While still focusing upon 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 — this year I have 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.

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 to go out and track down an upgrade before the August 2 deadline, and in this batch in particular, I don’t get the sense that any of these teams have these positions atop their shopping lists. With catchers, framing and the less-quantifiable aspects of knowing a pitching staff make it easier for teams to talk themselves out of changing things up unless an injury situation has compromised their depth.

All statistics in this article are through July 26, though team won-loss records and Playoff Odds are through July 27.

Cardinals

Yadier Molina may be a future Hall of Famer, but his final major league season hasn’t gone smoothly. The 39-year-old backstop reported late to spring training due to personal reasons, then hit just .213/.225/.294 (46 wRC+) in 138 plate appearances before landing on the injured list with right knee inflammation in mid-June. With the team’s permission, he soon returned to his native Puerto Rico, a move that did not escape the notice of his teammates, who value his presence and leadership even when he’s not able to play up to his previous standards. Molina finally began a rehab assignment on Monday.

In Molina’s absence, the Cardinals have started Andrew Knizner behind the plate 51 times, and he’s reminded them that even by the standards of backup catchers, he leaves something to be desired. The 27-year-old has hit .199/.291/.248 (64 wRC+) and is 5.5 runs below average in our framing metric; his WARs have now been in the red for all four of his major league seasons, with a total of -1.7 in just 443 PA. Baseball Prospectus’ comprehensive defensive metrics put him 5.2 runs below average for his framing, blocking, and throwing as well. His backup, Austin Romine, owns a 47 wRC+ while catching for four teams over the past three seasons; his most notable accomplishment as a Cardinal is in joining Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado among the ranks of unvaccinated players who were unable to travel to Canada for this week’s two-game series against the Blue Jays.

Back in June, St. Louis gave a look to Molina’s heir apparent, Iván Herrera, who entered the season at no. 75 on our Top 100 Prospects list and has hit .295/.385/.432 at Triple-A. The 22-year-old Panamanian has a plus arm and potentially a plus hit tool as well as average raw power; his framing is below average and his receiving average. He was called up to replace Romine for the Toronto series but did not play.

With the trade market not offering a lot of obvious solutions (an intradivision trade for Willson Contreras probably isn’t an option), the Cardinals, who have gone just 24–26 in June and July but are still entrenched in the second Wild Card spot, would probably be better off pairing Molina with Herrera than Knizner or Romine. One possible option is Oakland’s Sean Murphy, who will be arbitration eligible for the first time this winter and who placed 37th on our Trade Value list; he could pair with Herrera for the next year or two and still be dealt while having club control remaining. Read the rest of this entry »

Trevor Story is an accomplished hitter. The 29-year-old Boston Red Sox infielder was a stalwart in the middle of the Colorado Rockies’ lineup prior to this season and has 173 home runs and a 110 wRC+ over six-plus MLB campaigns. Twice a National League All-Star, Story blasted 37 home runs in 2018, and he followed that up with 35 more in 2019.

His first go-round in the Junior Circuit has been of the up-and-down variety. Signed to a six-year, $140 million free-agent deal by Boston in March, Story has 15 long balls to his credit, but just a .221/.289/.423 slash line. Currently on the injured list with a hand contusion, the Irving, Texas native is expected to return to the Red Sox lineup in the near future.

Story discussed his evolution as a hitter earlier this week.

———

David Laurila: Nolan Arenado and Daniel Murphy, players with different approaches to their craft, were among the earliest interviews for my Talks Hitting series. [Links here and here.] Which of your former Rockies teammates are you most similar to that regard?

Trevor Story: “It would be Nolan. He was a mentor to me my first few years, and we still talk the game a lot. Nolan pretty much taught me how to pull the ball the right way. But knowing yourself as a hitter… just like Murph did. Murph knew himself, and he knew that he was going to be thinking the other way or thinking up the middle. There are obviously different schools of thinking, and I would say I’m closer to Nolan, trying to get the ball in the air pull-side.”

Laurila: What about in terms of analytics? When I spoke to them, Arenado was all about keeping things as simple as possible, while Murphy was very in-depth and detailed. Have you delved into analytics much over the years? Read the rest of this entry »

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.

———

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.

———

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.”

———

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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