It had been hours — hours! — since A.J. Preller and the San Diego Padres made a trade, so they were more than due. To fix that nearly unthinkable drought, they stayed within the state of California — Jason Castro is headed from the Angels to the Padres:

Sources: The Padres are trading for catcher Jason Castro, sending righty reliever Gerardo Reyes to the Angels in return. Deal is pending medicals.

— AJ Cassavell (@AJCassavell) August 30, 2020

Catcher has been the main weak spot for San Diego this year. Austin Hedges is hitting .167/.262/.352, and that’s actually better than last year’s batting line. He needs to be more or less perfect behind the plate to make up for that, and he’s fallen short of that this year. The depth chart behind him looks even worse; Francisco Mejía combines the defense of someone the Padres have been hiding in left field to avoid his catching butchery with a line that would make Hedges blush; .079/.146/.184. He’s also on the Injured List with a thumb injury. Third-stringer Luis Torrens has been acceptable in 13 plate appearances, but he’s hardly a solid stopgap.

Enter Castro, whose .192/.323/.385 slash line this year, good for a 98 wRC+, would be the best offensive contribution the Padres have received from a catcher in quite some time. That’s not a good thing, per se — he’s striking out 37.1% of the time with a gross 15% swinging strike rate — but as the saying goes, any port in a storm. Perhaps no position player in baseball this side of Jeff Mathis projects to be worse than Hedges on offense.

Castro’s offensive production, while it would be an upgrade, isn’t the reason teams value his services. He’s made a career out of hitting enough to be playable while saving runs behind the plate, a sort of halfway version of Hedges, who has been one of the worst hitters in baseball his entire career but arguably the game’s best defensive catcher. Read the rest of this entry »

With half of the season in the books, the Atlanta Braves are holding down first place in the National League East. In this season of expanded playoffs, that translates to a 92.4% chance of reaching the postseason. Accordingly, they’re buyers at the trade deadline, with an eye towards shoring up their postseason rotation. To that end, they made a deal with the Orioles today, acquiring starting pitcher Tommy Milone in exchange for two players to be named later:

Atlanta #Braves Acquire Tommy Milone: pic.twitter.com/y2mO0iyqgp

— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) August 30, 2020

Wait, Tommy Milone? He’s an odd addition to a team that looks like a lock to make the playoffs; Atlanta is looking for players to help in the postseason, not help them get there, and Milone is more the latter than the former.

They’ve struggled mightily with rotation depth, however, as expected starters Mike Soroka and Cole Hamels are on the shelf with injury. Hamels could theoretically return for the playoffs, but that’s iffy at best, and Soroka is out for the year. Ten different players have made starts for Atlanta this season, hardly the stability they’d hoped for. Milone can, if nothing else, provide them with bulk innings. For a pitching staff that’s already running out Robbie Erlin, Josh Tomlin, and rookie Ian Anderson, that’s quite valuable. Read the rest of this entry »

An Oakland Athletics offense that was already fourth in baseball in WAR has acquired Tommy La Stella — a man who has hit .265/.361/.461 this year (.287/.350/.480 over the last two), and who has the lowest strikeout among baseball’s qualified hitters at a paltry 5.6% (7.9% combined the last two years, also the lowest in baseball) — to solidify a second base situation that has been molten since Jed Lowrie’s most recent departure. The A’s traded 24-year-old infielder Franklin Barreto to the Angels in exchange for La Stella.

As his now twice former manager Joe Maddon once said when he was a Cub, La Stella could roll out of bed and hit, a notion he has since further reinforced, as La Stella’s strikeout and barrel rates have each trended in a positive direction since he left the north side. He makes the A’s lineup a top-to-bottom threat for the rest of the year before he hits free agency this winter.

La Stella is a clear upgrade over incumbent keystone Tony Kemp, who emerged from a crowded preseason group mostly made up of disappointing prospects. Kemp is hitting just .250/.377/.281, with the OBP portion of his line driven by an unusually high walk rate and BABIP compared to the five-year big leaguer’s career norms. Kemp, who also has experience in the outfield, is likely to shift to a bench role as a situational lefty bat, and a late-inning replacement for La Stella, who is neither a good defender nor runner.

There will likely also be some instances when La Stella serves as Oakland’s designated hitter in lieu of the struggling Khris Davis (who is hitting .155/.269/.241 this season, and .213/.290/.371 over the last two combined), with either Kemp or Chad Pinder starting at second base. In essence, La Stella bolsters the second base and DH spots simultaneously as he himself is an upgrade, and his addition means Bob Melvin can choose from whichever of Pinder, Kemp or Davis he thinks is more likely to do damage that day. For instance, Pinder could play more often versus lefties, Kemp versus righties, and Davis against pitchers who throw a lot of fastballs. I think this move may put Rule 5 pick Vimael Machín‘s roster spot in jeopardy, especially in light of Marcus Semien’s recent injury, which could leave Oakland without a viable defensive shortstop on their 40-man, perhaps necessitating a deal or Nick Allen’s addition to the active roster for a brief stretch. Read the rest of this entry »

The San Diego Padres have added another bat to 2020’s second-best lineup so far, acquiring first baseman Mitch Moreland from the Boston Red Sox for two prospects, third baseman Hudson Potts and center fielder Jeisson Rosario. Moreland will almost certainly slot in as the team’s full-time designated hitter, occasionally spelling first baseman Eric Hosmer.

If during a word association game prior to the season, you had said “stopgap first baseman,” I almost certainly would have answered with “Mitch Moreland.” Never amazing but also rarely terrible, Moreland has been a fixture as the long-term/short-term first baseman for Boston the last four seasons. Peaking at 2.2 WAR for the 2015 Rangers, he’s put up between 0.7 and 1.0 WAR in six other seasons, building a handy little pillow fort between average and replacement level.

This season, on the other hand, has been something better. Moreland has already hit the 1 WAR milestone in just 22 games thanks to a .328/.430/.746, 203 wRC+ line. No, he’s not suddenly channeling the shade of Ted Williams, but he’s legitimately hitting for more power than he typically does. By Statcast’s barrels per batted ball event, Moreland ranks second in baseball behind only Miguel Sanó. It’s not that he’s actually hitting the ball that much harder, but he’s gotten more loft in his swing; Moreland’s 20-degree average launch angle against fastballs and 19-degree average launch angle against breaking pitches are career highs, both nearly double his marks from 2019.

And while Moreland is unlikely to ever finish among the league leaders in home runs, he has become quite good at harvesting pitchers’ regrets. Statcast defines “meatballs” as middle-middle pitches; an average hitter swings at about 75% of those. Moreland’s rate is at 87.3% in 2019 and 2020 combined, meaning he’s only half as likely as the typical player to leave his bat on his shoulder for those pitches. Here’s his radial chart against middle-middle over those two seasons:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Chicago Cubs added another bat to the lineup on Sunday, acquiring designated hitter José Martínez from the Tampa Bay Rays for two players to be named later.

Chicago, with few spare bats to be had from their increasingly thin upper minors, was one of the many National League teams that rolled into the season without a clear full-time designated hitter option. The team has generally used the position to either rest Willson Contreras without losing his bat or to get Victor Caratini’s lumber in the lineup. Larger active rosters in 2020 have facilitated this, giving the Cubs room to carry Josh Phegley as the “break in case of emergency” catcher; teams are usually quite resistant to having their backup catcher as the designated hitter due to the possibility of injury.

Martínez is a limited player, with his defensive abilities at first base and either corner outfield spot both weak points on his résumé, but it’s unlikely the Cubs use him in a role that involves much use of a glove. Phegley was designated for assignment as the corresponding roster move, another sign Chicago sees Martínez taking over a good chunk of the DH job. He’s had fairly large platoon splits in his short major league career, with a .946 OPS against lefties and a .773 against righties, so he’ll at least grab most, if not all, of the starts against southpaws. Those splits are more even in 2020, but you should take platoon splits over a single month about as seriously as you take Pittsburgh’s 2020 World Series chances (read: not at all). Read the rest of this entry »

The San Diego Padres came into 2020 with one of the best late-inning setups in baseball. Their plan was simple: offseason acquisitions Drew Pomeranz and Emilio Pagán would handle high-leverage situations in the middle innings before passing the baton to Kirby Yates, one of the most dominant relievers in the game. That plan hasn’t worked out this year, largely because Yates will miss the rest of the season after surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow. On Saturday, however, they made a move to replenish their planned area of strength, acquiring Trevor Rosenthal in a trade with the Royals.

Nationals fans might wonder whether acquiring Rosenthal is supposed to be a good thing. He was, no doubt, abysmal for them last year — he racked up a 34.9% walk rate over 12 games before getting the heave-ho. A slightly longer stint with the Tigers ended the same way — striking out 28.6% of the batters you face is good, but not when you’re walking 26.8% of them as well. The Royals signed him as a reclamation project, nothing more — a minor league deal that could escalate to as much as $4.25 million based on incentive bonuses.

Consider him reclaimed. In 13.2 innings this year, he’s been effective, striking out 37.5% of his opponents en route to a 3.29 ERA that, while still short of his peak, represents a huge improvement from last year’s disaster. It’s not all daisies and lollipops, even at surface level — he’s walked 12.5% of opposing batters and given up two home runs. Mid-three ERA relievers don’t grow on trees, though, and San Diego was intent on getting one.

In acquiring Rosenthal, the Padres are making a bet that they can fix him, because despite his acceptable results this year, there are worrisome underlying signs. As Johnny Asel pointed out, Rosenthal might resemble his St. Louis form superficially, but the way he’s doing it has changed completely. He’s flooding the center of the strike zone and daring batters to hit it, which explains the better walk rate but also the hard contact.

At his peak, Rosenthal was that most cherished baseball stereotype: effectively wild. He lived on the edges of the strike zone and just outside it. That ballooned his walk rate, but it also suppressed home runs; squaring up Rosenthal’s explosive fastball and where’d-it-go changeup was simply beyond most batters when he didn’t leave them hanging over the plate.

To wit, when batters swing at pitches he leaves over the heart of the plate, per Baseball Savant’s definitions, they’ve hit nine home runs in 774 swings. When they swing at pitches on the edges of the plate, they’ve hit two in 816 swings. That’s not wildly different from how major league pitchers work in general — Rosenthal suppresses home runs in a similar ratio in both places — but for a pitcher who will always allow some traffic on the bases due to his walk rate, home runs are an anathema. Read the rest of this entry »

Andrew Miller made his MLB debut on today’s date 14 years ago.Two months after bing drafted sixth-overall out of the University of North Carolina by the Detroit Tigers, the lanky left-hander pitched a scoreless eighth inning in a 2-0 loss to the New York Yankees. Five hundred-plus appearances later, he remembers it like it was yesterday.

“I faced some big names in old Yankee Stadium, which is hard to beat,” recalled Miller, who retired Melky Cabrera, Johnny Damon, and Derek Jeter. “It was part of a doubleheader, as we’d gotten rained out the day I was called up, and afterward, [pitching coach] Chuck Hernandez came over and put his hand on my chest. He asked if I was going to have a heart attack.”

A top-step-of-the-dugout exchange with Marcus Thames is also fresh in Miller’s memory. On cloud nine following his one-inning stint, Miller learned that his teammate had four years earlier taken Randy Johnson deep in his first big-league at bat. Ever the pragmatist, Miller acknowledges that Thames’s debut had his own “beat by a mile.” The previous day’s rain-delay poker game in the clubhouse was another story: Miller walked away a winner.

He wasn’t about to get a big head. Not only was Miller joining a championship-caliber club — the Tigers went on to lose to the Cardinals in the World Series — there was little chance he’d have been allowed to. While his veteran teammates treated him well, they also treated him for what he was — a 21-year-old rookie with all of five minor-league innings under his belt.

“It was a shocking experience all around,” Miller admitted. “In hindsight, it’s scary how little I knew, and how naive I was, when I got called up. Thank goodness Jamie Walker called my room and told me to meet him in the lobby to go over some ground rules and expectations. He saved me from a lot of mistakes. Of course, after that Jamie was maybe the hardest veteran on me. It was all good natured, but I couldn’t slip up around him.” Read the rest of this entry »

Because they have had so many pitcher injuries, it was a bit of a surprise to see the Rays make a trade for an outfielder, let alone one who hasn’t been able to crack the starting lineup on a last place Royals team. But today, the Royals sent Brett Phillips to the Rays for prospect Lucius Fox.

It’s hard to say what Phillips will bring because he hasn’t been given much of a chance to do anything in Kansas City. Only twice this month has he gotten more than two plate appearances in a game, leaving us with an insufficient 2020 sample to evaluate him. He has historically struggled to make consistent contact in games but plays the outfield well and has elite arm strength. He appears to have slightly altered his swing this year, changing where his hands begin and how early his leg kick starts, but because he has barely played I don’t know if this has made a difference on the contact end of things. I still have him as a fifth outfielder type.

Phillips is not an easy roster fit for Tampa Bay. He is on the 40-man, so this move does not help to clear the small 40-man crunch the Rays will deal with as the Rule 5 roster deadline approaches, and Phillips has no options left. He’ll be on an active roster with several other outfielders who run well and have big arms, Phillips’ two most notable traits. Read the rest of this entry »

When the league announced an expanded playoff format on the eve of the season, the Blue Jays were clear beneficiaries. In the old, five-team format, we gave them just a 9.7% chance of reaching the postseason; the cream of the AL crop had a stranglehold on those spots. With eight spots and only six teams in the top tier (New York, Tampa Bay, Minnesota, Cleveland, Houston, and Oakland), however, there was more space for interlopers. The Jays’ playoff odds in the new format opened the season at 29.8%.

With roughly half the season in the books, their odds have only increased. After Wednesday’s games, the Jays looked like a clear favorite for the final spot in the playoffs:

Still, as evidenced by the fact that their odds still hover at only 65%, they don’t have anything sewn up. Their pitching, in particular, has been a weak point. Hyun Jin Ryu has been as good as advertised holding down the rotation, but you can’t make a rotation out of one pitcher. Nate Pearson has struggled in his first taste of the big leagues and is currently on the Injured List, Matt Shoemaker has a lat strain, and Trent Thornton has hardly pitched this year due to injury. Piecing together the 31 remaining games of the season looked like a challenge.

To that end, the Blue Jays brought in reinforcements today, acquiring Taijuan Walker from the Mariners. In return, they’re sending a player to be named later. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic confirmed that the player will be outside the 60-man player pool of players eligible to be traded in-season this year, which means we won’t officially know who it is until the offseason, but the Jays have no shortage of interesting prospects. Read the rest of this entry »

To look at the New York Yankees roster, as is typically the case, is to gaze upon a dizzying number of potential star hitters. But as the last couple of seasons have shown us, the roster of players in the Yankees organization doesn’t often match up with the guys they actually have available to take the field. In 2019, the team had a large chunk of its starting rotation and lineup on the IL by the second week of the regular season, and the problem never got much better. Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks, Didi Gregorius and others all missed substantial time during the season.

The injury bug has continued to bite them in 2020, with Stanton back on the IL alongside Gleyber Torres and DJ LeMahieu while Judge only recently returned from missing time himself. In spite of all of this, the team has remained extremely competitive thanks to the contributions of role players who have consistently stepped into the spotlight. Last year it was Gio Urshela and Mike Tauchman leading the charge in keeping the Yankees afloat. This year, the man stealing the spotlight is Luke Voit.

After appearing in 118 games for the Yankees last season, Voit has secured the job as the team’s starting first baseman in 2020. The longer he plays, the harder it is for the Yankees to justify handing his spot in the lineup over to someone else. Voit has seemed to get hotter each week he’s been on the field — over the Yankees’ first 14 games, he carried an OPS of .816. Over their next seven, he had an OPS of .945. Last week, he began to go berserk, going 8-for-20 over his last six games with six homers, three walks and three strikeouts.

He started his most recent tear by clubbing two homers in a game against the Red Sox last Monday: Read the rest of this entry »