In what may prove to be their highest impact move of the trade deadline, the Dodgers traded swingman Mitch White to the Blue Jays as part of a four-player deal that lessened the immediate depth of their rotation. Less than 48 hours later, they watched as Clayton Kershaw once again left the mound in the company of a trainer, his future availability in doubt. While the combination of the trade and the loss of the three-time Cy Young winner isn’t likely to threaten their stranglehold on the NL West, the Dodgers suddenly have little margin for error when it comes to assembling a strong rotation for October — an issue that they’re all too familiar with after last year.

Kershaw left Thursday afternoon’s start against the Giants after experiencing lower back pain while warming up for the bottom of the fifth inning. Via MLB.com’s Juan Toribio: “Kershaw felt his back tighten up after his penultimate warmup throw. He then tried to throw one more to test the back, but immediately motioned over to the Dodgers dugout.”

The 34-year-old lefty underwent an MRI that didn’t yield any surprises, but he received an epidural injection to counter the pain and was placed on the 15-day injured list. “There wasn’t any new findings, so that’s a positive,” said manager Dave Roberts “This was the best-case scenario coming from the MRI.”

A best case scenario still is likely to mean a substantial absence for Kershaw. This is his seventh time in nine seasons missing time due to a back injury, and the second time this year; he had never doubled up before:

That’s an average of 36 games missed for the previous six absences, with four of the six lasting longer than one month. An absence of similar length would still leave Kershaw enough time get a few regular-season turns under his belt before the playoffs, but any kind of setback could threaten his October availability. Read the rest of this entry »

Detroit didn’t do much at the deadline. Trading Robbie Grossman to Atlanta in exchange for soon-to-turn 21-year-old pitching prospect Kris Anglin was the only move. Many expected more. A disgruntled fan base thought that Monday’s swap of an underachieving outfielder for a potential future asset would be the first of multiple deals for Al Avila’s underachieving team.

[Update/correction: The Tigers also traded reliever Michael Fulmer to the Minnesota Twins in exchange for Sawyer Gipson-Long, a 24-year-old 2019 sixth-round pick who was pitching at the Double-A level.]

The extent to which the relative inactivity was an indictment of Avila is a matter of opinion. Rival executives almost assuredly weren’t knocking down the GM’s door with appealing offers, and making trades for the sake of making trades is eyewash. Placating fans by simply moving pieces around doesn’t move the needle in any meaningful direction.

With a record of 43-66 and baseball’s 24th-rated farm system, which direction the club is heading in is far less clear than it was a year ago. Much for that reason, it’s easy to see why many in Motown would like to see Avila kicked to the curb.

Not everything that has gone wrong — and a lot has certainly gone wrong — can be placed squarely on the Detroit GM’s shoulders. But while this year’s plethorae of injuries and disappointing performances were largely beyond his control, Avila is nonetheless the architect of what has been a sluggish rebuild. The idea that said rebuild is in need of a rebuild of its own may be a valid one.

Which brings us to the crux of the issue at hand: Who can right the ship? Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a possible solution to the quandary of not enough slashes in “triple slash stats,” discuss the increasing excitement surrounding Aaron Judge’s home run record chase, and (20:00) share a Past Blast from 1886. Then (24:47) they welcome back singer-songwriter, baseball balladeer, and converted Dodgers fan Dan Bern to talk about his appreciation for the late Vin Scully and his song “The Golden Voice of Vin Scully,” followed by performances of “Golden Voice,” “Ballpark,” “Turns Out, Ohtani,” and “42.”

Audio intro: Hot Chocolate, “Let Them Be the Judge”
Audio interstitial: Electric Light Orchestra, “Mr. Radio”
Audio outro: Dan Bern, “If the Dodgers Had Stayed in Brooklyn”

Link to Zach Kram on Judge
Link to Jay Jaffe on Judge
Link to Mains on July offense
Link to FG WAR leaderboard
Link to Richard Hershberger’s Strike Four
Link to 1886 story source
Link to Dan’s first EW appearance
Link to Dan’s website
Link to Doubleheader
Link to “Golden Voice”
Link to “Ballpark”
Link to “42”
Link to Dan on Spotify
Link to Scully’s farewell

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Ranked and briefly analyzed below are the prospects who have been traded during the loosely defined “deadline season,” which for simplicity’s sake I consider all of July. Most of the deals these prospects were a part of have been analyzed at length on this site. An index of those pieces can be found here, or by clicking the hyperlink in the “Trade” column below, which will take you to the relevant article. I’ve moved all of the 35+ FV and above players listed here to their new orgs over on The Board, so you can click through to see where they rank among their new teammates and read their full scouting reports. Our Farm Rankings, which update live, also reflect these changes, so you can see where teams’ systems stack up following the draft and the deadline compared to prior to the draft and relevant 2022 prospect graduations.

I’ve included the compensatory draft pick the Cubs will receive after they extend Willson Contreras a qualifying offer and he signs elsewhere, as they will essentially be trading him for that pick if he signs with another team this offseason, which I think is the most likely outcome. Now, on to the rankings. Read the rest of this entry »

A week ago Thursday, I put my pre-trade deadline work to the side long enough to down a few beers while taking in a Yankees-Royals game from Yankee Stadium’s Section 422. The game — Andrew Benintendi’s debut in pinstripes, as it turned out — unfolded as a pitchers’ duel between the Royals’ Brady Singer and the Yankees’ Jameson Taillon. Singer struck out 10 in seven innings while limiting the Yankees to a fourth-inning single by Gleyber Torres, while Taillon scattered four hits across six frames. The two bullpens did their jobs as well, and the game remained scoreless until the bottom of the ninth, when after Benintendi fouled out to complete an 0-for-4 night, Aaron Judge brought down the verdict on a 95-mph middle-middle fastball from Scott Barlow, sentencing it to an exile 431 feet away in the Royals’ bullpen.

The homer — which looked even cooler from our birds-eye view just off to the third-base side of home plate, I swear — was Judge’s 39th of the year, tying the total he hit in 148 games and 633 plate appearances last year. It was also his third walk-off of the season, tying the franchise record set by Mickey Mantle in 1959. None of the other sluggers in Yankees history — not Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Reggie Jackson, or Alex Rodriguez — ever had three walk-off homers in a season for the the team (Jackson had three for the A’s in 1971).

Judge proceeded to leave the yard three more times in the next two games against the hapless Royals, with the second of those shots a grand slam (his second of the year) and the third his 200th career homer. He added another in Monday’s series-opening victory over the Mariners to run his total to a major league-leading 43 but went homerless on Tuesday and sat out Wednesday afternoon’s game. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 986

On this week’s show, we welcome a major league veteran and Phillies broadcaster for a chat before reacting to an overwhelming week of trade deadline moves, as well as the loss of a broadcasting legend.

• To kick things off, David Laurila welcomes Chad Durbin, a TV analyst for the Philadelphia Phillies with 14 years of major league pitching on his resume. The pair discuss the Phillies’ moves at the deadline and how new faces like Noah Syndergaard, Brandon Marsh, and old pal David Robertson could help the squad down the stretch. They also discuss the Juan Soto trade, and how he stacks up compared to another former National great: Bryce Harper. Durbin also offers insights into clubhouse leadership and chemistry, what it was like to play with Pedro Martinez, and why he could not get Magglio Ordóñez out. [4:37]
• After that, Eric Longenhagen is joined by Jay Jaffe and Jason Martinez for an extended conversation about Tuesday’s trade deadline. The trio discuss Soto’s historical significance, the haul he was traded for, and the King Kong vs. Godzilla battle that is the Dodgers vs. the Padres. They also break down playing for 162 vs. playing for the playoffs, which teams should have done more, and which clubs now find themselves out of the race, as well as the intriguing prospects who now find themselves with new homes. Finally, the group laments the passing of Vin Scully, one of the most beloved icons in the sport. We hear about how Scully had an impact on anyone who heard or was lucky enough to meet him, and how the baseball world stopped to remember him. [33:23]

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Audio after the jump. (Approximate 91 minute play time.)

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Clayton Kershaw’s back, balky backs in general, some of the players traded at the deadline who made immediate impacts in their debuts, and the perhaps surprisingly small impacts that deadline moves make on playoff and World Series odds. Then (15:09) they answer listener emails about intentionally scuttling a trade for leverage in a future negotiation, what would have to happen to convince them that the Rockies were a well-run organization, penalizing slow-paced pitchers by gradually lowering the mound, how to design the perfect pitching hand, convincing MLB to cut ties with gambling sponsors by paying players to throw games, Gold Gloves for utility players, an ethical conundrum involving Shohei Ohtani, and why we call them “triple-slash stats” when there are only two slashes, plus a Past Blast from 1885 (1:30:15) and followups.

Audio intro: The Smiths, “Stretch Out and Wait”
Audio outro: Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello, “Twenty Fine Fingers”

Link to article on Kershaw’s back
Link to article on stretching research
Link to article on the shortest day
Link to Dan on deadline improvements
Link to Merrifield article
Link to post on Rockies pizza party
Link to Sam Miller on the pit
Link to Driveline post on generating spin
Link to Driveline on finger/grip strength
Link to Fielding Bible utility awards
Link to Richard Hershberger’s Strike Four
Link to 1885 story source
Link to Angels tweet
Link to Timber Rattlers mascot
Link to Philadelphia Zoo mascot
Link to high-scoring-game box score
Link to 2014 Tigers rotation story
Link to 1880s baseball story source
Link to submarine softball story
Link to North Pole baseball story

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Steven Kwan is having an outstanding rookie season with the Cleveland Guardians. The 24-year-old outfielder is slashing .297/.370/.382 with a 118 wRC+, and he’s doing so with elite plate discipline and contact skills. Kwan’s 8.8% strikeout rate ranks second to Luis Arraez’s 8.3% among qualified hitters, while his 22.6% O-Swing% is tied for sixth-best. Moreover, he’s one of only a handful of hitters with more walks (36) than strikeouts (34). As Ben Clemens wrote back in April, “Kwan’s phenomenal bat control is as real as it gets.”

A 2018 fifth-round pick out of Oregon State University, Kwan came into the current campaign having emerged as one of the game’s most intriguing young players. No. 57 on our preseason Top 100 Prospects list, the slight-of-build left-handed hitter was described as having “short levers and excellent hand-eye coordination.” Brett Gardner was cited as his closest comp.

In the latest installment of our Talks Hitting series, Kwan discusses his innate ability to put the bat on the baseball and sneeze at pitches that aren’t in the strike zone.

———

David Laurila: You got a lot of attention early in the season, almost exclusively for your elite contact skills. What does that mean to you?

Steven Kwan: “It’s a compliment, if anything. I think hitter success is directly correlated to strike zone management — to swinging at strikes and not chasing out of the zone. I definitely see that as a compliment.” Read the rest of this entry »

12:02

Dan Szymborski: Hello people!

12:02

Dan Szymborski: And maybe some bots.

12:03

Dan Szymborski: Or cats or alien lifeforms.

12:03

Dan Szymborski: But probably people.

12:05

Dan Szymborski: I mean, O’s won’t have Dodgers money but the should have a nice rest of 2020s!

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past two weeks, the FanGraphs staff has written nearly 60 pieces dedicated to analyzing the 2022 trade deadline, from preview posts to recaps of the deadline’s winners and losers, and a whole bunch of transaction analysis in between. It’s a lot to sort through, so to assist you in finding anything you may have missed during the flurry, I’ve rounded up all of our deadline pieces in one place. You’ll find the broader preview and summary pieces listed first, followed by a team-by-team listing of the transaction analyses that involved your favorite squad, either as buyers or sellers. In instances where we dissected a transaction across multiple pieces — hello, Juan Soto trade! — you’ll see them grouped together. I’ll add any other relevant pieces as they trickle in.

As always, all of the pieces linked below are free to read, but they took time and resources to produce. If you enjoyed our coverage of the trade deadline and are in a position to do so, we hope you’ll sign up for a FanGraphs Ad-Free Membership. It’s the best way to both support our work and experience the site. Now, on to the roundup! Read the rest of this entry »