A common refrain in baseball is that you can never have enough pitching, and that doesn’t apply solely to starters. A well-stocked bullpen can be just as important to a club, which is why a lot of contenders dealt for relievers as the trade deadline approached. Two such clubs were the Boston Red Sox, who acquired Lucas Sims from the Cincinnati Reds and Luis Garcia from the Los Angeles Angels, and the New York Yankees, who acquired Mark Leiter Jr. from the Chicago Cubs and Enyel De Los Santos from the San Diego Padres.

Let’s look at two of those deals — the trades for Garcia and De Los Santos will be covered in another post — beginning with Boston getting Sims in exchange for 19-year-old pitching prospect Ovis Portes.

With setup men Chris Martin and Justin Slaten both on the injured list — their return dates are uncertain — the Red Sox have been badly in need of proven bullpen arms. Late-inning implosions contributed heavily to the team’s losing seven of 10 games coming out of the All-Star break, with Chase Anderson, Bailey Horn, and Greg Weissert among the pitchers of record in the defeats. When you’re battling for a Wild Card berth, those aren’t ideal options for high-leverage situations. Read the rest of this entry »

The Pirates have made three trade in the last two days. Yesterday, they swapped post-hype prospects with the Red Sox — struggling right-handed pitcher Quinn Priester for Triple-A 2B/LF Nick Yorke — and added veteran southpaw Jalen Beeks from the Rockies in exchange for minor league lefty Luis Peralta. Then, earlier today, Pittsburgh acquired 29-year-old lefty Josh Walker from the Mets for DSL pitcher Nicolas Carreno. Read the rest of this entry »

Pitching wins championships. It’s a cliché, but it’s a cliché for a reason: It’s true, and everyone knows it. It’s why the best available pitchers can cost such a premium at the trade deadline. So, what if there were a way for a team to improve its pitching staff without trading for a pitcher? It’s easier said than done, but the Red Sox and Rangers are hoping they pulled it off after acquiring new catchers to help them over the final two months of the season.

On Saturday evening, the Blue Jays sent long-time backstop Danny Jansen to the Red Sox in exchange for infield prospects Cutter Coffey and Eddinson Paulino and right-handed pitching prospect Gilberto Batista. A little over 24 hours later, the Tigers shipped off Carson Kelly to the Rangers for a pair of minor leaguers: catcher/first baseman Liam Hicks and right-hander Tyler Owens. Read the rest of this entry »

In the abstract, you can never have too much pitching, but managing 26- and 40-man rosters means dealing with practical limits instead of theoretical ones. Last Monday, in the midst of a week in which they would need to call up one starting pitcher and activate two more from the injured list, the Dodgers designated James Paxton for assignment. On Friday, they dealt the 35-year-old lefty to the Red Sox — the team he pitched for last season, and rehabbed from Tommy John surgery with the year before — in exchange for infielder Moises Bolivar, a 17-year-old Venezuela native playing in the Dominican Summer League.

Dogged by so many injuries throughout his 11-year major league career that he’s never topped 29 starts or qualified for the ERA title, Paxton has at least been healthy enough to remain in a rotation all season; his 18 starts and 89.1 innings both rank third on the Dodgers. He did a solid job for Los Angeles at times, but the returns had diminished in recent weeks. After allowing just two runs over an 18-inning span from June 11–24 — lowering his ERA to 3.39, albeit with a 4.78 FIP — Paxton was rocked for nine runs and 12 hits in four innings by the Giants on June 30, beginning a 17.2-inning, 17-run spiral that included 12 walks and three homers over his final four starts in blue. With that run of runs, he finished his stint with the Dodgers with a 4.43 ERA, a 4.96 FIP, a 4.84 xERA, and 0.3 WAR.

Interestingly enough, the last of Paxton’s starts was against the Red Sox in Los Angeles last Sunday. In five innings, Paxton walked four and allowed four hits and three runs while striking out seven. Since it was his 18th start of the season, it meant that he maxed out the $7 million worth of incentives in his one-year deal on top of his $4 million base salary and $3 million signing bonus; he received $2 million for making the Opening Day roster, $1 million for being on the roster on April 15, $600,000 apiece for reaching the 6-, 8-, 10-, 12-, and 16-start milestones, and then $1 million for the 18th. Thus the Red Sox are only paying the prorated share of his base salary, about $1.4 million. Read the rest of this entry »

The Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees 9-7 on Friday night, and regardless of which team you might have been rooting for, the game was an absolute gem. The lead changed hands fives times, the 28 combined hits included four home runs — one of them a titanic 470-foot blast by Aaron Judge — and the tying runs were on base when Kenley Jansen recorded the final out for his 440th career save. Moreover, the atmosphere at a packed Fenway Park was electric throughout. It was as close to a postseason atmosphere as you will find in July.

The loss was New York’s fifth in sixth games, so I was admittedly a bit apprehensive about asking Aaron Boone a particular question prior to yesterday evening’s affair. I did so anyway. Prefacing it by relating a press box opinion that it had been as entertaining as any played at Fenway all season, I wanted to know if, as a manager, he allows himself to think about the aesthetics of a baseball game in that manner.

His answer didn’t disappoint.

“I always try to have a little appreciation for that,” Boone replied. “Especially with what we’ve been going through as a club. We’ve struggled. There are a handful of games where I’ve felt that way, like, ‘Man, this is a really good baseball game going on.’ When you come out on the bad end it kind of sucks, but you try to have that appreciation for ‘That was a really good one.’ Hopefully we can start to be on the right side of those.” Read the rest of this entry »

I updated the Top 100 Prospects list today. This post goes through the pitchers and why they stack the way they do. Here’s a link directly to the list, and here’s a link to the post with a little more detail regarding farm system and prospect stuff and the trade deadline. It might be best for you to open a second tab and follow along, so here are the Top 100 pitchers isolated away from the bats. Let’s get to it.
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At last we reach the end of my annual series spotlighting the weakest positions on contenders. While still focusing upon teams that meet that loose definition of contenders (Playoff Odds of at least 9.5%), I have also incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look.

At the other positions in this series, I have used about 0.6 WAR or less thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — as my cutoff, but for the designated hitters, I’ve limited the list to the teams below zero, both to keep the length manageable and to account for the general spread of value. In the third full season of the universal DH, exactly half the teams in the majors have actually gotten 0.0 WAR or less from their DHs thus far, four are in the middle ground between 0.0 and 1.0, eight are between 1.0 and 2.0, and three are above 2.0. DHs as a group have hit .245/.321/.421 for a 109 wRC+; that last figure is up three points from last year, and seven points from the last time I did this list, via a slash line that’s virtually identical (the majors’ slugging percentage as a whole has dropped 17 points from last season).

This year, we’re seeing a greater number of teams invest more playing time in a single DH. Whereas each of the past two seasons saw three players reach the 500 plate appearance threshold as DHs, this year we’re on pace for five; similarly, 11 player are on pace to reach 400 PA as DHs, compared to eight last year. That said, many of the teams on this list are the ones that haven’t found that special someone to take the lion’s share of the plate appearances.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today, we turn our attention to the second base Killers. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 9.5%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — I have also incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin; as you can see by the table below, four of the six teams listed here project to receive more than a win from their current cast of second base options. Even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look, and the incumbent may no longer appear to be the best option.

Particularly in light of those projections, I don’t expect every team to go out and track down an upgrade before the July 30 deadline, though I’ll note that some of the players cited within for their poor performance are themselves change-of-scenery candidates; one team’s problem may be another team’s solution, albeit not necessarily an ideal one. Either way, I’m less concerned with those solutions – many of which have more moving parts involved than a single trade — than I am with the problems. Unless otherwise indicated, all statistics are through Sunday.

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Josh Rojas has turned himself into a plus defender. My colleague Ben Clemens chronicled that advancement last month, citing the Mariners infielder’s improved ability to go to his left as a primary reason for his markedly-better metrics. Exactly what type of adjustments have allowed the 30-year-old third baseman to turn the proverbial corner with his glove? I happened to be in Cleveland when Seattle began a road series against the Guardians on the day Ben’s article ran, so was able to get the answer right from the horse’s mouth.

“It was a matter of adjusting what works best for me reacting to balls left and right,” Rojas told me. “It has to do with my preset. Not getting down too early, not getting down too late. Picking up contact points. Another thing that helps is knowing how the ball usually comes off guys’ bats when certain pitchers are throwing. There is constant communication between me, the pitching coaches, and Bone [infield coach Perry Hill] on what the plan is for the series.”

The preset is what I was most interested in, so I asked the erstwhile Arizona Diamondback — Rojas became a Mariner at last July’s trade deadline — if he could elaborate. Read the rest of this entry »

In a race for a playoff spot, every edge matters. Yet all too often, for reasons that extend beyond a player’s statistics, managers and general managers fail to make the moves that could improve their teams, allowing mediocre production to fester at the risk of smothering a club’s postseason hopes. In Baseball Prospectus’ 2007 book, It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over, I compiled a historical All-Star squad of ignominy, identifying players at each position whose performances had dragged their teams down in tight races: the Replacement-Level Killers. I’ve revisited the concept numerous times at multiple outlets and have adapted it at FanGraphs in an expanded format since 2018.

When it comes to defining replacement level play, we needn’t hew too closely to exactitude. Any team that’s gotten less than 0.6 WAR from a position to this point — prorating to 1.0 over a full season — is considered fair game. Sometimes, acceptable or even above-average defense (which may depend upon which metric one uses) coupled with total ineptitude on offense is enough to flag a team. Sometimes a club may be well ahead of replacement level but has lost a key contributor to injury; sometimes the reverse is true, but the team hasn’t yet climbed above that first-cut threshold. As with Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of hardcore pornography, I know replacement level when I see it.

For this series, I’ll go around the diamond, pointing out the most egregious examples of potential Killers at each position among contenders, which I’ll define as teams that are above .500 or have Playoff Odds of at least 9.5%. That definition covers 20 teams, down from 22 last year. I’ll include the rest-of-season projections from our Depth Charts, and while I may mention potential trade targets, I’m less focused on these teams’ solutions than I am the problems, because hey, human nature. Read the rest of this entry »