Is Luke Weaver good? I’m asking for a friend of mine who will remain anonymous, initials D.S. It’s a matter of some urgency, he told me. Perhaps – and I, of course, wouldn’t want to speculate – it might be related to a news item first reported by Will Sammon of The Athletic. Weaver and the New York Mets are in agreement on a two-year, $22 million deal that continues to overhaul their bullpen.

Eleven million a year for a quality reliever is a solid rate. Eleven million for a guy who is only a season removed from nearly carrying the Yankees to a World Series title? A screaming buy. Thus, the question in evaluating Weaver’s free agency is simple: Is he the guy who dominated in 2024, or the one whom Aaron Boone launched down the bullpen hierarchy and eventually gave up on in the 2025 postseason?

When the Weaver experience is firing on all cylinders, you watch him pitch and wonder why everyone can’t do it like this. He starts things off with a model-friendly four-seam fastball, 94-95 mph and with prototypical backspinning movement. The combination of velocity, movement, and command turn what might seem like an ordinary pitch into a great primary option. As a starter, Weaver’s fastball was plus but not unhittable. It was held back by subpar velocity, but that was the only shortcoming of an otherwise solid offering. His star turn in 2024 was driven largely by that pitch, with a few ticks of velocity making it a monster instead of merely good.

When Weaver isn’t pounding the strike zone with his fastball, he’s snapping off one of the best changeups in baseball. The superlative cambio has always been his top offering. He broke into the majors as a starter and used the change to survive, throwing it more than a quarter of the time without any other solid secondaries to speak of. It’s so good that it’s no mere platoon pitch, and it’s gotten better since his transition to the bullpen. The same few ticks of extra juice that turned his fastball unhittable also gave batters nightmares with his offspeed offerings. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 22nd 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, as well as MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Batters

Buoyant with last offseason’s Corbin Burnes signing, the Diamondbacks looked poised to return to the playoffs this season after a disappointing follow-up to their 2023 pennant, but it never quite came together. There were plenty of exciting developments, none more than Geraldo Perdomo’s breakout performance, for which he finished fourth in the NL MVP race. But Arizona lost Burnes to injury early, the rotation on the whole was mediocre, and there were a few big holes in the lineup that the team’s stars couldn’t overcome. While the D-backs did hang around in the Wild Card race into the final weeks of the season, they never really coded as a contender, and ended the season right around the .500 mark.

It’s amusing to look at the depth chart graphic and see just how polarizing ZiPS sees Arizona’s on-paper lineup right now. There are four positions ZiPS really likes — Corbin Carroll in right, Perdomo and Ketel Marte up the middle, and Gabriel Moreno behind the plate — and four positions ZiPS doesn’t like. Meanwhile, only third base, with Jordan Lawlar and Blaze Alexander, gets a neutral projection. In some aspects, this makes the Diamondbacks an easier group to upgrade because they have obvious areas in which they can to improve, but I’m not sure they’d seriously consider getting into the Kyle Tucker sweepstakes. There has been some chatter in the rumor mill about Alex Bregman as a target for Arizona, and if that’s the case, this team would certainly benefit from his addition, even if third base isn’t the biggest area of concern. Perdomo is for real, even if ZiPS isn’t projecting him to repeat his 7-WAR season, and I don’t think anyone’s surprised by Carroll, Marte, and Moreno being All-Star level talents. It’s fun to imagine Marte making a Hall of Fame run, but ZiPS thinks he’ll be short of 50 WAR when all is said and done, with a JAWS of 39, ranking him somewhere in the 30s among historical second basemen.

With Lawlar able to play the middle infield, Arizona could conceivably pull off a Marte trade for help in the outfield or in the rotation, though the return would likely have to be massive for this to move beyond idle internet discussion. ZiPS is thoroughly unimpressed with the Lourdes Gurriel Jr.-led combo in left, Alek Thomas in center, and the “whatever” currently slated to start at DH. This is a team that really could use Josh Naylor right about now! ZiPS sees little excitement in the high minors, especially as it has grown extremely bearish on Druw Jones’ ability to become a real hitter. Alexander perhaps has the most fascinating projection of anyone beyond the stars, and while he’s stretched as a shortstop, he is better at third base and has a lot of the qualities of a good supersub. He’ll certainly be a better supersub than he was as a cocktail: I tried to make a Blaze Alexander for science, consisting of Fireball cinnamon whiskey, crème de cacao, and cream in equal parts. It was terrible, though your mileage may vary; I’m also far less positive about negronis than most of the internet.

Pitchers

ZiPS sees a kind of last-hurrah season for Merrill Kelly, and it’s something Arizona needs with Zac Gallen perhaps departing in free agency and Burnes expectd to miss the bulk of the season. Kelly is a lot older than he seems, by virtue of debuting as a 30-year-old rookie who had to go to the KBO to become a quality pitcher. Brandon Pfaadt gets an OK projection, but ZiPS is souring on him enough that if he again greatly underperforms his peripherals, it may turn on him altogether.

The projections see some regression toward the mean for Ryne Nelson, but ZiPS still considers him a viable mid-rotation starter. Eduardo Rodriguez is projected to bounce back a bit after two rough years with Arizona, but like Pfaadt, he’s running out of time to make good on the silicon positivity. ZiPS isn’t enthusiastic about Michael Soroka, but it actually gave him a better projection than I expected.

Of the fringier pitchers that ZiPS likes, Arizona has two of the ones with better projections, in Mitch Bratt and Daniel Eagen. Bratt is a command guy, and though ZiPS knows to be skeptical of those pitchers in the minors, his control may be just good enough; he also misses bats at a high enough rate that he might thread that needle. Eagen has a couple good breaking pitches, and if the walks don’t shoot up with more time in the high minors, he may be a reasonable option in the not too distant future.

ZiPS is generally more positive about the frontend of the Diamondbacks bullpen than Steamer. The quartet of Andrew Saalfrank, Ryan Thompson, Kevin Ginkel, and Drey Jameson get a solid set of projections. The computer is also hopeful about a Justin Martinez comeback. The numbers are less positive for the second and third tier of the pen, with the exception of Kyle Backhus, who gets nearly as good a projection as any of Arizona’s other options, including Thompson and Ginkel.

Right now, the Diamondbacks are projected to be few wins better than they were this season. That puts them firmly in the Wild Card race, but ZiPS sees them as being well behind the Dodgers in the NL West, with the Giants also ahead of them. Success for Arizona also requires some of these pitching questions to be answered in a positive manner, and that’s naturally something you can’t always count on.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time. The final team projections may differ considerably from our Depth Chart playing time.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2026 due to injury, and players who were released in 2025. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Ambient Math-Rock Trip-Hop Yacht Metal band that only performs in abandoned malls, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.16.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR. It is important to remember that ZiPS is agnostic about playing time, and has no information about, for example, how quickly a team will call up a prospect or what veteran has fallen into disfavor.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by misinformation, a non-pragmatic reality, or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter or on Bluesky. This last is, however, not an actual requirement.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about an “oppo taco” mention in Wake Up Dead Man, a run on free-agent relievers and the lack of late-inning options remaining on the market, when big free agents actually tend to sign, the Nationals’ youth movement in the front office and on the coaching staff, and the stacked USA WBC pitching staff, plus follow-ups on several subjects.

Audio intro: Ian H., “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Liz Panella, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Rian Johnson clip
Link to MLB.com on Weaver
Link to Williams message
Link to FG post on Keller
Link to Arizona gulls
Link to MLBTR on May
Link to Jimmy trailer
Link to Buzzfeed post on Jimmy
Link to remaining FA RP
Link to Nats youth story
Link to Nats youth story 2
Link to Nats youth tweet
Link to MLBTR on DeBartolo
Link to Butera quote
Link to Nats ticket settlement
Link to scouts lawsuit
Link to ump age study
Link to Sheehan research
Link to Raleigh award tweet
Link to USA WBC roster
Link to 2023 roster
Link to Trout WBC story
Link to announced players post
Link to Ben on WBC injuries
Link to Ben on more WBCs
Link to Grinch oral history
Link to roast beast
Link to MLBTR on Kim’s offer
Link to “Big Smooth” article
Link to Pomeranz post
Link to Calcaterra on the HoF
Link to ineligible list wiki

 Sponsor Us on Patreon
 Give a Gift Subscription
 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com
 Effectively Wild Subreddit
 Effectively Wild Wiki
 Apple Podcasts Feed 
 Spotify Feed
 YouTube Playlist
 Facebook Group
 Bluesky Account
 Twitter Account
 Get Our Merch!

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Read the rest of this entry »

The Giants have one thing so many other teams covet: a genuine ace to lead their starting rotation. Only one other starting pitcher has accumulated more WAR than Logan Webb over the last five years, and he’s eighth in baseball in park- and league-adjusted FIP over that same period. After posting the best season of his career in 2025, Webb will continue to lead the rotation in ‘26. The rest of the pitching staff, though, is rife with question marks. San Francisco took its first steps toward addressing some of those issues this week, signing Adrian Houser, Jason Foley, and Gregory Santos to bolster the depth across the staff.

On Tuesday, Houser agreed to a two-year, $22 million contract with a club option for a third year. He made a name for himself as a reliable backend starter and swingman for the Brewers across his first seven seasons in the big leagues, before bouncing around six different organizations over the last two years. Traded to the Mets during the 2023-24 offseason, Houser struggled to a 5.84 ERA and 4.93 FIP across seven starts and 16 relief appearances. He made a handful of minor league appearances in the Orioles and Cubs organizations during the remainder of 2024, then signed a minor league deal with Rangers last offseason. Texas never called him up, and so he opted out of that deal and signed a major league contract with the White Sox in May.

I don’t think anyone was expecting a big breakout once Houser joined Chicago’s starting rotation. For most of his career, both of his fastballs averaged around 93-94 mph, but his velocity had dipped a few ticks by the time he was 32 and pitching for the Mets. It was a surprise, then, to see him firing 95-mph four-seamers as a member of the White Sox.

Read the rest of this entry »