I was hired as FanGraphs’ Lead Prospect Analyst just after the 2016 draft and took my first run at evaluating the entirety of the minor leagues on my own the following winter. Enough time has now passed that many of the players from that era of prospecting have had big league careers unfold (or not). Hindsight allows me to have a pretty definitive idea of whether my call on a player was right or wrong in a binary sense, and gauge any gap that may exist between my evaluation and what the player ultimately became. Looking back allows me to assess my approach to grading and ranking players so that I might begin to establish some baselines of self-assessment and see how I perform compared to my peers at other publications. Last offseason, I began compiling the various Top 100 prospect rankings from seven years ago for the purposes of such a self-assessment, an exercise that culminated in the “How’s My Driving?” piece that ran during Prospect Week 2024. This winter, I turned my attention to the 2018 Top 100, which I co-authored with Kiley McDaniel. Below are the results of that audit and my thoughts on them.

Before we get to a couple of big, fun tables and my notes, I want to quickly go over why I’ve taken the approach I have here and discuss its flaws. There are absolutely deeper avenues of retrospective analysis that can be done with prospect lists than what I have attempted below, approaches that could educate us about prospects themselves, and probably also about prospect writers. (Last year, in the first edition of this piece, I proposed a few such potential methods of evaluation and included my thoughts on their limitations. For the sake of brevity, I’ve cut that discussion from this year’s edition, but if you’re curious about that stuff specifically, you’ll want to go back and read the paragraph that begins, “Eventually, someone could pool the lists…”) Read the rest of this entry »

The Angels were the busiest team in baseball during the first month of the offseason, signing Yusei Kikuchi, Travis d’Arnaud, Kyle Hendricks, and Kevin Newman, and trading for Jorge Soler. Then, after a quiet period throughout December and January, they returned to action last week, agreeing to a one-year, $5 million pact with Yoán Moncada. He will reportedly take over for Anthony Rendon as their primary starter at third base.

Meanwhile, the Padres are waking from an even longer hibernation. While the Dodgers, Diamondbacks, and Giants have been hard at work improving their rosters this winter, the Padres have been quiet. Their only notable move prior to February was re-signing catcher Elias Díaz. On Friday, they finally broke their silence and added not just one, but two major league free agents: Connor Joe and Jason Heyward. The two are expected to share duties in left field. Joe will earn a guaranteed $1 million on his one-year deal. The terms of Heyward’s contract, while presumably quite similar, have not yet been reported.

Angels Sign Yoán Moncada

We should have seen this coming. Back in December, the Angels reportedly expressed interest in a trio of third basemen on the offseason trade market: Nolan Arenado, Eugenio Suárez, and Alec Bohm. They were also linked to a pair of big-name free agent sluggers entering their age-30 seasons: Pete Alonso and Anthony Santander. So, of course, the Angels found a way to get the best a mediocre approximation of both worlds.

Moncada has had a career trajectory that few, if any, can relate to. There was a time when his star was so bright that he was often mentioned in the same breath as fellow international phenom Shohei Ohtani. Even as a teenager, he looked like such a stud that the Red Sox shattered international signing precedent to give him a $31.5 million bonus, which cost them another $31.5 million in penalties. Less than two years later, he was such a highly regarded prospect that some wondered if the Red Sox made a fatal mistake by trading him to the White Sox for Chris Sale.

Of course, Moncada wasn’t the first prospect to garner so much hype, nor was he the first top prospect who failed to reach his full potential. What makes him so interesting is that he did discover his ceiling – he just couldn’t stay there. In 2019, his age-24 campaign, Moncada played 132 games, swatted 25 homers, swiped 10 bases, and produced a 139 wRC+ en route to a 5.2-WAR season. That’s the kind of player the Red Sox thought they were signing when they gave him a record-setting bonus. That’s the kind of player the White Sox thought they were acquiring when they gave up one of the greatest starting pitchers of this generation to get him.

Sad to say, Moncada has never been that kind of player again. Everyone has a theory about the cause of his decline, from long COVID to the deadened ball, but regardless of the explanation, the fact of the matter is that Moncada was not able to make a consistent impact for the White Sox from 2020-24. His bat dropped off a cliff in 2020. He bounced back to post 3.7 WAR in 2021, but after that, injuries and underperformance became the defining themes of his late 20s. From 2022-23, he put up an 86 wRC+ and just 2.0 WAR over 196 games.

Moncada got off to a nice start in 2024, slashing .282/.364/.410 over the first two weeks of the season before a left adductor strain forced him to the injured list. Although he was initially expected to return in July, his rehab was put on pause for six weeks in the summer, first due to whatever on earth “anticipated soreness” is and later because he was oh-so-vaguely “still kind of feeling something.” He finally got back to Chicago in mid-September, after tearing up Triple-A on a rehab assignment, only to sit on the bench for the worst team in modern baseball history.

The White Sox had a dozen more games to ride out and roughly 450 plate appearances to fill. And yet Moncada appeared in just one of those games and took just one of those trips to the plate. If you blinked at the right moments, you might not have realized he ever came off the injured list at all. Over those final 12 games, White Sox batters produced a 70 wRC+ and -0.6 WAR. Their designated hitters went 9-for-50 with a 49 wRC+. Their third basemen were even worse, going 4-for-44 with a -2 wRC+. Yet, the only work the White Sox offered Moncada was a 12th-inning pinch-running gig against the Angels on September 18. He struck out the following inning in his only plate appearance of the month. Nonetheless, he somehow finished the season as the most productive offensive performer on the team, because of course he did:

All that to say, Moncada’s performance in 2024 can’t tell us much about what to expect from him in 2025. Could he be the 5.2-WAR player we saw in 2019, or even just the 3.7-WAR player we saw in 2021? I mean, sure, I guess. He’s done it before, and he won’t even turn 30 until May. But Moncada put up 2.2 WAR over 208 games from 2022-24, and that’s the kind of player our Depth Charts projections expect him to continue to be in 2025 (1.3 WAR in 118 games). ZiPS is a little higher on him, while Steamer is a little lower, but ultimately, we’re talking about a slightly-below-average everyday player – if he can stay on the field enough to play every day. For many teams, that wouldn’t be enough to crack the starting lineup. For the Angels, however, Moncada could be a nice addition.

From about 2015 to 2020, Rendon was one of the few third basemen one might have picked over Moncada. The latter was a future superstar, but the former was already playing at that level. These days, Rendon is one of the few third baseman upon whom Moncada is, more likely than not, a meaningful upgrade. Here’s how the two compare according to several projection systems:

Saddled with unfair expectations as a teenager, Moncada has developed a bit of a reputation as a prospect bust. The truth, however, is that he was worth every penny the Red Sox paid him; they used him to get Sale, and Sale helped them win a World Series. What’s more, he gave the White Sox 13.8 WAR over parts of eight seasons and contributed to the team’s first two playoff runs since 2008. Overall, he provided Chicago about $110 million in value (using a simplistic $8 million per WAR estimate) while earning just a little over $70 million in salary. Perhaps he didn’t become everything he could have been, but he gave both of his teams more than he took. He can do the same for the Angels in 2025.

Padres Sign Jason Heyward and Connor Joe

On Opening Day in 2023, Juan Soto stood in left field for San Diego. The following season, the Padres braced for what could have been the worst downgrade since The Fresh Prince recast Aunt Viv. Jurickson Profar, he of the lowest WAR in baseball the year prior, was Soto’s replacement. The Friars dropped from first to 30th on our left field positional power rankings. Yet, things sometimes have a funny way of working out. Against all odds, the 2024 Padres had the top left fielder in the National League, according to WAR, for the second year in a row.

Unfortunately, the Padres then found themselves looking to replace their All-Star left fielder for a second consecutive winter. This time around, their solution is a platoon of the lefty-batting Heyward and the righty-batting Joe. And you know, for what it’s worth, both Heyward and Joe have better projections now than Profar did entering 2024:

To be crystal clear, those projections say far more about Profar’s remarkable 2024 season than they do about either Heyward or Joe. They do not suggest that Heyward and Joe this year are likely to outperform Profar last season. Nor do they suggest that either one of them has more upside than Profar did at this time last year. Heyward was an All-Star caliber player in his early 20s, and to his credit, he has enjoyed multiple bounce-back seasons over the past several years. Indeed, he is only two years removed from a strong 2023, when he put up a 120 wRC+ and 2.3 WAR in 124 games with the Dodgers. However, his 38th-percentile xwOBA that year suggested he was due for regression, and regress he did. Over 87 games with the Dodgers and Astros, he produced a 94 wRC+ and just 0.8 WAR in 2024. While the Padres are surely hoping to get something like the 2023 version of Heyward, a repeat of his 2024 is far more likely. He’s already 35 years old (he’ll turn 36 in August), and I’m more convinced by his overall 91 wRC+ and .301 xwOBA from 2021-24 than I am by his brief resurgence in 2023.

Joe is three years younger than Heyward but has never shown anything close to Heyward’s All-Star ceiling. In fact, he has never even had a year as strong as Heyward’s 2023. (There’s a reason the Pirates non-tendered Joe rather than pay his projected $3.2 million arbitration salary.) All things considered, Joe’s production over the first four proper seasons of his career has been pretty similar to Heyward’s declining performance in the same time frame. Joe has been the more consistent hitter, but Heyward makes up the difference as a better baserunner and outfield defender:

Heyward is used to working in a platoon; since 2021, only 12.9% of his plate appearances have come against left-handed pitchers. Joe, on the other hand, could benefit from less exposure to opposite-handed hurlers. He has a career 107 wRC+ against lefties and a 91 wRC+ against righties. His managers in Colorado and Pittsburgh made an effort to shield him from right-handed pitching, but they haven’t had enough quality options to use him in a genuine platoon role; 38.2% of his career plate appearances have come against lefties. Excluding his eight-game cup of coffee with the Giants in 2019, when 14 of his 16 plate appearances came against lefties, he has never had a season in which the majority of his plate appearances have come with the platoon advantage.

Are the Padres such a team to change that? They should be, although that is contingent on their making further additions. Ideally, Heyward would take the bulk of the work in left field, health allowing, while Joe would handle the short side of the platoon. However, the Padres might need Joe for more than just outfield duties – and more than just a platoon role. Considering his defensive success at first base (5 DRS, 2 FRV in 170 career games), and the massive hole San Diego has at designated hitter, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Joe playing plenty of first with Luis Arraez as the DH. Joe’s projected 95 wRC+ (per Steamer) against right-handers would be pitiful at first base, but the Padres don’t currently have many better options for either first base or DH — whichever position that Arraez is not occupying. The only player on their 40-man roster with a higher projected wRC+ against righties who isn’t already penciled into the lineup at a different position is Tirso Ornelas, a prospect who has yet to make his MLB debut.

If San Diego is going to beat its 33.2% playoff odds without making any major additions, it will need someone to step up to replace its most productive hitter from 2024. If that hero exists, it almost certainly won’t be Heyward or Joe. Instead, that production will need to come from Fernando Tatis Jr., Xander Bogaerts, Manny Machado, or, in a best-case scenario, some combination of all three. Still, Heyward and Joe are proven big league players, and there’s no doubt the Padres needed more of those on their roster. And hey, you never know. It’s not so long ago we were saying the same thing about Profar.

Walker Jenkins is more than just the top-rated prospect in the Minnesota Twins system. Drafted fifth overall in 2023 out of Southport, North Carolina’s South Brunswick High School, the soon-to-turn-20-year-old is one of the game’s top prospects. His left-handed stroke is a big reason why. As Eric Longenhagen notes in Jenkins’ forthcoming Top 100 prospect report, the outfielder “has exciting feel to hit and barrel control. He tracks pitches exceptionally well and can move his hands all over the strike zone.” Longenhagen goes on to note that while Jenkins is likely a left fielder (the Twins have primarily deployed him in center so far), he “should hit enough to be a heart-of-the-order hitter and impact regular regardless of position.”

His first full professional season was impressive. In 368 plate appearances split across four levels — he finished the year in Double-A — Jenkins had a 139 wRC+ to go with six home runs and a .282/.394/.439 slash line. Moreover, he swiped 17 bases in 20 attempts.

Jenkins discussed his hitting approach in the final week of January.

———

David Laurila: How would you describe yourself as a hitter?

Walker Jenkins: “Above all things, I’m a hitter who is going to go up there and try to get my best swing off. You have guys that get categorized as, ‘Oh, they’re hitters, but they have no power,’ while for others it’s, ‘They’re all power, but no hit.’ I want to be a good hitter. I’m going to hit first, and when I get my A-swing off, that’s when my power is going to come.

“If you can continuously hit the ball on the barrel, good things are going to happen. That’s what I try to do, because I don’t like striking out. I don’t like giving at-bats away. But when I get in a hitter’s count, I’m not going to get cheated.” Read the rest of this entry »

Hello, and welcome to Prospect Week! (Well, closer to Prospect Fortnight — as you can probably tell from the navigation widget above, the fun will continue well into next week, including the launch of our Top 100.) I’m not your regular host – that’d be Eric Longenhagen – but not to worry, you’ll get all the Eric you can handle as he and the team break down all things minor leagues, college baseball, and MLB draft. I’m just here to set the stage, and in support of that goal, I have some research to present on prospect grades and eventual major league equivalency.

When reading coverage of the minor leagues, I often find myself wondering what it all means. The Future Value scale does a great job of capturing the essence of a prospect in a single number, but it doesn’t translate neatly to what you see when you watch a big league game. Craig Edwards previously investigated how prospect grades have translated into surplus value, but I wanted to update things from an on-field value perspective. Rather than look at what it would cost to replace prospect production in free agency, I decided to measure the distribution in potential outcomes at each Future Value tier.

To do that, I first gathered my data. I took our prospect lists from four seasons, 2019-22, and looked at all of the prospects with a grade of 45 FV or higher. I separated them into two groups — hitters and pitchers — then took projections for every player in baseball three years down the line. For example, I paired the 2019 prospect list with 2022 projections and the 2022 prospect list with 2025 projections. In this way, I came up with a future expectation for each player.

I chose to use projections for one key reason: They let us get to an answer more quickly. In Craig’s previous study, he looked at results over the next nine years of major league play. I don’t have that kind of time – I’m trying to use recent prospect grades to get at the way our team analyzes the game today. If I used that methodology, the last year of prospect lists I could use would be 2015, in Kiley McDaniel’s first term as FanGraphs’ prospect analyst.

Another benefit of using projections is that they’re naturally resistant to the sample-size-related issues that always crop up in exercises like this. A few injuries, one weird season, a relatively small prospect cohort, and you could be looking at some strange results. Should we knock a prospect if his playing time got blocked, or if his team gamed his service time? I don’t think so, and projections let us ignore all that. I normalized all batters to a 600 plate appearance projection and all pitchers to a 200 innings pitched projection.

I decided to break future outcomes down into tiers. More specifically, I grouped WAR outcomes as follows. I counted everything below 0.5 WAR per season as a “washout,” including those players who didn’t have major league projections three years later. Given that we project pretty much everyone, that’s mostly players who had either officially retired or never appeared in full-season ball. I graded results between 0.5 and 1.5 WAR as “backup.” I classified seasons between 1.5 and 2.5 WAR as “regular,” as in a major league regular. Finally, 2.5-4 WAR merited an “above average” mark, while 4-plus WAR got a grade of “star.” You could set these breakpoints differently without too much argument from me; they’re just a convenient way of showing the distribution. There’s nothing particularly magical about the cutoff lines, but you have to pick something to display the data, and a simple average of WAR projections probably isn’t right.

With that said, let’s get to the results. My sample included 685 hitters from 45-80 FV. Allowing for some noise at the top end due to small sample size, the distribution looks exactly like you’d hope:

Consider the 55 FV line for an explanation. Of the players we graded as 55 FV prospects, 17% look washed three years later – Jeter Downs, a 2020 55 FV, for example. Another 17% have proven to be backup-caliber, like 2022 55 FV Curtis Mead, or 2019 55 FV Taylor Trammell if you don’t think Mead’s trajectory is set just yet. Continuing down the line, 30% look like big league regulars – 2021 55 FV Alek Thomas, perhaps. A full 31% appear to be above-average major league contributors three years later, like 2019 55 FV Sean Murphy or 2021 55 FV Royce Lewis. Finally, 6% project as stars three years later – Jackson Merrill, a 55 FV in 2022, feels appropriate as an example.

Two things immediately jump out to me when looking at this data. First, the “above average” and “star” columns increase at every tier break, and the “washout” column decreases at every tier break. In other words, the better a player’s grade, the more likely they are to be excellent, while the worse their grade, the more likely they are to bust. That’s a great sign for the reliability of our grades; they’re doing what they purport to do, essentially.

Second, each row feels logically consistent. The 45 FV prospects are most likely to bust, next-most-likely to end up as backups, and so on. The 45+ FVs look like the 45 FVs, only with a better top end; their chances of ending up above average are meaningfully better. The 50 FVs are a grab bag; their outcomes vary widely, and plenty of those outcomes involve being a viable major leaguer. By the time you hit the 55 and 60 FV prospects, you’re looking at players who end up as above-average contributors a lot of the time. The gap between 55 and 60 seems clear, too; the 60 FVs are far more likely to turn into stars, more or less. Finally, there are only six data points above 60 FV, so that’s mostly a stab in the dark.

This outcome pleases me greatly. Looking at that chart correlates strongly with how I already perceived the grades. For a refresher, roughly 30 prospects in a given year grade out as a 55 FV or above, give or take a few. Something like three quarters of those tend to be hitters. That means that in a given year, 20-ish prospects look like good bets to deliver average-regular-or-better performance. The rest of the Top 100? They’re riskier, with a greater chance of ending up in a part-time role and a meaningfully lower chance of becoming a star. But don’t mistake likelihood for certainty – plenty of 55 and 60 FVs still end up at or below replacement level, and 45 FVs turn into stars sometimes. Projecting prospect performance is hard!

How should you use this table? I like to think of Future Value in terms of outcome distributions, and I think that this does a good job of it. Should a team prefer to receive two 50 FV prospects in a trade, or a 55 FV and a 45 FV? You can add up the outcome distributions and get an idea of what each combination of prospects looks like. Here are the summed probabilities of those two groups:

Another way of saying that: If you go with the two-player package that has the 55 and 45 FV prospects, you’re looking at a higher chance of developing a star. You’re also looking at a greater chance of ending up with at least one complete miss, and therefore lower odds of ending up with two contributors. Adding isn’t exactly the right way to handle this, but it’s a good shorthand for quick comparisons. If you want to get more in depth, I built this little calculator, which lets you answer a simple question: For a given set of prospects, what are the odds of ending up with at least X major leaguers of Y quality or better? You can make a copy of this sheet, define X and Y for yourself, and get an answer. In our case, the odds of ending up with at least one above-average player (or better) are 40.7% for the two 50s and 41.4% for the 45/55 split. The odds of ending up with two players who are at least big league regulars? That’d be 28.1% for the two 50 FVs, and 16.1% for the 45/55 pairing. Odds of at least one star? That’s 4% for the two 50 FVs and 6% for the 45/55 group. In other words, the total value is similar, but the shape is meaningfully different.

For example, you’d have to add together a ton of 50 FV prospects to get as high of a chance of finding a star as you would from one 60 FV. On the other hand, if you have three 50 FVs, the odds of ending up with at least a solid contributor are quite high. Meanwhile, even 60 FV prospects end up as backups or worse around a quarter of the time. That description of the relative risks and rewards makes more sense to me than converting players into some nebulous surplus value. Prospects are all about possibility, so representing them that way tracks analytically for me.

Take another look at the beautiful cascade of probabilities in that table of outcomes for hitting prospects, because we’re about to get meaningfully less pretty. Let’s talk about pitching prospects. Here, the outcomes are less predictable:

I have tons of takeaways here. First, there are substantially fewer pitching prospects ranked, particularly as 50 FVs and above. Clearly, that’s a good decision by the prospect team, because even the highest-ranked pitchers turn into backups at a reasonable clip. Pitching prospects just turn into major league pitchers in a less predictable way, or so it would appear from the data.

Second, there are fewer stars among the pitchers than the hitters. That’s true if you look at 2025 projections, too. There are only six pitchers projected for 4 WAR or higher, while 42 hitters meet that cutoff. It’s also true if you look at the results on the field in 2024; 36 hitters and 12 pitchers (22 by RA9-WAR) eclipsed the four-win mark. You should feel free to apply some modifiers to your view of pitcher value if you think that WAR treats them differently than hitters, but within the framework, the relative paucity of truly outstanding outcomes is noticeable.

Another thing worth mentioning here is that pitchers don’t develop the same way that hitters do. Sometimes one new pitch or an offseason of velocity training leads to a sudden change in talent level in a way that just doesn’t happen as frequently with hitters. Tarik Skubal was unmemorable in his major league debut (29 starts, with a 4.34 ERA and 5.09 FIP). Then he made just 36 (very good) starts over the next two years due to injuries. Then he was the best pitcher in baseball in 2024. Good luck projecting that trajectory. Perhaps three-year-out windows of pitcher performance just aren’t enough thanks to the way they continue to develop even after reaching the majors.

There’s one other limitation of measuring pitchers this way: I don’t have a good method for dealing with the differential between reliever and starter valuation. Normalizing relievers to 200 innings pitched doesn’t make a ton of sense, but handling them on their own also feels strange, and I don’t have a good way of converting reliever WAR to the backup/regular/star scale that I’m using here. A 3-WAR reliever wouldn’t be an above-average player, they’d be the best reliever in baseball. I settled for putting them up to 200 innings and letting that over-allocaiton of playing time handle the different measures of success. For example, a reliever projected for 3.6 WAR in 200 innings would check in around 1.2 for a full season of bullpen work. That’s a very good relief pitcher projection; only 20 players meet that bar in our 2025 Depth Charts projections.

In other words, the tier names still mostly work for relievers, but you should apply your own relative positional value adjustments just like normal. A star reliever is less valuable than a star outfielder. A star starting pitcher might be more valuable than a star outfielder, depending on the degree of luminosity, but that one’s much closer. This outcome table can guide you in terms of what a player might turn into. It can’t tell you how to value each of those outcomes, because that’s context-specific and open to interpretation.

This study isn’t meant to be the definitive word on what prospects are “worth.” Grades aren’t innate things, they’re just our team’s best attempt at capturing the relative upside and risk of yet-to-debut players. Being a 60 FV prospect doesn’t make you 17% likely to turn into a star; rather, our team is trying to identify players with s relatively good chance of stardom by throwing a big FV on them. And teams aren’t beholden to our grades, either. They might have better (or worse!) internal prospect evaluation systems.

With those caveats in mind, I still find this extremely useful in my own consumption of minor league content. The usual language you hear when people discuss prospect trades – are they on a Top 100, where do they rank on a team list, what grade are they – can feel arcane, impenetrable even. Breaking it down in terms of likelihood of outcome just works better for me, and I hope that it also provides valuable information to you when you’re reading the team’s excellent breakdown of all things prospect-related this week.

Robert Hassell III has encountered bumps in the road, but he’s confident that he’s finally heading in the right direction. Health and a better understanding of his left-handed stroke are two reasons why. Added to the Washington Nationals’ 40-man roster over the offseason, the 2020 first-rounder — he went eighth overall to the San Diego Padres — is also still just 23 years old. While his path to the big leagues has been anything but smooth, Hassell is far from over the hill in terms of prospect status.

Injuries have hampered his progress. Since turning pro, Hassell has incurred a pair of wrist injuries, including a broken hamate bone, and strained a groin muscle. As a result, he’s played in just 428 games over four seasons. Seldom at full strength for an extended period of time, he’s slashed an uninspiring .260/.350/.385 with 36 home runs and a 105 wRC+.

Hassell didn’t want to dwell on his past injury issues when I spoke to him during the Arizona Fall League season, although he did acknowledge that he “needs to be healthy and on the field” in order to allow his true talent to play. And he definitely has talent. While power has never been part of his profile, Hassell’s combination of bat-to-ball skills, speed, and outfield defense helped make him a primary piece in the multi-player trade that sent Juan Soto from Washington to San Diego in August 2022.

The conversation I had with Hassell in Arizona centered on his development as a hitter — something he views as a work-in-progress in need of nuance, not one that requires an overhaul. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Dodgers’ overstuffed 2025 bobblehead lineup, Ippei Mizuhara’s sentencing, and the Angels’ tireless pursuit of players who were good several seasons ago. Then they preview the 2025 Baltimore Orioles (35:55) with the Baltimore Banner’s Danielle Allentuck, and the 2025 Kansas City Royals (1:08:21) with the Kansas City Star’s Jaylon Thompson.

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Welcome to the last Matrix Reloaded before pitchers and catchers report! This time next week, spring training camps will be nearly full, with full squad workouts starting no later than February 18. Who exactly will be participating in those workouts is still fluid, but this past week was a busy one that provided a lot of new information for me to add to the offseason omnibus. Here’s what happened.

Marquee Signings

Mets Sign Pete Alonso for Two Years, $57 Million

• Michael Baumann’s Write-Up of the Deal
• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Mets

Bringing the Polar Bear back locks in all nine of the Mets’ starting spots barring any surprising moves or injuries. With their rotation and bullpen also seemingly full, I’d expect this to be their last major move of the offseason at any position, though they still could do a few things on the margins.

The Mets have tried to trade Starling Marte, and they’re reportedly willing to pay down some of his $19 million salary to move him, but it’s unsurprising that teams aren’t really biting. Marte is coming off back-to-back lackluster seasons and his value as a fielder has absolutely tanked. Other “excess” players the Mets could look to deal include righty starter Paul Blackburn, third baseman Brett Baty, outfielder José Azocar, and righty reliever Sean Reid-Foley.

Effect on Other Teams

The other team that (from the outside, at least) seemed to be most strongly in on Alonso was the Blue Jays, but they always struck me as something of an inelegant fit. They either would’ve slid Vladimir Guerrero Jr. back over to third or made Alonso, who’s always been a full-time first baseman, their primary DH. Attempting to lure Alex Bregman would make for a much cleaner fit in Toronto, but it’s unclear how willing or able the Jays would be to swing the six- or seven-year deal that Bregman is seeking. On a Bleacher Report stream, Jon Heyman named the Cubs as the current favorites for Bregman, but by how much is also unclear.

Effect on Similar Players

Alonso’s short-term deal doesn’t really affect what Bregman will ultimately get. Heyman reported last week that the third baseman has a “lucrative” six-year offer on the table, including an opt-out after the first year. Bob Nightengale reported on Thursday that Bregman “still has no interest in a short-term contract.”

Tigers Sign Jack Flaherty for Two Years, $35 Million

• Dan Symborski’s Write-Up of the Deal
• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Tigers

Flaherty’s return gives the Tigers a strong no. 2 starter to slot behind all-world ace Tarik Skubal and sets up a doozy of a competition for the last one or two rotation spots behind Skubal, Flaherty, and Alex Cobb. Reese Olson appears to be a near-lock for that fourth spot, coming off 22 starts (112 1/3 innings) with a 3.53 ERA, 3.17 FIP, and 3.64 xERA.

As such, there could end up being just one spot for top prospect Jackson Jobe, veteran Kenta Maeda, Casey Mize, Ty Madden, Keider Montero, and Matt Manning.

Effect on Other Teams

Flaherty was the best remaining starter available, but because both his market and ultimate deal were quite underwhelming compared to what other starters signed for earlier in the offseason, it’s unclear how many teams are still interested in adding high-upside pitchers to bolster their rotations. Nick Pivetta is the lone free agent option who fits that billing, but the trade market features plenty of enticing pitchers, such as Dylan Cease, Michael King, Luis Castillo, and Erick Fedde.

It’s also worth considering that Flaherty’s deal may have been more of a reflection of the individual pitcher than the market. As Michael Rosen wrote in mid-January, “The hot market for starters and the comparatively cool market for Flaherty suggest that, unlike the rest of the nominal ‘front-end’ starting pitchers at the top of the market, something about him scares teams.” On the surface, Michael noted, teams were probably a bit hesitant because Flaherty’s last healthy and effective season before last year came in 2019. Beyond that, though, Michael pointed more specifically to Flaherty’s fastball as the source of concern for his suitors. Those other pitchers I mentioned don’t come with the same yellow flags, so teams could be more willing to spend the money or prospect capital to acquire one of them. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Effect on Similar Players

Flaherty’s below-expectations contract may not be good news for Pivetta, who is three years older than Flaherty and was saddled with a qualifying offer, which Flaherty was ineligible to receive. Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported last week that there are 10 teams interested in Pivetta, though we’ve only publicly heard about three, marked on the Matrix in blue: the Blue Jays, the Mets, and the Reds. Two of those teams have added other starting pitchers since their interest in Pivetta was reported; Toronto signed Max Scherzer on January 30, while in December New York re-signed Sean Manaea and brought in Griffin Canning. Cincinnati’s interest was reported after the team traded for Brady Singer, but Pivetta doesn’t seem like a great fit for the Reds. The Great American Ballpark is a tough home stadium for fly ball pitchers like Pivetta.

The issue with Pivetta’s qualifying offer is that not only does it make teams more wary of signing him in general, but it also makes him less appealing on a short-term deal. Basically, teams aren’t going to want to give up their draft pick and whatever salary they agree to pay for a player who is only going to be around for one season. Understanding this, it seems possible that he still could get the three-year, $45 million median prediction (on the Total Spending Projection page), especially if there truly are double-digit teams interested in his services.

Righty-Hitting Outfielder Signings

Twins Sign Harrison Bader for One Year, $6.25 Million

• Ben Clemens’ Write-Up of the Deal
• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Twins

The most glaring need for the Twins (besides money falling from the sky) was to add a right-handed hitting outfielder to balance out lefty bats Trevor Larnach and Matt Wallner, and they got their man in Bader. The defensive stalwart was actually worse against lefties last year (70 wRC+ compared to 93 against righties), but historically he’s leaned the other direction (109 wRC+ against southpaws for his career, 84 against righties).

Bader’s true calling is his aforementioned strong defense; while he hasn’t played a position other than center since 2018, the thought of him playing next to Byron Buxton late in games to help lock down wins is quite appealing. He can also get Buxton off his feet up the middle without the Twins having to give up much, if anything, on defense. The Twins could hypothetically start Buxton in center against righties with another player DHing, and have Buxton DH against lefties with Bader in center.

Diamondbacks Sign Randal Grichuk for One Year, $5 Million

• Leo Morgenstern’s Write-Up of the Deal
• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Diamondbacks

Despite losing Christian Walker to the Astros, Joc Pederson to the Rangers, and Josh Bell to the Nationals, baseball’s highest-scoring offense in 2024 looks primed to be right around the top of the list again in 2025. Instead of platooning with Pederson at DH, Grichuk should platoon with Pavin Smith, who had a mini-breakout in 158 plate appearances last year.

All nine of Arizona’s starting spots look locked in unless there’s a trade, so the Diamondbacks are just left to decide on their backup catcher — either Jose Herrera, René Pinto, or Adrian Del Castillo — and their two other bench players. Six infielders — Garrett Hampson, Ildemaro Vargas, Blaze Alexander, Jordan Lawlar, Tim Tawa, and Grae Kessinger — are fighting for one spot, and three outfielders — Alek Thomas, Jorge Barrosa, and Cristian Pache — are competing for the other.

Pirates Sign Tommy Pham for One Year, $4.025 Million

• Jay Jaffe’s Write-Up of the Deal
• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Pirates

Pham gives the Pirates another bat, along with veteran free agents Andrew McCutchen, who signed what’s become his annual one-year, $5 million contract with Pittsburgh, and Adam Frazier, as well as trade acquisition Spencer Horwitz. That said, Pham is not exactly the impact bat the Pirates needed to provide run support for a rotation fronted by one of the best pitchers in baseball. At this point I don’t think an impact bat is walking through that door, so Pirates fans will have to settle for watching Pham platoon in right field with Joshua Palacios, or perhaps another lower-tier addition like Alex Verdugo, in whom they’ve expressed interest.

Orioles Sign Ramón Laureano for One Year, $4 Million

• Leo Morgenstern’s Write-Up of the Deal
• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Orioles

Saying the Orioles’ outfield is jam-packed would be an understatement. Tyler O’Neill, Cedric Mullins, and Colton Cowser will be the starters against righties, with Laureano likely to fill a platoon role against lefty pitching. Ryan O’Hearn ought to be the starting DH against righties, which leaves just one spot on the bench for Heston Kjerstad, Dylan Carlson, and Daz Cameron, who’s out of options.

The lefty-swinging Kjerstad certainly merits a longer look coming off a 116 wRC+ in 114 plate appearances (despite not pulling a single fly ball to right field!), but a trade might be necessary to open up regular playing time for him. If Baltimore decides to move someone, O’Hearn or first baseman Ryan Mountcastle seem like the most obvious candidates.

Effect of Their Signings on Other Teams

The four signings above all happened in a 48-hour span and very quickly and dramatically shortened the list of available righty hitting outfielders who are at least capable of playing center field. Enrique Hernández is the best remaining player to fit that criteria, and he comes with the added ability to play all around the infield, too. Michael A. Taylor and Kevin Pillar can all play up the middle with varying levels of competence, and Mark Canha is a nice bat but hasn’t played any center field in the last two seasons. The trade market has Luis Robert Jr. as its jewel.

Effect of Their Signings on Similar Players

All of the free agent outfielders mentioned above will likely end up signing for less than what Bader earned. It’s possible that Canha and Hernández get contracts that fall somewhere in the range that Pham, Grichuk and Laureano received, but Taylor and Pillar might to have to settle for minor league deals.

Infielder Signings

Angels Sign Yoán Moncada for One Year, $5 Million

• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Angels

If there aren’t any injuries, the Angels probably have all 13 position player spots locked up, though it’s worth noting that Zach Neto’s offseason shoulder surgery could cause him to miss the start of the season. In that case Kevin Newman would play short.

Moncada has played third base exclusively since 2019, so at least at the beginning of the season, the Halos have two starting-caliber third basemen. That said, both Moncada and Anthony Rendon have spent considerable time on the injured list in recent years, so having depth at the position isn’t a bad thing. As things stand, RosterResource projects Rendon to be the starting third baseman and Moncada to platoon against righties at DH, with offseason acquisition Jorge Soler playing right field. In this case, Jo Adell would play right field against lefties, with Soler sliding to DH. I still expect Soler to end up at DH more often than not, just because he really shouldn’t play the field much. Rendon could also platoon with Moncada at third or the lefty-hitting Nolan Schanuel at first, a position he’s never played as a professional, as a way for the Angels to give Adell regular playing time in right field. Then again, the Angels might not have this lineup crunch for long. Rendon has been hurt for more than half of every season since 2021.

Effect on Other Teams

I suppose the Angels could open up some playing time by trading one of their trio of returning non-Mike Trout outfielders, either Adell, Taylor Ward, or Mickey Moniak. But I don’t think that’s going to happen here, at least not in response to the Moncada signing. Really, the Angels brought in Moncada as insurance for Rendon. Playing time has a way of sorting itself out. Other teams will have to look elsewhere for an outfielder, and if they want a third baseman not named Bregman, their free agent options are limited to Jose Iglesias, Paul DeJong, Luis Urías, and Miguel Sanó.

Effect on Similar Players

Coming off his resurgent (albeit BABIP-fueled) season with the Mets, Iglesias likely has his sights set on well more than $5 million. We haven’t heard much about his market. I think $5 million sounds about right — if not a little low — for DeJong, who popped 24 homers with a 95 wRC+ last season, both his best marks since 2019. I’d be surprised if Urías was able to find a major league deal, and even more surprised if Sanó did.

Lefty Relief Pitcher Signings

Twins Sign Danny Coulombe for One Year, $3 Million

• Davy Andrews’ Write-Up of the Deal
• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Twins

Minnesota’s best-in-baseball bullpen projection just got a little bit better with the return of Coulombe, who pitched for the team from 2020-22 before being traded to Baltimore.

The lefty with three distinct fastballs and two distinct breaking balls will give the Twins a different look alongside hard throwing righties Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Brock Stewart, and Jorge Alcala. Funky righty Michael Tonkin (who’s out of options) and Rule 5 pick Eiberson Castellano could round out the bullpen so the Twins can maximize their 40-man depth without exposing anyone to waivers, but Ronny Henriquez (also out of options), Justin Topa, Kody Funderburk, and Louie Varland will be in the thick of the competition as well.

Yankees Sign Tim Hill for One Year, $2.85 Million

• Davy Andrews’ Write-Up of the Deal
• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Yankees

The Yankees had exactly zero lefty relievers on their 40-man roster prior to re-signing Hill, so while he won’t light up the radar gun or strike many hitters out, he’ll play a key role for New York once again. This overall scarcity of left-handed pitchers though doesn’t mean the Yankees will struggle against lefty batters in the later innings. New closer Devin Williams neutralizes lefties with his signature airbender changeup, and setup man Luke Weaver also relies on a changeup to retire lefties. Meanwhile, Fernando Cruz, whom the Yankees acquired from the Reds, and Mark Leiter Jr. throw splitters to keep lefties at bay.

The Yankees currently have six starting pitchers for their big league roster, though Marcus Stroman could end up in the bullpen so long as he doesn’t get traded. Assuming he stays, there’ll be seven spots for traditional relievers, and a minimum of five are accounted for by Williams, Weaver, Cruz, Hill, and Leiter. That leaves two openings for the likes of Ian Hamilton, JT Brubaker, Jake Cousins, Scott Effross, Roansy Contreras, Yerry De Los Santos, and Yoendrys Gómez. Brubaker, Contreras, and Gómez are out of options. Jonathan Loáisiga, currently recovering from elbow surgery, should be able to help out by midseason.

Effect of Their Signings on Other Teams

The free agent pool has lost two intriguing lefty relievers, but there are still southpaws aplenty. Scott Alexander posted the lowest ERA (2.56) and highest grounder rate (60.0%) last year of any remaining free agent reliever with at least 25 innings of work; Ryan Yarbrough led all major league relievers with 98 2/3 innings; Jalen Beeks retooled his pitch mix to somewhat rebound from a bad 2023; and Andrew Chafin has a long track record of being somewhere between serviceable and dominant. There’s also Drew Smyly, Will Smith, Brooks Raley (who hopes to be back from Tommy John surgery in July), and others.

Effect of the Their Signings on Similar Players

The $1.5–$3 million range that Hill and Coulombe — as well as earlier signees Tim Mayza, Justin Wilson, and Hoby Milner — received feels about right for all but one of the lefties named above. Raley will likely get a back-loaded two-year contract coming off his injury rehab.

Trades

Cubs Acquire Ryan Brasier, Cash (amount not yet reported) from Dodgers for PTBNL or Cash

• Updated Cubs Roster Projection
• Updated Cubs Payroll Projection
• Updated Dodgers Roster Projection
• Updated Dodgers Payroll Projection

Where the Cubs Go From Here

Kyle Tucker will get all the headlines, but the Cubs have done a lot of work revamping their bullpen this offseason, too. Brasier, Ryan Pressly, Caleb Thielbar, and Eli Morgan are all newcomers; of those four, only Morgan can be optioned. Expect the other three to be in the Opening Day bullpen, along with Porter Hodge, Tyson Miller, and — if he’s not in the rotation — fellow newcomer Colin Rea. There’ll be at most three more spots up for grabs and a lot of arms battling for them, including Morgan, Julian Merryweather, Keegan Thompson, Nate Pearson, and Luke Little, among others.

Where the Dodgers Go From Here

There’s nothing else for the Dodgers to do here, as Brasier had been DFA’d.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tommy Pham is on the move again. The well-traveled outfielder reportedly agreed to a one-year, $4.025 million deal with the Pirates on Thursday, meaning that he’ll join his ninth team over the past five seasons and the 10th of his 12-year career. Past experience suggests he should probably rent instead of buy.

Pham, who will turn 37 on March 8, spent time with three different teams in 2024. Despite a very solid 2023 showing — .256/.328/.446 (109 wRC+) with 16 homers, 22 steals, and 1.9 WAR — with the Mets and Diamondbacks, he went unsigned through spring training before finally inking a deal with the White Sox in mid-April. He escaped their record-setting futility when he was traded back to the Cardinals (who originally drafted him in 2006) as part of the three-way swap that sent Michael Kopech and Tommy Edman to the Dodgers, and then was plucked off of waivers by the Royals on August 31. At least he’s gotten back-to-back trips to the postseason thanks to all that moving around.

Whether it was because he missed spring training, never stayed in one place for long, or was increasingly subject to the ravages of aging — spending time around those White Sox and Cardinals teams could take years off a man’s life — Pham did not play well in 2024. He hit just .248/.305/.368, setting career lows in on-base percentage and walk rate (7.3%) as well as a full-season low in slugging percentage. (He slugged .312 in 125 plate appearances during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.) He was basically replacement level in 2024, and his 91 wRC+ fit into the weird pattern he’s shown over the past half-decade, with above-average seasons in odd-numbered years and below-average seasons in even-numbered ones. Maybe that bodes well for the Buccos. Read the rest of this entry »

By all reasonable accounts, the 2024 Kansas City Royals had a successful season. Fortune usually frowns upon a 100-loss team that makes a bunch of low-key free agent signings, but that was not the case for the Royals. The veterans starters they added, Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha, joined Cole Ragans to make up one of the best top-of-the-rotation trios in the majors, and Bobby Witt Jr. ascended from promising young star to MVP candidate. They made some smart deadline moves to bolster their bullpen, and they benefitted from some pleasant surprises along the way. Thanks to all of these things, the Royals won 30 more games in 2024 than they did the year before, and as a result, they made the playoffs for the first time since they won the 2015 World Series. While there was no improbable dash to the World Series this time, the Royals did at least eliminate the Baltimore Orioles, and although they fell to the Yankees in the ALDS, all four games were close. Moral victories may not count for much in professional sports, but Kansas City fans ought to be delighted with what this team accomplished last season.

However, successful doesn’t mean perfect, and the Royals did have some significant flaws. The most glaring one was a team offense that was full of holes. The Royals scored enough runs to support their excellent pitching, enough to rank a healthy sixth in the American League in runs per game (4.54), but it was an extremely unbalanced effort. Witt carried more than his fair share of the overall load, with his 10.4 WAR accounting for more than half of the total 20 WAR Kansas City got from its position players. From three of the four most offense-heavy positions, first base, the outfield corners, and designated hitter, the Royals received an embarrassing lack of production. First base was fine, if unspectacular, manned by Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez, but the outfield corners combined for an OPS south of .650 and a brutal -2.5 WAR, and Kansas City DHs combined for a 77 wRC+, the fourth-worst production in the majors from that position. With Witt’s season and a bare level of competence from these three positions, Kansas City’s offense should’ve been one of the top three or four in the AL. Instead, what the Royals got from the two corner outfield spots and DH was — and I’ll put it generously — below a bare level of competence. Read the rest of this entry »