After 14 seasons in the majors, Starling Marte has signed with the Royals on a one-year contract for $2 million. The 37-year-old Marte brings a proven bat to an outfield that should look at least a little bit different than it has in recent years. Between one-year deals for Marte and Lane Thomas and trades for Isaac Collins and Kameron Misner, Kansas City has now added more than an entire outfield to its roster, even though the team has two returning incumbents in Kyle Isbel and Jac Caglianone.

Marte’s career is maybe too easy to overlook; after being a core member of three Pirates playoff teams during his first three full seasons, both he and his team faded into obscurity until he was traded three times between the start of 2020 and the end of July 2021. Then, for the past four years, he was a role player on a star-studded Mets roster. For that reason, let’s make sure we appreciate just how great he’s been. He has a career wRC+ of 115, 361 stolen bases, and 35.9 WAR to his name. He’s had eight different seasons of at least 3.0 WAR and earned a couple of Gold Gloves, a couple of All-Star nods, and even an MVP vote. You might be surprised to learn that JAWS ranks him 46th among left fielders. He’s not in Hall of Fame territory, but he’s a lot closer than you might think. Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, Team USA played its first tuneup game before the World Baseball Classic, thrashing the Giants 15-1 in a scheduled 10-inning exhibition. This came on the heels of Monday’s announcement lining up the American rotation for pool play in the WBC.

The WBC is a bit unusual for an international best-on-best sporting tournament in that it takes place during the preseason, rather than during a dedicated break (as in Olympic ice hockey or the 2022 FIFA World Cup) or the offseason. Therefore, the best active managers and coaches for each country are unavailable to coach in the tournament, as they would be in hockey and soccer.

For the first four tournaments, USA Baseball got around this by hiring either unemployed or recently retired managers — Buck Martinez, Davey Johnson, Joe Torre, and Jim Leyland. Highly successful and well-respected managers, in the latter three cases. For 2023, they went with Mark DeRosa. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Team USA’s pre-WBC warm-up games, follow up on spring training ballpark naming rights, and discuss Jurickson Profar’s second PED suspension in as many seasons, then preview the 2026 New York Yankees (20:07) with The New York Daily News’ Gary Phillips, and the 2026 St. Louis Cardinals (59:53) with The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Derrick Goold.

Audio intro: Beatwriter, “Effectively Wild Theme”
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Link to Team USA vs. Giants gamer
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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about corporate naming rights of spring training ballparks vs. MLB parks, and potential unwritten rules surrounding the challenge system, then (47:03) preview the World Baseball Classic with MLB.com’s Michael Clair, touching on the big and unsung stories of the WBC, whether the interest level will increase again, how often the WBC should be held, and more, as well as Michael’s WBC-inspired book, We Sacrifice Everything to Baseball.

Audio intro: Ted O., “Effectively Wild Theme”
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Jamie Arnold has a six-pitch mix that plays up thanks to outlier traits. He also has a lofty ceiling. Drafted 11th overall last year by the Athletics out of Florida State University, the 21-year-old southpaw will debut professionally this season having just missed out on our 2026 Top 100 Prospects list. And while he didn’t quite make that cut, Arnold did merit inclusion on the prospect team’s Picks to Click list, which highlights players expected to make next year’s Top 100. (Eric Longenhagen was present for Arnold’s spring training debut last Friday, video of which can be seen here.)

His delivery plays a role in his effectiveness. As Michael Baumann wrote prior to last summer’s draft, “Arnold’s long arm swing and extreme low release point make it hard to find an easy comp for him.” My colleague also referred to him as “a pitchability lefty,” which is notable given that the 6-foot-1 Tampa native possesses plus raw stuff. He certainly dominated at the amateur level. Over his last two collegiate seasons, Arnold went 19-5 with a 2.96 ERA while allowing just 153 hits over 190 1/3 frames. Moreover, he punched out 278 batters and issued just 53 free passes.

Arnold discussed his arsenal — which currently includes two changeups — as well as the mindset he takes with him to the mound, at the A’s spring training facility in Mesa, Arizona.

———

David Laurila: I’ve read the reports, but how would you describe yourself as a pitcher? How do you get guys out?

Jamie Arnold: “I’m in the zone a lot; I’m a strike-thrower and like to limit walks. You could say that I’m a groundball pitcher, but I also put up strikeout numbers. So I like to play both roles: a pitcher who gets quick outs, and a pitcher who punches guys out.” 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 »

Everybody remembers the biggest moment from the 2023 World Baseball Classic. In the championship game, with Japan leading the United States 3-2 in the top of the ninth, Mike Trout stepped into the box as the tying run. Even though he was the Mike Trout – the surefire Hall of Famer with 71 WAR to his name who was coming off a 176 wRC+ in 2022 – he looked a little nervous. Before he even dug his cleats into the dirt, he sneaked four different peeks out toward the pitcher’s mound.

He did so for good reason. Out on the mound was Shohei Ohtani, the most fearsome player in the game, as well as Trout’s teammate. The endgame was a chess match. Ohtani started Trout with a ferocious sweeper just below the zone, but Trout took an absurdly easy take. No longer nibbling, Ohtani blew a center-cut fastball right by Trout at 100 mph. He touched 102 on the next pitch. At the end, with the count full, Ohtani threw a sweeper that started out over the heart of the plate and then took a left turn so sharp you’d think it had just read A People’s History of the United States. Trout couldn’t lay off it. Japan had won. Pandemonium reigned in the Tokyo Dome.

We could easily get another best-on-best matchup to end the 2026 WBC. Whether you believe that the best pitcher in baseball right now is Tarik Skubal or Paul Skenes, either one of them could find himself trying to close out the championship against Ohtani or Juan Soto (or Ronald Acuña Jr., or Vladimir Guerrero Jr., or Fernando Tatis Jr.; those Juniors really can hit). We could just as easily see Yoshinobu Yamamoto or Cristopher Sánchez facing down Aaron Judge. Read the rest of this entry »

As I write this, I’m watching a spring training game on my other monitor, which is a good reminder that another season of baseball will soon begin. Forty-eight of the Top 50 free agents of the winter have signed, with Zack Littell and Lucas Giolito the lone holdouts. That means it’s time for my annual review of contract predictions, mostly mine and the crowd’s.

I like to evaluate my own predictions so that I can get better at making them in the future. I like to evaluate your crowdsourced predictions because it’s fun, and because everyone likes hearing how smart they are. Our crowdsourced predictions have been consistently excellent, arguably better than any industry expert, and that makes displaying them particularly enjoyable.

To evaluate our accuracy, I broke the signings down into three categories: hitters, starting pitchers, and relievers. I also examined the entire Top 50, without positional separation. I used a formula that I discussed earlier this winter as my chief metric of accuracy, but I also checked how close we came on average annual value, total guarantee, and number of years. I looked at how the predictions matched the overall amount of money spent in the market, and also considered how close each individual prediction came. That way, I was able to evaluate two things: Who did the best job predicting the broad market, and who predicted what each free agent would get with the greatest accuracy. Read the rest of this entry »

A key part of developing as a baseball analyst is knowing one’s own scouting blind spots. So here’s one of mine: I will go absolutely berserk for any prospect who shows even a hint of life against older competition in international play. I can’t help myself.

Brett Lawrie makes the Canadian Olympic team just out of high school in 2008, and plays regularly in the tournament. (This tournament featured lights-out pitching by 21-year-old Hyun Jin Ryu and 20-year-old Stephen Strasburg, the latter the only college player on Team USA.) Lawrie then plays for Canada again in the 2009 WBC, before making his professional debut.

Also on Team Canada in 2009: 20-year-old Single-A right-hander Phillippe Aumont comes into a jam with the bases loaded and nobody out against Team USA, and blows up David Wright, Kevin Youkilis, and Curtis Granderson in succession. Read the rest of this entry »