As the hours wound down on MLB’s collective bargaining agreement, the Red Sox took one last flier, signing left-handed pitcher James Paxton to a one-year deal worth $10 million, with a two-year, $26 million club option.

Never a bastion of durability — he’s never thrown enough innings in a major league season to qualify for the ERA title — Paxton’s had a particularly rough couple of seasons. In 2020, he underwent surgery to remove a peridiscal cyst, a type of spinal lesion, but last year’s late July start gave him enough time to be ready for the season. Unfortunately, when the season actually did get underway, he was missing about 3 mph from his fastball and suffered from significant soreness in his elbow. That soreness was diagnosed as a flexor strain, but there was no ligament damage found at the time. The New York Yankees had initially been hopeful that he’d recover to at least make a postseason appearance, but further setbacks prevented him from returning.

After signing with his old team, the Seattle Mariners, the 2021 season didn’t go any better. It only took five batters for an injury to knock Paxton out for the year, requiring Tommy John surgery. This can’t be described as anything but a brutal setback for a player who, from 2016-19, had finally settled into a pattern of being mostly healthy if used carefully. Read the rest of this entry »

Raisel Iglesias, who ranked 24th on our annual list of the top 50 free agents, inspired one of the biggest gaps between the contract projection of Ben Clemens, who pegged him for three years and $15 million, and that of our readers, who had the same length, but a median AAV of just $10 million. Ben was right and then some: the best reliever on the market is returning to the Los Angeles Angels on a four-year, $58 million deal reached in the final days of the league’s pre-lockout free agent frenzy.

Iglesias rejected a qualifying offer from these same Angels two weeks ago, and in the end received a deal consistent with that of other elite late-inning relievers. He’s coming off his best season as a professional, combining a career-high strikeout rate with a career-low walk rate to give him a phenomenal 103-to-12 K/BB ratio over 70 innings during which he posted a 2.57 ERA and 2.83 FIP.

Iglesias’ entry into professional baseball was a difficult one. A native of Cuba, he spent his ages-20-22 seasons pitching in the Industrial League in his native country; he was able to leave Cuba in late 2013. Establishing residency can often be a struggle for Cuban players, and that was the case for Iglesias, who was ultimately forced to settle in Haiti. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of a series concernifng the 2022 Early Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 5. For an introduction to the ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Grant “Home Run” Johnson

A slugging shortstop from the pre-Negro Leagues era of Black baseball, Grant “Home Run” Johnson stands as one of the best position players of his day, and one of Black baseball’s first true superstars. In a career that spanned from 1894 to 1914 (and to at least 1932 at the semiprofessional level), he played for several of the era’s powerhouse teams while aligned with the likes of both Bud Fowler and Hall of Famer Rube Foster, and moved to second base to accommodate Hall of Famer John Henry Lloyd in the era’s superlative double play combination. According to a biography written by Dr. Layton Revel and Luis Munoz for the Center for Negro Leagues Baseball Research, Johnson was either the starting shortstop or second baseman, and often captain or manager, for 26 championship teams (including winter leagues) in a 21-year span.

While Johnson’s career is hardly fully documented from a statistical standpoint — the likely reason why he was bypassed in the 2006 Special Committee on the Negro Leagues election — the data at the Seamheads Database, and its Major League Equivalencies translations, makes a case for his being of clear Hall of Fame caliber, comparable to Luke Appling, Alan Trammell, or this ballot’s Bill Dahlen, among others. About that nickname, here’s a snippet from his entry in James A. Riley’s The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues:

A line-drive hitter, Johnson placed an emphasis on making contact rather than swinging for the fences and, playing in the deadball era, his power was comparable to that of the Athletics’ Frank Baker. And like Baker, his home runs, while not numerous, came at opportune times and reinforced the sobriquet “Home Run” for the duration of his playing career.

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The Rays and Marlins love making trades. They’ve now combined for four trades this year, though this one is the most consequential. The terms are simple: Miami gets Joey Wendle and Tampa Bay gets Kameron Misner. That’s it!

Normally at FanGraphs, we try to tell you why the trade might make sense for both sides, and which way we would lean if we had to choose a winner. If we’re feeling feisty, we might throw in a joke or two, perhaps a Dick Monfort burn if Dan Szymborski is in the driver’s seat. Today, though, the two of us had wildly different views of who won this trade. So without further ado, here are Brendan’s (Marlins) and Ben’s (Rays) thoughts on which side got the best of the other in this very Floridian trade.

Brendan’s Take

Ben probably isn’t the first analyst to pan a deal where Miami sought to improve the big league club, but I can’t find much recent precedent. That the Fighting Jeters beefed up at all seems sufficient cause for celebration. MLB is at its best when teams put their top product on the field, and the Marlins often fail to clear that low threshold. But between the Avisaíl García signing, the Sandy Alcantara extension, the Jacob Stallings trade, and now the Wendle deal, the Marlins have the swagger of… well, not a contender exactly, but at least an upright major league team. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of a series concerning the 2022 Early Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 5. For an introduction to the ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Bud Fowler

“For the next twenty-five years [after his debut in 1878], Fowler barnstormed around the country, from Massachusetts to Colorado, playing wherever Negro players were permitted. He played in crossroads farm towns and in mining camps, in the pioneer settlements of the West and in the cities of the East. These were the years of growth for the minor leagues, the foundation stones for organized baseball, and Fowler performed in several of them. He was the first of more than sixty Negroes who were in white leagues before the turn of the century, when baseball’s leaders began to think of their structure as Organized Baseball in capital letters and when the long night of total exclusion lowered for the black man.”— Robert Peterson, Only the Ball Was White, 1970

Bud Fowler was Black baseball’s original pioneer, its first acknowledged professional, with a career that’s believed to have spanned from 1878 to 1904. An exceptional hitter, pitcher, and fielder who could play any position (sometimes catcher, but mainly second base), the 5-foot-7, 155-pound righty was believed to be of major league star quality, and is recorded as having hit .308 in over 2,000 at-bats in 10 seasons of organized baseball. Alas, the color of his skin and the prejudice that followed prevented him from ascending to the majors. Playing on integrated teams before the color line was fully entrenched — even captaining some — he traveled a hard road, unable to stay in one place for long before the objections of teammates or opponents forced him to move on, even given his considerable talents; by his own count, he played in 22 different states plus Canada. In the latter stages of his career he became one of the game’s first significant Black promoters, involved in forming leagues and teams.

It is a painful irony that Fowler was raised in Cooperstown but has yet to be recognized with election to the Hall of Fame. Not until 2013, the centennial of his death, was he even honored in his hometown. That year, MLB official historian John Thorn said, “Bud Fowler is of extraordinary importance on a national scale. Many would argue he should be in the Hall of Fame or should have been long ago.” Last year, SABR’s Nineteenth Century Committee voted Fowler as its 2020 Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legend. Read the rest of this entry »

Lots of money flowed ahead of this week’s unofficial lockout deadline, but not all of the moves involved swimming pools of cash. Among the many made were some low-key bullpen additions, usually by contenders, all of which arguably upgraded their respective bullpens. Let’s talk about some of the more interesting ones!

Michael Lorenzen to the Angels

Lorenzen signed a one-year, $6.75 million contract to head to Anaheim, a surprisingly juicy figure for a pitcher with an ERA well in excess of five for the Reds in 2021. As you may have guessed, his peripheral numbers were better. A FIP just over four isn’t going to evoke prime Craig Kimbrel, but it’s a good bit better than the rest of the disasters in Cincy’s bullpen. The drop in strikeout rate was scary, but ZiPS doesn’t think it’s real when looking at the Statcast data, estimating that you ought to have expected him to finish up with 12 more strikeouts than he actually racked up — an impressive number in only 29 innings. Among relievers, that was the second-largest negative deficit, behind only Keynan Middleton of the Mariners. Scouting can also pick up this sort of thing, which is likely one reason the Angels were so willing to drop this amount of money.

The other is that Lorenzen wants to explore being a two-way player more than he got to in recent years. The Angels are apparently happy to grant this wish, given they’re the home of arguably the best (simultaneous) two-way player ever in Shohei Ohtani.

RHP Michael Lorenzen not only wants a shot at being a starting pitcher in 2022, but also wants the opportunity to get regular at-bats as an outfielder. Wants to get on the Ohtani routine. The Rangers, Pirates, Cubs and Giants are all believed to have inquired.

— Joe Doyle (@JoeDoyleMiLB) November 28, 2021

Lorenzen’s .233/.282/.429 line doesn’t scream “spare outfielder,” but one has to remember that his at-bats have been widely scattered, hampering his offensive development. In addition, a healthy chunk of them came as a pinch-hitter, a role in which players hit considerably worse compared to games they start.
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Within the span of a few hours on Tuesday, the last two free-agent catchers projected to produce over 1 WAR next season came off the market. The Cubs landed Yan Gomes, as reported by Craig Mish of SportsGrid, for two years and $13 million with a $6 million option for a third year and some games played incentives worth up to $1 million per year. The Pirates, on the other hand, quickly filled a hole of their own making after trading Jacob Stallings to the Marlins on Monday afternoon by landing Roberto Pérez, the former Guardians catcher, as reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan. The deal was later specified to be worth $5 million over one year by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Jason Mackey.

As discussed by Devan Fink a couple of weeks ago, the catcher market this offseason is particularly dire, and the signing of Pérez and Gomes means that there are essentially no more starting caliber options left at the position. Let’s take a closer look at each player and how they fit with their new team before seeing what further implication these moves might have around the league. Read the rest of this entry »

The Marlins have one of the most intriguing starting rotations in baseball. They just signed Sandy Alcantara to a five-year extension after his phenomenal 2021 season. Trevor Rogers just finished second behind Jonathan India in the National League Rookie of the Year voting. Behind those two, Pablo López, Jesús Luzardo, Sixto Sánchez, Elieser Hernandez, Edward Cabrera, and Max Meyer provide tons more talent to dream on. The only thing missing was a catcher to help guide and maximize those young arms.

Ever since J.T. Realmuto was traded away after the 2018 season, the Marlins had been rather aimless behind the plate. In the three seasons since, their catchers have accumulated just 1.3 WAR, the sixth worst mark in baseball over that stretch. In 2021, Jorge Alfaro, Sandy León, and a few other backup catchers combined for -0.1 WAR. Things got so bad with Alfaro that they tried playing him at first base and in the outfield after Miami acquired Alex Jackson at the trade deadline.

On Monday, though, the Marlins got their man: Miami acquired catcher Jacob Stallings from the Pirates in exchange for right-handed pitcher Zach Thompson and two prospects, Kyle Nicolas and Connor Scott. (Alfaro was traded to the Padres a day later for a player to be named later or cash considerations.) Read the rest of this entry »

The Giants won 107 games last season, and their rotation deserves a ton of credit; only the Brewers and Dodgers, two teams expected to thrive off starting pitching, managed to record lower FIPs. But San Francisco took everyone by surprise, winnings games with the likes of Alex Wood, Anthony DeSclafani, and postseason hero Logan Webb. Looking to retain some of last season’s magic, the Giants recently inked new deals with Wood and DeSclafani. Yet Kevin Gausman, their ace, eluded them, ultimately signing a five-year contract with the Blue Jays and leaving an unmistakable hole in their rotation. But while a pitcher like Gausman is irreplaceable, the Giants could find the next big sleeper — another under-the-radar signing just like he was.

And so they’ve arrived at Alex Cobb, signing him to a two-year deal worth $20 million, which includes a club option for 2024. If the Giants are satisfied with his performance, that option will grant him $10 million, and if not, they have the option to buy him out for $2 million.

In hindsight, it makes perfect sense that they decided to pursue Cobb. He’s the exact type of pitcher I think that they have a liking toward, and I wanted to explain why.

Cobb pitched for the Angels in 2021, but the spotlight there was on two-way phenomenon Shohei Ohtani. Still, what he achieved in 93.1 innings is nothing to sneeze at, with career bests in FIP, fastball velocity, and strikeout rate, which might have been masked by a not-as-flattering 3.76 ERA. That surge in strikeout rate is particularly notable; before the 2021 season, Cobb last had one above 20% in 2014 — a whopping seven years ago. You just don’t fluke into something like that.

But even that career-high strikeout rate was still just 24.9%, as Cobb isn’t exactly a bat-missing machine. Actually, none of the Giants’ headlining starters are, either; the only guy in the ’21 rotation with a K/9 above 10 was Gausman. But there’s another appealing aspect of Cobb’s game — a skill the Giants highly covet.
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