The 2020 season wasn’t entirely full of the doom and gloom that has been the norm in Detroit over the last half decade. Offensively, the Tigers improved over a dismal 2019 performance, and much of that was driven by Jeimer Candelario’s breakout. After emerging as a top prospect with the Cubs and joining the Tigers in a 2017 trade deadline deal, he had a tough time establishing himself in the majors, but he seemingly put everything together last year, posting career-best marks in ISO, wRC+, and strikeout rate.

But even though Candelario looked like he was making good on the promise he showed as a prospect, there were some concerns. As Tony Wolfe wrote when he looked into his breakout back in September:

“Behind the slash line, there is a mix of positives and negatives. His strikeout rate is down, but so is his walk rate. His isolated power is way up, but his BABIP is a flashing yellow caution light. There have certainly been more foolproof 44-game breakouts than Candelario has had, so it’s fair to wonder what his line looks like once we’re further removed from his recent homer surge and his BABIP returns to earth’s atmosphere.”

There are enough positive developments in Candelario’s plate approach and his quality of contact that these concerns might be forgotten this summer. But just in case things turn sour, the Tigers invested in a discount insurance policy by signing ex-Orioles infielder Renato Núñez to a minor league deal with an invitation to spring training.

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In a move that had become a foregone conclusion, on Monday Yadier Molina and the Cardinals finalized a one-year deal that returns the iconic catcher to the only team he’s ever known. The agreement caps an eventful 11-day stretch that included the return of longtime Cardinals righty Adam Wainwright, who was also a free agent, as well as the blockbuster trade that landed Nolan Arenado. While Molina’s new deal doesn’t ensure that he’ll end his career in St. Louis, it’s clear that the 38-year-old backstop is eying the finish line.

Drafted out of a Puerto Rico high school by the Cardinals in the fourth round in 2000, Molina had never tested free agency before thanks to a trio of multiyear extensions, the latest of which was a three-year, $60 million deal signed in April 2017. His new contract thus represents a significant pay cut, as he’ll get $9 million for the 2021 season, with no additional incentives or options. Then again, with 1,989 games caught so far — a total that’s sixth on the all-time list — he’s not the player he once was.

Molina hit a thin .262/.303/.359 with four homers in 156 PA in 2020, and walked a career low 3.8% of the time. His on-base percentage was his lowest mark since 2006, and both his slugging percentage and his 82 wRC+ were his lowest since 2015. His 84.7 mph average exit velocity was his lowest of the Statcast era; that figure placed him the fourth percentile overall, as did his 25.4% hard-hit rate. You’ll be shocked to learn — unless you’ve been following more than a decade’s worth of jokes on my Twitter account about the glacial movement of Molina and his older brothers José and Bengie — that his sprint speed finally reached the first percentile after years of… slow decline. Read the rest of this entry »

12:01

Dan Szymborski: And welcome to the chat!

12:01

Dan Szymborski: Should Fantographs be a FG skin option? Let us know!

12:02

Dan Szymborski:

12:03

Dan Szymborski: Can’t see him as a viable starter at this point. His cups of coffee are good, but small sample as you say and his minor league performances are fairly bleak

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Episode 909

On this week’s episode of FanGraphs Audio, we talk to a new major league broadcaster, an astrophysicist about the deadened baseball, and a true journeyman southpaw.

• To begin the show, David Laurila welcomes John Sadak, the new play-by-play announcer for the Cincinnati Reds. They talk about how John went to college thinking he wanted to do something with math — such as astrophysics — before deciding to pursue a career in sports. He also shares his thoughts about his great opportunity in the TV booth, how he hopes to reach a fanbase as storied as Cincinnati’s, and remembers the late Pedro Gomez. [2:47]
• Following that, Dan Szymborski welcomes Dr. Meredith Wills to the program. With news that MLB plans to change the baseball, Wills’ extensive research on baseball physics is once again top of mind — and was recently featured in a piece at Sports Illustrated. The pair discuss the history, nebulousness, and many ramifications of the issue, as well as mathematical knitting, Mark Twain, and a fun nickname for this new ball. [30:40]
• In the final segment, David returns to talk to left-hander Derrick Loop. The 37-year-old recently pitched in the Caribbean Series, and he shares stories about his experiences playing across the globe, including a few funky playing environments. Loop also gives a little insight into his stellar pick-off move that helped him nab 17 baserunners in a single season in the minors. [1:05:56]

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The Kansas City Royals acquired outfielder Andrew Benintendi from the Boston Red Sox on Wednesday night as part of a three-way trade that also saw the New York Mets get involved. Heading to the Mets is outfield prospect Khalil Lee, while going back to Fenway is outfielder Franchy Cordero and pitcher Josh Winckowski. Also going to the Red Sox are three players to be named later, two from the Royals and one from the Mets.

It’s easy to see why the Royals would be highly interested in Benintendi. Most of the team’s additions this winter have been veterans in smaller deals, seemingly for the purpose of prioritizing short-term wins in 2021 and perhaps snag a Wild Card spot. While I’m unconvinced that the strategy will actually bear fruit this year, this is another move consistent with that plan. Adding Benintendi to Mike Minor, Carlos Santana, Michael A. Taylor, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland makes the Royals more entertaining than they were last season. Of course, Benintendi was a much hotter property back in 2018, hitting .290/.366/.465, enough for 4.4 WAR, before slumping to a .266/.343/.431, 2.0 WAR line in 2019. 2020 was an entirely forgettable four-for-52 campaign that lasted just 14 games due to a rib cage strain. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about having baseball on the brain and the NL Central’s measly World Series odds, then answer listener emails about umpire underwear and repeated pants-splitting, an eccentric baseball billionaire who wants his son to break Cy Young’s career wins record, whether they would pitch a big-league game in exchange for Trevor Bauer’s single-start salary, Nelson Cruz and the Hall of Fame character clause, what percentage of teams have a Hall of Famer, what Pirates fans can look forward to, whether time off in 2020 may help pitchers in the long run, whether Red Sox fans should heckle Manny Machado, and whether and why we’re seeing a golden age of shortstops, plus a Stat Blast about the Angels’ rotation and the other least productive positions on teams over the past five seasons.

Audio intro: Pulp, "Underwear"
Audio outro: Elvis Presley, "Patch it Up"

Link to Ben Clemens on the playoff odds
Link to 1936 Retrosheet pants-splitting play log
Link to 1939 pants-splitting story
Link to 1964 pants-splitting photo
Link to 1966 pants-splitting story
Link to 1974 pants-splitting story
Link to 1976 pants-splitting story
Link to 1988 pants-splitting story
Link to 1990 pants-splitting story
Link to Sam on being embarrassed in a game
Link to Allan Travers SABR bio
Link to Pedroia-Machado play
Link to Grant Brisbee on Pedroia and Machado
Link to Pedroia on the Machado slide
Link to Travis Sawchik on the golden age of shortstops
Link to Travis on the new shortstop power profile
Link to Ben on the Infante signing
Link to Stat Blast least productive positions data
Link to Lindsey Adler on MLB’s new policies

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Earlier this offseason, Dan Szymborski wrote about the Giants’ remade rotation and the strategy behind it. In short: Alex Wood and Anthony DeSclafani were interesting free agents, and without much chance of reaching the playoffs, the team opted to buy low and hope to catch lightning in a bottle. In the weeks since, San Francisco has repeated the same project, only this time for the bullpen, highlighted by Jake McGee’s two-year, $7 million dollar deal announced on Tuesday.

McGee joins a sampler platter of relievers who might be good on cheap deals. In early December, the Giants signed Matt Wisler to a one-year deal. Later that month, they signed John Brebbia, who will spend at least the first half of the year rehabbing from Tommy John surgery but could be a late-season bullpen piece. They’ve also extended minor league deals to Dominic Leone, James Sherfy, Silvino Bracho, and Zack Littell. Spaghetti, meet wall.

McGee is the most interesting member of this group, which explains why he got two years and real money while everyone else got only a single year. He combines three things that teams look out for in relievers: he strikes out more batters than average; he walks fewer batters than average; and he’s left-handed. Those three traits alone are enough to get a job, and indeed, the Dodgers signed McGee to a one-year deal before 2020 when he was coming off back-to-back -0.3 WAR seasons.
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In 2020, for the first time in three seasons, the Miami Marlins finished above dead-last in the majors in home runs. You can blame some of that bad stretch on Marlins Park, which is decidedly pitcher-friendly in the way it suppresses homers. But mostly, it’s because the team just hasn’t had good power hitters. From 2018-19, just three players logged 20 homers in a season, with the highest total being Starlin Castro’s 22. The additions of Jesús Aguilar and Corey Dickerson helped to bolster the team’s totals in 2020, but the Marlins still only out-homered four other teams. It isn’t as though the team can’t hit — Miguel Rojas, Jon Berti and Garrett Cooper were all well above-average hitters last year despite combining for just 12 homers. Miami just lacked an true established slugger in the middle of the order.

On Tuesday, the Marlins took a step toward remedying that by signing free agent outfielder Adam Duvall. The deal is an interesting one — it guarantees Duvall $5 million, but will only pay him $2 million in 2021. The rest will come in 2022, either in the form of a mutually agreed-upon second-year at $7 million, or a $3 million buyout. The mutual option cost, if exercised, would award Duvall a decent chunk of money — the same amount that Adam Eaton and Joc Pederson signed for this winter. Even if it isn’t, however, the $5 million guarantee itself isn’t bad for a slugger in his 30s who just two years ago spent the majority of the season in Triple-A.

The Marlins are hoping the version of Duvall they get is similar to the one who broke out with the Reds back in 2016. That year, he was a surprise All-Star, and finished the season with a .241/.297/.498 line, 33 homers, a 104 wRC+ and 2.4 WAR. He knocked out 31 more homers and notched 1.6 WAR the following year, further establishing the kind of player Duvall could be when things were going his way. He was a right-handed power bat capable of good defense in an outfield corner, but one who was also going to strike out a lot without walking enough to salvage a league-average on-base mark.

In 2018, we found out what kind of player Duvall is when things aren’t going his way. The power that comprised all of his value fell off considerably, and he finished the year with just 15 homers and a 69 wRC+. He was particularly bad after being traded to Atlanta in July (.132/.193/.151 with zero homers in 57 PAs), and started the 2019 season in Triple-A. It seemed like a sign of where Duvall’s career was headed — his weaknesses exposed, he was now a luxury power bat for playoff teams to keep on the fringes of their roster, never to be trusted with a full-time opportunity.

And yet, he’s since earned that trust back. He was a force at Triple-A, hammering 32 homers in 101 games. The Braves couldn’t fit him into their crowded outfield until the last week of July, but once they did, he was suddenly an everyday player in the majors again. He hit .267/.315/.567 with 10 homers in 41 games to finish the season. With the helpful addition of the DH in the National League, Duvall kept that everyday role in 2020, slashed .237/.301/.532, and homered 16 times, making him one of just 14 hitters to hit at least that many last year. That included one torrid stretch during which he recorded two three-homer games just one week apart.

Being able to capitalize on his power with this kind of frequency is what helps Duvall make up for his low batting average and walk rates. Because of the limits placed on his playing time over the last couple years — first because of the Braves prioritizing other outfielders, then because of the pandemic — his 26 big league homers since the start of 2019 have him tied for just 124th in the majors. But if you take all players with at least as many home runs as Duvall in that time and divide those totals by their number of plate appearances, he emerges as one of the best bang-for-your-buck power hitters of the last couple seasons.

Keep in mind, this leaves out the 32 homers he hit in 429 Triple-A plate appearances at the start of 2019 — a HR/PA rate of 7.45%. And as you may have noticed in the last video clip above, the Marlins have had a front row seat to Duvall’s most explosive performances. That kind power output is what Miami is hoping to acquire in this deal, and while the transition to the more pitcher-friendly ballpark may pose some challenges, there’s some reason to believe it shouldn’t hamper him too much. According to Statcast’s Expected Home Runs by Park feature, the number of home runs Duvall would have hit in Miami since the start of 2019 (28) is the same number he actually hit for Atlanta.

As for as the rest of the Marlins lineup, there are all sorts of effects signing Duvall can have. Right now, our RosterResource page has him starting in right field, with Dickerson in left and Starling Marte in center. Such a construction, however, would signify a huge step toward giving up on Lewis Brinson, the former top prospect who headlined the Christian Yelich trade return, but has been 2.8 wins below replacement level in three seasons with Miami. Abandoning plans for Brinson could prove too unnerving for management to go through with, though, and the above arrangement would also leave out Magneuris Sierra and Cooper. Instead, it seems likely that without the designated hitter in 2021, the Marlins will platoon the outfield quite heavily — with Dickerson and Duvall splitting up left and some combination of Brinson, Sierra and Cooper taking right, with Cooper also splitting first base reps with Aguilar.

The logistics of adding Duvall, then, are a headache the Marlins didn’t really need to volunteer for. He does, however, make them better, which makes this a fun move. Even after a surprise entry into the second round of last year’s playoffs, a run at contention for Miami in 2021 still feels far-fetched, and Duvall doesn’t change that. But for an offense that managed to be close to league-average last year while getting by on little more than spunk, his muscle will be a welcome addition — especially for Marlins fans who have waited years for another fearless slugger to swing it for their side.

Josh Staumont has intriguing StatCast numbers. The 27-year-old Royals right-hander ranks in the 99th percentile for fastball velocity, and his curveball is 91st percentile in spin rate. That combination helped produce a 2.45 ERA and 37 strikeouts over 25.2 relief innings last year. A former second-second pick whose command issues have dogged his development path, Staumont allowed just 20 hits but walked 16 batters.

There’s another metric on Staumont’s Statcast page that jumps out just as much as his velocity and spin. When the Azusa Pacific University product didn’t miss bats, the results tended to be loud. Somewhat remarkably, given that he had a solid season overall, Staumont was 2nd percentile in hard-hit rate — not second best, but rather second worst among his contemporaries.

Staumont addressed that conundrum, as well as his high-profile arsenal and his love-hate relationship with pitching analytics, over the phone last week.

———

David Laurila: Looking at your Statcast numbers, I see elite velocity and a lot of spin. What do those things mean to you?

Josh Staumont: “Looking at the metrics of baseball… it’s kind of a fickle theme. You see all these numbers, and some of them are leaning toward more consistency. Others are a little atypical. Personally, I see it more as an effort-based system. That kind of goes hand-in-hand with how baseball is progressing. I believe the floor is getting raised a little when it comes to the talent threshold, with all the access to data, the access to training, and things like that. Analytically, I think the focus on numbers has allowed for progression based off of numbers. Read the rest of this entry »