When the Angels designated Albert Pujols for assignment in early May, it seemed as if the decorated slugger had reached the end of the line, especially given the rumors that circulated in February that the 2021 season could be his last. And at the time of the announcement, he was slashing just .198/.250/.372 in 92 plate appearances and amid his fifth-consecutive below-replacement level season. But after clearing waivers, Pujols drew interest from three to four different teams, with the Dodgers coming out of nowhere to sign him to a major league deal at the minimum salary for the rest of the season.

Jay Jaffe wrote about the Dodgers’ acquisition of Pujols at the time and how he could be most effectively used: as a starter at first base, specifically against left-handed pitching. Still, Jay didn’t think the Pujols experiment would endure, especially as Los Angeles’ lineup regained its health, and predicted that the future Hall of Famer would end up taking his final cuts with the Cardinals in September. And though that might still be the case, Pujols has actually produced reasonably well for the Dodgers, providing a good-enough bat to warrant penciling him in the lineup, especially against southpaws.

A .266/.298/.476 slash line isn’t world-beating by any means, but even putting up above-average production is a huge success given where Pujols’ offensive numbers have resided in recent seasons. In fact, he just completed a 30-game stretch from May 29 to July 16 in which he posted a 147 wRC+ on the back of a .313/.341/.588 slash line. It was the best output Pujols has seen in years, even in a sample as small as 30 games:

Read the rest of this entry »

This year’s edition of baseball has produced some fascinating hitting performances. We’ve written a lot about Yasmani Grandal and his unprecedented batting line (a 134 wRC+ despite hitting .188). He’s done that in part by swinging at just 30.2% of pitches that he sees in ‘21, lowest in the majors by a wide margin. Max Muncy has also been incredibly selective, offering at just 35.4% pitches, the lowest rate of his career. These players have found that swinging less helps their game, but generally it’s not a trend that we’re seeing across the league. If anything, league-wide swing rates have increased (albeit marginally); this season’s 46.8 Swing% is the third highest since 2000. For every Muncy, there’s also a hitter who likes to swing at just about everything. Salvador Perez and Tim Anderson, for example, have swing rates of 60.3% and 59.3%, respectively.

The outliers are certainly interesting, but just how little can a big leaguer swing and still get away with it? What we’re talking about here are O-Swing% and Z-Swing%. By themselves, these are telling statistics, as hitters with a high O-Swing% strike out a lot more than those with a low O-Swing%.

For context, a 5% increase in O-Swing rate on average results in an increase of 1% to strikeout rate. This relationship is even stronger when it comes to drawing walks.

So far in ‘21, a 5% decrease in O-Swing rate on average results in an increase of 2% in walk rate.

Read the rest of this entry »

With a week to go until the trade deadline, the Rays struck a blow against the other contenders on Thursday night, acquiring designated hitter Nelson Cruz and pitcher Calvin Faucher from the Twins for pitchers Drew Strotman and Joe Ryan. Seemingly immune to changes in offensive environment and the arrow of time, Cruz is having a typical Cruz season at 41, hitting .294/.370/.537 with a 142 wRC+, 19 homers, and a 1.8 WAR, the latter a spicy number for a DH in only 85 games.

Tampa Bay’s lineup has been decent but well below the level of the elite offenses in the American League, ranking eighth in wRC+ and fifth in overall runs scored. The outfield has been a particular work in progress when it comes to offense. Kevin Kiermaier and Brett Phillips have both been excellent defensively, but neither are run producers, and 2020 postseason standout Manuel Margot has been rather pumpkin-ified this year. Adding Cruz to the mix allows the Rays to use Austin Meadows and Randy Arozarena daily in the corners. The primary downside here is that Meadows has a rather long injury history for a player just in his mid-20s, and playing in the field every day could increase the risk of another trip to the IL. I think it’s worth the risk; the Yankees and Jays are slowly drifting out of the divisional race, and the Red Sox are dangerous just as long as their pitching rotation stays healthy.

Adding Cruz was worth about five percentage points of divisional probability for the Rays in the ZiPS projections, shifting the race from a fairly balanced 55/45 race to one tipping a bit in favor of Tampa Bay. Expect many more changes before we flip the calendars!

Read the rest of this entry »

2:02

Jay Jaffe: Hey folks! Welcome to another edition of my chat, this one falling on the same day as my father’s 80th birthday. I’ve just completed my annual Replacement Level Killers series, the last installment of which — center fielder and DHs — went up just a couple of hours ago https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-2021-replacement-level-killers-center-…

2:02	Jay Jaffe: I briefly addressed the Rays’ Nelson Cruz acquisition therein, but here’s Dan Szymborski’s writeup, freshly minted for your enjoyment https://blogs.fangraphs.com/tampa-bay-obtains-a-cruz-missile/

2:03	Jay Jaffe: Not sure how soon we’ll have analysis of the Mets trading for Rich Hill —  I mean, Dick Mountain — but soon enough.

2:05	Jay Jaffe: I think so. He’s having an excellent season, making his 2nd All-Star team, comes with a year of club control so the return will be strogner, and he’s versatile enough to fit any team with an OF, 1B, or even DH need.

2:06	Jay Jaffe: Still think the Padres and Yankees are the most likely destinations

Read the rest of this entry »

For the full introduction to the Replacement-Level Killers series, follow the link above. While still focusing upon teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 10%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — this year I have incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a closer look.

As noted previously, some of these situations are more dire than others, particularly when taken in the context of the rest of their roster. As with some of the previous entries in this series, a few of these situations include midseason turnarounds where returns to normalcy are camouflaged by early-season struggles; one problem spot, that of the Rays’ designated hitters, was shored up in impressive fashion with Thursday night’s acquisition of Nelson Cruz from the Twins. As with previous entries in this series, won-loss records and Playoff Odds are through yesterday (July 22, in this case), but statistics through the day before (July 21).

Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from Tess Taruskin. Read previous installments of the Daily Prospect Notes here.

Anderson Espinoza, RHP, San Diego Padres
Level & Affiliate: High-A Fort Wayne Age: 23 Org Rank: 8 FV: 40+
Line: 2.2 IP, 6 H, 1 BB, 1 R, 6 K

Notes
San Diego acquired Espinoza in the Drew Pomeranz trade in 2016, but he was shutdown before the start of the 2017 due to elbow discomfort. That began five years of developmental delays in the form of multiple Tommy John surgeries and the canceled 2020 minor league season. Now the 23-year-old is back on the mound and looking to recapture the stuff that once earned him top prospect status.

His longest outings this season have gone three innings (a mark he’s matched five times), so his 2.2 innings of work is on par with his understandably stringent workload restrictions. The six hits he allowed were all singles and the ones that came in the first and second innings were all weakly hit, though well placed. Espinoza’s outing ended when those softer hits turned into more solid contact in the third, but not before recording a season-high six strikeouts. His pitch count was already pushing 70 by the end of his short outing. On paper that may seem like cause for concern regarding Espinoza’s command and feel to pitch, which he struggled with earlier this year in his sole spring training appearance with the big league club. But that wasn’t the case on Thursday; the only walk he issued was to the first batter of the game, after which only one other hitter saw a three-ball count, and many of the pitches that were called for balls were extremely close and could just as easily have been called for strikes. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2020 Oakland Athletics won 36 games on their way to winning the AL West for the first time since 2013. They did this despite rather lackluster offensive contributions from their core quintet of Matt Olson (103 wRC+), Matt Chapman (117), Ramón Laureano (103), and Marcus Semien (92). Those four players combined for 4.5 WAR, mostly driven by their stellar defensive performances. Instead, breakout seasons from Mark Canha and Robbie Grossman helped the A’s reach the postseason for the third consecutive season.

With Semien now out of the picture, Oakland needed bounce back seasons in 2021 from the two Matts and Laureano to continue their run of success. Thus far, the A’s are still waiting on two of those three to really get it going. Chapman has taken an even bigger step back; the strikeout issues that plagued him last year have stuck around and now his power has all but disappeared, too. Laureano has had an up-and-down season; he had a strong start to the year with a 138 wRC+ through June 22, but he’s fallen into a deep slump over the past month with a 54 wRC+ since then. Thankfully, Olson has been good enough for both of them.

Last year, Olson saw his strikeout rate jump up to 31.4%, contributing to a batting average that fell below the Mendoza line. A high strikeout rate had been the big concern since he burst onto the scene in 2017 with 24 home runs in 59 games. He’s always had some swing-and-miss in his profile, but a strikeout rate over 30% was definitely a big red flag, no matter how many home runs he launched over the fence. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Friday, so the podcast returns as I am joined by special guest host and national writer for Fox Sports, Pedro Moura. We begin by discussing the looming trade deadline, how COVID has been the early story of the second half, and Shohei Ohtani’s footprint in southern California. We also try to understand what is going on with the Oakland A’s stadium situation. Then we are joined by a very special guest, as we welcome up-and-coming baseball journalist Ken Rosenthal for a discussion about what it’s like to cover the trade deadline, the value of breaking news, and just how many texts Ken will send on July 30. From there, it’s your emails, Pedro’s upcoming book and recent job change, and the spectacularly trashy (but impossible to stop watching) garbage that is Love Island UK.

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

Music by Sarin.

Have a question you’d like answered on the show? Ask us anything at chinmusic@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast (chin-music): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

As is the annual tradition at FanGraphs, we’re using the week after the All-Star Game to take stock of the top 50 players in baseball by trade value in anticipation of next week’s trade deadline. For a more detailed introduction to this year’s exercise, as well as a look at those players who fell just short of the top 50, be sure to read the Introduction and Honorable Mentions piece, which can be found in the widget above.

For those who have been reading the Trade Value Series the last few seasons, the format should look familiar. For every player, you’ll see a table with the player’s projected five-year WAR from 2022-2026, courtesy of Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections. The table will also include the player’s guaranteed money, if any, the year through which their team has contractual control of them, last year’s rank (if applicable), and then projections, contract status, and age for each individual season through 2026, if the player is under contract or team control for those seasons. Last year’s rank includes a link to the relevant 2020 post. One note on the rankings: particularly at the bottom of the list, there’s not a lot of room between players. The ordinal rankings clearly matter, and we put players where they are for a reason, but there’s not much room between, say, 35 and 60. The magnitude of the differences in this part of the list is quite small. Several talent evaluators we talked to might prefer a player in the Honorable Mentions section to one on the back end of the list, or vice versa. We think the broad strokes are correct — but with so many players carrying roughly equivalent value, disagreements abounded. Thanks are due to Sean Dolinar for his help in creating the tables in these posts. At the bottom of the page, there is a grid showing all the players who have been ranked up to this point.

Below you’ll see commentary from both of us for each player. And now, on to this year’s final group. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 932

On this week’s show, we dive deep on Canada’s team before a chat about the Trade Value series and more.

• At the top of the program, David Laurila is joined by Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet to weigh in on the Toronto Blue Jays, who are contending for a playoff spot in the competitive AL East. David and Ben discuss the big contributions the team has gotten from players like Robbie Ray, Alek Manoah, and Marcus Semien, and how Toronto is still waiting to see more from free agent signing George Springer. Ben feels good about the Blue Jays being buyers at the deadline, in large part thanks to the undeniable Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who continues to lead the club with his meteoric rise. [2:36]
• After that, Ben Clemens and Eric Longenhagen have an extended chat to catch up on what they’ve been working on. Eric is on the East Coast after having just been in Denver for the Futures Game, while Ben has been working hard with Kevin Goldstein to attempt to rank the best players in baseball by their trade value. Ben and Eric discuss this challenge and the nuances involved in compiling the list, including different philosophies for how to approach and consider the rankings. The duo talk about specific players who were ranked as part of the exercise, including Jack Flaherty, Mookie Betts, and Freddy Peralta, before getting into the upcoming trade deadline and what impact 40-man roster crunch could have on the deals made. Finally, the pair reflect on the awkward new timing of the draft and the effects it could have. [27:00]

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS