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.
Read the rest of this entry »

Ryan Kreidler isn’t the same hitter that Eric Longenhagen and Kevin Goldstein described when they put together our Detroit Tigers Top Prospects List last spring. The 24-year-old (as of last month) shortstop no longer possesses a “conservative, contact-oriented approach coupled with limited raw power.” Thanks to remaking his mindset and mechanics, Kreidler crushed 22 home runs this season while slashing a solid .270/.349/.454. Making those numbers all the more impressive is that the 2019 fourth-rounder out of UCLA put them up between Double-A Erie and Triple-A Toledo in his first full professional season.

His collegiate and short-season output had been that of a contact-oriented hitter. Kreider went deep 16 times in his three years as a Bruin, and just twice in 257 plate appearances with the New York Penn-League’s Connecticut Tigers in 2019. Dissatisfied with the dismal level of production, he went back to the drawing board.

“I wasn’t hitting the ball in the air very much,” said Kreidler, who according to Longenhagen and Goldstein lacked athleticism in the batter’s box. “I made some changes over [the 2019] offseason, then got a chance to work on them when I was home during COVID.”

The Davis, California native turned to Los Angeles-based hitting instructor Doug Latta for guidance. Read the rest of this entry »

Under General Manager Kim Ng, the Miami Marlins have said a lot of positive things about investing in their roster in order to be a factor in what is becoming a highly competitive National League East. Over the past few days, they’ve begun to put their money where their collective mouth is.

On Tuesday, the club formally announced a five-year, $56 million extension for right-handed starter Sandy Alcantara; the deal, which was initially reported last week, includes a $21 million option for a sixth year, buying out his three arbitration years and as many as three years of free agency. It’s easy to forget that when the Marlins acquired Alcantara from the Cardinals as part of a four-player package received in return for outfielder Marcell Ozuna, he was not seen as the best prospect in the trade (for that matter, neither was right-hander Zac Gallen, who was also acquired in the deal). Instead, the real prize was speedy outfielder Magneuris Sierra. Sierra hasn’t worked out, but the deal has still been very fruitful for Miami.

At the time of the trade, Alcantara was seen by many as a likely future reliever due to his plus-plus arm strength, sloppy command and a shallow arsenal. To the credit of the Marlins pitching group, and more importantly, Alcantara himself, he has turned into a strike thrower, maintained his velocity, and developed a much more effective complement of off-speed pitches. That combination has turned him into one of the better (and more durable) young starters in the game, one who also has several underlying indicators that portend future improvements. Read the rest of this entry »

With Major League Baseball’s current collective bargaining agreement (CBA) set to expire at 11:59 p.m. Eastern tonight, the owners and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) are currently meeting in Dallas to exchange various proposals in an attempt to reach a deal. Unfortunately, media reports suggest that no new agreement is imminent, meaning that the sport is facing the very real possibility that it will experience its first work stoppage since the infamous players’ strike of 1994-95.

While it is certainly possible that tonight’s deadline could pass without triggering a labor stoppage — indeed, the two sides can elect to continue to negotiate with the existing CBA governing the sport in the interim — MLB commissioner Rob Manfred seemed to suggest prior to Thanksgiving that the owners will lock out the players if no agreement is reached this evening.

Consequently, this post explores the various options available to the MLBPA should the owners implement a lockout at midnight tonight as anticipated. Along the way, I will borrow from a similar post I wrote back in 2016 during the last CBA negotiations. While that labor-stoppage primer ultimately proved to be unnecessary, barring a miraculous turn of events in the coming hours, it would appear that fans are unlikely to be so lucky this time around. (Meanwhile, for anyone looking to understand the basis for the current dispute between the owners and players, this preview from a couple weeks ago may prove helpful.)

First, some basic legal background. A lockout is a legally sanctioned tool in which management (in this case, team owners) announces that it will refuse to allow its unionized employees (presently, the players) to work until an ongoing labor dispute is resolved. This means that the players will not be paid, or allowed to report to work, until a new CBA has been agreed to. In the interim, there will be no major-league free-agent signings, trades, or games played. A lockout is thus the ownership equivalent of a strike by the players. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss the onslaught of transaction activity leading up to the expiration of the CBA, touching on why they and others misread how fast the market would move, why players and teams have done deals so quickly and how the burst of spending could affect labor talks, the group of non-playoff teams that are trying to win, the Rangers and Mets pushing in their chips, the futures of Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, and Javier Báez, Max Scherzer’s record-breaking contract, Kevin Gausman vs. Robbie Ray, the aesthetics of Starling Marte, how close to contention the Mariners, Tigers, and Marlins might be, the Byron Buxton extension and the state of the Twins, the prominent teams that haven’t been busy, what the Rockies are thinking, where Carlos Correa could end up, and more.

Audio intro: The Orange Peels, "All at Once"
Audio outro: Bee Gees, "All My Christmases Came at Once"

Link to Dan Syzmborski on the Mets’ signings
Link to Jay Jaffe on the Scherzer signing
Link to Dan on the Semien signing
Link to Kevin Goldstein on the Seager signing
Link to Dan on the Ray signing
Link to Ben Clemens on the Gausman signing
Link to Brendan Gawlowski on the Frazier trade
Link to Ben Clemens on the Buxton extension
Link to Justin Choi on the Gray signing
Link to Ben Clemens on the Báez signing
Link to Danny Knobler on a signing deadline
Link to MLB-proposed free-agent signing deadline
Link to MLB.com on a signing deadline
Link to SI on speeding up free agency
Link to RosterResource payroll page
Link to Ken Rosenthal on Correa
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

 iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)
 Sponsor Us on Patreon
 Facebook Group
 Effectively Wild Wiki
 Twitter Account
 Get Our Merch!
 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

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.

Lefty O’Doul

A hard-throwing southpaw, two-time batting champion, longtime minor league manager, pioneer of Japanese baseball, and dapper San Francisco icon — Lefty O’Doul was all of these things and more. He played just 11 seasons in the majors leagues between 1919 and ’34, appearing only sparingly during his 20s as he was unable to sustain success on the mound due to an injury suffered while serving in the U.S. Navy. After converting to the outfield and woodshedding in the Pacific Coast League, he reemerged as one of the game’s top hitters, finding success under particularly hitter-friendly circumstances. While traveling to Japan with a group of All-Stars in 1931, he became engrossed with spreading the game, soon writing a manual for teaching the fundamentals of baseball to Japanese players, and serving as a goodwill ambassador both before and after World War II in addition to his duties managing in the PCL. Though he owns the highest batting average of any eligible player outside the Hall of Fame, his case for Cooperstown rests on his pioneering work in furthering baseball’s reach. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s something satisfying about the perfect trip to the grocery store. If you’re anything like me, you know what I’m talking about: you have a list of a ton of things you can’t wait to eat, you cross each of them off as you throw them in your cart, and by the time you reach the cash register, you can almost taste the delicious meals you’ll be eating the rest of the week.

Why bring this up now? Because that’s how I imagine Al Avila feels after signing Javier Báez, with the Tigers inking the ex-Cubs shortstop to a six-year, $140 million deal last night, as Jon Morosi first reported. Front-line starter. Shortstop. Catcher. The Tigers came into this offseason looking to place star veterans around their burgeoning youth movement, and with Báez in tow, they’ve now landed a top hitter to go with a top pitcher, just like they planned.

Báez played second base after his trade to New York last season, but he’s a natural fit at shortstop. He’s a plus defender with a knack for making spectacular plays, but even without those flourishes, he’d be an asset in the field, with a huge arm and solid range and instincts. Of the marquee shortstops in this class, Báez and Carlos Correa are first and second, and no one else is in the same stratosphere.
Read the rest of this entry »