For what felt like quite a while, the chatter last offseason was dominated by the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes. Yusei Kikuchi isn’t Shohei Ohtani. For one thing, Kikuchi is a few years older. For a second thing, Kikuchi doesn’t routinely throw his fastball in the upper 90s. And for a third thing, no one has ever referred to Kikuchi as the Japanese Babe Ruth. I don’t know much about Kikuchi as a hitter, but I can assume that he is a bad hitter, because he is a pitcher who hasn’t made waves with his hitting. Kikuchi appears to have three career hits, now that I check. One of them was a double.

Shohei Ohtani was, and is, a sensation. The Kikuchi hype couldn’t possibly get close to that level, because Kikuchi won’t be trying to do something no one else has done in a lifetime. But somewhere in the next week or two, Kikuchi will be posted by the Seibu Lions, as the 27-year-old southpaw wants to make his mark in the bigs. He’ll be free to negotiate with any and every team, and he’s been rather heavily scouted. It’s time we talk about who Kikuchi is as a pitcher. It just so happens we’ve been given two fairly reasonable comps.

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Adrian Beltre has been many things to fans over the course of his amazing, 21 year career. Dodgers fans old enough to run for Congress got to see Beltre young and full of promise, including a 2004 season might be the greatest of all time by a third baseman. Since that year, only Mike Trout‘s 2012 and 2013, and Mookie Betts’s 2018 have topped the 9.7 WAR Beltre put up. Mariners fans had to settle for five years of Gold Glove-quality play at third base with a closer to an average bat, before a shoulder injury in 2009 forced him to take a one-year deal with the Red Sox. Boston fans watched one great year before Beltre moved to Texas and cemented his status as a surefire Hall of Famer.

On Tuesday, Beltre announced he is retiring.

He wasn’t necessarily thought of as such at the time, but in terms of offense and defense, Beltre was a modern-day Brooks Robinson. The great Orioles third baseman enjoyed an impeccable defensive reputation and aged well, averaging 4.4 WAR per season from his age-32 through age-37 seasons. And Beltre was up to the challenge, averaging 5.4 WAR during those same seasons. As offensive numbers around the league dropped, Beltre stayed the same. His .275/.328/.462 batting line when playing in the more cavernous ballparks in Los Angeles and Seattle turned into .304/.357/.509 when transplanted to the more hitter-friendly climes of Arlington. As strikeouts rose dramatically, Beltre struck out about once every other game. That consistency turned into one of the best third acts of a career we’ve ever seen.

There are only 10 position players since 1947 who accrued more WAR beginning at age 32 than Beltre has. Of those, only Barry Bonds, Edgar Martinez and Pete Rose haven’t been inducted into the Hall of Fame. The rest are inner-circle greats Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Mike Schmidt, Ozzie Smith, and Roberto Clemente.

And Beltre’s own WAR-based case for the Hall is impenetrable. Jay Jaffe’s JAWS has Beltre as the fourth-best third baseman of all-time behind only Mike Schmidt, Eddie Mathews, and Wade Boggs. Looking at FanGraphs’ third base Leaderboards, Beltre’s 84 WAR places him seventh with Alex Rodriguez, Chipper Jones, and George Brett joining Schmidt, Mathews, and Boggs, though Jones and Brett each lead him by less than a single win. Jay Jaffe tracked Beltre this past season as he became the all-time leader in hits for players born in Latin America, as well as internationally. He might not have an MVP, finishing second in 2004 and third in 2012, and his Rangers fell a strike short of a World Series win in 2011, but by any metric, Beltre is an all-time great, and that’s before you consider that he hit a homer off his knee in the World Series.

Beltre’s career is the rare sort in which a player’s statistical accomplishments actually match the personality and joy he displayed on the field. Jeff Sullivan wrote in 2016 that Beltre would be remembered “for being an excellent third baseman, for having an aversion to being touched on the head, and for sometimes playing through inconceivable pain.” Beltre’s age-defying statistical feats may be his true legacy, and those feats have been covered in some detail here at FanGraphs. August Fagerstrom wrote about it way back in 2015. I discussed his refusal to age when he signed a two-year extension in 2016 that would ultimately take him to the end of his career. Travis Sawchik and Paul Swydan each took turns in 2017 as Beltre worked his way to his 3,000th hit.

But for all that, Beltre’s ability to defy age with his bat and glove doesn’t measure up to his ageless spirit. There is his aversion to being touched on the head, his enduring and humorous friendship with King Felix. His dancing on the basepaths was a sight. He alternated between demanding space and ceding it with infield partner Elvis Andrus. There’s a giraffe named after Adrian Beltre at the Fort Worth Zoo, and Beltre-the-third-baseman has gone to see it. He’s given fake signs to the opposition. When told by umpire Gerry Davis to get back in the on-deck circle, he reacted as any 38-year-old would, and opted to move the circle itself; he was ejected from the game. On MLB Network Radio this morning, former Rangers manager Jeff Banister described Beltre dressing up like a clubhouse attendant and sweeping the dugout while on the disabled list.

When I think about what I hope and wish to see in a baseball player, I want someone who is a marvel with the bat and superlative with the glove. I want years of greatness combined with longevity. A toughness that shows off commitment. Someone who flashes moments of unique brilliance. A player with energy, whose love for the game seems boundless despite the money and routine that can sap that life from the best of us. Adrian Beltre might not be a perfect player, but he is one to me. I imagine I’m not alone.

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There’s often a bit of weirdness on the fringes of the annual BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot, and 2019 entry, unveiled on Monday, was no exception. What transpires on those fringes rarely has any bearing on who will wind up on the podium in Cooperstown next July, joyously thanking families, teammates, and coaches. But with the news of the ballot’s arrival still fresh, and with the Very Serious Business of analyzing the top candidates a task best suited for after Thanksgiving, it’s worth considering the margins for a few moments.

Because the ballot’s release is a Big Deal to yours truly, writer of more words about the Hall of Fame on an annual basis than just about anybody with a claim to sanity, I had Monday’s article, “The Big Questions About the 2019 BBWAA Hall of Fame Ballot,” ready to go in advance of the Hall’s 12 pm ET official press release, save for the final total of candidates and the list of first-timers. While the official rules make anybody who played at least 10 seasons in the majors and has been retired for five seasons eligible — anybody who’s not on baseball’s ineligible list, that is, or has not otherwise exhausted his eligibility — not everybody who meets those requirements actually lands on the ballot. That’s because there’s a stage that involves some subjective choices by the BBWAA Screening Committee, a six-member panel that puts the ballot together.

To appear on the ballot, a player must be nominated by any two of the six members of that committee. That’s a mere formality for all of the obvious candidates, but it becomes a coin toss the further down the list you go. Historically, the worst slights probably belong to three-time Gold Glove winner and two-time All-Star Willie Davis, who racked up 60.7 WAR (Baseball-Reference version, which I’m sticking with for all things ballot-related) in an 18-year career that spanned from 1960-1979 and included a 1977-1978 detour to Japan that put him out of sight and out of mind, and Negro Leagues-turned-Brooklyn Dodgers staple Jim Gilliam, who accrued 40.7 WAR from 1953-1966.

That pair is hardly alone. Among recent examples, in 2014, outfielder Shannon Stewart (24.9 WAR from 1995-2008, highlighted by a fourth-place finish in the 2003 AL MVP voting) was left off the ballot, while his former Twins teammate Jacque Jones (11.6 WAR from 1999-2008) was included. That same year, Esteban Loaiza (23.0 WAR from 1995-2008, highlighted by a second-place finish in the 2003 AL Cy Young voting) was on the outside, while Armando Benitez (17.0 WAR from 1994-2008, highlighted by a cheap shot that set off an infamous brawl between the Orioles and Yankees in 1998) was on the inside. Yes, Jones had more homers than Stewart in less playing time, and yes, Benitez had more saves than Loaiza had wins, but none of them had a chance at actually being elected. It was completely arbitrary who among them received the honor of being on the ballot.

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Ray Black hasn’t received much attention here at FanGraphs. That’s understandable. The 28-year-old San Francisco Giants reliever has consistently been clocked at over 100 mph, but only when he’s not on the shelf. And he’s spent a lot of time on the shelf.

Black had Tommy John surgery as a high school senior, a knee issue in college, then missed his first two-plus professional seasons after undergoing labrum surgery. A seventh-round pick by the Giants in 2011, Black didn’t take the mound until 2014. More obstacles followed. Notable among them were a second elbow surgery — this time to remove a bone spur — which resulted in him missing almost all of 2017.

This past season he missed a lot of bats — and not just down on the farm. Black made his long-in-coming MLB debut in early July and went on to fan 33 batters in 23.1 innings. He was even more overpowering in the minors, logging 66 punch-outs in 35.2 innings between Double-A and Triple-A. Not surprisingly, velocity played a big role in that success; he reached triple digits numerous times.

His heater and a return to health weren’t the only reasons he reached the big leagues this summer. With the help of San Francisco’s minor league pitching coordinator, and the Giants analytics staff, Black has become a bit of pitching nerd.

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Ray Black on technology and his slider: “The increase of technology in the game is incredible. StatCast. TrackMan. The Rapsodo machines. They show you your release point, the way your fingers come off the ball — all of this in super slow motion. You can break it down to so many frames per second.

“After one game against the Diamondbacks, they showed me the side-by-side of my fastball and my slider. If I throw my slider correctly, it’s mimicking my fastball — I’m keeping it on the same plane long enough that the hitter can’t recognize it. The technology can basically tell you if you had a good one or a bad one, and I had it working that day. This was after I got sent back down to Triple-A in late August.

“I’d given up a walk-off home run on my slider, in Cincinnati [on August 17]. When I went back and looked at that one, side by side with my fastball, I could see a big hump. I looked at the velo as well, and it had gone from an 88-90-mph pitch down to an 83-84-mph pitch. It was slurvier, with a hump, and it got tagged. Read the rest of this entry »

The free-agent market includes names like Patrick Corbin and Dallas Keuchel. There’s been chatter the Mets might be willing to trade Noah Syndergaard. There’s been chatter the Indians might be willing to trade Carlos Carrasco or Corey Kluber. But when the Mariners signaled their intent to take a step back this offseason, James Paxton became an obvious trade candidate, and quite possibly the best pitcher available. At least, the best pitcher available under realistic circumstances, since I don’t even know what it would take to pry Kluber away. Paxton rumors circulated for a couple of weeks, and now we’ve arrived at a conclusion, since Jerry Dipoto is hardly opposed to making moves in November. Paxton will be on his way to New York, where he’ll share a rotation with Luis Severino.

Yankees get:

• James Paxton

Mariners get:

• Justus Sheffield
• Erik Swanson
• Dom Thompson-Williams

Before too long, Paxton’s presence will be taken for granted, and attention will turn to the Yankees’ pursuit of still another starter in free agency. We’re seemingly always focused on what’s just in front of us, and what might be in front of Yankees fans soon is Corbin, or Keuchel, or somebody else. They seem likely to make another impact move to bolster the starting rotation. But for this moment, getting Paxton is a move to be celebrated. For a variety of reasons, Paxton has flown somewhat under the radar, but he’s a No. 1 starter, added to a team with a No. 1 starter.

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Hi everyone! Welcome to the third live chat of the FanGraphs Book Club! We’ll get started talking Russell Carleton’s book, The Shift, at 9 pm ET, and Russell will join us at 9:30. That’ll give us all 30 minutes to talk about the book amongst ourselves, and line up some really great questions for him. So, I would say, don’t put questions in for Russell now, let’s save those until he logs on to the chat.

I hope you all are as excited as I am to talk baseball books! As a reminder, if you want to join our Facebook Group you can do so here.

Chat Transcript:

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From everything I’ve read, and from everyone I’ve talked to, just about every single baseball team is interested in free-agent Nathan Eovaldi. Very good teams are interested in Eovaldi. Very mediocre teams are interested in Eovaldi. Very bad teams are interested in Eovaldi. There are degrees of interest, sure, and before too long, certain would-be suitors are going to be removed from the hunt. As always, it’ll come down to a limited pool of finalists. But, why is Eovaldi so popular? I guess you don’t have to think back very far.

Eovaldi pitched six times for the Red Sox in the playoffs. He started, he relieved, and one time he relieved with a starter’s workload. Eovaldi wound up getting tagged with the loss in that game, but I want to quickly revisit the final out Eovaldi recorded. With two down in the bottom of the 17th inning of Game 3 of the World Series, Eovaldi struck out Justin Turner on three pitches. They were his 88th, 89th, and 90th pitches of the evening. He had already pitched in Game 1 and Game 2.

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