One way to tell the difference between a baseball fan who has a life and a true sicko is whether they have strong opinions on players who sign minor league contracts and attend spring training on a non-roster invite. The person in a Cubs hat who’s stoked about the Kyle Tucker trade and knows all sorts of intimate biographical details about Shota Imanaga? That’s your friend. If they start talking to you about Travis Jankowski, they might be in a little too deep.

We sickos know that while championships can be won and glory earned on the major league free agent market, NRIs are nonetheless a meaningful collection of useful roster players. Sometimes more. I’d argue that these fringe hopefuls are the only players who truly stand to gain by their performance in camp.

Moreover, these players are by definition underdogs. They include former top prospects, guys recovering from injury, and itinerant Quad-A players hoping for one last spin of the wheel. If you weren’t interested in their progress on a competitive level, surely we can interest you in an underdog story. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Detroit Tigers. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the fifth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Quinn Priester is poised to take that next step and live up to his first-round pedigree. Opportunity paired with increased octane are among the reasons why. Drafted 18th overall by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2019 out of Cary-Grove High School, the erstwhile Illinois prep stands a good chance of breaking camp in the Red Sox starting rotation. With Brayan Bello (shoulder) and Kutter Crawford (knee) likely to begin the season the injured list, Priester is well positioned to help fill the void.

The enhanced heater factors heavily into his hoped-for emergence as an established big-league hurler. The 24-year-old right-hander’s two-seamer averaged 93.1 mph last year, and this spring it has consistently been a few ticks higher. In his last outing, Priester topped out at 97.

“The cutter is getting better, but more than anything it’s been the velocity piece,” Priester said of his recent developmental strides. “We’re trying to see that trend upwards, and hold throughout games. I want to be 96-plus with the sinker, and then let everything else complement that pitch.”

Added muscle has contributed to the additional oomph. Acquired by Boston at last summer’s trade deadline in exchange for Nick Yorke, Priester currently carries 220 pounds on his 6-foot-3 frame, 10 more than a year ago. He’s evolving in other ways, as well. Increasingly mature, he’s learning the nuances of his craft. Read the rest of this entry »

If the winter is a time for dreams, the spring is a time for solutions. Your team may have been going after Juan Soto or Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani, depending on the offseason, but short of something going weird in free agency (like the unsigned Boras clients last year), if you don’t have them under contract at this point, they’ll be improving someone else’s club. However, that doesn’t mean that spring training is only about ramping up for the daily grind. Teams have real needs to address, and while they’re no doubt workshopping their own solutions – or possibly convincing themselves that the problem doesn’t exist, like when I wonder why my acid reflux is awful after some spicy food – that doesn’t mean that we can’t cook up some ideas in the FanGraphs test kitchen.

This is the second piece in a three-part series in which I’ll propose one way for each team to fill a roster hole or improve for future seasons. Some of my solutions are more likely to happen than others, but I tried to say away from the completely implausible ones. We’ll leave the hypothetical trades for Bobby Witt Jr. and Paul Skenes to WFAN callers. Also, I will not recommend the same fix for different teams; in real life, for example, David Robertson can help only one club’s bullpen. Today, we’ll cover the 10 teams in the Central divisions, beginning with the five in the AL Central before moving on to their counterparts in the NL Central. Each division is sorted by the current Depth Charts projected win totals.

Minnesota Twins: Take Mickey Gasper seriously
Faced with big questions at first base, the Twins made just about the least interesting move possible, signing Ty France to a cheap one-year deal. Over the last two seasons, France has put up 0.4 WAR in 1,200 plate appearances, but Minnesota seems content to run him out there in at least a timeshare with Jose Miranda. Instead, what the Twins should do is let Mickey Gasper take the majority of the playing time at first against righties, with Miranda getting the nod against lefties. Of course, the Twins probably won’t get rid of France after signing him to a guaranteed deal, but Gasper offers positional flexibility and should be on the roster anyway. In addition to first base, he also has experience at second, third and catcher. While in the minors with the Red Sox last year, Gasper posted a 165 wRC+ across 380 plate appearances, with a 179 mark over his 204 PA at Triple-A. Those numbers are more than good enough for him to deserve a chance in the majors.

Detroit Tigers: Do something weird with Javier Báez
If not for his salary, Javier Báez probably wouldn’t be guaranteed a place on this roster based on his production over the last two seasons. I think his inability to make contact is here to stay, so the Tigers are going to have to take him for what he is now instead of the player they thought they were signing three offseasons ago. At this point, he’s nothing more than a short-side platoon partner for shortstop Trey Sweeney, but if he’s going to be on the roster anyway, the Tigers might as well try some things with him. Why not get weird and give him some bullpen innings this spring? Báez has always had a strong arm, so if he’s down with the idea, maybe this is another way to justify his presence on the roster. After all, that two-way player designation is a thing now! Sure, it’s unlikely that Báez would transition into a usable relief pitcher at age 32, but the team doesn’t have much to lose here. At the very least, Detroit should give Báez reps in a super-utility role, but I like dreaming big, or at least dreaming odd. I’ve always felt spring training was the time for teams to embrace their weird impulses because it’s the only time they can truly experiment with their major league roster.

Kansas City Royals: Give Drew Waters a fair shake at a starting corner outfield job
The Royals missed an opportunity to upgrade their corner outfield positions this winter, but that doesn’t mean they should run it back with the group they had last year. Drew Waters certainly didn’t excel with a semi-regular role for a long stretch in 2023, but his wRC+ of 81 that year wasn’t much different from the 85 mark that MJ Melendez posted in 2024, and Melendez’s rough line came in three times as many plate appearances. Maybe Melendez has more offensive upside, but that isn’t enough of a reason for Kansas City to keep running him out there in left field, where he is a defensive liability. Waters is the more well-rounded player, and even if he doesn’t improve at the plate, his defensive value should make up for at least some of his lack of offense. Moreover, both players are 26, so this isn’t an age-related thing. Playing Waters in left doesn’t mean the Royals should give up on Melendez altogether; there will still be opportunities to get him plate appearances without having him wear a leather glove.

Cleveland Guardians: Stretch out a reliever for short starts
The Guardians look to have a terrific, deep, exciting bullpen, but the rotation doesn’t have that same rizz. Am I using that word right, fellow kids? I talked more about starter-reliever ambiguity with the Orioles in the first part of this series, but it’s relevant here for Cleveland, too. Triston McKenzie is no sure thing, and Shane Bieber isn’t likely returning until midseason, so another starter would be a nice thing to have. Since the Guardians don’t like to spend money, I won’t give them one of the remaining inning-eaters still available in free agency. Instead, I’ll pitch the idea of stretching out one of their relievers to start some four-inning specials. The deep bullpen gives them both the opportunity to lose someone and cover for a starter with a light workload, even by 2025 standards. Hunter Gaddis broke out in the bullpen in 2024, but he was one of their least dominant relievers in terms of punching out batters. Gaddis isn’t exactly a failed starter, because he hasn’t gotten enough run in that role, but he has refined his approach and become a better pitcher during his time in the bullpen. He’s now throwing more first-pitch strikes than he ever did in the minors. If he can keep that up, he’ll probably be the team’s best option for this starter-lite role.

Chicago White Sox: Embrace riskiness on offense
The White Sox have no hope of making a playoff run, so they have nothing to lose by taking chances with their roster. And right now, their lineup is full of veteran role players who don’t offer them much future value. Guys like Mike Tauchman, Michael A. Taylor, Austin Slater, Andrew Benintendi, and Joey Gallo won’t be around by the time this team is ready to contend again, and Chicago probably won’t be able to flip them for much at the trade deadline. So what’s the point in giving them regular playing time? Instead, the White Sox should be chasing upside right now, even if that upside comes with risk.

At this point in the offseason, the Pale Hose won’t find high-upside hitters on the free agent market, but they have plenty of them in their farm system. Really, the White Sox should be extremely aggressive with their prospects and non-prospect minor leaguers this spring, and give them as many opportunities as possible to snatch a starting spot away from the veterans. Let Chase Meidroth push Lenyn Sosa; offer Bryan Ramos every chance to knock Miguel Vargas permanently off the hot corner. Even less-heralded guys like Cal Mitchell, Andre Lipcius, or the recently outrighted Zach DeLoach have a better chance of one day contributing to a good White Sox team than Benintendi or Slater do.

Chicago Cubs: Explore a trade for Germán Márquez
ZiPS is highly optimistic about the Cubs entering 2025, but that’s largely due to a very bullish outlook on the bullpen, rather than a great deal of sunshine radiating over the pitching staff. The Cubs feel like a team that could use one more starting pitcher, with our Depth Charts having them just ahead of the Cardinals for the worst projected rotation in the NL Central, and ZiPS liking them only slightly better.

My inclination here was to effect a reunion with Marcus Stroman, but the Luis Gil injury seems to have put the kibosh on that. With that no longer an option, I’d love to see the Cubs swing a deal with the Rockies for Germán Márquez. A legitimate Cy Young contender at one point, Márquez has seen his last two seasons more or less wiped out due to elbow problems. That means there’s real risk, but as Michael Baumann wrote last week, Márquez’s velocity is back, and there’s a great deal of upside here if he’s healthy, similar to Jack Flaherty entering 2024. If there’s room for Márquez to make his hard sinker a larger part of his game, there are few better places to allow some extra grounders than in front of Nico Hoerner and Dansby Swanson.

Milwaukee Brewers: Trade with the Nats for Andrés Chaparro
The Brewers love low-key additions, and one player who fascinates me at the moment is Andrés Chaparro, a former “sorta” prospect with the Yankees and Nationals. He destroyed Triple-A pitching last year, but Washington’s additions of Nathaniel Lowe and Josh Bell complicate his path to playing time. The Brewers already had Rhys Hoskins when they signed Mark Canha this offseason, meaning it might be tough for Chaparro to make the Opening Day roster as a first baseman, but at the very least he would be an interesting Triple-A stash. ZiPS is probably overrating Chaparro in projecting him to be an adequate defender at third base, but the probabilistic location-based system that ZiPS uses for minor leaguers thought he took a big step forward last year, and this methodology frequently spots some surprisingly solid fielders. I don’t think the Nats would ask for much in return, and Milwaukee ought to be adding anyone who could at least theoretically play third base, especially now that the team appears to have soured on Tyler Black at the position.

St. Louis Cardinals: Start talking about non-Arenado trades
The Cardinals are coming off one of the quietest offseasons I ever remember from them, with nearly all their effort this winter going toward a Nolan Arenado trade that hasn’t materialized. St. Louis seems to have accepted that Arenado will be its starting third baseman come Opening Day, but that doesn’t mean the team should turn off its phone. There are other trades to make. Free agency has few treasures remaining, and I’d argue that this is a seller’s market. Only handful of teams lack a realistic shot at the postseason in 2025, and I’d argue that the Cardinals should be considered among that group, even if the playoff odds say otherwise. Put it this way: If they were truly determined to contend this year, they would’ve made more of an effort this winter to improve their roster. Sonny Gray and Brendan Donovan are players that contending clubs would probably be eager to acquire if they were available.

Cincinnati Reds: Talk megadeal with Elly De La Cruz
The Reds have basically no long-term contracts bogging down their payroll, as Hunter Greene is the only player with a guaranteed deal past 2026. They haven’t made a splash in free agency to bolster their roster of cheap talent, but instead of pocketing that money saved, they should invest it in their spectacular shortstop to make sure they can keep his utter awesomeness around for the 10-15 years. Yes, Elly De La Cruz is a Scott Boras client, and Boras clients tend not to sign extensions, but that doesn’t mean the Reds shouldn’t try to work out a deal, especially now when his free agency is a long way off.

Pittsburgh Pirates: Release Andrew McCutchen
There’s nothing wrong with saying goodbye when it’s time. It was fun to see Andrew McCutchen back in Pittsburgh and be reminded of what a wonderful player he was from 2009 to 2015, good enough that I’ll have to ponder sometime in the early 2030s whether his peak was enough to make my Hall of Fame ballot. But the decision to re-sign him for $5 million for 2025 was a terrible one because using the DH spot for a no-upside 38-year-old with no defensive value is a waste of resources. I think the Pirates are far better off using those plate appearances to give Jack Suwinski a clearer bounce-back chance or to serve as a friendly home for Henry Davis at some point this season if they haven’t already given up on him. No, the Pirates won’t actually do this, but they really should. The $5 million is gone no matter what, and the Pirates are a team that actually could make the playoffs if they had a better lineup.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Rob Manfred’s Super Bowl cameo, the return of not-terrible uniforms, a new finding in the “familiarity vs. fatigue” debate about the times through the order effect, two more Dodgers signings, and an intriguingly timed alteration to the criteria for two-way-player classification. Then they preview the 2025 Minnesota Twins (46:06) with The Athletic’s Aaron Gleeman, and the 2025 Detroit Tigers (1:29:21) with The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen.

Audio intro: Josh Busman, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 1: Dave Armstrong and Mike Murray, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 2: Alex Ferrin, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Philip Bergman, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Manfred clip
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It was a bit of a weird assignment: “Hey, one of our most popular projections drops this week, would you mind telling everyone where you think it’s wrong?” Sure thing, bossman!

Joking aside, I get it. Playoff odds are probabilistic; if you asked me how many teams would miss their projected win total, I’d say half are going to come in high and the other half are going to come in low. They follow a set methodology that you can’t tweak if the results look off. That means the standings page is blind to factors human observers can see. It doesn’t know who’s getting divorced, who made a conditioning breakthrough over the winter, and who just really freaking hated the old pitching coach who got fired.

Nevertheless, these numbers are valuable because the projection system doesn’t mistake anecdotes for data and overrate the intangible. It’s a reminder to trust your gut, but only to an extent. Read the rest of this entry »

We are now just over a week from pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training, and while there are still a lot of moves left to make, we have a basic idea how teams will be fundamentally constructed for the 2025 season. Our free agent tracker still lists 124 remaining free agents, as of Monday evening, but most of these players aren’t likely to have major impacts on their new teams. Only 15 of the players are projected on our Depth Charts as being worth one win, and only three players are projected at two wins. But one player remaining, Alex Bregman, stands clearly above the pack, at least as the mean old computers judge the situation. (Sorry, Polar Bear.)

A famous Scott Boras client in his early 30s remaining unsigned due to underwhelming offers in free agency has become a common refrain over the last few years. Unlike with some of their departing free agents over the years, the Astros have made more than a token effort at retaining their star, extending a six-year, $156 million offer in December. The general belief around baseball is that the deal is still on the table, and both the front office and his teammates would be very happy to have him return. But from a baseball standpoint, is Houston necessarily the best place for Bregman? And if it isn’t, which teams should be seriously pursuing him?

Fellow Fangraphéen Michael Baumann discussed the Bregman to the Astros scenario recently, and concluded that given the team’s needs and the acquisition of Isaac Paredes, it would be hard to get the maximum value out of Bregman’s return without doing something shocking, like trading Paredes before the start of the season. Since I’ve completed the initial run of ZiPS projections, I’m now equipped to do some (very) preliminary standings projections. I projected the Astros both with and without Bregman, using the normal methodology I use, which attempts to deal with team upside and downside scenarios and injuries.

ZiPS currently projects the league with a level of parity that appears, at first glance, to be greater than in the typical season. While the Dodgers are projected at 97 wins, the Astros are the only other team projected with an over/under number of 90 wins. That doesn’t mean there will be only two 90-win teams – in fact, you should expect quite a few more teams to reach that threshold — just that there’s a lot of uncertainty in a baseball team’s performance, and currently only two clubs have enough depth across their rosters to avoid the disastrous downside scenarios that are built into this projection system.

At 90.2 wins on average, reconfiguring a healthy Astros team to play Bregman at third, Paredes at second, and Jose Altuve in the outfield (the latter has been discussed), adds 2.8 wins (again, on average) to the bottom line in the ZiPS projections. That’s enough to bump the team’s playoff probability from 69.9% to 78.0%. A gain of just over eight percentage points is solid, to be sure, but how does that compare with the rest of the league?

To answer that question, I redid the simulation an additional 29 times, adding Bregman in turn to each team to see how his presence would change its playoff probability. It’s a bit more complex than simply replacing a team’s existing third baseman because in most cases, Bregman would cause a significant reshuffling of the roster roles. I tried to keep Bregman at third base wherever possible and shift others around him, and I completely avoided implausible scenarios, such as a team signing him to be its starting catcher. So, how’d it shake out?

There are basically two questions here for projection systems to answer: 1) How many wins would Bregman add? 2) What are the utility of those wins? Bregman would represent a massive upgrade for the White Sox, but they are extremely unlikely to be relevant enough for those wins to actually matter. (Bregman would help the Pale Hose avoid rounding to zero, skyrocketing their playoff probability to 1-in-1,455!) Their rivals on the North Side, the Cubs, also rank very low on this list for the opposite reason: ZiPS already sees the Cubs as having a very strong offense. Sure, marginal wins are valuable for any team, but it’s hard for the Cubs to really leverage Bregman without one of those downside scenarios occurring, such as underperformance from guys like Matt Shaw or Seiya Suzuki, or a rash of injuries to key players. If there were a pitching equivalent of Bregman available, the Cubs would likely be at the very top of this list.

The Astros are only in the middle of the pack in terms of playoff improvement with Bregman. But two other teams that have been rumored at times to be in the mix would see a major surge in their postseason odds if they were to sign him: the Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox. The Tigers are in a position where the extra wins they’d get from Bregman would translate into a huge playoff probability boost, and though ZiPS thinks Jace Jung would be solid at third, signing Bregman would trigger a roster shuffle that would tighten up right field and the short side of Detroit’s DH platoon — the team’s two weakest positions, according to ZiPS. There’s been some speculation that Bregman could play second base for the Red Sox, but as ZiPS sees it, Boston would get more value from keeping Bregman at third, moving Rafael Devers to first, and letting Triston Casas and Masataka Yoshida fight it out at DH. This alignment would require prospect Kristian Campbell to be on the roster and filling the team’s current hole at the keystone.

But the best place for Bregman, at least in the ZiPS projections, is another AL Central team: the Kansas City Royals. While the corner outfield scenario is absolutely brutal, especially if MJ Melendez and Hunter Renfroe get the vast majority of the playing time in left and right field, respectively, ZiPS sees merit in shifting Maikel Garcia or Michael Massey into one of the corner spots on the grass, with Bregman taking over at third. ZiPS also thinks Bregman would provide a terrific resolution of the hot corner questions in Cincinnati, though there’s probably even less of a chance the Reds would actually do this than the Royals. The Padres likely don’t have enough payroll flexibility even to offer Bregman a short-term deal with an opt out, but if they could find room in their budget, sell him on playing second base, and shift Jake Cronenworth to left field — or even convince Bregman to play left — there would be more high-end scenarios in which San Diego could make the Dodgers uncomfortable.

My gut says the Tigers will be the team to land Bregman, and likely very soon if it happens. They just shored up the rotation with the signing of Jack Flaherty at an extremely reasonable price, and as the projected fourth-place team in the AL Central right now, they have a lot to gain by adding a legitimate All-Star. There’s a way, but is there a will?

A key piece of the 2024 Detroit Tigers reunited with the team on Sunday, as starting pitcher Jack Flaherty signed a two-year deal worth $35 million. Flaherty excelled for the Tigers last year, putting up a 2.95 ERA and a 3.12 FIP in 106 2/3 innings over 18 starts, good for 2.1 WAR. With the Tigers seemingly out of the playoff race in July, he was shipped to the Dodgers, with whom he won the World Series. He was respectable over 10 regular-season starts with Los Angeles, but his performance was decidedly mixed in the postseason.

Like many short-term contracts for solid players, this deal comes with its own ifs, ands, and buts. Flaherty’s guaranteed money is front-loaded, structured as a one-year, $25 million deal with a player option for $10 million in 2026 that increases to $20 million if he starts 15 games in 2025. Whether one sees the deal as a two-year contract with an opt-out or a one-year contract with a player option is a “potato, po-tah-to” issue that really doesn’t matter here; in this case, they’re the same functional thing.

What does matter is that Flaherty’s market appears to not have developed as much as that of some of the other top pitchers available. While it shouldn’t raise an eyebrow that Blake Snell and Corbin Burnes got much bigger contracts, Flaherty also received a lighter deal than Sean Manaea, Nathan Eovaldi, and Luis Severino. While Flaherty didn’t miss any significant time due to injury last year — he skipped only a single start with lower back pain in July — questions about his back were enough for the Yankees to have second thoughts about trading for him at the deadline. The Dodgers were happy enough to acquire him, and though his strikeout rate dropped off (32% to 26%), he was certainly a net plus for an injury-thinned starting staff down the stretch. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a big fan of Tommy Kahnle for reasons that don’t have that much to do with why the Tigers just signed him to a $7.75 million contract this week. Kahnle flatters the stereotype that most of a baseball team’s personality resides in its bullpen. I can offer two succinct anecdotes in support of the idea that Kahnle is someone your grandmother might euphemistically have referred to as “a character.”

The first: His torrid but fickle relationship with the Philadelphia Eagles. (Go Birds.) Kahnle has been on and off the Eagles bandwagon and back on again over the course of his career. Kahnle put the Birds in timeout in 2020 over their firing of Doug Pederson, which — far from being a sign of disloyalty — is actually precisely the kind of ferocious idiosyncrasy that makes Eagles fans the kind of people you don’t let yourself get trapped in a 1-on-1 conversation with. (Take it from me, I’ll talk your ear off about how I thought Macho Harris was the next Brian Dawkins.)

The other endearingly weird thing about Kahnle is how much he loves to throw his changeup. Read the rest of this entry »

Y’know that point in the last few rounds of every fantasy football draft when kickers and defenses start flying off the board? We’ve reached the MLB offseason version of that, when teams start making sure their bullpens are composed of relievers more akin to Brandon Aubrey than the Panthers’ defense. With the rush on relief pitching officially on, the Tigers and Mets both agreed to one-year deals with right-handed, back of the ‘pen types on Wednesday. Detroit signed Tommy Kahnle at a salary of $7.75 million for 2025, while New York guaranteed Ryne Stanek $4.5 million for his services this year, with another $500,000 available in incentives.

In 2024, Detroit’s starters threw 753 innings, while the team’s relievers nearly matched that number with 694 innings — a league-best mark for innings thrown among major league bullpens. Maintaining success while covering such a large quantity of innings is tricky business. “One of our great strengths last year was our ability to throw different looks at hitters and try to limit the number of times a hitter saw the same type of look or shape or slot in a given series.” Tigers GM Scott Harris told reporters after the Kahnle signing, “Tommy gives us a look we didn’t have.”

Alongside Kahnle, the main characters in the Tigers bullpen are likely to be right-handers Jason Foley, Beau Brieske, and Will Vest, with Tyler Holton, Sean Guenther, and Brant Hurter making up the left-handed contingent. Foley and Holton handled most of the late-inning, high-leverage work last year, with Vest and Brieske next in line to get crucial outs. Now Kahnle offers an additional option in close-game scenarios. And as one would expect from such a bullpen-reliant team, a full cast of contributors sits waiting in the wings, be they starters asked to handle a long relief role, such as Matt Manning, Ty Madden, and Kenta Maeda, or minor leaguers with options and big league experience, such as Brenan Hanifee and Alex Lange (who is working his way back from a season-ending lat injury). Read the rest of this entry »