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Big Hype Prospects: Schanuel, Winn, Marte, Harrison, Salas

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We’ve reached the point of the season when prospect call-ups won’t expend their rookie status due to time spent on the roster. It’s still technically possible for such players to pass the plate appearance or innings pitched thresholds.

In any event, this marks an opportunity for teams to offer their young players time to acclimate in the Majors ahead of a Rookie of the Year bid in 2024. We saw similar with Corbin Carroll and Gunnar Henderson last season. Let’s cover a few such players along with others on the ascent.

Five Big Hype Prospects

Nolan Schanuel, 21, 1B, LAA (MLB)
14 PA, .250/.357/.250

Schanuel was summoned by a desperate Angels club to cover for the absence of C.J. Cron. The 2023 draftee has over twice as many walks as strikeouts in limited professional action. In a perfect world, he likely would have spent more time in the minors working on achieving higher-quality contact. There isn’t a spot on the Angels roster for both Cron and Schanuel. In other words, we can expect Schanuel to return to the minors if and when Cron recovers from his lower-back tightness. Until then, we’ll see if Schanuel can learn to complement his discipline and feel for contact with better lift and exit velocities.

Masyn Winn, 21, SS, STL (MLB)
(AAA) 498 PA, 18 HR, 17 SB, .288/.359/.474

A high-probability league-average shortstop with upside for more, Winn is now 11 plate appearances into his Major League career. The well-rounded shortstop makes up for a lack of carrying traits (besides his impressive throwing arm) with an equal lack of weaknesses. There’s only one knock against him: merely adequate exit velocities. Adequacy is hardly damning praise. For a 21-year-old to possess his skills and traits means he has countless ways to take the next step from acceptability to stardom. He could do it on defense, through feel for contact, burgeoning power, speed on the basepaths, or a little bit of everything.

Noelvi Marte, 21, 3B, CIN (MLB)
(AA/AAA) 389 PA, 11 HR, 18 SB, .281/.360/.460

Marte was one of the first prospects covered by this column last season. I noted a slight souring among evaluators who were beginning to see him as more of a core performer than a future star. His performance this season remains prime for disagreement. The surface level stats are good-not-great, and his peripherals are a mixed bag. He’s a tad prone to swinging strikes. Even so, he avoids strikeouts while showing plus discipline. He also produces exciting top-end exit velocities for a 21-year-old. Some scouts think he’s close to physically maxed out. Others see room for further growth.

Broad strokes, the outlook is similar to Winn albeit from a lesser defensive position. There are so many ways for Marte to find his way to star-caliber production. The floor resembles a Major League core performer.

Kyle Harrison, 22, SP, SFG (MLB)
(AAA) 65.2 IP, 14.39 K/9, 6.58 BB/9, 4.66 ERA

Harrison makes for one of the toughest evals in the minors. He has a feel for missing bats along with the repertoire of a high-ceilinged starting pitcher. He also happens to struggle with command and control. Of his 21 starts, Harrison reached five innings exactly once. He never faced 20 or more batters. The relief risk is ooey-gooey tangible, but the Giants have every incentive to give him more time in the rotation. Presently, Harrison is expected to join a unit consisting of Logan Webb and a handful of struggling veterans like Alex Cobb, Alex Wood, Sean Manaea, and Jakob Junis. The Giants will be playing bullpen games from here through the end of the season.

Ethan Salas, 17, C, SDP (AA)
(A/A+) 257 PA, 9 HR, 5 SB, .257/.335/.447

At the tender age of 17 years, 2 months, and 20 days, Salas finds himself in Double-A. This latest promotion is virtually unprecedented, made all the more so because Salas hit just .200/.243/.229 in 37 High-A plate appearances. It doesn’t require an active imagination to wonder what else is going on here. Perhaps the Padres Double-A affiliate has a desirable instructor or facilities. Maybe, like a baby bird, he imprinted on one of the other players the Padres promoted to Double-A yesterday. Could a long-term contract be in the offing?

In any event, Salas is now the youngest player to grace Double-A in recent memory. He’s considered a precocious receiver with the potential to become a quality hitter too.

Three More

Carson Williams, TBR (20): The Rays promoted Williams from High-A straight to Triple-A. The move allows for Junior Caminero’s (Double-A) development to remain unaffected. Williams is 1-for-13 with two walks and six strikeouts. He’s running a 22.2 percent swinging strike rate with poor exit velocities. Note the tiny sample.

Samuel Zavala, SDP (18): Though not quite on the Salas-track, Zavala earned a promotion to High-A yesterday after hitting .267/.420/.451 with 14 home runs and 20 steals in 459 Low-A plate appearances. He has issues adjusting to pitches in certain parts of the strike zone, especially up-and-away.

Paul Skenes, PIT (21): Earlier today, the Pirates announced Skenes would join the Double-A club, skipping High-A in the process. Whether this move is in preparation for a 2023 or 2024 debut, it won’t be long before we see Skenes grace a big league mound.

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

The Brewers’ Offseason Heist Is Paying Off

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When a three-team deal was announced last December that saw ten different players change hands, it was hardly surprising that Sean Murphy’s move to Atlanta received the lion’s share of the focus, particularly considering the fact that Murphy inked a six-year extension with the Braves just two weeks later. After all, rumors of the A’s looking to move on from their franchise catcher had circulated for weeks at that point and the Braves, who were coming off a 101-win season that was ultimately cut short during the NLDS, were an interesting landing spot.

Nine months later, it’s unlikely the Braves have any regrets about the deal. Murphy has taken a step forward with the bat in Atlanta, slashing a sensational .278/.387/.538 with a career-best wRC+ of 149 that when combined with his typical stellar defense behind the plate has allowed the 28-year-old All-Star to rack up 4.3 fWAR in just 87 games this season. Meanwhile, the Braves are the consensus best team in baseball with Fangraphs’ playoff odds giving the club an incredibly 26.5% chance at winning the World Series this year.

While Atlanta’s success both in this season and in landing Murphy is impressive in its own right, the Braves are not the only winner of this trade to this point in the season. Indeed, they may not even be the biggest winner of the deal so far. That’s because the Brewers, the requisite third team needed to help facilitate the deal, managed to turn their #8 prospect in outfielder Esteury Ruiz into five seasons of an All-Star catcher of their own, plus an excellent set-up man and an additional pitching prospect to boot.

En route to a breakout season with Atlanta during which he made his first career All-Star appearance, catcher William Contreras shared time behind the plate with Travis d’Arnaud while also mixing in at DH and even in the outfield. In all, he slashed an impressive .278/.354/.506 with 20 home runs in just 376 trips to the plate.

While that impressive display of power combined with Contreras’s 10.4% walk rate was enough to make him the 12th most valuable catcher in all of baseball last year, there were reasons to wonder if the youngster would be able to maintain his production going forward. Contreras’s 27.7% strikeout rate left plenty of reason for concern, as was a massive .344 BABIP. With those potential red flags signalling possible regression in Contreras’s future, it’s hardly a surprise to find that his .370 wOBA in 2022 outstripped his .347 xwOBA considerably.

Far more concerning than his offensive numbers, which were excellent for a catcher even if they regressed to match his expected numbers, was his glovework behind the plate. In 2022, Contreras was worth -7 runs per Statcast’s catcher defense metric, with negative marks in each of framing, stealing, and blocking. His framing, in particular, left much to be desired, as he landed in just the 20th percentile of all catchers in terms of catcher framing runs, with only 3 catchers in the sport posting a worse figure than Contreras’s -3 without receiving more pitches than him. Fielding Bible’s DRS agreed with that assessment, as Contreras’s -4 mark put him in the bottom 20 of all catchers last year.

With so many questions regarding Contreras’s fielding and his ability to maintain last year’s excellent offensive production, it makes perfect sense for the Braves to prefer a fully developed, surefire starting catcher in the form of Murphy. That preference created a window of opportunity for the Brewers, however, who had just lost their current starting catcher, Omar Narvaez, to free agency. The club had a history of helping bat-first catchers develop defensively, including with Narvaez himself.

This year, Milwaukee has managed to add Contreras to their list of defensive success stories behind the plate. It’s been a transformational year defensively for Contreras, as the youngster has soared to an excellent +8 runs per Statcast, with his catcher framing runs in particular leaping from -3 all the way up to +7, the seventh-best mark in the sport this year behind only defensive stalwarts like Murphy, Austin Hedges, and Jonah Heim. Once again, DRS backs up Contreras’s improvement behind the dish as well, as his +7 DRS leaves him as the eighth most valuable defensive catcher in baseball according to the metric, even clocking in ahead of Murphy.

Contreras’s defense is clearly the star of the show when discussing his year-to-year improvement, but his offensive adjustments deserve a mention as well. While he has undergone some expected offensive regression from his All-Star campaign in 2022, particularly in the power department, his current production is not only still excellent for a catcher (his 113 wRC+ ranks 6th among catchers with at least 300 PA this season) but also appears far more sustainable going forward. His BABIP has dipped to a less outlandish .327 figure, but most importantly, Contreras has cut his strikeout rate to just 20.4%, a figure that’s actually better than league average. While his walk rate has dipped slightly and he isn’t hitting for as much power this season, this new version of Contreras is posting a strong .341 wOBA that matches his .338 xwOBA, indicating a level of sustainability that couldn’t be found in last season’s power-driven numbers.

Contreras isn’t the only player the Brewers received in last year’s trade, of course. While pitching prospect Justin Yeager has managed just 2 1/3 innings of work this season while spending almost the entire year on the injured list, right-handed reliever Joel Payamps has also proved to be a revelation with Milwaukee, though not quite as impactful of one as Contreras. Payamps came to the Brewers as a solid if unexciting middle reliever, with a career 3.35 ERA and 4.19 FIP in 113 innings of work with the Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Royals, and A’s.

Since joining the Brewers, however, he’s looked like a different pitcher entirely. His walk rate dipped from a career 7.6% mark entering 2023 to just 5% this season, while his strikeout rate ballooned from a career mark of just 17.6% entering the year to an incredible 29.3% figure with Milwaukee. Those improvements are seemingly thanks to a combination of across-the-board velocity gains and change in his pitch-mix to emphasis his slider. Payamps’ step forward has allowed the Brewers to rely on him as the primary set-up man to closer Devin Williams, forming a lethal duo at the back of the club’s bullpen.

As with any trade, a few months isn’t enough time to understand the full scope of the impact last year’s three-team blockbuster will have on the clubs involved. Ruiz, who has posted a wRC+ of just 81 with Oakland this year but has offered plus defense in center field and swiped a whopping 48 bags, could prove to be a valuable piece in the coming years and change the perception of the deal. True as that may be, however, Milwaukee’s front office is surely delighted with the early returns on the deal, particularly considering they control Payamps through the end of the 2026 campaign and Contreras through the end of 2027.

The Cubs’ Breakout Closer

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Adbert Alzolay wasn’t a high-profile prospect at the start of his professional career. The right-hander signed out of Venezuela in 2013 when he was 17 years old, earning a bonus of just $10K. He starting climbing the minor league ladder without getting much attention from prospect evaluators.

That changed in 2017, when he tossed 114 1/3 innings between High-A and Double-A. He posted a 2.99 earned run average that year, striking out 23.3% of opponents against a walk rate of just 7.3%. Suddenly, he was the club’s #2 prospect at both FanGraphs and Baseball America going into 2018. He was selected to the club’s 40-man roster in November of 2017 to prevent him from being selected in the Rule 5 draft.

But his ascent was about to hit some snags. In 2018, a lat strain forced him to be shut down in June. He was only able to make eight Double-A starts that year, tossing 39 2/3 innings. The next year, he missed some time due to biceps inflammation and also started to be bounced between the majors and minors. He was recalled three times that year, tossing 12 1/3 big league innings with a 7.30 ERA. In 2020, the minor leagues were cancelled by the pandemic, though Alzolay posted a solid 2.95 ERA in 21 1/3 innings in the majors.

After a few seasons interrupted by injury, roster shuffling and the pandemic, Alzolay finally got some clear runway to establish himself in 2021. Injuries were still a factor, as he made trips to the IL due to a right middle finger blister and left hamstring strain, but he was able to make 21 starts in the big leagues. Unfortunately, he wasn’t especially impressive in those, with a 5.16 ERA. His 24.1% strikeout rate, 7.2% walk rate and 44.9% ground ball rate were all fairly solid, but his ERA was inflated by the 24 home runs he allowed.

Going into 2022, Alzolay seemed likely to get another shot at the rotation. The Cubs were still in rebuild mode and figured to give young pitchers a chance to earn rotation spots. If Alzolay could limit the homers, the overall results would have been strong, as evidenced by his 4.02 SIERA in 2021. But he was diagnosed with a shoulder strain in March and was placed on the 60-day injured list before the season even began.

He didn’t start a rehab assignment until August and wouldn’t make his 2022 season debut until September 17. He pitched in relief down the stretch, making six appearances with a 3.38 ERA. He spoke to Patrick Mooney of The Athletic about his new role in October, expressing an openness to slot in anywhere that he could. “If my role is best out of the bullpen, being a long guy, being a guy that can throw in the eighth or close a game or whatever, I feel like I have the weapons to do that. It’s more versatility for the team and for the manager. You won’t have me every five days there, but you can have me every two or three days. I can go and throw three or four innings, or I can go and throw one inning late in the game.”

He’s been kept exclusively in relief this year and it has been a revelation. In 53 2/3 innings over 47 appearances, he has a 2.52 ERA. He’s striking out 28% of batters faced against a miniscule walk rate of 3.9%, while also keeping the ball on the ground at a 44.1% clip. His rate of fly balls turning into home runs has normalized at 8.2%, fairly close to league average. His 24.2% strikeout-to-walk ratio has him tied for 11th in the majors among pitchers with at least 50 innings pitched this year. Among those equal to him or better in the K/BB% department, only five of them have a higher ground ball rate. He’s done all that while taking over the closer’s role, having racked up 16 saves and six holds on the year overall.

Last month, MLBTR’s Steve Adams wrote about the breakout Alzolay’s teammate Mark Leiter Jr., noting that the Cubs have avoided significant spending on their bullpen in recent years. That’s a risky strategy but one that is paying off for them right now. Their team leader in holds, Leiter, was signed on a minor league deal and they now appear to have found their closer internally. Alzolay came into this season with his service time clock at two years and 50 days. He’s crossed the three-year mark here in 2023, meaning he will qualify for arbitration this winter, with the club able to retain him all the way through the 2026 campaign.

It’s possible that he or the club might still have dreams of a returning to starting in the future, but his success this year might tempt everyone involved to keep him where he’s thriving, especially in light of his past injuries. Regardless of where things end up in the future, it’s been a remarkable journey as Alzolay has gone from an unheralded minor leaguer signed for a modest $10K bonus to now being one of the best relievers in the majors this year.

The Phillies’ Bullpen Overhaul

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For a few seasons, the Phillies’ primary concern has been the bullpen. Even last year’s pennant-winning squad succeeded largely in spite of a relief corps that finished the regular season ranked 23rd in ERA.

Philadelphia followed up its NL championship with an active offseason headlined by free agent deals for Trea Turner and Taijuan Walker. Those pacts have had mixed results in the early going, but Philadelphia has found more defined success in another area — a complete restructure of the bullpen.

Seven pitchers have thrown 30+ innings out of the ’pen for Rob Thomson on the season. Six of them were acquired since the start of last offseason. One of the offseason pickups, left-hander Andrew Vasquez, has since been designated for assignment and lost on waivers to the Tigers — though even he provided the Phils with 39 2/3 frames of 2.27 ERA ball before being cut.

Of the relievers currently on Philadelphia’s active roster, only Seranthony Domínguez was on the roster at this time a season ago. Some of that is by chance; José Alvarado is currently on the injured list and will surely reassume a high-leverage role when healthy. Yet it also hints at how aggressively the front office has turned things over.

It’s hard to argue with the results. Philadelphia relievers entered play Thursday ranked ninth in the majors with a 3.76 ERA. Their 24.9% strikeout rate ranks eighth. They’re in the bottom half of the league in blown saves. Philadelphia’s bullpen isn’t the best in the league, but it’s strong enough the front office went through deadline season without supplementing the group.

A look at some of the Phils’ bullpen upgrades since last winter:

Philadelphia rolled the dice on Kimbrel at a time when his stock was at a low ebb. The veteran righty is one of the best relievers of his generation, but his recent track record has been up-and-down. Kimbrel was excellent for the Cubs in the first half of 2021, struggled after a deadline trade to the White Sox, then had an average ’22 season with the Dodgers. While his 3.75 ERA through 60 frames last year wasn’t bad, the Dodgers were concerned enough about his performance down the stretch to leave him as a healthy scratch in the postseason.

The Phils guaranteed Kimbrel $10MM on a one-year free agent deal. They could hardly have expected better than the performance he’s turned in. Through 52 innings, he has a 3.12 ERA while locking down 19 of 21 save opportunities. Kimbrel has fanned an excellent 34.6% of opposing hitters after that mark dipped to 27.7% a season ago. He earned his ninth All-Star nod, has solidified the ninth inning, and is trending towards a more lucrative free agent trip next winter.

Strahm inked a two-year, $15MM free agent pact. He has been an effective and versatile piece of the pitching staff. Pressed into rotation duty early on by injuries, Strahm was solid over nine starts. He’s been downright excellent in his traditional bullpen role. The emergence of Cristopher Sánchez and deadline pickup of Michael Lorenzen should position Philadelphia to keep Strahm in relief for the rest of the year.

Over 40 1/3 frames as a reliever, the southpaw carries a 2.68 ERA. He’s stifling opponents to a .207/.248/.407 batting line, striking out 31% of batters faced against a tidy 5.7% walk rate. Hitters are swinging through 14% of his offerings. Strahm handles hitters from both sides of the plate and has worked multiple innings out of the ’pen on 13 occasions.

The most surprising name among this group, Hoffman wasn’t technically an offseason pickup. Granted his release by the Twins at the conclusion of Spring Training, he signed a minor league pact with Philadelphia during the first week of the regular season. The veteran righty spent a month in Triple-A before triggering an opt-out clause that required the team to either add him to the MLB roster or release him.

Philadelphia chose the former option. They’re unquestionably pleased they did. Playing on a prorated $1.3MM salary, Hoffman has turned in a career-low 2.86 ERA over 34 2/3 innings. He’s striking out over 33% of opponents after never topping a 23.6% strikeout rate in any prior season. Hoffman has completely overhauled his pitch mix. His average fastball speed is up to 97.1 MPH after checking in at 94.3 MPH with the Reds last year. More importantly, he’s leaned dramatically more heavily on a slider that has become one of the best weapons in the sport.

Among relievers with 30+ innings, just 12 are inducing whiffs at a higher rate than Hoffman’s 16.6% clip. After spending the better part of two months in mop-up work, Hoffman has deservedly pitched his way into higher-leverage innings coming out of the All-Star Break. At age 30, the former ninth overall pick is showing all the traits of an impact reliever. Only adding to the appeal: Hoffman will be eligible for arbitration next winter, so the Phils can affordably keep him around for another season.

Philadelphia’s highest-profile trade pickup of the offseason, Soto has had more mixed results than any of Kimbrel, Strahm or Hoffman. His 4.73 ERA through 45 2/3 frames isn’t eye-catching. The southpaw’s underlying marks are better than the ERA would suggest, albeit not quite what the Phils likely envisioned when sending Matt Vierling, Donny Sands and Nick Maton to Detroit.

Soto has struck out a decent but unexceptional 23.4% of batters faced. He’s gotten his walk rate to a career-low 9.4% clip and is picking up grounders on a solid 48.4% of balls in play. His production has been exceedingly platoon dependent, however. Left-handed hitters have a pitiful .100/.179/.183 line through 67 plate appearances, while righties have tagged Soto for a .279/.360/.396 clip in 125 trips. He’s a useful reliever, but it’s hard not to feel there’s still some untapped upside with a lefty whose sinker averages 98 MPH. Soto is making just under $4MM this season and eligible for arbitration twice more.

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The Phils have had other more modest additions as well. Yunior Marté, picked up in a January trade with the Giants, has contributed 35 mostly low-leverage innings. Despite average peripherals, he owns a 5.14 ERA. May waiver claim Dylan Covey was tattooed in his lone start of the year but has chipped in a 2.96 ERA through 24 1/3 innings of long relief.

While those are relatively minor contributions, the Phillies turned the bullpen from a potentially serious weakness to a decent strength in a matter of months. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski has faced criticism in prior seasons regarding the bullpens his front offices have put together. While it remains to be seen how this group will perform in October should the Phils hang onto a Wild Card spot, the regular season results have been quite strong — headlined by a pair of adept free agent pickups and hitting on one of the best minor league pacts of the season.

The Rangers’ Big Middle Infield Investment Is Paying Off

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The two most recent offseasons each had a batch of excellent shortstops that were available in free agency. The 2021-2022 offseason saw Carlos Correa, Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Trevor Story and Javier Báez reach the open market. That was followed by a free agent class featuring Correa again, since he opted out of his first deal after one year, along with Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts and Dansby Swanson.

Each player garnered plenty of interest and ultimately secured a guarantee above nine figures, often well above. All of the deals were among the most significant for their respective franchises and surely came with a great deal of thought and scrutiny. Deciding to spend hundreds of millions of dollars over a period of roughly a decade to one player is not something that is done flippantly. The deals still have many years remaining on them and it’s far too soon to start declaring winners and losers, but one team that must be currently thrilled with how it played this market is the Texas Rangers.

The club had been doing a lot of losing until recently. After falling to the Blue Jays in the ALDS in back-to-back years in 2015 and 2016, the Rangers entered a rebuilding period, finishing below .500 in each season after that. They seemingly got fed up with that futility and tried to press fast forward on the rebuild by spending money aggressively. That came in surprising fashion after the 2021 campaign when they nabbed two of the aforementioned star shortstops. They gave Seager $325MM over 10 years and Semien $175MM over seven, installing the latter as their everyday second baseman.

Those contracts still have a ways to go, but it’s hard to imagine them having gone much better to this point. Last year, Seager launched 33 home runs and slashed .245/.317/.455. Even with a .242 batting average on balls in play dragging him down, he still produced a wRC+ of 117, or 17% above league average. When combined with his strong shortstop defense, he was worth 4.5 wins above replacement, according to FanGraphs.

Here in 2023, he’s missed significant time due to a left hamstring strain and right thumb sprain but has been otherworldly when on the field. In just 78 games, he has 22 home runs and the BABIP wheel of fortune has spun him around the other way this year, with a .370 mark in that category. His .348/.411/.661 line amounts to a wRC+ of 190, the best such mark in the league among those with at least 350 plate appearances. He’s already at 4.8 fWAR despite not even playing half a season.

As for Semien, he was similarly BABIP’d last year, with just a .263 mark in that department. But his 26 home runs helped him hit .248/.304/.429 for a 107 wRC+. His defensive marks were quite strong, hardly surprising for a former shortstop at the keystone. His 11 Defensive Runs Saved and eight Outs Above Average were both in the top five among second basemen. He also stole 25 bases and finished the year with a tally of 4.2 fWAR.

Here in 2023, he’s walking more, striking out less and his .296 BABIP is much closer to league average. His .282/.353/.472 line translates to a 127 wRC+. His 11 DRS trails only Andrés Giménez among second basemen while his 11 OAA is topped only by Thairo Estrada. He’s already at 5.0 fWAR this year with still about six weeks to go, with both him and Seager among the top seven positions players in the league this year in that category.

Those two players have been a huge reason why the club has now returned to relevancy, as the Rangers are 72-49 this year, with only three clubs around the majors currently sporting a better winning percentage. Simply buying an elite middle infield might not seem like an accomplishment to some, but spending big doesn’t always lead to a proportionate return on investment, as shown by the other players listed at the top of this article.

Correa had a solid campaign last year and returned to the open market. Though he had two deals ultimately scuttled by health concerns, he returned to the Twins on a six-year deal with a $200MM guarantee and vesting options that allow him to bank even more. But he’s hitting just .231/.308/.409 this year for a 98 wRC+ as his previously-elite defense has slid closer to league average. Bogaerts has just 12 home runs for the Padres and is hitting .272/.346/.400. His wRC+ of 109 shows he’s still above average but it’s well shy of his .300/.373/.507 line and 134 wRC+ in the previous five seasons. Turner is having the worst year of his career, currently sitting on a line of .250/.302/.394 and an 86 wRC+. Story had around league-average offense last year and required elbow surgery in the winter, only returning to the Red Sox in recent days. Báez hit just .238/.278/.393 for the Tigers last year and has a dreadful .221/.262/.320 line this year. Swanson is the only non-Ranger of the bunch who has been thriving after signing a mega deal.

As was already mentioned, we can’t start handing out awards and calling certain teams “winners” or “losers” at this point. These contracts range from six to 11 years in length, leaving plenty of time for things to change. But most clubs sign these lengthy free agent contracts hoping for excellent production at the beginning and usually expecting some painful years at the end. Many of these deals are off to rough starts and the respective players will need significant improvements in the years to come in order to stop them from looking like big busts.

The Rangers don’t have a perfect record in free agency and are plenty familiar with how big spending can backfire. They spent $185MM this winter to get Jacob deGrom, who made six starts before requiring Tommy John surgery and won’t be back until the second half of 2024 at the earliest. Their faith in Martín Pérez looks like a misstep, as they gave him a $19.65MM qualifying offer but have seen him post a 4.85 ERA this year and recently get bumped to the bullpen. But in terms of the shortstop market, they’ve obviously done quite well. It was surprising to see any club put down so much money that they were able to nab two of the big name free agents. The Rangers not only ponied up the dough, but seem to have made a wise decision on who to spend it on. Twice.

Triston Casas Has Arrived

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Red Sox fans have been waiting roughly a half decade to see whether 2018 first-round pick Triston Casas would eventually become a fixture in the lineup. The hulking 6’4″, 252-pound slugger was selected with the No. 26 overall pick that year and has ranked among baseball’s 100 best prospects in each of the past four offseasons according to both Baseball America and MLB.com.

As recently as this April, however, the early returns were looking questionable. Casas got a cup of coffee last season, hitting five homers and walking at a 20% clip in 95 plate appearances — but also hitting the ball on the ground at a whopping 56.8% clip. Not an ideal trait for a slow-footed slugger. Add in a sluggish start to this season, which saw Casas pare back that ground-ball rate but experience a large uptick in strikeout percentage (30.2% through 96 plate appearances), and it was hardly a promising start. Through his first 192 big league plate appearances, Casas batted .162/.319/.344 with an elite 18.8% walk rate and above-average but not elite power. He fanned in 27.2% of those plate appearances.

In the three and a half months since, however, Casas has not only turned things around — he’s emerged as a genuine middle-of-the-lineup bat — at least against right-handed pitching. In his past 301 trips to the plate, Casas has produced a mammoth .293/.379/.540 output with 16 home runs, 13 doubles and a pair of triples. His walk rate is “down” to 12.3% in that time, and he’s fanned at a 23.6% rate that’s only slightly north of the league average.

The biggest change in Casas’ first couple months of big league experience and this productive stretch has been one of passivity — or rather, lack thereof. From last year’s debut through early May this year, Casas swung at just 62.9% of the pitches he saw within the strike zone (and 40% of pitches overall). During his this streak of mashing at the plate, he’s swinging at 72.2% of pitches in the strike zone and 45.2% of the pitches he sees overall. He’s now swinging at in-zone pitches at a higher-than-average rate (league average is 68.7%) but still swinging at a lower total percentage of pitches than the league-average 47.3%. That’s because Casas is rarely enticed by pitches out of the zone; he’s chased off the plate at just a 25.6% clip — more than six percentage points beneath the 31.8% league average.

As far as the quality of Casas’ contact, it’s been excellent. He was making consistent hard contact even before his early-May turnaround began, but the increased aggression within the strike zone now just means he’s making a lot more of it. Casas has averaged 91.5 mph off the bat this season (league average is 89.1 mph) and put 46.1% of his batted balls in play at 95 mph or more (league average is 39.3%). Statcast has classified 14.5% of his batted balls as “barreled” (16.1% during his peak productivity).

Granted, some of the breakout has been a function of Casas being shielded from left-handed pitching. Casas has clear platoon issues in his young career, hitting just .193/.343/.325 against southpaws versus .257/.357/.503 against righties. This season, he’s 219th in the Majors with just 77 plate appearances against left-handed pitching. The Sox haven’t completely eliminated his playing time against southpaws, but compare his total plate appearances against southpaws to fellow lefty-swinging teammates like Rafael Devers (148 plate appearances), Masataka Yoshida (123) and Alex Verdugo (140) — and it becomes clear that the Sox have at best been selective about the opportunities they’ll give him versus same-handed opposition.

Time will tell whether this year’s usage signals intent for long-term platooning or is just a means of building some confidence in the burgeoning young slugger. If the Sox want to platoon Casas moving forward, there’s at least one natural candidate down on the farm in 28-year-old Bobby Dalbec. Once a fairly heralded prospect himself, Dalbec has been squeezed out of the mix on the big league roster but responded with an outstanding .278/.384/.589 batting line and 30 homers in Triple-A this year. Against left-handed pitching, he’s posted a ludicrous .347/.438/.640 line. Dalbec’s future in Boston — he could potentially be a trade target for a club with eyes on giving him an everyday look this winter — is a topic worth diving into on its own, but suffice it to say he’s at least played his way into consideration for such a role. If not, the free agent market this offseason will feature right-handed bats like Garrett Cooper, C.J. Cron, Donovan Solano and Darin Ruf.

The Sox started Casas against southpaw MacKenzie Gore last night and left him in to face lefty reliever Jose Ferrer. (Casas went 1-for-3, singling off Ferrer.) It’s probably in their best interest to continue giving Casas opportunities against southpaws down the stretch, both to get him additional experience in left-on-left matchups and to help evaluate whether they’ll need a platoon partner for him in the long run.

Casas is still a work in progress defensively (-4 Defensive Runs Saved, -11 Outs Above Average), and it’s an open question just how productive he’ll end up being against left-handed pitching.  If he can narrow his platoon splits and/or make some strides on the defensive side of his game, he has star potential in the middle of the Red Sox lineup. He already looks the part against right-handed pitching, however, and Casas’ dedication to the science of hitting (check out his recent Q&A with FanGraphs’ David Laurila) should serve him well as he looks to become a more complete hitter.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

The Astros’ Potential Outfield Surplus

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Entering the season, the outfield was an area of some uncertainty on an excellent Houston roster. Kyle Tucker is an established star in right field. The other two positions were more questionable. Before Opening Day, Houston brass has suggested they planned to divide left field and designated hitter reps between Yordan Alvarez and Michael Brantley. As it has been for a couple seasons, center field looked to involve a battle for playing time between Chas McCormick and Jake Meyers.

Brantley’s recovery from last summer’s shoulder surgery hasn’t been as smooth as hoped. The five-time All-Star began the season on the injured list, leaving rookie Corey Julks to assume the LF/DH hybrid role alongside Alvarez. Julks has had some good stretches of play but been equally prone to extended slumps. He owns a .245/.299/.353 line in his first 86 big league contests and is currently in Triple-A.

Various setbacks have continued to keep Brantley out of action all season. When Alvarez suffered an oblique strain in mid-June — an injury that’d cost him six weeks — it looked as if the outfield and/or DH could be a problem. Not only has that not been the case, Houston’s outfield has thrived.

Since Alvarez first went on the IL on June 9, Houston outfielders are hitting .281/.370/.504 in 745 trips to the plate. They trail only the Braves’ group in on-base percentage and slugging. They’re third in on-base and sixth in slugging if one also includes DH production (where Alvarez would obviously have seen some time had he been healthy for that entire stretch).

In large part, that’s thanks to Tucker. He’ll find his name on MVP ballots for a third consecutive season. The star right fielder has raked at a .323/.410/.610 clip over that stretch and is hitting .297/.377/.526 overall. Alvarez has picked up where he’d left off since returning on July 26, putting up a .282/.378/.521 mark in 19 games.

It isn’t just the established superstars though. McCormick was a quietly productive player over his first two big league seasons and has found a new gear in 2023. Over 313 plate appearances, he owns a .288/.378/.539 batting line. Of the 215 hitters with 300+ trips to the plate, McCormick ranks 18th in OBP and 12th in slugging. He has been on a particular tear of late, with a .317/.410/.593 slash since June 9.

McCormick’s strikeout and walk rates aren’t much different from his prior two seasons. His average exit velocity and hard contact percentage haven’t changed and he’s unlikely to maintain a .363 average on balls in play. Yet his uptick in production isn’t entirely about batted ball fortune. McCormick is hitting for more power than he did in his first two seasons, at least in part reflecting a conscious change in his offensive approach.

Eno Sarris of the Athletic recently chatted with the right-handed hitter about a mechanical tweak he’d made to become more upright in his stance. The goal was to open his front shoulder slightly in order to allow him to become more pull-oriented. McCormick has always had raw power, but an extreme opposite-field approach muted some of that production. Pulled fly balls clear the fence at a much higher rate than flies to center or the opposite field. Few hitters pulled the ball in the air less often than McCormick between 2021-22. That didn’t stop him from being a good player, but it left some power potential on the table (particularly with the Crawford boxes only 315 feet down the left field line in Houston).

The change certainly seems to be paying off. His rate of pulled fly balls this season is nearly twice that of the previous two years. While he’s not hitting the ball harder overall, his average exit velocity on fly balls specifically is a personal high. The production has followed. Even if his BABIP takes a step back, McCormick should be a better offensive player than he’d been over his first two seasons and certainly looks deserving of everyday playing time.

Lately, that has mostly come in left field. Brantley could soon cut into those corner outfield reps. The veteran began a rehab assignment at Triple-A Sugar Land on Tuesday. Barring another setback, he could rejoin the big league club within the next two weeks. Skipper Dusty Baker will likely carefully monitor Brantley’s workload to ease the stress on his shoulder, but a healthy Brantley can be a key table-setter and adds a left-handed bat to a righty-heavy Houston lineup.

McCormick can play center field, so Meyers’ playing time might be most adversely impacted by Brantley’s expected return. Meyers isn’t having a great offensive season, hitting .227/.303/.385 over 304 trips to the plate. He started the year well, but unlike Tucker and McCormick, he has struggled at the dish going back to the beginning of June. Meyers is an excellent defensive center fielder, though. In 710 1/3 innings this season, he has rated between six and eight runs better than average by measure of Defensive Runs Saved and Statcast. (In his career, he’s been between 13 and 18 runs above average over 1406 frames.) Plugging Brantley in left, pushing McCormick to center, and moving Meyers to the bench should improve the lineup but will downgrade the defense.

It’s an enviable “problem” to have. Potentially juggling four starting-caliber outfielders helps Houston’s chances of tracking down their in-state rivals in a closely contested AL West. There’s likely to be some degree of concern about Brantley’s shoulder holding up down the stretch. Perhaps he or Alvarez could rotate through first base on occasion, at least while José Abreu is out. However Baker manages it, the outfield looks like a strength for the Astros as they enter the home stretch. And, with each of Alvarez (signed through 2028), Tucker (controlled through 2025), McCormick (controlled through 2026) and Meyers (controlled through 2027) standing as long-term pieces, their outfield outlook looks increasingly bright.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Cody Bellinger’s Resurgent Season

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For much of the 2023 season, it’s looked as though the number of impact bats on the upcoming free agent market would be — well… minimal. Shohei Ohtani looms large over both the starting pitching and position player markets, and there’s no real consolation prize for the teams that miss out on him. Matt Chapman has been the top-ranked non-Ohtani position player on the prior installments of MLBTR’s Free Agent Power Rankings — a new version of which will be coming out in the coming weeks — but after a blistering start to the season he’s now been a roughly average hitter for the past three-plus months. He’ll still get himself a hefty contract, thanks to the composite above-average offense and plus defense, but he no longer looks like the second-best name among position players this winter.

That distinction likely falls on Cody Bellinger, whose one-year deal with has proven to be a jackpot for both him and the Cubs. The $17.5MM that Chicago guaranteed to Bellinger now looks like an unmitigated bargain by today’s market standards, and Bellinger is in prime position to trounce that this winter, provided he can remain healthy.

That’s far from a given for a player who had shoulder surgery in Nov. 2020 and has been on the injured list four times since — including a month-long absence due to a knee injury earlier this year. But, Bellinger played in all but 10 of the Dodgers’ 384 games from 2018-20 and appeared in 144 games as recently as last season. Outside of that offseason shoulder procedure, most of his injuries have been relatively minor in nature.

What hasn’t been minor is the manner in which Bellinger has rebounded at the plate this season. Bellinger debuted as a 21-year-old back in 2017 and almost immediately established himself as an MVP-caliber talent. From 2017-19, he slashed .278/.368/.559, originally playing plus defense at first base before moving to the outfield in 2019 without missing a beat. Bellinger won NL Rookie of the Year in ’17 and was crowned the league’s MVP two years later — while also winning a Gold Glove in the outfield and a Silver Slugger.

As virtually any fan knows by now, the sky seemed like the limit but clearly was not. Bellinger was an above-average but far from elite hitter during the truncated 2020 season, batting .239/.333/.455 in 243 plate appearances. That good-not-great production continued into the postseason (.212/.316/.455, four home runs), but the bigger story of Bellinger’s playoffs was the aforementioned shoulder. The then-reigning NL MVP clubbed a pivotal home run in Game 7 of the NLCS against the Braves but regrettably dislocated the shoulder while celebrating that blast with teammate Enrique Hernandez. Bellinger went 3-for-22 in the World Series — one of those three hits being another homer — and required surgery a month later.

The next two seasons were a mess. Not only were Bellinger’s days as an MVP candidate a distant memory — it was a legitimately fair question whether he was even a viable big leaguer for much of the 2021-22 seasons. In that time, Bellinger tallied exactly 900 plate appearances and turned in an awful .193/.256/.355 slash line. He still played terrific defense, particularly in 2022, and he popped 19 home runs with 14 stolen bases during the 2022 season. The Dodgers still non-tendered Bellinger, and the Cubs outbid the field with that $17.5MM guarantee — a pricey roll of the dice on a player who’d been 31% worse than league average at the plate in the two prior seasons (by measure of wRC+).

Just as Bellinger’s days as an elite hitter quickly faded from memory in 2021-22, the struggles he endured during those two years now feel like they’re squarely in the rearview mirror. Bellinger had a brief slump when he was first activated from the injured list in mid-June, but he’s been on fire for most of the summer since his return. In 371 trips to the plate entering play Wednesday, the two-time All-Star is hitting .325/.377/.551. He’s belted 18 home runs to go along with 19 doubles, a triple and 17 steals (in 20 tries). He’s posted average or better marks in center field this season and even looked sharp in a brief return to first base (176 innings).

Perhaps most encouraging is the fact that Bellinger’s hit tool seems to be back to peak levels. Strikeouts were an issue in his rookie season (26.6%), but Bellinger pared that number all the way down to 16.4% during his MVP year in 2019. Following his surgery, Bellinger’s strikeout rate ballooned back to 27.1% in 2021-22. He also saw a massive spike in his chase rate on pitches off the plate (26.8% in 2019; 34.8% in 2021-22), while his overall contact rate dropped from 78.1% to 74.6%.

This year, Bellinger has punched out in just 15.4% of his plate appearances — the lowest mark of his career by a full percentage point. He’s enjoying career-best contact rates both on pitches in the strike zone (86.3%) and on pitches he chases off the plate (73.8%), leading to a career-high 81.4% overall contact rate.

While the improved contact skills and increased selectivity are unequivocally positive signs, there are some red flags that make Bellinger’s rebound appear a bit more tenuous. When he was at his best, Bellinger was a hard-contact machine, barreling the ball at an elite rate and ranking among the league leaders in batted balls at 95 mph or greater. In 2023, however, Bellinger’s 87.2 mph average exit velocity is nearly four miles per hour slower than his 91.1 mph average from 2019. This year’s 31.2% hard-hit rate is nowhere near his peak 45.6%, and his 6.4% rate of barreled balls (as defined by Statcast) sits at about half his best 12.6%.

That’s not to say Bellinger is a bad hitter or is likely to regress to his dismal 2021-22 levels of performance. His massive gains in contact and subsequent dip in strikeouts lend plenty of legitimacy to his rebound. The greater question is to what extent he can sustain this level of production with a quality-of-contact profile that’s actually below the league averages (89.1 mph exit velocity, 8.1% barrel rate, 39.3% hard-hit rate).

Statcast’s “expected” metrics are far from an exact science, but Bellinger still sits on the second-largest gap of all qualified hitters in terms of his actual batting average (.325) and expected batting average (.271). The gap between his .551 slugging percentage and expected .447 slugging percentage is the fifth-largest in baseball. Some fans may scoff at the mention of “expected” metrics, but they’ll surely factor into teams’ valuation of Bellinger over the winter (though most clubs have their own proprietary versions of such metrics which might differ from Statcast to varying extents). That said, even those expected ratios paint Bellinger as a clearly above-average hitter — roughly in line with what teammates Dansby Swanson and Ian Happ have produced this season. And, given Bellinger’s past displays of plus power, there’s quite a bit more upside in his bat than either of those comparisons.

As with any free agent, there are more factors to consider than Bellinger’s bat alone. He’s played first base and center field at above-average levels this season and is obviously an option in either outfield corner as well. Couple that versatility with the fact that he can hit lefties and righties at above-average rates — he’s hitting lefties better in ’23 but has been better against righties in his career — and Bellinger allows any manager some flexibility when writing out a lineup card. This year’s average sprint speed of 28.3 ft/sec is down a bit from his peak 28.9 ft/sec from 2017-19, but it’s still well above the league average (77th percentile). Bellinger uses that speed quite efficiently, too; he’s been successful in 82.2% of his career stolen-base attempts and 85% in 2023.

Perhaps most of all in Bellinger’s case, market scarcity will work in his favor. As previously mentioned, beyond Ohtani, there aren’t many hitters of note to pursue this winter. Chapman’s bat has cooled since his blistering start. Teoscar Hernandez entered the year positioned as one of the top free agents on the market but has batted just .250/.297/.423 — the worst full-season performance of his career. Jorge Soler and J.D. Martinez are having strong rebound seasons but are DH-only options. Jeimer Candelario is enjoying a rebound campaign of his own but has nowhere near Bellinger’s track record.

In terms of competition at his position, Bellinger will be going up against oft-injured defensive standouts Kevin Kiermaier and Harrison Bader. Both players are clear alternatives for teams seeking an everyday center fielder, though that’s due more to world-class defense than their offensive aptitude. Neither is as complete a player as Bellinger has been, and Bader has been on the IL three times this year while Kiermaier hasn’t reached 500 plate appearances in a season since 2015 (his only year ever reaching that level).

Perhaps most important of all will be age. Bellinger just turned 28 last month. He won’t turn 29 until next year’s All-Star break. Any team signing Bellinger would be paying up for more of his peak than the usual free agent has to market. Even an eight-year contract would run through Bellinger’s age-35 season. Given his age and the extent of his bounceback this year, it seems likely that he and agent Scott Boras will seek at least one opt-out opportunity in any long-term deal. He’ll surely reject a qualifying offer at season’s end, and while that won’t do his free agency any favors, the QO typically hasn’t been too great an encumbrance on the market’s very top-tier free agents.

No one is going to unseat Ohtani as the most coveted free agent of the upcoming class, but Bellinger increasingly looks like he could be viewed as the next-best position player on the market. His bet on himself has paid off in spades, and as long as he doesn’t completely collapse in the final six-plus weeks of the season, I imagine he’ll hit the market looking to top recent deals signed by George Springer (six years, $150MM), Brandon Nimmo (eight years, $162MM) and Kris Bryant (seven years, $182MM). Whether someone actually approaches or even exceeds $200MM for a player who struggled so substantially from 2021-22 and has a somewhat spotty batted-ball profile in his rebound season remains to be seen. But the mere fact that it’s even worth considering speaks to the magnitude of his rebound campaign at Wrigley.

Big Hype Prospects: Mayo, Encarnacion-Strand, Thorpe, Hampton, Caminero

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This week, we look at prospects who are among the top minor-league performers — a few of whom have struggled lately. Let’s skip Jackson Holliday.

Five Big Hype Prospects

Coby Mayo, 21, 3B, BAL (AAA)
(AA/AAA) 450 PA, 20 HR, 4 SB, .283/.393/.560

While Mayo’s seasonal line is impressive, he’s scuffled to a .205/.291/.420 triple-slash in 103 Triple-A plate appearances. He’s still impacting the ball with Major League-caliber exit velocities. The big difference between Double-A and Triple-A is BABIP. This isn’t a write-it-off-as-luck situation. Mayo makes a lot of pulled, fly ball contact. He’s the sort of hitter who might be prone to low BABIPs in the Majors. He’s always been a high-BABIP guy in the minors which is actually a classic sign that the hitter isn’t being challenged at the level. Perhaps Mayo is finally feeling some pain. He’ll likely make a couple small adjustments and resume hitting at an above-average level. We might witness similar growing pains when he’s eventually summoned to the Majors.

Christian Encarnacion-Strand, 23, 1B, CIN (MLB)
91 PA, 3 HR, .250/.308/.381

Speaking of growing pains, Encarnacion-Strand has reverted to his previous poor discipline in his first taste of the Majors. While his average contact is impressively firm, he’s not getting to the top end of his power range – at least not yet. Presently, he’s both strikeout and fly ball prone. The fly balls aren’t as much a concern as they are with most prospects – it’s not called Great American Smallpark without reason. A power barrage awaits ahead for CES. In the meantime, we’re also getting a good look at the downside for this probably-volatile slugger. He produced a 1.042 OPS at Triple-A.

Drew Thorpe, 22, SP, NYY (AA)
(A+/AA) 117 IP, 11.31 K/9, 2.54 BB/9, 2.62 ERA

The Yankees have an obnoxious habit of developing promising-looking pitchers who struggle to make the transition between the minors and Majors. Thorpe is on pace to debut next season. In my opinion, he should rank higher on prospects lists. The rub is his velocity. He’s currently a soft-tossing southpaw with a “projectable frame.” In other words, scouts think he can add velocity. Thorpe is a command artist with a plus changeup and a slider he locates with ease. Even if the velocity never comes, he’ll give hitters fits as a reliever. Nearly all of the above stats were accrued in High-A.

Chase Hampton, 22, SP, NYY (AA)
95.2 IP, 12.51 K/9, 3.39 BB/9, 3.86 ERA

Evaluators prefer Hampton to Thorpe because he more closely resembles the classic workhorse. He’s already pushing for Top 50 prospect status on Baseball America’s list. Hampton has a five-pitch repertoire featuring four average or better offerings and a platoon-changeup. He’s able to use his four-seam, cutter, or slider as his primary pitch, depending on the matchup. His curve offers a change of pace for right-handed hitters, and he commands everything well. Hampton has met some challenges in Double-A (4.90 ERA, 4.02 xFIP). It’s possible he’s running out of steam in his first full professional season.

Junior Caminero, 20, 3B/SS, TBR (AA)
(A+/AA) 400 PA, 21 HR, 4 SB, .322/.380/.565

Caminero draws heavy hype among the fantasy prospect ranking crowd for his precocious power output. Traditional evaluators are slowly approaching the same level of excitement. Baseball America ranks him fifth in the league. The missing ingredient is plate discipline, but he’s shown modest signs of improvement at Double-A. Personally, I tend to be skeptical of this profile until I see it perform in the Majors. The jump from Triple-A to the Majors is particularly large for hitters who either lack discipline or feature a high whiff rate. Caminero checks both boxes. So did Fernando Tatis Jr. That’s not to say they’re similar athletes, only that an expectedly “tough” transition can be easier for some players than others.

In any event, don’t be surprised if Caminero stalls out for a few years before finding his stride in the Majors. The Rays have a knack for putting their players in situations where they thrive. See their development of Josh Lowe.

Three More

Abimelec Ortiz, TEX (21): One of the top-performing breakout power hitters, Ortiz is a slow-footed, left-handed first baseman who takes massive hacks. He’s produced 26 home runs in 350 plate appearances on the season, mostly at High-A. He profiles as a future 30-homer slugger with a strikeout problem.

Heston Kjerstad, BAL (24): A late-bloomer by today’s heady standards (and due to missed time), Kjerstad is posting MLB-caliber exit velocities in Triple-A along with a .383 BABIP. This is a function of approach, not luck. Even so, we usually see these line-drive boppers lose their BABIP fuel upon matriculating. Kjerstad projects as a league-average corner outfielder.

Emmanuel Rodriguez, MIN (20): Expected to eventually move from center field, Rodriguez has more than enough bat to survive in an outfield corner. He’s a discipline-forward slugger who verges on passivity. He’s walked in more than 20 percent of plate appearances as a professional. He’ll need to learn more selective aggression against higher-quality pitchers.

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

Poll: What Path Should The Mets Pick With Pete Alonso?

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The outlook for the Mets has completely changed in recent months. They spent heavily this winter, running up the highest payroll in major league history, and came into the season as World Series contenders. Unfortunately, they struggled to get into a groove in the early parts of the season and decided to sell at the deadline. Not only did they flip rental pieces like Tommy Pham and David Robertson, but also guys who could have helped the 2024 club like Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Mark Canha.

After being traded to the Rangers, Scherzer spoke publicly about how he was given the sense that next year “is now looking to be more of a kind of transitory year,” with the aggression dialed back a bit. Owner Steve Cohen addressed that situation the next day, essentially confirming Scherzer’s framing by saying that the 2024 club “won’t be as star-studded” as this year’s team. He did say that he hopes the team will still be “very competitive” and that this “doesn’t mean we’re not going to bring in free agents,” but it seems the plan is to step back.

Now that the deadline has passed, the club can’t make any more trades for the next few months, but it’s possible they could resume their selling in the offseason. Starling Marte will still have two years remaining on his contract after this one, with salaries of $19.5MM in each season. José Quintana will have one year and $13MM left on his contract. Omar Narváez is a lock to trigger his $7MM player option and Adam Ottavino seems like he’ll exercise his at $6.75MM as well. The club has a $6.5MM option for the services of Brooks Raley in 2024. Trevor Gott has one year of control and will be due an arbitration raise on this year’s $1.2MM salary.

If the Mets are looking to continue down the path they picked at the deadline, trading veterans for prospects and eating money to get a better return, any of those players could be a candidate for such an approach. Some of those cases will present the club with difficult decisions, but the most challenging will be their choice of how to handle Pete Alonso. He is making $14.5MM this year and is eligible for one more arbitration raise in 2024, before he’s slated for free agency.

Alonso, 28, is obviously an incredibly talented hitter. From his 2019 debut to the present, he’s hit 180 home runs, including 34 this year. His career batting line of .255/.343/.533 is 37% better than league average, according to wRC+. His home run tally in that stretch is the highest in the majors and that wRC+ places him just outside the top 10 among qualified hitters.

With the Mets looking to ease off the gas pedal in 2024 and Alonso slated for the open market after that campaign, the club will have to pick a lane. They could pursue trades in the offseason, though doing so would come with the negative public relations hit of moving on from a homegrown star player, as Alonso was drafted by the Mets in 2016. They could also try to sign Alonso to a long-term extension, though he would have to agree to any such pact.

The Mets could also kick the decision down the road and see how things go in 2024. It doesn’t seem like they will be giving up all hopes of contention. As Cohen said, it seems they will likely still bring in some free agents and see how things go next year. The club could hang onto Alonso until next year’s deadline, see if the baseball gods are any kinder to them and pick a lane at that point. Even if they held onto to him all the way through 2024 and took a shot at contending, they could recoup a draft pick by extending him a qualifying offer at that point. That path would come with some risk, as Alonso could always suffer an injury or a downturn in performance, causing his trade value to drop.

The path of pursuing a trade this offseason would certainly lead to the club finding many suitors. They will only be marketing one year of his services but the free agent crop of position players in incredibly weak this winter, with the class far heavier on the pitching side. Alonso will be making a hefty salary which could eliminate some suitors, but the Mets haven’t been shy about swallowing money in order to facilitate deals, sending more than $35MM to the Rangers in the Scherzer deal.

The Mets certainly have the resources to get an extension done, though it’s unclear how much appetite they would have to get one done with Alonso. Cohen recently called him “an integral part of the Mets” and hoped they can “work things out” on a long-term deal, but their plan to dial back their spending might clash with that. They already have significant long-term deals on the books for Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, Edwin Díaz, Kodai Senga and Jeff McNeil, which means they already have over $100MM on the books as far out as 2026.

If the Mets are focused on building up their pipeline of young talent and assessing the future before charting their next big moves, will they want to add a massive deal for Alonso to the pile when that will surely require a nine-figure outlay of some kind? There’s also the question of how his defense will age, since he’s not a star in that department as it is. Defensive Runs Saved has given him a passable +3 grade for his career, but Ultimate Zone Rating pegs him at -2.9 with Outs Above Average at -16. A long-term deal would come with the risk of him sliding into DH-only status over time.

Perhaps another factor will be the development of the prospects they have recently added to the system. Ryan Clifford, acquired from the Astros in the Verlander deal, can play the outfield corners but has spent more time at first base this year. He has yet to reach Double-A but the Mets surely acquired him in the hopes that he would be a part of a future championship core at some point down the line. Perhaps they would prefer to track his development before deciding on how to proceed with Alonso.

Until the Mets either trade Alonso or get an extension done, his in-between status is likely to be one of the biggest storylines this offseason. What do you think is the path they should take? Put him on the trading block and continue loading the farm system for future success? Lock him up so that he can be a part of the next competitive window? Or wait until the 2024 deadline, when they will have more information about their own competitive chances and the development of their prospects?

Have you say in the poll below. (Link to poll for app users)

What Path Should The Mets Pick With Pete Alonso?
Extension 51.50% (5,037 votes)
Trade 28.80% (2,817 votes)
Wait and see how 2024 goes 19.70% (1,927 votes)
Total Votes: 9,781
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