Last year, the Cincinnati Reds surprisingly vaulted into contention thanks to an ascendant crop of young position players. Led by Matt McLain, Reds rookie hitters accrued 7.6 WAR, tops in the majors. Yet, their postseason bid ultimately fell short; while the Reds ran a middle-of-the-pack offense with a 98 wRC+ (17th in the bigs), their pitching flopped. Even park-adjusted ERA-, which removes claustrophobic Great American Ball Park from the equation, pegged them as the eighth-worst staff in the majors with a 105 mark.

Cincinnati’s cache of young hurlers was supposed to serve as a complement to the team’s potential-filled lineup. But pitching is a fickle beast, and the Reds’ staff was dogged by injuries and inconsistency in 2023. Now, they’ve added Frankie Montas, the poster child of injuries and inconsistency, to that group. Read the rest of this entry »

The Cubs made the first big splash of the offseason by purloining Craig Counsell, widely regarded as one of the top managers in baseball, from the division rival Brewers, under the nose of the voracious, all-consuming Mets. On January 2, the Cubs introduced Counsell’s major league coaching staff. Right-handed pitcher Colten Brewer will also be joining the team in 2024.

But Counsell’s signing was supposed to herald a big and flashy offseason, a statement of intent that the Cubs were set to return to the forward-thinking, all-conquering form that made them such a force in the National League in the middle of the last decade. But the Cubs’ most recent trade was November 6. Their most recent major league free agent signing was Edwin Ríos, on February 17 of last year. That assumes Brewer is on a minor league deal; he’s pitched in the majors in five of the past six seasons, but he broke his own signing on Instagram rather than going through the agent-to-newsbreaker pipeline.

Having a quiet offseason so far is not necessarily a bad thing. There’s plenty of winter left, and plenty of free agents still on the board. Besides, maybe Jed Hoyer is doing a bit based on the fact that the team’s mascot is a bear and bears hibernate. That’d be sick. If there are two things I love, it’s hibernating and overcommitting to a bit. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Batters

Last year, I noted in this space that I had to double-check the Diamondbacks’ ZiPS projections, as the computer seemed surprisingly optimistic about Arizona’s outlook. It turned out to be a little too optimistic, though I was wrong about the relative strength of the Giants and Padres, who both finished below the Snakes in the standings (though you can quibble about how good the Padres actually were in 2023).

Naturally, since ZiPS had a sunny view of Arizona then, it’s certainly not going to be less sunny now that a lot of the things the system liked have came to pass. Looking at the 2024 projections as a whole, they actually feels very Cardinals-y, and not in the sense of the 2023 Cardinals. The projections from top to bottom are quite steady, in the manner of a good Cards team, with a lot of positional flexibility on the roster and a solidly above-average projected defense from bow to stern. Read the rest of this entry »

The best defense is a good offense. As much as the pacifist in me hates to admit it, the old platitude is true. Many have tried to flip this popular saying in a sports context, suggesting instead that the best offense is a good defense, but that’s just patently false. No matter how terrific a team’s run prevention abilities may be, they can’t win a ballgame without scoring at least once. Conversely, it doesn’t matter how many runs a team concedes as long as their offense can score even more. As such, I’d embrace the strategic offensive principle of war (or should I say WAR) more readily than I’d accept its antimetabole.

Nevertheless, Kevin Kiermaier and Isiah Kiner-Falefa are the kinds of players who make the patently false seem true. Kiermaier is the greatest center fielder of the modern statistical era; no other outfielder comes within 10 points of him in either DRS or OAA. His defense makes a convincing argument that players should earn bonus points for impossible catches and spectacular throws.

Kiner-Falefa, meanwhile, is the consummate picture of defensive versatility. He’s the first player since the turn of the 20th century to play at least 50 career games at catcher, shortstop, and in the outfield – not to mention 154 games at third base, 21 appearances at second, and four innings pitched as the cherry on top. In 2018, a then-23-year-old Kiner-Falefa became the first player to start multiple games at catcher and shortstop in the same season since Dave Roberts (not that Dave Roberts) and Derrel Thomas in 1980. Add in the fact that he also started multiple games at second and third base the same year, and he’s the first player to have done all that since Marty Martinez in 1968. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mariners have made their first significant upgrade of the offseason, inking Mitch Garver to a two-year deal worth $24 million. Formerly a member of the Twins and Rangers, the soon-to-be 33-year-old Garver first made a name for himself in the peak of the juiced ball era, clubbing 31 homers in just 93 games while slugging .630 in his 2019 campaign. He hasn’t reached such heights since, but Garver has remained an offensive threat, even as he’s struggled to stay healthy and demonstrate his prowess over a full season.

Let’s take a look at the best-hitting catchers of 2023. In the modern era of lower catcher workloads and backstops moonlighting at first base, DH, and even in the outfield, you can define “best-hitting catcher” in many ways. But for now, I’ll just use primary catchers as defined by our leaderboards:

On the surface, Garver was the best offensive catcher in the league, along with former teammate Ryan Jeffers, who broke out in his first season as Minnesota’s “primary” backstop (his 82 starts behind the plate were barely a majority). Michael Baumann pointed out last month that Garver is masterful at waiting for his pitch and then pulling it out of the yard. Those pitches are usually fastballs, which he’s crushed with authority throughout his career to the tune of a +51 run value. Over time, pitchers have picked up on his tendencies, throwing him breaking balls at a 98th-percentile rate. And while 2023 marked an improvement in his results against bendy stuff, Garver’s success in spite of this has come thanks to his selective aggression, patiently waiting for heaters in his wheelhouse. Read the rest of this entry »

On December 26, the New York Yankees sent 26-year-old outfielder Estevan Florial to the Cleveland Guardians in exchange for 27-year-old reliever Cody Morris.

Florial has appeared in parts of four big league seasons but has never had more than 71 plate appearances in any one of them. He’s accumulated enough playing time to lose rookie eligibility but not enough to evaluate him based on his big league performance; he’s still more or less an older prospect. I considered Florial to be one of the Yankees’ best couple of prospects in the 2018-19 window, but his strikeouts became excessive at the upper levels (usually hovering around 30%) and, especially after the pandemic season, I began to move off of him. After a rough introduction to Triple-A in 2021, Florial has had two really solid seasons, with a wRC+ in the 124-130 range each of the last two years. He experienced a substantial uptick in his power output as a 25-year-old at Triple-A Scranton in 2023, as Florial clubbed 25 homers in just 101 games, matching his combined Triple-A total from 2022 and 2021 across 180 games. Read the rest of this entry »

With nearly every trade, you can expect fans of one side or the other to come away wondering where their GM went wrong. You can probably hear the complaints in your head, because you’ve almost certainly made them at one point or another yourself. We gave up those guys? For this one? Was there something else in it for us? What was he thinking?!?

It’s much rarer for both sides to have that reaction, because usually conventional wisdom tilts one way or the other. But the Braves and Red Sox might have accomplished it this past week:

BREAKING: The Atlanta Braves are acquiring seven-time All-Star Chris Sale in a trade with the Boston Red Sox, sources tell ESPN. Well-regarded infield prospect Vaughn Grissom is the return to Boston, which will send money with Sale, who waived his no-trade clause to join Atlanta

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 30, 2023

So in honor of sports talk radio and breathless questions about what could possibly be going through people’s heads, let’s examine both sides through the same lens. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the St. Louis Cardinals.

Batters

For a very long time, the Cardinals were one of the safest bets in baseball. They’ve rarely been a juggernaut in recent decades, but they almost never had disastrous seasons and could almost always be counted on to end up with somewhere between 87 and 92 wins no matter what kind of shenanigans took place during the season.

Then 2023 happened. After posting just one season below .500 in the 21st century, the Cardinals finished with 91 losses, their worst showing since 1990, which was also the last time they finished in last place in the division. Back then, the team quickly recovered and immediately got back to a winning record, though it didn’t make the playoffs again until 1996. Read the rest of this entry »

This year I had the honor of filling out a Hall of Fame ballot for the fourth time, and as was the case with the previous three, I’m taking the time to explain my reasoning. This is something that I feel every voter should do. Filling out a ballot is a privilege that demands not only due diligence, but also transparency. That said, let’s cut to the chase.

My checkmarks went next to the names of 10 players — the maximum number allowed — seven of whom are holdovers from last year, and three of whom are new to the ballot. In alphabetical order, my votes went to Bobby Abreu, Carlos Beltrán, Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, Joe Mauer, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Chase Utley, and Billy Wagner.

Yes, Andruw Jones’s name is missing from that list. No, I am not particularly pleased by his non-inclusion. The erstwhile Atlanta Braves star had received my vote three times prior, and in a perfect world he would have again this year. But it’s not a perfect world. Again, only 10 checkmarks are allowed, and with three worthy newcomers joining eight holdovers from last year’s ballot, someone had to draw the short stick. Ultimately, I decided it would be Jones.

Who might I have dropped instead? That’s a question that would require more words to answer adequately than I have room for in this column, but I will say that a certain amount of strategic thinking went into the decision. As my esteemed colleague Jay Jaffe can attest, any thoughts of my omitting Gary Sheffield (currently polling at 71.9%) were dispelled with a reminder that this is his last year on the ballot. While the likelihood of Sheffield’s reaching the required 75% threshold isn’t high, it’s also not impossible. Conversely, Jones (currently at 62.5%, a few percentage points better than last year), has three more years of eligibility left beyond this cycle. I am likely to resume voting for him 12 months from now. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2024 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 and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Bartolo Colon could throw strikes. At the outset of his 21-year major league career, Colon blew 100-mph fastballs by hitters, and within a couple years showed off top-of-the-rotation form. Over a decade and more than half a dozen teams later, following a controversial arm surgery, Colon’s ability to locate his sinker to both sides of the plate with precision gained him greater renown. In one 2012 start, he threw 38 consecutive strikes.

Indeed, it was the second act of his career — or was it the third, or even the fourth? — during which Colon became an unlikely cult favorite. The Dominican-born righty had listed at 5-foot-10, 185 pounds while in the minors, but his biggest contract extension had a weight clause centered at 225 pounds. After suffering a torn rotator cuff at the tail end of his Cy Young Award-winning 2005 season, he spent nearly half a decade knocking around before undergoing experimental injections of fat and stem cells into his shoulder and elbow, and by the time he reemerged in his late 30s, he was officially listed at 285 pounds. His everyman build made him more relatable, but it camouflaged an exceptional athleticism. “Big Sexy” — the nickname given to him by teammate Noah Syndergaard, and later the title of his 2020 autobiography — could field his position with enough flair to execute a behind-the-back throw. He could high-kick like a Rockette, and do splits like a ballerina. “One of the stereotypes of Bartolo is because he has an atypical body type for a pitcher, he is not in shape,” said Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro in 2004. “But this guy is amazingly strong. He’s like [former Houston Oiler running back] Earl Campbell from the waist down. He is a strong, strong man, and that core strength is what it’s all about.” Read the rest of this entry »