Although the Red Sox have been stuck in a slump, they’re still hanging onto a playoff position, and they’re barely behind the Yankees for first. The Sox have a bullpen that ranks third in baseball in WAR, and, even better than that, they have a bullpen that ranks first in baseball in Win Probability Added. The bullpen, you could say, has been the least of Boston’s problems, and yet, we say it every deadline — every good team could use another reliever. And in Boston’s case, their success has been primarily driven by the almost literally unhittable Craig Kimbrel. What the Red Sox haven’t had so much of is reliever depth, being without both Tyler Thornburg and Carson Smith. And so, Monday has brought the following move:

Red Sox get:

• Addison Reed

Mets get:

• Jamie Callahan
• Gerson Bautista
• Stephen Nogosek

(Note: pending medicals!)

The Mets recently picked up A.J. Ramos, signaling that they intend to try to contend again next season. Moving Reed is hardly surprising, then — he’s a 28-year-old stretch-run rental. What the Mets have received is a trio of right-handed minor-league relievers measuring at 6-foot-2. As usual, any one of these young players could suddenly emerge to become a relevant big-leaguer. Yet the Sox haven’t subtracted from the top of the farm, and now they’ve grabbed one of the more extreme relievers around.

Read the rest of this entry »

When you think of Adrian Beltre, the first thought that comes to mind might just be his defense. In the early parts of his career, that was his bread and butter. He does, after all, rank 19th all-time in Def, and 10th since the color barrier was broken in 1947. By the time he retires, top 15 in Def is well within his reach.

And yet, Beltre is just as prolific as a hitter! He’s been one of the best players ever on both sides of the ball. Yesterday, he became just the 31st member of the 3,000-hit club. That’s pretty amazing. It’s pretty much an automatic ticket to the Hall of Fame (don’t worry, Rafael Palmeiro will get there some day via some Veteran’s Committee). Beltre also ranks 15th in doubles, 38th in home runs, 21st in total bases and 21st in extra-base hits.

He doesn’t rank quite as high in rate statistics — his .195 ISO ranks 308th out of 3,953 qualified players, for instance. That’s still really, really good, but it doesn’t stand out quite as much. But he has been really good for a really long time. And he’s still playing well. If he’s not at the top of his game, he’s pretty close, and doing a lot better than a lot of other players at the time of their 3,000th hit. Let’s take a look:
Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday night, the Red Sox sent two prospects to San Francisco in exchange for infielder Eduardo Nunez. Those prospects were RHP Shaun Anderson and RHP Gregory Santos.

Anderson was a 2016 3rd rounder out of Florida, and another of the seemingly annual example of the Gators’ embarrassment of pitching riches, as Anderson has a starter’s repertoire but pitched out of their bullpen. He works an upper-80s cutter under the hands of left-handed hitters, has a low-80s slider with more loop that he runs away from righties, and he can turn over a fringe to average upper-70s curveball. He also has a formerly rarely used changeup that is now flashing average. The slider and cutter are effective when located properly, but all are fringe to average pitches purely on stuff.

Anderson’s fastball sits 92-94 and will touch 96. I’ve received mixed opinions about his strike-throwing ability, with some scouts thinking it’s suitable for continued projection as a starter while others found it lacking, citing frequent misfires resulting in fastballs and sliders left up and out of the strike zone. Single-A hitters have been willing to offer at these, upper-level hitters may not.

The range of outcomes scouts see for Anderson is relatively narrow. Some see him as a backend rotation piece, others as a reliever. Both place him in the 40 FV range.

Santos turns 18 in late August and was pitching in the DSL for the second straight year. He has yet to harness his terrific arm strength, sitting 92-96 with life. Santos joins a growing number of hard-throwing Latin American arms in the low levels of San Francisco’s farm system.

Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Luis Ortiz, RHP, Milwaukee (Profile)
Level: Double-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 3   Top 100: 57
Line: 7 IP, 4 H, 0 BB, 1 R, 7 K

Notes
After walking five hitters on July 13, Ortiz hasn’t issues a free pass in two starts since then. He has good glove-side command of his fastball and has kept his body, which drew Rich Garces comparisons when Ortiz was 19, in check. Reports of his slider’s effectiveness, especially within the strike zone, have become mixed but Ortiz is purposefully working with his changeup more often, even against righties, and not getting as many reps with the slider. His curveball remains about average. Ortiz has had hamstring issues this season and various ailments throughout his career, but he’s still just 21, pitching pretty well at Double-A and projects as an above-average big-league starter.

Read the rest of this entry »

Monday’s non-waiver trade deadline is a mere five days away. As it nears, we’ll be treated to all the rumors and hypothetical proposals the internet is capable of providing. Many of them will be nonsensical. Some won’t. In every case, though, we’re likely to evaluate the likelihood of a prospective deal based on the same sort of variables considered by Dave Cameron in his annual Trade Value series — variables like projected WAR, salary, team control, etc.

But those aren’t the only factors at play when real people from real front offices attempt to work out a trade. There are other questions to ask. Which teams link up often and which teams avoid each other? What’s the role of familiarity in trade deals? Does it matter if the teams belong to the same division?

With the help of crack data and visualizations man Sean Dolinar, I went to work trying to answer some of these questions. Below are five statements supported by the historical data.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Sunday, the Red Sox announced they were promoting top prospect Rafael Devers from Triple-A and inserting him as their starting third baseman, filling a spot that had been a pretty big problem for the team this year. Last night, Devers made his Major League debut in Seattle, drawing a pair of walks off of Felix Hernandez and Edwin Diaz. But while Devers was playing his first Major League game, the Red Sox acquired a guy who might end up taking his job.

Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Rafael Devers Day!

The highly-touted 20-year-old is slated to make his big-league debut tonight, and will almost certainly provide Boston with a sizable upgrade at the hot corner. Devers slashed .300/.369/.575 at Double-A before hitting a cool .400/.447/.600 in a nine-game stint at Triple-A.

Devers’ biggest strength is his power. After putting up middling power numbers in years past, he smacked 20 homers and 20 doubles in the minors this year. Unlike many power hitters, Devers doesn’t strike out a ton — he’s kept his strikeout rate below 20% throughout his time in the minors.

Devers has quite an exceptional offensive profile, but it’s even more impressive when you consider he’s much more than his hitting. Not only does Devers play one of the more premium defensive positions, but he plays it quite well. He’s been three runs above average at third base this year by Clay Davenport’s numbers, and checked in at +19 (!) runs last year in High-A. Devers’ high-minors performance has been excellent across the board, which is all sorts of encouraging coming from a 20-year-old.

My KATOH system pegs him Devers 11.7 WAR over his first six seasons by the stats-only method and 15.3 WAR by KATOH+, which incorporates his Baseball America ranking. Those marks place him sixth and fourth, respectively, among prospects.

To put some faces to Devers’ statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps. I calculated a Mahalanobis distance between Devers’ 2017 performance and every season since 1991. In the table below, you’ll find the 10 most similar seasons, ranked from most to least similar. The WAR totals refer to each player’s first six seasons in the major leagues. 

Please note that the Mahalanobis analysis is separate from KATOH. KATOH relies on macro-level trends, rather than comps. The fates of a few statistically similar players shouldn’t be used to draw sweeping conclusions about a prospect’s future. For this reason, I recommend using a player’s KATOH forecast to assess his future potential. The comps give us some interesting names that sometimes feel spot-on, but they’re mostly just there for fun.

Rafael Devers will be called up to the majors on Tuesday. Well, I suppose he may technically be called up today, but he’s not expected to start Monday’s game, so it might not be until Tuesday. Whatever day he’s officially promoted, he’ll become the first 20-year-old position player promoted to the majors this season. While Travis Sawchik has already discussed Devers in the context of the Red Sox’ situation, I’d like to look at him in the context of 20-year-old call-ups.

I went back to 1985 in pulling info for 20-year-old call-ups, and there are some interesting things to be shared. Let’s start at the beginning: Devers will become just the 78th player since 1985 to be called up to the majors for his debut as either an 18-, 19- or 20-year-old. Here’s a breakdown of all the relevant players:

(Note: You get one attempt to guess who the 18-year-old was. If you get it wrong, you must serve a self-imposed banishment from FanGraphs for a period of 10-10.5 hours.)

As you can see, the last three years have represented a bit of a dry spell for young call-ups. From 1985 to 1994, there were 26 call-ups. There were also 26 from 1995 to 2004 and 24 more from 2005 to -14. This season is far from over, obviously, but if this holds, it will become the lowest three-year total since ’85. The current lowest periods are 2014-2016 and 1999-2001, at five. Teams are either more cautious these days or front offices are experiencing less pressure to produce winners — which may be an inevitable result of teams purposefully tanking.

Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Trade Deadline Week, folks.

T minus 175 hours, roughly, until the non-waiver deadline horn sounds.

This period, of course, represents the last, best chance for contending clubs to add pieces and fill gaps — and for sellers to spin off remaining assets. Dave Cameron updated his buyer-seller status list last week and things remain fluid. Just since that update, the Brewers’ playoff odds have declined by roughly 20 percentage points to 10%, so there’s still quite a bit of uncertainty in places like the NL Central, which will add an element of drama to the period. Teams must first decide how much they are willing to bet on themselves.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Red Sox need a third baseman — at least, if they’re not going to give Rafael Devers a shot, like I think they should — and maybe some more relief help. This isn’t any kind of secret. Dave Dombrowski is even openly talking about it. And Todd Frazier, a walk-year player on a team trading everything that isn’t nailed down, was an obvious fit. He’d have been a fit if they wanted to keep the spot open for Devers, since he could have played some first base too, potentially giving them an upgrade over Mitch Moreland if Devers came up and mashed.

Like every other contender, they could also use another reliever or two. Their bullpen has been good so far, but also heavily worked, and no one every really has enough good bullpen arms. The White Sox were also selling good relievers, including a young controllable arm that Jeff just wrote up today. A deal between the two Sox franchises seemed like an obvious fit.

So, of course, the Yankees are apparently getting in the way, and according to reports, are closing on a deal for Frazier, David Robertson, and Tommy Kahnle.

Source confirms reports by @JonHeyman and @Joelsherman1: #Yankees gaining momentum toward trade for Robertson, Frazier and Kahnle. @MLB

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) July 19, 2017

Chase Headley has been decent enough at third base that Frazier would probably play first base in New York, or at least give them options to run some platoons at the corner infield spots with Frazier bouncing between the two spots. But for New York, this is probably more about getting two more good arms for a bullpen that has been pretty lousy so far, and then keeping Frazier away from their division rival because why not?

Given what Ryan Madson and Sean Doolittle cost, I’d imagine this trio is going to fetch a decent return, depending on how much of Robertson’s salary the Yankees are picking up. If they’re absorbing all of the ~$18 million he’s owed through next season, that might lighten the package a bit, but Kahnle was likely going to cost a lot, given his dominance this season and remaining years of control. Odds are the Yankees simply outbid the Red Sox, and I wouldn’t be surprised if making sure the Red Sox didn’t get better easily was at least partly about the reason the Yankees got involved here.

Since the deal isn’t yet done, we don’t know what price New York is paying, but I certainly wouldn’t want to try and come back against this potential bullpen in October. Kahnle, Robertson, Dellin Betances, and Aroldis Chapman would be a pretty rough group to try and score off of.