Spring training games get silly quickly. By the time the veterans have hit the showers, it’s time for raw prospects and reclamation projects to duke it out. So unless you’re a Carlos Estévez fan or a Padres loyalist, you probably didn’t see this live:

That home run, hit by Joshua Mears, is the hardest-hit ball of spring training so far — or, it was before a Giancarlo Stanton line drive yesterday that I’m totally ignoring for the purposes of this article. At 117.3 mph, it would have been one of the hardest-hit balls in the entire 2020 season. Laser beam home runs are fun to watch, though it’s a good thing a kid made a backhanded catch, or a reclining couple might have caught a baseball with their bodies.

Even if you didn’t see it live, you might have seen MLB Pipeline tweet about it. Failing that, maybe you read about it on MLB.com. Homers, especially smashed ones that show off Statcast, tend to make the rounds. Home runs are big business, and they get reported as such.

What you almost assuredly don’t know is that the previous inning, someone hit the third-hardest-hit ball of the spring (well, fourth now — thanks, Stanton). Feast your eyes on 115.6 mph of pure… well, pure groundball single to shortstop:

Surprisingly enough, MLB.com didn’t write an article about that one. This won’t be on any highlight reels for the year. And yet, that’s the hardest-hit tracked batted ball of Brendan Rodgers’ career. Given that he’ll be playing in the majors this year and Mears will be on a bus in some city you’ve never heard of, the grounder was more meaningful to this major league season. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Colorado Rockies. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. As there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was gleaned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been meaningfully altered begin by telling you so. Each blurb ends with an indication of where the player played in 2020, which in turn likely informed the changes to their report if there were any. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside of a given org than those within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there, and the context of that data, in my opinion, reduces how meaningful it is. Lastly, in an effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both on my lists and on The Board: MIRP, or multi-inning relief pitcher, and SIRP, or single-inning relief pitcher.

For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed, you can click here. For further explanation of Future Value’s merits and drawbacks, read Future Value.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.

Tigers manager A.J. Hinch addressed the importance of being aggressive on the base paths during his Saturday morning media session. What he shared included the following, which I quoted on Twitter:

“Your WAR gets dinged whenever you get thrown out on the bases. It’s not valued. People are very aware… players are very aware of that. Winning baseball is good for your WAR too, even if it’s not quantifiable.”

Almost immediately, people began responding critically, opining that Hinch was (pun intended) off base. Feeling that more context was in order — I’d prefaced the original Tweet by noting the subject at hand — I added that Hinch also said that if you’re safe every time, you’re probably not being aggressive enough.

No matter. Commenters went on to suggest that Hinch doesn’t understand the value of an out, sometimes in a snarky, condescending manner. (On Twitter! Imagine that!)

Hinch had a second media session following the team’s workout, so I took the opportunity to bring up the minor foofaraw I’d caused at his expense. Would he like to elaborate on, and clarify, what he’d said, lest a faction of the Twitterverse continue to question his sanity? Read the rest of this entry »

It’s no secret that strikeouts are at an all-time high. Nor is it a secret that not every strikeout is “just another out.” Balls in play can advance baserunners, and that’s especially important when the 90 feet being traversed is from third to home. What fan, or manager, doesn’t bemoan one of the team’s hitters going down by way of the K with a man on third and less than two out? It’s an opportunity wasted, one that often leads to a squander.

Save for the rare occasions when a batter reaches on a wild pitch or a passed ball, a strikeout is also a guaranteed out. Making contact — even weak contact — at least gives you a chance. While last year’s .292 BABIP was baseball’s lowest in nearly three decades, that’s still markedly better than than the infinitesimal odds of taking first base on a punch-out. Moreover, fielders make errors. In short, contact matters.

Given MLB’s ever-increasing strikeout rate, I asked six managers a simple, straightforward question: Is the ability to hit with two strikes an undervalued asset in today’s game?

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Bud Black, Colorado Rockies

“It’s been undervalued in the history of the game. It’s probably lessened a little bit more [as] something that has been talked about. I think, more so than ever, because of the stuff today, it’s harder to hit with two strikes, especially the velocities that we’re talking about. The breaking pitches. The secondary pitches. The quality of those pitches. The swing-and-miss that’s happening now is a combination of maybe not shortening your swing, and maybe the stuff is that good to where it’s tough to make contact. Read the rest of this entry »

“Already a physical presence as a teenager, Veen has big power potential and a pretty left-handed swing to go with a plus arm that should serve him well in right field.”

Those words, written by Eric Longenhagen, lead Zac Veen’s profile in our recently-released 2021 Top 100 Prospects list. The 19-year-old outfielder came in at No. 70, which is especially impressive when you consider that he’s yet to play a game — Fall Instructional League notwithstanding — at the professional level. A Port Orange, Florida native, Veen was drafted ninth overall last year by the Colorado Rockies.

Another quote from Longenhagen’s writeup bears noting: “His in-the-box actions are quiet and smooth up until the moment he decides to unleash hell on the baseball.” In short, the 6-foot-5, 210-pound Veen profiles as a middle-of-the-order slugger if he approaches his full potential.

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David Laurila: I’ll start with a question I’ve asked several hitters over the years: Do you see hitting as more of an art, or more of a science?

Zac Veen: “For me, it’s more of an art. I’m more of a feel hitter and don’t really get into a lot of the analytics. Guys who look at a lot of video… I’d say it’s more of a science to them, but I like to stay away from a lot of that stuff. It can be helpful, but for the most part I’m more of a feel, see how the ball comes off the bat kind of guy.”

Laurila: It’s pretty common for young hitters to go into a cage and use technology when working to fine-tune their swings. Have you done that at all?

Veen: “I’ve tried it, my junior year of high school, but that caused me to overthink things a little bit. I’d take a really good swing, then I’d look at the video and be like, ‘Oh, wow, I can do this differently,’ instead of just being happy with a line drive to centerfield. That’s not something I want to do. When I take a good swing, I want to just be happy with it, and not be too picky about anything.”

Laurila: Is the swing you have right now, at age 19, essentially the same swing you had a few years ago, or has it evolved? Read the rest of this entry »

This week may be Prospects Week here at FanGraphs, but for MLB, this has been Minor Signings Week. The long offseason dance is just about over, and everyone’s now at risk of going to homecoming alone. So rather than a long spiel that sees me reference a historical battle or obscure 18th-century literature, let’s get straight to the moves.

Read the rest of this entry »

Greg Bird hasn’t been right since 2015. The Rockies haven’t gotten acceptable production from their first basemen since 2014. This could be the start of a beautiful relationship — or it could amount to nothing, as most minor league deals do. We’re about to find out, as the Rockies announced on Thursday that they’ve signed Bird to a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training.

Bird, who’s still just 28 years old, is coming off a more miserable 2020 than most of us. Bad luck in the injury department, a constant throughout his major league career, continued to dog him to the point that he didn’t take a single competitive plate appearance for either of the two organizations with whom he signed minor league deals. Cast adrift by the Yankees in November 2019 — we’ll get to the saga that led there — he initially signed with the Rangers last February, and after getting called up from the alternate training site in late July, before he could play a single game, he strained his right calf. After a 10-day stint on the Injured List, he was designated for assignment and elected free agency. Upon signing with the Phillies in mid-September, he came up positive for COVID-19 during his intake testing, and never even made it to the alternate site.

That Bird has landed with the Rockies makes sense given his area ties. He’s a graduate of Grandview High School in Aurora, Colorado, where he caught Kevin Gausman, who was a year ahead of him. Shortly after earning the Gatorade Player of the Year award for Colorado in 2011, Bird was drafted by the Yankees in the fifth round, and soon moved to first base. His major league career, which began on August 13, 2015, started with great promise, for soon after arriving, he became a lineup regular once Mark Teixeira suffered a season-ending fracture after fouling a ball off his right leg. Bird, 22 at the time, proceeded to launch a flurry of home runs — 11 in 178 plate appearances while batting .261/.343/.529 (137 wRC+), making him the clear heir apparent as the 36-year-old Teixeira limped into the final season of his eight-year contract.

Unfortunately, the story unravels from there. Bird missed all of 2016 after undergoing surgery on his right (throwing) shoulder to repair a torn labrum, the recurrence of an injury he’d suffered the previous May. Towards the end of a promising spring in 2017, he fouled a ball off his right ankle and played through it, going on the DL on May 2 after starting the season in a 6-for-60 skid, then undergoing surgery to remove the os trigonum bone in his ankle, which sidelined him until late August. Though his final numbers were dreadful (.190/.288/.422, 87 wRC+), he hit a respectable .253/.316/.575 with eight homers in 98 PA upon returning, and then .244/.426/.512 with three homers in 54 PA during the postseason, highlighted by an upper-deck solo homer off Andrew Miller that provided the only run in Game 3 of the Division Series. Greg Bird was back, baby! Read the rest of this entry »

It was never going to be enough for one of the more electrifying players in the world, but allow me to sing one part of the harmony panning the Rockies’ return for Nolan Arenado. As I was on the phone working on prospects lists in the days before the trade’s prospect details were finalized, casual conversation with scouts and front office folks indicated that both Arenado’s public request for a trade as well as Rockies ownership’s supposedly mediocre financial situation made it so that teams pursuing the third baseman were really leveraging Colorado into taking an underwhelming prospect package, knowing that the front office (which is different than ownership) would have no choice but to trade him, and soon. While I can’t know what other offers the Rockies received or how those prospect packages compared to the one they got, which we’d really need to know to truly evaluate this or any trade, it certainly isn’t an exciting group. They’re 40 FV prospects who I think can be big league role players, but none are potential stars, and there may not even be a regular among them. I think you could argue this group does better to mitigate risk through quantity than, say, the prospects in the Joe Musgrove trade, but the best piece in the Musgrove trade (Hudson Head, a 45 FV) is two full FV grades better than anyone in this deal. And St. Louis got Nolan Arenado.

But let’s talk about these players — Austin Gomber, Elehuris Montero, Mateo Gil, Tony Locey, Jake Sommers — and then the future of this bizarre Rockies organization. The player in this deal with the most obvious physical talent is 22-year-old 3B/1B Elehuris Montero, who spent the year at the Cardinals’ alternate site. He peaked as a 40+ FV prospect after his 2018 performance (.322/.381/.529 at Low-A) but I backed off of him after spending an extended period watching him in the 2019 Arizona Fall League. His approach is a problem. During some of his Fall League starts, Montero saw five pitches over the course of an entire game. During the regular season, he averaged just shy of 2.5 pitches per plate appearance. For comparison’s sake, among big league hitters with at least 200 PAs in 2019, Willians Astudillo ranked last in pitches per PA with 2.9; no other big leaguer was under three. From a hitting talent perspective — the bat speed, primarily — Montero has everyday upside, but corner bats with approach issues are terrifying prospects. Read the rest of this entry »

For years, rumors have connected Nolan Arenado and the St. Louis Cardinals. Some of it was wishcasting — Cardinals fans have spent the last 25 years expecting (and often seeing) trades for unhappy superstars, and Arenado sure seemed unhappy. Some of it was actual interest — the Cardinals have been in the superstar trade market and the Rockies have been in the move-Arenado market at various points. Today, it’s happening: per The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, Arenado has been traded to the Cardinals for five players: Austin Gomber, Mateo Gil, Tony Locey, Elehuris Montero, and Jake Sommers.

The sticking point in any Arenado trade was always going to be capitalism. That’s painting with a broad brush, so let’s rephrase: there’s no doubt that Arenado is one of the best players in the game, but the vagaries of his contract and the math of surplus value combined to limit a potential return. Remember when Giancarlo Stanton got traded to the Yankees for essentially nothing? This would be like that, only potentially even worse.

Arenado is due $199 million over the next six years. That’s a large contract, as befits a player of his stature. If you value one win above replacement at around $8 million (my best estimate at present, though the error bars are huge given the pandemic), Arenado would need to produce roughly 25 WAR over the next six years to break even. We’ve got ZiPS forecasts for the next five of those years:

The numbers fall a little short, which is why finding a trading partner for Arenado has proved so elusive even as rumors of his availability persisted. That doesn’t even take into account a player option that would allow him to become a free agent after the 2021 season; it’s hard to trade a lot for a player who might not be on your team in a year’s time.

Those are the reasons that Arenado was a strange piece to fit in a trade. The counter? Arenado is an awesome player! He’s Nolan Arenado, for crying out loud. Over the last five years, he’s been the seventh-best position player in the game. At 29, he’s not a spring chicken anymore, but he’s still one of the best third basemen out there. Every single team in baseball would be improved by adding him, even if they had to shift a few pieces around to fit him in.

This weird dichotomy — excellent player, middling trade chip — explains the strangeness of this deal. Though the terms of the deal aren’t final, the Rockies are reportedly sending roughly $50 million to the Cardinals as part of the trade, and Arenado has agreed to defer some of his compensation to further sweeten the financial pot for St. Louis. The Cardinals gave Arenado an extra opt-out and an extra year reported at $15 million in exchange. There are all kinds of wild financial things going on in this deal, but let’s skip all that for now and focus on what St. Louis is getting on the field.

The highlight of this trade is pretty clear: the Cardinals just got a new best player on their team. The NL Central is up for grabs this year, and the four teams with a realistic shot at it have spent the offseason doing a whole lot of nothing. Adam Wainwright, who signed earlier this week, was the first player the Cardinals inked to a major league contract all offseason. Read the rest of this entry »

Dave Magadan was a productive big-league hitter — he logged a 117 wRC+ from 1986 to 2001 — and he’s followed up his playing career with several stints as a hitting coach. In that role with the Colorado Rockies for each of the past two seasons, Magadan previously plied his trade with the San Diego Padres, Boston Red Sox, Texas Rangers, and Arizona Diamondbacks. His current situation is arguably the most challenging he’s faced. Having Coors Field as a home venue is a mixed blessing, and it goes without saying that today’s offensive environment is anything but ideal. Magadan has a boatload of experience and expertise, but he’s also got his work cut out for him.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with the fact that the game has changed — hitting has changed — since your playing days.

Dave Magadan: “I guess I’m a little biased. I like guys that control the strike zone and hit for a good average. It’s gone so far in the other direction, where guys don’t mind striking out 180 times as long as they’re hitting the ball out of the park. But there’s always a place for guys who give you good at-bats, get on base, consistently hit the ball hard, and aren’t overmatched by a certain type of pitcher. And there are guys like that in the game, but they’re just not as plentiful as when I played.”

Laurila: How much of the balls-in-play issue is swing plane, and the inability to handle the elevated fastball?

Magadan: “We could do about two hours on that, right? I mean, there is so much malpractice out there in the world of baseball. Not big-league hitting coaches, but guys who are trying to make names for themselves being hitting gurus, teaching kids to swing up and create that launch angle that that is so deceptive. Let’s forget about the swing plane; let’s just talk about contact point. To hit the ball in the air, you have to hit the ball out in front, but when you’re consistently trying to create that contact point, you’re going to swing and miss. You’re going to chase breaking balls, you’re going to chase changeups, you’re not going to be able to hit the late-action pitches. Read the rest of this entry »