The Royals have a wave of strong position player prospects that look like they’re ready to make their debuts as early as 2022, led by the No. 2 player on our Top 100 list, Bobby Witt Jr., as well as MJ Melendez, Nick Pratto, and Vinnie Pasquantino. All four of those players carry a 50 FV or higher and could form a formidable young core in Kansas City for years to come.

Amidst all the hype over those four prospects, it would be understandable if you forgot about Kyle Isbel, who turned a fantastic spring training last year into a starting role in the Royals’ Opening Day lineup. While he didn’t have the prospect ceiling of Witt or the rest of that quartet, he did rank fifth on the 2021 edition of Kansas City’s prospect list with a 45 FV. But after starting off his major league career with five hits in his first two games, Isbel collected just four more across ten more appearances and was optioned down to Triple-A on April 22.

A rookie with a strong spring and a flash-in-the-pan debut who struggles to follow up on his early success isn’t an uncommon storyline, and it’s not surprising given Isbel’s lack of experience. A 2018 draftee out of UNLV, he had only played in just 123 minor league games and only reached High-A before making his debut. The canceled 2020 minor league season had a huge impact on that lack of experience, though he did play at the Royals’ alternate site.

Isbel’s first taste of Triple-A didn’t exactly go well either, as he struggled to a .220/.316/.360 line and a 84 wRC+ through his first 50 games there. But he managed to acclimate and adjust: Over his next 55 games in Triple-A, he slashed .320/.399/.531 (148 wRC+), bopping nine home runs and walking in more than 10% of his plate appearances. His rediscovered production at the plate earned him a second stint in the majors; he was recalled on September 12 and he posted a 138 wRC+ across 16 games down the stretch. Read the rest of this entry »

The baseball season is back! Rejoice! No time for bad feelings – it’s a celebration, and we’re all invited. I don’t really think the rest of this article is something you have to read right now, but I’ll level with you: I had already done the research for it, and it’s worth writing about, so before we descend into a non-stop festival of free agent signings and trades, you’re getting an article about a decision that the MLBPA won’t have to reckon with for a few months yet.

Before we got a merciful end to the CBA back-and-forth, a deal was proposed by MLB that would institute an international draft in exchange for eliminating the qualifying offer system. One detail of the reporting on this issue bugged me: at least one “industry source” gave an estimate for the value of the QO system that I found hard to believe:

1. It is difficult to know what dollar values the sides attach to the international draft or eliminating qualifying offer. Industry sources estimate QO to be worth $50m-$100m annually. Just because one side links two issues does not mean they are identically valued.

— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) March 9, 2022

I don’t doubt Drellich’s reporting, but that number sounded wildly high to me. A single-digit group of players receive the qualifying offer each year; they’d have to be losing $10 million per player to make the math make sense. The draft picks that teams surrender to sign those players aren’t worth that much. The highest possible estimate for the cost of those picks comes in around $8 million per player, and that’s for teams with a luxury tax bill (or CBT, if you’re into acronyms).

To settle this question, I decided to look at all of the free agents who have received qualifying offers since the first year of the current QO system, the 2017-18 offseason. I’ve previously estimated what teams pay per WARin free agency, which gave me a useful database to start the investigation. Read the rest of this entry »

Brandon Walter hasn’t come out of nowhere, but he has come a long way. A 26th-round pick in 2019 out of the University of Delaware, the 25-year-old southpaw went into last season a veritable unknown, and he left it as the fastest riser in the Red Sox system. Displaying elite movement from a low arm slot, Walter fanned 132 batters and allowed just 67 hits in 89.1 innings, between Low-A Salem and High-A Greenville. He’ll enter the 2022 campaign ranked No. 10 on our newly-released Red Sox Top Prospects list.

Walter discussed his repertoire, and his unexpected emergence in a steadily-improving system, last month.

———

David Laurila: Your Baseball America writeup said, among other things, “His stuff and pitch data suggest reason to believe in a big ceiling.” What does that mean to you, particularly the reference to data?

Brandon Walter: “I’ve learned a lot over the last couple of years, especially since Chaim Bloom came into our organization. They’re big on analytics and pitch data [and] they’re preaching it to us. To me, it mostly means that my stuff is plus, so I can simplify and just throw it in the zone. I can make hitters deal with what I’m throwing instead of trying to hit corners and risk falling behind in the count. Basically, I can just try to get ahead with with my three pitches and compete that way. Getting that information and knowing that my stuff is above average allows me to just attack hitters.”

Laurila: Has the data reinforced things you kind of already knew, or has any of it actually come as a surprise? Read the rest of this entry »

Weather data is now available on the FanGraphs Splits Leaderboards.

You can filter any data since 2010 by temperature, barometric pressure, elevation, wind speed, wind direction, and air density. To make the weather data more useful, you can also filter on the specific ballpark, roof type, and the roof open/closed status.

Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Boston Red Sox. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the second year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the numbered prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 965

On this edition of FanGraphs Audio, we welcome a documentarian to talk about a Blue Jays legend before speaking to a major league right-hander who’s on a new team.

• To kick things off, Jay Jaffe welcomes Jon Bois of SB Nation and Secret Base. Jay just wrote about Dave Stieb, while Jon recently began a four-part series called “Captain Ahab: The Story of Dave Stieb,” chronicling the Toronto ace who excelled during the 1980s. Jay and Jon talk about why Stieb was underrated and didn’t get much Cy Young award love, as well as his numerous near-no-hitters before finally landing the one he was looking for. We also hear about Jon’s creative process and how he decided on this particular subject. [2:46]
• After that, David Laurila welcomes Louis Head, right-hander for the Miami Marlins. The pair spoke last fall when Head was a 31-year-old in the midst of a breakout rookie season for the Tampa Bay Rays. Now, he has joined a different bullpen on the other side of Florida. Head tells us about his winding journey to the majors, which included calling it quits and selling solar panels door-to-door for a while, and how a different approach to his slider helped reshape his career. We also hear about a challenging debut, facing his old team, and what it was like to be optioned 12 times in a season. [39:48]

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Audio after the jump. (Approximate 63 minute play time.)

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After 99 days of lockout, the voice of the turtle speaks up, and the season is saved. Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley exuberantly respond to the news of a new CBA, breaking down the major on-field and off-field provisions in the deal and discussing the worst-cast scenario averted, the imminent prospect of spring training and Opening Day, the way the lockout was covered, what will happen next, and more.

Audio intro: AC/DC, “Play Ball”
Audio outro: Sam Cooke, “Good Times”

Link to Jay Jaffe’s CBA breakdown
Link to Evan Drellich on the deal
Link to Ken Rosenthal on Manfred
Link to ESPN’s CBA breakdown
Link to post on Passan hack
Link to Russell on the shift ban
Link to Justin Choi on the shift ban
Link to WaPo on lockout coverage
Link to December YouGov poll
Link to March Morning Consult poll
Link to Ernie Harwell quote

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And on the 99th day of the owners’ lockout, shortly after the umpteenth deadline set by commissioner Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association finally reached a deal on a new Collective Bargaining agreement, just in time to preserve a 162-game schedule. Players will report to camps by March 13 (except for those with visa issues); arbitration figures will be exchanged on March 22, with hearings taking place during the season; Opening Day is set for April 7; the regular season will be extended by three days to absorb one of the two previously canceled series, with nine-inning doubleheaders and off days used as a means of absorbing the other; and players will receive full pay and service time. We’re a long, long ways from all being right with the world, or even within the baseball industry, but yes, there will be a 2022 major league season.

BREAKING: Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have reached a tentative agreement on a new labor deal, sources tell ESPN. While it still needs to be ratified by both parties, that is expected to be a formality, and when it is:

Baseball is back.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) March 10, 2022

Two days of close-but-no-cigar negotiations had the two sides drawing closer on core economic issues, but MLB’s insistence upon pairing the creation of an international draft with the ending of the qualifying offer system (aka direct draft pick compensation) set things back on Wednesday. Manfred responded by postponing (but notably not officially cancelling) another week of games, and the league stopped short of delivering a full counterproposal in the late afternoon, instead presenting the union with three options. Via ESPN’s Jesse Rogers:

[1] “Sign the CBA, including eliminating draft pick compensation [the qualifying offer system], and take some time to examine the international draft. If the union won’t implement within a couple years (by ’24?), the league can re-open the CBA.

[2] “Do the entire package without the draft which means without draft pick compensation.”

[3] “Take the original deal. League gets the international draft and draft pick compensation is eliminated.”

The union rejected the premise but made a counterproposal to remove the qualifying offer this year, contingent upon the two sides studying the parameters of the international draft further and setting a deadline to reach agreement or return to the status quo of qualifying offer and no draft. The union proposed November 15 for the date, but mere minutes after my morning update went live, The Athletic’s Evan Drellich reported that the two sides had agreed to a July 25 deadline instead. After a bit more back and forth on the numbers, the proposal was put to a vote, but while the union’s executive subcommittee unanimously voted against the proposal (8–0), the 30 team representatives who round out its executive board voted 26–4 in favor of it, with the Mets, Yankees, Astros and Cardinals dissenting. The owners ratified the agreement shortly after 6 pm ET by a unanimous 30–0 vote, and the lockout officially lifted just after 7 pm ET.

As for the details, not all of them are immediately clear, nor have all of them been fully reported. Here’s what we know so far. Read the rest of this entry »

While the discourse surrounding the details of a new CBA has largely focused on economic issues, Sunday offered a glimpse into its potential impact on the playing field. In their proposal that day, the MLBPA agreed to grant the commissioner the ability to implement a pitch clock, larger bases, and restrictions on the shift for the 2023 season with less offseason notice than previously allowed (45 days compared to a year), per Evan Drellich of The Athletic.

Though no element of the new CBA has been finalized, it does seem likely that the league will be free to experiment with rule changes, given little incentive on the players’ part to resist them when broader matters are at stake. Already, there’s been speculation about how they’ll impact the game, with much of it concerning the demise of the infield shift. On the fantasy side, articles have popped up analyzing which hitters would benefit. On the social media side, there have been memes — lots of them.

On the FanGraphs side — well, let’s give it a shot! It’s a few days overdue, but late is better than never. There’s no guarantee that the commissioner will outlaw infield shifts, but if he does, what happens? Will the game be nudged in the right direction, or will its supposed problems worsen instead? What do we want out of a plan to ban the shift, anyways?

A huge part of it isn’t related to any numbers, but rather aesthetics. Consider how baseball is both a symmetrical and stationary game. It’s true that team sports designate positions to players corresponding to offensive or defensive roles, but in most cases, they come with the freedom to mingle and roam about. In soccer, varying formations are regarded as tradition, not experimentation. In football, there are seemingly endless amounts of routes and passes for teams to implement. In hockey, they play hockey.

Baseball is different. For decades, fielders have remained loyal to their assigned districts, moving only to respond to an incoming ball; even then, they take caution so as not to disrupt an adjacent teammate. Fans, players, and coaches have long understood this. The shift, in this context, is an incongruity that evokes a feeling of discomfort. When a hitter sends a ball through a gap created by an infield shift, we tend to focus on the aberration (the shift) rather than the outcome (a base hit). Likewise, when a line drive is snared by a second baseman in right field, the same out appears unnatural. It’s no wonder numerous fans want the shift gone. It’s also no wonder that they attribute this disruption of baseball’s law and order to a myriad of issues. Read the rest of this entry »

At least from the outside, on Wednesday it appeared possible that after another marathon session of negotiations the owners’ self-imposed lockout might end in time to meet commissioner Rob Manfred’s umpteenth deadline and squeeze in a full 162-game season. The dollar figures from proposals by the league and the union pertaining to the new collective bargaining agreement’s core economic issues had converged into “split the difference” territory. Yet since Tuesday night, it had become apparent that the path to a deal suddenly hinged upon the union agreeing to the implementation of an international draft, in exchange for which the qualifying offer system (a.k.a draft pick compensation) would be eliminated. Long sought by the league, and long reviled by the players, the international draft was suddenly of vital importance for one side and simply too complex for the other to agree to under the pressure of deadlines and ultimatums. And so, around 6:30 pm ET on Wednesday, Manfred snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by announcing the postponement of Opening Day to at least April 14.

Manfred didn’t actually use the phrase “officially canceled,” as he did on March 1, nor did he hold a press conference. This time, he said via a statement, “Because of the logistical realities of the calendar, another two series are being removed from the schedule, meaning that Opening Day is postponed until April 14th.” Given what transpired in the days leading up to this week’s artificially-imposed and then delayed deadline, it’s clear not only that the schedule still has a bit of wiggle room via potential doubleheaders (likely with seven-inning games) and juggled off-days, but that the league understands that it can’t unilaterally dictate the length of the season. The ramifications for shortening the slate with regards to salaries, incentives, and service time will require another layer of negotiations, guaranteeing more headaches — particularly with the union having indicated that anything less than pay and service time based on 162 games could mean withholding approval an expanded playoff format for 2022.

As noted in my coverage on Wednesday, the now-familiar pattern — MLB leaking details of its proposal to the media in the dead of night, in time for the next day’s news cycle but before the players, wary of being pressured into accepting an agreement in the wee hours, could consult their executive board and respond — had the potential to create unfounded optimism about a deal. The international draft, which on Wednesday morning USA Today’s Bob Nightengale called “the last big remaining obstacle to reach a labor deal today” proved to be no small hurdle, either. Read the rest of this entry »