On May 14, I wrote about how despite some early excitement, the Tigers were struggling to meet the expectations of their rebuild and were on course for a historically bad 2021 season, or at least the first overall pick in the draft. Since then, however, some things have changed, and while they likely won’t be making any kind of a postseason push (our Playoff Odds still have their chances at 0.0%), what they have been doing is playing exciting, fun, winning baseball.

Case in point: their Wednesday afternoon game against the Twins. That 17–14 slugfest exemplified pretty much everything that is going right and wrong for the club over the past few months: an aggressive offense with two legitimate Rookie of the Year contenders, and a pitching staff that can turn even a 10–0 lead into something uncertain.

The improvements in the offense have been the biggest part of Detroit’s success. In April, the team was dead last in wRC+ at a dismal 63; now, the offense ranks 18th overall at 93. That looks even better if we narrow it down to just July, in which Detroit ranked 12th at 107. Oddly, the Tigers have been excellent in high-leverage situations; for the season, they rank eighth in that split with a 108 wRC+, and if we look solely at the month of July, that goes up to an incredible 164. Similarly, with runners in scoring position, the team has a wRC+ of 103 on the season and 135 in July, up from 92 in April.

Where are the Tigers finding this surge? One of the biggest stories here has to be the incredible rookie season of Akil Baddoo, who made waves by hitting a home run in his first major league plate appearance, struggled slightly at the beginning of May, and has since found his rhythm once more, slashing .309/.394/.497 in his last 56 games. If not for an already loaded class, Baddoo would likely be garnering some attention for Rookie of the Year discussions; he’s currently hitting .273/.345/.494 with a 126 wRC+ and a team-leading 1.9 WAR.

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The Toronto Blue Jays made a small addition on Thursday, picking up reliever Brad Hand from the Washington Nationals for catcher Riley Adams. Hand had a 3.59 ERA and 4.33 FIP in 41 games for the Nats as Daniel Hudson’s successor at closer. Adams struggled in his brief major league debut this season, going 3-for-30, but has played better for Buffalo with a .239/.371/.487 line in 35 games.

Before Hand’s acquisition, our depth charts ranked the Jays’ bullpen 27th in baseball, making them one of only two serious playoff contenders with a ‘pen in the bottom third of the league. That wasn’t entirely Toronto’s fault, as the relief corps has been decimated by injuries this season. It started with Kirby Yates needing Tommy John surgery before throwing a single regular season pitch for the Jays, and continued with the loss of Julian Merryweather a couple of weeks later, David Phelps and A.J. Cole in May, and Carl Edwards Jr., Tyler Chatwood, and Anthony Castro in the last six weeks. The team has increasingly leaned on Jordan Romano and Tim Mayza, and if it weren’t for Tayler Saucedo‘s solid debut and Adam Cimber’s recent acquisition, the wheels might have come off the bus already.

Adding Hand helps staunch the bleeding, but he’s no longer the kind of pitcher who can heal the wound. On paper, his 2020 was excellent (he posted a 2.05 ERA and a 1.37 FIP), but there were signs of trouble, including a dip in velocity and Hand’s worst xFIP since his days as a Marlins swingman without an out pitch. Cleveland placed Hand on waivers last October, but the erosion of his skills was such that no team wanted to commit to picking up his $10 million option that early in the offseason. He later signed a one-year, $10.5 million deal to join Washington. Read the rest of this entry »

The much anticipated Joey Gallo deal is now official. You can read my colleague Dan Szymborski’s analysis of the Yankees’ side of the trade here. The Rangers are set to acquire infielders Ezequiel Duran, Josh Smith and Trevor Hauver, as well as right-handed pitcher Glenn Otto, in exchange for Gallo and Joely Rodríguez. Even if what was once a six-player return from the Yankees has fizzled down to four, make no mistake: this is a bulk deal. At the same time, there’s considerable quality to the quantity heading back to Texas; there are no throw-ins here. The Rangers were able to add a pair of players who enter their system’s top 10, while the remaining two both deserve the moniker of “prospect.” Meanwhile, the Yankees don’t just get the best left-handed power source in baseball, they also cleared much of their mild 40-man roster crunch, as Eric Longenhagen detailed on Wednesday.

The best prospect in the deal is Ezequiel Duran, a 22-year-old second baseman who was hitting .290/374/.533 at High-A Hudson Valley. His calling card is plus raw power, with maximum exit velocities pushing the 110 mph range. His plate discipline is solid, but his violent swing mechanics out of a 5-foot-11 frame produce plenty of swing-and-miss to go with the pop. He’s a fringy runner who lacks arm strength, and he’s already been moved to second base, where most scouts put a 40-45 grade on his defense. He projects as an offense-first player at the corner who can hit .250-.275 with 18-24 bombs a year to go with a decent walk rate. A more refined approach would up that projection a bit. He becomes the No. 3 prospect in the Rangers system. Read the rest of this entry »

The Brewers have built a commanding lead in the NL Central, with a 7 1/2-game advantage over second-place Cincinnati. The team is being carried by the best starting rotation in baseball and a solid bullpen, the second-best run prevention unit in baseball behind the Giants. The offense is far less impressive, having scored just 4.4 runs per game this year with a wRC+ of 90 that ranks 22nd in the majors. Milwaukee’s pitching staff is more than good enough to carry it into the playoffs, so the front office has been focused on bringing in reinforcements to help the lineup. The team had already acquired Willy Adames and Rowdy Tellez in separate trades earlier this season. On Wednesday, it added another infielder to the mix, agreeing to a trade for Eduardo Escobar and sending two prospects, catcher/infielder Cooper Hummel and infielder Alberto Ciprian, to Arizona in exchange.

Escobar is in the last season of a three-year deal he signed back in 2019, and with the Diamondbacks’ 2021 a total loss, he was an obvious candidate to be moved; the only question was where. The White Sox had been connected to him a little earlier this month, but a finalized deal never materialized. Instead, the Brewers swooped in and added the versatile infielder to their roster.

The switch-hitter is in the midst of a resurgent season. From 2017 to ‘19, Escobar hit 79 home runs, posted a wRC+ of 108, and accumulated 8.8 WAR for the Twins and Diamondbacks. Things fell apart last year, though, as his power dried up and his wRC+ fell to 56. He’s gone back to normal this year, with 22 home runs, a wRC+ back up to 105, and the Diamondbacks’ lone All-Star roster spot a few weeks ago. Under the hood, his batted ball peripherals look like they’re intact from or improved on his peak.

All that power that had escaped last season is back this year, and he’s increased his hard-hit rate and barrel rate, which has helped him offset a slight uptick in strikeout rate. On top of that, Escobar’s fly ball rate is pushing 50% for the first time in his career, and he’s pulling the ball more often than ever — and that batted ball profile stays consistent no matter which side he’s hitting from.

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One day after adding Kendall Graveman, one of this season’s best relievers, in a somewhat strange trade, the Astros picked up another bullpen arm on Wednesday, acquiring Yimi García from the Marlins. In exchange for García, the Marlins received a right-handed reliever of their own, Austin Pruitt, who was designated for assignment following Houston’s trade with Seattle, as well as minor league outfielder Bryan De La Cruz.

From a logistical standpoint, the deal is rather straightforward: The Marlins are not in contention and have a solidly performing reliever who is a free agent at the end of the season. The Astros, meanwhile, have dealt with a middling bullpen so far, one that certainly warrants additions to gear up for a playoff run. Through games on Tuesday, the Astros’ relief group ranked 19th in WAR, at 1.3, and 20th in WPA, at -1.24. There’s nothing wrong with adding a couple of extra arms for the home stretch, and that’s exactly what they did in acquiring Graveman and García.

Miami picked up García on a one-year, $1.1 million contract after was non-tendered by the Dodgers at the end of 2019. After a strong 2020 campaign — he only pitched 15 innings, but allowed just a single run, striking out 19 of the 60 batters he faced (31.7% strikeout rate), while walking just five (8.3% walk rate) — the Marlins decided to tender him a contract for this year. He is earning $1.9 million in 2021, and though the results have not been as sterling as they were during the COVID-shortened season — he’s pitched to a 3.47 ERA, a 23.2% strikeout rate and an 8.6% walk rate in 36.1 innings — García has been a dependable reliever, often pitching the ninth. He’ll be bumped to setup duty with the Astros, who now have a pretty strong group of arms to handle the late innings:

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The Reds have continued to overhaul their bullpen during the final week before the deadline, acquiring right-hander Mychal Givens, who has undergone a bit of a transformation himself this year, from the Rockies in return for minor league right-handers Case Williams and Noah Davis. Cincinnati will be responsible for roughly $1.5 million of Givens’ remaining salary in his final year of arbitration before he reaches free agency this offseason.

Givens is a player more valued by the industry than fans; consistent relievers, even if they are just consistently solid, are a rare commodity. And Givens is just that, with the weird 2020 season as his only campaign with a negative WAR, and just -0.1 at that. He’s not a high-leverage guy, but he is at least dependable.

His 2.73 ERA this year isn’t supported by most metrics that consistently put him in the 4-plus range, but Givens has a consistent track record of missing bats with both his 92–96-mph fastball and plus changeup, both of which come from a funky, extra-low arm angle. His changeup has always been his best pitch, and over the last three years, he’s gone from using it around 10% of the time to nearly 20% in 2020 to a whopping 40% this season. It makes sense based on how well the pitch performs; you could easily make an argument that Givens should go with a Trevor Hoffman-esque approach of leaning primarily on his fastball/changeup combination and greatly reduce his slider usage, as his fringy breaker gets consistently hit hard. Read the rest of this entry »

In last week’s Replacement Level Killers series, I highlighted the A’s subpar production both at shortstop and right field, noting that while the Rockies’ Trevor Story made particular sense for Oakland in light of how set most other contenders are at shortstop, the team was instead prioritizing adding a bigger outfield bat. On Wednesday they did just that, albeit at a significant cost, acquiring Marlins outfielder Starling Marte and cash in exchange for promising but underperforming lefty Jesús Luzardo.

For the A’s — who entered Wednesday at 57-46, six games back in the AL West but two games ahead in the race for the second AL Wild Card spot — this is a bold, win-now move whose full ramifications might not be felt for years. The 32-year-old Marte, who has now been traded three times in the past 18 months including near consecutive deadlines, is in the final option year of a six-year extension that he signed with the Pirates in March 2014, so he’s just a two-month rental. The 23-year-old Luzardo is a former third-round pick who entered the 2020 season as the number six prospect on Eric Longenhagen’s list, but after a solid rookie season, he’s struggled so much that he was demoted to Triple-A Las Vegas long enough to delay his free agency; he has five full seasons of club control remaining. The Marlins reportedly sent along $4.5 million to cover the entirety of Marte’s remaining salary in order to add Luzardo to their stable of young arms.

On the positive side of the ledger for Oakland, Marte is in the midst of one of his best seasons with the bat, hitting .305/.405/.451 with seven homers and 22 steals en route to 3.3 WAR. Driven by newfound plate discipline, he’s walked in 11.6% of his plate appearances, more than double his career rate; his on-base percentage and 140 wRC+ both represent career highs. He’s swinging at a career-low 31.9% of pitches outside the zone, down over seven percentage points from last year, and 4.6 points below his career mark. His 10.3% swinging strike rate is a career low. Here’s a quick look at his Statcast swing/take breakdown:

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On Wednesday night, the New York Yankees pulled off a blockbuster trade, grabbing outfielder Joey Gallo from the Texas Rangers in a deal that will also see the Yankees pick up lefty reliever Joely Rodríguez once it is made official. Heading to Texas are pitcher Glenn Otto and infielders Ezequiel Duran, Trevor Hauver, and Josh Smith. In his seventh season in Texas, Gallo has already set a personal best in WAR at 3.4, thanks to a .223/.379/.490, 25 home run effort coupled with continued Gold Glove-caliber defense in right field.

We’re focusing on the major league part of the trade here; for more information on the players moving to Texas, fellow FanGraphiér Kevin Goldstein has published his analysis.

To my eyes, Gallo’s departure brings to an end what has been to this point the most successful epoch in Texas Rangers history. Gallo wasn’t a part of the teams that twice reached the World Series (the first such appearances in franchise history) or won 90 games for four consecutive seasons, but he was a leading part of the vanguard that was supposed to succeed Texas’ core of veteran talent. Many in history have seized a throne, but to build a dynasty, you need to pass it on to the next generation. If the Rangers could transition smoothly from the Adrian Beltre/Josh Hamilton/Michael Young/Ian Kinsler era to one spearheaded by some of the gaggle of talent that included Gallo, Rougned Odor, Jorge Alfaro, Lewis Brinson, Craig Gentry, Michael Choice, Nomar Mazara, and Luis Sardiñas (I could keep going), Texas’ legacy would be complete, potentially allowing them to grab a championship in the process.

But it wasn’t meant to be. The Rangers flopped in 2014 thanks to injury, and most of the above-mentioned prospects were either traded to fill short-term needs or failed to develop into the players Texas hoped they would. Brinson was sent to Milwaukee for a year and a half of Jonathan Lucroy. Alfaro, Nick Williams, and others went to Philly for Cole Hamels. Choice was sold to the Indians; Sardiñas helped bring Yovani Gallardo over from the Brewers. Odor and Mazara developed enough to make the majors, only to regress and fade from the team’s plans. But Gallo stayed and developed, and while he may not have become an MVP candidate, he was approaching the Rangers’ top 20 all-time in position player WAR and likely would have pulled up just behind Mike Hargrove by season’s end. Read the rest of this entry »

With the help of an endearing smile and wipeout slider, Sergio Romo has become a favorite of many a fanbase throughout his long and successful career. Currently with the Oakland A’s, Romo is in his 14th season. At age 38, you would expect any pitcher to be a shell of their former self, yet Romo continues to get hitters out in mostly the same way he always has: sliders, sliders and more sliders. He even has a new wrinkle that might be making his slider even better.

Of course, this season hasn’t gone exactly to plan. Romo got off to quite a rough start; through April he had a 9.35 ERA and 5.70 FIP. He wasn’t getting strikeouts at his usual level (13.3% K-rate) and his dominant slider was uncharacteristically hittable (.370 wOBA). Given his age and the way his 2020 ended (he had a 5.59 FIP in September), you had to wonder whether Romo’s time in the big leagues was drawing to a close. Come May however, he had righted the ship in a big way and since then he’s been the A’s most dominant reliever, posting a 1.88 ERA and 1.83 FIP. Most importantly for fans of his slider, the pitch is back to doing this:

That location off the plate is where Romo likes to live with his slider but he wasn’t able to execute there when he was struggling in April. Take a look at his slider heat maps to righties:

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Tuesday night, the Mariners continued what had already been a busy day, following up the Kendall Graveman trade by acquiring pitcher Tyler Anderson from the Pittsburgh Pirates for catcher Carter Bins and pitcher Joaquin Tejada. Anderson’s had a solid, but unspectacular, season as Pittsburgh’s ace-by-process-of-elimination, putting up a 4.35 ERA and 4.26 FIP in 103 1/3 innings over 18 starts, good for 1.3 WAR.

Anderson’s unlikely to be the best pitcher acquired this week, but he ought to be a solid back-of-rotation pickup by the Mariners, who woke up Wednesday morning just a game behind Oakland for the second Wild Card spot. Anderson was originally set to become the number-three starter for the Phillies instead, but once that trade fell apart, the Mariners swooped in to close a deal themselves.

Given Seattle’s present proximity to the playoffs, it makes sense to shore up one of the team’s weaker areas, especially when it doesn’t involve giving up significant pieces of the future. Two of the rotation’s expected key contributors, Marco Gonzales and Justus Sheffield, have struggled in 2021, and with Sheffield and Justin Dunn currently out with injuries, there’s less in the larder than the M’s would like. There are better pitchers available; bringing in Max Scherzer would be way more fun than incrementally shoring up the starters. But while the M’s aren’t trying to tank, I think the Graveman-Abraham Toro trade — one the team’s players are quite unhappy with — is a strong indication that the team isn’t willing to throw all their chips into the pot to chase this playoff spot. Read the rest of this entry »