The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Russell Martin was sneaky good. At the plate he combined a compact swing and mid-range power with strong on-base skills and (early in his career, at least) the ability to steal the occasional base. Behind the plate, he was exceptional. Shifted from third base after his first professional season, he took to the new position with the zeal of a convert. Martin combined outstanding athleticism — a strong arm, extraordinary lateral mobility, and elite pitch framing — with an intense competitive drive, an off-the-charts baseball IQ, and a natural leadership ability that was already apparent during his 2006 rookie season with the Dodgers.

The 23-year-old Martin’s arrival went a long way toward turning that squad around. In his first four seasons, he helped the Dodgers to three playoff appearances, including their first two trips to the National League Championship Series since their 1988 championship run. When the tight-fisted team nonsensically non-tendered him after an injury-wracked 2010 season, Los Angeles missed the playoffs in each of the next two years. Meanwhile, the nomadic Martin helped spur his subsequent teams — the Yankees (2011–12), Pirates (2013–14), and Blue Jays (2015–18) — to a total of six straight postseasons.

That wasn’t a coincidence. The general managers of those three teams (New York’s Brian Cashman, Pittsburgh’s Neal Huntington, and Toronto’s Alex Anthopoulos) all recognized that in addition to the softer factors that made Martin such a great catcher and leader, he was consistently among the game’s best at the newly quantifiable and highly valuable art of turning borderline pitches into strikes — an area that landed in the public spotlight with Mike Fast’s 2011 Baseball Prospectus article, “Removing the Mask.” Building on previous research by Dan Turkenkopf and others using PITCHf/x data, Fast showed that the difference between a good framer and a bad one could amount to something on the order of four wins per year, and identified Martin as having accrued more value via framing over the 2007–11 span (71 runs) than any backstop besides Jose Molina. Read the rest of this entry »

The Detroit Tigers and the Minnesota Twins were two of the teams I focused on during last week’s Winter Meetings in Dallas. As such, I attended media sessions for the managers and top executives of both clubs, asking questions alongside reporters who cover the AL Central rivals on a regular basis. Here are some highlights from those exchanges.

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Derek Falvey on Griffin Jax:

“That’s a good question,” Minnesota’s president of baseball operations said when asked about the possibility of Jax, who logged a 1.94 FIP over 71 innings out of the Twins’ bullpen, becoming a starter. “It’s a conversation we had during the season [and] it carried through to the offseason. It’s a two-way dialogue. Griff has expressed some interest in exploring the idea, but at the same time, he wants to think about what the right next steps are for him and his career. We remain in contact with his agent, and with Griffin, about that… It remains to be determined.” Read the rest of this entry »

Hi, I’m Ben Clemens. You might know me from such articles as “C’mon, Orioles, Do Something”, “Why Are the Orioles’ Playoff Odds So Low?”, and “Wait, FanGraphs Is Too Low on the Orioles Again?!”. In my spare time, I also write about the rest of the league, but today I’m focusing on Baltimore yet again given their latest signing: The O’s and right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano have agreed to a one-year, $13 million contract.

Sugano has been one of the best pitchers in NPB for more than a decade. The 35-year-old won the Central League MVP in 2014, and he’s added two more MVP awards since then. He also won two Sawamura Awards – think the Cy Young, only for the entire league and with minimum criteria – neither in any of his three MVP seasons. In other words, he’s been racking up hardware like no one else for his entire career.

Reading a scouting report on Sugano is like chicken soup for my command-obsessed soul. If pitching was entirely about hitting a tiny target, Sugano might be the best pitcher in the world. Saying that he has the ball on a string would be offensive to Sugano; I can’t control a yo-yo as well as he can spot his five-pitch arsenal. He walked 16 of the 608 batters he faced last year, a 2.6% rate that would make George Kirby jealous.

It’s not just walk avoidance that sets Sugano apart from the crowd, though. He works the corners and tunnels his pitches off of each other to great effect. He can add or subtract from everything he throws, so his five-pitch mix can feel even deeper when a hitter is trying to figure out what’s coming next. He might not inspire the physical discomfort batters experience when facing triple-digit heat that could come right at their ribcage if the pitcher misses his location, but facing Sugano is like solving a Saturday crossword puzzle, if crossword puzzles threw splitters. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 21st consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Boston Red Sox.

Batters

I have mixed feelings about the Red Sox. As a baseball fan, it galls me to see Mookie Betts in another uniform, and their complacency these past few trade deadlines has been frustrating. Yes, it’s good that they extended Rafael Devers to a long-term deal, but more often than not their forays into free agency end up in the We Tried bin.

But at the same time, even though Boston isn’t throwing its weight around like most large-market teams, this is a highly competent organization that makes smart moves. The Red Sox have developed a significant number of players internally – and more are on the way – and they’ve put those players positions to succeed. I have to admit that Jarren Duran and Wilyer Abreu have become far better than I expected, and though the experiment of moving Ceddanne Rafaela back to shortstop in the majors didn’t really work out, his upside was worth the gamble.

If anything, the Red Sox now look a lot like a 2010s St. Louis Cardinals roster. Not a single player in the lineup is projected to be an MVP candidate – no, ZiPS is not that high on Duran – but by the same token, almost every player is projected to be average or better, with decent depth at most positions. Even at catcher, which is projected to be their worst position (now that they’ve traded Kyle Teel), the Red Sox should get an acceptable level of mediocrity.

ZiPS holds out hope for Rafaela being just good enough offensively for his glove to play, and his WAR projection is a full win higher in center field than it would be at shortstop. A Trevor Story revival would be nice, but ZiPS isn’t particularly taken with him these days, and David Hamilton actually has a similar projection. It’s not something they’d announce, but I suspect the Red Sox would be happy to see Marcelo Mayer seize the shortstop job soon. At second base, ZiPS thinks Kristian Campbell would be one of the most accomplished offensive players to debut in the majors in 2025. Campbell and Roman Anthony project to be Boston’s third- and fourth-best offensive players, respectively.

Pitchers

Naturally, ZiPS doesn’t expect Garrett Crochet to carry an ace’s workload, but if he throws only his projected 135 innings, he should still be the best member of Boston’s rotation, which also features Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford, and Brayan Bello. That group looks like one of the better starting staffs in baseball, though it’s a tier below the elite rotations of the Phillies and Dodgers.

I’m higher than ZiPS on Crawford, but I think it’s right about Houck as a borderline ace and Bello as a solid no. 2 or 3 starter. ZiPS is a bit of concerned with how Lucas Giolito will perform coming back from internal brace surgery, but he and Richard Fitts both project as reasonable fifth starters. Quinn Priester and Garrett Whitlock also project to be decent fifth starters, but Whitlock is also returning from an internal brace procedure, and I expect the Red Sox will use him conservatively once he’s healthy. It seems likely that he’ll see more innings out of the bullpen than in the rotation next season.

The bullpen projects to be solid, though ZiPS doesn’t rank them quite as highly as Steamer does. There’s some natural skepticism about Michael Fulmer coming off injury, and ZiPS is down on Justin Wilson and Luis Guerrero. But after these players, the projections see pretty much everyone else as either good or very good — but not elite — even edge options like Zach Penrod or Priester.

Like those Cardinals teams, these Red Sox can’t do much upgrading unless they get a superstar to raise their ceiling. The big problem here is the Red Sox play in the AL East, not the NL Central. ZiPS projects them to finish with a win total in the mid-80s. That’d be good enough to contend for a playoff spot, but it probably won’t cut it if they want to win the division. Still, considering the Yankees are trying to figure out how to fill the Juan Soto-sized hole in their lineup and the Orioles could be without Corbin Burnes, the Red Sox have improved enough to make those two teams sweat at least a little bit.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time. The final team projections may differ considerably from our Depth Chart playing time.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2025 due to injury, and players who were released in 2024. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Ukulele Dixieland Jazz band that only covers songs by The Smiths, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.11.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR. It is important to remember that ZiPS is agnostic about playing time, and has no information about, for example, how quickly a team will call up a prospect or what veteran has fallen into disfavor.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by misinformation, a non-pragmatic reality, or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter or on BlueSky.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the qualifications for being a superstar, the Kyle Tucker trade from the Astros’ and Cubs’ perspectives, the Devin Williams trade from the Yankees’ and Brewers’ perspectives, and various other transactions, including the A’s trading for Jeffrey Springs and the Orioles signing Tomoyuki Sugano, plus thoughts on Caleb Durbin’s dimensions, the significance of financial terms in transaction analysis, a possible spending divide stemming from a disparity in TV revenue, and Rob Manfred on restoring the starter.

Audio intro: Alex Ferrin, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Xavier LeBlanc, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Joe Sheehan Newsletter
Link to FG post on Tucker trade
Link to Rome on Tucker
Link to FG post on Williams trade
Link to Durbin photo
Link to FG post on Springs trade
Link to Pride Night story
Link to FG payrolls page
Link to Patrick’s post
Link to Manfred’s comments
Link to trial balloon wiki
Link to Langs tweet
Link to “Cody’s Only”
Link to “Superstar”
Link to EW gift subscriptions

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It’s probably been an awkward few weeks for Cody Bellinger. It’s been an open secret that the Chicago Cubs were trying to move him despite having signed him to a three-year, $80 million contract just one offseason ago. The emergence of Pete Crow-Armstrong as a credible hitter had already made Bellinger (and/or Seiya Suzuki) expendable, and once the Cubs won the Kyle Tucker sweepstakes, it was just a matter of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And what a grand, stripey shoe it is. The New York Yankees have graciously agreed to take Bellinger off the Cubs’ hands, and to absorb all but $5 million of his remaining contract. Chicago also gets right-handed pitcher Cody Poteet in the deal. Thus the Great Cosmic Balance of Codys remains undisturbed. Read the rest of this entry »

The Winter Meetings always feature trades, but two stood above the fray last week. First, the Guardians traded Andrés Giménez to the Blue Jays in a two-part transaction that briefly left Cleveland with three lefty-hitting first basemen. Then the White Sox traded Garrett Crochet to the Red Sox for four prospects. The best of that group, Kyle Teel, happens to play catcher, the same position as Chicago’s top prospect Edgar Quero. They even have the same future value grade of 50, which is the cutoff for top 100 prospects.

The Guardians made an extra trade to avoid doubling up on similar archetypes, sending Spencer Horwitz to the Pirates for three young pitchers, but the White Sox just kept both catchers. I heard a lot of murmured questioning of that decision as I walked around the Dallas hotel that briefly hosted the center of the baseball universe. But I think both teams were acting rationally, and that worrying about Teel and Quero overlapping is silly. I can’t prove it for you – but I did come up with some data that will hopefully sway your opinion.

Cleveland’s case was straightforward. Steamer projects Horwitz as a 2.5 WAR/600 PA player. It projects Kyle Manzardo as a 1.8 WAR/600 PA player. Josh Naylor? Steamer has him down for 2.4 WAR/600 PA. Three players for two positions — first and DH. (Yes, Horwitz has played second base, too, but he really shouldn’t be a second baseman, and I don’t think the Guardians would’ve used him there.) One of them would ride the bench despite being an above-average contributor, a poor decision for a team that’s trying to maximize its resources. Something had to give.

On the other hand, there are the White Sox. They, too, traded a young star, and the best player they got back plays a position where they already had a similar option. Teel was our 42th-ranked prospect on our updated Top 100 list in 2024, a polished all-around catcher who we expect to reach the majors at some point in the next two years. Quero was our 40th-ranked prospect, and you’re never going to believe this, but he’s a polished all-around catcher who we expect to reach the majors at some point in the next two years.
Read the rest of this entry »

12:01

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon! And welcome to (finally) my first FanGraphs chat of December 2024. It has once again been too long, and as evidence for how rusty I am, I promoted this on the socials for being at 2 pm (ye olde slotte) instead of noon. So, thank you to those who figured it out without my help.

12:03

Jay Jaffe: I had a great time with my FG colleagues at the Winter Meetings last week. After illness and other issues cut into our group last year, we had a very full lineup, and we ate well and had a lot of laughs.

12:03

Jay Jaffe: I’m deep into my Hall of Fame series. The King Félix piece went up yesterday https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jaws-and-the-2025-hall-of-fame-ballot-feli…

12:03

Jay Jaffe: The Russell Martin one is planned for tomorrow.

12:08

Jay Jaffe: Dick Allen’s election was so overdue that I felt more relief than joy. It’s a bittersweet moment — he’s gotten the recognition he deserves, but isn’t around to enjoy it. In retrospect, the Phillies’ move to retire his number in September 2020, just a few months before his death, looms large as he did at least get that moment in the sun. And for whatever my perturbances are when it comes to squaring Dave Parker’s lackluster JAWS with his election, I’m glad he’s around to accept the honor because these post-death elections are really not the best way to do it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Proposition No. 1: Identifying the smartest front office in baseball would be a difficult task even if it weren’t such a loaded question to start. How do you weight scouting versus development? How do you factor the influence of ownership, for good or ill? Or injuries, or luck, or other elements of force majeure?

So I’ll state my premise this way: The Braves seem to be a competently run organization. They’ve made the playoffs seven years running — six of those by winning the NL East — and are set up well to continue contending in the future. They’ve had internal developmental successes, savvy trade wins, and the occasional opportunistic buy-low move for a veteran free agent. Are they the best-run team in the league? I don’t know, but I’d hear out an argument to that effect.

Surely they wouldn’t go out of their way to acquire a player coming off a historically bad season. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »