Back in November, left-hander Tyler Anderson signed with the Angels, and Ben Clemens wrote a super interesting piece about the deal. How did Ben make his article so interesting? By cheating. He was already writing a cool article about Anderson, so rather than start from scratch, he just folded the existing article into one about the signing. It was unfair to the rest of us who struggle to keep up with Ben even when he’s not juicing.

What Ben noted is that in 2020, Anderson started throwing his sinker from a lower arm slot against lefties. More recently, he started doing the same with some of his cutters. Dropping down some for his cutters meant that hitters could no longer assume that a low release point meant a sinker was coming, and it also improved the cutter’s performance. In 2022, lefties had a wOBA of .268 and an exit velocity of 79.5 mph against Anderson’s regular cutter. The drop-down cutter was at .124 and 76.3.

Inspired by Anderson’s novel approach, I went looking for pitchers who do the same thing. We’re not just looking for players who drop down some to throw certain pitches; there are too many of those to list. We’re specifically looking for players who dramatically change their arm angle depending on the handedness of the batters they’re facing. Once you weed out position players, who understandably have very inconsistent release points, there are only a few players who fit those parameters. Just six pitchers had a difference of more than three inches between their vertical release points against righties and lefties:

Read the rest of this entry »

Ordinarily, a minor league free agent with a non-roster invite wouldn’t warrant a standalone article. But Jorge Alfaro, who signed with the Red Sox on Monday, is not your ordinary player.

First of all, the path to regular playing time is relatively straightforward for Alfaro. He’ll be competing for minutes with Connor Wong and Reese McGuire. Wong has hit well in the minors but struggled in a brief major league audition last year, and he has an option year left. McGuire has been solid defensively the past two seasons, but his bat is not of such quality that the Sox would move heaven and earth to keep him in the lineup. If Alfaro plays well in spring training, there’s every reason to believe he’ll head north with the Red Sox and play regularly.

Alfaro’s contract indicates as much. If he makes the team, he’ll be paid $2 million, which is more than either McGuire or Wong will earn this season. He’ll also have two chances to opt out — June 1 and July 1 — if he hasn’t been called up by then. Minor league free agent or not, Alfaro aims to play in the bigs this year.

The second reason Alfaro is worthy of discussion: Well, he’s Jorge Alfaro. Read the rest of this entry »

Daulton Varsho is good in a few very obvious ways. He’s lightning quick, gets great jumps in the outfield, and plays catcher when he’s not in center or right. He swatted 27 homers last year, and his underlying power metrics suggest that he’ll be able to hit 20-30 a season with some regularity. A plus center fielder who also plays catcher and hits for power? That’s a loud-tool kind of player, the sort who hits you over the head with how good they are.

That’s all true, but I’m intrigued by another one of Varsho’s skills. He might be a power hitter, but he’s also a volume bunter. He ended a plate appearance with a bunt 14 times in 2022, 14th-most in baseball. The guys ahead of him on this list are mostly singles hitters; Victor Robles and Geraldo Perdomo led the pack, for example. No one ahead of him on the list hit 20 homers; for someone with his level of pop, he’s a huge bunting enthusiast.

Strangely, he was particularly fond of bunting with the bases empty last year. That runs counter to conventional baseball wisdom, but also to all baseball wisdom. One of the best reasons to bunt is that even a failure can help score runs. If you try to bunt for a single with a man on first, plenty of your failures will still put a runner in scoring position. If you try a bunt and fail with no one on, it’s an out like any other. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 18th 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 and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Seattle Mariners.

Batters

Under president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto, the Mariners have evolved into something a bit like the St. Louis Cardinals. The roster is very solidly built, with an eye toward sustainability in the short- and long-term, and with some of the team’s very best talent locked up for the foreseeable future. But like the Cardinals, the roster is missing something to really put them over the top in a top division, that element that makes them one of the first-tier World Series contenders. The AL West is getting a bit tougher, too; the Astros aren’t likely to fall far, the Rangers are acting aggressively to improve the team, and the Angels, despite their long-term issues, have at least patched things up for 2023.

What are the Mariners missing? A true thumper in the middle of the lineup, that above-average corner outfield type who racks up lofty home run and RBI totals and becomes overrated by many fans. They have notable strength up the middle, with solid offense from players at tougher defensive positions, none of whom really seem to be the volatile type. But they’re thin in the outfield corners and at designated hitter, and the options just aren’t very satisfying. Teoscar Hernández is a fine short-term fill-in, but it feels like a top team would have him as the weakest player in the lineup. It’s hard to envision Jarred Kelenic putting up corner outfield-type numbers, and AJ Pollock is a 35-year-old who was awful last season. Oh for a time machine to bring back the Nelson Cruz of five years ago! Mitch Haniger isn’t a star, but it really feels like a mistake to have not at least run up his price and forced the Giants to commit more than three years and $43.5 million for his services.

The good news is that Dipoto tends to be one of the most active executives in baseball, and while the lineup has issues, there aren’t really that many headaches to worry about. Kolten Wong and J.P. Crawford won’t make many All-Star games, but like much of the roster, they feel like one of those champagne-colored Toyota Camrys popular back in 1998, 99% of which seem to still be driving today. In other words, very Cardinals-ish.

The big exception, of course, is Julio Rodríguez, the one player the Mariners cannot afford to lose. But it feels like the M’s really need a second slugger, a player to be the McCovey to his Mays. That player doesn’t necessarily have to be as good as Willie McCovey, mind you, but I think adding another 120 OPS+, traditional power hitter-type would be as valuable to the M’s as anyone in baseball.

Pitchers

The pitching is a particular highlight of this team. With only a handful of teams remaining to run in ZiPS, Luis Castillo is fourth among pitchers in 2023 WAR and is in the top 20 of all pitchers in projected final career WAR, which includes veterans like Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, and Max Scherzer. Only a single player younger than Castillo, Alek Manoah, projects to finish with more career WAR! Getting Castillo extended to a five-year, $108 million contract a year from free agency was a coup for Dipoto and puts a nice feather in his executive cap.

The Mariners don’t really have a number-two pitcher in the sense that ZiPS thinks they have three of ’em: Robbie Ray, Logan Gilbert, and George Kirby. That leaves Marco Gonzales, Chris Flexen, and a surprisingly large number of OKish spares to comfortably cover the fifth spot in the rotation and fill in for whatever injuries pop up. ZiPS is more optimistic about Gonzales than most simply because of the way ZiPS is constructed — the longer a pitcher outperforms their peripherals and defense, the more ZiPS believes it. Gonzales is projected for a 4.39 ERA with a 4.91 FIP, and he’d have a much more bloated ERA projection if not for his history.

One pitcher ZiPS is really in on is Bryce Miller, who ZiPS prefers for the rotation over Flexen or Gonzales. A 2021 draftee, Miller had a really excellent first full season as a professional, especially his late season debut in the Texas League. His numbers are more impressive when you remember what a brutal environment the high minors have become from pitchers; the Texas League had an ERA over 5.00 in 2022. Just to put that into context, that’s 30-40% more run scoring than the league through the 2010s! A pitcher performing well in the high minors means a lot more than it did five years ago (conversely, a hitter with lofty numbers at Double- or Triple-A ball means a lot less). Miller’s a player to remember, though if he doesn’t work out, I totally wouldn’t mind if you forgot where you heard it from!

ZiPS projects the M’s bullpen bordering on being a top-five unit, about where Steamer has them in our current depth chart rankings. Unlike some teams with a healthy relief projection, it’s not just a couple of huge names with the lion’s share of the WAR; ZiPS basically likes all the principals with the exception of Justin Topa. It’s a deep unit, and like the rest of the team, it’s not reliant on one or two stars. That leaves the M’s less prone to injury-related disasters than most teams.

All told, the Mariners look like an 85-90 win team, with a tighter range of outcomes than most clubs. That’s fun and makes the M’s a serious contender, but I really want them to make the Astros a bit less comfortable. Of course, Dipoto being Dipoto, watch him somehow acquire Shohei Ohtani just after we publish this article!

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2023 due to injury, and players who were released in 2022. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Death Dixieland Bubblegum Ska-Funk band, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.22, above 2022’s level of offense but lower than other years. Pitchers who appear to have a fairly definite change in the majors from start-to-relief or vice-versa from these projections will receive reconfigured updates in the spring.

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.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about players snacking on the field and a baseball equivalent of the EGOT before (23:01) Ben brings on Ron Shelton, the Oscar-nominated writer and director of Bull Durham and the author of The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham, to reminisce about Shelton’s minor league career, how conditions in the minors have evolved, the future big leaguers he played with, why Crash Davis didn’t stick in the majors, sports-movie verisimilitude, how he wrote Annie Savoy, Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon, why Bull Durham almost didn’t get made, the golden age of baseball movies, Bull Durham as a TV series, an MLB game in Durham, his other baseball projects, and more. Then (1:04:02), Ben and Meg talk to well-traveled 45-year-old pitcher Chris Oxspring of the Australian Baseball League’s Sydney Blue Sox about his baseball origin story, his path through indy ball, affiliated ball, Japan, South Korea, and the Olympics, culture shock and the language barrier, his cup of coffee with the Padres, the development of baseball in Australia, the knuckleball’s future, being a player-coach, the toll being a baseball player takes on one’s family, Australian slang, and how long he can keep pitching. Finally (1:50:04), they end with a Past Blast from 1956 and a few follow-ups.

Audio intro: Fruit Bats, “The Ruminant Band”
Audio interstitial 1: Concrete Blonde, “It’ll Chew You Up and Spit You Out”
Audio interstitial 2: Toner, “Ox ’45”
Audio outro: Frazey Ford, “One More Cup of Coffee”

Link to EGOT Facebook thread
Link to EGOT winners
Link to Academy Juvenile Award
Link to Historic Achievement Award
Link to Lou Brock Award
Link to The Church of Baseball
Link to Shelton’s B-Ref page
Link to Shelton’s IMDb page
Link to ’69 Ports article 1
Link to ’69 Ports article 2
Link to ’69 Ports article 3
Link to Everybody Wants Some!!
Link to Everybody Wants Some!! pod
Link to Ben’s Remake Necessity Score
Link to Ben on movie analytics
Link to story on minor league owners
Link to private equity minors story
Link to players born in Australia
Link to Joe Quinn’s SABR bio
Link to Oxspring’s SABR bio
Link to Oxspring’s B-Ref page
Link to Oxspring’s Blue Sox page
Link to Oxspring’s Instagram
Link to Oxspring’s MLB clips
Link to 2014 story on Oxspring
Link to Kent-Oxspring Cup story
Link to story about leaving Lotte
Link to Ben on the knuckleball
Link to Australian slang
Link to Ben on international The Bachelor
Link to 1956 story source
Link to EW on Mays documentary
Link to Jacob Pomrenke’s website
Link to Jacob Pomrenke on Twitter
Link to Belt on chicken tenders
Link to Ritz opening story
Link to Pirates job tweet
Link to Pirates job posting
Link to laser measurements story
Link to LIDAR post

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Amid the frantic negotiations of this year’s arbitration deadline on Friday, the Twins and right-hander Chris Paddack agreed to avoid arbitration and then on the only multi-year deal of the day, a three-year, $12.5 million contract through the 2025 season. The deal, which came just hours after Paddack and the Twins settled at $2.4 million for 2023, buys out his final year of arbitration and his first year of free agency for $10.1 million and includes up to $2.5 million in bonuses.

It’s a reasonable arrangement for both sides. Paddack, who turned 27 just a few days prior, underwent his second Tommy John surgery in May and is aiming for an August 2023 return. Tacking on another year of team control in Minnesota gives him security in his effort to get healthy and still lets him reach free agency a couple of months before his 30th birthday. For the Twins, given Paddack’s injury and his struggles in recent seasons, they are buying low on a player with elite control and significant upside. It’s also a modest investment to help shore up a rotation that will feature three starters — Sonny Gray, Tyler Mahle, and Kenta Maeda — on contract years in 2023.

Before his surgery, when Paddack was dealt from San Diego to Minnesota on Opening Day 2022, it wasn’t entirely clear what type of pitcher the Twins were adding. He had excelled as a 23-year-old rookie in 2019, posting a 3.33 ERA, 3.95 FIP, and 4.05 xFIP over 26 starts, striking out 9.79 and walking just 1.98 per nine innings. Relying on a mid-90s fastball with a changeup and curveball as secondary offerings, he ranked in the 73rd percentile in average exit velocity, 81st in hard-hit percentage, and 88th in both walk rate and chase rate as a rookie. He benefited from the second-lowest BABIP among pitchers with 100 innings or more, but he was successfully limiting hard contact. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 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.

Over the course of a 22-year professional career that began in 1997, Jayson Werth appeared to transform from a fresh-faced catching prospect… into a werewolf. Drafted by the Orioles as a catcher, he was clean-cut and even wore glasses, but as the years went on, he moved to the outfield, carved a spot in the majors, and grew increasingly shaggier, with a full beard and hair down to his shoulders.

In truth Werth’s evolution was more than just a visual one. Battling injuries for most of his career, he endured numerous ups and downs while journeying from top prospect to non-tendered afterthought to All-Star. He needed nearly a decade to establish himself at the major league level, and didn’t get 400 plate appearances in a season until he was 29. After playing a key role in the first four of the Phillies’ five straight NL East titles (2007-10) — including their ’08 World Series win and ’09 pennant — he took an even more unexpected step, signing a massive seven-year, $126 million deal with the Nationals in December 2010. An organization that had been something of a punchline looked to him not only to provide middle-of-the-lineup punch but to serve as an impactful clubhouse presence, mentoring younger players (“He’s like an older brother to me,” said Bryce Harper in 2013). By the end of his run, his influence within the organization extended even further. “Ultimately what we have become is a lot to do with some of the things that he brought to the ballclub,” general manager Mike Rizzo told the Washington Post’s Adam Kilgore in 2018. “He was teaching us how to be a championship organization, not only on the big league side but throughout the organization.” Read the rest of this entry »

After five seasons and four different teams, Andrew McCutchen is returning to the ballclub where it all began. On Friday morning, the 36-year-old outfielder came to terms with the Pirates on a one-year, $5 million contract. The deal is pending a physical, but the official hype video is already up on Twitter.

McCutchen was remarkable in his first stint with Pittsburgh, putting up 46 WAR from 2009 to ’17. Only five players were more valuable during those nine years: Mike Trout, Buster Posey, Joey Votto, Miguel Cabrera, and Robinson Canó. McCutchen hit 203 home runs, stole 171 bases, and led the Pirates to three straight postseason appearances, including their first in more than 20 years. He’s the best player in the history of PNC Park and the greatest Pirate since Barry Bonds. Read the rest of this entry »

On New Year’s Day, the Cubs’ first base-and-DH situation was a smoking crater. But now the fires have been extinguished and the hole is being filled with aggregate; the Eric Hosmer signing got the process started, and over the weekend, Chicago inked Trey Mancini — of the Italian national team, apparently — to a two-year contract.

Mancini’s coming off a bit of an odd year. He hit .268/.347/.404 in 92 games for Baltimore, then got traded to the Astros at the deadline and apparently forgot to bring his bats south. A disappointing .176/.258/.364 showing in August and September turned into an appalling playoff campaign in which he started 0-for-18.

So, in his most recent and most widely viewed major league experience, Mancini had onlookers saying things like, “But I thought pitchers didn’t hit anymore.” On the other hand, he’d been a consistent 20-homer guy across the first four years of his career, and even as recently as July had a wRC+ of 116. Perhaps his power wasn’t ideal for a middle-of-the-order bat, but he got on base and hit for a decent average. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 18th 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 and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Detroit Tigers.

Batters

Oops! Last preseason, I regularly expressed guarded optimism that the Tigers had enough going for them that I thought they’d handily beat their rather grumpy ZiPS projection of 73 wins. While there are plenty of times when I win my personal disagreements with my creation, there are quite a lot when I don’t, and this was a particularly stark one! The Tigers were basically the anti-Orioles of ’22, with the vast majority of the roster leaving the season with a worse projection than they started it with, and the possibly-too-pessimistic ZiPS estimate turning out to be over-generous by seven games. So what happens now?

The relatively good news is that Detroit will likely get some boost simply from regression toward the mean — the so-called “dead cat bounce,” or what Bill James coined “the Plexiglass principle.” Jonathan Schoop, at 30, sported an OPS more than 160 points off his career numbers, and even if I feel worse about him, he would be hard-pressed to be that bad again. Similarly, Spencer Torkelson, a preseason contender for the Rookie of the Year last season, has lost a lot of the shine, especially given that his return to the minors was similarly bleak, but it would be hard for him not to improve on a .604 OPS.

Javier Báez had his worst full (normal-length) major league season offensively, but he still managed two WAR and is only a year removed from a legitimately All-Star level season (and just turned 30). ZiPS projects muted rebounds from Akil Baddoo and Austin Meadows, though injuries will always be a concern with the latter. The team’s multi-headed catcher situation would have to try to hit worse than Tucker Barnhart did. No similar bounceback is likely for Miguel Cabrera, though Albert Pujols looked toast-like and had a solid finale; the Tigers just aren’t likely to make a push to maximize his playing time with his milestone moments behind him.

So, if the Tigers’ offense is likely to be better, is it likely to be good? Not really. While the roster has a lot of players who you’d expect better from given their established abilities, having so many known quantities also limits just how much upside there is. Báez could be very solid, if flawed in many ways; there’s still hope for Torkelson; and Riley Greene, better than most Tigers in 2022, doesn’t have an appreciably diminished ceiling from a year ago. But where is the dream scenario? Bad teams have to be run so they at least have some future hope, and it’s hard to see an actual good offense constructed from the players currently within the organization. Detroit is more likely to spend money someday than the rest of the division, but this lineup is too flawed to be fixed by slapping on a high-priced player or two. It’s a mess, and new team president Scott Harris has a huge task ahead of him. Read the rest of this entry »