When an organization has a potential glut of players who play the same position, it’s usually more of a nuisance than a serious problem. Having more major league-caliber players than your roster can hold is never a bad thing, and the issue can often be solved by sliding players down the defensive spectrum. It can be inconvenient to shift a middle infielder into an outfield corner or a corner outfielder to first base, but it’s worth doing if the bats are worth it.

It gets trickier, though, if the overcrowded area happens to be behind the plate. Lifetime catchers rarely possess the athleticism necessary to move to another up-the-middle position and usually can’t hit enough to clear the offensive bar required at a corner spot. It’s incredibly difficult to find sustained playing time for more than two catchers over the course of a season, though because of the scarcity of talented catchers around the majors, it’s rare that a team needs to worry about that.

The Blue Jays are facing exactly that predicament. If you look at our Depth Charts, you’ll find them ranked fourth in the majors in projected catcher WAR for next season, which could come as a surprise to a lot of baseball fans, since none of their backstops are household names. But three of them — Danny Jansen, Alejandro Kirk and Reese McGuire — rank inside the top 30 catchers in baseball according to the 2021 ZiPS projections. What’s more, all three of those catchers are at similar stages in their development: Each is young and has little left to prove in the minors but has yet to break out in the big leagues. All that’s left to learn is how they handle the majors, which creates the challenge for Toronto of deciding just how best to divvy up opportunities between the three. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2013 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.

Like Mark McGwire, his rival in the great 1998 home run chase, Sammy Sosa was hailed at the height of his popularity as a hero, a Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, and a great international ambassador for baseball. In the same year that McGwire set a new single-season record with 70 home runs, Sosa hit 66 and took home the National League MVP award. Three times in a four-year stretch from 1998 to 2001, he surpassed Roger Maris‘ previously unbreakable mark of 61 homers, and he hit more homers over a five- or 10-year stretch than any player in history. In 2007, he became just the fifth player to reach the 600-home-run milestone after Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Barry Bonds.

As with McGwire, the meaning of Sosa’s home runs changed once baseball began to crack down on performance-enhancing drugs, with suspicions mounting about his achievements. He was called to testify before Congress in 2005, along with McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, and several other players. Sosa denied using PEDs, but while he never tested positive once Major League Baseball began instituting penalties for usage, The New York Times reported in 2009 that he was one of more than 100 players who had done so during the supposedly anonymous survey tests six years prior. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Cincinnati Reds. 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 altered begin by telling you so. For the others, the blurb ends with an indication of where the player played in 2020, which in turn likely informed the changes to their report. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside the org than within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there. Lastly, in effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both in 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.

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

Batters

The 2020 Orioles were hard not to like. There was no reason to think they would be competitive, yet they hung around the edges of the playoff race until a 5–14 finish dropped them out of contention. I won’t lie: It was somewhat satisfying to this Baltimore native to watch the O’s beat out the Mookie Betts-less Red Sox for fourth in the AL East and take their first trip out of the basement since 2016.

It’s doubtful, though, that 2020’s surprising run was the leading edge of something bigger. Anthony Santander’s .261/.315/.575 campaign may have been enough to elevate him over the rest of the team’s deep stable of Quad-A sluggers, but a lot of the winning was due to good years from players like José Iglesias and Tommy Milone, who were never going to be part of the core going forward. What is encouraging is that unlike the Phillies of several years ago, the front office didn’t learn the wrong lesson from the team’s ephemeral success, resisting any July attempt to stockpile random veterans.

The makings of a competent offense are present more so than in recent offseasons, with much fewer negative WAR projections. The larger problem is that there’s just not a lot of star talent in this lineup. Adley Rutschman is the team’s best chance to swim against that current in the short-term, and there’s a great deal of potential remaining in Ryan Mountcastle‘s bat, but other prospects like Heston Kjerstad, Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg, and Terrin Vavra are going to take a little longer. And as great a story as Trey Mancini’s comeback from colon cancer is, by the time the O’s are ready to compete for real in normal seasons, he’s likely going to be in another uniform. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 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.

Earlier in this series, I profiled 2021 Hall of Fame candidates Tim Hudson and Barry Zito, who together made up two-thirds of the “Big Three” starters who helped the Moneyball-era A’s make four straight postseason appearances from 2000-03 despite their shoestring budgets. Inevitably, the economic realities of playing in Oakland forced general manager Billy Beane to trade away Hudson and Mark Mulder, the third member of the Big Three, as they grew more expensive, and to let Zito depart via free agency.

In doing so, Beane was able to replenish his roster, keeping the A’s competitive for a few more years before heading into rebuilding, and then repeating the cycle. The two players in this installment of my One-and-Done series were part of that endless process. Dan Haren was one of three players acquired from the Cardinals in exchange for Mulder in December 2004, and a key starter on the AL West-winning A’s in ’06. Nick Swisher, the team’s 2002 top first-round pick — compensation for losing center fielder Johnny Damon to free agency — was the starting left fielder on that ’06 squad. Both players were subsequently traded away in the winter of 2007-08, with two players acquired from the Diamondbacks in exchange for Haren, namely lefty Brett Anderson and first baseman Chris Carter, contributing to their 2012 AL West champions, and one player acquired from the White Sox for Swisher, namely lefty Gio González, traded again to net catcher Derek Norris and left-hander Tommy Milone, contributors to the team’s 2012-14 run. And the cycle continued… Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2014 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.

Jeff Kent took a long time to find a home. Drafted by the Blue Jays in 1989, he passed through the hands of three teams who didn’t quite realize the value of what they had. Not until a trade to the Giants in November 1996 — prior to his age-29 season — did he really settle in. Once he did, he established himself as a standout complement to Barry Bonds, helping the Giants become perennial contenders and spending more than a decade as a middle-of-the-lineup force.

Despite his late-arriving stardom and a prickly personality that sometimes rubbed teammates and media the wrong way, Kent earned All-Star honors five times, won an MVP award, and helped four different franchises reach the playoffs a total of seven times. His resumé gives him a claim as the best-hitting second baseman of the post-1960 expansion era — not an iron-clad one, but not one that’s easily dismissed. For starters, he holds the all-time record for most home runs by a second baseman with 351. That’s 74 more than Ryne Sandberg, 85 more than Joe Morgan, and 86 more than Rogers Hornsby — all Hall of Famers, and in Hornsby’s case, one from before the expansion era (note that I’m not counting homers hit while playing other positions). Among players with at least 7,000 plate appearances in their career who spent at least half their time at second base, only Hornsby (.577) has a higher slugging percentage than Kent’s .500. From that latter set, only Hornsby (1.010) and another pre-expansion Hall of Famer, Charlie Gehringer (.884), have a higher OPS than Kent (.855). 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 nine years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Chicago Cubs.

Batters

I would argue that the current Cubs squad is a lot like The Godfather: Part III. Brilliance has been supplanted by mere competence, and most of the results look unimpressive when compared to the team’s peak. Like the latter days of Michael Corleone’s criminal empire, the Cubs have fallen from dominance. The manager for those teams is in Los Angeles, the front office’s leading light is gone, and much of the supporting cast has moved on. You can even pretend that whatever sum the Cubs lost in 2020 is a parallel to the $600 million stolen by Don Lucchesi and Archbishop Gilday through International Immobiliare! Heck, maybe Joey Lucchesi will throw a no-hitter against the Cubs.

Some of the central components of the Cubs’ more potent offenses remain in Javier Báez, Anthony Rizzo, and Kris Bryant. But none of them can boast a 2020 anywhere near their best season, and only Rizzo was really a key contributor. All three are free agents after 2021, and with the Cubs crying poor, it doesn’t seem like any big contract offers are in the works. If anything, the speculation this winter has been more about trades than extensions, particularly with Bryant. The larger issue is that all three have seen their projections follow a downward trajectory in recent seasons, so even re-signing all three would be no panacea. Read the rest of this entry »

Please note, this posting contains two positions.

Position: Baseball Systems Engineer- Toronto Blue Jays

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Primary Focus: To create tools and systems that support decision making in all areas of Baseball Operations.

Responsibilities and Duties:

• Maintain and support the current end to end data warehousing process within Baseball Operations, starting with structured and unstructured data, conceiving and designing appropriate data structures, performing ETL processes to house the data in the data structures and exposing the data structures to end users.
• Design and manage the integration process of new data sources into existing database structures and frameworks.
• Develop and maintain data quality assurance processes to ensure database integrity in the future.
• Understand and document current database structures, historical design decisions, format, definitions, limitations and content of currently used external and internal data feeds, and establish future requirements.
• Complete ad-hoc database queries and analysis as dictated by circumstances.
• Oversee the evaluation, selection, implementation and support of new database systems.
• Develop and maintain conceptual, logical and physical data models.
• Work with other developers to help support internal web applications.
• Collaborate with members of the Baseball Operations developers to develop best practices for storing and displaying baseball data.
• Recommend new data sources for purchase and/or new techniques to gather data.

Read the rest of this entry »

MLB managers not named Tony La Russa did Zoom calls with members of the media this past week. Today’s column features highlights from several of those sessions.

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Two of the topics Dusty Baker addressed on Monday were job-related. One was the position he currently holds with the Houston Astros, the other was a role that’s never appealed to him. The latter is anathema to baseball’s Most Interesting Man in the World because it wouldn’t allow him to kick back and ruminate on life.

“One reason I never wanted to be a general manager is because you don’t really have an offseason,” Baker told a cohort of reporters. “He works all year, and doesn’t have much time off, but for the general manager, and front office people, this is the most busy time of the year.”

Baker is 71 years old with 23 managerial seasons under his belt. How much longer he’ll sit in that chair is a question he can’t answer, but he’s been around long enough to know that life can come at you from different directions. Much for that reason, he’s simply going with the flow.

“Depends on how I feel [and it] depends on how the team feels about me,” said Baker, who was hired by Houston prior to last season. “Changes are going to come about in life. I tend to think in terms of Walter Alston and Tom Lasorda. Those guys signed a series of 20 one-year contracts. I’m not lame anymore. You know what I mean? A lame duck can’t fly. But my wings aren’t clipped no more. I can always fly.” Read the rest of this entry »

A week ago, the Rays’ 40-man roster had a single catcher on it: Ronaldo Hernández, a 23-year-old prospect who had never played above High-A. Fast forward to Friday, and Tampa has doubled its collection of backstops after re-signing Mike Zunino, who has been with the team the past two seasons. That was not the only move the club made, though, as the Rays also signed free-agent pitcher Michael Wacha. Both deals came in at $3 million, with Zunino’s total figure including a buyout on a 2022 option. The deals make sense, though it is worth noting that the two players combined for 0.1 WAR last season, so the Rays must see something beyond their recent performances to justify even a modest investment.

The Rays need a bunch of innings behind the plate, and Zunino, who turns 30 in March, should supply some of them; just don’t expect much out of them. The last two seasons, he’s been one of the worst hitters in baseball, with his 49 wRC+ ranking 337th out of 342 players with at least 300 plate appearances. Zunino does have some power, with a career ISO around .200, and he bested that number in 84 plate appearances last season, but he just doesn’t get to it enough to make himself anywhere near a decent hitter. Even his walk rates, which were double-digit levels back in his good offensive years with the Mariners in 2016 and ’17, have dropped below league average the last three years. Zunino has always swung and missed a lot, with a 35% career strikeout rate, and he whiffed 37 times last year while putting the ball in fair territory on just 38 occasions. He’s average to maybe slightly above average at throwing out runners, but last season, he was below average in framing for the first time in his career. There are reasons the Rays declined Zunino’s $4.5 million option at the end of last season, and it isn’t because they’re cheap.

Read the rest of this entry »