Trea Turner has transformed himself into one of the best hitters in baseball. Lacking projectable power when he was drafted 13th overall in 2014 — Kiley McDaniel cited his upside as 10-12 home runs with a .420 SLG the following winter — Turner proceeded to become far more than the slash-and-burn type that many envisioned. His past three seasons have been particularly impressive. Playing with the Washington Nationals and the Los Angeles Dodgers, he posted a sparkling .316/.364/.514 line with a 139 wRC+. Moreover, his right-handed stroke has produced 87 home runs over the last four non-COVID campaigns.
Turner — now with the Philadelphia Phillies after being signed to an 11-year, $300 million contract in December, and currently playing for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic — talked hitting prior to a recent spring training game.
———
David Laurila: Let’s start with one of my favorite icebreaker questions: Do you view hitting as more of an art or more of a science?
Trea Turner: “I think it’s more of an art, but we’re trying to use science to quantify it. Sometimes guys have good swings, but then you go into a game and you can’t necessarily hit. The game is more of an art than a swing.” Read the rest of this entry »
We’ve reached the point in the offseason when it’s time for one of my favorite/most hated preseason traditions: my attempt to predict breakouts and busts. Since those are beyond what a projection system suggests are naturally going to be low-probability outcomes, there’s a high probability of me looking pretty silly — something writers generally try to avoid. Let’s start by looking back at how smart I was last year…or how foolish:
Thank goodness I had a weaker year than average overall, as I included a few of my favorite players in the mix! Being right for breakouts is a lot of fun, but being right on the busts is a bit depressing, a definite sign that I’ve mellowed as I enter middle age. Trout’s contact rate didn’t bounce back, and his BABIP crashed by well over 100 points, but his newfound grounder proclivity disappeared, and the power boost more than compensated for an OBP nearly 50 points below his career average. Riley’s BABIP also predictably fell, but he hit the ball harder and became a more well-rounded hitter, crushing most pitches instead of predominantly fastballs. Most of the rest came in at the middle-third of the ZiPS projections, which is a victory for the computer rather than me — all that is except for Schwindel, who didn’t just regress toward the mean; he lapped it.
Now, let’s turn to this year’s picks, as I throw myself upon the tender mercies of fortune. Read the rest of this entry »
“You can never have too much pitching” is an adage that predates the bombing of Pearl Harbor and a notion that’s at least as old as Old Hoss Radbourn’s sore right arm. Every team goes into the season expecting that its rotation will need far more than five starters, and one pitcher’s absence is another’s opportunity to step up, but that doesn’t make the inevitable rash of spring injuries any more bearable. This week, we’ve got a handful of prominent ones worth noting, with All-Stars Carlos Rodón and Tony Gonsolin likely to miss a few regular season turns, top prospect Andrew Painter targeting a May return, and José Quintana potentially out for longer than that.
The latest-breaking injury involves Painter, the freshest face among this group. The fast-rising 19-year-old Phillies phenom placed fifth on our Top 100 list. Moreover, the 6-foot-7 righty, who sports four potentially plus pitches, had already turned heads this camp, reaching 99 mph with his fastball in his spring debut on March 1 (Davy Andrews broke down his encounter with Carlos Correahere). While he topped out at Double-A Reading last year after two A-level stops, he was considered to be in competition with Bailey Falter for the fifth starter’s job, and had a legitimate shot at debuting as a teenager, though his 20th birthday on April 10 didn’t leave much leeway.
Alas — there’s always an alas in these stories — two days after Painter’s outing, manager Rob Thomson told reporters that he was experiencing tenderness in his right elbow, and several subsequent days without updates suggested there was more to the story. Indeed, an MRI taken on March 3 revealed a sprained ulnar collateral ligament, with the finding subsequently confirmed via a second opinion from Dr. Neal ElAttrache, hence the delay. The Phillies termed the injury “a mild sprain” that isn’t severe enough to require surgery. The team plans to rest Painter for four weeks from the date of injury (so, March 29) and then begin a light throwing program that under a best-case scenario would have him back in games in May. Read the rest of this entry »
We’ve reached the point in the offseason when it’s time for one of my favorite/most hated preseason traditions: my attempt to predict breakouts and busts. Since any breakouts or busts beyond what a projection system suggests are naturally going to be low-probability outcomes, there’s a high probability of me looking pretty silly — something writers try to avoid. Let’s start by looking back at how smart I was last year…or how foolish:
First, the bad news. Kelenic and Adell were both just awful, and I would definitely call 2022 a giant miss for both players as they enter their post-prospect period. I suspect there’s more hope to still be had for Kelenic than Adell, but I wouldn’t exactly call myself prescient about either. Kepler’s breakout didn’t happen at all, and his power all but disappeared. Anderson I’ll call an incomplete because of injury, and while Higashioka did match his entire previous career in WAR, that was largely due to defense, which I can hardly claim credit for predicting. Hiura did hit far better than he had recently, but he also didn’t exactly get a ton of playing time with the Brewers, who appeared to have lost interest in him. There were a few triumphs, however: Kwan and Lux both had excellent seasons, especially the former. Read the rest of this entry »
Andrew Baker has some of the best raw stuff in the Philadelphia Phillies system. He also has one of the best backstories. A 22-year-old right-hander with a high-octane heater and a breaking ball that’s arguably better, Baker converted from catcher to pitcher in junior college and initially hated it. Moreover, he’d once been scared to take the mound.
Baker — an 11th-round pick in 2021 who finished last year in Double-A — is currently in big-league camp with the Phillies. He discussed his atypical path to prospect prominence over the weekend.
———
David Laurila: You were a high school catcher and didn’t become a pitcher until college. Is that correct?
Andrew Baker: “Yes. I did the full switch at the beginning of my freshman year in 2019, so I’ve really only been pitching seriously for about four years.” Read the rest of this entry »
Today is the day that Bryce Harper reports to spring training. While it’s certainly fun to anticipate Harper’s return from reconstructive elbow surgery, his grand entrance into the heart of the Phillies lineup will have to wait a few months. He has been “dry swinging” as part of his rehab, taking swings without hitting a baseball, and his return to the active roster isn’t expected until sometime around the All-Star break. Defense will wait even longer, with Harper not expected to really be ready to play the field until the end of the regular season. That will mean many simultaneous servings of Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos in the outfield, something the FDA would surely stridently oppose if asked for an opinion.
The Phillies did some good things this offseason. By far the team’s biggest move was signing former Dodgers shortstop Trea Turner to a monster deal totaling $300 million over 11 years. I was a fan of the signing because it recognized that despite finishing 2022 just two wins short of a World Series title, the Phillies were also a third-place team that finished 14 games behind its divisional competition. With no expectation of a collapse from the Braves or the Mets, it was important to aggressively improve the roster where possible. Signing Turner allows incumbent shortstop Bryson Stott to slide into Jean Segura’s vacated role at second base, upgrading both positions.
But I haven’t been a fan of how the Phillies have managed the Harper situation from a roster standpoint. This is a team that should have been motivated to upgrade its outfield even in the alternate universe where Harper never requires Tommy John surgery. As currently constituted, the team’s outfield depth, which is basically Jake Cave and Josh Harrison, would have a great deal of trouble even replacing Brandon Marsh, let alone the 2021 MVP. Dalton Guthrie and Símon Muzziotti are unlikely to be answers either; not a single projection system housed here at the site has either of them with even a 90 wRC+ in 2023. That the team did nothing to address this issue after knowing that Harper would be unavailable for a significant chunk of the season is either perplexing or maddening, depending on whether you root for the Phils.
The team has yet to commit to a DH plan, at least publicly, and it appears likely that players will rotate through the position to keep them fresh. But rotating isn’t the same thing as replacing since that same motley crew of backups will play other positions when they aren’t DHing. None of the reserves/minor leaguers named above or Edmundo Sosa is likely to be even replacement level at designated hitter. The closest thing the Phillies have to a viable offensive option is Darick Hall, who showed power in his brief 2023 stint, but also poor plate discipline and a meager contact rate. ZiPS is easily the most optimistic of the FanGraphs projection systems here and even it only pegs Hall for a .225/.299/.434 line and a 103 wRC+, rather below average for a starting DH. Nor does it seem like the Phillies are content (at least not yet) to just plug him into the position for three months, which may be the least damaging in-house solution.
In terms of projected wins, the Phillies are right in that band where adding a win is the most valuable. Win number 110 or 60 has basically no effect on a team’s playoff fate, but wins number 86 and 87 certainly do. A four-win player (Harper’s projection) losing half a season is two wins. Two wins is about what acquiring an MVP candidate at the trade deadline will get you, something teams give up significant value to do. So how big a deal is Philadelphia’s curiously lax approach? Let’s start with the ZiPS projection, which currently assume 75 games for Harper. Here are the updated projected standings with that assumption:
ZiPS Mean Projected Standings – NL East
Team
W
L
GB
Pct
Div%
WC%
Playoff%
WS Win%
Atlanta Braves
94
68
—
.580
47.1%
39.6%
86.6%
12.1%
New York Mets
94
68
—
.580
42.6%
42.1%
84.6%
11.0%
Philadelphia Phillies
85
77
9
.525
9.8%
37.5%
47.2%
2.6%
Miami Marlins
75
87
19
.463
0.6%
7.0%
7.6%
0.1%
Washington Nationals
65
97
29
.401
0.0%
0.2%
0.2%
0.0%
That’s similar to the projection I ran a few weeks ago — not much has changed — and leaves the Phillies as essentially a coin flip to make the playoffs, with a real chance to upset and win the division, though they’d need a number of dice to roll their way. Now, here are the same projections, but with a few different totals for the number of games Harper is able to play at DH. The first column is the default 75-game projection from above:
ZiPS NL East Playoff Probs by Bryce Harper Games Played
Team
Div%
0
18
36
54
72
90
108
126
144
162
Atlanta
47.1%
48.9%
48.7%
48.3%
47.7%
47.2%
46.7%
46.1%
45.5%
44.8%
44.0%
New York
42.6%
44.4%
44.0%
43.4%
43.1%
42.6%
42.0%
41.6%
41.1%
40.4%
39.7%
Philadelphia
9.8%
5.9%
6.7%
7.6%
8.6%
9.5%
10.7%
11.7%
12.9%
14.3%
15.8%
Miami
0.6%
0.7%
0.7%
0.7%
0.6%
0.6%
0.6%
0.5%
0.5%
0.5%
0.5%
Washington
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
Team
Playoff%
0
18
36
54
72
90
108
126
144
162
Atlanta
86.6%
88.0%
87.7%
87.4%
87.1%
86.7%
86.5%
86.1%
85.8%
85.4%
85.1%
New York
84.6%
86.1%
85.8%
85.5%
85.0%
84.7%
84.3%
84.0%
83.6%
83.3%
82.9%
Philadelphia
47.2%
36.9%
39.3%
41.7%
44.1%
46.7%
49.4%
51.9%
54.5%
57.1%
59.6%
Miami
7.6%
8.5%
8.2%
8.1%
7.9%
7.6%
7.4%
7.1%
6.9%
6.8%
6.6%
Washington
0.2%
0.2%
0.2%
0.2%
0.2%
0.2%
0.2%
0.2%
0.2%
0.2%
0.1%
Team
WS Win%
0
18
36
54
72
90
108
126
144
162
Atlanta
12.1%
12.6%
12.5%
12.4%
12.3%
12.2%
12.0%
11.9%
11.8%
11.6%
11.5%
New York
11.0%
11.5%
11.4%
11.3%
11.2%
11.0%
10.9%
10.8%
10.7%
10.6%
10.4%
Philadelphia
2.6%
1.6%
1.8%
2.0%
2.3%
2.6%
2.9%
3.2%
3.5%
3.9%
4.3%
Miami
0.1%
0.2%
0.2%
0.1%
0.1%
0.1%
0.1%
0.1%
0.1%
0.1%
0.1%
Washington
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
In the worst case scenario, where something goes wrong with Harper’s rehab and he misses the season, ZiPS estimates that the Phillies would lose 10.3 percentage points of playoff probability. To put that in context, when I did a similar exercise last year with everyone in the National League as of late June, only Corbin Burnes had more of an effect on his team’s playoff chances. Indeed, of the million simulations of the 2022 season I ran, 40% of the ones that saw the Phillies pull a Rocky II and make the second time the charm would have disappeared into the aether if Harper had failed to return.
At the time of Harper’s surgery, the Phillies had myriad options, even if you ignore the unrealistic ones (like signing Aaron Judge or tricking someone into picking up Castellanos’ contract) or the fun, ambitious ones (like signing Brandon Nimmo out from under the Mets’ noses and playing him in right, then shifting him to center when Harper returned). Brandon Drury at DH projects as a superior option to any of the Phillies reserves and would have been a better flex option than Harrison. Wil Myers signed a one-year deal with the Reds for relative peanuts. Trey Mancini’s two-year, $16 million deal was costlier (macadamia nuts?), but he’s both a better hitter and would provide an emergency option if Rhys Hoskins leaves after 2023. Even the most pessimistic projection for J.D. Martinez (Steamer’s in this case) forecasts him for a 111 wRC+, and he signed with the Dodgers for one year and $10 million. Jurickson Profar remains a free agent; he could pick up DH reps against lefties and provide supersub value elsewhere the rest of the time. Given Harper’s likely eventual return, the Phillies might not have been the front-runners for all of those players, but better options were seemingly available.
The Phillies aren’t likely to make the playoffs winning just 85 games. Indeed, the scenarios in which they make the playoffs are generally those where they exceed their projections. Digging through a million sims, 87 wins only got a team the third Wild Card spot half the time, with the over/under to grab the NL East the highest in baseball at 98.4 wins.
ZiPS Playoff Table – 2023 National League
To Win
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
NL East
91.1
93.5
95.4
96.9
98.4
100.0
101.5
103.5
106.1
NL Central
84.8
87.2
89.1
90.8
92.3
93.9
95.6
97.8
100.7
NL West
89.4
91.7
93.3
94.8
96.2
97.5
99.1
100.8
103.4
NL Wild Card 1
88.9
90.5
91.7
92.8
93.8
94.8
95.9
97.3
99.3
NL Wild Card 2
85.6
87.1
88.2
89.1
89.9
90.8
91.8
92.9
94.5
NL Wild Card 3
83.1
84.5
85.5
86.3
87.2
88.0
88.9
89.9
91.4
If the team was to change course at this point, it would likely need to involve a trade. Now, I certainly wouldn’t send Andrew Painter or Mick Abel out of town for a bat, but is there anyone else in the system who is really untouchable in exchange for some high-leverage wins? ZiPS had the organization with two prospects between no. 101 and no. 200 on its Top 100 (Griff McGarry at no. 106) and Hao-Yu Lee at no. 158), and I can’t imagine hanging onto them if the right trade opportunity became available.
In the quest to finish last year’s unfinished business, the Phillies lost one of the league’s most valuable players and chose not to really replace him. Phils fans better hope that Harper is as good at healing at he is at crushing fastballs a mile. If not, the team’s lax approach may prove fatal to its playoff hopes.
Alejandro Kirk slashed a solid .285/.372/.415 with 14 home runs and a 129 wRC+ last year in his first full big-league season. Moreover, the 24-year-old Toronto Blue Jays catcher drew 63 free passes while going down by way of the K just 58 times. His 10.7% strikeout rate was third best in the junior circuit, behind only Steven Kwan’s 9.4% and Luis Arraez’s 7.1%.
How similar of a hitter is Kirk to Arraez? I asked that question to Blue Jays manager John Schneider prior to Thursday’s game in Dunedin.
“When you talk about contact, not a lot of swing-and-miss, yeah, they’re similar,” replied Schneider. “There’s a little more damage potential with Kirky. But more walks than strikeouts is tough to do at any level, [especially] the big leagues. So, I think when it’s just strike zone command, on-base, and contact-ability, they are pretty similar.”
Arraez, now a member of the Miami Marlins, won the American League batting title with the Minnesota Twins while slashing .316/.375/.420 with eight home runs and a 131 wRC+. Following up on my initial question, I asked Schneider if Kirk has the potential to capture a title of his own. Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes things just come together. On Wednesday, all the cosmic tumblers clicked into place at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers, Florida. In the first inning of a spring training game between the Twins and the Phillies, all the big stories of the offseason seemed to collide in one at-bat.
It started with Andrew Painter, the player who has thus far been the talk of spring training. The 19-year-old right-hander ranks fifth on our Top 100 Prospects list. His ascent was so rapid that he wasn’t even on last year’s list (he did make last year’s end-of-season update as a 60 FV), and now baseball is abuzz with the possibility that he might break camp as the fifth starter for the reigning National League champs. Painter even managed to make headlines during live batting practice.
There’s a lot about Painter that seems improbable. 19-year-olds who stand 6-foot-7 don’t often have 50/60 command grades. They’re the guys who spend years in the minors piling up walks and strikeouts while they slowly figure out where exactly all those limbs are supposed to go. Painter shouldn’t be free and easy throwing 99 mph in the zone. He should be a gangly, awkward teen like Alfredo Linguini from Ratatouille. Instead, he’s a commanding, fireballing teen who just happens to look like a whole lot like Alfredo Linguini from Ratatouille:
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley announce that they’re hiring a new podcast editor and solicit applications for the position, then (9:40) banter about another zombie-runner-related update to dictionary.com, MLB’s latest crackdown on sticky stuff, displaying the pitch clock on broadcast score bugs, Albert Pujols’s 10-year personal services contract with the Angels, and Rays pitcher Ryan Thompson’s comments about the arbitration process. After that, they continue their 2023 season preview series by discussing the Philadelphia Phillies (50:09) with Matt Gelb of The Athletic, and the Baltimore Orioles (1:26:47) with Nathan Ruiz of the Baltimore Sun, plus a double Past Blast from 1973 (2:05:42).
When I filed my story about LSU’s two-way star Paul Skenes on Monday evening, I thought, “Well, I probably won’t have to think or write about another pitching prospect whose career was complicated by military obligations for at least another 72 hours!”
How wrong I was. On Wednesday afternoon, momentous news filtered up from Florida, and not the kind of news that normally filters up from Florida: Noah Song, late of the Red Sox and the U.S. Navy, is bound for Phillies camp. Read the rest of this entry »
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