It can be difficult to find the thing you didn’t realize you needed until you didn’t have it when it counted, or to offload it when you realized you had more of it than you could use. That thing, in this case: production from the catcher position.

Catchers are unlike infielders or outfielders, in that you can only one can play at a time. Or rather, two catchers can play at once, if one slides over to first base or DH, in which case the thing that makes them so special — the ability to slap on some plastic padding and soak up foul tips and 58-foot curveballs five nights a week — essentially goes to waste.

Consider Oakland’s situation; after developing Sean Murphy into one of the top catchers in the game, the A’s landed former top-10 pick Shea Langeliers in the Matt Olson trade. Langeliers reached the majors this year and hit fairly well, but not so well that he’s an ideal DH, which is where he made most of his starts on account of being blocked by Murphy.

Or how about the Blue Jays, who have not one but three starter-quality catchers? Alejandro Kirk emerged as a star in 2022, and Danny Jansen put up 2.6 WAR and a 140 wRC+ in just 72 games. That left Gabriel Moreno, one of the top prospects in baseball, even more blocked than Langeliers when he emerged as big league-ready late this season.

It makes sense, therefore, that trade rumors swirl around both Oakland and Toronto, as both teams could stand to cash in their surfeit of backstops for help elsewhere. Read the rest of this entry »

One of my favorite things about baseball is the sheer number of mind games going on before every pitch. Will the batter sit on a fastball? Will the pitcher give in to the count and throw that fastball the batter is sitting on? The batter is weak against changeups, but the pitcher’s best secondary is a slider – what does that mean for each of their mindsets? First base is open, but the next batter up is strong – what does that mean? The permutations and counters are endless.

It doesn’t stop with the batter-pitcher confrontation. What if there’s a pickoff called? The defense is back and shifted – would a bunt make sense here? Does the count matter for the defense? What about the score? You can spin endlessly around these decisions, and it’s wonderful. I spend plenty of time watching the game and daydreaming about which tactics each team might employ.

That’s all awesome, and a great part of baseball. This article is very much not about those mind games. There’s another part of baseball that I also enjoy – watching phenomenal athletes at the top of their craft. Forget the game theory and levels of counter-play – the physical skill on display in a random baseball game is immense. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Shohei Ohtani and the Cy Young Award, Buck Showalter and the Manager of the Year Award, Bryce Harper’s elbow surgery, the Angels signing Tyler Anderson, Anthony Rizzo and the Yankees’ record Defensive Runs Saved total, the Mariners trading for Teoscar Hernández, title inflation and the “associate manager,” and Royals owner John Sherman requesting a new ballpark, plus a double Past Blast (38:21) from 1930 (featuring Jack Powell’s meaty demise). Then (51:06) they talk to FanGraphs lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen about AFL award winners Heston Kjerstad and Connor Thomas, whether improvements carry over when players change teams, how rules changes are affecting player evaluation, this week’s 40-man-deadline roster crunches, and Kodai Senga and other NPB players who are coming to MLB.

Audio intro: Tri-State, “Hawk in the Fog”
Audio interstitial: Jordana, “Crunch”
Audio outro: The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, “Mr. Powell”

Link to MLB.com on Showalter
Link to Ben Clemens on Anderson
Link to Hawk Harrelson call
Link to Jay Jaffe on Rizzo
Link to highest team DRS totals
Link to Defensive Efficiency leaders
Link to Esteban Rivera on Teoscar
Link to MLBTR on Venable
Link to Sherman’s tweet
Link to Field of Schemes on Sherman
Link to AFL award winners
Link to FG prospect rankings
Link to Laurila on Boras
Link to Alex Eisert on Hilliard
Link to Evan Drellich on rule changes
Link to R.J. Anderson on rule changes
Link to MLBTR on the Rays’ roster
Link to Eric’s AL East piece
Link to Eric on Latin-American SP
Link to MLBTR on Nolan Jones
Link to 1930 story source
Link to SABR on William Veeck Sr.
Link to SABR on Margaret Donohue
Link to Jacob Pomrenke’s website
Link to Jacob Pomrenke on Twitter
Link to @OldBaseballNews on Twitter
Link to article about Bill Haber
Link to first Powell article
Link to second Powell article
Link to NL Cy results
Link to Ben on Alcantara
Link to AL Cy results

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The Blue Jays and Mariners have swung the biggest trade of the young offseason so far, as Seattle has acquired Teoscar Hernández from Toronto in exchange for reliever Erik Swanson and pitching prospect, Adam Macko.

For the Mariners, the calculus for this trade is simple: immediate improvement on the offensive side of things by adding one of the 30 best hitters in baseball. The table below shows hitters with at least 1,000 plate appearances since the start of the 2020 season, ranked by wRC+:

That 132 wRC+ comes with a 26.7% strikeout rate and 6.3% walk rate. That shaky plate discipline and a BABIP that ran well above average (.345) made it unclear whether Hernández could sustain this success. But changes to his stance and leg lift unlocked a part of his swing that allowed him to make hard contact in the air more consistently. Once a hitter figures out how to do that and has a 96th percentile average exit velocity like he does, the odds are in their favor.

This trade signals a few things from the Mariners. The first is that long-time outfielder Mitch Haniger is unlikely to return. That’s not shocking, given that he wasn’t extended a qualifying offer and that he seems to have already hit his offensive peak. The second is that they are going all in to try to catch the defending World Series champion Astros. Hernández is not a long-term addition; he’s under contract for just the 2023 season. This is, essentially, a one-year rental to goose the offense.

Shipping Swanson away isn’t ideal for Seattle, given his fantastic performance this season: a 1.85 FIP in 53.2 innings. But the team’s usage of him in the postseason — he only threw one inning in five games of play — suggests that he’s seen as expendable, making him an easy choice to include in a trade for a top-30 hitter. After all, even if the Mariners love Swanson’s pedigree and stuff, it’s always worth trading middle relievers for productive hitters, even if they have only one more year of team control.

That said, I’m a firm believer in Swanson. His whiff rates on his four-seamer and splitter are both well above average, and he seems to have perfected how to use them to go with his above-average extension and straight over the top delivery. The Jays’ most glaring weakness was their bullpen, so if their goal was to improve it, then they have succeeded.

The bigger question mark in the deal is Macko. He topped out this year with 38.1 innings in High A, striking out just under 36% of the hitters he faced, but he also walked 12% of them. He was solid with a 3.77 FIP and 3.21 xFIP as well. That’s all well and good, but with minor league pitchers, it’s always important to get to the good stuff — literally. So I asked Eric Longenhagen, who is constantly sourced for information, for the goods on Macko, and lucky for us, Eric got a few looks at him in the Arizona Fall League. Check out the video below to get a better look of Macko’s stuff and mechanics.

Per Eric, Macko had some Jekyll and Hyde characteristics in Arizona, with his secondaries and command coming and going depending on the outing. That makes sense, given his walk rates. When he was on, his stuff was interesting. He has two breaking balls: a curve of the loopy ilk that comes in at the low-70s, and a slider that’s more of a mid-80s gyro spin-dominant kind. Macko tended to pitch backwards in the AFL with those two pitches, adding a running four-seamer at 93–94 mph and topping at 96 to finish hitters off in the top of the zone.

To me, the most interesting tidbit was that Macko has rather short arms and as a result can get down the mound to a low release point. That’s ideal for getting whiffs and popups on fastballs at the top of the zone. By the looks of it, the spin is pretty true as well. It might not be perfect, but Macko’s fingers stay over the ball very well, which goes right in line with the pitch playing up the zone. The curveball might not have great specs on its own, but when paired with this deceptive fastball, hitters struggle to hit it. It’s the classic pairing of high four-seamers and big depth curveballs below the zone.

When Macko has command of the slider, it flashes plus. During the regular season, he used that pitch nearly a quarter of the time, and the fastball just about half the time. The curve had about a 15% usage; he also featured a changeup sparingly. Per Eric, that pitch also flashed plus when he used it. I know this all sounds exciting, but it’s always important to remind yourself that the saying of “if the command is there” needs to be at the forefront of your mind. This big “if” is enough to put Macko in the 45+ FV tier, rather than at 50 or above. But given that the Jays’ system isn’t too deep anymore, that will put him easily in their top 10 when Eric updates it.

To recap, the Mariners get a fantastic hitter to slot right into the middle of their lineup, and the Jays get a quality reliever and intriguing pitching prospect. This trade is likely only a prelude to more moves from the Jays, though; there are rumblings all around suggesting that George Springer’s time in center field will soon come to a close, and it seems like there is another play to be made there. After all, you can’t move a 130 wRC+ hitter for only a middle reliever and expect your team to improve. This is all speculation, but there is almost certainly more to come.

Tuesday’s 40-man roster deadline led to the usual squall of transaction activity, with teams turning over portions of their rosters in an effort to make room for the incoming crop of young rookies. Often, teams with an overflow of viable big leaguers will try to get back what they can for some of those players via trade, but because we’re talking about guys straddling the line between major league viability and Triple-A, those trades tend not to be big enough to warrant an entire post. Over the next few days, I’ll endeavor to cover and analyze the moves made by each team, division by division. Readers can view this as the start of list season, as the players covered in this miniseries tend to be prospects who will get big league time in the next year. I’ll spend more time discussing players who I think need scouting updates or who I haven’t written about in the past. If you want additional detail on some of the more famous names you find below, pop over to The Board for a more thorough report. The Future Value grades littered throughout these posts may be different than those on the 2022 in-season prospect lists on The Board to reflect my updated opinions, and may be subject to change during the offseason.

Baltimore Orioles

Current 40-man Count: 39
Added Prospects: SP Grayson Rodriguez (60 FV), SS Joey Ortiz (50 FV), SP Seth Johnson (40+ FV), SP Drew Rom (40 FV), MIRP Noah Denoyer (35+ FV)
External Additions: CF Daz Cameron (waivers from Detroit), C Mark Kolozsvary (35+ FV, waivers from Reds)

In addition to free agent departures (Rougned Odor and Jesús Aguilar to name a few), the Orioles primed space on their 40-man roster by outrighting several fringe big leaguers, and opened Tuesday morning with just 34 players on their 40-man. They’ve had an especially high rate of turnover at catcher over the last few weeks, as they let Robinson Chirinos walk in free agency, outrighted Cam Gallagher and Anthony Bemboom off the roster, claimed both Aramis Garcia and Mark Kolozsvary off waivers from the Reds, and then outrighted Garcia. I have Kolozsvary, who is still prospect-eligible, evaluated as a third catcher on the 40-man.

Mike Elias also scooped up old buddy Daz Cameron, who replaces Yusniel Diaz on the 40-man. Daz has been in “prospect limbo” for about a year, as he graduated from rookie status in 2021 but still spent most of this season in the minors. The 40 FV (a fifth outfielder eval) and tool grades assigned to him at that time still hold (you can see those on his player page), making Daz a defensive upgrade to Diaz (who was outrighted off the roster) and a L/R fit with a couple other Orioles outfielders (Kyle Stowers, Cedric Mullins, maybe some Terrin Vavra). Cameron is out of options while Ryan McKenna (who I preferred to Cameron as a prospect by the time he graduated) is not, so barring further moves I assume Daz is more likely to break camp with the big club at this point. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of my ongoing look at the candidates on the 2023 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, use the tool above. An introduction to JAWS can be found here.

Albert Belle was baseball’s most notorious bad boy in the 1990s, and he developed into one of the game’s elite sluggers. He flat out terrorized pitchers — and was no picnic for many of those around him — for a decade before a degenerative hip condition forced his retirement at age 34. Even at the height of an offense-heavy era, his numbers are something to behold.

So, too, are stories of Belle’s temper. A 1996 Sports Illustrated cover story, “He Thrives on Anger” — a title taken from a quote by Cleveland clubhouse attendant Frank Mancini, one of Belle’s closest friends — detailed his throwing baseballs at a photographer, hurling epithets at a broadcaster, and chasing teenagers who had egged his house in his Ford Explorer. While Belle overcame early-career problems with alcohol to flourish in the majors, his actions once he did rarely cast his as a feel-good story. Had the behavior that incurred multiple fines and suspensions — not to mention a 1998 domestic battery complaint that was later dropped — occurred two decades later, he could have received even heavier punishment that might have altered his career path. Read the rest of this entry »

While Aaron Judge and Anthony Rizzo both officially rejected their qualifying offers on Tuesday, the Yankees retained the latter nonetheless. The team agreed to terms with the 33-year-old first baseman — New York’s second-best hitter this season, after the big guy — on a two-year, $40 million contract that contains a club option for a third year.

This is the second offseason in a row in which Rizzo and the Yankees have agreed upon a two-year deal, but the bells and whistles have changed. Acquired in a 2021 deadline trade with the Cubs, he re-signed with the Yankees once the lockout ended in March via a two-year, $32 million deal that guaranteed him $16 million each year and contained an opt-out after 2022, which he exercised following a very solid performance. This time around, he’s guaranteed $40 million, via $17 million salaries for this year and next plus a $6 million buyout on a $17 million club option for 2025.

Though Rizzo would have gotten a raise by merely accepting the $19.65 million qualifying offer, it didn’t hurt his cause that earlier this week, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that the Astros had identified him as their top target at first base. Yuli Gurriel has manned the spot for Houston for the past three years but is now a 38-year-old free agent coming off a sub-replacement level season (85 wRC+, -0.9 WAR). The thought of the world champions upgrading by taking a piece from the team they swept out of the ALCS probably didn’t sit well in the Bronx, particularly given a market where the top remaining alternative would have been 36-year-old righty José Abreu, a less optimal fit for the Yankees’ lineup. More on that below. Read the rest of this entry »

Can I let you in on a secret? I was already halfway through writing about Tyler Anderson when the news of him signing with the Angels broke because Anderson fascinates me. That article is more or less still in here. I also talk about how he fits into the Angels’ plans and how the contract comes into play at the end. It’s two reads for the price of one: one neat trick Anderson added in recent years, plus where he’ll pitch next season.

…

Tyler Anderson wanted it all. Normally, you have to pick a lane as a pitcher. You can be an over-the-top fastball type, throwing four-seamers that are equally tough on opposing batters no matter their handedness. Or you might opt to be a sidearmer; that gives you a huge advantage against same-handed hitters, but allows opposite-handed hitters to see the ball cleanly and gain a huge edge. Generally speaking, relievers are more likely to throw sidearm. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but it makes sense. Starters have to navigate so many different hitters that they’re bound to face opposite-handed ones more often.

Anderson has always been a starter, and he always sported an over-the-top release point. If you picture a clock face, his four-seamer spins in the direction of 11:00; mostly straight up and down with a tiny bit of leftward tilt, as befitting a lefty with a high release point. As I said above, that means small platoon splits, and that was indeed the case. Anderson allowed the exact same wOBA to lefties and righties in his first five seasons in the majors. Read the rest of this entry »