“Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.” – Albert Camus

The 2018 Boston Red Sox won 108 games and dominated the postseason, going 11-3 and winning the World Series. The 2019 Red Sox…did not. It’s hard to call an 84-78 season an unmitigated disaster. Still, the Red Sox were out of the divisional race by June, resulting in president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski getting his pink slip. Replacing Dombrowski is Chaim Bloom, poached from the Tampa Bay Rays, and a public mandate to get the payroll under the luxury tax threshold. Boston, perhaps more than any near-playoff team in 2019, faces an uncertain future.

The Setup

Winning the World Series is every team’s (eventual) goal, and no matter what the Red Sox had done to follow-up on their big 2018 win, nobody was going to take down that flag. For the sequel, the Red Sox decided to go the route of keeping the band mostly together and hoping people would buy the Greatest Hits album. Whether or not it was due to excessive thrift — the Red Sox were safely over the luxury tax threshold — the team did little in the offseason aside from re-signing 2018 midseason acquisitions Nathan Eovaldi and Steve Pearce.

There’s an argument to be made that a roster that wins 108 games one year ought to be at least a serious contender the following year without too many alterations. The danger of that argument, however, is that a team is far more likely to win 108 games when an excessive number of things go right than when the majority of things go sour. Boston’s farm system wasn’t likely to provide much in the way of reinforcements in 2019, making the cost of either inaction or losing players to free agency higher than it would be for teams with greater internal depth.

When it came to the bullpen, inaction would have been an upgrade. Boston’s relief corps was far from the portable fire-starter of this year’s champs, ranking 13th in WAR and sixth in FIP in 2018, but it wasn’t a particularly deep group. The team let Craig Kimbrel and Joe Kelly go, something that 2019 hasn’t exactly forced the organization to regret. Still, the Red Sox needed to replace those contributions somehow, as Kimbrel and Kelly combined from two of the bullpen’s 4 WAR. But Boston didn’t do any of that, instead opting to move the returning relievers up a place, a bit like Darth Vader did with empire personnel every time he lost his temper and force-choked a commanding officer.

The Projection

As someone from Baltimore who grew up rooting against the Yankees, it irked me a bit that even while the Red Sox were winning the World Series, ZiPS thought the Yankees were the better team. That pattern continued in 2019; ZiPS forecast the Red Sox to finish four games behind the Yankees at the start of the season. Of course, Boston’s projected 94 wins were the fourth-most in baseball, so it’s not as if the projection system’s baseline expectation was a disappointing season.

There were, however, some troubling signs in the margins. The rotation projected for a more-than-healthy 18.1 WAR, but ZiPS also saw an enormous gulf after the front five starters. Beyond that group, ZiPS saw non-prospects Matthew Kent and Chandler Shepherd and journeyman reliever Ryan Weber as the team’s best spare options, a troubling ranking considering the propensity pitchers have for breaking. ZiPS loved it some Mookie Betts but saw the team’s lineup as top-heavy, and after Michael Chavis, was unimpressed with the offensive depth. ZiPS’ mean projection for the team was four games worse than the Yankees, but its 10th percentile projection was 10 games worse, which was more a reflection the weakness of the “break glass in case of emergency options” than of the riskiness of the team’s talent.

The Results

Boston started the season by dropping eight of 10 games, failing to win a series outright until they swept the Tampa Bay Rays in late April. Through the end of April, Red Sox starting pitchers posted a 4.73 FIP, better than the likes of teams such as the Orioles, but firmly in the bottom-third of the league. Chris Sale, Nathan Eovaldi, and Rick Porcello all struggled at the start of the season, enough for manager Alex Cora to use a six-man rotation for much of the first half in an attempt to give the starters more rest. Sale recovered somewhat as the season went on, though he never pitched at his usual level of awesomeness; a sore elbow ended his 2019 season early, but as of now, it looks like he has managed to avoid Tommy John surgery. David Price also bowed out early due to a cyst on his wrist that made throwing breaking pitches painful.

A roaring comeback never came for Porcello or Eovaldi. Porcello’s ERA didn’t dip below five after the midseason, and he likely only kept his spot in the rotation because of the various misfortunes of others. Eovaldi missed part of the season with sore biceps, and in order to facilitate a quicker return to action, Boston used him in relief for a spell.

As may have been expected given the team’s lack of depth, once the rotation’s Fab Five fell to ruin, the pitching picture was painted with a bleak palette. Outside Boston’s planned 2019 rotation, the team’s starting pitchers combined for a 6.79 ERA and 23 homers in 119.1 innings. The situation was dire enough that the team banked on Andrew Cashner being able to continue his surprisingly adequate 2019.

He didn’t.

Things were a good deal brighter offensively. Dustin Pedroia was only able to make it into six games, but any contribution was notable. Betts and J.D. Martinez regressed somewhat from their 2018 seasons, but no more than ought to have been reasonably expected by an impartial observer.

Xander Bogaerts had his best season yet, hitting .309/.384/.555 for a 141 wRC+ and 6.8 WAR, with all of those numbers representing career-bests. The Red Sox are lucky they were able to ink Bogaerts to a contract extension in April, as he would certainly have been much more expensive this winter.

It wasn’t all sunny, however. He wasn’t the worst performer on the offense, but Andrew Benintendi was arguably the most disappointing one. In a season that saw 53 players hit 30 or more home runs, Benintendi failed to find another 15 long balls in his bat. He turned some of his liners into fly balls, but a more aggressive approach at the plate hurt his contact numbers more than it helped his bottom line offensive stats. Benintendi looked a lot more like the middle-of-the-pack starter of 2017 than the star-level performer of 2018. He just turned 25 this season, so there’s still time, but as of this moment, I’d struggle to call him a player a team should build around.

In the end, the rotation’s struggles were too much for the offense to overcome. Realistically, even giving Betts and Martinez their 2018 lines wouldn’t have been enough to get the Sox to the playoffs.

What Comes Next?

This question is a pretty big matzah ball for the Red Sox (or whatever the Boston-equivalent of that Seinfeld colloquialism is). The Sox have expressed a public desire to get below the luxury tax threshold for the 2020 season. There’s always the chance that this is a bluff, and that ownership is not really as obsessed with this idea as they’re indicating, but it’s a dangerous game to signal to your paying customers that the product is going to get worse soon.

I’m not sure how this goal can be achieved by just cutting fat here and there. RosterResource projects the Red Sox to be over the luxury tax threshold even if they do nothing this offseason. That means no free agent replacement for Porcello and no veteran signings, short of other moves giving them additional space with which to play. The team is likely to trade Jackie Bradley Jr. and is not-so-subtly shopping Betts. The obvious problem here is that the Red Sox don’t have the in-house replacements to mitigate a JBJ loss, let alone Betts, who my colleague Ben Clemens just argued should not be traded. Betts will fetch real prospects, but if those theoretical prospects could effectively replace Betts in 2019, their current team would likely just play them instead of swapping them for the 2018 AL MVP.

Just as before the 2019 season, Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel have the Red Sox farm system last in future value. Triston Casas‘ first full professional season was enough to get his FV moved up to 50; the Red Sox didn’t have a 50 FV prospect coming into the season, so that’s something, I guess.

Chaim Bloom’s charge with the Red Sox is to restock the farm system while not throwing in the towel on 2020 or 2021. It’s going to be a challenge.

The Absitively, Posilutely, Way-Too-Early ZiPS Projection – Rafael Devers

Rafael Devers’ 2018 line (.240/.298/.433, 90 wRC+, 1.0 WAR) was underwhelming on its face. But it shouldn’t be forgotten that Devers was only 21 in 2018; any 21-year-old prospect who debuted with those numbers would have been hailed as a 2019 breakout candidate. That’s just what Devers did, hitting .311/.361/.555 with 32 homers, 54 doubles, and a spine-tingling 5.9 WAR. Devers rose to elite territory in average exit velocity (16th in the majors), and there’s still room in his swing to get more loft and turn some of those doubles into home runs. Devers is unlikely ever to be a serious Gold Glove candidate — I won’t say never because of Marcus Semien — but he made great strides in his defense in 2019, cutting his errors by a third.

Devers is a legitimate star at the hot corner and should be a foundational player for the Red Sox over the next decade or so. Coming into 2019, ZiPS had Devers as the seventh ranked third baseman in terms of career WAR remaining, behind Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Jose Ramirez, Alex Bregman, Manny Machado, Matt Chapman, and Kris Bryant. That’s a tough crowd to break into, but I would not be shocked to see Devers ascend into the top five.

Devers’ WAR obviously won’t be quite this stable — this is a projection after all — but that’s the forecast of a top third baseman.

In part four of a six-part series — the AL East, AL Central, and AL West pieces have been published — I’ll be highlighting each team’s most notable free agents and how it could fill the resulting void on the roster. A player’s rank on our recently released Top 50 Free Agents list, along with Kiley McDaniel’s contract estimates from that exercise, are listed where relevant. In some cases, the team already has a capable replacement ready to step in. In others, it’s clear the team will either attempt to re-sign their player or look to the trade or free agent markets for help. The remaining cases are somewhere in between, with in-house candidates who might be the answer, but aren’t such obvious everyday players to keep the team from shopping around for better options.

Here’s a look at the National League East.

Atlanta Braves | Depth Chart | Payroll

Josh Donaldson, 3B
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 4
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 3 years, $71M

The Braves didn’t waste much time identifying Donaldson as their preferred third baseman for 2019 and inked him to a one-year, $23 million deal last November. A year later, Austin Riley is ready to step in at the hot corner while Donaldson, who will turn 34 next month, is expected to land a multi-year deal in the range of $20-$25 million per season.

As great a fit as he is in Atlanta, Donaldson will likely get better offers elsewhere with the Braves expected to prioritize starting pitching and catching. That doesn’t rule out a return, especially if the team can fill their biggest needs without breaking the bank. Read the rest of this entry »

Nobody in the baseball community expressed surprise when Yordan Alvarez took home the American League Rookie of the Year award on Monday. After all, Alvarez hit like Mike Trout over 369 plate appearances, finishing second in the majors in wRC+ among those with at least 300 trips to the plate. His 3.8 WAR led all AL rookies by a wide margin; second-place John Means was nearly an entire win behind.

But if you had a time machine and went back to the start of the 2019 season, people would undoubtedly be befuddled to learn that Alvarez claimed the ROY hardware. Rather, you might have expected the honor to go to the best hitting prospect in recent memory: Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

At the beginning of the season, Guerrero seemed poised to be the Rookie of the Year. As Eric and Kiley wrote in February, “He should […] immediately become one of the game’s most exciting, productive hitters. He is the cornerstone of the Blue Jays franchise, and perhaps a cornerstone of our sport.” Expectations were through the roof; here at FanGraphs, 20 of the 32 writers who voted in our preseason awards predictions had Guerrero winning the award. Alvarez was not on our collective radar.

In a vacuum, Guerrero did not have a bad season. Not every 20-year-old is Juan Soto, and for Guerrero to hit .272/.339/.433 with a 105 wRC+ at this age is still impressive. Since 2000, there have only been 25 individual position-player seasons with at least 200 plate appearances taken by a player aged 20 or younger. Guerrero’s wRC+ ranks 15th. Granted, there is survivorship bias here, as the only players to even be in the majors by age 20 are those who are supremely talented. But even among those supremely talented youngsters, Guerrero’s bat was still in the middle of the pack. Again, we’re reminded of expectations versus reality. We expected Guerrero to be the best, and when he wasn’t, it came as a bit of a surprise. On the whole, however, he wasn’t bad. Read the rest of this entry »

From 2015-18, the Cincinnati Reds pitching staff was an unmitigated disaster. Their rotation posted the lowest WAR in baseball over that span, and so did their bullpen. Following the 2018 season, there were signs that relievers were coming along, but the rotation was still a tire fire. Luis Castillo, far and away the best arm on the team, was suddenly having trouble keeping the ball in the yard. The second-most valuable pitcher on the staff was Matt Harvey, who was about to leave in free agency with seemingly little fight from the front office. The organization entered yet another winter with the rotation seemingly a gaping hole and with no quick fix in sight.

And yet quickly fix it they did. The team traded for three starting pitchers in the offseason, and even more importantly, they hired Derek Johnson away from Milwaukee to take over as pitching coach. In one season, they went from 27th in the majors in pitching WAR to ninth, and they did so without the benefit of a prospect bursting onto the scene and excelling. It was nothing short of a stunning turnaround, one that should have launched the team into contention. If only the lineup had hit. Unfortunately for the Reds, an offense that had hovered around the middle of the pack the previous two years dropped to 25th in baseball in wRC+ in 2019. Like the pitching staff a year ago, the lineup is riddled with holes. Is the organization capable of another quick turnaround?

In 2019, the Reds ranked in the bottom third of baseball in walk rate, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage in 2019. Statcast paints an even worse picture — no team in the majors had a lower average exit velocity, and only the Mariners had a worse hard-hit rate. Cincinnati was fifth-worst in baseball in expected slugging and seventh-worst in expected wOBA. The Reds’ offense was largely punchless throughout the season, and without a couple of hitters going on power tears late in the year, it could have looked much worse. Read the rest of this entry »

The Red Sox have had a sad start to the offseason, even by the standards of baseball’s recent payroll doomsaying. While some teams have intimated that they won’t increase payroll, the Sox have gone further; owner John Henry announced that they plan on dropping below the luxury tax threshold for 2020, setting the tone for a strange winter where cutting salary might matter more than the eventual product on the field.

Viewed through that lens, it’s somehow a bad development when one of the best hitters in baseball chooses to stay on your team. J.D. Martinez was the 16th-best qualified hitter by wRC+ last year, and that was a down year. He elected not to opt out of his current contract, and is slated to make $23.75 million next season — a steal if he hits his Steamer projection, and a useful piece for a team with no other DH options. And yet, when you set artificial salary constraints on yourself, things tend to snowball.

With Martinez in the fold, things took an even weirder turn. The offseason rumor mill seems increasingly convinced that the Sox will offload Mookie Betts to save the last year of his salary and avoid an appropriately costly extension, reaping some prospects in return and cutting payroll in the bargain. I’ll attempt to quantify what this might do to the team, but let me say upfront: this seems like an obviously bad choice to me. Dan Shaughnessy hit pieces aside, Betts is probably the best non-Trout player in baseball. You don’t trade someone like that and take a step forward.

But okay, fine, let’s go through the math of trading Betts. We’ll do the grim calculus of turning player contracts into cash amounts first: if you value a win on the free market at $8 million, Betts’ 6.6 WAR projection is worth $52.8 million. If Betts earns his projected arbitration salary of $27.7 million, that works out to $25 million in surplus value. That sounds reductive, and it is. Mookie Betts isn’t an asset worth $25 million to the Red Sox; he’s one of the best players in baseball, and also a great bowler in his spare time. But if we’re doing the math, that’s the starting point. Read the rest of this entry »

In his career, Adam Wainwright has started 330 games, pitched in 410, and thrown 2209 and a third innings, including the postseason. Every one of those games has been in a St. Louis Cardinals uniform, and for at least one more season, his 16th season in the majors, the 38-year-old will pitch for the redbirds. The Cardinals announced the news, though has of this writing, terms have not been disclosed.

Update: Ken Rosenthal is reporting the deal is for $5 million guaranteed with $5 million in potential incentives. The guarantee looks to be a bit of a bargain given Wainwright’s 2019 and is under both Kiley McDaniel and the crowd’s estimates.

Wainwright turned 38 years old near the end of August, but that didn’t stop him from putting up a solid regular season campaign with an even better postseason. He ranked 29th on our list of Top 50 Free Agents, with Kiley McDaniel and the crowd expecting a one-year deal worth between $8 million and $10 million. I wrote the blurb that accompanied those predictions, and noted that Wainwright was in line for a much better deal than the one he had to settle for a year ago:

Heading into last offseason, Adam Wainwright couldn’t have been thrilled to find himself at a point in his career where he had to accept a contract with a low guaranteed salary and a ton of incentives based on games started, but he looks to be in much better shape after meeting those incentives in 2019. The 38-year-old started 30 games and put up a league average FIP and ERA. He was even better in the postseason, with 19 strikeouts in 16 and two-thirds innings to go along with just three walks and three runs. His fastball sits at just 90 mph, but heavy use of his signature curve keeps hitters off balance. It’s difficult to envision Wainwright and the Cardinals separating after 15 seasons, and after the year he just had, his guarantee should be a bit higher than the $2 million he got last winter.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the third of a six-part series — you can see the AL East here and the AL Central here — I’ll be highlighting each team’s most notable free agents and how it could fill the resulting void on the roster. A player’s rank on our recently released Top 50 Free Agents list, along with Kiley McDaniel’s contract estimates from that exercise, are listed where relevant. In some cases, the team already has a capable replacement ready to step in. In others, it’s clear the team will either attempt to re-sign their player or look to the trade or free agent markets for help. The remaining cases are somewhere in between, with in-house candidates who might be the answer, but aren’t such obvious everyday players to keep the team from shopping around for better options.

Here’s a look at the American League West.

Houston Astros | Depth Chart | Payroll

Gerrit Cole, SP
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 1
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 7 years, $242M

Wade Miley, SP
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 32
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 1 year, $9M

It would be impossible to replace Cole, who might just be the best pitcher on the planet right now. With a projected payroll that is currently above $200 million for next season, the Astros do not appear to be in a strong position to re-sign the 29-year-old. But that doesn’t put them in desperation mode, by any means.

The return of Lance McCullers Jr., who missed all of 2019 recovering from Tommy John surgery, will help to offset the potential loss of Cole and give the Astros a formidable trio to lead their rotation along with Justin Verlander and Zack Greinke. Pitching depth is also strong with Jose Urquidy in line for a rotation spot and several others capable of helping out in 2020. But considering that Verlander and Greinke will be 37 and 36, respectively, on Opening Day, and McCullers hasn’t pitched in a game since last October, they aren’t expected to stand pat this offseason. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is part of a series concerning the 2020 Modern Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering executives and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon at the Winter Meetings in San Diego on December 8. It is adapted from a longer version included in The Cooperstown Casebook, published in 2017 by Thomas Dunne Books. For an introduction to JAWS, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Ted Simmons was one of baseball’s true iconoclasts. He denounced the Vietnam War, wore his hair long, nearly became a test case for the Reserve Clause, and was as conversant in 18th century fireplace utensils (yes, really) as he was the tools of ignorance and the curveballs of opposing pitchers. Oh, and he could switch-hit well enough to rank among the position’s best offensively. With eight All-Star appearances, he was hardly unheralded, but Simmons nonetheless tended to get lost among the bounty of great catchers from the 1970s. Seven of the top 16 in the JAWS rankings hail from that decade, including three of the top four, namely Johnny Bench, Gary Carter, and Carlton Fisk. Simmons wasn’t quite their equal, but he ranks 10th, just ahead of Modern Baseball ballot-mate Thurman Munson (12th), with Gene Tenace (13th) and Bill Freehan (16th) not far behind.

Such a concentration of top-tier players at a single position in a given time period is hardly unprecedented, even among those already enshrined. Using the Hall’s own definition of activity — at least one game played in a given season — five enshrined catchers were active every year from 1929-37 except ’30. Every other position except third base (which like catcher, has just 15 enshrinees, the lowest at any position besides relievers) has stretches with six or seven active players, with the seven left fielders from 1975-76 the largest of the recent concentrations. Read the rest of this entry »

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Dylan Bundy, Cory Gearrin, and Dereck Rodriguez — on how they learned and developed their changeups.

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Dylan Bundy, Baltimore Orioles

“I’d tried a circle change, and throwing with these two fingers [the middle and ring], but I never could do it. First of all, it doesn’t make sense to throw with those two fingers when you don’t throw any other pitches with them. You throw every pitch with the [middle and pointer], and your thumb, right? I kind of got around to, ‘Why try it?’

“I decided to spread my fingers over the two seams — this was in 2016 — and while I don’t know if you’d consider it a split, I call it a split. Some people only consider it a split if you full on choke it. For me it’s not a choke so much as a spread. When you bring your thumb up, really far up to the side of the ball, that way you get the action. If your thumb is underneath the ball, you get more straight drop, if that makes sense. You’re throwing against your thumb.

“I first threw a four-seam [changeup] — same grip, same spread — but then, two years ago… actually, no. Last year was the first time I started doing a two-seam grip instead of a four-seam grip. My thought process had been to try to make it look exactly like my heater, because I thought hitters could read spin, but I was told that hitters can’t make up their minds on spin that quick. I was told, ‘Don’t worry about that; don’t worry about the spin, worry about the action.’ That’s when I went to the two-seam split-change. Read the rest of this entry »

Job Title: Intern, Baseball Analytics

Department: Baseball Operations
Reports To: Director of Analytics
Location: Jupiter, Florida
Job Classification: Hourly/Non-Exempt

Position Summary:
The Analytics Intern will assist Baseball Operations decision-making through the analysis and facilitation of baseball information. The specific day-to-day responsibilities of this position will vary depending on the baseball calendar, but will revolve around analyzing and troubleshooting baseball data. A competitive candidate will be an excellent communicator and possess an established foundation of analytical skills. The position will report to the Director of Analytics.

Essential Functions:

• Facilitate information flows and effectively communicate analytical products across departments.
• Expand upon Marlins analytical strategy by creating new applications and reports.
• Improve and refine existing processes for the Baseball Operations Department.
• Perform ad-hoc research projects as requested.
• Present analysis and research results in a complete, concise, and engaging manner.

Qualifications & Requirements:

• Strong work ethic, attention to detail, and ability to self-direct.
• Demonstrated baseball research, experience visualizing data, and/or strong technical acumen.
• Ability to communicate baseball analytics concepts to individuals with diverse baseball backgrounds, including coaches, scouts, and executives.
• Understanding of and passion for the game of baseball.
• High level of familiarity with the current state of baseball research.
• Ability to work extended hours including evenings, weekends, and holidays from February – October 2020.

Suggested Education & Experience:

• Undergraduate or graduate degree in a field that emphasizes analytical problem solving skills, such as mathematics, computer science, engineering, law, or medicine.
• Understanding of advanced forecasting techniques is strongly preferred.
• Meaningful work experience with Tableau, SQL Server, R, and/or Python is strongly preferred.
• Understanding of the governing documents of Major League Baseball, such as the Official Baseball Rules, is strongly preferred.
• Ability and desire to learn other programming languages as needed.
• Baseball/softball playing experience is a plus.

To Apply:
Please apply with your resume, cover letter, and other supporting materials (relevant past projects) on TeamWork Online here.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Miami Marlins.