At the outset of the season, the Dodgers were forecast for a major league-high 100 wins thanks to their incredible depth, which included eight plausible candidates for their starting rotation. Thanks to a recent surge, 100 wins remains a realistic target — their .609 winning percentage puts them on pace for 99, and our updated projections forecast them for 98 — but that herd of starters has dwindled due to injuries and other matters. On Wednesday, that herd got even smaller, as the team placed Clayton Kershaw on the 10-day injured list due to a bout of inflammation in his left forearm.

According to manager Dave Roberts, Kershaw “felt something in the elbow” while playing catch earlier this week, but beyond that, there’s no indication as to the severity of his injury, or his prognosis. He’ll undergo an MRI and other tests after the team returns to Los Angeles for its weekend series with the Diamondbacks. With less than a week until the All-Star break, the timing of the move is such that he might only miss one start and would be eligible to return to action on Saturday, July 17.

That said, while this is the sixth season in a row that the three-time Cy Young winner has landed on the injured list, it’s the first time he’s been sidelined for an injury involving his forearm or elbow, and if he’s suffered a strain or a sprain — gulp — he could miss substantial time. Only last season, when he was scratched on Opening Day for a bout of lower back stiffness, has Kershaw returned from the IL as soon as he was eligible:

The 33-year-old Kershaw has pitched well this season, posting a 3.39 ERA and 3.00 FIP in 106.1 innings and lasting at least six innings in 14 of his 18 starts. His FIP, 30.1% strikeout rate, and 25.6% strikeout-walk differential are all his best marks since 2016, respectively ranking sixth, ninth, and third in the NL; he’s also third in walk rate (4.5%). Even so, he was bypassed for a spot on the NL All-Star team, along with every other Dodgers pitcher, despite the team’s NL-low 3.21 ERA and its third-ranked 3.63 FIP. That could change as replacements are announced; Jacob deGrom, for example, has said he will decline his invitation in favor of resting his body and spending time with his family.

Read the rest of this entry »

Devlin Granberg is an under-the-radar prospect enjoying a breakout season. Boston’s sixth-round pick in 2018 out of Dallas Baptist University, the 25-year-old first baseman/outfielder — unranked on our 2021 Red Sox Top Prospects list — is slashing .315/.379/.573 between High-A Greenville and Double-A Portland. Swinging from the right side, the Hudson, Colorado native has slugged eight home runs while putting up a healthy 155 wRC+.

Granberg talked hitting prior to a recent game at Portland’s Hadlock Field.

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David Laurila: How much have you changed since coming to pro ball?

Devlin Granberg: “I’ve had a very similar swing since probably my sophomore year in college. I’ve got a very immobile body — I have tight hips and tight shoulders — but that helps me stay more consistent. It’s kind of what has allowed me to stay with a very similar swing.

“I think the biggest change for me has been the routine. It’s the same thing every single day, whereas in college you’re able to split it up. [College] is similar day-to-day, sure, but you also have different midweek games and practices, plus you get days off. Here, you have to get into a good routine and put yourself in the same state of mind each day in order to hit 95 [mph], or whatever it is the minor leagues throws at you.”

Laurila: Is a strict routine ever a negative? For instance, if you’re scuffling at the plate and doing the same thing day after day…

Granberg: “That’s actually one thing I learned this offseason. In my routine, I have different routines — I have two or three different drill sets that I do in the cage, and I never do the same thing on repeated days. Does that make sense? So, back-to-back days, I never do things exactly the same. I started implementing that in quarantine and I think it’s actually helped me stay a little bit more consistent. I think you have to keep the body guessing. If you stick to the same routine over and over, at some point the body is going to compensate, and then it’s going to overcompensate.

“A routine that is very positive could be maybe neutral, or maybe slightly negative, if you continuously do it every single day. That’s why I try to keep it fresh and mix it up. I’ll go BP, machine work, different things like that.”

Laurila: What was your routine today? Read the rest of this entry »

We have speed limits for a reason. Excessive speed is a factor in more than a quarter of automobile fatalities and is particularly deadly when combined with other dangerous behaviors behind the wheel. And yet, the idea that we can drive 5-10 mph over the limit without repercussion is so entrenched in our collective psyche — and so effectively decriminalized in most American cities — that most people hardly think twice about driving 35 in a 30. Behind this normalization lies an unexamined, exceptionalist belief: “This speed limit may be a good idea, but I have the ability to exceed it safely.”

There are a number of behaviors that fit into this category of exceptionalism: I’m the one who can get away with not flossing, I can spend hours on social media without consequence, I can stay cool into my 40s. Narcissism lies at the end of this road, but most of us don’t make it nearly that far. In doses, it’s entirely normal to think that general principles don’t apply to you personally. The contradiction at play is just part of the human experience, and it’s not always unhealthy: from this wellspring comes hope and ambition, among other traits and emotions.

As far as baseball is concerned, a no-hitter is perhaps the most wholesome embodiment of this form of individual exceptionalism. In the modern game, chasing a no-no is a retrograde “screw you,” not only to the opponent, but to the conventions of our time. “Take your third time through the order penalty and shove it,” and all that. Understandably, there was a bit of no-hitter fatigue swirling through the audience earlier this season. For me though, even with the increased frequency, the no-hitter remains a rebellion, and it’s as badass as ever. Read the rest of this entry »

Through 18 starts and 111.1 innings pitched, Zack Greinke has compiled a 3.64 ERA. To say those figures play at the top of a major league starting rotation would be an understatement. The mere fact that Greinke remains a good pitcher at the age of 37 in his 18th season is an accomplishment in itself. Arriving in Kansas City as a 20-year-old, just two years after being drafted sixth overall out of high school, Greinke has put together quite the career, accumulating 64.2 WAR (which ranks 42nd all-time and third among active players), winning a Cy Young Award in 2009, and finishing in the top-10 of Cy Young voting on four other occasions (’13, ’14, ’15, and ’17). His Cy Young campaign was 12 years ago and he is still an important cog on a club with World Series aspirations, a testament to Greinke’s greatness and longevity. And that’s to say nothing of what he has battled to become and remain one of the best pitchers in the sport for over a decade.

I prefaced this piece with a brief rundown of Greinke’s amazing career because I am going to be throwing up some red flags in regards to his performance thus far. Despite the excellent ERA I referenced to start, his strikeout rate is down to 18.5% (league average is 23.8%) after posting a rate of 24.5% in 2020 and 23.7% from when he signed in Arizona in 2016 through last season. His walk rate is up to 5%, still almost half the league average of about 9% but an increase compared to his 3.7% and 3.3% walk rates in 2019 and ’20, respectively. Greinke is inducing fewer groundballs than in any season since his Cy Young Award-winning 2009. From 2010-19, he allowed a groundball rate of 46.8%. In 2020, that plummeted to 41.2% and this year he is down to 40.9%. That means 59.1% of the contact he has allowed has been in the air. He has maintained his ERA with the help of a below-average HR/FB ratio and a HR/9 rate about 9% less than the rest of the league. His FIP remains at a solid 4.07, buoyed by his aforementioned home run fortune. Regress that HR/FB ratio towards league average and you get an xFIP of 4.14. Put a little more emphasis on his strikeout struggles and the types of batted balls allowed and you get a SIERA of 4.39, which is a tad less than 8% worse than league average.

So what gives? In his last four seasons, aging curve be damned, he has thrown 3.68 SIERA ball over a not insignificant sample of 685.2 innings, which placed him third in the majors behind only Jacob deGrom (690.1) and Gerrit Cole (688.2). Obviously Greinke is at the point in his career where we expect degradation in his performance, but this dip in his peripherals seems noteworthy given all his success, both in terms of surface-level numbers and those under-the-hood, in recent vintage. Read the rest of this entry »

In late June and in just his fourth major league start, Marlins right-hander Zach Thompson accomplished something that has only been done nine times in the last decade. Facing the Nationals, he went six innings, allowed just two runs (one earned), and struck out 11. In the process, he became the 10th pitcher in the last 10 seasons to strike out 11 or more batters in his first four career appearances — certainly a qualifier-heavy fact, but it still yields quite an impressive list of names:

As the table shows, it’s rare to break into the major leagues with the level of dominance that Thompson displayed, but his path here has been even more fascinating.

In perhaps the most innocuous of moves, the Marlins signed Thompson last November as a minor league free agent to serve as additional bullpen depth. Even still, he was one of the team’s top targets on the minor league free-agent market, Marlins director of pro scouting Hadi Raad told Christina De Nicola of MLB.com, in what he said was based on a blend of scouting and analytics. As Marlins manager Don Mattingly told De Nicola after Thompson’s start against the Nationals, “It’s like, ‘How does this guy get away from teams?’ I liked his stuff, but you never know where that goes, too, after spring training. Sometimes those guys go to Triple-A and you never see them again. Zach, I think, started a little slow, and then kind of got it going. He’s been impressive, so hopefully this just keeps going.” Read the rest of this entry »

A pivotal series between the two teams atop the AL West kicked off on Tuesday with the Astros beating the A’s to extend their division lead to 4.5 games. It was an unusually shaky start from Chris Bassitt, who allowed six runs and couldn’t escape the fifth inning, but he turned the game over to Oakland’s bullpen with the game knotted at six runs apiece. The combo of J.B. Wendelken and Yusmeiro Petit, though, quickly changed that, allowing two runs in the sixth to put the A’s behind for good.

The A’s have routinely found ways to create value despite a small piggy bank, but the bullpen is probably the biggest concern with the team so far. That’s nothing unusual; most teams in the majors stress over their bullpen. But the A’s are not an ordinary team. During their current three-year streak of going to the playoffs, their bullpen has ranked in the top 10 in WAR each of those seasons and top five overall:

Read the rest of this entry »

The White Sox have spent the past two months atop the American League Central despite a lineup that’s been nothing close to whole. On a more or less monthly basis, the team has lost a key member of its starting lineup to the Injured List, beginning with left fielder Eloy Jiménez, who ruptured his left pectoral tendon just before Opening Day, and followed by center fielder Luis Robert, who strained his right hip flexor in early May, and then second baseman Nick Madrigal, who tore a pair of hamstring tendons in early June. Now they’ll be without Yasmani Grandal for at least the next four to six weeks, as the switch-hitting catcher tore a tendon in his left knee.

Grandal was already banged up, having departed last Friday’s game in the middle of the fifth inning due to tightness in his left calf. He didn’t play again until Monday. While batting in the sixth inning against the Twins’ Caleb Thielbar, his left knee buckled as he checked his swing on a high 0-2 fastball. He hobbled out of the batter’s box and was soon rolling on the grass in apparent agony, pounding his fists on the ground before being tended to by the White Sox’s head athletic trainer, James Kruk. Initial hopes that he had merely suffered a cramp were doused by manager Tony LaRussa, who in his postgame comments said that Grandal was on crutches in the clubhouse.

The White Sox called the injury a calf strain at the time, but on Tuesday, Grandal was diagnosed with a torn tendon. “I just think it was the twist he made as he made his swing,” La Russa told reporters. “Something got caught. It didn’t free up. You make a turn on it and it got caught and something popped.” The manager said that Grandal would return to Chicago to get a more complete diagnosis. [Update: Shortly after this was published, the White Sox announced that Grandal underwent surgery to repair the torn tendon, and that they will provide an updated timeline, though doctors “continue to expect Grandal to return during the 2021 regular season.”] Read the rest of this entry »

With just a week until the All-Star break, the Mariners have played their way into the thick of the AL Wild Card race, though our Playoff Odds remain skeptical. Based on their pre-season projections, you might expect their surprising success to be linked to two of their top prospects having made their debuts in mid-May. You’d be partially right. While Jarred Kelenic’s big league career hit a major hiccup, Logan Gilbert has been a solid addition to the Mariners’ beleaguered starting rotation.

Gilbert has made nine starts in the majors so far and has compiled a 4.10 ERA backed by an impressive 3.50 FIP. In an ideal world, the Mariners probably would have liked to see Gilbert develop a bit longer in Triple-A earlier this season, but a bunch of injuries to their rotation forced their hand a bit. James Paxton, Nick Margevicius, and Ljay Newsome are all out for the season. Marco Gonzales missed time with a strained forearm. Justin Dunn has been sidelined recently with some recurring shoulder issues. Yusei Kikuchi has pitched extremely well, and deservedly earned the team’s only spot on the American League All-Star roster, but behind him, the rotation has been rather thin. Gilbert’s success at the highest level stabilized that group at a critical point as they began making their way up the standings. With just over 40 innings pitched under his belt, we now have an adequate amount of data to start comparing his minor-league scouting report to his major league results. Read the rest of this entry »

You’re not as good at your job as Jacob deGrom is at his. That’s no knock on you — I don’t even know who you are, much less have access to your performance reviews or job history. But deGrom is one of the very best, in all of history, at the thing he does. I’m sure you’re a great accountant or whatever, but you just don’t stack up.

There’s good news, though. As it turns out, deGrom is actually relatable at times. Last Thursday, deGrom came into the office and had an absolutely miserable hour of work. He got smacked around the park and gave up three runs before recording three outs. And if one of the best of all time at a job can have an off day, then anyone can.

What does a deGrom off day look like? Like anyone’s, kind of. It starts with being a little sloppy, making a silly mistake that you know, even as you make it, isn’t right. For example, don’t leave a fastball, the second pitch of the game, here:

That’s not where pitches are supposed to go. It was a 100 mph fastball, but middle-middle is still not a good look, and Ehire Adrianza laced it past Dominic Smith and into the corner for a leadoff triple. Two pitches in, nothing was going right for the best pitcher in the game. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Chicago Cubs. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. As there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was gleaned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been meaningfully altered begin by telling you so. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside of a given org than those within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there, and the context of that data, in my opinion, reduces how meaningful it is. Lastly, in an effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both on my lists and on The Board: MIRP, or multi-inning relief pitcher, and SIRP, or single-inning relief pitcher.

For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed, you can click here. For further explanation of Future Value’s merits and drawbacks, read Future Value.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.