Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

MLBTR Originals

Who Could The Nationals Trade At The Deadline?

By | at

This year’s trade deadline seems like it has the potential to be unique, with very few clear sellers. The expanded playoffs and weak Central divisions mean that there are only five teams that are more than eight games out of a playoff spot at the All-Star break.

One of those five clubs is in Washington, as the Nationals have been rebuilding in recent years. Stars like Max Scherzer, Trea Turner and Juan Soto have been flipped in deadline deals over the past two seasons, which unsurprisingly has led to them being one of the few noncompetitive clubs here in 2023. Their 36-54 record has them in last in the National League East and they’re 13 games back in the Wild Card race.

The Nats therefore stand out as one of the few clear sellers at this point, with just over three weeks until the August 1 deadline. They no longer have superstars like those mentioned above, but there are still some players that should attract attention.

Rental Players

Jeimer Candelario

Candelario, 29, is one of the most straightforward trade candidates in the league. He’s an impending free agent having a great season on a team that’s clearly in a position to sell. MLBTR recently listed the top 50 trade candidates for this summer and Candelario took the #2 spot, trailing only Lucas Giolito of the White Sox.

The third baseman was seemingly breaking out in Detroit not too long ago, putting up solid numbers both in 2020 and 2021. He produced a .278/.356/.458 batting line over those campaigns for a 125 wRC+ and was considered around league average defensively, leading to a tally of 5.8 wins above replacement from FanGraphs in 201 games. Unfortunately, just about everything went wrong in 2022 as he hit just .217/.272/.361 for an 80 wRC+ with subpar defensive grades.

The Tigers non-tendered him instead of paying him a projected $7MM salary for his final arbitration season, and the Nats swooped in with an offer of $5MM plus $1MM of incentives. It looks like that investment will pay off handsomely for the Nats, as Candelario is having a bounceback season. He’s hitting .261/.337/.478 (118 wRC+) and his defensive grades are much stronger. With so few sellers and a pitching-heavy free agent class this coming winter, Candelario should be one of the most sought-after position players in the weeks to come.

Carl Edwards Jr.

Edwards, 31, missed much of the 2019-2021 period due to injuries and had to settle for a minor league deal with the Nationals prior to the 2022 season. He made it to the big league club in May of last year and posted a 2.76 ERA in 62 innings the rest of the way. He likely benefited from a .259 batting average on balls in play and 83.6% strand rate, but his peripherals were around league average.

The Nationals tendered him a contract for 2023, agreeing to a $2.25MM arbitration salary. He’s been solid this year, with a 3.69 ERA in 32 appearances. His 16.9% strikeout rate and 12% walk rate aren’t exciting, but he has a 46% ground ball rate and has allowed just one home run all year. He isn’t likely to fetch a ton as a rental reliever with worrying peripherals, but he’s fairly cheap and bullpen help is always in demand. He’s been on the injured list almost three weeks due to shoulder inflammation, however, so his health will be a clear factor in his market.

Corey Dickerson

Dickerson is a 34-year-old veteran who signed a one-year, $2.25MM deal with incentives in the offseason. The Nats were surely hoping he could serve as a veteran mentor to their younger players and perhaps play his way into being a deadline trade chip. Unfortunately, he’s hitting just .248/.278/.358 on the year for a wRC+ of 69. As a veteran left-handed hitter, he might get interest based on his track record, but the return would likely be mild even if he gets hot in the next few weeks.

Signed/Controlled For One Extra Year

Dominic Smith

Smith, 28, was a similar bounceback play to the Candelario signing. In 2019 and 2020 with the Mets, he hit .299/.366/.571 for a wRC+ of 150 but followed that up by hitting .233/.298/.345 over the next two years for an 82 wRC+. The Mets non-tendered him, and the Nats signed him to a one-year deal with a $2MM salary and $2MM in incentives.

Unfortunately, this deal hasn’t worked out nearly as well as the Candelario one. Smith is hitting .260/.328/.340 (85 wRC+) while playing first base only. Given the offensive expectations of that position, that’s clearly insufficient production. He can be controlled for 2024 via arbitration but is trending towards another non-tender unless he can turn things around.

Victor Robles

Robles, 26, was once considered one of the top prospects in the league but has yet to put it all together at the big league level. He’s always had the speed and defense combo working but has continued to struggle at the plate, coming into 2023 with a career batting line of .233/.306/.359 and a 78 wRC+.

He has shown some positive developments here this year, including a 14.3% strikeout rate that’s well below his 23.9% rate in previous years. His .299/.385/.364 batting line is a bit above average, translating to a wRC+ of 111. Unfortunately, that’s come in just 36 games as he’s twice gone on the IL due to back spasms, including his current stint. He’s making $2.325MM this year with a $3.3MM club option for 2024. Even if that were turned down, he could still be retained via arbitration.

Trevor Williams

Williams, 31, was primarily a starter with the Pirates for many years but had been deployed in a swing role by the Mets in recent seasons. He signed a two-year, $13MM deal to return to a starting role with the Nationals. He has a 4.45 ERA through 18 starts, striking out 17% of opponents while walking 7.5%. That low strikeout rate has led to a 5.41 FIP and 4.95 SIERA. He’s not going to command huge interest, but a club in need of a back-end innings eater could give Washington a call.

Patrick Corbin

Corbin, 34 next week, is having a bounce back year, at least in terms of results so far. His 4.89 earned run average is an improvement over his 6.31 figure from last year and the 5.82 from the year prior. That’s come despite a 15.2% strikeout rate, which is a few ticks below the past few seasons and would be a career low. On his back-loaded contract, he’s making $24MM this year and a massive $35MM next year. Even if the Nats paid all of that down, they likely wouldn’t be able to get much back in trade.

Longer-Term Players

Lane Thomas

Thomas, 27, is perhaps the Nats’ best chance to get a significant return this summer. He’s hitting .302/.347/.497 for a wRC+ of 126. His defense is generally considered a bit below average, but he’s stolen eight bases in 10 tries this year. It could be debated as to whether Thomas or Candelario is having the better season overall, but Thomas comes with two extra seasons of arbitration control beyond this one. He’s making $2.2MM this year and would be in line for a couple of raises in the upcoming campaigns.

He’s not a lock to be moved because the Nats could hold onto him and hope to return to contention while he’s still on the club. However, his trade value will only diminish as he gets closer to free agency and more expensive. It’s certainly possible that the Nationals return to contention in the coming years, but it will be a challenge with the division featuring a stacked Atlanta club, the ascendent Marlins and aggressive-spending Mets and Phillies.

Hunter Harvey

Harvey, 28, has been a solid reliever for the club over the past two years. Since the start of 2022, he’s made 76 appearances with a 2.86 earned run average, 28.4% strikeout rate, 7.7% walk rate and 41.2% ground ball rate. He’s continued to move into higher-leverage spots, earning 11 holds and eight saves this year. He could be retained for two more seasons via arbitration, but reliever performance is volatile and there’s always the risk of an injury. He’s making just $870K this year.

Kyle Finnegan

Finnegan, 31, is in essentially the same spot as Harvey, as he can be controlled via arbitration for two more seasons beyond this one. He has a longer track record, having established himself as a viable reliever back in 2020, but his results are less encouraging this year. His 3.38 ERA is still solid, but his strikeout rate has dropped from last year’s 26.1% to this year’s 22.4%, with his walk and ground-ball rates also moving in the wrong direction a bit. He’s making $2.325MM this year.

Tanner Rainey

Rainey, 30, is like Finnegan and Harvey in that he has two arbitration seasons after this one. But his situation is very different, as he had Tommy John surgery last August and is only now nearing a rehab assignment. Players on the injured list can still be traded, though the interest may be muted based on the uncertainty. He posted a 3.30 ERA last year with a 28.1% strikeout rate prior to going under the knife. He’s making $1.5MM this year.

Ildemaro Vargas

Vargas, 32 this weekend, has plenty of experience as a light-hitting utility player. He had a .233/.268/.355 career batting line by the end of 2021 for a wRC+ of 60 but had played every position except center field and catcher. He’s had better results at the plate since joining the Nats in August of last year, hitting .281/.310/.409 for a wRC+ of 98 in 289 plate appearances. He’s making $975K this year and can be retained via arbitration for two more seasons.

Joey Meneses

Unlike the other names on this list, Meneses isn’t approaching free agency or making a significant salary. The long-time minor leaguer finally got the call to the big leagues last year at the age of 30 and mashed 13 home runs in 56 games, finishing the season with a .324/.367/.563 batting line and 156 wRC+. He was only able to accrue 65 days of service time, leaving the Nats with six years of remaining control.

His production has naturally taken a step back in 2023, as he’s hit just six home runs and is batting .284/.328/.404 for a wRC+ of 98. He’s been on a mini heater of late, as four of those six homers came in the club’s last three games before the break. The Nats could simply hang onto Meneses given that he’s not slated for arbitration until after 2025 or free agency until after 2028. However, his late-bloomer trajectory means that he’s already 31 years old and will likely be in his mid-30s by the time the club is in contention again. Perhaps the best course of action would be to cash him in for younger players now — if there’s sufficient interest in the next few weeks.

____________________________

The Nationals were the star sellers of each of the past two deadlines, flipping Scherzer and Turner two years ago and then Soto last year. They don’t have any players that could reach that level, either in terms of publicity or prospect return. However, Candelario is one of the best rentals available and should net them some decent value. If they get more aggressive and move controllable players like Thomas, Harvey and Finnegan, they could go even farther in stockpiling young talent for future seasons.

The Reds’ Less Heralded Breakout Rookie

By | at

The Reds are MLB’s most surprising first-place team heading into the All-Star Break. Cincinnati is nine games above .500 and a game clear of the Brewers in the NL Central. They’re 24-12 since the start of June, largely thanks to an influx of rookie talent.

Elly De La Cruz and Matt McLain have gotten plenty of attention, while Andrew Abbott has quickly ascended to the role of staff ace with Nick Lodolo and Hunter Greene injured. Their midseason promotions have deservedly come with plenty of fanfare. They’re not the only rookies in Cincinnati having quality seasons, though.

Spencer Steer, acquired from the Twins alongside Christian Encarnacion-Strand for Tyler Mahle at last summer’s deadline, first reached the majors in September. While he struggled in that 28-game cameo, the Reds made clear Steer would get a chance to play regularly out of the gate. Cincinnati released Mike Moustakas in January and made Steer their Opening Day third baseman.

The 25-year-old wasn’t long for the hot corner. By the end of April, the Reds had kicked him across the diamond to first base. That put a lot of pressure on the former third-round pick to produce offensively. He’s done just that, finishing the year’s unofficial first half with a .277/.367/.477 batting line over 376 plate appearances. The right-handed hitter has connected on 14 home runs, walked at an excellent 11.2% rate, and kept his strikeouts to a modest 18.9% clip.

Steer has demonstrated a well-rounded offensive profile. He rarely chases pitches outside the strike zone. He’s making contact at an above-average rate. When he puts the bat on the ball, he tends to make solid contact. Just over 40% of Steer’s batted balls have been hit hard (an exit velocity of 95 MPH or greater), a mark that’s a couple percentage points above league average.

Prospect evaluators have generally suggested Steer’s raw power potential is fringe-average. That’s atypical for a first baseman, but he’s shown just enough pop and a knack for getting the ball in the air. Steer hits a number of fly-balls, and while they’re not hit with overwhelming power — his 92.2 MPH average exit velocity on fly-balls is exactly league average — it has been sufficient. That’s particularly true at Cincinnati’s hitter-friendly Great American Ball Park; Steer is slugging .497 with a .204 ISO at home and .461 with a .197 ISO on the road.

That production has been enough to solidify Steer as an everyday presence in David Bell’s lineup. That came mostly at first base in the early summer. He’s seen a little more left field time of late with Joey Votto now healthy. His initial third base position has essentially become De La Cruz’s domain.

Coincidentally, Steer’s excellent start has probably held off Encarnacion-Strand’s debut. The latter is mashing at a .321/.392/.620 clip with 20 homers in 65 games for Triple-A Louisville. He’s done nothing but rake since joining the professional ranks as a fourth-round pick in 2021. On many clubs, Encarnacion-Strand would already be in the majors.

There simply hasn’t been room in Cincinnati. The Reds aren’t going to call up the 23-year-old corner infielder to serve as a bench bat. Votto has been great since returning from the injured list. De La Cruz is entrenched at hot corner with McLain at shortstop. Steer’s presence in the first base/corner outfield/designated hitter mix means there aren’t many at-bats to go around, barring injury.

That’s a nice short-term “problem” to have. Encarnacion-Strand figures to get a crack before too long as injuries necessitate. From a broader perspective, the Mahle trade added a pair of promising infielders to the upper levels of the Cincinnati organization. It looks like a massive coup for the Reds.

Unfortunately for Minnesota, they got very little out of the deal. Injuries kept Mahle to just four starts down the stretch last season. He started five games this year before a May Tommy John surgery ended his season and likely his time as a Twin. The right-hander is headed to free agency and could look for a buy-low two-year deal to finish his rehab with an eye towards a late-2024 return and full ’25 season.

Cincinnati controls Steer through the 2028 campaign. He won’t reach arbitration until after the ’25 season. Encarnacion-Strand is controllable through at least 2029, depending on the time of his MLB promotion and whether he’s subsequently optioned back to the minors. Left-hander Steve Hajjar, the third piece in the Mahle trade, has already been flipped to the Guardians as one of two minor leaguers for outfielder Will Benson.

With Steer contributing at the big league level, the Mahle swap has already helped the Reds emerge as playoff contenders quicker than most had anticipated. They can take the opposite approach to this summer’s deadline, likely by acquiring pitching help.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

MLBTR Poll: How Should San Diego Approach The Trade Deadline?

By | at

When Padres team chairman Peter Seidler recently discussed his vision for the club ahead of the coming trade deadline, he made clear he believed in the current iteration of the club and seemed to have no desire to sell at the trade deadline. That confidence comes in spite of an ugly first half of the 2023 season. In 88 games so far this season, the Padres have gone just 41-47, leaving them ten games back looking up at three teams in the NL West. The club’s Wild Card outlook isn’t much better, as San Diego is 8.5 games back with five teams standing between them and the final Wild Card spot

Of course, club ownership rarely directly makes baseball operations decisions. Given that, the decision on whether to buy or sell at the trade deadline in three weeks will likely be made by Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller. A notoriously aggressive GM, Preller has built a star-studded roster with a massive payroll in recent years. Since the end of the 2020 campaign, when San Diego first made the playoffs under Preller, the club has added Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, Joe Musgrove, Josh Hader, and Juan Soto in blockbuster trades while signing Xander Bogaerts to an 11-year deal and signing each of Darvish, Musgrove, Manny Machado, and Fernando Tatis Jr. to big money extensions.

To reverse course completely would be near impossible. Musgrove and right-hander Robert Suarez are both signed through the 2027 campaign, while Darvish is signed through 2028. Infielder Jake Cronenworth is signed through the 2030 season, Machado and Bogaerts are both signed through 2033, while Tatis is signed through the end of the 2034 campaign. Between those seven players, the Padres are on the hook for roughly $107.5MM in terms of actual dollars and just over $137MM for luxury tax purposes, per RosterResource. With so many big money contracts on the books not just for next season, but for the better part of the decade or longer, trading long-term assets seems both unwise and difficult.

Given the club’s position, it’s possible that the front office will decide to double down and hope the team’s performance will improve in the second half. Suarez has yet to pitch this season and could help stabilize the bullpen upon his return, while each of Darvish, Machado, and Bogaerts are multi-time All Stars with lengthy track records of success; it’s surely not hard for Preller’s front office to talk themselves into that group improving upon their current 2023 performance going forward. With plenty of talent on the roster and glaring holes behind the plate, at DH, and on the bench, San Diego could retain their key players and deal for moderate upgrades to the weakest areas on the roster in hopes of things improving during the season’s final two months.

On the other hand, the club could look to retool for the future. Snell and Hader would immediately be among the most coveted rental arms on the market if the Padres listened on the pair, while Seth Lugo would surely interest a variety of contenders given his ability to swing in and out of the rotation. Lightly selling would allow the Padres to recoup value on their pending free agents and bolster a farm system that’s been raided by years of aggressive buy-side deals. What’s more, it would allow San Diego to take advantage of a trade market with few clearly established sellers.

Of course, the club could opt to take a middle ground option as well, dealing some of their pending free agents while also adding big league pieces with multiple years of control in hopes of giving themselves a chance to bounce back during the second half while attempting to maximize the club’s odds of winning in 2024, Soto’s last year of team control. Such an approach comes with its own unique risks, however. Dealing away key players can have impacts in the clubhouse, as the Brewers saw when dealing Hader to San Diego last year and Seattle saw after trading closer Kendall Graveman in 2021.

With just three weeks left until the trade deadline, the Padres will be forced to make a decision in the near future. How should San Diego approach this trade deadline? Do they need to stay the course and give themselves the best chance to win while Soto is under team control? Should they try to rebuild their farm system and look toward 2024 and beyond? Or perhaps they should try to do a bit of both?

(poll link for app users)

Top 50 Deadline Trade Candidates: Early July Edition

By | at

With the calendar flipping to July, trade season has officially arrived. We’ve already seen a couple early deals. The Angels swung a pair of late-June moves for stopgap veteran help on the infield. The Rangers closed out that month with the acquisition of Aroldis Chapman, arguably the top rental reliever available and a player who was ranked fifth on an early draft of this list.

As we do every summer, MLBTR will look at the top deadline candidates. This is not a strict ranking of players’ trade value, nor is it solely about likelihood of being moved. We’re trying to balance both of those things, which inherently involves subjectivity. A player in the top ten might have significantly less appeal than someone at the bottom of the list, but if they’re far more likely to be dealt for a return of some note, they’ll be higher on this kind of ranking.

With that brief methodology aside, let’s get to the list:

1. Lucas Giolito, SP, White Sox

The #4 player on our recent Free Agent Power Rankings, Giolito is the only member of our top six free agents who has much of a chance to move at the deadline. That makes him a natural fit to top this list.

The White Sox got off to a slow start and have never pulled themselves out. They’re vaguely kept afloat by an AL Central in which no team has consistently been better than .500, but they’re 7 1/2 games back with a -59 run differential. It’s division or bust, and they’re only alive in the division because of the other clubs’ mediocrity.

Giolito isn’t quite an ace, but he has put last year’s struggles behind him and again looks like a #2 arm on a contender. He has been durable, pounds the strike zone, and misses bats at an above-average clip. Over 18 starts, the 6’6″ righty has a 3.50 ERA with a quality 25.6% strikeout rate and 7.1% walk percentage. He’s a clear playoff-caliber starter on a market that might not have many of those.

The White Sox could make him a qualifying offer if they hold onto him for the stretch run. That’s theoretically possible given the divisional context, but they’d get much more future value if they traded him this summer. Bob Nightengale of USA Today wrote in May that the Sox were unlikely to try to retain Giolito past the 2023 campaign.

2. Jeimer Candelario, 3B, Nationals

Candelario is a virtual lock to move within the next few weeks. Washington signed the third baseman to a $5MM deal after he was non-tendered by the Tigers. The move has worked out beautifully, as the switch-hitting infielder has posted a .261/.338/.477 line with strong defensive metrics.

Nats’ GM Mike Rizzo told Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic last week he was setting a high asking price on Candelario early in deadline season. That’s understandable with a month to go, but the club eventually figures to pull the trigger on the best offer available. Candelario would be a fringe qualifying offer candidate, so Washington’s best chance to recoup future value is by moving him this summer.

3. Scott Barlow, RP, Royals

The Royals already moved Chapman. Barlow seems likely to follow him out of Kansas City. There’s a little less urgency on Barlow, since K.C. can control him via arbitration for 2024. They don’t have a shot at competing this season, though, and Barlow’s appeal would drop next winter or at the ’24 deadline (when an acquiring team would only have his services for one playoff push).

Barlow posted a sub 2.50 ERA over exactly 74 1/3 innings in both seasons between 2021-22. He hasn’t been quite as effective this year, carrying a 4.06 mark over 31 frames. His walks are up and his average fastball velocity is down a couple ticks from where it sat two years ago. Regardless, he has proven himself capable of handling the ninth inning and continues to miss bats in droves. He’s picking up swinging strikes on over 14% of his offerings for a third consecutive season and is striking out just under a third of opposing hitters. With a season and a half of club control, he’s the most valuable realistic trade candidate on the Royals’ roster.

4. Jordan Montgomery, SP, Cardinals

5. Jack Flaherty, SP, Cardinals

The Cardinals are among a handful of National League teams amidst very disappointing seasons. St. Louis has gone from first to last in the NL Central. The division is weak enough it’s still vaguely in sight, but the Cards haven’t gotten on the run necessary to pull themselves back into the mix. They’re a long shot to make the playoffs at this point, so their top impending free agents are strong trade candidates.

Montgomery is one of the better starters on next year’s free agent market. The left-hander is a capable #3 arm, a mid-3.00s ERA type. He has allowed 3.28 runs per nine this season, backing that up with solid underlying marks across the board. He’d almost certainly receive and reject a qualifying offer, so the Cardinals could keep him and get back a draft choice if he signs elsewhere. They should be able to bring in a more valuable prospect package in trade, though.

Flaherty is unlikely to receive a QO. He wouldn’t bring back a Montgomery return in trade, but he’d still have some appeal on the market. The right-hander is no longer the Cy Young caliber arm he showed in 2019, as various injuries have limited him over the past few seasons. He has had an up-and-down 2023 campaign, walking over 12% of opponents and posting a 4.60 ERA through 16 starts. Flaherty has decent strikeout and grounder marks, but he’s more of a high-variance rotation add than a lock to start a playoff game at this point.

6. Marcus Stroman, SP, Cubs

Stroman has had an excellent second season in Chicago. The right-hander carries a personal-low 2.76 ERA across 107 2/3 innings with peripherals that closely match his best days in Toronto. He’s inducing grounders on almost three-fifths of batted balls and has consistently prevented home runs at an elite clip. It’s more of a contact management profile than an overpowering one, but his 21.3% strikeout rate isn’t far off the 22% league average for starting pitchers.

Despite a +24 run differential, the Cubs are five games under .500 and six games back in the Wild Card race. It’s not impossible, but they’d need a strong run over these next few weeks to play off the selling bubble.

Stroman isn’t a true rental, as his contract contains a $21MM player option for next season. That’s pure downside for an acquiring team — he’d only exercise it if he has a disastrous second half or suffers a serious injury — but the likeliest scenario is that Stroman continues pitching well and decides to test the open market. Stroman has publicly angled for an extension with the Cubs. The team has seemingly not shown the same interest. Ken Rosenthal and Patrick Mooney of the Athletic wrote over the weekend they were unlikely to explore a long-team deal before the trade deadline.

The Cubs can’t issue Stroman a qualifying offer, since he has already received one in his career and players can’t be tagged with a QO twice under the CBA. A trade would be the only way to land compensation if he declines the player option and the team is not interested in a new contract.

7. David Robertson, RP, Mets

With Chapman off the market, Robertson now appears the top rental reliever available. It’s the second straight season in which the veteran righty could be a coveted deadline piece. The Cubs brought back pitching prospect Ben Brown from Philadelphia last summer; the Mets could do something similar this year.

Robertson signed a $10MM free agent deal and was pushed into the ninth inning by Edwin Díaz’s catastrophic knee injury. The Mets have had a disastrous season, but that’s no fault of Robertson. He has a 1.88 ERA over 35 appearances, striking out 30% of batters faced. It’s rare to find relievers with the consistency and playoff experience Robertson brings to the table. He’ll be in demand, and Mets’ owner Steve Cohen admitted last week the team wasn’t close enough to contention to buy. Perhaps an ongoing four-game win streak can kickstart the season and prevent a sell-off, but New York is still 6 1/2 games out of the Wild Card with five teams to pass.

8. Shane Bieber, SP, Guardians

Bieber’s trade candidacy rests more on the Guardians’ pitching depth than their competitive window. While Cleveland has underperformed, they’re still very much a postseason contender. The Guardians are two games back of the Twins in the AL Central. They were in a similar spot at this point last year before getting hot in September to run away with the division.

Trading Bieber strictly for prospects seems unlikely, but Cleveland could shop him in an effort to inject some life into the offense. Adding controllable outfield talent could be particularly welcome. It’s a script Cleveland has followed on a few occasions in the past. Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer and Mike Clevinger have all been shipped off as the organization’s pitching development pipeline churns out similarly productive and less expensive young pitchers. Gavin Williams, Logan Allen and Tanner Bibee have all gotten to the big leagues this season.

Bieber hasn’t been as dominant as he was a few years back. His velocity hasn’t been the same since a 2021 shoulder injury and this year’s 19.3% strikeout rate is the first below-average mark of his career. Even if he’s no longer a Cy Young caliber hurler, Bieber looks the part of an effective #3 type. He’s sixth in the majors with 110 2/3 innings pitched and sports a 3.66 ERA with plus control and a solid 46.3% grounder rate. The right-hander is making a hair over $10MM this season and is eligible for arbitration once more before hitting free agency.

9. Michael Lorenzen, SP, Tigers

The Tigers are still within shouting distance in the AL Central. Perhaps they play well enough over the next few weeks to hold off a teardown. 11 games under .500 with a -86 run differential, they don’t look like a playoff team and would be more or less buried if they played in any other division. This was always likely to be an evaluation year for a new front office regime, one which saw them deal short-term veterans at the deadline.

Lorenzen is probably the most appealing of the rental players on the roster. The athletic right-hander is playing on an $8.5MM free agent deal. Over 14 starts entering this afternoon’s outing, he carries a 4.28 ERA. He’s missing bats at a career-low rate but throwing plenty more strikes than he has in years past. Lorenzen looks like a stable #5 starter, a player contenders can bring in to fortify their rotation depth and kick to the bullpen (where he’s had success in prior seasons) come playoff time. The return wouldn’t be huge, but this is more or less what the Tigers envisioned when they signed him last December.

10. Tommy Pham, LF, Mets

Pham started the season ice cold, but he has somewhat quietly been one of the sport’s best hitters since the calendar turned to May. He’s up to a .286/.355/.510 line through 217 plate appearances overall. At his best, Pham has combined stellar plate discipline with huge exit velocities and solid contact skills. He hits a few too many grounders to be a prototypical power threat, but he’s a well-rounded offensive player who can hit left and right-handed pitching alike.

The 35-year-old is a fringe corner outfield defender at this stage of his career. He’s an affordable bat a contender could feel comfortable plugging into the middle of a lineup for the stretch run. Pham is playing this season on a $6MM salary, and Cohen already showed a willingness to pay down money on Eduardo Escobar to facilitate a better trade return. New York could do the same on Pham, who acknowledged to Bill Ladson of MLB.com last week that the club’s surprising struggles make him a viable trade candidate.

11. Cody Bellinger, CF/1B, Cubs

Bellinger signed with the Cubs on a one-year, $17MM free agent guarantee after being non-tendered by the Dodgers. The buy-low flier initially looked like an excellent move. The former MVP hit .271/.343/.493 through 163 plate appearances while playing plus center field defense through mid-May. His exit velocities were still nowhere close to peak levels, but he’d dramatically sliced his strikeout rate to put together a well above-average overall batting line.

A left knee contusion interrupted that hot start and cost Bellinger nearly a month of action. He’s hitting .317 in 62 plate appearances since returning but has walked just four times and doesn’t have a home run in 17 games. After easing him back to action at first base, the Cubs returned him to center field last week.

Bellinger isn’t back to his MVP form, but he’s amidst easily his best season since 2020. It’s rare to find plus defensive center fielders with any kind of offensive upside. Bellinger can impact the game on both sides of the ball, even if it’s now more of a contact-first profile than an all-around impact bat. He’ll return to free agency next winter, likely by declining his end of a mutual option, making him a straightforward rental trade candidate. Unlike Stroman, Bellinger is eligible to receive a qualifying offer. The Cubs could land draft pick compensation, but they’d probably do better than that in trade.

12. Eduardo Rodriguez, SP, Tigers 

Rodriguez just returned from a finger injury yesterday. He got lit up by the A’s, but he carried a 2.13 ERA through 11 starts before landing on the shelf. The veteran southpaw has punched out over a quarter of opponents and shown his typically strong control. After his first season in Detroit was marred by injuries and personal issues, Rodriguez looks like the mid-rotation arm the Tigers expected when they signed him to a five-year, $77MM guarantee two offseasons back.

Few pitchers who could be available in trade have performed as well as Rodriguez has through the season’s first half. Were he a pure rental, he might be at the top of this list. His contract makes a trade far trickier to execute. Rodriguez can opt out of the final three years and $49MM on his deal at season’s end. He’s ineligible for a qualifying offer on a non-competitive team. If the Tigers hold onto him past the deadline, there’s a strong chance they lose him next winter for nothing.

On the other hand, the remaining money represents rather significant downside for a potential acquiring club. If Rodriguez suffers another injury or sees his performance tail off, the team could be saddled with a contract that looked like a landmine just a few months ago. It’s a more extreme version of the downside present with Stroman, thereby pushing him down the list a few spots.

13. Lance Lynn, SP, White Sox

Lynn has had a rough 2023 campaign. He owns a 6.47 ERA over 96 innings, a figure almost entirely attributable to an MLB-worst 22 home runs allowed. That’ll be tough for a number of fans and some front offices to look past. Still, there’s some amount of appeal for teams that feel Lynn can get the longball under control — either via natural regression or with a move to a more favorable home park for pitchers.

The veteran righty is striking out just under 27% of batters faced while racking up whiffs on an excellent 13.5% of his offerings. He doesn’t issue many walks, hasn’t missed a start this year, and posted a sub-4.00 ERA every season between 2019-22. The homers and a slight velocity dip are obvious concerns, but Lynn’s ability to miss bats is strong as ever. The White Sox hold an $18MM option on his services for 2024. That’s probably beyond their comfort zone, which makes marketing him this summer a logical choice.

14. Mark Canha, LF/1B, Mets

15. Brooks Raley, RP, Mets

Canha and Raley are the next tier down of Mets’ trade candidates. Unlike Robertson and Pham, they’re not certainly headed for free agency. New York could bring both players back via club option — Canha at $11.5MM ($2MM buyout), Raley at $6.25MM ($1.25MM buyout). Both prices are a little lofty for their current production but not out of the question for a Mets’ club that spends more freely than any other.

If New York is leaning towards a buyout on either player, they could make them available to a clearer ’23 contender. Canha’s a veteran righty bat who plays decent corner outfield defense. He’s hitting .248/.344/.405 on the season, including a .239/.360/.437 mark against lefty pitching. Raley is a situational left-hander out of the bullpen. He owns a 2.35 ERA with an above-average 26% strikeout rate. He’s been better against right-handers than lefties this season but carries traditional platoon splits over the course of his career.

16. Paul Blackburn, SP, Athletics

Blackburn might be the most valuable trade chip on a stripped-down A’s roster. The righty spent the first couple months on the injured list with fingernail/blister issues. He’s been effective in seven starts since returning, working to a 4.50 ERA with good control and a solid 24.7% strikeout rate over 36 innings.

While he’s not overpowering, Blackburn has looked the part of a strike-throwing back-end starter when healthy. Already 29, he’s probably not a core piece of the ongoing rebuild. He’s an affordable arm who should appeal to contenders looking for stability at the back of the starting staff. Blackburn is making $1.9MM this season and is arbitration-eligible through 2025.

17. Joe Kelly, RP, White Sox

18. Keynan Middleton, RP, White Sox

19. Reynaldo López, RP, White Sox

If the White Sox decide to look ahead to 2024, they’d be a major factor on the relief market. Chicago has a trio of potential impending free agent relievers (Kelly’s contract contains a ’24 club option at a net $8.5MM decision) who’d attract varying levels of interest.

Kelly is one of the game’s hardest throwers and has a track record of an enviable strikeout/ground-ball combination. He has had an up-and-down career but looks like a high-leverage arm when he’s going well. He just landed on the 15-day injured list with elbow inflammation this afternoon. That could obviously impact his trade candidacy, though it’s unknown how long he’ll be out of action.

Middleton appeared on his way to journeyman status a few months ago. He has proven to be one of the top minor league signees of last winter, pitching 30 innings with a 2.70 ERA and above-average strikeout and ground-ball marks. López has struggled with walks and home runs and has an ERA above 5.00, but his fastball pushes triple-digits and he misses plenty of bats. Another club figures to roll the dice on that upside despite his subpar overall production.

20. Aaron Civale, SP, Guardians

To a lesser extent, Civale’s trade candidacy follows the same logic as Bieber’s. The Guardians have ample young pitching that could allow them to cash in a veteran arm for short-term offensive help. Civale isn’t as appealing as Bieber. The 28-year-old righty has been more of a back-of-the-rotation type throughout his career. This year’s 2.96 ERA over eight starts is more attributable to batted ball and sequencing fortune than an overhaul in his approach.

Civale is a control specialist with a 3.95 ERA in just shy of 400 career innings. It’s #4 starter production on a rate basis, although he’s battled injuries and never topped 125 MLB frames in a single season. Civale is making $2.6MM this year and eligible for arbitration twice more thereafter.

21. Paul DeJong, SS, Cardinals

DeJong has reemerged as a viable trade candidate with a nice 2023 campaign. The righty-hitting shortstop is hitting .234/.310/.449 with 12 homers over 229 plate appearances, including a .275/.387/.510 showing against left-handed pitching. After two dismal offensive showings in 2021-22, he has played his way back into regular shortstop duty in St. Louis.

The Cardinals hold a $12.5MM option ($2MM buyout) on his services for 2024. That’s not an outlandish number, particularly in light of a dreadful upcoming shortstop class in free agency, but it still seems likely St. Louis would opt for the buyout with Tommy Edman on hand and prospect Masyn Winn not far off. With hope for a playoff push getting fainter with every demoralizing loss, the Cardinals should gauge the trade market.

22. Justin Turner, 3B, Red Sox

23. James Paxton, SP, Red Sox

24. Nick Pivetta, RP/SP, Red Sox

25. Adam Duvall, CF, Red Sox

The status of this group could well come down to the next few weeks. The Red Sox are above .500 but in last place in a loaded AL East. They’re four games out of the Wild Card with two teams to surpass. Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom has acknowledged the deadline could go in a number of directions based on the team’s upcoming performance.

If Boston were to fall more clearly out of contention, anyone in this group could go. Paxton and Duvall are pure rentals. The veteran left-hander has rebounded from two injury-plagued seasons to post a 2.70 ERA with an elite 31.1% strikeout rate over 10 starts. Duvall was on a tear early this year before breaking his wrist and missing two months. He has been ice cold since coming back but has a long track record of right-handed power production and solid outfield defense, albeit with on-base concerns.

Turner looks likely to join Paxton and Duvall on the open market. He has a $13.4MM player option. That comes with a $6.7MM buyout, meaning he’d only need to top the matching $6.7MM difference on the open market to make opting out a reasonable financial strategy. Considering he’s hitting .282/.354/.461, he looks on his way to doing that with ease.

Pivetta has never consistently found his stride as a starting pitcher, but he’s been excellent since moving to relief a couple months ago. Over 24 frames as a reliever, he owns a 2.63 ERA while striking out more than 32% of batters faced. He could draw interest either in his current multi-inning bullpen role or from a team looking to stretch him back out for rotation work. Pivetta is making $5.35MM and eligible for arbitration one more time.

26. C.J. Cron, 1B, Rockies

Cron is an impending free agent on a last place team. He’s a fairly straightforward trade candidate if he’s performing well enough to draw interest. The veteran first baseman has had a tough season to this point, hitting .248/.293/.441 and missing a few weeks with a back problem. He returned to the diamond last week and has around a month to try to play his way into some interest.

The right-handed hitter topped 25 home runs in each of the four full seasons between 2018-22. He’s making $7.5MM and could draw attention as a role-playing power bat, particularly if the Rox pay down some of the deal.

27. Brad Hand, RP, Rockies

28. José Cisnero, RP, Tigers

29. Jordan Hicks, RP, Cardinals

30. Chris Stratton, RP, Cardinals

31. Michael Fulmer, RP, Cubs

Each player in this tier could be an impending free agent reliever on a fringe or worse contender. Hand has had a nice bounceback season after signing with Colorado over the winter. His contract contains a $7MM club option that becomes a mutual provision if he’s traded. Cisnero is a 34-year-old righty with a 2.18 ERA and above-average peripherals in 33 innings for the Tigers.

Hicks throws as hard as anyone in the game. He’s running huge strikeout and ground-ball numbers while walking nearly 15% of opponents. Stratton, his St. Louis teammate, has fanned just over a quarter of opponents and soaked up 42 1/3 innings through 31 outings in middle relief. Fulmer started his Cubs’ career slowly but has allowed only two runs in 16 innings going back to the beginning of June.

32. Kyle Hendricks, SP, Cubs

Hendricks has been effective in eight starts since returning from last year’s season-ending shoulder injury. Through 47 innings, the veteran righty carries a 2.64 ERA. His 44.2% grounder rate is roughly average, and he’s never missed bats or thrown hard. Few pitchers have better control, though, and Hendricks is currently healthy and producing.

This could be his final season with the Cubs. Chicago likely wouldn’t bring him back on a $16MM club option, so he’s more or less a rental starter on a fringe contender. Maybe the trade returns wouldn’t be significant enough for the Cubs to part with a player who has meant so much to the franchise — especially if they can still see a path to contention — but it wouldn’t be surprising if his name comes up in discussions.

33. Josh Hader, RP, Padres

34. Blake Snell, SP, Padres

The Padres are riding a three-game win streak, pulling them to 41-46. They’re six games out of a Wild Card spot with three teams to jump. It’s an uphill battle but one an underperforming San Diego team feels they can achieve. Both president of baseball operations A.J. Preller (via AJ Cassavell of MLB.com) and chairman Peter Seidler said last week the team is still focused on contending this year.

San Diego probably isn’t listening to trade offers on Hader or Snell yet. If they flounder again over the next few weeks, the standings might force the club’s hand to put their impending free agents on the market. If that happens, Snell and Hader would vault near the top of this list in a hurry.

35. Tyler O’Neill, LF, Cardinals

36. Joey Bart, C, Giants

37. Bobby Dalbec, 3B, Red Sox

38. Jo Adell, LF, Angels

39. Josh Rojas, 3B, D-Backs

40. Nick Senzel, 3B/CF, Reds

Broadly speaking, this group of six players are speculative change-of-scenery candidates. O’Neill has paired 30-homer power with Gold Glove defense at his best. He hasn’t performed as well since the start of 2022 and has spent the past couple months on the injured list with a back problem. He’s likely to be back in the majors by the trade deadline. The Cardinals have a number of younger, more affordable outfielders and could try to move O’Neill this summer rather than face a tough call on whether to tender him a contract for his final arbitration season.

Bart is a former second overall pick who has been leapfrogged on the Giants’ catching depth chart by Patrick Bailey. He’s a .223/.293/.342 hitter at the big league level but has been better in Triple-A.

Dalbec has been inconsistent as a big leaguer, flashing huge power but striking out a ton. He’s having a monster season in Triple-A (.298/.415/.654 with 20 homers in 54 games) but only gotten 14 scattered MLB plate appearances this year. Dalbec recently admitted to Christopher Smith of MassLive that he doesn’t see a clear path to regular playing time in Boston with Rafael Devers, Justin Turner and Triston Casas all on the roster.

Adell is another former top prospect who has mashed in the upper minors but struggled to make contact against big league pitching. He’ll be out of options next season and has only appeared in three MLB games this year. Maybe the Mike Trout hamate injury clears the path to everyday playing for Adell at Angel Stadium, but the Halos are under pressure to win now and could try to move him for a lower-upside but more stable veteran outfielder.

Rojas was a good bat-first utility player for the Diamondbacks in 2021-22. He had an awful start to the ’23 campaign, hitting .235/.301/.306 without a home run in 57 games. Arizona optioned him late last month, and he recently landed on the minor league injured list. His value is at perhaps its lowest ebb, but he’d be a non-tender candidate next winter. Arizona could sell low to a team like the Tigers or Royals that can afford to give him a few months to rediscover his previous level.

Senzel is a former second overall draftee who hasn’t found much big league success. The Reds have graduated a number of infield prospects and pushed him to the bench. He’s not hitting right-handed pitching at all but carries a .373/.422/.627 line against southpaws. Senzel can play multiple positions and could be of interest as a righty-swinging utility piece.

41. Hunter Harvey, RP, Nationals

42. Kyle Finnegan, RP, Nationals

43. Alex Lange, RP, Tigers

44. Jason Foley, RP, Tigers

This crop of relievers all has multiple seasons of control on non-competitive teams. They’re less likely to be dealt than the rental relievers mentioned above but would bring back stronger returns if made available.

Harvey has had myriad injury issues throughout his career but been healthy and effective this year. He owns a 3.16 ERA while striking out nearly 28% of opponents over 37 innings. Finnegan has a 3.34 ERA with average peripherals across 35 frames.

Lange has spotty control but misses bats and keeps the ball on the ground at plus rates. He’s taken over as Detroit’s closer and is under arbitration control through 2027. Foley is also controllable through the ’27 campaign and has somewhat quietly had a breakout year. The righty averages north of 97 MPH on his fastball and has induced grounders on over three-fifths of batted balls. He has a 2.17 ERA in 37 appearances.

45. Rich Hill, SP, Pirates

46. Carlos Santana, 1B, Pirates

The Pirates have faded after a strong April and could find themselves listening on short-term players. Pittsburgh isn’t truly rebuilding anymore, but both Hill and Santana are veterans on a team that’s now six games under .500. The seemingly ageless Hill has a 4.50 ERA with roughly average strikeout and walk numbers over 17 starts. Santana has a modest .241/.320/.407 line over 321 plate appearances, but he’s a switch-hitter and a plus defender at first base.

47. Yan Gomes, C, Cubs

Gomes is another of the Cubs’ potential impending free agents who could find some interest. It’d be relatively modest in his case, but he’s a respected veteran backstop having a decent season. The 35-year-old is hitting .265/.308/.412 with seven homers in 185 trips to the plate. His contract contains a $6MM club option for next season.

48. Teoscar Hernández, RF, Mariners

The Mariners are another team that finds itself on the fringe of contention. Seattle is a game under .500 and five out of a Wild Card spot with four clubs to surpass. They’re not likely to sell off veterans until right up to the deadline, but a bad few weeks could force the front office to listen.

Hernández hasn’t hit as expected during his first season in Seattle. He owns a .252/.301/.441 line with 15 homers over 85 games. That’s below the level he’d shown over his past few years in Toronto. Hernández has picked things up after a terrible first two months, though, and he’d surely find some interest if the M’s were to put him on the market.

49. Lane Thomas, RF, Nationals

Thomas has proven an excellent pickup for Washington since heading over in the 2021 deadline deal that sent Jon Lester to St. Louis. The right-handed hitting outfielder is amidst a career year, hitting .304/.351/.509 with 14 homers through 365 plate appearances. He has been a nightmare for opposing southpaws, teeing off at a .385/.434/.683 clip when holding the platoon advantage.

Soon to turn 28, Thomas is eligible for arbitration for two seasons beyond this one. The Nationals would hold firm to a lofty asking price given that extended control window, but they’re near the nadir of a rebuild and probably won’t contend for a postseason spot until Thomas’ final year of arbitration at the earliest.

50. Max Scherzer, SP, Mets

There might be no more fascinating potential trade candidate than Scherzer. The three-time Cy Young winner is the second season of a record-setting free agent deal that pays him $43.333MM annually. He can opt out at year’s end, leaving the Mets in an interesting position.

If New York feels Scherzer is likely to opt out and they’re not viable contenders this season, exploring trade possibilities makes sense. The contract makes him a very difficult player to actually move, however. Scherzer has full no-trade rights for one, although there’s been some chatter he could waive that to facilitate a trade to a contender. The salary is high enough a number of teams wouldn’t even try to make it work, though Cohen’s willingness to pay down contracts for a better return could solve that issue.

That’s before getting to Scherzer’s performance, which has been more good than exceptional this year. He has a 4.03 ERA across 82 2/3 innings. His strikeout and walk numbers are excellent but below typical levels. He’s allowing more home runs than ever before. There’s no doubt Scherzer is still a playoff-caliber starter, but his production this season hasn’t been that of a true Game One ace.

Others To Watch

A’s: Seth Brown, Shintaro Fujinami, Sam Moll, Ryan Noda

Astros: Chas McCormick, Jake Meyers

Cardinals: Giovanny Gallegos

Cubs: Mark Leiter Jr., Drew Smyly, Patrick Wisdom

Mariners: Tom Murphy

Mets: Carlos Carrasco, Adam Ottavino

Nationals: Corey Dickerson, Carl Edwards Jr., Dominic Smith

Orioles: Jorge Mateo

Padres: Luis García

Pirates: Austin Hedges

Red Sox: Enrique Hernández, Kenley Jansen, Chris Martin

Rockies: Elias Díaz, Randal Grichuk, Pierce Johnson, Jurickson Profar, Brent Suter*

Royals: Matt Duffy, Amir Garrett, Zack Greinke*, Nicky Lopez

Twins: Max Kepler

White Sox: Tim Anderson, Mike Clevinger*, Yasmani Grandal

* Currently on injured list

The Rays’ Biggest Free Agent Investment Is Paying Off

By | at

While the Rays aren’t exactly threatening the luxury tax threshold any time soon, the team has been increasingly open to at least some modest spending over the last couple of years.  Wander Franco’s 11-year, $182MM extension is obviously the headliner of those moves, but Tampa Bay has also locked up the likes of Jeffrey Springs (four years/$31MM), Yandy Diaz (three years/$24MM), Pete Fairbanks (three years/$12MM), Tyler Glasnow (two years/$30.35MM), and Manuel Margot (two years/$19MM) to multi-year commitments.

These deals were all extensions, however, and thus Zach Eflin’s three-year, $40MM contract from last winter was more of an outlier in franchise history.  The $40MM represented the most money the Rays have ever given to a free agent over the franchise’s 26 seasons of existence.  The Rays’ willingness to make such an expenditure surprised some pundits, for both financial and baseball-related reasons — why was a lower-spending team deep in starting pitching willing to take a relatively big (by their standards) plunge on a starter with a checkered health history?

Three months into the 2023 season, Tampa’s decision is looking quite wise.  In the latest example of the “you can never have too much pitching” credo, the Rays’ rotation depth has been tested by multiple injuries.  Springs underwent Tommy John surgery, and Drew Rasmussen (flexor strain) and Josh Fleming (elbow soreness) are both on the 60-day injured list and will be out until at least August.  Glasnow didn’t make his season debut until late May, after recovering from his own rehab from a Tommy John procedure in 2021.

Against the backdrop of these injury concerns, Eflin’s production has been invaluable.  While the righty had a minimum 15-day IL stint himself in April due to back tightness, Eflin has been a stabilizing force within the rotation, and one of many reasons why the Rays have baseball’s best record.

Over 90 1/3 innings this season, Eflin has a 3.29 ERA, 25.6% strikeout rate, and 4.2% walk rate.  The K% is Eflin’s highest over a “full” season (he had a 28.6% strikeout rate over 59 innings in the shortened 2020 campaign), while his walk rate is among the league’s best for the third straight year.  The righty’s 52.7% grounder rate is also a career best, while his 37.8% hard-hit ball rate is (if only slightly) above the league average.  There isn’t much variance between Eflin’s real-world stats and his expected stats, as his 3.34 SIERA and .277 xwOBA are almost identical to his 3.29 ERA and .274 wOBA.

Eflin is getting great results from his sinker, which has been his primary pitch since 2020.  However, he is throwing the sinker only 34.7% of time, teaming it in a slightly more even mix with his curve (28.7% usage) and cutter (27.8%).  As such, Eflin’s curveball has now also become a premium offering, and the sinker/curve combo has helped offset the cutter’s much shakier results.  Combined with the occasional usage of a changeup and four-seamer to keep batters guessing, and Eflin is on pace for a career year in his age-29 season.

The biggest difference for Eflin in 2023, however, is just that he has thus far been pretty healthy.  His 90 1/3 innings already marks the fourth-highest innings total of his eight MLB seasons, and he threw only 86 1/3 total frames in the regular season and postseason with the Phillies in 2022.  He missed time last year due to a knee contusion, continuing the theme of knee problems that have plagued Eflin throughout his career — patellar-tendon surgeries on both knees in 2016, and then another patellar tendon procedure on his right knee in 2021.  Philadelphia opted to use Eflin out of the bullpen after he returned from the IL last season, in order to get him on the mound in some capacity rather than spend more time fully building up his arm for a starter’s workload.

There hasn’t been any suggestion of an innings limit for Eflin, and though he has yet to pitch more than seven innings in a game this season, that is probably more due to Tampa Bay’s general approach to starter usage more than any specific intent to keep Eflin fresh.  His career high for innings was 163 1/3 frames for the Phillies in 2019, so assuming good health from here on out, there is still quite a ways to go before Eflin or the Rays might have any concerns about his workload.  With the Rays on pace for another postseason appearance, they certainly hope Eflin can pitch throughout October, and the potential returns of Rasmussen and Fleming will continue to impact the team’s pitching plans.

2023-24 MLB Free Agent Power Rankings: June Edition

By | at

We’re at the regular season’s halfway point, and the free-agent landscape has changed a fair bit since we last ran through our Power Rankings back in mid-April. Injuries, changes in performance — some for the better, some for the worse — and more have combined to provide more context as to what shape the top of the free agent market will take.

As a reminder, our Power Rankings are based primarily on perceived earning power. This is an exercise intended to provide a snapshot of where the top end of the free agent class is currently sitting. One player being ranked higher than another does not necessarily indicate we feel he’s the better player. Youth, health, qualifying offer status, market scarcity and myriad other factors all impact what a player can expect to earn in free agency.

Our power rankings are compiled collaboratively. MLBTR owner Tim Dierkes and writers Anthony Franco and Darragh McDonald all weighed in for this update. Players with opt-out clauses and player options are included, even if they’ve previously given indications they may forgo the opportunity to return to the market.

1. Shohei Ohtani, SP/DH, Angels: There are no surprises up top. Ohtani remains far and away the top name on this year’s list — so much so that he might even command double the No. 2 entrant on our list. That’s both a testament to his general excellence and an indictment on what is generally a weaker free agent class than is typical.

Ohtani, 29 in July, isn’t having quite as dominant a season on the mound as he did in 2022, but he’s still been quite good and is enjoying his best year to date with the bat. In 95 1/3 innings, the flamethrowing righty has pitched to a 3.02 ERA with a 33.2% strikeout rate and 10.2% walk rate. The latter is a marked uptick from the 6.7% he logged a year ago. Ohtani’s strikeout rate is only down about half a percentage point from its 2022 levels, but he’s seen more notable drops in swinging-strike rate (from 14.9% to 13.5%) and opponents’ chase rate (32.6% to 29.5%). This is also the most homer-prone he’s ever been on the mound; his 1.13 HR/9 is a career-high, and the 12 homers he’s allowed in 95 1/3 innings innings are already just two shy of last year’s total of 14 — which came over a span of 166 frames.

To some extent, that’s just nitpicking. Ohtani has still been excellent. His ERA ranks 15th among qualified starting pitchers, and only Atlanta’s Spencer Strider has a higher strikeout rate. He currently ranks sixth among qualified pitchers in K-BB% (23%), and fielding-independent metrics are generally supportive of his success (e.g. 3.40 SIERA, 3.35 xERA). Hitters simply haven’t been able to make good contact against Ohtani, outside that handful of home runs anyway. His 86 mph average opponents’ exit velocity is in the 93rd percentile of MLB pitchers. His 34.8% opponents’ hard-hit rate is in the 77th percentile. He’s induced grounders at a solid 44.4% clip. The uptick in walks is significant, but that’s only taken Ohtani from an ace-level performer to a slight step below that level.

And of course, when discussing Ohtani, the mound work is only half the equation. His work in the batter’s box this season has been nothing short of sensational. In 360 plate appearances, Ohtani is batting .309/.389/659. That’s 82% better than league-average production after weighting for home park, by measure of wRC+. Ohtani has already belted 28 home runs, and he’s added 15 doubles and five triples while swiping 11 bags (in 15 tries). This year’s 11.4% walk rate is right an exact match for his career mark (although shy of his 15.6% peak), and his 21.7% strikeout rate is the lowest of his career.

Ohtani has averaged an obscene 93.7 mph off the bat this year and ranks in the 95th percentile (or better) of MLB hitters in exit velocity, barrel rate, expected slugging percentage and expected wOBA. He’s a bona fide middle-of-the-order bat with the speed to swipe 25 to 30 bases and the power to clear 40 home runs.

When chatting about this update to our Power Rankings, Anthony Franco rhetorically asked me if I thought Ohtani the hitter and Ohtani the pitcher (if somehow separated) would both still individually rank ahead of the rest of this year’s class of free agents. We both agreed that they would. Fortunately, one team will get both this offseason — it just might cost more than half a billion dollars.

2. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, SP, Orix Buffaloes (Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball): Many people have wondered what type of contract Ohtani might have originally commanded if he’d waited two years to jump to Major League Baseball. Because he opted to make the jump at 23 years of age, he was considered an “amateur” under MLB rules and thus limited to the confines of MLB’s international free agent system. Since he’s not also a world class hitter, Yamamoto won’t give us an exact answer to that now-unanswerable Ohtani hypothetical, but he’ll show us what a 25-year-old ace can command under true open-market pricing if and when the Buffaloes post him, as expected.

Yamamoto, 25 in August, is one of the best pitchers in NPB and perhaps one of the most talented arms on the planet. The right-hander made his NPB debut as an 18-year-old rookie in 2017, stepped into the Buffaloes’ rotation full-time in 2019, and has pitched to a sub-2.00 ERA in four of the past five seasons, including this year’s current mark of 1.98. The lone exception was 2020, when his ERA ballooned all the way to… ahem, 2.20. Yamamoto has a sub-2.00 ERA in his career, and that’s including the 5.32 mark he posted in that age-18 rookie season.

So far in 2023, Yamamoto has pitched 68 1/3 innings with a 1.98 ERA, a 27.8% strikeout rate and a superlative 4.1% walk rate. Just 11 of the 266 batters he’s faced have drawn a free pass. That’s a career-best mark for a pitcher who’s long had outstanding command but has continually whittled away at his walk rate over the years. In his NPB career, Yamamoto has walked just 6.1% of opponents against a 26.5% strikeout rate.

MLBTR contributor Dai Takegami Podziewski kicked off his latest NPB Players To Watch piece with a look at Yamamoto’s recent run of dominance: a stretch of three consecutive eight-inning starts with just one run allowed and a 29.8% strikeout rate and .092 opponents’ average along the way. World Baseball Classic fans may remember Yamamoto’s performance as well: in 7 1/3 innings he allowed just two runs on four hits and two walks with 12 strikeouts. Back in April, Dai described Yamamoto as the “undisputed ace of NPB,” noting that he’s won the Sawamura Award (NPB’s Cy Young equivalent) in each of the past two seasons. He also won the pitching triple crown (ERA, strikeouts, wins) in 2021-22 and has a chance to repeat the feat in 2023.

Like so many pitchers these days, Yamamoto boasts a mid- to upper-90s heater. Scouts credit him with a potentially plus-plus splitter and give favorable reviews of his curveball and general athleticism as well. Presumably, there’s some trepidation regarding a pitcher who’s listed at just 5’10” and 169 pounds, and whoever signs him will have to pay a posting/release fee to the Buffaloes. Those are about the only “red flags” in Yamamoto’s profile.

Yamamoto’s countryman, Kodai Senga, has had some inconsistent command but generally performed well since signing a five-year, $75MM deal with the Mets. In an offseason piece, Joel Sherman of the New York Post quoted an evaluator who graded Yamamoto a full grade better than Senga on the 20-80 scale. And, it bears emphasizing, Yamamoto is five years younger than Senga. We haven’t seen a pitcher with this type of pedigree make the jump from Japan without any spending restrictions since Masahiro Tanaka signed a seven-year, $155MM deal with the Yankees. Yamamoto is younger than Tanaka was, he’s arguably better, and the price of pitching has only gone up since that time. A contract in excess of $200MM doesn’t seem outlandish if he can remain healthy and productive.

3. Matt Chapman, 3B, Blue Jays: It’s been a tale of two seasons for Chapman, who was perhaps baseball’s best hitter in April and one of its worst in May. The slump has been longer than the hot streak at this point, although the aggregate .265/.343/.457 slash is still well above league average (23% better, by measure of wRC+). Paired with his characteristically excellent defense (7 Defensive Runs Saved and 4 Outs Above Average already), and Chapman’s still been an undeniably valuable player, even if the nature of his contributions for the Jays have been quite frontloaded in the schedule’s early portion.

That said, it’s still incumbent upon Chapman to turn things around at the plate sooner than later. The weight of that early, Herculean stretch will continually diminish, and the current version of the former All-Star simply isn’t that compelling. Early in the year, Chapman was regularly making blistering contact and had dramatically cut back on his strikeouts. In writing about his brilliant start to the season in early May, I pointed out that he’d begun to let the strikeouts creep back in and wondered whether that was a mere blip or the onset of some regression.

Unfortunately, the strikeout issues that have dogged Chapman in the aftermath of his 2020 hip surgery have resurfaced. Dating back to May 1, Chapman is hitting just .203/.279/.339 with an a 30.2% strikeout rate. He’s still walking at a respectable 8.8% rate, and his quality of contact is excellent. Chapman is averaging 92.4 mph off the bat and hitting the ball at 95 mph or better in 52.7% of his plate appearances even during this prolonged slump. After benefiting from a .449 BABIP early in the year, he’s seen that mark swing down to .269 in May and June.

In all likelihood, the “true” results are somewhere between the two extremes of Chapman’s 2023 season. He’s not the hitter he was in April, but he’s certainly better than he’s been in May and June. The question is whether Chapman can curb the strikeouts moving forward. His propensity for thunderous contact (when he makes it) should lead to some positive regression and once again begin to produce better results. But if he fans at a 30% clip from here on out, there may not be enough balls in play to help him prop his stat line back up. Furthermore, it’d mark the third time in four seasons he finished at or above a 30% strikeout rate, which doesn’t inspire much confidence over the course of a long-term deal.

Chapman still ranks prominently here because the overall numbers are still good, and because, frankly, the crop of position players this offseason is dreadful. In fact, he’s the only pure position player on this installment of our Power Rankings, which is unprecedented. If Chapman can sustain his quality of contact and scale back the strikeouts slightly, he could still find a seven- or eight-year deal heading into his age-31 season. His overall production right now is comparable to the output posted by Kris Bryant in advance of his foray into free agency (which resulted in a seven-year, $182MM contract), and Chapman has far more defensive value than Bryant.

4. Lucas Giolito, SP, White Sox: It’s been a tough start to the year for a number of top free agent pitchers, but Giolito has generally pitched well. His strikeout rate is down from its 33.7% peak, but he’s still fanning more than a quarter of his opponents with his typical brand of better-than-average command (7.5% walk rate). It’s too soon to tell is this is a trend, but it bears mentioning that Giolito has upped his slider usage recently and seen a notable increase in strikeouts. Over his past five starts, he’s thrown the slider at a 35.8% clip, as compared to his prior 28.4% usage rate. It’s not a massive increase, but Giolito had just three starts with a slider rate of 30% or more in his first 11 trips to the hill; since May 30, he’s been between 31.4% and 41.2% in each start. It does seem to mark a clear change in attack plan, and after fanning 23.9% of hitters through those 11 starts, he’s up to 29.4% over his past five.

Giolito’s 93.3 mph average fastball is actually up slightly from 2022’s average of 92.7 mph. Home runs remain an issue (1.36 HR/9), and he’s been a bit more homer-prone on the road than in his hitter-friendly home park this year. That’s not the norm, however; the right-hander has allowed more than 1.5 homers per nine innings in his career at home but is at a much more palatable 1.16 mark on the road.

Giolito’s current 3.41 ERA would mark the fourth time in five seasons that he finished with an ERA between 3.41 and 3.53. Last year’s 4.90 looks like a clear outlier that was largely fueled by a career-high .340 average on balls in play. (The White Sox, notably, were among the game’s worst defensive teams in 2022.)

As with all free agents, age is crucial. In Giolito’s case, it’ll work in his favor. He’s 28 years old as of this writing and will turn 29 in mid-July. Even a seven-year contract would “only” carry through his age-35 season. It’s also worth noting that he’s been a frequently speculated trade candidate, and if he’s flipped to another club, he’d be ineligible to receive a qualifying offer. That carries significance in free agency, too.

Giolito might not be an ace, but he’s a surefire playoff starter for any team in Major League Baseball. He’s the second-youngest of the starters on this list with big league experience and has been a workhorse since 2018, ranking 10th among all MLB pitchers with 855 innings pitched in that time. Kevin Gausman (five years, $110MM) and Robbie Ray (five years, $115MM) signed similar contracts that began in their age-30 seasons. Neither had a track record as long as Giolito, who’ll be a year younger in his first free agent season. A six- or even seven-year deal could be in play, depending on how he finishes.

5. Julio Urias, SP, Dodgers: Urias is among the hardest players to peg among this year’s group. On the one hand, he posted a combined 2.63 ERA over 495 1/3 innings from 2019-22 and is slated to hit the open market in advance of age-27 season — a borderline unprecedentedly young age for a top-end starter to become a free agent. On the other, the lefty has been on the injured list for more than a month owing to a hamstring strain. He didn’t pitch all that well before landing on 15-day IL either. In 55 1/3 innings, Urias worked to a pedestrian 4.39 ERA, thanks primarily to a stunning uptick in home runs allowed; after yielding 0.98 homers per nine frames from ’19-’22, he’s allowed an average of 2.28 homers per nine innings in 2023.

That said, the rest of Urias’ numbers look quite similar to his peak output. His 23.3% strikeout rate is down a bit from the 24.7% he posted in 2019-22, but his 4.8% walk rate is notably better than his already strong 6.3% mark. His fastball velocity is right in line with last year’s level (when Urias notched a 2.16 ERA in 175 innings), as is his 10.8% swinging-strike rate. His 34.1% opponents’ chase rate remains strong.

The primary problem isn’t even an uptick in fly-balls, but rather in the percentage of those fly-balls that leave the yard. Entering the 2022 season, just 9.1% of the fly-balls allowed by Urias had become home runs. This year, it’s a staggering 20.3%. Broadly speaking, homer-to-flyball rate is susceptible to short-term spikes and tends to even out over a larger sample, but the uptick in homers hasn’t been well-timed. That’s doubly true given that for all of Urias’ success, he’s neither the flamethrowing powerhouse nor elite misser of bats that modern front offices covet. He’s succeeded thanks to elite command and by regularly limiting hard contact. Urias’ strikeout rates are typically a bit above average, but he’s never placed higher than the 67th percentile of MLB pitchers in overall strikeout rate.

That’s not to say Urias isn’t a desirable arm or won’t be a highly coveted pitcher. Prior to his injury, the MLBTR team had discussed possible contracts in excess of $200MM for the lefty, based both on his age and recent excellence. That’s perhaps a bit harder to see now, even if the current issue is a leg injury rather than an arm problem. Urias has only twice made 30 starts in a season, and he also has one major shoulder surgery already on his record (a 2017 procedure to repair a capsule tear).

A third consecutive 30-start season would’ve helped set aside a perceived lack of durability, but he won’t get there in 2023, even though he’s expected to return from the injured list as soon as this weekend. That’s not because of any arm troubles to date, and it should be noted that part of the reason for his lack of innings was some extreme workload management post-surgery that looks to have been effective, based on Urias’ 2021-22 results. Still, he hasn’t often worked a full starter’s slate of games, he won’t do it in 2023, and he hasn’t generated his typical results when healthy — even if most of the skill-oriented numbers remain similar to prior levels.

Urias will also have a qualifying offer to contend with, which isn’t true of every pitcher on these rankings. He’s undeniably talented and the clear youngest of the bunch, but it’d be easier to predict a massive long-term deal if he returns and starts producing more like he did in that aforementioned four-year peak.

6. Aaron Nola, SP, Phillies: Speaking of top-tier starters who haven’t performed up to expectations, the 30-year-old Nola finds himself in a precarious position. MLB’s consummate workhorse since his 2015 debut, Nola has pitched the third-most innings of the 2024 pitchers who’ve taken a big league mound since 2016 — his first full season in the Majors. Only Gerrit Cole and Max Scherzer have topped Nola’s 1256 1/3 innings in that stretch.

For the majority of that time, Nola has operated on the periphery of ace-dom. He’s only a one-time All-Star and has never won a Cy Young, but the former No. 7 overall pick finished third place in 2017, seventh place in 2020 and fourth place just last year. During his 2017-22 peak, Nola notched a 3.48 ERA, 28.2% strikeout rate, 6.6% walk rate and 47.1% ground-ball rate. His 2022 season featured a terrific 29.1% strikeout rate and an elite 3.6% walk rate over the life of 205 innings — the second-most in all of baseball.

That version of Nola has been nowhere to be found in 2023. Through 105 2/3 innings, he’s posted a pedestrian 4.51 ERA with his lowest strikeout rate (23.9%) since his rookie season back in 2015. Nola’s 6.8% walk rate, while still a very strong mark, is his highest since 2020. He’s allowing more fly-balls than ever before, and unsurprisingly is allowing home runs at a career-worst rate (1.45 HR/9).

Fielding-independent metrics still believe Nola’s above-average strikeout rate, strong walk rate and ability to avoid hard contact ought to be translating to better results; his “expected” ERA is 3.53, per Statcast, while tools like FIP (4.28) and SIERA (4.00) agree he’s been short-changed a bit. Nola’s 65.1% strand rate, in particular, sits about eight percentage points below his career level and below the league average.

Heading into the season, a six- or seven-year deal seemed within reach for one of the game’s most durable and consistently above-average starting pitchers. He’s maintained the “durable” half of that equation, making 17 starts and averaging a hearty 6.22 innings per outing. The results haven’t been there, however, and Nola’s velocity is down about a half mile per hour on most of his pitches. It’s not the platform season he wanted, and even with the so-so results, he’ll surely still have a QO attached to him. There’s still an easy case for a long-term deal here, and a strong second half of the season would quiet a lot of these concerns. To this point, however, Nola has looked more like a mid-rotation starter than someone who’d be fronting a playoff staff.

7. Blake Snell, SP, Padres: Snell has been the best pitcher on the planet for the past month or so, generally erasing a terrible start to the season. This sort of Jekyll & Hyde performance is old hat for the former AL Cy Young winner, who closed out both the 2022 and 2021 seasons in dominant fashion, offsetting a wave of pedestrian starts in each instance. That endorsement of Snell’s past month isn’t even hyperbole; dating back to May 25, Snell has a comical 0.86 ERA with a 66-to-15 K/BB ratio in 42 innings. He’s fanned a massive 44.1% of his opponents against a better-than-average 8.1% walk rate.

Snell’s rollercoaster traits are nothing new, and they may scare some interested suitors in free agency. There’s no skirting the fact that he has a penchant for slow starts to the season, and when Snell is off his game, he can look lost. He doesn’t have pristine command in the first place, and walks become a particularly glaring issue when he’s in a rut. When he’s not as his best, Snell has a tendency to labor through short starts, which can tax a bullpen.

That said, here’s a look at Snell’s past 48 starts: 259 1/3 innings, 3.05 ERA, 33% strikeout rate, 10.1% walk rate, 0.90 HR/9, 36.9% ground-ball rate, .196 opponents’ average. The road he takes to get there may be infuriating at times, both for fans and his organization’s decision-makers, but Snell has clear top-of-the-rotation stuff. He’s currently riding a streak of four straight starts with double-digit strikeouts, during which he’s yielded just three runs.

The Padres can and very likely will make Snell a qualifying offer. He should reject while giving little, if any thought to the contrary. The qualifying offer and general inconsistency might hurt him, but there will also be teams who look at those factors as a possible avenue to signing a starter with genuine No. 1 talent at a cost that isn’t commensurate with those types of arms. Snell will pitch all of the 2024 season at age 31, and paired with his inconsistency, that might cap him at five years. But he should command $20MM per year over that five-year term, making a nine-figure deal within reach …. barring a second-half collapse that heightens concerns about the fluctuations in his performance.

8. Josh Hader, RP, Padres: Rumors of Hader’s demise as an elite closer last summer were greatly exaggerated, it seems. The four-time All-Star was struggling in the weeks leading up to his trade from Milwaukee to San Diego, and he didn’t help his cause when he allowed a dozen August runs following the swap. That slump was capped off by a six-run drubbing at the hands of a lowly Royals offense.

Since then, it’s been business as usual for Hader. The lefty quietly finished out the year with a 0.79 ERA in his final 11 1/3 innings. He was unscored upon from Sept. 7 through season’s end, and he went on to pitch another 5 1/3 shutout innings in the postseason, fanning 10 hitters in the process. Hader is now sitting on a sparkling 1.26 ERA. His 37.8% strikeout rate isn’t quite as high as his ridiculous 47.8% peak in 2019, but he still ranks among the league leaders in strikeout rate.

Since putting that six-run August meltdown against the Royals behind him, here’s Hader’s line (postseason included): 45 1/3 innings, 0.99 ERA, 38% strikeout rate, 9.8% walk rate, 29 saves.

Hader will be a year older in free agency than Edwin Diaz was when he set the relief pitcher record on a five-year, $102MM contract (which includes multiple opt-outs). That slight age gap will matter, but Hader has the longer and steadier track record of the two and could benefit from his handedness. So long as he keeps somewhere near this pace, he’ll take aim at making Diaz’s record short-lived.

9. Marcus Stroman, SP, Cubs: Stroman’s three-year, $71MM contract allows him to opt out of the final year this offseason. In doing so, he’d leave $21MM on the table, but there’s little doubt he’d be able to topple that mark in free agency. Stroman has already received a qualifying offer in his career, meaning he can’t receive a second one. He’s also the current MLB leader in bWAR (3.5) and third in the Majors in RA9-WAR (also 3.5). Through 102 innings, Stroman touts a 2.47 ERA and a 59.3% grounder rate that’s second only to Logan Webb among all qualified pitchers.

Good as Stroman’s results are, there’s some reason to be a bit skeptical on his earning power. He can surely outpace the $21MM he’d leave on the table by opting out, likely securing another multi-year deal in free agency. That said, Stroman’s profile hasn’t really changed since his last foray into the open market. He still has a below-average strikeout rate, and the lower-than-average walk rate he had last time around has crept up to about league average in 2023. He’s inducing more grounders than he has since 2018, but the primary reason for the drop in his ERA has been a career-low home run rate. Just 8.3% of the fly-balls allowed by Stroman have been homers — well shy of his 13.5% career mark.

Homer-to-flyball rate tends to stabilize over larger samples — Stroman was between 12.6% and 13.9% every year from 2018-22, for instance — so teams might essentially view him as the same pitcher he was in the 2021-22 offseason, just a couple years older. One factor working in Stroman’s favor is that the price of pitching has increased since then; Jameson Taillon, Taijuan Walker and Chris Bassitt all helped advance that market last offseason. Bassitt’s three-year, $63MM deal with the Blue Jays should be of particular note. He secured that contract despite being hit with a QO that Stroman won’t have to contend with, and did so heading into his age-34 season. Next year will be Stroman’s age-33 season. He should at least be able to secure a three-year deal at a larger AAV than Bassitt received. A four-year deal with an AAV north of $20MM is also possible.

10. Jordan Montgomery, SP, Cardinals: Montgomery had a pair of rough starts in the season’s first six weeks, allowing seven and six runs in that pair of outings and ballooning his ERA in the process. Things have largely evened out though, and Montgomery’s numbers look just as solid as they did when he was establishing himself as a mid-rotation hurler in the Bronx, Through 92 innings, he’s posted a 3.52 ERA with a 21.9% strikeout rate, 5.9% walk rate and 46.6% grounder rate that all line up neatly with his 2021-22 production.

Montgomery pitched just 31 1/3 big league innings in 2018-19 due to Tommy John surgery and struggled in the shortened 2020 campaign upon his return from that operation. Since Opening Day 2021, however, he carries a 3.66 ERA and matching secondary marks (3.61 FIP, 3.88 SIERA) in 421 innings. If the Cardinals don’t trade Montgomery, he’ll be a natural qualifying offer candidate. He’d very likely reject that one-year offer in search of a multi-year deal in free agency. Montgomery isn’t an ace, but the market rewarded both Taillon (four years, $68MM) and Walker (four years, $72MM) with four-year contracts last winter. Neither had a QO attached to him, but Montgomery, who’ll turn 31 in December, has a better recent track record than both pitchers as well.

Of course, if the Cardinals remain out of the postseason hunt in late July, Montgomery will be a sought-after trade candidate. A trade to another club would render him ineligible to receive a QO. Even if the Cardinals hang onto him and make him a QO, he’ll still reach free agency in search of a comparable or even larger deal than the ones signed by Taillon, Walker and Bassitt. As with Stroman, it’s worth noting that Bassitt was older in free agency than Montgomery will be (by a margin of three years in Montgomery’s case).

Honorable Mentions (listed alphabetically): Harrison Bader, Cody Bellinger, Jeimer Candelario, Sonny Gray, Teoscar Hernandez, Shota Imanaga, Joc Pederson, Eduardo Rodriguez (opt-out), Max Scherzer (player option), Jorge Soler (player option)

The Orioles May Have Found The Lefty Bat They Wanted

By | at

The Orioles made it pretty clear they wanted to get a cheap left-handed bat this winter to play either first base, a corner outfield spot or designated hitter. They signed players like Nomar Mazara and Franchy Cordero to minor league deals. They claimed Jake Cave and Ryan O’Hearn off waivers and twice claimed Lewin Díaz.

It’s fairly understandable why they would covet that type of player, given their in-house options for those bat-first roles. Ryan Mountcastle has been the club’s primary first baseman for a while and hits right-handed. He doesn’t have drastic platoon splits but has hit .265/.315/.495 against lefties in his career for a 118 wRC+, compared to a .251/.303/.434 line and 102 wRC+ against righties. Outfielder/designated hitter Anthony Santander is a switch hitter but is also better against lefties: .264/.325/.471 and 117 wRC+ against southpaws but .242/.295/.454 and 102 wRC+ against northpaws. Austin Hays and Ryan McKenna also hit from the right side and have modest splits for their careers.

Adding a solid lefty bat into the mix would have been a way to add some flexibility and occasionally shield those guys from tough matchups. But since it wasn’t a desperate situation, it made sense the O’s stuck to modest moves as opposed to a big signing. Most of those small transactions haven’t worked out, however. Cave was later lost to the Phillies when the O’s tried to pass him through waivers. Both Cordero and Mazara opted out of their deals when they didn’t make the Opening Day roster and are now with other clubs. Díaz was passed through waivers and is hitting at a league average rate in Triple-A this year.

The one player from that bunch who is on the roster is O’Hearn. He had previously spent his entire career with the Royals, having been drafted by them back in 2014. He made it to the big leagues in 2018 and showed his potential that year, hitting .262/.353/.597 in his first 44 games for a 153 wRC+. But he struggled badly in subsequent campaigns, hitting just .211/.282/.351 in 901 plate appearances from 2019 to 2022.

Despite four consecutive rough seasons, the Royals tendered O’Hearn a contract for 2023, avoiding arbitration by agreeing to a $1.4MM salary with $250K in bonuses. But in December, they designated him for assignment, perhaps hoping his rough track record and a salary roughly twice the league minimum would tamp down any interest from other clubs. But the O’s weren’t swayed and sent cash considerations to the Royals in order to facilitate a deal, though they themselves passed him through waivers in January.

O’Hearn technically could have rejected the outright assignment and elected free agency due to having more than three years of service time, but he was shy of the five-year mark and would have had to forfeit that money in order to do so. He made the obvious decision to hang onto that cash and stick with the O’s, fighting for his roster spot.

He was eventually selected to the roster a couple of weeks into the season, on April 13. He received sporadic playing time over the next few weeks, getting 22 plate appearances over nine games, hitting just .263/.318/.316 in those for a 77 wRC+. He was optioned to the minors on May 5 but quickly recalled on May 9, able to return after less than the minimum 10 days because Ramón Urías was placed on the injured list.

Since that recall, he has been on an absolute tear. He’s hit six home runs in 93 plate appearances across 27 games. His .318/.355/.591 slash line in that time amounts to a 161 wRC+. This is still a small sample size but it’s a very encouraging development after years of looking lost at the plate. The O’s have shielded him from left-handed pitchers, as he has just six plate appearances against them this year compared to 109 against righties. But when a righty is on the mound, he’s impressed enough to get the cleanup spot in their lineup.

It’s dangerous to draw too many broad conclusions from such a small bit of data, but there’s also reason to suspect a meaningful change has taken place. O’Hearn recently spoke to Nathan Ruiz of The Baltimore Sun about some changes in his mechanics suggested by hitting coaches Ryan Fuller and Matt Borgschulte, who focused on his hip rotation and hand placement. When asked if it was strange that no one pointed out these issues with his mechanics before, he replied “You could say that.” Perhaps the shift to a different organizational philosophy and approach was just what he needed to tap into his potential.

There are encouraging numbers beyond the traditional stat line. Statcast pegs his average exit velocity at 93.4 mph this year, which would be a career high. The same goes for his 14.6% barrel rate and 56.1% hard hit rate. Among players with at least 50 batted ball events this year, that average exit velocity places him 15th in the league, matching Yordan Alvarez and just ahead of guys like Juan Soto and Randy Arozarena. That hard hit rate places him in eighth place among that same group.

We’re still talking about a limited sample here and essentially a strict platoon deployment, but for a guy who’s making a small salary and was designated for assignment twice this winter, getting any kind of production is a great find. If it continues for the next few months, the O’s can keep him for an extra season as well, as he’s currently on pace to finish 2023 with just over five years of MLB service time. That means he’ll be eligible for one more arbitration season in 2024 before qualifying for free agency.*

(*Sidenote: O’Hearn seems likely to benefit from a feature in the CBA that awards service time for brief optional assignments. “If a Player is optionally assigned for a total of less than 20 days in one championship season, the Player shall be credited with Major League service during the period of such optional assignment(s).” O’Hearn therefore won’t be dinged for that brief option in May, getting service time from his April 13 selection to the end of the year. This year’s season is 186 days long but a player needs 172 days to get a full year. O’Hearn missed the first 14 days of the season and will get exactly that 172 figure. Since he began this year with his service time clock at 4.002, he should finish 2023 at 5.002. Future optional assignments could change that trajectory, but he would have to fall off at the plate in order for the O’s to consider that. Full CBA text courtesy of the MLBPA.)

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports

Nationals’ Buy-Low Addition Should Pay Off At Trade Deadline

By | at

Every offseason, rebuilding clubs take one-year fliers on formerly productive veterans coming off bad seasons. They’re generally minimal financial commitments that afford the player a fresh start with a path to regular playing time. In most instances, the team is hoping the player puts together a strong first half that turns them into a reasonably valuable trade candidate come deadline season.

The hit rate on deals of this nature isn’t particularly high. Most players don’t rebound as hoped. Wil Myers was designated for assignment by the Reds. Pierce Johnson hasn’t panned out for the Rockies. Ditto for Trevor May in Oakland and Corey Dickerson and Dominic Smith in Washington. The Nationals will happily live with a couple misses in exchange for one notable hit, and they found it in third baseman Jeimer Candelario.

Candelario looked like a potential building block for the Tigers a few seasons ago. He led MLB in doubles two seasons back and combined to hit .278/.356/.458 in over 800 plate appearances between 2020-21. Even with generally middling defensive marks, he was a productive regular based on his well-rounded profile at the plate.

Things cratered for him last season. Candelario managed only a .217/.273/.361 slash over 467 trips to the dish. His walks fell to a career-worst level as he chased more pitches outside the strike zone. The contact quality similarly regressed sharply. It was essentially a replacement-level season overall. The entire Tigers lineup was a disaster, leading to a front office change in August. New baseball operations leader Scott Harris and his staff moved on from Candelario, declining to tender him an arbitration contract projected in the $7MM range.

That sent him to free agency for the first time. Washington stepped in with a one-year, $5MM guarantee that contained $1MM in additional incentives ($200K for reaching 200 plate appearances and $100K thereafter for each 100 trips to the plate, maxing out at 600). Carter Kieboom opening the season on the injured list ensured Candelario would get regular run at the hot corner in the early going.

He has seized the opportunity with a performance essentially in line with his 2020-21 production. Candelario has a .263/.338/.471 line with 10 home runs over 325 plate appearances. He’s tied for second in MLB with 26 doubles. Candelario has dialed the approach back in, cut down slightly on the swing-and-miss, and pushed his exit velocities back up a couple ticks.

Candelario has paired that with better than expected defensive grades. Defensive Runs Saved and Statcast have pegged him between three and five runs better than average over 662 1/3 innings of third base work. It’s the first time since 2020 in which he has rated as an above-average defender. Single-season defensive metrics can be variable, but Candelario looks to be a capable gloveman at the hot corner, even if he’s unlikely to win a Gold Glove.

Nothing in his offensive production is dramatically out of line with his best years in Detroit. In a broad sense, he just seems to have put last year’s awful season behind him. There is one notable change from Candelario’s early-career production, though: the platoon splits.

For his career, he’d generally been better from the right side of the dish. Candelario entered this season with an overall .270/.329/.438 batting line against southpaws compared to a .230/.320/.388 showing versus right-handed pitching. The script has flipped this year. Candelario has a .279/.350/.537 line against righties and is hitting only .227/.313/.318 off left-handers.

That probably won’t change front offices’ opinions on him too much. This year’s platoon splits are very small samples; he has only 99 plate appearances against southpaws. He’s probably not going to keep teeing off on right-handers at quite this level and he’ll presumably see his production against lefties pick back up. He’s not the cleanest fit for a team seeking a strict platoon bat, but he’s shown enough from both sides of the plate throughout his career he’d be a fine plug-and-play regular at the hot corner.

It seems very likely he’ll be donning a new uniform five weeks from now. He surpasses the six-year service threshold this season and is headed back to the open market next winter. Candelario has played well enough the Nats could at least consider a qualifying offer if they held onto him. There’d be a strong chance he accepts, though, which would keep him in Washington for another season at a salary around four times greater than this year’s figure.

It’s hard to envision Candelario having more trade value for Washington than he does right now. Not only is he affordable and productive, this year’s market for offense could be very thin. The upcoming free agent class is extremely light on position players, reducing the number of productive rental bats available. That’s especially true on the infield. The Blue Jays almost certainly won’t trade Matt Chapman, positioning Candelario as the top impending free agent infielder who’s likely to be on the trade market.

Teams like the Marlins, Phillies, Cubs (where Candelario began his career) and Diamondbacks haven’t gotten much production out of third base. The Astros have Alex Bregman at the hot corner but are looking for another bat, preferably one who can hit from the left side. Candelario could factor in at first base or designated hitter in that scenario. The Brewers have some uncertainty at both corner infield spots.

If Candelario finishes the season strong, he should be able to leverage that infield scarcity into a solid multi-year free agent deal. A trade would kill any possibility of him being saddled with draft pick compensation — players moved midseason cannot receive a qualifying offer — and he’ll hit the market at age 30. A three or maybe even four-year deal with annual salaries north of $10MM doesn’t seem out of the question.

Candelario’s stint in Washington will probably be brief, but it’s shaping up exactly as intended for both parties. The Nats look positioned to add a couple mid-level prospects to their farm system, while Candelario is parlaying his opportunity into a much more lucrative free agency trip.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Brewers Should Look To Add At First Base This Summer

By | at

The Brewers knocked off the Mets yesterday, pushing four games above .500. With the Reds losing later in Baltimore, Milwaukee nudged back into first place in the NL Central.

No one will be overwhelmed with the Brew Crew’s first couple months. They’ve been outscored by 20 runs on the year and carry a 23-27 record since the start of May. Yet the Cardinals’ disastrous start leaves the door wide open for Milwaukee to take the division, even with Cincinnati outpacing most expectations and the Cubs playing their way back into the mix.

In his first summer leading baseball operations, GM Matt Arnold figures to look for ways to improve the offense. Milwaukee has been a pitching and defense team for years, but the lineup has become particularly problematic in 2023. The Brewers rank 25th in runs despite the generally hitter-friendly nature of American Family Field. Only the A’s have a lower batting average than Milwaukee’s .226 clip, while the Brewers rank 25th in on-base percentage (.303), 28th in slugging (.373) and have the game’s third-highest strikeout rate (25.7%).

Any time a team is struggling to that extent, there’ll be multiple areas of concern. For Milwaukee, none stands out more than first base. The Brewers have gotten just a .223/.294/.378 showing out of the bat-first position. By measure of wRC+, that’s 25th in MLB. The struggles have mounted over the last two months, coinciding with the team’s slide from an 18-10 start. Since May 1, Milwaukee first basemen are hitting .217/.286/.349. Only the Angels have gotten less in that span.

That’s in large part due to an extended slump from Rowdy Tellez. The left-handed hitter had an excellent April (.247/.333/.533) but has hit only .203/.269/.327 in 167 plate appearances over the past two months. His walks and contact quality have both fallen off precipitously. Tellez drew a free pass in over 12% of his trips to the dish in the first month; that’s down to a pedestrian 8.4% clip since.

The drop in batted ball results is even more concerning. Tellez’s calling card has always been big power potential. He popped 35 home runs a season ago and routinely posted excellent batted ball metrics. That hasn’t been the case in 2023. Tellez’s rate of hard contact (batted balls hit 95+ MPH) has fallen from the 45-48% range between 2020-22 to a roughly average 38.4% clip. The softer contact is borne out in the results. He’s on a 25-homer pace with an overall .218/.293/.408 batting line.

Unless Tellez breaks out of this slump in the next few weeks, Arnold and his front office could prioritize a first base upgrade at the deadline. Early-season dice rolls on Luke Voit and Jon Singleton didn’t pan out; neither is still in the organization. Darin Ruf broke a bone in his knee almost immediately after signing and is out into August. Owen Miller is better served as a multi-positional infielder than an everyday first baseman. Keston Hiura is raking in Triple-A again, but he’s struggled to put the ball in play whenever he’s gone up against big league arms.

It’s still too early to know exactly which first basemen could be attainable. Five teams (the A’s, Rockies, Nationals, Cardinals and Royals) are double-digit games out of a playoff spot. Oakland might be open to selling high on Rule 5 find Ryan Noda, but that’s by no means a guarantee. Washington hasn’t gotten much from Joey Meneses or Dominic Smith this year. Colorado could deal C.J. Cron, but he only returned from a nagging back issue yesterday and didn’t hit well before the injury.

Kansas City lost Vinnie Pasquantino to season-ending shoulder surgery and probably wouldn’t have traded him anyhow. It’s still tough to imagine the Cardinals moving Paul Goldschmidt and dealing such a major hit to their 2024 chances; even if they did put the defending NL MVP on the market, they almost certainly wouldn’t want to move him to one of their top divisional competitors.

The Brewers may have to wait a few more weeks to hope for other teams to fall out of contention. Justin Turner is having a strong season and can opt out of his deal with the Red Sox at year’s end. Boston is only three games out of a playoff spot right now; if they dropped five or six back by the deadline, they could listen to offers. Maybe the Orioles would sell low on Ryan Mountcastle, although he’s having an even poorer season than Tellez to date. Pittsburgh’s Connor Joe is a right-handed hitter with a good track record against lefty arms. He’s miscast as a regular but could be a fallback platoon partner with Tellez if Milwaukee can’t swing a bigger upgrade.

Regardless of what the Brewers do this summer, Tellez’s recent struggles put his longer-term future with the organization in doubt. He’s playing this season on a $4.95MM salary and would be in line for a raise in his final season of arbitration. His current trajectory points towards a non-tender. That’d be true on virtually every team and is particularly the case for a Milwaukee organization that has tended not to value the slugging first baseman highly (i.e. non-tendering Chris Carter in 2016 and declining a net $6.5MM option on Eric Thames three years later).

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Big Hype Prospects: Westburg, Matos, Crawford, Whisenhunt, Anthony

By | at

The Orioles are finally calling up one of their top hitting prospects, and it isn’t the one I expected to get the first call. Jordan Westburg will make his debut later today. I expected Colton Cowser to win the race to the Majors. With Cedric Mullins recently returning, Cowser is left to await another injury or Aaron Hicks’ inevitable collapse (good outcomes, deeply terrible EVs).

Five Big Hype Prospects

Jordan Westburg, 24, 2B/3B/SS, BAL (AAA)
301 PA, 18 HR, 6 SB, .295/.372/.567

There’s a disconnect between public perceptions of Westburg and scouting reports. The bat will play, though Westburg’s penchant to swing-and-miss could result in long slumps as reports identify exploitable weaknesses. His minor league exit velocities would rate as above average in the Majors. Additionally, Westburg seemingly mixes discipline and targeted aggression in a way that could help keep his strikeouts under control – it has thus far in the minors.

The trouble is his defense. He’s trained all over the infield. Some think he’ll eventually land in left field. We see these sorts of bat-first players all over the league. His flexibility enables the club to view him as a tenth man akin to Chris Taylor (to be clear, Taylor is a far superior fielder). When approaching roster construction, Westburg can be slotted into whatever spot needs filling or else rotate with the regulars to keep everyone fresh.

Luis Matos, 21, OF, SFG (MLB)
45 PA, 1 HR, 2 SB, .282/.378/.385

On the back of a mediocre AFL performance, it wasn’t guaranteed the Giants were going to roster Matos this year. He would have likely gone early in the Rule 5 draft if they hadn’t. Matos immediately rewarded San Francisco’s decision to protect him. Though discipline has long been a weakness, he has more walks than strikeouts through 45 plate appearances after hitting .398/.435/.685 in 116 Triple-A plate appearances. The 21-year-old has looked like a new hitter this year.

There are still worrying details under the surface. His 89.5-mph average and 107.5-mph max exit velocities suggest middling power. Given his age, he could easily grow into more power – several evaluators believe this will happen. It’s my expectation Matos will soon enter a slump due to poor quality of contact. However, I’m optimistic about the long-range picture. In addition to burgeoning hitting skills, Matos is a plus defensive center fielder.

Justin Crawford, 19, OF, PHI (A)
202 PA, 0 HR, 32 SB, .346/.395/.456

I was surprised to recently discover Crawford had crept onto Baseball America’s Top 100 list. That’s not meant as a knock against Crawford. There happens to be a large number of high-quality prospects around the league. Crawford is more projection than actuality at this stage of his development.

The 17th pick of the 2022 draft, Crawford was seen as the sort of toolsy, incomplete prospect the Phillies have historically loved – and struggled to develop. He’s performing decently in Low-A where his first-rate speed is on display. A .423 BABIP has allowed him to get away with too many swinging strikes for his current low-power profile. He’s expected to age into roughly average pop, so this problem could go away in a couple ways. Comparisons to his father, Carl Crawford, come naturally as they share quite a few traits. He’s reportedly comfortable making adjustments to his hitting mechanics which further increases the volatility of his prospectdom.

Carson Whisenhunt, 22, SP, SFG (AA)
(A/A+/AA) 49.2 IP, 12.9 K/9, 3.1 BB/9, 2.90 ERA

Whisenhunt would rank higher among evaluators if not for off-field issues. As it is, he’s still in consideration for the back-end of Top 100 lists. The simplest issue to comment on publicly is his failed PED test in college. You’ll notice, it’s rare for college players to be caught for PEDs, and it’s not because they’re squeaky clean. For his part, Whisenhunt blames a tainted supplement. The skinny southpaw leads with a double-plus changeup and is only just reaching a level where hitters will have some capacity to cope with the pitch. His changeup is such that he won’t truly be tested until he reaches the Majors. The profile and build are reminiscent of Cole Hamels.

Roman Anthony, 19, OF, BOS (A+)
(A/A+) 251 PA, 5 HR, 12 SB, .236/.379/.382

Anyone statistically minded is going to like Anthony. A 19-year-old performing well in High-A is exciting stuff, particularly when said 19-year-old has a 171 wRC+ in 49 plate appearances. He was considerably more ordinary in Low-A, posting a 110 wRC+ in 202 plate appearances. A sweet-swinging lefty slugger, Anthony has considerable development ahead of him if he’s to continue this speedy race toward the Majors. The P-word gets thrown around. Against better competition, Anthony will find himself behind in the count all too often. Passivity isn’t a death knell. We saw Gunnar Henderson defeat it entering last season and again about a month ago. It’s a trait which has a way of echoing. But for the passivity, Anthony has all the traits of a starting corner outfielder.

FanGraphs gives Anthony a four-paragraph writeup that says more than I can in this space.

Three More

Edouard Julien, MIN (24): The star of the 2022 AFL, Julien is on the verge of losing his prospect “eligibility.” He’s batting .252/.336/.439 through 123 plate appearances. A 34.1 percent strikeout rate has held him back. He also has a 12.5 percent swinging strike rate – nearly double that of his Triple-A performance. Defensively limited, Julien appears in need of an adjustment or two. He has the tools to pull it off.

Jacob Misiorowski, MIL (21): It’s good to be unique as a pitcher. Misiorowski certainly checks the “unique” box. The 6’7’’ right-hander has the sort of funky arm action that makes it hard to identify balls and strikes. Misiorowski lacks a changeup, but we’ve seen plenty of starters succeed without one in recent years, especially those who can live up in the zone with hard heat. He currently has poor command.

Quinn Priester, PIT (22): Priester has been on the radar for a while, bouncing in and out of the Top 100 prospects. He’s a ground ball pitcher who manages around a strikeout per inning while limiting walks and piling up ground balls. Since his fastball isn’t particularly effective, he should be viewed as a potential back-of-the-rotation guy – the type who keeps his team in the game.

Did I miss a detail or nuance? DM me on Twitter @BaseballATeam to suggest corrections.

Show all

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top