The Boston Red Sox made a pre-Thanksgiving trade on Tuesday, acquiring Sonny Gray from the St. Louis Cardinals in exchange for 25-year-old right-hander Richard Fitts and hard-throwing prospect Brandon Clarke. How well the deal works out for Craig Breslow’s club is anyone’s guess — my colleague Michael Baumann wrote that he couldn’t “declare this trade to be a robbery in either direction” — but the 36-year-old righty does have a track record of reliability. Gray has graced a big-league mound 92 times over the past three seasons, gobbling up 531 innings and posting a 3.63 ERA as well as a 3.11 FIP. If he can continue to fend off Father Time a while longer, the erstwhile Vanderbilt Commodore will add value to the Red Sox starting rotation.

A Vandy product Boston brought on board as a free agent last winter came to mind when the trade was announced. That would be Walker Buehler, who despite high hopes ultimately proved to be a bust. Unable to return to old form, the veteran righty struggled to a 5.45 ERA over 112-and-a-third innings and was cut loose by the Red Sox in late August.

There are clear differences between the two pitchers — their respective health histories particularly stand out — but they nonetheless have things in common. One is a diverse repertoire. Another is a lack of high-octane heaters.

Buehler was in the 43rd percentile for fastball velocity in 2025, while Gray was in just the 16th percentile. As Baumann pointed out, the latter “has started leaking fastball velocity… [but has] compensated by leaning into a cutter and changeup, making him a legit six-pitch pitcher since 2023.” Meanwhile, the 31-year-old Buehler leaned heavily on a six-pitch mix while compensating for the velocity he lost following Tommy John surgery in 2022. Read the rest of this entry »

Connelly Early emerged as one of the top pitching prospects in the Boston Red Sox organization this season. The 23-year-old left-hander logged a 2.60 ERA and a 2.74 FIP over 101 1/3 minor league innings, then allowed just five runs over 19 1/3 innings following a September call-up. His first two major league outings — he made four regular season starts in all — were especially impressive. Facing the Athletics on each occasion, Early worked a combined 10 1/3 frames, surrendering a lone run, issuing one free pass and fanning 18 batters.

Jacob Wilson had some noteworthy at-bats against the young southpaw. The A’s shortstop went 2-for-5 against him, singling twice (one of them an infield hit), and also striking out twice. The strikeouts stand out when you consider Wilson’s profile. The second-place finisher in this year’s American League Rookie of the Year race recorded a 7.5% strikeout rate, the lowest among qualified hitters not named Luis Arraez.

The number of pitches he saw from Early (28) and how they were sequenced is what prompted me to put together the article you are currently reading. Between the two games, Early threw Wilson seven curveballs, seven changeups, five sinkers, four sliders, and four four-seamers. And with the exception of back-to-back curveballs in their first matchup, Early didn’t double up on a pitch. That especially caught my eye the fourth time they faced each other when Wilson went down swinging to end a nine-pitch at-bat.

The day after the Early and Wilson battled for a second time, I approached both to ask what they’d seen from each other. As they wouldn’t be matching up again in 2025, asking them for their scouting reports on one another seemed fair game for discussion.

I began with the shortstop. Read the rest of this entry »

The Boston Red Sox have acquired veteran right-hander Sonny Gray and cash from the St. Louis Cardinals, in exchange for pitchers Richard Fitts and Brandon Clarke, and either cash or a player to be named later. Seems straightforward enough.

After 13 seasons in the majors, you all know Gray by now: short guy out of Vanderbilt. Big, slow curveball, but not a ton of velo. Changes teams every two or three years. In those 13 seasons, Gray’s two best WAR seasons are 5.4 and 4.5, but he’s posted four additional seasons of between 3.5 and 3.9 WAR, and three others of between 2.4 and 2.7 WAR. This is the Toyota Sienna of pitchers: You don’t stay up nights dreaming about him, and he can be a little pricey, but he’ll get you and your family where they need to go with an absolute minimum of fuss.

The Red Sox made the playoffs in 2025. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by assuming they’d like to make the playoffs again in 2026. If I were in the playoff-making business, I’d welcome the opportunity to add Sonny Gray to my team. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of my ongoing look at the candidates on the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, use the navigation tool above. An introduction to JAWS can be found here.

Like Barry Bonds with regards to position players, Roger Clemens has a reasonable claim as the greatest pitcher of all time. Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, and Grover Cleveland Alexander spent all or most of their careers in the Deadball Era, before the home run was a real threat, and pitched while the color line was still in effect, barring some of the game’s most talented players from participating. Sandy Koufax and Tom Seaver pitched when scoring levels were much lower and pitchers held a greater advantage. Koufax and 2015 inductees Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez didn’t sustain their greatness for nearly as long. Greg Maddux didn’t dominate hitters to nearly the same extent.

Clemens, meanwhile, spent 24 years in the majors and racked up a record seven Cy Young awards, not to mention an MVP award. He won 354 games, led his leagues in the Triple Crown categories (wins, strikeouts, and ERA) a total of 16 times, and helped his teams to six pennants and a pair of world championships.

Alas, whatever claim “The Rocket” may have on such an exalted title is clouded by suspicions that he used performance-enhancing drugs. When those suspicions came to light in the Mitchell Report in 2007, Clemens took the otherwise unprecedented step of challenging the findings during a Congressional hearing, but nearly painted himself into a legal corner; he was subject to a high-profile trial for six counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to Congress. After a mistrial in 2011, he was acquitted on all counts the following year, and in March 2015, he settled a defamation lawsuit filed by former personal trainer Brian McNamee for an unspecified amount. But despite those verdicts and resolutions, the specter of PEDs hasn’t left Clemens’ case. Read the rest of this entry »

The Arizona Diamondbacks might have the best middle-infield duo in MLB, which is something most people outside of their fanbase probably aren’t aware of. Mike Hazen didn’t disagree when I suggested as much to him in Las Vegas.

“We’ve always dealt with that,” the D-Backs general manager replied. “We play on the West Coast — we play late for the East Coast — and we’re not on national TV a lot, so it comes with the territory. But yeah, [Geraldo] Perdomo probably had a top-five season in all of baseball this year, and [Ketel] Marte does it every year. With those two guys, along with [Corbin] Carroll, I think we have three of the top 25-30 guys in all of baseball.”

That was certainly the case in 2025. Carroll, the club’s right-fielder, ranked seventh-best in MLB with 6.5 WAR, while the keystone combination came in at fifth-best (Perdomo at 7.1) and 24th-best (Marte at 4.6) respectively. Productive bats were a big reason for that. Carroll put up a 139 wRC+, Perdomo was a tick below at 138, and Marte was fourth-highest in the senior circuit at 145.

How long Arizona’s middle infield will remain intact is currently in question. Rumors that Marte — on tap to gain 10-5 rights in the coming season — could be traded have been circulating, and while Hazen has reportedly said that moving the 32-year-old second baseman is “mostly unlikely,” he has also acknowledged a need to listen to offers. Howe many of those he has received to this point is unknown, but given Marte’s résumé — the three-time All-Star has a 140 wRC+ and 15.3 WAR over the past three seasons — the return would be noteworthy. Read the rest of this entry »

One of my favorite annual exercises is a quick and dirty assessment of every team’s 40-man roster situation. Which prospects need to be added to their club’s 40-man by next Tuesday’s deadline to be protected from the Rule 5 Draft? Which veterans are in danger of being non-tendered because of their projected arbitration salary? And which players aren’t good enough to make their current org’s active roster, but would see the field for a different club and therefore have some trade value? These are the questions I’m attempting to answer with a piece like this. Most teams add and subtract a handful of players to their roster every offseason — some just one or two, others as many as 10. My aim with this exercise is to attempt to project what each team’s roster will look like when the deadline to add players arrives on Tuesday, or at least give you an idea of the names I think are likely to be on the table for decision-makers to consider.

This project is completed by using the RosterResource Depth Charts to examine current 40-man occupancy and roster makeup, and then weigh the young, unrostered prospects who are Rule 5 eligible in December against the least keepable current big leaguers in the org to create a bubble for each roster. The bigger and more talented the bubble, the more imperative it is for a team to make a couple of trades to do something with their talent overage rather than watch it walk out the door for nothing in the Rule 5.

Below you’ll see each team’s current 40-man count, the players I view as locks to be rostered, the fringe players currently on the roster whose spots feel tenuous, and the more marginal prospects who have an argument to be added but aren’t guaranteed. I only included full sections for the teams that have an obvious crunch or churn, with a paragraph of notes addressing the clubs with less intricate roster situations at the bottom. I have the players listed from left to right in the order I prefer them, so the left-most names are the players I’d keep, and right-most names are the guys I’d be more likely to cut. I’ve italicized the names of the players who I believe fall below the cut line. As a reminder, players who signed at age 18 or younger must be added to the 40-man within five seasons to be protected from the Rule 5, while those signed at age 19 or older must be added within four. Brendan Gawlowski examined the National League yesterday, so be sure to check that out too. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »

Dustin May is a free agent. And not because he got non-tendered; he’s passed six years of service this season, and hits the open market at the tender age of 28.

I admit this one snuck up on me. May, a highly touted Dodgers prospect, stormed into prominence when he joined the L.A. pitching staff in 2019 at the age of 21. He pitched for the Dodgers in the playoffs that October and started 2020 as the no. 14 prospect in all of baseball, and spent most of the year in the rotation, garnering a few Rookie of the Year votes and making seven appearances during the Dodgers’ run to the World Series. Read the rest of this entry »

Hagen Smith has a promising future on the South Side. Drafted fifth overall in 2024 out of the University of Arkansas, the 22-year-old left-hander in the Chicago White Sox system is No. 81 on The Board with a 50 FV. Currently making up lost innings in the Arizona Fall League — he missed six weeks this summer due to elbow soreness — Smith has been described by Eric Longenhagen as possessing “a killer fastball/slider combo.”

The erstwhile Razorback’s go-to breaker — a pitch our lead prospect analyst has assigned a 70 on the scouting scale — isn’t notable solely for its bat-missing attributes.

“No, not at all,” Smith replied when asked if his slider grip is fairly standard. “I actually don’t hold any laces on the ball. My first year of college — it was a start in Omaha — I was warming up in the outfield and just kind of tweaked the grip. That’s what it’s been since then. I really don’t know why it works as well as it does. I mean, it’s a good pitch metrically, but outside of that I guess it just plays well off of my heater. It comes out of the same tunnel, and it also helps that I can throw it slower or harder when I want to.”

How has Smith’s slider looked in the AFL? Read the rest of this entry »

Rhett Lowder has his eyes on Yoshinobu Yamamoto as he works back from a pair of injuries that wreaked havoc on his 2025 campaign. Expected to be a part of the Cincinnati Reds’ starting rotation, the 23-year-old right-hander instead experienced a forearm issue in the spring, and that was followed by a more serious oblique strain. He ended up pitching just nine-a-third innings, all of them down on the farm.

Lowder is currently taking the mound for the Arizona Fall League’s Peoria Javelinas, and I caught up with him following a recent outing to learn what he’s been focusing on. Along with making up for lost innings, what is he doing to make himself a better pitcher?

“There are a couple things in the delivery, trying to take some pressure off the arm and the oblique, helping set myself up to be healthy,” replied Lowder, who’d logged a 1.17 ERA over six late-season starts with the Reds in 2024. “I’ve watched a little bit of Yamamoto and how he moves. Everything looks so effortless when he throws. I’ve tended to leak a little bit to the third base side, then compensate by over-rotating. That puts more pressure on the oblique, which is a rotational muscle, so I want to be more direct toward home plate with my delivery.”

Being direct to home plate is a common goal for pitchers. Appearance of effortlessness aside, what specifically made Yamamoto a point of study? Read the rest of this entry »

At last, we’ve got a World Series matchup to wrap our heads around. Representing the American League are the Blue Jays, who are back in the Fall Classic — making it a truly international World Series — for the first time since 1993. They’ll face the Dodgers, who are vying to become the first back-to-back champions since the 1999–2000 Yankees. They’re the first defending champions to repeat as pennant winners since the 2009 Phillies, who lost that World Series to the Yankees. If that matchup feels like a long time ago, consider that it’s been twice as long since the Blue Jays were here.

Though the core of the lineup is largely unchanged, this year’s Dodgers team differs from last year’s in that it has reached the World Series on the strength of its starting pitching rather than in spite of it. Due to a slew of injuries in the rotation last year, manager Dave Roberts resorted to using bullpen games four times to augment a rickety three-man staff consisting of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Jack Flaherty, and Walker Buehler. Even as those starters (or “starters,” in some cases) put up a 5.25 ERA while averaging just 3.75 innings per turn, the bullpen and offense more than picked up the slack, and the Dodgers took home their second championship of the Roberts era.

This time around, with Flaherty and Buehler elsewhere and Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Shohei Ohtani joining Yamamoto, Dodgers starters have been absolutely dominant, posting a microscopic 1.40 ERA while averaging 6.43 innings per turn through the first three rounds, helping the team to paper over a shaky bullpen. After Snell utterly dominated the Brewers, holding them to just one hit over eight innings while facing the minimum number of batters in Game 1 of the NLCS, Yamamoto followed with a three-hit, one-run masterpiece — the first complete game in the postseason since the Astros’ Justin Verlander went the distance against the Yankees in Game 2 of the 2017 ALCS. Glasnow, who began the postseason in the bullpen, allowed one run across 5 2/3 innings in Game 3 of the NLCS, while Ohtani backed his 10 strikeouts over six shutout innings in Game 4 with a three-homer game in what for my money stands as the greatest single-game postseason performance in baseball history. Read the rest of this entry »