After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for more than half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Batters

This is a bit awkward, as the most interesting Blue Jays batters essentially sit in the Bench and Prospects section. Probably the starkest difference between ZiPS and Steamer comes in the form of Lourdes Gurriel, Jr., who has such an unhappy projection from ZiPS that I went back and ran it a second time to make sure I hadn’t goofed anything. From his minor league hit data, ZiPS doesn’t think Gurriel will be able to maintain his minor-league BABIP. And the poor defensive projection isn’t just ZiPS overreacting to Gurriel’s fairly poor BIS and UZR defensive numbers; as rudimentary as even play-by-play minor league defensive measures are, Gurriel’s estimates come in below-average there as well.

The larger problem with the Blue Jay offense is that ZiPS essentially sees little upside remaining among the established players. Tulowitzki and Donaldson were both gone, and while they weren’t stars in 2018 by any stretch of the imagination (and Tulo didn’t even get in a game), they at least represented the possibility of star-level performance going into 2018. Smoak’s 2017 was probably his high-water mark and he’s now a designated hitter on the wrong side of 30, while Devon Travis is another year further away from when he looked like he could be a borderline star. Toronto was 10th in the AL in runs scored in 2018, but outside of the admittedly super-exciting addition of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., I just don’t see much of a hope for this unit doing much more than last year. Read the rest of this entry »

Josh Ockimey has developed into one of the more promising hitting prospects in the Red Sox organization, and he’s done so by shunning comparisons. The 23-year-old first baseman resembles a slugger from his home town, but doesn’t emulate him.

“Being from Philadelphia, I always got the Ryan Howard comparison,” Ockimey told me early in 2018. “But I really just try to be Josh Ockimey. I’ve learned that when you try to be somebody else, you’ll never be as good as they are. They’re them and you have to do what makes you you. I focus on that and try to be the best that I can be.”

What makes Ockimey Ockimey is a discerning eye paired with plus power from the left side. A sturdy 235 pounds — “that’s the weight I play best at” — he finished this season with an .811 OPS and 20 home runs in 481 plate appearances between Double-A Portland and Triple-A Pawtucket. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the World Series Champion Boston Red Sox. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. 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 the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a new feature at the site that offers sortable scouting information for every organization. That can be found here.

Other Prospects of Note

Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.

Upper-level Hitters
Brett Netzer, 2B
Josh Ockimey, 1B
Roldani Baldwin, C

Netzer is a Tommy LaStella type: fine at second base, an advanced hit tool with a little bit of power, and probably just a good bench bat. Ockimey shows plus power and patience at the plate, but the average will be low and he’s a 30 athlete who some scouts think is a DH-only, so it’s going to be tough to profile. Baldwin has some pop, but isn’t a lock to catch and he’s had injury issues, including a concussion.

Lower-level Hitters
Kole Cottam, C
Cedanne Rafeala, OF
Tyler Dearden, OF
Bryan Gonzalez, RF
Albert Feliz, OF
Eduardo Vaughan, CF

Cottam, 21, is either short on arm strength or defensive ability behind the plate (maybe both) depending on who you ask, but he has plus power and hit 19 homers for Kentucky last year, so there’s some Mike Napoli type upside if it all works out. Rafaela, 18, is a Curacao-born Ronald Torreyes-type, about 5-foot-8 and a multi-positional plus runner with bat control and sneaky tools. If we’re talking upside, one scout said Dearden, 20, could be Cody Bellinger if it all goes perfectly, with a similar frame and swing, but he’s a raw cold-weather player who hasn’t reached Low-A yet, so he’s a wait-and-see case. Gonzalez and Feliz are 2018 July 2 signees. Both have plus raw power and strong frames now, but Gonzalez has the arm for right and a little better feel to hit at the moment. Vaughan is a very raw projection type with some average current tools, but he’s the sort who could take a big step forward.

Relevant Pitching Depth
Chandler Shepherd, RHP
Josh Taylor, LHP
Colten Brewer, RHP

Brewer was acquired for Esteban Quiroz this winter and relies heavily on a 92-94 mph plus cutter, mixing in a solid curveball. He put up great numbers in Triple-A and might be a middle relief piece. Shepherd is an inventory arm with a standout curveball who’s likely a long reliever in the big leagues. Taylor was acquired from Arizona for Deven Marrero and has a big arm that’s been into the upper-90’s, but the rest comes and goes. He was added to the 40-man this offseason.

Lower-level arms
Alexander Montero, RHP
Thad Ward, RHP
Also Ramirez, RHP
Jake Thompson, RHP

Thompson looked like a real prospect after going in the fourth round in 2017 from Oregon State, hitting 98 mph with a starter look in his pro debut, but everything backed up this year. He’s still throwing pretty hard but hasn’t performed. Ramirez is a 17-year-old Mexican pitcher who would’ve gone to the GCL last summer if not for fatigue; he has advanced feel of a four pitch mix and looks like a potential starter. Ward had a velo jump at UCF this spring, going from 88-91 to 91-95, touching 96 mph, but was used heavily and regressed in his pro debut. There’s a slider that is a consistent 55 and flashes 60, and solid command that should allow him to start for a bit in pro ball, but his skinny frame will likely limit him to relief.

System Overview

This system is bad, though it got that way in part because talent from it was used to build a championship team, which is the very best of reasons to have a bad farm system. Still, this group is more compelling than the one we wrote up last year now that the 2017 IFA group has already had several members who have asserted themselves as the system’s most interesting players to follow. The Red Sox have a strong recent track record in Latin America. Former International Director Eddie Romero was promoted to Assistant GM while former Mets International Director Chris Becerra, who signed several of the Mets’ prospects near the top of our recent audit of that org, was brought in to replace him. The Red Sox domestic talent acquisition is going to be limited as long as they’re fielding a good big league team, but we expect the international talent to keep flowing.

Some of you might not realize that, if you hover over the search bar up there, you’ll see which player pages have recently been the most popular. Let’s give it a spin, shall we?

Willians Astudillo. Between Astudillo and Vlad, I don’t know which has been more popular, but I strongly suspect it’s the former, and it’s definitely the former among major-league players. People have been losing their minds over Astudillo of late. Now, I did write about him last week. Playing winter ball down in Venezuela, Astudillo has performed like a deserving MVP candidate. But also, there’s a clip that’s been making the rounds. Willians Astudillo hit a home run.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Giants don’t project to be a good baseball team in 2019. That doesn’t mean they won’t be a good baseball team in 2019, but the odds are against them. They’re unlikely to be as good as the Dodgers. They’re unlikely to be as good as the Rockies. They might’ve been passed by the Padres, and they might still be worse than the Diamondbacks. With a farm system that’s in similarly mediocre shape, something had to change, and indeed, the Giants are now under new management. Farhan Zaidi and the rest of his front office are in the process of figuring out their next steps.

Some form of rebuild or step back seems inevitable. And the player who’s drawn the most public attention is Madison Bumgarner, on account of his having become a household name. Bumgarner could be traded, but then again, there are certain incentives pushing the Giants to giving him a few months to build up his value. It would also be difficult for Zaidi to make dealing Bumgarner one of his first major decisions. Something that could and should happen sooner is a trade of Tony Watson, and/or a trade of Will Smith. Both of them are veteran lefty relievers. I’m here to advocate for Smith. He’s the one any contender should want to get.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let me explain how I landed on Jose Alvarado. Alvarado is a reliever for the Rays. I actually wrote about him last June, but not because of his pitching.

Right. So why Alvarado, on today of all days? It’s not like he’s been showing up in trade rumors. Here’s the explanation: I’m a guy who loves looking at bullpens. I was also looking at the Twins last night, considering them as a possible sleeper. One guy they should be getting back is Michael Pineda. Another guy they already got back is Trevor May. May is going to pitch out of the Minnesota bullpen, and when he returned in 2018, he put up some encouraging numbers. I went into the leaderboards, to see how his numbers stacked up. That’s where I came across Alvarado. That’s what prompted all of this work.

Almost completely off the radar, Alvarado broke out late in the season. There’s no need to be complicated here. This is a very simple table:

That’s a list of some talented pitchers. Down the stretch, Alvarado struck out almost literally half of his opponents. He struck out the same rate of opponents as Edwin Diaz. I’ve written before about Ryan Pressly’s breakout. I’ve written before about Jose Leclerc’s breakout. What happened with Alvarado? Did anything happen with Alvarado? The answer is yes. He changed on the fly, and became something dominant.

Read the rest of this entry »

Brian Anderson knows who he is as a hitter; he’s less sure of what kind of hitter he’ll be in the years to come. At 25 years of age with just 765 big-league plate appearances under his belt, the fourth-place finisher in last year’s NL Rookie of the Year balloting has a lot of growth in front of him.

Drafted by the Marlins out of the University of Arkansas in 2014, Anderson has displayed reliability, versatility, and a smooth right-handed stroke since arriving in Miami in September 2017. Manning both third base and right field, he finished the 2018 campaign with a .273/.357/.400 slash line and a team-high 34 doubles. Moreover, he was a mainstay in Don Mattingly’s lineup. Anderson was a spectator in just five games.

One thing he didn’t do often was leave the yard. Partly the result of playing in pitcher-friendly Marlins Park, Anderson homered a paltry 11 times. Which circles us back to the “what kind of hitter he’ll be in the years to come?” question. Anderson doesn’t lack raw power. It’s a matter of tapping into it more consistently as he continues to mature as a hitter.

Anderson discussed his gap-to-gap approach, as well as his long-ball potential, when the Marlins visited Fenway Park late last August.

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Brian Anderson on hitting: “It’s about getting my pitches to hit. More specifically, getting good pitches within my approach and putting a good swing on them. It starts with my work in the cage, and then BP is for working on barreling the ball to all parts of the field. It’s for making sure that I’m hitting the ball the right way.

“Once I’m in the box, it kind of depends on the pitcher. Certain pitchers don’t throw to certain spots, and some pitchers are most vulnerable in certain spots. I like the ball more out over the plate. I like it more down in the zone and middle to middle away. That’s kind of the zone I try to lock in on, and I’ll try to drive that ball to right center. If I get hanging off-speed, or a heater in, then I’m (pulling the ball). Generally speaking, I’m more focused on the middle of the field. Read the rest of this entry »

Now with their fourth World Series ring since 2004, we can safely say that any remaining curse on the Boston Red Sox has been exorcised with extreme prejudice. Surprisingly, their 108-win, 2018 season was the first hundred-win season for the franchise since 1946, back when Julio Franco was about 35.

The Setup

This World Series-winning Red Sox team should probably considered part of a new dynasty, rather than as the final installment of the one that won three World Series championships in the 21st century. Obviously, the players are different; 14 years have passed, and even awesome players are subject to the ravages of time. But the front office also has a very different look.

Theo Epstein has now been gone for nearly a decade, but in the years after his departure — and the brief interregnum featuring a dashing escape from Fenway Park dressed in a gorilla suit — the front office had a distinct flavor of the Epsteinian dynasty, with Ben Cherington, Jed Hoyer, and Mike Hazen all having ties to Epstein.

When Dave Dombrowski took over as President of Baseball Operations at the end of 2015, the ultimate responsibility for the day-to-day decision-making shifted for the first time to someone without ties to the 2004 champions. The Epsteinians ended with less bloodshed than a lot of great dynasties; Hazen getting a job in Arizona is hardly comparable to the violent end of Andronikos I Komnenos. (I swear I’ll stop now before the rest of the article is just me comparing Red Sox transactions to Byzantine battles.)

It’s easy to forget in the wake of a trophy in 2013 — flags fly forever, yada yada yada — but that victory was sandwiched between three last-place finishes in the AL East. To find the last time the Red Sox had consecutive losing seasons, you’d have to look back to around the strike.

The 2016 roster looked very different than the 2013 one. Only two starting position players remained from 2013, Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz, and the latter was in his grand farewell procession. The 2013 rotation was gone, except for Clay Buchholz, and of the main bullpenniérs, only Koji Uehara remained.

After adding David Price and Chris Sale in consecutive offseasons, the 2017-2018 winter had its own big highlight: the team’s re-signing of Mitch Moreland. OK, we all know that’s a lie; Boston successfully waited out a winter during which many of the other big market teams did little with their cash, and brought in J.D. Martinez on a six-year, $110 million contract. It was the rare signing of a star free agent on Martinez’s side of the defensive spectrum that ZiPS didn’t immediately start digitally laughing at.

With a young offensive core — 30-year-old J.D. Martinez was the old man of the valuable parts of the lineup — and a hopeful return to health and form from David Price, Boston rightly felt that they didn’t have to add too much else. Unlike some of those other high-revenue teams, Boston was on no quest to get under the luxury tax threshold for 2018, already having reset its penalties in 2017 (the Red Sox payroll resulted in a nearly $12 million luxury tax payment).

The Projection

ZiPS projected Boston to be in a close battle with the Yankees going into the season, with a two-win deficit that could evaporate by simply making a slightly different set of assumptions. The computer projected Boston to have a 78% chance of making the playoffs, far better than any projected runner-up, with the next-best being the St. Louis Cardinals at 53%.

ZiPS did see some weaknesses in the team, viewing the catching situation as a bit of a mess and believing Mitch Moreland and Hanley Ramirez to be rather unambitious choices at first base. ZiPS wasn’t super-confident about the depth at the back of the rotation, either, and was concerned the No. 4 and 5 starter situation could unravel very quickly with a few Nasty Surprises in the health department.

The Results

Well, they won 108 games and the World Series, so you could say that there was definitely some more-than-passable adequacy going on. The weird thing about the Red Sox season is that as 108-win teams go, it really wasn’t all sunshine, lollipops, and Mike Trout Everything.

Unusually, you could see a lot of what-ifs scenarios, none of which were all that crazy, in which Boston could have easily finished with even more wins. The catching Cerberus hit like a three-headed hot dog, Moreland and the released Ramirez were in fact rather mediocre at first (though Moreland, as usual, wore his surprise breakout costume for a couple of months), and the back of the rotation did in fact have a couple of Nasty Surprises. Rafael Devers growing from his rookie season instead of regressing from it could have added a couple more wins as well.

The contours of the Red Sox season weren’t surprising, but the magnitude of the good things were. The Twitter Baseballosphere all joked about a specific article written before the season, in which a Boston-area writer said Mookie Betts was as good as Mike Trout (I was one of the sarcastic quippers, naturally). But Betts actually was as good as Trout in 2018, as weird as that claim appeared at the time.

Betts and Martinez gave the team two MVP candidates and Chris Sale was, as usual, a legitimate Cy Young candidate. One could argue that the Boston Red Sox were a bit like a very sunny version of the Colorado Rockies, a team that also had two MVP candidates and a legitimate Cy Young candidate, but surrounded their core with an Ian Demond-Gerardo Parra Imagination Christmas.

Unlike Colorado, Boston never stopped trying to find opportunities to deal with their team’s limited weak spots. Steve Pearce gave the team a legitimate right-handed role player who could do at first base what Hanley proved too inept to accomplish. Ian Kinsler was brought in to patch the hole at second, even if the move failed to be all that profitable. And Nathan Eovaldi solidified the back of the rotation and finished the season having completely resurrected his career.

Boston’s regular-season pummeling of the league continued, with the team steamrolling over the Yankees, Astros, and Dodgers — the majority of the teams ZiPS that thought were better going into the season — and only dropping three games over the entire postseason.

And while he didn’t have a Cy Young-type season, it was nice to see Price eviscerate that laziest of baseball storylines, that of the postseason choke-artist. After a lousy start against the Yankees in the ALDS, Price only allowed seven runs over his remaining 24.1 innings. And after having to make an appearance in that crazy 18-inning Game 3, Price allowed just one run in seven innings, on one day’s rest filling in for Chris Sale, who was hospitalized with a stomach ailment.

What Comes Next?

Over the next few years, the Red Sox will likely have harder decisions to make than their eternal rivals, the New York Yankees. Chris Sale, Rick Porcello, and Xander Bogaerts are free agents after the 2019 season, and if he plays just as well as he did last season, Martinez may very well join them by using his 2019 or 2020 opt-outs. Mookie Betts hits free agency after the 2020 season as well.

That’s a lot of talent to see leave, and keeping that group together will be expensive; the team has already hinted that it will pose a great challenge to sign all of them. This team blew through the luxury tax threshold and that’s with Sale, Betts, and Bogaerts making under $30 million combined. If Martinez doesn’t opt-out, the Red Sox already have a hair under $110 million baked in the 2020 cake for just six players. If you bring back Sale for $30 million, and Bogaerts for $20 million, even with letting Porcello walk, that’s $159 million with 17 roster spots left to fill.

And those spots won’t be cheap to fill. Using the framework developed by Craig Edwards, and the pre-2018 prospect ranks of Kiley McDaniel and Eric Longenhagen, Boston had the second-least value in their farm system, ahead of only the Mariners. While the McDongenhagen analysis for this winter isn’t out yet, I daresay that there weren’t enough victories in the minors (Michael Chavis was suspended, Sam Travis was terrible, and Triston Casas can’t single-handedly turn around the farm system) to drastically change this ranking for the better.

As Boston sees its young core become expensive without easy answers from the farm, the team will have to be creative (or get much more comfortable with the luxury tax) in the coming years to not have a significant down turn in the franchise’s fortunes. Transitioning to the team’s next core without spending $300 million a year may be the biggest challenge for the dynasty of the Dombrowskii.

ZiPS Projection – Mookie Betts

Let’s just bask in the Mookie-y goodness and hail to whatever we find in the sunlight that surrounds him.

I asked ZiPS to give me all Betts’ remaining four-WAR seasons in the projections, and it returned a nice little collection of superstar seasons. All-told, ZIPS sees 52 WAR remaining for Betts, which puts him above 80 WAR, a definite Hall of Fame trajectory. Even if his defense doesn’t age as well as ZIPS thinks it will, knocking off ten runs a year from his defense starting in 2019 would still leave him at nearly 70 wins, and that’s way too harsh and adjustment.

That wraps up the Elegy for ’18 series; next year’s series will commence with the Orioles sometime in late March. Thanks for joining me in my final goodbyes to the 2018 season, even if they went week past when I’d intended!

The White Sox have made a series of minor moves this offseason to prepare themselves for contention at some point in the future; that might be as soon as next year, but it’s more likely in 2020 or later. The team added Ivan Nova from the Pirates to provide innings in the rotation. They added Alex Colome from the Mariners to help the pen. Chicago acquired Yonder Alonso from Cleveland to improve the offense and let Jose Abreu spend more time at designated hitter. If there was a $7 million to $10 million unwanted player, the White Sox have seemed willing to take on the salary in exchange for a fringe prospect. That strategy took on a different form today, as the team snapped up free agent reliever Kelvin Herrera on a two-year, $18 million deal with a vesting option, per Jeff Passan.

Herrera, not unlike many relievers, has had an inconsistent career. In 2012, 2014, and 2016, he put together very good seasons, with a sub-3.00 FIP and at least one win above replacement. In 2013 and 2015, he was closer to average. In 2017, when he took on closer duties in Kansas City, he just wasn’t very good. Last season, he put together a very good first half, which prompted Kansas City to trade him to Washington at just the right time. In DC, Herrera pitched poorly, and was sidelined with a rotator cuff injury and then a foot problem that ended his season. He’s missed time due to right arm injuries in 2014, 2017, and last year, also not uncommon for a reliever throwing in the high-90s. This is what his velocity looks like by season.

Velocity isn’t everything, and at 29 years old, Herrera is still young, but the drop is concerning. Here’s a similar graph showing his strikeout and walk rates.

Herrera’s walk rate has always been fine aided by a career 60% first strike rate, including 67% last year. It is interesting that his strikeout rate doesn’t necessarily correlate with his fastball velocity. He wasn’t striking out a lot of batters in 2014 and 2015, when he still had great velocity, and then when his velocity first dipped in 2016, he struck out batters at the highest rate of his career. In ranking the Top 50 free agents this offseason, Kiley McDaniel put Herrera 49th overall and 10th among relievers. McDaniel pegged Herrera for a one-year deal at nine million dollars, roughly half the guarantee he ended up receiving. Dan Szymborski wrote Herrera’s report in that post and came to a similar conclusion. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this winter, the New York Mets were looking to upgrade their catching situation. The team was dissatisfied with Travis d’Arnaud, Kevin Plawecki, and Tomas Nido as the frontline options, and after rumors of a J.T. Realmuto trade, the team ended up signing Wilson Ramos to give them four, major league-caliber catchers. Cleveland has moved in the opposite direction. The team traded top prospect Francisco Mejia to San Diego for Brad Hand and Adam Cimber over the summer to aid their bullpen. Then, when winter began, Cleveland moved Yan Gomes to the Nationals to save money. That left Cleveland with the ultra-light hitting Roberto Perez and the all-or-nothing Eric Haase, whose projections lean more toward the “nothing” side than the “all.” That made the two teams pretty good trading partners, and this is the result:

Cleveland receives:

• C Kevin Plawecki

New York receives:

• RHP Walker Lockett
• 2B Sam Haggerty

Read the rest of this entry »