Luke Little was an afterthought when our 2023 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects list came out in early July. Pitching for Double-A Tennessee at the time, the now–23-year-old southpaw garnered no more than an honorable mention on a list that ran 52 players deep. His stock has since risen markedly. By season’s end, he had earned a big league cup of coffee and thrown 6.2 scoreless innings over seven appearances. Featuring a high-octane heater and a sweeper delivered from a low arm slot, he fanned a dozen batters and allowed just five hits.

His numbers across three levels of the minor leagues were every bit as impressive. Over 36 appearances, all but four as a reliever, the 2020 fourth-round pick out of San Jacinto College had 105 strikeouts and surrendered 40 hits in 63.2 innings. He’s an imposing figure on the mound: The Charlotte, North Carolina native stands 6-foot-8 and weighs 270 pounds.

Little discussed his repertoire and delivery prior to a late-September game at Wrigley Field.

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David Laurila: Who are you on the mound? For instance, do you identify as a power pitcher?

Luke Little: “I like to think I’m a power pitcher. Obviously, I throw hard. At the same time, I like to think that I have good offspeed pitches. I’ve been really comfortable with my slider, and I’ve also got a good feel for my splitter now, although I haven’t thrown it too much.”

Laurila: How hard are you throwing?

Little: “Last night [September 19 against the Pirates], I sat 97 [mph] with my fastball, and my slider was 81–82. I was up to 99 with my fastball at the beginning of the year, [which is] the hardest I’ve ever thrown, when I was a starter [with High-A South Bend].” Read the rest of this entry »

On October 18, Rawlings and MLB announced this year’s Gold Glove finalists. Conspicuously absent from the list were two electric young Royals: Bobby Witt Jr. and Maikel Garcia. The pair took to social media to voice their thoughts on the selections, with Garcia labelling the process “a joke,” team captain Salvador Perez backing him up, and Witt perhaps summarizing our collective thoughts most concisely with a simple thinking face emoji:

? https://t.co/WnoqeHe9qv

— Bobby Witt Jr (@BwittJr) October 18, 2023

What led to Witt and Garcia’s exclusions? Let’s review the Gold Glove criteria. The SABR Defensive Index, or SDI, is a proprietary blend of fielding metrics that comprises about 25% of the selection process, with the rest depending on the votes of the manager and six other coaches per team. These seven votes per team can only be allocated to qualified players within the same league as the team, but not players on the team. So, for example, Royals coaches can only vote for non-Royal American League qualified players. Read the rest of this entry »

While Monday night’s World Series Game 3 victory might not qualify as Pyrrhic, it definitely came at a price for the Rangers. After three scoreless innings, starter Max Scherzer left with back tightness, forcing Jon Gray into an impromptu piggyback start. Adolis García, who is in the midst of a jaw-dropping, record-setting postseason run, left after seven innings with left side tightness. Meanwhile, two days removed from stealing one on the road in Texas, the Diamondbacks must feel deflated, losing 3-1 despite outhitting the Rangers, six hits to five. Texas now boast a 2-1 series lead.

Coming in, the question was about Scherzer’s thumb, which had developed a cut just below the base of the nail. He reportedly kept the wound from reopening with a concoction of super glue and cotton. It’s hard to say, but it could have had an effect on his pitching. Scherzer’s spin rate was below his season average on all five of his pitches (even during the first two innings, when his velocity was above his season average), and his curveball, slider, and changeup all had less movement than usual. Until his injury, Scherzer seemed to be benefitting from luck. He walked two and allowed two hits over his three innings, but he kept the Diamondbacks off the scoreboard by virtue of a double play, an outfield assist on some bad baserunning in the second inning, and a fortunate bounce on a comebacker. Read the rest of this entry »

As I’ve done for the past few years, I’m going to be grading each eliminated postseason manager on their decision-making. We spend the year mostly ignoring managers’ on-field contributions, because to be honest, they’re pretty small. Using the wrong reliever in the eighth inning just doesn’t feel that bad on June 22; there are so many more games still coming, and the regular season is more about managing the grind than getting every possible edge every day. The playoffs aren’t like that; with so few games to separate wheat from chaff, every last ounce of win probability matters, and managers make personnel decisions accordingly. What better time to grade them?

My goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter in a huge spot, that’s a good decision regardless of outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in for new strategies and unconventional bullpen usage behind closed doors is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but Josh Jung and Geraldo Perdomo have been important, too. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Nathan Eovaldi is valuable because he’s great, not because of the number of playoff series he’s appeared in. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process. Read the rest of this entry »

If there’s been one constant for the Diamondbacks during their run to the World Series, it hasn’t been dominant starting pitching or shutdown relief work, though they’ve gotten their shares of both. It’s been Ketel Marte, who has not only hit safely in all 14 of Arizona’s playoff games but also set a new postseason record on Saturday night with an 18-game hitting streak, dating back to 2017. He claimed the record by slapping a two-run eighth-inning single off Martín Pérez in Game 2.

Marte’s streak began with the 2017 NL Wild Card game, when his 3-for-5 showing against the Rockies (including starter and current Ranger Jon Gray) helped the Diamondbacks to an 11–8 win. He hit in all three games of the Division Series against the Dodgers, even homering off Clayton Kershaw, but the Diamondbacks were swept nonetheless. Six years later, the 30-year-old switch-hitter picked up where he left off, with a game-tying homer off Corbin Burnes in the NL Wild Card Series opener against the Brewers — one pitch after Corbin Carroll had homered off Burnes as well. His two-run single off Freddy Peralta in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series turned a 2–1 deficit into a 3–2 lead, sending the Diamondbacks on their merry way to their first upset of the postseason. Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2023-24 free agent market.

In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor-league contract, or won’t receive one at all. If there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2024 Steamer600 projections.

Below are ballots for nine of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of infielders. Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2023-24 free agent market.

In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor league contract, or won’t receive one at all. If there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2024 Steamer600 projections.

Below are ballots for nine of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of infielders and designated hitters, including one who also moonlights as a starting pitcher. Read the rest of this entry »

This World Series has something for everyone: Up-and-coming stars, clutch heroics, veterans hanging around in search of that long-elusive ring. And if you’re like me, you know the most important question of this series is: How can I make it all about a South Carolina Gamecocks team from more than a decade ago?

This is pretty freaking cool!#Gamecocks | #WorldSeries pic.twitter.com/qIozcOe4el

— Gamecock Baseball (@GamecockBasebll) October 29, 2023

On Saturday night, Jordan Montgomery and Christian Walker took the field for a World Series game together. For a second time. Read the rest of this entry »

Shintaro Fujinami has a good understanding of how NPB compares to MLB. Prior to signing with the Oakland Athletics in January (and subsequently being traded to the Baltimore Orioles in July), the 29-year-old right-hander spent 10 seasons with the Hanshin Tigers. Along the way he faced many of Japan’s top hitters, with Central League stalwarts such as Munetaka Murakami and Kazuma Okamoto among the standouts. The latter was the first name Fujinami mentioned when I asked which of his former position-player opponents would best perform stateside.

“I think that Okamoto, the third baseman for the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, would be pretty good here,” replied Fujinama, who went 7-8 with a 7.18 ERA over 79 relief innings in his first MLB season. “He’s a power hitter in Japan, although a power hitter there isn’t the same as here. Power hitters in Japan won’t hit 40 home runs over here like Shohei Ohtani does. But he would do well.”

A 27-year-old right-handed hitter, Okamoto slugged an NPB-best 41 home runs this year while slashing .278/.374/.585. He’s gone deep at least 30 times in each of the last six seasons, a span that includes a .274 batting average and 108 strikeouts annually. Despite the not-low K totals, Fujinami believes that Okamoto possesses the bat-to-ball skills to handle MLB pitching. Moreover, he doesn’t feel that high heaters would bedevil the Yomiuri slugger.

“He has good contact-ability, and he’s also good at hitting fastballs,” Fujinami told me during our September conversation. “The fastball velocity here is higher than it is in Japan, but I feel that Okamoto could make an adjustment to that if he came here. I think that Okamoto can hit a fastball at the top of the zone better than Murakami. If I had to pick one to bring here to the states, I would pick Okamoto.” Read the rest of this entry »

One sleepless night after Game 1 was ripped from them in heartbreaking fashion, the Diamondbacks arose from the canvas in Arlington and swung back at the Rangers en route to a dominant 9–1 victory, evening the World Series at a game apiece as the series heads to Phoenix. Arizona’s effort was led by a masterful performance from Scottsdale Desert Mountain High School and Arizona State alum Merrill Kelly, who struck out nine across seven surgical innings en route to the win. The Diamondbacks maintained a modest lead until the final three frames, when the bottom third of their order, which combined to reach base eight times on the night, piled up six runs.

Kelly is a prodigal son of sorts, a former Rays draft pick who left affiliated ball in the U.S. for four seasons in Korea before returning to MLB and his hometown Diamondbacks in 2019. Ironically, the particulars of the postseason schedule and of Arizona’s run to the Fall Classic have prevented Kelly from making a (literal) home start during this postseason, but he looked right at home in Texas on Saturday evening as he carved up one of the season’s most potent offenses. Read the rest of this entry »