Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley remind people to vote in their preseason predictions game, discuss the completion of the season preview series, and then (10:15) analyze Shohei Ohtani’s remarks from Monday and preview the rest of the 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers season with The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya, followed (1:15:31) by a 2024 Colorado Rockies preview with The Denver Gazette’s Luke Zahlmann, plus a postscript on the Diamondbacks signing Jordan Montgomery (1:55:50) and a recap of preview guests’ goals for each team this year (2:01:25).
Earlier today, we looked at the teams in the bottom half of the league’s rotations. Now to close out the positional power rankings, we look at the game’s best.
The ever-changing landscape of pitching is present throughout the upper tier of the rotation rankings. With fewer workhorses across the league, rotations are often relying on upwards of eight guys to make a significant impact, as teams now understand that the six-month grind will churn their staff and could leave their April and October iterations looking very different. The margins are tiny, with the top three teams separated by fractions of a win and the next 11 split by a mere 1.6 WAR. Six of the teams ranked 16-30 last year have graduated into the upper class, but a key injury or an overperforming prospect from one of clubs in this year’s bottom tier could be enough to flip things drastically. Read the rest of this entry »
Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to my pre-Opening Day chat. I’m just back from a brief ski vacation in Salt Lake City with my daughter; due to delays we didn’t get home until 3 AM so forgive the cobwebs. The second of my two Positionl Power Rankings ran while I was gone, the Right Fielders https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2024-positional-power-rankings-right-field
Andrew: If it does come to light that Ohtani bet on sports, do you think the Angels are forced to vacate all their playoff wins while he was on the team?
2:03
Jay Jaffe: womp womp
2:03
TKDC: Over/under .5 game suspension for Ohtani when this all shakes out?
Nolan Schanuel got to the big leagues in a hurry, and he wasted little time proving himself once he arrived. Called up less than six weeks after being drafted 11th overall last summer by the Los Angeles Angels out of Florida Atlantic University, the left-handed swinging first baseman hit safely in each of his first 10 games. Moreover, he reached base in all 29 games he appeared in and finished with a .402 OBP. Indicative of his calling cards — plus plate discipline and quality bat-to-ball skills — he drew 20 walks and fanned just 19 times in 132 plate appearances.
The one knock on his game is he doesn’t hit for much power. Schanuel homered just twice after reaching pro ball — once each in Double-A and the majors — and while that profile isn’t expected to change markedly, he did leave the yard 19 times in his final collegiate season. At 6-foot-4, 220 pounds, he also possesses the frame to become more of a long-ball threat as he further acclimates to big-league pitching. Just 22 years old (as of last month), he has plenty of time left to grow his game.
Schanuel talked hitting at the Angels’ Arizona spring training complex earlier this month.
———
David Laurila: It’s not uncommon for modern day players to identify as hitting nerds. In your opinion, what constitutes a hitting nerd?
Nolan Schanuel: “There are so many ways you can put it. I think it’s somebody that studies not only their own swing, but also other people’s swings, seeing what works for them. Growing up, I looked into dozens of swings. Barry Bonds, Ichiro [Suzuki] — seeing what works for them and kind of trying to put it into mine. So, I would say that being a hitting nerd is studying other people and kind of inserting some of what they do into themselves.”
Laurila: You just named two hitters with very different swings. Were you ever trying to emulate either of them?
Schanuel: “I wouldn’t say emulate. I would say that I tried to pick out pieces of what they did really well. I didn’t really know my swing when I was first doing this, so putting things into it kind of made it what it is today.”
It remains a heartbreaking but immutable fact of baseball life that you cannot steal first base.
So over the weekend, Cleveland Guardians outfielder Myles Straw passed through waivers. He’s no longer on the 40-man roster and will start the season in Triple-A, despite having a guaranteed three years and $20.45 million remaining on his contract.
Yesterday, we ranked baseball’s bullpens. Today, we turn our attention to the starters, beginning with the rotations that project in the bottom half of the league.
It’s not every day that you get to quote Tolstoy in an article that primarily consists of short descriptions of fifth starters, but trust me, I have a good reason for doing so. You know which quote I’m going for, presumably. “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” It’s trite, but it does such a good job of describing major league rotations that I couldn’t resist. I’m sure you’ll love the top 15 rotations when they get released. There’s a shiny ace at the top. He’s accompanied by a fairly good second banana, maybe even someone you could call a borderline number one starter. The guys behind them? They’re a mix of interesting young pitchers and accomplished veterans. If the team is lucky, they might even be a super-rotation, health permitting. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and FanGraphs authors Michael Baumann and Ben Clemens play “Character Who Appears in Shōgun the Novel (but Not the TV Series) or International Amateur Baseball Player” (3:13), banter about an MLBPA power struggle (8:37) and the life of late Orioles owner Peter Angelos (16:51), and then explain the second annual preseason predictions game (22:38) and make 10 bold predictions apiece (29:00) about baseball in 2024, to be voted on by listeners.
Up until now, the Rockies had made very little noise this offseason. After agreeing to extensions with Germán Márquez and Charlie Blackmon just before the 2023 season wrapped up, Colorado spent a mere $3.5 million on major league free agent deals in the six months since, the fewest of any team in the majors. Yet, at the tail end of a long, quiet winter, the Rockies finally made headlines, when on Sunday they signed 22-year-old Ezequiel Tovar to a long-term contract extension. The deal, which begins right away, will pay Tovar $63.5 million over the next seven years. After that, the Rockies have a $20.5 million team option for 2031, the shortstop’s age-29 season.
Across three offseasons at the helm for Colorado, general manager Bill Schmidt has largely avoided multi-year free agent deals, with one notable exception: Kris Bryant and the seven-year, $182 million pact he signed before the 2022 season. Over the past two winters, the Rockies are one of only three teams not to have signed a single multi-year free agent deal; the other two clubs, the Pirates and Orioles, have outspent Colorado by totals of $37.71 million and $10.13 million, respectively. However, free agency isn’t the only way for teams to keep players around for longer periods of time. Under Schmidt, the Rockies have signed eight players to multi-year extensions; only the Braves have extended more players on multi-year deals in that span. Atlanta has gotten far more extension attention, but this is how Colorado operates, too.
Even so, the Tovar deal represents a different approach for the Rockies because it is the first time that Schmidt has extended a player with fewer than four years of service. It’s also the longest extension the Rockies have awarded since February 2019, when they signed Nolan Arenado to an eight-year, $260 million deal that began in 2020. Moreover, while we have started to see more and more pre-arb players signing long-term extensions around the majors, many of those players either are stars or have star potential. Perhaps the only good comp for Tovar’s extension is the eight-year, $50 million deal Keibert Ruiz signed with the Nationals after putting up a 91 wRC+ and 1.8 WAR in 2022, his first full season. Then again, even Ruiz arguably had a higher ceiling at the time. Tovar might be in a class of his own when it comes to low-ceiling, high-floor youngsters signing lucrative long-term deals.
Entering the 2023 season, Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin ranked Tovar no. 41 on our Top 100 Prospects list, describing him as “a fantastic defensive shortstop” with “poor plate discipline” that “somewhat undermines his excellent bat-to-ball skill.” One year later, Tovar is no longer a prospect, but that remains the prevailing report. He finished his debut season with the lowest walk rate and the second-highest O-Swing% among qualified NL batters. He also finished with 16 OAA and 13 DRS; the only shortstop to outpace him in both metrics was Dansby Swanson. Despite his 70 wRC+, worst among qualified NL hitters, Tovar finished his rookie season with 1.6 WAR. That’s hardly star-level performance, but a 1.6-WAR player is still a big league regular.
Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first: Tovar’s offensive numbers last season were pitiful. One of the only areas in which he was above average was batting average, and Coors Field likely inflated that number. His plate discipline was dreadful, as expected, but so were his contact skills, which came as something of a surprise. Tovar ranked 66th out of 72 qualified NL hitters in contact rate, and he wasn’t just whiffing on pitches outside the zone. While his O-Contact% was poor, his Z-Contact% also came in below league average.
On the bright side, when he did manage to put the ball in play, Tovar showed flashes of his promising hit tool. His .378 xwOBAcon was a few ticks above league average, thanks to his line drive tendencies. He ranked in the 71st percentile in Baseball Savant’s Sweet-Spot% and finished seventh among qualified NL players in line drive rate. If he can make more contact, especially on pitches in the strike zone, his offensive numbers will improve even if he never adds a lick of discipline to his game. If he can improve his plate discipline, then all the better. For what it’s worth, he significantly improved his walk rate during his final season in the minor leagues, prompting his Double-A manager, Chris Denorfia, to rave about Tovar’s growth. “He’s made this developmental jump,” Denorfia told David Laurila in 2022. “Something clicked to where he’s recognizing situations where pitchers are going to try to get him to chase.” Plate discipline is a different animal in the majors than in the minors, but still, it’s worth acknowledging that this is a skill he has successfully improved in the past.
Tovar also showed off 69th-percentile sprint speed in 2023. He won’t ever be a weapon on the basepaths, but with speed like that, he should be a better base runner than his numbers last year would suggest; he went 11-for-16 on stolen base attempts and was worth -0.6 BsR. Long story short, this is a player with much more offensive potential than we saw last season, and he has a strong enough glove to allow him to nurse his growing pains at the highest level while still contributing positive value to his club.
Courtesy of Dan Szymborski, here is what the ZiPS projections envision for Tovar over the next eight years:
ZiPS Projection – Ezequiel Tovar
Year
BA
OBP
SLG
AB
R
H
2B
3B
HR
RBI
BB
SO
SB
OPS+
WAR
2024
.259
.300
.424
552
75
143
32
4
17
76
28
142
11
87
2.2
2025
.263
.306
.438
562
79
148
33
4
19
81
30
138
11
91
2.6
2026
.266
.310
.442
568
82
151
34
3
20
84
32
133
11
94
2.9
2027
.267
.313
.448
572
85
153
34
3
21
86
34
129
10
96
3.1
2028
.267
.313
.446
574
85
153
34
3
21
87
35
125
10
96
3.1
2029
.266
.314
.445
571
86
152
33
3
21
86
36
122
9
96
3.2
2030
.268
.317
.449
563
85
151
33
3
21
86
36
121
8
97
3.2
2031
.270
.318
.453
552
84
149
32
3
21
84
35
119
8
99
3.2
With projections like that, ZiPS would give Tovar $92 million over seven years. That’s more than he’ll make even if the Rockies pick up his team option for an eighth year.
With all that in mind, it’s easy to see why the Rockies offered Tovar a long-term extension. We’ve already seen his floor, and it’s rather sturdy — he can be a valuable player even if he’s the worst hitter in the league. The Rockies could do a heck of a lot worse than pay $9 million per year for seven seasons of a 1.5-win shortstop. What’s more, it won’t take much for this deal to pay dividends in Colorado. If Tovar’s hit tool progresses against big league pitching, he would blossom into an above-average shortstop throughout his twenties.
As for Tovar, his youth has gifted him the rare opportunity to cash in now without giving up the chance to sign another long-term deal. His $63.5 million guarantee is more than the vast majority of players will earn in their careers, yet he can still reach free agency before his 30th birthday. If Colorado picks up its club option, Tovar will have to wait another year to test the open market. Yet, if the Rockies are comfortable paying $20.5 million for his services (even the Rockies, and even in 2031 dollars), that suggests Tovar will be playing well enough to cash in on the free agent market at 30 years old. The two or three free agent years he is losing aren’t nothing, especially for a glove-first player. Still, Tovar had to sacrifice something for lifelong financial security, and it’s not difficult to understand why he made that choice.
Ultimately, this is a rock solid move for both sides. The Rockies are betting they secured three additional years with an excellent shortstop at price tag well below market value. If that doesn’t work out, they’re only slightly overpaying one of the better defensive players in baseball. Meanwhile, Tovar gets to work out his kinks at the MLB level without ever having to worry about money, and if everything goes according to plan, he can still sign a lucrative free agent deal in the 2030s. Now, both sides can get to work on what they need to do next: Tovar will try to improve his plate discipline, while the Rockies will look to acquire, develop, and yes, extend the stars who can help them escape the NL West basement.
Earlier today, Dan Szymborski kicked off our reliever rankings. Now we’ll take a look at the bullpens projected to be baseball’s best.
There are some positions for which a cleaner, wider WAR gap exists between the top teams and the bottom, where we can more definitively say that some teams are better than others. For instance, the combination of talent and depth that the Yankees and Braves have in right field separates them from the rest of baseball in a substantial way: There’s a projected 4-5 WAR gap between those clubs and the teams projected/ranked as high as sixth in right field. The projected WAR gap between the Phillies’ bullpen and that of the White Sox, ranked all the way down at 30, is only about that much, at 4.5 WAR. Relief pitching is not one of those positions with clear, WAR-driven demarcation from team to team, and bullpens on clubs with better rotations (and starters who eat up innings) are going to be punished for throwing fewer innings than those on teams that frequently deploy long relievers since WAR is a counting stat influenced by playing time. Read the rest of this entry »
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Jay Jaffe
