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The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2024 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2016 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. 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. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Billy Wagner was the ultimate underdog. Undersized and from both a broken home and an impoverished rural background, he channeled his frustrations into throwing incredibly hard — with his left hand, despite being a natural righty, for he broke his right arm twice as a child. Scouts overlooked him because he wasn’t anywhere close to six feet tall, but they couldn’t disregard his dominance over collegiate hitters using a mid-90s fastball. The Astros made him a first-round pick, and once he was converted to a relief role, his velocity went even higher.

Thanks to outstanding lower-body strength, coordination, and extraordinary range of motion, the 5-foot-10 Wagner was able to reach 100 mph with consistency — 159 times in 2003, according to The Bill James Handbook. Using a hard slider learned from teammate Brad Lidge, he kept blowing the ball by hitters into his late 30s to such an extent that he owns the record for the highest strikeout rate of any pitcher with at least 900 innings. He was still dominant when he walked away from the game following the 2010 season, fresh off posting a career-best ERA.

Lacking the longevity of Mariano Rivera or Trevor Hoffman, Wagner never set any saves records or even led his league once, and his innings total is well below those of every enshrined reliever. Hoffman’s status as the former all-time saves leader helped him get elected in 2018, but Wagner, who created similar value in his career, has major hurdles to surmount. There are, though, fewer hurdles than before: over the past four election cycles, his share of the vote has nearly quadrupled, from 16.7% in 2019 to 68.1% in ’23, not only pushing him past the all-important 50% threshold but also within range of election during this cycle. His advantages over Hoffman (and virtually every other reliever in history when it comes to rate stats) provide a compelling reason to study his career more closely. Given how far he’s come, who wants to bet against Billy Wags? Read the rest of this entry »

Based on the St. Louis Cardinals’ activity before Thanksgiving, the going rate for a right-handed pitcher in his mid-30s with a recent track record of high volume but unimpressive results is one year in the low eight figures with a club option for year two. For a mid-30s right-hander with better results but a major injury in his recent past? Apparently you have to guarantee the second year.

The Detroit Tigers have landed Kenta Maeda, late of division rival Minnesota, for two years and $24 million. The top two teams in this year’s AL Central standings both have holes to fill in their rotations, as Minnesota has to replace Maeda and Sonny Gray (who reportedly signed a three-year, $75 million deal with the Cardinals this morning), while the Tigers need a replacement for Eduardo Rodriguez. (As much as I like Maeda, he’s probably not that.) 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 Baltimore Orioles.

Batters

If you’ve looked at the depth chart or glanced down at the projections — if you haven’t, this is a weird article to be reading — you ought to be impressed with just how much offensive talent the O’s have. Of course, some spots are brighter (catcher, third base) than others (first base), but there’s really no gaping hole anywhere in this lineup. This reflects the success the team has had developing offensive prospects in recent years. While practically none of the players picked up in the 2018 selloff have worked out all that well, the Elias-era front office has a great record with minor league hitters. The O’s had our top prospect in 2022 (Adley Rutschman) and 2023 (Gunnar Henderson, though ZiPS had him second to Corbin Carroll), and Jackson Holliday, currently no. 1 on The Board, looks to be the heavy favorite to be the top prospect in 2024. Heck, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that someone like Coby Mayo or Samuel Basallo ends up the top prospect in 2025! The O’s eke out a few more wins than the depth chart here simply because of their depth; players like Mayo, Joey Ortiz, Colton Cowser, and Connor Norby all project to be positive contributors without an obvious place to lock up playing time right now. It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that I’d rather have a lineup of all the Orioles who don’t make their team’s 25-man roster out of spring training than all the Washington Nationals who do!

The Ryans O’Hearn and Mountcastle project as the weakest part of the lineup, but offense is in short supply in free agency, and I don’t expect Baltimore to make any changes here. It was always extremely unlikely that the Orioles would return to being one of the league’s payroll heavy hitters, but comments from John Angelos suggest that they’re not even going to be a middle class team, with spending more in line with Tampa Bay or Pittsburgh. If the least valuable parts of your offense project for a wRC+ around 110, you have bigger needs elsewhere. Before anyone calls shenanigans on some of the top comps, Mike Scioscia broke into the majors as a really good hitter before his radiation poisoning and Grady Hatton was a really good hitter when he was young, too. But when your top prospect gets two Hall of Famers in his top three comps, plus a third player who ought to be a Hall of Famer, you shouldn’t be too greedy.

This is one of the best offensive teams in baseball. While that’s never a guarantee of success, it’s a great place to start!

Pitchers

While the O’s have developed a lot of hitters, they haven’t had the same luck with pitchers outside of Grayson Rodriguez. Very few of the large stable of no. 4-ish starter prospects they had a few years ago really developed further, with Kyle Bradish and Dean Kremer being the primary success stories. Suspicions surrounding the pitching are what held Baltimore back in the ZiPS projections last year, and while the computer has come around on a number of pitchers, Bradish most notably, it’s still a rotation that’s begging for one high-end starter in free agency. I’d love to see the O’s go after Shōta Imanaga in any case; he’s gotten a lot less press than Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but he should come cheaper and there’s a lot to like about him. Plus, he’s a fly ball lefty whose weakness is being occasionally gopher ball-prone, and Camden Yards these days is very friendly for that type of pitcher.

Some of the Bradish gain is counteracted by ZiPS’ crush on Kremer being a bit more chaste than last year, but the rotation is at least acceptable so long as they don’t have poor luck with injuries. The team had been pretty lucky until late in the season when Félix Bautista went on the IL, where he’ll stay in 2024 thanks to Tommy John surgery. The bullpen ranked second in team WAR in 2023, but nearly 40% of that total was Bautista. If the O’s stand pat on the overall accomplishments of their 2023 ‘pen, they might regret it.

So how do the O’s look right now? You can add up the depth chart numbers (despite my warnings) and get them right around 90, and the current ZiPS sim has them at around 92 wins, the best record in the division. But that number will be revised as the winter progresses, and if teams like the Jays make any big additions and the O’s don’t, this standing could erode somewhat, despite the depth. It’s tempting to consider Baltimore’s 101 win-total in 2023 to be the team’s “starting point,” but that’s a path to disappointment, as a team exceeding its Pythagorean record and playing well in extra-innings/one-run games isn’t very predictive. Nor is it explained by bullpen quality; the r-squared between ‘pen quality, best reliever quality, and best three-reliever quality and Pythag/extra-innings/one-run game record is under 0.05 historically. And even then, the O’s don’t project to have as good a bullpen next go-around, thanks to the loss of Bautista. And no, projection misses aren’t predictive of future projection misses, even for very young or very old teams (since the projection systems already factor in age).

This is a very good team. The question is whether ownership is willing to invest enough for the Orioles to really find their ceiling.

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.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2024 due to injury, and players who were released in 2023. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Belgian Death Metal Skiffle Band that only plays songs by Franz Schubert, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.33.

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.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.

Dave Dombrowski has had a highly successful career as a top-level front-office executive. Now the President of Baseball Operations for the Philadelphia Phillies, the 67-year-old Western Michigan University graduate’s resume includes World Series titles with the Florida Marlins and the Boston Red Sox, while nine other teams he’s constructed have reached the postseason before falling short. His current club has played October baseball in each of the past two seasons.

As Detroit sports fans know all too well, five of Dombrowski’s not-quite campaigns came with the Tigers from 2006-2014. Moreover, the majority of those disappointments are notable for a particular reason: a lack of reliable back-end bullpen arms torpedoed multiple opportunities to take home a title.

(Tigers fans wanting to avoid angst might want to skip the next two paragraphs.)

In Game 4 of the 2006 World Series, Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumaya combined to allow three late-inning runs in a 5-4 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. In 2011 the Tigers twice lost ALCS games in which the Texas Rangers scored four runs in the 11th inning, Two years later, five Detroit relievers combined to cough up a 5-1 eighth-inning lead in ALCS Game 2 against the Boston Red Sox, ruining a Max Scherzer start and depriving the Tabbies of what would have been a 2-0 series lead. That year’s Game 7 was even more painful. A 2-1 seventh-inning lead, this in another well-pitched Scherzer start, turned into a 5-2 loss when Jose Veras gave up a grand slam to Shane Victorino. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh talks to Portia, proprietor of super-popular Shohei Ohtani fan account @shoheisaveus, about her Ohtani superfan origin story, life as a self-described “Shobae,” Ohtani’s popularity compared to other athletes and celebrities, following Ohtani from 15 time zones away, stanning a private person, the many mysteries of Ohtani, where the Shobaes would prefer for Ohtani to sign, and more. Then (1:09:03) Ben brings on baseball researcher and writer Sam Gazdziak of RIP Baseball to discuss monitoring baseball players’ passings, writing an obituary for every big leaguer, and finding and restoring baseball figures’ neglected gravesites.

Audio intro: Ian H., “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Xavier LeBlanc, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Rose tweets
Link to Portia’s Twitter account
Link to info on Ohtani Insta followers
Link to Ben’s article on Portia
Link to Ohtani’s first MLB hit
Link to Smith on Ohtani
Link to “Fletchtani” tweet
Link to Ohtani-Sandoval video
Link to Equinox photo
Link to Ohtani’s beach trip
Link to Ohtani’s Hawaii trip
Link to Ohtani/Ippei Hawaii photo
Link to 2018 NHK doc
Link to 2021 NHK doc
Link to 2021 NHK doc (alt link)
Link to Ohtani’s dog
Link to Ohtani’s high school friends
Link to shirtless Shohei tweet
Link to recommended Twitter follow
Link to recommended Twitter follow 2
Link to recommended YouTube follow
Link to recommended YouTube follow 2
Link to recommended TikTok follow
Link to Ohtani’s “Despacito” video
Link to RIP Baseball
Link to Stenhouse obit
Link to Aaron obit
Link to Woods obit
Link to SABR Baseball Graves Map
Link to Baseball Player Passings group
Link to 19th Century Grave Marker Project
Link to Negro Leagues Grave Marker Project
Link to Green-Wood Cemetery article
Link to Cobb memorial
Link to Banks memorial
Link to “rigor mortis” quote
Link to John Glenn SABR bio
Link to Ed Williamson grave marker project
Link to B-Ref place of death index
Link to support Portia
Link to support Sam
Link to Secret Santa sign-up sheet

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the proper pluralization of “POBO,” then (7:12) answer listener emails about baseball with a five-second pitch clock, how long fans will continue to boo pickoff attempts, what it would take for a team to pay a particular fan to attend (or not attend) its games, Freddie Freeman’s base stealing, bringing turnovers to baseball, clubs that could achieve “perfectly average success” in the 30-team era, the limits of fan tolerance for playoff expansion, a proposal for the postseason to be like college bowl season, boosting starting pitchers with a “bullpen bank,” whether Harold Baines would’ve been better off declining Cooperstown induction, Adam Wainwright and the Hall of Fame, and fan voting on Hall of Famers, plus a Stat Blast (1:30:13) about whether awards voting has gotten more homogen(e)ous and more closely correlated with WAR.

Audio intro: Harold Walker, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Tom Rhoads, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to POBO pluralization exchange
Link to info on forming plurals
Link to pitch tempo leaderboard
Link to speed chess wiki
Link to Episode 1453
Link to Tango on pickoff attempts
Link to Bruce Chen’s pickoff attempts
Link to Gonny Jomes wiki
Link to MLB Ballpark Pass-Port
Link to MLB Ballpark app
Link to Stathead on 1B SB
Link to FG post on Freeman’s steals
Link to L.A. Times on Freeman’s 20–20
Link to graphic on Freeman’s 20–20–200
Link to Sam on Freeman’s improvements
Link to NYT on O’Neill’s 20–20
Link to Stathead on oldest 20–20 guys
Link to Pujols steal streak video
Link to H-E-B wiki
Link to baseball exceptionalism wiki
Link to EW on batters catching pitches
Link to The Athletic fan survey results
Link to NHL playoff format wiki
Link to playoff randomness by sport
Link to “paper champions” study
Link to Ben on the SP protagonist
Link to Ben on pitcher limits
Link to @dril “turning a big dial” tweet
Link to latest Hall of Fame ballot
Link to HoF tiers EW discussion
Link to article on Baines induction
Link to Ben on Baines
Link to Jay Jaffe on Wainwright’s 200th
Link to Jay on HoF SP standards
Link to EW episode 114
Link to HoF by election method
Link to Ben on Mauer’s candidacy
Link to EW emails database
Link to homogenous vs. homogeneous
Link to Kenny Jackelen on Twitter
Link to Ryan Nelson on Twitter
Link to B-Ref awards voting results
Link to awards data, all years, with WAR
Link to awards data with calculations
Link to Ryan’s Stat Blast graphs
Link to concentration ratio explainer
Link to HHI explainer
Link to SABR study on WAR and awards
Link to win probability of scoring team
Link to Secret Santa sign-up sheet

 Sponsor Us on Patreon
 Facebook Group
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José Ramírez is the definition of a set-it-and-forget-it player, and I mean that at least a little bit literally. Neither we nor our friends over at Baseball Prospectus published a single article that focused on him during a 2023 season when, for the fourth time in a row, he finished in the top 10 in the AL MVP voting. He turned out to have a very interesting season, and not just because he was, as always, excellent.

In June of 2022, Ramírez injured the ulnar collateral ligament in his right thumb. To the surprise of the Cleveland coaching staff, he decided to play through significant pain and postpone surgery until the offseason. Despite seeing his power drop off dramatically, he ended the season with a 141 wRC+ and 6.4 WAR. He finally had the surgery in November and came into the 2023 season healthy, but he got off to a slow start and finished with a 123 wRC+. It was his worst showing since 2019, when a broken hamate bone ended his season prematurely. (As an aside, if you’re desperate for for reassurance that Mike Trout will bounce back from his hamate injury, look no further than Ramírez, who immediately returned to superstardom in 2020.) 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 Toronto Blue Jays.

Batters

None of the projections here will blow your socks off, but on the plus side, very few of them will get your socks wet (and then you’re walking around all day with your feet wet and clammy, and every time you step it makes a little squishing sound, and you think there’s a bit of dirt in there and you’d like to take off your shoes, but that’s why you’re not allowed in Kroger anymore, so you can’t). If social media is any indication, Matt Chapman might be underrated at this point. He was terrible in the second half, but I haven’t found that to be very predictive, and overall, he still gave the Blue Jays about four wins that they now have to replace. Right now, third base, along with left field and designated hitter, looks to be an amalgamation of role players, though I don’t expect that situation to persist through Opening Day, if for no other reason than active rosters aren’t large enough for Toronto to start the season with all three of those unwieldy chimeras. Read the rest of this entry »