John Means is the best pitcher on the Baltimore Orioles. In a different world, that might be exciting to Baltimore fans as the team builds a contender. An 11th round draft pick in 2014, Means climbed the minor league ladder, burst into the majors with a 3.60 ERA in 2019, and started throwing harder over the subsequent years. Can he be the best pitcher on a playoff team? I’m skeptical. But can he be the third-best? Definitely, and that’s a really cool outcome for someone who was never supposed to make it this far.

Of course, modern baseball being what it is, Means likely won’t be on the next playoff team in Baltimore. Instead, he’ll probably get traded for whatever the O’s can get, because he’s arbitration-eligible and only three years from free agency. You don’t build generational team wealth by passing up the opportunity to trade your good players for future considerations, at least not the way Baltimore is attempting to build for the future. The team is reportedly looking to trade Means, and I think they’ll find a match. So let’s talk about what the team that wins the Means bidding will be getting for their prospects and salary relief.

If you trade for Means, you’re not doing it for the strikeouts. You could look at his career numbers to tell you that, or you could look at his performance in his last 14 starts after returning from an IL stint. He struck out only 20% of the batters he faced, which isn’t cover-your-eyes bad but definitely shouldn’t top your rotation. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the San Francisco Giants.

Batters

I feel a bit of disquietude when projecting the 2022 Giants. Following up on your biggest team projection miss in nearly 20 years of making said projections doesn’t feel great. Even worse is when your current projection is far closer to the previous year’s very wrong forecast than it is to the previous season’s actual win total. It’s a challenge to convince people that I didn’t write a model for sour grapes and reassure them that I’m an egalitarian who hates every team equally, no matter which one you root for!

In this case, I generally agree with ZiPS that the most significant regressions toward the mean will come on the offense. Let’s start with catcher. At least with the bat, Buster Posey matched some of his best seasons with his stunning 2021 campaign, this despite sitting out the entire 2020 season. With a 35-year-old catcher, it was already likely that some of those wins were going to melt off San Francisco’s total, but Posey’s retirement makes the position even more uncertain. Joey Bart is an outstanding prospect, but even just replacing Posey’s 2022 projection is going to be a tall order. ZiPS does like Bart’s bat a little better than Steamer does, but I don’t think he’s going to make fans forget their retired franchise player particularly quickly. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2022 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2015 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. 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.

Wherever Gary Sheffield went, he made noise, both with his bat and his voice. For the better part of two decades, he ranked among the game’s most dangerous hitters, a slugger with a keen batting eye and a penchant for contact that belied his quick, violent swing. For even longer than that, he was one of the game’s most outspoken players, unafraid to speak up when he felt he was being wronged and unwilling to endure a situation that wasn’t to his liking. He was a polarizing player, and hardly one for the faint of heart.

At the plate, Sheffield was viscerally impressive like few others. With his bat twitching back and forth like the tail of a tiger waiting to pounce, he was pure menace in the batter’s box. He won a batting title, launched over 500 home runs — 14 seasons with at least 20 and eight with at least 30 — and put many a third base coach in peril with some of the most terrifying foul balls anyone has ever seen. For as violent as his swing may have been, it was hardly wild; not until his late 30s did he strike out more than 80 times in a season, and in his prime, he walked far more often than he struck out. Read the rest of this entry »

Jeremiah Jackson made meaningful developmental strides this season. More mental than mechanical, they came amid an injury-interrupted campaign that saw him miss 11 weeks with a torn quad. Playing almost exclusively with the Low-A Inland Empire 66ers, the 21-year-old middle infield prospect homered 10 times while putting up a healthy 128 wRC+ over 218 plate appearances.

How satisfied was he with his performance?

“Satisfied is a word you kind of don’t use in baseball,” said Jackson, whom the Los Angeles Angels drafted 57th overall out of a Mobile, Alabama high school in 2018. “But under the circumstances, I was happy with how I played when I did play. I obviously could have been better, but I’m by no means mad. I learned a lot.”

Jackson feels that his time on the shelf — he was out from late June until early September — contributed to his education. Having more time on his hands allowed him to take a step back and study pitchers throughout the course of a game. How are they attacking certain hitters? What are they seeing that makes them want to throw a certain pitch? What are their mindsets on the mound?

Translating those observations to the batter’s box remains the objective. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Los Angeles Angels. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the second year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the numbered prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2022 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2018 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. 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.

“A hard-charging third baseman” who “could have played shortstop with more range than Cal Ripken.” “A no-nonsense star.” “The perfect baseball player.” Scott Rolen did not lack for praise, particularly in the pages of Sports Illustrated at the height of his career. A masterful, athletic defender with the physical dimensions of a tight end (listed at 6-foot-4, 245 pounds), Rolen played with an all-out intensity, sacrificing his body in the name of stopping balls from getting through the left side of the infield. Many viewed him as the position’s best for his time, and he more than held his own with the bat as well, routinely accompanying his 25 to 30 homers a year with strong on-base percentages.

There was much to love about Rolen’s game, but particularly in Philadelphia, the city where he began his major league career and the one with a reputation for fraternal fondness, he found no shortage of critics — even in the Phillies organization. Despite winning 1997 NL Rookie of the Year honors and emerging as a foundation-type player, Rolen was blasted publicly by manager Larry Bowa and special assistant to the general manager Dallas Green. While ownership pinched pennies and waited for a new ballpark, fans booed and vilified him. Eventually, Rolen couldn’t wait to skip town, even when offered a deal that could have been worth as much as $140 million. Traded in mid-2002 to the Cardinals, he referred to St. Louis as “baseball heaven,” which only further enraged the Philly faithful. Read the rest of this entry »

As last week’s free agent frenzy entered its final day in anticipation of a lockout by the owners, a pair of clubs entered the fray by filling clear needs for late-inning relievers.

Beginning with the move that is far more likely to impact the standings in 2022, the Philadelphia Phillies signed right-hander Corey Knebel to a one-year, $10 million deal. Knebel will seemingly replace the recently departed Héctor Neris as the club’s closer, but that makes quite an assumption about Knebel’s availability for a full 162-game schedule.

Knebel’s ability to close has never been in question, at least based on his pure stuff. In 2017, he had one of the most un-hittable seasons out of the ‘pen in recent memory, striking out 126 over 76 innings while allowing just 48 hits en route to 39 saves, a 1.78 ERA and a 2.53 FIP for the Milwaukee Brewers. He saw a minor decline in 2018 as he struggled with knee and hamstring issues, and just hasn’t really pitched that much since. Between Tommy John surgery in 2019 and an extended issue with a lat injury in ’21, Knebel has pitched just 39 innings over 42 games in the last three seasons combined, with mixed results: he fared poorly in 13.1 innings with Milwaukee in 2020, but when he was on the mound for the Dodgers last season, the results were good, posting a 2.45 ERA and a 2.90 FIP. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Seattle Mariners.

Batters

This is one case where just taking a glance at the depth chart graphic could lend the wrong impression. In the below graphic, two of the four most valuable ZiPS-projected hitters have their contributions split among multiple positions, with lesser players bringing down their overall numbers, and a third isn’t even on the depth chart. What’s more, the Mariners have reasonably good depth, especially offensively, and while the ceiling on most of the lineup isn’t exceptionally high, I do think they have a pretty high floor. I also don’t believe that Evan White has anywhere near enough remaining rope to get 300 plate appearances in 2022 if he matches his projection below. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Baltimore Orioles.

Batters

The history of the post-Earl Weaver Orioles has not been a happy one. Over his first stint with Baltimore, from 1968 to ’82, they were the winningest team in baseball, with 1,570 total wins, and averaged four wins per season more than the next-best team, the Reds, during that stretch. At no time during this era did the O’s finish below .500, and that even leaves out their last World Series championship in 1983. Weaver wasn’t just one of the best managers in baseball, but a very modern manager who used what analytics were available at the time.

But the failure of the O’s isn’t just a failure of managing. Weaver was great, but the team’s assembly line of young talent was a pivotal piece to the puzzle. While there are certainly some notable successes, the Orioles simply haven’t produced that much talent over the last 20–30 years. It certainly didn’t help that they placed a low priority on finding talent in Latin America for a long time, depriving them of a source that pretty much everyone else in baseball happily accessed. Read the rest of this entry »

Position: Player Development Affiliate Intern

Locations: Charlotte, NC; Birmingham, AL; Winston-Salem, NC; Kannapolis, NC; Glendale, AZ

Summary:
The Chicago White Sox are seeking multiple seasonal Player Development Affiliate Interns. This entry level opportunity will provide individuals with a wide range of experiences in professional baseball. These positions will assist with front office administrative projects and support Minor League coaching staffs at affiliate locations throughout the Minor League season. Read the rest of this entry »