A lot has happened since we launched the 2026 version of the We Tried tracker a few weeks ago. With the Winter Meetings about to kick off, we’ve seen 14 We Trieds from 10 different teams concerning eight different free agents. (As always, you can keep track of them all at this link.) That may sound like a lot this early in free agency, but it’s worth noting that 10 of our Top 50 free agents are already off the board (though three of those players accepted the qualifying offer, which means nobody had the chance to try). I suspect we’re a bit behind last year’s pace. Hopefully more news about teams’ pursuits will leak out in the coming months. The big number we’re shooting for here is 100: Last year, the offseason closed with 99 We Trieds. Let’s make it to triple digits!

More will certainly come. Raisel Iglesias is currently leading the pack with four We Trieds, but don’t be surprised if Ryan Helsley overtakes him. Multiple reports said that fully half the teams in the league were interested in Helsley, but we only have two actual We Trieds so far, and one came from Helsley himself. Helsley told reporters that the Tigers were particularly interested in signing him as a starting pitcher, which isn’t a surprise, but his phrasing was particularly fun. He said the Tigers were “in on me heavy.” Honestly, I don’t have any jokes here. It’s just a slightly odd grammatical construction that I will probably think about twice a day for the next few years of my life. Before this week, you could be in on something. You could maybe even be heavily in on it. But now you can be in on it…heavy. Sometimes language evolves just like lifeforms, one mutation at a time. Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Friday, and welcome to this offseason’s first installment of the Matrix Reloaded column. There has already been plenty of activity ahead of the 2025 Winter Meetings, which kick off this Sunday in sunny (well maybe, I haven’t actually checked the weather yet, and also it doesn’t matter because I won’t be going outside) Orlando, Florida. Since this is my first roundup of the winter, let’s start with a refresher on how the Matrix works.

My precious, color-coded spreadsheet has plenty of tabs for your perusal, but my bread and butter is the main FA Matrix tab, which includes a self-explanatory summary of signings at the top and a somewhat less self-explanatory color-coded summary of rumors concerning unsigned players further down. The FA Legend tab right next door will be helpful in decoding it, but here I’ll note that what I classify as a rumor is fairly subjective, as the lines between things like “interested in,” “kicking the tires,” “have looked into,” and “believed to be interested in” are pretty blurry. All rumors are linked to each colored cell, and I encourage reading them for further context beyond how I’ve bucketed them into groups.

With all that out of the way, let’s get into the deals that actually have been completed in the last week or so. For larger moves, I’ll be hitting on three key points: how the deal affects the signing team; how it affects other teams; and how it affects similar players. For smaller deals, I’ll be more rapid-fire and talk only about the signing team; other teams aren’t going to react too strongly to a $2 million bench player inking a new deal. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2026 Hall of Fame ballot. 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. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

In an age when baseball is so obsessed with velocity, it’s remarkable to remember how recently it was that a pitcher could thrive, year in and year out, despite averaging in the 85–87 mph range with his fastball. Yet that’s exactly what Mark Buehrle did over the course of his 16-year career. Listed at 6-foot-2 and 240 pounds, the burly Buehrle was the epitome of the crafty lefty, an ultra-durable workhorse who didn’t dominate but who worked quickly, used a variety of pitches — four-seamer, sinker, cutter, curve, changeup — moving a variety of directions to pound the strike zone, and relied on his fielders to make the plays behind him. From 2001 to ’14, he annually reached the 30-start and 200-inning plateaus, and he barely missed on the latter front in his final season.

August Fagerstrom summed up Buehrle so well in his 2016 appreciation that I can’t resist sharing a good chunk of it:

The way Buehrle succeeded was unique, of course. He got his ground balls, but he wasn’t the best at getting ground balls. He limited walks, but he wasn’t the best a limiting walks. He generated soft contact, but he wasn’t the best at generating soft contact. Buehrle simply avoided damage with his sub-90 mph fastball by throwing strikes while simultaneously avoiding the middle of the plate:

That’s Buehrle’s entire career during the PITCHf/x era, and it’s something of a remarkable graphic. You see Buehrle living on the first-base edge of the zone, making sure to keep his pitches low, while also being able to spot the same pitch on the opposite side of the zone, for the most part avoiding the heart of the plate. Buehrle’s retained the ability to pitch this way until the end; just last year [2015], he led all of baseball in the percentage of pitches located on the horizontal edges of the plate.

Drafted and developed by the White Sox — practically plucked from obscurity, at that — Buehrle spent 12 of his 16 seasons on the South Side, making four All-Star teams and helping Chicago to three postseason appearances, including its 2005 World Series win, which broke the franchise’s 88-year championship drought. While with the White Sox, he became just the second pitcher in franchise history to throw multiple no-hitters, first doing so in 2007 against the Rangers and then adding a perfect game in ’09 against the Rays. After his time in Chicago, he spent a sour season with the newly rebranded Miami Marlins, and when that predictably melted down, spent three years with the Blue Jays, earning one more All-Star nod and helping them make the playoffs for the first time in 22 years.

Though Buehrle reached the 200-win plateau in his final season, he was just 36 years old when he hung up his spikes, preventing him from more fully padding his counting stats or framing his case for Cooperstown in the best light. A closer look beyond the superficial numbers suggests that, while he’s the equal or better of several enshrined pitchers according to WAR and JAWS, he’s far off the standards. Like fellow lefty and ballot-mate Andy Pettitte, he gets a boost from S-JAWS, a workload-adjusted version of starting pitcher JAWS that I introduced in 2022. Thus far, I’ve only included Pettitte on one of my five ballots (one of seven including virtual ballots), though I’m mulling his inclusion this year — a thought process that’s taking place as the electorate grapples with shifting standards for starting pitchers following last year’s election of CC Sabathia and the candidacies of Félix Hernández (who debuted last year) and Cole Hamels (this ballot’s top newcomer). I’ve pledged to reconsider Buehrle as well; I’m 0-for-5 in voting for him thus far, and I’m hardly alone, as he debuted with 11% in 2021, scraped by with 5.8% the next year, and has barely regained that lost ground, receiving 11.4% in 2025. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh, Sam Miller, and podcast scorekeeper Chris Hanel review the results of an under-25-pitchers draft Ben and Sam conducted a decade ago. Then (13:38) Ben and Sam banter about Ben’s physique, answer listener emails about doing a The Only Rule-style experiment 10 years later, discuss Sam’s revamped, unique approach to writing about baseball this year, and consider some possibilities for what we’ll remember about baseball in 2025. After that (1:05:57), Ben continues the sporadic “Baseball Jobs” series by interviewing 71-year-old John Yandle, the Giants’ left-handed batting-practice pitcher since 1985, about his transition from pitcher to BP pitcher, the keys to good BP, balancing his day job and his baseball side gig, anticipating starting-pitcher matchups, fending off advanced pitching machines, his incredible longevity, arm care in his 70s, the hitters who’ve complained the most, throwing BP to Barry Bonds, and more, followed by (2:01:20) a postscript.

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The Tampa Bay Rays have signed outfielder Cedric Mullins, late of the Mets and Orioles, to a one-year contract worth $7 million. This deal makes a lot of sense if you look at Mullins’ overall numbers from 2025: 17 home runs, a 10.0% walk rate, and a 94 wRC+ from a guy who can run well enough to play center.

That sounds like a pretty good player, and for just $7 million. Inflation’s so bad these days that $7 million is reliever money on the free agent market — not even good reliever money — and for that the Rays got themselves a fringe-average center fielder. 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 Washington Nationals.

Batters

Washington’s rebuild continued in 2025, but unfortunately, not a lot of progress was made. The young offensive core of James Wood, Dylan Crews, CJ Abrams, and Luis García Jr. didn’t take any huge steps forward, and two of them, Crews and García, arguably both took second steps in the wrong direction. That foundational talent really added only Daylen Lile in 2025, and the offensive holes from a year ago largely remain in place as the team turns toward 2026. MacKenzie Gore still looks like a legitimate no. 2 starter, but it seems as likely that he’ll be traded as it is that he’ll return to the Nationals rotation in 2026. As for the rest of the pitching, I’d prefer not to talk about that until I have to.

At least on the offense, unlike for those of a lot of baseball’s cellar dwellers, the Nats aren’t really abysmal anywhere. Problem is, there’s not much greatness here, either. Wood is the closest to that; he’s a burgeoning star who ended the year with fine numbers, but he only just completed his first full season and still has plenty of developing to do. He struggled after participating in the Home Run Derby as players tend to do* and only hit seven home runs in the second half. He’s not multi-faceted in his offensive contributions, at least not yet, but he can hit-ball-smash-ball with the best of them, and is the best player on the team.

*That was just to see if you’re paying attention. Of course that’s not actually a thing.

The rest of the Nats offense, though, features a lot of adequate-to-decent players who awkwardly fit into the lineup. Abrams is easily the best of the rest, but you’d also much rather have him playing an easier defensive position than shortstop. García’s not a particular adept second baseman, either, and simply doesn’t hit well enough to have value at first. Andrés Chaparro could be a great fit at third if he could play third… so he’s not.

Jacob Young is a solid glove in center, but if he’s hitting like he did in 2025 instead of in 2024, he’s only a fifth outfielder in the majors. Brady House is not likely to be an offensive plus at third base. Crews still has a ton of upside, but 2025 served as an icy cold shower to his prospectitude. ZiPS is basically in full-on nope mode with Keibert Ruiz at this point.

Nor is there likely to be immediate help from the minors. Eli Willits and Luke Dickerson are not going to make an impact instantly, and ZiPS just doesn’t see any big bats lurking on the farm. Sure, Robert Hassell III got a special logo for the depth chart, but that’s mostly because I just rewatched Rocky III a few weeks ago and it amused me.

Pitchers

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OK, that might not fool Meg and Matt, so I may have to actually talk about the pitching.

(Editor’s note from Matt: It’s not that it didn’t fool me so much as I don’t speak code and didn’t understand it. So yes, Dan has to talk about the pitching.)

The most interesting starting pitchers outside of Gore, in ZiPS’ eyes, are Cade Cavalli and DJ Herz, the only two starters it projects with an ERA under 4.50. Cavalli is the most interesting in my eyes as well, as he can still hit the high-90s, and being a Mike Mussina partisan, I’m going to give a lot of leeway to a guy with a mean knuckle-curve. Problem is, there are a lot of unknowns given his missed time due to a UCL tear, and he just wasn’t that great at getting out Triple-A hitters this past year. Herz is currently out with his own Tommy John surgery.

Gore, of course, is easily Washington’s best pitcher, and there’s a decent chance I’ll be writing about him again in another team’s projection article this winter, if you catch my drift. He was victimized by the team’s defense, putting up one of the least deserving 5-15 records in major league history.

At best, ZiPS sees the rest of the rotation as passable fifth starters. A returning Josiah Gray is unlikely to be the savior.

The bullpen is a very average one, but it certainly feels better than some of the pens the Nats have rolled out over the years, including when they were actually a good team. Jose A. Ferrer gets a solid projection, and Clayton Beeter, PJ Poulin, and Julian Fernández all look at least serviceable. That’s pretty much where the excitement ends, but in truth, a team that will have to do some work to hit 70 wins probably doesn’t really need a great stable of relievers.

Washington’s outlook isn’t as utterly bleak as it is for some of baseball’s other terrible teams, considering there are a few real players on this roster. (Yes, the bar is that low.) However, this rebuild has not gone well, and the Nats feel as far away from contention as they were two or three years ago. They could surprise and win 75-80 games with some luck on offense, but I don’t think they have a chance to find enough to pitching to do any better than that.

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.

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »