On Sunday, the Red Sox announced that they had extended righty reliever Matt Barnes on a two-year contract. The deal, which starts next season, will pay him a $1.75 million signing bonus along with salaries of $7.25 million in 2022 and $7.5 million in ’23. It also includes a club option for the 2024 season, valued at $8 million with a $2.25 million buyout. All told, Barnes is guaranteed $18.75 million over the term of the contract, but could earn as much as $24 million if he hits all the escalators and Boston exercises the option.

In short summary of his career, Barnes has been an effective arm since his 2014 debut. Since ’14 and through last season, Barnes was solid though not otherworldly, pitching to a 4.08 ERA, 29.9% strikeout rate, and 10.9% walk rate over 337.1 innings pitched. As with most relievers, he had his personal volatility. His best season was in 2018, when he posted a 2.71 FIP in 61.2 frames, as well as a 1.04 ERA in 10 postseason appearances en route to the Red Sox’s World Series title. On the flip side of that coin, Barnes had a comparatively tough year in 2020. He still posted good strikeout numbers but faced a bit of unluckiness with the longball, as his 1.57 HR/9 and 23.5% home run-per-fly ball rate were both career-worsts, making last season was the first time since 2015 that Barnes found himself on the wrong side of replacement level. Read the rest of this entry »

Devlin Granberg is an under-the-radar prospect enjoying a breakout season. Boston’s sixth-round pick in 2018 out of Dallas Baptist University, the 25-year-old first baseman/outfielder — unranked on our 2021 Red Sox Top Prospects list — is slashing .315/.379/.573 between High-A Greenville and Double-A Portland. Swinging from the right side, the Hudson, Colorado native has slugged eight home runs while putting up a healthy 155 wRC+.

Granberg talked hitting prior to a recent game at Portland’s Hadlock Field.

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David Laurila: How much have you changed since coming to pro ball?

Devlin Granberg: “I’ve had a very similar swing since probably my sophomore year in college. I’ve got a very immobile body — I have tight hips and tight shoulders — but that helps me stay more consistent. It’s kind of what has allowed me to stay with a very similar swing.

“I think the biggest change for me has been the routine. It’s the same thing every single day, whereas in college you’re able to split it up. [College] is similar day-to-day, sure, but you also have different midweek games and practices, plus you get days off. Here, you have to get into a good routine and put yourself in the same state of mind each day in order to hit 95 [mph], or whatever it is the minor leagues throws at you.”

Laurila: Is a strict routine ever a negative? For instance, if you’re scuffling at the plate and doing the same thing day after day…

Granberg: “That’s actually one thing I learned this offseason. In my routine, I have different routines — I have two or three different drill sets that I do in the cage, and I never do the same thing on repeated days. Does that make sense? So, back-to-back days, I never do things exactly the same. I started implementing that in quarantine and I think it’s actually helped me stay a little bit more consistent. I think you have to keep the body guessing. If you stick to the same routine over and over, at some point the body is going to compensate, and then it’s going to overcompensate.

“A routine that is very positive could be maybe neutral, or maybe slightly negative, if you continuously do it every single day. That’s why I try to keep it fresh and mix it up. I’ll go BP, machine work, different things like that.”

Laurila: What was your routine today? Read the rest of this entry »

MLB passed the halfway mark of the 2021 season over the long holiday weekend, providing a convenient spot to take a break, look back over the preseason projections, and hopefully not cringe too much about how the predictions are shaking out. Since this is the big midseason update, I used the full-fat ZiPS model for individual players in addition to the normal depth chart reconfiguring, with all the high-fructose algorithms rather than the leaner one used for daily updates.

Let’s start with the American League standings.

I was making a “do not panic” argument on behalf of the Yankees back when they were 5–10 and some people were digging for their doomsday preparedness kits, and while it might not be time to find where you left those water purification tablets, the situation is bleaker now than it was three months ago. Not that the team is actually worse; New York has been on an 88-win pace in the games since that reference point. But an 88-win pace isn’t nearly enough to get out of an early-season hole in a division where there are three other teams with more than detectable pulses. Even projected to play solid baseball the rest of the season, the Yankees have gone from the favorite to the projected fourth-place team.

Read the rest of this entry »

On hiatus since the onset of the COVID pandemic, the Learning and Developing a Pitch series returned last week with three pitchers telling the stories behind their sliders. Today, in the second of this year’s installments, we hear from Jake Brentz, Brooks Kriske, and Hirokazu Sawamura on their changeups and splitters.

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Jake Brentz, Kansas City Royals

“I never had a changeup in the minor leagues. I was fastball slider/breaking ball, but I always mixed around my breaking ball. I didn’t really find a breaking ball that worked for me until probably a year and a half, two years ago — not until I got to Triple-A.

“Paul Gibson is our pitching coordinator here with the Royals, and last year at the alternate site he told me, ‘Hey, I would like you to develop a changeup; I think it would be a very valuable pitch for you.’ So I really focused on developing one, throwing it as many times as I could during an outing. We were just playing each other — nothing really mattered — so it was just developing and whatnot. I’d throw it back to back to back, and messed around with grips. I found one that really worked for me, and then worked on it more over the offseason. In spring training I wasn’t throwing it a lot at first, but Mike [Matheny] came to me said, ‘I think your changeup can be a devastating pitch, so we’re going to throw that a lot.’ Over time, I’ve continuing to throw it. Read the rest of this entry »

Matthew Barefoot initially struggled to get a foothold in pro ball. A sixth-round pick by the Houston Astros in 2019 out of Campbell University, the now-23-year-old outfielder slashed a woeful .155/.241/.159 that summer in the New York-Penn League. On the heels of that abysmal debut, and with no 2020 minor league season in which to redeem himself, Barefoot was an afterthought on our 2021 Astros Top Prospect list.

He’s proceeded to make people stand up and take notice. Fueled by mechanical changes and a relaxed mental approach, Barefoot has been one of the best hitters in the Houston system this season. In 190 plate appearances split between the Low-A Fayetteville Woodpeckers and the High-A Asheville Tourists, the former Campbell Fighting Camel has socked a dozen home runs while slashing .329/.384/.618 with a 167 wRC+. Befitting his plus athleticism, he has 15 steals to boot.

Asked what was behind his his boffo numbers, Barefoot alluded to an age-old baseball adage: You can’t think and hit at the same time.

“This year, I’m able to just go out and play and let the results take care of themselves,” explained Barefoot. That’s been a real key for me. In my first season, I was working on a bunch of swing-mechanics stuff, so I really wasn’t competing how I wanted. I was more or less trying to make swing changes in-game, which made it really hard. Mentally, I wasn’t in a great spot every game.”

Organizations often don’t ask newly-drafted players to make meaningful adjustments until they report to instructional league. The initial months are mostly a hands-off acclimation period, allowing a player to simply get his feet wet in pro ball. That wasn’t the case with Barefoot. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s pretty evident that Major League Baseball’s crackdown on foreign substances will have wide-ranging effects on the sport. Offense is almost certainly due to increase; that that has yet to happen (at least beyond normal temperature-related effects) may only be a question of time. But with spin rates plummeting and pitchers telling the media that they are “trying to figure out how to pitch again” as a result of the new policies, it seems that we’re bound to see broad changes sooner rather than later.

The hurler who supplied the quote above is none other than right-hander Garrett Richards, an 11-year major league veteran currently pitching for the Red Sox. Boston signed Richards this past February to a one-year, $10 million contract that included a club option for 2022, a deal meant to shore up depth for a rotation that was a weak spot for the team as it entered the 2021 season. And though he has dealt with a collection of arm injuries throughout his career — including a 2018 Tommy John surgery that forced him to miss almost all of 2019 — Richards posted solid peripherals with the Padres last season and was heralded for his league-leading spin rates.

Through Richards’ first 11 starts this season, it seemed like Boston’s gamble had paid off. He wasn’t putting up elite numbers, but a 3.75 ERA, 20.2 K%, 11.6 BB%, and a 4.06 FIP is certainly serviceable. Through his start on June 1, Richards was worth 0.9 WAR, putting him in a virtual tie with Martín Pérez and Eduardo Rodriguez in terms of value. As for Boston’s starting staff as a whole, their combined 6.4 WAR through June 1 ranked fifth in the majors, which represented quite the pleasant surprise given that their rotation ranked 16th in our preseason power rankings. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

There were lots of notable performances in the minors last night, so I covered more players than usual and shortened up some of the notes. Additionally, the 2021 Futures Game rosters were announced today and they are freaking loaded. You can see the entire rosters and access players’ scouting reports on The Board’s seasonal tab. Thanks to Sean Dolinar for his speedy help in getting that up.

A.J. Puk, LHP, Oakland Athletics
Level & Affiliate: Triple-A Las Vegas Age: 26 Org Rank: 2 FV: 50
Line: 2 IP, 1 H, 0 BB, 0 R, 4 K

Notes
Puk has now had two consecutive scoreless outings after he surrendered multiple runs in each of his previous six (!). When I saw him during the spring, his velo was only in the low-90s, well below the 96-99 range a fully healthy Puk would typically be operating in. Per Synergy, that velocity has returned to peak levels during the regular season. Today I noticed a change in Puk’s arm slot. This change occurred earlier this month. I don’t know if that velo rebound occurred in concert with this change, or if this is something Puk was instructed to do, or if it just began happening naturally. Regardless, this is still a lefty with big velo and a deep coffer of impact secondaries. If he can get right at some point this season, he can be an impact relief weapon for a team fighting for its division, and I still like Puk as a multi-inning reliever long-term. Read the rest of this entry »

Xander Bogaerts was right in the middle of the action as the Red Sox swept the Yankees this past weekend, going 6-for-11 with three doubles while either scoring or driving in eight of Boston’s 18 runs. The 28-year-old shortstop is in the midst of his best offensive season, though as his performance in Friday night’s win served to remind viewers, his defense hasn’t been so hot.

Indeed, Bogaerts had an adventurous game in the series opener at Fenway Park. After mashing a two-run first-inning double off Domingo Germán and coming around to score himself to run the lead to 3-0, he made an error that loomed large in the top of the second, helping the Yankees tie the game. With one out and runners on first and second, Gio Urshela hit a hot 98.6 mph grounder to Bogaerts’ right, a ball that could have extricated starter Martin Pérez from a jam with an inning-ending double play. Bogaerts ranged over to stop the ball but couldn’t pick it up cleanly, and once he did pick it up, he threw behind the runner to third. All hands were safe, leaving the bases loaded; one out later, all three runs eventually scored, unearned.

Bogaerts failed to convert two other balls into outs, a 112.7 mph hot smash off the bat of Giancarlo Stanton in the third inning, and a 75.1 mph dribbler by Urshela in the ninth; both went as infield singles. By the time the latter occurred, the Red Sox had retaken the lead, 5-3, but afterwards Bogaerts expressed relief that his initial miscue hadn’t cost the team the game, saying, “I messed it up big time. That was a rough feeling for me right there […] I’m the happiest guy that we won today, to be honest with you. Because, man, it could have gotten ugly. These guys picked me up big time tonight.” Read the rest of this entry »

Mitchell Kilkenny is quietly having a stupendous season. A second-round pick by the Colorado Rockies in 2018 out of Texas A&M, the 24-year-old right-hander boasts a 1.47 ERA over eight starts with the Low-A Fresno Grizzlies and the Spokane Indians. Moreover, he’s fanned 54 batters and issued just five free passes in 43 innings.

His plus command is a much-needed asset. Kilkenny is more finesse than power, his fastball ranging from the upper 80s to the low 90s. At least for now. Kilkenny threw harder as a collegian, but then came Tommy John surgery shortly after he was drafted, and last year’s cancelled minor-league season only muddied the waters. No matter. He fully expects his velocity to tick back up in time, and even if that doesn’t happen, his ability to mix, match and tunnel two- and four-seam fastballs, a slider, a curveball, and a changeup has proven to be plenty effective. As Kilkenny put it, “I might not be bright and flashy, but I’m having success.”

Prior to matriculating at Texas A&M where he double-majored in Renewable Natural Resources and Forestry, he excelled in English class at Houston Christian High School.

“My one fun fact is that I won two awards in creative writing contests,” Kilkenny told me. “One was for a class project where we were to write to a favorite author of ours. I picked Bill Watterson, for Calvin and Hobbes, because that was my favorite comic growing up, I love Calvin and Hobbes. Anyway, it was just a little piece about what the author had given me, which was some of the insights you can get out of a simple comic.” Read the rest of this entry »

Triston Casas and Grant Williams are teammates with distinctly different profiles. Boston’s first-round pick in the 2018 draft, the 21-year-old Casas is a 6-foot-4, 250-pound first baseman who is No. 2 on our Red Sox Top Prospects list, and No. 42 on our updated Top 100 Prospects list. Williams is unranked. A 25-year-old middle infielder who lasted until the 310th pick of the 2018 draft, he hit in the nine-hole when the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs hosted the Somerset Patriots on Wednesday night. Befitting his stature, Casas batted third.

Prior to the game, I spoke to both players about their respective hitting approaches.

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Casas possesses plus power, but he doesn’t present as a pure slugger. Patience is a big part of his M.O., as is a willingness to choke up on the bat when contact is at a premium. The lefty swinger cited Joey Votto as his role model when he was featured in a January 2020 Sunday Notes column, and as he acknowledged on Wednesday, that remains the case.

I asked Casas if he’s changed as a hitter since entering pro ball three years ago.

“I’d like to think I haven’t, but I have a lot,” responded the Plantation, Florida product. “I kind of battle that. I fight every single day to make adjustments and become the best hitter that I can, but to also apply what I’ve been doing my whole life. So I like to say that I haven’t changed too much, but at the same time, I have.”

I asked the up-and-coming youngster if he could elaborate. Read the rest of this entry »