It’s been leading up to this all week. The endless rumors, speculation, and fake Twitter accounts paved the way for two earth-shattering transactions. I’m talking, of course, about the Red Sox sending Aldo Ramirez to the Nationals in exchange for Kyle Schwarber, and San Diego shipping Mason Thompson and Jordy Barley to Washington in exchange for Daniel Hudson.

I kid, but we can’t let the Dodgers hog the spotlight, can we? Besides, as far as trades go, these are as straightforward and sensible as they can get. Up first are the Red Sox, who will try to make the most out of two months with Kyle Schwarber. The 28-year-old slugger went on an absolute tear a month ago but has missed time since with a hamstring injury. That means the team will have to wait before it can use his services, but that’s a small sacrifice when considering the potential benefits.

Immediately, Schwarber provides the Red Sox with a left-handed, middle-of-the-order bat. Our Depth Charts have him pegged at left field and first base – the former option establishes some stability in a scrambled outfield, while the latter offers a temporary respite from the clutches of Bobby Dalbec, whom Jay Jaffe highlighted as a replacement-level killer in his recent series.

In theory, the skewed dimensions of Fenway both aid and hinder Schwarber. Using our site’s Park Factors, we see that the park has consistently suppressed home runs from lefties while enabling doubles. But it won’t dramatically alter Schwarber’s value, and while he does strike out a fair amount, it’s not because he’s swinging at bad pitches. As Eno Sarris pointed out, Schwarber is one of the few hitters with elite barrel and chase rates. Here’s that visualized, with him as the point in red:

I also wonder if the Red Sox are willing to modify Schwarber’s approach. His swing rate in early counts (0-and-0, 0-and-1, 1-and-0) is below the league average; by contrast, the Red Sox have a penchant for attacking early – not against all pitches, but rather would-be strikes. It’s a method of selective aggression that’s powered the team thus far. Schwarber already doesn’t chase often, so maybe more swings at early strikes would boost his offensive output and prevent him from falling behind in the count.

Given the nature of Schwarber’s contract, headed to the Nationals is a single prospect: Aldo Ramirez, a right-handed pitcher ranked 14th on Eric Longenhagen’s preseason Red Sox Prospects List. Ramirez is currently on the IL with elbow tendinitis. Eric informed me that prior to his injury, Ramirez had been performing well after a velocity spike during the fall. Other details to note are an arm slot and hand position conducive to pitching up in the zone, a “fairly advanced arm-side changeup feel,” and a command grade that’s currently at 35 but that has been assigned a FV of 60. It’ll be crucial to monitor whether the gains in velocity are still present when Ramirez recovers. He slots in at eighth in the Nationals system.

Moving over to the West Coast, we have the Padres’ acquisition of Daniel Hudson. I know, it’s hardly a consolation after missing out on Scherzer – someone I follow on Twitter described the fallout as ordering a filet mignon and getting a salad instead – but Hudson has been quietly awesome. In terms of numbers, his 2.20 ERA, 2.45 FIP, and strikeout rate of 37.8% place him among this season’s very best relievers.

To say this is unexpected might be an understatement – at age 33, Hudson’s strikeout rate soared from 23.4% in 2019 to 30.4% in ’20. The secret involved adding a few inches of ride to his fastball, abandoning his sinker and changeup, and throwing more sliders. In short, he transformed himself into a modern reliever. But when it came to actual results, Hudson’s home run and walk rates spiraled out of control in 2020 and contributed to career-low marks. I do think most of that can be blamed on the variance within a 20-inning sample, but I also did notice a particular quirk. Here’s Hudson’s whiff rate on his slider when he fell behind in the count since 2015:

You can easily spot the great crash of 2020. For some inexplicable reason, batters became resistant to Hudson’s slider that season, forcing him to rely on his fastball. I’m not sure if this was a contributing factor, but it did inspire Hudson to revise his slider. Unlike previous iterations, the pitch is now released at an 180-degree axis (i.e. as vertically as possible). That’s led to a loss in vertical drop but also an uptick in velocity, which perhaps interacts better with his fastball. Though I’m a bit skeptical about Hudson’s suppressed walk rate, it seems like his resurgence is no fluke. Note: Hudson is currently on the COVID Injured List, so it will be at least a couple of days before he is activated.

In return, the Nationals will receive two mid-level prospects: Mason Thompson and Jordy Barley. A shortstop signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2016, Barley possesses loud tools but has fallen behind in development due to his on-field mishaps. He’s an interesting prospect, though it will take a while to gauge whether he ends up benefiting the Nationals.

Meanwhile, right-handed pitcher Mason Thompson is someone who’s been on my radar since his Padres debut. Of the 43 pitches he’s thrown so far at the major league level, 41 have been sinkers; the other two are a stray four-seam fastball and changeup. That’s because he can absolutely afford to. In addition to hovering around 96-99 mph, his monstrous sinker generates around 60 degrees of axis shift as it reaches home plate. But as Eric Longenhagen noted in his write-up of the Padres’ system, command is still an issue for Thompson. Whether he can harness the sinker in tandem with a secondary pitch will be key in deciding his future value. Thompson ranks 21st in his new system, while Barley checks in at 26.

Contenders benefit from a team willing to sell. It’s a simple outcome, but one that the uncertainty surrounding this year’s deadline threatened to distort. In the end, though, a blockbuster was released, and two additional buyers came out on top. The Red Sox snagged a power lefty bat who could mend a hole at first. The Padres brought in a veteran reliever with two electric pitches and postseason experience. On the selling end, the Nationals netted three prospects with intriguing upside, bolstering a farm system that ranked towards the bottom of most publications’ lists. Everyone should be satisfied here.

The trade deadline is upon us, but as I was thinking about the deals that could get done between now and Friday, I kept looking at the Baseball Prospectus Injury Ledger, since quite a few contenders have some very good players waiting in the wings. So today I wanted to take a look at the most impactful players who are currently on, or just off, the injured list for AL contenders as the trade deadline looms; I’ll follow it up with a look at NL contenders later this week.

There are players on these lists who could make or break their teams’ ability to make it to the postseason, and there are players who may not make it off the IL in time to help, which leads me to some important caveats. First, injuries are not all created equal, and players have setbacks all the time. These are projections that can and will shift.

Second, I don’t have a crystal ball; I used our playoff projections and only included teams that had at least a 30% chance of making the playoffs. That means the Blue Jays, who were in the first draft of this piece, ultimately just missed; our odds currently have them at 27.5% chance to make the playoffs. For any Blue Jays fans who are annoyed by this, I get it. That said, they were both borderline in terms of playoff odds and in terms of the most impactful players returning; only Danny Jansen and Alek Manoah would have pinged on this list.

Finally, having a 30% shot at the playoffs doesn’t mean you have players sitting on the IL who can push you over the top. Chad Pinder isn’t going to be the hero of Oakland’s season, which is no shade to either. But if the A’s are going to compete in the second half, they probably need to focus on the trade market, like they did Monday night in adding Andrew Chafin to their bullpen. Read the rest of this entry »

The Learning and Developing a Pitch series returned last month after being on hiatus due to the pandemic. Each week, we’ll hear from three pitchers on a notable weapon in their arsenal. Today’s installment focuses on changeups and features a pair of big-league relievers — Connor Brogdon and Garrett Whitlock — as well as Cade Cavalli, the top pitching prospect in the Washington Nationals system.

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Connor Brogdon, Philadelphia Phillies

“A changeup was the first off-speed pitch I ever learned. It was… shoot, I was probably eight or 10 years old. When I was growing up, you weren’t taught to throw a curveball too early in your life. Mine was just a straight circle change, basically right off the grip of my four-seam fastball.

“I had the same grip all the way through Little League, and even into high school. When I got to college, I started messing around with grips to see if I could throw it for a strike more consistently. I ended up talking to one of my teammates at Lewis Clark State College, Henry McAree, and picked his brain on some things.

“I finally settled on a grip that felt comfortable to me, then took some of his tips. One was to lay on your back and flip the ball up in the air, focusing on turning your wrist. By that, I mean physically taking a baseball, laying on the ground, or on a bed, and just flipping it up into the air, seeing the rotation of the ball and focusing on pronating your wrist to get that action — kind of that side-spin action you want to get. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball is cracking down on pitch-movement-enhancing substances such as, though not limited to, Spider Tack. I asked Pittsburgh Pirates GM Ben Cherington if that was a concern for his scouting staff going into this week’s amateur draft.

“We did what I think probably every team did, which was to try to learn as much as we could about whether guys were using anything, what it was, and what adjustments they were making,” replied Cherington. “We’re not naive to think that the sticky stuff was only inside professional baseball. We did some analysis on data we have from amateur pitchers in terms of spin-rate changes over time, to see if we could glean anything from that.

“Whether or not a pitcher has used anything to get a better grip on the ball is a piece of information,” continued Cherington. “But in no way does that mean… if they had to stop using something, that they can’t adjust and still be really good. These are the most talented pitchers in the world and they have a way of adjusting and finding new ways to compete and be better. So I think that it was a small piece of information that we tried to get at, but not a major driver in any decisions.”

Following up, I asked the GM about the level of pitch-analysis data they were able to get for high school draftees, including fourth-round pick Owen Kellington out of small-town Plainfield, Vermont. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »