With just hours to go until Tuesday’s trade deadline, the Twins shored up their bullpen, acquiring All-Star closer Jorge López from the TwinsOrioles for four pitching prospects. López, a 2020 waiver claim who was once a big part of a Mike Moustakas trade, has blossomed in 2022 upon being converted to a full-time reliever, saving 19 games for the O’s and putting up a 1.68 ERA and 2.99 FIP. Heading to Baltimore are Cade Povich, Yennier Cano, Juan Nunez, and Juan Rojas.

Not to be outdone, the Brewers made a relief addition of their own, picking up Matt Bush for pitcher Antoine Kelly and second baseman/third baseman Mark Mathias. Finally back after the second Tommy John surgery of his career, Bush has been sterling in his return, striking out 11 batters per game with his fastball returning to the upper 90s. Read the rest of this entry »

Again, the focus of this series remains on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 10%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less thus far, which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season. With most contenders reasonably well-situated at third base, I’ve loosened the criteria a bit for reasons that will become clear. As noted previously, some of these situations are more dire than others, particularly when taken in the context of the rest of their roster. I don’t expect every team on these lists to upgrade before the August 2 deadline, and I’m less concerned with the solutions – many of which have more moving parts involved than a single trade — than the problems.

Read the rest of this entry »

The trade deadline is nearly here and once again, team behavior will be affected by 40-man roster dynamics. Teams with an especially high number of currently-rostered players under contract for 2023 and prospects who need to be added to the 40-man in the offseason have what is often called a 40-man “crunch,” “overage,” or need to “churn.” This means the team has incentive to clear its overflow of players by either packaging several to acquire just one in return, or by trading for something the club can keep — international pool space, comp picks, or, more typically, younger players whose 40-man clocks are further from midnight — rather than do nothing and later lose some of those players to waivers or in the Rule 5 Draft. Teams can take care of this issue with transactions between the end of the season and the 40-man roster deadline in November, but a contending team with a crunch has more incentive to do something before the trade deadline so the results of those deals can bolster the club’s ability to reach the postseason.

In an effort to see whose depth might influence trade behavior, I assess teams’ 40-man futures every year. This exercise is done by using the RosterResource Depth Chart pages to examine current 40-man situations, subtracting pending free agents using the Team Payroll tab, and then weighing the December 2022 Rule 5 eligible prospects (or players who became eligible in past seasons and are having a strong year) to see which clubs have the biggest crunch coming. I then make an educated guess about which of those orgs might behave differently in the trade market as a result.

Some quick rules about 40-man rosters. Almost none of them contain exactly 40 players in-season because teams can add a player to the 40 to replace one who is on the 60-day injured list. In the offseason, teams don’t get extra spots for injured players and have to get down to 40 precisely, so if they want to keep some of their injury fill-ins, they have to cut someone else from the 40-man to make room. Read the rest of this entry »

From the point at which the Twins chose him with the second overall pick out of a Georgia high school a decade ago, Byron Buxton figured to make an All-Star team, or several of them. Yet not until Sunday, in the midst of his eighth major league season, did the powerful and fleet-footed center fielder officially become one. Buxton was among the reserves added to the American League team via a vote by his fellow players.

The honor is well deserved given that the 28-year-old Buxton ranks fourth among all outfielders in WAR (limiting the definition to those who have played at least 50% of their games in the pasture):

By WAR and wRC+, where his mark of 132 is in a virtual tie for 11th among the same group, Buxton is clearly having a strong season, but as his slash line shows, it’s been an uneven one. He’s hardly the first player to make an All-Star team despite carrying an on-base percentage below .300, even in the past decade; Salvador Perez did it annually from 2014-18, in seasons where his first-half OBP was as low as .259, and where his final mark as low as .274 (both 2018). Likewise with batting average when, for example, Mike Zunino had a first-half mark of .198 just last year. Read the rest of this entry »

Kyle Garlick was a long shot to make the big leagues when he was first featured here at FanGraphs in 2016. A 28th-round senior-sign by the Los Angeles Dodgers the previous summer, Garlick was 24 years old, unranked, and very much under the radar. Moreover, he was heading into an offseason where he’d be working two jobs to help make ends meet. As Garlick explained at the time, he was going to be working half days on a construction crew, and bar-backing at a restaurant on weekends.

Six years later, he is a valuable role player on a contending team. In 81 plate appearances with the Minnesota Twins, the right-handed-hitting outfielder is slashing .274/.333/.534 with six home runs and a 145 wRC+.

There have been a lot of ups and downs along the way. Since debuting with the Dodgers in 2019, Garlick has been traded once, claimed off of waivers twice, and spent multiple stints on the injured list and in Triple-A. That his MLB resume consists of 111 games over parts of four seasons qualifies as an accomplishment.

Earlier this season, I asked Garlick about his expectations at the time of our 2016 conversation. Did he truly see himself reaching the big leagues?

“Personally, I was very sure,” responded Garlick. “I don’t know that others were. But even though I had faith in myself, I had backup plans. When I went back to Triple-A in 2019. my thought was that if I didn’t get called up that year, I would give myself 2020. If I didn’t get called up then, I was probably going to hang it up. Luckily that didn’t happen. I got called up [in 2019] and that changed my life. I’ve been able to make myself a little career out of baseball.”

Garlick earned a degree in General Social Science from the University of Oregon, but his backup plan had no connection to his studies. He was going to become a firefighter.

“I had a few buddies doing that, and they loved it,” explained Garlick. “It’s kind of a clubhouse vibe, and I’d have been doing things like saving lives. I couldn’t see myself in a desk job, sitting behind a screen, and that’s something that appealed to me.”

Not so much anymore. Garlick celebrated his 30th birthday this past winter, and while he can still square up high heaters, fighting flames is another story

“I’m getting older,” Garlick reasoned. “I don’t know how many guys start firefighting when they’re my age, but it’s probably not too many. So, I’m not sure what comes next. I kind of put all of my eggs in one basket for baseball when I chose a college major. Maybe I’ll stay in the game in some capacity. I’ll figure that out when the time comes.”

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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Tom Prince went 3 for 5 against Jeremy Affeldt.

Jeff King went 5 for 8 against Rick Aguilera.

Dave Kingman went 6 for 9 against Matt Young.

Jimmy Outlaw went 6 for 9 against Mel Queen Sr.

Roberto Clemente went 6 for 12 against Mel Queen Jr.

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Dan Dickerson wasn’t one of the contributors to Broadcaster’s View: What is the Best Pitching Performance You’ve Seen? when the piece ran here at FanGraphs on June 2nd. Better late than never, the radio play-by-play voice of the Detroit Tigers shared the following when I caught up to him at Fenway Park a few weeks ago.

“My No. 1 would be Kenny Rogers against the Yankees, Game Three of the 2006 ALDS,” Dickerson told me, adding that the southpaw’s career ERA against the Bronx Bombers was well north of six. “That lineup was loaded. As Jim Leyland called it, it was ‘Murderer’s Row, and then Cano.’ Robinson Canó was hitting ninth.

“He went out there and channeled young Kenny Rogers, at 41 years old,” continued Dickerson. “I don’t know what the radar gun said — I’m not even sure there was a radar gun — but he was reaching back and firing fastballs. And he was so animated. He was feeding off the crowd and vice versa. When he left the mound, that place just erupted. I think he went seven-and-two-thirds, but whatever it was, he was incredible.”

Dickerson’s second and third choices were by the same pitcher.

“I’ve seen Justin Verlander’s no-hitters, but his back-to-back Game Fives in Oakland — almost exactly one year apart to the day — are the ones that stand out the most,” said Dickerson. “Two years in a row, the Tigers had to play a deciding Game Five in Oakland, and those crowds were the loudest I’ve heard in the postseason. That place was crazy. It was like a Raiders game.

“[Verlander’s] combined line for the two games was 17 innings, no runs, six hits, two walks, and 21 strikeouts. I mean, who do you want on the mound in a big game? The answer is Justin Verlander. Deciding games, and it was, ‘This is what I want, and this is what I’m going to do.’ Phenomenal.”

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A quiz:

Dave Righetti completed his July 4, 1983 no-hitter by striking out that season’s American League batting champion. Who did the New York Yankees southpaw fan for the final out?

The answer can be found below.

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NEWS NOTES

SABR has added a Baseball Broadcasting panel to its annual convention, which will be held in Baltimore from August 17-21. Kevin Brown, the TV play-by-play voice of the Orioles, and Joe Castiglione, the radio play-by-play voice of the Red Sox, will be the featured panelists.

Joe Staton, a first baseman for the Detroit Tigers for parts of the 1972 and 1973 seasons, died earlier this month at age 74. A Seattle native who went a combined 4 for 19 in his two cups of coffee, Staton had an RBI single in his final MLB plate appearance, then retired from baseball at age 25.

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The answer to the quiz is Boston’s Wade Boggs, who went on to finish the season with a .361 average and just 36 strikeouts in 685 plate appearances. Righetti fanned the Hall of Famer twice while pitching his July 4 gem.

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Tyler Mahle was refreshingly honest when I asked him about his curveball prior to the 2020 season. Shortly before spring-training camps were shut down due to the emerging pandemic, the Cincinnati Reds right-hander told me that not only was the pitch a work-in-progress, “Technically, [he hadn’t] thrown a really good curveball yet.”

He had thrown some bad ones. In 2019, Mahle’s curveball usage was 23.1%, and his 3-12 won-lost record was accompanied by a 5.14 ERA. Aware that the pitch had been getting squared up all too often, he was hoping to remake it into an actual asset. Instead, he ended up scrapping it entirely. Mahre hasn’t thrown a curveball since our 27-months-ago conversation.

When I asked Mahle about that at the beginning of this month, he said the decision was based more on the quality of his slider than it was on the inability to develop a reliable hook. He also pointed to the continued improvement of his splitter, which he learned in 2018 after being sent back down to Triple-A. Taught to him by then-Louisville Bats pitching coach Jeff Fassero, it proved a panacea to his longtime struggles to effectively throw a conventional changeup.

Mahle has thrown his splitter 25.4% of the time this year while going 3-6 with a 4.53 and a 3.38 FIP. Last season he went 13-6 with a 3.75 and a 3.80 FIP.

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Shogo Akiyama is returning to NPB, having reportedly agreed to a three-year deal with the Hiroshima Carp. The 34-year-old outfielder played for the Seibu Lions from 2011-2019 before spending the 2020 and 2021 campaigns with the Cincinnati Reds. Akiyama was with San Diego’s Triple-A affiliate earlier this season.

Kensuke Kondoh has been activated from the injured list by the Nippon-Ham Fighters. The 28-year-old, lft-handed-hitting outfielder has a .307/.410/.430 slash line over 11 NPB seasons.

Enny Romero is 6-4 with a 2.00 ERA over 72 innings for NPB’s Chiba Lotte Marines. The 31-year-old former MLB left-hander has been pitching in Japan since 2019.

Per MassLive’s Katie Morrison, Thomas Pannone has been granted his release by the Red Sox and will be taking his talents to the KBO. The 28-year-old former Toronto Blue Jays southpaw signed with Boston in March and has been pitching for Triple-A Worcester.

Yefry Ramírez allowed four runs over two-and-a-third innings in his first appearance with the Hanwha Eagles. The 28-year-old former big-league right-hander signed with the KBO club earlier this month.

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Brayan Peña manages the West Michigan Whitecaps. He’s also a diehard fan of Real Madrid. In his second season at the helm of Detroit’s High-A affiliate, Peña has been supporting the legendary Spanish soccer club for most of his 40 years.

“When I grew up in Havana, Cuba, there were only two teams that you would root for, and that was Barcelona or Real Madrid,” Peña said of his fútbol allegiance. “My family loved Real Madrid. They loved the uniforms, everything. Mentally, we would picture Madrid — such a beautiful place — and I knew that I wanted to visit one day.”

That dream came true after Peña retired from a big-league playing career that spanned the 2005-2016 seasons. Traveling to Spain, he was able to purchase not only the Real Madrid jersey that hangs in his office, but also
tickets for a match at 81,000-seat Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.

“We had a chance to see Cristiano Ronaldo play, too” Peña said of the Portuguese superstar. “It was beautiful, man. It was one of my dreams, and it came true. God allowed me to be in that position with my wife and my kids. It was awesome.”

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FARM NOTES

Jared Shuster has a 3.27 ERA over 14 starts comprising 71-and-two-thirds innings for the Double-A Mississippi Braves. The 23-year-old left-hander — No. 4 on our Atlanta Braves Top Prospects list — has allowed 57 hits, issued 19 walks, and logged 82 strikeouts.

Cole Ragans has a 2.50 ERA over 13 starts comprising 68-and-third innings between Double-A Frisco and Triple-A Round Rock. The 24-year-old left-hander — No. 20 on our Texas Rangers Top Prospects list — has allowed 54 hits, issued 22 walks, and logged 84 strikeouts.

Drew Parrish has a 3.13 ERA over 14 starts comprising 74-and-two-thirds innings between Double-A Northwest Arkansas and Triple-A Omaha. The 24-year-old left-hander — No. 17 on our Kansas City Royals Top Prospects list — has allowed 51 hits, issued 23 walks, and logged 60 strikeouts.

Emerson Hancock has a 3.03 ERA over eight starts comprising 29-and-two-thirds innings for the Double-A Arkansas Travelers. No. 6 on our Seattle Mariners Top Prospects list, the 23-year-old right-hander discussed his repertoire and early-career development here at FanGraphs last summer.

Peyton Battenfield has a 3.08 ERA over 16 starts comprising 90-and-two-thirds innings for the Triple-A Columbus Clippers. No. 25 on our Cleveland Guardians Top Prospects list, the 24-year-old right-hander was featured here at FanGraphs last August, a month after being traded to Cleveland by the Tampa Bay Rays.

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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

At Crawfish Boxes, Cody Poage wrote about Houston Astros reliever Enoli Paredes, for whom control is the key.

Purple Row’s Renee Dechert feels that Colorado Rockies fans deserve better, and she has opinions on how to make that happen.

Pitching coach Wes Johnson unexpectedly left the Minnesota Twins to assume that same role at Louisiana State University. Dan Hayes has the story at The Athletic (subscription required).

The Senate Judiciary Committee is questioning the legality of MLB’s antitrust exemption, and Joon Lee wrote about it for ESPN.

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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

Manny Machado, who turns 30 years old on July 6, has a .282 batting average, 1,510 hits, and 263 home runs. Ron Santo had a .281 batting average, 1,592 hits, and 253 home runs prior to turning 30.

The first year the Boston Red Sox hit more home runs than triples as a team was 1931. Last year the Red Sox hit 219 home runs and 23 triples. (Hat tip to historian Bill Nowlin for the fact.)

Thirty-two people born in the state of New Hampshire have pitched in at least one big-league game. Of them, Sam Fuld is the only one with a career ERA of 0.00. The erstwhile outfielder — now the general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies — faced one batter in 2013 while playing for the Tampa Bay Rays. Fuld retired JB Shuck on a fly ball.

In 1938, Philadelphia Athletics outfielder “Indian Bob” Johnson had 114 runs scored, 113 RBIs, and a .552 slugging percentage. In 1939, Johnson had 115 runs scored, 114 RBIs, and a .553 slugging percentage,

Chick Stahl had 72 walks and just 10 strikeouts when he slashed .351/.426/.493 for the National League’s Boston Beaneaters in 1899. Stahl was a 34-year-old player-manager for the Boston Americans when he died after drinking poison in 1907.

On today’s date in 1912, the New York Giants won their 15th and 16th games in a row by sweeping a double-header from the Brooklyn Dodgers. The John McGraw-managed club ran their record to 54-11 on the way to a 103-48-3 season.

On today’s date in 1966, Atlanta Braves pitcher Tony Cloninger helped his own cause with a pair of grand slams in a complete-game 17-3 win over the San Francisco Giants. The right-hander went 3 for 5 with nine RBIs on the day, while Hank Aaron, Rico Carty, and Joe Torre homered in support.

Luis Tiant had 19 strikeouts while tossing a 10-inning, 1-0 shutout over the Minnesota Twins on today’s date in 1968. The Cleveland righty finished the season 21-9 with a 1.60 ERA and nine shutouts.

Players born on today’s date include Bunny Brief, whose 256 home runs are the all-time record in the now-defunct American Association. The Remus, Michigan native also went deep five times over parts of four big-league seasons, with the last of his blasts coming with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1917.

Eddie Rommel — born Edwin Americus Rommel, in Baltimore — became a longtime American League umpire following a playing career that saw him go 171-119 over 13 season with the Philadelphia A’s. Twice a 20-game winner, Rommel recorded the last of his wins on July 10, 1932, working 17 innings of relief in an 18-inning, 18-17 Philadelphia win over Cleveland.

This season, Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin will have periodic minor league roundup post that run during the week. You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.

Before we get to this post’s analysis, some housekeeping. I’m continuing to trudge through the last few team lists, and hope readers will understand that part of why this has taken so long is because a) we lost multiple writers to teams during the process and b) it takes a lot for me to compromise my vision for the depth and quality of my work. I’m on pace to finish just before the draft while also updating and expanding the draft prospect list so that draftees can quickly be added to their club’s pro list right after they’re picked. I realize that continuing this way during future cycles would leave valuable and relevant info unpublished for too long, and that I need to make changes. For instance, I don’t have a Cardinals list out yet while guys like Andre Pallante, Brendan Donovan and Juan Yepez are all playing big league roles. I’ve had well-formed thoughts on that group of guys since they were part of last year’s Arizona Fall League, and need to find a way to shorten the lag between when I’m taking those notes and when they’re turned into actionable info on the site, especially when it comes to short-term big leaguers.

My approach for in-season updates (which have already underway — duh, you are reading this post) will again be to group teams based on the geographic location of their spring training facility (for example, teams with East Valley facilities in Arizona are already being updated) and drill down deepest on contending clubs (within that East Valley cluster, the Giants) as they’re more likely to part with prospects ahead of the trade deadline. There will still be à la carte updates where I see a player and add them, or where someone’s performance prompts me to source info from scouting and front office contacts and brings about a change in their evaluation or valuation. Read the rest of this entry »

This season, Eric and Tess Taruskin will each have a minor league roundup post that runs during the week, with the earlier post recapping some of the weekend’s action. You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.

Jared Shuster, LHP, Atlanta Braves
Level & Affiliate: Double-A Mississippi Age: 23 Org Rank: TBD FV: 45
Weekend Line: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 8 K

Notes
Shuster’s velocity fluctuated wildly from start to start in 2021, and altogether he averaged just 89-90 mph last year, about three ticks below his typical velo in the lead up to the 2020 draft. It has been more consistent so far in 2022 but had still resided in the 88-91 mph range until Shuster sat 91-93 in his weekend outing. Except for that brief run up to the 2020 draft, Shuster has shown below-average fastball velocity, and while it’s worth continuously monitoring for change (especially because things were up a tad in this most recent start), Shuster’s history as a player points toward this velo band being where he’ll sit for the long haul. His fastball has other characteristics that help enable it to punch above its weight, but it isn’t a plus pitch at its current velocity. Instead, he continues to rely on his plus changeup, of which he has plus command. Shuster locates his cambio down and to his arm side with remarkable consistency, and it is by far his best offering. In part because of how well he hides the ball, Shuster’s slider has some in-zone utility, especially against left-handed hitters, though he struggles to locate it in that enticing, off-the-plate location where most sliders play best. While Shuster doesn’t have a tool for every situation, he is a lefty with a plus changeup whose fastball has sneaky utility despite medium velocity, the skillset of many a No. 4/5 starter. Read the rest of this entry »

The Los Angeles Angels can’t count clubhouse chemistry as the primary reason they entered Memorial Day weekend with the third most wins in the American League. Marquee players such as Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, and Anthony Rendon — not to mention Patrick Sandoval and Taylor Ward — bear a far larger responsibility for the club’s success. Which doesn’t mean that intangibles haven’t mattered. In the opinion of Angels GM Perry Minasian, they’ve actually mattered a lot.

Asked about his approach for building a winning team, Minasian responded with a rhetorical: “Do we have enough time for this?” The 42-year-old baseball lifer then proceeded to champion the value of non-quantifiable characteristics.

“Philosophically, we’re not only trying to get talented players,” Minasian told me when the Angels visited Fenway Park earlier this month. “We’re trying to get the right DNA, the right mix of guys from a makeup standpoint. That’s really important to me. Growing up around the game — I’ve been fortunate to spend a lot of time in big-league clubhouses — I really believe in mix and fit. It’s hard to quantify, but I think it has a huge impact. The room makes a big difference.”

So too does on-field talent. Identifying it — ditto projecting it — will always be an integral part of a general manager’s job. Minasian knows that as well as anyone. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I discussed some of the young, pre-free agency players who teams should be trying to sign to long-term contract extensions. I hadn’t been planning for there to be a part two, but you guys had so many additional players you wanted to talk about, and I can’t remember the last time I got more DMs about a piece than that one — well, about a piece for which everyone isn’t mad at me, at least!

So, let’s oil up and turn the crank on the ol’ ZiPS-o-Matic and get this projection mill hopping for seven more players.

Walker Buehler, Los Angeles Dodgers: Eight years, $204 million

Buehler is currently in the second and final year of an extension with the Dodgers that pays him $4 million a year. His next deal will be a tad more pricey. Clayton Kershaw is still around in Dodger blue, but his injury history and mild decline resulted in 2021 being the year that Buehler became The Man in the rotation, reducing Kershaw to the role of deuteragonist. And while Los Angeles still has a rocking rotation, the depth isn’t quite what it was in recent years, so there should be more than slight concern that the franchise’s most valuable pitcher is unsigned. With Buehler two years from free agency, the Dodgers aren’t likely to get any massive discounts, but this is the best time to sign him if you don’t want to pay him Gerrit Cole money later. The Dodgers don’t necessarily have to stop at this figure, either; what’s the fun of being wealthy if you don’t use that cash to pay for cool things?

There may be some concern in some places about the dropoff in Buehler’s strikeout rate, but while strikeout rate changes do tend to stick very quickly, they stick far more when the underlying stats support the drop-off than when they don’t. In this case, the contact rates and swinging-strike rates haven’t worsened at all, nor has his velocity fallen off a cliff, suggesting that it’s a blip rather than a plunge. You can make a similar argument for the Dodgers signing Julio Urías to an extension, likely for a significantly lesser haul, but given the workload Buehler has shown he can handle, he’d be my priority. Read the rest of this entry »

Winning a batting title was long a prestigious accomplishment. If you led your league in hitting, you were generally viewed as one of the best in the game for that reason alone. That’s no longer the case, though, and while batting average still has meaning — like every other stat, it paints part of the picture — it only tells you so much. Metrics such as wOBA and wRC+ provide far better snapshots of a hitter’s value.

Which isn’t to say that hitting for a high average, particularly the highest average among your peers, doesn’t matter to many players. Ditto to others who make baseball their profession. As Minnesota Twins manager Rocco Baldelli put it, “I think it does matter, and it should matter. If you have a player who is getting a crap ton of hits, that’s a nice way to bring value. I’ll take a bunch of guys with a .320 batting average… who are getting on base all the time.”

Luis Arraez is that type of player. Since he debuted in 2019, no one on Baldelli’s club boasts a higher batting average, and only the now-departed Nelson Cruz has a higher OBP. A .312/.374/.400 hitter in 1,048 big-league plate appearances, Arraez profiles as a potential batting champion.

“Luis Arraez” was Jayce Tingler’s immediate response when I asked Minnesota’s bench coach which Twins player would be most likely to capture a batting title. “He’s got great judgment of the strike zone, great hand-eye [coordination], he hits the ball from chalk line to chalk line. He’s one of the best line-drive hitters in the game.” Read the rest of this entry »