Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Detroit Tigers. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a new feature at the site that offers sortable scouting information for every organization. That can be found here.

Other Prospects of Note

Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.

Bench Outfield Types
Kingston Liniak, CF
Dustin Peterson, LF
Brock Deatherage, CF
Jacob Robson, CF
Danny Woodrow, CF
Troy Montgomery, CF

Most of these guys can run. Liniak is the youngest and has the best chance to grow into some power. Peterson could impact the big league club this year and might hit enough to be a right-handed bench piece for a while. Deatherage was a college draftee who put up huge numbers in rookie ball, but struck out 25% of the time as a 22-year-old and is due for a huge BABIP regression, so we’re skeptical of his hot pro start. Plate discipline (Robson), speed (Woodrow), and sneaky pop (Montgomery) could propel any of the others into a bench outfield role.

Recent July Twos
Alvaro Gonzalez, SS
Jose De La Cruz, RF

Gonzalez signed in 2017 and is a natural shortstop who likely needs to grow into some offensive ability to profile. De La Cruz is a corner outfield projection bat who makes up for limited athleticism with advanced feel to hit.

Starters
Wilkel Hernandez, RHP
Logan Shore, RHP
Tyler Alexander, LHP
Adam Wolf, LHP

Wilkel came over from the Angels in the Ian Kinsler deal. He’s a somewhat projectable 20-year old with a chance for fifth starter stuff. His curveball has good shape but needs more power. Shore is a changeup artist with a 4 fastball. Alexander throws strikes and eats innings and is a good bet to at least be a sixth starter type of depth arm. A similar role likely awaits Wolf, whose best pitch is a cutter.

Relievers
Jason Foley, RHP
Nolan Blackwood, RHP
Eduardo Jimenez, RHP
Zac Houston, RHP
Sandy Baez, RHP
Gerson Moreno, RHP
Wladimir Pinto, RHP
Tarik Skubal, LHP

Foley is coming back from TJ, and would flash upper-90s heat and a good changeup before his injury. He’s still just 23. Blackwood is a sinkerballing submariner. Jimenez, Houston, and Baez are all possible 55 fastball, 55 slider middle relief fits. Moreno, too, but he’s coming off TJ. Pinto throws really hard — in the mid-90s — but that’s about it right now. Skubal was hurt for his junior year at Seattle University and looked good in bullpens before the draft but nobody would meet his ask. He went back to school and was very wild, then dominated in pro ball after signing by throwing about 80% fastballs. He’s a ground-up rebuild who had third round stuff at his best in college.

System Overview

The Tigers have shifted in recent years from a win-now, trade prospects and spend money approach, to an asset collection, hold prospects, and save money approach. The shift from trading many of their top homegrown talents to keeping them could change the fortunes of the farm eventually, but it hasn’t quite done that yet. Casey Mize will likely get to the big leagues soon, so he’s likely be on this list one more time at most. Matt Manning hasn’t had his breakthrough yet, most industry opinions have Daz Cameron as a low-end regular, and there are still plenty of questions about the ultimate upside of Isaac Paredes and the health of Franklin Perez. For the top of the system of a rebuilding club, that isn’t a particularly strong top of the list. The depth is fine, but depth doesn’t really matter when the first priority is creating the core of your future playoff team.

The fifth and 47th picks in this year’s draft will be nice assets to add, but the big league club isn’t overflowing with core talent, either. Michael Fulmer looked like he could be one, but he’s down for the year with elbow surgery. Nick Castellanos is likely to be traded if and when he performs well. There are some solid complementary pieces in Jeimer Candelario, Matt Boyd, Joe Jimenez and Shane Greene, but the focus here needs to be both adding to the talent base and developing the existing talent better. Clubs like the Dodgers, Brewers, and Yankees seem to be creating contributors out of thin air and those are increasingly the table stakes in player development, with many other teams spending resources to join those leaders. The Tigers appear to be more on the traditional end of things in most departments — not wrong, just more traditional — and the rebuild will need player procurement and development to both take a step forward.

The 2019 baseball season is already officially underway, though what transpired at the Tokyo Dome last week between the A’s and Mariners barely registered to these bleary eyes beyond Ichiro Suzuki’s stirring farewell, what with the time difference. As the stateside version of Opening Day has approached, I’ve been asked, again and again while doing radio spots, variants of the question, “What are you most looking forward to about this season?” Some of my answers have already vanished into the ether, but I figured it would be worthwhile to take a break from squinting at depth charts and contract extensions long enough to jot down a set for posterity.

Bryce Harper and Manny Machado changing the conversation

As this pair of generational talents explored free agency in pursuit of record-setting paydays, we heard endless speculation about each player’s destination, endless excuses about why certain teams were not interested, and far more about the pair’s flaws than their virtues. The critiques came from all directions. Some of them were diatribes of the get-off-my-lawn variety, or declarations about how they wouldn’t fit with this team or that because reasons. Some of them were the usual, often misinformed, talk radio-fueled blather about how higher salaries will drive up ticket prices (nope), how these two can’t possibly be worth $300 million, and how their occasional failures to hustle portend the downfall of America. That said, some of the critiques were legitimate, pointing out Harper’s difficulties with the shift, his struggles to stay healthy, and his curiously bad defensive metrics, or Machado’s suspect work in his return to shortstop and his longstanding penchant for finding mischief on the field in the form of questionable plays.

Enough already. As Reggie Jackson once said, “When you have the bat in your hand, you can always change the story.” At long last, Harper and Machado can take the field for their new teams, and let their bats, and the rest of their play, do the talking.

Mike Trout climbing the JAWS rankings

Like any baseball fan with a pulse, I always want to see what Trout does, as he’s a perennial MVP candidate who’s capable of towering homers, dazzling speed on the bases, and spectacular catches in the outfield. And while I don’t intend to bury my nose in a spreadsheet every time he comes to bat, with an eye towards history, I’m especially enjoying Trout’s progress when it comes to my JAWS metric.

Trout began last season ranked 10th among center fielders, with his career WAR, seven-year peak WAR, and JAWS all at 55.2 (using Baseball-Reference’s numbers). Despite some minor adjustments to his body of work that erased about one win across the board, by May 22 of his seventh full major league season, he surpassed the JAWS standard at the position, the average of each Hall of Fame center fielder’s career and peak bWARs. By season’s end, Trout leapfrogged Kenny Lofton, Carlos Beltran, and Duke Snider to climb to seventh in JAWS (64.0) and fourth in peak (63.8). He should be able to climb two spots in JAWS this year. Joe DiMaggio (78.1/51.0/64.5) is just half a point ahead of Trout; around the time he gets to 1.0 WAR, he’ll move into sixth. With an 8.2 bWAR season — which would be his sixth-best — he would tie fifth-ranked Ken Griffey in JAWS (68.9) and overtake Mickey Mantle (64.8) for third in peak, behind only Willie Mays (73.7) and Ty Cobb (69.2). All this can be done before Trout completes his ninth major league season, one short of officially qualifying for the Hall of Fame.

Meanwhile, I can’t believe it’s taken me nearly a decade to figure this out, but Trout will be fully qualified for the Hall, reaching 10 seasons in the majors, in 2020, which will mark my 10th year as a BBWAA member and thus my eligibility to vote in that winter’s Hall of Fame election (the 2021 ballot).

A potential four-team race in the NL East

With four teams forecast for at least 84 wins, this division is the deepest as far as contenders go, and it offers so many story lines as well as the potential for plenty of #TeamEntropy fun. The Phillies added Harper, Andrew McCutchen, J.T. Realmuto, David Robertson, and Jean Segura to a team that spent five months of the 2018 season contending and one month stinking on ice. The Nationals lost Harper but added Patrick Corbin, Brian Dozier, Yan Gomes, Trevor Rosenthal, and Anibal Sanchez, plus they can look forward to full seasons of Juan Soto and Victor Robles, and hopefully better health for Stephen Strasburg and Sean Doolittle as well. The Mets brought in a new, unorthodox general manager in former agent Brodie Van Wagenin and added Robinson Cano, Edwin Diaz, Jed Lowrie, and Wilson Ramos, plus they finally nailed down that much-needed Jacob deGrom extension. The Braves, who broke a streak of four straight losing seasons to win the division last year, had a relatively quiet and perhaps counterproductive winter, with Josh Donaldson practically their only addition of note besides prodigal son Brian McCann, but they’ll get a full season of Ronald Acuna Jr. I can’t wait to see how this all plays out.

The Opening Day arrivals of Peter Alonso, Eloy Jimenez, and Fernando Tatis Jr.

In an industry where service time manipulation has become all too common, it’s refreshing to see the Mets, White Sox, and Padres break camp with their highly touted rookies —respectively 48th, eighth, and third on our most recent Top 100 Prospects list — instead of fumfering about defense, early-season playing time, checklists, conditioning, and long-term plans. Granted, both Alonso and Jimenez should have debuted last season, but we can chalk up at least some of the responsibility for the former’s non-promotion to the mess of the Mets front office during Sandy Alderson’s health-related leave of absence. And yes, it took the latter agreeing to an extension that may limit his earning power in the long run to make this happen. But at a time when too few teams are doing their best to win in 2019, it’s good to see these players’ respective teams declaring that these kids are among their best 25 players, and their time is now — even if, as is the case for the White Sox and Padres, this may not be a year in which they contend for a playoff spot.

Yes, the kids might take their lumps at the big league level initially, as just about every rookie does. There are legitimate questions about defense for both Alonso and Jimenez, and about the strikeout rate of Tatis, who’s making the jump after a total of 102 games at Double-A and none at Triple-A; his 2018 campaign ended in late July, when he fractured his left thumb and needed season-ending surgery. At some point, however, the learning at the big league level has to begin. These youngsters have very little to gain by riding more buses and beating more bushes, and likewise for their teams when it comes to answering the questions about “When is ____ coming?”

The eventual arrival of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Like Alonso and Jimenez, the number one prospect on our list should have debuted last year, given that he hit a combined .381/.437/.636 with 20 homers in 408 PA at four minor league stops last year (mostly at Double-A and Triple-A). The Blue Jays lead the league in shoveling horse manure concerning why he hasn’t arrived, and they’ve very clearly done their best to game his service clock, though last year’s left knee injury and this spring’s oblique strain have given them some cover. The situation stinks, and it will continue to stink even after Guerrero arrives, presumably sometime in April, because he’s being taken advantage of — within the rules, perhaps, but that’s not to excuse the practice — and he’ll feel the financial hit down the road.

But oh, will the 20-year-old son of a Hall of Famer be a treat to watch given his 80-grade raw power, his 70-grade hit tool, and a youthful exuberance that radiates through the highlight clips. This kid is going to be a whole lot of fun.

The return of Corey Seager

Seager sometimes gets overlooked in cataloging the game’s brightest young stars, but thanks to his prowess on both sides of the ball — his power, his penchant for getting on base, his glovework — he led all shortstops in WAR in both 2016 (7.0) and ’17 (5.9), his age-22 and -23 seasons. After being bothered by a right elbow problem in late 2017, he played just 26 games last year before a torn UCL necessitated Tommy John surgery, and in August, he needed surgery to repair a torn left hip labrum. The Dodgers managed to make it back to the World Series without him, a testament to their depth, and major league shortstops turned in their best offensive showing on record (97 wRC+), a testament to the wealth of talent at the position. Yet everybody will be better off with the soon-to-be-25-year-old back where he belongs.

The last stand of CC Sabathia

After mulling retirement for most of last year, the big man decided to give it one more go, though he’s starting the year on the disabled list as he recovers from an offseason heart procedure and yet another knee surgery. At 38 years old, the former Cy Young winner is no longer the dominant power pitcher that he once was, but between swapping out his four-seam fastball for a cutter, and his use of a brace to support a right knee hobbled by bone-on-bone arthritis, he’s undergone a fascinating reinvention. What he’s lost in velocity, he’s gained in wiliness, and in fact, he’s become an expert at generating soft contact; his average exit velo of 84.4 mph placed him in the 98th percentile last year, and he’s been in the 96th percentile or better in his past three seasons.

What’s more, Sabathia’s confrontation with his alcoholism has further humanized his transformation while underscoring his status as a pillar of the Yankees’ clubhouse, a mentor to so many young players, and an all-around mensch. I’ve had a soft spot for the pitcher and the man since forever, particularly while watching him carry the 2008 Brewers and 2009 Yankees on his back, and I look forward to watching him celebrate both his 250th win (he’s at 246) and 3,000th strikeout (he’s at 2,986). It’s a statistical quirk that only two other southpaws (Steve Carlton and Randy Johnson) have gotten to that milestone, but it’s fine company nonetheless, and it certainly won’t hurt in his quest to reach Cooperstown.

Michael Lorenzen’s two-way experiment

Tommy John surgery has robbed us of Shohei Ohtani’s presence on the mound in 2019, but the majors won’t be entirely devoid of two-way players thanks chiefly to Lorenzen, the only member of the quartet I highlighted last month (Kaleb Cowart, Matt Davidson, and Jared Walsh were the others) to make an Opening Day roster. A solid righty reliever for the Reds, Lorenzen has more than a little pop in his bat; last year, he clubbed four homers in 34 PA while batting .290/.333/.710, and he’s belted six homers and maintained a 101 wRC+ through 92 PA during his four-year career. The Reds have given him reps in center field (his natural position at Cal State Fullerton) this spring, and intend to do so during the regular season, setting up a compelling experiment.

It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, in part because it may require tweaking one of the rule changes that MLB announced for the 2020 season, namely an official designation for two-way players based upon pitching at least 20 innings and starting at least 20 games as a position player or designated hitter, with at least three plate appearances in each of those games. Barring injury, Lorenzen should easily meet the former requirement, but the latter is probably a stretch even with Nick Senzel starting the year on the injured list. What’s more, the new rule would also affect Ohtani, who won’t pitch at all this year. More flexibility is needed with the definition in order to prevent the stifling of innovation. Speaking of rules…

The Atlantic League’s experiments

Thanks to an unprecedented working agreement between MLB and the independent Atlantic League, the latter has introduced some rule changes for 2019 that may carry ramifications for future changes in MLB. The most radical, a midseason change of the pitching distance from 60-foot-6 to 62-foot-6, seems destined for disaster or near-immediate reconsideration, and I can’t blame Atlantic League pitchers for resenting the possibility of becoming guinea pigs. The rule changes also include the use of TrackMan radar to assist the home plate umpire in calling balls and strikes — yes, we’re getting Robot Umps Now, and we’ll see how the limitations of the technology play out — larger bases, the three-batter minimum for pitchers (something MLB plans for 2020), a prohibition of infield shifts (blech) and mound visits except for the case of injury (hmmm), reduced time between innings (to 1:45, 15 seconds shorter than MLB’s changes for this year).

The stated goal is to “create more balls in play, defensive action, baserunning, and improve player safety,” which seems worthwhile. Aside from the mound distance change, I’m eager to see how it all plays out, not because I believe all of these changes should be enacted but because the rule book is not sacrosanct. It’s beneficial for baseball to have a means of experimenting its way out of this current action-suppressed cul de sac rather than remaining static.

A new fan in the family

With a FanGraphs senior writer and an Athletic managing editor for parents, our daughter Robin has received plenty of exposure to baseball in her first 2 1/2 years, and she’s largely enjoyed it, particularly when she got to watch a Cape Cod League game from behind the backstop last summer and coined the phrase “baseball run away!” for a home run. That was a heartwarming moment, but nothing melted us more than when she pulled up on the couch one evening last week and asked, “Can we watch some baseball?” Hell yeah, we obliged.

Robin has already visited Yankee Stadium (2017) and MCU Park (home of the Brooklyn Cyclones) last summer. This year, with an afternoon nap no longer an obstacle, we’re planning to take her to Citi Field (a better ballpark experience than Yankee Stadium, regardless of age) and to Richmond County Bank Ballpark (home of the Staten Island Yankees) to complete her collection of New York City ballparks, as well as more Cape Cod League games. She doesn’t understand the rules yet, but she loves watching players run around and balls soar. While the odds are that someday she’ll rebel against whatever mom and dad hold dear, we’re determined to savor this time.

12:41

Jay Jaffe: Happy Opening Day 2019 v2.0, and welcome to our Very Long Chat. Craig Edwards, Paul Sporer and I are warming up at our respective keyboards, practicing our quips and disses, and crunching all kinds of numbers in order to scientifically predict every aspect of the baseb — wait, scrap that last one, it still can’t be one in 2019. In any event, we’ll get things started here around 1 pm, give or take, but feel free to fill the queue with your questions in the meantime.

Read the rest of this entry »

The offseason is over and real baseball has started. The main course has finally arrived after the hors d’oeuvres of the Mariners/Athletics opening series in Japan. The teams are set — pace, Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel — and my last bit of ZiPS business is to put on record the final projected standings for the 2019 season. These are computer-generated projections, remember, and as a result, they certainly do not reflect which teams I hate and which teams I like. If they did, I clearly would not be considered very effective at applying my personal biases, having grown up in Baltimore, booing the Yankees.

Also note that there’s a new little chart I’m including this year that I’m dubbing the “division matrix.” Essentially, one of the least understood things about the projected mean standings is that they are mean projections and not necessarily the win totals that will actually win the division. Take for example, the NL East. The Cubs have the best projected record at 87-75, but that doesn’t mean that on-average they’ll win the division by winning 87 games, because not all teams simply perform to their mean projections (nor does ZiPS expect them to). So on the division matrix, the 90th percentile means that 10% of the time, the divisional or Wild Card winner will have at least the number of wins listed.

The standings also do not reflect the two wins for the Mariners and two wins for the A’s. I felt it was kind of cheating to include them in preseason projected standings. But I also didn’t want to make the final projected standings before those games took place, as teams have made about 10,000 small moves since then, keeping me awake and in our depth charts 24/7 for the last week.

And I really shouldn’t have to mention it in the current year, but 0.0% is not literally 0.0%. It’s rounded. So Marlins fan, I’m saying there’s a chance.

Happy Opening Day everyone! In this post, I’m going to tell you about all the wonderful, possibly hidden, stat things you can find on the website. This is for those of you who may be joining us for the first time, or for those of you who might be returning to the site after doing whatever it is people do when not thinking about baseball every waking moment.

Player Pages

The Main Player Page – The main player pages include hundreds of stats on each player. Player pages have real time data, season and daily projections, and basically everything you’d ever wanted to know about how a player performed.

Graphs – Visualize how a player has performed over time! You can see breakdowns by season, game, age, and so on. The combinations are nearly endless.

Splits – Splits pages come in three varieties: static splits, the splits tool, and pitch type splits. The static ones contain all the pre-compiled splits. The splits tool is where you can slice and dice your way to the most esoteric of baseball stats. And the pitch type splits break down each pitch a player has thrown or has seen, and provides performance metrics on those pitches. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in 2014, Devin Mesoraco broke out for the Reds, blasting 25 homers en route to a 147 wRC+ and 4.1 WAR. Injuries have struck since then, however, and he’s posted four consecutive sub-replacement level seasons. That said, last year, things did improve after he was dealt midseason to the Mets for the erstwhile Dark Knight of Gotham, at least by some measures. Baseball Reference has Mesoraco at 0.7 bWAR after the deal across 66 games and 229 plate appearances, with improved defense and power numbers, while Baseball Prospectus had Mesoraco at 0.4 BWARP; our WAR has him very slightly negative during his time in Queens (-0.1 WAR). If you read FanGraphs’ 2019 positional power rankings (and you should!), then you know that Mesoraco’s Mets production over the course of a full season would make him one of the better catchers around, though that’s as much an indictment of the position as it is a reflection of Mesoraco’s talent (ZiPS and Steamer, for their part, both project Mesoraco as about replacement level in 2019).

The Mets signed Wilson Ramos this offseason to take over starting catching duties as Mesoraco hit free agency. But Ramos’ injury history makes having a capable backup prudent, and after the Mets dealt Kevin Plawecki, that left just Travis d’Arnaud. Unfortunately, d’Arnaud isn’t ready to play yet after having his elbow rebuilt last year. So in February, the club brought back Mesoraco on a minor league deal, and gave him a non-roster invitation to big league spring training. That minor league pact included an “upward mobility clause” – contract language which, as Steve Adams explained for MLBTradeRumors, allowed for Mesoraco to find a big league opportunity. Read the rest of this entry »

Some baseball players are good at everything (looking at you, Mike Trout) and some aren’t good at much (looking at you, Chris Davis, though you did used to be good), but most fall somewhere in the middle. Generally, the average major league player has one or two attributes that make them special and one or two attributes that the opposing hitter or pitcher can attack. That’s just how most populations work; the bell curve exists for a reason. Not everyone can be in the 99th percentile, though it would be fun to see an entire league of Mike Trouts. (But then everyone would be in the 50th percentile, so there’s no real winner here anyway.)

Nonetheless, this idea of one or two special attributes gets me to my main point. On Monday, the Marlins released right-handed pitcher Dan Straily in a move that was something of a surprise. Miami isn’t looking to contend this year, and at a minimum, Straily could have been a decent innings eater for them. Like many other teams, the Marlins are opting to roll with younger players; the average age of their starting rotation is just 27 years old, though at 30, Straily wouldn’t have had the most grey hairs on the staff. That title belongs to Wei-Yin Chen, who the Marlins still owe $42 million over the next two seasons.

Straily is now looking for a new home, and unfortunately, it’s at an inopportune time with Opening Day today. Still, Straily has had a decent seven-year career, reaching a career-high in WAR (2.1) in 181.2 innings as recently as 2017. Last year he made 23 starts, posting a 4.12 ERA and a 5.11 FIP over 122.1 innings. His 19.1 K% and a 10.0 BB% weren’t awful, though both marks were below league-average for a starting pitcher. Putting all of this together, he was worth just 0.1 WAR.

Does this mean that Straily has no positive attributes? Absolutely not. In fact, there is a lot to like about his profile. Well, two thing in particular: he’s really good at generating spin on his fastball (70th percentile), and he throws a potentially deadly changeup. Read the rest of this entry »

There were times this winter when it felt like the offseason would never end. But end it has, and on this, the morning of Opening Day, we engage in our annual tradition of asking our staff to open themselves up to future public ridicule and predict the year in baseball. Some of these predictions will prove to be prescient; others will make their forecaster feel a little silly. Last year, we had the American League playoff picture pretty well pegged, with the exception of the A’s. Washington’s collapse? Not so much. The Rookies of the Year? Got ’em. Either league’s Cy Young winner? Nope! That’s ok, though. Baseball is best when it is energetic, even a touch frenzied.

Folks from FanGraphs, RotoGraphs, and The Hardball Times weighed in; here are the results.

The National League

The National League gets to have all the fun. Of course, some things are as you’d expect. The Dodgers are still anticipated to be a powerhouse. Only two of the 32 ballots cast exclude them from a postseason berth entirely, and they actually received one more vote to take their division than Cleveland did, despite their division opponents being projected for an average of 77.25 wins vs. Cleveland’s 72.5.

The Marlins look quite hopeless. The Giants don’t look a ton better. The Padres have not yet arrived. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about Sam’s unusual plan to immerse himself in the beginning of the baseball season, watching games as a writer vs. watching games as a fan, two responses to previous listener-email answers, whether “ball” is synonymous with baseball, why baseball has hit a dry spell for single-season record chases, the most breakable unbreakable records, Ichiro Suzuki as an almost-record-setting pinch hitter, why no one has hit .400 for so long, why doubles are the most immutable hit type, the Royals’ strange spring training, string training effort level, Orlando Cabrera’s wildly improbable on-base streak, and more, then answer listener emails about whether analytics have been a net positive for players and the best stat to represent a player’s power output, plus a Stat Blast about the longest streaks of years in which one team topped a league or division rival.

Audio intro: Lily & Madeleine, "Cabin Fever"
Audio outro: The Hives, "Here We Go Again"

Link to Dario’s YouTube broadcast
Link to Sam on seeing something new in games
Link to Hang Up and Listen on “ball coach”
Link to Sam on the most breakable unbreakable records
Link to article on the increasing homogeneity of ballparks
Link to Ben on the changing distribution of saves
Link to Ben on spring training stats
Link to Sam on the 21-strikeout game
Link to Ben on Ichiro as a pinch hitter
Link to Sam on .400 hitters
Link to division-rival data
Link to preorder The MVP Machine

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Over the past week and a half, we’ve published our annual preview of the upcoming season, ranking each position based on a blend of our projections (a 50/50 split between ZiPS and Steamer) and our manually maintained playing time estimates. The result was a document nearly the length of Infinite Jest (I am only somewhat kidding), so if you missed any of the posts, or would like to refresh your memory of what all it is that we’ve said, you can use the handy navigation widget above.

Today I’m going to summarize the results of the rankings. Before I get started, a brief note. I will throughout this post make reference to our Team WAR Totals. We maintain a total of projected future value by position, which updates regularly throughout the season. As such, the totals you see there may vary slightly from what you see on the positional power rankings, mostly because they are aware of injuries and transactions that have altered playing time estimates since the power rankings went live. I’ll provide a snapshot of those totals at the end of the post, but when you see that they are a little different here and there, don’t be surprised. Now you know why, and will be prepared. Now on to some trends.

First, we’ll take a look at where each team stacked up across positions. This table is sortable, so feel free to poke around.

Eight different teams check in with at least one first-place finish (the Angels, Astros, Braves, Brewers, Indians, Nationals, Red Sox, and Yankees). Only Cleveland (three) and Boston (two) can boast more than one such finish, though they present interesting and opposing case studies in how best to construct a roster. The Red Sox are one of eight teams (more on the others in a moment) that has six or more categories in which they rank in the top 10. The Red Sox are tops at both designated hitter and right field (J.D. Martinez and Mookie Betts: pretty good at baseball!) but are also sixth at shortstop, second in left field, fifth in center field, and fifth in their starting rotation. They have an incredibly deep, well-rounded team, though I would be remiss if I didn’t mention their bullpen, which came in at 27.

The only team among the eight I referenced above with a worse positional ranking was the Athletics, whose catching corps of Josh Phegley, Nick Hundley, Chris Herrmann, and Beau Taylor are projected to combine for a solitary win. Meanwhile, if you toggle over to the Team WAR Total projection for baseball’s remaining free agents, you’ll see that Craig Kimbrel accounts for 2.0 WAR of the All-Unemployed Team’s 2.2 relief WAR. He has the same projection as Edwin Diaz. The two of them only trail Aroldis Chapman and his 2.2 projected WAR. Those things are all facts that are being stated near to facts about the Boston Red Sox. Just some bullpen facts for your enjoyment.

Cleveland, on the other hand, has concentrated its wins rather sharply. Having Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor on the roster means the Indians are ranked first at third base and shortstop; Corey Kluber and Co. mean that their rotation is projected to be the best in baseball. But things fall of sharply from there. As I noted in my right field preview, Cleveland’s outfield is a mess, projected to be better than just the Tigers, Orioles, Royals, Giants, and Marlins in terms of its production across all three spots. They enjoy a weak division, but they also have a surprising thin margin for error given their advantage over bad competition, and it looks like their strategy will be tested early, with Ramirez dinged up while Lindor’s timeline for return is uncertain after he sustained an acute ankle sprain on Tuesday. Cleveland will almost certainly still find its way to October baseball (going into today, they had an 86.8% chance of winning their division according to our playoff odds), but its fate upon arriving there is far less assured.

I want to spend some time on the teams at the top and bottom of these rankings. The Yankees and Dodgers tally nine (nine!) positions a piece in those positions’ respective top 10s. The Astros can count seven. We’ve already talked about the Red Sox. That is impressive (there are five teams that don’t have a single top 10 finish), but it doesn’t necessarily give you a complete picture. The Cardinals are projected to win 86 games, tied for fifth-most in the NL with the Phillies, and they only have four top 10 finishes, as do the Giants, who we expect to win just 75 games. Ordinal rankings can make small differences appear larger than they are or obscure large gaps. But even with that proviso in mind, the Yankees and Dodgers impress. The Dodgers have four positions not just in the top 10, but the top five! They’re third at catcher, fourth at third base, second at shortstop, and fifth in right field. They don’t play with a designated hitter, being famously a National League team, but their projected 1.3 wins at DH in our Team WAR Totals page, which uses the expected value from pinch hitters to arrive at its NL DH forecast, is better than the Tigers’ 0.2 wins at the position, and the Tigers’ lineup is almost entirely composed of designated hitters playing out of position.

Meanwhile, the Yankees have a staggering six positions in that position’s top five. Their bullpen is first; their starting pitching is second. Right field comes in second; center field is in third. They’re fourth at DH and fifth at catcher. The Dodgers are projected for 93 wins and, despite an increasingly tough division, have an 85.9% chance of repeating as NL West champs. The Yankees have the best projected win total in baseball (97), and even with the Red Sox and Rays nipping at their heels, have a 62.2% chance of winning the division, not to mention the best odds to win the World Series. Contending teams can be balanced and pretty good at a lot of things, or they can be really good at a few things and cross their fingers about the rest. But the question the Yankees and Dodgers, and to a slightly lesser extent, the Astros and Red Sox, pose is: what if you were just really, really good at everything? Very good teams have faltered before, but at least on paper, this is the creme de la creme.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the Orioles and the Marlins. The Orioles’ average power rankings position was 26.09; the Marlins’ was 25.90. If we were to pretend that Baltimore had suddenly transferred to the National League and thus lost the DH (at 14, it was their only position ranked in the teens or better), that average drops to 27.3. We don’t have to belabor the point; Orioles and Marlins fans have suffered enough. But jeez are they bad.

As we’ve discussed, the rankings by themselves are helpful, but not totally helpful. We need some additional context to see how close and far apart these are to get a better sense of relative strengths and weaknesses, and to see how the last week of activity and injury affects things (poor Steven Souza Jr.). Remember, the NL DH values reflect expected value from pinch-hitters.

The Yankees are good. The Dodgers are good. The Astros, Red Sox, and Nationals are good. The Indians play in the AL Central. The Cubs and Cardinals are going to beat up on each other all season long; ditto the Phillies and Mets. The bad teams are very, very bad, and the middle is thin. It’s baseball in 2019. Tomorrow, real baseball with real stakes will be played in US time zones. We’ll look back and feel silly about some of these projections and haughty about others. We hope you’ve enjoyed this year’s installment of the positional power rankings and that the format provided you with something useful. We hope it helped to pass the time. We can’t wait to watch baseball along with all of you this season. It’s almost here.