It was the dawn of a new era in Baltimore, as the new owners made their first real impression on their new adoring public. Michael Arougheti bought a round at the bar. David Rubenstein visited the MASN booth and held forth on the Magna Carta with Ben McDonald; the conversation had to drift that far afield because Rubenstein’s two-inning television appearance was extended when Patrick Sandoval simply could not get out of the inning. Before Rubenstein left, he asked (I’m choosing to interpret this as a sick burn rather than a genuine point of inquiry) if MLB had a mercy rule.
The Orioles won 11-3. Every Baltimore starting position player reached base and either scored or drove in a run; eight of the nine recorded at least one hit. And only three of the 10 hits went for extra bases. This was one of those methodical conga line outings in which the Orioles won not so much by knockout as by submission. Had the norms of the game allowed the Angels to tap out without shame, they might’ve done so. Read the rest of this entry »
Logan Webb was my pick for NL Cy Young last season, and while the prediction didn’t come to fruition, the San Francisco Giants right-hander did come close to capturing the honor — this despite an 11-13 record. (We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?) He finished second in the voting to Blake Snell, who is now his rotation mate, and while Webb’s major league-leading 216 innings certainly captured the attention of the electorate, many of his other numbers stood out as well. He ranked fourth among qualified National League pitchers in both ERA (3.25) and FIP (3.16), and his 1.29 walks per nine innings was second to none. Moreover, his 62.1% groundball rate was the highest in either league.
He hardly came out of nowhere. Webb was already good, as his stats over the past three seasons attest. Since the beginning of the 2021 campaign, he has a 3.07 ERA and a 3.00 FIP, and his signature sinker-changeup combination has been responsible for a 59.9% groundball rate. A comparably humble 23.1% strikeout rate over that span (21.4% last year) notwithstanding, the 27-year-old worm-killing workhorse is one of the best pitchers in the game.
Webb sat down to talk pitching at San Francisco’s spring training facility earlier this month. He’ll be on the mound later today when the Giants open the regular season in San Diego.
———
David Laurila: How have you evolved as a pitcher since coming to pro ball?
Logan Webb: “I’ve changed probably four different times. I was a sinker guy when I first started. Then I had Tommy John, and when I came back, so did the velo — it was back to the reason why I was drafted.”
The 31-year-old Montgomery had been a well-regarded high-volume starter, but the 2023 postseason brought him to the verge of stardom. The Texas Rangers traded for Montgomery at the deadline, and with Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer battling injuries, it was the big South Carolinian who emerged as the team’s ace. He won three games in the postseason, including Game 7 of the ALCS in a multi-inning relief appearance on two days’ rest, and was one of the World Series champion’s breakout stars.
That championship, of course, came at the expense of Arizona, his new team. The Diamondbacks, having come so close to winning it all, had already brought in reinforcements by trading for third baseman Eugenio Suárez and signing outfielder Joc Pederson and lefty starter Eduardo Rodriguez. Last October, this was a team with an improvised rotation; with Montgomery, Rodriguez (once he returns from his season-opening IL stint), Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, a full year of a maturing Brandon Pfaadt, and a healthy Tommy Henry, it’s among the best in the sport. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m not a bold predictions kind of guy. Maybe it comes with the territory of writing so much: On average, my views are pretty down the middle because I just have so many views. There’s so much baseball bouncing around in my brain all the time that it tends toward the mean. Or maybe that’s just a cop out, a way to pre-excuse my lack of boldness. Because it’s time for my annual attempt at it. Here are five things I think will occur that hopefully will shock you a little – but not too much, because I’m hoping that at least two or three of these actually will transpire.
1. The Mets Will Lead Baseball in DH WAR
Our projections hate J.D. Martinez, and there’s a reason why: He’s 36 and squarely in the back half of his career. Over the past four years, he’s posted a 120 wRC+, which is great but not otherworldly, and he struck out 31.1% of the time in 2023. This kind of general trajectory is what projections feast on; they recognize early and commonly shared signs of decline and then extrapolate from there.
Doubting those projections wouldn’t really count as a bold claim in my book, though, because Martinez is a very good hitter. Also, the way that projections work means that he’ll exceed those numbers roughly 50% of the time even if they’re a good approximation of his true talent. We need to be much bolder than that. So let’s kick it up a notch and imagine how good Martinez could feasibly be. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley remind people to vote in their preseason predictions game, discuss the completion of the season preview series, and then (10:15) analyze Shohei Ohtani’s remarks from Monday and preview the rest of the 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers season with The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya, followed (1:15:31) by a 2024 Colorado Rockies preview with The Denver Gazette’s Luke Zahlmann, plus a postscript on the Diamondbacks signing Jordan Montgomery (1:55:50) and a recap of preview guests’ goals for each team this year (2:01:25).
Nolan Schanuel got to the big leagues in a hurry, and he wasted little time proving himself once he arrived. Called up less than six weeks after being drafted 11th overall last summer by the Los Angeles Angels out of Florida Atlantic University, the left-handed swinging first baseman hit safely in each of his first 10 games. Moreover, he reached base in all 29 games he appeared in and finished with a .402 OBP. Indicative of his calling cards — plus plate discipline and quality bat-to-ball skills — he drew 20 walks and fanned just 19 times in 132 plate appearances.
The one knock on his game is he doesn’t hit for much power. Schanuel homered just twice after reaching pro ball — once each in Double-A and the majors — and while that profile isn’t expected to change markedly, he did leave the yard 19 times in his final collegiate season. At 6-foot-4, 220 pounds, he also possesses the frame to become more of a long-ball threat as he further acclimates to big-league pitching. Just 22 years old (as of last month), he has plenty of time left to grow his game.
Schanuel talked hitting at the Angels’ Arizona spring training complex earlier this month.
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David Laurila: It’s not uncommon for modern day players to identify as hitting nerds. In your opinion, what constitutes a hitting nerd?
Nolan Schanuel: “There are so many ways you can put it. I think it’s somebody that studies not only their own swing, but also other people’s swings, seeing what works for them. Growing up, I looked into dozens of swings. Barry Bonds, Ichiro [Suzuki] — seeing what works for them and kind of trying to put it into mine. So, I would say that being a hitting nerd is studying other people and kind of inserting some of what they do into themselves.”
Laurila: You just named two hitters with very different swings. Were you ever trying to emulate either of them?
Schanuel: “I wouldn’t say emulate. I would say that I tried to pick out pieces of what they did really well. I didn’t really know my swing when I was first doing this, so putting things into it kind of made it what it is today.”
It remains a heartbreaking but immutable fact of baseball life that you cannot steal first base.
So over the weekend, Cleveland Guardians outfielder Myles Straw passed through waivers. He’s no longer on the 40-man roster and will start the season in Triple-A, despite having a guaranteed three years and $20.45 million remaining on his contract.
Up until now, the Rockies had made very little noise this offseason. After agreeing to extensions with Germán Márquez and Charlie Blackmon just before the 2023 season wrapped up, Colorado spent a mere $3.5 million on major league free agent deals in the six months since, the fewest of any team in the majors. Yet, at the tail end of a long, quiet winter, the Rockies finally made headlines, when on Sunday they signed 22-year-old Ezequiel Tovar to a long-term contract extension. The deal, which begins right away, will pay Tovar $63.5 million over the next seven years. After that, the Rockies have a $20.5 million team option for 2031, the shortstop’s age-29 season.
Across three offseasons at the helm for Colorado, general manager Bill Schmidt has largely avoided multi-year free agent deals, with one notable exception: Kris Bryant and the seven-year, $182 million pact he signed before the 2022 season. Over the past two winters, the Rockies are one of only three teams not to have signed a single multi-year free agent deal; the other two clubs, the Pirates and Orioles, have outspent Colorado by totals of $37.71 million and $10.13 million, respectively. However, free agency isn’t the only way for teams to keep players around for longer periods of time. Under Schmidt, the Rockies have signed eight players to multi-year extensions; only the Braves have extended more players on multi-year deals in that span. Atlanta has gotten far more extension attention, but this is how Colorado operates, too.
Even so, the Tovar deal represents a different approach for the Rockies because it is the first time that Schmidt has extended a player with fewer than four years of service. It’s also the longest extension the Rockies have awarded since February 2019, when they signed Nolan Arenado to an eight-year, $260 million deal that began in 2020. Moreover, while we have started to see more and more pre-arb players signing long-term extensions around the majors, many of those players either are stars or have star potential. Perhaps the only good comp for Tovar’s extension is the eight-year, $50 million deal Keibert Ruiz signed with the Nationals after putting up a 91 wRC+ and 1.8 WAR in 2022, his first full season. Then again, even Ruiz arguably had a higher ceiling at the time. Tovar might be in a class of his own when it comes to low-ceiling, high-floor youngsters signing lucrative long-term deals.
Entering the 2023 season, Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin ranked Tovar no. 41 on our Top 100 Prospects list, describing him as “a fantastic defensive shortstop” with “poor plate discipline” that “somewhat undermines his excellent bat-to-ball skill.” One year later, Tovar is no longer a prospect, but that remains the prevailing report. He finished his debut season with the lowest walk rate and the second-highest O-Swing% among qualified NL batters. He also finished with 16 OAA and 13 DRS; the only shortstop to outpace him in both metrics was Dansby Swanson. Despite his 70 wRC+, worst among qualified NL hitters, Tovar finished his rookie season with 1.6 WAR. That’s hardly star-level performance, but a 1.6-WAR player is still a big league regular.
Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first: Tovar’s offensive numbers last season were pitiful. One of the only areas in which he was above average was batting average, and Coors Field likely inflated that number. His plate discipline was dreadful, as expected, but so were his contact skills, which came as something of a surprise. Tovar ranked 66th out of 72 qualified NL hitters in contact rate, and he wasn’t just whiffing on pitches outside the zone. While his O-Contact% was poor, his Z-Contact% also came in below league average.
On the bright side, when he did manage to put the ball in play, Tovar showed flashes of his promising hit tool. His .378 xwOBAcon was a few ticks above league average, thanks to his line drive tendencies. He ranked in the 71st percentile in Baseball Savant’s Sweet-Spot% and finished seventh among qualified NL players in line drive rate. If he can make more contact, especially on pitches in the strike zone, his offensive numbers will improve even if he never adds a lick of discipline to his game. If he can improve his plate discipline, then all the better. For what it’s worth, he significantly improved his walk rate during his final season in the minor leagues, prompting his Double-A manager, Chris Denorfia, to rave about Tovar’s growth. “He’s made this developmental jump,” Denorfia told David Laurila in 2022. “Something clicked to where he’s recognizing situations where pitchers are going to try to get him to chase.” Plate discipline is a different animal in the majors than in the minors, but still, it’s worth acknowledging that this is a skill he has successfully improved in the past.
Tovar also showed off 69th-percentile sprint speed in 2023. He won’t ever be a weapon on the basepaths, but with speed like that, he should be a better base runner than his numbers last year would suggest; he went 11-for-16 on stolen base attempts and was worth -0.6 BsR. Long story short, this is a player with much more offensive potential than we saw last season, and he has a strong enough glove to allow him to nurse his growing pains at the highest level while still contributing positive value to his club.
Courtesy of Dan Szymborski, here is what the ZiPS projections envision for Tovar over the next eight years:
ZiPS Projection – Ezequiel Tovar
Year
BA
OBP
SLG
AB
R
H
2B
3B
HR
RBI
BB
SO
SB
OPS+
WAR
2024
.259
.300
.424
552
75
143
32
4
17
76
28
142
11
87
2.2
2025
.263
.306
.438
562
79
148
33
4
19
81
30
138
11
91
2.6
2026
.266
.310
.442
568
82
151
34
3
20
84
32
133
11
94
2.9
2027
.267
.313
.448
572
85
153
34
3
21
86
34
129
10
96
3.1
2028
.267
.313
.446
574
85
153
34
3
21
87
35
125
10
96
3.1
2029
.266
.314
.445
571
86
152
33
3
21
86
36
122
9
96
3.2
2030
.268
.317
.449
563
85
151
33
3
21
86
36
121
8
97
3.2
2031
.270
.318
.453
552
84
149
32
3
21
84
35
119
8
99
3.2
With projections like that, ZiPS would give Tovar $92 million over seven years. That’s more than he’ll make even if the Rockies pick up his team option for an eighth year.
With all that in mind, it’s easy to see why the Rockies offered Tovar a long-term extension. We’ve already seen his floor, and it’s rather sturdy — he can be a valuable player even if he’s the worst hitter in the league. The Rockies could do a heck of a lot worse than pay $9 million per year for seven seasons of a 1.5-win shortstop. What’s more, it won’t take much for this deal to pay dividends in Colorado. If Tovar’s hit tool progresses against big league pitching, he would blossom into an above-average shortstop throughout his twenties.
As for Tovar, his youth has gifted him the rare opportunity to cash in now without giving up the chance to sign another long-term deal. His $63.5 million guarantee is more than the vast majority of players will earn in their careers, yet he can still reach free agency before his 30th birthday. If Colorado picks up its club option, Tovar will have to wait another year to test the open market. Yet, if the Rockies are comfortable paying $20.5 million for his services (even the Rockies, and even in 2031 dollars), that suggests Tovar will be playing well enough to cash in on the free agent market at 30 years old. The two or three free agent years he is losing aren’t nothing, especially for a glove-first player. Still, Tovar had to sacrifice something for lifelong financial security, and it’s not difficult to understand why he made that choice.
Ultimately, this is a rock solid move for both sides. The Rockies are betting they secured three additional years with an excellent shortstop at price tag well below market value. If that doesn’t work out, they’re only slightly overpaying one of the better defensive players in baseball. Meanwhile, Tovar gets to work out his kinks at the MLB level without ever having to worry about money, and if everything goes according to plan, he can still sign a lucrative free agent deal in the 2030s. Now, both sides can get to work on what they need to do next: Tovar will try to improve his plate discipline, while the Rockies will look to acquire, develop, and yes, extend the stars who can help them escape the NL West basement.
Blaze Alexander is on the bubble to break camp with the Arizona Diamondbacks. His spring showing suggests he deserves the opportunity to do so. In 52 Cactus League plate appearances, the 24-year-old infield prospect has slashed .420/.442/.640 with seven extra-base hits and five stolen bases in as many attempts. Moreover, he’s continued to show promise since being taken in the 11th round of the 2018 draft out of IMG Academy. That he’s mostly flown under the radar while doing so is starting to change.
“I hope that’s the case,” Alexander told me in mid-March. “I mean, I’ve been putting on a pretty good performance this spring, so I definitely think I’m opening some eyes. That said, I obviously need to transfer it over to the regular season.”
The likelihood of his doing so in the big leagues was improved on Friday when the D-Backs released Elvis Andrus, a notable roster move given that the 15-year veteran had been inked to a free agent contract as a potential backup for Geraldo Perdomo. As it now stands, there is a good chance that Alexander — “a viable defensive shortstop with a huge arm… [who] hits for enough power” in the words of Eric Longenhagen — will be filling that role.
Hitting for power isn’t one of Alexander’s aims, nor is it part of his process. While he does possess pop — his ledger includes 30 home runs in 734 plate appearances over the past two minor-league seasons — his M.O. is bullets, not blasts. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the J.D. Martinez and Michael Lorenzen signings, Eury Pérez‘s elbow, Jackson Holliday not making the O’s Opening Day roster, and MLB’s crowded, mediocre middle, then preview the 2024 New York Yankees (16:49) with The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner, and the 2024 Washington Nationals (1:14:13) with The Washington Post’s Andrew Golden.
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