Look, the Mets should not be the focus of this article. It’s trade deadline day, and we should be talking about the contenders, not the teams disassembling themselves in order to distribute their useful pieces throughout the league. But the Mets are the day’s big sellers. They’ve gotten 3.7 WAR from their bullpen this season, and they’ve traded away Huascar Brazobán and Brooks Raley, who’ve combined to provide 49% of that WAR. They’re sending Ben Rortvedt back to the Dodgers.

And so we have to start with the Mets: The last-place, 19-games-below-.500, 0.1%-playoff-odds-down-from-79.5%-on-Opening-Day Mets. Freddy Peralta is gone. A.J. Minter is gone. Luke Weaver (who provided 30% of that bullpen WAR on his own) is gone. And the Mets are not done selling. The other names being kicked around include Clay Holmes, Luis Robert Jr., and even Francisco Alvarez. It’s not a great year for the Mets, is the point. Let’s get to the trades.

Late last night, Yancen Pujols reported that the White Sox were trading for Brazobán, and The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported the return, minor league pitchers Gabe Davis and Zach Franklin. This morning, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported that the Phillies were trading for Raley, and The Athletic’s Jayson Stark reported the 70-grade names coming back to the Mets: pitcher Luke Gabrysh and outfielder John Spikerman, both of the High-A Jersey Shore BlueClaws. Then, just before noon, Just Baseball’s Aram Leighton reported that the Mets were sending catcher Rortvedt to the Dodgers in exchange for pitcher Chayce McDermott. That’s enough trades that we’re going to need headers.

Huascar Brazobán to the White Sox, Gabe Davis and Zach Franklin to the Mets

Brazobán is, at age 36, having the best season of his career. He’ll hit arbitration next year and be under team control until 2030. Since his debut in 2022, Brazobán has always put up good enough numbers. He’s never run an ERA- above 94 or an FIP- above 100. The Mets got him from the Marlins at the deadline in 2024, and he turned into a pumpkin the rest of the way, running a 5.14 ERA and a 4.31 FIP. However, he’s been great for New York for the past two seasons.

Last year, the Mets had Brazobán effectively ditch his four-seamer, cutter, and slider, and rely solely on his sinker and changeup. It’s a great combination. The two pitches have extreme arm-side run, and they come in at 96.1 mph and 90.7 mph, respectively. He does one thing really well – throw hard pitches that bore in on the hands of right-handed batters – so they’re having him do just that one thing. Over the past two years, righties have a .231 wOBA against Brazobán. Among the 219 pitchers who have faced at least 250 righties in the past year, that’s the fourth-lowest wOBA. The White Sox are getting a righty killer, which is great because this season, they’ve allowed a .320 wOBA to righties, tied for the seventh-highest mark in baseball (though we should note that their bullpen is better, running a .309 wOBA against righties, which is 19th highest).

This season, for whatever reason, Brazobán’s stuff is also working against lefties. Their wOBA against him has dropped from .379 in 2025 to .253 this year. As a result, across 46 appearances and 52 2/3 innings, he’s posted a 2.56 ERA and a 3.34 FIP. He’s on pace to set a career record for appearances, innings pitched, ERA, xERA, xFIP, and WAR. There’s definitely some luck involved here. He is running an absurd .206 BABIP and the second-lowest strand and HR/FB rates of his career. He doesn’t have great command. The Mets did not pay much for Brazobán in 2024, and he spent time in the minors in each of the last two years. Now they’re selling high and flipping him for prospects right before he starts to cost money. That may be cold comfort for Mets fans, but it’s a good trick if you can make it work. The White Sox bullpen ranks seventh by ERA and 15th by FIP this season. We should definitely expect some regression from Brazobán, but even so, he really could help them.

Now let’s talk return. The White Sox selected Davis out of Oklahoma State in the fifth round of the 2025 draft. He didn’t put up eye-popping numbers in college, but this year, the 22-year-old had a 2.63 ERA and a 2.67 FIP at High-A while striking out 30% of the batters he faced. That earned him a promotion to Double-A, where his numbers have cratered to the tune of an 8.31 ERA and a FIP to match. He hasn’t yet gotten a writeup here at FanGraphs. James Fegan slotted him in as one of the “Other Prospects of Note” in the 2025 White Sox Top Prospects list. His name was fifth under the label “Relievers Who Have a Little Something.” As such, I’m going to relay notes that Eric Longenhagen sent to me on Davis verbatim:

Coming out of his sophomore year at Oklahoma State, Davis was a big prospect and a potential first-round pick. He was a 6-foot-9 reliever who was expected to move into their rotation and, if things went well, be drafted pretty high. Instead, he struggled to throw strikes and was relegated to the bullpen again pretty quickly; his ERA was up near six for the season, and he went in the fifth round. The White Sox boldly sent him out to High-A as a starter and things went well enough that he was promoted to Double-A at the end of May, where he has struggled. This is definitely an arrow up guy, though. He’s added two ticks to his fastball, sitting 96 mph, and has touched 100 as part of a four-pitch mix. None of his secondary pitches is missing bats at a great rate, whether he’ll actually throw strikes enough to remain a starter is also unclear. But for now it’s good that he’s starting to give his cutter, slider, and changeup reps that they didn’t have in the college bullpen, and we’ll see if those improve. The Mets tend to be pretty good at improving their pitching prospects, so this is an exciting (if older) dev project for them. 35+ FV.

Zach Franklin, as Eric told me, is “more of a fully baked reliever.” He’s a 27-year-old righty with a very short arm action, almost like a catcher’s. James ranked him 20th in the White Sox organization last year. This year, Franklin has a 4.37 ERA and a 5.23 FIP in Triple-A, though we should note that his xERA and xFIP are both much lower. That’s because he’s put up an absurd 22% HR/FB, allowing nearly three homers per nine innings. Franklin is giving up all those homers for a reason: More than half the time, he throws a four-seamer with a bunch of rise. It’s racks up tons of whiffs, but when batters make contact, they hit it in the air (and this year, a long, long way). He also throws a slider and a splitter, and they rack up even more whiffs than the fastball. He’s striking out nearly a third of the batters he’s facing at Triple-A. But, as Eric notes, Franklin’s slider is closer to average, and he struggles to command the splitter. Still, Eric assigned Franklin a 40 FV, saying he “could come up tomorrow and be fine, definitely part of New York’s mix next year.”

I should end by mentioning that Eric told me a similar thing about New York’s return that I said about Brazobán: “It’s a good sign for the White Sox that they developed two lesser draft picks into desirable assets.” I don’t know if this is a trade where everybody wins. I worry that Brazobán could turn into a pumpkin just like he did when the Mets traded for him in 2024, but this is a trade involving a trio of players whose organizations have helped them find a new gear.

Brooks Raley to the Phillies, Luke Gabrysh and John Spikerman to the Mets

After four years with the Mets, Raley is bound for his sixth big league team. It would be hard to overstate just how good he was during his time in New York. After the better part of four years – he missed nearly all of 2023 due to Tommy John surgery – he’ll end his tenure with a 2.31 ERA and a 3.08 FIP. He’s a classic sinker-slider guy, and as a 38-year-old with a fastball that averages just over 90 mph, he is also a classic crafty lefty. This year, Raley is running a 1.96 ERA that’s more than a full run below his 3.10 FIP. He’s probably not going to keep stranding nearly 80% of his baserunners, but he’s outpitched his FIP in each of the past five seasons, so even though he may be out over skis just a bit, he might not be due for a sudden crash.

Raley is just a rental, but he makes all the sense in the world for a win-now Phillies team that has really struggled against left-handed hitters. Their relievers have allowed a .338 wOBA against lefties, the fifth-highest mark in baseball this season. Raley’s .235 wOBA against lefties is now the best in the Philadelphia bullpen. José Alvarado was supposed to be Philadelphia’s premier lefty out of the ‘pen, and he’s putting up the lowest hard-hit rate of his career, but everything else has gone wrong. His overall ERA is 5.71. He’s allowed a .329 BABIP and 1.38 home runs per nine innings. Even if you believe Alvarado is due for things to go his way (and his 3.39 FIP certainly makes that argument eloquently), you probably don’t want to bet your season on it, and Raley can help the Phillies right now.

Before we get into the return, I should note that Eric and I disagree on Luke Gabrysh. Specifically, Eric is only willing to put a 60 grade on his name. That’s alright; I don’t mind being the high man. Gabrysh is a 23-year-old righty whom the Phillies selected out of Saint Joseph’s in the 15th round of the 2024 draft. He’s posted a 5.14 ERA and a 5.22 FIP at High-A this season despite striking out 29% of the batters he’s faced. That’s because he’s also walking 11% of them and allowing homers to 4% of them. Gabrysh hasn’t made one of our Phillies top prospects list yet, so as we haven’t written him up before, here’s everything Eric told me about him:

Gabrysh is sitting 95-97 as a starter but ceding hard contact more than you’d think given how hard he throws. His fastball simply lacks movement often enough that it’s hittable. He currently has a cutter and slider that aren’t all that well demarcated, but he can really spin both of them. Another likely reliever, though there’s a little more variance here than Davis/Franklin because of the spin element, which is just better than either of that more-proximate-to-the-bigs duo two can offer.

John Spikerman – and here Eric and I agree: 70-grade name – came in at no. 28 on last year’s Phillies list but didn’t earn a ranking on this year’s. “Spikerman was once a center field prospect with strikeout issues,” Eric wrote, “and is now a corner outfield prospect with strikeout issues after spending the majority of his 2025 time in right.” The 23-year-old switch-hitter is running a 116 wRC+ in High-A this season, but is doing it in odd fashion. He’s dropped his strikeout rate to just under 23% and raised his walk rate to just under 20%. He has no home runs. He’s also dealt with injuries the last couple years. He played in just 62 games last year and is currently at 32 this year. Maybe the Mets think he’ll show something more when he gets healthy, but Eric has him as a fifth-outfielder type with a hit tool that might not scrape average.

In all, Spikerman seems like a flyer, while Gabrysh is a bit of a project. Maybe the Mets believe in his ability to spin the ball and figure they can help him find a fastball, or maybe they think he can focus on the cutter. Regardless, in Raley, the Phillies are getting a proven rental who can definitely help them down the stretch.

Ben Rortvedt to the Dodgers, Chayce McDermott to the Mets

Technically, this is a trade of minor leaguers, but both of these players have seen the majors often enough. You could be forgiven for not knowing that Rortvedt had ever left the Dodgers. He played well enough down the stretch for them last year, and not only did he appear during their World Series run, he batted .429 in his four postseason games. In fact, he’s had quite a journey, and I’m just going to quote from MLB Trade Rumors’ Steve Adams here because I don’t have the heart to break it down myself:

The Dodgers clearly like Rortvedt as a depth catcher…The Dodgers tried to keep him around as a depth option for 2026. Shortly after the 2025 season ended, they signed Rortvedt to a $1.25MM deal to avoid arbitration and then put him on waivers, hoping he would clear and stick around as non-roster depth.

However, that plan didn’t work, as the Reds claimed him. The Reds put him back on waivers in February and the Dodgers re-claimed him. When they tried again to get him though waivers shortly thereafter, the Mets claimed him. The Mets were then able to get him through the wire unclaimed around Opening Day.

You could argue that few players have ever known with such fine precision exactly how much their club really values them. The Dodgers liked Rortvedt enough to give him more than a million bucks but not enough to put him on the 40-man roster and avoid risking losing him off waivers twice. The Mets clearly found their affection for Rortvedt limited as well. With Alvarez, Luis Torrens, and Hayden Senger in front of him on the depth chart (and the recently claimed Shawn Ross somewhere in the mix), there wasn’t much room for Rortvedt. He’s put up an 86 wRC+ in Triple-A – better than Senger – but this is pretty much found money for the Mets. They pick up a spare catcher off waivers, wait six months, then trade him back to the team that waived him in the first place. It’s not the kind of move you’d expect from a team that started the season with World Series aspirations, but it is the kind of move you’d expect from a team that’s nearly 20 games under .500.

The Dodgers would like Rortvedt back because Will Smith has been out since early June with an inflamed disc in his neck and will need another three or four weeks to get back to Los Angeles. In the meantime, Dalton Rushing has played great, but his backups have been troubling. Chuckie Robinson is back in Triple-A after hitting for an .087 batting average in eight games, and Eliezer Alfonzo is batting a relatively gaudy .167. Steamer may think that Rortvedt can only hack a 70 wRC+ over the remainder of the season, but that’s a lot better than the numbers Robinson and Alfonzo have put up, and he’s got twice as much big league experience as those two combined. Still, there’s no guarantee that he’ll actually make it to Los Angeles, because the Dodgers finally have their dream scenario: They’ve got Rortvedt and they’re not required to put him on the 40-man.

A fourth-round pick by the Astros in 2021, the 27-year-old McDermott was a top 100(ish) prospect as recently as last year. He came in at 109 with a 50 FV on last year’s post-spring training Top 100 list, but his limited time in the majors has been disastrous. He’s made seven appearances over the last three years, and given up at least one earned run in six of them. He now has a career 12.00 ERA and a 8.74 FIP.

The Orioles DFA’d McDermott in April, and the Dodgers picked him up. He’s made two big league appearances, but I’m more interested in his minor league numbers. He has a 4.10 ERA across 32 appearances at Triple-A for the Dodgers this season, and he’s gotten there in wild fashion. He’s striking out 36% of the batters he faces, but he’s walking 18% with a 19% HR/FB. He’s running a 36% whiff rate. He’s throwing six pitches, and five of them have whiff rates over 30% (he’s only thrown six curveballs, and nobody’s swung at one yet). I don’t know how to square that with the fact that in his brief time in the majors, he hardly whiffed or struck out anybody.

McDermott is a lefty who averages 96 mph on his fastball, but the pitch is allowing a .401 wOBA in Triple-A this season. It does not appear to have a great shape. Moreover, he’s definitely not pitching like a reliever yet. Presumably, there’s a version of McDermott that could miss some bats in the majors, but he’d have to refine his pitch mix and start hitting the strike zone. The Dodgers have enough pitching in their system that a project like this isn’t worth their time, at least not when they can get another crack at Rortvedt.

Put it all together, and in these three trades, the Mets have snagged four pitchers and an outfielder. With the exception of Franklin, all of those players represent a project of some sort. Davis touches 100, but he’ll have to refine his command and work on his secondaries. Gabrysh has velocity too, but his fastball lacks shape. Spikerman’s hit tool is suspect, and he might not stay in center. McDermott also lacks control and needs to either figure out his fastball or find a new approach. If there’s a takeaway here, it’s that the Mets are betting on their pitching development machine to keep on humming. Stay tuned for more Mets sales.

The Chicago White Sox are in a position to buy at the deadline for the first time in Chris Getz’s three seasons as GM. And Getz sure is getting his money’s worth. First Luis Castillo, then Huascar Brazobán, and now an outfielder: Brenton Doyle, late of the Colorado Rockies.

Doyle, 28, is not so much a unique player as the most extreme sustainable version of the all-glove/no-bat center field archetype. He’s making $3.1 million this year as a first-year arbitration guy, and he’s under team control through 2029. Getz parted with quite a bit to get him: right-handed pitcher Mason Adams and shortstop prospect Carlos Vielma.

Doyle was a fourth-round pick out of Division II Shepherd University; he’s that school’s only big leaguer in the past 50 years, but the name fits because he plays center field like a border collie. From Doyle’s debut in 2023 to the end of last season, he led all outfielders in FRV with 44. Pete Crow-Armstrong, Jacob Young, and Ceddanne Rafaela have been better on a per-inning basis, but that’s the kind of rarefied air Doyle has been playing in. Read the rest of this entry »

Pre-deadline trades generally follow a template, with contenders filling needs by acquiring players from teams outside of the playoff races. Not every late July or early August deal fits into that pattern, however, and Saturday night brought a less common variety of trade, one between two American League teams striving for spots in the postseason field. The Mariners, who spent most of June atop the AL West but are now trying to claw their way back to the top of the division or at worst into a Wild Card slot, sent right-hander Luis Castillo to the AL Central-leading White Sox in exchange for reliever Seranthony Domínguez, outfielder Nolan Jones, and catching prospect Boston Smith.

While the players switching teams in this deal might fill some clear needs in their new locations, none of them offers a strong guarantee. Domínguez and Castillo both have high ERAs and messy peripherals this season, and Jones has been stashed in Triple-A all year after sub-replacement level performances in 2024 and ’25. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this deal is that the White Sox are absorbing all of the money remaining on Castillo’s contract, which runs through the end of next season. The Mariners not only freed up some cash, which they may very well reallocate in the coming days, but they potentially opened up a spot in their rotation for Kade Anderson, the top pitcher on our recently updated Top 100 Prospects list, and added a prospect to their system. The ability to do so, while leaving behind an all-homegrown rotation that already includes three former first-round picks, speaks well of their vaunted pitching development program.

That said, it’s not hard to understand why Mariners fans might view this deal with some amount of cynicism and disappointment. After coming within one win of the franchise’s first trip to the World Series last October, the Mariners are 54-58, third in the AL West, three games behind the Astros (57-55), a game and a half behind the Rangers (55-56), and two games out of the third AL Wild Card spot, where seven teams — including the Tigers, who traded Tarik Skubal to the Dodgers on Saturday night — are within three and a half games. Our Playoff Odds put them at 47.7% at this writing, but if they don’t repurpose some of the savings from offloading Castillo’s salary, or come away from the deadline without something more exciting than middle relief and a prospect for their trouble, this will be remembered as a salary dump or even a white flag, not to mention an abrupt and bitter finish to a stretch in which the Mariners finally ended their postseason drought. The Mariners acquired Castillo from the Reds in a five-player blockbuster ahead of the 2022 traded deadline, and he not only helped them reach the playoffs after a 21-year absence but signed a a five-year, $108 million extension that was supposed to bring more glory than just one more trip to October. Read the rest of this entry »

In years past, I’ve generally addressed the teams receiving less-than-acceptable production in one corner outfield spot or the other within the same post, but this year’s batch of right fielders is disproportionately large, mandating a separate entry that led me to combine the left and center field lists instead. There’s still some crossover between most teams’ pools of right fielders and the positions I covered in the previous post, with a couple teams from this group landing on both lists. As they look to upgrade, there’s some fluidity as well, with teams willing to test the defensive limitations of their outfielders in order to shoehorn better bats into the lineup.

While still focusing on clubs 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 out of a position thus far (which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season), I’ve also incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included the club here because its performance is worth a look.

As noted previously, some of these situations are more dire than others, particularly within the context of the rest of a team’s roster. As always, I don’t expect every team here to go out and track down upgrades before the August 3 trade deadline, but these are ones to keep an eye on. Read the rest of this entry »

In a race for a playoff spot, every edge matters. Yet all too often, for reasons that extend beyond a player’s statistics, managers and general managers fail to make the moves that could improve their teams, allowing meager production to fester at the risk of smothering a club’s postseason hopes. In Baseball Prospectus’ 2007 book, It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over, I compiled a historical All-Star squad of ignominy, identifying players at each position whose performances had dragged their teams down in tight races: the Replacement-Level Killers. I’ve revisited the concept numerous times at multiple outlets and have adapted it at FanGraphs in an expanded format since 2018.

When it comes to defining replacement-level play, we needn’t hew too closely to exactitude. Any team that’s gotten less than 0.6 WAR from a position to this point — prorating to 1.0 over a full season — is generally in the ballpark, though my final lists also incorporate our Depth Charts rest-of-season projections, which may nose them over the line. Sometimes, acceptable or even above-average defense (which may depend upon which metric one uses) coupled with total ineptitude on offense is enough to flag a team. Sometimes a club may be well ahead of replacement level but has lost a key contributor to injury; sometimes the reverse is true, but the team hasn’t yet climbed above that first-cut threshold. As with Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of hardcore pornography, I know replacement level when I see it. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello. While on paternity leave, I kept a journal about baseball and my daughter, who is not named Derek Jr., but who will henceforth be referred to as Derek Jr. You can read all of the entries here.

May 17
Yesterday, when Derek Jr. was fussy, my wife played a Black Eyes Peas song on her phone and bounced our daughter on a yoga ball. Today it became clear that she considered this to be a successful experiment and that it will be a thing in our household going forward. The baby is fussy. Let’s bounce her to that Black Eyed Peas song. On repeat. Day after day. The Black Eyed Peas playing in our home. This was not a path I could have foreseen. This is not a path I would have chosen. This already seems like it will not be a path I can escape.

While I’m feeding Derek Jr. in the evening, I catch the ninth and 10th innings of the Cubs and White Sox. The 10th inning is one of the most exciting I’ve seen in a while. The Cubs start with Pete Crow-Armstrong as the zombie runner, which already makes it must-see TV. The White Sox broadcast is apparently having some sort of kids’ day celebration, and all of the graphics have a distinctly Backyard Baseball feel to them. If you’ve never played the Backyard Sports games, then this will go right over your head, but as I watch, a realization washes over me: The speedy, lanky, left-handed, red-haired Pete-Crow Armstrong is Major League Baseball’s version of the speedy, lanky, left-handed, red-haired Pete Wheeler. I mean, come on:

On April 15, Zach Neto was at the plate with one out and nobody on in the top of the fifth inning of the Angels’ game in the Bronx, where his team trailed the Yankees, 3-2. The first two pitches, a low changeup and a high slider, were nowhere near the zone, and Neto laid off easily. The 2-0 pitch from Luis Gil was another slider, this one about belt high and bending away from the right-handed Neto, who kept the bat on his shoulder and watched as the pitch appeared to clip the outside edge of the zone. Home plate umpire Lance Barksdale held up his hand. Strike one. Neto tapped his helmet immediately to challenge the call.

The graphic on the gigantic video board in center field showed that the pitch had missed by 0.4 inches. The call was overturned; the count was now 3-0. Neto walked on the next pitch. Mike Trout stepped in, took a fifth straight ball from Gil, then let a four-seam fastball over the heart of the plate get deep on him. He unloaded, clobbering the cookie 383 feet into the right field seats for a go-ahead two-run blast.

The no-doubt Trout clout would have been the decisive blow in an Angels win if not for a misplayed popup and a Jordan Romano meltdown. The Yankees walked it off on a José Caballero single, relegating Neto’s challenge to a footnote in that night’s game story, if it was mentioned at all. Even so, the gamble was an early example of how the new automated ball-strike challenge system can make the difference between winning and losing a game. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2024, the White Sox set a single-season record by losing 121 games, and last year, they went 60-102 under rookie manager Will Venable — their third straight season with at least 100 losses. Yet now, more than a third of the way into the 2026 season, the White Sox are one of only five AL teams with a record of .500 or better. At 34-31, they currently occupy the second Wild Card spot and are just 1.5 games behind the Guardians in the AL Central race.

Our projection systems certainly didn’t see this turnaround coming, as the White Sox were forecast for a 67-95 record — worst in the AL by almost five full wins — with just a 1.1% chance of making the playoffs. In our preseason Positional Power Rankings, their starting pitching, all three outfield spots, and designated hitter all ranked among the majors’ bottom three. As of mid-April, the Sox appeared to be fulfilling their destiny of another forgettable season, having skidded to a 6-13 start while scoring just 3.16 runs per game and hitting a cringeworthy .195/.286/.316 (71 wRC+), worst in the majors across the board. Even newcomer Munetaka Murakami was hitting just .167/.346/.417 (111 wRC+) with five home runs and a 21.8% walk rate but not much else. However, since that point, the team has hit .260/.343/.451 (121 wRC+) with 73 homers, leading either the AL or the majors in all of those categories while going 28-18 (.609) for the league’s second-best record over that span, behind only the Yankees (29-17, .630). Unfortunately, the last eight of those games have been without Murakami, who suffered a Grade 2 hamstring strain running out an infield grounder on May 29 and landed on the injured list; more on him below.

While there’s a long way to go in the 2026 season, at their current pace the White Sox could post this century’s second-largest improvement in winning percentage among the teams that lost at least 108 games two years prior:

Read the rest of this entry »

The homers have yet to arrive for Andrew Benintendi.

My great, big, bold prediction for FanGraphs this year was that Benintendi would hit 30 home runs. It’s now the second week of June, and he has six. If he keeps this pace, he’ll finish with 15. Somehow, I think that means I’m off by 100%.

My reasoning at the time was flawless, of course. Benintendi the last two seasons had quietly reinvented himself. He’d always hit the ball in the air, but rarely with oomf, and almost always to left or center field. He averaged just 12 home runs per 600 plate appearances over the first eight years of his career, with sometimes good, sometimes not-so-good results.

But he clubbed exactly 20 homers in each the last two seasons. How? He simply took his existing contact-in-the-air profile and changed its direction to the pull side. He wasn’t hitting the ball farther; he was simply aiming shallower. This is the thing to do in baseball right now, unless you’re the Rays. Read the rest of this entry »

One of my favorite sticks to beat the White Sox with (and over the past few years, there have been plenty) has been the Erick Fedde trade of 2024.

You know the one: Chicago was en route to a record-breaking number of losses, and with the season in the tank, GM Chris Getz flipped three of his best-performing players — Michael Kopech, Tommy Pham, and Fedde — in a three-way deal with the Cardinals and Dodgers. The 2024 White Sox were enduring a lost season that redefined the term; trading those guys was obviously the right thing for Getz to do. My objection was the return.

The headliner for the White Sox was Miguel Vargas, who at the time was the Dodgers’ second-best utility infielder named Miguel, behind a 35-year-old for whom the Marlins had no need. The Dodgers not only got Kopech, they managed to finagle Tommy Edman, the best player in the deal, as well. Kopech immediately slotted in as a leverage reliever, Edman won NLCS MVP, and the Dodgers won the World Series. Read the rest of this entry »