It’s been dark here at FanGraphs for a few days, so admit it — you’re desperate to read anything right now. How about a roundup of analysis on three pitchers that went off the market right before our holiday hiatus?

Griffin Canning, Michael Soroka, and Patrick Sandoval all fit somewhere between the back of their new team’s rotation or the front of its starter depth; each received deals commensurate with those expectations. If the going rate for a fourth starter these days is something like $15 million AAV (Alex Cobb got one year and $15 million, Matthew Boyd got two years and $29 million), this trio is probably one tier below that.

Do these three signings, grouped together, mean anything in particular? Probably not. Each year, the starter/reliever binary grows blurrier, and perhaps someday, every pitcher will throw exactly three innings and the distinction will disappear completely. Perhaps each of these signings brings us closer to that day; Soroka, in particular, seems best served to go through a lineup once and then head out on his way. For various reasons, the expectation for all of these pitchers should be somewhere in the 80- to 120-inning range for the 2025 season. But for now, no further trends will be drawn. Without further ado, here is the lowdown on the three hurlers.

Griffin Canning

Canning drew some attention on the pitching nerd internet earlier this year due to the remarkably unremarkable shape of his fastball. The image below is courtesy of Max Bay’s dynamic dead zone app:

the deadest zone. cc: @choice_fielder https://t.co/3pkdXbfXhA pic.twitter.com/krJWXKN4yN

— Alex "Oxlade" Chamberlain (@DolphHauldhagen) October 31, 2024

Because Canning throws his fastball from a roughly league-average arm angle (45°), a league-average release height (5.8 feet), and with league-average ride (16.2 inches of induced vertical break), the pitch — in theory! — moves on a trajectory that hitters expect. (I say “in theory” because, as Remi Bunikiewicz pointed out, Canning does a great job hiding his fastball during the windup, complicating any perceptive analysis.)

This fastball was the bane of Canning’s existence in 2024. He did qualify for the ERA title, something only 57 other pitchers could claim they did, but his 5.26 FIP was worst among those qualified starters, and his strikeout rate was third worst. That strikeout rate dropped nearly eight percentage points from 2023 to 2024, and the performance against his fastball explained essentially all of that drop. The whiff rate on Canning’s three other primary pitches stayed virtually the same; on the fastball, the percentage of swings that resulted in misses went from 28% in 2023 to just 14% in 2024.

A drop in velocity appears to be the main culprit for the decline in performance. The four-seamer averaged 94.7 mph in 2023; that dipped to 93.4 mph in 2024. Could a 1.5-mph difference in velocity be the entire explanation? I’m inclined to think that the answer is mostly yes. But it’s also possible that the decline in slider quality impacted batter performance against his fastball. Canning’s death ball slider dropped three fewer inches relative to 2023, reducing the separation between his fastball and his primary out pitch against right-handed hitters.

Could a reduced role help Canning return to his prior form? These considerations could be part of the plan. The Mets employ something like eight starters; Canning sits outside the favored five. Assuming perfect health, it’s likely that they will deploy him in two- or three-inning bursts, perhaps allowing him to get back to that mid-90s velocity on the heater. Even in a swingman role, the $4.25 million contract makes good sense — with fewer workload responsibilities, it doesn’t feel unreasonable to expect Canning to deliver something like a 4.00 ERA over 100ish innings. And if injuries do strike the rotation, he can stretch out to a starter’s workload. Either way, there’s a role to play in this era where quality innings can be difficult to come by, especially in the late summer months.

Michael Soroka

Soroka exploded after a midseason move to the White Sox bullpen. As a reliever, Soroka struck out 39% of the hitters he faced, which would’ve ranked second in all of baseball.

Curiously, this wasn’t a case of Soroka ramping up the stuff over 15-pitch spurts. Unlike those pitchers topping the strikeout leaderboards — Mason Miller, Edwin Díaz, Josh Hader — Soroka did it mostly in chunky multi-inning appearances. Soroka pitched 36 innings out of the bullpen; all but 5 2/3 of them came in appearances that spanned two innings or more. In those slightly shorter appearances — he averaged nearly five innings per appearance as a starter and 2 1/3 as a reliever — the strikeout rate somehow tripled.

After moving full-time to relief work, Soroka added 1.5 mph to his four-seam fastball. But the four-seamer isn’t anything special; instead, at 94 mph with dead zone-ish movement, it’s mostly there to set up the slider, which generated nearly a 42% whiff rate.

What’s so special about the slider? It isn’t the velocity — it averages just 82.2 mph, well below the average for major league sliders. But its shape is distinct. There are slower curveballs that resemble the movement profile, but outside of Bryan Abreu, nobody really throws a slider with the combination of depth and sweep that Soroka manages to get. Starting May 18, when Soroka shifted to a bullpen role, the slider averaged -4.5 inches of induced vertical break with 5.2 inches of sweep, moving sharply on two planes.

But averages obscure the full truth. Soroka can also manipulate the pitch to move in a variety of break patterns. Look at the range of movement profiles on his slider, seen in yellow on his pitch plot below:

Soroka can firm it up, throwing it more like a gyro slider at 84 mph with zero inches of induced vertical break:

But he can also bend it like a curveball, dropping over 10 inches more than his firmest sliders:

(Look at poor Spencer Torkelson there — I think he was expecting the gyro.)

Between the identical frequency of the fastball and slider, the distinct two-plane movement profile, and the diversity of potential shapes, Soroka had batters swinging and missing more than almost any pitcher in baseball.

Evidently, the Nationals, who gave Soroka $9 million on a one-year deal, plan to use him as a “starter.” Given his usage patterns as a reliever, I’m not exactly sure what that means. I would expect that the Nationals will tell Soroka to let it loose for 60 or so pitches, just as he did in Chicago, and he’ll take on 12 or 13 hitters in a game. Like Canning, I think Soroka will end up closer to 90 innings than 180, letting his best stuff cook in outings that sit somewhere between a one-inning shutdown reliever and a starter trying to turn the lineup over three times.

Patrick Sandoval

Sandoval, who signed a two-year, $18.25 million deal with the Red Sox, is a perfect fit for their “no fastballs” organizational philosophy. This guy hates four-seamers now — they made up just 16% of his pitches in his injury-shortened 2024 campaign, by far a career low. Regardless of batter handedness, Sandoval mixes in all six of his pitches, but he works them in differently depending on whether he’s facing a righty or lefty. A plurality of his pitches to righties were changeups; to lefties, Sandoval spammed his slider and sweeper over half the time.

As one would expect with a pitcher who throws all that junk, Sandoval struggles to get the ball in the strike zone. He ran a 10% walk rate last year; even in his excellent 2022 campaign, in which he racked up 3.7 WAR, his walk rate was above 9%. The walks are just part of the package with Sandoval, but the hope is that at his best, he can pitch around them, striking out enough hitters and staying off enough barrels with his diverse pitch mix and refusal to throw anything straight.

Sandoval is likely to pitch the fewest innings of this trio in 2025. He tore his UCL and was shut down in mid-June before undergoing Tommy John surgery, so he’ll miss a big chunk of the upcoming season. When he returns, it figures that he will assume a traditional starter’s workload, though following the Walker Buehler signing, Boston’s rotation looks pretty packed. Ultimately, this deal is mostly a 2026 play, with some nice depth for the end of next year as a bonus.

Conclusion

None of these guys is too exciting. All of them have stanky fastballs. But each has a reason to believe that he might contribute surplus value on a modest deal. In the end, that’s what a minor pitcher signing is all about.

Gleyber Torres is changing his stripes, so to speak. After seven seasons as a regular on the Yankees’ middle infield, the 28-year-old has agreed to a one-year, $15 million deal with the Tigers. The move fortifies the middle infield of a team fresh off its first postseason appearance in a decade while also creating an opportunity for an enigmatic player to secure a much larger deal while still in his 20s.

Acquired from the Cubs ahead of the 2016 trade deadline as part of a four-prospect package in exchange for Aroldis Chapman, Torres has spent the past seven seasons as a mainstay of the Yankees’ middle infield, playing the last three as their regular second baseman after bouncing back and forth between shortstop and second in his first four seasons. He made the American League All-Star team in both 2018 and ’19, finishing third in the AL Rookie of the Year balloting in the former year and getting a bit of down-ballot MVP support in the latter, during which he clubbed 38 homers and hit for a 125 wRC+, neither of which he’s been able to replicate.

In 2023, Torres set a career high in WAR (3.6) while posting his highest wRC+ (120) and home run total (25) since ’19, but his ’24 season was an uneven one. His final numbers were unremarkable (.257/.330/.378, 104 wRC+), and he was briefly benched twice for a lack of hustle, but he dug himself out of a deep, early slump to nose his way across the league average line. He was at his best late in the year, a top-of-the-lineup catalyst who helped the Yankees reach their first World Series since 2009. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s important in life, as well as in baseball, to know when a relationship has run its course and it’s time to shake hands and part on good terms. Equally, if conversely, it’s important to know when not to screw with something that works.

So Teoscar Hernández is coming back to Los Angeles. The hard-hitting outfielder will make $22 million per year for three years, with a club option for a fourth at $15 million. Because this is the Dodgers, there’s all sorts of accounting rigmarole baked into the contract: a $23 million signing bonus, and another $23 million in deferred money, which will drop the value of the contract for CBT purposes (by exactly how much, we don’t know quite yet). Read the rest of this entry »

Last offseason, the Diamondbacks were in search of a marquee starter to pair with Zac Gallen atop their rotation. The market was thin at the top – Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani were probably never available to them, so their best options were Sonny Gray, Blake Snell, Eduardo Rodriguez, Shota Imanaga, and Jordan Montgomery. They signed two of those guys, and neither delivered the rotation-stabilizing performance they had expected. But instead of waving their hands in the air and raving at the injustice of variance, the Diamondbacks got right back on the horse:

BREAKING: Corbin Burnes to Diamondbacks, $210M, 6 years. opt out after 2 years

— Jon Heyman (@jonheyman.bsky.social) 2024-12-28T06:32:12.313Z

Corbin Burnes was the best free agent pitcher available. In each of the last five seasons, he’s been one of the top pitchers in the game, racking up a 2.88 ERA, 3.01 FIP, and 816 innings pitched. He’s second in WAR (21.7) over that time frame, second in RA9-WAR (23.2), second in strikeouts (946), and third in innings pitched. In other words, he’s been a capital-A Ace, a set-it-and-forget-it choice at the top of the starting rotation. He’ll receive $35 million a year for six seasons, with an opt-out after the second year of the deal, which also includes a $10 million signing bonus.

With Gallen also on their dance card, the Diamondbacks have one of the best one-two combinations in the majors. That doesn’t even include Merrill Kelly, a borderline All-Star when healthy, or Brandon Pfaadt, who looked like he was finally breaking out before a rough final two months of the season. Add in Montgomery and Rodriguez, and Arizona goes six deep with plausible playoff starters. That’s how you injury-proof a rotation – sheer depth.
Read the rest of this entry »

I hope that you spared a thought over the holidays for the poor Naylor brothers. In a premise tailor-made for a lesser Hallmark movie, their time as teammates came to an end just four days before Christmas, when the Guardians traded Josh Naylor to the Diamondbacks in exchange for right-handed pitcher Slade Cecconi and a Competitive Balance Round B draft pick. Just 21 minutes after Jeff Passan broke the news that broke up the family, he also reported that veteran first baseman Carlos Santana had agreed to a one-year, $12-million deal to fill the hole Naylor left in the Cleveland infield. He failed to report on what, if anything, would fill the hole left in Bo Naylor’s heart.

After five years away, Santana is coming home to Cleveland for the third time — another solid premise for a Hallmark movie. In fact, he still has a home in Cleveland. Or he did, anyway. He put it on the market a few weeks ago and closed on a sale two days before signing with the Guardians. Another fun side note to Santana’s signing: He very nearly busted the We Tried Tracker. Ken Rosenthal listed seven other teams that were in on Santana: “The Seattle Mariners, Santana’s team in 2022, sought to reunite with him virtually the entire offseason, and were pushing for a resolution. Santana said both New York teams, Detroit and Arizona also were in the mix, while San Diego and Texas had asked him to wait.” If you’re keeping score at home, that’s four teams that were in the mix, two in the brand-new category of asking the player to wait, and then the extraordinarily thirsty Mariners. As you may have noticed, Rosenthal is citing Santana himself as the source for this information. If more players spoke to reporters about the interest they received, the tracker would look a lot more robust.

After running a combined wRC+ of 94 from 2020 to 2023, Santana suddenly rediscovered his form with the Twins in 2024. In his age-38 season, Santana ran a 114 wRC+ with 23 home runs, and his 11 fielding runs earned him his first Gold Glove. He racked up 3.0 WAR, more than he totaled in all but two of his 15 years in the big leagues, and good for the fifth-most WAR among first basemen last season. His average contact quality didn’t stray far from his career norms, and his vaunted batting eye remained about as strong as ever. The big difference is that 23.8% of his batted balls came in the form of line drives or fly balls to the pull side. That’s his highest rate since 2014. Focusing on pull-side power has been a major organizational focus for the Twins, so much so that before the season, Trevor Larnach decided he’d gone too far in that direction and needed to develop a more balanced approach. Whether or not the Twins were responsible for it, this approach change certainly worked for Santana, and the Guardians are hoping that he can keep both the bat and the glove going for one more year.

As for the Diamondbacks, they’re in for their first taste of life without a cornerstone at the cold corner since 2010. Naylor may not be peak Paul Goldschmidt or Christian Walker, but he’s been a top-10 first baseman over the past three years. As slugging first basemen who play bigger than the numbers suggest, Naylor and Santana have a lot in common. Both players are under six feet tall and both depend on the home run ball despite lacking jaw-dropping exit velocities. Naylor hits the ball on the ground more often and lacks Santana’s gift for staying within the strike zone, but he hits the ball harder. Despite comparable average exit velocities and hard-hit rates, Naylor’s 90th percentile exit velocity was 106 mph, significantly higher than Santana’s 103.7-mph mark. In 2024, despite running a bottom-quartile groundball rate, Naylor put up the first 30-homer season of his career, to go along with a 118 wRC+. He’s now reached that mark or higher in each of the last three seasons. His 2.3 WAR ranked 11th among first basemen in 2024, and his 7.0 WAR over the past three seasons ranked eighth.

Santana’s deal is for exactly the same amount as MLB Trade Rumors predicted that Naylor would get in his final year of arbitration, and that’s what makes this such a Cleveland move. The Guardians are taking on more risk due to Santana’s age and giving up Naylor’s higher upside, but essentially, they swapped out two similar players for identical prices and wound up with a draft pick and an interesting arm in Cecconi. Steamer projects Naylor to put up 2.0 WAR next season, compared to 1.2 for Santana. You can understand why, on the “Five and Dive” podcast, Jeffrey Paternostro called the move, “so Guardians (derogatory).” It took a whole lot of work for Cleveland to make its first base situation a bit dicier in exchange for a couple longshots.

Cecconi announced his arrival in Arizona with a bang in 2023, and I mean that very literally. He made four starts and three relief appearances, running a 4.33 ERA and 4.37 FIP. Cecconi entered the 2024 season as the D-backs’ no. 5 overall prospect and their system’s top-ranked pitcher, but he struggled mightily, running a 6.66 ERA and 5.02 FIP. He bounced between the minors and majors, and he was sent to the bullpen in late July, but his 4.49 xERA and 4.70 xFIP — while still nothing to write home about — were much less worrisome. Cecconi doesn’t rack up many whiffs or strikeouts, he doesn’t run a great groundball rate, and he doesn’t avoid hard contact. But what he does have is solid control, a fastball that can reach 98 mph, three other pitches that grade out as above average according to Pitching Bot, Stuff+, and StuffPro, and 0.155 years of service time.

The Rays were rumored to be interested in him at the trade deadline, and it’s entirely possible that the Guardians turn him into a serviceable pitcher. Although the fastball can reach 98, it averages closer to 94 and got rocked last season. Somehow, the Diamondbacks let Cecconi throw it 55% of the time anyway. Maybe the Guardians will get him in the pitching lab and help him figure out a fastball that works. Maybe they’ll make him a full-time reliever to bump his velocity back up to the top of its range. They’ll definitely have him throw his heater less often. Then again, maybe they just wanted that draft pick.

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 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.

Even as an amateur, Ian Kinsler spent most of his career in someone else’s shadow. At Canyon Del Oro High School in Tucson, Arizona — where he played on two state champion teams — and then at Central Arizona Junior College, he played alongside players who were picked much higher in the draft. After transferring to Arizona State, he lost the starting shortstop job to Dustin Pedroia, who had initially moved to second base to accommodate his arrival. With the Rangers, for whom he starred from 2006–13, he was a vital cog on two pennant winners but took a back seat to MVP Josh Hamilton, future Hall of Famer Adrian Beltré, and perennial All-Star shortstop Michael Young. Even after being dealt to the Tigers, he drew less attention than Miguel Cabrera, Justin Verlander, or Max Scherzer.

Particularly in the developmental phase of his career, those slights and oversights left Kinsler with a chip on his shoulder, but also a drive to improve — and improve he did. He starred at his third collegiate stop, the University of Missouri, helped the Rangers emerge as an American League powerhouse while making three All-Star teams, added another All-Star selection in Detroit and won two belated but well-earned Gold Gloves. His 48 leadoff home runs ranks sixth all-time. Twice he combined 30 homers and 30 steals in the same season, making him one of just 16 players with repeat membership in the 30-30 club. For the 2007–16 period, he ranked among the game’s most valuable players by WAR via a combination of excellent defense, very good baserunning, and above-average hitting. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 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.

Because of his size — officially 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds, but by his own admission, a couple inches shorter — Dustin Pedroia was consistently underestimated. Though he took to baseball as a toddler and excelled all the way through high school and Arizona State University, scouts viewed him as having below-average tools because of his stature. He barely grazed prospect lists before reaching the majors, but once he settled in, he quickly excelled. He won American League Rookie of the Year honors while helping the Red Sox win the 2007 World Series, then took home the MVP award the next year, when he was just 24.

Over the course of his 14-year career, Pedroia played a pivotal role in helping the Red Sox win one more World Series, made four All-Star teams, and banked four Gold Gloves. Understandably, he became a fan favorite, not only for his stellar play but because of the way he carried himself, radiating self-confidence to the point of cockiness, and always quick with a quip. “Pedie never shuts up, man,” Manny Ramirez told ESPN Magazine’s Jeff Bradley for a 2008 piece called “170 Pounds of Mouth.” Continued Ramirez, “He’s a little crazy. But that’s why we love him. He talks big and makes us all laugh.” Read the rest of this entry »

Which player had a better career, Dustin Pedroia or David Wright? I asked that question in a Twitter poll a few days ago, with the erstwhile Boston Red Sox second baseman outpolling the former New York Mets third baseman by a measure of 58.8% to 41.2%. Results aside, how they compare in historical significance has been on my mind. Both are on the Hall of Fame ballot I will be filling out in the coming days, and depending on what I decide to do with a pair of controversial players that have received my votes in recent years, each is a strong consideration for a checkmark. More on that in a moment.

It’s no secret that Pedroia and Wright were on track for Cooperstown prior to injuries sidetracking their seemingly clear paths. Rather than having opportunities to build on their counting stats, they finished with just 1,805 and 1,777 hits, and 44.8 and 51.3 WAR, respectively. That said, each has a resumé that includes an especially impressive 10-year stretch (Wright had 10 seasons with 100 or more games played. Pedroia had nine).

To wit:

From 2007-2016, Pedroia slashed .303/.368/.447 with an 118 wRC+ and 45 WAR. Over that span, he made four All-Star teams, won four Gold Gloves, and earned both Rookie of the Year and MVP honors. Moreover, he was an integral part of two World Series-winning teams.

From 2005-2014, Wright slashed .298/.379/.492 with a 134 wRC+ and 48.1 WAR. Over that span, he made seven All-Star teams and won two Gold Gloves. Unlike his Red Sox contemporary, he captured neither a Rookie of the Year or MVP award, nor did he play for a World Series winner. That said, as Jay Jaffe wrote earlier this month, “Wright is the greatest position player in Mets history.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Astros’ facelift continues. One week after trading star outfielder Kyle Tucker to Chicago, Houston has dived into the free agent market and come up with a replacement: first baseman Christian Walker, now the beneficiary of a brand spanking new three-year, $60 million contract.

Walker didn’t establish himself as a major league starter until he was almost 30; he spent the mid-2010s stuck behind Chris Davis, Freddie Freeman, Joey Votto, and Paul Goldschmidt, in that order. But since claiming the Diamondbacks’ first base job after Goldschmidt got traded, Walker has established himself as one of the most consistent players at the position. Over the past three seasons, he’s had wRC+ marks of 122, 119, and 119, and posted WAR totals of 3.9, 3.9, and 3.0. That downturn in 2024 was informed by an oblique strain that cost Walker the month of August. If he’d played 162 games, he would’ve been right back up around 3.9 WAR again.

The former South Carolina star is 33, a bit old for a big free agent signing, especially a first baseman, and even more especially a right-handed first baseman. But he’ll be a tremendous asset to the Astros, and sorely missed by the Diamondbacks. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 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.

With a foundation that centered upon the Hall of Fame triumvirate of Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and John Smoltz, the Braves dominated the NL West and then the NL East, reaching the postseason every year from 1991–2005 save for the ’94 strike season. Nothing lasts forever, though, and as Glavine and then Maddux departed in free agency, the team inevitably had to retool. Among the centerpieces of the next wave of Braves stars was one practically grown in their own backyard, Brian McCann.

A lefty-swinging backstop with rich baseball bloodlines, a strong arm, and a powerful bat, McCann was just 21 years old when he debuted with the Braves in June 2005. Over his first eight full seasons, he made seven All-Star teams and helped Atlanta to three postseason appearances, though the team’s success wasn’t nearly on par with the preceding dynasty. While McCann’s footwork and pitch framing wasn’t initially as polished as that of Russell Martin (who debuted with the Dodgers as a 23-year-old in 2006), he too developed into one of the game’s elite framers, that while providing stronger offense than his West Coast counterpart. Along the way, he also developed a somewhat dubious reputation as an enforcer of the unwritten rules, thanks to high-profile incidents involving José Fernández and Carlos Gómez in September 2013, though both players smoothed things over with McCann. Read the rest of this entry »