Ryne Nelson emerged as the top pitching prospect in the Arizona Diamondbacks system in 2021. A second-round selection in 2019 out of the University of Oregon, the 23-year-old right-hander was named the organization’s Minor League Pitcher of the Year after logging a 3.17 ERA — with 163 strikeouts in 116-and-a-third innings — between High-A Hillsboro and Double-A Amarillo. Mixing and matching a riding fastball with a trio of solid secondaries, Nelson held opposing hitters to a .206 batting average and a .644 OPS. He issued just 40 free passes.

Originally a two-way player before becoming a closer at Oregon, the 6-foot-3, 180 pound Henderson, Nevada native transitioned into a starting role upon entering pro ball. Nelson — No. 5 on our newly-released Diamondbacks Top Prospects list — discussed his development, as well as his 2020 eye surgery, via phone earlier this week.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with a self scouting report. Who are you as a pitcher?

Ryne Nelson: “I would say that I’m aggressive in the zone, and I like to change speeds and eye levels.”

Laurila: Do you identify as a power pitcher?

Nelson: “I like to think so. I mean, ‘power pitcher’ is kind of changing nowadays — you’ve got to be up in the triple digits to be a power pitcher — but I do pitch off of my fastball.” Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Arizona Diamondbacks. 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 »

Position: Senior Development Operations (DevOps) Engineer

Summary
The Senior Development Operations Engineer will work closely with the multiple development and systems teams to manage the Brewers cloud infrastructure and DevOps systems. This individual will be responsible for collecting requirements, automating deployments, maintaining, and securing systems, monitoring, and logging all connections from various sources as well as preparing documentation. Read the rest of this entry »

Position: Developer, Baseball Systems

Department: Baseball Operations
Reports To: Director, Baseball Systems
Location: Boston, MA

Position Overview:
The Developer, Baseball Systems position will be a member of the baseball operations software development team, and is responsible for the design, development, and support, of all baseball systems. This individual will work closely with members of baseball operations to understand business requirements that drive the analysis, design, and development of quality baseball systems and solutions. This developer will collaborate closely with the Director of Baseball Systems, colleagues on the software development team, and baseball operations personnel from all departments. 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 Miami Marlins.

Batters

We’ll get the bad news out of the way first because, well, that’s the order we do these blurbs in. There’s a lot to like about the Miami Marlins, but most of those things are on the pitching side. The offensive holes aren’t so deep as to prevent baseballs or electromagnetic radiation from escaping. But the offense is thoroughly uninspiring wherever you look. The lineup is neither good nor particularly young, and as such, it will likely struggle to push the Marlins to be much better than the National League’s 14th-ranked offense in runs scored, Miami’s 2021 mark. 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. 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.

Tim Lincecum burned brightly but briefly. In a career that lasted just 10 major league seasons — the minimum to be included on a Hall of Fame ballot — and fewer innings than four of the eight enshrined relievers, Lincecum made four All-Star teams, pitched for three World Series winners, won two Cy Young awards, and threw two no-hitters. With his long hair, 5-foot-11, 170-pound frame, baby face, and unorthodox delivery, “The Freak” became one of the game’s most popular players, a cult hero in San Francisco and elsewhere.

Lincecum did all of this despite not pitching very well for the second half of that decade-long stretch (2007-16), though he certainly had his moments; both no-hitters and two of those World Series wins came when he was on the downslope of his brief career. What felled him wasn’t arm troubles but a degenerative condition in his hips, which compromised his range of motion and ability to generate power. Once his left hip labrum tore, he was too unstable to repeat his delivery, and his command suffered. The surprise wasn’t that his diminutive frame couldn’t withstand the physical toll of so many pitches and innings, but that he had dominated in the first place. Through it all, the Giants — and especially their fans — remained loyal to him, willing to give him a shot at recapturing the magic for just about as long as he was upright. Read the rest of this entry »

The most recent of my “Who Was Better” polls on Twitter featured Dale Murphy and Ken Singleton, and while it drew only a modicum of interest — only 95 people cast votes — the results were nonetheless telling. Murphy won in resounding fashion — 76.8% to Singleton’s 23.2% — and it’s unlikely that the percentages would have been markedly different with a more-robust sample size. Murphy is a two-time MVP who made seven All-Star teams and was once on a Hall of Fame trajectory. Singleton made three All-Star teams and received nary a vote in his one year on the ballot.

But was Murphy actually better than the less-ballyhooed Singleton, who broke into the big leagues with the New York Mets before excelling with the Montreal Expos and the Baltimore Orioles? Let’s look at a few of their numbers, keeping in mind that Murphy played in 2,180 games, Singleton in 2.082 games.

Murphy: .265/.346/.469, 2,111 hits, 398 HR, .357 wOBA, 119 wRC+, 44.3 WAR.
Singleton: .282/.388/.436, 2,029 hits, 246 HR,.371 wOBA, 134 wRC+, 44.4 WAR.

Peaks matter, so here is the best eight-year stretch for both: Read the rest of this entry »

Elijah Dunham had a promising first professional season in the New York Yankees system. Signed as a non-drafted free agent following 2020’s COVID-shortened five-round draft, the 23-year-old Indiana University product slashed .263/.362/.463 with 13 home runs in 395 plate appearances between Low-A Tampa and High-A Hudson Valley. He proceeded to rake in the Arizona Fall League. In 101 plate appearances with the Surprise Saguaros, the left-handed hitting Dunham went deep twice while slashing a stand-up-and-take-notice .357/.465/.571.

Dunham — an Honorable Mention on our newly-released Yankees Top Prospects list — discussed his disappointing draft-day experience, and the developmental strides he’s made since entering pro ball, late in the Arizona Fall League season.

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David Laurila: What were your conversations with teams leading into the draft?

Elijah Dunham: “A handful of [scouts] told me they were probably going to take me in the fourth or the fifth. My agent thought I was probably going to go somewhere in the fifth. But then, when draft day rolled around, he called and said ‘Hey, I think we fell out.’ In my mind, I was like, ‘There’s no way.’ But it happened.”

Laurila: Did your agent get calls on draft day, asking if you’d sign for X amount if you were taken in whatever round?

Dunham: “I didn’t even talk to my agent about it, because I was pretty distraught. But I had one call come straight to me, from the area scout, with their pick coming up. He asked if I’d take so-and-so amount, and I said, ‘Yeah, definitely.’ It just never happened.”

Laurila: Which team was that? Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the New York Yankees. 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 »

Episode 957

This week on the show, David Laurila is joined by Dan Dickerson, radio voice of the Detroit Tigers who last joined us back in episode 892, and Don Gonyea, a long-time political correspondent for National Public Radio and a diehard Tigers fan in his own right.

Dan and Don share stories of their decades-long friendship, as well as the baseball they have followed and covered. They reminisce about Mark Fidrych and “the summer of The Bird,” getting to know the legendary Ernie Harwell, following sports and meeting fans while working around the globe, and the fateful day of Armando Galarraga’s near-perfect game.

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