Again, the focus of this series remains on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 10%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less thus far, which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season. With most contenders reasonably well-situated at third base, I’ve loosened the criteria a bit for reasons that will become clear. As noted previously, some of these situations are more dire than others, particularly when taken in the context of the rest of their roster. I don’t expect every team on these lists to upgrade before the August 2 deadline, and I’m less concerned with the solutions – many of which have more moving parts involved than a single trade — than the problems.

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 subpar 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 presented it at FanGraphs in an expanded format since 2018.

When it comes to defining replacement level play, we needn’t be slaves 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 team 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 who are above .500 or have playoff odds of at least 10.0%. That definition covers 17 teams, all of which have odds above 25% thanks to the new playoff structure (thanks for not saving me any work, Rob Manfred). 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.

This first installment will cover first basemen. All statistics within this piece are through July 20. Read the rest of this entry »

Jay Groome has experienced a lot of ups and downs since being drafted 12th overall by the Boston Red Sox out of a New Jersey high school in 2016. The now-23-year-old southpaw had Tommy John surgery in 2018, and his career mark as a professional includes an 11-22 record with a 4.50 ERA over 240 innings.

Groome’s future nonetheless remains promising. Ranked 13th on our Red Sox Top Prospects list coming into the current campaign, the 6-foot-6, 265-pound former first-rounder has a 3.52 ERA and has allowed just 58 hits (with 81 strikeouts) in 76-and-two-thirds innings with the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs. Moreover, he has a more diversified arsenal and a better feel for how to attack hitters than he’s had in previous seasons.

Groome discussed his evolution as a pitcher, and the hurdles he’s overcome along the way, earlier this summer.

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David Laurila: When I first interviewed you in 2017, I asked where you were in terms of transitioning from a thrower to a pitcher, and your response was that you “100% know how to pitch.” Looking back, how accurate was that?

Jay Groome: “That was probably just my younger self trying to be honest. But I’ve added two more decent pitches since then, and I’m trying to throw all of them in the zone. I can fairly say now that I’m pitching a lot more than throwing.” Read the rest of this entry »

Who has been your most influential teammate? I asked that question to 10 major leaguers — two each from five different teams — and all of the answers came after a moment of thoughtful consideration. Most couldn’t name just one, and there was another common theme that emerged, as well. A combination of appreciation and admiration was genuinely expressed with each and every response.

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Harrison Bader, St. Louis Cardinals

“Paul Goldschmidt. I like to watch just enough video to familiarize myself with the pitcher in terms of his tempo in the stretch, in the windup, his arm slots on different pitches, and maybe his tells on the base paths. Anything past that, I don’t like to watch. Paul has been the most influential, because I trust his assessment of the pitcher and his approach far more than anything I would create on my own. That’s because he keeps it really simple; he keeps it very straightforward. That approach helps him be very successful for his team. Because of that, I’ve learned to understand pitchers — when to open up a little more, when to stay focused on maybe driving the ball back up the middle. Little things like that allow you to be successful over nine innings.”

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Tucker Barnhart, Detroit Tigers

“Four come to mind, and it starts with Skip Schumaker. Skip and I played together in 2014 and 2015, and he was the guy I defaulted to if I had any questions. This was back when I was trying to figure out what the big leagues were like. So, Skip was one of my guys. We still talk. Read the rest of this entry »

John Schreiber has been a find for the Red Sox. Claimed off waivers by Boston from the Detroit Tigers prior to last season, the 28-year-old sidewinder has come out of the bullpen 30 times this year and allowed just 12 hits and two earned runs over 29 innings. Schreiber has 35 strikeouts to go with three saves and a pair of wins in as many decisions.

He’s not the same pitcher who failed to distinguish himself in Detroit.

“I’d mainly been a four-seam/slider guy,” explained Schreiber, who logged a 6.28 ERA over parts of two seasons with the Tigers. “In college and for most of my pro-ball career, that’s all I threw. Two years ago I started working on a better changeup, and last year I started throwing my sinker. Paul Abbott is our Triple-A pitching coach, and he helped me work on a two-seam sinker. I’ve gotten really comfortable throwing that.”

Schreiber still features his old mix prominently — this year he’s thrown 35.3% four-seamers and 35.8% sliders — but his 22.5% sinker usage has added a whole new twist. The 2016, 15th-round draft pick out of the University of Northwestern Ohio is now far less predictable, and just as importantly, he’s better able to match up with hitters who do damage on high heaters. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mets aren’t the only team awaiting an ace’s return from injury. Chris Sale is scheduled to start for the Red Sox’s Triple-A Worcester affiliate on Wednesday, and if all goes well, the 33-year-old lefty could join the big club after that, in time to help a team whose rotation is looking rather threadbare as it heads into a crucial stretch of the season. While Sale pitches for Worcester, fast-rising prospect Brayan Bello — whose rotation slot Sale is filling — will debut in Boston against the Rays.

After winning 92 games and falling just two wins short of a trip to the World Series in 2021, the Red Sox stumbled to a 14-22 start, and were just 23-27 at the end of May. Though they went 20-6 in June, they actually lost ground to the Yankees, who went 22-6. After splitting their first four games of July, they’re 45-36, 13 games out of first place, and while they now occupy the top AL Wild Card spot, they’re about to face a major test. The three-game series they began on Monday kicked off a brutal 27-game stretch against teams .500 or better, with seven apiece against the Rays (44-37) and Yankees (58-23, a 116-win pace) followed by three against the Blue Jays (44-38), four against the Guardians (40-39), three against the Brewers (47-36) and three against the Astros (53-27).

That’s a weighted opponents’ winning percentage of .595 for that span, a 96-win pace over the course of 162 games, with all but Cleveland currently occupying a playoff spot. The good news for the Red Sox is that 17 of the 27 games are at home, but the bad news is that their rotation currently has three starters (Nathan Eovaldi, Rich Hill, and Garrett Whitlock) on the injured list and a fourth (Michael Wacha) whose status is in question after being scratched on Sunday, forcing manager Alex Cora and chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom to piece things together on a day-by-day basis. Hence the higher stakes when it comes to the progress of Sale and the debut of Bello. Read the rest of this entry »

Jordan Lyles plays for a Baltimore Orioles team that stands 34-39 and is currently projected to finish 72-90. For the 31-year-old right-hander, that qualifies as more of the same. Lyles is in his 12th big-league season, and not once has he played a full year with a team that finished above .500. Moreover, he’s been on four clubs that lost 100-plus games. The worst of the worst was the 2013 Houston Astros, who went 51-111, a staggering 45 games out of first place.

The three seasons in which he’s played for multiple teams haven’t been much better. In each of those years, one of the two clubs he took the mound for ended up losing over 90 games. To date, Lyles has never pitched in the postseason.

That he never anticipated such a dearth of winning would be stating the obvious. Selected 38th-overall in 2008 out of a South Carolina high school, Lyles entered pro ball with the same lofty hopes and dreams as his draft-class peers. When you’re young and talented, visions of championship glory come with the territory.

He did reach the big leagues in relatively short order. Seventeen when he signed, Lyles was a precocious 20 years old when he debuted with the Astros in 2011. His first outing was a harbinger of things to come. The fresh-faced youngster allowed just a pair of runs over seven innings, only to see the bullpen blow the lead, depriving him of a win. At season’s end, Lyles was 2-7, the team 56-106. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 980

This episode, we sit down with the head honcho of the Red Sox before an old friend comes by to talk about the state of the amateur draft landscape.

• At the top of the show, David Laurila welcomes Chaim Bloom, chief baseball officer for the Boston Red Sox. Bloom shares his journey from a Latin Classics degree at Yale to contributing at Baseball Prospectus to an internship with the Rays in 2005 to eventually being in charge of a major league front office. The duo also talk about the past and future of knuckleballers in the game, the significance of starting pitchers going the distance, the Andrew Benintendi trade, Jackie Bradley Jr. moving off of center field, and how the club has improved at developing pitchers. [3:45]
• In the second half, Eric Longenhagen is joined by Jim Callis of MLB Pipeline. The pair were both just at the MLB Draft Combine in San Diego and discuss the event they have dubbed the Winter Meetings of the draft. They also talk about the College World Series, the ironically named Kumar Rocker rule, how new technology and data is continuing to influence amateur scouting, and how their mock drafts are going so far. Finally, Jim shares an anecdote about the Kyler Murray pick. [32:30]

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What is your favorite baseball memory? I posed that question to 10 major league players, and in nearly every instance, the response began with a question of their own: “Does it have to be from my own career?” While all were happy to share one (or more) meaningful memory from their time in the big leagues, it was primarily magic moments from their days as fans and/or young amateurs that stood out the most.

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Jackie Bradley Jr., Boston Red Sox

“I have two. Being able to have all of my family members at the All-Star game with me in San Diego in 2016 is one. The other is having my family with me in London, England for the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry series [in 2019]. They were all with me for the [2018] World Series as well, so there are actually three: All-Star Game, World Series, and being able to travel all the way to London, halfway around the world, to watch me play. In no particular order, those would be my favorite baseball memories.” Read the rest of this entry »

The St. Louis Cardinals played Friday night’s game in Boston with one catcher. Iván Herrera had been called up from Triple-A to replace the newly-sidelined Yadier Molina, but cancelled flights delayed his arrival. The highly-regarded prospect didn’t get to Fenway Park until the final inning of a 6-5 Red Sox win.

Asked who would have been used in an emergency had Andrew Knizner been injured, St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol named three possibilities: Edmundo Sosa, Brendan Donovan, and Nick Wittgren. That Marmol added, “Not necessarily in that order,” is intriguing, if not suggestive. Sosa and Donovan are infielders. Wittgren toes the rubber.

Might we have seen Wittgren, a 31-year-old pitcher with no professional experience at any another position, donning the tools of ignorance? It’s a definite possibility. Prior to the game, Marmol approached Wittgren and asked, “How do you think you’d do catching?” Wittgren replied that he’d be perfectly fine. Marmol responded with “I think so too.”

According to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Derrick Goold, Wittgren isn’t the first Cardinals pitcher to be designated (or at least hinted) as an emergency catcher. Jason Motte, who worked out of the St. Louis bullpen from 2008-2014 previously claimed that distinction. Even so, Motte had caught in the minor leagues. Wittgren would have been a novice.

He has little doubt that he could have done it. Read the rest of this entry »