Jeter Downs can swing it. As Eric Longenhgan wrote last month, the top prospect in the Boston Red Sox organization “has been a polished, advanced-for-his-age hitter dating back to high school.” That attribute led to Downs being drafted 32nd overall by the Cincinnati Reds in 2017, and subsequently included in a pair of major trades. In December 2018, he went to the Los Angeles Dodgers as part of a seven-player swap that included Matt Kemp, Yasiel Puig and Alex Wood, and 12 months ago he came to Boston as part of the Mookie Betts deal. A 22-year-old second baseman who finished 2019 in Double-A, Downs projects, per Longenhgan, as an everyday player at the major-league level.

———

David Laurila: Let’s start with a self scouting report: How would you describe yourself as a hitter?

Jeter Downs: “I like to think of myself as a contact-first guy. I’m not the biggest guy in the world — I’m 5-foot-11 and usually between 185 and 188 [pounds] — so I don’t try to hit for power. That’s something that comes naturally, from having the right approach. I call home runs ‘a mistake,’ honestly. You don’t try to hit home runs; they just happen. Basically, I just try to get in good counts and swing at good pitches.”

Laurila: How would you describe your swing?

Downs: “If you go by numbers and results, they would show that I’m more of a loft guy. But at the end of the day, I just try to put a nice level swing on the ball and hit it hard. I’m not trying to hit the ball in the air. I’m just trying to hit nice line drives everywhere.”

Laurila: Eric Longenhagen wrote that you punish pitches down in the zone, but that you could be susceptible to getting tied up by velocity in on your hands. Do you agree with that? Read the rest of this entry »

With the players’ union rejecting Major League Baseball’s proposal to delay the start of the 2021 season by a month in hopes of winter coronavirus rates declining, the start of spring training is less than two weeks away, and from a logistical standpoint, so much remains undecided. Will there be a universal designated hitter? Will last year’s experiments with seven-inning doubleheader games and man-on-second extra inning rules carry over? What will the playoff format be? From a personnel standpoint, more than 150 free agents are still looking for work.  

The ice has begun to thaw for some of the top free agents, particularly in the past two weeks as the likes of George Springer, J.T. Realmuto, Michael Brantley, Brad Hand, Marcus Semien, Nelson Cruz, Kolten Wong, Joakim Soria, and Alex Colomé have found homes; news of the last three doing so broke while I was working on this very piece. That still leaves 14 members of our annual Top 50 Free Agents list in limbo, as well as numerous other players outside the 50 who could fill substantial roles.

What follows here is a quick trip around the diamond to note the best players still available at each position, whether they’re in our Top 50 (as six of the following were) or not; admittedly, the cupboard is better stocked in some spots than others. I’ll have a companion piece on the starters and relievers in the near future. Read the rest of this entry »

You know it’s almost time for baseball season when all of the major projection systems forecast Kyle Hendricks‘ ERA one run per nine innings too high.

As much as this sounds like a knock on those who develop projections, it’s not. What Jared Cross (Steamer), Dan Szymborski (ZiPS), Derek Carty (THE BAT), and the folks at Baseball Prospectus (PECOTA) do is no small feat. If I weren’t too cowardly to even try to create my own projection system, I would be too stupid to design one that is half as effective as theirs. Glass houses and all that.

That said, I am just smart enough to know that projected ERAs ranging from 3.84 to 4.42 for Hendricks, who boasts a career ERA of 3.12 and has never finished a season with an ERA above 3.46 (except that dastardly 3.95 ERA in 2015), are too high. It’s easy to poke holes in the obvious outliers, but projections succeed by describing and then predicting the talents of most pitchers, not the ones whose talents deviate dramatically from expectation. Hendricks is every projection system’s known blind spot.

It’s not just projections that struggle with Hendricks, either. We, the sabermetric community, frequently use ERA estimators as shorthand to characterize a pitcher’s talent level. If you frequent FanGraphs, you’re familiar with Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), expected FIP (xFIP), and Skill-Interactive ERA (SIERA). By virtue of how they’re constructed, each metric makes assumptions about the skills a pitcher theoretically “owns”:

• FIP: strikeouts, walks, and home runs allowed
• xFIP: strikeouts, walks, and fly balls induced
• SIERA: a complicated combination of strikeouts, walks, net groundballs (groundballs minus fly balls), and their squared terms and interactions with one another

While each estimator features a batted ball component, they focus on trajectory (launch angle), not on authority (exit velocity). This is a fair assumption, frankly. I have illustrated how a pitcher can influence hitter launch angle, operating under the assumption they bear little to no influence over hitter exit velocity. It’s not quite that bleak; certified baseball genius Rob Arthur found that the average pitcher’s effect on a baseball’s exit velocity: roughly five parts hitter, one part pitcher. Read the rest of this entry »

This week, one NL Central team has acquired the best defender at a key infield position. He’ll be playing the 2021 season at age-30, and he was below average offensively in 2020, so it’s not as though there aren’t red flags, but great defense doesn’t grow on trees. That’s right: the Brewers signed Kolten Wong to a two-year, $18 million contract, as Jon Morosi first reported.

While Nolan Arenado might have fallen behind Matt Chapman in the third base defense hierarchy, Wong reigns supreme at second. For three straight years, he’s won the Fielding Bible award at second base. Every advanced defensive metric sees him as the best fielder in the game over the past three years. Bigger fan of the eye test? He can do this:

Okay, fine, single defensive highlights are a bad reflection of talent. But he can do this, too:

I could go on all day if there weren’t an article to write. Wong is one of my very favorite players to watch. This is a transaction analysis, though, so I’ll restrain myself, and merely say that our very good defensive projections for Wong might still be conservative. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley recap the Rockies’ press conference about the Nolan Arenado trade and GM Jeff Bridich claiming the belt as the game’s most-maligned GM, then discuss Angels pitching coach Mickey Callaway’s suspension and Andrelton Simmons’ comments about his mental state in 2020, analyze the Twins re-signing Nelson Cruz and signing Alex Colomé, the Rays reuniting with Chris Archer, the Reds adding Sean Doolittle, and the Brewers landing Kolten Wong, touch on A.J. Preller’s promotion and extension and examine the potential conflict between Theo Epstein’s MLB consultancy and his new private-equity job, and conclude with a Stat Blast about the incredible consistency of Leroy Stanton.

Audio intro: Earth Girls, "Only Human"
Audio outro: Matthew Sweet, "Split Personality"

Link to Emma Baccellieri on the Rockies
Link to Marc Carig on the Rockies
Link to Nick Groke on the Arenado trade
Link to story about Monfort’s 94-win prediction
Link to Ben Clemens on Arenado’s new deal
Link to The Athletic report about Callaway
Link to Ginny Searle on Callaway
Link to Jeff Passan on Drew Robinson
Link to Jeff Fletcher on Simmons
Link to Kevin Goldstein on the Cruz signing
Link to Clemens on Cruz last September
Link to EW episode about Cruz
Link to Tony Wolfe on the Archer signing
Link to Ben on the Archer trade
Link to story about Archer’s sinker usage
Link to report about Epstein’s new gig
Link to Dan Fox on platoon splits
Link to Stanton’s career splits page

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Maybe the Rays are getting nervous. Two and half months ago, they watched Charlie Morton sign with Atlanta as a free agent. About a month later, they traded staff ace Blake Snell to San Diego. Those were the two best starters on a team that leaned heavily on its rotation, but Tampa’s only addition so far this winter has been embattled right-hander Michael Wacha at a mere $3 million. Meanwhile, the Blue Jays have landed one major free agent after another, and the Yankees still look very much like a juggernaut. As of Tuesday morning, Tampa Bay ranked 10th in the American League in our Depth Charts projected WAR standings — fourth in the AL East — just a few months after winning the pennant.

But with spring training (theoretically) fast approaching, the Rays finally signed another starting pitcher on Tuesday, adding a familiar face to the rotation.

Right-hander Chris Archer and the Tampa Bay Rays are in agreement on a one-year, $6.5 million deal, pending physical, sources tell ESPN.

Archer, 32, returns to the organization where he debuted and found his greatest success.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) February 2, 2021

To be clear, Chris Archer is no replacement for the starters Tampa Bay lost this winter. He’s posted an ERA over 4.00 in each of his last four seasons and missed all of 2020 after undergoing surgery to treat neurogenic thoracic outlet syndrome. Effectiveness in the first season back from that injury — one of the most serious a pitcher can experience — is far from guaranteed. Tampa’s familiarity with Archer, however, made the team willing to bet on the 32-year-old right-hander anyway.

Read the rest of this entry »

From the moment the offseason officially started five days after the end of the World Series, the most predictable headline of the winter was “Nelson Cruz Signs One-Year Deal With the Twins.” It took three months, but last night it finally happened, with ESPN’s Jeff Passan reporting the signing and MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand adding that the deal will net Cruz $13 million.

Cruz, who turns 41 in July, is an ageless wonder, even though that number gives teams looking at eight-figure investments significant pause. Two years ago, he was a free agent after an exceptional run with the Mariners during which he put up a 147 wRC+ and averaged 41 home runs a season. He lobbied hard for a two-year deal, but most teams countered with one-year offers. It was understandable: Cruz has been defying the aging curve for years and has no value beyond the bat, so if Father Time suddenly catches up to him, he becomes a candidate for a quick release. Back in 2019, he was pushing 39 and coming off a declining season in terms of your standard triple-slash line, but the underlying metrics looked good, as his strikeout rate was actually declining, and his exit velocities were in line. Still, most models would not be especially kind to Cruz or any player entering his age-39 season. These are not the years when players start to slip a little; they’re the ones when players fall off the cliff.

Here at FanGraphs, Cruz ranked as one of the top 20 free agents on the market that winter, and I was shocked, surprised and frankly quite impressed to see that ZiPS still saw the good in the player, projecting a minor bounce-back 2019 campaign at .266/.348/.500. The Twins took the plunge by meeting Cruz halfway on his multi-year demand, paying him $14 million for the 2019 campaign with a $12 million option for the following year.

They were rewarded amply. Instead of falling of the cliff, Cruz instead rocketed higher, putting up a career-high OPS of 1.031 and making his 2020 option a no-brainer. The cliff avoided him again that season, and the production was similar.

Read the rest of this entry »

After breaking apart their bullpen in an effort to cut costs, the Reds took a step towards rebuilding it on Tuesday, agreeing to terms with 34-year-old lefty Sean Doolittle on a one-year deal with a base salary of $1.5 million plus as-yet-unspecified incentives. For as modest an expenditure as it is, Doolittle is just the second major league free agent the Reds have signed this winter from outside the organization (Kyle Farmer was signed to a new major league deal after previously being non-tendered). The two-time All-Star has ample experience closing, something in short supply on the Reds’ current roster, but in order to return to any kind of high-leverage duty, he’ll need to rebound from what was largely a lost season.

Doolittle, who spent his past 3 1/2 seasons with the Nationals, made just 11 appearances totaling 7.2 innings in 2020. He landed on the Injured List twice, first missing nearly three weeks in August due to inflammation in his right knee, and then being shelved for the remainder of the season after straining an oblique muscle in mid-appearance on September 10. For what it’s worth — perhaps not much given the sample sizes, though it merits a look to compare to his track record — his average fastball velocity and performance had been trending upwards after the first IL stint, as you can see here:

Doolittle didn’t allow a run over his final six appearances, after being scored upon in four out of five previously, so there’s that, a point to which we’ll return. Read the rest of this entry »

I obviously don’t have access to MLB Trade Rumors’ site traffic data, so it’s an educated guess that “[Team] Signs [Player] To a Minor League Contract” pieces are among their least trafficked pages. I get it. Big trades and big free agent acquisitions are exciting. Some vet trying to hang on and being given another chance? Not so much. That said, the world of minor league contracts for veterans is one that I was very close to during my time in baseball. The first time I was given the assignment of negotiating these deals, I thought they would be simple. I quickly learned they were anything but. Unless something dramatic and unexpected happens in terms of the labor negotiations between the league and the players, spring training is close. With an unprecedented number of free agents still out there, plenty of these types of deals are being negotiated as we speak, so it’s a good time to get into what it takes to get a deal over the line.

Opportunity

The crux of any minor league contract negotiation is opportunity. Players don’t want to be in the minor leagues. The focus is on playing in the majors, and which potential employer gives them the best chance to spend significant time in the big leagues. The reasons are obvious. They get paid like big leaguers, they accrue service time, and the perks (better per diems, charter flights, opulent hotels, palatial clubhouses) are phenomenal.

Agents don’t talk about money or contract clauses first, they talk about the possibility of their player being with the big league club. I would imagine that every Quad-A shortstop right now has his agent in touch with the Reds, while avoiding clubs like the Mets, Padres and others where the position is filled by a star-level talent who tends to stay on the field. Agents for these players become depth chart aficionados, studying every team’s situation across various position families to see where their player might slide in.

Personally, I always tried to be honest with agents and players with regards to said opportunity. Sometimes a team is offering the player a real chance to break camp with the big club; sometimes they are clearly a depth piece meant to bide their time at Triple-A until someone gets hurt or drastically underperforms. And yes, sometimes you do find yourself in direct contact with players. I always appreciated the conversations, and thought it spoke well of the player on a makeup level, as the individual was personally invested in the process.

Beyond the chances to play in the big leagues, clubs need to sell potential roster pieces on the additional benefits of joining the team. For the Astros, the player development system and the club’s ability to communicate data-based improvements was a big part of the pitch. Often players wanted to speak to someone more important than the negotiator, like the GM or field manager, just to hear assurances from the source themselves. Read the rest of this entry »