The Pittsburgh Pirates spent part of deadline day sprucing up their offense by acquiring outfielder Bryan De La Cruz from the Miami Marlins and infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa from the Toronto Blue Jays. Neither hitter provides the superstar impact to fully rehabilitate Pittsburgh’s fixer-upper lineup. Instead, they yield an effect similar to tearing out the wood paneling, scraping the popcorn ceilings, and applying a couple coats of paint in a shade called something like Chantilly Cream to zhuzh up the place. Perhaps this offseason, Pirates’ GM Ben Cherington will put in a call to Chip and Joanna Gaines to facilitate a full renovation, but until then, this certainly makes the space the Pirates currently occupy nicer.

De La Cruz and Kiner-Falefa join the Pittsburgh clubhouse amidst a handful of other additions and subtractions over the last few days. The team acquired two lefty relievers in Jalen Beeks and Josh Walker alongside Nick Yorke, a post-hype hitting prospect who is ready to compete for big league playing time, according to Eric Longenhagen’s breakdown of all three acquisitions. Additionally, the Pirates dealt from their starting pitching depth by sending Martín Pérez to the Padres in exchange for Ronaldys Jimenez, an 18 year-old left-handed pitcher currently in the DSL.

On the whole, Pittsburgh’s deadline activity amounts to a series of one-for-one trades that marginally improve their current situation, without upsetting their long-term construction plans for building Barbie’s Dream Roster in the future. (Or because it’s the Pirates, whatever ownership deems is Kenough.) Read the rest of this entry »

In 2022, Martín Pérez was absolutely on fire. He put up a sterling four-win season, made the American League All-Star team, and established a new career-high strikeout rate. The Rangers gave him a qualifying offer to keep him in the fold, and he accepted it. All the while, I steadfastly refused to write about him, because c’mon, really, could this be real? Surely the other shoe was going to drop, right?

It largely did. Last season saw Pérez banished to the bullpen and then used sparingly as a lefty specialist in the playoffs, where he struck out two, walked three, and gave up five runs in three outings. He signed with the Pirates after the year, and his role seemed clear: soak up innings until their exciting young pitchers were ready, and potentially continue to work with those guys in a six-man rotation thereafter. The Pirates needed bulk pitching at a reasonable rate, and he gave it to them, delivering 16 starts, 83 innings, and 0.3 wins above replacement.

Now it’s time to write about Pérez, though. Why? The Pirates didn’t have a ton of space for him given the excellence they’re getting from the rest of their rotation, so they put him on the trade block, and the most natural thing in baseball happened: AJ Preller came calling. That’s right, the Pirates traded Pérez to San Diego in exchange for Ronaldys Jimenez. The Pirates are also covering some of his salary – a sentence I’ve never actually typed before, so they’ve got that going for them. Read the rest of this entry »

The Pirates have made three trade in the last two days. Yesterday, they swapped post-hype prospects with the Red Sox — struggling right-handed pitcher Quinn Priester for Triple-A 2B/LF Nick Yorke — and added veteran southpaw Jalen Beeks from the Rockies in exchange for minor league lefty Luis Peralta. Then, earlier today, Pittsburgh acquired 29-year-old lefty Josh Walker from the Mets for DSL pitcher Nicolas Carreno. Read the rest of this entry »

I updated the Top 100 Prospects list today. This post goes through the pitchers and why they stack the way they do. Here’s a link directly to the list, and here’s a link to the post with a little more detail regarding farm system and prospect stuff and the trade deadline. It might be best for you to open a second tab and follow along, so here are the Top 100 pitchers isolated away from the bats. Let’s get to it.
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Today the Killers list turns the corner — or rather turns to the teams receiving less-than-acceptable production in the outfield corners. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (Playoff Odds of at least 9.5%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — I have also 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. I’ve batched the two corners together into one supersized roundup because three of the seven teams below the WAR cutoff for left field also make the list for right field, and because there’s plenty of crossover in play with regards to personnel. The capsules are listed in order of their left field rankings first, while noting those three crossover teams with an asterisk. As always, I don’t expect every team here to go out and track down upgrades before the July 30 deadline, but these are teams to keep an eye on. All statistics are through July 14.

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Strength up the middle is important to any contender, but with so many teams still in the hunt for a playoff spot, it’s no surprise some of them are have some weak spots. Sometimes it’s easier for a team to convince itself that the metrics aren’t fully capturing the strength of a light-hitting player’s defense if they’re playing a premium position, which seems to be the case with the shortstops and some of the center fielders in this year’s batch of Killers. On the flip side, occasionally it’s easier to justify shaky defense if there’s at least a hope of getting adequate offense. Then there are the times that guys get hurt and somebody has to stand out there in the middle pasture looking like they know what’s going on.

While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 9.5%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — I have also 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.

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One of my enduring memories of watching the All-Star game as a child — a child who became a baseball fan in a time before high-speed internet, social media, or even interleague play — was learning about all the players I’d been unable to see throughout the regular season. That included the American League and West Coast stars, but also a parade of forgettable pitchers, and yes, it always seemed to be pitchers, from crappy teams.

For some reason, Royals right-hander José Rosado is the guy who sticks out in my mind. Rookie of the Year vote-getter in his age-21 season, All-Star at 22 and 24, done in the majors at 25. If he hadn’t shown up in pregame intros between Justin Thompson and Jeff Cirillo that one time, I might never have been aware of him. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, we have a two-fer of Killers lists covering a couple of key defensive positions, specifically the hot corner and behind the plate. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 9.5%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — I have also incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. That may suggest that some of these teams will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because their performance at that spot thus far is worth a look.

Cubs

Following the free agent departure of Willson Contreras, last year the catching corps of Yan Gomes, Tucker Barnhart, and rookie Miguel Amaya ranked 21st in WAR. Heading into this season, it made at least some sense on paper to have the 25-year-old Amaya — a former Top 100 prospect who lost significant development time to the pandemic and November 2021 Tommy John surgery — get more playing time while moving the 37-year-old Gomes, whose framing metrics had declined, into a backup role. Unfortunately, both have been terrible. Amaya has hit just .201/.266/.288 (59 wRC+) with average-ish defense (good blocking, poor throwing) en route to -0.1 WAR. Gomes was even worse both at the plate (.154/.179/.242, 15 wRC+) and behind it (-5 DRS, -4 FRV, -3.9 FRM) before getting released on June 21, replaced by Tomás Nido, who had just been released by the Mets. Nido has hit .202/.229/.331 (57 wRC+) overall but is just 4-for-41 as a Cub. Defensively, he’s got a mixed bag of metrics, though he’s been a whisker above average framing-wise. Read the rest of this entry »

FanGraphs was at the Futures Game in Arlington on Saturday. In total, 16 pitchers appeared in the seven-inning game. The following are some quick notes on every pitcher who toed the rubber during All-Star weekend’s premier prospect event. Obviously one game isn’t enough on its own to move the needle significantly for any of these guys — they all have a large body of work that can better inform our evaluations — but it’s useful to see whose stuff ticks up when they’re in an environment like the Futures Game and get to let it eat in a shorter burst than they’re accustomed to. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. As MLB pauses for the All-Star break, I thought I’d pause for one of my own. Just like the league, I’d like to recognize the stars of my own personal baseball bubble. There’s a lot of overlap between the guys who populate Five Things most frequently and the best players in the game, but it’s not a complete overlap. You generally know what you’re getting with this column: some fun, fluky plays and players. Today, you’re just getting an aggregated version of that: the most fun I had in the first half of the year. And no, if you’re wondering, there are no Didn’t Likes this week, c’mon. As always, thanks to Zach Lowe for the idea for this format, which is just as exciting (to me) in baseball as it is in basketball.
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