Jarred Kelenic is right, or at the very least, he’s not wrong. There’s no reason not to take the recent claims of the Mariners outfielder and his representative, Brody Scoffield, at face value. Their story — that Kelenic was offered a pre-debut extension and that when he declined to sign it, the club refused to call him up in 2020 for service time reasons — is totally believable, and is backed up by Kevin Mather’s now infamous remarks over Zoom to the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club; Mather, the club’s President and CEO at the time of his remarks, resigned last week. The proposed extension, which Mather described as a “long-term deal, six-year deal for substantial money with options to go farther,” speaks both to Kelenic’s immense talent as well as the Mariners’ desire to lock him up on team-friendly terms.

Jerry Dipoto, who addressed the situation last Tuesday, is right, or at the very least, he might not be wrong. Dipoto said what one normally would about a highly-ranked prospect who is generating hype but isn’t on the roster yet. (Here it worth remembering that GMs operate within the budget strictures ownership set for them. That’s not to say Dipoto has no agency, and owners look for GMs who are willing to let this type of fiscal responsibility take precedence over winning baseball games. But in reality, ownership should be on the hook to a far greater degree than the front office in the eyes of fans.) Kelenic has only played 21 games above A-ball. He hit a very solid .253/.315/.542 in those 21 games, as a teenager mind you, and was actually remarkably unlucky, as evidenced by his exceptionally light .246 BABIP. Still, a little more seasoning in Triple-A, as Dipoto suggests, might be beneficial. Kelenic’s approach could use some tightening and his strength gains have come with some of his twitch going backwards, which is starting to hinder him defensively.

But those are nitpicks, not deficiencies that should have kept him out of Seattle. Evan White proves the case. White isn’t nearly as talented as Kelenic, but he signed a pre-debut deal and was instantly the Opening Day first baseman in 2020. His bat wasn’t ready, as evidenced by a miserable 66 wRC+ to go with an ugly 41.6% strikeout rate, yet he was there. Was White the Mariners’ best option? Maybe. But did the fact that he signed the sort of big league deal that Kelenic turned down drive the decision to have him with the major league team while Kelenic futzed around at the team’s alternate site in Tacoma? No question. Read the rest of this entry »

The Royals and corner infielder Hunter Dozier agreed to terms over the weekend on a four-year contract that guarantees him $25 million along with a fifth-year option that could bring the total value to $35 million. The deal starts immediately, tearing up the one-year deal worth $2.72 million that was signed back in December in order to avoid an arbitration hearing.

Dozier’s deal buys out at least two years of free agency (and possibly three). It would be a mistake to think of this in the same kinds of terms as other players with two or three years of service time signing similar contracts: Dozier is not young, nor is he a budding star. It may feel like he’s young given his short history in the majors, but he’ll also be 30 by the end of the 2021 season, which saps his long-term value. Let’s start with the five-year projection for Dozier, with an important caveat that we’ll talk about below.

Read the rest of this entry »

As the calendar flips to March, exhibition season has begun (!) in both Arizona and Florida, and yet a few top free agents remain unsigned. Atop the list in terms of projected impact is Jake Odorizzi, who’s had the misfortune of mistiming the market, in part due to an injury-wracked 2020 season. Still, there’s no shortage of teams that the veteran righty, who placed 24th on our Top 50 Free Agents list, could help.

Odorizzi, who turns 31 on March 27, spent the past three seasons with the Twins, putting together a solid campaign in 2018 (4.49 ERA,4.20 FIP, and 2.5 WAR in 164.1 innings), and an All-Star one in ’19 (3.51 ERA, 3.36 FIP, and 4.3 WAR in 159 innings). Last year was a near-total loss, though, as he was limited to 13.2 innings by an intercostal strain and a blister. Prior to that, Odorizzi pitched four years and change with the Rays, that after being traded in blockbusters involving Zack Greinke and Lorenzo Cain (2010) — he was originally a supplemental first-round pick by the Brewers in ’08 — and then James Shields and Wil Myers (2012). In Tampa Bay, he totaled 6.5 WAR from 2014 to ’16 before a bout of gopher trouble (1.88 homers per nine) led to a replacement level season in ’17. That hiccup aside, he’s been very solid and (prior to 2020) rather durable, averaging 30.3 starts per year from 2013 to ’19; an oblique strain in ’15 and hamstring and back woes in ’17 kept him to 27 starts in those seasons. As best I can tell, he’s never missed significant time due to an arm injury.

Odorizzi has gone his entire career without signing a multiyear deal. He won back-to-back arbitration cases against the Rays in 2017 ($4.1 million) and ’18 ($6.3 million), the reward for which was being traded to the Twins just two days after the latter decision was announced. After making $9.3 million in 2019, his best season, he received a $17.8 million qualifying offer from the Twins, which apparently put a drag on his market before he could fully test the waters. Via MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park, Odorizzi received “a lot of interest” from other teams at the time, to the point of exchanging dollar figures, “but the uncertainty generated by the timeframe and the draft considerations ultimately led to his return to Minnesota.” The fact that Odorizzi wouldn’t be be subjected to another qualifying offer the next time he reached free agency, and thus wouldn’t have the millstone of draft compensation attached to his signing, was a factor in his decision.

Alas, his 2020 season didn’t pan out as planned. The intercostal strain landed him on the injured list to start the season, and so he didn’t make his season debut until August 8. In his third outing, on August 21, he was hit in the chest by a batted ball, suffering a contusion and landing on the IL again. Upon returning, a blister problem led to another early hook. Though he was on the roster for the AL Wild Card series against the Astros, he did not pitch.

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2020 Philadelphia Phillies were bad at defense. Bam, there’s the story. Print it. Talk to you again tomorrow.

Oh, you want more than that? A reasonable request — this is FanGraphs, after all. Fine, then. The Phillies allowed a .342 BABIP last year, the highest mark in baseball and one of the highest marks ever. Some of that is due to the short season — it’s easier to be extreme in fewer observations — but some of it was because their defenders were inept at turning batted balls into outs.

What went wrong? For one thing, the Phillies played below-average defenders at most infield spots. We’ll exclude catcher, of course, because that’s a different kind of defense, but the tough defense extended across the diamond. Alec Bohm is a first baseman playing third. He’s not there for his defense, but with Rhys Hoskins at first, the Phillies got his bat into the lineup by any means necessary.

Next to Bohm on the diamond, Didi Gregorius is similarly defensively stretched. He played an acceptable shortstop earlier in his career, but he’s now on the wrong side of 30 and trending downwards. Both DRS and Statcast’s OAA think that he’s been one of the worst shortstop defenders in baseball over the past two years (UZR thinks he’s acceptable).

At second base, Jean Segura is the lone Philadelphia defender who you could consider overqualified for the position. He was a below-average defender at shortstop, but he’s adapted well to playing second base. All three defensive systems saw him as an above-average defender at second. He’s the only defender (other than Realmuto) on the entire team where that was the case in 2020.

Unfortunately, Segura was forced to cover a lot of ground, because he was flanked by two range-deficient defenders. We’ve already covered Gregorius, but Rhys Hoskins manages to show that first base defense isn’t completely meaningless. He’s one of the worst defenders there by every metric, and it’s not just scoops or stretches or any of those things you expect first basemen to fail at. He simply has no range whatsoever; he combines below-average top end speed with DH-esque burst; it’s not apples to apples, but his home-to-first time is about the same as J.D. Martinez and Nelson Cruz’s. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Philadelphia Phillies. 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. Each blurb ends with an indication of where the player played in 2020, which in turn likely informed the changes to their report if there were any. 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.

Tigers manager A.J. Hinch addressed the importance of being aggressive on the base paths during his Saturday morning media session. What he shared included the following, which I quoted on Twitter:

“Your WAR gets dinged whenever you get thrown out on the bases. It’s not valued. People are very aware… players are very aware of that. Winning baseball is good for your WAR too, even if it’s not quantifiable.”

Almost immediately, people began responding critically, opining that Hinch was (pun intended) off base. Feeling that more context was in order — I’d prefaced the original Tweet by noting the subject at hand — I added that Hinch also said that if you’re safe every time, you’re probably not being aggressive enough.

No matter. Commenters went on to suggest that Hinch doesn’t understand the value of an out, sometimes in a snarky, condescending manner. (On Twitter! Imagine that!)

Hinch had a second media session following the team’s workout, so I took the opportunity to bring up the minor foofaraw I’d caused at his expense. Would he like to elaborate on, and clarify, what he’d said, lest a faction of the Twitterverse continue to question his sanity? Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Jarred Kelenic’s beef with the Mariners about alleged service-time manipulation, then preview the 2021 Nationals (25:37) with Jesse Dougherty of The Washington Post and the 2021 Cubs (59:43) with Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic.

Audio intro: Ty Segall, "Manipulator"
Audio interstitial 1: Gary Louris, "D.C. Blues"
Audio interstitial 2: Jason Isbell, "Chicago Promenade"
Audio outro: Van Morrison, "March Winds in February"

Link to USA Today article about Kelenic
Link to Mather video transcript
Link to Craig Goldstein on holding down prospects
Link to Jayson Stark on fixing service-time manipulation
Link to R.J. Anderson on the Bryant grievance
Link to Sahadev on the Darvish trade
Link to Sahadev’s interview with Breslow
Link to Sahadev on Kimbrel
Link to Sahadev on Arrieta
Link to Sahadev on the Cubs’ defense
Link to Alex Chamberlain on Hendricks
Link to Joe Sheehan on hitters in walk years
Link to Jesse on Schwarber getting squatty
Link to Jesse on Kieboom
Link to Jesse on Strasburg
Link to Jesse on Hand
Link to Buzz Saw

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Is Fernando Tatis Jr. the next Carlos Correa? The question has lingered in my mind in the wake of last week’s piece about Tatis’ already-substantial Hall of Fame chances, itself a response to the Padres’ shortstop landing a 14-year, $340 million deal at the tender age of 22. Digging into some of my previous research, I illustrated that even given the fairly slim sample sizes, the vast majority of players who perform as Tatis has through his age-21 season — whether based merely on offensive prowess or full value as estimated by WAR — are bound for the Hall of Fame.

That provocative conclusion certainly stirred the pot, perhaps even moreso than I intended, with critics offering a range of counterexamples, some of them so far off base as to be laughable (left fielder/designated hitter Joe Charboneau, AL Rookie of the Year at age 25, out of the majors by age 28), others a bit more subtle (Vern Stephens, a slugging shortstop who had some of his best years against lesser competition during World War II). The one that stuck in my mind, however was the example of Correa, whose performance through his age-21 season bore some striking similarities to that of Tatis, to the point that the pair were adjacent on multiple leaderboards. The comparison, which also includes some key differences, was still on my mind when I discussed the two shortstops and a small handful of other young players — most notably Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, and Wander Franco — during a FanGraphs Audio podcast spot with Kevin Goldstein, who had a front-row seat to the professional progress of Correa, whom the Astros drafted with the first overall pick just three months before he joined their front office.

Correa, now heading into his age-26 season as well as his final year before eligibility for free agency, has had his ups and downs at the major league level. He won AL Rookie of the Year honors in 2015 while helping the Astros to their first playoff appearance in a decade. While he’s helped Houston to four more playoff appearances, including a World Series victory in 2017 and an AL pennant two years later, he’s been an All-Star just once, mainly due to injuries that have limited him to just one season with more than 110 games played: 2016, his age-21 season, when he played 153 games and set an as-yet-unsurpassed career high in WAR, whether by FanGraphs’ measure (5.2) or that of Baseball-Reference (7.0). More on that gap, which is driven by widely divergent defensive metrics, below.

Correa did play 58 out of the Astros’ 60 games last year, but hit just .264/.326/.383, setting career lows in slugging percentage and wRC+ (98) as well as more obviously counting-dependent stats like home runs (five) and WAR (0.9 by FanGraphs, 1.8 by B-Ref). To be fair, he was hitting .301/.367/.441 (125 wRC+) through September 7 before suffering through a 5-for-44 slump from September 8-22, so it’s not like his entire season was a slog; he had a very bad fortnight. He even hit his way out of that skid, closing the season by going 5-for-14 over his final four games and then batting a sizzling .362/.455/.766 with six homers in 55 PA in the postseason. That would have lifted his season line to .282/.340/.456 if we were to add it all up. Read the rest of this entry »

Pete Alonso didn’t duplicate his stellar rookie season in 2020. There wasn’t one obvious problem to point to, though. He trimmed his strikeouts slightly. He hit the ball as hard, both in frequency and in terms of maximum exit velocity, as he did the year before. He made more contact in the strike zone, and he swung less at pitches outside the strike zone. That all sounds pretty good.

Despite all those glowing facts, there’s no way around it: Alonso was a lot worse in 2020. His BABIP dropped from .280 to .242. His slugging percentage fell by nearly 100 points. He fell off of his 2019 home run pace, but not by as much as you’d think. He lost far more doubles, though, and didn’t make up for it elsewhere. He wasn’t bad, but a 118 wRC+ out of your bat-first first baseman is par for the course rather than spectacular.

What if I told you I could explain what went haywire? You’d probably tell me I’m lying, and you wouldn’t be wrong. I can tell you what I think happened, though, and that will have to be good enough. You know how I said his contact was just as loud? It’s time to delve obnoxiously deep into that data. Read the rest of this entry »

Please note, this posting contains three positions.

Position: Analyst, Baseball Analytics

Location: Citi Field – Queens, New York

Job Description:

Summary:
The New York Mets are seeking an Analyst in Baseball Analytics. The Analyst will build, test, and present statistical models that inform decision-making in all facets of Baseball Operations. This position requires strong background in complex statistics and data analytics, as well as the ability to communicate statistical model details and findings to both a technical and non-technical audience. Prior experience in or knowledge of baseball is a plus, but is not required.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:

• Build statistical models to answer a wide variety of baseball-related questions affecting the operations of the organization using advanced knowledge of statistics and data analytics and exercising appropriate discretion and judgment regarding development of statistical models
• Interpret data and report conclusions drawn from their analyses
• Use data analysis to support and improve business decisions
• Present model outputs in an effective way, both for technical and non-technical audiences
• Communicate well with both the Director and Manager of Baseball Analytics as well as other Baseball Operations personnel to understand the parameters of any particular research project
• Provide advice on the desired outputs from the data engineering team, and guidance to the Baseball Systems team on how best to present model results
• Assist with recruiting, hiring, and mentoring new analysts in the Baseball Analytics department
• Evaluate potential new data sources and technologies to determine their validity and usefulness
• Consistently analyze research in analytics that can help improve the modeling work done by the Baseball Analytics department

Read the rest of this entry »