The bat waggle is by far the most popular way to stay loose at the plate. Presumably that’s because waiting for a pitch is one of the few situations when it’s socially acceptable to waggle something. Life just doesn’t offer that many opportunities to waggle. Also, it’s a two-fer. It doesn’t just keep you loose; it also keeps your bat loose. It’s all well and good if you’re body’s ready to hit, but good luck trying to catch up to a Justin Verlander fastball with a tight bat. (Fun Fact: It turns out that bats — you know, the actual winged creatures — have their own waggle.)

But even after you waggle your bat, those last couple seconds are tricky. You’re locked into your batting stance, and now you’re just waiting there at the mercy of the pitcher (and the pitch clock). You’ve got to do something to maintain attack readiness. Some players bounce the bat off their shoulder, or bounce a little bit deeper into their crouch a few times. They rock back and forth, raise and lower their hands, or grind the toe of their cleat into the dirt. Some even make sure their pelvis is loose. Like, really loose. Like, very, extremely, possibly even dangerously loose.

That’s an entirely different kind of waggle. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Rangers shocked the baseball world by signing Jacob deGrom to a five-year, $185 million contract in December, it was with the hope that the 34-year-old righty could steer clear of the type of injuries that limited him to a total of 26 starts in the 2021 and ’22 seasons. But since the opening of camps in February, it’s been a bumpy ride, and that’s carried over into the regular season. On Friday night, for the second time in three starts, deGrom took an early exit due to an arm issue; this time, he’s headed to the injured list, with a diagnosis of elbow inflammation. To call upon an oft-used metaphor: this fancy, expensive, high-performance sports car is once again in the shop.

Facing a Yankees lineup weakened by injuries — no Aaron Judge, no Giancarlo Stanton, no Josh Donaldson — on Friday night, deGrom cruised through the first three innings, retiring all nine hitters on a total of 28 pitches, striking out two and never reaching a three-ball count. He began to labor in the fourth, however. After a six-pitch groundout by DJ LeMahieu, he issued a five-pitch walk to Anthony Rizzo, then went to a full count against Gleyber Torres before getting him to fly out, and finally allowed a two-strike single to Willie Calhoun. Notably, deGrom’s last two pitches to Calhoun — a 96.6 mph fastball taken for a ball and then the 89.4 mph slider that he hit, both of which were several inches outside — were down about three miles per hour relative to their previous offerings of that type.

That sudden drop cued pitching coach Mike Maddux and the team trainer to visit the mound; Maddux soon tag-teamed with manager Bruce Bochy, who did little more than pat a dejected-looking deGrom on the shoulder and send him on his way.

After the Rangers finished off their 5–2 win, the team announced that deGrom had departed due to forearm tightness; the pitcher himself described it as “just some discomfort.” According to general manager Chris Young, an MRI taken the next day showed inflammation, but notably, he made no mention of structural damage, suggesting that whatever the team saw with regards to deGrom’s ulnar collateral ligament, flexor, and whatever else was, if not in mint condition, not a concern at this time. The Rangers elected to put him on the 15-day injured list, though Young downplayed the situation, saying, “[H]e came in today and felt OK, which was a positive, but given how important he is to us and our season, we’re going to play this very cautiously and see how he responds over the next several days to treatment. And then after seven to 10 days, we’ll have a pretty good idea of what the next steps are.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Rangers have spent virtually all of the young season atop the AL West, and they solidified their position this weekend by taking two out of three games from the Astros in Houston. Though they’re off to their best start in seven years, they lost Corey Seager to a left hamstring strain last week and may not get him back for a month, threatening the momentum they’ve built.

The 28-year-old Seager came up limping while running out a fifth-inning double against the Royals last Tuesday; he grabbed at his left hamstring shortly after rounding first base, hopped his way to second in awkward fashion, and then started back to the Rangers’ dugout before the trainer could reach him. On Wednesday, general manager Chris Young told the media that an MRI revealed Seager suffered a Grade 2 strain.

This is unfortunately an all-too-familiar position for Seager — on the injured list — and an all-too-familiar injury for him as well. While a member of the Dodgers in 2019, he missed a month with a similar left hamstring strain, not to be confused with the myriad other injuries the shortstop suffered with the Dodgers, including a torn ulnar collateral ligament requiring Tommy John surgery in 2018 and a right hand fracture in ’21. After playing 157 games and winning NL Rookie of the Year honors in 2016 and then 145 games the next year, Seager played in a total of 307 games out of a possible 546 from ’18 to ’21, the equivalent of 91 games over a full season.

After signing a 10-year, $325 million deal in December 2021, Seager was healthy enough to play in 151 games last year, his highest total since 2016, but despite clubbing a career-high 33 homers, he slumped to a .245/.317/.455 line, setting full-season lows in all three slash stats. That was still good for a respectable 117 wRC+, five points higher than his injury-marred 2019, but it wasn’t exactly what the Rangers had in mind when they signed him. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rangers have made it rain in free agency for two years running. Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, and Jacob deGrom highlight their haul, but Andrew Heaney, Jon Gray, and Nathan Eovaldi are no slouches either. Texas shopped in bulk in the luxury aisles of free agency, and that shopping vaulted the expectations higher. The team hasn’t won 70 games since 2019 but is broadly projected, whether by playoff odds or betting lines, to end up in the 80s this year and to compete for a playoff berth.

Until late last week, the Rangers were expected to do so while attempting the team-building equivalent of playing with one hand tied behind their back. Baseball teams are required to use nine different batters, but the Rangers were short a few. Their left field plans involved Bubba Thompson, Brad Miller, Ezequiel Duran, Josh H. Smith, non-roster invitees, duct tape, and a ouija board. There’s no polite way to say this: that’s bad. But the Rangers knew it, and they acted to address their shortfall by signing Robbie Grossman to a one-year deal worth at least $2 million, and up to $5 million depending on incentives. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley lament the newly codified permanence of the zombie runner, rededicate themselves to “ghost runner” reeducation, and banter about a new position-player-pitching limitation, Andrew Chafin’s surprisingly modest contract, Derek Jeter joining Fox Sports, baseball’s leading newsbreakers vs. the leading newsbreakers in other sports, baseball officiating vs. football officiating, the schedule for Triple-A robo umps, and a 1937 proposal for baseball photo finishes. Then they continue their 2023 season preview series by discussing the Cleveland Guardians (35:09) with MLB.com’s Mandy Bell and the Texas Rangers (1:12:18) with The Athletic’s Levi Weaver, plus Past Blasts (1:55:08) from 1873 and 1968 and a few follow-ups.

Audio intro: Dawes, “Everything is Permanent”
Audio interstitial 1: 10cc, “I’m Mandy Fly Me”
Audio interstitial 2: Levi Weaver, “Dark Clay”
Audio outro: Dr. Dog, “Ebenezer Scrooge”

Link to rules announcements
Link to extra-innings pace study
Link to Ben on TLOU
Link to Eric Stephen thread
Link to Eno on pos. player pitchers
Link to WaPo on PPP
Link to Royals Review on PPP
Link to MLBTR on Chafin’s option
Link to MLBTR on Chafin’s signing
Link to Stathead on leading LHRP
Link to Leo Morgenstern on Chafin
Link to Jake Mailhot on LHRP
Link to Sheehan on NFL/MLB calls
Link to Super Bowl holding play
Link to MLB.com on Jeter
Link to Katie Baker on Fox pregames
Link to robo ump schedule
Link to Max Bishop SABR bio
Link to Craig Wright on Bishop
Link to 1937 photo finish source
Link to article on photo-finish camera
Link to film development source
Link to other film development source
Link to FG team projections
Link to payroll rankings
Link to Guardians offseason tracker
Link to Guardians depth chart
Link to Rangers offseason tracker
Link to Rangers depth chart
Link to Levi’s wins prediction
Link to Levi’s author archive
Link to FG’s SP projections
Link to FG’s LF projections
Link to 2022 LF WAR by team
Link to Bochy’s W-L record
Link to 1873 article source
Link to Rob Arthur on OF shifts
Link to Rob on OF depth
Link to 1968 article source
Link to second ’68 article source
Link to third ’68 article source
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack
Link to CBA AAV rule
Link to NHL contract rules
Link to old CPBL logo
Link to Brännboll wiki
Link to Brännboll video
Link to 1796 proto-baseball text
Link to baseball exceptionalism wiki
Link to A Christmas Carol ending

 Sponsor Us on Patreon
 Facebook Group
 Twitter Account
 EW Subreddit
 Effectively Wild Wiki
 iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)
 Get Our Merch!
 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Colt Keith started to tap into his power last year. After going deep just twice in 2021 — his first professional season — the 21-year-old third baseman homered nine times in 48 games with High-A West Michigan before landing on the injured list with a dislocated shoulder in early June. Returning to action in October, Keith proceeded to hit three bombs in 19 Arizona Fall League games.

The increased power production by one of the top position-player prospects in the Detroit Tigers organization was by design.

“I changed my approach a little bit,” Keith told me during his stint in the AFL. “I started trying to hit balls out in front, and backspin them to all fields, looking for a little bit more power. A lot of people had told me I just needed to keep doing what I was doing, but looking at guys in the big leagues that I want to play like, they’re hitting 25-30 homers a year. I felt like I needed to move in that direction. At the same time, I want to keep my hit tool. Batting .300 with some home runs is what I’d like to do.”

That is what he did this past season. The 6-foot-3, 238-pound infielder — Keith has added meaningful size and strength since entering pro ball — augmented his regular-season round-trippers with a .301/.370/.544 slash line. In 2021, he’d slashed .320/.437/.422 with Low-A Lakeland before scuffling over the final month as a 19-year-old in the Midwest League. Read the rest of this entry »

Carter Hawkins knows the Guardians organization well. Prior to becoming the General Manager of the Chicago Cubs in October 2021, the 38-year-old Vanderbilt University alum spent 14 seasons in Cleveland, serving as a scout, Director of Player Development, and Assistant General Manager. With the Guardians’ well-earned reputation of being a progressive organization with an outstanding pitching-development program, I asked Hawkins a question during November’s GM Meetings:

How similar are the two organizations, and in which ways do they differ?

“I would say the best thing in terms of similarities is that there are a lot of team-first people in both places, as opposed to me-first people,” replied Hawkins. “The obvious market-size difference stands out. There are more opportunities in Chicago to utilize resources — you can have a higher risk tolerance — whereas in Cleveland there is the challenge of having to be very process-oriented to make a decision. If you have a lot of resources, you don’t necessarily have that pressure on you. At the same time, there is no reason that you can’t be just as process-oriented in a larger market.”

The disparity in payrolls is notable. Roster Resource projects the Cubs’ 2023 payroll at $184M, and Cleveland’s at just $91M. Last year those numbers were $147M and $69M. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rangers are a bit of an odd team. Every offseason, someone does a thought experiment to build the best team solely out of free agents; in fact, some months ago I posed a similar question about the Orioles. But even my hypothetical 2023 O’s had three top-10 prospects to throw into the mix. What does a team look like if it’s starting entirely from scratch?

A little awkward, as the Rangers can attest. When they traded Joey Gallo to New York in 2021, the cupboard was basically empty. Since then, they’ve done an admirable job acquiring talent in trades and on the free-agent market, but they haven’t made much progress on the road back to playoff contention. A 94-loss campaign in 2022 got manager Chris Woodward and longtime baseball ops head Jon Daniels fired, and new manager Bruce Bochy surely would not have come out of retirement so he could compete for third place in the AL West.

The Rangers have plenty of star power, particularly after adding Jacob deGrom in free agency, but plenty of questions remain about their ability to fill out a competitive lineup. And Adolis García might be the player upon whom their success hinges. Read the rest of this entry »

Brock Burke broke out in 2022. Working out of the Texas Rangers bullpen, the 26-year-old southpaw logged a 1.97 ERA over 52 appearances, with 90 strikeouts and just 63 hits allowed in 82-and-a-third innings. Equally effective against lefties and righties, he held the former to a .192 BA and a .635 OPS, the latter to a .218 BA and a .629 OPS. Used most often in the sixth and seventh innings, Burke was credited with wins in seven of his 12 decisions.

Burke went into last season having made just six big league appearances, all in 2019 as a starter, with a balky shoulder the culprit. That he came back strong after returning to full health is an understatement. Along with the aforementioned numbers, Burke logged a stand-up-and-take-notice 27.4% strikeout rate.

First interviewed here at FanGraphs in 2017 when he was a 20-year-old Tampa Bay Rays prospect pitching in the Midwest League, Burke will head into the 2023 with a role that has yet to be determined. The Rangers are reportedly considering using him as a starter, while some have speculated that he could be the club’s closer. Regardless of how he is utilized, one thing is certain: When healthy, Burke has proven to be a very good pitcher. Read the rest of this entry »

Friday’s trade that saw Pablo López and a pair of prospects go from Miami to Minnesota in exchange for Luis Arraez made sense for both teams. The Twins, who my colleague Ben Clemens wrote got the better of the deal, received a quality pitcher who will slot into their starting rotation, plus the promising-but-raw minor-leaguers. The Marlins got a 25-year-old infielder who just won a batting title and is a .314/.374/.410 hitter over 1,569 big-league plate appearances.

Miami’s top prospect is a big reason why parting with a pitcher of López’s quality is perfectly defensible. While recently-signed Johnny Cueto will take Lopez’s rotation spot in the near term, it is Eury Pérez who promises to make an already-good rotation even better. Arguably the best right-handed pitching prospect in the game — Baltimore’s Grayson Rodriguez and Philadelphia’s Andrew Painter are also on the short-list — Pérez has a Sandy Alcántara-ish ceiling. The 6-foot-8 native of Santiago, Dominican Republic excelled in Double-A this past year as a teenager, and there is a real chance that he’ll reach the big leagues at age 20.

“This kid just has an incredible presence about him,” said Miami GM Kim Ng. “His fastball is 96-99 [mph] with ride, and he’s got a really good breaking ball. And again, the presence, as well as the poise, is unbelievable. He’s not talented beyond imagination, but it’s close.”

Asked who the youngster comps to, Ng initially demurred. As she pointed out, not many pitching prospects are Pérez’s size. When she did ultimately offer a name, it was a notable one. Read the rest of this entry »