Last winter, Mets prospect Ronny Mauricio took the Dominican Winter League by storm, slashing .287/.335/.468 for Los Tigres del Licey and earning MVP honors. The 22-year-old was off to an even better start in the 2023–24 season, batting .433 with four extra-base hits in seven games, but all that ground to a halt on Monday. Facing rivals Las Águilas Cibaeñas, Mauricio attempted to steal second, but when he tried to make a sudden stop, his right leg buckled. On Tuesday, SNY’s Andy Martino reported that the injury is a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Although the Mets won’t put a timetable on his return until after he undergoes surgery, even the most aggressive rehab schedule would have him missing at least the first half of the season before getting his legs back under him in the minors. It’s grim news for a young player who was primed to get his first real shot at breaking camp with the big club. Read the rest of this entry »

After they were left at the altar by Aaron Judge and objected to the results of Carlos Correa’s physical last offseason, the San Francisco Giants have finally made a long-term splash in free agency with the addition of 25-year-old Korean center fielder Jung Hoo Lee 이정후, who is joining the team on a six-year, $113 million deal, per Jon Heyman of The New York Post. The contract has a player opt-out after four years.

Lee has been evaluated as a Top 100-quality prospect at FanGraphs since the 2020 KBO season. He was the first player in KBO history to go straight from high school to their top level of play and won Rookie of the Year as an 18-year-old in 2017. He has a career .340/.407/.491 line in the KBO, and has made elite rates of contact (roughly 5.5% strikeout rate and 11% walk rate combined the last two seasons) while playing quality center field defense.

Lee immediately becomes the best defensive center fielder in a crowded Giants outfield group that was toward the bottom of the league in production last year. He’s a plus runner with above-average range and ball skills, and a plus arm. He did suffer a fractured ankle that effectively ended his season in July (he made one pinch-hit plate appearance toward the end of the year), and the deal is still pending a physical, but as The Athletic noted, he reportedly conducted agility drills for teams recently. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 20th 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 Seattle Mariners.

Batters

Julio Rodríguez is a great marquee player to have in any lineup, so no complaints there. Nor will you see me express concerns about Cal Raleigh behind the plate; the relatively down projection on the depth chart at catcher is due to Seby Zavala rather than the Big Dumper. The problem for the Mariners is that after those two and J.P. Crawford, the quality drops off fairly quickly. Read the rest of this entry »

Many transactions were obscured by the Ohtani-mania of the past week, perhaps none more than the always unheralded glove-first catcher signings. No one represents this category better than Austin Hedges, who MLB.com’s sources say returned to Cleveland on a one-year, $4 million pact after departing for Pittsburgh last offseason and winning a World Series ring with Texas. Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Astros finalized their deal — a two-year, $12 million contract — with Victor Caratini, whose own defensive skills have taken a huge leap forward the past two seasons. Each will serve as a backup to an exciting young catcher, hopefully furthering their respective development trajectories in the process.

Let’s start with Hedges. At this point, what you see is what you get with the 31-year-old veteran. His framing was as good as ever this past season, saving his clubs an estimated 16.9 runs per our FRM metric, good for second best in the majors. It’s his fourth season saving at least 12.5 runs, though his 2023 total came in fewer innings than all but one of the rest of the top-ten framers (Jason Delay, who ranked eighth). Baseball Savant sees a similar halo sitting atop Hedges’ catcher’s mask, with sterling framing and blocking more than making up for a merely average arm. Neither Savant nor FRM has him as a below-average framer (save for a small-sample 2016) in any individual season, and Savant has never cast him as a below-average blocker. Read the rest of this entry »

The biggest domino of the offseason has fallen. Shohei Ohtani is the newest member of the Dodgers, and the discourse surrounding the unique nature of his contract could be enough to last the entire offseason. But for teams, the floodgates are now open to throw the money earmarked for Ohtani elsewhere.

Unfortunately, I don’t have Cody Bellinger or Yoshinobu Yamamoto news to report; it’s only been three days, after all. But the weekend did bring a couple more reliever signings, this time at least slightly more impactful than the wave of minor league and split contracts that characterized the early offseason.

Royals sign Will Smith to one-year, $5 million deal

Smith has been a solidly good, sometimes great reliever for a decade now, but his biggest claim to fame (aside from his name) is that he’s won rings in each of the past three World Series, each with a different club. His talents took him from Atlanta to Houston to Arlington, celebrating a championship in each city before promptly leaving for a new destination. His latest stop is a return home of sorts; Smith made his big league debut with the Royals back in 2012 as a starter, before being moved to the bullpen the next year and immediately taking off.

Smith has consistently found himself near the top of the league in strikeout rate thanks to his plus slider, which he threw nearly as much as his fastball before it was cool to do so. But he isn’t the pitcher he used to be before crossing the wrong side of 30, and his days as one of baseball’s premier late-inning arms are coming to an end. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the implications of Shohei Ohtani’s unprecedentedly deferred contract structure, whether the Ohtani signing and Juan Soto trade portend MLB imbalance driven by the bursting cable bundle (21:42), whether the Dodgers will ever be bad again (28:06), media hang-wringing over Friday’s false reports (35:58), and the Tyler O’Neill trade (42:57). Then they talk to John DeMarsico, SNY Mets game director and cinephile, about how he’s applied his affinity for film to baseball, the behind-the-scenes mechanics and rhythms of baseball broadcasts, what makes baseball so tough to televise, innovative technology and techniques, showing more of exciting plays, copying and being copied, Gary, Keith, and Ron, the use of stats and graphics, baseball movies, and more (47:45).

Audio intro: Ted O., “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Josh Busman, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Fabian’s Ohtani report
Link to more from Fabian
Link to Ben on Ohtani’s deal
Link to Lindsey on Ohtani’s deal
Link to Baumann on Ohtani’s deal
Link to Becker on Ohtani’s deal
Link to Becker’s contract math
Link to Tim Dierkes on Ohtani’s deal
Link to Rob Mains on Ohtani’s deal
Link to Tom Verducci on Ohtani’s deal
Link to Adam Morris on Ohtani’s deal
Link to FG MLB payroll page
Link to L.A. Times on Ohtani
Link to Jack Harris tweet
Link to Clemens on the cable bubble
Link to Sheehan on the cable bubble
Link to info on Dodgers RSN
Link to Ben on L.A. in 2015
Link to Nightengale on the media
Link to “Vivaldi” tweet
Link to Dodgers Nation post
Link to flight-tracking info
Link to Wired on flight-tracking
Link to Baumann on O’Neill
Link to EW Episode 2033
Link to EW Episode 2035
Link to Rangers-Rays play
Link to Sam on the play
Link to Díaz entrance video
Link to Showalter/Tarantino video
Link to SNY pitch clock video
Link to SNY “ghost runner” video
Link to SNY BTS “ghost runner” video
Link to NYT on DeMarsico
Link to Newsday on DeMarsico
Link to NY Mag on DeMarsico
Link to DeMarsico on Letterboxd

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For the 20th 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 Miami Marlins.

Batters

While the Marlins’ lineup, 15th in the NL in runs scored in 2023, didn’t technically prevent them from making the playoffs, it would be dangerous to expect that happy circumstance to repeat in the future. Winning nine more games than your Pythagorean record is not something that can be counted on to continue; Miami had a good bullpen, but bullpen quality actually correlates poorly with one-run record or Pythagorean overperformance.

What this means is that the Marlins need to search for more offensive talent. Though the depth chart image has them safely above replacement at all positions, the offensive output just isn’t very exciting in most of those, with no one hitter on the roster projecting with even a 20% chance of a 140 OPS+. Luis Arraez is terrific, and you’ve got to love such a throwback, but he’ll be hard-pressed to better his .354/.393/.469 line. Just being extraordinarily lucky with the injuries probably doesn’t get the Marlins above 12th or so in the NL in runs scored, and they have to figure out how to replace Jorge Soler’s 2023 performance — which, again, still didn’t suffice to get them out of last place in runs scored in the NL. And none of the prospects who are good possibilities to provide oomph in the majors someday, like Joe Mack, Kemp Alderman, or Jacob Berry, are likely going to have any impact on the lineup this year. Read the rest of this entry »

When Shohei Ohtani signed his record-setting contract on Saturday, the phrase “unprecedented deferrals” was at the forefront of the conversation. Not knowing how much “unprecedented” came out to in dollars and cents, we ran with a projection from Jon Becker based on the assumption that Ohtani would receive $400 million of his $700 million contract in deferred money.

At the time, that seemed like such a huge figure I struggled to believe it, even in the face of credible reports that at least half of Ohtani’s salary would be deferred. Surely it wasn’t possible to defer $400 million. But no, apparently the truth is even more incredible: Ohtani is taking a base salary of just $2 million a year, leaving $68 million to paid out, without interest, in each of the first 10 years after the contract ends. Read the rest of this entry »

By now, you’ve probably heard that Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million contract will pay him through 2043, with Ohtani deferring an unprecedented $680 million (over 97% of his contract). The structure calls for Ohtani to earn just $2 million each year of the contract, and then $68 million a year for the 10 years following the deal.

Ohtani will inarguably be taking home $700 million via this deal, and I disagree with the notion that the contract should be described as anything other than that big number from a bottom-line perspective. But what matters, especially with regards to the Competitive Balance Tax (CBT), is the present value of the contract.

Article XXIII of the CBA concerns the CBT, and the key component for determining payrolls for CBT purposes is the average annual value (AAV) of contracts. If Ohtani’s contract didn’t contain any deferrals, his AAV would be $70 million, calculated by simply dividing $700 million by the 10 years of his contract. Where things get complicated is with deferrals. When money is deferred in a contract, the value of that money depreciates over time, and it is the depreciated value of the contract that is used as the numerator, or replacement for the $700 million, in the AAV calculation. Ohtani’s deferrals will be paid without interest, which is key for depreciating the value of the payment; interest would have increased the present value of the contract, and as such, the AAV and corresponding CBT hit. Read the rest of this entry »

Dasan Brown exudes energy, athleticism, and defensive acumen in the outfield. Drafted 88th overall in 2019 — two picks in front of Spencer Steer and 10 in front of Michael Harris II — the 22-year-old Oakville, Ontario, Canada native is coming off of a disappointing season with the stick. In 463 plate appearances with High-A Vancouver, the left-handed speedster slashed just .218/.309/.315 with seven home runs and a 74 wRC+. He did fare better in the Arizona Fall League; flashing more of his potential, he batted a solid .274 with a .342 OBP. Between the regular season and his Surprise Saguaros stint, he swiped 30 bags.

Brown, who is ranked 23rd on our 2024 Blue Jays list with a 40 FV, discussed his skill set following the AFL’s Fall Stars Game.

———

David Laurila: Defense is your strong suit. Is that accurate?

Dasan Brown: “Yeah. I mean, that’s what’s come most naturally to me. As a kid, I just wanted to go get baseballs. As I got older, I learned the skill part of it. I’ve gotten some good coaching here and there, but overall it’s just an instinct. It’s trusting myself out there. I kind of have fun with it. I see the ball up in the air and go get it.” Read the rest of this entry »