The opening weekend of the NCAA season is in the books. Below, we have compiled a roundup of some of the players who sparked our interest, much like our weekly dispatches from last year. We’ll publish a post like this every week between now and either the draft or the end of the nation-wide amateur season, whichever comes first. We’ll also have a separate, more irregular series where we’ll accumulate our collective in-person scouting notes until we have enough for a post. Both of these series may lead to changes in our draft rankings on The Board, changes we’ll tend to note within the relevant player’s writeup.

Speaking of The Board, you’ll notice an update to the “Rank” column there. It’s a change inspired by a question: What is the right number of players to ultimately have ranked on the amateur section of The Board? Historically, our answer has been however many belong on the pro portion of The Board. This has tended to be about four rounds worth of players, though you could make an argument to go deeper, especially in our current era of player development. Read the rest of this entry »

Per the JAWS leaderboard, Adrián Beltré (4) and Scott Rolen (10) rank highest among third basemen not in the Hall of Fame. Beltré will almost certainly get the nod once he becomes eligible, while the currently-on-the ballot Rolen has been making strong headway toward Cooperstown. If and when both players are enshrined, which non-Hall of Fame third baseman will rank highest in JAWS?

The answer is Graig Nettles, who ranks 12th (11th if you don’t include Edgar Martinez). In terms of WAR, Nettles (65.7) ranks right in front of Martinez (65.5), and close behind Rolen (69.9). Beltré (84.1) is comfortably ahead of all three.

Should Nettles be in the Hall of Fame? His accolades and accomplishments include 390 home runs, six All-Star berths, two Gold Gloves — he’d have won more were it not for Brooks Robinson — and a pair of World Series rings. All told, he played in five Fall Classics. Back when Jay Jaffe was writing for Sports Illustrated, my esteemed colleague tabbed Nettles as the most-overlooked player at his position when it comes to Hall of Fame worthiness.

Meanwhile, was Beltré better than Robinson? A clear majority of the people who voted in a Twitter poll I ran yesterday feel that he was. Of the 337 people who weighed in, 61.7% opted for Beltré, while only 38.3% sided with the legendary Baltimore Orioles Hall of Famer. Read the rest of this entry »

Inspired by the loophole-exposing chicanery of former player and manager Eddie “The Brat” Stanky, Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley draft 19 MLB rule changes that were solely or largely precipitated by one player, manager, coach, or owner.

Audio intro: We Are Scientists, “Rules Don’t Stop”
Audio outro: Pezband, “Eddie’s Pals”

Link to A Game of Inches
Link to A Game of Inches intro
Link to King Kelly myth
Link to archaic/obsolete rule changes
Link to story about Chapman and new balls
Link to more on Chapman and balls
Link to story on the spitball’s evolution
Link to story on banning the spitball
Link to Utley slide rule story
Link to Stanky maneuver story
Link to Stanky maneuver image
Link to Stanky maneuver/sac fly rule
Link to story on Randle foul ball play
Link to Randle video
Link to story on foul ball rules
Link to A Game of Inches on fair-fouls
Link to Nate Silver on Barnes
Link to Barnes Stathead WAR query
Link to Stanky running start rule story
Link to base-coach interference passage
Link to Schaefer reverse-running rule
Link to story about the Schaefer play
Link to Schaefer in The Glory of Their Times
Link to The Glory of Their Times fact-checks
Link to story on Harry Davis play
Link to story on Segura play
Link to Veeck’s fences story
Link to Ben on Veeck As in Wreck
Link to Green Cathedrals debunking
Link to A Game of Inches on Lane
Link to Venditte rule blog post
Link to ESPN Venditte feature
Link to 2008 NYT Venditte story
Link to 2008 Venditte video
Link to oversized mitt story
Link to A Game of Inches on oversized mitts
Link to Ben on the Waxahachie Swap
Link to start of Stanky LIFE story
Link to end of Stanky LIFE story
Link to Stanky college mound visit story
Link to Stanky SABR bio
Link to Stanky South Alabama feature
Link to Stanky retirement story
Link to George Wright hat catch story
Link to old hat catch rule
Link to NYT Hornsby story
Link to BP on why players can’t be owners
Link to story on the Spiders and syndicates
Link to ESPN on the foul-strike rule
Link to foul-strike rule in A Game of Inches
Link to Jeff’s Capps delivery post
Link to Weaver’s phantom DH rule
Link to Grant on Posey and Avila
Link to more info on home-plate collisions
Link to post on Gaedel and Veeck
Link to Cooney interference story

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2:02	Jay Jaffe: Hey folks, good afternoon and welcome to my chat! I’m running a few minutes behind here as lunch just arrived and I had a home appliance situation to tend to . Gonna need 5-10 minutes to get settled

2:02	Jay Jaffe: your patience is appreciated

2:06	Jay Jaffe: OK, I’m back

2:06	Jay Jaffe: My piece on the Juan Soto extension offer went up earlier today https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-nationals-350-million-extension-offer-….

2:07	Jay Jaffe: Yesterday, we published my piece on S-JAWS and the dearth of Hall of Fame starting pitchers from recent decades https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cooperstown-notebook-the-incredible-shrink…

2:08	Jay Jaffe: And earlier this week I had a look at the owners’ CBA offer from last Saturday https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-owners-latest-offer-gets-us-no-closer-…

Read the rest of this entry »

Amid a dearth of baseball news, the Nationals took a starring role this week, not only via the retirement of franchise cornerstone Ryan Zimmerman but also the report that before the lockout, the team offered Juan Soto a 13-year, $350 million extension. While we’ve now seen nine deals of at least $300 million in recent years — not to mention a report of a pending extension offer to Soto in the wake of Fernando Tatis Jr.’s $340-million deal last March — the price tag produced the usual sticker shock on social media, as well as incredulity given that the slugger declined it.

Via ESPN Deportes’ Enrique Rojas, the 23-year-old Soto confirmed the news, saying, “Yes, they made me an offer a few months ago, before the lockout. But right now, my agents and I think the best option is to go year by year and wait for free agency. My agent, Scott Boras, has control over the situation.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Yankees starting rotation sits in an odd position while rosters are frozen during the owner’s lockout. No one can question Gerrit Cole’s dominance as the team ace, but after him, there are some real concerns about the health of the rest of the rotation. Luis Severino returned from Tommy John surgery to pitch in four relief appearances in 2021 plus one additional outing in the American League Wild Card game. Jameson Taillon’s season ended prematurely after he tore a ligament in his ankle, and his previous health history isn’t exactly spotless. It’s hard to know what to expect from Nestor Cortes or Domingo Germán either. That leaves Jordan Montgomery as the presumed number two starter behind Cole.

Montgomery missed nearly two seasons after his own Tommy John surgery back in 2018. He returned to the mound late in 2019 and struggled through the abbreviated ’20 season. Last year, he put together his most complete season of his short career, posting a career-best 3.69 FIP while accumulating 3.3 WAR. It was a solid performance in his first true full season since his rookie campaign back in 2017.

Ignoring his four-inning cup of coffee in 2019, Montgomery posted the highest strikeout rate of his career last season. Nearly all of those punch outs are fueled by two phenomenal secondary pitches. Both his changeup and curveball feature whiff rates around 40% and he uses both to dispatch batters. When the count gets to two strikes, he throws one of those two pitches over 60% of the time and opposing batters can’t help but swing and miss. Read the rest of this entry »

Today marks the 79th day of the owner-initiated lockout. It still remains to be seen how long the lockout will last, but whatever its length, we’re likely to see a whirlwind of a mini-offseason as soon as the league and the players come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement. While that kind of thing is fun to cover — the week before the lockout was a thrilling frenzy — there’s still quite a lot for baseball to do. So let’s roll up our sleeves, lend a hand, and find some new homes for a few of the remaining free agents. The trick here is that they actually have to make at least a lick of sense for the team signing them. But just a lick.

As we have a lot of work to do, we’ll nail down the hitters first and then divvy up the pitchers in another piece to follow.

Carlos Correa to the Angels – Seven years, $240 million

While there has been some speculation around the interwebs about Carlos Correa possibly landing a $300 million deal, I don’t think that is the likeliest result. Correa had a fabulous 2021 season, reminding people of the phenom he was when he won American League Rookie of the Year back in 2015, but there’s going to be at least some concerns about his durability. Not alarming ones, mind you, but the fact is that before 2021’s 148-game campaign, Correa hadn’t played in 120 games since ’16, a long time for a young player, and that’s even ignoring a pandemic-shortened season during which no one could play 120 games. That’s probably not going to scare teams off, but it will inevitably be priced into his offers since front offices these days are populated more by mean nerds like me than they are dewy-eyed optimists. Read the rest of this entry »

Is baseball just a bummer these days? For the most part, yes. So let’s mope together with another episode of Chin Music. I’m joined by FanGraphs editor-in-chief managing editor Meg Rowley as we try to help you laugh through the pain. We begin by assessing where we stand in terms of the lockout (wobbly at best), then move on to the Eric Kay trial and what it means for baseball overall, before spending a small amount of time trying to find something positive to say about the current state of the game. Then it’s special guest time, as we are joined by Lincoln Mitchell, one of the preeminent experts on post-Soviet Russia. Lincoln explains what’s really going on in the Ukraine so we can all be a little smarter about world affairs and stop listening quite so much to the talking heads on network news. From there, it’s your emails on Rule 5 draft pick trades and high-altitude baseball, followed by some new television and music recommendations. As always, we hope you enjoy, and thank you for listening.

Music by Model Home.

Have a question you’d like answered on the show? Ask us anything at chinmusic@fangraphs.com.

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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: 2:00:17.

Have a question you’d like answered on the show? Ask us anything at chinmusic@fangraphs.com.

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Episode 962

On this week’s episode, David Laurila welcomes veteran major league reliever Adam Ottavino to the program.

Ottavino shares his thoughts on the lockout and spring training before the pair go in-depth on pitching itself. We hear about the nuances of slider usage, who the right-hander models himself after, and the idea of evolving your pitching game before hitters can adapt to it. Ottavino also describes how pitching in different parks can feel, what it was like to play for both the Yankees and the Red Sox, the story of his pair of major league hits, and what his own future may have in store.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximate 36 minute play time.)

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