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Who Could The Marlins Trade This Summer?

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A team can’t cement a playoff spot in April, but they can certainly play their way out of the mix. Such is the case with the Marlins. Miami blew a 7-0 lead against the Nationals yesterday to fall to an MLB-worst 6-23 start. Whatever slim hope they had of competing for a playoff spot entering the season is gone. They’re going to be deadline sellers. It’s just a matter of when they start moving players and who will go.

New president of baseball operations Peter Bendix figures to be broadly open to dealing anyone beyond Eury Pérez and Sandy Alcantara, both of whom are rehabbing Tommy John surgeries anyhow. Much of the roster was assembled before he was hired last November, so he probably doesn’t have a ton of attachment to this group.

Bendix also joined Miami after a long stint with the Rays, a front office that was never afraid to move established players as they navigated payroll limitations. Tampa Bay occasionally made key deals at atypical times on the schedule, including trading Austin Meadows just before Opening Day in 2022 and swapping Willy Adames for Drew Rasmussen and J.P. Feyereisen the previous May.

The Fish are more likely to deal some players than others, of course, so let’s run through a few of the top possibilities:

Trevor Rogers

Rogers was an All-Star and the NL Rookie of the Year runner-up in 2021. He was ineffective in 2022 and limited to four starts last season by injury. The 6’5″ southpaw is one of the rare Miami pitchers who hasn’t been impacted by health concerns early this year. Rogers isn’t back to his early-career peak, but he has looked the part of a capable mid-rotation arm through five starts. He owns a 4.10 ERA in 26 1/3 innings.

The former first-rounder’s velocity is sitting around 92 MPH — down from the 94-95 he was pumping as a rookie — and his strikeout rate sits at a personal-low 20.6%. He’s getting ground-balls at a near-52% clip, though, and he’s done a solid job throwing strikes. Even if Rogers might not be the top-end arm he seemed three years ago, he’s an affordable mid-rotation starter who is under arbitration control for two seasons beyond this one. He’s making just $1.53MM this year, as the injuries prevented him from building much of a résumé going into his arb window.

Jesús Luzardo

Entering the season, Luzardo was the left-hander more teams were probably monitoring. He could certainly still be a coveted deadline target, but he’ll need to rebound from a rough couple weeks. Luzardo has been rocked for a 6.58 ERA with elevated walk and home run rates through his first 26 innings. He went on the 15-day injured list late last week with elbow tightness. It’s still not clear how serious that is.

If Luzardo returns to health and looks more like his 2023 self, he’d be one of the top upside plays on the market. He was an upper mid-rotation starter last season, turning in 178 2/3 innings of 3.58 ERA ball. Luzardo’s fastball velocity was sitting in its customary 97 MPH range before he went on the IL and he continued to miss plenty of bats. He and the Fish agreed to a $5.5MM salary to avoid arbitration last winter. Like Rogers, he’s under team control for two more years.

Braxton Garrett

Garrett, 26, was a quietly effective rotation piece a year ago. The control artist turned in his second straight sub-4.00 ERA showing over 159 2/3 frames. He fanned an above-average 23.7% of opponents and kept the ball on the ground nearly half the time batters made contact.

The former #7 overall pick hasn’t pitched in the majors in 2024. He opened the year on the IL with a shoulder impingement. He had a brief setback when he experienced dead arm after a throwing session, but it’s not believed to be serious. He threw three innings in a rehab start last Friday. Garrett is making around the league minimum and will be go through arbitration four times after this season. He doesn’t have eye-popping velocity, but he misses bats with his offspeed stuff and has a career 3.86 ERA with peripherals to match. The Fish should get plenty of calls on him in July if he’s healthy.

Edward Cabrera

Cabrera rounds out the quartet of potentially desirable rotation pieces. He may be the hardest of the group to evaluate. The former top prospect has huge stuff. His fastball sits in the high-90s. Cabrera can miss bats and generate plenty of grounders with all three of his secondary pitches (changeup, curveball, slider). At 26, it’s still not out of the question that he blossoms into a top-of-the-rotation starter.

Yet the Dominican-born righty has never thrown 100 innings in a major league season (although he fell one out shy of that arbitrary cutoff last year). That’s partially because he has a few arm-related injured list stints, including a two-week stay to open this season resulting from a shoulder impingement. He’s also nearly as wild a starter as there is in MLB. Cabrera walked 15.2% of batters faced last year and has issued free passes at a near-14% clip in his big league career.

The Marlins won’t feel obligated to move Cabrera for whatever they can get. He’s under control for four years after this, though he’ll qualify for early arbitration as a Super Two player next winter. The Fish considered trade possibilities over the offseason, so he’s unlikely to be off the table, but a team will need to meet a lofty asking price.

Luis Arraez

Of Miami’s hitters, Arraez is the biggest name. A defending two-time batting champ, he’s probably the best pure contact hitter in the sport. His .305 average through his first 129 plate appearances would be the second-lowest of his career. Arraez is going to reach base at a high clip, but he offers minimal power — career-high 10 homers, zero in 2024 — and plays a well below-average second base.

Arraez will still draw interest, but his trade value isn’t as high as one might assume based solely on the batting average. In addition to his defensive limitations, his control window is shrinking. Arraez is playing this season on a $10.6MM salary and will go through the arbitration process once more before getting to free agency. He’d likely earn something in the $13-15MM range next season, which could motivate the Marlins to deal him this summer.

Jazz Chisholm Jr.

Chisholm hasn’t quite developed into the franchise player that he seemed he might become early in his career. He has been a solid regular with flashes beyond that, though. The switch-hitter connected on 19 homers and stole 22 bases in just 97 games last season, albeit with a modest .304 on-base percentage. He has dramatically increased his walk rate in the early going this year, running a .245/.342/.382 slash through his first 117 plate appearances.

Injuries have been a recurring problem. Chisholm missed a good portion of 2022 to a back issue. He lost chunks of the ’23 campaign with toe and oblique woes. If he stays healthy through this season’s first half, Chisholm could be one of the more intriguing trade candidates of deadline season. He has a tantalizing power/speed combination and can play center field, albeit with differing reviews from public metrics on his glove. Chisholm is making $2.65MM this year and has two more seasons of arbitration control.

Lefty Relief Trio

Each of Tanner Scott, A.J. Puk and Andrew Nardi could be attractive left-handed relief options. They’ve all been hit hard in the early going but have high-octane stuff and performed well last season. The Marlins unsuccessfully auditioned Puk in the rotation but will move him back to relief once he recovers from shoulder fatigue.

Nardi is the least well-known of the group, but he’s controllable for four-plus seasons and won’t be eligible for arbitration until 2026. He has a career strikeout rate north of 30% in 83 2/3 innings. Scott is an impending free agent who has worked the ninth inning for Miami over the last couple seasons. He hasn’t been able to find the strike zone this year, a disappointing start after he issued walks at a career-low 7.8% clip in 2023. Scott is playing this season on a $5.7MM salary. Puk is making $1.8MM and will go through arbitration twice more.

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A few others could draw attention, although they’re probably less likely than the players listed above to move. Many teams would love to land Max Meyer, but it’d take a Godfather offer for the Marlins to move him.

Ryan Weathers leads the team in innings thus far. He’s a former top 10 pick who has pushed his average fastball to 96 MPH and is getting plenty of whiffs on his breaking ball. It’s conceivable teams could have interest, but Weathers has a career 5.67 ERA with subpar strikeout and walk numbers. Anthony Bender has returned from Tommy John surgery to post excellent strikeout and walk rates through his first 11 innings. His ERA is atrocious because of an elevated average on balls in play, but that should normalize well before the deadline.

The Marlins aren’t likely to find a taker for any portion of the Avisaíl García contract. That’d also be the case for Josh Bell unless he has a dramatic turnaround at the plate. He’s hitting .176/.270/.287 and playing on a $16.5MM salary. Neither Nick Fortes nor Christian Bethancourt has contributed anything offensively.

The Fish took a $5MM rebound flier on Tim Anderson over the offseason. That was likely with an eye towards a midseason trade, but he’s out to a .223/.270/.255 start after hitting .245/.286/.296 in his final year with the White Sox. He’ll need to perform significantly better to draw any kind of interest. Bryan De La Cruz, Jesús Sánchez and Jake Burger are low-OBP corner bats. They’d each have modest value if the Marlins wanted to deal them.

The Evolution Of Alec Bohm

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The Phillies are out to a strong 16-10 start here in 2024 and a portion of the credit has to go to third baseman Alec Bohm, who is out to a scorching-hot start at the plate.

The lanky corner infielder has taken 104 trips to the plate this year over 26 games and has a batting line of .333/.423/.556. That translates to a wRC+ of 170, indicating he’s been 70% better than the league average hitter so far this year. Among qualified hitters, that makes him the 12th best in the majors so far on the young season.

He probably can’t stay quite this hot over a longer stretch of time. His .386 batting average on balls in play this year is well above his career rate of .324 as well as the .290 league average. Since his exit velocity numbers are pretty similar to previous seasons, the BABIP will likely regress a bit going forward. However, he’s also made some gains in the plate discipline department that could perhaps be more sustainable, as they fit a pattern of growth that goes back a few years.

Bohm went through three minor league levels as a prospect in 2019, going from Low-A to High-A to Double-A. He walked in 10.6% of his plate appearances and only struck out 13.5% of the time. Prospect evaluators had praised his eye at the plate and those numbers tracked with that. He hit .305/.378/.518 that year across those minor league levels for a 161 wRC+.

In the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Bohm shot onto the scene with a huge major league debut. He hit .338/.400/.481 for a 138 wRC+. His 20% strikeout rate and 8.9% walk rate weren’t quite as strong as in the minors the year prior, but that was fairly logical for a guy skipping Triple-A and getting to the big leagues for the first time.

But it seems the league adjusted the next year, as Bohm endured an awful sophomore slump in 2021. He took 417 trips to the plate that year and was punched out in 26.6% of them. His walk rate also fell to 7.4%. He only hit seven home runs on the year, leading to a paltry line of .247/.305/.342 and a 77 wRC+. He was optioned to the minors for a time, spending just over a month on the farm from late August to late September.

Since that awful season, however, Bohm has been gradually climbing in terms of his results and approach at the plate . In 2022, his walk rate dropped to 4.9% but he only struck out at a 17.4% clip, almost a ten-point drop from the prior season. His .280/.315/.398 batting line wasn’t amazing, leading to a 98 wRC+, but it was still progress relative to the prior year.

Last season, he continued down that path by dropping his strikeout rate even further to 15.4%, with his walk rate ticking up slightly to 6.9%. He also set a new career high with 20 home runs, leading to a .274/.327/.437 slash and 105 wRC+.

As mentioned up top, Bohm has a huge slash line this year, which is at least partly fueled by his strong BABIP. But he’s also drawn walks at a massive 13.5% clip, almost double where he was at last year. He’s swinging at just 27.8% of pitches outside the zone so far this year, whereas he chased at a 33.4% rate in prior seasons. Even when he does chase, his 79% contact rate on pitches outside the zone is far higher than the 71.2% rate he had coming into the year. On pitches in the zone, he’s making contact at a 93.6% rate, compared to his 86.7% rate coming into the year.

Looking at his swinging-strike rate, there is a direct downward trend from his sophomore slump year in 2021 to the present. It was 11.7% that year but dropped to 9.6% the year after, followed by 7.8% last year. He’s down to just 5.1% this year. Going forward, BABIP results will sway with luck as they often do. But the fact that he swings and misses less as time goes on suggests that he has been maturing in the areas he can control.

What’s also encouraging is that he’s been doing damage against both lefties and righties this year, whereas he had seemed to be leaning towards a short-side platoon role in previous years. He currently has a career 143 wRC+ against southpaws but just an 87 otherwise. As recently as last year, those figures were 142 against lefties and 92 against righties. So far this season, he’s at 205 and 149, still a big split but well above average regardless of who he has faced.

Defense is also important for Bohm, as he’s never been considered an especially strong third baseman, nor one who was destined to stay there for a long time. Going into 2020, the Baseball America scouting report on Bohm contained this passage: “Kris Bryant and Troy Glaus are the only players 6-foot-5 or taller to play more than 200 games at third base in MLB history. Bohm is unlikely to become the third.”

Well, Bohm has already gone past that 200-game threshold, having already played 388 contests at the hot corner. The results have not been great, however, as he has career tallies of -49 Defensive Runs Saved and -11 Outs Above Average.

Last year, the Phillies started playing Bohm at first base more with Rhys Hoskins injured, but Bryce Harper eventually took it over. Though Harper was previously an outfielder, he returned from Tommy John surgery as a designated hitter and then eventually moved into first base due to the lesser throwing demands at that position.

After the 2023 season, it was announced that Harper would stay at first base going forward and would not be returning to the outfield. Since Kyle Schwarber is effectively a full-time designated hitter now, Bohm is locked in at third.

It’s possible to see some evolution in his glovework at third as well, depending on which metric you trust. DRS has continued to be extremely pessimistic, with Bohm at -10 or worse in each of the previous three campaigns. He’s already at -3 DRS so far this year, not even a month into the season. But OAA is bit more hopeful, since Bohm bottomed out by that metric with a -9 in 2022, before getting to +1 last year. Though that was in a smaller sample size since he spent roughly half his time at first base, where OAA gave him a -6 on the year. He’s still at an even zero at third base so far in the early parts of 2024, meaning OAA considers him roughly average at the hot corner going back to the start of last year. Even if one buys into that more optimistic view, Bohm will likely have to move off third at some point.

Schwarber is a free agent after 2025, which could perhaps allow Bohm to share first base and designated hitter with Harper. On the other hand, Nick Castellanos is under contract through 2026 and is also considered a weak defender, so perhaps he becomes the DH when Schwarber’s contract is up. The club has had past interest in trading Castellanos and he’s currently hitting .177/.233/.198, so there’s definitely a chance he’s no longer with the team by 2026 (whether due to a trade or release).

Bohm is controlled via arbitration through the 2026 season and could perhaps be extended beyond that point if the club really believes in his bat. But it’s not a perfect roster fit even after Schwarber and Castellanos are gone. Harper’s contract goes all the way through 2031, and it seems he’ll stay a first baseman and designated hitter for the rest of his career. Having Harper and Bohm locked in at those two spots isn’t ideal roster construction, as clubs often like to have at least some ability to rotate their regular players through the DH spot for a bit of rest.

For now, Bohm will stick at third and the club will likely be happy to live with his defense as long as he’s good in the batter’s box. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said as much a few years ago. “His key is he has to hit. If he hits well enough, you’ll live with the defensive aspect of it,” said Dombrowski after Bohm’s rough 2021 campaign. With Bohm’s results so far this year, he’s making things easy on Dombrowski and the Phils, and will continue to do so if he can keep it up.

Josh Naylor Just Keeps Getting Better

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There have always been fairly high expectations for Guardians first baseman Josh Naylor. He entered the 2015 draft considered one of the 60 or so best talents available and instead vaulted to the No. 12 overall selection when the Marlins took him and cut an under-slot deal with him, signing him for a $2.25MM bonus that clocked in shy of his $3.05MM slot value.

As if the draft stock wasn’t enough, Naylor was soon included in a pair of relatively high-profile trades. Miami sent him to the Padres alongside Carter Capps, Jarred Cosart and, ahem, Luis Castillo (whoops) in exchange for Andrew Cashner, Colin Rea and Tayron Guerrero. Naylor ranked among the game’s top-100 prospects heading into the 2019 season and made his debut with San Diego that season before being packaged with Owen Miller, Austin Hedges, Joey Cantillo, Gabriel Arias and Cal Quantrill to acquire Mike Clevinger, Greg Allen and Matt Waldron from Cleveland (again… whoops).

For the first three seasons of Naylor’s career, he was an up-and-down first baseman/outfielder/designated hitter who didn’t do much hitting. In his first 633 plate appearances, he posted an anemic .250/.306/.389 batting line (88 wRC+). His 19.1% strikeout rate was lower than the league average, but so was his 7% walk rate. Naylor hit the ball on the ground at a huge 51.6% clip, which is far from ideal for a hitter who drew 20- and 30-grade marks for his speed as a prospect. He was borderline passive at the dish, only swinging at 48% of pitches thrown.

In what amounted to roughly a full season’s worth of plate appearances (603) over that three-year span, Naylor was more or less a replacement-level player. He made plenty of contact but didn’t do much damage with it and didn’t really contribute defensively. Naylor posted below-average grades from both Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average in the outfield corners and only saw sparse action at first base (106 innings).

In 2022, the Guardians moved Naylor to first base full time. Whether he felt more comfortable there and thus at the plate, or whether he simply adapted to big league pitching after getting a few hundred plate appearances under his belt, a corner was clearly turned. Naylor took a huge step forward at the dish, smacking a career-best 20 homers while hitting .256/.319/.452 in 498 plate appearances. His walk rate crept up from 5.6% to 7.6% His strikeout rate dipped from 18% to 16.1%. Things continued trending in a positive direction in 2023, with Naylor cutting the strikeout rate all the way to 13.7% as he turned in an even better .308/.354/.489 slash.

This season, Naylor’s gone from a solid middle-of-the-order hitter behind star teammate Jose Ramirez to a star-caliber bat himself, however. He’s out to a blistering .295/.366/.557 start, and it’s not the type of early-season fluke that’s propped up by a .400-something average on balls in play. Naylor’s .274 BABIP is actually 21 points lower than the .295 mark he carried into the season, in fact. So what’s changed?

For starters, the K-BB profile has only continued to get better. He’s walking at an 8.9% clip that’d be right in line with his 9% career-best mark from back in his rookie season. His 10.9% strikeout rate isn’t just a career-best — it’s tied with Mookie Betts for the eighth-lowest in MLB. Naylor has always been a free swinger who’s chased off the plate a lot; he swung at 38.4% of pitches off the plate in his career prior to 2024. This year, he’s at 32.6%. His overall contact rate is actually down a tick, but that’s easier to stomach when he’s laying off more bad balls and working himself into better counts.

It’s also in part due to what appears to be a conscious effort to do more damage at the plate. More than half of Naylor’s batted balls (50.4%) were hit on the ground through his first four seasons. He lowered his ground-ball rate in each of his first four MLB seasons but took a major jump in 2023, cutting that grounder rate from 48.9% in ’22 to 42.7%. This year, Naylor is only putting 40.5% of his batted balls on the ground. Both his 22.8% line-drive rate and 36.7% fly-ball rate are career-high marks.

As one would expect, elevating the ball more regularly is leading to considerably more damage. Naylor may be sacrificing a bit of contact, but he possesses such strong bat-to-ball skills that you’ll rarely see him swing through multiple pitches in the same at-bat. And the extra oomph in his swing is producing better results not just in his rate stats but in the under-the-hood numbers as well. Naylor’s 90.7 mph average exit velocity, 12.7% barrel rate and 44.3% hard-hit rate — as measured by Statcast — are all easy career-highs. He’s seen 20.7% of his fly-balls clear the fence for home runs — a major improvement over his career 13% mark and the single-season career-high of 15.9% he established in 2022.

For years, the Guardians have forged an identity as a team full of pesky, tough-to-strike-out hitters who put the ball in play but also generally lacked pop. Ramirez was a true heart-of-the-order slugger who managed to embody that contact-driven focus while still hitting for power, but Cleveland lacked anyone else who fit that profile. It’s early in 2024, but Naylor looks to be figuring out the recipe for toeing that same line. The six homers he’s hit in 101 plate appearances is already one shy of his 2021 total in 250 plate appearances and already 30% of the way to his career-high in only 20% the playing time.

Still just 26 years old, Naylor remains in his physical prime and is refining an already strong approach and plan at the plate in a way that’s letting him tap into the 60- to 70-grade marks that scouts put on his power during his prospect days. In doing so, he appears on the cusp of breaking out as a potentially elite hitter.

Heading into the season, with questions about how the Guardians would fare coming off a disappointing 2023 season, it was reasonable to view Naylor as a possible summer trade candidate. Multiple clubs expressed interest him over the winter. He’s expensive by Cleveland standards, earning $6.55MM this year, and will very likely command a raise to north of $10MM in 2025 — his final season of club control. The Guardians have a habit of trading players before the get to the point where they could test free agency.

But Cleveland’s excellent start to the season, even in the midst of a severe slate of pitching injuries, should have fans of other clubs pumping the brakes on the idea of prying Naylor from the Guardians’ grasp. If the wave of pitching injuries proves to be too difficult to withstand and the Guards eventually fall out of the race, it could still be a possibility. But right now, Naylor is one of the driving factors in Cleveland’s hot start to the season and breaking out as a critical cog in a lineup that’s vastly exceeding expectations.

The A’s Overpowering Closer

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In what’ll be another rough season for the A’s, the front office is looking for young players to establish themselves as key long-term pieces. In the first few weeks, no one has shown more promise in that regard than Mason Miller.

Miller was a third-round pick in 2021. His stuff had taken a major step forward during his final collegiate season. As The Athletic’s Stephen Nesbitt wrote last week, Miller had a hard time keeping on weight and maintaining his strength until he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2018. While the primary concern was in allowing Miller to navigate a serious health condition, learning how to manage the issue permitted the 6’5″ righty to rapidly bulk up. His velocity spiked into the mid-upper 90s, leading the A’s to roll the dice on his upside.

Injuries essentially robbed Miller of traditional minor league development. He lost almost all of the 2022 season to shoulder issues. He had pitched all of 28 2/3 professional innings before the A’s called him up last April. He had an impressive four-start debut before reporting forearm soreness. Testing revealed a mild UCL sprain and the A’s shut him down for a few months. Miller returned in September, working 2-3 inning stints to finish the year. He closed his rookie campaign with a 3.78 ERA in 33 1/3 innings.

Oakland GM David Forst announced early in the offseason that Miller would work out of the bullpen in 2024. Forst suggested it wasn’t a permanent switch. Rather, the A’s were using the 25-year-old in shorter stints in an effort to keep him healthy before a move back to the rotation in 2025. While they certainly had high hopes that his power arsenal would translate, Miller has surpassed even the loftiest expectations in the first few weeks.

Including tonight’s four-out save in the Bronx, Miller is up to 11 1/3 innings of two-run ball. He has successfully locked down all six of his save chances. After allowing two runs in his season debut against the Guardians, he has rattled off eight straight scoreless outings. Four of those have been perfect innings in which he has recorded multiple strikeouts.

Miller has punched out 23 of 45 opposing hitters, the highest strikeout rate in the majors. His already eye-popping stuff has leveled up in short bursts. Miller’s fastball is sitting in the 100-101 MPH range. Both the heater and his upper-80s slider have been essentially untouchable.

Even in a minuscule sample, it doesn’t seem outlandish to call Miller one of the top relievers in MLB. The quality of the arsenal is self-evident. He’s missing bats at the levels we’ve seen from the likes of Edwin Díaz, Félix Bautista and Andrés Muñoz. Given his injury history, one can question whether he’ll be able to stay healthy all season. There’s no reason to doubt his talent.

Miller fell just shy of the cutoff for a full service year in 2023. The A’s control him for six seasons. He’ll qualify for early arbitration as a Super Two player during the 2025-26 offseason. That’ll allow him to go through the arb process four times instead of the standard three, yet Miller could stick with the A’s through the ’29 campaign.

Opposing teams will probably try to convince Forst to put Miller on the trade block this summer, but it’s hard to see any realistic way that he gets moved. Even rebuilding clubs rarely trade relievers with the kind of talent that he possesses when they’re in their pre-arbitration seasons. That’s before considering that the A’s presumably still intend to give him a chance to compete for a rotation spot next year. If Miller turns in a full season as a top 3-5 reliever in the sport, perhaps they’d consider him too valuable to take out of the bullpen, but there’s nothing to suggest their long-term plans have changed at this point.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

A Potential Positive Development On The White Sox’ Roster

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Most baseball fans are surely aware that not a lot is going right for the White Sox. They are currently 3-22, the worst record in baseball. But there are some hopeful signs with at least one player on the roster: catcher Korey Lee.

Now 25 years old, Lee was a first-round pick of the Astros, selected 32nd overall in 2019. As he climbed up the minor league ladder, he earned a reputation as a glove-first catcher. In terms of his offense, he clearly had some power but the production was fairly hollow apart from that.

In 2022, he played in 104 Triple-A games and hit 25 home runs. However, he also struck out 28.5% of the time and only walked at an 8.1% clip. Since he was playing for the Sugar Land Space Cowboys in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, his .238/.307/.483 batting line only translated to a wRC+ of 90.

That production was 10% below league average overall but is around par for a catcher. He also got to make his major league debut that year but clearly did not get out to a roaring start in the big leagues. His first 26 plate appearances led to a batting line of .160/.192/.240.

He was sent back to Sugar Land in 2023 and took a step back. He got into 68 games for the Space Cowboys and hit just five home runs. He lowered his strikeout rate to 24.8% but his walk rate also ticked down to 5.6%. His .283/.328/.406 line led to a wRC+ of 77.

In spite of the tepid offense, the Sox decided to take a shot on him. When trading Kendall Graveman at last year’s deadline, they flipped him to the Astros for Lee straight up. His bat did not improve in the immediate aftermath of that deal. He hit .255/.309/.275 in Triple-A, striking out 40% of the time, and then .077/.143/.138 in the majors.

Coming into 2024, Lee still had an option remaining and the Sox clearly intended to use it. They grabbed a couple of more experienced catchers in Martín Maldonado and Max Stassi and were seemingly going to break camp with that pair, as Lee was optioned on March 20. But then Stassi required an Opening Day stint on the injured list due to hip inflammation, so Lee was recalled.

So far, the results have been good at the major league level. We’re talking about 46 plate appearances over 17 games, so small sample size caveats definitely apply, but Lee is slashing .279/.326/.465 for a wRC+ of 129. His 6.5% walk rate is a bit below average but he’s also only striking out a 19.6% clip so far.

Looking under the hood also shows some encouraging signs. Lee has a barrel rate of 9.7% thus far, almost triple the 3.3% rate he had over 2022 and 2023. His expected batting average, on-base and slug are all up.

Perhaps the most encouraging development is in the plate discipline department. He had previously swung at 36.9% of pitchers outsize the zone but has dropped that number to 29.1% this year. Even when he does chase, he’s missing less, as his 69.6% contract rate outsize the zone is a big jump from his previous rate of 51.3%.

On pitches in the zone, he’s up to an 86.8% swing rate compared to 78% in his previous seasons. His called strike rate was 11.6% coming into the year but is down to 8.2% this season. He had a 15.8% swinging strike rate in the majors in the previous two years, and even higher in Triple-A, but is at 13.6% so far this year.

This is obvious baseball stuff, but swinging at more pitches in the zone and chasing less, while also whiffing less often, is going to lead to fewer strikeouts. Again, it’s a very small sample size but it’s progress in the area that has been Lee’s biggest weakness.

Scouting reports on Lee have long highlighted that he has a cannon for an arm and is a strong blocker. Perhaps there’s still some room to grow in terms of framing but the overall defensive package is considered to be above average. At the plate, the power has been there but the strikeouts were a concern. Whether he can continue to show the positive signs from the early weeks of this season will be something for the Sox to monitor.

In the short term, it’s possible the Sox may have a difficult decision to make. Stassi started a rehab assignment early in the year but was injured again after a backswing hit his hand, per Scott Merkin of MLB.com. He hasn’t yet resumed his rehab assignment but will presumably be ready to rejoin the team at some point.

Perhaps they would consider optioning Lee to the minors when Stassi is back, but cutting Maldonado should also be on the table. He has a strong reputation in the league for his work with pitchers but he’s approaching his 38th birthday and is awful at the plate. He hit .183/.260/.333 for the Astros over the past three seasons and is down to a line of .048/.091/.071 so far this year.

Even if they value Maldonado’s intangibles enough to overlook that offense, moving on from Stassi could also be a consideration. He was acquired from Atlanta in the offseason with that club paying Stassi’s salary down to the league minimum, meaning the Sox aren’t financially committed to Stassi in any way.

In the long term, it will be quite nice for the Sox is Lee can hang onto this improved plate discipline. He came into this year with just 71 days of service time. Assuming he stays with the big league club for the rest of the year, the Sox will still be able for five more seasons after this one.

He seems destined to be joined on the roster by Edgar Quero at some point. Acquired from the Angels in the trade that sent Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo López to the Angels, Quero is effectively the inverse to Lee, as he is considered to be more of a bat-first catcher.

In 1,190 minor league plate appearances thus far in his career, Quero has drawn walks in 15% of them while only striking out at an 18.8% clip. He’s also hit 33 home runs and slashed .280/.407/.458. At Double-A this year, he already has five home runs and has a line of .294/.387/.627 for a 197 wRC+. Since he spent all of last year in Double-A as well, a promotion to Triple-A should be imminent. He’s currently ranked the #58 prospect in the whole league by FanGraphs while Keith Law of The Athletic recently gave him the #67 spot.

The glove-first Lee and the bat-first Quero should make for a nice pairing behind the plate for the Sox if all goes according to plan. Lee hits from the right side while Quero is a switch hitter. The inverse profiles should allow the club to deploy them situationally, depending on whether offense or defense is preferred on a given day or a given situation. Almost no club has an everyday catcher these days, so the Sox could split the playing time, with the designated hitter slot also giving them a way to have both in the lineup with regularity. If one of these two backstops takes a step forward and is ahead of the other, the team could tip the scales of the playing time accordingly.

For fans of the Sox, there’s not a lot to feel good about in the present. That means looking to the future is the best bet at finding hope or even just a reason to follow the team. When it comes to the catching depth, there seems to be a bit of sunshine peeking out over the horizon.

The Marlins’ Historically Feeble Catching Corps

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The Marlins have been searching for a long-term answer at catcher since trading J.T. Realmuto to the Phillies back in February of 2019. The organizational hope at the time was that Jorge Alfaro, acquired alongside righty Sixto Sanchez and lefty Will Stewart in that very trade, could step up and fill the role. That never really came to fruition, and the Fish have cycled through him, Jacob Stallings and a long list of veteran role players in an effort to hold things over at the position.

It’s never gone particularly well, but it’s also never been as bad as it is right now. The Marlins opened the season with glove-first Nick Fortes and trade acquisition Christian Bethancourt lined up to shoulder the workload behind the plate. The results are quite literally some of the worst in history. Through the Marlins’ first 25 games — more than 15% of their season — they’ve gotten exactly five hits from their catchers. All have come from Fortes, who has three singles and a pair of doubles on the year. He’s 5-for-46 at the plate. Bethancourt is hitless in 23 plate appearances. Jhonny Pereda, recently selected from Triple-A Jacksonville to replace Bethancourt when he  hit the IL due to a viral illness, is 0-for-5 to begin his big league career. (Miami reinstated Bethancourt from the injured list today and optioned Pereda back to Jacksonville.)

Overall, Marlins catchers own a staggering .068/.117/.096 slash line on the season. That obviously places them at the bottom of the league; by measure of wRC+, Miami catchers have been 138% worse than league-average (-38). Since Realmuto left the Marlins, their catchers have combined for a .223/.285/.345 batting line in 2734 plate appearances.

The Fish likely knew the catcher’s spot would be a weak point in the lineup. Fortes hit just .204/.263/.299 in 323 plate appearances last season but is a plus defender behind the dish who was credited as being five runs better than average by both Defensive Runs Saved and Statcast in just 774 innings in 2023.

Bethancourt has more power (11 homers, .156 ISO last season) but hit just .225/.254/.381 thanks to a lofty 27.4% strikeout rate and paltry 3.9% walk rate. He’s a rocket-armed defender who’s thrown out one-third of attempted base thieves in his career and ranked in the 95th percentile of MLB catchers for his pop time behind the plate last season, however. True to form, he’s thrown out two of the three runners who’ve run against him this season.

Bethancourt is also likely a favorite of Miami president of baseball operations Peter Bendix, who was the Rays’ GM when Tampa Bay acquired Bethancourt from the A’s last year and who quickly acquired Bethancourt in a trade after the Guardians claimed him off waivers from the Rays.

At the time of that trade, it appeared likely to be one of multiple additions for the Fish. Bendix said shortly after being hired that it’d be “ideal” to acquire multiple catchers over the course of the offseason, recognizing that it was an area of organizational weakness. In the most literal sense possible, the Marlins accomplished that goal; Bethancourt was acquired via trade, and the aforementioned Pereda was signed as a minor league free agent. It’s hard to imagine that a cash swap and a minor league signing were the goal at the time of those comments from Bendix, however.

Marlins ownership clearly didn’t give the front office much to work with in terms of financial firepower this offseason. The team’s only major league free agent signing was a one-year, $5MM deal for Tim Anderson. The Fish made little to no effort to re-sign Jorge Soler after he opted out of the final year of his contract — and that’s according to Soler himself. Even on the eve of Opening Day, the Marlins were still trimming payroll, shipping utilityman Jon Berti to the Yankees in exchange for a pair of minor league outfielders.

The Marlins clearly believe they’ll get more offense out of Fortes and Bethancourt — a low bar to clear thus far in the season — as they’ve made no effort to augment the position thus far. Veteran Eric Haase and his modest $1MM salary passed through waivers unclaimed in late March. When the Giants designated Joey Bart for assignment, the Pirates acquired him in exchange for a relief prospect they drafted in the eighth round last year. Veterans Francisco Mejia (Brewers) and Curt Casali (Cubs) both signed minor league deals with other clubs after the season began.

Outside of Bart (a long shot), none of those names was likely to emerge as a long-term option. They’re generally short-term stopgaps at best and future DFA candidates themselves at worst. But given the total dearth of production the Marlins have received from the catching position this year, even a short-term stopgap seems like a wise target — particularly since the farm isn’t likely to produce any immediate help.

None of Miami’s top-tier prospects are catchers. Will Banfield is the most highly regarded of the bunch, ranking 16th in their system at Baseball America and 23rd at MLB.com. Banfield, however, carries a similar profile to that of Fortes — a plus defender with questionable offensive skills. He’s off to a woeful .161/.203/.304 start in Triple-A and has struck out in an eye-popping 49.2% of his 59 plate appearances. Joe Mack, whom the Marlins selected 31st overall in 2021, is another glove-first option who’s further down the ladder. He hit just .218/.295/.287 in High-A last year, though he did rip through pitching at that same level this year (.347/.467/.561) and earn a promotion to Double-A in the process.

Fortes, Bethancourt and Pereda won’t keep floundering at this severe a level, but none of that trio is likely to emerge as a solid offensive contributor either. There was inherent risk in entering the season with a pair of backstops who sport career wRC+ marks of 69 (Bethancourt) and 70 (Fortes). Things have gone worse than anyone could’ve reasonably expected, but it was always a possibility that the Fish would be rostering one of the least-productive catching tandems in the sport — if not the worst. The lack of any meaningful effort to address the deficiency is perplexing but feels like something that can and will be addressed via the trade market — whether at this year’s deadline or in the offseason.

Miami isn’t going to go out and trade prospects for an established veteran — not when their season is all but lost before the end of April — but if and when the Marlins begin selling off veterans of their own, targeting some upper-level catching help wouldn’t be a surprising outcome.

Jose Abreu’s Continued Struggles

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No hitter has had a worse start to the season than José Abreu. The veteran first baseman has only picked up four hits in 65 plate appearances. He’s hitting .068/.138/.085 with one extra-base knock, a double. Among hitters with 50+ trips to the dish, none has made less of an impact from a power perspective. Only Victor Scott II — a glove-first rookie whom the Cardinals optioned over the weekend — has as poor an on-base mark.

While St. Louis had the luxury of sending Scott to Triple-A, the Astros can’t do the same with Abreu. He’d need to agree to any kind of minor league assignment. They’re not going to find a trade partner. In all likelihood, the only way for Houston to take him off the MLB roster is to release him and eat the remaining money on his $58.5MM free agent deal. Considering Abreu is making $19.5MM both this season and next, it’s not especially surprising that Houston isn’t ready to move on entirely.

At the same time, they have to at least consider the possibility of making a change at first base. The Astros have already kicked Abreu to the bottom third of the batting order after he started the year in the #5 hole. He has gotten the start in 16 of Houston’s 23 games, with Jon Singleton getting the nod at first base for the other seven appearances.

If Singleton were hitting well, perhaps Abreu would be in danger of losing his starting job. Yet the lefty-hitting Singleton is off to a lackluster .229/.308/.286 line in his own right. It comes as no surprise that Houston’s first basemen have been the sport’s least productive through three weeks. No team has gotten less than their .110/.187/.146 showing over 91 plate appearances.

While Singleton isn’t exactly forcing his way into the lineup, the Astros could consider alternatives in the minors. Offseason trade acquisition Trey Cabbage is on the 40-man roster but has been on optional assignment to Triple-A Sugar Land all season. He’s hitting .262/.407/.492 over his first 18 games. Former seventh-round pick Joey Loperfido has raked at a .260/.359/.688 clip over 19 contests for the Space Cowboys. The Duke product is tied with Heston Kjerstad for the Triple-A lead with 10 home runs. Loperfido is not on the 40-man but will need to be added at some point this year if Houston wants to keep him out of next offseason’s Rule 5 draft.

Neither Cabbage nor Loperfido is certain or even necessarily likely to produce against big league pitching. Cabbage appeared in 22 games for the Angels last season and struck out in nearly half his plate appearances. He’s going down on strikes a third of the time this year in Triple-A. Loperfido has had a similarly high swing-and-miss rate, fanning at a 33.7% clip this year after running a 32.6% strikeout percentage in his first look at Triple-A pitching last summer. He’s soon to turn 25 and has yet to make his major league debut.

Even if the Astros aren’t sold on Loperfido or Cabbage making enough contact to produce at the MLB level, they’ll obviously need to see more from Abreu to continue running him out there. General manager Dana Brown acknowledged as much last week. The GM told Matt Kawahara of the Houston Chronicle on Friday that while the Astros would continue to give Abreu playing time in hopes that he finds his stride, they’d “have to circle back and make some decisions” if the former MVP doesn’t start hitting. That preceded an 0-8 showing from Abreu in the first two games of their weekend series against the Nationals. Singleton got the nod in yesterday’s series finale and went 0-3.

A player starting the year slowly can easily be overemphasized. A terrible three-week stretch to begin the season is more visible than a similar run in the middle of the summer might be. Teams are understandably wary about overreacting to a small sample in April, as Brown noted. Abreu’s struggles are magnified, though, because he’s already coming off a disappointing first year.

In 594 plate appearances a year ago, he hit .237/.296/.383 with 18 home runs. Of the 25 first basemen who took at least 500 plate appearances, Abreu was last in OBP and 22nd in slugging. Including this year’s start brings his overall line as an Astro to .220/.281/.354. That’d be subpar production for virtually any regular on a team with postseason aspirations. It’s particularly poor for a 37-year-old first baseman whose main source of value is supposed to be his bat.

To his credit, Abreu found his form to some extent late last season. He carried a .237/.296/.350 mark into September before connecting on seven homers with a .237/.299/.536 line in the regular season’s final month. He built off that in October, mashing at a .295/.354/.591 clip with another four longballs in 11 playoff contests. Abreu has also traditionally been a slow starter, even if this month’s struggles are at another level. For his career, he owns a roughly league average .241/.309/.421 line in March and April; he has posted well above-average offensive numbers in every other month.

That perhaps offers some level of optimism that Abreu will be able to turn things around. Still, despite a strong Spring Training performance, he hasn’t smoothly carried his late-2023 rebound into this season. How much more leeway the front office and manager Joe Espada can afford to give him remains to be seen.

Houston’s offense has been solid overall despite the complete lack of production at first base, yet they’re operating with far less margin for error than they have in past seasons. Poor performances from the starting rotation and the back of the bullpen, combined with a lack of timely hits, have led to a dismal 7-16 start. Only the White Sox have been worse in the American League. Urgency is soon going to mount. If the Astros get to a point where they feel a change in playing time is necessary, first base might be the likeliest position to do so.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Which Hot Or Cold Starts Are For Real?

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The 2024 season is just a few weeks old. There’s still a lot of time for narratives to shift and plenty of exciting or deflating changes are surely coming up over the horizon. Nonetheless, the games in April count just as much as the games in September. Some clubs have already banked some valuable wins while others have put themselves in a real hole.

Looking at the FanGraphs Playoff Odds today and comparing them to where they were ahead of the Seoul Series, there are five clubs that have increased their postseason chances by more than 10%. Meanwhile, six clubs have seen their odds drop by more than 10%. Which of those are just small-sample blips and which are signs that the club’s talent level is meaningfully different than expected? Let’s take a glance.

Orioles

The defending champions of the American League East were given just a 51.8% chance of making it back to the postseason, per the FanGraphs odds from before any games had been played. They have started out 12-6 and seen their odds jump to 76.5% today, a difference of 24.7%.

Baltimore continues to get huge contributions from its young core and role players alike. Jackson Holliday’s big league career is out to a slow start, but others have picked up the slack, with Colton Cowser, Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg and Cedric Mullins off and running. Even Ryan O’Hearn, who was acquired in a small cash deal from the Royals, continues to thrive. On the pitching side, Corbin Burnes has been the expected ace while Grayson Rodriguez continues to cement himself as a quality big league arm. There are some question marks at the back end with Dean Kremer and Cole Irvin out to wobbly starts, but Kyle Bradish and John Means are both on minor league rehab assignments and could rejoin the club soon.

The 18 games they have played so far have come against the Angels, Royals, Pirates, Red Sox, Brewers and Twins.

Royals

The Royals entered the season with playoff odds of just 13.1% but they have gone 12-7 so far, bumping themselves up to 33.2%, a difference of 20.1%.

An improved rotation gets a lot of the credit. Between last year’s trade for Cole Ragans, the offseason signings of Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha, as well as the emergence of Alec Marsh, it’s a whole new look alongside Brady Singer. None of those five have an ERA higher than 4.32 so far this year. On the position player side of things, Bobby Witt Jr. is further proving himself to be a superstar, while Salvador Perez and Vinnie Pasquantino are healthy and productive.

They have faced the Twins, Orioles, White Sox, Astros and Mets thus far.

Yankees

The Yanks had strong odds to begin with, starting out at 71.2%. A hot start of 13 wins and 6 losses has already bumped those all the way to 85.9%, a jump of 14.7%.

Health was a big factor for the Yankees last year, with players like Aaron Judge, Anthony Rizzo, DJ LeMahieu, Giancarlo Stanton, Nestor Cortes and Carlos Rodón all missing significant time. This year, Gerrit Cole is on the shelf, as is LeMahieu. But new face Juan Soto has been great so far, while Stanton, Cortes and Rodón are back in decent form.

The injuries or lack thereof will probably remain a focus for the months to come, especially with so many key players in their mid-30s. Last year, the club was 45-36 through the end of June, but mounting injuries led to them going 20-33 through July and August.

They have started their season by playing the Astros, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Marlins and Guardians.

Brewers

The National League Central is arguably the most up-for-grabs, with the five clubs fairly close in terms of talent. Despite being the reigning division champs, the Brewers were given just a 30.6% chance of making the postseason, below the Cardinals and Cubs. They’ve started out 11-6 and are now at 43.5%, a 12.9% bump.

There have been quite a few nice performance on the offensive side of things. Willy Adames had a bit of a down year in 2023 but is off to a good start in this campaign. Brice Turang and Blake Perkins are also putting up better numbers than last year. Joey Ortiz has done well since coming over from the Orioles in the Burnes trade. The loss of Burnes and the injury to Brandon Woodruff left the club without their co-aces, but Freddy Peralta has stepped up with a 2.55 ERA and 39.4% strikeout rate through his first three starts.

They have faced off against the Mets, Twins, Mariners, Reds, Orioles and Padres so far.

Mets

After a disastrous 2023 season and a relatively quiet winter, the Mets opened this year with their odds at 27.6%. A 10-8 start has already bumped them to 38.7%, an 11.1% difference.

They have been especially strong of late, as they started out 0-5 but have gone 10-3 over their last 13 contests. The bounceback plays on Luis Severino and Sean Manaea seem to be going well so far. Edwin Díaz is healthy again and already has four saves. On the position player side, Brett Baty seems to be taking a step forward. DJ Stewart is carrying over last year’s hot finish, and the Tyrone Taylor pickup looks like a nice move.

They have lined up against the Brewers, Tigers, Reds, Braves, Royals and Pirates.

Giants

The Giants added plenty of talent this winter and opened the season with playoff odds of 44.6%. But an 8-11 start has already dropped them to 34%, a difference of 10.6%.

Stretching out Jordan Hicks is going great so far, but Blake Snell showed a lot of rust in his first two starts after signing late in the offseason. On offense, acquisitions like Jung Hoo Lee, Matt Chapman and Nick Ahmed have produced subpar offense, and the same goes for incumbents like Mike Yastrzemski, Wilmer Flores and Thairo Estrada.

They have squared off against the Padres, Dodgers, Nationals, Rays and Marlins thus far.

Cardinals

Despite a dreadful 2023 campaign, expectations were high for the Cards coming into this year after they remade their rotation. But a middling start of 9-10 has dropped their playoff odds from 50.1% to 38.7%, a difference of 11.4%.

Injuries have been playing a notable role in the early going for the Cards, with Sonny Gray, Lars Nootbaar, Tommy Edman, Dylan Carlson and others missing time. The Lance Lynn signing looks good so far, as he has a 2.18 ERA through four starts, but Kyle Gibson is at 6.16. Both the veteran Paul Goldschmidt and the youngster Jordan Walker are out to terrible starts at the plate. The Cardinals’ long list of injuries opened up playing time for guys like Alec Burleson and Victor Scott II, who have each struggled immensely.

They have faced the Dodgers, Padres, Marlins, Phillies, Diamondbacks and Athletics to this point.

Mariners

The Mariners just missed the playoffs last year but still opened this season with a 60.8% chance of getting back there. A tepid start of 9-10 has seen those odds slide to 49.1%, a difference of 11.7%. Things were even more dire before they swept the Reds this week, as they were 6-10 prior to that.

The rotation has surprisingly been a problem thus far. An injury to Bryan Woo bumped Emerson Hancock into the rotation, but Hancock has an ERA of 7.98 through three starts. Each of Luis Castillo and George Kirby also have poor results, though those may be based on luck. Both have a high BABIP and low strand rate, so both have a FIP just above 3.00, about three runs lower than their ERA.

Julio Rodríguez is the biggest disappointment on the position player side. He is striking out at a 34.6% clip and walking just 5.1% of the time while still looking for his first home of the year, leading to a line of .219/.269/.260. Luke Raley, Mitch Garver and J.P. Crawford have also looked lost at the plate, with none of that trio posting a wRC+ higher than 75 so far.

The M’s have played the Red Sox, Guardians, Brewers, Blue Jays, Cubs and Reds.

Marlins

The Fish swam into the playoffs last year, their first postseason berth in a full season in 20 years. They followed that with an offseason mostly focused on overhauling their front office and player development system. A disastrous 4-15 start has already dropped this year’s playoff odds from 27.9% to 2.3%, a difference of 25.6%.

Injuries have been a huge factor, as the club’s former starting pitching surplus quickly became a deficit. Sandy Alcántara required Tommy John surgery last year, and Eury Pérez followed him down that path this year. Edward Cabrera and Braxton Garrett also missed some time due to shoulder troubles. A.J. Puk’s attempted move from the bullpen to the rotation is not going well so far, and Jesús Luzardo is struggling badly. Max Meyer was doing well but he was optioned to the minors to monitor his workload after he missed all of last year recovering from his own Tommy John procedure. The offense has been pretty bad across the board, as not a single member of the team has a wRC+ of 105 or higher. Jake Burger hit the injured list earlier this week, removing one of their top power bats from that already weak group.

They faced the Pirates, Angels, Cardinals, Yankees, Braves and Giants to start the year and have yet to win back-to-back games.

Astros

The Astros have been a powerhouse for years and opened this season with an 86.2% chance of returning to the postseason. But they have stumbled out of the gates this year with a record of 6-14, dropping their odds to 59.7%, a 26.5% drop.

Like some of the other clubs mentioned above, health has been a big factor here. Lance McCullers Jr. and Luis Garcia each underwent elbow surgery last year and are still rehabbing. So far this year, the Astros have lost Justin Verlander, José Urquidy and Framber Valdez to the IL, giving them a full rotation on the shelf. (Verlander will return tomorrow.)

With those prominent arms not around, others haven’t really picked up the slack. Hunter Brown has an ERA of 10.54 through four starts while J.P. France is at 7.08. Prospect Spencer Arrighetti was called up to fill in but has been tagged for nine runs over seven innings in his two outings. Josh Hader, Ryan Pressly and Bryan Abreu have surprisingly been bad out of the bullpen, with each having an ERA of 6.00 or higher. On offense, José Abreu has been awful, hitting .078/.158/.098. That performance got him bumped down in the lineup, and he’s been ceding playing time to Jon Singleton lately.

The Astros began the year playing the Yankees, Blue Jays, Rangers, Royals and Braves.

Twins

The Twins are the reigning champs in the American League Central but made some budget cuts this winter. Their 6-11 start has moved their playoff odds from 66% to 38.6%, a shift of 27.4%.

Once again, injuries are a big part of the story here. Oft-injured Royce Lewis went down with a quad strain on Opening Day, and Carlos Correa followed him later, subtracting the club’s left side of the infield. The only guys with at least 30 plate appearances and a wRC+ above 100 are Ryan Jeffers, Alex Kirilloff and the currently-injured Correa. Multiple injured relievers, most notably Jhoan Durán, have left the bullpen shorthanded.

In the rotation, the club lost Sonny Gray, Kenta Maeda and Tyler Mahle from last year’s club, but their main attempt at replacing those guys was to acquire Anthony DeSclafani on the heels of a pair of injury-wrecked seasons. He required flexor tendon surgery and will miss the rest of the year. The incumbents haven’t been much help. Chris Paddack, Louie Varland and Bailey Ober each have an ERA above 6.50, though Ober has rebounded after being shelled for eight runs in just 1 1/3 innings in his season debut.

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Some of these are probably just flukes, and the results will even out over the rest of the season, but some of these clubs might be showing us who they really are. Which ones do you believe in? Have your say in the polls below, the first one for the hot starts and the second one for the cold starts. (Note: you can select multiple options in each poll.)

Kyle Hendricks’ Tough Start

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Few players have had a more difficult start to 2024 than Kyle Hendricks. The Cubs righty has been rocked for 24 runs over his first 17 innings. He has surrendered an MLB-high seven home runs. Hendricks has allowed more than a run per inning in each of his first four appearances, only completing five innings once.

That’s a far cry from his resurgent showing last season. After consecutive seasons with an ERA near 5.00 in 2021-22, the veteran sinkerballer rebounded with a strong 3.74 mark. Aside from a six-week stint on the injured list, Hendricks had a strong year. It was a fairly easy call for the Cubs to exercise a $16.5MM team option for 2024. While it didn’t always seem as if things were trending in that direction, Hendricks’ platform showing was impressive enough that the option was a straightforward decision by the time it was up for consideration.

There’s still plenty of time for him to turn things around, but this clearly isn’t the opening the former ERA champ and the Cubs were expecting. Hendricks’ starts have come against the Rangers, Dodgers, Padres and Diamondbacks. They’re all above-average to excellent offensive teams, so it isn’t as if the Cubs have faced an easy set of opponents. Still, this is the worst four-start stretch of Hendricks’ 11-year MLB career in terms of run prevention. He has typically been a slow starter — his career ERA in March/April is more than a run and a half higher than in any other month — but this is an especially rough few weeks.

It’s difficult to know how much emphasis to place on any player’s first couple weeks of the season, especially ones at an extreme. The Cubs surely don’t want to overrate what amounts to a 17-inning sample. Hendricks is a particularly tough pitcher to evaluate because he’s an anomaly in the modern game. He had an excellent seven-year run to start his career behind top-of-the-scale command and an elite changeup to overcome well below-average velocity. Over the past three-plus years, his results have been less consistent.

The velocity and movement profile on Hendricks’ pitches this year isn’t much different than where it was in 2023. His changeup isn’t missing quite as many bats, but his game has never been built on swing-and-miss totals. The far bigger issue has been the damage Hendricks is allowing on contact. Beyond the homers, opponents are hitting almost .400 on balls in play — nearly .100 points higher than the league average.

Both the home runs and BABIP will come down to some extent. Hendricks certainly isn’t going to continue running an ERA above 12.00. Yet it also seems that last year’s sub-4.00 mark was probably anomalous. Hendricks surrendered just 0.85 home runs per nine last season but was in the 1.6 HR/9 range in both 2021 and ’22. Maintaining last year’s success keeping the ball in the yard was always going to be a tough task. Even if his home run rate settles back into the 2021-22 range, Hendricks would project for an ERA approaching 5.00.

That could eventually force the coaching staff to consider moving him out of the rotation. They’re not at that point yet. The Cubs list Hendricks as their probable starter for Sunday’s series finale with the Marlins. That’ll be by far the weakest lineup against which he’s gotten the ball this year. Manager Craig Counsell indicated yesterday the Cubs weren’t considering skipping that start.

“I think frankly, all of our pitching stuff is we’ve got to get through every day,” Counsell told reporters (link via Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune). “And then we’re in a tough enough spot, right? We’ve just got to get through the day and then reevaluate it and make an assessment going forward. We’re going to need Kyle’s innings in his next start.”

That could lead the Cubs to proceed with a six-man rotation for the time being. Jameson Taillon has been reinstated from his season-opening injured list stint and will take the ball Friday. He slots back into a starting staff that also includes Shota Imanaga and Jordan Wicks. If the Cubs wanted to go back to a five-man rotation, swingman Javier Assad and rookie Ben Brown would be the straightforward candidates for a move to the bullpen or (in Brown’s case) back to Triple-A Iowa. Yet they’ve each pitched well in the early going. Assad has allowed only four runs through 16 2/3 innings. Brown has allowed eight runs — six of them in a rocky first start — over his first 16 1/3 frames with a solid 23.4% strikeout rate.

The Cubs have been without ace Justin Steele since he left his Opening Day start with a hamstring strain. He’s coming off a recent 25-pitch bullpen session but won’t be back in an MLB game until sometime next month. That could buy the coaching staff time to stick with a six-man rotation or temporarily bump Brown out of the mix. If everyone else is healthy by the time Steele comes back, they might face a tougher decision on whether to continue giving Hendricks the ball every fifth day.

Chicago is midway through a stretch of 10 consecutive game days. They’re off next Monday, their only reprieve before they play 19 in a row through May 8. After his start against Miami, Hendricks would be in line for matchups against the Red Sox and Brewers if the Cubs stay on a six-man trajectory.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

2023 Rule 5 Update: April Edition

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We’re three weeks into the 2024 season, and this year’s crop of Rule 5 picks has had an atypical amount of staying power. That’s perhaps in part due to the fact that only ten players were selected in the 2023 Rule 5 Draft, but as of this writing, only one Rule 5 selection has been returned to his original organization.

For those unfamiliar, in order to be eligible for the Rule 5 Draft, a player must not be on his team’s 40-man roster and must have played in either parts of five professional seasons (if they signed at 18 or younger) or four professional seasons (if they signed at 19 or older). The deadline to protect players from the Rule 5 by selecting their contracts to the 40-man roster typically falls in mid-November and spurs a good deal of player movement as teams jettison borderline players and non-tender candidates from their roster in order to protect younger prospects.

A player who is selected in the Rule 5 Draft must spend the entire subsequent season on his new club’s Major League roster and cannot be optioned to the minors. The player can technically spend time on the injured list as well, but at least 90 days must be spent on the active roster. If not, the player’s Rule 5 status rolls into the following season until 90 days on the active roster have been accrued. If a team at any point decides it can no longer carry a Rule 5 selection, that player must be passed through waivers and subsequently offered back to his original organization. Any other club can claim the player via waivers, but the same Rule 5 restrictions will apply to the claiming team.

Broadly speaking, the Rule 5 Draft rarely produces impact players. There are plenty of exceptions over the years, though, with names like Johan Santana, Dan Uggla, Shane Victorino, Joakim Soria, Josh Hamilton and, more recently, Garrett Whitlock and Trevor Stephan thriving in new organizations. The Rule 5 Draft dates back more than a century and has even produced a handful of Hall of Famers: Roberto Clemente, Hack Wilson and Christy Mathewson.

It’s unlikely we’ll see any Cooperstown-bound players come from this year’s crop, but the teams who opted to select a player will be content if any of these names become a viable reliever or role player for the next several seasons. Here’s a look at this year’s group of ten Rule 5 players and where they stand. We’ll do a few of these throughout the season, keeping tabs on which players survive the season and formally have their long-term rights transferred to their new clubs.

On a Major League Roster

Mitch Spence, RHP, Athletics (selected from Yankees)

Spence, 26 next month, was the first overall pick in this year’s Rule 5 Draft, and understandably so after the 2023 season he had. His 4.47 ERA might’ve been pedestrian, but the 2019 tenth-rounder led all Triple-A pitchers with 163 innings while delivering a nice blend of strikeouts (21.8%), walks (7.5%) and ground-balls (50%). For an A’s club desperately thin on starting pitching after the slew of rebuilding-driven trades for minor league arms have failed to produce much, adding a 25-year-old arm with that type of season held obvious appeal.

Spence made Oakland’s decision easy with a monster spring showing. He pitched 17 2/3 innings and allowed only six earned runs (3.06 ERA) on 15 hits and six walks with 21 punchouts. He’s worked out of the ’pen so far in Oakland but could very well find himself making starts later in the year. Through his first 11 2/3 MLB frames, Spence has yielded four earned runs on 10 hits and four walks with a 48.4% grounder rate. He’s not in danger of losing his spot anytime soon.

Matt Sauer, RHP, Royals (selected from Yankees)

Another 25-year-old righty out of the Yankees organization, Sauer came to his new club with a much heavier draft pedigree than his now-former teammate, Spence. The Yankees selected the 6’4″ righty with the No. 54 overall pick back in 2017, but Sauer didn’t develop as quickly as hoped. He was set back by 2019 Tommy John surgery and the canceled 2020 minor league season. He’s never topped 111 innings in a season, but Sauer rebuilt some prospect pedigree with a nice 2023 season that saw him pitch 68 1/3 innings of 3.42 ERA ball in Double-A. He whiffed 29.5% of his opponents, albeit against a less palatable 10.3% walk rate.

Like his former teammate, Sauer had a nice spring that made the decision relatively easy for his new club. In 10 2/3 innings, he held opponents to three earned runs (2.53 ERA) on 13 hits and three walks with 13 strikeouts. He opened the season in the Kansas City bullpen and has thus far pitched five innings, allowing a pair of runs in that time. Sauer has walked four of his 25 opponents and fanned just two thus far. It’s a small sample, of course, but he’ll need to reverse that early trend to hang onto his roster spot — especially if the Royals continue their hot start and find themselves contending into the summer.

Anthony Molina, RHP, Rockies (selected from Rays)

The 22-year-old Molina worked as a starter in the Rays’ system last year, taking the ball 28 times (27 starts) and pitching 122 innings with a 4.50 ERA. The undersized righty has garnered praise for a solid-average heater and above-average changeup, and he showed good command in 2023 after struggling with walks earlier in his minor league career. Molina continued to show good command in spring training (in addition to a massive 60.5% grounder rate), but the regular season has been brutal for him thus far. In three appearances, he’s been tattooed for a dozen runs on 13 hits and four walks with just two strikeouts. The Rockies can afford to be as patient as they want. They’re 4-13 on the season and were never expected to contend. Still, Molina will need to improve on his early performance in order to stick on the roster.

Nasim Nunez, INF, Nationals (selected from Marlins)

The Nationals have effectively played the season thus far with a 25-man roster. Nunez made the Opening Day squad but has been M.I.A. since. He’s appeared in just five of Washington’s 16 games and received only two plate appearances, going hitless in that meaningless sample. Nunez is an all-glove and speed prospect who hit just .224/.341/.286 in Double-A last season. He did go 52-for-59 in stolen base attempts, and scouting reports have long touted his defensive excellence at shortstop. He hit just .152/.200/.182 in 35 spring plate appearances.

It’s fair to wonder how long the Nats can essentially punt a roster spot by keeping Nunez on the bench, but like the Rockies, they’re not expecting to contend this season anyhow. One would imagine that from a pure developmental standpoint, they need to find a way to get Nunez into some games and start getting him some playing time, but for now, the team appears content to just hide the 23-year-old on the bench.

Ryan Fernandez, RHP, Cardinals (selected from Red Sox)

Fernandez, 25, has just four appearances out of the St. Louis bullpen so far and has been understandably deployed in low-leverage spots while he acclimates to the majors. He’s pitched fairly well in sparse duty, holding opponents to three runs (two earned) in 5 2/3 innings. Fernandez has averaged just under 96 mph on his heater, fanned seven opponents and issued three walks. His swinging-strike rate isn’t close to where it’s been in his minor league work, but his wipeout slider has been strong thus far. Fernandez has finished off eight plate appearances with that pitch, picking up four strikeouts and yielding only one hit. Nothing he’s done so far makes it seem like he’ll be cut loose anytime soon.

Justin Slaten, RHP, Red Sox (selected by Mets from Rangers; traded to Red Sox for LHP Ryan Ammons)

While most Rule 5 relievers are eased into low-pressure spots, that hasn’t been the case with the Sox and Slaten. He held a four-run lead to pick up a seven-out save in the team’s fourth game of the season, and the 6’4″ righty has since tallied three holds out of Alex Cora’s bullpen. In 10 1/3 innings, Slaten has allowed only one run on three hits and a walk with eight strikeouts. Add in 6 1/3 shutout innings in spring training, and he’s looked more like a seasoned veteran than a 26-year-old who entered the season with all of 8 1/3 innings above the Double-A level. Slaten has immediately made himself an important part of Boston’s roster, and while a prolonged slump could always change things, he looks like a keeper right now.

Stephen Kolek, RHP, Padres (selected from Mariners)

Kolek, who’ll turn 27 tomorrow, began his big league tenure with four runs in 1 2/3 innings over his first two appearances. He’s since bounced back with 8 2/3 innings of one-run ball, fanning 11 hitters against three walks along the way. He punched out nearly a quarter of his opponents in Triple-A last year and did so with a huge 57.5% ground-ball rate. He hasn’t picked up grounders at such a strong level just yet (43.5%), but San Diego probably isn’t second-guessing their decision to select him. He’s already picked up a pair of holds, and his recent run of success has dropped his ERA to 4.35. Command has been a problem for Kolek in the past, but he’s only walked 8.9% of his opponents against a 26.7% strikeout rate so far.

On the Major League Injured List

Shane Drohan, LHP, White Sox (selected from Red Sox): Drohan underwent shoulder surgery in late February and is on the 60-day IL. There’s no telling yet when he’ll be medically cleared to return. As noted in the intro, Drohan needs 90 days on the active roster to shed his Rule 5 designation; even if he spends the entire 2024 campaign on the injured list, his Rule 5 status will carry over into 2025 until he picks up those 90 active days.

Carson Coleman, RHP, Rangers (selected from Yankees): Coleman is also on the 60-day injured list. Unlike Drohan, it was well known at the time of his selection that he’d be IL-bound to begin the year. Coleman had Tommy John surgery last year and is expected to be out until midsummer at the least.

Returned to Original Organization

Deyvison De Los Santos, INF, Guardians (returned to D-backs): De Los Santos has big raw power but a well below-average hit tool. The Guardians selected him on the heels of a 20-homer campaign in Double-A with the D-backs, but he hit just .227/.227/.318 in 44 spring appearances before being designated for assignment, clearing waivers and getting returned to the Snakes. He’s had a big performance in a return-trip to Double-A.

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