The 2020 Tampa Bay Rays arguably have one of the best front-end starting rotations in the American League, with Charlie Morton, Blake Snell, and Tyler Glasnow as the headliners. Last season, Glasnow flashed moments of brilliance prior to and following a mid-season injury that halted his torrid start in early May and kept him out of the rotation until September. Glasnow already has the ability to be the ace of the Rays staff — in his 60.2 innings, the right-hander was worth 2.3 WAR and posted a 1.78 ERA and 2.26 FIP — but a couple of minor adjustments could vault him into 2020 Cy Young Award discussions.

Glasnow, who avoided salary arbitration last Friday by agreeing to a one-year, $2.05 million deal, operates with three pitches: a straight, backspinning four-seam fastball that has some carry and can sometimes have cutting action; a 12-6 diving curveball; and a hard changeup that exceeds 90 mph.

Let’s start by looking at Glasnow’s four-seamer, one of the straightest in baseball with a good amount of rise:

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Consider the book thrown at the Astros. On Monday, commissioner Rob Manfred announced the results of MLB’s investigation into allegations pertaining to the Astros’ electronic sign-stealing efforts in 2017, the year they won the World Series, and handed down a set of sanctions that together form the most severe punishment administered to a single team since Judge Landis banned eight White Sox players for life in 1921. In this instance, no players were banned or even suspended; instead, Manfred took aim at the Astros’ braintrust, suspending both president of baseball operations Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch for the 2020 season but deferring punishment for bench coach Alex Cora, the most directly involved non-player, pending the results of a similar investigation into the 2018 Red Sox’s actions. Additionally, the team was stripped of four high draft picks and fined $5 million, the maximum amount allowed under MLB’s constitution. Finally, former Astros assistant general manager Brandon Taubman was placed on baseball’s ineligible list.

In announcing his decision via a 10-page report (PDF here), Manfred confirmed and elaborated upon a November report by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich that the Astros systematically used their video replay system in an attempt to decode opposing teams’ signs and relay them to the team’s hitters via a trash can-based system of signals. The report was based on interviews with 68 individuals as part of this investigation plus an additional nine interviews related to Taubman’s inappropriate conduct towards female reporters during the team’s ALCS victory celebration.

As I wrote last week, MLB’s failure to anticipate the consequences introduced by the creation of video replay rooms in connection with the adoption of the instant replay review system in 2014 has echoes of the league falling behind in addressing the influx of performance-enhancing drugs in the 1990s. Both issues centered around highly competitive players crossing into gray areas while looking for that extra edge, but because of the key differences in the two issues — mainly the protection of the players’ union and the need for a collectively bargained system of testing and suspensions when it came to PED usage — commissioner Bud Selig never had the chance to bring the hammer down on PED users with the force that Manfred applied here. This is a hefty and impactful set of punishments that asserts the commissioner’s authority and is designed to deter other teams from similar behavior, but it won’t be the last set of them given the investigation into the Red Sox and the possibility of further inquiries. Various decisions within Manfred’s purview on this won’t please everyone, but since when has any commissioner managed to do so?

In the report, Manfred laid out a timeline for the Astros’ gradually more elaborate efforts to steal signs using electronic equipment, a practice broadly prohibited by MLB rules but not strictly enforced at the time, and one that arose with the introduction of reviewable replays. The Astros’ efforts “with the exception of Cora [were] player-driven and player-executed,” and began early in the 2017 season, with a simple system where employees in the team’s video replay room viewed live footage from the center field camera, then decoded and relayed the sign sequence to the dugout. From there it was signaled to a runner on second base, who would transmit the signal to the batter. Soon Cora began calling the replay review room to obtain the signals, and on some occasions the information was delivered via text messages on smart watches or cell phones. Read the rest of this entry »

There was an unusual flurry of contract extensions handed out last offseason. In March alone, teams guaranteed over $1 billion in new contract extensions to 11 players — Mike Trout’s record-breaking 10-year, $360 million contract was the centerpiece. In all, 26 players signed a new contract extension between the end of the 2018 World Series and the beginning of the regular season with seven more getting ink on the page in early April. It was an unprecedented outbreak of extensions for players young and old (ish). We’ve already seen five contract extensions since the end of the World Series this offseason, including new contracts for Aroldis Chapman, José Abreu, and Luis Robert. Now we have two more to add to the list in David Peralta and Miguel Sanó.

The first was signed on Friday when Peralta agreed to a three-year, $22 million contract extension with the Diamondbacks. The deal buys out the 32-year-old’s final season of arbitration and his first two years of free agency. He won’t receive a raise on his salary from last season ($7 million) like he would have in arbitration, but the guaranteed salary over the next three years makes it a nice trade-off. After suffering an injury to his AC joint in his right shoulder and spending time on the injured list three times in 2019, this contract extension gives Peralta some security if his injury woes continue.

For the Diamondbacks, Peralta represents an important piece of continuity as they enter the second year of their soft reset that started when they traded away Paul Goldschmidt and Zack Greinke. Peralta’s age and injury history precludes him from being considered part of Arizona’s core group of players led by Ketel Marte, but he’s certainly an important part of their roster as they try and compete for the NL Wild Card again. If his shoulder is healthy, his four-win season in 2018 provides a tantalizing glimpse at his potential ceiling. For an average annual value of just over $7 million, this extension could provide some excellent value for the Diamondbacks. It also provides some cost control for the organization in 2021 and 2022 when they have a sizeable group of prospects that could be graduating and the payroll room to supplement their young core with significant free agent additions. Read the rest of this entry »

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On July 5, in his last start before the All-Star game, Alex Wood was dealing. The Diamondbacks couldn’t touch him with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole. Over seven dominant innings, he struck out 10 batters, walking only two in a scoreless outing. Wood didn’t start the All-Star game, but he could have; his 2.04 FIP, 30.9% strikeout rate, 1.67 ERA, and 10-0 record had something for every stripe of fan. As he walked off the mound, the crowd at Chavez Ravine roared.

Wait — Chavez Ravine? Oh. Yeah. I left something out. That was July 5, 2017. It’s been a minute since Alex Wood was at his world-devouring best. In the second half of that season, he was ordinary, potentially sub-ordinary. His strikeout rate fell 12 points, his FIP more than doubled, and the Dodgers started managing his workload. The culprit? It can often be hard to pin one down, but in this case, well:

Not what you like to see. The Dodgers skipped his spot in the rotation once, hoping he’d recover, but never put him on the IL. He averaged 90.4 mph on his fastball in the playoffs, and while he was mostly effective, the early-season magic never came back. Read the rest of this entry »

12:01

Jay Jaffe: Hey hey folks, happy almost mid-January. Welcome to today’s chat. I’m going to give the queue a few minutes to get stocked. Hot Stove and Hall of Fame questions, ask away

12:05

Jay Jaffe: I certainly hope so! But I’m nervous because this doesn’t look like the election days of Raines and Edgar, both of whom sailed in with like 85% in their final years. The recent projections I’ve seen based upon the tracker and various models have gone both ways — just over the line and just short, but with the odds tilting towards the former. I have to admit I’m quite nervous

12:06

Jay Jaffe: Aside from the nailbiter with Walker, I do think jeter will be unanimous, that Schilling will be in high 60s and Bonds/Clemens in the low 60s.

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After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Milwaukee Brewers.

Batters

There’s been quite a bit of turnover in the Brewers’ starting lineup, but the team has avoided opening any serious holes.

ZiPS was a fan of Orlando Arcia, but it’s hard to avoid the fact that he’s backslid developmentally at ages when he should have been breaking out. Even worse than not improving offensively, Arcia is probably a worse hitter than he was two years ago. Add to that that his glove hasn’t matched up to his minor league reputation, and good on the Brewers for seemingly moving on to Luis Urías, who ought to be a significant improvement. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Friday was the deadline for all 155 arbitration-eligible players who have been tendered contracts to either agree to terms with their teams, or file desired salary figures ahead of an arbitration hearing. At the hearing, an arbitrator chooses either the figure submitted by the player or by the team; they cannot choose any other dollar amount. Those hearings will take place in the coming weeks. It might not be the most exciting day of the offseason, but it is a very necessary one as we move toward spring, and it certainly results in a high volume of transactions. By our count, 140 players reached agreements; you can see them all in our Offseason Tracker. Just click on the player to find out the amounts. Here’s what we learned from the contracts that did — and did not — get signed last Friday.

Some Clarity Emerged Surrounding Potential Trades

Trade rumors continue to circle Mookie Betts, Kris Bryant, and Francisco Lindor, and determining an official salary number for 2020 could be useful in setting up potential trades. Teams aren’t going to let a few million dollars stand in the way when negotiating the trade of a superstar, but knowing that Mookie Betts will make exactly $27 million (breaking Nolan Arenado’s final-year arbitration record of $26 million) provides some clarity. It also ensures that any team that trades for him would not have to go through the arbitration process with a player they just acquired. Francisco Lindor is still two years away from free agency and his $17.5 million salary is a bargain for Cleveland, just as it would be for any team looking to trade for him. Kris Bryant’s $18.6 million figure is an exception here. While we now know what he’ll be making in 2020, his grievance against the Cubs for service time manipulation has yet to be decided, and the chance that Bryant could be a free agent after 2020 instead of 2021 will likely continue to prevent meaningful negotiations.

File and Trial Produces Settlements and Unnecessary Arbitration

Several years ago, teams began to adopt an arbitration strategy where they would elect not to negotiate single-season salaries once arbitration figures had been exchanged. This strategy, called File and Trial, meant that any agreement needed to come before the arbitration deadline. Exchanging figures was no longer another step in an attempted settlement prior to a hearing, but instead, effectively ended negotiations. The strategy was designed to spur early settlements and extract lower figures from players, as they needed to ensure that they submitted a figure likely to result in an arbitrator siding with them in a hearing. The strategy has been successful, but its utility will come into question over the coming weeks. Read the rest of this entry »