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 »

Episode 1008

In this episode, we get insight from a professional run-creator before turning the tables on our favorite interviewer.

• In the first half, David Laurila welcomes Donnie Ecker, bench coach and offensive coordinator for the Texas Rangers, to the program. Ecker, who David also interviewed last year, shares what it’s like to work with manager Bruce Bochy, associate manager Will Venable, and director of hitting Cody Atkinson as they help the team’s hitters be at their best. We also learn about how important it can be to adapt strategies from other sports and industries, and how studying pitching can help with understanding hitting. Finally, Ecker tells us about working with players like Marcus Semien, Josh Smith, Evan Carter, Josh Jung, Ezequiel Duran, and Nathaniel Lowe. [3:22]
• After that, Ben Clemens makes David the subject of the interview for FanGraphs Backstories. We hear about David’s pre-baseball life, from his time at the Detroit Institute of Arts to working in the ticket office at the Boston Ballet to moderating a Red Sox message board, and how interviewing baseball players led to a career change that took him to Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus before arriving at FanGraphs. David also talks about the art of the interview and some of his most notable conversations before sharing his favorite baseball memories, including his first major league game and the no-hitter he saw with his daughter. [39:40]

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Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @dhhiggins on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximate 1 hour 6 minute play time.)

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The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. 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.

As images of baseball players engaged in off-field celebrations go, it’s tough to top that of Mike Napoli following the Red Sox’s 2013 World Series victory parade. Over the course of several hours, the burly, bearded 31-year-old slugger went on an epic pub crawl that included stops to tend bar at McGreevy’s of Boston and Daisy Buchanan’s. As widely chronicled via social media, Napoli did shots with fans while soaking in the adulation, and along the way shed his shirt for what quickly became an iconic image.

Mike Napoli is walking around Boston drunk and shirtless #DayMade ? pic.twitter.com/fO7yirlego

— Frank ?? (@SenpaiKoala) November 2, 2013

By that point, Napoli had been through a lot. He’d spent the first half-decade of his major league career (2006-10) locked in an existential position battle that resonated throughout the baseball world. Under the harsh glare of Angels manager Mike Scioscia — a two-time All-Star and two-time champion who caught nearly 1,400 games in the majors before winning the 2002 World Series as manager — the heavy-hitting Napoli battled for the starting catcher job with light-hitting but more highly-touted Jeff Mathis, whose superiority behind the plate appealed to the defense-minded skipper and highlighted the reasons why Napoli couldn’t win the job outright. Even as his own injuries and those of teammates allowed Napoli to expand his positional repertoire, he faced public criticism from his manager. “I think he’s a catcher. He thinks he’s a catcher. He needs to go out and catch like a catcher,” Scioscia said in December 2010. “That is the frustrating part with Mike. We’ve seen it when he first came up.” Read the rest of this entry »

Just under a year ago, Jake Mailhot identified Texas first baseman Nathaniel Lowe as a player with breakout potential. In fact, he wrote a whole article called, “Nathaniel Lowe Has Breakout Potential.” Then the 2022 season happened, and — you guessed it — Nathaniel Lowe officially broke out. He hit 27 home runs and raised his wRC+ from 114 to 143. Good for Nathaniel Lowe! He’s a slugger. Good for Jake Mailhot! He’s a clairvoyant.

The thing is, Lowe didn’t exactly follow the script laid out for him. Jake noted that for the last month and a half of the 2021 season, Lowe added some “responsible aggression,” lowering his strikeout rate despite swinging more often. He did that by making a ton of contact in the zone. Jake broke Lowe’s 2021 plate discipline stats down in a table, using August 16 as the dividing line. I’ve gone ahead and added 2022 to that table:

Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. 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.

For so many who have practiced it, the knuckleball has been a pitch of last resort, an offering turned to only when a pitcher is hanging onto his career literally by his fingertips, as Jim Bouton described his situation in the introduction to Ball Four. Some have thrived with the pitch, with Phil Niekro and Hoyt Wilhelm riding it all the way to Cooperstown, but until R.A. Dickey mastered his so-called “angry knuckleball,” no such pitcher ever won the Cy Young Award. Read the rest of this entry »

When I was assigned to write about Nathan Eovaldi’s eventual free agent signing — this prior to the Winter Meetings — my best guess was that he’d be returning to his baseball home for each of the last four-plus seasons. Boston had been a good fit for the 32-year-old right-hander, and the Chaim Bloom-run club needed him more than he needed them. Given the uncertainty of their rotation — not to mention increasing pressure to spend like a contender, not a small-market pretender — the Red Sox bringing back Eovaldi would have made all the sense in the world.

That didn’t happen. Last week, the Texas Rangers, a team that actually has been spending like a contender, inked the no. 15 player on our Top 50 free agent rankings to a two-year, $34 million contract. It was their third ambitious signing of the winter. Earlier in the offseason, Chris Young and Co. jumpstarted the starting rotation by signing Jacob deGrom to a five-year, $185 million deal and Andrew Heaney to a two-year, $25 million pact. The cumulative $244 million expenditure was based on need. Lacking front-of-the-rotation quality, Texas finished fourth from the bottom among American League clubs in starting pitcher WAR last year.

The trio of newcomers join a rotation that includes Jon Gray and Martín Pérez (back with the club after accepting Texas’ qualifying offer), with Dane Dunning, Jake Odorizzi (acquired in trade from the Braves in November), and Glenn Otto serving as solid backup options. Thanks to the additions, this is one of the deepest — and potentially among the most productive — starting staffs in either league. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 18th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Texas Rangers.

Batters

The Rangers undergo rebuilding with a refreshing urgency you don’t always see, though that’s hardly surprising since they’re not actually a small-market team. While their previous rebuild kinda struck out, that one, which I always refer to as the “skinny rebuild,” wasn’t quite as focused as this go-around. This time, while they’re developing their talent from within, they’re also going after top free agents, guys who are likely to still be good the next time the Rangers are a contending team, and who are of a caliber that’s hard to develop yourself. A lot of teams blunder this approach, deciding to gird their rebuilding loins with quantity rather than actual quality. That’s kind of what the Padres did in the early going, first acquiring Matt Kemp as if he were a foundational talent and then giving an absurdly large deal to the very ordinary Eric Hosmer. The Rangers haven’t made a bunch of confusingly gigantic commitments to middling players; they signed average players to fairly short, sensible deals (Jon Gray, Martín Pérez, Andrew Heaney) while going all-out for the players who can really make a difference (Jacob deGrom, Corey Seager, and Marcus Semien).

Now, as a contender, the Rangers are still an incomplete squad, as you can see when looking at the offensive projections. The middle infield is absolutely elite and while Nathaniel Lowe isn’t likely to hit .300 again, he’s an adequate starter who won’t reach free agency for another four years, even though it feels like he’s more of a veteran than that. Josh Jung’s cup of coffee was a bit bitter, but ZiPS believes he’s of a similar quality vintage as Lowe. Jonah Heim took a big step forward offensively and while nobody’s going to confuse him with J.T. Realmuto, his bat has improved enough to make his excellent defense matter quite a bit. Mitch Garver is a useful role player who can provide some additional pop while being able to more than fake it at catcher. Read the rest of this entry »

Minor League Pitching Coach

Location: Arlington, TX
Status: Full-Time

It’s fun to work in a company where people truly BELIEVE in what they’re doing!

We’re committed to bringing passion and customer focus to the business.

The Texas Rangers are seeking a Minor League Pitching Coach to join the organization. An affiliate Pitching Coach will be tasked with carrying out organizational pitching philosophies at their given affiliate. You will be asked to effectively monitor & communicate player plan implementation, while adjusting goals based on collaborative communication with the player, front office & field staff.

Essential Functions of Position Include, But Are Not Limited to the Following:

• Develop pitching methods that reinforce the organization’s philosophies.
• Develop and establish a next day game review process that provides feedback to pitchers on their performance.
• Plan daily pitching practice while coordinating with other members of the field staff
• Analyze and create ways to optimize each pitcher’s performance at your affiliate.
• Collaborate with affiliate Strength Coach and Apprentice’s at affiliate to identify and act on solutions related to physical limitations/opportunities for development
• Develop a process that empowers players to abide by organizational advance scouting efforts.
• Assist the staff and players with the implementation of systems and technologies.
• Communicate plans, goals and progress with players and relevant staff members throughout checkpoints.
• Prescribe and monitor a development plan for each pitcher based on areas of opportunity.
• Ability to adapt to Minor League season, schedule, personnel, and
• Outward communication towards supervisors.
• Responsible for documentation of player plans, adjustments, and occurring changes at the affiliate.
• All duties as assigned.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Interest in player development, strength & conditioning, and analytics.
• Ability to understand and advocate for changes due to new information and or tools in baseball.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• Willingness to use available resources to problem solve.
• Strong computer skills and proficiency in Microsoft Office.
• Hard working and driven to succeed.
• Professional or collegiate playing experience is a plus.
• Coaching experience is a plus.
• Fluency in Spanish is a plus.
• Strength & conditioning related degrees are a plus.

Desired Attributes:

• Character – High Integrity. Hard Working. Empathetic.
• Servant Mindset – The player’s best interests are always the top priority
• Domain Knowledge
• Open Mindedness – Demonstrated track record of growth throughout career
• Data Driven Decision Maker & Committed to Process
• Intellectual Humility
• Clear Communication & Collaboration – Up/Down/Lateral
• High Energy & Passion

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this job. They are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties and skills required of the job.

If you like wild growth and working with happy, enthusiastic over-achievers, you’ll enjoy your career with us!

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Texas Rangers.

Gaylord Perry presented some kind of mathematical paradox to the mind of this young fan. If baseball had outlawed the spitball some 60 years earlier, how could this admittedly gray-haired guy in his early 40s have been grandfathered in? Yet there was Perry, throwing — or at least appearing to throw — wet or otherwise loaded baseballs with impunity, preceding each pitch with a detailed routine in which he’d rub his brow, both sides of the underbill of his cap, then the brim, then the side, then the brim again before delivering. Sometimes it was a decoy for the fact that he was hiding the foreign substance on his wrist, his neck, or somewhere on his uniform.

Master of the “spitball”. Made players angry, including Reggie Jackson was fuming. #RIPGaylordPerry pic.twitter.com/uH9PQAaqxx

— BaseballHistoryNut (@nut_history) December 1, 2022

The math didn’t work, but the wet ones, or at least the belief that he was throwing them, did. In my early years of watching baseball, the rubber-armed, rule-bending rogue brought vivid color (not just the Padres’ infamous brown-and-yellow) to the more black-and-white corners of the game’s history, planting the evocative names of bygone spitballers such as Burleigh Grimes and Urban Shocker in my mind while earning his own spot in the annals. In 1978, the year I began closely following the game, Perry became the first pitcher to win a Cy Young Award in both leagues and just the third pitcher to reach 3,000 strikeouts, after Walter Johnson and Bob Gibson. On May 6, 1982, while a member of the Seattle Mariners, he became the 15th pitcher to reach 300 wins, the first in 19 years and the first of six from his cohort to reach that milestone; that season also brought the only time he was ejected for throwing an illegal pitch. On August 13, 1983, about six weeks from the end of his 22-year major league career, he became the third pitcher of that group, after Tom Seaver and Steve Carlton, to surpass Johnson’s previously unassailable record of 3,508 strikeouts. Read the rest of this entry »

A few days after signing Jacob deGrom to lead their rotation, the Texas Rangers continued to bolster their pitching staff, signing Andrew Heaney to a two-year contract that could be worth up to $37 million total. The base salary is $25 million with up to $12 million in additional incentives; the deal also includes an opt-out after 2023.

After limping to a 5.83 ERA in 2021 while pitching for the Angels and Yankees, Heaney signed a one-year, bounce-back deal with the Dodgers, and bounce back he did. With a 25.4% career strikeout rate, he’s had no problems sending batters down on strikes over the years. He took that ability to new levels in 2022, pushing his strikeout rate to a career-high 35.5% while also logging career bests in ERA (3.10) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.79).

However, that penchant for Ks comes with a really nasty habit of allowing far too many home runs. Over the last five seasons, his 27.2% strikeout rate ranks 28th among all qualified starting pitchers, while his 1.64 HR/9 ranks 12th. He was able to offset some of that damage with his improvements this year, but it’s a real sticking point that has held him back from becoming one of the premiere starters in baseball. Read the rest of this entry »