Without a true minor league season on which to fixate, I’ve been spending most of my time watching and evaluating young big leaguers who, because of the truncated season, will still be eligible for prospect lists at the end of the year. From a workflow standpoint, it makes sense for me to prioritize and complete my evaluations of these prospects before my time is divided between theoretical fall instructional ball on the pro side and college fall practices and scrimmages, which will have outsized importance this year due to the lack of both meaningful 2020 college stats and summer wood bat league looks because of COVID-19.

I started with the National League East; below is my look at the American League West, covering players who have appeared in big league games. The results of the changes made to player rankings and evaluations can be found over on The Board, though I try to provide more specific links throughout this post in case readers only care about one team.

Houston Astros

A rash of injuries has necessitated several pitching prospect promotions in Houston. Cristian Javier (ranked second in org) and Brandon Bielak (fifth) have been up the longest, and both have struggled in unexpected ways. Bielak, who threw lots of strikes in the minors, has wrestled with walks. He might be nibbling with his fastball because it’s getting crushed to the tune of a 90% in-zone contact rate and a .674 xSLG according to Baseball Savant. He’s been bullpenned for now, but I still consider him a likely No. 4/5 starter (45 FV), albeit one who probably has to pitch more heavily off his secondary stuff. Even though he’s walked more hitters than usual, Bielak has still shown a consistent ability to execute his changeup and breaking balls to good locations, especially against lefties.

Javier’s walk rate is actually better than usual, but he hasn’t missed bats at anything resembling his career norm, and a whopping nine of the 27 hits he’s surrendered this year have been home runs. That home run rate will likely regress across a larger sample, but if Javier is going to keep starting then he still needs to find a better way to deal with left-handed hitters because his splits have been pretty extreme. Because of an off day, Houston opted to skip Javier’s turn in the rotation over the weekend and use him out of the bullpen, where he had five strikeouts in two innings. I think he’s a candidate to move the ‘pen during the playoffs, and potentially long-term, and he projects as a high-leverage reliever if he does. Read the rest of this entry »

Not all rebuilds are the same. One approach, taken by teams such as the Houston Astros or Chicago Cubs, is a complete dynamiting of the creaky foundation, accumulating talent over a period of usually several years. Another approach is to take the less invasive route, keeping the best part of the team’s core mostly intact while also adding talent and hopefully returning to relevance more quickly than a team in a full teardown might. There are other approaches (trade for a bunch of veterans, stand around and do nothing, etc), but these are arguably the most popular and successful methods. For the past few years, Texas has mostly taken the second approach, entering a clear rebuilding phase but keeping the players they see as main contributors in the future. Unfortunately for the Rangers, 2020 represents a serious setback to these goals, and I’m increasingly unsure this strategy is viable for the team.

I’ve been referring to the Rangers as undergoing a “skinny rebuild” for some time. I don’t think I coined the term, but the idea is simple: retain your key contributors, seek some value in free agent signings, and look for a major addition if the opportunity arises. Teams rarely bluntly present the master plan with the vigor and certainty of a Bond villain, but I think it’s clear the Rangers, knowing that they were moving into a new park, were hopeful about returning to competitiveness in 2019 or 2020 in this manner (or at least close enough that they could patch the remaining gaps with their healthy revenue stream). You could see a bit of this when they signed three-year deals with Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson before the 2019 and 2020 seasons, respectively.

I don’t think this plan was ill-conceived, and in fact last year it looked like it just might work out. The pitchers the Rangers added more than met the expectations of the franchise, Joey Gallo was in his prime, and the team hadn’t publicly backed off the idea of splashing some major cash when the time was right. Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Grieve had a relatively nondescript playing career. From 1970-1979, the now-72-year-old former outfielder logged 474 hits, 65 of which left the yard, and a 100 wRC+. Those numbers came primarily with the Texas Rangers, who had drafted Grieve out of the University of Michigan while the franchise was still located in Washington DC.

Grieve is a product of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and while he grew up rooting for the New York Yankees, one of his biggest thrills came in his home state’s most-famous sports venue. The date was May 5, 1974, and the event itself was proceeded by a certain amount of trepidation.

“Billy Martin was the manager at the time,” explained Grieve, who is now a TV analyst for the Rangers. “Jim Fregosi and I had been playing against left-handed pitchers, and Mike Hargrove and Jim Spencer had been playing against right-handed pitchers. Anyway, the people of Pittsfield had called the Red Sox and were somehow able to set up ‘Tom Grieve Day’ at Fenway Park between games of a Sunday doubleheader. Usually when there’s a day for someone at a ballpark, it’s for a Hall of Fame player, so I can remember going to Boston knowing that it was going to happen, and being a little bit embarrassed.”

Not to mention wary of what his manager might think. Not only was Grieve a 26-year-old platoon player, Martin had donned pinstripes for much of his own playing career. Moreover, Martin was notoriously as combative as they come. Read the rest of this entry »

Dave Raymond knows the West. The team he does play-by-play for, the Texas Rangers, not only competes in the American League West, their inter-league schedule this year comprises solely the National League equivalent. As a result, Raymond has been getting regular looks at two of the game’s most talent-rich divisions. In terms of powerhouse clubs and marquee players, the West is arguably baseball’s best.

How would Raymond rank the teams and players he’s seen this season? That was the crux of a conversation I had with the TV voice of the Rangers prior to last night’s game.

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David Laurila: Which is the best team you’ve seen this year?

Dave Raymond: “I’ve been really impressed with the Padres. They looked really good against us [in mid-August]. We may have gotten them right on the way to their peak — and that might have been us headed right to the trough — but they were really impressive. They have so much great young talent. There are guys like Jake Cronenworth who are hardly even noticed in the shadow of Fernando Tatis Jr. I mean, Cronenworth has to be the top rookie-of-the-year candidate right now, and he doesn’t even stand out on that team.

“Even Manny Machado. It looked like the energy of some of the young players is lifting him a little bit. He made some plays against the Rangers that were were pretty neat. You got a glimpse again of that young Manny Machado who won a Gold Glove and was more of the all-round player.

“But here’s my thought about the Padres: if you look at that lineup, find me the homegrown guy. He’s not there. It’s made up of all these pieces that were plucked from different organizations in trades and free agent signings. In kind of a perverse way, it’s really remarkable. I don’t think anybody sets out to build a championship team almost exclusively from other teams, but that’s kind of what they’ve done. And we just saw them, at the trade deadline, going out and aggressively bringing in even more guys from other organizations. Read the rest of this entry »

Wracked by injuries and currently running fourth in the NL East at 15-20 — but even so just two games out of the eighth playoff spot — the Mets added a trio of players via separate deadline deals with the Rangers and Orioles on Monday. While catcher Robinson Chirinos and infielder Todd Frazier are the more familiar names and could have relevance beyond this season, it’s reliever Miguel Castro who will probably have the most staying power. Each addition addresses an area of need, though their 2020 impact might be minimal, and the hard-throwing righty did cost them a prospect of note as well as either a player to be named later or cash.

On a team that lost Noah Syndergaard to Tommy John surgery and Marcus Stroman to an opt-out, then sent Michael Wacha and now Steven Matz to the Injured List with shoulder woes, the Mets have raided their bullpen to draft Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo into the rotation alongside Jacob deGrom, Rick Porcello, and rookie David Peterson. Particularly with Dellin Betances joining the IL due to right lat tightness, the need for competent relief work became particularly acute, and the addition of Castro, a 25-year-old righty with a live arm, helps to remedy that. Castro’s two-seam fastball averages 97.7 mph and goes as high as 99; as Ben Clemens recently observed, when he’s facing lefties, he tends to use his changeup as a secondary pitch, while against righties, he goes to his slider as an alternative. The fastball is even more hittable than most, but the secondary pitches are very good.

While Castro, who debuted with the Blue Jays in 2015 but still has two years of arbitration eligibility remaining, got rather mediocre results in 2019 (4.66 ERA, 4.73 FIP in 73.1 innings), this year, he’s pitched markedly better (4.02 ERA, 3.71 FIP in 15.2 innings). His strikeout rate has spiked from 22.3% to 34.3%, while his walk rate has fallen from 12.8% to 7.1%; as a result, his K-BB% has nearly tripled, from 9.4% to 27.2%. His home run rate has climbed from 1.23 per nine to 1.72, but at the same time, his batted ball profile has taken on a different shape — harder contact but more grounders, and a ridiculous HR/FB rate:

Read the rest of this entry »

Just over a year ago, Mike Minor was the subject of much debate as far as whether the Rangers — a middling team as the deadline approached — should trade the lefty at or near the peak of his value given that he was pitching well and signed through 2020. Ultimately, the club chose not to move him, finished below .500, and saw his stock drop considerably with a rough start to the abbreviated 2020 season. On Monday, the Rangers did their best to salvage some value by dealing him within the AL West, sending him to the division-leading A’s along with cash considerations for a pair of players to be named later and international slot money.

While the players headed to Texas can’t officially be named since they weren’t part of the A’s 60-man pool, a source told The Athletic’s Levi Weaver that they’re a pair of 2019 draft picks: third-rounder Marcus Smith, a center fielder who was 27th among A’s prospects on THE BOARD, and 11th-rounder Dustin Harris, a third baseman who did not crack the list of 39. More on them below.

Per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Jeff Wilson, the Rangers are also sending Oakland half of Minor’s remaining salary (about $1.4 million remaining, prorated from his $9.5 million full-season salary) but are getting back $133,000 worth of international slot money. Interestingly enough, though interest in Lynn was said to be very high, so was their asking price, to the point that they again kept him

As for Minor, the 32-year-old southpaw entered 2020 riding a streak of three strong seasons since returning from a two-year absence from the majors (2015-16) caused by May 2015 surgery to repair a small tear in his labrum. He threw 77.2 innings out of the bullpen for the Royals in 2017, good for 2.2 WAR, then signed a three-year, $28 million deal with the Rangers. Read the rest of this entry »

A year ago, Lance Lynn finished fifth in the American League Cy Young race. While his 6.8 WAR was third in the AL (second at Baseball-Reference), his case didn’t seem to resonate with voters. His strikeout totals weren’t as gaudy as other contenders’ and while his 3.13 FIP pitching in a hitter’s park was very good, his 3.67 ERA looked more good than great. The difference between his FIP and ERA can mostly be attributed to bad luck or poor defense on batted balls, and once his home park is adjusted for, Lynn put up one of the best seasons in the AL. So far this season, Lynn has picked up right where he left off, with a 38% strikeout rate in two scoreless starts.

For some context, here are the top 10 pitchers in baseball by WAR since the start of the 2019 season:

Jacob deGrom is great and Gerrit Cole probably deserved the Cy Young award last year, but just behind those two is Lynn with a healthy lead over Max Scherzer and Shane Bieber, who Ben Clemens profiled yesterday. Lynn’s 2019 season was marked by a change in pitch usage; he reduced the use of his sinker unless there were runners on base. It’s only two starts, but his sinker usage has dropped even further in 2020, much like it did last September:

Read the rest of this entry »

Corey Kluber’s debut with Texas lasted just one inning. A strikeout, walk, caught stealing, and popup made for a snappy opening frame against Colorado on Sunday, and after 18 pitches, the 34-year-old right-hander’s velocity was right where it has been for years. It seemed like the start of a solid return to the mound for Kluber and an exciting first glimpse for Rangers fans at the team’s biggest offseason addition, but the good vibes faded quickly. Kluber never took the mound for the second inning, with the team quickly citing “tightness in his right shoulder” and saying there would be an update Monday.

The update came, and it wasn’t reassuring — Kluber has a Grade 2 tear of his teres major muscle, an injury that will require him to be shut down for at least four weeks. There is a chance he could miss the entire season, and if he does return at some point, he will need to pitch out of the bullpen, as there won’t be enough time to stretch him back out to handle a starter’s workload.

This is the second consecutive season the two-time Cy Young winner has missed substantial time following several years of him being one of the most durable starters in the game. Kluber threw at least 200 innings every year from 2014-18, racking up the second-highest innings total over that five-year span. That run got busted on a fluke play last spring when Marlins third baseman Brian Anderson hit a line drive that got Kluber in his right arm, causing a non-displaced fracture that ended his season after just seven starts. Read the rest of this entry »

Today I conclude my series discussing each team’s 60-man player pool with a focus on prospects. Previous installments of these rundowns, including potentially relevant context for discussion, can be found here:

AL East and Intro
NL East
AL Central
NL Central
NL West

Updating Previously-Covered Teams

A few teams have made significant player pool additions that merit discussion before I get to the AL West. Boston added Tanner Houck, Bryan Mata, Jay Groome, Jarren Duran and Jeter Downs to their pool. The Sox need to make 40-man decisions on all three of the pitchers on that list this offseason. Houck (who might debut this year) and Mata are virtual locks to be added to the 40, while Groome still hasn’t thrown very much as a pro and is far less certain. The good news for Boston (and the bad news for the scouting industry) is that even if Groome looks great, there’s no way for other teams’ scouts to know since they have no access to Sox camp. It’d take a rebuilding team with 40-man space for a developmental dart throw, led by decision-makers previously enamored with Groome (which might be tough to find since prospective Rule 5 picks are evaluated by pro departments, which haven’t seen much of him) to even consider taking someone like that and stuffing them on next year’s active roster. Downs and Duran have 2021 roster timelines.

The Mets also put several more pitching prospects in their pool: Thomas Szapucki, Jordan Humphreys, Franklyn Kilomé, and Matt Blackham. Szapucki, Humphreys and Kilomé are all TJ survivors who are on the 40-man and thus are a good bet to debut at some point this summer, potentially up for good in September. Blackham wasn’t on the Mets prospect list but sat 93-95 and touched 97 last year, and has 30-grade command. The Mets campsite hitters remain packed with veteran utility types more so than prospects.

I’ve mentioned a of couple teams as having a puncher’s chance to compete for postseason berths, in part because they’re in position to get unexpected, unusually strong performance from their bullpens. The White Sox late player pool additions — oft-injured Jacob Lindgren, Ryan Burr, former top 100 prospect Zack Burdi, new draft pick Garrett Crochet, and 2019 breakout guy Jonathan Stiever — are all candidates to pop and contribute to such a cause this year. Chicago also added Blake Rutherford, Luis Gonzalez and Micker Adolfo to their pool. I have low-end platoon grades on Rutherford (who might belong in a low-ball/high-ball platoon rather than a left/right one) and Gonzalez at this point, while it’s clear the org prioritized experimenting with Yermin Mercedes over just DH’ing Adolfo during camp, which I think is instructive for how they should be ordered on the club’s prospect list. Read the rest of this entry »

Brandon Mann has had a fascinating career. Drafted out of a Seattle-area high school by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2002, the now-36-year-old southpaw has played for six major league organizations, and he’s had multiple stints in both independent ball and NPB. His big-league experience consists of seven games with the Texas Rangers in 2018. With the Chiba Lotte Marines last year, Mann rejoined the Rangers this past offseason, only to be released on June 1.

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David Laurila: You’ve been in pro ball for nearly two decades, with almost none of that time spent in the majors. Why have you kept at it?

Brandon Mann: “I’ve asked myself that question a lot. Pretty much every year I go into the offseason thinking, ‘Man, this might have been my last one.’ But I’ve always had that desire. I know that I can pitch in the big leagues, so I’ve just never felt ready to walk away. Every time I’ve been released has kind of built up the ‘I’ve got to prove somebody wrong’ mentality that I have.

“Over the years I kept training harder and harder, and as I got older I actually started throwing harder. Meeting Driveline, and a lot of the right people, has been a big part of that. But it’s a great question, because I’ve contemplated it many, many times.”

Laurila: How much money have you made in baseball? Read the rest of this entry »