, then made two appearances for Triple-A Oklahoma City, during which he struck out five of nine hitters without allowing a baserunner. The Dodgers called him up, and he was outstanding, pitching to a 0.70 ERA and 2.48 FIP in 38.2 innings the rest of the way. Throwing the new pitch to lefties 46.8% of the time (though just 6.2% to righties), he held batters to a .152 average and .273 slugging percentage with a 16.4% whiff rate. Meanwhile, he cut his four-seam fastball usage in half, got better results on contact and higher whiff rates on all of his pitches:

Brasier had been scorched at a .389/.463/.611 clip by the 41 lefties he faced with the Red Sox, striking out just three of them while walking five. Once he joined the Dodgers, lefties hit just .123/.167/.211 in 60 plate appearances, with three walks (one intentional) and 18 strikeouts.

Overall, Brasier’s strikeout-walk differential doubled, and his results on contact improved dramatically:

All of which is to say that we can add Brasier to the ever-growing list of pitchers — Tyler Anderson, Andrew Heaney, Evan Phillips, Alex Wood — whom the Dodgers were able to get far more out of than other teams thanks to various tweaks in mechanics and repertoire. Noah Syndergaard and Lance Lynn are proof that they’re not always successful at doing so, but they’ve helped enough hurlers to justify their effort. As Phillips, the owner of a 7.26 ERA and 5.37 FIP in 57 innings at three previous stops before arriving in mid-2021, told the Los Angeles Times’ Mike DiGiovanna earlier this month, “When the Los Angeles Dodgers come calling and say, ‘Hey, we think you can be great,’ you tend to listen. They really forced the envelope and said, ‘You’re gonna need to do these things to pitch well,’ and I was in no position to argue with them.”

Phillips is now the closest thing the Dodgers have to a regular closer; he led the team — which had the majors’ third-best bullpen ERA (3.42), second-best FIP (3.73) and best WAR (7.6) last season — with 24 saves. Brasier is now in the mix for a late-inning role, along with fellow righties Brusdar Graterol and Joe Kelly. The latter, whom the Dodgers reacquired in the Lynn trade with the White Sox on July 28, then re-signed to a one-year, $8 million deal in December, has a notoriously spotty health history, as does Blake Treinen, who’s hoping to return to action after throwing just five innings in 2022 and none last year due to labrum and rotator cuff tears that required surgery. A healthy Brasier offers some insurance within that group.

The Dodgers haven’t cleared a roster spot yet for Brasier; they’ll likely just wait until Thursday, the first day that the team can move Tommy John surgery recipients Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May — not to mention newly re-signed Clayton Kershaw — to the 60-day injured list, where they won’t count against the 40-man roster limit. The team did already make a bit of room for Brasier within the bullpen and on the payroll by trading Ferguson to the Yankees. The 27-year-old lefty, who had been in the Dodgers organization since being drafted out of high school in 2014, set career highs in appearances (68), innings (60.1), and WAR (1.3) in 2023 while posting a 3.43 ERA and 3.34 FIP. As Davy Andrews pointed out in August, he restored a cutter to his arsenal in 2023. In his case, he ditched a reasonably effective curveball to do so, though it didn’t work too well against lefties:

In fact, Ferguson has yielded a higher wOBA to same-side hitters than he has to those of the opposite hand in each of the last two seasons and three out of five in a career that’s been interrupted by the pandemic and a late-2020 Tommy John surgery, his second. (His first was in 2014, just a week before he was drafted.)

For the Yankees, who last week lost stalwart lefty Wandy Peralta to the Padres, that’s something of step backwards. Peralta had been very effective against lefties (.217 wOBA in 174 PA in 2022–23) while also being pretty effective against righties (.300 wOBA in 276 PA over those two seasons), though that composite masks a 70-point year-to-year jump (from .266 in 2022 to .336 in ’23) against the latter. Ferguson, who will make $2.4 million in 2024, his last year before free agency, is less expensive, so there’s that for the Yankees.

Interestingly enough, Ferguson will join another former Dodgers lefty, 28-year-old Victor González, in New York’s bullpen; he was traded to the Yankees on Dec. 11 along with infield prospect Jorbit Vivas in exchange for another infield prospect, Trey Sweeney. Ferguson figures to be the higher of the two in the pecking order, in the setup mix along with righties Jonathan Loáisiga and Tommy Kahnle, ahead of closer Clay Holmes. It’s worth noting that Loáisiga and Kahnle combined for just 58.1 innings last year amid injuries, so manager Aaron Boone could call Ferguson’s number with some frequency.

As for the more experienced of the two pitchers the Dodgers received in exchange for Ferguson, the 30-year-old Gage is now in his eighth organization since being drafted by the Giants in the 10th round in 2014. He’s passed through the hands of the Mets, Rockies, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Astros, and Yankees while totaling just 16 games in the majors, 11 with Toronto in 2022 and five with Houston last year; he was optioned four times for his trouble. He’s pitched pretty well in his limited major league opportunities using a fastball-cutter combo with an occasional slider in the mix, posting a 1.83 ERA and 3.97 FIP in 19.2 innings while striking out 26% of hitters. He got knocked around at Triple-A Sugar Land last year, however, posting a 4.58 ERA and 5.29 FIP with a 23.4% strikeout rate; though he held lefties to a .203/278/.328 line in 73 PA, righties hit .333/.425/.559 in 121 PA against him. If you’re getting the sense that he’s a guy on the fringe of the 40-man roster who’s likely to change addresses multiple times in 2024, you’re probably right. He might be one free agent signing or a couple of bad — or even long — outings away from being sent down or out at any moment. It’s not entirely out of the question that he could be DFA’d to make room for a more experienced lefty reliever, as Alex Vesia and Ryan Yarbrough, the pair currently penciled in for the active roster, don’t exactly strike fear into anyone.

As for Zazueta, he’s the 19-year-old son of Christian Zazueta Sr., a still-active 15-season veteran of the Mexican League who spent last year with El Aguila de Veracruz. The younger Zazueta, also a native of Mexico, is listed at 6-foot-3 and 163 pounds. He’s spent the past two seasons in the Dominican Summer League, where last year he posted a 3.29 ERA and 4.59 FIP while striking out 23.6% of all hitters in a team-high 52 innings. He earned an honorable mention spot on the Yankees’ Top 36 Prospects List in December, where Eric Longenhagen lumped him among the swingmen while noting, “He has the pitch movement foundation to break out if he can throw harder as he matures. He currently has a rise-and-run upper-80s fastball, a shapely mid-70s curveball, and a precocious changeup, all of which have bat-missing promise.”

Bringing Brasier back is a nice move for the Dodgers, but by trading Ferguson, they still have a significant number of higher-leverage innings to fill, and may need another addition to the bullpen. Likewise, Ferguson probably shouldn’t be the last move the Yankees make in what’s been a rather underwhelming winter when it comes to patching their pitching staff.

Last year’s Mets were a bit of a mess. After entering the season as a projected powerhouse, things fell apart quickly. They jettisoned their two highest-paid pitchers at the deadline for prospects and finished with a lackluster 75 wins. There were multiple reasons for such a disappointing season — their bats stalled and only one starting pitcher reached 130 innings — but perhaps no loss was more devastating than that of closer Edwin Díaz. Before the season, his injury dropped the Mets from second to 19th in projected bullpen WAR; they ended up 29th.

The Mets knew that Díaz would be back in 2024, but they still entered the offseason needing to improve a bullpen that way too often turned to the likes of Trevor Gott, Tommy Hunter, and Jeff Brigham. And in a wave of recent moves, they’ve done just that, signing Adam Ottavino, Jake Diekman, and Shintaro Fujinami to one-year deals. Read the rest of this entry »