Last week, Jay Jaffe wrote about the rumors that the Nationals were considering a contract extension for wünderkind Juan Soto, the team’s first step toward keeping him in town for the majority of his career. Though just 22 years old and four years away from free agency, Soto receiving an extension in the $400 million range would hardly be premature. Projection systems — which by their nature are supposed to be dispassionate and shoot for the middle — see him as having a no-doubt Hall of Fame career.

Yet if you’re a Nationals fan, you have cause to be suspicious that an extension gets done. You’ve seen your super-talented homegrown players leave unceremoniously in free agency as soon as they could, and while Soto has a more favorable outlook than Bryce Harper or Anthony Rendon did, you don’t want to see these negotiations drag out any longer than they have to.

It would be enough if Washington had just one young player’s future to stew upon this spring, but in fact, there are two. As Soto has been fielding questions about a possible extension in spring training, so too has shortstop Trea Turner, who at 27 is much closer to free agency; he’s set to hit the market after the 2022 season. That makes any extension decision that much more urgent. Turner knows it, and he’s been open about wanting to get an agreement done. From the Washington Post’s Barry Svrluga:

“I would love to play here my entire career,” Turner said Tuesday. “I’ve said it in the past. I’ve always liked it here, and don’t think the grass is greener on the other side. … I love it here. I love the atmosphere and the ballclub that [General Manager Mike] Rizzo and the coaching staff has put together every single year. We’ll see. I think those talks have happened in the past, and hopefully they’ll happen in the future.”

The Nationals’ position is a tricky one. Turner’s free agency would come two years before Soto’s, but the latter’s contract may still be the most important one, as it will be the larger of the two and must fit within Washington’s payroll. But retaining Turner in 2023 and beyond won’t come cheap. One of the top prospects in baseball when he debuted in 2015, he has slowly but surely started living up to that billing, turning into one of the league’s best shortstops over the last three seasons.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the latest spring exploits of Shohei Ohtani, the Royals extending Salvador Perez, rooting against injuries in spring training, and a mysterious former major leaguer known only as “Lewis,” then preview the 2021 Mets (37:09) with Deesha Thosar of the New York Daily News and the 2021 Marlins (1:14:26) with Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald.

Audio intro: Mark Knopfler, "Nobody Does That"
Audio interstitial 1: Radiohead, "Lewis (Mistreated)"
Audio interstitial 2: Queen, "Put Out the Fire"
Audio outro: Feist, "Get it Wrong, Get it Right"

Link to video of Ohtani’s two-way game
Link to Ben Clemens on the Perez extension
Link to Jared Diamond on the Royals’ humane behavior
Link to Rustin Dodd on the Royals’ anti-porn campaign
Link to “Lewis” Wikipedia page
Link to “Lewis” B-Ref page
Link to “Lewis” on the Stathead ERA leaderboard
Link to story about deGrom’s spring speeds
Link to Matt Kelly on deGrom’s velo in 2020
Link to Travis Sawchik on deGrom’s velo in 2020
Link to Deesha on Jared Porter
Link to article on the Mets’ defense
Link to Jordan on Kim Ng
Link to Stephanie Apstein on Kim Ng
Link to Jordan on the Marlins’ pandemic year
Link to story about Marlins security guard
Link to Realmuto cracking the fish tank

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I asked Baltimore Orioles hitting coach Don Long a question on Monday morning, and he responded with a lengthy answer. I wanted to know, relative to years past, how much more frequently players are approaching him with ideas of changing their swing, and what he tends to tell them when that happens.

“Honestly, I’m not a believer in changing swings,” the veteran hitting instructor responded. “I operate under the thought that [for] every hitter, their best swing, they already possess. The thing that gets in the way of them being able to access their best swing, consistently, usually has to do with their thinking, their timing, their position, or their ability to be really good with their eyes.

“You’ve probably heard the old Michelangelo story, right? Supposedly, he carved this statue of David out of this block of granite, and they said, ‘How did you carve such a beautiful statue out of a block of stone?’ He said, ‘I simply chipped away at the stone until the statue revealed itself.’ That’s how I look at a hitter’s swing. You already possess your best swing — it’s already there — so let’s not spend time chasing a good swing, or chasing something that you already know how to do. Let’s chip away at the thing that’s getting in the way of that. And for most guys, the thing that interrupts the physical part of their game is the mental part of the game.

“I can give you an example. I had a guy come to me a couple days ago in the cage with an exasperated, ‘Man, what’s going on? I don’t know what to do.’ I said, ‘Let me ask you a question.’ I picked a ball up out of the basket and said, ‘What’s this pitch going to be?’ He looked at me and said, ‘I don’t know.’ I said, ‘Yeah, you do.’ Read the rest of this entry »

With Opening Day roughly a week away, teams are running out of time to sign players to contract extensions without dragging negotiations out into the season. This week will likely have a bevy of them, and the Royals got the party started early yesterday when they signed Salvador Perez to a four-year, $82 million extension, as The Athletic’s Alec Lewis reported.

The deal, which also contains a team option for a relatively affordable fifth year at $11.5 million after accounting for a buyout, doesn’t start until 2022. When it does kick in, Perez will become the second-highest-paid catcher in baseball, behind only J.T. Realmuto (Buster Posey has a team option for 2022, but it will likely not be exercised), with Yasmani Grandal as the only other catcher within hailing distance of his new deal.

In the current context of player spending, this qualifies as a surprise. Perez will turn 31 in May. He missed all of 2019 to have Tommy John surgery and a chunk of the previous season with an MCL sprain. When not injured, he rarely missed a game, exposing his body to the rigors of catching at a rate only matched by fellow Missourian Yadier Molina.

Catchers age in dog years. Perez is fighting gravity by continuing to be a valuable player every time he puts on the tools of ignorance. Most of the teams in baseball wouldn’t have signed this deal. What’s going on?
Read the rest of this entry »

Ethan Small’s success comes largely from his heater. Which isn’t to suggest he throws smoke. As Eric Longenhagen wrote when profiling the 23-year-old southpaw for our 2020 Brewers Top Prospects list, Small is “blowing fastballs with mediocre velocity past opposing hitters because he hides the ball well and creates pure backspin.” Velocity-wise, the former Mississippi State Bulldog typically sits in the low 90s.

Professional hitters haven’t seen much of him due to the pandemic — Small’s curriculum vitae comprises 21 A-ball innings — but Southeastern Conference opponents are another story. They had plenty of opportunity to be impressed with the 28th-overall pick in the 2019 draft, particularly in his junior year when he went 10-2 with a 1.93 ERA, and 176 strikeouts in 107 innings.

A pair of fellow 2019 first-rounders sang Small’s praises when I asked which SEC pitchers they’d faced stood out the most.

Braden Shewmake, whom the Atlanta Braves drafted 21st overall out of Texas A&M, began by citing Casey Mize. The second pitcher he mentioned was Small. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley preview the 2021 Astros with Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle and the 2021 Rangers (54:07) with Levi Weaver of The Athletic.

Audio intro: The Felice Brothers, "T for Texas"
Audio interstitial: Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez, "Dirty Little Texas Story"
Audio outro: 2nd Grade, "Bye-Bye Texas"

Link to Michael Baumann on the aging Astros
Link to Chandler on Valdez
Link to Chandler on Álvarez
Link to Martino’s Astros book
Link to Drellich’s Astros book
Link to Levi on the Rangers and fan safety
Link to ESPN on the Rangers front office
Link to The Daily News on the Rangers front office
Link to story on Charley Pride Fellowship Program
Link to Levi on Young
Link to Levi on the Rangers’ rotation
Link to Ken Rosenthal report about Lynn
Link to Andrew Simon on Kiner-Falefa
Link to Levi on Kiner-Falefa
Link to Levi on Calhoun
Link to Levi on Arihara
Link to Levi on Dunning
Link to Levi on the first-base battle
Link to things Levi is looking forward to
Link to story about B-Ref being sued
Link to Baseball-Reference Stream Finder

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JJ Bleday was drafted fourth-overall in 2019 after breaking out at Vanderbilt. Swinging from the left side, the now-23-year-old outfielder bashed an NCAA-best 26 home runs, putting up a 1.005 OPS along the way. And the Miami Marlins brought more than just a slugger on board. As Eric Longenhagen wrote in his prospect profile, Bleday is “a complete offensive package” who possesses “a superlative feel for the strike zone.”

Bleday didn’t get game action last year due to the pandemic, but his advanced tools and mature approach are impressive enough that the Marlins are giving him a long look this spring. Ranked 35th on our 2021 Top 100 Prospects list, Bleday is close to big-league ready despite having just 151 professional plate appearances, none above A-ball.

Bleday talked hitting prior to getting into the cage yesterday afternoon.

———

David Laurila: Let’s start with one of my favorite icebreaker questions: Do you view hitting as more of an art, or as more of a science?

JJ Bleday: “I view it as more of an art. It’s definitely an art, because it’s your own craft. Everyone has their own style, and kind of mark on their swing, or variation of approaching the game.”

Laurila: A lot of the guys I’ve asked that question to have said “art,” but then talked about the science of hitting. Analytics are obviously a big part of the game now.

Bleday: “Oh, yeah, absolutely. With every sport. I mean, it’s big-time in golf nowadays.”

Laurila: Are hitting analytics a big part of who you are? Read the rest of this entry »

Given their blockbuster trade for Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco, their additions of James McCann and Taijuan Walker, and their projected first place NL East finish, the Mets already had plenty of buzz about them this spring. As if they needed more, their best player, Jacob deGrom, has provided some during the Grapefruit League season by reaching triple digits with his fastball velocity. On Tuesday against the Astros, his heater reportedly reached 100 mph 11 times on the stadium scoreboard, topping out at 101 on a pitch to Alex Bregman.

This is nothing new for the 32-year-old righty, who hit 100 in his first outing of the spring on March 6, the same day he was named the team’s Opening Day starter. Statcast wasn’t available for that outing or his March 11 one (both of which also came against the Astros in a spring where travel restrictions limit the pools of exhibition opponents). Here’s a look at deGrom’s upper-level readings from Tuesday:

Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley attempt to make sense of unsightly spring training uniforms, then preview the 2021 Braves (08:42) with Grant McAuley of From The Diamond and the 2021 Mariners (45:27) with Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times.

Audio intro: Ken Stringfellow, "Uniforms"
Audio interstitial: Anti-Flag, "20 Years of Hell"
Audio outro: Jethro Tull, "Uniform"

Link to Meg’s tweet about the Padres’ uniforms
Link to Uni Watch on the St. Patrick’s Day unis
Link to Mike Petriello on the Braves’ projections
Link to Petriello on Tatis/Acuña/Soto
Link to Craig Goldstein on Fried
Link to study on Cobb County
Link to Neil deMause on the Cobb County study
Link to From The Diamond
Link to BP Mariners preview
Link to Rodríguez homer video
Link to Ryan on the Rodríguez homer
Link to Ryan on Kelenic and Mather
Link to Ryan on Kelenic’s injury
Link to Ryan on Dunn and spring training clichés
Link to Dan Szymborski’s hitter bust candidates
Link to Ryan on Kikuchi
Link to Ryan on the pandemic and the M’s rebuild

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Hot takes are famously a huge part of the sports industrial complex, but here at FanGraphs, we’re not very good at them. I took a crack at some American League bold predictions yesterday, but honestly, they were pretty bland. Picking the relative fortunes of a bunch of good-but-not-great teams? Boring. A top prospect might be Rookie of the Year? Boring.

Today, I’m going a little further. If the last takes were jalapeños with some seeds removed, these are serrano peppers. I said I’d be ecstatic hitting half of my predictions from yesterday; today I’d be pleased with one in the first three (the fourth one is relatively unadventurous). As always, these aren’t my median predictions, merely corner cases that I think are being undervalued. Will they happen? Probably not. But they could, and I don’t think people are giving them enough credence. Onward! Read the rest of this entry »