Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the start of spring training games, the charms of Tigers reliever John Brebbia, whether MLB’s uniform pants were always semi-transparent, and Shohei Ohtani’s parallel parking skills. Then they preview the 2025 Seattle Mariners (27:37) with Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times, and the 2025 Cincinnati Reds (1:12:53) with The Athletic’s C. Trent Rosecrans.

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Break up the twins! The Giants did just that on Wednesday, sending lefty Taylor Rogers and cash to the Reds in exchange for minor league righty Braxton Roxby. The move ends the two-year run that paired Rogers with his twin brother Tyler in San Francisco, and fortifies the back end of Cincinnati’s bullpen.

If you don’t have your scorecard handy, this Rogers brother is the lefty who throws from a three-quarters arm slot, with an average release angle of 29 degrees according to Statcast. The one still on the Giants is the righty submariner with an average arm angle of -64 degrees. Trevor Rogers is no relation, and the timing of this morning’s piece by Michael Baumann is just an eerie coincidence.

Taylor Rogers, who turned 34 on December 17 — Tyler did too, to be clear — is coming off a season in which he posted a career-low 2.40 ERA in 60 innings spread across 64 appearances. It was his third year in a row and the sixth time in his nine-year career that he’s reached the 60-game plateau. For as impressive as his ERA was, it was somewhat out of step with his 3.75 FIP and 3.29 xERA. While he lowered his walk rate from an unsightly 11.6% in 2023 to 8.8%, his strikeout rate fell from 29.6% to 25.7%, making his 16.9% K-BB% his worst mark since 2017. This was the third year in a row that Rogers’ strikeout rate has declined, from a high of 35.5% while he was with the Twins (but not with his twin) in 2021. The velocity of his sinker has been on the wane as well, dropping annually from a high of 95.7 mph in 2021 to 93.0 last year.

Rogers’ declining strikeout rate was offset by his dramatic improvement in suppressing hard contact. Where he was significantly below average in both 2022 and ’23, he was among the best in ’24:

So what changed? The big thing is that Rogers threw his sinker more often than his sweeper for the first time since 2020; his share of sinkers rose from 41.3% to 52.8%, and his share of those in the strike zone rose from 40.7% to 54.2%. That increase in sinker usage was sort of a hopping-on-the-bandwagon thing for Rogers, as the Giants threw more sinkers than any other club for the second straight year; their 26.4% rate led the majors, though it was actually down from their 28.1% rate in 2023, the highest of any team since the pandemic-shortened season. Rogers’ sinker was much more effective against righties than it had been in recent years, and while it would be a misnomer to suggest they tattooed his sweeper, both righties and lefties got much better results against it on contact than expected:

Overall, righties hit just .202/.268/.380 (.282 wOBA) against Rogers, while lefties slashed .284/.364/.421 (.343 wOBA). This was the first time Rogers showed a reverse platoon split since 2019, a handy outcome considering 57% of the batters he faced were righties, but it’s not necessarily a split that we should expect to continue. Over the past three years, Rogers has held lefties to a .253 wOBA, compared to .339 for righties.

Rogers joins lefties Sam Moll and Brent Suter in the Cincinnati bullpen. While Rogers has experience closing — he saved 79 games from 2019–22 with the Twins, Padres, and Brewers — he figures to share setup duties with righty Emilio Pagán in front of closer Alexis Díaz. Though he did trim his walk rate late in the season, Díaz was rather erratic last year, pitching to a 3.99 ERA and 4.57 FIP even while converting 28 of 32 save chances, so it’s definitely not a bad thing that Rogers gives new manager Terry Francona a ninth-inning alternative in case Díaz struggles.

The Giants will pay $6 million of the $12 million Rogers will make in the third year of his three-year, $33 million deal, so this is something of a bargain for the Reds. That $6 million bought the Giants the righty Roxby, who turns 26 in March. After going undrafted out of the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, Roxby connected with the Reds during a Zoom meeting with the Kyle Boddy, then the team’s director of pitching, and assistant pitching coach Eric Jagers. “[T]hey had video breaking down my mechanics, as well as the analytics of my pitches and how I can use them better,” Roxby told David Laurila in 2021. “That made it hard not to choose them.”

The 6-foot-3, 215-pound Roxby posted a 5.21 ERA but a 28.8% strikeout rate in 48 1/3 innings at Double-A Chattanooga in 2024, his first full season in the upper minors. Eric Longenhagen graded his slider as a plus with his fastball and cutter both above average, though his command is just 30-grade. From Roxby’s prospect report:

Roxby’s fastball was up two ticks in 2024 and now lives in the mid-90s with uphill angle and tail. Roxby’s funky lower slot creates these characteristics. He tends to pitch backwards off of his sweeping mid-80s slider, which he commands better than his fastball. He has the stuff of a pretty standard middle reliever, though Roxby’s command puts him in more of an up/down bucket.

On the subject of the trade, Tyler Rogers shared this very sweet note:

In all, it’s hard to characterize this trade as an impact move for either team, but it is one of several additions the Reds have made this month — most notably the additions of Gavin Lux and Austin Hays — while trying to upgrade from last year’s 77-85 record. Who knows, maybe they’ll trade for Tyler (or Trevor) next?

If you’re a team looking for a bounce-back corner outfielder with a league-average bat, your search just got a little bit harder. On Monday, Jon Heyman reported that the Orioles had signed Dylan Carlson to a one-year, $975,000 deal, and on Tuesday, Ken Rosenthal reported that the Reds had signed former Oriole Austin Hays to his own one-year, $5 million deal. Both players were selected in the 2016 draft, both players got traded at the deadline only to be non-tendered after the season, and both players are projected to put up a wRC+ somewhere between 93 and 102 in 2025. In a reflection of the uncertainty surrounding Carlson, a $25,000 incentive will raise his salary to a cool million if he reaches 200 plate appearances in Baltimore. Hays’ deal has its own $1 million in incentives, but the terms have not yet been reported. These are two small-risk, small-reward moves, but context is key. The way we look at them depends a whole lot on the needs of the respective teams. Hays has more upside, but he’s joining a Cincinnati team that needs way more than a small reward in order to be a contender. Carlson has a much trickier path to playing time, but he makes sense as a depth piece in Baltimore.

Let’s start with Hays, who has a history of big league success under his belt and a much bigger role to play in 2025. Despite a strained calf, he managed to put up a 104 wRC+ with the Orioles in 2024. After a deadline trade to the Phillies, however, a hamstring strain and a debilitating kidney infection that went undiagnosed for weeks kept him to 85 wRC+ down the stretch, with zero walks in 80 plate appearances. Rather than keep Hays for an estimated $6.4 million in his last year of arbitration, the Phillies non-tendered him. Until the infection, Hays had been very consistent (and consistently average).

From 2021-23, Hays played at least 131 games each year while posting a wRC+ between 106 and 112. A hot start to the 2023 season even earned him his first All-Star nod. Going forward, however, his defensive limitations are going to keep him in left field and, in all likelihood, just below the 2.0-WAR mark, even if his bat bounces all the way back. There’s no doubt that his pull-side power and lack of range make him better suited for Cincinnati’s form-fitting left field than the blousy Baltimore outfield he’s used to. Still, Hays is entering his age-29 season, and while he could easily explode for 30 home runs in his cozy new environs, it’s hard to imagine him surpassing his career-high 2.5 WAR from 2023.

What does Hays do for Cincinnati’s depth chart? Assuming he gets plugged in as the left fielder, he moves Spencer Steer back to the infield. With Jonathan India in Kanas City, the Reds were in serious danger of merely having too many infielders rather than their usual way, way too many. However, now that Steer can rejoin Elly De La Cruz, Matt McLain, Jeimer Candelario, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, and newcomer Gavin Lux on the dirt, this infield is even more crowded than it was before the India trade. If Hays goes back to hitting like he’s capable of hitting, he could represent an upgrade in left field — not nearly enough to make the Reds look like more than a .500 ball club, but still an upgrade. If he does anything less, he will blend right into the bottom half of a Reds lineup that Dan Szymborski recently christened, “a giant bucket of ‘meh.’”

Turning our attention to Baltimore, it’s probably too late to keep dreaming on Dylan Carlson. Nonetheless, this move makes a lot of sense both for him and the Orioles. Carlson was a first-round draft pick by the Cardinals in 2016, and he eventually rose to 16th on our top 100 prospects list. He struggled in his 2020 debut — though he got hot enough down the stretch that the Cardinals batted him cleanup in their three-game Wild Card Series loss to the Padres — but put up a promising full-season campaign in 2021. That season, he batted .266/.343/.437 with 18 home runs and a 111 wRC+ across 149 games, good for 2.4 WAR and a third-place finish in the Rookie of the Year voting. And then he plunged into a spiral of injury and underperformance. He made two trips to the injured list in both 2022 and 2023 for four separate injuries; he missed a combined 29 days in 2022 with a hamstring strain and a thumb strain, and then in 2023, an ankle sprain and an oblique strain cost him a total of 76 days. While he was out with the oblique strain, he underwent season-ending arthroscopic surgery on the same ankle he’d sprained earlier that year. During spring training in 2024, he sprained the AC joint in his left shoulder in an outfield collision with human mountain Jordan Walker. That injury kept him out for the first 38 days of the season.

Carlson put up an xwOBA between .301 and .322 in every season between 2020 and 2023, and a DRC+ between 97 and 104 in every season between 2021 and 2023. When he returned from that shoulder injury, he wasn’t himself. If you don’t count his 35-game rookie season in 2020, Carlson’s 2024 season featured career worsts in walk rate, strikeout rate, contact rate, all three slash line stats, all the wOBAs, hard-hit rate, and, just for good measure, all the advanced defensive stats. He ended the season with a 67 wRC+, .209 batting average, -7 fielding runs, and -1.0 WAR. The Cardinals traded him to the Rays at the deadline, and the Rays non-tendered him after the season rather than pay him a couple million dollars in arbitration. Now, the Orioles have decided that they like him better than the $975,000 they used to have.

The projections see Carlson bouncing back to the league-average bat he was over the first four years of his career, and that’s presumably what the Orioles are expecting. However, let’s take just a moment to dream. We don’t know how much speed and power Carlson would have if he were to finally have the chance at a full, healthy season. His zone swing rate and contact rate plummeted in 2024, and you have to imagine that had something to do with his physical limitations at the plate. Over the course of his career, he’s got a solid .330 wOBA against fastballs, but Statcast puts his run value against them at -17, which speaks to an approach issue. He takes too many fastballs and whiffs at way too many fastballs, but when he hits them, he has a great deal of success. So why isn’t he looking for them more often?

Between Cedric Mullins, Tyler O’Neill, and Colton Cowser, the Orioles have a starting outfield. Between Heston Kjerstad, Daz Cameron, Jorge Mateo, and now Carlson, they have plenty of backups too, and because they’re loaded with infielders, they probably don’t have enough roster spots to keep all of them in Baltimore. The switch-hitting Carlson still has three options left, and it would make plenty of sense to see how he looks during spring training, keep him far away from any particularly mountainous teammates, and let him try to figure things out in Norfolk to start the season.

Carlson is now far removed from his days as a top prospect, but he’s still only 26 and has only once reached 500 plate appearances in a season. He’s always run solid chase and walk rates, and he showed a renewed ability to pull the ball in the air last season. The Orioles are on a pretty great run when it comes to developing young hitters. This seems like a low-risk move for them and a good landing spot for Carlson. Even if all he does is bounce back to being a league-average hitter and an average left fielder, that’s makes him a useful depth piece for a contending team.

On Monday the Dodgers traded Gavin Lux to the Reds for outfield prospect Mike Sirota, and Cincinnati’s 2025 Competitive Balance Round A selection, which is the upcoming draft’s 37th overall pick. Lux, who turned 27 in November, is a career .252/.326/.383 hitter in just shy of 1,500 career plate appearances. He is entering his first arbitration year; the Reds will have him under contract for three seasons.

The Lux Era in Los Angeles was rocky even though the team had championship success around him. He became one of baseball’s best prospects during an incredible 2019 season in which he slashed .347/.421/.607 with 59 extra-base hits in 113 minor league games. He spent the back half of that season, still age 21, at Triple-A Oklahoma City, briefly made his big league debut, and was my no. 2 prospect in baseball entering 2020. Expectations for him were sky high, not only in terms of his impact but also the immediacy of that impact.

Instead, problems with Lux’s throwing accuracy arose during the pandemic season and have been an intermittent problem ever since. His bout with the yips led to 2021 experimentation at third base and in left field, neither of which stuck. The Dodgers seemed determined to move Lux back to shortstop in 2023, but misfortune found Lux again when he blew his ACL in a Cactus League game and missed the whole year. Back at the keystone in 2024, Lux turned in an average offensive season – he slashed .251/.320/.383 over 487 plate appearances with a career high 10 home runs and 100 wRC+ – with below average second base defense, culminating in 1.5 WAR.

Lux is a good fit on a Reds roster teeming with versatile infielders, most of whom hit right-handed. While he’s anemic against lefties, especially their sliders, Lux is a career .264/.337/.408 hitter against righties and slashed .262/.332/.407 against them in 2024. The Reds look as though they’ll have the capacity to play in-game matchups at a variety of different positions if they want to, but from another point of view, they lack stability at every position but shortstop. Center fielder TJ Friedl has been on the IL five times within the last two years, second baseman Matt McLain got Arizona Fall League reps in center field when he returned from a serious shoulder injury of his own. Spencer Steer (1B/LF), Jeimer Candelario (1B/3B), Santiago Espinal (2B/3B/SS), and Rule 5 pick Cooper Bowman (2B/OF) all play a number of different positions, several overlapping with where Lux plays or has played. All are also right-handed. The Reds don’t have a obvious first baseman (Christian Encarnacion-Strand is the projected starter there, but he was bad last season) and it’s possible one of either Steer or Candelario will occupy that spot every day, necessitating a platoon at their other position. It’s conceivable that Lux will revisit left field or third base so that he, too, can bring some amount of versatility to the table and be part of said platoon, but no matter which players claim Opening Day roster spots in Cincinnati, they seem poised to move all over the place to help ensure favorable matchups for the offense.

The main return in this deal for Los Angeles is the draft pick, the 37th overall selection in what I believe to be a deep draft. Lux has performed like a 45-grade player so far, and prospects of about that talent level tend to be available in the Comp round of a deep class. This becomes the Dodgers’ first selection in the 2025 draft, as their ordinary first round pick was chuted 10 spots down to 40th overall because their big league payroll exceeded the second luxury tax threshold. They now have three of this year’s first 70 picks.

The transition from an infield with Lux to one with recent Korean signee, Hye-seong Kim (analysis here), represents a sizeable upgrade for the Dodgers on defense. Kim has played only second base for the last several KBO seasons, but he’s a great athlete with great range, and it’s reasonable to project that he’ll be able to play an MLB-quality shortstop, as well as several other positions, if given the opportunity. The Dodgers’ middle infield contingent in 2024 was a yip-prone Lux, several guys in their mid-30s, and a rusty-from-injury Tommy Edman, whom they acquired at the trade deadline. Their 2025 mix will depend on what kind of shortstop defender Kim ends up being — right now, they are still planning to have Mookie Betts open the year at short — and is pending whatever else the Dodgers do between now and Opening Day.

The sidecar to the trade is Sirota, a 21-year-old outfielder who was Cincinnati’s 2024 third round selection out of Northeastern, where he hit .324/.458/.577 during his career. (Unfamiliar readers should be aware that college stats are bloated.) He has yet to play an actual pro game, but he participated in Cincinnati’s instructional league activity during the fall. Here was my pre-draft report:

Speedy, power-over-hit center field prospect with plus plate discipline. Tightly wound athlete with narrow build, wiry and strong. Hands are especially lively with low-ball power. Likely going to swing underneath a ton of in-zone fastballs and be a below-average contact hitter. Speed fits in center; reads and routes need polish but the footspeed is there. Projected issues with the hit tool and Sirota’s flavor of build/athleticism look more like a part-timer. His on-base ability buoys his profile and gives Sirota a shot to be a Tyrone Taylor type of complimentary outfielder.

The Dodgers often target players with speed-driven profiles and attempt to make them stronger (Jake Vogel, Kendall George, Zyhir Hope), and Sirota is of that ilk. This is also the second year in a row the Dodgers have pounced on a recently drafted prospect who had yet to get his footing in pro ball (also Hope, from the Cubs).

So the Dodgers turn essentially a part-time player into a draft asset of comparable value (albeit a slow-to-mature one) and a likely lesser, but decent young prospect in Sirota. In a vacuum it’s a pretty even trade, but knowing they arguably replaced Lux with a better roster fit in a separate deal, and then cashed him in for multiple pieces feels like vintage Rays-era Andrew Friedman snowballing assets. For the Reds, Lux’s fit on their roster and their desire to compete for the NL Central crown helps justify things on their end, though it’s tougher to swallow a smaller market team coughing up such a high draft pick.

I’m sure that Yankees fans are well and truly tired of hearing about Juan Soto. We get it, he likes the other New York team more. So don’t worry, friends. I won’t mention Juan Soto, unparalleled hitting genius, after this paragraph. Sure, the ghost of Juan Soto, signer of the biggest contract in professional sports history, might inform the rest of the moves the Yankees are making. Sure, not signing superstar Juan Soto after his incandescent 2024 season makes all the rest of the team’s moves feel minor. But again, you won’t see the words “Juan Soto” after this instance, so let’s get to the moves the Yankees are making to bolster their team in the aftermath of losing one of the brightest stars in the game.

Signing Paul Goldschmidt
The Yankees are going to need some offense if they want to replace Jua – whoa, almost broke my own rule right out of the gate. Uh… the Yankees are going to need some offense, period. They were a top-heavy team last year between Aaron Judge and his running mate, name tastefully withheld. Giancarlo Stanton’s playoff surge notwithstanding, the existing roster just didn’t have that much juice beyond Judge. Sure, adding Cody Bellinger was nice, but they needed to do more. Paul Goldschmidt, signed for one year and $12.5 million, is definitely more, it’s just a question of how much after his bummer of a 2024 season. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 21st consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Cincinnati Reds.

Batters

In return for their mini-free agent spree after nearly making the playoffs in 2023, the Cincinnati Reds dropped five wins, finishing 2024 with a 77-85 record. It wasn’t as bad as it looked — the team improved its Pythagorean record by five wins compared to the year before — but it felt lousy that only Nick Martinez really shined among their signings. Elly De La Cruz did break out in a massive way — he was a legitimate MVP contender for much of the season — but Matt McLain’s torn labrum and rib injury kept him away from the action.

A look at the depth chart graphic makes it pretty clear where the Reds are strong: Even with some regression toward the mean, De La Cruz is the team’s most important player, and if healthy, McLain will upgrade second base. Continuing the up-the-middle strength is Jose Trevino, recently acquired from the Yankees; he and Tyler Stephenson give the Reds an excellent tandem behind the plate. TJ Friedl in center gets a less exciting projection, but he’s still perfectly serviceable as a starter, and he’s the worst projected player of the up-the-middle quartet. Read the rest of this entry »

DALLAS — The collision of human mortality and baseball immortality is a jarring one that has resonated throughout the history of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and Sunday night’s announcement of the voting results of the Classic Baseball Era Committee was yet another reminder. Four years after dying of cancer at the age of 78, and three years after falling one vote short for his second straight ballot, Dick Allen finally gained entry. Also elected was 73-year-old Dave Parker, who has been rendered frail while waging a very public battle with Parkinson’s Disease in recent years.

The two sluggers were the only candidates from among a slate of eight elected by the 16-member committee, which met on Sunday at the Winter Meetings here in Dallas. The panel was charged with considering candidates from an overly broad swath of the game’s history. By definition, all eight candidates made their greatest impact prior to 1980, but weighing the merits of John Donaldson, who pitched in the major Negro Leagues from 1920–24 (and for Black baseball teams predating the Negro Leagues as early as 1915), against the likes of Parker, whose major league career ran from 1973–91, is a nearly impossible task, particularly within the limitations of a format that allows each voter to choose a maximum of three candidates from among the eight.

Parker, who had fallen short on three previous Era Committee ballots, received the most support from the panel, totaling 14 votes out of 16 (87.5%), while Allen received 13 (81.3%). Tommy John received seven (43.8%) in his fifth Era Committee appearance. The other five candidates — Ken Boyer, Donaldson, Steve Garvey, Vic Harris, Luis Tiant — each received less than five votes, according to the Hall.

To these eyes, Allen was the most deserving of the non-Negro Leagues candidates on this ballot. In a 15-year-career with the Phillies (1963–69, ’75–76), Cardinals (’70), Dodgers (’71), White Sox (’72–74), and A’s (’77), he made seven All-Star teams; led his league in OPS+ three times, in home runs twice, and in WAR once; and won NL Rookie of the Year and AL MVP awards (’64 and ’72, respectively) while hitting 351 homers and batting .292/.378/.534. Among players with at least 7,000 plate appearances, his career 156 OPS+ is tied with Hall of Famer Frank Thomas for 14th all time.

Allen accrued just 1,848 hits, and so he joins 2022 Golden Days honoree Tony Oliva as the only post-1960 expansion era players in the Hall with fewer than 2,000 hits. The marker has served as a proxy for career length, for better or worse, and in doing so has frozen out players whose careers were shortened for one reason or another, as well as those who built a good portion of their value via on-base skills and defense. BBWAA voters have yet to elect one such player, though Andruw Jones (1,933) is climbing toward 75%, and Chase Utley (1,885) made a solid debut on the 2024 ballot.

Not a particularly adept defender, Allen bounced from third base to left field to first base while traveling around the majors. He accrued his most value while playing third; he’s 17th in both WAR (58.7) and JAWS (52.3) at the position, slightly below Boyer (62.8 WAR, 54.5 JAWS), who had the advantage of a much less controversial career.

Allen’s career was shortened by what seemed to be a constant battle with the world around him, one in which the racism he faced in the minor leagues and in Philadelphia played a major role. Six years after governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard in order to prevent the court-ordered desegregation of Little Rock Central High School, the Phillies sent the 21-year-old Allen to become the first affiliated Black professional baseball player in the state. Faubus himself threw out the first pitch while picketers carried signs with slogans such as “Don’t Negro-ize baseball” and “N***** go home.”⁠ Though Allen hit a double in the game-winning rally, he was greeted with a note on his car: “DON’T COME BACK AGAIN N*****,”⁠ as he recounted in his autobiography, Crash: The Life and Times of Dick Allen.

The Phillies themselves — the NL’s last team to integrate, 10 years after Jackie Robinson debuted — were far behind the integration curve, as was Philadelphia itself. Allen quickly became a polarizing presence, covered by a media contingent so unable or unwilling to relate to him that writers often refused to call him by the name of his choosing: Dick Allen, not Richie.

Allen rebelled against his surroundings. As biographer Mitchell Nathanson wrote in God Almighty Hisself: The Life and Legacy of Dick Allen, “He refused to pander to the media, refused to accept management’s time-honored methods for determining the value of a ballplayer, and, most explosively, refused to go along with and kowtow to the racial double standard that had evolved within Major League Baseball in the wake of the game’s integration in 1947.”

Allen struggled for support during his 1983–97 run on the BBWAA ballot, never reaching 20%, and he similarly lagged in the voting of the expanded Veterans Committee from 2003–09. However, thanks in part to a grassroots campaign by former Phillies groundskeeper Mark Carfagno, he received a fresh look from the 2015 Golden Era Committee and fell just one vote short of election. The change in Era Committee formats meant that his case wasn’t scheduled to be reconsidered until the 2021 Golden Day Era Committee ballot, but the COVID-19 pandemic led the Hall to postpone that election. In a cruel blow, Allen died of cancer on December 7, 2020, one day after his candidacy would have been considered. Crueler still for his family, he again fell one vote short when the committee finally met in December 2021. Thus his election is a bittersweet moment, one that would have been greatly enriched by his being able to enjoy it.

Whatever quibbles there are to be had with the election of Parker, we can be grateful he’s still around to savor it. A five-tool player whose power, ability to hit for average, and strong, accurate throwing arm all stood out, he spent 19 years in the majors with the Pirates (1973–83), hometown Reds (’84–87), A’s (’88–89), Brewers (’90), Angels (’91), and Blue Jays (’91). He hit 339 homers and collected 2,712 hits while batting .290/.339/.471 (121 OPS+) and making seven All-Star teams, and at his peak, he was considered the game’s best all-around player. In his first five full seasons (1975-79), he amassed a World Series ring (in the last of those years), regular season and All-Star MVP awards, two batting titles, two league leads in slugging percentage, and three Gold Gloves, not to mention tremendous swagger and a great nickname (“The Cobra”).

A 14th-round draft pick out of Cincinnati’s Courier Tech High School — he fell from the first or second round due to multiple knee injuries that ended his pursuit of football, his favorite sport — Parker debuted with the Pirates in July 1973, just seven months after the death of Roberto Clemente. He assumed full-time duty as the team’s right fielder a season and a half later, and appeared to be on course to join the Puerto Rican legend in Cooperstown, but cocaine, poor conditioning, and injuries threw him off course. While he recovered well enough to make three more All-Star teams, play a supporting role on the 1989 World Series-winning A’s, and compile hefty career totals while playing past the age of 40, his game lost multiple dimensions along the way.

Parker debuted with just 17.5% on the 1997 BBWAA ballot and peaked at 24.5% the next year, but only one other time in his final 13 seasons of eligibility did he top 20%. In appearances on the 2014 Expansion Era ballot and ’18 and ’20 Modern Baseball ones, only in the last of those did he break out of the “received less than X votes” group; he got seven (43.8%) that year.

Because his defense declined to the point that he was relegated to DH duty, Parker ranks just 41st in JAWS among right fielders (38.8), 17.9 points below the standard. Still, this is not Harold Baines Redux. While Baines collected 2,866 hits — and might have reached 3,000 if not for the two players’ strikes that occurred during his career — he never put up much black ink or finished higher than ninth in MVP voting, spent the vast majority of his career as a DH, and ranks 77th in JAWS among right fielders (30.1). He was never close to being considered the best hitter in the game, let alone the best all-around player. His 2019 election was a shock, and a result that felt engineered given the makeup of the panel.

As I noted in my write-up of Parker, the contemporary whose case bears the most resemblance to his is that of Dale Murphy, for as different as the two were off the field — and you can’t get much further apart than the distance between Parker’s drug-related misadventures and Murphy’s wholesome, milk-drinking persona. A two-time MVP, Murphy — who fell short on the 2023 Contemporary Baseball ballot and will be eligible again next year — had a peak that’s vaguely Hall-caliber, but he’s ranks 27th in JAWS among center fielders, 14.4 points below the standard, because myriad injuries prevented him from having much value outside that peak.

I had Allen atop my list as the most deserving non-PED-linked position player outside the Hall. While I was lukewarm on Parker, it’s impossible not to feel some amount of empathy for his hard-won wisdom — his autobiography Cobra: A Life in Baseball and Brotherhood, written with Dave Jordan, is frank and poignant — and his battle with Parkinson’s, not to mention his prominent role in raising money to fight the disease. Again, it is far better that he is alive to enjoy this honor than to have it granted posthumously, as would have been the case for Tiant, who died in October at age 83. Boyer died in 1983 at age 52. John is 81, Garvey 75. For as tiresome as it may sometimes feel to see their candidacies reheated every three years or so, one can understand the desire to honor them while they’re alive — but then again, the same goes for the candidates they’re crowding off the ballot.

The most frustrating aspect of this election is how little traction the two Negro Leagues candidates had, as they were the top returning members from the 2022 Early Baseball ballot, with Harris — the most successful manager in Negro Leagues history — having received 10 votes (62.5%) and Donaldson — a legendary pitcher who spent most of his playing years barnstorming endlessly out of economic necessity — getting eight (50%). The 16-member panel did include two bona fide Negro Leagues scholars in Larry Lester and Leslie Heaphy. However, in my opinion and those of many Negro Leagues experts, it would be far better for a full panel of such researchers and scholars to consider these candidates and the unique and difficult context of their careers without having to battle for attention and space with much more famous players from a relatively recent past.

Appointed by the Hall’s board of directors, this ballot’s 16-member committee consisted of Hall of Famers Paul Molitor, Eddie Murray, Tony Perez, Lee Smith, Ozzie Smith, and Joe Torre; major league executives Sandy Alderson, Terry McGuirk, Dayton Moore, Arte Moreno, and Brian Sabean; and veteran media members/historians Bob Elliott, Steve Hirdt, and Dick Kaegel as well as Heaphy and Lester. In contrast to years past, this group had far fewer obvious connections to candidates, with Torre having played with Allen in St. Louis in 1970, Alderson serving as the general manager of the A’s when they traded for John in mid-’85 and Parker in December ’87, and Sabean in the scouting department of the Yankees when John had his second go-round with the team starting in ’86. [Update: As readers have pointed out, I missed that Perez and Parker were teammates in Cincinnati from 1984–86, and Molitor and Parker were teammates in Milwaukee in ’90.] Where both the 2023 and ’24 Contemporary Era Committees (the latter for managers, executives, and umpires) had just three media members/historians, this one had five.

The Era Committee process is an imperfect one, and by some measures these were imperfect candidates. If they weren’t, they probably wouldn’t have been relegated to Era Committee ballots in the first place, though not necessarily through their own fault. The voting results won’t please everyone, but hopefully even critics of the process can see some value in Sunday’s result.

Last offseason, the Reds assembled a frankly confusing amount of infield depth. With the emergence of Elly De La Cruz, Matt McLain, and Noelvi Marte, there weren’t many spaces available to start with. They signed Jeimer Candelario, and already had Christian Encarnacion-Strand as an option at first. Spencer Steer moonlights in the infield too. That left Jonathan India as an odd man out, and he seemed like a clear trade candidate merely waiting for a good home.

In 2024, that good home turned out to be Cincinnati. McLain missed the entire year after shoulder surgery. Encarnacion-Strand got hurt in May and didn’t return. Marte got suspended for PED use. When all was said and done, the Reds ended up trading for infield depth in Santiago Espinal. India played in 151 games and supplied his usual OBP-heavy offense.

Holding onto India worked out for the Reds last year, but there’s no way they could’ve tried the same plan again. That would’ve been just too many resources committed to one subset of the team, and Cincinnati has needs across the roster. So after many months, the trade we’ve all been expecting for roughly a year has come to pass. The Reds traded India and outfielder Joey Wiemer to the Royals in exchange for righty starter Brady Singer.

At first blush, this trade feels strange from the Reds’ standpoint. India might be a luxury good for their team, but he’s a legitimately good hitter with two years of reasonably priced team control remaining. He was their third-best hitter by WAR, and the Reds need people on base to take advantage of their homer-friendly stadium. Singer was Kansas City’s fourth starter, and 700 innings into his career, he’s not exactly a mystery box: He’ll give you a 4-ish ERA if you can put a good defense behind him. Not only that, but the Reds had to throw in Wiemer just to get things done. What gives?
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Tyler Holton got a 10th-place vote in American League MVP balloting, and as you might expect, social media reacted like social media is wont to do. Responses to the news leaned negative, with a number of people saying that they had have never even heard of him. Some were disrespectfully profane, offering variations of “Who the [expletive] is Tyler Holton?”

Needless to say, not everyone who posts on social media platforms is an especially-knowledgeable baseball fan. Which is perfectly fine. There are many different levels of fandom, so if you mostly just know the big names — the Judges, the Sotos, the Witts — all well and good. Follow the game as you see fit.

Those things said, it is high time that more people become familiar with Holton. Much for that reason, Toronto Star columnist Mike Wilner doesn’t deserve the brickbats he’s received for his down-ballot nod to the 28-year-old Detroit Tigers southpaw. What he deserves is applause. And not just because he was willing to go outside the box. Holton has quietly been one of MLB’s most effective pitchers.

The numbers tell part of the story. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of a series concerning the 2025 Classic Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering long-retired players, managers, executives, and umpires whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 8. For an introduction to the ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com, Baseball Prospectus, and Futility Infielder. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

A five-tool player whose power, ability to hit for average, and strong, accurate throwing arm all stood out – particularly in the Pirates’ seemingly endless and always eye-catching assortment of black-and-yellow uniform combinations — Dave Parker was once considered the game’s best all-around player. In his first five full seasons (1975-79), he amassed a World Series ring, regular season and All-Star MVP awards, two batting titles, two league leads in slugging percentage, and three Gold Gloves, not to mention tremendous swagger, a great nickname (“The Cobra”), and a high regard for himself.

“Take Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente and match their first five years up against mine, and they don’t compare with me,” he told Roy Blount in a 1979 Sports Illustrated cover story.

Parker, who debuted with the Pirates in July 1973, just seven months after Clemente’s death, and assumed full-time duty as the team’s right fielder a season and a half later, once appeared to be on course to join the Puerto Rican legend in Cooperstown. Unfortunately, cocaine, poor conditioning, and injuries threw him off course, and while he recovered well enough to make three All-Star teams, play a supporting role on another World Series winner, and accrue hefty career totals while playing past the age of 40, his game lost multiple dimensions along the way. Hall of Fame voters greeted his case with a yawn; he debuted with just 17.5% on the 1997 ballot and peaked at 24.5% the next year, and while he remained eligible for the full 15 seasons, only one other time did he top 20%. Since then, he’s made appearances on three other Era Committee ballots, namely the 2014 Expansion Era one as well as the ’18 and ’20 Modern Baseball ones, but even after going public with his diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease, lending an air of pathos to his situation, he hasn’t come close to election. Read the rest of this entry »