“I been shaking two nickels together for a month, trying to get them to mate.” – Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

There is only one truly poor team in Major League Baseball, and 29 others that just cosplay as Dickensian street urchins. When the Chicago Cubs weep about how there’s just no money in this baseball thing, it’s impossible to take their statements at face value. When the Tampa Bay Rays do it, I take it a lot more seriously.

“Build it, and nobody will come.” Unlike their cross-state rivals, the Miami Marlins, the Rays have been able to build teams that win consistently. They drew moderately well in their debut season, but a decade of losing, in large part due to an incompetent Chuck LaMar-led front office, got things off to a rocky start. Winning 97 games and an AL pennant in 2008 couldn’t raise the team’s attendance to two million, and winning at least 90 games in five of six years appeared to do nearly nothing to bring fans to the ballpark. Tampa Bay drew fewer fans in 2018 and 2019 than they did in their 68-94, last-place 2016, the team’s worst year since they exorcised the Devil from their nickname. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last week or so, several players who had been playing pro ball in Korea or Japan (some originally from those countries, others former big leaguers kicking back to the States) have signed contracts with major league clubs. I had notes on several of them in our Top 50 Free Agents post, but wanted to talk about them at greater length now that we know their employers and the details of their contracts.

LF Yoshitomo Tsutsugo, Tampa Bay Rays
(Two years, $12 million, $2.4 million posting fee)

Tsutsugo’s deal came in a bit beneath what Kiley predicted on the Top 50 Free Agents post (Kiley had two years at $8 million per), where we ranked him No. 42 in the class, but multiple public reports have confirmed that Tsutsugo had more lucrative offers from other teams and chose to sign with Tampa Bay because of comfort with the org.

In addition to regular DH duty, Tsutsugo seems like an obvious platoon partner for Hunter Renfroe in one of the two corner outfield spots. The Rays have indicated he’ll see some time at third and first base, positions he hasn’t played regularly since 2014, and the notes I have from pro/international scouts and executives indicate he’s not athletically capable of playing there, though there’s no harm in seeing whether or not that’s true during spring training. Yandy Díaz isn’t good at the hot corner (he used to be, but he’s just too big and stiff now), but still played third situationally, so perhaps Tsutsugo can be hidden there, even if it’s for a few innings at a time. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a day ending in “Y,” so the San Diego Padres have made another trade involving talented outfielders. This time, it’s a big one: Tommy Pham and Jake Cronenworth will be playing in San Diego next year, with Hunter Renfroe, Xavier Edwards, and reportedly another prospect going to the Rays in exchange.

There’s a lot to unpack in this trade, so let’s take it in sections. First: what are the Rays doing? One option, as always, is that they’re one step ahead of the competition. Trading with the Rays is hazardous for executives’ health. They’re liable to turn a pile of straw into a 3-WAR outfielder, and get you to chip in Shane Baz while you’re at it.

Pham himself was one of these trades a little over a year ago. The Rays traded a shiny marble, two bright red shoelaces, Genesis Cabrera, Justin Williams, and Roel Ramirez to the Cardinals for Pham at the 2018 trade deadline. Pham promptly caught fire, batting .343/.448/.622 through the rest of 2018 before adding a 121 wRC+ 2019. His 3.3 WAR might look low for that offensive line, but it’s largely due to 92 plate appearances at designated hitter, which lowered his defensive value (though Statcast didn’t like his outfield defense in 2019).

When the Rays trade a 31-year-old outfielder for a 27-year-old outfielder, it’s easy to read it as them simply trying to outmaneuver the Padres. But there’s one major complication: salary. Pham is in his second year of arbitration, and he won his case against the Rays last year, securing a $4.1 million salary for 2019. MLB Trade Rumors projects him for $8.6 million in arbitration this year, which would have made him the third-highest-paid Ray, behind only Charlie Morton and Kevin Kiermaier. Read the rest of this entry »

The Tampa Bay Rays announced Monday afternoon that they have come to terms with catcher Mike Zunino on a one-year contract. Zunino will be paid $4.5 million in 2020 in what would have been his final year of salary arbitration eligibility. Tampa also holds a club option for 2021 at the same $4.5 million price.

It’s not the sexiest signing, but it’s one where both parties “settle” for something. Zunino struggled offensively in 2019, hitting .165/.232/.312, first splitting time with Michael Perez and then with Travis d’Arnaud. d’Arnaud’s healthy comeback season featured a healthier .263/.323/.459 in Tampa, resulting in him seizing the majority of the catching job from Zunino, with 80 starts in the 125 games the Rays played after acquiring him. Zunino remains a more-than-competent defensive catcher, but continuing a career-long streak of above-average framing runs isn’t quite enough when your wRC+ at the plate is 45. Read the rest of this entry »

In the first of a six-part series — one piece for each division — I’ll be highlighting each team’s most notable free agents and how it could fill the resulting void on the roster. A player’s rank on our recently released Top 50 Free Agents list, along with Kiley McDaniel’s contract estimates from that exercise, are listed where relevant. In some cases, the team already has a capable replacement ready to step in. In others, it’s clear the team will either attempt to re-sign their player or look to the trade or free agent markets for help. The remaining cases are somewhere in between, with in-house candidates who might be the answer, but aren’t such obvious everyday players to keep the team from shopping around for better options.

Here’s a look at the American League East.

Baltimore Orioles | Depth Chart | Payroll

Mark Trumbo, DH/1B

Trumbo’s expected departure is only notable because it marks the end of a disastrous three-year run that resulted in an 87 wRC+ and 40 homers in 248 games at a total cost of $37.5 million. In his debut season with Orioles in 2016, he had a 125 wRC+ with 47 homers, which led to the contract extension. The particular role Trumbo was supposed to fill, primarily as a designated hitter who could occasionally fill in at first base and the corner outfield spots, now belongs to 25-year-old Renato Nuñez, who will make slightly above the minimum salary next season, is under contract through 2025, and had a 99 wRC+ with 31 homers in his first full big league season.

Total WAR: -0.3

Boston Red Sox | Depth Chart | Payroll

Rick Porcello, SP
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 31
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 2 years, $18M

Chris Sale, David Price, and Nathan Eovaldi combined to make 59 starts in 2019 and there’s not much reason to believe that any of them are likely to give the Red Sox anywhere near 30 starts or 180 innings in 2020. That’s why the potential loss of Porcello, who has made at least 31 starts in eight of his 11 seasons and has never had less than 27, could be a major blow to a team with limited starting pitching depth behind Eduardo Rodriguez and the aforementioned trio.

Badly in need of an innings-eater, it’s possible that the best fit for the Red Sox rotation in 2020 is Porcello, even if he’s nowhere near the pitcher he was when he won the AL Cy Young award in 2016. But even if they cut his 2019 salary of $21.25 million by more than half — Kiley predicted a two-year, $18 million contract for Porcello in our Top 50 Free Agents — Boston is attempting to shed payroll and might be looking for much cheaper options.

Brock Holt, INF/OF
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 33
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 2 years, $15M

After a 1-for-16 start to the season followed by a six-week stint on the Injured List, Holt returned to slash .313/.380/.424 in his final 276 plate appearances while making starts at six different positions. The 31-year-old should be rewarded by a team that can offer him more playing time, which could open the door for Tzu-Wei Lin or one of a handful of prospects, including Chad De La Guerra and C.J. Chatham, to become the team’s next super-utilityman.

Mitch Moreland, 1B

Coming off one of his most productive season at the plate, the 34-year-old Moreland’s price tag could still be less than the two-year, $13 million deal that just expired. Still, the Red Sox have bigger voids to fill than at first base. Some combination of Michael Chavis and possibly an inexpensive veteran — think Yonder Alonso or Logan Morrison — could do the job, with prospect Bobby Dalbec, who slashed .239/.356/.460 with 27 homers between Triple-A and Double-A in 2019, a possibility to help out later in the season.

Andrew Cashner, SP/RP

Since an impressive performance as a relief pitcher with the Padres way back in 2012, Cashner worked almost exclusively as a starter over the next six-and-a-half years. He was very good at times, but was also very bad at others, leading at least some people — well, mostly me — to wonder whether it was time to move him back to the bullpen. That time finally came after he posted an 8.01 ERA and 6.81 FIP in six starts after being acquired from the Orioles in July. Excluding his final appearance of the season, which was disastrous, Cashner had a 2.38 ERA and 3.52 FIP out of the ‘pen with four holds and a save while limiting opponents to a .160 batting average over 22 and two-thirds innings.

It’s unclear what kind of market Cashner would have as a reliever, or if there are still teams interested in him as a starting pitcher, but a return to Boston as a setup man to Brandon Workman could be a nice fit for the 33-year-old.

Total WAR: 3.7

New York Yankees | Depth Chart | Payroll

Didi Gregorius, SS
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 10
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 3 years, $48M

With Gregorius out of the picture, Gleyber Torres could move to shortstop, DJ LeMahieu could get most of his starts at second base, and the corner infield spots should be covered by some combination of Miguel Andujar, Greg Bird, Mike Ford, Gio Urshela, and Luke Voit. It really could be as simple as that.

That doesn’t mean the 29-year-old Gregorius, who was 20th in AL MVP voting in 2017 and 2018, is on his way out. The Yankees don’t have many holes to fill. If they prioritize keeping Gregorius, there’s a good chance he’ll stay put. But the fact that they didn’t give him a qualifying offer, making him much more valuable on the open market, probably means that they’re ready to move on and will focus their offseason efforts elsewhere, possibly in the starting pitching market.

Brett Gardner, OF
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 21
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 1 year, $13M

When Gardner re-signed with the Yankees for the 2019 season, it appeared that his days as a starting outfielder were behind him. Coming off one of his least productive seasons, he was set to fill a part-time role behind Aaron Hicks, Aaron Judge, and Giancarlo Stanton. A year later, things have changed substantially.

The 36-year-old Gardner just had what was one of his best offensive seasons as a major leaguer. He could still be very valuable to the Yankees, who will be without Hicks for at least half of the season as he recovers from Tommy John surgery. If they fail to re-sign Gardner without making a competitive offer, it’s a sign that they believe Mike Tauchman’s breakout season (128 wRC+, 13 HR in 296 plate appearances) wasn’t a fluke and that he’s ready to be penciled in as their Opening Day center fielder.

Edwin Encarnación, DH/1B
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 25
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 1 year, $11M

After a season in which nearly every position player in the Bronx missed time due to an injury, the Yankees might be better off rotating their lineup regulars in and out of the designated hitter spot to keep them well-rested and healthy. Or they could use it early in the season to ease Andujar back into action as he returns from rotator cuff surgery. In either case, Encarnación’s time with the Yankees is likely over even if he still has a lot left in the tank as he enters his age-37 season.

Dellin Betances, RP
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 22
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 1 year, $12M

Betances didn’t make his 2019 debut until September 15, striking out both batters he faced before he was shut down for with a partially torn Achilles’ tendon. The Yankees’ bullpen was still very good without him. Zack Britton and Adam Ottavino both posted sub-2.00 ERAs and Tommy Kahnle bounced back from a disappointing 2018.

The 31-year-old, who had over 15.0 K/9 in three consecutive seasons prior to 2019, could pursue both a multi-year deal and an opportunity to be another team’s closer. But if other teams aren’t willing to offer either of those because of health concerns, he could opt to stay with the Yankees and rebuild his value on a one-year deal in hopes of a big payday next winter. If the Yankees are unwilling to spend much more on their bullpen — Aroldis Chapman, Britton, and Ottavino will make a combined $38 million in 2020 — they could move one of their young starting pitchers to relief. Jonathan Loaisiga or Deivi Garcia would be options.

Cameron Maybin, OF

Like Gardner and Tauchman, the 2019 Yankees brought out the best in the 32-year-old Maybin. After having to settle for a minor league contract last offseason, he’s all but certain to land a major league deal this time around after slashing .285/364/.494 with 11 homers in 269 plate appearances on team that won 103 games.

Total WAR: 7.0

Tampa Bay Rays | Depth Chart | Payroll

Eric Sogard, INF/OF
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 39
Kiley McDaniel contract projection: 1 year, $6M

Acquired in July to help pick up the slack with several key players banged up, Sogard had injury troubles of his own late in the season and was shut down in mid-September. He did return for the post-season, making one start and homering against Gerrit Cole. With a deep Rays team expected to return to full health, the 33-year-old Sogard probably won’t be back. Finding a major league deal shouldn’t be a problem, though, after he finished the season with a .290/.353/.457 slash line in 442 plate appearances while making starts at five different positions.

Avisaíl García, OF
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 30
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 1 year, $10M

With three starting outfielders who don’t figure to sit much in 2020 and Guillermo Heredia in line to be the defensive replacement off the bench, García will likely look elsewhere to cash in on a strong bounce-back season. At age 28, he’s one of the youngest free agents on the market.

Travis d’Arnaud, C/1B
FanGraphs Top 50 Free Agent Ranking: 27
Kiley McDaniel’s contract projection: 2 years, $14M

d’Arnaud was acquired from the Dodgers to help fill the void shortly after Mike Zunino went on the Injured List with a strained quad in early May. By the end of August, he was the primary catcher on a Rays team that was headed for a 96-win season and a playoff appearance. He also made 16 starts at first base because the Rays didn’t want his bat out of the lineup when he wasn’t catching. After Zunino’s offensive production dipped drastically for the second consecutive year, the Rays could bring back the 30-year-old d’Arnaud to pair with him once again. Or they could make room to re-sign him by non-tendering Zunino, who is entering his final year of arbitration eligibility.

Total WAR: 4.1

Toronto Blue Jays | Depth Chart | Payroll

Clay Buchholz/Clayton Richard, SP

To fill their rotation needs in 2019, the Blue Jays took a chance on a pair of oft-injured right-handers, Buchholz and Matt Shoemaker, as well as veteran lefty Richard, who made 59 starts over the previous two seasons. While Shoemaker pitched brilliantly out of the gate, he suffered a season-ending knee injury in his fifth start while the other two battled injuries throughout the season and combined for only 22 mostly mediocre starts.

In the same boat a year later, looking for veteran starting pitchers that can help bridge the gap to the team’s young pitching prospects, Toronto moved quickly to acquire Chase Anderson in a trade with the Brewers and will likely add at least one more starter who is a safer bet than any of last year’s additions.

Total WAR: -0.1

Position: Research and Development Intern

Location: St. Petersburg, FL

The Tampa Bay Rays are in search of their next Research and Development Intern. The Rays’ R&D group helps shape Baseball Operations’ decision-making processes through the analysis and interpretation of data. They are seeking those with a passion for baseball and a desire to contribute through mathematics, data analysis, and computation. Their next intern will be an intellectual contributor that can work both individually and collaboratively, coming up with interesting research questions to explore, find ways to answer those questions with the data at their disposal, communicate the results of their research, and work to apply their research outcomes to improve how the Rays organization operates. The Rays want to work with people who care about being good teammate, want to make a positive impact on their organization, have an innovative spirit, and will explore new ways to make them better. Does this describe you?

Responsibilities:

• Develop strong skills in statistical modeling and quantitative analysis of a variety of data sources, for the purpose of player evaluation, player development and strategic decision-making
• Learn methods for communicating complex research findings to a variety of Baseball Operations audiences
• Design research inquiries with the potential to yield immediately actionable findings within our organization
• Work collaboratively with and assist other members of their department with your areas of expertise
• Collect in-game data to support operational needs of the department
• Ad hoc research and analysis in support of general Baseball Operations tasks

Qualifications:

• A solid foundation in mathematics, physics, statistics, computer science, engineering and/or related fields.
• Advanced computational skills
• Experience with R, Python, and/or Stan preferred.
• Experience solving complex problems.
• Creativity to discover new avenues of research.

To Apply:
To apply, please complete the application that can be found here. This position is paid.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Tampa Bay Rays.

Gerrit Cole simply dominated the Rays across his two starts in the ALDS. Across almost 16 innings, he allowed just one run and nine baserunners while striking out nearly half of the batters he faced. That lone run he allowed was a solo home run off the bat of Eric Sogard. Of all the players on the Rays’ playoff roster, no one would have guessed it would be Sogard to hit a dinger off one of the best pitchers in all of baseball. But was it really that unlikely?

For his part, Sogard put together a career year this season. He posted career highs in ISO, wRC+, and WAR while launching 13 home runs, two more than his career total across eight previous seasons. Long viewed as a light-hitting utility infielder, Sogard showed he was capable of hitting for power in a way that he had never been able to before. And yet, he only averaged an 84.7 mph exit velocity this year, and his hard hit rate sat in the third percentile in the majors. But by adding an extra 2.5 degrees to his average launch angle — and with some help from the dragless ball — 13 of those hard-ish hit fly balls snuck over the fence.

Cole did struggle a bit with the long ball this season, allowing 29 home runs and a career-high 16.9% home run per fly ball rate. That’s 10 more home runs than he allowed last year and just two fewer than the career high he allowed in his final season in Pittsburgh in 2017. But Cole’s home run troubles and Sogard’s newfound power only tell part of the story in broad generalizations. So let’s dig into the specific event to see if we can find anything more interesting. For starts, here’s the video of Sogard’s home run in case you missed it last night.

Sogard gets around on a 95-mph fastball on the inside corner and hits it solidly enough to reach four rows back in right field. The pitch itself was rather peculiar. Cole’s average fastball velocity this season was 97.1 mph. In the game last night, he averaged 97.3 mph. This fastball was the second slowest fastball he threw all night. When Cole’s fastball velocity has dipped that low, opposing batters have had a much easier time handling his heater. Here’s a table showing how batters have fared against his fastball at different velocities: Read the rest of this entry »

Minute Maid Park roared when Roberto Osuna‘s slider eluded Ji-Man Choi’s bat for the final out of Thursday’s Game 5, but then again, it had already been roaring for some time. The crowd of people within its walls hollered and yelped as their fire-breathing dragon of an ace took the mound to start the game, and they shouted some more as he struck out the first two hitters of the night. When the home team came to bat and scratched across four runs in the first inning, they could barely contain themselves. They bellowed and barked and caterwauled, more quietly in the middle but even louder at the end, watching the best pitcher on the planet today render yet another opposing lineup into silence.

The Houston Astros defeated the Tampa Bay Rays by a score of 6-1 on Thursday in an ALDS Game 5 that never really felt that close. Houston’s offense took a commanding lead early, and Gerrit Cole was in command throughout, tossing eight innings of one-run, two-hit, two-walk baseball while striking out 10. With the performance, he managed a combined 15.2 innings pitched in two victories over the Rays in this series, allowing just one run on six hits and three walks while striking out 25 — the second-most over a pitcher’s first two postseason games in any season ever.

The victory advances the Astros into the ALCS for a third straight year, where they will face the New York Yankees with Game 1 scheduled for Saturday at 8:08 p.m. The Yankees haven’t played since Monday, when they clinched a three-game sweep over the Minnesota Twins. The two teams virtually matched each other step for step during the seven games they faced each other during the regular season, with the Astros going 4-3 and outscoring New York just 39-37. Read the rest of this entry »

Over five postseason games, the Rays have had a plethora of heroes. Tommy Pham is batting .429/.455/.714, good for a scalding 213 wRC+. Willy Adames has been even better, with a 240 wRC+ and an actual cannon for an arm. Charlie Morton has thrown 10 innings and allowed only a single run. Nick Anderson and Diego Castillo have been lights out; the list goes on and on. Spare a thought, though, for Ji-Man Choi, who might not lead the team in batting but surely leads it in sheer delight.

If you want to understand how weird Choi’s contributions have been, a good place to start is the walk rate. He’s drawn six walks in 19 postseason plate appearances, good for a 31.6% walk rate. That’s second only to Giancarlo Stanton’s 36.4% among batters with 10 or more PA, and it’s the reason for his outrageous .154/.421/.385 batting line. When you see a slugging percentage lower than an on-base percentage, that usually means a batter has no power. Not so with Choi — he has a home run in the postseason and a solid .231 ISO. He just walks all the dang time.

But uh — a .154 batting average? Does he have a .000 BABIP or something? Not at all — it’s a reasonable .250. No, his batting average woes come down to a 42.1% strikeout rate, which is about as terrible as it sounds, even in the small sample theatre that is October baseball. It’s a strikeout world these days, but not that much of a strikeout world; the only players in the playoffs with a higher strikeout rate than Choi are A.J. Pollock (76.9%!), Miguel Sanó, Gavin Lux, and Brandon Lowe, and two of those guys have wRC+’s below zero.

In fact, Choi’s .250 BABIP is of the 1-for-4 variety, because 15 of his 19 plate appearances have ended in a strikeout, walk, or home run. That home run came in the Rays’ 10-3 pasting of Zack Greinke in Game 3, and it buoys Choi’s overall stats, so I might as well show it here:

Read the rest of this entry »

In the fourth inning of Tuesday night’s Game 4, with José Altuve on first base, one out, and the Rays already up by three, Yordan Álvarez hit a deep fly ball to right-center field. You’d have been forgiven, in this home run-happy era, for thinking at first that the ball had left the park. You’d similarly have lost not one whit of credibility had you assumed that Kevin Kiermaier, one of the best center fielders of his era, might catch the ball on the run. But neither of those two things happened; the ball instead bounced beautifully off the right-center field wall and hung, for just a moment, in the air above Kiermaier’s head. That was the moment — when the ball hung briefly in stark contrast against dark blue — in which Gary Pettis, the Astros’ third-base coach since 2014, had to decide whether to send Altuve home.

As Ben Clemens pointed out in the game chat, our WPA Inquirer suggests that at the time Pettis made his decision, the Astros would have had about a 28.1% chance of winning the game had Altuve stopped at third, a 17.7% chance of winning the game if he went and was thrown out (which is what happened), and a 29.8% chance of winning the game had he run and scored. That distribution suggests, all other things being equal, that Pettis had to believe Altuve was likely to score at least 86% of the time in order to justify sending him (29.8 – 17.7 = 12.1; 12.1 * 0.86 + 17.7 = 28.1). Given that math, I find it hard to fault Pettis for his choice to run Altuve. It took two essentially perfect throws, from Keirmaier and Willy Adames in turn, plus a terrific tag from Travis d’Arnaud, to get Altuve at the plate by a hair. I know it won’t make the Astros feel better given the result, but it was fun to watch. Read the rest of this entry »