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
Link to Fielder meme
Link to uniforms article
Link to BP TTOP study
Link to previous TTOP research
Link to MLBTR on Kershaw
Link to FG on Hernández
Link to 2024 major league rules
Link to 2021 major league rules
Link to 2019 rule announcement
Link to 2020 press release
Link to 2021 press release
Link to current glossary entry
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Link to Twins depth chart
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Link to offseason FA spending
Link to FG payrolls page
Link to A-Rod arb news
Link to RP projections
Link to 2024 RP WAR
Link to SP projections
Link to Aaron on France
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Link to Aaron’s podcast
Link to Tigers depth chart
Link to Tigers offseason tracker
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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 »

On August 18 in Colorado, Ha-Seong Kim led off first base, then dived back to beat a pickoff attempt. He tore the labrum in his right shoulder, and that was the last time we saw him play in 2024. After a failed rehab attempt, Kim underwent surgery in October, and he won’t be ready to play again until sometime between April and June. Just as uncertain: Where exactly Kim will be suiting up when he returns. There’s no doubt about his skill. Over the past four years, Kim has spent time at second, short, and third, and neither DRS nor FRV has ever rated him as below average at any of those spots. He needed a year to adjust on offense after arriving from the KBO in 2021, but over the past three seasons, he’s run a 106 wRC+. That ranks 13th among shortstops, and over the same period, his 10.5 WAR ranks 11th.

Kim entered free agency after both he and the Padres declined their ends of a mutual option, and he came in at ninth on our Top 50 Free Agents. According to the projections, he’ll command a four- or five-year deal with an AAV in the neighborhood of $19 million. However, the shoulder injury could cost him as much as half of the 2025 season, and it makes for a tough needle to thread. He’s got to sign with a team that needs a solid infielder, but not badly enough to need one right away. Moreover, a shoulder injury is especially scary for Kim, whose arm strength is an important part of his overall value and who already possesses below-average power at the plate. For that reason, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Kim get a pillow contract: Ben Clemens proposed two years with an opt-out. Back in November, Mark Feinsand reported that Kim had generated “lots of interest,” and wrote about the possibility that he’d be among the first free agents off the board. However, it’s now late January, and if you cruise through our Depth Charts, you’ll notice that there just don’t seem to be many good landing spots for Kim. Let us begin our litanies. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Fernando Rodney is a man of many hats, most of them slightly askew. Over the course of a 17-year major league career, the Dominican-born reliever showed off his signature style while pitching for 11 different teams, and that’s not even counting his minor league, independent, winter league, or international stops. During his time, he notched 327 saves (19th all-time), made three All-Star teams, and pitched in two World Series, earning a ring with the 2019 Washington Nationals. In the process, he gave the hearts of his managers plenty of workouts as his command came and went, forcing him to work his way out of jams. But when it all came together for Rodney — as it did in 2012, when he posted a microscopic 0.60 ERA while saving 48 games for the Rays — he was a sight to behold.

Rodney’s crooked hat was just one of his famous quirks. He also shot an imaginary arrow into the sky after closing games, most famously upon recording the final out for the Dominican Republic in the 2013 World Baseball Classic championship game.

Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Like Sara Lee, nobody doesn’t like Curtis Granderson. A power-hitting center fielder who reached the 20-homer plateau 10 times, with a high of 43, he was a threat to steal a base during the first decade of his major league career as well. He made three All-Star teams and had a knack for turning up on winners, starting (and starring) for six teams that made the playoffs, including two that reached the World Series, while reaching the postseason twice as a reserve acquired for the stretch run. His penchant for strikeouts made him a somewhat streaky performer, but he earned a reputation within the game for being even-keeled, thoughtful, hard working, and generous — a clubhouse leader and a favorite of teammates, fans, and media. At a time when African-American participation in baseball was (and still is) on the wane, he wore his socks high every day as a tribute to Negro Leagues players, and channeled his charitable efforts towards increasing Black participation in the sport, an effort that has carried over into his retirement. Read the rest of this entry »

Gleyber Torres is changing his stripes, so to speak. After seven seasons as a regular on the Yankees’ middle infield, the 28-year-old has agreed to a one-year, $15 million deal with the Tigers. The move fortifies the middle infield of a team fresh off its first postseason appearance in a decade while also creating an opportunity for an enigmatic player to secure a much larger deal while still in his 20s.

Acquired from the Cubs ahead of the 2016 trade deadline as part of a four-prospect package in exchange for Aroldis Chapman, Torres has spent the past seven seasons as a mainstay of the Yankees’ middle infield, playing the last three as their regular second baseman after bouncing back and forth between shortstop and second in his first four seasons. He made the American League All-Star team in both 2018 and ’19, finishing third in the AL Rookie of the Year balloting in the former year and getting a bit of down-ballot MVP support in the latter, during which he clubbed 38 homers and hit for a 125 wRC+, neither of which he’s been able to replicate.

In 2023, Torres set a career high in WAR (3.6) while posting his highest wRC+ (120) and home run total (25) since ’19, but his ’24 season was an uneven one. His final numbers were unremarkable (.257/.330/.378, 104 wRC+), and he was briefly benched twice for a lack of hustle, but he dug himself out of a deep, early slump to nose his way across the league average line. He was at his best late in the year, a top-of-the-lineup catalyst who helped the Yankees reach their first World Series since 2009. Read the rest of this entry »