FanGraphs Baseball

There is no video that I can find of the moment when, during Sunday’s inaugural spring training contest between the Phillies and the Tigers, the fans began to boo. One can imagine well enough what it might have sounded like, even in the absence of evidence: The bases were loaded, and the Phillies, despite using two pitchers who threw a combined 50 pitches, had failed to record a third out. In the interest of playing a complete game without anyone’s arm falling off, the inning was rolled, and the players left the field. And as they left, down came the boos.

What was the root of the booing? Phillies fans exercising their God-given right to boo their own players’ failures? Tigers fans, robbed of the opportunity to see a two-out grand slam in the very first inning of spring? I can’t imagine it was a wall of boos — not on the level of such concerted efforts as, say, when Rob Manfred presented the Commissioner’s Trophy last October, nor even comparable to the sound of a stadium of 22,000 on a pre-pandemic weeknight expressing their unhappiness at a throw to first. Fans, of course, can’t travel in the same way that they did last February, and the seats of the stadium in Lakeland can’t be packed, and there are reasons that one might think twice about loud, collective vocalizations in a public place. But, nonetheless, there they were, making their displeasure known.

The opening hours of last year’s spring training, too, made headlines for their booing. This was the first on-field appearance of the Astros after their cheating scandal broke during the offseason, and, while there were efforts underway to plan an Opening Day booing that would go down in the history books, every opportunity was taken to demonstrate to the Astros that even their pre-season efforts were not in the least appreciated. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 912

On this week’s program, we welcome a major league player who is as eager to see the field as we are before talking about a few of the challenges facing the Philadelphia Phillies.

• At the start of the show, David Laurila sits down with Mitch Haniger to talk about returning to action. The Mariners outfielder is back from injury and shares his thoughts on recovery and the upcoming season. Haniger also discusses playing with Brent Suter in the minors, the talented players in Seattle’s system, and just how automatic reaction time at the plate has to be to succeed. [2:13]
• Following that, Ben Clemens and Eric Longenhagen try to figure out what to do with the Phillies’ defense. The infield’s range is stretched thin, the outfield isn’t doing much better, and the team could really benefit from the designated hitter. Ben and Eric also discuss Philadelphia’s creative bullpen options, the state of their farm, and a position of depth from which they may be able to trade. [18:53]

Read the rest of this entry »

Jackie Bradley Jr. may or may not be the best defensive centerfielder in the game. Metrics have never loved him quite as much as the eye test suggests they should — accordingly, he’s never been honored with a Fielding Bible award — but there are those who believe he’s without peer among his contemporaries. At worst, the soon-to-turn-31-year-old “JBJ” is on the short list of top defenders at his position.

Those talents will now be display in Milwaukee. According to The Boston Globe’s Julian McWilliams, Bradley, who ranked as the 18th best free agent this offseason per FanGraphs, has agreed to a two-year, $24 million deal with the Brewers that includes an opt-out after the first year, thus ending an eight-season tenure with the Red Sox that included a Gold Glove, an All-Star berth, and a World Series championship. Along the way, Bradley logged a cumulative 93 wRC+ that comprised both peaks and valleys. Notoriously streaky, the personable left-handed-hitter is anything but a sure bet to match last year’s 120 wRC+, .283/.364/.450 line, which came over 55 games.

The Brewers would likely consider it gravy if he did match that level of production. This acquisition was largely about making an already improved defense better — Kolten Wong at second base being another key acquisition — and it unquestionably will. Bradley will be joining an outfield alignment that includes not just Christian Yelich, but also Lorenzo Cain, who is back after opting out last season due to COVID concerns. Cain, who turns 35 next month, is a two-time Fielding Bible winner as a center fielder, and has rated well by the various defensive metrics both over his career and in 2019, when he posted a 7.0 UZR, 22 DRS, and 16.0 Outs Above Average, with BP’s FRAA of -1.6 the exception. Read the rest of this entry »

For the last three seasons, Willy Adames has been the Rays’ everyday shortstop, and he enters 2021 with that same job locked up. Tampa Bay continues to sport one of the most flexible rosters in baseball, but there’s no one on the 26-man roster currently who can handle shortstop regularly outside of him. On any other team, he could probably look forward to years of job security before he hits free agency in 2025. But on this team, Adames’ 2021 season is full of added pressure.

Adames made his major league debut in late May 2018; the month and a half he spent in the minors earned Tampa Bay an extra year of service time, which means he’ll go through his first round of salary arbitration after this season. Over his first three years in the majors, he’s been a player who’s above-average at many things but not good at any in particular, compiling a 106 wRC+ at the plate, oscillating between good and bad defensive seasons, and posting a total of 5.7 WAR. He’s a solid contributor to a team with championship aspirations. The problem is that he’s about to get a raise at exactly the wrong time.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of my favorite yearly preseason pieces is also my most dreaded: the breakout list. I’ve been doing this exercise since 2014, and while I’ve had the occasional triumph (hello, Christian Yelich), the low-probability nature of trying to project who will beat expectations means that every time you look smart, you’re also bound to look dumb for some other reason. Looking back at last season’s breakout list, there were a number of selections I was happy with once the season ended — Eloy Jiménez, Dinelson Lamet, Dansby Swanson, Dylan Bundy — but then I remember Mitch Keller’s walkalicious 2020 and Victor Robles dropping 27 points of wRC+ and my cringe-sense starts to tingle. Since I’m doing separate lists of hitters and pitchers this year, let’s waste no more time with the opening spiel. To the hitters!

Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Toronto Blue Jays

Perhaps not the gutsiest call, but it feels to me like people have soured way too much on Vladito. A 112 wRC+ won’t win any Silver Sluggers, but we have to remember he was just 21 last season. Let’s imagine that Guerrero Jr. wasn’t part of the imperial-Vlad bloodline and was just a guy in Triple-A in 2020 (in an alternate universe where the minor league season existed). If we translate Guerrero’s actual major league performance into a Triple-A Buffalo line, ZiPS estimates that he would’ve been hitting .288/.370/.526 as a 21-year-old in the International League. Would anyone be disappointed with this line? There would be cries of Free Vlad! echoing through the streets by June. I think players like Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis Jr. have spoiled us for normal awesome prospects.

While I don’t usually fall for the whole “best shape of his life” stories in spring, I think I’ve fallen for it this time. Guerrero was carrying a lot of weight for a 21-year-old; I weighed less at 21, and my main aerobic exercise was hauling cases of beer into my house. He dropped a lot of weight this winter, so I take this one more seriously than the usual stories, which involve a guy losing 10 pounds or having some secret abs that people gush about.

Read the rest of this entry »

On a day when the COVID-19 headlines in the U.S. ranged from very good to very bad, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that Major League Baseball plans to delay the start of the Triple-A season by at least four weeks, and perhaps longer. Though it’s a bummer to at least some degree, the move — which does not affect MLB’s scheduled opening on April 1 — was anticipated within the industry. It addresses significant safety and economic concerns that come with operating the sport amid the ongoing pandemic, in part by reestablishing alternate training sites for each team to draw players from if and when roster moves are made.

The Triple-A season was scheduled to begin on April 6 — that’s for the Triple-A East teams (ugh on the generic league names), with Triple-A West teams starting on April 8 — but with the change, teams at that level are tentatively slated to open on May 4 (East) and May 6 (West), about the same time that Double-A and Single-A classifications open (the delay to their seasons was reported at Baseball America in January). The Triple-A schedule will be shortened from 142 games to 120, the planned length of the lower levels, with the season running until September 19 for East teams and September 21 for West teams.

MLB’s executive vice president of baseball operations Morgan Sword said in a statement, “This is a prudent step to complete the Major League and Minor League seasons as safely as possible, and we look forward to having fans back in ballparks across the country very soon.” The league sent a memo notifying teams of the delay, and many minor league affiliates relayed the message to the public via their social media accounts. For example:

pic.twitter.com/msmCuIywIn

— SWB RailRiders (@swbrailriders) March 3, 2021

Read the rest of this entry »

Alex Lange was asked about his breaking ball on a Zoom call yesterday, and the more he said about it, the more I wanted to know. Initially, the fast-rising, 25-year-old Detroit Tigers prospect told the small cadre of reporters that he doesn’t consider the pitch a slider, as it’s often categorized. Rather, he considers it a curveball “because of the spin axis.” Lange added a few details, albeit without getting especially nerdy.

I asked Lange — a likely Top 10 in our forthcoming 2021 Tigers Top Prospect rankings — if he’d like to nerd-out on the plus offering. He was happy to oblige.

“Analytically, you look at the pitch and it’s not very good,” said Lange, who was drafted 30th overall by the Chicago Cubs in 2017 and subsequently dealt to Detroit two years later as part of the Nick Castellanos deal. “The spin efficiency is anywhere from 45% to 55%, and when you think of a breaking ball, or a curveball, you’re like, ‘Nah, that’s not very good.’ The depth on it is negative-10 to negative-12 inches of vertical break, so you’re like, ’Nah, it’s not very good.’ But when it’s thrown hard with the spin axis being as close to six as it gets sometimes, that’s where we’re getting the swings-and-misses and takes on it. That’s because you’re not seeing the dot. You’re seeing the ball rotate just like my four-seam rotates, but in the opposite direction. And it’s hard, and it’s late. I think that’s why it’s effective. I just try to stay on top of it, rip it straight down, and get 12-to-six action on it, and try to pair it with the heater.”

As expansive as that answer was, followups were order. I asked the right-hander about the spin rate on his curveball. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Baltimore Orioles. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. As there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was gleaned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been meaningfully altered begin by telling you so. Each blurb ends with an indication of where the player played in 2020, which in turn likely informed the changes to their report if there were any. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside of a given org than those within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there, and the context of that data, in my opinion, reduces how meaningful it is. Lastly, in an effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both on my lists and on The Board: MIRP, or multi-inning relief pitcher, and SIRP, or single-inning relief pitcher.

For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed, you can click here. For further explanation of Future Value’s merits and drawbacks, read Future Value.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about spring training games starting, Jeff Mathis batting cleanup in a spring training game (and once improbably batting fifth in a regular-season game), the latest reports about suspended Angels pitching coach Mickey Callaway, the postponement of the start of the Triple-A season, the outlook for attendance in Texas, and Zack Greinke’s quest to join the exclusive 10-10 club for pitchers, then preview the 2021 Angels (26:23) with Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic and the 2021 Royals (1:09:10) with Lynn Worthy of The Kansas City Star.

Audio intro: Shovels & Rope (Feat. Brandi Carlile), "Cleanup Hitter"
Audio interstitial 1: Filthy Friends, "Angels"
Audio interstitial 2: Heart, "Treat Me Well"
Audio outro: Pavement, "Harness Your Hopes"

Link to 2012 Mathis game
Link to latest Callaway report
Link to Alderson comments about Callaway
Link to Passan report about Triple-A
Link to Rangers attendance story
Link to Greinke’s 10-10 quote
Link to Fabian on Ohtani’s offseason
Link to story about Angels’ GM hiring process
Link to story about Angels’ furloughs
Link to story about Pujols paying employees’ salaries
Link to Jared Diamond on the Royals treating people well

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You’re probably still underrating Yordan Alvarez. I don’t mean this as a slight. I’ve never met you, most likely. I don’t know what you think about Alvarez. Maybe you’re a friend, or a hopeless Astros homer who thinks that every player they acquire will turn into Mike Trout, or just someone who believes in small-sample breakouts. But the odds are, you don’t remember how good Alvarez has been.

Let’s demonstrate some of this with lists. Here is a list of the top five hitters in baseball, as projected by Steamer and ZiPS:

The best player in baseball, two of the game’s brightest young stars, the 2020 NL MVP, and then Alvarez.

Is that where Alvarez lines up in your head? Probably not. That’s no fault of your head — he only played in two games last year, and only 89 so far in his major league career. Our brains aren’t wired to see a debut and think of someone as one of the best players in the game. No one’s wondering whether Kyle Lewis or Ke’Bryan Hayes is Freeman’s equal with the bat. That’s just not how baseball works. Read the rest of this entry »