Archive for Teams

It’s easy to forget that the trade deadline isn’t actually the last chance for teams to reload before the postseason. Players can join a team through waivers as late as August 31 — Monday, for those of you who, like me, have trouble keeping track of the calendar — and still be eligible for the playoffs.

It’s common practice for teams to put expensive vets on the wire to see if anyone will bite and take the contract off their hands. The Angels famously flooded the waiver wire in 2023, as their last-ditch effort to load up for a playoff run with Shohei Ohtani left backfired in a matter of days. This year, the biggest name on the move was Luis Robert Jr., who’s bound for Baltimore. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m going to give you a little cheat sheet for writing about deadline moves. If you’re talking about a seller who traded a player for a minimal return and you’re looking for silver linings, you can mention “opportunity.” It has two big advantages. First, it’s nebulous and hard to disprove. If you make a claim about a specific player, it might be wrong. If you say that a roster spot is an opportunity, how will someone counter that? But more importantly, roster spots really are opportunities, so your analysis will have the advantage of being correct. Case in point: Nate Lavender.

If you’re wondering who that is, that’s exactly what I’m getting at. Lavender debuted on August 4, the day after the Mets sent half the team out of town at the trade deadline. He was one of five Mets pitchers called up that day, a hockey-style line shift in the bullpen. Not all of them panned out. Xzavion Curry and Chayce McDermott are back in the minors. Jefry Yan has a fun strikeout celebration and a 5.18 FIP. But Lavender has been good enough that he’s worked his way from his big league debut into a setup role in three weeks. Opportunity, indeed.

A quick recap of Lavender’s minor league career: He was the Mets’ 14th-round draft pick in 2021, climbed the minor league ladder despite below-average velocity and stuff, and then blew out his elbow early in the 2024 season. He had an internal brace surgery that summer, and then the Rays plucked him away in the Rule 5 draft that December. They parked him on the 60-day injured list for the entirety of the 2025 season, as a bone spur in his elbow delayed his rehab. When the year ended and the 60-day IL disappeared, the Rays returned him to the Mets rather than place him on their 40-man roster. Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday, I woke up to a text warning me that first pitch of the Diamondbacks-Giants Bridge League game had moved up to 10 AM local time – presumably due to the heat, our morning low on Thursday was 95 degrees and cranked up to 113 – and that a rehabbing Ketel Marte was in the lineup. The change in schedule meant I could spend an hour watching Ketel and Co., then slip over to the Rockies’ side of the Salt River Fields Complex to catch a second game. Rehabbers typically hit every inning, so I hoped to squeeze in three Marte at-bats before changing locations. Read the rest of this entry »

Tristan Peters was hardly on anyone’s radar entering the season. A lefty-swinging 26-year-old center fielder playing for his fourth organization since being drafted in 2021, he didn’t land on any preseason top prospects list or even project to see much time in the majors, where in his brief career he’d gone 0-for-12. Yet Peters — whose résumé includes a stint with the Savannah Bananas in 2021, when they were a competitive collegiate summer league team instead of a barnstorming sensation — has become one of the season’s biggest and most pleasant surprises. While helping the AL Central-leading White Sox pull off an already-unprecedented turnaround, he landed on the All-Star team and ranks high on the rookie WAR leaderboard. Last week, he even earned a spot in the record books by homering in five consecutive games.

Peters began his binge — which took place entirely at Guaranteed Rate Field against the Mets and Rangers — on August 22 with a solo home run off New York’s Christian Scott, then followed it up the next day with a wall-scraping walk-off solo shot off Kodai Senga, breaking a 1-1 tie. Peters hit both blasts while using a yellow bat — a nod to his time with the Bananas. The streak continued with a two-run tater off Texas right-hander Kumar Rocker on August 24 (Chicago’s only runs in an 11-2 drubbing), then a solo homer off Peyton Gray the next night, and finally a two-run dinger off Robby Ahlstrom on August 26.

That 406-foot homer off Senga was Peters’ only one during this stretch with an estimated distance of at least 400 feet, and just his second to travel at least that far this season; he had a 410-footer off A’s righty Justin Sterner on July 10, the day he hit for the cycle. On that note, Peters finished a triple shy of the cycle on both August 25 and 26; the first of those efforts included a two-run double off Jacob deGrom. All told, he went 10-for-18 with three walks, three strikeouts, nine RBI, and a 1.500 slugging percentage during that five-game run, not too shabby for a guy whose last prospect report, under the Rays’ 2025 unranked “Depth Starters and Outfielders” section, referred to him as one of the team’s “smaller, contact-oriented corner outfielders at the upper levels without meaningful power.” Read the rest of this entry »

With Byron Buxton out with a hip impingement and no timetable for his return, the Twins were short one outfielder. Luckily for Minnesota, it just so happens that the team’s best prospect, Walker Jenkins, is a center fielder, and is looking a lot like a hitter who didn’t have much more to learn from facing Triple-A pitchers. The fifth pick in the 2023 draft, Jenkins was hitting .308/.407/.532 for a 142 wRC+ in 69 games for the St. Paul Saints when he got the call on Thursday. He started in center for all three games of the team’s weekend series against the White Sox.

Still just 21, Jenkins might have reached the majors even quicker than he actually did if not for sharing Buxton’s proclivity for landing on the injured list. Hamstring and quad injuries in 2024 held him to 82 games, while an ankle injury cost him two months of the 2025 season. An injured shoulder, earned by a collision with the Summit Beer advertisement on the right-center field wall, put him on the shelf for most of May. Since returning to the Saints in late June, Jenkins has been on a tear, hitting .335/.414/.603, topped off with an August line of .405/.484/.772 with eight of his 12 homers on the year.

While one could argue that the Twins should have called up Jenkins a month earlier — Minnesota right fielders have combined for 0.0 WAR — this is one case where I think the conservatism was warranted. With a long injury history, it made sense for Jenkins to get more time in the high minors, and his readiness only became glaringly obvious in recent weeks. His .252/.332/.394 translation through mid-July (by ZiPS) was certainly good enough to be playable, but his hot run has improved his Triple-A translation to a legitimately exciting .287/.364/.450 line on the season. Just to demonstrate what I mean by exciting, ZiPS was still on the fence with Jenkins when I published this season’s top 100 prospects list back in February; ZiPS ranked him outside the top 100, at 131st overall. But if ZiPS had known his 2026 numbers, it would have shot Jenkins all the way up to fourth on the list. Read the rest of this entry »

Tristan Peters was a 22-year-old San Francisco Giants outfield prospect when he was first featured here at FanGraphs in August 2022. Drafted in the seventh round the previous year out of Southern Illinois University, he had recently been acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers at the trade deadline in exchange for Trevor Rosenthal. His profile was modest. While he possessed potential, Peters was nonetheless unranked, with plenty of raw edges to be smoothed out if he hoped to one day reach The Show.

It took time, but his once-raw tools are now are shining brightly on Chicago’s South Side. Now with his fourth organization — the White Sox purchased his contract from the Tampa Bay Rays over the offseason — Peters is thriving to the tune of a .279/.344/.468 slash line, a dozen home runs, and a 128 wRC+ over 408 plate appearances. Moreover, he went deep for the fifth straight game on Thursday, tying a franchise record held by seven other players. Munetaka Murakami is among them, having turned the trick back in April.

The developmental strides Peters has made since we spoke four years ago this month? Peters told me that there have been “tons,” with defense standing out as an especially meaningful area of improvement. On the offensive end, he has made adjustments to his lower half, putting him “in a better position to swing,” thus allowing him to be “more powerful.”

His future was in doubt as recently as December. Nine days before Christmas, the 26-year-old native of Winkler, Manitoba was designated for assignment. Not surprisingly, he found himself not only wondering where his baseball journey would take him next, but also if a big-league uniform was part of that equation. Read the rest of this entry »

Three months ago, when MLB and the MLB Players Association made their first proposals for baseball’s next collective bargaining agreement, I wrote about how these offers were designed to be rejected, and that they would continue to be until January at the earliest. For that reason, I haven’t devoted much space in these mailbags to the various rounds of bargaining that have taken place this summer. We have real baseball games to cover.

That said, I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw the most drastic change in MLB’s latest proposal: In the offer sent to the union on Thursday, the league proposed instituting two free agent signing periods during the offseason, the first stretching from the first day of the Winter Meetings until December 21, and the second beginning the first week of February. The first period of no free agent signings would allow teams to trade players and re-sign their own free agents, while the second would be a complete blackout of big league transactions. So why is that funny? Well, because the league made clear that the players wouldn’t be able to get these free agent signing periods unless they agreed to a salary cap, as if the transaction limitations would be enough of a sweetener to get the players to give in. The union doesn’t want free agent signing periods because they would give ownership greater leverage during negotiations, potentially resulting in unfavorable contracts. Bruce Meyer, the interim executive director of the MLBPA, called the proposal “unserious.” We’ve got a long way to go.

If you want to read more about the latest proposal, you should check out Michael Baumann’s writeup from Friday. Otherwise, let’s get on to this week’s mailbag. We’ll be answering your questions about Julio Rodríguez’s hitting, the greatest World Series ever, and what would happen if home runs became automatic triples. But first, I’d like to remind you that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

Jac Caglianone’s season doesn’t stick out. He doesn’t lead the league in any important statistics. He’s not likely to reach any significant thresholds. He hasn’t completely overhauled his profile. No, his season isn’t that much more interesting than that of any other 2-WAR batter. But for Caglianone, boring is good.

That’s unfortunately a testament to just how bad the Royals’ towering slugger was last year. He couldn’t hit, posting a 47 wRC+. He couldn’t play right field, with -7 OAA. He couldn’t stay healthy, missing about a month with a hamstring strain. He accumulated -1.6 WAR over 62 games. It was one of the worst rookie seasons of the century. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. I took a two month hiatus from writing this column because we had a heavy summer of evaluating baseball, and as it turns out, it’s tough to both analyze baseball and watch it entirely out of a sense of whimsy. But now the tables have turned. There are no more studies to do on prospect valuation. The trade values have been tabulated. The deadline has passed. The playoffs are still a month away. There’s not much to do other than watch baseball and enjoy, whether it’s playoff races, dominant performances, exciting debuts, or just the beauty of a well-played game on a warm summer evening. So kick back, relax, and join me in thanking Zach Lowe of The Ringer for the article format that I’ve been riffing on for the past four years.

1. Rangy Infielders
During the peak of the infield shift, 5-3 double plays had a brief heyday. With three defenders on the right side of the infield against most lefty batters, the third baseman played a de facto shortstop for large portions of most games. When those lefties grounded out to short with runners on, third basemen somewhat frequently fielded the ball, stepped on second, and threw to first to complete the play. But with two infielders now required to be on each side of second base, it wouldn’t make any sense for a third baseman to get the ball and then sprint past the shortstop to tag the base and make the relay throw.

Or would it? Read the rest of this entry »

Javier López faced 756 different batters while pitching for five teams from 2003-2016. Frequently employed as a lefty specialist, the sidewinding native of San Juan, Puerto Rico did so to the tune of a 3.48 ERA, 14 saves, and a 30-17 won-lost record across 839 appearances. He also earned four World Series rings. López lifted a trophy with the Boston Red Sox in 2007, and with the San Francisco Giants in 2010, 2012, and 2014.

How well does the now Giants broadcast analyst remember his matchups against the hitters he faced? Interested to find out, I recently sat down him for the latest installment of our Challenging Career Quiz series.

I began by asking which player he faced the most times. His first guess, Chase Utley, was incorrect. His second was likewise wrong — although he did get the surname right. It wasn’t Adrián González, but rather Carlos González.

What are López’s recollections of the longtime Colorado Rockies outfielder?

“What I remember about facing Cargo is that he was an absolute monster,” the pitcher-turned-broadcaster said of the 2010 NL batting champion, whom he held to just four hits and one walk in 26 plate appearances. “He had such a sweet swing. I remember giving up a monster home run to him in Colorado. I hung a breaking ball and he hit it off the facing of the second deck. He was pretty impressive.”

Bobby Abreu was the batter López faced the second-most times (24), and he also has distinct memories of him. Read the rest of this entry »