Who was better, Joe Mauer or Chase Utley? I asked that question in a Twitter poll earlier this week and the result was… well, lopsided. The erstwhile Minnesota Twins catcher/first baseman garnered 79.5% of the 1,362 votes cast, while the former Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman received just 20.5%. With both debuting on next year’s Hall of Fame ballot — one that will include numerous notable holdovers — that breakdown could be telling. While it seems unlikely that Utley will join the likes of Bobby Grich and Lou Whitaker as a one-and-done snub, might he poll just as poorly, or even worse, with BBWAA voters as he did in the head-to-head matchup with Mauer?

Utley finished his career with 61.6 fWAR and 64.5 bWAR.
Mauer finished his career with 53.0 fWAR and 55.2 bWAR.

Adrián Beltré, who will also debut on the ballot, is a shoo-in to be elected in his first year of eligibility. It is much for that reason that the Mauer-Utley comparison is meaningful — at least for the segment of voters that includes yours truly. Eight of the 10 candidates I voted for this year will be returning, and Beltré is a no-brainer. That leaves one open slot. Moreover, I’m not alone in this conundrum. A total of 54 voters put checkmarks next to 10 names, with eight ballots being identical to mine. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Orioles owner John Angelos reneging on his offer to show reporters the team’s financial information, the O’s acquiring Cole Irvin, the Astros hiring the Braves’ Dana Brown as their new GM, and the Twins trading for Michael A. Taylor to be Byron Buxton’s backup, plus more ways in which baseball is different from other sports (27:12), a mini Stat Blast about Jeff Kent’s ability to turn the double play (46:32), and a Past Blast from 1961 (55:58). Then (1:03:55) they bring on Joseph L. Price, professor emeritus at Whittier College, to discuss the past, present, and future of the Baseball Reliquary and the Shrine of the Eternals (a.k.a. “The People’s Hall of Fame”), as well as Whittier’s Institute for Baseball Studies and Price’s prolific National Anthem career.

Audio intro: Sherry Davis, “Broken Promises”
Audio interstitial: Jeff Buckley, “Eternal Life”
Audio outro: Alasdair Roberts, “Roomful of Relics”

Link to Rays prospects list
Link to Angelos-Connolly exchange
Link to Connolly on the exchange
Link to Connolly on the books
Link to MLBTR on Irvin
Link to Carrie Mathison’s fallow yellow
Link to Dana Brown announcement
Link to MLBTR on Brown
Link to New York Post on Bagwell
Link to Houston Chronicle on Bagwell
Link to Passan on Crane and Click
Link to Ben Clemens on Taylor
Link to CF DRS leaders since 2015
Link to baseball exceptionalism wiki
Link to “The Hockey Song”
Link to “The Hockey Song” wiki
Link to mound visit rules
Link to Ray Ratto on the HoF
Link to Posnanski on Kent
Link to Slusser on Kent
Link to 2B ISO+ leaders
Link to 2B wRC+ leaders
Link to Morosi on Kent
Link to Russell’s Kent stats
Link to Russell on 1B fielding credit
Link to 1961 story source
Link to 1961 Winter Meetings (SABR)
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack
Link to Past Blast wiki
Link to Hall of Stats
Link to Hall of Stats EW episode
Link to BBTF Hall of Merit
Link to Prof. Price’s Whittier page
Link to Annie Savoy’s monologue
Link to Dalkowski EW episode
Link to Shelton EW episode
Link to Baseball Reliquary website
Link to Baseball Reliquary wiki
Link to Institute for Baseball Studies
Link to NYT on the Reliquary
Link to Daily News on the Reliquary
Link to LAist on the Institute
Link to O.C. Register on the Reliquary
Link to Dock Ellis induction
Link to Nancy Faust wiki
Link to Price’s Rounding the Bases
Link to ESPN on Price’s singing
Link to video on Price’s singing route
Link to Price’s Perfect Pitch

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It’s nearly February and the free agent pool is thinning out. Most of the big names have already flown off the board. By our projections, only five unsigned players forecast to amass at least 1 WAR in the upcoming season, only three of whom are position players. Most teams have already filled out their Opening Day starting lineups; now their focus shifts to improving the fringes of their 26-man roster, searching for a couple of additional wins or insurance in case of injuries. The Mariners and the A’s, two AL West teams with very different outlooks for 2023, each recently made such an addition, inking a veteran to bolster infield depth. Let’s take a look.

Mariners sign Tommy La Stella to a league-minimum deal

Formerly a bench infielder and designated pinch hitter for the Cubs (his league-leading 91 pinch hit appearances in 2018 has not been matched since), La Stella was traded to the Angels with two years of team control remaining for a prospect who never threw a pitch in Chicago’s system. In 2019, he maintained the contact skills and excellent plate discipline that made him a league-average hitter, but he improved in another facet of his game that was emblematic of the juiced ball era. That year, his fly ball rate, which had previously sat around the 20% mark, climbed to 25%; that, combined with a small increase in his pull rate, led to a power break out. Despite lacking traditional power indicators like barrels and a high maximum exit velocity, La Stella made the most of his aerial contact (and the favorable dimensions of Angels Stadium) to post a career-high .486 slugging percentage and hit home runs at a rate of 30 per 600 PA, an excellent mark even during the heightened offensive environment. His absolute refusal to swing and miss played a big part in this as well; his minuscule 8.7% strikeout rate gave him plenty of balls in play, many of which left the yard:

Read the rest of this entry »

2:02	Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon and happy Friday, folks! Welcome to my first chat since the Hall of Fame results were announced. My reaction piece is here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/rolen-into-cooperstown-bbwaa-voters-avoid-…

2:02	Jay Jaffe: and my candidate-by-candidate rundown here https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-candidate-by-candidate-look-at-the-2023-…

2:03	Jay Jaffe: I spoke to the Ballot Tracker’s mastermind, Ryan Thibodaux, for the first time in our collective history for today’s FanGraphs Audio here https://blogs.fangraphs.com/fangraphs-audio-ryan-thibodaux-chats-ballo…

2:04	Jay Jaffe: I’ll have my five-year HOF election outlook piece on Monday, and another FGA spot for next Friday as well.

2:06	Jay Jaffe: My guess is Kent, even though he has to cool his heels for the next three years. Utley’s facing quite a crowd on the next two ballots, and while I’ll find room for him, I don’t know that everybody who wants to vote for him necessarily will get to right off the bat.

Read the rest of this entry »

Rooting for Team USA in international sports can be a little… touchy. America’s great rivals vary from sport to sport and come from every corner of the globe. Ours is a nation of vast influence and combative people, so adversaries pop up everywhere. (At one point, the U.S. women’s national soccer team had a vicious rivalry with Norway. Norway! You must really want a fight if you have beef with Norway.)

But our most intense rivalries were forged in the Cold War, when American politicians and media painted Communist nations as an unknowable other against whom we were pitted in a battle for survival. Before glasnost, the internet, and the professionalization of Olympic sports, teams from Communist countries were so mysterious they could only be feared. We did not see Soviet stars in the NBA or NHL as we do now, nor Cuban baseball players and boxers in western competition. We only encountered them as they appeared every four years to pit their mettle against that of American college athletes at the Olympics. That’s how the Miracle on Ice became such a definitive part of American mythology; rare is the scenario in which an American team — much less an American men’s team in a relatively popular sport — can credibly claim to have faced and overcome an insurmountable opponent. But what the Soviets were to hockey, Cuba was to baseball.

That history makes Wednesday something of a momentous occasion. That night, Cuba’s 30-man roster for the upcoming World Baseball Classic was announced. And for the first time in the modern history of international baseball, Team Cuba will include major league players. The three biggest names on the list are White Sox teammates Yoán Moncada and Luis Robert Jr. Also along for the ride: Yoenis Cespedes, three players from the affiliated American minor leagues, and two more from NPB. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello, and welcome to an article where I’m wrong about everything. Like literally all of the things. Here’s what happened. I was thinking about the long, glorious farewell tour of Albert Pujols. After a five-year stretch during which he posted a wRC+ of 84, he put up a 151 wRC+ in 2022. That was the best he’d hit since his age-30 season. Pujols largely put up those numbers by smashing lefties. His 113 wRC+ against righties was good, but against lefties that number was 214. MVP Paul Goldschmidt was the only batter who performed better against lefties (minimum 130 plate appearances vs. southpaws).

Pujols’ resurgence really started in 2021, when he had a 145 wRC+ against lefties and a 35 against righties. That’s the season I was more interested in. As I thought about it, I started wondering whether the last part of his journey — established veteran defies the aging curve by settling comfortably into a platoon role — is happening more frequently. I had the sense that it was happening more frequently.

I was wrong. It is not happening more frequently. Here’s a graph comparing the last 11 years to the previous 10 years:

Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Murphy is gaining helium. A sixth-round pick in the 2019 draft out of San Diego State University, the 24-year-old southpaw was No. 38 on our Red Sox Top Prospects list going into last season, with a modest 35+ FV. But on the heels of a 2022 campaign that saw him excel in 15 starts with Double-A Portland and then hold his own in 15 more with Triple-A Worcester, this year he will be moving up to the 14–16 range with a 40 FV, per our lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. He also just participated in Boston’s Rookie Development Program, which focuses on easing the transition into MLB — an indication that Murphy could be in Boston as soon as this summer.

A self-proclaimed nerd who is well-versed in his vertical approach angle and pitch metrics, Murphy discussed his craft earlier this week at Fenway Park.

———

David Laurila: Let’s start with who are you as a pitcher. How do you get outs?

Chris Murphy: “That’s a good question. There have been times in my career where it’s very fastball heavy — come at you fastball/changeup primarily and then curveball/slider secondarily. I’ve generally been aggressive with the fastball up in the zone. I have good vertical break, good two-plane, and a pretty decent vertical approach angle. That’s why I get swings and misses up in the zone and why my changeup plays down in the zone. Using that to my advantage, being a shorter pitcher, is something that’s given me a career to this point. That and throwing from the left side.”

Laurila: How tall are you?

Murphy: “The book will say 6-[foot]-1, but I’m probably just under six feet. I weigh about 185, so I’m not the biggest guy.”

Laurila: You said that you get good vertical but also two-plane. Can you elaborate?

Murphy: “Yes, I get both ride and run. There are days where my fastball is more true and it’s just ride, but ride and run is ideally where I like it to be. And then with the changeup, it’s about killing the spin, killing the vert, and adding more horizontal. The goal this year is to be under six vertical and negative-18–19 horizontal.” 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. Rounding out the 2023 projections? The Tampa Bay Rays.

Batters

The Rays lineup presents a tale of two offenses. On the good side is a team with one of the best 2B/3B/SS combinations in the majors. Yandy Díaz had a monster 2022 season, basically as offensively amazing as it’s possible for a corner infielder with below-average power to be. ZiPS is low on Díaz relative to Steamer and The Bat, and his projection here is still excellent. It’s a real shame that he’s somehow still underrated in the eyes of fans, even in an age when most people realize on-base percentage is a thing. Díaz isn’t quite Eddie Yost or Eddie Joost in terms of pure walk rate, but he’s a mold-breaker along similar lines. With Isaac Paredes needing at-bats of his own and Curtis Mead aggressively pushing his way up from the minors, the Rays will almost certainly continue to use Díaz at multiple positions. I’d be happy with any of those three as my starting third baseman.

Brandon Lowe had a disappointing, injury-filled season, but it would take some severe recency bias to forgot that he was an elite second baseman in 2021, which wasn’t exactly an eon ago. Wanderkind Franco had his own injury problems in 2022, but he’s still very young, certainly young enough that you shouldn’t fret about it too much (yet). With some luck in terms of health, the Rays will have one of baseball’s best infields even if they get very little out of first base. Unfortunately, the computer doesn’t expect the Rays to get much out of first base. ZiPS has never been in on Jonathan Aranda, even after his most promising minor league season yet. Given the offensive explosion in the minors, ZiPS doesn’t translate his .318/.394/.521, 18-homer season for Durham as well as you might think, only having him at a .276/.341/.420, 12-homer season. Combine that with a poor debut and you can see why ZiPS really hopes that Aranda’s future is at second, not first. The player ZiPS does like is Kyle Manzardo, who gets a translation of .267/.346/.456 for his age-21 season, his first full pro campaign. Manzardo has a very good chance to be the top first baseman on the ZiPS Top 100 Prospects list next month. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Tampa Bay Rays. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the third 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 I 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 »

Episode 1009

This week, we reflect on the recent Hall of Fame election results before catching up with a top Pirates prospect.

• First up, Jay Jaffe welcomes Ryan Thibodaux, who leads the team at the Hall of Fame Ballot Tracker, to discuss Scott Rolen’s enshrinement and the wild day leading up to it. Ryan has worked on the Tracker for a decade now, but this is somehow the first time he and Jay have had a non-text conversation. The duo look back on the influence the Tracker has had over the years, what compelled Ryan to work on it, and if he ever hears from any of the candidates. Jay and Ryan also take a look at the many exciting names on next year’s ballot. [3:05]
• After that, David Laurila welcomes Pirates prospect Quinn Priester to the show. The pair first chatted after Priester was drafted (then again in 2021), and they discuss how he has developed as a pitcher in that time. We hear about training in Arizona this offseason, changing his approach to stay in games longer, comparing curveballs with teammate Mike Burrows, and playing with Henry Davis, who was the first overall pick in the 2021 draft. Finally, Priester tells us who were the best hitters he faced this year and who he is most looking forward to taking on in the majors one day. [31:40]

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Audio after the jump. (Approximate 56 minute play time.)

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