Detroit didn’t do much at the deadline. Trading Robbie Grossman to Atlanta in exchange for soon-to-turn 21-year-old pitching prospect Kris Anglin was the only move. Many expected more. A disgruntled fan base thought that Monday’s swap of an underachieving outfielder for a potential future asset would be the first of multiple deals for Al Avila’s underachieving team.

[Update/correction: The Tigers also traded reliever Michael Fulmer to the Minnesota Twins in exchange for Sawyer Gipson-Long, a 24-year-old 2019 sixth-round pick who was pitching at the Double-A level.]

The extent to which the relative inactivity was an indictment of Avila is a matter of opinion. Rival executives almost assuredly weren’t knocking down the GM’s door with appealing offers, and making trades for the sake of making trades is eyewash. Placating fans by simply moving pieces around doesn’t move the needle in any meaningful direction.

With a record of 43-66 and baseball’s 24th-rated farm system, which direction the club is heading in is far less clear than it was a year ago. Much for that reason, it’s easy to see why many in Motown would like to see Avila kicked to the curb.

Not everything that has gone wrong — and a lot has certainly gone wrong — can be placed squarely on the Detroit GM’s shoulders. But while this year’s plethorae of injuries and disappointing performances were largely beyond his control, Avila is nonetheless the architect of what has been a sluggish rebuild. The idea that said rebuild is in need of a rebuild of its own may be a valid one.

Which brings us to the crux of the issue at hand: Who can right the ship? Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 986

On this week’s show, we welcome a major league veteran and Phillies broadcaster for a chat before reacting to an overwhelming week of trade deadline moves, as well as the loss of a broadcasting legend.

• To kick things off, David Laurila welcomes Chad Durbin, a TV analyst for the Philadelphia Phillies with 14 years of major league pitching on his resume. The pair discuss the Phillies’ moves at the deadline and how new faces like Noah Syndergaard, Brandon Marsh, and old pal David Robertson could help the squad down the stretch. They also discuss the Juan Soto trade, and how he stacks up compared to another former National great: Bryce Harper. Durbin also offers insights into clubhouse leadership and chemistry, what it was like to play with Pedro Martinez, and why he could not get Magglio Ordóñez out. [4:37]
• After that, Eric Longenhagen is joined by Jay Jaffe and Jason Martinez for an extended conversation about Tuesday’s trade deadline. The trio discuss Soto’s historical significance, the haul he was traded for, and the King Kong vs. Godzilla battle that is the Dodgers vs. the Padres. They also break down playing for 162 vs. playing for the playoffs, which teams should have done more, and which clubs now find themselves out of the race, as well as the intriguing prospects who now find themselves with new homes. Finally, the group laments the passing of Vin Scully, one of the most beloved icons in the sport. We hear about how Scully had an impact on anyone who heard or was lucky enough to meet him, and how the baseball world stopped to remember him. [33:23]

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It’s the day after the trade deadline, which always means one thing: baseball writers begrudgingly cleaning up their gross, sparkling-water-can-filled workspaces. Oh, wait, actually it means two things: that, and a flood of “who won the trading deadline” articles.

This year, I’m going to do something slightly different. I won’t claim that I’ve re-invented the wheel, but I’ve always thought that those winner/loser columns are too deterministic and don’t leave enough room for nuance. I thought about listing each team that made a trade as a winner, with a “maybe” appended to indicate that we don’t know what will happen in the future; if you really want to know who won and who lost, check back in October… or maybe in October of 2025. I thought about making each team a “loser (maybe)” for the same reason. In the end, I settled on some broad archetypes. I’ll throw a subjective grade on how much I like the move, and also endeavor to explain the risks around each team’s deadline. You can find all of our deadline coverage here. Let’s get started. Read the rest of this entry »

Another trade deadline has come and gone, and I must say, this one was more exciting than I expected. I didn’t see the Yankees, Astros, or Dodgers making huge splashes, given that all three are in a daunting position both for first place in their divisions and a first-round playoff bye. There were also relatively few short-term rental options available; Juan Soto, Frankie Montas, and Luis Castillo, among others, could always be traded, but with none of them free agents after this season, teams could also pull them back if they didn’t like the offers. Meanwhile, players like Willson Contreras, Ian Happ and Carlos Rodón stayed put, also to my surprise. By and large, though, we had a whirlwind of a 48-hour period leading up to the deadline.

So, who won and who lost? That’s a bit of a loaded question, because the definition of winning and losing varies depending on each franchise’s goals. A contending team improving, a rebuilding team getting worse but acquiring a stable of prospects, or an indolent team only re-signing its 37-year-old closer are all things that can be considered a win in one way or the other. But we’re here to do some hardcore ranking, so let’s look only at who improved themselves the most in 2022.

To keep this all science-y rather than a somewhat arbitrary exercise, I first projected the entire league’s rest of season in ZiPS and then repeated the exercise with all trades since July 19 unwound. Since some teams primarily got overall playoff boosts and some teams saw improvement mainly in terms of World Series gains, I took each team’s rank in both categories and then ranked everyone by the harmonic mean of those two ranks. Read the rest of this entry »

The Phillies have been busy, and I’ve been busy cataloging their activity. Over the weekend, they added Edmundo Sosa to raise their middle infield floor. Earlier on Tuesday, they got defense and relief help in Brandon Marsh and David Robertson. Now, they’re bringing the thunder. Noah Syndergaard is headed to Philadelphia in exchange for Mickey Moniak and Jadiel Sanchez.

Syndergaard is more famous name than elite starter at this point. His early-career dominance with the Mets was all blazing fastballs and bat-missing secondaries; his second act with the Angels has looked completely different. As Jay Jaffe detailed back in June, he’s more pitch-to-contact than thunder-and-lightning, using his sinker and curveball as the focal point of his arsenal rather than the four-seam/slider combination that worked so well for him in New York.

The new-look Syndergaard is still a perfectly fine pitcher, just of a different sort than his pre-injury self. Pumping mid-90s sinkers and avoiding walks has worked out well for him, to the tune of a 3.83 ERA and peripherals that jibe with that general level of effectiveness. Syndergaard’s command has always been an underrated asset; even at his firebreathing peak, he never walked many batters, and that skill has served him well even as the bat-missing stuff hasn’t quite returned. Read the rest of this entry »

The Phillies were in an unenviable spot coming into today. At 55–47, they’re likely out of the NL East race, which leaves them competing with the Cardinals and Padres for the final two playoff spots in the NL. It’s three teams for two spots, and two of the three teams were attempting to add Juan Soto. That’s not a great place to be if you’re Philadelphia.

The Padres have likely separated themselves from that awkward middle by breaking open their prospect vault to secure Soto and Josh Bell. That leaves the Cardinals and Phillies as the two clearest contenders for the last Wild Card, and that’s where the good news starts. The Cardinals, naturally, aren’t getting Soto. They may not be getting anyone, period; they have contributors across the board offensively, which means there are no obvious spots for an upgrade, and there aren’t many marquee pitchers left on the board.

The Phillies, meanwhile, have no shortage of holes. They were the main offender in Jay Jaffe’s Replacement Level Killers series, the major league organization equivalent of Swiss cheese, and they were already trading for middle infielders the Cardinals would have otherwise had to DFA. That sounds bad, but it has its upsides. It’s a lot easier to improve when you start out from a lower point, and the Phillies are doing so today in two separate trades, adding Brandon Marsh from the Angels and David Robertson from the Cubs.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Mets and Giants made a minor trade on Tuesday as the deadline approached, with first baseman/designated hitter Darin Ruf heading to New York in exchange for third baseman-ish/designated hitter J.D. Davis. Three minor league pitchers — Thomas Szapucki, Nick Zwack, and Carson Seymour — are joining Davis in San Francisco.

After thriving in a platoon role in 2020 and ’21, Ruf has struggled this year, hitting .216/.328/.378, though still with a robust .886 OPS against lefties. Davis has performed similarly, hitting .238/.324/.359, but without the beneficial platoon split. The two hitters involved in this trade are both right-handed DH-types who have broadly similar value on the surface, but there are differences in their two profiles that matter enough for teams on two very different 2022 trajectories to make this trade.

Ruf is the easier player to utilize, thanks to large platoon splits that Davis has not historically possessed. The Giants attempted to expand his role this season, giving him more starts against righties (34) than he had combined in 2020 and ’21 (24), and while his true platoon split is likely smaller than the 316 points of OPS it is this season, he’s definitely a player who needs to be used carefully when not possessing the handedness advantage. The Mets clearly value Ruf’s ability to be a top-notch accomplice to Daniel Vogelbach at DH, given that they’re sending some minor league extras along as sweetener.

Zwack is a 2021 draftee having a good first full season in the minors. A low-90s sinker isn’t going to wow anyone these days, but he’s had enough success in A-ball that he’s worth checking in on to see if he can surpass that Double-A wall that can stymie lower-grade pitching prospects. Szapucki is a better-known name, spending the last two seasons in Triple-A and with two unfortunately unforgettable appearances in the majors so far. I’m not convinced that he won’t have a future as a fifth starter in the majors. One has to remember that, unlike in the majors, minor league offense has exploded rather than evaporated, so Szapucki’s decent performance in the high minors makes him worth a flyer. Seymour doesn’t get a lot of press in the scouting world, and while he’s got solid velocity — certainly better than Zwack or Szapucki — he lacks consistent secondary pitches. His debut has been very good, but I wouldn’t take it too seriously; 23-year-olds ought to be pitching quite well against A-ball hitters. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve ever played the game 2048, you know the deep satisfaction of sliding things around and making everything look cleaner. Two 2’s become a 4, two 4’s become an 8, and pretty soon you’ve slid your way into a gratifying relaxation. What does that have to do with baseball? The Phillies made a 2048-style trade this weekend, and I can’t wait to tell you about it.

The baseball version of that slide-and-combine game is all about defense. If you acquire a defensive wizard at shortstop, you can slide your existing shortstop to third, your third baseman to first, your first baseman to DH – you get the idea. You can do the same in the outfield. Add a Gold Glove center fielder, and your average center fielder becomes a great right fielder. Your solid right fielder can take over for the guy in left field you’d rather have DH. Adding one defender and sliding can turn a blah defense into a good one. Deeply satisfying, just like 2048.

The Phillies and their porous defense would seem like a perfect candidate for such satisfying sliding, but before the season, they couldn’t actually do it. There were some pesky pieces blocking their natural ability to slide down the defensive spectrum. With essentially three DHs – Kyle Schwarber, Rhys Hoskins, and Nick Castellanos – and only two landing spots between them, the “slide someone to DH” part of the equation wouldn’t work. When Bryce Harper injured his elbow, he couldn’t play the field, which further jammed up the works. Read the rest of this entry »

The trade deadline is nearly here and once again, team behavior will be affected by 40-man roster dynamics. Teams with an especially high number of currently-rostered players under contract for 2023 and prospects who need to be added to the 40-man in the offseason have what is often called a 40-man “crunch,” “overage,” or need to “churn.” This means the team has incentive to clear its overflow of players by either packaging several to acquire just one in return, or by trading for something the club can keep — international pool space, comp picks, or, more typically, younger players whose 40-man clocks are further from midnight — rather than do nothing and later lose some of those players to waivers or in the Rule 5 Draft. Teams can take care of this issue with transactions between the end of the season and the 40-man roster deadline in November, but a contending team with a crunch has more incentive to do something before the trade deadline so the results of those deals can bolster the club’s ability to reach the postseason.

In an effort to see whose depth might influence trade behavior, I assess teams’ 40-man futures every year. This exercise is done by using the RosterResource Depth Chart pages to examine current 40-man situations, subtracting pending free agents using the Team Payroll tab, and then weighing the December 2022 Rule 5 eligible prospects (or players who became eligible in past seasons and are having a strong year) to see which clubs have the biggest crunch coming. I then make an educated guess about which of those orgs might behave differently in the trade market as a result.

Some quick rules about 40-man rosters. Almost none of them contain exactly 40 players in-season because teams can add a player to the 40 to replace one who is on the 60-day injured list. In the offseason, teams don’t get extra spots for injured players and have to get down to 40 precisely, so if they want to keep some of their injury fill-ins, they have to cut someone else from the 40-man to make room. Read the rest of this entry »

While still focusing upon teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 10%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — this year I have incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look.

As noted previously, some of these situations are more dire than others, particularly when taken in the context of the rest of their roster. Interestingly enough, four of the six teams below the WAR cutoff for right field also make the list for left field: two of them because they’re far below, and the other two because they’re just a hair above, and we might as well acknowledge those situations within this context. As such, I’ve used the rankings of the right fielders to determine the order of the capsules; those that also cover left field include an asterisk. I don’t expect every team here to go out and track down upgrades before the August 2 deadline.

All statistics in this article are through July 27, though team won-loss records and Playoff Odds are through July 28.

Phillies

Bryce Harper was the National League’s Most Valuable Player last year, but he’s been limited to just 64 games overall and eight in right field due to a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right (throwing) arm and a fractured left thumb. The UCL injury limited him to designated hitter duty, but he continued to rake (.318/.385/.599, 167 wRC+ overall) until an errant fastball from Blake Snell hit him on June 25. He underwent surgery to implant pins to help heal the thumb, but as of Monday, doctors decided that he hadn’t progressed enough to have them removed; he’ll be reevaluated next Monday. Once Harper is cleared, he’ll likely need at least a couple of weeks to ramp up and complete a rehab assignment. If there’s good news, it’s that he has also been undergoing treatment on his elbow (he had a platelet-rich plasma injection in May) and plans to test his ability to throw once the pins are out.

Harper’s move to DH meant that Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos, the two defensively challenged sluggers whom the Phillies signed to big free-agent deals, had to play in the same outfield on most days; thus far, Schwarber has started in left field 89 times and Castellanos in right 84 times. The former has hit for a 119 wRC+ and leads the NL with 31 homers, but the latter has been terrible, batting just .246/.291/.365 (83 wRC+) with eight homers as well as [puts on protective goggles] -6.7 UZR, -7 RAA, and -12 DRS in 723.2 innings in right field. His -1.4 WAR is tied with Robinson Canó for last in the majors among position players. Ouch.

As NBC Sports’ Corey Seidman noted, pitchers have attacked Castellanos with low-and-away breaking balls that he has been unable to lay off. He owns a career-worst 45% chase rate (7.2 points above his career mark) and a corresponding career-high 57.8% swing rate, a combination that fits the pattern of a player pressing. Additionally, he has a career-high 42.7% groundball rate, about six points above his norm, and his .245 xwOBA on pitches outside of the zone is 33 points below his norm; his .103 xwOBA on low-and-away breaking pitches is an 81-point drop from last year and is 36 points below his norm. His overall Statcast numbers (87.8 mph average exit velocity, 7.1% barrel rate, 33.8% hard-hit rate, .299 xwOBA) are all career worsts, as is his 17.5% swinging-strike rate.

If you’ve been reading this series, you know that the Phillies have already made the list at shortstop, third base, and center field. More than likely they’re just going to gut it out here, hoping that either Harper can return to the field or Castellanos can get back on track. Read the rest of this entry »