Ceddanne Rafaela can jump. He can bound up and over a high outfield wall to rob a home run. He can leap forward to secure a ball that otherwise would have fallen out of his reach. He can spring up like a cat to turn a double play after laying out for a catch. But none of those jumps are the kind I’m referring to. I’m talking about this:

In the GIF you just watched, Rafaela travels more than 100 feet in less than five seconds to rob Bo Bichette of extra bases. It’s a stunning catch. It would have been a tough enough play for the Gold Glove winner in right field, let alone for Rafaela coming over from center. That ball had an expected batting average of .820 off the bat, and just look how far away Wilyer Abreu is when he realizes all he can do is back off and let his teammate work his magic. You don’t need Statcast to tell you that’s a five-star catch, and it stands out even among the nine five-star catches we’ve seen this year. It was one of only three with a catch probability of 5%.

Rafaela’s slide into the outfield wall, the way he raised his glove in triumph, and the fact that this happened on the first pitch of the game make this an endlessly rewatchable highlight. Yet, what really makes this catch so spectacular is the sheer amount of ground he had to cover before he could even consider reaching out for the ball. It’s not that he crashed into the Wasabi sign in right field, but that he was anywhere close to the sign to begin with. In other words, it’s all about his jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Penn Murfee was mentioned in the interview with Trent Blank that ran here at FanGraphs on Friday. Discussing pitch profiles, Seattle’s director of pitching strategy recalled the erstwhile Mariners reliever being “a guy who had cut-ride” on his four-seam fastball.

Murfee is now with the White Sox, and Chicago’s South Side club is in Boston for a weekend series, so I took the opportunity to get his own perspective on the offering. What I learned talking to him at my home base of Fenway Park is that the movement he gets on his heater is circumstantial. Moreover, it’s legal.

“Back in 2021, in [Triple-A] Sacramento, my pitch profile changed from a running arm-side fastball,” explained Murfee, who was in the Seattle system from 2018-2023, the last year-plus of that span in the majors. “For whatever reason, I started choking the ball a little tight, and began throwing what was classified as a cutter. It went to zero inches of horizontal movement. My pitching coach at the time said, ‘Whatever you changed, don’t change it back.’ He said that I went from having a very average fastball to something unique.”

The reason behind the movement change? He stopped using sticky. Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe Walker Buehler will be all right, after all. Through his first two starts with the Red Sox — his first two since nailing down the final three outs of the 2024 World Series with a surprise bullpen appearance on his throw day — the 30-year-old righty had been pummeled, allowing three homers and nine runs in 9 1/3 innings. On Thursday afternoon at Fenway Park, he turned the page, putting on a “pitchability clinic” opposite Toronto’s Chris Bassitt.

Buehler shut out the Blue Jays over his first six innings of work, allowing just four hits without a walk while striking out seven. Bassitt matched him with zeroes until the sixth, when Jarren Duran walked with one out, stole second base, advanced to third on a fly out, and scored on an Alex Bregman single. Buehler departed two batters into the seventh, after he’d walked rookie Will Wagner on four pitches to lead off the inning and retired Ernie Clement on a fly ball to center. When reliever Justin Wilson allowed two hits and shortstop Trevor Story made a throwing error on a potential inning-ending double play, Buehler could only watch from the dugout as the Blue Jays took a 2-1 lead. The Red Sox tied the game up in the eighth, and won 4-3 in 10 innings when Toronto second baseman Andrés Giménez bobbled Story’s grounder with the bases loaded — and, oddly, threw to first base for a meaningless out as David Hamilton crossed the plate.

This was the kind of start the Red Sox envisioned when they signed Buehler to a one-year, $21.05 million deal in January, hoping that he could build upon the great postseason run with the Dodgers that helped him salvage his first season back from his second Tommy John surgery. During the regular season, Buehler pitched to an ugly 5.38 ERA and 5.54 FIP in 16 starts covering 74 innings, and missed eight weeks due to inflammation in his right hip. He showed faint signs of improvement in September, allowing two or fewer runs in three of his five starts, compared to just once over his first 11. Still, had the Dodgers rotation not suffered a variety of injuries and collapses, he wouldn’t have been anyone’s first choice for a playoff start, even given the big-game reputation he’d earned while helping the Dodgers win a pennant in 2018 and a championship two years later. Read the rest of this entry »

During the course of my spring training coverage (especially right at the end), I ran into the Giants affiliates a couple of times as I trailed the Brewers and Dodgers farm systems. I saw enough to make a few tweaks to the Giants prospect list, which I have brief notes on below. You can see the complete updated list over on The Board. I’ve also included notes on a few recent trades.

Toolsy Outfielders With Strikeout Risk Who Have Moved Up

Dakota Jordan’s swing has changed (mostly his posture throughout the swing), and I think it gives him a better chance to hit. I was way out on him making any kind of viable contact before last year’s draft, but he has loud showcase tools (power/speed) and now we’ll see if the proactive changes make a difference for his contact ability. He has also looked good in center field, including highlight reel play in which he collided with the wall at Papago Park, but then forgot how many outs there were and spiked the baseball:

Read the rest of this entry »

Dylan Moore saw an ideal opportunity when he signed with the Seattle Mariners as a minor-league free agent in November 2018. Following a solid season split between Double-A and Triple-A in the Milwaukee Brewers organization, Moore had been discussing best scenarios with both his wife and his agent when Jerry Dipoto called. The Seattle GM told him, “Hey, we’ve got a spot you could win out of camp. What do you say?” Moore responded, “Let’s do it.”

Seattle’s Swiss Army Knife made a shrewd decision — as did Dipoto. In seven seasons with the Mariners, Moore has not only played every position besides catcher, he’s been slightly above-average with the bat. In just under 1,700 career plate appearances, the 32-year-old has swatted 54 home runs and logged a 104 wRC+. Moreover, he’s swiped 105 bases, including a team-high 32 last season.

Defensive versatility is arguably his greatest asset. Moore has already seen action at three infield positions this year, and his 2024 ledger includes 15 or more starts at four different positions. More than anything, it’s his ability to play all over the diamond that makes him the longest-tenured current Mariner. Moore understands that as well as anyone.

“I’ve gotten exponentially better since signing with Seattle,” the 2024 utility-position Gold Glove winner told me. “I’ve been really fortunate to have really good coaches, like Bone [renowned infield coach Perry Hill], who are making sure that I’m ready to go at any position. I work hard on my defense. I have a lot of pride in what I do, especially defensively. Versatility is what keeps my value up.”

Moore’s assessment of his offensive contributions stood out in our late-March conversation. Read the rest of this entry »

Kristian Campbell has come a long way in a short time. Less than two years after being drafted by the Red Sox out of Georgia Tech, with just 137 minor league games under his belt, he placed seventh on our Top 100 Prospects list in February, and won the starting second base job during spring training. Now, with just a week of major league service time under his belt, Campbell has agreed to an eight-year, $60 million extension that includes a pair of team options and escalator clauses that can push the contract’s value past the $100 million mark. It’s a deal that provides both security for Campbell and some opportunity for growth, though it’s not hard to notice the much more lucrative extension that the Padres announced for Jackson Merrill on Wednesday as well and wonder whether Campbell should have waited. Either way, the Red Sox have ensured that another talented youngster will be part of their foundation in the coming years.

The 22-year-old Campbell is raking at a .400/.500/.750 (258 wRC+) clip through the first week of his major league career. So far, five of his eight hits have been for extra bases, including a 431-foot homer off the Rangers’ Jacob Webb on Saturday. He celebrated the news of his extension on Wednesday night with a pair of opposite-field doubles off Orioles starter Zach Eflin.

While Campbell was a co-favorite to win AL Rookie of the Year honors in our annual staff poll, nobody expects him to continue at this breakneck pace. Still, buzz about an extension had been circulating in recent days, and while this move isn’t nearly as big as the six-year, $170 million extension the Red Sox announced on Monday for lefty Garrett Crochet, the team clearly views Campbell as an important piece of its future. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in December, the Red Sox acquired pitcher Garrett Crochet with the intention of signing him to a long-term contract, and that’s just what they did on Monday, extending the big lefty on a six-year, $170 million deal that kicks off starting in 2026. There’s no deferred money in this deal, nor is there a no-trade clause, though there is a $2 million bonus in the event that he is traded. There is also the typical incentive clause (up to $10 million) for Cy Young Award finishes and an opt-out after 2030. In an extra bit of injury protection, the Red Sox get a $15 million team option and the opt-out disappears if Crochet misses 120 consecutive days to a significant arm injury. Crochet was the main reason to watch about 20% of White Sox games in 2024, as he threw 146 innings over 32 starts, put up a 3.58 ERA, a 2.85 FIP, and 4.7 WAR, and earned his first All-Star selection. He then changed his Sox over the winter in that trade from Chicago to Boston.

I talked a little about this a few weeks ago, when I discussed what I’d do as a brutal despot of MLB. What I demanded — without, as I remind you, any legal authority to do so — was that the Red Sox close the deal with Crochet. The extension was, in my view, one of the most obvious things that should happen in baseball right now. The Red Sox appear to be on the verge of a return to contention, supported by a very good farm system, and they really needed a high-end pitcher for the top of the rotation. Before the extension, Crochet was set to hit free agency after next season, and keeping him around long term was essential for both baseball and public relations reasons; an ace pitcher was unlikely to come cheaper for the 2027 season, and his departure might have opened up old Mookie Betts-related fan wounds that have healed to an extent.

Suffice it to say, ZiPS likes him quite a bit. I discussed the projections for Crochet in the aforementioned article.

After also taking into account his $4.5 million salary for 2025 and the fact that he’s still arbitration eligible for 2026, ZiPS suggests offering Crochet a seven-year, $175 million contract starting this season. That doesn’t need to be Boston’s final offer, but it is a solid framework for what an extension could and should look like. Yes, there are risks, but the Red Sox shouldn’t sit at the high rollers table if they’re not willing to push in their chips.

That projected deal was a bit lighter than his actual six-year, $170 million contract, with the main difference being that I had it going into effect this year, when he’s scheduled to get paid $4.5 million. Projections aren’t static things, however, and Crochet is coming off a dynamite spring in which he struck out 30 batters in 15 2/3 innings and allowed just a single run. He also had a decent, though not amazing, Opening Day start against the Texas Rangers. Spring training and one regular-season start aren’t enough to drastically change most projections, especially for established players, but they do nudge them in one direction or the other. Let’s stuff some stats onto the ZiPS griddle and flip off some projection flapjacks.

With a projected $18.1 million salary in 2026, which would’ve been Crochet’s final season before free agency, ZiPS would offer him a six-year, $176.6 million extension (though in both the previous and current projections, I think ZiPS is being too optimistic on his final arbitration year salary given how large a jump it is). The opt-out clause in Crochet’s new contract isn’t a major one in that it only allows him to exit a year early, so it doesn’t have the same dramatic effect as one after 2026 or 2027 would have.

You could say that this is a lot of money for a pitcher with 224 career innings in the majors, an injury history, and a résumé that was more speculation than results at this time last year. You’d be right that it’s a lot of money, but the projections already factor in these risks. Crochet, with a lengthy track record and a spotless injury history almost certainly would’ve received a larger sum of cash. I actually accounted for this by telling ZiPS to assume that Crochet throws 200 innings in 2025, and to insert pre-injury projections of him as a starter in 2022 and 2023. With that lengthier and more durable track record, ZiPS would project him to get a six-year, $270 million contract! You can look at this actual extension as the Red Sox saving about $100 million for the risks they’re assuming, on top of the injury protection clause in the contract.

Anyway, back to non-imagination Crochet. You should ignore the games started total in the projections, as ZiPS is a little befuddled on his exact usage because of his very unusual workload pattern. More than half his 2024 starts lasted fewer than five innings, as the White Sox were (rightly) extremely careful with him as he was coming off Tommy John surgery and being converted to a starter. The innings totals, though, are far more solid, and this projection is generated based on Crochet never having better than coin-flip odds to qualify for the ERA title. ZiPS projects Crochet to be the fifth-most valuable pitcher in baseball through the 2031 season, behind Tarik Skubal, Logan Webb, Paul Skenes, and Corbin Burnes, and just ahead of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, and Hunter Greene. Who among those names would you likely get for merely $170 million if they were free agents soon?

Crochet clearly wanted this deal, making public statements last year to the effect that he was seeking a long-term contract no matter where he ended up. The Red Sox clearly wanted this deal; while they have better prospects, I doubt they would have traded Kyle Teel, Braden Montgomery, and Chase Meidroth if they had zero expectation of extending Crochet. And Red Sox fans ought to have wanted this deal. Crochet is a true no. 1 starter who, in just six years, is projected to become the fifth-most valuable lefty in Red Sox history. The last day of March 2025 was a good day for the Boston Red Sox.

Alan Roden roped baseballs with regularity this spring, helping himself to land not only a roster spot, but also an Opening Day start in right field for the Toronto Blue Jays. Showing signs that he’s ready to take off at the MLB level, the 25-year-old left-handed hitter punished Grapefruit League hurlers to the tune of a 1.245 OPS and a 220 wRC+. He also coaxed six free passes and fanned just four times over his 37 plate appearances.

More than spring training results factored into his first big-league opportunity. Building on a strong 2024 season, split between Double-A New Hampshire and Triple-A Buffalo, Roden has been adding pop to his profile. Previously known more for his bat-to-ball skills than for his ability to clear fences, the erstwhile Creighton University Bluejay is now looking to lift.

Having read of Roden’s efforts to generate more power, I asked him how he’s gone about impacting the ball with more authority.

“I think it’s less of the actual impact that’s better,” Roden told me at Blue Jays camp. “It’s more the shape of the ball off the bat, directionally. The exit velocities are high enough to where if I’m getting in the air to the pull side, it’s going to go. That’s where the damage comes from, hitting the ball with more ideal launch angles.”

Roden has a B.A. in physics, so understanding the aerodynamics of ball flight, and the swing paths that produce results, comes with the territory. Explaining his mechanical adjustments was a simple exercise for the Middleton, Wisconsin native. Read the rest of this entry »

Every year, most teams hold some sort of team bonding, social event during spring training. The specifics of the event vary from team to team, but frequently they include renting out a movie theater and showing some cloying, inspirational movie like The Blind Side, Cool Runnings, Rudy, or better yet, a documentary like Free Solo. Regardless of the team’s outlook on the year, the goal is to get the players amped up for the season and ready to compete on the field, even if the competition in question is for fourth place in the division.

But what if instead of taking the clichéd route, teams actually tried to select a movie that fits their current vibe, one that’s thematically on brand with the current state of their franchise? They won’t do this because spring training is a time for hope merchants to peddle their wares, even if they’re selling snake oil to sub-.500 teams. But spring training is over. It’s time to get real. So here are my movie selections for each American League team, sorted by release date from oldest to newest.

Stay tuned for the National League movie lineup in a subsequent post. Read the rest of this entry »

Who’s on third? For the Red Sox, the answer appears to be Alex Bregman. When the two-time All-Star and reigning AL Gold Glove third baseman signed with Boston last month, the move created controversy given the presence and the initial public reaction of Rafael Devers, a three-time All-Star and, because of his 10-year contract, the cornerstone of the franchise. These things have a way of working themselves out, however, and Bregman is now on track to handle the hot corner to start the season, with Devers serving as the designated hitter — a move that should strengthen the lineup and defense.

The 30-year-old Bregman agreed to a three-year, $120 million deal with the Red Sox on February 12. When he signed, several outlets noted the likelihood, or at least the possibility, that he would switch from the position at which he’s spent most of his nine-year major league career, particularly as the Red Sox had already acknowledged the situation. When the team was courting Bregman in January, manager Alex Cora — who coached him in Houston — told NESN viewers of his previous experience with the infielder:

“Alex was a Gold Glover at third base. We all know that… But in 2017, I had a conversation with him and he needed to play third because it was [Carlos] Correa and [Jose] Altuve [at shortstop and second]. I always envisioned Alex as a Gold Glove second baseman. His size, the way he moves, it felt kind of like, ‘You will be a second baseman.’ But he has played third base at a high level. So we’ll see where he ends up and we’ll see where he ends up playing.”

Read the rest of this entry »