Read the rest of this entry »

Back in early October, Termarr Johnson self-assuredly told MLB Pipeline’s Jim Callis that he is continuing to work on being “the best hitter in the world.” The 20-year-old Pittsburgh Pirates prospect didn’t put it quite that way when I spoke to him days later, but he did exude determination and confidence when addressing his craft. That’s understandable. Drafted fourth overall in 2022 out of Atlanta’s Mays High School, Johnson remains a high-ceiling hitter, albeit one whose developmental path hasn’t been as smooth as many had anticipated.

His 2024 season included both stumbles and strides. The 5-foot-7, 190-pound middle infielder logged a solid 121 wRC+ between High-A Greensboro (487 plate appearances) and Double-A Altoona (57), but as our lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen wrote last summer, Johnson’s “underlying contact data is pretty concerning.” Moreover, while his 15 home runs were indicative of plus power potential, the accompanying .386 slugging percentage was a bit underwhelming. Johnson’s left-handed stroke is unquestionably capable of causing damage, but further fine-tuning is needed before that can happen at the big league level.

Johnson discussed his approach to hitting shortly after the start of the Arizona Fall League season.

———

David Laurila: You’re still just 20 years old. Do you feel that you’ve settled into your identity as a hitter?

Termarr Johnson: “For sure. I feel like I have a pretty good swing, and I hit the ball hard pretty often, so I’m just trying to keep a good approach and bring the pitcher to me. I feel like that puts me in the best position possible. And to be honest with you, I’m a different hitter every at-bat. I’m a different hitter based on… like, every pitcher is different. Every pitch is different. Every situation is different. I’ll be a different hitter if there’s a runner on base and I’m trying to get him in, late in the game, or I’ll be a different hitter when I’m leading off the game.”

Laurila: That’s basically approach. What about mechanically? Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, I published my findings about the relationship between when free agents sign and the size of their contracts. As a quick refresher, in recent years, the last 20% or so of free agents to sign have been settling for contracts meaningfully lower than pre-offseason expectations. But that finding raises more questions, some of which I hope to answer today.

First, there’s an obvious question: Did the free agents who got those late, discounted deals perform worse than expected during the following season? In other words, did their low-dollar-value deals foreshadow lower-than-projected production? To examine this, I took the upcoming season’s projections for the players ranked on my Top 50 Free Agents list in each of the past three years, 150 players in all, to come up with a projected WAR for each segment of players. I then compared it to how they actually did in the ensuing year. There is indeed a drop-off for those who signed late:

First things first: Every group underperformed its projections. That comes down to playing time. Our projections use Depth Charts playing time, which approximates the most likely distribution of playing time across a given roster without accounting for the likelihood of injuries. Just as an example, non-catcher batters were projected for an average of more than 600 plate appearances in this dataset, and they came in closer to the mid-500s in practice. So don’t pay too much attention to the absolute numbers; the relative differences are what to look at here.

The last 10 free agents to sign saw huge shortfalls in production relative to expectations. One reason: They played less. The average hitter in this group of 150 free agents batted 70 times less than projected. Hitters signed among the last 10 free agents in their class batted 100 times less than projected. Likewise, the average pitcher in the group came up 25 innings shy of projections, but pitchers among the last 10 players signed came up 40 innings short.
Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Philadelphia Phillies. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fifth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

The 2025 Hall of Fame election is in the books, with another trio — first-year candidates Ichiro Suzuki and CC Sabathia joined by 10th-year candidate Billy Wagner — getting voted in by the Baseball Writers Association of America. While Suzuki’s possible unanimity and Carlos Beltrán’s strong showing on publicly tracked ballots created some amount of suspense leading up to the announcement, nobody scraped the bar; all three candidates who made the cut cleared at least 80% of the vote. The last time everybody elected made it by such a comfortable margin was in 2016, when Ken Griffey Jr. (99.3%) and Mike Piazza (83%) gained entry, with the class of ’18 just missing out because Trevor Hoffman (79.9%) lagged. Suzuki, Sabathia, and Wagner will be inducted in Cooperstown along with Classic Baseball honorees Dave Parker and the late Dick Allen on July 27, 2025.

Here’s a tidbit you might not have been aware of that ties this class together: all three honorees are natural-born right-handers who learned to do their most important job left-handed. Wagner famously broke his right arm twice at age seven and learned to throw lefty, Sabathia struggled in T-ball until switching hands, and Suzuki was taught to hit lefty by his father. Both pitchers took their cuts lefty as well, though Ichiro threw right-handed.

As usual, beyond the topline results, there’s plenty to ruminate on. So as promised, here’s my candidate-by-candidate breakdown of the entire slate of 28 candidates, 15 of whom will return to the ballot next year. Note that except where indicated, all references to percentages in Ryan Thibodaux’s indispensable Tracker are based upon data as of 9 a.m. ET on Thursday. Read the rest of this entry »

12:01

Dan Szymborski: Oh yeah, welcome yada yada

12:01

Dan Szymborski: It’s still preliminary, but while the Dodgers have the highest ZiPS projected wins ever, it’s not the 2025 Dodgers that are likely to grab that, but the 2021 Dodgers at 99 wins

12:02

Dan Szymborski: Not REALLY, but only that it’s difficult to really surprise me after doing this for 20 years!

Read the rest of this entry »

For the 21st consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Houston Astros.

Batters

The 2024 season started terribly for the Astros, with a 12-24 record in the early going and most of their projected rotation on the IL. The hole the team dug was deep enough that even with them playing solid ball after early May, the Astros didn’t get above .500 for good until the end of June. Still, nobody in the AL West managed to take advantage of Houston’s weak start. The Astros built a comfortable lead throughout August, and though the Mariners never fell hopelessly behind in the race, they never made Houston really sweat either. Read the rest of this entry »

The other day, I was poking around on the Minnesota Twins’ RosterResource page. Mostly because the Twins have been quiet this offseason, I wanted to make sure they were still there and that I hadn’t missed another round of contraction rumors.

It’s fine, guys, I checked and the Twins are not going out of business anytime soon.

The other thing I noticed is that Minnesota had only two hitters who qualified for the batting title last season, which is not a lot. The Rangers and Brewers (which I would not have guessed) had seven each. And with Carlos Santana bound for his fifth go-around with Cleveland (it’s only his third but I know you were about to look), Willi Castro stands alone in Minnesota. The Marlins and Rays are the only other teams that are set to return only a single qualified hitter from 2024. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley bring on FanGraphs senior writer Jay Jaffe to break down the Hall of Fame voting results, from new honorees to one-and-done candidates to trends in support to forecasts for future ballots and much more.

Audio intro: Philip Bergman, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Tom Rhoads, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Hill report
Link to MLBTR on Hill
Link to 2025 voting results
Link to 2024 voting results
Link to selections by year
Link to Jay’s results post
Link to Jay’s ballot
Link to all FG HoF coverage
Link to Wagner call video
Link to Sam ballot
Link to Tyrer article
Link to committees page
Link to pre-PITCHf/x framing
Link to Ben on Hall of Frame
Link to Jay on Hall of Frame
Link to The Cooperstown Casebook
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On August 18 in Colorado, Ha-Seong Kim led off first base, then dived back to beat a pickoff attempt. He tore the labrum in his right shoulder, and that was the last time we saw him play in 2024. After a failed rehab attempt, Kim underwent surgery in October, and he won’t be ready to play again until sometime between April and June. Just as uncertain: Where exactly Kim will be suiting up when he returns. There’s no doubt about his skill. Over the past four years, Kim has spent time at second, short, and third, and neither DRS nor FRV has ever rated him as below average at any of those spots. He needed a year to adjust on offense after arriving from the KBO in 2021, but over the past three seasons, he’s run a 106 wRC+. That ranks 13th among shortstops, and over the same period, his 10.5 WAR ranks 11th.

Kim entered free agency after both he and the Padres declined their ends of a mutual option, and he came in at ninth on our Top 50 Free Agents. According to the projections, he’ll command a four- or five-year deal with an AAV in the neighborhood of $19 million. However, the shoulder injury could cost him as much as half of the 2025 season, and it makes for a tough needle to thread. He’s got to sign with a team that needs a solid infielder, but not badly enough to need one right away. Moreover, a shoulder injury is especially scary for Kim, whose arm strength is an important part of his overall value and who already possesses below-average power at the plate. For that reason, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Kim get a pillow contract: Ben Clemens proposed two years with an opt-out. Back in November, Mark Feinsand reported that Kim had generated “lots of interest,” and wrote about the possibility that he’d be among the first free agents off the board. However, it’s now late January, and if you cruise through our Depth Charts, you’ll notice that there just don’t seem to be many good landing spots for Kim. Let us begin our litanies. Read the rest of this entry »