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MLBTR Originals

The Guardians’ Lineup Needs An Overhaul

By Steve Adams | May 19, 2023 at 2:21pm CDT

The 2022 Guardians skated to a division title in the American League Central and did so with a lineup unlike any other in MLB. Cleveland’s offense was a triumph for fans of small ball and the older-school game that relied far less on the long ball than today’s brand of three-true-outcomes offenses. The ’22 Guardians put the ball in play more than any other team in baseball, and it wasn’t close. Their 18.2% strikeout rate was the lowest in MLB and made them one of just four teams shy of 20%. The others — the Astros (19.5%), Mets (19.7%) and Cardinals (19.9%) — weren’t particularly close. Cleveland ranked 15th in the Majors in runs scored despite ranking 29th in home runs. Their 119 steals (a number that seems pedestrian in light of this year’s rule changes) ranked third in MLB.

Fast forward a season, and the lineup has a similar complexion but staggeringly different outcome. The 2023 Guardians are MLB’s most punchless team, ranking dead last with 24 home runs — just eight more than Pete Alonso has by himself. Cleveland’s 150 runs scored entering play Friday led only the Tigers (143), and the Guards had played two more games than Detroit. Cleveland enters play ranking 28th in the Majors with a .228 batting average and .302 on-base percentage, and 30th out of 30 teams with a .341 slugging percentage.

As The Athletic’s Zack Meisel pointed out Wednesday (Twitter link), Cleveland catchers have been astonishingly anemic at the plate. Prior to Cam Gallagher’s single yesterday, the Guardians hadn’t received a hit from their catcher since the calendar flipped to May; Gallagher was hitless in 32 at-bats entering play yesterday, while Zunino is currently 0-for-27 with 21 strikeouts this month.

The Guards opened the season surprisingly carrying three catchers: Mike Zunino, Gallagher and Meibrys Viloria. Even after designating Viloria for assignment, they added another catching option in 27-year-old David Fry. The Guardians have gotten less production from behind the dish than any team in the American League. Zunino, Gallagher, Viloria and Fry have combined for a .127/.225/.231 slash (29 wRC+) while serving as catcher, striking out in 38.4% of their plate appearances.

All of this comes at a time when Cleveland has one of baseball’s top catching prospects thrashing Triple-A pitching. Bo Naylor has appeared in 39 games with Columbus, taken 180 turns at the plate and batted .264/.400/.521 with nine home runs, eight doubles, a triple, a sky-high 18.3% walk rate and a 22.6% strikeout rate. The bar he’d need to clear in order to be an upgrade could scarcely be lower, yet he’s still in the minors while Cleveland backstops endure a nearly three-week-long hitless streak.

The problem isn’t confined to the team’s catching corps, although that’s the most glaring weak point in the lineup. Still, here are the Guardians’ position-by-position rankings, in terms of wRC+, at the other positions on the diamond: first base (90, 21st in MLB), second base (86, 19th in MLB), shortstop (79, 23rd in MLB), third base (116, sixth in MLB), left field (97, tied for 13th in MLB), center field (74, 28th in MLB), right field (37, 30th in MLB), designated hitter (80, 26th in MLB).

Jose Ramirez (.285/.364/.457) remains excellent and is the one still decidedly above-average hitter on the roster, although even he’s having a down year by his MVP-caliber standards. Steven Kwan has been solid in left field (.269/.356/.353) but not as good as during last year’s sensational rookie campaign. No other player who’s taken 20 plate appearances for Cleveland this season has been better than league-average at the plate.

Some of this was to be expected. The Guardians surely weren’t hoping to get much offensive production from catcher — though they hoped for more than this — and knew Myles Straw’s contributions would come more from his elite center field defense and baserunning. But every hitter on the roster has taken a step back from last season’s performance.

The offseason signing of Josh Bell to a two-year, $33MM deal looks regrettable with the Guardians getting closer to the Padres version of Bell from 2022 than the Nationals version. In 177 plate appearances, Bell is walking at a huge 14.7% clip but has batted only .227/.339/.3535 with three home runs. His 19.8% strikeout rate would be the second-highest of his career, and his .127 ISO (slugging percentage minus batting average) is 33 points south of the league average and 67 points below his own career mark. Bell is hitting the ball on the ground at a staggering 58.6% rate. He can opt out of his contract at season’s end, but it would take a drastic turnaround for that to seem realistic.

Meanwhile, Cleveland has optioned last year’s primary right fielder, Oscar Gonzalez, to Triple-A after he followed up last year’s .296/.327/.461 debut with a .192/.213/.288 start to his sophomore season. MLBTR’s Anthony Franco has already outlined shortstop Amed Rosario’s struggles, and Josh Naylor hasn’t been any better at first base. Will Brennan, called up to replace the demoted Gonzalez, has barely been an improvement.

The Guardians’ commitments to defense-, contact- and/or speed-oriented players at multiple positions isn’t inherently flawed, but it only works if the rest of the lineup is capable of supporting players like Straw and Zunino (or, in last year’s case, Austin Hedges). That hasn’t been the case in 2023. The Guardians’ team strikeout rate is up nearly two percentage points (from 18.2% to 19.8%), while their team BABIP is down 20 points (from .294 to .274).

That might not seem like much — perhaps an extra strikeout and one extra ball in play turned into an out per game — but the margin for error is thin when there’s practically no one on the team with even average power. The Guardians are completely reliant on balls in play to manufacture runs, which leaves them at the mercy of sequencing and hitting when it counts. Entering play Thursday, they’d batted .228/.296/.325 as a team with men on base. Last year, they hit .258/.319/.394 in such situations.

These struggles all come in spite of remarkably good health among the team’s collection of position players. The Guardians don’t have a position player on the injured list at the moment and in fact haven’t placed a hitter on the Major League injured list all season. They’ve still had injury troubles — Triston McKenzie, Aaron Civale and Sam Hentges have most notably been sidelined — but they’ve come exclusively on the pitching side of the roster.

As for how they can turn things around, the avenues to doing so aren’t plentiful in mid-May. The trade market simply isn’t active this time of season — and that was true even before an expansion to a 12-team playoff field likely further emboldened fringe contenders to take a wait-and-see approach to trade deadline season.

Over the past half decade, there have been just two mostly regular position players who were traded in May and had not first been designated for assignment. The Rays shipped Willy Adames and righty Trevor Richards to the Brewers for right-handers Drew Rasmussen and J.P. Feyereisen back in 2021. Tampa Bay was also involved in a 2018 swap with the Mariners, centering around Denard Span and Alex Colome. That’s not to say a deal can’t and won’t happen, but history tells us it’s overwhelmingly unlikely. Cleveland can certainly monitor the DFA and waiver market, but with a 20-23 record they’re not close to top waiver priority right now.

If the Guardians are going to right the ship, they’ll need to promote from within. Bo Naylor is an obvious candidate to join the big league roster and quite arguably should already be there. Tyler Freeman hit .329/.468/.482 in 109 Triple-A plate appearances before being called up to the roster but is being used in a bench role. He’s not a home run threat himself and the team isn’t going to bench Andres Gimenez seven weeks into a seven-year extension, but there are still ways to get Freeman into the lineup more regularly. Top outfield prospect George Valera only just made his season debut in Triple-A a week ago, as he missed the first several weeks of the year recovering from hamate surgery. If he’s able to approximate the .264/.367/.470 output he showed in Double-A last year over even a small sample, there’s good reason to give him a look in right field over both Brennan and Gonzalez sooner rather than later.

The Guardians are rather fortunate that they’ve managed to remain as close to .500 as they have. They’re sitting on a -31 run differential, while the Pythagorean win-loss system and BaseRuns both put their expected record at 18-25. Their sub-par run differential and sub-.500 record come despite the fact that Baseball-Reference grades their strength of schedule to date as the third-easiest in MLB.

Cleveland has already gone full speed ahead with a youth movement in the rotation, giving prospects Tanner Bibee, Logan T. Allen and Peyton Battenfield prominent rotation spots. Some of that’s been necessitated by injury, but the Guardians weren’t shy about optioning one of their most experienced starters, Zach Plesac, to Columbus when he wasn’t performing up to expectations. Given the state of their lineup, it shouldn’t be long before they take a similar approach on the position-player side of the roster. And, if some of those young bats don’t break through, the Guardians ought to be on the lookout for controllable bats heading into the trade deadline — particularly with so much young pitching at their disposal. The schedule is only going to become more difficult from here on out, and the current group of hitters gives little reason for optimism.

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Cleveland Guardians MLBTR Originals Bo Naylor Cam Gallagher David Fry George Valera Josh Bell Mike Zunino Oscar Gonzalez Tyler Freeman Will Brennan

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Looking Back On The 58 Players Who Hit 30 Or More Home Runs In 2019

By Darragh McDonald | May 19, 2023 at 1:46pm CDT

It’s generally accepted that something fishy was going on with the baseball in 2019 that led to a spike of home runs. Matt Snyder of CBS Sports laid out some of the records that had been broken at season’s end. There were 6,776 homers hit across the league, shattering the previous high of 6,105 from 2017. That figure was 5,944 in 2021 and 5,215 last year, indicating it wasn’t just modern hitters getting really good at launch angle or anything like that. Fifteen of the 30 clubs in the league set franchise records, led by the 307 hit by the Twins and their “Bomba Squad.”

Commissioner Rob Manfred admitted in September of that year that something needed to be done about the baseball. An MLB study found the spike was caused by smaller seams leading to less drag, though that only accounted for about 35% of the decreased drag with the remaining 65% unaccounted for. The league has been pretty guarded about its manufacturing process, forcing others to try to piece together the cause from the outside, such as astrophysicist Dr. Meredith Wills (links from The Athletic).

Regardless of the cause, the spike happened and impacted the statistics of that season, which could have impacted trades, extensions and free agent contracts. It was well known the spike was happening, but how easy was it to determine which players were having real breakouts and which were mirages? Now that we are a few years removed from the anomalous season, let’s take a look back at the shocking 58 players who hit 30 or more homers and see how those seasons stand out with a bit of hindsight.

Pete Alonso – 53 home runs in 2019

Alonso’s 53 home runs broke the rookie record, which Aaron Judge had just recently set with 52 in 2017. He hasn’t been able to get back to that level since but hasn’t been far off. He hit 16 in 2020 then 37 and 40 in the next two years. He’s already at 16 this year through just 45 games. He’s slated for free agency after 2024.

Eugenio Suárez – 49

Suárez shattered his previous single-season high of 34, set the previous year. He would go on to struggle in the next two years but still show tremendous power, hitting 15 home runs in 2020 and then 31 in 2021 while his batting average hovered around .200. The Reds decided to move on from his contract, which was signed prior to 2018 and still ran through 2024 with an option for 2025. He and Jesse Winker were traded to the Mariners in what was seen by some as a salary dump move. However, Suárez bounced back last year with 31 more home runs and a much more palatable .236 batting average. He has just four through 43 games so far this year.

Jorge Soler – 48

Soler had only been a part-time player prior to 2019 but burst onto the scene in a huge way with these 48 long balls. He’s since demonstrated that was a high point in a very hot-and-cold career to this point. He disappointed with just eight homers in 2020 and had just 13 at the end of July 2021 when he was flipped to Atlanta. He then caught fire by hitting 14 more down the stretch and three more in the World Series, winning series MVP as Atlanta took the trophy. He parlayed that into a three-year, $36MM deal with the Marlins but hit just 13 last year while battling injuries. He’s now on fire again in 2023 with 11 dingers through just 42 games.

Cody Bellinger – 47

Bellinger hit 39 home runs in 2017 and then 25 more in 2018, so getting to 47 in 2019 was a new high but didn’t come out of nowhere. He combined those homers with 15 stolen bases and excellent defense to win Most Valuable Player of the National League. His production dipped a bit in 2020 and he hasn’t seemed the same since injuring his shoulder during the 2020 postseason. He struggled badly in 2021 and 2022, getting non-tendered by the Dodgers and signing with the Cubs this year for $17.5MM. He’s off to a good start this year, striking out way less than the past few years, but isn’t quite at his MVP pace. He has seven long balls in 37 games so far.

Mike Trout – 45

Trout had already been considered the best player in baseball for roughly half a decade before 2019, having hit between 27 and 41 home runs in each of the previous seven seasons. His 45 homers in 2019 are a career high, but just barely, as he reached 40 two other times. His second extension with the Angels, which runs through 2030, was signed in March of 2019.

Christian Yelich – 44

Yelich had long been an excellent bat-to-ball hitter but started to add power to his game prior to 2019. He hit just nine homers in 2014, seven in 2015, but then spiked to 21, 18 and 36 in the next three years, winning NL MVP in the last of those. In 2019, he jumped up to 44, then signed a nine-year, $188.5MM extension with the Brewers going into 2020. He added another 12 long balls in the shortened 2020 season but then hit just nine and 14 in the next two full seasons. He has seven so far in 2023.

Alex Bregman – 41

Bregman’s power seemed to be naturally ticking up as he matured, as he hit 19 home runs in 2017 as a 23-year-old, followed by 31 and 41 in the next two years. He would be hampered by injuries in the next two years, hitting six homers in 42 games in 2020 and then 12 in 91 games the year after. He was healthy enough to play 155 games last year and hit just 23 over the fence, though with excellent offense otherwise, walking more than he struck out. His extension that runs through 2024 was signed prior to the 2019 campaign.

Nolan Arenado – 41

Arenado’s 41 homers in 2019 aren’t even a career high, as he hit 42 in 2015 and also hit 41 in 2016. His extension with the Rockies was signed prior to the 2019 campaign. He was traded from the Rockies and Coors Field to the Cardinals and Busch Stadium prior to 2021 but still hit 30 or more homers in each of the past two years. He’s tallied another nine so far in 2023.

Ronald Acuña Jr. – 41

Acuña hasn’t been able to get back to this level of power, but due to circumstances beyond his control. He hit 14 in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, then was already up to 24 homers in July of 2021 when he tore his ACL. He came back last year and played 119 games but didn’t seem to be fully healthy and hit just 15 homers. Now seemingly back to 100%, he already has 11 homers this year through 43 games. His extension that runs through 2028 via club options was signed in April of 2019.

Nelson Cruz – 41

Cruz had long been a feature of home run leaderboards prior to 2019, getting to 22 or more in each season since 2009 and finishing at 37 or higher in the five previous seasons. His career high is the 44 he hit in 2015. The Twins picked up their $12MM option for 2020 and saw Cruz hit hit 16 more in the shortened 2020 season. He was re-signed for 2021 at a rate of $13MM, hitting 32 home runs on the year, which included a midseason trade to the Rays. He only hit 10 last year, though that was his age-41 season.

George Springer – 39

Springer’s 39 home runs are a career high, but just barely. He hit 29 in 2016, 34 in 2017 and 22 in 2018. He followed up his 39-home spike in 2019 with 14 more in the shortened 2020 season. The Blue Jays signed him to a six-year, $150MM deal going into 2021. He hit 22 and 25 home runs in the first two years of that contract despite being limited by injuries to just 78 and 133 games, respectively.

Freddie Freeman – 38

Freeman has long been a very balanced hitter, combining some power with strong batting averages, on-base percentages and low strikeout rates. He’s reached double digits in home runs in each season going back to 2011, but 2019 was a slight peak for him. His 38 homers this year are his career high, one of three times he’s gone over 30. He signed an early-career extension with Atlanta that ran through 2021 and then signed a six-year, $162MM deal with the Dodgers as a free agent prior to 2022.

Gleyber Torres – 38

Torres burst onto the scene with 24 home runs in just 123 games in 2018 and then got that number up to 38 in 2019. Injuries seemed to hold him back in the next two seasons, as he went on the injured list in each while being limited to just three and nine home runs in those campaigns. He got back on track last year with 24 and has six so far in 2023. He’s in his third of four arbitration seasons as a Super Two player and is slated for free agency after 2024.

Kyle Schwarber – 38

Schwarber hit 30 homers in 2017 and 26 in 2018 before spiking to 38 in 2019. He then struggled in 2020, hitting .188 despite adding another 11 home runs. He was non-tendered by the Cubs and signed with the Nationals for one year and $10MM, hitting 32 home runs between them and the Red Sox after a midseason trade. He signed a four-year, $79MM deal with the Phillies going into 2022 and launched 46 over the fence last year. He has a tiny .175 batting average this year but has already added another 10 homers.

Josh Donaldson – 37

Donaldson already had a long run as a potent hitter, with 24 or more homers in each year from 2013 to 2017. That included the 41 he hit in his 2015 MVP season, which he followed up with 37 and 33 in the next two years. He was injured for much of 2018, hitting eight home runs in 52 games before reaching free agency. He settled for a one-year, $23MM “prove it” deal with Atlanta and bounced back with a 37-homer campaign. That led to a four-year, $92MM contract with the Twins going into 2020. He only played 28 games in the shortened season but still launched six over the fence. He then hit 26 more in 2021 before getting flipped to the Yankees prior to 2022. He hit just 15 for the Bombers last year and has only played five games so far this year due to injury.

Josh Bell – 37

Bell has long been a tantalizing hitter but has often been undone by too many ground balls. His grounder rate has been at 50% or higher in each season of his career except for his 48.5% clip in 2018 and a well-timed drop to 44% in 2019. He’s since gone back above 50% in each season since and is actually above 60% so far in 2023. His 37 long balls in 2019 were easily a career high, eclipsing his previous best of 26 in 2017. He then had a dismal 2020 and was flipped from the Pirates to the Nationals, bouncing back with 27 that year. He had 14 at the deadline in 2022 when he was flipped to the Padres but added just three more after the deal. He signed a two-year, $33MM deal with the Guardians coming into 2023, with an opt-out after the first year, but is pounding the ball into the ground again and has just three homers on the season.

Franmil Reyes – 37

Reyes first showed off his power by hitting 16 homers in just 87 games in 2018, then took it to new heights with 37 in 2019, getting traded from San Diego to Cleveland in the latter season. He continued serving as a middle-of-the-order threat for the next couple of years, hitting nine more homers in 2020 and then 30 in 2021. However, he crash landed last year, striking out in almost a third of his plate appearances, getting put on waivers and claimed by the Cubs. He finished the year with 14 homers between the two clubs and was non-tendered in the offseason. He signed a minor league deal with the Royals for this year and made their Opening Day roster but was eventually designated for assignment and landed with the Nats on his second minor league deal of the year.

Matt Chapman – 36

Chapman broke into the majors in 2017 with 14 homers in just 84 games then followed that up with 24 in 2018 and 36 in 2019. He had 10 more in 2020 after just 37 games before requiring hip surgery. He returned in 2021 with an elevated strikeout rate but still launched 27 homers. He was traded to the Blue Jays prior to 2022, added 27 more last year and has five in 2023. He’s slated for free agency this offseason.

Matt Olson – 36

Olson incredibly launched 24 home runs in just 59 games in 2017. He wasn’t able to maintain that ridiculous pace but has settled in a fairly consistent level. He hit 29 in 2018, 36 in 2019, 14 in the shortened 2020 season and then 39 in 2021. He was traded to Atlanta prior to 2022 and quickly signed an eight-year, $168MM extension. He went on to hit 34 homers in his first season with his new club and has 11 more already in 2023.

Max Kepler – 36

Kepler had a few years of solid defense and roughly league average offense earlier in his career, which included hitting between 17 and 20 home runs in three straight seasons from 2016 to 2018. The Twins showed their faith in him by giving him a five-year, $35MM extension going into 2019 and he rewarded that with a 36-homer surge. He hasn’t been able to maintain that in the seasons since, hitting nine in 2020, 19 in 2021 and just nine last year, though he has six so far this season.

J.D. Martinez – 36

These 36 homers from Martinez were actually a dip for him, as he hit 45 in 2017 and 43 in 2018. He could have opted out of the three years remaining on his contract but decided to stay in Boston, eventually struggling in 2020 and forgoing a second opt-out opportunity. He bounced back with a strong 2021 that included 28 home runs before declining to opt out for a third straight year. He then hit 16 homers in 2022 before becoming a free agent and signing a one-year deal with the Dodgers, for whom he has five long balls so far this year.

Joc Pederson – 36

Pederson has been fairly steady in the power department, with the 2019 season seeing him push a bit above his norms. He hit 26 homers in 2015 and 25 in 2016 before dipping to 11 in 102 games of an injury-marred 2017 season. He then bounced back to 25 in 2018 before the jump to 36 in 2019. He had an ill-timed slump in 2020 just as he was about to become a free agent. He signed a one-year deal with the Cubs and was traded to Atlanta, hitting 18 homers between those two clubs. He signed with the Giants last year and parlayed a 23-homer season into receiving and accepting the qualifying offer to stick in San Francisco for another year, adding five more homers so far.

Trevor Story – 35

Story’s power output for the Rockies was fairly steady. He debuted with 27 in just 97 games in 2016, had a slight dip to 24 in 2017 and then bumped that up to 37 in 2018. That means it was actually a small drop when he hit 35 in 2019. He then added 11 more in 2020 and 24 in 2021 before becoming a free agent and signing a six-year, $140MM deal with the Red Sox. He made multiple trips to the IL in his first season away from Coors, hitting 16 homers in 94 games. He required elbow surgery this past offseason and has yet to play in 2023.

Max Muncy – 35

Muncy’s 35 long balls were an exact match for what he hit in his 2018 breakout. The Dodgers then gave him a three-year, $26MM extension going into 2020. He added 12 more in that shortened season and then got to 36 in 2021. He battled injuries in 2022 while hitting just 21 homers but the Dodgers had enough faith in him to pick up his 2023 option and tack on another club option for 2024. He seems to be healthy and back on track this year, already tallying 15 dingers to this point.

Bryce Harper – 35

Harper debuted in 2012 as a 19-year-old and hit at roughly a 20-homer pace for his first few seasons before breaking out with 42 in 2015. He dipped to 24 in 2016 but has been a pretty steady mid-30s guy since then. He hit 29 in just 111 games in 2017, then hit 34 and 35 the next two years. His 13-year, $330MM deal with the Phillies was signed prior to that 2019 campaign. He launched 13 in the shortened 2020 season then 35 the year after and another 18 last year despite playing in just 99 games.

Trey Mancini – 35

Mancini hit 24 home runs in each of the two previous seasons before jumping to 35 in 2019. He then missed the entire 2020 season while undergoing treatment for colon cancer, returning to hit 21 and 18 home runs in the next two seasons, getting flipped to the Astros in the latter campaign. He signed a two-year, $14MM deal with the Cubs going into 2023. The contract allows him to opt out after the first year, but he’s out to a tepid start to the season with three homers thus far.

Eduardo Escobar – 35

Escobar wasn’t a huge power hitter earlier in his career but started showing promising signs by hitting 21 in 2017 and 23 the year after. He jumped to 35 in 2019 but had a nightmare season in 2020 that included just four long balls. He bounced back with 28 in 2021 between the Diamondbacks and Brewers, then hit the open market and signed with the Mets for $20MM over two years plus a club option. He hit 20 more dingers with the Mets last year but is scuffling a bit this year, including just four homers so far.

Mike Moustakas – 35

Moustakas hit 38 home runs in 2017 just as he was about to hit free agency. He turned down a $17.4MM qualifying offer but never found the significant free agent deal that many expected he would find, and he ultimately returned to the Royals for just one year and $6.5MM. He then hit another 28 homers in 2018, a season that included a midseason trade to the Brewers. He re-signed with Milwaukee for one year and $10MM, then hit another 35 long balls. He finally landed the long-term deal he was looking for, signing with the Reds for four years and $64MM. He was fine in 2020, hitting eight home runs as part of a solid showing in the shortened season, but he has been injured and ineffective since. He only played 140 total games over 2021 and 2022 with only 13 homers in that time and was released this winter. He’s now with the Rockies but is hitting at a subpar level so far, including just a pair of home runs.

Anthony Rendon – 34

Rendon hit between 20 and 25 homers in the three previous seasons, but his 34 in 2019 was a significant jump. He added another three in the postseason as the Nats won the World Series, and he then hit free agency, signing with the Angels for $245MM over seven years. Rendon hit nine homers in the shortened 2020 season but has largely been injured since then. He got into just 58 and 47 games in the next two seasons and is now currently on the injured list after 30 contests so far this year. Those three seasons have resulted in 12 home runs in a combined 135 games.

Juan Soto – 34

Soto debuted in 2018 at the age of 19 and hit 22 home runs in just 116 games. He followed that up with 34 in 2019, then hit 13 in just 47 games in 2020. He followed that up with 29 in 2021 and 27 the year after, the latter season including his trade to the Padres, and is at seven homers so far this year. His 2019 is still his high water mark, though his 2020 pace was actually stronger and he’s been just a shade lower in the subsequent seasons.

Carlos Santana – 34

Santana has been pretty consistent as a hitter in his career. He has 11 seasons with 18 or more homers, with his age-33 season of 2019 being one of the two times he got to 34. He struggled in 2020 and had his club option declined by Cleveland. The Royals then signed him to a two-year, $17.5MM deal beginning in 2021, wherein he hit 19 homers but struggled overall. He was a bit better in 2022 as he hit another 19 home runs, most of which came after a trade to Seattle. He signed a one-year, $6.725MM deal with the Pirates for 2023 and has added a couple more long balls so far.

Paul Goldschmidt – 34

Going into 2019, the Cardinals acquired Goldschmidt and then gave him a contract extension that runs through 2024. He already had four 30-plus homer seasons under his belt with a career high of 36. The 2019 campaign was his fifth such season, and he’s since added two more.

Miguel Sanó – 34

Sanó has plenty of power but has always struggled to stay healthy. His 34 homers in 2019 are a career high but he’s hit 28 or more on three other occasions, even though he’s never been able to stay healthy enough to play more than 135 games. He only got into 20 contests last year due to knee injuries, after which the Twins declined their club option over him. He has yet to sign elsewhere.

Edwin Encarnación – 34

2019 was the eighth season in a row that Encarnación hit 32 or more home runs, getting to 42 in two of them. Nonetheless, the Yankees declined a $20MM option for his age-37 season, going for the $5MM buyout instead. He signed a one-year, $12MM deal with the White Sox for 2020, hitting another 10 home runs in that shortened season but with a .157 batting average. He expressed interest in continuing his career but didn’t sign anywhere for 2021.

Gary Sánchez – 34

Sánchez exploded onto the scene with 20 home runs in just 53 games in 2016. He then hit 33 the next year and 18 more in just 89 games in 2018. Getting to 34 in 2019 clearly didn’t come out of nowhere, but his bat has fallen off since. He hit 10 more in the shortened 2020 season but with a .147 batting average, then hit 23 and 16 home runs the next two seasons as his average hovered around .200. He was traded to the Twins prior to that 2022 campaign and became a free agent, ultimately settling for minor league deals with the Giants and Mets. The latter club will be calling him up to the majors today.

Marcus Semien – 33

Semien’s previous single-season record for home runs was 27, which was in 2016, before he spiked to 33 in 2019. He then slumped in 2020 and had to settle for a one-year, $18MM deal with the Blue Jays in 2021. They moved him from shortstop to second base and saw him launch an incredible 45 homers that year, which he parlayed into a seven-year, $175MM deal with the Rangers. He hit 26 with Texas last year and has seven so far in 2023.

Xander Bogaerts – 33

Bogaerts is more of a “pure hitter” given his .291 career batting average, low strikeouts and modest power. He’s reached double-digit home runs in eight seasons, but his 33 in 2019 are easily a career high, as he’s never topped 23 otherwise. He hit 11 in the shortened 2020 season and then 23 and 15 in the two seasons after. He had signed a six-year extension with the Red Sox going into 2019, but one that afforded him the ability to opt out after 2022. He triggered that opt-out and ultimately signed an 11-year, $280MM deal with the Padres. He’s hit six homers so far in his first season in San Diego.

Austin Meadows – 33

Meadows debuted with the Pirates in 2018 and then came to the Rays that year as part of the now-infamous Chris Archer deal that also brought Tyler Glasnow and Shane Baz to Tampa Bay. Meadows established himself with those 33 homers in 2019 but struggled in 2020, being limited by injuries to just 36 games and four homers. He bounced back with 27 long balls in 2021 and was traded to the Tigers not long before the 2022 season began. Unfortunately, injuries and anxiety have limited him to just 42 games since then, without him hitting a home run for his new team to this point.

Michael Conforto – 33

Conforto had a fairly consistent run for a few years, hitting 27 home runs in 2017, 28 in 2018, a small spike to 33 in 2019 and then nine in the shortened 2020 season. He then had an ill-timed power outage in 2021, hitting just 14 on the year. He nonetheless turned down a qualifying offer from the Mets and went into free agency looking for a multi-year deal but hurt his shoulder in the offseason and required surgery. He didn’t sign anywhere and missed the whole season. Conforto signed a two-year, $36MM deal with the Giants coming into this year, one that allows him to opt out after the first season as long as he reaches 350 plate appearances. He’s up to eight home runs so far through 39 games.

Kole Calhoun – 33

Calhoun hit 17 homers in 2014 then jumped to 26 the next year, before settling in at 18 to 19 home runs each year from 2016-18. His total of 33 in 2019 nearly doubled his typical output. He reached free agency after that season and signed with the Diamondbacks for two years and $16MM. Calhoun launched an incredible 16 home runs in the shortened 2020 season but then spent much of 2021 on the injured list, getting into just 51 games with five homers. He signed a one-year, $5.2MM deal with the Rangers for 2022, hitting 12 home runs but striking out in 32.1% of his plate appearances. He’s currently with the Yankees’ Triple-A team on a minor league deal.

Hunter Renfroe – 33

Renfroe hit 26 homers in each of the two previous seasons before jumping to 33 in 2019. He was then traded to the Rays and had a dismal showing in the shortened 2020 season, with eight homers but a batting average of just .156. He was non-tendered and signed with the Red Sox, bouncing back in 2021 with 31 long balls. He was traded to the Brewers and hit 29 more last year, before getting traded yet again. With the Angels this year, he already has 10 on the season.

José Abreu – 33

Hitting 30 home runs in a season was nothing new for Abreu, as 2019 was the fourth time he had done it. He then signed a three-year, $50MM deal to stick with the White Sox. He managed to hit 19 in the shortened 2020 season and then added another 30 in 2021. His power seemed to finally taper off a bit last year as he hit just 15 but still slashed a healthy .304/.378/.446. He signed a three-year, $58.5MM deal with the Astros coming into this year but is off to a rough start, hitting .220/.269/.262 through 42 games with no homers.

Rafael Devers – 32

Devers was still young and on the rise in 2019. He had debuted in 2017 at the age of 20, hitting 10 homers in just 58 games. He then got to 21 in 2018 and 32 in 2019 before adding 11 in the shortened 2020 season, followed by 38 and 27 in the next two years. This past winter, he signed an extension that will keep in Boston through 2033 and net him $313.5MM.

Ketel Marte – 32

Marte had been established as a solid bat-to-ball hitter but with modest power. He signed a five-year, $24MM extension with the Diamondbacks going into 2018 and then hit 14 home runs that year, the first time he reached double digits. Getting to 32 in 2019 meant he more than doubled his previous high. He was then hobbled by injuries in the next couple of seasons, hitting just a pair of home runs in 2020 and then 14 long balls in 90 games in 2021. He signed a second extension with the D-backs, this one for $76MM over five years. Marte hit 12 more long balls in 2022 and has five so far this year.

Francisco Lindor – 32

This was actually a bit of a dip for Lindor, as he had hit 33 homers in 2017 and 38 more in 2018. He added eight in the shortened 2020 season before getting traded to the Mets and signing a ten-year, $341MM extension. Lindor hit 20 and 26 home runs in the first two years of that new deal and has six so far this year.

Manny Machado – 32

2019 was the fifth season in a row that Machado reached the 30-homer plateau, having twice climbed as high as 37. It was his first season in San Diego after signing a ten-year, $300MM deal with the Padres. He’d go on to hit 16 in the shortened 2020 season, then 28 and 32 in the next two full seasons. Back in February, he and the Padres agreed on a new contract that will run through 2033, paying him $350MM over that stretch.

Charlie Blackmon – 32

Blackmon hit 29 homers in 2016 and added 37 more the year after, then signed a five-year, $94MM extension going into 2018. He added 29 more homers that year before getting to 32 in 2019. Getting to the 30-homer range was nothing new at that time, but he’s tapered off as he’s aged. He hit six in the shortened 2020 season, followed by 13 and 16 in the next two seasons. Now 36 years old (37 in July), he’s added three more so far this year.

Eddie Rosario – 32

Rosario’s 2019 came as part of a run of consistency, but he’s been less steady since. He hit 27 and 24 home runs in the two preceding seasons before peaking at 32 in 2019. He added 13 more in the shortened 2020 season but struggled out of the gate the year after. He had just seven at the trade deadline in 2021 when he was flipped to Atlanta, then caught fire and hit seven more down the stretch. He’d tally three more in the playoffs as Atlanta took the trophy that year. He re-signed on a two-year, $18MM deal but has struggled, only playing 116 games since that deal was signed with nine homers in that time.

Kris Bryant – 31

Bryant hit 39 homers in 2016 and had been above 25 in two other campaigns, so there was nothing unexpected about his 31 homers in 2019. He had an injury-marred 2020 season before bouncing back with 25 homers in 2021, a year that saw him traded to the Giants. He then reached the open market and signed a seven-year, $182MM deal with the Rockies. Injuries have prevented him from doing much in Colorado so far, as he’s played just 82 games since signing that contract, hitting 10 home runs in that time.

Jose Altuve – 31

2019 was Altuve’s fifth straight season with his home run tally in double digits, but his previous high was 24. He slumped badly in 2020 but then bounced back with 31 more in 2021 and then added 28 last year. He has twice signed extensions with the Astros, the second of which came prior to 2018. He’s missed all of 2023 so far after breaking his thumb during the World Baseball Classic but will return from the injured list tonight.

Mitch Garver – 31

Garver had hit seven home runs in 103 games in 2018 but then rocketed all the way up to 31 in 2019, amazingly doing so in just 93 games. He’s been injured for much of the time since but has still shown power when healthy enough to play. He hit 13 homers in just 68 games in 2021, then 10 in just 54 games last year, getting traded to the Rangers in between those two seasons. He’s only been able to play six games for Texas so far here in 2023 due to a left knee sprain.

Yuli Gurriel – 31

Gurriel has long been an excellent bat-to-ball hitter, rarely walking or striking out but frequently running up strong batting averages. His previous best in the home run column was 18 in 2017, but he almost doubled that with 31 in 2019. He struggled badly in 2020, but the Astros nonetheless signed him to a one-year extension. He bounced back by hitting .319 in 2021 with 15 home runs, leading the club to pick up a club option for 2022. That turned out to be another down year, and Gurriel settled for a minor league deal with the Marlins this winter.  He made the club but is hitting .242 with just three home runs so far.

Eloy Jiménez – 31

The White Sox showed tremendous faith in Jiménez by signing him to a six-year, $43MM extension in March of 2019, before he had even made his major league debut. He rewarded that faith by hitting 31 home runs in 2019 and added another 14 in the shortened 2020 season. Since then, however, injuries have prevented him from running up huge counting stats. He’s played just 164 games since the start of 2021, making frequent trips to the IL, but has hit 30 home runs when healthy enough to play.

Randal Grichuk – 31

Grichuk had already hit over 20 home runs three times coming into 2019 when he and the Blue Jays agreed to a five-year, $52MM extension. He got up to 31 in 2019, added 12 in the shortened 2020 season and 22 more the year after. Despite the power, his low walk and high strikeout rates took some of the value away from those homers. He was flipped to the Rockies going into 2022 and hit 19 homers last year. He began this year on the injured list and has only played 13 games so far.

Renato Núñez – 31

Núñez had played just 90 games over the previous three seasons in a part-time role, hitting nine home runs in that time. He then blasted 31 homers for the Orioles in 2019 and 12 more in 2020. However, he also struck out at a high rate, didn’t walk much and received poor defensive grades, making his production fairly one-dimensional. He was released prior to 2021 and had to settle for a minor league deal with the Tigers. He only got into 14 big league games with them that year then went to Japan last year and is playing in the Mexican League this year.

Paul DeJong – 30

DeJong debuted with 25 home runs in just 108 games in 2017 and then signed a six-year, $26MM extension with the Cardinals. He added 19 more in 2018 then 30 in 2019, but he’s struggled badly after that. DeJong hit just three home in 2020 while striking out at a 28.7% clip, then hit 19 homers in 2021 but with a .197 batting average. Things got even worse last year, as he hit .157/.245/.286 on the season, getting optioned to the minors for most of the summer. He seems to be back on track this year, having already hit six home runs in just 20 games while batting .282/.346/.577.

Daniel Vogelbach – 30

Vogelbach had just 146 career plate appearances before he exploded onto the scene with 30 home runs for the Mariners in 2019. He struggled in 2020, bouncing to the Blue Jays and Brewers and managing six home runs in 39 games. He hit just nine in 93 games for the Brewers in 2021 and was non-tendered after the season. Vogelbach had a bit of a bounceback in 2022, signing with the Pirates and getting traded to the Mets, hitting 18 more homers that year. The Mets exercised a club option for 2023. Vogelbach has just two home runs but is walking at an incredible 17.8% rate.

Rougned Odor – 30

Odor hit 33 home runs in 2016, prompting the Rangers to give him a six-year, $49.5MM extension. He hit 30 more in 2017 and dipped to 18 in 2018 before climbing back up to 30 in 2019. However, all of those home runs generally came with low on-base percentages. He hit 10 more in 2020 but batted .167 and walked at just a 4.7% rate. He was traded to the Yankees going into 2021 and hit 15 more homers but with a .202 batting average and 7.5% walk rate. He was released by the Yanks and signed by the Orioles last year, hitting another 13 homers but again without hitting for average or drawing walks. He signed a minor league deal with the Padres this year and has been selected to the roster to serve in a part-time role.

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D-Backs’ Offseason Trade Pickup Off To Excellent Start

By Anthony Franco | May 18, 2023 at 5:08pm CDT

In an offseason light on impact trade activity, the Diamondbacks and Blue Jays pulled off one of the biggest swaps. Arizona’s left-handed hitting outfield surplus and Toronto’s catching depth materialized in the deal that sent Gold Glove caliber outfielder Daulton Varsho to Toronto for rookie backstop Gabriel Moreno. That duo were the main players involved, but Arizona also added right-handed balance to the lineup with the inclusion of veteran left fielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr.

Gurriel has a longer MLB track record than either of Varsho or Moreno but was by far the tertiary player in terms of trade value. He’d been a good but not elite hitter throughout his time with the Jays. In 2022, the Cuban-born outfielder put up a .291/.343/.400 batting line with five home runs over 493 plate appearances. That offensive output checked in 14 percentage points above league average by measure of wRC+. Paired with average defensive marks in a corner outfield spot, Gurriel has been worth between one and two wins above replacement in every season of his career (although he would’ve been on a better pace in 2020 if that schedule hadn’t been truncated).

There was no question Gurriel was a viable major league player. He’d been a near average regular for the entirety of his career. Due roughly $5.4MM in his final season before free agency — a clause in the contract he signed with Toronto after defecting from Cuba allows him to reach the open market next winter even though he’ll be a little shy of six years of MLB service — he had trade value but not an overwhelming amount.

Arizona anticipated an immediate downgrade in their outfield from Varsho to Gurriel, a tradeoff they were willing to make to install Moreno behind the plate for the next six seasons. While that could still play out, Gurriel has somewhat surprisingly been the far more productive of the two outfielders through the first couple months of the year. Varsho has started his Toronto tenure with a .217/.294/.382 showing through 42 contests. Over his first 39 games in the desert, Gurriel is off to a career-best .310/.373/.552 pace. His seven homers in 161 plate appearances already tops last year’s mark and puts him on pace to beat his career-best 21 longballs from two years ago.

As MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk explored before this season, injuries could certainly have played a role in Gurriel’s up-and-down results from 2022. He’d bookended a very strong run between June and July with dismal numbers in May and August. A hamstring strain cut his season short in early September and, likely of greater import on his production, he underwent surgery on the hamate bone in his left hand following the season. Hand and wrist injuries can sap a hitter’s strength; if Gurriel were playing through that issue for a while, it’d be understandable why his power production was at a career-worst level.

Better health is a plausible explanation for some of Gurriel’s improved production but doesn’t account for all of it. He’s also working with a more dialed-in plate approach than he has in years past. Through play Wednesday, he’s sitting on a personal-low 14.9% strikeout rate and drawing walks at a career-best 8.1% clip.

While Gurriel has always had good bat-t0-ball skills, he has taken things to a new level in the early going by being more selective. He has offered at 45.8% of the pitches he’s seen, the lowest rate of his career by three percentage points. Gurriel is translating that approach into consistent contact. He has gotten the bat on the ball on an excellent 85.8% of his swings, almost six points better than last year’s personal-high mark. Pitchers have been unable to beat him in the zone, with Gurriel making contact nearly 92% of the time he goes after a would-be strike. He’s putting the ball in play more consistently without sacrificing any of his contact authority.

That’s an ideal combination for a hitter. Gurriel is 29th among 171 qualified batters in on-base percentage and 10th in slugging. That plays even without elite defense in the outfield. It’s among the reasons Arizona sits at 25-19 with a +16 run differential and looks like a legitimate contender for a Wild Card spot in an uncertain National League playoff picture.

A career showing couldn’t be timed better for Gurriel personally. He’s headed to the open market for the first time since he was a 23-year-old amateur signee. He’ll do so in advance of his age-30 season and as part of a free agent class that looks very thin on position player talent. Among potential impending free agents with 100+ plate appearances, only Matt Chapman, Kevin Kiermaier and Max Muncy (who’s controllable for 2024 via $10MM club option) have a higher wRC+ than Gurriel’s 148.

Gurriel isn’t going to be the #3 free agent position player in the class but he has a chance to hit his way into a solid multi-year deal. Mitch Haniger and Michael Conforto topped $35MM on contracts with opt-out possibilities as bat-first corner outfielders. Both players had durability concerns that aren’t there with Gurriel. The five years and $75MM secured by Andrew Benintendi feels lofty given Benintendi’s defensive advantage and youth (he signed going into his age-28 season), but Gurriel looks like the superior hitter.

At the very least, Arizona’s new acquisition has a chance to position himself as an interesting mid-tier free agent. It remains to be seen if he can keep up his present pace over six months but he looks healthier than he had last season and is making excellent swing decisions. It’s a better start than the D-Backs could’ve expected and a key development in the club’s strong start to the year.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

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Arizona Diamondbacks MLBTR Originals Lourdes Gurriel Jr.

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The Giants Are Getting The Best Out Of J.D. Davis

By Darragh McDonald | May 16, 2023 at 8:01pm CDT

There hasn’t been much doubt that J.D. Davis can hit. He got some very limited playing time with the Astros in 2017 and 2018 but burst onto the scene with the Mets after being acquired in a trade prior to the 2019 season. He went on to hit 22 home runs that year and slashed .307/.369/.527 for a wRC+ of 137. Defensively, the Mets put him in left field more often than his primary position of third base. He graded poorly in both spots but he still hit enough that he produced 2.5 wins above replacement on the year, per the calculations of FanGraphs.

Although 2019 was the “juiced ball” season, Davis wasn’t a one-year fluke at the plate, continuing to hit in the years since. His .247/.371/.389 line in the shortened 2020 season was a bit beneath the year before but still good enough for a 118 wRC+. In 2021, he made multiple trips to the injured list due to recurring issues in his left hand and only got into 73 games but still batted .285/.384/.436 for a 129 wRC+ when he was healthy enough to step up to the plate.

Last year, he was hitting .238/.324/.359 for the Mets through 66 games for a wRC+ of just 102 when the Giants took a flier on him, acquiring him alongside three other players in the deadline deal that sent Darin Ruf to Queens. The Elk Grove native quickly got things back on track after moving to the West Coast, slashing .263/.361/.496 down the stretch for a 142 wRC+.

Even with that strong finish, he didn’t have a secure hold on a full-time gig coming into this year. The Giants had seen one of their prospects, David Villar, perform well in his major league debut last year by hitting .231/.331/.455 in 52 games. Back in mid-February, the club’s president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said the Giants considered Villar to be their starting third baseman heading into Spring Training.

Despite all that solid work at the plate, the major concern about Davis has been his defense. From 2019 to 2022, Davis was considered to be worth -25 Defensive Runs Saved at third base, one of the five worst marks in the majors at that position for that time frame. Ultimate Zone Rating and Outs Above Average weren’t quite as negative but also graded him as being subpar.

The club clearly liked Davis enough to acquire him but they also wanted to see what they had in Villar, a player much younger and with more club control. That left Davis with some work to do, something that Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle discussed with him as Spring Training was just getting going. Davis talked about how he had been working with bench coach and infield/baserunning instructor Kai Correa on his defense, particularly his footwork, while manager Gabe Kapler highlighted his propensity for swinging and missing at pitches in the strike zone as his weak point on offense.

We’re now roughly three months removed from Zaidi declaring Villar the club’s third baseman and that profile on Davis, and the picture has completely changed since then. Davis hit a torrid .311/.354/.467 in the spring while Villar limped to a line of .143/.167/.286. Villar still got six starts at third base in the club’s first 10 regular season games but only got two more after that as he’s hit .148/.240/.318 on the year so far and was optioned to the minors a couple days ago.

Davis, meanwhile, has taken the job at the hot corner and is running off with it. He already has seven home runs and is slashing .294/.368/.492 for a wRC+ of 136, just a hair under his 2019 breakout. His average exit velocity is in the 95th percentile of qualified hitters and his hard hit rate 94th. His contact rate on pitches in the zone is 82.9%, the highest of his career. His 25% strikeout rate is still higher than average, but it’s a big improvement over the past two seasons, each of which saw him finish above 32%.

But perhaps most remarkably, his defensive grades have improved dramatically. DRS has Davis at league-average at third this year, no small feat considering his woeful grading in previous years. UZR gives him a grade of 1.1 for the season so far, one of the top 10 among major league third basemen. Outs Above Average currently has him at +4, trailing only Josh Rojas, Ke’Bryan Hayes and Eugenio Suárez at the hot corner. This is a small sample size of just 259 2/3 innings, so it’s too soon to decisively declare Davis a plus defender, but there’s seems to be a budding consensus that his glovework has taken a meaningful step forward.

Davis seems to be in peak form both at the plate and in the field, which has allowed him to produce 1.3 fWAR already in just 38 games, more than halfway to his career-high of 2.5 from that 2019 season. While the Giants are surely thrilled by those developments, it could lead them to a difficult decision a few months from now. Overall, the club has struggled to an 18-23 start to the season, putting them behind the Dodgers, Diamondbacks and Padres in the National League West. There’s still plenty of time for the club to turn things around, but there’s a chance they may have to consider some selling when the trade deadline approaches.

Davis came into this season with between four and five years of service time. That means he can still be retained via arbitration for 2024 and isn’t an impending free agent. The club won’t feel they absolutely have to move him, but it would at least warrant some consideration if they find themselves outside the playoff race. Given his strong performance, year-and-a-half of control and modest $4.21MM salary this year, he would surely garner plenty of interest. There’s a handful of contenders with question marks at third base who would likely pick up the phone, such as the Twins, Phillies and Yankees. The Giants could flip him for some younger and cheaper players, then perhaps give Villar another shot at the big leagues in the latter months of the season. The alternative would be holding onto Davis and hoping for better results as a team next year before he reaches the open market.

Of course, the club will be hoping they play well enough over the next few months they don’t even have to consider that path. Despite their sluggish start, they’re only two games back of a Wild Card spot at the moment due to slow starts from other contenders like the Phillies, Mets and Padres. There’s no sense in shoveling dirt on their season just yet, but front offices have to consider all potential avenues and will surely be having conversations about how they want to proceed.

Time will tell how that plays out, but for now, it’s all good news. The Giants sent Ruf to the Mets and acquired Davis less than a year ago. Even if it were just a one-for-one swap, that deal already looks like a huge win, since Ruf has gone in the opposite direction since then. He was released by the Mets earlier this year, briefly returned to the Giants, and just yesterday signed with the Brewers. Of course, it wasn’t a one-for-one swap. The Giants also got Thomas Szapucki, Nick Zwack and Carson Seymour in the trade. If any of those pitchers can develop into useful pieces, it will be icing on a cake that is already very sweet thanks to Davis.

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MLBTR Originals San Francisco Giants J.D. Davis

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Matt Chapman Is Mashing His Way To A Massive Payday

By Steve Adams | May 11, 2023 at 9:39pm CDT

From 2018-19, the short list of baseball’s best all-around players would’ve unequivocally included then-Athletics third baseman Matt Chapman. The 2014 No. 25 overall pick graduated from top prospect status to everyday big league third baseman in the second half of the 2017 season, and by 2018 he’d thrust himself into the fringes of the American League MVP conversation. Chapman finished sixth in AL MVP voting in 2018 and seventh in an All-Star 2019 season. He batted a combined .263/.348/.507 with 60 home runs between those two seasons, winning Gold Gloves at third base each year. Chapman ranked eighth among all position players with 12 Wins Above Replacement from 2018-19, per FanGraphs.

The A’s had a star third baseman on their hands and were seeing a young core that included Chapman, Matt Olson, Marcus Semien, Frankie Montas, Sean Manaea, Chris Bassitt and Ramon Laureano blossom into the foundation of a perennial contender. That group never advanced beyond the ALDS but did respectively win 97, 97, 34 and 86 games in 2018-21 before the front office tore things down in the 2021-22 offseason as Athletics ownership embarked on a Rachel Phelps-esque plan to push the team out of Oakland.

Part of the reason the A’s missed the postseason in that 86-win 2021 campaign was undoubtedly that Chapman had taken a step back in production following 2020 hip surgery. That’s not to pin the team’s playoff miss solely on the star third baseman, of course, but Chapman’s production dipped in 2020 as his strikeout rate soared to 35.5% while he played through tendinitis and a torn labrum in his hip. His 2021 campaign saw Chapman post a career-worst .210/.314/.403 batting line with a 32.5% strikeout rate — a far cry from the MVP-caliber output he flashed in 2018-19.

Though they were selling at a low point, Oakland still traded Chapman to the Blue Jays amid that 2021-22 offseason teardown, receiving top pitching prospect Gunnar Hoglund, infielder Kevin Smith, left-handed starter Zach Logue (whom they lost on waivers the following winter) and left-handed reliever Kirby Snead. Chapman’s first year in Toronto was solid but still nowhere close to his previous heights; he played top-shelf defense, as always, but his .229/.324/.433 batting line (117 wRC+) was good — not great. He swatted 27 home runs and succeeded in lowering his strikeout rate back beneath the 30% level, but it still sat at a well above-average 27.4%.

Chapman was a good player, to be sure, but from 2020-22 he hit .221/.314/.432. His plus power (64 homers, .211 ISO in 1395 plate appearances) and standout defense still made him a valuable, above-average regular at third base, but he no longer looked like the budding superstar he did during that 2018-19 peak — at least… not until 2023.

We’re just six weeks into the season, but Chapman has not only rebounded substantially from that 2020-22 downturn, he’s eclipsed even his peak levels of production thus far. Through his first 153 trips to the plate, Chapman is hitting .338/.425/.579 with five home runs. His 17 doubles are already more than he hit in the entire 2021 season. The strikeout rate that spiked north of 30% and sat at 27.4% a year ago is down to 25.5%, with reason to believe it could improve further.

Chapman’s 9.7% swinging-strike rate and 25.5% chase rate on pitches off the plate are both markedly better than the respective league averages of 10.9% and 31.4%. That doesn’t guarantee his strikeout rate will come down, but chasing bad pitches and whiffing less often than the league-average hitter should, in theory, eventually push his strikeout rate south of the league average.

Beyond the gains in strikeout rate and contact rate, Chapman is simply decimating the ball when he puts it into play. No one in baseball has a higher average exit velocity than Chapman’s 95.3 MPH mark, and his ludicrous 28.7% barrel rate is the best in MLB by an enormous margin of six percentage points. Aaron Judge is second at 22.7%, and there are only six total hitters in MLB at 20% or higher. An astonishing 67% of Chapman’s batted balls have left the bat at 95 mph or more.

Given the authority with which Chapman is hitting the ball, it’s actually a bit surprising he’s only connected on five home runs. His launch angle is right in line with his 2018-19 levels, and he’s hitting the ball in the air more often than he did in his previous peak years. After hitting a fly-ball in 41.3% of his plate appearances in 2018-19, Chapman is at 47.9% in 2023. A smaller percentage of those fly balls are of the infield variety (8.9% versus 15.9%), too. He’s curiously seen just 11.1% of his flies become home runs this year, compared to the 16.6% rate he enjoyed during his career with Oakland. That’s despite hitting the ball harder now and playing in a more homer-friendly venue; it stands to reason that Chapman’s home run output will be on the upswing sooner than later, provided he maintains this quality of contact.

Maintaining this pace, of course, will be difficult to do. Chapman’s clearly enjoying some good fortune right now, evidenced by a massive .449 average on balls in play. He’s already begun to see some regression, hitting .206/.308/.265 in 39 plate appearances since the calendar flipped to May. That dip in production is attributable not only to a drop in his BABIP, but more concerningly a spike in his strikeout rate. We’re looking at a small sample within a small sample, and the endpoints are admittedly arbitrary, but Chapman has fanned in exactly one-third of his plate appearances this month.

It was never reasonable to expect Chapman, a career .240/.329/.469 hitter entering the season, to sustain a batting average in the high-.300s, of course. But he’s regularly shown an ability to make high-quality contact in the past, so the big thing to keep an eye on with him as he approaches his first trip to free agency at season’s end was always going to be his contact rates.

If Chapman can avoid allowing his recent uptick in whiffs to snowball, then a return to peak levels or even the establishment of a new peak output is firmly in play. He’s still walking at an excellent 11.8% clip, after all, and his glovework at third base remains well-regarded. Statcast currently has him at one out below average but also tabs him in the 83rd percentile in terms of arm strength. He’s been credited with five Defensive Runs Saved already, and he’s sporting a 3.1 Ultimate Zone Rating. To date, Chapman has only made two errors this season.

His ability to sustain his elite contact and avoid reverting to his bloated strikeout rates over the next five months will be particularly telling. While Chapman once looked like he’d be the third-best free agent at his own position, the equation has changed substantially. Both Rafael Devers and Manny Machado signed long-term extensions to keep them in Boston and San Diego, respectively, leaving Chapman as the clear No. 1 third baseman on the market.

At this rate, however, Chapman won’t be just the clear top option at third base — he looks like he’ll be far and away the best position player on the market (excluding two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani, who’s in a free-agent tier unto himself). The upcoming free-agent class is utterly devoid of impact bats. Teoscar Hernandez, a resurgent Cody Bellinger, a somewhat resurgent Joey Gallo, and Hunter Renfroe look like the top bats who’ll be available. There’s still some time for that to change — a torrid summer from Javier Baez or Josh Bell could alter the calculus, for instance — but right now the market for position players is decidedly bleak.

When we were first kicking around thoughts and ideas for the initial installment of our 2023-24 Free Agent Power Rankings, MLBTR owner Tim Dierkes floated the idea of Chapman surpassing a $200MM guarantee. That was on April 4. The number felt jarring and unrealistic, and he received plenty of pushback on the idea due to Chapman’s hip surgery, uptick in strikeouts and general downturn in production since 2020.

Just a few weeks later, that type of contract feels far, far more plausible. Chapman has been the best hitter in baseball for nearly a quarter of the season, and the market surrounding him will be among the thinnest in recent memory. Perhaps that’ll lead to an uptick in trade activity throughout the league, but for teams looking to pad their roster without depleting the farm system (and without spending half a billion dollars on Ohtani), Chapman currently looks like he’ll be the best bet. Add in his defensive prowess and the fact that he won’t turn 31 until late next April — plus last year’s spike in ultra-long, CBT-skirting contracts — and it increasingly looks like Chapman and agent Scott Boras will be in prime position to break the bank.

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MLBTR Originals Toronto Blue Jays Matt Chapman

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The Rangers’ Quietly Excellent Catcher

By Steve Adams | May 11, 2023 at 8:25pm CDT

A five-player trade between the A’s and Rangers in February of 2021 grabbed immediate headlines due to the recognizable names at the top of the deal. Texas sent stalwart shortstop Elvis Andrus to the division-rival A’s in a swap that brought baseball’s most consistent .247-hitting, 40-homer slugging designated hitter, Khris Davis, to Arlington. It was an exchange of players who’d become lineup fixtures but also had seen their respective contract extensions turn sour for their organizations. The Rangers kicked in $13.5MM to make the trade happen. They also sent backup catcher Aramis Garcia to the A’s and received minor league righty Dane Acker and a catching prospect of their own.

Fast forward two years, and that prospect, Jonah Heim, has become a centerpiece of the Rangers’ roster.

Heim’s development certainly wasn’t immediate. A fourth-round pick by the Orioles back in 2013, the now-27-year-old backstop was traded twice — first for Steve Pearce, and second for Joey Wendle — before making his debut seven years later, during the shortened 2020 season. Heim hit .211/.268/.211 in 41 plate appearances as a rookie and was ranked between eighth and fifteenth in Oakland’s system at the time he was traded to Texas.

That shaky age-25 debut could certainly be attributed to a small sample and the general strangeness of the 2020 campaign, but Heim received a heftier 285 plate appearances with the Rangers in 2021 and turned in a dismal .196/.239/.358 batting line. He managed to swat 10 home runs, but Heim rarely walked and even though he struck out at a better-than-average 20.4% clip, he rarely made great contact (87.1 mph average exit velocity, 37.3% hard-hit rate). Defensively, he was excellent, but Heim’s lack of offense made him look like a backup or part-time option behind the dish.

The Rangers seemed to agree, as they entered the 2021-22 offseason in search of catching upgrades and, just after the lockout ended, swung a deal to acquire slugging catcher Mitch Garver from the Twins. Heim started 12 of the Rangers’ first 28 games behind the plate, but an injury to Garver opened up the door for a larger role. Even when Garver returned relatively quickly from a flexor strain, the Rangers kept him at designated hitter. Prospect Sam Huff came up from Triple-A and saw some of the workload at catcher, but Heim’s early performance at the plate and his excellent defense earned him the larger portion of playing time.

From May 9 through season’s end, Heim started 70% of the Rangers’ games behind the plate. He didn’t sustain the torrid .342/.457/.658 line he’d compiled through his first 12 games, of course, but he finished out the year with a .227/.298/.399 batting line and 16 home runs. His walk rate jumped from 5.3% to 9.1%, and he cut his strikeout rate by a percentage point (19.3%). Heim also upped his average exit velocity by more than two miles per hour and increased his hard-hit rate by two percentage points. It was a series of small gains, but when paired with Heim’s defense, it resulted in a highly valuable all-around player. Heim trailed only the Yankees’ Jose Trevino in pitch-framing value, per Statcast, and Defensive Runs Saved (which doesn’t include framing) credited him with a plus-8 mark. Baseball-Reference pegged him at 2.5 wins above replacement. FanGraphs had him at 2.8 WAR.

That’s enough to consider Heim a starting-caliber catcher in and of itself, but the switch-hitter is in the midst of an offensive breakout that’s further elevating his profile in 2023. Through his first 123 trips to the plate, Heim has turned in a ridiculous .318/.382/.555 batting line with six home runs — already 37.5% of the way to his 2022 total despite having accumulated just 27% as many plate appearances.

Heim has undoubtedly benefited from a .354 average on balls in play, but there’s more than just good fortune at play. Heim has upped his contact on pitches in the strike zone from 88% to 90.1%. His average exit velocity has jumped another 2.2 miles per hour, and he’s seemingly made a more concerted effort to elevate the ball. After posting a 40% grounder rate in 2021 and a 39.1% rate in 2022, he’s hitting the ball on the ground in just 29.5% of his plate appearances this season. Heim has improved his launch angle in each of his big league seasons, and he’s nearly doubled last year’s barrel rate. Statcast ranks him in the 94th percentile or better in “expected” batting average, slugging percentage and wOBA.

Whether Heim can sustain that pace is up for debate. He had similarly encouraging batted-ball metrics during last year’s hot start to the season, though that came in a smaller sample of plate appearances by virtue of the fact that he was playing less often. By the time Heim had reached his current number of plate appearances, he was sitting on roughly average exit velocity and hard-hit rates. At the very least, he’s maintained a high-caliber batted-ball profile over nearly double the sample of his hot start in ’22 — and he’s done so while again grading out as a premier defender at his position.

Dating back to the 2021 season, Heim is now a .246/.312/.426 hitter — about 12% better than league-average by measure of wRC+. The league-average catcher hit .226/.295/.367 in 2022 (89 wRC+) and is hitting .242/.314/.389 (94 wRC+) so far in 2023. Heim is comfortably ahead of that pace even if he reverts to a mirror image of his 2022 production for the remainder of the season, and if he can sustain any of his new flyball-oriented approach and hard-contact gains, he’ll cement himself as one of the best catchers in the league.

Heim isn’t even eligible for arbitration yet — that’ll come this offseason — and the Rangers control him all the way through the 2026 season. Three different organizations have felt comfortable trading him to this point in his career, and never in exchange for a marquee player. Heim never ranked among the game’s top 100 prospects and never climbed higher than 13th on any of his four organizations’ top-30 rankings at Baseball America.

Despite that lack of fanfare in the minors, Heim has emerged as an everyday option on an ascendent Rangers club and improbably looks like one of baseball’s best all-around catchers. Texas doesn’t have a catcher in its top-30 prospects at Baseball America or MLB.com right now. They control Heim for another four years, so there’s hardly any urgency to explore an extension, but if he’s willing to sign on for a team-friendly deal right now, it’d be worth looking into the possibility of securing a core piece whose affordable salaries could help balance out the huge sums they’ve paid to their recent free-agent signings.

On that note, critics of the Rangers often like to scoff at the team’s efforts to buy a championship. They spent more than half a billion dollars in the 2021-22 offseason when they signed Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and Jon Gray. They followed up with nearly a quarter-billion more this past offseason when adding Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney in addition to re-signing Martin Perez (among other, smaller-scale moves).

There’s little denying that a large portion of the team’s core has been acquired via free agency, but that’s only been a piece of the puzzle. They hit the jackpot in simultaneously acquiring Heim and shedding some of the Andrus contract, and they’ve done well to land both breakout slugger Nathaniel Lowe and Brock Burke in separate trades with the Rays over the past four years. The Rangers haven’t drafted well — Josh Jung’s excellent start to the 2023 season notwithstanding. Perhaps that played a role in the team moving on from longtime president of baseball operations Jon Daniels, but several of Daniels’ trade acquisitions have panned out, and Heim’s breakout has been a large part of that.

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MLBTR Originals Texas Rangers Jonah Heim

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The Dodgers’ Youth Movement Is Showing Positive Results

By Darragh McDonald | May 11, 2023 at 4:14pm CDT

The Dodgers are coming off a relatively modest offseason by their standards, giving out a few one-year deals to free agents and making some small trades. It seems that may have been partially motivated by a desire to get under the luxury tax, though that plan effectively went out the window when Trevor Bauer’s suspension was reduced and some of his salary was put back on their books. Leaving the financials aside, there was another argument for the light touch in the winter. They had a crop of young players who seemed ready for some big league looks, having six players on Baseball America’s top 100 list coming into the year (Diego Cartaya, Bobby Miller, Miguel Vargas, Michael Busch, Ryan Pepiot, Gavin Stone) despite ten consecutive postseason berths.

What results have been produced in the first six weeks of the season? Let’s take a look.

James Outman

Remarkably, the young player who has stood out the most so far at the big league level is Outman, who wasn’t even one of the six Dodgers on the Baseball America top 100. BA actually ranked him the 10th best prospect in the system coming into the year. In fact, there’s been a wide gap in the evaluations on Outman throughout the industry on account of his incredible athleticism but huge strikeout concerns. Keith Law of The Athletic was bullish enough to rank Outman #89 in the league, but Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs had him down at #26 in the Dodgers’ system.

Outman, 26 years old this weekend, made the club’s Opening Day roster and is showing both the positive and negative sides of his game so far. He’s struck out in 32.7% of his plate appearances, currently the seventh-highest among all qualified hitters in the majors. But despite those punchouts, he’s hit eight home runs in 38 games and is batting .281/.374/.578 overall for a wRC+ of 158. He won’t be able to maintain a .389 batting average on balls in play all year, but he is hitting the ball with some authority when he does make contact. His average exit velocity is in the 54th percentile among qualified hitters, maximum exit velocity 73rd, hard-hit rate 71st and barrel rate 84th.

In addition to that, he’s also stolen four bases and seems to be a capable defender in the outfield, where he’s spent most of his time in center. Defensive Runs Saved has him just below average at -1, whereas he’s at +3 Outs Above Average and has a 2.0 Ultimate Zone Rating.

Miguel Vargas

Vargas, 23, made his major league debut last year but hit just .170/.200/.255 in his first 50 plate appearances. Nonetheless, the club seemed to head into this year with the plan being for him to take over second base while Gavin Lux slid over to shortstop, though Lux eventually suffered a season-ending injury and was replaced by Miguel Rojas.

The club’s confidence in Vargas seems to be paying off so far. He’s walked in 14.6% of his plate appearances while striking out at just a 19% clip. He’s launched four home runs and his .219/.338/.430 batting line amounts to a 113 wRC+. That’s despite a .247 BABIP that’s well below this year’s .297 league average. His Statcast metrics aren’t quite as strong as Outman’s, but it still seems like luck-based regression should work in his favor, given his .265 xBA.

The defensive picture is a little less rosy, however, as he has negative grades from all three of DRS, UZR and OAA so far. That’s not terribly shocking since he was primarily a third baseman in the minors and his experience at the keystone is minimal. Perhaps his glovework at second will improve with more reps, but the club might also consider a position change in the future.

Michael Busch

Busch, 25, was added to the club’s roster almost three weeks ago but has received only scattered playing time so far, 23 plate appearances in seven games. He’s hit just .211/.348/.211 in that time while striking out at a 39.1% clip. In 606 Triple-A appearances, he’s slashed .277/.363/.484 for a wRC+ of 109 with a much more palatable 24.8% strikeout rate.

Michael Grove/Ryan Pepiot/Gavin Stone/Bobby Miller

These four pitchers are all touted prospects to varying degrees and have either made their major league debuts or are getting close, though none of them has been able to make significant contributions just yet.

Grove, 26, has perhaps the lowest prospect stock of the bunch, as he was considered the club’s #18 prospect by BA and #12 by FanGraphs coming into the year. He’s made 11 appearances at the major league level between last year and this year but has a 5.96 ERA and modest 18.3% strikeout rate. He’s been on the injured list for the past three weeks due to a groin strain.

Pepiot, 25, made nine appearances for the club last year with a 3.47 ERA. He was expected to take an Opening Day rotation spot when Tony Gonsolin was injured, but then Pepiot suffered an oblique strain, which allowed Grove to take that spot. Pepiot was eventually transferred to the 60-day injured list, meaning he won’t be eligible to rejoin the big league club until the end of May at the earliest.

Stone, 24, was selected to the roster just over a week ago and had one rough spot start before getting optioned back to down to the minors. But in 13 Triple-A starts between last year and this year, he has a 2.87 ERA, 29.2% strikeout rate and 11% walk rate.

Miller, 24, is not yet on the 40-man roster and isn’t off to a great start this year. In 2022, between Double-A and Triple-A, he had a 4.25 ERA in 112 1/3 innings. He struck out 30.9% of opponents in that time against a 7.9% walk rate. But this year, he was slowed by shoulder soreness in spring and didn’t debut until recently. He’s pitched just five innings over two Triple-A outings, with a 7.20 ERA in that minuscule sample.

Future Options

Diego Cartaya is considered by many to be the club’s best prospect, though he’s not as close as some of the others. The 21-year-old catcher is on the 40-man roster but just reached Double-A for the first time this year and has limped out to a .186/.253/.314 batting line through his first 79 plate appearances at that level. With Will Smith and Austin Barnes holding down the big league jobs, there’s little reason for the club to rush Cartaya.

Andy Pages, 22, didn’t make BA’s top 100 list, but FanGraphs had him all the way up at #58. Like Cartaya, the outfielder is on the 40-man roster but is down in Double-A. Unlike Cartaya, he’s off to a roaring start there, hitting .281/.429/.490 for a wRC+ of 141 through 126 plate appearances this year.

___________________________

After a middling start to the 2023 season, the Dodgers have surged forward in recent weeks are now 23-15, taking the top spot in the National League West. They may not be quite as dominant as some other recent seasons, but there’s still plenty going right for them. At least part of that is due to the contributions of Outman and Vargas, who have stepped into everyday roles and are doing well. The pitching is still a work in progress due to various injuries throughout that mix, so they’ll need a bit more time for things to come into focus there.

Since they had a fairly limited offseason coming into this year, the Dodgers currently have about $82MM committed to the 2024 team, per Roster Resource. That doesn’t include arbitration salaries for players like Smith, May and others, but it seems like they could be well positioned to be more aggressive next winter. The areas that they target will likely be influenced by the performance of some of these rookies the rest of the way. The rotation is currently slated to lose Julio Urías, Noah Syndergaard and Clayton Kershaw at season’s end. Kershaw could always come back and the eventual return of Walker Buehler from Tommy John surgery will help, but one of the younger pitchers stepping up would also be a tremendous help.

On the position player side of things, J.D. Martinez, David Peralta and Jason Heyward are set for free agency, but the rest of the group should still be around. If Outman and Vargas keep playing well, or someone like Busch or Pages takes a step forward, it’s possible the club goes into the winter with lots of payroll space and few holes to fill.

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Los Angeles Dodgers MLBTR Originals Gavin Stone James Outman Michael Busch Michael Grove Miguel Vargas Ryan Pepiot

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Mariners’ Offseason Trade Acquisitions Off To Slow Starts

By Anthony Franco | May 11, 2023 at 3:20pm CDT

The Mariners mostly shied away from the free agent market on the heels of their drought-ending playoff berth. Instead, Seattle turned to trade to add to a lineup that had been a bit top-heavy in 2022. Their two most notable transactions took place within the first few weeks of the offseason: reliever Erik Swanson and pitching prospect Adam Macko were shipped to Toronto for slugger Teoscar Hernández, while the M’s dealt Jesse Winker and Abraham Toro to the Brewers for second baseman Kolten Wong.

Both Hernández and Wong are in their final seasons before free agency. Milwaukee had exercised a $10MM club option on Wong before trading him in what amounted to a roughly cash-neutral deal considering they took back Winker’s salary. Seattle took on a decent chunk of 2023 money to accommodate Hernández, who’d earn $14MM for his final season of arbitration eligibility (compared to the $1.25MM Swanson is making in his first of three arbitration years).

Hernández, in particular, could eventually net the club a compensatory draft choice by rejecting a qualifying offer and signing elsewhere next offseason. Yet both trades were primarily about bolstering the lineup in 2023 while avoiding the longer-term downside associated with a multi-year free agent deal.

To this point, neither player has met Seattle’s expectations. Hernández is sitting on a .215/.260/.396 batting line over 154 plate appearances. That’s nowhere close to the .283/.333/.519 line he’d compiled between 2020-22 to pick up a pair of Silver Slugger awards and down-ballot MVP finishes. His raw slash stats always seemed likely to dip somewhat with the move from Rogers Centre to T-Mobile Park. This has been a far more significant drop-off than is solely attributable to park factors and Hernández is performing worse on the road than he is in Seattle.

Hernández has popped seven home runs, putting him on a 27-homer pace over 600 plate appearances. He’s still barreling the ball up and making hard contact when he puts the ball in play. The middle-of-the-order form he’d shown for years in Toronto still looks to be there. Yet his plate discipline has been rough thus far, resulting in a career-worst 3.2% walk rate and a massive 35.1% strikeout percentage.

Selectivity has never been Hernández’s specialty. He’s always been an aggressive hitter, one who’s willing to trade some walks for power impact. He has pushed that too far to the extreme through his first few weeks in Seattle, though, as he’s chased nearly 40% of pitches outside the strike zone. It’s the 23rd-highest rate among 204 hitters with 100+ plate appearances; Hernández was closer to league average in that regard during his last few seasons in Toronto.

Wong, meanwhile, has been one of the least effective hitters in the majors to this point. He’s yet to connect on a homer in 94 trips to the plate, posting a .195/.287/.220 line overall. He has played well through his first five games in May after carrying a .171/.263/.186 slash through the end of April. The Mariners weren’t counting on Wong to be an impact bat but surely hoped for something approximating the solid .262/.337/.439 showing he put together over two years in Milwaukee.

The lefty-hitting Wong has long been a quality, well-rounded regular. He’s typically hit around a league average level, compensating for fringe power with plus contact skills. At his peak, he’s been a Gold Glove second baseman and a plus baserunner. His typically stellar defensive marks dropped off during his last season with the Brewers, as both Defensive Runs Saved and Statcast’s Outs Above Average gave him subpar grades in 2022.

Wong attributed his defensive drop to playing through leg injuries, offering some hope he’d turn things around after an offseason of rest. The early returns haven’t been promising, however. DRS has pegged Wong as an MLB-worst eight runs below average through 226 2/3 innings of second base work; Statcast has him one run worse than expected. Public defensive metrics can be wildly variable in small samples, but it’s a discouraging start for the 32-year-old’s efforts to recapture his formerly excellent form with the glove.

Without many early contributions from Hernández or Wong, Seattle’s position player group hasn’t been especially good. They’re 22nd in runs scored (157) and 25th in both on-base percentage (.302) and slugging (.372). After accounting for their pitcher-friendly ballpark, they’re 19th in offensive production as measured by wRC+. Their pitching and defense has kept them around average overall — they’re in fourth place in the AL West at 18-19 with a +14 run differential — but they’ll need more out of the lineup to earn a repeat playoff berth in an American League playoff mix that has 10 to 12 teams with realistic aspirations.

There’s certainly time for Seattle’s top offseason acquisitions to get things back on track. The M’s have by no means played themselves out of contention. Whether they make a serious run for the division and/or a Wild Card spot could be determined in large part by how quickly Hernández and Wong find their previous levels. With both players headed to the open market six months from now, their free agent outlooks are also to be determined based on their performances this summer.

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MLBTR Originals Seattle Mariners Kolten Wong Teoscar Hernandez

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A Cash Transaction Paying Off For The Giants

By Anthony Franco | May 10, 2023 at 10:30pm CDT

It has been a middling start for the Giants, who fell to 16-20 with a loss to the Nationals this evening. San Francisco’s lineup has been a mediocre group overall, largely thanks to slow starts from Michael Conforto, David Villar and Brandon Crawford.

Despite the bland overall results, the Giants are getting strong contributions from a handful of players acquired in minor trades. LaMonte Wade Jr., J.D. Davis and Mike Yastrzemski all landed in the organization via small or buy-low deals. That’s also true of the player who has been arguably the team’s most valuable contributor in 2023: middle infielder Thairo Estrada.

Estrada began his professional career a little more than a decade ago. He signed with the Yankees as an amateur out of Venezuela. While he was never an elite prospect, the 5’10” infielder appeared among the organization’s top 30 minor league talents at Baseball America every year between 2014-19. Estrada had been an effective hitter up through Double-A but he lost the bulk of the 2018 season after being shot in the leg during a robbery attempt the preceding offseason. He required a pair of surgeries, and while he returned to play the majority of the ’19 campaign, his offensive numbers in Triple-A dropped.

The Yankees played Estrada sparingly at the big league level between 2019-20. Relegated to a depth role on a roster with DJ LeMahieu, Gio Urshela and Gleyber Torres, he appeared in 61 games in pinstripes. New York designated him for assignment during the first week of the 2021 season upon trading for Rougned Odor to serve as a depth infielder. The Giants jumped the waiver order, acquiring Estrada for cash five days later.

Getting any kind of contributions from a player added for that kind of minimal cost would have counted as a win. Estrada has far exceeded what the Giants themselves likely had anticipated. He was on and off the active roster in 2021, hitting .273/.333/.479 in 52 big league contests. By last season, he’d established himself as the primary second baseman. Estrada held that job with another above-average showing, putting together a .260/.322/.400 line with 14 home runs and 21 stolen bases through a personal-high 541 plate appearances.

San Francisco tabbed Estrada as its Opening Day second baseman for a second consecutive season. He’s responded with a torrid start, carrying a .338/.388/.522 slash over 38 games. He’s already connected on six home runs and seven doubles, and he’s swiped 10 bags in 12 attempts. Estrada has split his defensive work almost evenly between the two middle infield spots, moving to shortstop lately after Crawford hit the injured list. Public metrics suggest he’s better suited for second base, where he figures to return once Crawford is healthy.

Estrada isn’t going to keep hitting at this pace. He’s running a .396 batting average on balls in play in spite of a modest 31.8% hard contact rate. As a few more batted balls find gloves, his offense will take a step back. Even with some regression, Estrada looks to have established himself as a slightly above-average hitter. He’s now up to 820 plate appearances of .277/.336/.435 batting since landing in San Francisco. He puts the ball in play to compensate for middling walk totals and has solid if unexceptional power.

Combine that offense with quality baserunning and the ability to play up the middle and Estrada looks like a well-rounded everyday option who’s currently playing at an All-Star level. The Giants have already gotten far more out of Estrada than teams get in the vast majority of transactions for players who’d been in DFA limbo.

He’s likely to remain a contributor — albeit not quite at his early-season level — for the next few seasons. Estrada is making just $2.25MM in his first of four years of arbitration eligibility. The Giants can keep him around via that process through 2026. It’s rare for teams to retain players whom they’d added in a cash transaction for multiple seasons but Estrada has played his way into an important role in the Bay Area.

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MLBTR Originals New York Yankees San Francisco Giants Transaction Retrospection Thairo Estrada

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The Upcoming Shortstop Class Looks Increasingly Bleak

By Anthony Franco | May 9, 2023 at 11:59pm CDT

The top free agent storyline of each of the past two offseasons was the respective star-studded shortstop classes. In 2021-22, it was Carlos Correa, Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Trevor Story and Javier Báez. Last winter, Correa was back on the market again, joined by Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts and Dansby Swanson.

Next winter’s group was never going to rival that previous collection. The class in general is very light on star position player talent beyond Shohei Ohtani. It’s particularly barren up the middle of the diamond. It’s hard to imagine a more complete 180° turn than how things appear to be trending with the shortstop class, though. Virtually everyone involved is off to a very slow start.

The early-season performances from the impending free agents at the position:

Amed Rosario (28)*

While Rosario is not the superstar some evaluators had anticipated during his time in the Mets’ farm system, he’d been a solid regular for two seasons since landing in Cleveland in the Francisco Lindor blockbuster. Rosario’s solid batting averages helped offset his very low walk tallies. He hit 25+ doubles with double-digit homers in both 2021-22, playing on a near everyday basis. His cumulative .282/.316/.406 batting line was almost exactly league average. Public metrics were mixed on Rosario’s defense but the Guardians have been content to keep him at shortstop despite plenty of upper minors infield talent. Only 27 and without a ton of market competition, he entered the year in position for a strong three or four-year contract.

That could still be the case but Rosario is doing himself no favors with his early performance. He’s sitting on a .217/.262/.300 showing through his first 130 plate appearances. He has just one homer and is striking out at a 29.2% clip that’d easily be the worst full-season mark of his career if it holds. After making contact on 81.3% of his swings last season, he’s putting the bat on the ball only 71.5% of the time this year. He’s also committed six errors in 255 1/3 innings after being charged with just 12 in more than 1200 frames last year. Rosario is still the top impending free agent shortstop by default but he’s struggling in all areas right now.

Javier Báez (31), can opt out of final four years and $98MM on his contract

Báez is hitting .256/.318/.376 through his first 130 plate appearances. That’s an improvement over the lackluster .238/.278/.393 line he managed during his first season in Detroit. His 16.2% strikeout rate is the lowest of his career, pushing his overall offense near league average in spite of just three home runs in 32 games. Báez’s 2023 campaign has been fine but hardly overwhelming. It’s nowhere near what it’d take for him to beat the $98MM remaining on his existing contract. He’d need a torrid summer to put himself in position to test free agency.

Enrique Hernández (32)

Hernández has been pushed into primary shortstop duty by the Red Sox’ various injuries. The early reviews from public defensive metrics aren’t favorable, with Statcast putting him at seven outs below average in 199 innings. Hernández is off to an equally slow start at the plate. He’s hitting .236/.295/.362 over 139 plate appearances on the heels of a .222/.291/.338 showing last year. He’s been a valuable super-utility option and everyday center fielder at times in his career, including a 20-homer campaign in 2021. The past year-plus hasn’t been especially impressive, though, and Hernández has yet to demonstrate he’s capable of handling shortstop regularly from a defensive standpoint.

Brandon Crawford (37)

The career-long Giant had a tough April on both sides of the ball. He’s hitting .169/.244/.352 with a personal-high 28.2% strikeout rate in 21 games. His defensive marks through 173 2/3 innings are unanimously below-average. A right calf strain sent him to the injured list last week. Even if Crawford is willing to explore all opportunities next winter after 13 seasons in San Francisco, he’ll need much better production once he returns from the IL to find any interest as a starting shortstop.

Elvis Andrus (35)

Much of what applies to Crawford is also true for Andrus. He’s a 15-year MLB veteran with a couple All-Star appearances to his name but his offense has fallen off in recent seasons. Andrus was a well below-average hitter from 2018-21. He rebounded with a solid .249/.303/.404 showing last season but still didn’t generate much free agent attention. After settling for a $3MM deal with the White Sox, he’s hitting only .208/.291/.264 in 142 plate appearances this year. Andrus hit 17 homers last season but has just one through the first six weeks.

Nick Ahmed (34)

Another glove-first veteran, Ahmed is also off to a rough start at the plate. He carries a .227/.239/.318 line over 67 plate appearances. He’s hit only one home run and walked just once. Ahmed has always been a bottom-of-the-lineup defensive specialist, but his career .235/.289/.380 slash is much more tenable than the production he’s managed thus far in 2023. He lost almost all of last season to shoulder surgery.

Gio Urshela (32)

Urshela is hitting plenty of singles to start his time in Orange County. His .303 batting average is impressive but is paired with just a .325 on-base percentage and .345 slugging mark. He’s walking at a career-low 3.3% clip and has only three extra-base hits (two doubles and a homer) in 123 plate appearances.

More concerning for teams looking to the shortstop market is Urshela’s lack of experience at the position. He’s been a third baseman for the majority of his career. Since landing with the Angels, he’s assumed a multi-positional infield role that has given him eight-plus starts at shortstop and both corner infield spots. Even if he starts hitting for more power, he’s better deployed as a versatile infielder who can moonlight at shortstop than an everyday solution there.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa (28)

Kiner-Falefa lost his starting shortstop role with the Yankees towards the end of last season. He’s been kicked into a multi-positional capacity this year and hasn’t logged a single inning at the position in 2023. While Kiner-Falefa presumably could still handle shortstop if asked, he’s contributed nothing offensively in the early going. Through 72 plate appearances, he owns a .191/.225/.206 line.

Adalberto Mondesí (28)

Mondesí is young and has flashed tantalizing tools throughout his major league career. He’s also reached base at a meager .280 clip over 358 MLB games and battled various injuries. An April 2022 ACL tear cut that season short after just 15 games. The Red Sox nevertheless acquired him from the Royals over the offseason, but he’s yet to play a game with Boston. Mondesí opened the season on the 60-day injured list and won’t make his Sox debut until at least the end of this month. There’s a chance for him to play his way into some free agent interest. He’ll need an extended stretch of health and performance.

Players With Club Options

Both Tim Anderson and Paul DeJong can hit free agency if the White Sox and Cardinals decline respective 2024 club options. That seems likely in DeJong’s case but is reflective of the .196/.280/.351 line he managed between 2020-22. If he plays well enough to warrant significant free agent interest — he has been excellent in 11 games this season, to his credit — the Cardinals would exercise their $12.5MM option and keep him off the market anyhow.

The White Sox hold a $14MM option on Anderson’s services. That looks as if it’ll be a no-brainer for Chicago to keep him around (or exercise and make him available in trade). The only way Anderson gets to free agency is if his 2023 season is decimated by injury or an uncharacteristic performance drop-off, in which case he’d be a question mark as well.

Outlook

This was never going to be a great group. It’s comprised largely of glove-first veterans in their mid-30s. Players like Andrus, Ahmed, Crawford and José Iglesias — who’ll also hit free agency and has bounced around on minor league deals thus far in 2023 — don’t tend to be priority targets. That opened the door for the likes of Rosario, Báez and a potentially healthy Mondesí — younger players who have shown some offensive upside — to separate themselves from the pack in a way they wouldn’t have the last couple winters. No one has seized the mantle to this point. While there are still more than four months for someone to emerge, the early returns on the shortstop class aren’t promising.

*age for the 2024 season

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Arizona Diamondbacks Boston Red Sox Chicago White Sox Cleveland Guardians Detroit Tigers Los Angeles Angels MLBTR Originals New York Yankees San Francisco Giants St. Louis Cardinals Adalberto Mondesi Amed Rosario Brandon Crawford Elvis Andrus Enrique Hernandez Giovanny Urshela Isiah Kiner-Falefa Javier Baez Nick Ahmed Paul DeJong Tim Anderson

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