The past week’s game of free-agent infielder musical chairs — which sent Marcus Semien to Toronto, Andrelton Simmons to Minnesota, Tommy La Stella to San Francisco, Enrique Hernández to Boston, and Freddy Galvis to Baltimore — did find a couple of contestants staying in place. Cleveland re-signed Cesar Hernandez, while most notably, Philadelphia retained Didi Gregorius, signing the soon-to-be 31-year-old shortstop to a two-year, $28 million deal. In this nearly stagnant market, that rates as the second-largest contract of any free-agent infielder after DJ LeMahieu’s six-year, $90 million pact.

Gregorius initially landed with the Phillies via a one-year, $14 million pillow contract in December 2019, reuniting with former Yankees manager Joe Girardi, under whom he’d played during the transformative 2015–17 stretch of his career. His comparatively quick return from October 2018 Tommy John surgery had yielded a subpar half-season with the Yankees, as he hit .238/.276/.441 with a 69 wRC+ over the final two months of the ’19 season. Not only did that injury scuttle talks of a long-term extension with the Yankees, but his struggles upon returning also meant no $17.8 million qualifying offer on the way out the door.

Gregorius bounced back in rather impressive fashion in 2020, playing all 60 games and hitting .284/.339/.488 with 10 home runs and a 117 wRC+, an excellent approximation of his 2017–18 production. His defense rebounded as well, to something in the vicinity of average:

In all, Gregorius’ 1.4 WAR not only outdid his modest 0.9 from 2019, but it was also tied for 11th among all shortstops; the rankings were clustered so tightly that he was 0.2 from being eighth or 13th, depending on direction.

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With his eyeblack, dirty uniform, lip-curling grin, and yes, short stature, Dustin Pedroia looked like a kid having the time of his life in the major leagues, and he played like someone would take it all away if he ever let up. In that time, he ran out every tapper to short and chased after every lost cause grounder up the middle. He lived and breathed the game, and if a little thing like a broken foot conspired to keep him out of the lineup, then he’d field grounders on his knees, dammit.

That chapter of his life is now over, as Pedroia announced his retirement on Monday, ending an illustrious career after 14 seasons with the Red Sox. His remote press conference made for an impersonal sunset, though I suppose there’s no more appropriate transition into full-time dad-life than awkwardly pausing mid-presentation while middle-aged adults fiddle with the audio settings on their laptops.

While Pedroia officially hung up his cleats yesterday, an early retirement was inevitable from the time he underwent knee replacement surgery last December, and really ever since Manny Machado’s spikes stripped the cartilage off of his femur back in 2017. At the time, we didn’t know how devastating that slide would prove. He only missed three games at first, and his numbers were mostly good over the rest of the season.

But the damage to his knee caused extraordinary pain all year long and required multiple trips to the Injured List. Pedroia was no stranger to battling through injuries — he played the entire 2013 season with a torn UCL in his thumb and many other maladies before and after. This was different though. The damaged knee noticeably limited his mobility and sapped his power. He said that playing through the thumb injury was “like a massage” by comparison, and he never recovered from exerting so much pressure on his knee that year. Extensive rehab got him on the field for bits and pieces of the 2018 and ’19 seasons, but only as a shell of himself. This winter’s knee replacement has allowed Pedroia to walk without pain again, but at a heavy cost: Just 37 years old, he’ll never be able to run again. Read the rest of this entry »

It was never going to be enough for one of the more electrifying players in the world, but allow me to sing one part of the harmony panning the Rockies’ return for Nolan Arenado. As I was on the phone working on prospects lists in the days before the trade’s prospect details were finalized, casual conversation with scouts and front office folks indicated that both Arenado’s public request for a trade as well as Rockies ownership’s supposedly mediocre financial situation made it so that teams pursuing the third baseman were really leveraging Colorado into taking an underwhelming prospect package, knowing that the front office (which is different than ownership) would have no choice but to trade him, and soon. While I can’t know what other offers the Rockies received or how those prospect packages compared to the one they got, which we’d really need to know to truly evaluate this or any trade, it certainly isn’t an exciting group. They’re 40 FV prospects who I think can be big league role players, but none are potential stars, and there may not even be a regular among them. I think you could argue this group does better to mitigate risk through quantity than, say, the prospects in the Joe Musgrove trade, but the best piece in the Musgrove trade (Hudson Head, a 45 FV) is two full FV grades better than anyone in this deal. And St. Louis got Nolan Arenado.

But let’s talk about these players — Austin Gomber, Elehuris Montero, Mateo Gil, Tony Locey, Jake Sommers — and then the future of this bizarre Rockies organization. The player in this deal with the most obvious physical talent is 22-year-old 3B/1B Elehuris Montero, who spent the year at the Cardinals’ alternate site. He peaked as a 40+ FV prospect after his 2018 performance (.322/.381/.529 at Low-A) but I backed off of him after spending an extended period watching him in the 2019 Arizona Fall League. His approach is a problem. During some of his Fall League starts, Montero saw five pitches over the course of an entire game. During the regular season, he averaged just shy of 2.5 pitches per plate appearance. For comparison’s sake, among big league hitters with at least 200 PAs in 2019, Willians Astudillo ranked last in pitches per PA with 2.9; no other big leaguer was under three. From a hitting talent perspective — the bat speed, primarily — Montero has everyday upside, but corner bats with approach issues are terrifying prospects. Read the rest of this entry »

Quinn Priester has gained a lot of helium since ranking seventh on our 2020 Pittsburgh Pirates Top Prospects list. Thanks to stellar showings at the alternate camp and instructs, the 6-foot-3, 215 pound right-hander has climbed into the middle of Baseball America’s and MLB Pipeline’s Top 100s. (Our 2021 Pirates offseason list hasn’t run yet, but according to Eric Longenhagen, Priester will feature prominently and will grace this year’s Top 100.) Just yesterday, Jim Callis wrote that some scouts have told him that Priester — the 18th overall pick in the 2019 draft — could emerge as the best pitching prospect in baseball in 2021.

Priester, who’ll celebrate his 21st birthday this coming September, was featured here at FanGraphs 12 months ago. Last week, he caught us up with the strides he’s made since that time.

———

David Laurila: You were at the alternate site last summer. What was that experience like?

Quinn Priester: “It was about two weeks, so it wasn’t a whole lot of time, but it was super big for me. I got to be around older guys, some who have been in the big leagues, that have experienced things I haven’t. I’ve only had half a season with two short-season teams — I haven’t come close to a minor-league season of 144 games — so I’m behind the learning curve in that respect.”

Laurila: What can you learn from being around more experienced players?

Priester: “Just the way they prepare. They have intent with every throw, because they know how valuable those throws are over the course of the season. Wasting throws is going to lead to more soreness, and stuff like that. It was cool to literally see how to play catch again, and not just be the high school kid who throws really hard. It was about getting in the work that I need to get in, like staying behind fastballs and making the most out of the couple of curveballs I’ll throw in catch play. Rather than just throwing, I was having direction and a goal. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley break down the Nolan Arenado trade from the Rockies’ and Cardinals’ perspectives, reflect on the Rockies’ rudderless state, touch on a few more minor transactions (Alex Cobb to the Angels, Didi Gregorius to the Phillies, and Eddie Rosario to Cleveland), remember the career of the now-retired Dustin Pedroia, and touch on the latest exchanges between MLB and the MLBPA about when to start the season (with a postscript about late-breaking news).

Audio intro: Keith Richards, "Something for Nothing"
Audio outro: Pllush, "Stuck to You"

Link to Ben Clemens on the Arenado deal
Link to discussion about blockbusters
Link to story about the Rockies’ front office
Link to Bridich’s comments about beat writers
Link to story about Monfort
Link to Jake Mailhot on the Rosario signing
Link to report about MLB-MLBPA negotiations
Link to Twitter thread about MLB-MLBPA negotiations
Link to report about Callaway

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Ever since Michael Brantley left as a free agent after the 2018 season, Cleveland has had an extremely difficult time fielding a competent outfield. During the past two seasons, the team’s outfielders have collectively accumulated just four WAR in total, the sixth worst mark in the majors. Those struggles go back even further than the last two years, though. In the past decade, Cleveland has had just six qualified outfielders post a wRC+ over 100; five of those seasons were from Brantley, and the sixth was from Shin-Soo Choo back in 2012.

That long stretch of outfield futility may come to an end in 2021, as Cleveland agreed to a one-year, $8 million deal with Eddie Rosario last Friday. Fans in Northeast Ohio should be well acquainted with Rosario, who has spent his entire career with the division-rival Twins, and who should immediately provide some stability and an infusion of talent to an outfield that sorely needs it.

In six seasons with the Twins, Rosario posted a 106 wRC+ and 11.4 WAR. That may not look like much on the surface, but he took a big step forward in 2017, cutting his strikeout rate from 25.7% the year before to 18.0% and upping his ISO from .152 to .218. His numbers from that season on: a 111 wRC+ and 8.1 WAR. Excepting the shortened 2020 season, he’s hit more than 24 home runs in every year of that span, and his strikeout rate has continued to drop. While that power and contact are nice, they’re borne from an extremely aggressive approach at the plate that’s limited his career walk rate to just 4.7% and made him an extremely streaky hitter at the plate. When his balls are falling in for hits, his peaks can be high, but that means his overall production is at the whims of the BABIP gods.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Joc Pederson has had a strange career so far. In his six-plus seasons in the majors, he’s put together four solid seasons, with WAR totals ranging between 2.7 and 3.5. He’s done it with his bat — his career .230/.336/.470 slash line works out to a 118 wRC+. Because he’s done it on the Dodgers, however, he’s been no more than a platoon bat most years, and so in our heads, he’s mostly just a part-time player.

Over these six years, he’s been roughly as valuable as Mike Moustakas, Whit Merrifield, or AJ Pollock, all of whom have felt like stars at one point or another. He’s only 1 WAR shy of Michael Brantley, 2 WAR shy of new teammate Javier Báez. It’s hard to fight the lingering sense that he’s never gotten a full opportunity, though. At least, he hasn’t until now — on Friday, the Cubs signed Pederson to a one-year, $7 million deal, as first reported by Ken Rosenthal.

After non-tendering Kyle Schwarber, the Cubs lacked outfield depth, and that’s putting it charitably. Phillip Ervin, who they claimed on waivers in December, was a starter by default. By signing there, Pederson will likely be answering the biggest unknown about his game: can Joc hit lefties? Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

This year’s Hall of Fame election shutout halted a remarkable run: seven consecutive years of multiple candidates being elected, and 22 candidates over that span, both of which were modern voting era records. Even with this year’s shutout, and the possibility of another one next year — reactions to the specific candidates closest to election, it would appear, rather than to the process as a whole — it’s undeniable that the dynamics of Hall elections have changed.

Consider this: From 1966 to 2005, only three candidates recovered from debuts below 25% to reach 75%, even with 15 years of eligibility: Duke Snider (17.0% in 1970, elected in ’81), Don Drysdale (21.0% in 1975, elected in ’84) and Billy Williams (23.4% in 1982, elected in ’87). Since then, we’ve seen five players elected despite such slow starts, including three from 2017-20. From the 15-year eligibility period came Bruce Sutter (23.9% in 1994, elected in 2006), and Bert Blyleven (17.5% in ’98, elected in 2011), and then once the Hall unilaterally decided to cut eligibility from 15 years to 10 — less to clean up the ballots than to try moving the intractable debate over PED-related candidates out of the spotlight — Tim Raines (24.3% in 2008, elected in ’17), Mike Mussina (20.3% in 2014, elected in ’19), and Larry Walker (20.3% in 2011, elected in ’20).

This year, Gary Sheffield (11.7% in 2015), Billy Wagner (10.5% in ’16), and Todd Helton (16.2% in ’19) all crossed the 40% threshold, the point where the odds of eventual election really start to tilt in a candidate’s favor, and Scott Rolen (10.2% in ’18) topped 50%, the point at which eventual election becomes a near-certainty. If you’ve been reading my coverage for any length of time, you know my line about Gil Hodges being the only exception from the latter group besides the current candidates on the ballot, but consider what the data tells us about landing in the 40-49% range even once. Out of the 40 candidates who have done so since 1966 (the year voters returned to the annual balloting) and are no longer on the ballot, 20 were elected by the writers and another 14 by small committees.

In other words, it’s not unreasonable to think about the aforementioned players finding spots in Cooperstown sometime in the next five years, which is a lot more fun to consider than another year of quarreling over the quartet of polarizing players — Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling, and Omar Vizquel — whose character issues became the focus of the past election cycle.

In any event, it’s time to break out my crystal ball for my eighth-annual five-year election outlook, an exercise that requires some amount of imagination and speculation. While it’s grounded in my research into the candidates and the history and mechanics of the voting, the changes to the process that have occurred over those eight years raise the question of how valuable that history is from a prognostication standpoint. Revising this annually is a necessity because every incorrect assumption has a ripple effect; the presence of a high-share holdover means less space for and less attention paid to the midballot guys. Read the rest of this entry »