After acquiring José Berríos at last year’s trade deadline and signing Kevin Gausman to a massive five-year deal in November, the Blue Jays put the finishing touch on remaking their starting rotation by signing Yusei Kikuchi to a three-year contract on Saturday. The deal is worth $36 million, with $16 million of that total frontloaded in 2022. The lefty will slot into the back of Toronto’s rotation — one that suddenly looks like a strength for a team that came just a game shy of the postseason in 2021.

That Kikuchi was available as a free agent at all was a bit of a surprise. The Mariners declined what was a uniquely structured four-year option valued at $16.5 million per year at the end of last season, and he declined his $13 million player option. Looking at his season, you can understand why. Though he started off well last year, putting up a 3.48 ERA during the first half of the season and earning the Mariners’ lone All-Star selection, he fell apart after the break, with his ERA ballooning to 5.98.

The inconsistency is something the Blue Jays will need to figure out if they want to maximize the promising raw skills that Kikuchi possesses. After debuting in 2019 with a four-seam fastball that averaged just 92.5 mph, he spent the offseason optimizing his mechanics to unlock an increase in fastball velocity. It worked: During the shortened 2020 season, he came out throwing 95 mph — the fifth-hardest fastball thrown by a left-handed starter during these past two seasons — and was able to maintain that velocity jump in ‘21. With all that extra heat, the whiff rate on his four-seamer jumped up from 15.9% in 2019 to 30.5% over the last two years. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Even given the lockout, the Mets have already had a banner offseason, adding three former All-Stars — Max Scherzer, Starling Marte, and Eduardo Escobar — to the roster via free agency. On Saturday, they traded for a fourth, sending pitching prospects J.T. Ginn and Adam Oller to the Athletics for 33-year-old right-hander Chris Bassitt, who made his first All-Star team in 2021, the best season of his seven-year major league career.

Originally drafted by the White Sox in 2011 and then acquired by the A’s in the December ’14 deal involving Marcus Semien and Jeff Samardzija, Bassitt is something of a late bloomer. He threw just 143.2 major league innings before undergoing Tommy John surgery in May 2016, and didn’t make it back to a major league mound until July ’18, his age-29 season. He’s been very good in parts of four seasons since then, pitching to a 3.23 ERA (76 ERA-) and 3.82 FIP (89 FIP-) in 412 innings. In the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, his 2.29 ERA ranked third in the American League, his 3.59 FIP 10th, and his 1.3 WAR 14th (his 2.3 bWAR was third).

Though Bassitt pitched to a 3.15 ERA and 3.34 FIP in 157.1 innings last year, his season took a terrifying turn on August 17, when a 100 mph line drive off the bat of the White Sox’s Brian Goodwin hit him on the right side of the face. He suffered facial lacerations and a displaced tripod fracture of his right cheek, the latter of which required surgery, but thankfully, he avoided a concussion or any damage to his vision. He was able to return to the A’s after missing five weeks, making two abbreviated but reassuring starts in late September.

Before the injury, Bassitt led the AL in both innings and starts, but he wound up falling 4.2 frames short of qualifying for the ERA title. Among pitchers with at least 140 innings, his 0.86 homers per nine ranked third, his ERA fourth (Robbie Ray, the only one of those top four to qualify, finished at 2.84), his FIP fifth, and his 18.8% strikeout-to-walk differential 11th. His 3.3 WAR was tied for 11th among all AL pitchers regardless of innings. Read the rest of this entry »

The itinerant gunslinger is a time-worn trope in Westerns, but baseball experienced a resurgence of its own version of it over the weekend. Andrelton Simmons and José Iglesias, two older free agents with sterling defensive reputations, are each headed to a new team. Simmons signed with the Cubs, a one-year, $4 million deal with incentives that could push his total payout higher. Meanwhile, Iglesias signed a one-year, $5 million deal with the Rockies. Rather than cover them both separately, let’s go through the deals together so that I can force some metaphors on you and compare two delightfully shrewd defensive wizards.

The glove-only shortstop isn’t what it used to be, particularly if you hit like Simmons did in 2021. He stumbled to a .223/.283/.274 batting line, and while his defense was predictably excellent, that’s simply not enough to lock down an everyday starting role. The Twins weren’t good last year, and even then, Simmons started to lose playing time as the season wore on. The Cubs will be his third team in the past three years, and he’s solidly into the short-term-stints-on-okay-teams phase of his career.

For his part, Iglesias must think Simmons is downright sedentary. The Rockies will be his sixth team in five seasons; he’s bounced around on one-year deals since 2019, and even got traded in-season last year. He wasn’t an offensive black hole to the extent that Simmons was in 2021, but he’s hardly Carlos Correa with the bat in his hands; he’s compiled a 93 wRC+ in his last four seasons. His defense doesn’t grade out as well as Simmons’ does, though; depending on who you listen to, he was somewhere between acceptable and quite bad defensively last year after being solid throughout his career. Read the rest of this entry »

We’d been missing out on those sweet free agent signings during the owner’s lockout, but how about a trade? This one, while not a blockbuster, sends Twins backstop Mitch Garver to the Rangers in exchange for Isiah Kiner-Falefa and prospect Ronny Henriquez per multiple sources, giving both teams extra options at premium positions as they look to become competitive in the near future.

Let’s dive into the headlining players. Garver isn’t a household name, but he has the potential to be one of the league’s best catchers thanks to his identity at the plate: a fly-ball hitter with thunderous bat speed, which is a slam-dunk combination regardless of one’s surroundings. And while I did write about his passive approach in early counts, it’s a minor flaw that doesn’t stop him from putting up top-percentile offensive numbers. Here are the leaders in WAR per 600 plate appearances among catchers since 2019; look who’s near the top:

So what’s holding Garver back? Simply put, injuries. In the midst of a breakout 2019 campaign, he suffered an ankle injury after colliding with Shohei Ohtani at home plate. In ‘20, a right intercostal strain may have contributed to his miserable slump. And just last year, he underwent surgery after a fluke foul tip struck his groin, taking him off the field for nearly two months. The inevitable wear-and-tear at the position has not been kind to Garver, but if he stays healthy, he can go toe-to-toe with the likes of Realmuto and Grandal for most valuable catcher. His bat is just that good.

Meanwhile, Kiner-Falefa is coming off a season that acts as a testament to his durability and value. He proved the projections wrong by excelling at shortstop, a position he had little prior experience with; in addition, he showed that his bat is adequate enough to stick at a starting role. But while Kiner-Falefa seems like the archetypal low-ceiling, high-floor player, the error bars are wider than one might think. Baseball-Reference, which uses DRS in its calculations, pegged him at 3.7 WAR last season. Our site, which uses UZR, had a more pessimistic view: 2.3 WAR. Baseball Savant is outright skeptical of Kiner-Falefa, with his -7 OAA placing him among the worst defenders at short. It’s weird, and we’ll definitely need a much larger sample before deciding one way or the other. Read the rest of this entry »

Brett Wisely flies under the radar in a Tampa Bay Rays farm system where it’s easy to get overlooked. A 15th-round pick in 2019 out of Gulf Coast State College, the 22-year-old infielder is coming off a first full professional season where he augmented a .301/.376/.503 slash line with 19 home runs and 31 stolen bases between Low-A Charleston and High-A Bowling Green. Despite those eye-opening numbers, Wisely is unranked — albeit within a deep, talent-laden minor-league system — by Baseball America (our own list is forthcoming).

His low-profile status dates back to the day he was drafted. A two-way player at Jacksonville’s Sandalwood High School, and again in junior college, Wisely wasn’t even sure that his phone would ring.

“I didn’t think I was going to go at all, really,” Wisely admitted late last season. “I was playing summer ball and planning to go to USF the following year. But then the call came, and I got all excited. It was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up.”

It’s not as though the opportunity came out of the blue. Wisely had been in contact with Tampa Bay’s area scout, and he’d filled out pre-draft questionnaires for “four or five teams,” the Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox included. The interest shown by the Rays differed from the others.

“They were the only one for hitting,” Wisely explained. “Everything else was for pitching. The other teams preferred my arm over my bat.” Read the rest of this entry »

On October 1, in the 160th game of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 2021 season, Clayton Kershaw faced 10 Milwaukee Brewers batters and recorded just five outs. He didn’t look right, and it would soon be revealed that he was experiencing left forearm discomfort. Three weeks later, the Dodgers watched from the dugout as the Atlanta Braves celebrated winning the National League pennant. It marked the conclusion of a disappointing postseason run that did not feature an appearance from Los Angeles’ rotation stalwart.

The public speculation about his future began. Was that the last time we would see Kershaw in Dodger blue? Would the proud Texan and dedicated family man decide to spend the latter part of his career with his hometown Rangers? As it turns out, the answer to both of those questions was “no.” On Friday afternoon, the pitcher signed a one-year deal to return to the only team he’s ever known, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. He’ll receive a base salary of $17 million, with incentives that could get him closer to the $20 million-plus AAV most projected for him. Read the rest of this entry »

After the end of the owners’ lockout on Thursday and the reopening of the offseason, the Giants wasted little time making a big splash in the second free agency period, signing Carlos Rodón to a two-year deal worth up to $44 million with an opt-out after the first season. The addition of the ex-White Sox lefty gives San Francisco the top-end talent that was missing from the rotation after the departure of Kevin Gausman earlier in the offseason. It’s a move filled with risk, but with the potential for great reward.

Rodón was a revelation in 2021. He threw a nearly perfect game on April 14, settling for a no-hitter instead; made the All-Star team for the first time; and set career highs in nearly every meaningful pitching metric, with his 2.37 ERA, 2.65 FIP and 4.9 WAR all leading Chicago’s pitching staff. And all this came after the White Sox had non-tendered him before the season, only to re-sign him on a one-year deal worth just $3 million.

As Rodón put it last March, getting cut by the team that had drafted him was a wake-up call. He committed to an improved offseason training program and diet to help him get into better shape, and the transformation of his body helped him fix his mechanics and improve his overall strength. He entered spring training throwing in the upper 90s regularly, and his fastball wound up averaging 95.4 mph last year, the hardest it had been in his career. All that additional velocity took his fastball from an average pitch to an elite weapon. His heater’s whiff rate had never topped 20% in his career but jumped to 29.7% in 2021, and opposing batters managed just a .264 wOBA off the pitch. It also paired nicely with his already excellent slider and changeup to form a trio of plus pitches to mow down opposing batters. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Cardinals breaking the post-lockout free-agent signing seal, what the pre-Opening Day market will look like, day-after reflections on the new CBA (including an alternative term for tanking), the benefits and drawbacks of MLB broadcasts on streaming services, how Canadian vaccination policies could affect the Blue Jays, the advent of WARdle, weather splits at FanGraphs, the podcast’s season preview plans, why the international draft is subject to collective bargaining, and more, followed by a conversation (50:05) with The Athletic staff writer Maria Torres about the ongoing discussions between MLB and the MLBPA about the international draft, the many problems with the international free agent market, MLB’s culpability, alternatives to a draft, and more.

Audio intro: Crosby, Stills & Nash, “After the Storm”
Audio interstitial: Steppenwolf, “Draft Resister”
Audio outro: Spector, “Local International”

Link to Eric on VerHagen
Link to study on late-offseason signings
Link to Evan Drellich on the CBA
Link to Joe Sheehan on the CBA
Link to article on broadcast deals
Link to news about Peacock deal
Link to thread about the Blue Jays
Link to WARdle
Link to FanGraphs weather splits
Link to Ben Clemens on qualifying offers
Link to Freedman thread
Link to news on draft negotiations
Link to Maria’s feature story
Link to Lindor statement
Link to story on Puerto Rico and the draft
Link to second story on P.R. and the draft
Link to third story on P.R. and the draft
Link to ESPN on the international draft
Link to Durbin tweet
Link to Sanders statement

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