Episode 1005

This episode, we welcome back another old friend who is casting their first Hall of Fame ballot, then talk about the most surprising free agent move in recent memory.

• We begin with Jay Jaffe and David Laurila continuing their new annual tradition of discussing their Hall of Fame ballots on the podcast, and this time they are joined by Travis Sawchik, baseball author and writer at theScore. Travis is voting for the first time, and he consults with Jay and David about how to navigate issues like PEDs and players whose late-career struggles might tarnish their overall body of work. The trio also ponder the philosophy of a large Hall vs. a small Hall while discussing players like Bobby Abreu, Jeff Kent, Andy Pettitte, and more. [3:00]
• After that, Dan Szymborski and Michael Baumann get together to talk about the whole Carlos Correa signing with the Mets thing. The news was obviously a huge shock, and Dan and Michael ponder where the San Francisco Giants go from here after a dismal offseason. We also hear about the Mets going in the opposite direction thanks to an owner who is making the other billionaires look bad, how thrilling Correa should be at the hot corner, and what bears really do when they hibernate. [43:33]

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Audio after the jump. (Approximate 67 minute play time.)

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Catchers are not the swiftest of ballplayers, yet they’ve been moving around this winter like hot potatoes. Willson Contreras went to St. Louis as the heir to Yadier Molina’s throne. Sean Murphy, William Contreras, and Manny Piña switched places in the biggest trade of the hot stove season. Veterans Christian Vásquez, Mike Zunino, and Luke Maile changed uniforms as well. As things currently stand, more than a dozen clubs will have a new primary catcher in 2023.

The shuffle continued within the past week, with the news that three more backstops are moving teams. On December 15, the Mets signed Omar Narváez to a one-year, $8 million contract with a $7 million player option for 2024. Two days later, the Pirates signed Austin Hedges on a one-year, $5 million deal. Then, late on December 21, the Mets sent James McCann to the Orioles for a player to be named later. Hedges and McCann have already been added to the Pirates and Orioles rosters, respectively; the Mets have yet to announce Narváez. 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. Originally written for the 2017 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. 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.

A savant in the batter’s box, Manny Ramirez could be an idiot just about everywhere else — sometimes amusingly, sometimes much less so. The Dominican-born slugger, who grew up in the Washington Heights neighborhood of upper Manhattan, stands as one of the greatest hitters of all time, a power-hitting right-handed slugger who spent the better part of his 19 seasons (1993–2011) terrorizing pitchers. A 12-time All-Star, Ramirez bashed 555 home runs and helped Cleveland and Boston reach two World Series apiece, adding a record 29 postseason homers along the way. He was the World Series MVP for the Red Sox in 2004, when the club won its first championship in 86 years.

For all of his prowess with the bat, Ramirez’s lapses — Manny Being Manny — both on and off the field are legendary. There was the time in 1997 that he “stole” first base, returning to the bag after a successful steal of second because he thought Jim Thome had fouled off a pitch… the time in 2004 that he inexplicably cut off center fielder Johnny Damon’s relay throw from about 30 feet away, leading to an inside-the-park home run… the time in 2005 when he disappeared mid-inning to relieve himself inside Fenway Park’s Green Monster… the time in 2008 that he high-fived a fan mid-play between catching a fly ball and doubling a runner off first… and so much more. Read the rest of this entry »

On May 24, the Angels were 27-17 and just a game behind the Astros in the AL West. Their roster was relatively healthy, and a breakout from Taylor Ward alongside standout performances from Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani had helped them leap out to a strong start through the first month and a half of the season. Two weeks later, their win total was still stuck at 27, having fallen below .500 after an ugly 14-game losing streak. Of the nine players who accumulated more than 100 plate appearances for the Angels through mid-May, just three reached at least 300 plate appearances afterwards. Los Angeles cycled through 32 different position players from May 24 onwards, struggling to find any sort of competent depth to cover for their injured and ineffective players.

The Angels’ lack of depth isn’t isolated to this season either — it’s been a constant thorn in their side for the past decade. They haven’t posted a winning record since 2015 and have only reached the playoffs once over the last 13 seasons despite employing two of the best baseball players to ever play the game, one of whom has been an Angel for most of that stretch. With Ohtani’s free agency just a year away and the potential sale of the franchise by owner Arte Moreno looming, the 2023 season feels like a significant hinge point for the Angels.

So far this offseason, they’ve been aggressive in bringing in the type of talent that complements their superstars while avoiding any long-term commitments that could complicate the sale of the club. They signed Tyler Anderson and Carlos Estévez to bolster their pitching staff and traded for Hunter Renfroe and Gio Urshela to lengthen their lineup. And on Tuesday, they inked Brandon Drury to a two-year, $17 million contract. That deal brings the Angels’ total projected 2023 payroll to $206 million, the highest in franchise history. 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 Colorado Rockies.

Batters

There are a lot of problems with the Colorado Rockies as an organization, but I think the biggest one is different than what ails most other poorly run franchises. It’s not parsimony; while the Rockies aren’t exactly the Mets, with a projected 2023 payroll around $163 million, they’re not the Pirates or the Marlins either. Playing in Coors make things trickier, but the team’s already shown they can find viable starting pitching — the biggest challenge in an environment like Denver — and they play in a beautiful park and city, and get consistent fan support. It isn’t even necessarily an analytics problem. While the top levels of the org clearly aren’t on board with the ways modern front offices think about the game — they have a department with sky-high employee churn — this is more a symptom of the problem rather than the problem itself. The problem that plagues the Rockies is a lack of imagination.

What do I mean by imagination? With most bad teams, you can imagine the scenario in which they’re good. The Orioles looked like a pretty lousy club entering the 2022 season, but they also had the most high-upside minor league talent in baseball. The Reds have several young pitchers with impressive physical tools, while the Pirates have some interesting starters to go along with some good prospects and young big leaguers at key defensive positions. But if you look at the Rockies, especially the offense, there just isn’t ambition there. While it’s bad that this group projects as one of the worst lineups in the league, it’s even worse that they project as having the lowest variance of any team I’ve projected so far this offseason. It’s a bit like buying a lottery ticket; almost every time you play Powerball, you’re going to be a loser, but if you hit it big, you become fabulously wealthy. Nobody buys a Powerball ticket because the winning prize is a 1989 Mercury Sable. Read the rest of this entry »

When José Abreu signed with the Astros earlier this offseason, there was a lot to like. He fits their overall team construction, he’s a great hitter, and the contract looks more reasonable every day in the context of the rest of the free agent market. In several corners of the baseball internet, though, there was one worrisome note: Abreu’s performance against fastballs, particularly of the high-velocity variety, declined markedly in 2022.

I’m not crediting one person in particular with this observation, only because I’ve seen it in so many different places. It’s incontrovertibly true. Here are Abreu’s numbers against both all four-seamers and all fastballs thrown 95 mph or harder, per Baseball Savant:

Oh no! The trends seem quite clear; Abreu didn’t hit fastballs very well in 2022, and he’d already started to decline against them somewhat the season before. Is he just cooked? Is this fastball performance the proverbial canary in the coal mine, alerting us that bad times are coming? Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley break down every incredible angle of the biggest twist of the MLB offseason: free agent Carlos Correa’s overnight pivot from a 13-year agreement with the San Francisco Giants to a 12-year deal with the New York Mets. After their incredulous Correa reactions, they close with a few thoughts on the Pirates’ latest innovation in the realm of announcing signings (this one involving Austin Hedges), Aaron Judge and the Yankees’ captaincy, and their intention to talk about Brandon Drury and the Angels, plus a Past Blast from 1945.

Audio intro: Fruit Bats, “Stunned One”
Audio outro: The Weakerthans, “Hymn of the Medical Oddity”

Link to Ben L. on Correa
Link to Ben C. on Correa
Link to Boras comments
Link to Verducci on Correa
Link to Heyman’s report
Link to Heyman on Cohen
Link to The Athletic on Correa
Link to Emma’s tweet
Link to team payrolls
Link to team depth charts
Link to 2003 Onion story
Link to Astudillo report
Link to R.J.’s Pirates tweet
Link to Jeter video
Link to MLBTR on McCann
Link to 1945 story source
Link to SABR on Robinson’s signing
Link to SABR on Wright
Link to Jacob Pomrenke’s website
Link to Jacob Pomrenke on Twitter

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This offseason has seen an avalanche of activity early on, with 22 of our top 25 free agents signing before Christmas. But last night, we somehow doubled up. After an undisclosed medical issue held up the official announcement of Carlos Correa’s contract with the Giants, the entire deal fell through, and the Mets stepped into the fray, signing Correa to a 12-year, $315 million deal this morning, as Jon Heyman first reported.

I’ll let that breathe for a second so that you can think about it. The Giants went from laying out $350 million and adding a cornerstone player to their roster for more than a decade to nothing at all. The Mets went from a big free agency haul to an unprecedented one. Correa is going from shortstop to third base, and maybe losing one gaudy vacation home in the process when all is said and done.

The Mets had already spent heavily this offseason to shore up their pitching. With Jacob deGrom, Chris Bassitt, and Taijuan Walker all leaving in free agency, the team had a lot of high-quality innings to replace, and they did so in volume, adding Justin Verlander, Kodai Senga, and José Quintana. Those were in effect like-for-like moves, as was signing Edwin Díaz, Adam Ottavino and Brandon Nimmo after they reached free agency. The 2023 Mets stood to look a lot like the 2022 Mets in broad shape – most of their additions were either swaps (deGrom for Verlander) or small (Omar Narváez will be a platoon catcher, David Robertson will shore up the bullpen). Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a fan of Michael Brantley. A big, big fan, in fact. He’s the type of hitter that both old school and new school folks adore. He doesn’t strike out and he hardly ever whiffs, but he still swings fast and with a variable bat path. He doesn’t necessarily light it up with his exit velocity, instead thriving by hitting it where they ain’t. On Sunday, he re-signed with the Astros on a one-year, $12 million contract; he can earn an additional $4 million in performance incentives. Basically, if he stays healthy and hits like he has since arriving in Houston in 2019, the deal will end up having about the same average annual value as his previous two-year, $32 million contracts with the Astros. Retaining Brantley is a low risk move. He is the perfect option to complete an already extremely balanced and talented group of hitters. And while he might not be the athlete he once was — his sprint speed dropped all the way down to the 11th percentile in 2022 — all the team needs him to do is stay healthy and hit in the DH spot.

Brantley has been extremely consistent during his four years with Houston; he’s posted a wRC+ ranging from 121 to 132 and been good for a three to four win pace no matter how many games he played. In his first two seasons, he didn’t miss much time at all, playing in 148 games in 2019 and 46 in the shortened ’20. However, his number of games played began to trail off in 2021, dipping to 121, and he only managed 64 in ’22 before requiring season-ending surgery on his right shoulder. After the injury, the Astros missed Brantley, including in the postseason. I know they won the World Series, but there were times throughout the playoffs when their lineup stagnated and could have used some of the variation Brantley provides. Their offense was still deeper than any other team, but if they could have asked for anything, it would have been another lefty to put the ball in play after the heart of the lineup delivered a mass of baserunners.

Of course, Brantley’s ability to play that role in 2023 assumes health, which as we’ve noted, hasn’t been a given. And injuries remain a significant concern after his shoulder surgery in August, the second of his career. No surgery is ever good, but for a hitter, lead shoulder surgery is particularly impactful. When you think about swing mechanics, having relaxed shoulders is key to avoiding too much tension in your upper body. One thing my hitting coaches always used to tell me was to relax from the chest up. Sometimes when hitters try to muscle up and take swings, they tense their shoulders. This can negatively affect a smooth energy transfer, as well as barrel accuracy and deceleration. Your shoulders should be along for the ride, not impeding your swing with roadblocks. Brantley has already overcome shoulder surgery before, but as you age, rehab gets more difficult. It’s obviously a concern. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mets, in their shopping spree of an off-season, have brought back yet another player from last year’s squad. Joining the already re-signed Brandon Nimmo and Edwin Díaz, Adam Ottavino has also agreed to run it back with a team clearly willing to upgrade wherever necessary in pursuit of a championship. He will earn $14.5 million over the next two seasons, with the opportunity to opt out after 2023.

Ottavino is coming off of arguably the best full season of his career and a major rebound from his previous two years. From 2013 to ’19, he had a 2.90 ERA and 3.34 FIP as one of the only pitchers who could figure out the nightmare of Coors Field. He spent 2020 with the Yankees and ’21 with the Red Sox, where his performance declined a bit but his peripherals were still above average. His 2022, with a 2.05 ERA and 2.85 FIP, was certainly a return to form, but he did so with a newfound skill that he’s excelled in for the first time in his career: limiting walks.

For the first time since 2016, Ottavino had a single-digit walk rate, and in the span of just one offseason he went from dreadful (seventh percentile) to very good (77th percentile) at avoiding free passes. In addition to bringing his strikeout rate back to the level of his Rockies days, he posted the best full-season K-BB% of his career. Not only are these improvements impressive in the context of his own career, but the jump is also an outlier among all major league pitchers; between 2021 and ’22, only three other pitchers had their K-BB% improve more than Ottavino. Read the rest of this entry »