For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the penultimate team is New York Yankees.

Batters

If I’ve learned anything from two decades of projection work (and people getting mad at that projection work), it’s that fans are way too optimistic about teams when everything goes great and way too pessimistic after things have gone awry.
The 2022 Yankees were a good example of this. After a first half in which they went 58-23, good for a .716 winning percentage and a Pythagorean win percentage that nearly matched, ZiPS only projected the team to go 45-36 the rest of the way. “Knave!” they shouted at me on Twitter. “Vagabond! Miscreant!” OK, maybe they didn’t use those words exactly, but there was bewilderment and more than a touch of anger that I would disrespect the Bronx Bombers so. In the end, the Yankees actually were four wins worse than that projection in the second half.

And just like things are never as amazing as they seem when everything goes your way, the reverse is true, with the Yankees again being a good example. They had their worst season since 1992 in 2023, and based on how they’ve been talked about over the last six months or so, you’d think they were a glorified Triple-A team. But the Yankees weren’t that bad — they went 82-80 in a division without a true doormat team to beat up on. That record was all of seven wins below their preseason projection, a miss that barely merits raising an eyebrow, and certainly doesn’t justify floating Brian Cashman out to sea (or bunting more). Read the rest of this entry »

One million dollars. It’s the prize money on Survivor. It’s Dr. Evil’s ransom. Apparently it’s a song by 100 gecs, a band my little brother claims I should know. It’s also the price of Zach Plesac’s services in 2024. Read the rest of this entry »

As you might have heard, the Yankees made a big splash early this offseason by trading for Juan Soto. It was one of the most impactful moves of the entire winter, and they struck quickly. Then, they went into hibernation. Their next major move didn’t come until yesterday, when they signed Marcus Stroman to a two-year deal worth $37 million, as Joel Sherman first reported.

As second acts go, it’s surely not what Yankees fans were hoping for. New York was linked to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and several other interesting pitchers were at least briefly connected to the team as well. But while Stroman is hardly the most exciting signing of the offseason, I think he’ll be an important cog in the team’s 2024 quest to get back to the playoffs, and that makes for a great fit in my opinion.

Let’s get something out of the way first: ZiPS doesn’t agree with me on this one. It thinks that Stroman is going to be a decidedly unexciting rotation option for the next two years:

In a word, yikes. That’s a desultory projection, the kind of starter that you’d be unhappy turning to in a playoff game. As you can see, the model would only have offered him about $25 million for the next two years rather than $37 million. But I’m not quite buying it, so let’s talk about why. Read the rest of this entry »

Kala’i Rosario won the Arizona Fall League’s Home Run Derby this past November, and he did so in impressive fashion. Not only did the 21-year-old Minnesota Twins outfield prospect pummel a total of 25 baseballs over the fence at Mesa’s Sloan Park, the longest of them traveled a power hitter-ish 465 feet. By and large, that is what Rosario’s game is all about. As Eric Longenhagen pointed out last summer, the 6-foot, 212-pound Papaikou, Hawaii native had previously won the 2019 Area Code Games Home Run Derby and he “swings with incredible force and has big raw power for his age.”

Rosario’s setup in the box stood out to me as much as his ability to bludgeon baseballs when I watched him capture the AFL’s derby crown. The right-handed hitter not only had his feet spread wide, he had next to no stride. I asked him about that following his finals victory over Toronto Blue Jays infield prospect Damiano Palmegiani.

“Tonight my setup was a little different, but in games I usually do a small stride, so it wasn’t a big difference,” Rosario told me. “I have power already, so I don’t lock into my coil too much. When I get into the box I kind of preset everything, and from there it’s just letting my hands do the work.”

Improving his contact skills is both a goal and a necessity for the slugger. Rosario had a 29.6% strikeout rate to go with his .252/.364/.467 slash line and 21 home runs in 530 plate appearances with High-A Cedar Rapids. As Longenhagen also opined in his midseason writeup, Rosario’s “high-effort swing has zero precision.” Widening out and shortening up have been part of his effort to alleviate that issue. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2024 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.

At his listed size of 6-foot-4, 240 pounds, Matt Holliday was built like a football player. He could easily have gone in that direction, having excelled as a quarterback in high school and received scholarship offers from big-time college programs. Holliday came from a baseball-rich family, however, and his heart was on the diamond, so he chose to follow in the footsteps of his father and older brother, both of whom played professionally. He surpassed both not just by reaching the majors but by becoming a star, making seven All-Star teams in a 15-year career spent with the Rockies, A’s, Cardinals, and Yankees. He won a Coors Field-aided batting title as well as NLCS MVP honors while leading the Rockies to their only World Series berth in 2007. Winning seemed to follow Holliday, or perhaps it was the other way around; nine times in those 15 seasons his teams made the playoffs, with three trips to the World Series including a championship in 2011.

Matthew Thomas Holliday was born on January 15, 1980 in Stillwater, Oklahoma. His father, Tom Holliday, spent a year in the Pirates’ organization before pursuing coaching at the collegiate level. From 1978–96, he served as Oklahoma State University’s pitching coach and recruiting coordinator, then took over as head coach from ’97–2003. His oldest son, Josh Holliday (b. 1976), starred at Stillwater High School ahead of Matt; the two played on the same team in 1995. Josh was drafted by the Twins in the 14th round in 1995 but instead chose to go to Oklahoma State, where he played for his father and helped the team to the College World Series in ’96 and ’99. Drafted again by the Blue Jays in the ninth round in 1999, he spent two seasons playing professionally before going the college coaching route; he took over as Oklahoma State’s head coach in 2013, and still holds the job. Read the rest of this entry »

On December 26, the New York Yankees sent 26-year-old outfielder Estevan Florial to the Cleveland Guardians in exchange for 27-year-old reliever Cody Morris.

Florial has appeared in parts of four big league seasons but has never had more than 71 plate appearances in any one of them. He’s accumulated enough playing time to lose rookie eligibility but not enough to evaluate him based on his big league performance; he’s still more or less an older prospect. I considered Florial to be one of the Yankees’ best couple of prospects in the 2018-19 window, but his strikeouts became excessive at the upper levels (usually hovering around 30%) and, especially after the pandemic season, I began to move off of him. After a rough introduction to Triple-A in 2021, Florial has had two really solid seasons, with a wRC+ in the 124-130 range each of the last two years. He experienced a substantial uptick in his power output as a 25-year-old at Triple-A Scranton in 2023, as Florial clubbed 25 homers in just 101 games, matching his combined Triple-A total from 2022 and 2021 across 180 games. Read the rest of this entry »

This year I had the honor of filling out a Hall of Fame ballot for the fourth time, and as was the case with the previous three, I’m taking the time to explain my reasoning. This is something that I feel every voter should do. Filling out a ballot is a privilege that demands not only due diligence, but also transparency. That said, let’s cut to the chase.

My checkmarks went next to the names of 10 players — the maximum number allowed — seven of whom are holdovers from last year, and three of whom are new to the ballot. In alphabetical order, my votes went to Bobby Abreu, Carlos Beltrán, Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, Joe Mauer, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Chase Utley, and Billy Wagner.

Yes, Andruw Jones’s name is missing from that list. No, I am not particularly pleased by his non-inclusion. The erstwhile Atlanta Braves star had received my vote three times prior, and in a perfect world he would have again this year. But it’s not a perfect world. Again, only 10 checkmarks are allowed, and with three worthy newcomers joining eight holdovers from last year’s ballot, someone had to draw the short stick. Ultimately, I decided it would be Jones.

Who might I have dropped instead? That’s a question that would require more words to answer adequately than I have room for in this column, but I will say that a certain amount of strategic thinking went into the decision. As my esteemed colleague Jay Jaffe can attest, any thoughts of my omitting Gary Sheffield (currently polling at 71.9%) were dispelled with a reminder that this is his last year on the ballot. While the likelihood of Sheffield’s reaching the required 75% threshold isn’t high, it’s also not impossible. Conversely, Jones (currently at 62.5%, a few percentage points better than last year), has three more years of eligibility left beyond this cycle. I am likely to resume voting for him 12 months from now. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2024 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 and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Bartolo Colon could throw strikes. At the outset of his 21-year major league career, Colon blew 100-mph fastballs by hitters, and within a couple years showed off top-of-the-rotation form. Over a decade and more than half a dozen teams later, following a controversial arm surgery, Colon’s ability to locate his sinker to both sides of the plate with precision gained him greater renown. In one 2012 start, he threw 38 consecutive strikes.

Indeed, it was the second act of his career — or was it the third, or even the fourth? — during which Colon became an unlikely cult favorite. The Dominican-born righty had listed at 5-foot-10, 185 pounds while in the minors, but his biggest contract extension had a weight clause centered at 225 pounds. After suffering a torn rotator cuff at the tail end of his Cy Young Award-winning 2005 season, he spent nearly half a decade knocking around before undergoing experimental injections of fat and stem cells into his shoulder and elbow, and by the time he reemerged in his late 30s, he was officially listed at 285 pounds. His everyman build made him more relatable, but it camouflaged an exceptional athleticism. “Big Sexy” — the nickname given to him by teammate Noah Syndergaard, and later the title of his 2020 autobiography — could field his position with enough flair to execute a behind-the-back throw. He could high-kick like a Rockette, and do splits like a ballerina. “One of the stereotypes of Bartolo is because he has an atypical body type for a pitcher, he is not in shape,” said Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro in 2004. “But this guy is amazingly strong. He’s like [former Houston Oiler running back] Earl Campbell from the waist down. He is a strong, strong man, and that core strength is what it’s all about.” Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the New York Yankees. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fourth 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 »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2024 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 and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

In my previous multi-candidate roundup, I paired two lefties who haven’t gotten much traction on Hall of Fame ballots thus far in Andy Pettitte and Mark Buehrle. As a means of completing my coverage of the major candidates before the December 31 voting deadline, it made sense to group them into a single overview and invite readers wishing to (re)familiarize themselves with the specifics of their cases to check out last year’s profiles. Today, I’m doing the same for a pair of elite hitters who would already be enshrined if not for their links to performance-enhancing drugs: Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez.

Like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, both sluggers have transgressions that predate the introduction of drug testing and penalties in 2004. Via The New York Times (Ramirez) and Sports Illustrated (Rodriguez), both reportedly failed the supposedly anonymous 2003 survey test that determined whether such testing would be introduced. Had they not pressed their luck further, both might already be in Cooperstown alongside 2022 honoree David Ortiz, who reportedly failed the survey test, too. Alas, Ramirez was actually suspended twice, in 2009 and ’11; the latter ended his major league career, though he traveled the globe making comeback attempts. Rodriguez was suspended only once, but it was for the entire 2014 season due to his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal and his scorched-earth attempt to evade punishment.

Ramirez debuted with 23.8% on the 2017 ballot and only last year topped 30%. Rodriguez debuted with 34.3% in 2022 but barely inched up in ’23. Given that Bonds and Clemens topped out in the 65–66% range in 2022 and then were passed over by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee the following year, nobody should be holding their breaths for these two to get elected anytime soon. Read the rest of this entry »