Killing time used to be an art for children of my generation. We didn’t have a smartphone in our hands. The internet was still some kind of sorcery unavailable in our towns, and the TV offered just four channels, where soap operas ruled the air time. Time, as you can imagine, kept taunting us as he slowly passed by outside, while we stayed indoors.

Because of that, I personally craved my parents’ permission to go out. When I was fortunate enough to receive it, my friends and I played “Quemado” (something like Pelota Vasca but where we fielded the ball and threw it to the wall) or “Pelotica de Goma” (this Baseball5 thing is flat out plagiarism for us Venezuelans). And when we got tired or lost the ball to an unfriendly neighbor, we just went ahead and bantered.

In these exchanges full of imaginary exercises, my brain decided to create a habit that still haunts me to this day. I called it the “Voltron Game,” and, as in the famous Japanese cartoon of the 80s, it consists of assembling a perfect entity using the outstanding parts of other things that were perfectly fine separately.

I did this with dinosaurs, cities, and cars. I did this with super heroes and super villains. And, of course, I did it (and still do it) with baseball.

Omar Vizquel once helped me assemble the perfect Venezuelan shortstop. Henry Blanco once helped me assemble the perfect Venezuelan pitcher. And now, because springs training for MLB and in Mexico are awfully long, I wanted to play again with Ramón Hernández, current Diablos Rojos del Mexico bench coach, as my new partner. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Extension fever is gripping major league baseball. In the wake of deals that short-circuited the highly anticipated free agencies of veterans Nolan Arenado and Mike Trout, and delayed the onset of those of Alex Bregman, Aaron Hicks, Eloy Jimenez, Miles Mikolas, Luis Severino, Blake Snell, and others, the latest player to take himself off the market is Paul Goldschmidt. The 31-year-old Cardinals first baseman has reportedly agreed to a five-year, $130 million extension for the 2020-24 seasons, a generous-looking deal in light of the past two winters’ frosty free agent proceedings.

Three and a half months after he was traded by the Diamondbacks in exchange for Carson Kelly, Luke Weaver, Andy Young, and a Competitive Balance B pick, it still feels weird to type “Cardinals first baseman” in connection to Goldschmidt, who over the course of his eight-year major league career had become the face of the Diamondbacks’ franchise. An eighth-round pick out of Texas State University who barely grazed prospect lists — Baseball Prospectus ranked him 10th in 2011 (a “Two-Star Prospect”), while Baseball America ranked him 11th, good enough to make their annual Prospect Handbook but not even the team top 10 published over the winter — he nonetheless made six All-Star teams, won three Gold Gloves, finished in the top three of the MVP voting three times, and helped the team to two playoff berths during his run in Arizona. However, the Diamondbacks couldn’t get past the Division Series either in 2011 or ’17 despite Goldschmidt homering four times and slugging .688 in eight postseason games.

Even given Arizona’s lack of postseason success, that’s the type of player most teams would try to lock up long-term. The Diamondbacks did ink Goldschmidt to a five-year, $32 million extension circa March 2013, and in February 2017, team CEO Derrick Hall spoke of hoping that “he’s here for the long haul,” but by January 2018, it appeared that they were gearing up for life without their star slugger. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Arizona Diamondbacks acquired Luke Weaver in the deal that sent Paul Goldschmidt to the St. Louis Cardinals, they brought on board a 25-year-old right-hander with a crisp fastball and a plus changeup. What Weaver has lacked is a quality third option to augment his go-to offerings. While he went to his hook 12.7% of the time last year, the pitch was more of a show-me than a weapon. Improving it was a primary focus over the offseason, and it has remained one this spring.

It’s not the only pitch the former first-round pick has been working on. Weaver is also hoping to reintroduce a cutter-slider to his arsenal. The extent to which that qualifies as one or two pitches — i.e. cutter and/or slider — isn’t an easy question to answer. At least, that wasn’t the case when I sat down with Weaver a few weeks ago in D-Backs camp.

———

David Laurila: It’s been a few years since we talked about your repertoire. What’s changed since that time?

Luke Weaver: “Fastball and changeup are still my primaries, but I’ve been developing a slider, and a better curveball. Both are turning into what they want to be. I’m not trying to force them into being any specific thing — I’m just seeing what the break is doing, trusting it, and going for it. With a cutter and a curveball to go with my main two, I have four legit pitches.”

Laurila: You first said ‘slider,’ but then called it a cutter. Which is it? Read the rest of this entry »

After taking a look at center fielders and designated hitters yesterday, our positional power rankings continue with shortstop.

We’re in a golden era for shortstops. The late-1990s/early 2000s heyday of Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Nomar Garciaparra, and Miguel Tejada was not only pretty cool — at least before injuries and position changes broke up the band, and PED revelations retroactively dimmed our appreciation — but it ushered in an era of bigger, more powerful players at the position, and that trend has raised the bar for offensive production. Last year, shortstops hit a collective .259/.317/.416 for a 97 wRC+, five points higher than it had been in any other season since 2002 (as far back as our splits go), and trust me, it was worse than that previously, despite occasional concentrations of thumpers. In 2018, shortstops even outhit second basemen (93 wRC+) by a handy margin, something unseen within the narrow timeframe of our splits and constituting roughly a 10-point swing relative to the 2002-2017 period, in which second basemen outhit shortstops by a 95-89 margin according to wRC+.

It’s true that last year’s surge was helped by the inclusion of Manny Machado — who led all shortstops with a 141 wRC+, but has returned to third base as a Padre — and Javier Baez. But the top two hitters for the position from 2017, Zack Cozart (!) and Corey Seager, missed most of the season, with the former playing more third base than second base as well, and even Carlos Correa wasn’t really himself.

No, this is about the likes of Baez, Francisco Lindor, Xander Bogaerts, Trevor Story, Didi Gregroius, and even Jose Peraza — all of them 28 or younger, all but Gregorius 25 or younger — breaking out while offsetting the declines of Elvis Andrus and Brandon Crawford, the position’s geezers. More than ever, shortstop is a young man’s position. In 2018, nobody older than 31 (Crawford, Alcides Escobar, Jordy Mercer) made even 150 plate appearances as a shortstop. That trio all played at least 100 games at short, the lowest total of over-30 shortstops to do so since the majors expanded to 30 teams in 1998. As recently as 2016, there were six such players, and in 2014, 10; for the 1998-2017 period, the average was 7.4. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Mariners-A’s opening series, the emotional last game featuring Ichiro Suzuki, and the uncertain degree to which the recent rash of contract extensions reflects players’ anxiety about free agency, then preview the 2019 New York Yankees (38:17) with The Athletic’s Yankees beat writer, Lindsey Adler, and the 2019 Miami Marlins (1:14:31) with The Athletic’s Marlins beat writer, Andre Fernandez.

Audio intro: Built to Spill, "Some Things Last a Long Time"
Audio interstitial 1: The Black Angels, "Empire"
Audio interstitial 2: Animal Collective, "Derek"
Audio outro: Fairport Convention, "Farewell, Farewell"

Link to video of Ichiro leaving his last game
Link to Jeff’s post about extensions
Link to Craig Edwards on extensions
Link to Sam on Marlins trades
Link to Andre on the Marlins’ young pitching
Link to Ben’s On Baseball Writing appearance
Link to Banished To The Pen’s team preview posts
Link to preorder The MVP Machine

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The Tampa Bay Rays announced this afternoon that they’ve come to terms on a long-term contract extension with the team’s ace, Blake Snell. At five years and $50 million, Snell’s new deal buys out all of his arbitration years and nets the Rays, or the team he’s eventually traded to, an extra year until he hits free agency. There are no team-friendly option years tacked into the end, a common feature in pre-arbitration long-term deals such as this. The deal will take Snell through his age-30 season.

Yes, it’s less than Snell would make if he were a free agent today, but in the big picture, it’s the MLBPA’s job to negotiate a fair system of compensation with major league teams. Snell has to do what’s best for himself under the system that’s currently in place. And as these contracts go, it’s hardly a poor one for the 2018 American League Cy Young winner. The contract goes into effect immediately, crushing the $15,500 raise that Snell was assigned by the team, a situation that was primed to leave lingering bad feelings between player and team. (See Gerrit Cole and the Pirates for a situation in which fighting over a few thousand dollars led to long-term bad feelings.) Per Jeff Passan, it’s the largest deal ever given to a player with just two years of service time, surpassing those signed by Gio Gonzalez as a Super 2 (five years, $42 million) and Corey Kluber (five years, $38.5 million); both of those deals contained option years.

The ZiPS projections don’t usually get too excited about single seasons, but Snell’s emergence was stunning one. No, he’s not really the pitcher that the 1.89 ERA suggests, but then, nobody really is so it’s not part of anybody’s realistic expectations. With the downside risks in both performance and injury factored in ZiPS, the projections still see him averaging just under four WAR a year over the terms of the contract. That’s enough to rank him comfortably in the top projected starting pitchers over the next five seasons. Read the rest of this entry »

Sure, he’s won seven straight batting titles in Japan, but it’s telling that, in English, “Ichiro Suzuki” roughly translates to “Can’t hit Pedro.”

– The Utah Chronicle, March 30th, 2001

It is late afternoon in Seattle, and it is the beginning of April, and it is quite cold. The Mariners are going to play the Oakland A’s. Today, the baseball starts counting. Across the infield dirt, just behind second base, a few faint letters mark the time: 2001.

More than 45,000 people are here, the most that have ever crowded into this still-new stadium. There’s less team spirit on display than you might expect. Most of the attendees aren’t flaunting jerseys; they’re bundled up, hands tucked into coats. The fading sunlight falls over the stadium from behind the pale, high clouds, and as a few Mariners take the field, running sprints across the outfield grass, a hearty cheer rises up to greet them. The men in white stretch, pulling arms and bouncing in lunges, before trotting back to the dugout. Not much longer, now. Not much longer.

High up on a view level fence, in front of a kid and their dad, you can see a white posterboard, letters painted in amateurish block text: “WELCOME ICHIRO.”

Many of them know only what the numbers can tell them, the list of achievements that made him worth tens of millions. Seven straight batting titles and a lifetime .353 average. Some may have gone down to spring training, gathering in the Arizona heat, and seen it for themselves: 26 hits, catching batting practice fly balls behind his back, throwing runners out at third with seemingly effortless throws from deep right. The speed — the Mariners said they’d clocked his home-to-first time at 3.7 seconds. (The fastest average home-to-first time among major leaguers in 2018 was 3.86.) Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps no position has been more impacted by the phenomenon of tanking than designated hitter. Teams that fancy themselves contenders splurge on elite bats like J.D. Martinez and Giancarlo Stanton, while teams out of contention rotate light-hitting utility infielders through without regard for the offensive demands of the position. The result is yet another year with a clear divide between the haves and the have-nots – a line that doesn’t really correlate well with how much is spent. Yes, the Red Sox, Yankees, and Twins brought in their primary DHs on lucrative contracts, but guys like Khris Davis and Shohei Ohtani cost far less. The Astros embraced the idea of using a homegrown positionless bat, employing Tyler White at a relative pittance. At the other end of the spectrum are teams like the Blue Jays and Orioles, who spent big a few years ago on positionless sluggers and now find themselves with sunk costs.

We can recognize four distinct tiers of DH in 2019. There’s the elite tier, which consists of one player alone – albeit one player who is arguably the best pure hitter in the majors. Then we have four teams with near-elite bats. What’s most interesting about those top two tiers is that none of those hitters came up as, or have experience at, first base; all but one are, at least nominally, outfielders. Those teams that do utilize erstwhile first basemen form a secondary tier of four well-above average hitters. The rest of the league employs hitters who either aren’t something yet, or used to be something, but aren’t now. If there’s a lesson to be learned from these rankings, it’s that spending on elite bats works. Spending on designated hitters doesn’t. Read the rest of this entry »