On Tuesday, we published an update to our 2022 Draft rankings. Today, I pushed 2023 and 2024 to The Board, with the small 2024 group consisting almost entirely of our highly-ranked, unsigned 2021 high schoolers.

The most significant takeaway from the 2023 class is its projected strength at the top. There’s currently only one 50 FV prospect in the 2022 class, but already three atop the 2023 group: Ole Miss shortstop Jacob Gonzalez, Wake Forest third baseman Brock Wilken, and LSU outfielder Dylan Crews. That’s more than has been typical for a class that’s still a year and a half away from draft day. Gonzalez has special bat-to-ball skills and can play a premium position, Wilken already has 70-grade raw power and rare athleticism for a corner defender, and Crews performed in the SEC and reinforced confidence in the huge tools that made him famous as a high schooler.

This group may eventually be joined by more prospects. Most of the college players who will be eligible in 2023 are still teenagers right now, and some of them have not even had the opportunity to play consistently as they are coming off freshman seasons at big, talent-rich programs. With a couple of obviously excellent prospects already in place at the top of the class, and so much of the rest of it still in a magmatic stage of development, the 2023 draft has a shot to be pretty special up top. Read the rest of this entry »

The season is over, but Chin Music rolls on, as Lindsey Adler of The Athletic takes a spin in the revolving co-host chair. We sure have plenty to talk about, and we begin with (what else?) the lockout, though not in the sense of how we got here or how it ends. Instead, we consider what is or isn’t going on in front offices and throughout baseball right now, and just how draconian the league has been in enforcing its lockout rules. Then we discuss the insanity that was the free agent frenzy in the days leading up to the lockout, as we try to figure out why teams behaved the way they did and what it might mean. Then we get away from baseball for a bit with our guest segment, as professional poker player Brandon Shack-Harris joins the show to talk about his recently concluded World Series, catching COVID, wearing bear suits at the table, and how he learned how to play from the lead singer of Muse. Then it’s your emails on the Winter Meetings, drugs, and scouting scales, followed by some high- and low-brow entries in the Moment Of Culture.

As always, we hope you enjoy, and thank you for listening.

Music by Rid Of Me.

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Warning One: While ostensibly a podcast about baseball, these conversations often veer into other subjects.

Warning Two: There is explicit language.

Run Time: 2:38:28

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the beginning of the lockout, which marks MLB’s ninth work stoppage and the first in 26 years. They also discuss a flurry of buzzer-beating transactions, including the Dodgers re-signing Chris Taylor, the Cubs signing Marcus Stroman, the Brewers and Red Sox swapping Jackie Bradley Jr. and Hunter Renfroe, and the Red Sox remaking their rotation with Rich Hill and James Paxton. Then (32:13) they bring on Indiana University professor and FanGraphs contributor Nathaniel Grow to discuss the significance of the lockout, what can and can’t happen while the lockout is in place, how and when it might be resolved, challenging MLB’s antitrust exemption, and more.

Audio intro: Crowded House, “Locked Out”
Audio interstitial: Lucinda Williams, “Changed the Locks”
Audio outro: Pink Floyd, “The Show Must Go On“

Link to Manfred’s letter
Link to Tony Clark’s statement
Link to Manfred’s press conference
Link to more Manfred and Clark comments
Link to Ben Clemens on Taylor
Link to Eric Longenhagen on Renfroe/Bradley
Link to Kevin Goldstein on Iglesias
Link to Dan Szymborski on Paxton
Link to last Evan Drellich podcast appearance
Link to Evan on the most divisive issues
Link to Evan on the start of the lockout
Link to Evan on the path to the lockout
Link to Nathaniel’s CBA preview
Link to Nathaniel’s lockout preview
Link to Travis Sawchik on 1995 signings
Link to Ben on spring training for free agents
Link to Mike Axisa on work stoppage rules
Link to Nathaniel on the antitrust exemption
Link to Baseball on Trial
Link to Effectively Wild Secret Santa
Link to Travis on agents and earnings
Link to Shi Davidi on the Gausman signing
Link to Davidi on Gausman vs. Ray
Link to Stove League teaser video
Link to Stove League review
Link to stream Stove League via Kocowa
Link to stream Stove League via Viki

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Episode 951

This week we attempt to react to the tidal wave of baseball news and transactions, including a focus on two teams that look like they’re ready to compete in the AL West.

• To kick things off, David Laurila welcomes Matt Hicks, a radio broadcaster for the Texas Rangers, and Shannon Drayer, an ESPN radio journalist who covers the Seattle Mariners. David asks about their respective clubs’ spending sprees, from Marcus Semien to Corey Seager to Robbie Ray. We also hear about how important Chris Young is to the Rangers, what Scott Servais means to the Mariners, the clubs’ biggest rivalries in the division and elsewhere, and what effect these moves have on the teams’ willingness to go for it in 2022. [2:42]
• In the second half, Ben Clemens and Jason Martinez take in the flurry of moves leading up to the expiration of the CBA. They discuss who a lockout is hardest for, how to encourage competition, and what expanded playoff formats could look like. We also learn about brinksmanship and what a break in transactions over the winter could look and feel like. [41:42]

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Audio after the jump. (Approximate 1 hour 11 minutes play time.)

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Late Wednesday night, the Red Sox and Brewers consummated a trade that sent rightfielder Hunter Renfroe to Milwaukee in exchange for centerfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. and two prospects, shortstop David Hamilton and first baseman Alex Binelas. It was the last agreed-upon trade prior to MLB owners locking out the players at midnight.

While Bradley has had an excellent big league career, the center of this trade is Renfroe, who heads to his fourth team in four years and is coming off a 2021 in which he slashed .259/.315/.501 and cleared the 30-homer benchmark for the second time in his career. He becomes the fourth right-handed hitter acquired by Milwaukee over the last couple of weeks, after corner infielder Mike Brosseau, catcher Pedro Severino, and non-roster invite centerfielder Jonathan Davis. By wRC+, Milwaukee was 26th in baseball against left-handed pitching (96) in 2021; Renfroe is a career .263/.346/.557 hitter against southpaws and should help in this area immediately. And while there’s not a clear platoon partner for him in Milwaukee right now, perhaps Jace Peterson or Rowdy Tellez will take key late-game at-bats against righties in his stead or make the occasional start. Renfroe’s defense — especially his incredible arm, which is one of the best in pro baseball — gives him a little extra utility on days when he’s starting against a righty.

Renfroe has two years of team control remaining, as 2022 will be his second arbitration year and ’23 will be his last before hitting free agency after the season. Milwaukee has some similarly-skilled outfield prospects on the way in Joe Gray Jr. and Joey Wiemer, but unless they ascend more quickly than expected, it’s a safer bet that Renfroe wraps his pre-free agency days as a key cog in Milwaukee.

Conversely, this trade leaves Boston without a powerful, right-handed hitting outfielder on their roster. Obviously the Red Sox can continue to shape their roster after the lockout ends, but its current composition is heavy on lefty sticks in the outfield (Bradley, Jarren Duran, Alex Verdugo). The on-roster solution is for Christian Arroyo to get infield starts against lefties with Enrique Hernández moving to the outfield on those days. Another path may be for Jeter Downs (who had a terrible summer, rebounded in the Fall League, and was added to the 40-man last month) to push for at-bats in a fashion similar to Arroyo or be present depth behind him, as Arroyo gets hurt a lot. Or Triston Casas could kick down the door and claim the everyday first base job at some point, which would open up a lefty-mashing four corners role for Bobby Dalbec. There are clear, on-roster avenues for Boston’s pieces to compliment one another, though the front office probably is not done shaping the fringes of the roster.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ brand is synonymous with superstars. It’s Clayton Kershaw, Mookie Betts, and deadline trades for Max Scherzer. Have a problem that needs a hammer? The Dodgers will bring two hammers, and they’ll have Walker Buehler on standby just in case. Those are the perks of having both one of the shrewdest front offices in baseball and one of the highest payrolls in the sport every year.

It’s funny, then, that Chris Taylor is one of the team’s greatest success stories. Taylor came to the Dodgers as an afterthought, in exchange for Zach Lee, a minor league pitcher who made all of 14 starts in the Seattle system before the team waived him. Six years later, Taylor is again headed to Los Angeles — but this time he’s doing it as a very rich man rather than a career minor leaguer. He and the Dodgers agreed to a four-year contract worth $60 million, as Ken Rosenthal reported. The deal also contains a team option for a fifth year.

All of that stuff I said at the top about the Dodgers and stars? It’s true, but the Los Angeles roster relies on positional versatility to make everything work. Taylor is the poster boy for this style: he played at least 50 innings at second, third, short, left, center, and right last year. Corey Seager injury? Taylor can fill in. Strange lineup with Max Muncy at second and Cody Bellinger at first? Taylor can flip to center — or to third base if Justin Turner needs a breather. Seager is gone, but with Trea Turner as a one-for-one replacement, Taylor will likely continue to get near-everyday playing time without a true home in the field. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »