Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley analyze the latest additions to the AL East: Ryan Weathers to the Yankees and Ranger Suárez to the Red Sox. Then (26:52) they bring on top-tier Patreon supporter Jon Norton to answer listener emails about players who’ve repeatedly signed one-year contracts, whether they would want to play in an MLB game, how impressive switch-hitting should be, WAR without players who took PEDs, and the all-time greatness of Star Trek legend Buck Bokai.

Audio intro: Xavier LeBlanc, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial: The Gagnés, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Gabriel-Ernest, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to FG post on Weathers
Link to FG post on Suárez
Link to team SP depth charts
Link to team depth charts WAR
Link to over/under draft standings
Link to Cot’s Contracts
Link to 2018 Passan tweet
Link to Sam on playing in a game
Link to decline of switch-hitting
Link to holodeck wiki
Link to holodeck malfunctions
Link to Buck Bokai at Memory Alpha
Link to WWIII at Memory Alpha
Link to Star Trek Ringer MLB Show
Link to listener emails database
Link to scientific method wiki
Link to MLBTR on Tucker

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The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2026 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, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

In their backyard baseball fantasies and daydreams, what kid hasn’t imagined hitting a late-inning home run to win a playoff game, or even Game 7 of the World Series? Howie Kendrick lived that dream not once but twice during the 2019 postseason, capped by a homer that sent the Washington Nationals on their way to their first championship in franchise history. What’s more, his October run (which also included NLCS MVP honors) topped off a storybook rise from humble beginnings that included a complicated family situation growing up and an amateur career that took place in almost complete obscurity.

“The more I learned about him, he starts telling me about how no schools wanted him, how it was really hard to stay confident,” former Angels teammate Torii Hunter, who mentored Kendrick upon joining the Angels in 2008, recalled in ’19. “I just kept thinking: This guy could have really fallen through the cracks.”

What put Kendrick on the map was his legendary bat-to-ball ability. Though he never won the major league batting title that was expected of him while hitting for a .358 average during his time in the minors, he carved out an impressive 14-year career, earning All-Star honors and helping his teams make the playoffs eight times.

…

Howard Joseph Kendrick III was born on July 12, 1983 in Jacksonville, Florida. He never knew his father, and because his mother, Belinda Kendrick, was a staff sergeant serving overseas in the United States Army, he and his two sisters grew up in the care of his maternal grandmother, Ruth Woods, in Callahan, Florida, a two-stoplight town of less than 1,000 people near the Georgia border. All 12 of Woods’ children, and their children, lived in the area as well. Read the rest of this entry »

12:03

Dan Szymborski: Chat time!

12:04

Dan Szymborski: Well, a few minutes late as it woudln’t take my password on this PC for some reason

12:05

Dan Szymborski: As the creator is a Georgist, I’d feel conflicted about projecting anything for land acquisition!

12:07

Dan Szymborski: He’d certainly be a possibility

Read the rest of this entry »

Things have been a little testy in Boston of late. It’s all downstream of the decision, in June, to trade — salary dump, really — Rafael Devers to San Francisco. I won’t relitigate the blow-by-blow, but Boston had just made the opportunistic signing of Alex Bregman and anointed Kristian Campbell as their second baseman of the future. Coupled with Trevor Story’s return to decentness after two years lost to injury, to say nothing of Marcelo Mayer’s rapid development, that left the Sox with more infielders than they could use.

Now, having seen what’s happened to Devers’ in-zone contact rate over the past two seasons, I think in the long run Red Sox fans will be happy they don’t have to watch the last eight and a half years of his contract up close. But for now, everyone’s nerves are a still a little raw. It’s always tough parting with a homegrown superstar, but the player Boston seemingly chose over Devers is quite good himself… oh wait, Bregman opted out of the last two years of his contract and signed with the Cubs. Read the rest of this entry »

Today is the first day of the new international signing period, so it’s time for me to share updated evaluations and bonus information for the players in this class. An overview of the rules that govern signing international amateurs can be found in MLB’s glossary here, while more thorough and detailed information can be found starting on page 316 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and page 38 of the Official Professional Baseball Rules Book. Players have until December 15 to agree to terms before this signing period closes.

Short scouting reports, tool grades, and projected signing teams for 59 players from the 2026 class can now be viewed over on The Board. The table below includes team and bonus projections for all players my sources indicate will receive $1 million or more, as well as a handful of six-figure sleepers who emerged during compilation. Below, I’ll remind you of my process for building this list, and then discuss some storylines coloring this year’s signing period. Read the rest of this entry »

The Red Sox have finally done it. On Wednesday afternoon, the Sox became the last team in baseball to agree to terms with a major league free agent and they did so with a bang, nabbing southpaw Ranger Suárez on a five-year deal worth $130 million. Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported the signing, while Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported the terms. Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reported that the deal contained no deferred money, meaning that the average annual value is a straight $26 million. Setting aside Alex Bregman’s opt-out laden pillow contract and several two-year deals given to pitchers who missed the first while recovering from injuries, this represents the first true multi-year commitment the team has made to a free agent during the tenure of chief baseball officer Craig Breslow. The Red Sox are finally going for it using every means available, and with one of the game’s most consistently good (if not consistently available) starting pitchers on their roster, they are looking more and more like a championship contender.

The Red Sox went into the offseason with one of the game’s greatest starters in Garrett Crochet, but there was a big gap between him and the rest of the rotation, which featured a number of solid pitchers who hadn’t managed to step up and grab the no. 2 spot in Brayan Bello, Tanner Houck, and Kutter Crawford. Boston upgraded through trades for Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo, and according to our depth charts, they projected to have the best rotation in the game even before signing Suárez (the Phillies, even without Suárez, rank fourth).

Still, this is a different caliber of move, the effects of which seem likely to cascade down the roster. It represents a major commitment in both years and dollars, and according to RosterResource, it pushes Boston just over the second luxury tax threshold. All of a sudden, Bello and Co. are likely jockeying for the fourth or fifth spot in the rotation rather than the second. The Red Sox also boast Patrick Sandoval, who missed the 2025 season recovering from internal brace surgery, and Kyle Harrison, who came over in the Rafael Devers trade and projects for an above-average line in 2026. We’ve now named nine different viable big league starters, before you even get to coveted prospects like Payton Tolle and Connelly Early, who debuted in 2025. That’s a lot of depth to deal from, freeing Boston up to trade a starter and maybe some of its outfield surplus to reinforce a particularly weak infield. Read the rest of this entry »

Seaver King will head into the 2026 season looking to improve on a 2025 campaign that saw him fail to impress at the plate. Across 551 plate appearances split between High-A Wilmington and Double-A Harrisburg, the 22-year-old shortstop slashed a lackluster .244/.294/.337 with six home runs and an 88 wRC+. There is certainly more in the tank. Drafted 10th overall by the Washington Nationals out of Wake Forest University in 2024, King has both the résumé and the raw tools to profile as a solid hitter at the big league level.

He flashed some of that promise in the admittedly hitter-friendly Arizona Fall League. As our lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen put it, King “rebounded in a big way,” raking to the tune of a 1.031 OPS and eight extra-base hits over 79 plate appearances with the Scottsdale Scorpions. Just as importantly, he displayed the smooth right-handed stroke that allows him to shoot balls to all parts of the field, which is what he does when he’s at the top of his game.

He isn’t lacking in confidence, nor is he afraid of some honest self-assessment. Reportedly selling out for power early last season, the Athens, Georgia native has come around to realizing that staying true to himself is what will produce the best results.

“I feel like I bring a lot to the table,” King told me early in his AFL stint. “Defense. Leadership. I am still finding my way in the box, obviously. It’s tough playing against elite competition, so I have to go out there and play my game. That’s hitting line drives. I’ll maybe mix in a couple of home runs with the right launch angle, but mostly I’m trying to get on base and move around them as fast as possible.” Read the rest of this entry »

Most free agent contracts are relatively easy to predict. Calculate the going rate for a single win, multiply it by the player’s projected wins above replacement over the length of the deal, and the result will come pretty close to the actual contract. This generally holds true for every type of player save one: the humble relief pitcher.

The Mets gave Luke Weaver $22 million for two years. The Tigers gave Kenley Jansen $11 million for his age-38 season. The Reds gave Emilio Pagán two years and $20 million, with the second year a player option. Run all of the reliever contracts signed this offseason through a dollars per win calculation, and they’re almost uniformly going to come out looking like terrible deals.

The sport appears to be smarter than ever, and yet teams keep shelling out gobs of guaranteed money on bullpen arms who hardly ever top 2 WAR. What’s their problem? Well, maybe teams have collectively decided to behave irrationally in one specific market, but I don’t think it’s that. I think teams are behaving as rationally in the reliever market as any other, but they happen to be using a different metric for evaluating reliever deals. The relevant metric, I think, isn’t dollars per win, but something like championship win probability added. Read the rest of this entry »