We’ve had some titanic trades that lived up to the hype of a post-lockout pandemonium, but it’s always nice to acknowledge the smaller signings as well. On that note, here are two pitchers who, despite their modest contracts, should be familiar to baseball fans. A few days ago, Aníbal Sánchez agreed to a minor league deal with the Nationals. He’ll be paid $2 million if selected and can earn up to $1.5 million in performance bonuses, per Joel Sherman of the New York Post. And on Tuesday, the White Sox announced that they had signed Vince Velasquez to a one-year, $3 million pact.

Maybe it’s because of a global pandemic that warped our sense of time and space, but it seems not too long ago that Sánchez was making starts for a championship team. A lot has happened since then: The veteran righty’s numbers plummeted in 2020, and he spent the following year away from baseball as the Nationals began their teardown.

Sánchez is now back, but for a different purpose. Instead of serving as a fourth starter for a contending team, he looks to offer some stability to a fractured rotation. Its ace, Stephen Strasburg, has thrown just 26.2 innings in the past two seasons due to injury. Patrick Corbin still has potential, but he’s shown signs of precipitous decline. Erick Fedde isn’t great, and Joe Ross will be sidelined for six to eight weeks after undergoing surgery to remove a bone spur. Maybe Josiah Gray takes a step forward, but that’s hardly a guarantee.

How might Sánchez try to accomplish his mission? For one, it may be time to ditch the four-seamer. The pitch averaged an alarmingly low 89.2 mph in 2020, and without enough movement to make up for such a shortcoming, hitters feasted against it. Thankfully, the rest of his repertoire is still brimming with life. His cutter features an ample amount of late vertical drop; it’s basically a mini slider, but with the velocity associated with a fastball. The signature split-change still induced whiffs last time it saw action. To Sánchez’s credit, he made an attempt to rely on his offspeed stuff more often two years ago. But pitching doesn’t occur in a vacuum, and a handful of poor fastballs were all it took to undo those efforts. Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, the Pirates finally got in on the post-lockout frenzy, signing a pair of lower-cost free agents who both have interesting bits of upside. First baseman and designated hitter Daniel Vogelbach signed a one-year, $1 million deal that comes with the possibility for $400,000 more in performance incentives and a $1.5 million option for 2023. In the bullpen, the Pirates inked Heath Hembree to a one-year, $2.125 million deal. These might not be big-money moves, and Pittsburgh’s payroll still sits at a shockingly low $44 million, but it’s worth taking a closer look at Vogelbach and Hembree to see what inspired the team to finally open its wallet. We’ll start with Vogelbach.

After a few fits and starts, Vogelbach burst onto the scene in 2019 for the Mariners, slugging prolific home runs on his way to a 30 homer season and a 112 wRC+. Late in the season, though, he fell on hard times that carried over into 2020. The Mariners decided they’d seen enough and shipped him to the Blue Jays, who themselves cut him after just five plate appearances; Milwaukee became his third uniform of 2020. He ended the season strongly enough to be brought back in a platoon role in 2021, putting up near league average offensive numbers (101 wRC+ in 258 PA), while also losing two months in the middle of the season to a pretty bad hamstring injury. The Brewers chose to non-tender him this offseason.

Given his distinctive physique (6-foot-0, 270 pounds) and success in high-leverage spots (137 wRC+), he’s become something of a fan favorite everywhere he’s been. Take this walk-off grand slam he hit last September:

Vogelbach possesses a lot of the skills that modern front offices like, namely, a patient approach and great bat-to-ball skills. Calling him patient is underselling it a bit, as only Yasmani Grandal swung less often than Vogelbach last year (32.9% swing rate). He’s perfectly comfortable falling behind in the count and hunting for a mistake up in the zone. As you can imagine, this approach leads to plenty of walks and strikeouts but Vogelbach actually has the bat-to-ball skills to maintain a roughly league average strikeout rate. Take a closer look at how his plate discipline stacks up to both league average and Juan Soto – the gold standard of plate discipline:

It’s a very impressive skill set and that’s before you even get to the part where he hits the ball quite hard. Vogelbach had an 88th percentile exit velocity last year and his HardHit% was good for the 89th percentile. Interestingly, though, having those skills has only led to a 103 wRC+ and 1.2 career WAR in 1,098 plate appearances, and that’s because there are some pretty big holes in his game.

Vogelbach has really struggled against lefties, with a 46 wRC+ for his career (versus 117 against righties); last season, he put up a wRC+ of one against southpaws, albeit in just 34 plate appearances. His performance against lefties has prevented him from securing everyday playing time, and it can be hard to dig your way out of a platoon role once you stop getting regular exposure. Another big weakness has been Vogelbach’s production against breaking balls: He has a .196 wOBA on curveballs and sliders in his career compared to a robust .374 wOBA against fastballs. Interestingly, he actually sees a league average number of fastballs; I think his extreme patience has allowed him to force pitchers to come into the zone more than what their game plan may suggest. Finally, Vogelbach has proven to be a poor defender at first base, putting up -15 Defensive Runs Saved in a little less than a full season’s worth of opportunities.

Vogelbach’s lack of defensive skill is the easiest problem for the Pirates to mitigate. The Pirates’ current first baseman, Yoshi Tsutsugo, has shown a better feel for the position (-1 DRS / +1 OAA), albeit in an even smaller sample than Vogelbach. Tsutsugo also doesn’t have notable platoon splits, so all signs seem to point to him starting nearly every day at first while Vogelbach has the inside track on the DH role. Perhaps the Pirates will even give him some run against lefties to see if there is any improvement to be had with his splits, but it’s likely that he’ll be ceding at-bats to someone like a Michael Chavis. The good news for Vogelbach and the Pirates is that the NL Central lacks standout left-handed starters, with only Wade Miley, Eric Lauer, and Steven Matz looking like locks for a rotation spot in the division.

On to the bullpen, and the signing of Heath Hembree. The 33-year-old right-hander spent parts of seven seasons with Boston as a reliable workhorse reliever who never quite ascended to being a go-to high-leverage option. He started bouncing around in 2020; the Pirates will be his fifth big league team, after stints with the Phillies, Mets and Reds in the last couple of years. That bouncing around is due to a stark drop in performance from his early days in Boston, as he put up the two worst run prevention seasons of his career with a 9.00 ERA in 2020 and a 5.59 ERA in ’21. Looking forward, though, there’s some reason to believe he has more left in the tank than his last two years might suggest.

The most eye-popping change for Hembree last season was the increased zip on his fastball, which gained more than a tick from the previous year. Thanks to his 92nd percentile spin rate, his fastball drops very little and he also gets above average run, helping to turn it into a popup machine (37.0% popup rate). It’s worth noting that he was dealing with a recurring elbow issue in 2019 and ’20 that required three separate IL stints, so good health could be enough to explain the velocity increase.

To go along with more velocity, Hembree pretty drastically altered his breaking ball in 2021 and the results were promising. Where once his arsenal contained a distinct slider and curveball, he now throws one breaking ball, and while it’s officially logged as a slider, it’s quite different from the version he used to throw. Velocity-wise it comes in around 86 mph, nearly in the middle of his old slider (89 mph) and his old curveball (81 mph), though calling it a slurve doesn’t feel quite right as its movement is very horizontal. This new breaker allowed only a .283 wOBA and he started working it in quite a bit, even lowering his fastball usage to accommodate throwing it more.

That new slider doesn’t keep the ball on the ground and neither does his high-spin fastball, so cavernous PNC Park will be a welcome site for Hembree and his 53.7% fly ball rate. Hembree brings plenty of experience to a young and largely underwhelming Pittsburgh bullpen that finished 26th in ERA- and 24th in K-BB% last season. David Bednar and his 2.23 ERA is the standout performer in the ‘pen; Hembree will likely be getting plenty of high-leverage innings setting him up this season, alongside workhorse reliever Chris Stratton. This move gives the Pirates a pretty talented top three in their bullpen, especially if Hembree can carry forward some of those interesting developments from last season.

If you think back through the mists of time to last October, the Braves had one calling card on their march to the World Series: a bullpen that answered the bell day after day and either kept them in games or closed the door, depending on the situation. The core four members of that bullpen – Will Smith, Tyler Matzek, Luke Jackson, and A.J. Minter – will return, but some peripheral members of the team’s pitching staff left in free agency, and you can always use more pitching. To that end, Atlanta signed Collin McHugh today:

#Braves Sign RHP Collin McHugh: pic.twitter.com/MjLGaejG0h

— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) March 15, 2022

As far as I’m concerned, the terms of the deal – two years and $10 million, with an additional team option for $5 million net of buyout – are an incredible deal for the defending champions. McHugh was one of the best relievers in baseball last year on a rate basis, and he’s getting less this year than Brad Hand, who bounced through three teams on his way to a below-replacement-level season.

I could just tell you that McHugh looks like a good bet to provide strong relief work, but I’ll do slightly better than that. As Jon Tayler noted in our free agent preview, McHugh made one key change to his pitch mix in 2021: he rediscovered an old friend. He threw his cutter 33% of his time, a rate he hadn’t approached since he was a full-time starter in 2016. In addition to that, he maxed out on slider usage; he threw it 52.9% of the time, by far a career high. He was essentially a cutter/slider pitcher, with the occasional four-seamer mixed in for the element of surprise.
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It would be fun, if you were running a team, to go out and sign the best available player at every position where you had even a specter of a question. Need a shortstop? Call Carlos Correa. First baseman? Freddie Freeman awaits. Second baseman? Science now allows us to regrow and clone Rogers Hornsby. If you’re spending at the completely fake top end of the market that I just made up, you might as well spring for the very best available.

Sadly, the real world doesn’t quite work that way. For one, teams don’t have infinite money; more importantly, cloning and reanimating technology doesn’t exist yet unless you’re interested in making Scottish sheep. Even good teams have to sign players who aren’t perennial MVP contenders, or even perennial All Stars. The Dodgers signed Jake Lamb and Hanser Alberto this week, and the White Sox signed Josh Harrison. None will be the best player on their team. None will be an MVP frontrunner. All three are interesting fits that will help their teams, though.
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The Atlanta Braves have decisively answered the questions about their newly acquired first baseman’s future with the team. On Tuesday, they signed Matt Olson to an eight-year, $168 million extension that will keep him with the club through the end of the 2029 season.

Olson still had two years of arbitration remaining, so the deal isn’t quite at the level he likely would have gotten as a free agent.

Breakdown on Olson: $15M in 2022, $21M in ‘23, $22M from ‘24 to ‘29. This is an extension, not a free-agent deal. Olson had two years of arbitration remaining. Gets roughly $140M to $145M in free-agent years.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) March 15, 2022

The speed with which the Braves signed Olson to an extension suggests that they wanted to avoid the sort of uncertainty they experienced with Freddie Freeman as his own long-term deal approached its expiration last fall. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, the Brewers, buoyed by their phenomenal pitching staff, easily won the National League Central in what was their fourth consecutive postseason appearance. But those four playoff teams all had the same flaw, one that led to October frustration: a weak offense that struggled to score runs consistently. The Brewers 2018 roster was the last unit to post a wRC+ at or above league average (they were right at 100); since then, they’ve put up marks of 97, 89, and 91. To address those run scoring issues, the Brewers have been focused on adding some firepower to their lineup this offseason. They traded for Hunter Renfroe and Mike Brosseau before the owners’ lockout, and on Monday, they reportedly brought Andrew McCutchen into the fold. (The details of his deal have not been disclosed as of publication.)

From 2009-17, McCutchen made a name for himself as a member of the division-rival Pirates. Traded before the 2018 season, he spent time that year with the Giants and Yankees before signing a three-year, $50 million deal with the Phillies prior to the ’19 season. He accumulated 2.5 WAR during his Phillies tenure, a stretch that saw him deal with a torn ACL and the pandemic. Entering his age-35 season, McCutchen has clearly declined from his peak, but he should continue to provide solid production for the Brewers as they shore up their lineup.

Last season, McCutchen posted an almost aesthetically perfect .222/.334/.444 slash line that ended up being seven percent better than league average. A career 12.2% walk rate gives him a solid offensive floor and his power production bounced back a bit after a slight dip in 2020. His plate discipline is a clear strength that hasn’t deteriorated. His 18.6% chase rate was the seventh lowest among all qualified batters last year. He did just post the highest strikeout rate of his career, with a corresponding jump in his swinging strike rate (up to 10%). But those additional strikeouts weren’t the result of poor swing decisions; instead, he had trouble making consistent contact, particularly with two strikes. McCutchen struck out 43.6% of the time when a plate appearance reached a two-strike count, a huge jump from the 35% rate he had posted over the previous four years. Read the rest of this entry »

The Reds and Mariners both finished just outside their respective leagues’ playoff pictures last season, but they’re heading in different directions for 2022. Less than 24 hours after trading Sonny Gray to Minnesota, Cincinnati dealt left fielder Jesse Winker and third baseman Eugenio Suárez to Seattle in exchange for a four-player package headlined by 23-year-old lefty Brandon Williamson, who recently landed at no. 61 on our Top 100 Prospects list.

Also heading from the Emerald City to the Queen City are right-hander Justin Dunn, outfielder Jake Fraley, and a player to be named later. Via The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal:

The SEA-CIN deal also includes a player to be named going back to the Reds, source tells @TheAthletic. Reds high on that player, believe it will enhance package

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) March 14, 2022

This is an aggressive move for the Mariners, who haven’t made the playoffs since 2001 and who last year won 90 games, two fewer than the Red Sox and Yankees, the AL’s Wild Card teams. The gave up a substantial amount of young pitching in an effort to shore up an offense that scored just 4.30 runs per game, the AL’s fifth-lowest total, and managed just a 93 wRC+, tied for the fourth-lowest mark. The Reds… well, they saved some money and got some impressive, controllable pitching, but they also gave up their most impactful hitter over the past two seasons — and a prominent voice in the clubhouse — in order to dump the $35 million owed to Suárez. Read the rest of this entry »

While titans of industry like Matt Olson, Nelson Cruz, and Josh Donaldson were changing teams, a few other things happened in the baseball world. For example: Sean Doolittle, Brad Hand, Ian Kennedy, and Chad Kuhl all found new teams. Sure, they weren’t the headliners of the last few days, but they’re all interesting in their own way. Let’s run down these signings alphabetically and maybe tell a joke or two while doing so.

Nationals Sign Sean Doolittle

When the Nationals traded for Sean Doolittle in 2017, he brought much-needed bullpen stability to an already-competitive team. Things aren’t quite the same for either side in their reunion. Doolittle had a down 2020, then signed a one-year, $1.5 million deal with the Reds. With Cincinnati out of the running and Doolittle losing high-leverage opportunities, they put him on waivers, and he finished his season as a middle reliever in Seattle. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, the Oakland Athletics traded star first baseman Matt Olson to the defending champion Atlanta Braves (analysis of the Braves’ side of the deal, courtesy of Dan Szymborski, can be found here) for a sizable package of prospects, including two from baseball’s Top 100. Coming back to Oakland is catcher Shea Langeliers, center fielder Cristian Pache, power-armed relief prospect Ryan Cusick, and polished teenage righty Joey Estes. All four new A’s prospects have been added to the team’s prospect list, both in the article and over on The Board.

In our opinion, the best of that group is 24-year-old Shea Langeliers. Ranking 70th overall and eighth among the catching prospects on our recently published Top 100, Langeliers combines plus or better defense with a power-over-hit game when he’s at the plate as opposed to behind it. His raw power blossomed into game power during the 2021 season, and while Langeliers isn’t an especially instinctual hitter (he projects as a sub-50 bat with contact issues), he has the potential to deliver 20-plus home runs per year. He has Gold Glove potential, with great hands and mobility to go with a strong, accurate arm that shuts down the running game. He also earns raves for his catching intangibles in terms of managing the game and working with pitchers. Theoretically, he’s lined up to start the year at Triple-A, be added to the 40-man after the season, and debut in 2023. His future in Oakland is tied closely and directly to that of incumbent star Sean Murphy, who reaches his first year of arbitration in 2023. We think Langeliers’ presence makes it more likely that Murphy is traded in the next 18 months.

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I hope you’ll allow a quick personal story. In December of 2018, while I was still working for the Astros, I engaged in talks with then-free agent Nelson Cruz’s representatives. Like many teams, the Astros were hesitant to give anything more than a one-year deal to a designated hitter who had turned 38 during the previous season. Ultimately, there was no multi-year pact to be had, and the Twins ended up winning a fierce competition for Cruz’s services with a one-year, $14 million deal that included a $12 million 2020 club option. Cruz would go on to have one of the best seasons of his career in 2019, making exercising that option a no-brainer; following the 2020 season, he signed another one-year, $13 million deal with Minnesota. Heading into this offseason, Cruz was still a much in-demand bat, particularly after it became clear that the National League would adopt the designated hitter, with the rumor mill linking him to as many as six teams. On Sunday, he landed with the Washington Nationals on a one-year, $12 million deal that includes a mutual option (which in reality isn’t really an option at all, but we’ll get to that in a bit).

Cruz has been an ageless wonder. From 2015-20, his age 34-to-39 seasons, he posted wRC+ marks ranging from 133 to 164. He slipped to a 122 wRC+ in 2021, including a 96 wRC+ in 55 games following a trade to the Rays; while a partial season, that represented his first sub-100 mark since 2007. It’s difficult to figure out exactly what went wrong while he was with the Rays, but it feels silly to simply assume that father time suddenly caught up to him after a strong first half of the season with the Twins. Read the rest of this entry »