The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2024 Hall of Fame ballot. It was initially written for The Cooperstown Casebook, published in 2017 by Thomas Dunne Books, and subsequently adapted for SI.com and then FanGraphs. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

It happened so quickly. Freshly anointed the game’s top prospect by Baseball America in the spring of 1996, the soon-to-be-19-year-old Andruw Jones was sent to play for the Durham Bulls, the Braves’ High-A affiliate. By mid-August, he blazed through the Carolina League, the Double-A Southern League, and the Triple-A International League, then debuted for the defending world champions. By October 20, with just 31 regular-season games under his belt, he was a household name, having become the youngest player ever to homer in a World Series game, breaking Mickey Mantle’s record — and doing so twice at Yankee Stadium to boot.

Jones was no flash in the pan. The Braves didn’t win the 1996 World Series, and he didn’t win the ’97 NL Rookie of the Year award, but along with Chipper Jones (no relation) and the big three of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz, he became a pillar of a franchise that won a remarkable 14 NL East titles from 1991 to 2005 (all but the 1994 strike season). From 1998 to 2007, Jones won 10 straight Gold Gloves, more than any center fielder except Willie Mays. Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s 40-man roster deadline was less eventful than usual (we only had one trade on deadline day), but as always, a number of young players became big leaguers in a certain sense, and teams had no choice but to indicate what they think of lots of fringe prospects who they either did or did not choose to roster. This day of clerical activity is the culmination of the efforts of the players themselves, the people in player development who have helped turn them into big leaguers, and the scouting and decision-making portions of each org that put their stamp of approval on the prospects. Is any one move here as impactful as signing a Yoshinobu Yamamoto or a Matt Chapman? No, but when your favorite team experiences a rash of injuries in June, whether or not they have the depth to scrap and compete is often dictated by the people and processes that surround this day. I’m more focused on analyzing roster depth, fit and flexibility in this space than on scouting players (especially when they’re star prospects you already know well). I’ll have a separate post on the National League. Read the rest of this entry »

As I’ve done for the past few years, I’m grading each eliminated postseason manager on their decision-making. We spend the year mostly ignoring managers’ on-field contributions, because to be honest, they’re pretty small. Using the wrong reliever in the eighth inning just doesn’t feel that bad on June 22; there are so many more games still coming, and the regular season is more about managing the grind than getting every possible edge every day. The playoffs aren’t like that; with so few games to separate wheat from chaff, every last ounce of win probability matters, and managers make personnel decisions accordingly. What better time to grade them?

My goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter in a huge spot, that’s a good decision regardless of outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in for new strategies and unconventional bullpen usage behind closed doors is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but Adolis García and Josh Jung were important, too. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Nathan Eovaldi is valuable because he’s great, not because of the number of playoff series he’s appeared in. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process.

One note: In the pitching section, I took a more specific look at reliever matchups. This 2022 Cameron Grove study measures a repeat-matchup reliever penalty. A recent article examines the issue without focusing on specific matchups, but rather looking at relievers pitching on back-to-back days or on short rest after heavy workloads. Both of these things are, unsurprisingly, bad for reliever performance. Managing the balance between starter and reliever over-work is really hard. I probably haven’t given enough credit to the necessity of balancing bullpen workloads against particular opposing batters in the past, but I’ll make a note of it going forward. Read the rest of this entry »

As the professional baseball career of Nelson Cruz flashes before my eyes, no single image emerges to define his legacy. He served as a leader in the clubhouse, was devoted to off-the-field humanitarian efforts, proudly represented his Dominican homeland, consistently hit the baseball so hard that he earned the nickname Boomstick, and did all of it at a high level for more years than any aging curve would have dared to predict.

Last week, after 19 seasons in majors, Cruz announced his retirement on The Adam Jones Podcast. He also addressed the second-most important topic pertaining to his career: the origin of his nickname. Back in 2009, while playing as himself in a video game for some sort of promo event, Cruz hit a home run and referred to his bat as the Boomstick. The name circulated amongst fans and stuck. Read the rest of this entry »

You might have noticed a surfeit of bunting in this postseason, or at least it seemed that way because Geraldo Perdomo was in the World Series. I, the man who launched an impromptu Bunt Week two months ago, could not let the opportunity pass to sit in judgment of these bunts.

We often decry the sacrifice bunt as a needless waste of outs, but a bunt for a hit can be one of the most audacious, skilled plays in the sport, as beautiful in its own way as a light-tower home run. In fact, every bunt is distinctive and wonderful, and so each must be examined — all 26 of them — for procedural and results-based value, tactical and strategic context, as well as aesthetic value. These are just the 26 bunts that resulted in action, according to Baseball Savant, so be warned: failed bunt attempts are not featured. If you’re looking for that failed Trea Turner push bunt in Game 7 of the NLCS, you will not find it here. (Though for the record, I didn’t hate it.)

Let us judge the bunts. Read the rest of this entry »

For much of Wednesday night, it appeared as though the World Series might head back to Texas, as Zac Gallen held the Rangers hitless for six innings in a dominant and impressive Game 5 performance, particularly given the circumstances. The Rangers came to life with a quick flurry of three hits off Gallen in the seventh inning, however, scratching out a run. They added four more in the ninth to pull away with a 5-0 win, giving them their first championship in franchise history.

There’s a lot to be said about that championship. Here are five thoughts — on the team’s turnaround from ignominy, their long wait, their road to victory, their postseason stars, and their Hall of Fame-bound manager — that I hope add some history and perspective to their accomplishment. Read the rest of this entry »

In Game 4 of the NLCS, Torey Lovullo ran out of starting pitchers, so he sent Joe Mantiply out there, and decided to mix and match with the rest of his relievers until the game was either won or lost. And it worked. Phillies manager Rob Thomson also went to his bullpen early, and before too long we had a close matchup of dueling bullpens. The hope in such a strategy is merely to survive to see the endgame, and pit one’s high-leverage relievers against the opponent’s offense, just as would be the case with a conventional starter.

Both teams got that far. Andrew Saalfrank had a little bit of a meltdown, but Orion Kerkering and Craig Kimbrel had a big meltdown, so the Diamondbacks won. Faced with an identical conundrum in Game 4 of the World Series, Lovullo played “Freebird” again and called on Mantiply once more.

How did it go? Not too badly for Mantiply, who was a bit unlucky to take the loss after striking out three batters and allowing two hits in an inning and a third. But after that, the Arizona bullpen imploded like an overripe tomato under the wheel of a dump truck. Read the rest of this entry »

The last of the extant pre-divisional era franchises to not have won the World Series has finally hoisted their own trophy, as the Texas Rangers shut down the Arizona Diamondbacks, 5-0, to score the team’s first championship. Texas’ starter, Nathan Eovaldi, was shaky in the early going, but every last one of Arizona’s runners were stranded on the basepaths, and the shelling of Paul Sewald in the ninth sealed the deal with insurance runs.

If you just watched the starting pitchers, Eovaldi and Zac Gallen, for the first five innings on Wednesday night, you might be surprised that the series didn’t find its way back to Texas. The Rangers entered Game 5 having won all five of Eovaldi’s starts this postseason, but it was Gallen who looked to have the advantage early on. Eovaldi’s control was spotty. He allowed five walks over five innings, the most free passes he’s issued in a decade, going back to when he was a hard-throwing Marlins prospect who had trouble putting away batters. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rangers’ Game 3 win proved costly and bittersweet, as both starter Max Scherzer and right fielder Adolis García departed due to injuries. General manager Chris Young and manager Bruce Bochy chose to treat the losses with the urgency befitting a team in hot pursuit of a championship, so prior to Tuesday night’s Game 4, both were replaced on the active roster, officially ending the seasons of a prospective Game 7 starter and record-setting cleanup hitter. Lefty reliever Brock Burke and utilityman Ezequiel Duran were anointed to replace them, ensuring Bochy a full complement of 26 able bodies.

The Rangers waited until an hour before gametime to announce the moves, which added an element of surprise to the situation, though had the injuries occurred during the regular season, the replacement of both players would have been a foregone conclusion. From the vantage point of the 10–0 lead the Rangers built by the third inning of Game 4 and the 11–7 victory that pushed them to within one win of a championship, the absences were felt, albeit not quite in the manner one might have expected. Burke pitched briefly and badly, and Duran remained a bystander as Travis Jankowski picked up the slack in García’s stead. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you like pitchers? Of course you do – you’re reading a recap of a World Series game on FanGraphs. Good news, then: Game 4 had so many pitchers. Swingmen, high-leverage guys, LOOGYs, ROOGYs, forgotten starters who had accumulated a light covering of dust throughout the playoffs, closers, setup men. You name it, this one had it. Unless, of course, you were rooting for the Diamondbacks.

When bullpen games work, a whirling mass of relievers traipse onto the mound and befuddle the hitters. When bullpen games don’t work, a whirling mass of relievers still traipse onto the mound, but with significantly less befuddling. Tuesday was one of those nights.

Joe Mantiply started off smoothly for the Diamondbacks, with four outs among the first six hitters. The bottom of the lineup was up, but Mantiply had already thrown 28 pitches, and Torey Lovullo started the bullpen carousel. Miguel Castro came in – and then things fell apart.

Castro retired the first batter he faced, but he just didn’t have it. Even that at-bat featured spotty command, and things got worse from there. With Leody Taveras batting, Castro uncorked a wild pitch that allowed a run to score. Then he walked Taveras. Then Travis Jankowski, who had only batted twice this postseason and was only in the lineup due to Adolis García’s oblique injury, laced a line drive single. Suddenly Texas’ best hitters were up with a chance to do damage. Read the rest of this entry »