It's time for another installment of our weekly MLB Mailbag. I'm pinch-hitting for Tim Dierkes once more this week before he takes back over next week. In today's mailbag, we'll look at Devin Williams' signature changeup, a group of potential first base targets on the trade market and what they might cost, Framber Valdez's earning power, Colt Keith's role in Detroit, the Red Sox' struggles and Rafael Devers' future, the Dodgers' third base outlook and Toronto's collection of outfielders. Let's dive in.
Elden asks:
I admittedly never followed Devin Williams before the NYY acquired him but isn't it odd to have a closer so heavily reliant on changeups? What is the current timeline to get Weaver back?
It's odd, yes, but when said changeup is arguably the best pitch in baseball since Williams' debut, it's hard to argue with the approach. First, let's look at historical changeup usage by Williams.
Sports Info Solutions began tracking pitch types back in 2002. Since the 2002 season, there have been 6500 individual seasons by relievers with more than 20 innings thrown. Only 20 of them have seen a reliever deploy his changeup at a 50% clip or higher. Williams has five of those. Tommy Kahnle has four of them.
Williams isn't the only reliever to make a career out of a lethal changeup, of course. Trevor Hoffman rode his changeup to the Hall of Fame. Francisco Rodriguez and Fernando Rodney had dominant changeups at their peaks. None threw their changeup even close to as frequently as Williams, however. Broadly speaking, yes, it's quite rare for relievers to be this reliant on changeups. It's rare for relievers to even have a changeup as their go-to secondary offering; fastball/slider combos have been en vogue for years and remain so.
Statcast and its pitch tracking data were rolled out in all 30 MLB parks back in 2015. Since 2015, Williams' "Airbender" unsurprisingly grades out as the best changeup in the sport, but it's also the eighth-most valuable pitch overall. The only individual pitches that carry greater value in that time are (in order): Kenley Jansen's cutter, Josh Hader's sinker, Chad Green's four-seamer (!!), Edwin Diaz's slider, Zack Britton's sinker, Emmanuel Clase's cutter and Liam Hendriks' four-seamer. Of course, it bears mentioning that Jansen, Hader, Green, Hendriks and Diaz have all pitched far more in that decade-long window than Williams, who only debuted in 2019.
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Jays just swept the Cards, they are for real.
Arenado obsession is deeply ingrained in the psyche of uninformed fans and casuals.
I just read an absurdly long dialog on another baseball site. The initial comment implores the Mets to trade Baty and a prospect for Ryan McMahon and a reliever (Bird). Oof.
McMahon is owed $32 million for 2026 and 2027, and he cannot hit. Stearns grows relievers on trees in his backyard.
Same shi*. Different flavor.
I agree that a lot of fans tend to overvalue Arenado due to name recognition. Maybe also, for Dodgers fans, memories of seeing him play against the Dodgers during his prime years with a division opponent (Colorado).
That said, it’s going too far to say that the Cardinals are “winning despite him”. Arenado’s 2025 hitting production is below average but playable (94 wRC+), especially when paired with 3B defense that still rates as above average according to Statcast and DRS. So far in 2025, Arenado has totaled 1.0 WAR per both Fangraphs and Baseball Ref, on pace for approximately 2.0 to 2.5 WAR for the full season.
Good points all. Arenado’s eminently playable despite the declining bat since 2022, even on a winning team with hopes of reaching the postseason.
He’s not really blocking anyone, either, given the 2 to 2-1/2 win extrapolation. If he was playing around replacement level, you probably swap in Saggese and hope for more than that, As it is, it’s a nice ‘problem’ to have and might make for an interesting Deadline or offseason if the Cards can find a taker for Arenado.
Doug Jones was another closer that relied on his change, right? I kind of remember he was a junkballer but somehow got results. Usually
Would love to have seen the statcast numbers for him. The announcers used to joke about his slow/slower/slowest approach but it sure worked for him.
Could/should the Jays put a trade group together for Jesus Sanchez from Miami. ? Seems certainly average RF, at least average speed, and batter too. trade some promises.
Jake Bird will be quite a catch if someone can pry him from Colorado, who recently wait too long to trade someone of value.
Last night’s performance against the Giants by Bird at Coors is typical: 2 innings in relief in a close game, 22 pitches, 19 strikes, 5 punchouts.
Jim Bowden (there’s a reason he hasn’t been a GM in well over a decade) Proposed the Yankees should trade for Luis Arraez. Of course he did not say whom the Yankees would send to San Diego in a deal or where Arraez would play in the Bronx (especially with Goldschmidt and Rice sharing 1B/DH and Stanton on the way back), just that they should do it. Jeff Passan threw Bo Bichette and Brandon Lowe’s names out as trade candidates for the Yankees, apparently forgetting that both the Blue Jays and the Rays are chasing the Yankees in the division and are 1 and 2 in the AL Wild Card race. I guess we are back to the days of the rest of the league being the Yankees minor league system and other contenders should just gift them their stars…
(Deep sigh): No one is going to like what I’m about to say, especially Yankees fans. The Yankees should prepare themselves for some serious regression from Goldy. His comeback season comes with some concerning underlying numbers. His BAbip is up 50 points over last season while his hard hit rate is down 9%. Goldy has a career .344 average on balls in play, so his .360 number this season isn’t that far out of line for him. But that hard hit % is also down 8 clicks compared to his career average.
Another cause for concern is his lack of walks. A 7.5% walk rate on the season wouldn’t necessarily be a concern for some hitters, but over the course of his career Goldy has walked at a 12.5% clip. Part of his statistical downturn last season was due to a similar drop in walks. I’m not sure what it means when a historically patient hitter has a sudden drop in walks, but it isn’t good.
Sorry Yankees fans for this gloomy post. I hope Goldy beats the averages and continues to thrive. But I think the Yankees should be looking at these trends as they approach the deadline.
Red Sox should look to move Devers in the offseason. Devers didnt like being moved to DH so he puts up a stink. (That one I could understand). But, then the Red Sox needed a 1B and he didnt step up to the challenge. Instead, he takes groundballs at SS?!?!
Which is it? Is he upset for not being able to play the field or just wants to whine? Lets face it, It doesnt take too much digging to see his defense at 3B was horrendous, so a change was needed to better the team. But then, the perfect opportunity arose with an opening at 1B. He should have jumped at the challenge and pushed for playing time there. Instead, silence.
It would be too much to work out by trying to move him mid-season, since most teams budgets are finalized and adding $240M+ now, would rule out 95% of the leagues teams. Wait until the offseason and ship him out, then use the freed up money to invest in signing Bregman, another stud, or starting pitching.
Curious to see what Arizona does at the deadline. They’ve gone on a nice run to get back to .500 but if things go south the next couple of weeks, they have pieces to sell.
The Red Sox handled this situation incredibly poorly so the blame should go on them not the player. Also that “perfect opportunity” was having a player learn a new position on the fly in the middle of the season that was already not a good defender.
“blame”
Blame isnt a one way street. They both are to blame. So now that thats out of the way. One side signs the paychecks, the other side gets to cash them. And with $240M+ still owed to him, he shouldve said “Sure, whatever helps the team”, even if he didnt mean it. Right now, he is tied for 37th place in WAR in the league (a number that would be lower if he was still playing 3B). His ego doesnt allow him to realize how replaceable he is.
Once that Rubicon was crossed, there is no choice but for the team to move on. They cant seriously deal with this for eight more years. He’s going to be rich no matter where he plays, respected— not so much.
so many things wrong with this statement I’ll focus n the major one. Yes the team bares the lions share of the blame in this situation so that “two way street” you speak of heavily shifts towards the sox.. They promised the player one thing, went back on their word then tried to hide behind the fact that new management had taken over. If the team had been up front with Devers from the beginning of the offseason this situation would have been avoided.
Once that rubicon was crossed as you said, it was up to the team to fix the relationship and they didn’t.. And compounding the lies by the player saying “sure whatever!” wasn’t going to help anything,
Devers definitely hits the ball well but he is also a diva. Who needs that?
This is simple. Devers. DH. The end.
Major League Baseball Fan
This is simple. Devers. DH. The end.
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It’s not all that complicated. He’s a great hitter and a poor fielder. He’s our DH, and I see no problem with that.
No one in MLB thinks Devers is other than a 3-4 win DH, meaning no one’s going to be deluded by his great start to the year to the point of taking on Devers at anything like the 8/$255m left on the deal of a DH from 2026 to 2034.
Age 29-36? That’s the decline phase of a player who’s barely worth his AAV during his peak years, and the Red Sox aren’t going to eat the $50m or more it will take to get him off the roster.
In any case, the Red Sox are to blame for most of this, Their behavior is only acceptable to little boys who think it’s the job of players to shut up and do whatever they’re told because teams are paying them money, and don’t feel a front office has to bother keeping its word, can lie to players when convenient, and can claim that what a key executive said doesn’t matter ‘because he no longer works here,’ as if he didn’t speak for the team
The Red Sox have behaved pathetically, and Devers responded like anyone with a modicum of self-respect: by treating the organization like I hope you’d treat anyone who lied to you, failed to apologize for it, then tried to make you look bad in public.
@ Reggie Smith – I agree that Devers handled the situation poorly but perhaps it was a blessing in disguise. Between Dever’s refusal to play 1B and Romy Gonzalez’s injury, the Sox were forced to bring up someone from AAA. They eventually landed on Abraham Toro and he has been great both offensively and defensively so far.
Youre absolutely correct on ‘it was a blessing’, but it doesnt change the fact that it will be a problem moving forward. I dont feel it will go away now, media and fans wont let it. A power dynamic in a player’s favor like this is bad for team chemistry. Red Sox need a bit of house cleaning. I feel that means Devers and Yoshida need to be moved in the offseason for harmony.
One must include Eric Gagne in closers that relied on their change up. If I recall correctly the term “Bugs Bunny Change Up” was coined to describe Gagne’s change up.
Thanks for the analysis, backed up by data, on Arrenado, Steve. Sheesh, people remain delirious about the guy.