As the Orioles emerge from their long hibernation, it’s easy to see the things they’ve done well as an organization. They’re great at developing relief pitchers. They can walk through a public park and pluck a future star infielder from a tree. But starting pitching has not come as easily. The front end of the rotation lacks a pitcher like Gerrit Cole or Kevin Gausman, and they’ve had to bring in veterans like Cole Irvin and Kyle Gibson to carry some of the load. No doubt this is part of the reason they’re being linked to Shohei Ohtani, who for all the dinger sockin’ he does is still the best pitcher on the trade market at the deadline.
Members of the 2023 draft class are now on the pro side of The Board. You can see where freshly drafted and signed players stack up in their new organization’s farm system here. Graduates have also been pulled from The Board; their evaluations are now preserved on the 2023 Graduates tab. Players who exceed rookie playing time requirements between now and the end of the season will be moved from the 2023 Updated section of The Board to the Graduates section in real time, and those who graduate get a scouting update on their player page contrasting their evaluation with their performance at time of graduation. Note that the farm system rankings from prior to the graduates removal still exist here; live farm system rankings (for which the grads no longer count) exist here. These will shift and change as prospects move between now and the trade deadline.
Because the Top 100 grew and changed throughout the Prospect List cycle, readers should consider it live and up to date. I made some updates to Reds prospects (more on that in a second) and slid Diamondbacks outfielder Druw Jones, who succumbed to yet another injury between when the D-backs list published and now, but otherwise just pulled off the grads. There are only 89 players in the minors with a 50 FV grade or better right now because of the graduates being pulled off of the list. This is not unusual for this time of year; similar to the way the 50 FV cross section moved from 107 players to about 130 players during the last cycle, prospects who improve and advance will climb into that group.
Reds Update
Between now and the deadline, I’ll be reviewing the farm systems of a few key clubs likely to buy, something I’ve already done for the tippy top of the Reds system.
Lyon Richardson’s pitch grades have been altered to reflect that his changeup has become his best pitch. His innings count has been kept pretty conservative, and I’d really like to see him hold the 95–97 mph fastball he’s currently showing deeper into games before moving him into the 50 FV tier, but he looks really good. His command isn’t precise, but he has a mid-rotation starter’s mix and has been throwing hard since his return from TJ, just not while working a true starter’s innings load.
Cam Collier is struggling statistically, but the pro scouting reports from source clubs are still generally positive, and he is still very young for a full-season hitter. His swing is still pretty weird, but there’s just too much lefty power here to slide him so soon.
Noelvi Marte is not playing good defense right now. He’s hitting well enough that he’ll probably still be a quality big leaguer even if he has to move off of third base, but now that he is on the 40-man, he only has so long to find a position before he’s out of option years. Lurking on the horizon here is a scenario where he ends up with one or no options left and basically no position. It’s not his likeliest outcome, but because he’s looked pretty bad on defense for the last sixth months or so, this is now a conceivable outcome. I still think he will be a good big leaguer over time (he remains a 50 FV prospect on The Board), but were I a GM, I’d be apprehensive about making him the centerpiece of a trade return.
Christian Encarnacion-Strand moves up into the 45 FV tier as a power-hitting role player who’ll be a dangerous (but likely flawed) piece of this ascending Reds team. His Triple-A contact rate (72%) would be near the bottom of the MLB 1B position group (70%), and his chase rates (an eyebrow-raising 39%) were about 20% worse than big league average (32%) at the time he was called up. League-wide adjustment to his tendency to chase will make him streaky, but ultimately Encarnacion-Strand’s power is going to play in a big way because he’s incredibly strong, and his swing is geared to do big damage. There are warning signs here similar to what Elehuris Montero exhibited in the minors, even amid his awesome surface-level statistical performance, but CES is at a different level, physically.
Edwin Arroyo also slides from the 50 FV tier to the 45 FV tier. Again, he still projects to be a good big leaguer, just not a true everyday, omni-situational player in my eyes. He continues to have throwing issues that will likely funnel him to second base, which I suppose was already likely given the Elly/McLain combo ahead of him. He’s going to get to his power by virtue of his swing’s lift, but his bat-to-ball performance has regressed enough to reevaluate him in light of the new defensive projection and consider him more of a just-shy-of-average second baseman. Look at the kind of hit tool it takes to profile as an everyday second baseman. Arroyo’s performance has been fine, but not quite on that level.
You can see how punishing the De La Cruz, McLain, etc. graduations are to the Reds’ farm system ranking, but even if you consider that group to be untouchable, they have a ton of depth (nearly 50 ranked prospects) to leverage in trade discussions.
It was the third inning of the All-Star Game, and John Smoltz and Joe Davis were marveling at Freddie Freeman. That part’s not particularly surprising. Who among us hasn’t marveled at Freddie Freeman? The Dodger first baseman worked a full count off Sonny Gray, then resisted a tempting fastball at the letters for ball four.
As Freeman jogged to first, Smoltz shared some of the wisdom he picked up during his Hall of Fame career: “The biggest thing pitchers want to find out with all the information that’s given: Where is the guy more likely to chase? And rarely do they chase up and down. It’s usually down or up. And then you try to pitch accordingly to the strength. And where Sonny Gray’s strength is, is down. He’ll surprise you up, but he wants to get you out down.”
Whenever I hear Smoltz articulate a hypothesis about the game, I find myself torn. The man has seen an awful lot of baseball, and I don’t want to discount that experience, but he’s also made some pretty outlandish-seeming claims before. Best to be a bit skeptical and double check his math, as it were. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a J.P. France postgame quote and ballplayer clichés, the death of first overall pick Mike Ivie, and how Masataka Yoshida’s debut season stacks up to the MLB rookie years of other ex-NPB stars, answer emails (36:57) about Mike Trout’s and Shohei Ohtani’s futures, a Trout/Hunter Renfroe trade deadline scheme (with a bonus Meg movie pitch), undoing pre-pitch-clock time-saving measures, and batters catching pitches to knock pitchers out of games, plus Stat Blasts (1:19:13) about robot umps in Triple-A, the most top 100 prospects to debut for one team in a season (or a two-season span), and Immaculate Grid efficiency, followed by a Future Blast (1:47:08) from 2037.
Today, we turn our attention to the second base Killers. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 10%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — this year I have incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look.
As noted previously, some of these situations are more dire than others, particularly when taken in the context of the rest of a team’s roster. I don’t expect every team to go out and track down an upgrade before the August 1 deadline, and I’m less concerned with the solutions – many of which have more moving parts involved than a single trade — than the problems. Unless otherwise indicated, all statistics are through Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week, I published in rapid succession articles exploring the fascinating seasons of Spencer Strider (sort of) and Blake Snell. Both pitchers then went out and had outlier performances in their respective ensuing starts; Strider recorded 12 of his first 15 outs by strikeout, and Snell walked seven in just five innings but allowed merely a single run. So I joked on Twitter (I’m not using the new name, it’s silly) that if anyone wanted a pitcher to become newsworthy, pass along a name and I’d write about him.
The best kind of joke is the kind that lets you outsource coming up with ideas for posts, and sure enough, I encountered a reply that caught my attention.
Someone may have done it already, but Bailey Ober is pretty interesting in how uninteresting he is. Pretty much a lock for a quality start every time he pitches; nothing more, nothing less
Travis Jankowski is enjoying a career-best season with the Texas Rangers. Playing a platoon role on a first-place team, the 32-year-old left-handed-hitting outfielder is slashing .319/.407/.405 with a 133 wRC+ in 190 plate appearances. Speed and defense are his calling cards. Jankowski has swiped 15 bags in 16 attempts, and racked up five Defensive Runs Saved and four Outs Above Average while seeing time at all three fly-chaser positions.
His track record coming into the 2023 campaign was somewhat spotty. Drafted 44th overall in 2012 by San Diego out of Stony Brook, he spent 2015-19 with the Padres, then bounced from the Reds to the Phillies to the Mets to the Mariners before joining the Rangers this past January. Prior to inking a free agent deal with the Chris Young-constructed club, his cumulative hit total was 252, while his wRC+ over 1,215 plate appearances was an unbecoming 77. By and large, he’d been a spare part whose performance hadn’t merited consistent playing time.
A confluence of health and the right opportunity has helped fuel the Lancaster, Pennsylvania native’s breakthrough.
“It’s been finding a good spot with a great manager and a great lineup,” Jankowski explained when the Rangers visited Boston earlier this month. “I’ve been able to carve out a role, and a big part of that is being comfortable. Nine seasons in, I know what to expect at the big league level. Beyond that, it’s just clicking for me right now.” Read the rest of this entry »
Hanging from a rack are t-shirts and shorts, sweat-wicking warmup tops and Diamondbacks jerseys in white, black, red, gray and tan. Shelves and cabinets hold a smattering of personal effects; on the floor sits a three-tiered rack just for his shoes. But among these ballplayer trademarks are footlong white boxes found more often in the closets of baseball fans than in the lockers of the sport’s stars. Inside, they’re filled with baseball cards.
This year at Chase Field, it’s common to glimpse Longoria breezing into the clubhouse, a couple such boxes tucked under an arm. The 37-year-old veteran wants to share the joy of his favorite hobby. “He’s always bringing in cards like, ‘Hey, let’s open them,’” says rookie outfielder Corbin Carroll. Longoria’s teammates often oblige. They’ve unearthed a Gabriel Moreno card and ones featuring Arizona prospects Jordan Lawlar and Deyvison De Los Santos. Carroll has even pulled a couple of his own.
Longoria’s teammates may not know it, but the veteran third baseman is only sharing the scraps. He used to crack open boxes of cards like this more often – and indeed, it’s still fun – but Longoria has fashioned himself into more than just a hobbyist. What started as a pandemic-shutdown pastime has now turned into a serious endeavor. Longoria has inserted himself deep into the card-collecting world, quickly learning its intricacies. At home, he has “thousands and thousands” of cards, he says, many of which are a good deal more valuable than the ones he lugs into the office to show his coworkers.
There’s an autographed Mike Trout card that’s worth a fair amount of money. Longoria also collects Formula 1 racing cards and recently sold a 2021 Lewis Hamilton card that was one of just five of its kind. (One of those same Hamilton cards is currently listed on eBay for $5,000.) He’s also hot after classic cards from baseball’s golden age, both because he’s a fan and because he’s a savvy investor.
While the market for high-priced modern cards has been more volatile – softening last year after two years of skyrocketing investment, per an analysis in Sports Collectors Digest – top-grade classic cards, like sports franchises, steadily gain value.
“If I spent $40,000 on a Lou Gehrig card or a Babe Ruth card or something like that, in 20 years, it’s going to be worth $60,000,” he says. “It’s not going down. It’s like owning the S&P 500.”
All of this started with a different type of collectible. Desperate for something to do while the sport was shuttered in the summer of 2020, Longoria began buying Pokémon cards to open with his two oldest children, now 10 and 8 years old. The hobby caught on with him more than them, however, and now Longoria can’t get enough.
A novice to card collecting, he started by buying packs of baseball cards at Target and Walmart, but that approach never turned up anything special. Card manufacturers rarely sneak the truly valuable stuff into the cheap packs. “It’s like playing a slot machine,” he says. “You put in a hundred bucks and you’re probably going to lose it all.” To catch ‘em all, he learned, you gotta spend. So, he did his research and became more literate. He followed prominent collectors on social media and he watched card breakers on livestreams. He figured out which cards had value, which packs they came in, and how to procure them.
That attention to detail makes him unique among pro athletes who collect. “He gets it,” says Ryan Veres, owner of Burbank Sportscards, a Southern California clearinghouse that sells roughly 4,000 individual cards a day from a stock of 40 million. Most sports stars who collect tend to delegate, Veres has found, but Longoria pops into the shop whenever he’s in town. “A lot of those guys will just have guys buy stuff for them. ‘I don’t know a lot about it. Just buy me cool stuff,’” Veres says. “But he does everything himself. He’ll pound the pavement.”
With nearly $150 million in career earnings, Longoria has the scratch to be a serious collector. (Though don’t expect him to rival the nearly $100 millioncollection belonging to Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick.) He’ll frequently sell cards through his Instagram profile. The rest he keeps for his kids, in the hopes that they might someday appreciate them. They haven’t yet.
“In the meantime, it’s like a Picasso. You get to look at it, it’s a story. Somebody comes over, ‘Hey, check this out,’” he says. “That, to me, is the exciting part about it.”
It all makes for an amusing image – Longoria, a former Rookie of the Year and three-time Gold Glover, grinning as he plucks a card featuring some prospect who’d be lucky to accomplish half of what he has. “The future of the game is bright,” he says, and the cards serve to connect him to that future as he prepares to become the game’s past. This is Longoria’s 16th season, and it marks the beginning of his career’s final phase. But it’s a phase he entered willingly, signing with Arizona for one year and $4 million to play part-time and live in his offseason home.
He senses the end is near, which is why he’s begun collecting something other than cards. Over the last two seasons, Longoria has made a point of asking opponents to swap jerseys. He’s received personalized uniform tops from Austin Riley and Bobby Witt Jr., trading them one of his own. This year, Bryce Harper inscribed a message on a dirt-covered jersey he’d just pulled off his back. Longoria has also mined his connections to procure game-worn uniforms from athletes in other sports – including Devin Booker, Stephen Curry and even the GOAT himself, Tom Brady.
His collection could be even more robust – think Derek Jeter and David Ortiz – but he lacked the foresight in his early years to curate mementos as he went along. Like an actor absconding with a prop after a long shoot, it took until the end for Longoria to realize he wanted to bring home more than just memories. “I may not have another chance,” he says. He doesn’t want his young Diamondbacks teammates to take their time for granted. Carroll, one of the few players in the Diamondbacks clubhouse with a legitimate chance to surpass Longoria’s on-field exploits, sees the logic.
“His reasoning for it was kind of cool,” Carroll says. “It made me want to start getting some guys that I’ve played with and will play against. I think it’s a cool memento, a living collection of your career.”
The game is hardly done with Longoria yet. For the Diamondbacks, he’s provided cost-effective punch from the right side of the plate, with an 112 wRC+ overall and a 137 mark against left-handers. He’s a veteran presence on a striving and surprising young team, and one of the only men in the room with any postseason experience. The Diamondbacks have a 50% chance at a playoff berth, per FanGraphs’ projections, and they’ll need Longoria’s experience.
He has memories left to make, but in the meantime, there are packs to open. And so, every so often, he plops a box on a clubhouse table and beckons a few teammates. They rip open the packaging and rummage through like they’re kids once more, pondering which players are destined for stardom. And for a moment, time stops.
The Braves made two minor moves on Monday to fill out their bullpen headcount, acquiring right-handed reliever Pierce Johnson from the Rockies and lefty reliever Taylor Hearn from the Rangers. Heading to Colorado are righty relief pitcher Victor Vodnik, our no. 13 Braves prospect a few months ago, and minor league starter Tanner Gordon. The return for Hearn is unknown as of press time, but it’s unlikely the Rangers will be getting a prospect of much significance.
The Rockies have traded RHP Pierce Johnson to the Braves for a pair of minor leaguers, per source.
If these turn out to be the biggest trades made over the last week of July, it would be a mighty disappointing deadline, but the Braves get what they wanted here. Their bullpen hasn’t exactly struggled this season — it’s second in FIP, WAR, and ERA — but adding a bit of depth while they still can has a lot of appeal to it. Through graduations and trades in recent years, the top of their farm system is kind of shallow at the moment, so internal reinforcements would be a bit trickier. Not helping matters is that they currently have five relievers on injured lists, four of them on the 60-day IL, and basically have no additional relievers on the 40-man roster left to call up in a pinch without shoving a starting pitcher in there.
Johnson is probably the safer bet of the two pickups, and I don’t necessarily mean to damn him with faint praise considering the season he’s had so far. Even in a Coors Field environment, an ERA of six is not what you like to see, and even the FIP in the mid-fours hardly screams “pitcher you’re going to use in high-leverage situations.” Johnson took over the closer role when Daniel Bard had to step away from baseball temporarily earlier this season. He only blew a couple of saves before losing the gig last month, but his walk rate this season — never his strength — led to a lot of adventures like you’d see from Fernando Rodney in a down year. Johnson’s saving grace, and almost certainly the reason the Braves valued him, is that he misses bats and throws hard; if carefully managed, he can be an asset to the ‘pen. Read the rest of this entry »
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Jay Jaffe
