Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bryce Harper, and Freddie Freeman walk into a bar — the same bar, in fact, as the one they walked into last year, and in the same order; the trio and their assorted backups topped these rankings in 2025, just as they do in ’26. But where they towered over the rest of the field last year, with a full win gap between the third-ranked Dodgers and the fourth-ranked Rays, this time it’s only Guerrero who’s separated from the pack. The 0.9-WAR gap between the Blue Jays and Phillies is just 0.1 WAR less than the gap between those Phillies and ninth-ranked Mariners.

It’s not hard to understand what’s happening. Guerrero is 27 years old, and if he didn’t have his best season by the numbers in 2025 — though a half-billion dollar extension and a near-miss of a championship is still a pretty great year — our projections suggest he’ll rebound. Harper, on the other hand, is 33 and Freeman 36, and while they remain championship-caliber players, both are increasingly prone to the aches and pains that can leave a mark on their performances, as explained below.

It’s not just that those older guys are past their peaks — likely future Hall of Famers, but trending down just the same — it’s that an influx of younger talent is pushing the middle of the pack upward. The 23-year-old Nick Kurtz, 27-year-olds Ben Rice and Jonathan Aranda, and 28-year-olds Michael Busch and Josh Naylor all rank among this year’s top dozen; none was the primary first baseman on a team ranked above no. 14 last year. Read the rest of this entry »

With Ranger Suarez now a Red Sock, Zack Wheeler rehabbing from thoracic outlet surgery, and Aaron Nola trying to rebound from a career-worst season, the Phillies rotation has its share of uncertainty as the 2026 regular season approaches. On Monday, the team did its best to bolster that unit for the longer term, agreeing to a five-year, $135 million extension with lefty Jesús Luzardo.

The 28-year-old Luzardo is coming off an impressive first season with the Phillies, who acquired him (along with catching prospect Paul McIntosh) from the Marlins in December 2024 in exchange for two prospects, shortstop Starlyn Caba and outfielder Emaarion Boyd. After making just 12 starts for Miami in 2024 due to elbow tightness and a stress reaction in his lower back, Luzardo made a full complement of 32 starts last year while setting career highs with 183.2 innings and 5.3 WAR, both second on the team behind Cristopher Sánchez. Both his 2.90 FIP and 3.33 xERA — each of which ranked fourth in the National League — make better cases for the quality of his pitching than his 3.92 ERA; in fact, the gap between his ERA and FIP was the third-highest among all qualifiers:

Strangely enough, all 10 of those pitchers hail from the NL; José Soriano, who had the largest gap in the American League at 0.53 runs (4.26 ERA, 3.73 FIP), ranked 11th among qualifiers, just below the cutoff in the table above. Read the rest of this entry »

12:03

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks!

12:04

Jay Jaffe: Got a late start in creating this chat so I’m going to give it a few minutes to fill the queue. In the meantime, here’s my freshly-published piece on Jesús Luzardo’s extension  https://blogs.fangraphs.com/philly-ing-up-luzardo-inks-a-five-year-ext…

12:04

Jay Jaffe: and if you missed it, here’s Friday’s look at the Mets’ new-look outfield picture https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-mets-search-for-the-right-choices-in-t…

12:06

Jay Jaffe: Re: Luzardo, he was one of seven extension candidates highlighted by Dan Szymborski just yesterday https://blogs.fangraphs.com/lets-sign-some-contracts-2026-edition/

12:07

Jay Jaffe: I wish we had a World Baseball Classic game on right now as backdrop — there were so many games yesterday I couldn’t focus on and yet nothing tonight until 7. Blergh

Read the rest of this entry »

After slipping from 89 wins and a trip to the National League Championship Series in 2024 to 83 wins and the short straw in a tiebreaker for a Wild Card berth in 2025, the Mets have a new look to their outfield thanks to an active offseason, some position changes, and an astute draft pick. While the right field job has yet to be settled, several players battling for time at the position have put their best foot forward during the first two weeks of exhibition season, with the two who figure most prominently in the team’s plans homering earlier this week. On Wednesday, top prospect Carson Benge hit his first home run of the spring in an exhibition game against Team Israel, and on Thursday, Brett Baty went deep against the Nationals while making his debut in right field, a continuation of his effort to expand his defensive repertoire.

Meanwhile, MLB.com beat reporter Anthony DiComo summarized last week’s highlights:

It's been quite the week for the Mets' right-field competition.

Tuesday: Mike Tauchman homered in his first Grapefruit League at-bat.

Thursday: Carson Benge went 3-for-3, and Tyrone Taylor hit a three-run homer.

Friday: MJ Melendez hit a pair of opposite-field homers. pic.twitter.com/Tnti901ZLa

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) February 27, 2026

No spring training result should be taken at face value given the varying levels of competition, and that’s especially true before people have been warned about the Ides of March, but the whole situation is worth a closer look. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2024, 11 years after he was the consensus no. 1 prospect in the game, Jurickson Profar finally broke out, setting career highs in home runs (24), wRC+ (139) and WAR (4.3), making his first All-Star team, and helping the Padres to an NL Wild Card berth. He cashed in that winter; after never making more than $7.75 million in a season, Profar signed a three-year, $42 million deal with the Braves. Four games into his tenure with his new team, however, he drew an 80-game suspension for violating the Joint Drug Agreement. While he was productive upon returning and figured prominently in the plans of a team expected to contend for the NL East title this season, on Tuesday, the 33-year-old outfielder drew a second PED suspension, this one for the entire 2026 season.

Profar wasn’t the only player reported to be facing a PED suspension on Tuesday, or even the only NL East outfielder who had run afoul of the game’s drug policy. According to multiple sources, the Phillies’ Johan Rojas has an 80-game suspension looming for a first-time offense. While MLB officially announced Profar’s suspension in a press release sent at 6:47 p.m. ET on Tuesday — over six hours after ESPN’s Jeff Passan first broke the news — Rojas’ is not yet official.

Both players are reportedly appealing their suspensions. An hour after Passan’s tweet, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that the Major League Baseball Players Association is filing a grievance on Profar’s behalf. It’s not clear yet on what grounds the union is challenging the suspension, but such a case would be heard by MLB’s independent arbitrator, Martin F. Scheinman. Later that afternoon, The Athletic’s Charlotte Varnes and Matt Gelb reported that Rojas is appealing his suspension, as well. He is starting in center field and batting seventh in Philadelphia’s exhibition game on Wednesday against Team Canada. Read the rest of this entry »

12:01

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to my first chat of March, a month that will feature actual regular season baseball and before that, the World Baseball Classic, which starts at 10 ET tomorrow night (which will be Thursday in Japan)!

12:02

Jay Jaffe: Apologies in advance because the first 15 minutes of this chat are probably going to be a bumpy ride as I’ve got a grocery delivery about to arrive and it includes frozen stuff so I can’t just let it sit.

12:02

Jay Jaffe: Yesterday I wrote about the Yankees outfield picture in the wake of the addition of Randal Grichuk https://blogs.fangraphs.com/yankees-add-randal-grichuk-to-fill-a-niche…

12:04

Jay Jaffe: Last week, inspired by a couple exchanges in chats from earlier this year, I looked into Jarren Duran’s 2025 season and the state of the Red Sox outfield picture (https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/fitting-jarren-duran-into-the-red-sox-…), and then hitter month-to-month consistency through the lens of wRC+, a Duran-related tangent (https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/jarren-duran-jorge-polanco-aaron-judge…)

12:05

Jay Jaffe: I’m planning a follow-up on the last of those using Statcast data.

12:07

Jay Jaffe: Ok, let’s get started with the questions, mindful of the fact that I may soon have to step away

Read the rest of this entry »

When the Yankees re-signed Cody Bellinger in late January, they more or less committed to running back the same outfield they used in 2025. And why not? Even with limited contributions from their reserves, the primary trio of Bellinger, Trent Grisham, and Aaron Judge combined to produce a major league-high 16.6 WAR. But with secondary roles still up for grabs, New York added outfielder Randal Grichuk to its options last week, signing the 34-year-old veteran to a minor league deal with a non-roster invitation to spring training.

The signing of Grichuk isn’t exactly out of left field, so to speak. While the Yankees do have 23-year-old switch-hitter Jasson Domínguez — who spent all of last season with the Yankees and made 93 starts in left but was reduced to a bench role by September — and 24-year-old prospect Spencer Jones on their 40-man roster, both have minor league options remaining (two for the former, three for the latter). If the primary trio is healthy, and if primary designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton is able to answer the bell often enough (yes, that’s a load-bearing if), the Yankees would prefer that their youngsters continue to develop by playing regularly, if not in the Bronx than at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes Barre.

“I would concede it’s in his best interest to be getting everyday reps,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said in mid-February regarding Domínguez, who placed 16th on our Top 100 Prospects List last spring as a 55-FV prospect despite having been moved from center field to left, then hit a modest .257/.331/.388, (103 wRC+) in 429 plate appearances. While the Yankees tolerated worse from left fielder Alex Verdugo in 2024, when Domínguez was coming off Tommy John surgery on his right (throwing) elbow, between his league-average offense and his struggles in left field (-7 DRS, -9 FRV in 793 innings), he was an afterthought in September. He made just four starts and totaled 20 plate appearances in the final month of the regular season, before getting just one postseason plate appearance. (He made the most of it, lacing a leadoff double into the right-center gap in the bottom of the ninth inning of an elimination game with the Yankees down four runs.) Domínguez’s 0.6 WAR — which matched Verdugo’s 2024 output in about 200 fewer plate appearances — indicates he still has enough to work on to justify another stint in the minors. Read the rest of this entry »

As with many of my articles, Wednesday’s piece on Jarren Duran had its genesis in one of my weekly chats, back in early January. With the Red Sox dealing with a crowded outfield, a reader proposed a trade return for Duran, and in the context of sidestepping the specifics of the deal, I offered a rather curt dismissal of Duran as having had “a pretty meh age-28 season” in 2025. When I received pushback for that bit of reflexive hyperbole — which stood in contrast to the more measured answers I generally give at a notoriously slower pace — I offered a table of his monthly batting splits, and rather than let a debate hijack the chat, I squirreled away the idea of writing more in depth about Duran at a later date.

That date arrived earlier this week, as I caught up with some of the outfielder’s recent comments and other news out of Red Sox camp while diving into his 2025 season. In terms of value, Duran’s fall-off from a 6.8-WAR 2024 season to a 3.9-WAR ’25 campaign produced the second-largest drop in WAR among players with at least 600 plate appearances in both seasons. Duran was still quite valuable — tied for 16th among AL position players in WAR — but not exceptional. “Pretty meh” was obviously an overstatement, but as I noted in the chat, Duran’s above-average offensive production (a 111 wRC+) was driven by one exceptional month that papered over three subpar ones and two others more or less in line with his seasonal numbers:

Duran’s July sticks out like a sore thumb; he didn’t have a slugging percentage within 250 points of it, or a wRC+ within 80 points of it, in any of the other five months. Take his midsummer surge — which included 35 total bases in 35 at-bats against the Twins, Rockies, and Nationals — out of the equation and Duran hit just .247/.320/.405 (98 wRC+) in the other five months. Read the rest of this entry »

Jarren Duran enjoyed a breakout season in 2024, making the AL All-Star team, receiving down-ballot support in the MVP voting, and leading the league in several key categories while ranking fifth with 6.8 WAR. Though he remained an above-average player last year, his season didn’t go quite so well, and as the 2026 campaign dawns, his role is among the many questions the Red Sox face this spring.

At a time when the Red Sox are trying to figure out their primary infield alignment — Will newly acquired Caleb Durbin play second or third? Will Marcelo Mayer man the other spot from the start, or begin the year in the minors after an injury-shortened rookie season? — they’re also sorting through their outfield options. The situation is more or less the same as it’s been since last June, when Roman Anthony, the no. 2 prospect on our preseason Top 100 Prospects list, was called up to squeeze into an outfield capably manned by Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela, and Wilyer Abreu, with platoon assistance for the last of those from Rob Refsnyder. The trade deadline came and went without either Abreu or Duran being moved despite numerous rumors, and injuries to Abreu, Refsnyder and then Anthony (who suffered a season-ending oblique strain in early September) simplified manager Alex Cora’s juggling, though not for the betterment of the team. Boston won 89 games and claimed a Wild Card spot, but without Anthony and enough healthy starting pitchers, the Red Sox were bounced out of the first round by the Yankees.

Refsnyder departed for the Mariners in free agency, but the other four outfielders are back and healthy. The Red Sox also have an expensive platoon designated hitter, Masataka Yoshida, further crowding the picture, and last year’s Opening Day second baseman Kristian Campbell — who entered the 2025 season seventh on our Top 100 and inked an eight-year, $60 million extension just a week into his big league career — is working out in center field, as well. Having too many good players isn’t a bad problem to have, but it can become one when questions about playing time, contract statuses, and trade rumors get relentless. Read the rest of this entry »

12:01

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Greetings from Brooklyn, where we got buried in snow yesterday, with over 18″ in my neck of the woods.

12:02

Jay Jaffe: The snow seems to have followed me from Salt Lake City, where I went last week to visit my parents and ski with my daughter. A massive two-day storm cut short our skiing — the kiddo isn’t ready for powder yet and canyon travel wasn’t so great. Anyway, it’s back to baseball here.

12:03

Jay Jaffe: yesterday I wrote about Bill Mazeroski, the Hall of Fame second baseman who passed away over the weekend. He was a genuine defensive whiz who’s best known for his 1960 World Series-winning walk-off homer, which propelled him into Cooperstown https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-defense-rests-a-tribute-to-bill-mazero…

12:07

Jay Jaffe: Since JAWS is driven by WAR which up until the early part of this millennium, I do put some stock in Total Zone. It’s hardly perfect, and yes, there are wide error bars, but if you go around the diamond and check out who it rates the highest — guys like Mark Belanger, Ozzie Smith, Brooks Robinson, Andruw Jones, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente — for stuff like that, it’s not out of line with expectations. Sure, you do get the occasional wide gap between perception and measure — Roberto Alomar and Jim Edmonds come to mind — but you can often work backwards to get a sense as to why certain players don’t fare well by the system

12:09

Jay Jaffe: And it’s worth remembering that positional scarcity and overall defensive value are important factors, too. A good-hitting right fielder isn’t as valuable as a good-hitting shortstop, etc.

Read the rest of this entry »