When Eric Longenhagen put together our 2018 Philadelphia Phillies top prospects list, he described southpaw Ranger Suárez as “small but athletic and mechanically efficient, unfurling a sinker/slider combination that has a chance to play at the back of a rotation.” Having yet to pitch above High-A, the 22-year-old Suárez was assigned a 40 FV and a 2020 ETA.

He has gone on to exceed expectations. Not only did Suárez reach the majors earlier than anticipated — July of that same season — he has evolved into a frontline starter. After first establishing himself as a reliever, the Pie de Cuesta, Venezuela native moved into the Phillies rotation in August 2021, and since then, he boasts a 3.39 ERA and a 3.45 FIP over 654 frames. Moreover, he has gone 4-1 with a 1.48 ERA in the postseason, a contributing factor to his desirability in the free agent market. As chronicled by my colleague Davy Andrews, the Red Sox inked Suárez to a five-year, $130-million deal earlier this month.

When Sonny Gray met with the Boston media after being acquired via trade from the St. Louis Cardinals in late November, I asked the veteran right-hander if he feels settled in to who he’ll be going forward, or if he foresees making any changes to his repertoire or pitch usage. I haven’t had an opportunity to ask that question to Suárez, but I did present a version of it to Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow. Does the organization’s pitching brain trust anticipate suggesting any tweaks, or do they view the 30-year-old lefty as someone who already optimizes his talents? Read the rest of this entry »

I was thinking about Rob Refsnyder recently for two reasons. First, I think about Rob Refsnyder a lot. I try to be professional in this forum, but everyone has their own sports fan nemeses, and Refsnyder is one of mine.

Back in 2012, Refsnyder — then a University of Arizona Wildcat — was the Most Outstanding Player of the College World Series, in part because he went berserk in the two-game final against South Carolina: 4-for-6 with two walks and a home run. He drove in the winning run in Game 1 and scored the winning run in Game 2. My beloved Gamecocks were denied a third straight national championship and haven’t been back to Omaha since. I’ll die mad about this series, and I’ll never forgive Refsnyder in particular.

I did not, however, expect to still be writing about Refsnyder — then a punchy, athletically unremarkable second baseman — in 2026. The previous year’s College World Series MOP, Scott Wingo, was an 11th-round pick; he never came close to making the majors and has spent the past decade as a college assistant coach. (He was most recently in the news in 2024 as the Home Run Derby pitcher for Alec Bohm.) Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about their coming deliverance from a slow baseball news period, spring training as a spectator experience, and how the prelude to Opening Day has changed, then (12:43) answer emails about the many meanings of “back end” in baseball, an outfielder who repels batted balls, whether all rule violations constitute cheating, a playoff team composed of spoilers, and which positions the members of the Fellowship of the Ring would play, followed (1:16:01) by a Stat Blast about the Mets’ roster reconstruction and the history of high turnover.

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Let’s start with a thought experiment, then we’ll get to the guy in the picture up there. Say you’ve got an unhittable fastball. Every time an opposing batter swings at it, they miss. With such a pitch, you’d want to hit the strike zone every time. Only good things can happen in the strike zone. Either the batter takes and you earn a called strike, or they swing and you earn a swinging strike. Outside the zone, you’d run the risk of throwing a ball because the batter lays off it.

Now, say you’ve got an extremely hittable fastball. Not only does it never generate a whiff, but every time the batter swings at it, they also hit a home run. You’d never want to throw that pitch in the zone. You wouldn’t want to throw it much at all. Maybe you’d use it as a waste pitch to change the batter’s eye level, just every once in a while, and so far outside the zone that they wouldn’t even think about swinging at it. But that’s it.

Those are extreme examples, but my point is to introduce the concept of an ideal zone rate. Every pitcher (and every pitch) in baseball lives somewhere between those two extremes. Some pitchers should live in the zone and some should avoid it. All sorts of factors inform that ideal zone rate: how likely the pitch is to earn a whiff, how likely it is to earn a chase, how hard it tends to gets hit, whether it tends to gets hit in the air or on the ground, how it interacts with the rest of your repertoire, how it performs in different locations, how well you’re able to locate it, how confident you feel in it, the count, batter, situation, and so on, and so on.

Lately, the calculus has shifted somewhat. The zone rate has been rising because pitchers have been instructed to aim down the middle and trust in their stuff. In 2024, 49.6% of all pitches were in the strike zone and 26.5% were specifically in the heart zone (the area at least one baseball’s width from the edge of the zone). Both of those numbers were the highest rates we’d seen since the start of the pitch tracking era in 2008, and both of those numbers were surpassed in 2025, when for the first time ever, more pitches hit the strike zone than missed it. Across baseball, the ideal zone rate has increased.

Read the rest of this entry »

We now have all the 2026 projections available on the site. Frequently, we get asked about the differences between the projection systems and how often they’re updated, so here’s a quick primer on what’s what.

Primary Projections

Primary projection systems are generated independently and do not aggregate any of the others.

ZiPS: ZiPS projections are run by Dan Szymborski and have been available on FanGraphs since 2010. ZiPS are updated as needed leading up to the season and updated daily throughout the season. You can read more about ZiPS here.

ZiPS DC: ZiPS DC is exactly the same as ZiPS, except it’s prorated for our RosterResource playing time projections. ZiPS DC playing time is updated daily both leading up to the season and during the season, and the underlying performance projections are updated the same as ZiPS (as needed prior to the season and daily during the season).

Steamer: Steamer projections are run by Jared Cross, Peter Rosenbloom, and Dash Davidson and have been on FanGraphs since 2012. For Members, we also have platoon projections, context neutral projections, and percentile projections. They are all updated daily leading up to the season and during the season.

Steamer600: These are exactly the same as Steamer projections except every position player is prorated to 600 plate appearances (450 for catchers). Starting pitchers are prorated for 200 innings pitched, while relievers are prorated for 65 innings pitched. It’s updated daily leading up to the season and during the season.

THE BAT: Run by Derek Carty, THE BAT projections have been on FanGraphs since 2018. They are updated daily leading up to the season and during the season.

THE BAT X: Also run by Derek Carty, THE BAT X projections are currently for hitters only and are differentiated from THE BAT by including Statcast data. They are updated daily leading up to the season and during the season. You can read more about THE BAT X here.

OOPSY: Run by Jordan Rosenblum, OOPSY debuted on FanGraphs in 2025. Playing time for OOPSY is updated daily leading up to the season and during the season utilizing RosterResource. The underlying performance projections are updated as needed leading up to the season and daily during the season. You can read more about OOPSY here.

Composite Projections

Composite projection systems are an aggregate of primary projection systems. These types of systems tend to do better when tested against actual player performance.

FanGraphs Depth Charts: FanGraphs Depth Charts projections are a 50/50 blend of Steamer and ZiPS prorated to our RosterResource playing time projections. They are updated daily leading up to the season and during the season.

ATC: Compiled by Ariel Cohen and available on FanGraphs since 2017, ATC is a weighted composite of a number of projection systems based on their past performance. ATC is updated weekly leading up to the season. During the season, it’s labeled as ATC DC and uses our RosterResource playing time projections. ATC DC playing time is updated daily, while the underlying performance projections are updated as needed during the season. You can read more about ATC here.

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Philadelphia Phillies. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my 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 »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley share their responses—and the baseball world’s response—to the events of this month in Minnesota. Then (17:26) they banter about deboned Carlos Rodón, the latest pseudoscientific pursuits of Bryce Harper (and Mike Trout?), and the Giants signing Harrison Bader, before (48:06) discussing José Ramírez’s new extension with the Guardians, Andrew McCutchen’s quarrel with the Pirates, and what teams and star players owe to each other, if anything. Finally (1:26:22), they bring on data scientist/writer Zach Gozlan to Stat Blast about whether baseball is overrrepresented among sports clues on Jeopardy!

Audio intro: Jonathan Crymes, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Justin Peters, “Effectively Wild Theme”

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The San Francisco Giants, with their unique front office leadership and unconventional manager, have gone the traditional route. “Acquire Harrison Bader” is a tried-and-true team-building strategy for a would-be contender; the former Florida Gator is on his way to his seventh organization in the past four-and-a-half years.

The Giants, unlike Bader’s previous employers, seem interested in keeping him around long enough to unpack all his furniture: Bader’s new contract is for two years and $20.5 million.

Regardless of any analysis to follow, this move makes the Giants stronger in 2026. Bader is a legitimate center fielder who’ll relieve the defensive pressure on the freshly emancipated Jung Hoo Lee (who’s stretched in center) and Heliot Ramos (who’s stretched at any position that requires him to wield a glove). Guys who can play center field comfortably and have a clue at the plate are harder to find than you’d think — especially in free agency — and the Giants got one. Read the rest of this entry »

One day, José Ramírez will get old. One day, he’ll dodder out to the grass in front of the pitcher’s mound on the arm of an adorable grandchild and lollipop the ball into the dirt in front of home plate to the warm cheers of the Cleveland faithful. That’s sure to happen at some indeterminate point in the future. This weekend, however, the Guardians expressed their belief that Ramírez’s inevitable decline is a long way off, inking the 33-year-old future Hall of Famer to a seven-year contract extension that will keep him in the fold through the 2032 season. When the extension expires, Ramírez will be 40.

We’ll break down all the numbers and the dollars, but the biggest story here is the most obvious one. This is great news for anybody who loves Ramírez, the Guardians, or baseball. Ramírez has full no-trade rights, and there’s every reason to expect him to stay for the rest of his career. It’s time to talk about statues and plaques and how nice it is that we’ll never have to know just how wrong it would feel to see him in a jersey that doesn’t say Cleveland on it. This is the third extension Ramírez has signed. The first came in 2016, and it bought out his arbitration years plus two option years. The second came in 2022, and, like this one, it bought out the final three years of the previous extension. Ramírez wanted to stay in Cleveland, and with those first two extensions, he forfeited tens of millions of dollars on the open market to do so.

This extension is slightly more complicated, and the details matter quite a bit. Ramírez was already signed though the 2028 season as part of the previous seven-year extension, so it’s not as if there was a pressing need to get this done. He was owed $69 million over the next three years. This deal reworks his compensation over that period and adds four more years. Over the next seven seasons, Ramírez will earn $25 million per year, with $10 million per year deferred. (Each of those deferrals lasts 10 years, and then pays out $1 million per year for 10 years. So he’ll get $1 million in 2036, $2 million in 2037, and so on until he gets his final $1 million payment in 2051.) The deal also came with perks like increased bonuses for awards and high finishes in the MVP voting, an extra hotel room on road trips, and use of a private jet to and from the All-Star Game plus one extra time per year. Read the rest of this entry »