Without a true minor league season on which to fixate, I spent the summer watching and evaluating young big leaguers who, because of the truncated season, will still be eligible for prospect lists at the end of the year. This is the final divisional installment of those thoughts, as well as a general recap. The other divisions can be found here: National League East, NL Central, American League East, Central, and West.

Below is my assessment of the National League West, covering players who have appeared in big league games. The results of these final 2020 changes made to player rankings and evaluations can be found over on the updated Board, though I provide more specific links throughout this post in case readers only care about one team. Read the rest of this entry »

Like most big-league broadcasters, Joe Block got his start down on the farm. The radio and TV play-by-play voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates broke into the business with the South Atlantic League’s Charleston RiverDogs back in 2000. That part of his story is isn’t unique. What is unique is that Block first shared the booth with a blind man.

Looking to break into baseball, Block traveled to Anaheim for the 1999 Winter Meetings after graduating from Michigan State University. Charleston had posted a broadcast intern position, and the fresh-faced Spartan secured an interview with the club’s then-broadcaster. The sit-down went well. Block hit it off with Dave Raymond — now the TV voice of the Texas Rangers — and was offered the job.

As fate would have it, they never got to call games together. Later that winter, Raymond took a job with the Triple-A Iowa Cubs. Replacing Raymond in Charleston was a duo that had worked together with the St. Paul Saints.

“I don’t know if you’re familiar with them, but Jim Lucas and Don Wardlow had been in the minor leagues for a number of years as a tandem,” explained Block. “Don was born blind. He never saw anything in his entire life.”

As an intern, Block’s primary responsibility was doing the pre- and post-game shows. Most appealing among his other duties was the opportunity to do play-by-play when Lucas took time off. What he learned was invaluable, and the unique circumstances played a big part in that. Read the rest of this entry »

In the least shocking development of the offseason thus far, the Red Sox have rehired Alex Cora to manage the team. Not only did the move to bring back the previously suspended skipper appear to be inevitable, but news of it leaked onto Twitter just 22 minutes after Decision Desk HQ became the first verified outfit to call the presidential election in favor of Joe Biden. This was a Hall of Fame-caliber Friday news dump, designed to minimize the attention paid to a transaction that’s clearly defiant, if not cynical.

Put it this way: I’m no Jon Heyman when it comes to the inside baseball of Major League Baseball, but I tweeted a week ago that the Red Sox not rehiring Cora to manage would be an even bigger shock than the White Sox’s strange rehiring of Tony La Russa, who hasn’t managed since 2011. Unlike the situation in Chicago, where owner Jerry Reinsdorf appears to have unilaterally decided to bring back an old crony without interviewing other candidates (or at least announcing that they had done so), the Red Sox were reported to have interviewed several MLB coaches including Mike Bell (Twins), Don Kelly (Pirates), Carlos Mendoza (Yankees), James Rowson (Marlins), Skip Schumaker (Padres), Luis Urueta (Diamondbacks), and Will Venable (Cubs). But despite that crowded field — which grew to “at least nine candidates” who received first-round interviews — it’s fair to wonder the extent to which this was an ownership-driven decision. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I did a deeply meaningless thing. I ignored our site’s excellent projections — both ZiPS and Steamer do a great job of projecting future performance — and made my own terrible ones using some old methodology. Why? Partially because I’m not smart enough to build my own ZiPS, but mainly so that I could walk through the very basic way projection systems work — not by wishcasting or hoping or by finding some sneaky data point no one else has, but by carefully using and weighing the data we all have.

Of course, that’s a buttoned-down and boring way to think about things. Let’s talk about something fun instead! The top of the 2021 projections I made yesterday is dotted with a bunch of people you’d expect, and since I didn’t even bother park-adjusting it, a few too many Rockies. The impressive Fernando Tatis Jr. comes in at 11th in wOBA, which is cool given he still has a season of zeroes in there. Freddie Freeman is continuing his ascent. But here’s a shocker: there are four Mets in the top 40.

That sounds, well, wrong. The Mets aren’t supposed to be a good offensive team. They’re supposed to be a pitching team, what with Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard atop the rotation (upon Syndergaard’s recovery) and Edwin Díaz locking down the bullpen. There’s just one problem with that narrative: it’s completely wrong. The Mets were, in fact, tied with the Dodgers for the best wRC+ in baseball last year. They finished fifth in position player WAR — the defense wasn’t a strength — but generally hit an absolute ton.
Read the rest of this entry »

As Steve Cohen completes his purchase of the Mets and begins his first offseason, there is going to be considerable speculation that Cohen will use his vast resources to make a splash and try to make the Mets contenders next season. He absolutely should do that, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a plan other than drop cash out of the sky and see which players take it. There are hundreds of free agents, tons of trade options, and many internal decisions on players. While unlimited funds sounds great, Cohen and the Mets will need to target their resources to make the biggest impact for this season and beyond. With that in mind, here’s how I would plan an ideal offseason for the Mets.

Don’t Trade Away Talented Players

When Brodie Van Wagenen got the Mets job, he had an admittedly difficult task to make the Mets into more of a contender without significantly increasing payroll. That meant taking on a bad contract in Robinson Canó’s deal, but also requiring cash to cover some of the costs and sending over players with near-term bad contracts in Jay Bruce and Anthony Swarzak to offset current contracts. Then, top prospect Jarred Kelenic was added all so the Mets could get an elite reliever in Edwin Díaz. In short, the Mets took on huge future salary commitments and gave up future talent for immediate salary relief and a reliever. The Mets shouldn’t have to make those types of moves to acquire talented players. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s November, which means it’s time for an offseason tradition: asking whether some player who had a great season is now better than Mike Trout. Is it a reasonable tradition? Not particularly! But whether it’s Bryce Harper or Mookie Betts, Fernando Tatis Jr. or (in the mind of some wildly optimistic scout) Luis Robert, the tenor of the story is the same: this one guy is a good hitter now, and so maybe he’s a better hitter than Trout, the old best hitter.

One way you could handle this pointless speculation is to ignore it. You’d be totally justified in doing so. Trout is great! He had his worst year this year, and he was still great. Thanks for raising this silly question, enjoy the offseason, see you in February.

As you might have guessed based on the fact that this is an article, however, I’m going to do a little more than that. I’m not going to get into the hot-take-ness of it all, but there are ways to examine this question with a little bit of intellectual rigor. Also, while I’ve got you here, I might as well steal whole cloth from an old Tom Tango idea and make some simplistic projections, all the better to understand our site’s more complicated projections with.

The Marcel projection system is named after a monkey, and it also doesn’t exist anymore. But the concept still makes a ton of sense. Take a player’s actual performance in the last three years, do a little weighting, do a little mean reverting, and call it a projection. That probably sounds too simple, but that’s really how Marcel works. It’s not supposed to be the best projection system in the world, merely the minimum sufficient projection system.
Read the rest of this entry »

On Sunday afternoon, Kevin Gausman became one of six players to be offered a qualifying offer. With tons of uncertainty about the health of the free agent market heading into the offseason, Gausman’s offer was a bit of a surprise to see. To his credit, he put together a phenomenal year for the Giants, posting the lowest FIP of his career in 2020. But he’s also only a year removed from being designated for assignment by the Braves in August of 2019.

On Monday, Jay Jaffe reviewed all six of the QOs offered this year. He concluded that Gausman and Marcus Stroman were the two players who faced a particularly difficult decision about whether or not to accept the offer and return to their previous teams. Stroman’s decision is a little more complicated since he opted out of the 2020 season and last took the mound in 2019. Gausman made 10 starts and two relief appearances in 2020 and made a compelling case that he’s one of the top starting pitching options on the market this offseason. Craig Edwards ranked him the fifth-best starting pitching among this year’s free agent crop.

Gausman’s big year was a welcome development after struggling to put everything together in Baltimore for much of his career. The former first-round draft pick was a hair better than league average by park- and league-adjusted ERA and FIP during his time with the Orioles. But he never really lived up to his pedigree, and he was traded to the Braves at the 2018 trade deadline. He was excellent in Atlanta for the remainder of that season season but really struggled in early 2019, leading to his DFA in August. He was picked up by the Reds and moved to the bullpen, where his stuff played up in short outings. Read the rest of this entry »

As a long, likely-bleak offseason began late last week, many teams opted out of the final year of players’ contracts, often with the seeming goal of beginning this winter with as little committed money on the books as possible. Tampa Bay will not bring back Charlie Morton, one of baseball’s best starting pitchers. Cleveland will not bring back Brad Hand, one of baseball’s best relievers. Some teams will use the money saved on these unexercised club options to pursue other free agents they feel will provide more value; many are likely to simply pocket the savings as a means of recouping what they say the COVID-19 pandemic cost them. The bar for players hoping to land any kind of guaranteed money this offseason appears to be quite high; in the eyes of the Houston Astros, left-handed reliever Brooks Raley cleared it.

Raley’s $2 million club option (he’ll make just a $250,000 salary in the minors) for the 2021 season isn’t close to the double-digit price tag that Morton or Hand’s would have cost their clubs, but the specific figure in play here doesn’t feel as important as the fact that Houston was willing to pay Raley in the first place. His numbers this season — a 4.95 ERA and 3.94 FIP in 20 innings — aren’t anything special. Other relievers with similarly-priced club options and perfectly good 2020 production, such as Javy Guerra and Darren O’Day, were turned loose by their respective clubs. In a depressed spending environment, the prices for high-leverage relievers this winter could turn out to be low. For Houston to commit to Raley before free agency even begins shows the team must see something valuable in him.

The Astros were already demonstrating their belief in Raley when they used him rather aggressively during this year’s surprisingly deep playoff run. In the ALCS alone, Raley pitched in four games, holding the Rays without a run across three innings while striking out six and walking two. That usage — particularly in close games — was reflective of just how thin the Astros had become at the back of their bullpen, but it also showed how fond Houston had grown of Raley in his short time with the team.

If this year’s postseason was the first you’d ever heard of Raley, you probably aren’t alone. And if you got curious and looked him up, you may have been surprised to learn just how long he’s been around. The 32-year-old lefty was a sixth-round pick of the Chicago Cubs in 2009; he pitched sparingly for them in 2012-13 before being placed on waivers. His run on the waiver wire saw him shuttled to the Twins and then the Angels, but neither found a home for Raley on their big league roster. Lacking interest from MLB squads, Raley answered a call from the Korean Baseball Organization’s Lotte Giants, who offered him a rotation spot he never relinquished. From 2015-19, Raley started 151 games with the Giants, proving to be a durable, if not necessarily dominant, starter. Read the rest of this entry »

Dick Hall had a long and remarkable career, and at 90 years young, his memory remains strong. There’s a lot for him to reminisce about. Originally an infielder/outfielder with the Pittsburgh Pirates — he debuted in 1952 — Hall converted to the mound in 1955 and went on to pitch for 16 big-league seasons.

A right-hander who both started and relieved, Hall had his best years with the Baltimore Orioles, with whom he had 65 wins, 60 saves, and a 2.89 ERA over two stints and nine seasons. His career culminated with three consecutive Fall Classics, the middle of which saw Baltimore beat the Cincinnati Reds in the 1970 World Series. All told, Hall pitched eight-and-two-thirds postseason innings without allowing an earned run.

Hall discussed his career shortly before becoming a nonagenarian in late September.

———

David Laurila: You pitched for a long time, but only after starting your career as a position player. How did that come about?

Dick Hall: “Well, there was no draft when I signed with the Pirates in the fall of 1951. I then started playing in their minor league system in 1952, and after my
second season — after the 1953 season — they sent me down to Mazatlán, Mexico
to get further experience. I was a second baseman/outfielder in those days. Mazatlán almost sent me home, but then I changed the grip on my bat and started hitting home runs. Mazatlán calls Pittsburgh and said, ‘We’ll keep him after all.’

“I set the league home run record, so they welcomed me back the next year. I told the manager, ‘Look, I pitched all the time in high school, college, and semi-pro,’ so if he wanted, I could pitch. One Sunday we were up in Hermosillo, which is a few hours from Arizona, and we played a four-game series which included a doubleheader on Sunday. We carried four pitchers. We had a Cuban pitcher, a Mexican pitcher, and two from the United States. Anyway, on Sunday they scored a couple runs early. Our starting pitcher ran into huge trouble, so the manager called me in from center field. I ended up pitching six-and-a-third innings and gave up one single. Read the rest of this entry »

In the latest sign that this offseason could be a difficult one for free agents due to the industry-wide loss of revenue caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, just six players received qualifying offers from their 2020 teams prior to Sunday’s 5 PM Eastern deadline. That’s the lowest total since the system was put in place in 2012, not that anyone should fret the loss of something that makes player movement more difficult. The six — Trevor Bauer, Kevin Gausman, DJ LeMahieu, J.T. Realmuto, George Springer, and Marcus Stroman — have until November 11 to accept or decline the one-year, $18.9 million offers. While historically, the odds strongly suggest that most of those players will decline them and move on, Gausman and Stroman stand out as two players who could accept them and return to their respective teams.

I’ll get to the players and the decisions themselves, but before that, there’s a lot to unpack. To review, the qualifying offer system was introduced for the 2012-16 Collective Bargaining Agreement and then revised for the 2017-21 CBA. It’s the latest mechanism in a battle that’s as old as free agency itself, for not only does it compensate the team who lost a major free agent by awarding them a draft pick, it penalizes the team that signs him by costing them a draft pick, and acts as a drag on player salaries because at a certain point, the cost of the lost draft pick(s) is substantial relative to the expected value of the player. That the updated rules make a player who has previously received a QO ineligible to receive another one is a clear acknowledgement of that fact.

The value of the one-year qualifying offer is based upon the mean of the top 125 player salaries (full-season salaries, not prorated ones). A player issued a QO can accept and return to the team for whom he played in 2020 at that price, or he can decline it and sign with any team (including the one from whom they rejected the offer), with his old team receiving a draft pick whose placement is based upon the size of the subsequent contract. If a qualified player signs a deal for at least $50 million, his old team gets a draft pick between the first round and Competitive Balance Round A. There were no such picks in the 2020 draft, but in ’19, those picks were numbers 33 and 34, while in ’18, they covered picks 31-35, meaning that they yielded around $9-10 million in future value. If a qualified player signs a deal for less than $50 million, the compensatory draft pick follows Competitive Balance Round B, which takes place after the second round, and which in 2019 covered just pick number 78, and in ’18 fell in the 75-78 range, worth somewhere around $3-3.5 million.

Meanwhile, the quality of the pick lost by the signing team depends upon whether it exceeded the Competitive Balance Tax in the previous season, and whether it receives revenue sharing money. A team that pays the tax will lose its second- and fifth-highest picks, which might amount to around $8 million in future value, while a team that receives revenue sharing will lose its fourth-highest pick, which might be worth closer to $3 million. These are ballpark estimates; you can read the fine print here. Read the rest of this entry »