The Rangers’ Quietly Excellent Catcher
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.
The Dodgers’ Youth Movement Is Showing Positive Results
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
Mariners’ Offseason Trade Acquisitions Off To Slow Starts
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.
A Cash Transaction Paying Off For The Giants
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.
The Upcoming Shortstop Class Looks Increasingly Bleak
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
The Encouraging Developments Of Brandon Marsh
Just as the trade deadline was approaching last year, the Phillies sent sent catching prospect Logan O’Hoppe to the Angels in order to acquire center fielder Brandon Marsh. The latter was one of the top prospects in the league a few years ago but was relatively overshadowed on an Angels team that had stars like Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. Marsh was perhaps best known for trying to make his head suit his surname, as he didn’t do too much to stand out with the bat.
Making his debut in 2021, he got into 70 games and took 260 trips to the plate. He struck out in 35% of those, walked in 7.7% of them and hit just a pair of home runs. He finished that year with a .254/.317/.356 batting line and an 85 wRC+, indicating he was 15% below league average. Up until the trade last year, it was more of the same. In 323 plate appearances for the Halos prior to the deal, he struck out 36.2% of the time, walked at a 6.8% clip and slashed .226/.284/.353 for a 79 wRC+.
The move to the Phillies seems to have been a turning point, however. His walk rate actually dropped to 4.3% after coming to Philadelphia last year, but his strikeout also dipped to 29.7%. That was still much higher than league average but a noticeable improvement from his own track record. That led to a .288/.319/.455 batting line and 114 wRC+. Here in 2023, he’s off to a tremendous .314/.402/.578 start and a 164 wRC+.
There’s one big caveat to throw out here, as Marsh currently has a .444 batting average on balls in play that no hitter could sustain. Last year’s league leader, for instance, was Paul Goldschmidt and his .368 mark. Once Marsh sees his BABIP figure regress, his overall numbers won’t be quite so gaudy. But digging under the hood reveals there’s still plenty of things to be encouraged by. He’s striking out at a 29.9% clip that is definitely still high but more manageable than the roughly 35% clip he was at previously. He’s also walking at an amazing 12% clip, well above this year’s 8.8% league average. Considering how rarely he took free passes before, that’s an excellent sign.
The batted ball metrics also shed some positive light on the better results, as basically everything has improved relative to last year. His barrel rate is up from 7.4% to 10.4%. His average exit velocity was 89.2 mph last year but is at 92 mph in 2023. His hard hit rate has gone from 38.2% to 47.8%. It’s still a fairly small sample of 117 plate appearances but he’s striking out less, walking more, hitting the ball harder and doing so more often. And it doesn’t seem to have come out of nowhere.
Back in October, when the Phillies were in the World Series, Marsh and hitting coach Kevin Long spoke to Sam Blum of The Athletic about the changes that had been made to his swing. “I devised a game plan on what I was going to do with his swing,” Long said. “And the mechanics of his swing. I always start by getting guys closer to the hitting position than further away. So we spread him out. We got him into his legs. It worked.”
All of these offensive improvements are a great coup since Marsh was already a valuable contributor as a glove-first center fielder. Defensive Runs Saved doesn’t seem to like him in center much, putting him slightly below average in each of his three seasons thus far. Ultimate Zone Rating has him in the positive range, though, and Outs Above Average has him at +5 through 1,251 innings. Marsh is also ranked in the 88th percentile in terms of sprint speed and has 17 stolen bases in his career thus far.
With all of those traits, FanGraphs calculated him as having produced 2.4 wins above replacement in 204 games over 2021 and 2022, even while hitting at a subpar rate. Now with much better offense this year, he’s already at 1.3 fWAR in just 33 games, more than halfway to his previous total in a fraction of the time. As mentioned earlier, he’s due for a bit of regression, but there are reasons to suspect he’ll eventually settle somewhere that’s much better than his previous work.
The 25-year-old came into this year with one year and 78 days of service time, meaning he won’t qualify for arbitration until after 2024 and isn’t slated for free agency until after 2027. For a Phillies team that has spent big on players including Bryce Harper, Trea Turner and Nick Castellanos, and would also like to get Aaron Nola signed to an extension, getting big value out of an overlooked player like Marsh is an important victory.
The Reds Should Expand Their Youth Movement Even Further
The Reds entered the 2023 season with a trio of young starters — Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, Graham Ashcraft — headlining their rotation, as well as a rookie third baseman (Spencer Steer) and a closer entering just his second big league season (Alexis Diaz). None of that quintet had more than a year of Major League service time. Ashcraft and Steer both had less than one full year. The Reds might’ve spent a small amount on veteran free agents this offseason (e.g. Wil Myers, Luke Weaver, Curt Casali, Luke Maile), but one look at the roster left little doubt this was a rebuilding team.
Six weeks into the season, the youth movement has brokered mixed results. Greene and Ashcraft (Sunday’s meltdown notwithstanding) have both looked impressive in the rotation. Diaz is doing his best impression of his older brother, striking out a stunning 51.2% of his opponents through 11 innings. Steer has delivered roughly league-average offense and shown some versatility, beginning to take regular reps at first base with Myers and Joey Votto both on the injured list. Lodolo has been extraordinarily homer-prone, but his strikeout and walk rates are every bit as encouraging as they were during a strong rookie effort in 2022.
Cincinnati fans are getting a glimpse at the hopeful future core for the Reds, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that more youthful reinforcements are — or should be — on the horizon. The Reds have every reason to let Lodolo try to sort through his homer woes at the big league level, but the fourth and fifth spots of the rotation are another story entirely. Those have been occupied by veterans Weaver and the just minutes-ago-DFA’d Luis Cessa for the bulk of the season, and the results rather unsurprisingly haven’t been good.
Weaver has made just three starts to Cessa’s six, and while a 7.88 ERA doesn’t inspire any confidence, Weaver has at least posted a 26% strikeout rate against an 8.2% walk rate. They’re both better than average marks — the strikeout rate in particular. Like Lodolo (and many other Reds hurlers who have the challenge of pitching at Great American Ball Park), Weaver’s home run rate is through the roof (2.81 HR/9). The Reds spent a couple million dollars to sign him as a free agent, and Weaver’s only had three starts. Ugly as they’ve been, he’ll get another few turns, even if the leash is (or should be) short.
Cessa’s spot seemed far more vulnerable. (Hence the bulk of this piece already having been written just prior to his DFA… thanks for prompting some last-minute rewrites, Reds!) In six starts, he allowed an earned run per inning, walked more batters than he struck out, and was moved to the bullpen for his most recent appearance. He didn’t start a single game from 2019-21, making the Reds’ decision to move him into the rotation last year and then to guarantee him a 2023 rotation spot a rather peculiar one.
Cessa posted a pedestrian 4.30 ERA in ten starts last season with an even less-encouraging 5.02 FIP. That might’ve made him a fine sixth or seventh starting option, but the Reds opted to only sign Weaver this offseason and leave the rotation largely unaddressed. Veteran Chase Anderson was re-signed on a minor league deal, but he’s already been traded to the Rays after triggering an opt-out in his contract. Right-hander Ben Lively was re-signed to a minor league deal, and the Reds selected him to the roster today alongside fellow offseason journeyman pickup Kevin Herget.
It’s not clear whether the 31-year-old Lively and 32-year-old Herget are short-term stopgaps or will get an actual look on the roster in the coming weeks, but even before this afternoon’s slate of moves, the crux of this argument has been that the Reds have more interesting options than the veterans they’ve plugged into the fourth and fifth spots of the rotation thus far. The promotions of Lively and Herget don’t change that.
Lefty Brandon Williamson and right-hander Levi Stoudt both came to Cincinnati by way of trade with the Mariners, coming over in the Jesse Winker/Eugenio Suarez and Luis Castillo trades, respectively. Neither has dominated in Triple-A to begin the season, though Stoudt did make his MLB debut in a spot start last month. Williamson, currently sporting an ERA north of 7.00 in 28 1/3 Triple-A frames, has not yet pitched in the big leagues. It’s worth noting that nearly all the damage against him came in one start, where he did not escape the first inning against the Cubs’ top affiliate and was thrashed for eight runs. Stoudt needs to improve upon the poor command he’s shown in Louisville before getting a real look in the big leagues.
The Reds have one particular minor league powerhouse who looks on the cusp of MLB readiness, however: left-hander Andrew Abbott. The 2021 second-round pick has skyrocketed through the minor leagues, reaching Double-A last year as a 23-year-old in his first full professional season and then overpowering both Double-A and Triple-A opponents early in the 2023 season.
Abbott opened the current campaign with 15 2/3 innings in Double-A, allowing just two runs on six hits and three walks with an astonishing 36 strikeouts. That’s not a typo; Abbott fanned a comical 64.3% of his opponents in those three Double-A starts before the Reds rather naturally jumped him to Triple-A. He hasn’t continued on at that deity-like pace at the top minor league level … he’s “merely” posted a 3.00 ERA with a 38.7% strikeout rate in another 15 innings of work. All in all, Abbott has 30 2/3 innings of 2.05 ERA ball with an eye-popping 50.8% strikeout rate to go along with a 7.6% walk rate, 41.5% ground-ball rate and 0.88 HR/9 mark.
The 23-year-old Abbott’s most recent start just happened to fall on Sunday, which would line him up to be fully rested come Saturday, when the Reds’ listed starter is TBD. That had been Cessa’s spot in the rotation, but Cincinnati opted to start Ashcraft on four days’ rest instead of giving Cessa his usual turn. (Ashcraft was blasted for eight runs in 1 2/3 innings.) It’s always possible that they’ll look into alternatives for the time being, preferring to give Abbott more seasoning and hold off on adding him to the 40-man roster just yet. But each of Williamson (May 5), Stoudt (May 6) and Herget (May 4) saw their most recent starts fall on a date that would line them up to pitch between now and Saturday.
If the Reds are indeed going to tap into their farm to make a change, Abbott is not only the best option in terms of 2023 performance — he’s also the starter who’s likeliest to be on full rest and ready to make that start. Even if Cincinnati bypasses him in favor of Lively or Herget this coming weekend, he’s already made the clear case that he’s a better option for the big league rotation than either Weaver or Cessa. And assuming Williamson can continue to shake off the impact of that catastrophic outing against the Cubs’ Iowa club — he rebounded with a quality start in his next appearance — it might not be long before either he or Stoudt stakes a claim to the fifth spot.
Going with a youth-forward rotation obviously has its pitfalls, but the Reds’ lack of offseason activity on the starting pitching front — both in terms of established big league starters and even in terms of veteran depth on minor league deals — clearly set the stage for that to eventually be the case in 2023. It’s not hard to imagine the Reds rolling with five starters who have under two years of big league service by sometime next month, if not sooner. The next step in the process should come this weekend. It’s only six starts, but Abbott looks like one of the organization’s four best rotation options at this point. Today’s moves might have added some fresh arms in Lively and Herget, but plugging either into the rotation would only continue treading water as they were with Cessa.
Baltimore’s Shortstop Is Making Strides
Jorge Mateo was once one of the top prospects in baseball. An international signing of the Yankees out of the Dominican Republic in 2012, he showed obvious natural talent with blazing speed that allowed him to be valuable on the basepaths and on defense. In 2015, between Single-A and High-A, he stole 82 bases in 111 games. He only hit two home runs in that time but ran up a .278 batting average. His bat was generally considered the least polished part of his game, but he seemed to have a chance at being an all-around contributor in the future. Baseball America ranked him the #1 prospect in the Yankees’ system going into 2016 and #26 in the entire league.
In the years to come, however, his stock would fade as the approach at the plate didn’t seem to develop as hoped. He returned to High-A in 2016 and hit eight home runs but his batting average slipped to .254. Since he only walked in 6.5% of his plate appearances, his on-base percentage was a meager .306. In 2017, at High-A yet again, his walk rate dipped to 5.4% and his strikeout rate climbed from a decent 21.3% to a concerning 26.6%. That helped his batting average drop to .240 and his OBP to .288. He finally got bumped to Double-A and showed some positive strides, walking at a 10.7% clip in 30 games there, leading to a .300 batting average and .381 OBP. The Yanks then included him as one one of the three youngsters they sent to the Athletics in the deadline deal that brought Sonny Gray to the Bronx, alongside Dustin Fowler and James Kaprielian.
Though Mateo finished 2017 strong with his new organization, the concerns about his offense would be renewed the following year. Moved to Triple-A in 2018, he drew free passes in just 5.7% of his plate appearances while getting punched out in 27.3% of them. His .230/.280/.353 batting line led to a wRC+ of just 62. Back to Triple-A in 2019, he had a power breakout when he launched 19 home runs in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, but he still walked at just a 5.1% clip and struck out 25.6% of the time.
Going into 2020, Mateo was out of options and still hadn’t made his major league debut. The A’s seemingly had little interest in giving him an active roster spot at that time. Transactions were frozen in March of 2020 when the pandemic put everything on pause, but once the freeze was lifted in June, the very first transaction in the league was Mateo getting flipped to the Padres for a player to be named later. That player was later reported to be outfield prospect Junior Perez.
The Padres kept Mateo on the roster in 2020 but didn’t hand him a regular role, giving him just 28 plate appearances over 22 games. The results weren’t encouraging in that brief time, as he walked in 3.6% of those trips to the plate and struck out in 39.3% of them. He managed to stick on the roster into the next season with the club still valuing his speed and defense, but he walked in just 2.2% of his plate appearances with the Friars in 2021 and struck out at a 29% clip, ultimately getting designated for assignment in August. The rebuilding Orioles put in a claim and put Mateo into 32 games but he finished the year on the injured list due to right lumbar inflammation.
Mateo was exactly the right kind of player for the O’s, who had been terrible for five years at that point and were still waiting for their top prospects to arrive. They could install him as a placeholder until the kids showed up and see if he did anything with the opportunity, with essentially nothing to lose if he failed. They made Mateo their everyday shortstop in 2022 and he showed that he could be a valuable player even with a poor performance at the plate. He did hit 13 home runs last year but the discipline issues were still there. He walked at just a 5.1% clip and was punched out in 27.6% of his appearances. He finished the year with a .221/.267/.379 batting line and 82 wRC+, indicating he was 18% below league average. However, he was on base enough to steal 35 bases. He also earned stellar grades for his glovework at short, including 14 Defensive Runs Saved, 11 Outs Above Average and a 7.4 grade from Ultimate Zone Rating, finishing in the top five among shortstops in each of those categories. The Fielding Bible Awards ranked him as the top shortstop in the league. FanGraphs valued Mateo’s season as being worth 2.7 wins above replacement, even with the subpar offense, while Baseball Reference gave him 3.4.
The O’s received some trade interest in Mateo over the winter, with clubs seemingly intrigued by how he could benefit from this year’s rule changes. The limits on pickoffs and defensive shifts were designed to encourage the exact kind of player that Mateo is, with plenty of speed and athleticism to showcase if given the chance. That appears to have proven true as he’s already swiped 12 bags this year, but Mateo has also seemingly made incredible progress with his long-standing issues at the plate. His 6.7% walk rate is still below league average but an improvement compared to his own track record. Meanwhile, he has struck out in just 20% of his plate appearances so far this year, a few ticks better than league average and far better than anything he had done in recent years.
Andy Kostka of The Baltimore Banner recently spoke to Mateo and co-hitting coach Matt Borgschulte about how they were going for a simplified approach at the plate this year, allowing Mateo to avoid chasing breaking balls so much, which seems to be working. Mateo’s swing rate on pitches outside the zone is 33.9% this year, which is still a bit above the 2023 league average of 31.4% but a big drop from the 39.4% he had last year. He’s also already hit six home runs, almost halfway to last year’s tally of 13. His .304/.353/.565 batting line amounts to an incredible 149 wRC+.
His .328 batting average on balls in play is above this year’s .298 league average, which could perhaps point to some luck-based regression. But it stands to reason that he would have an above-average BABIP since his elite speed allows him to beat out more grounders than other hitters. His new approach also seems to helping him in terms of batted ball metrics so far. His 44.7% hard hit rate is almost 12 points above last year’s 32.9% rate. His 86.9 mph average exit velocity from last year is now 90.1 mph in 2023.
This is all still a sample size of 105 plate appearances in 29 games and it’s probably best not to suddenly decree that Mateo is one of the best hitters in the league. Baseball is a game of adjustments and opposing teams will take notice of his new approach at the plate and alter their plan of attack, which will leave Mateo responsible for reacting to that. Nonetheless, it’s still an incredibly encouraging development since Mateo showed last year that he could be a solid everyday contributor with poor offense. Even if he regresses and ultimately settles somewhere in between this year’s roaring start and last year’s showing, that still makes him a very valuable player.
It’s a great development for the O’s as well, though it may lead to some challenging decisions down the road. Many of the club’s notable prospects are potential future shortstops, including Joey Ortiz, Jordan Westburg and Jackson Holliday. Gunnar Henderson was once seen as the club’s shortstop of the future but has largely been bumped to third base by Mateo’s breakout. It seems likely that, at some point, there will be some kind of infield logjam that needs clearing out.
But that’s the kind of problem that teams dream about, especially coming out of a rebuild. Some of these players could be included in trades that fortify a weaker part of the club’s roster, such as their starting rotation. Mateo already received some trade interest and has likely only increased his value in that market with his hot start this year. Since he’s been in the big leagues since the start of 2020, he came into this season with exactly three years of service time, putting him on track for free agency after 2025. He qualified for arbitration for the first time this past winter, agreeing with the club on a $2MM salary, and will be able to get further raises in the next two winters.
Despite all of those twists and turns with the Yankees, A’s, Padres and now Orioles, Mateo is still just 27 years old, turning 28 next month, meaning he’s set to hit the open market just a few months after his 30th birthday. There would surely be plenty of interest if the O’s market the next two and a half years of a shortstop with a high floor who is seemingly pushing his ceiling up. But the club is right in the mix of the playoff race, currently 22-12 in the early going, seeming more like a legitimate contender as the days go by. If they can keep that up through July, it would make more sense to keep Mateo while he’s thriving and perhaps consider including one of their prospects in a trade instead. It remains to be seen how it will play out, but for now, it seems possible that both Mateo and the O’s are benefitting from a breakout that was a dream a decade ago and seemed dead until very recently.
The A’s May Have Found A Hidden Gem On The Waiver Wire
2022 was a year of change for Brent Rooker, who was a member of four different organizations within the span of seven months. After five years with the Twins, Rooker was dealt along with Taylor Rogers to the Padres for Chris Paddack and Emilio Pagan in April 2022. From there, Rooker found himself on the move again at the trade deadline when San Diego sent him to the Royals for catcher Cam Gallagher. Rooker finished out the season in K.C. but was designated for assignment in November, paving the way for the Athletics to claim him off waivers.
As Rooker noted in a chat with MLBTR readers back in February, the specific timing of the trades made things particularly difficult since “one came on Opening Day of the Major League season and one was the very last deal of the deadline. I knew it was definitely possible that I was going to get moved at the deadline but once we reached 4:00 [PM EST], I thought I was safe, only to get called about 15 minutes later.”
“The moving around is tough and its hard to get settled or into a routine with so much constant change. That being said, its just part of the job and something you have to learn to work through. I’m incredibly excited to be with Oakland and hope to play well and earn some major league opportunities!”
Stability isn’t usually a word associated with an A’s franchise that has made a habit of roster overhauls, including the latest fire sale that has seen the Athletics part ways with several prominent veterans as part of the latest rebuild. The result hasn’t been pretty, as the A’s entered play today with a league-worst 7-26 record, and the increasing possibility of a move to Las Vegas has led to a lot of public discord amongst Oakland fans.
Though it all, however, Rooker has become a major bright spot in the early portion of the 2023 season. Entering the year with a career .200/.289/.379 slash line over 270 plate appearances in the majors, Rooker has exploded to hit .333/.442/.726 with 10 home runs over his first 104 PA in an Athletics uniform. Rooker’s slugging percentage and 218 wRC+ lead all qualifies hitters, and his on-base percentage also leads the American League.
This kind of huge breakout caught even Rooker himself a little off-guard. “In a vacuum, the numbers themselves are more than I ever thought I could do,” Rooker told MLB.com’s Martin Gallegos and other reporters last week. “That’s not taking away the confidence I have in myself. That kind of production for a month’s worth of games is probably past even my expectations of myself, so that’s been a pleasant surprise for me.”
Such high-level production isn’t totally alien to Rooker, who has pretty consistently mashed minor league pitching over five seasons on the farm. This includes a career .274/.387/.590 slash line over 906 PA at the Triple-A level, which is a standout performance even with the caveat of 273 of those plate appearances coming in the hitter-friendly environment of the Pacific Coast League (with the Padres’ Triple-A affiliate). Rooker also carried some prospect pedigree as the 35th overall pick of the 2017 draft, and he was ranked 92nd on Baseball America’s top-100 prospects list prior to the 2018 season.
Despite this resume, Rooker couldn’t really break though on a Minnesota team that already had multiple up-and-coming outfielders on the active roster or in the farm system all vying for playing time. Rooker’s cause wasn’t helped when he suffered a fractured forearm in just his seventh big league game in 2020, and his only other extended taste of MLB playing time came in 2021, when he batted .201/.291/.397 over 213 PA for the Twins.
Still, that rough season had just enough glimmers of hope for Rooker that he told Gallegos and company that it has contributed to his big 2023 numbers. “The last two years, I’ve just been trying to figure out how to extend those good times that I had,” Rooker said. “I knew I could do it because I’d have weeks in Minnesota where I’d hit really well with a lot of success. That put it in my head and heart that I was good enough to do it. I just had to figure out how to do it for longer periods of time.”
It is probably safe to assume that some regression is inevitable, due to both Rookier’s .340 BABIP and the lack of track record to back up his early standing as an elite hitter. That said, there hasn’t been much luck in what Rooker has been doing, as his .479 wOBA is above his xwOBA….but not by much, as Rooker’s .447 xwOBA is still in the 99th percentile of all hitters. His barrel rate and walk rate are also both outstanding, and his overall hard-hit ball rate is well above league average. Strikeouts have been a persistent issue for Rooker throughout his career, but cutting his strikeout rate down to even a modest 22.1% (within the 49th percentile of hitters) has helped greatly, given what Rooker is doing with all that extra contact.
Landing a possible late bloomer on the waiver wire is a dream for any team, particularly a rebuilding Oakland club in sore need of some good news. Rooker entered the season with only one year and 59 days (1.059) of MLB service time, so he wouldn’t even gain arbitration eligibility until after the 2024 season, and free agency until after the 2017 season. Naturally, five great weeks doesn’t automatically turn a 28-year-old player into a building block, but if nothing else, Rooker’s presence gives the Athletics something to think about as they approach the trade deadline.
To be clear, all of that team control might make it unlikely that Rooker himself is traded, as the A’s might be intrigued enough to see what they really have in the outfielder beyond 2023. The idea can’t be entirely ruled out given the Athletics’ scored-earth approach to their rebuild process, but dealing Rooker after a big first half might backfire if Rooker does continue to be a quality regular going forward — “selling high” would perhaps become selling too soon.
Rooker has seen a lot of time at DH, and has seen some time in both corner outfield positions with borderline passable glovework. Not that Rooker is in any danger of losing at-bats at this point, but if any of Ramon Laureano, Tony Kemp, or Jesus Aguilar are moved at the deadline, that just opens up more playing time for Conner Capel or JJ Bleday, with Rooker picking up any extra at-bats in the corner outfield or at DH. Kemp and Aguilar are the likeliest to be moved since they aren’t under contract beyond 2023, and while Laureano is arbitration-controlled through 2025, he has received some trade interest in the past.
The Trade That Started The Current Era Of White Sox Baseball
At the end of the 2016 season, the White Sox found themselves at a remove from recent success. They hadn’t posted a winning record since 2012 and hadn’t made the postseason since 2008. There was some talent on the roster but it was decided that it was time to hit the reset button. After much speculation, they gave a clear indication that they were going into a rebuild in December of 2016 when they traded left-hander Chris Sale to the Red Sox for prospects Yoán Moncada, Michael Kopech, Luis Alexander Basabe and Victor Diaz.
Sale was already well established as one of the better pitchers in the game. At the time of the trade, he had thrown 1110 innings with an even ERA of 3.00, striking out 27.9% of batters faced while walking just 5.8% and getting grounders at a solid 43.8% clip. The White Sox had signed him to an extension going into 2013, a deal that ran through 2017 but with two affordable club options after that. Flipping an excellent pitcher with three affordable years of control left little doubt that a significant teardown was beginning.
The trade worked out very well for the Red Sox, as they would make the postseason in two of those three years with Sale, including winning the World Series in 2018. They then signed him to another extension going into 2019, which is a separate matter. Injuries have largely prevented him from providing much value on that deal, but the trade still looks like a success. They gave up some future talent but saw Sale post a 2.90 ERA in 2017 and then a 2.11 in 2018 as they hoisted their fourth title in a span of 15 years after an 86-year drought.
For the Pale Hose, this was the first of several future-focused moves they would make around that time. The day after the Sale deal, they traded outfielder Adam Eaton to the Nationals for young pitchers Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo López and Dane Dunning. In July of 2017, they would send lefty José Quintana across town to the Cubs for a package headlined by prospects Dylan Cease and Eloy Jiménez. Many of the players involved in these deals would go on to form the core of the club as it returned to contention, alongside homegrown players like Tim Anderson and Luis Robert Jr..
The return on Sale needed to be huge, given his immense talent and three remaining years of cheap control. Indeed, the White Sox secured an incredibly significant prospect package, highlighted by Moncada. A high profile youngster out of Cuba, he signed with the Red Sox in March of 2015 for a $31.5MM bonus. This was back before the hard spending cap on international amateurs was put in place, but the Sox did have to pay a 100% tax because they had already exceeded their bonus pool figure, meaning they shelled out $63MM to get Moncada into the system.
He then played incredibly well in Single-A in 2015, hitting .278/.380/.438 for a wRC+ of 135. In 2016, he shot through High-A and Double-A and even made an eight-game debut in the majors. He struggled in that first taste of the show but was still just 21 years old at the time of the trade and was considered one of the top prospects in the league. Baseball America ranked him the #3 prospect in baseball going into 2016 and #2 in 2017.
Prospects with such high rankings are rarely traded, so it was a significant haul for the White Sox. The Red Sox likely have few regrets since Sale helped them to another title, but that wasn’t all Chicago got in return. Kopech was a notable prospect in his own right, having been selected in the first round of the 2014 draft. He had shown good form in the lower levels of the minors and was also on BA’s top 100 list, coming in at #89 in 2016 and was eventually placed #32 going into 2017. Basabe was a bit behind those two but was still an intriguing player, ranked Boston’s #9 prospect in 2016 and then Chicago’s #8 prospect going into 2017. Diaz was the least notable of the bunch but still cracked BA’s list of top White Sox farmhands after the deal, getting the #26 spot.
Moncada would scuffle a bit in his first two seasons in Chicago. Over 2017 and 2018, he walked in 10.9% of his trips to the plate but also struck out in 33% of them. He did hit 25 combined home runs over those two years but his .234/.321/.403 batting line amounted to a wRC+ of 99, a hair below league average. In 2019, he finally broke out and showed why he had been so touted as a prospect. He launched 25 more homers that year and slashed .315/.367/.548 for a wRC+ of 139. He was also graded well for his third base defense and stole 10 bases, leading to a tally of 5.5 wins above replacement from FanGraphs, making him one of the top 20 position players that year. 2020 was set to be his final year of club control, but the White Sox decided they believed in the breakout and committed to Moncada. The two sides agreed in March of 2020 to a $70MM extension that runs through 2024 and has a club option for 2025.
It’s been a bit of a mixed bag since that deal was inked. Moncada slumped a bit in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season but the club went 35-25 and qualified for the postseason for the first time since 2008. He was back on form in 2021, hitting just 14 home runs but walking at an excellent 13.6% rate. His .263/.375/.412 line translated to a 120 wRC+ and he continued to get good grades for his glovework, leading to a 4.0 fWAR season. The Sox went 93-69 and topped the American League Central, making the postseason in consecutive years for the first time in franchise history.
2022 was a frustrating season for both player and team. Moncada made trips to the injured list for an oblique strain, a right hamstring strain and then a left hamstring strain. He got into just 104 games and didn’t play up to his usual standard when on the field. He was one of many injuries that held the club back, as they finished 81-81 and failed to extend their postseason run into a third year. He roared out of the gates here in 2023, hitting .308/.325/.564 in nine games, but he’s been on the injured list for a few weeks now due to a protruding disc in his back that’s touching a nerve.
Though he’s been inconsistent, Moncada has shown the capacity to be an excellent player when everything is clicking and he’s been a key part of the club’s recent success. It’s hard to say the same for Kopech, however, as various circumstances have prevented him from reaching the heights that had previously been imagined for him. By the time the 2018 season rolled around, Kopech was considered by BA to be the #11 prospect in the league. That year, he thrived in Triple-A, posting a 3.70 ERA over 24 starts while striking out 31.3% of batters faced. He got called up to the majors in August but made just four starts before requiring Tommy John surgery, which wiped out the remainder of that season as well as his 2019. He then opted out of the 2020 pandemic season, returning to the club in 2021. Since he had missed two whole seasons, he was kept in relief that year. He fared well in that role, registering a 3.50 ERA in 69 1/3 innings, striking out 36.1% of batters faced.
He had built up a decent innings total that would allow him to return to the rotation in 2022, but the reins weren’t completely off. He made trips to the injured list for a knee strain and shoulder inflammation, tossing 119 1/3 innings on the year. He finished with a 3.54 ERA but a diminished 21.3% strikeout rate. A .223 batting average on balls in play likely helped him skate by, with his 4.50 FIP and 4.73 SIERA showing a bit less enthusiasm. He’s struggled out of the gates early here in 2023, with a 7.01 ERA after five starts.
As for the other two players in the deal, Basabe topped out at Double-A in the White Sox’ system before getting designated for assignment in 2020. He was then traded to the Giants, who gave him a nine-game MLB stint that year before outrighting him in the winter. He returned to the White Sox on a minor league deal last year but was released after a rough showing in just nine Triple-A games. Diaz pitched in the lower levels of the system in 2017 but injuries prevented him from getting into any official action after that. His transactions tracker indicates he was officially released in 2021.
It’s too early to completely close the book on the trade from Chicago’s perspective. Moncada is still under contract through 2024 and there’s the option for 2025. Kopech can still be retained via arbitration through 2025. There’s still time for things to change, but as of right now, the deal looks like a sort of microcosm of the club’s rebuild on the whole. There have been some good moments but it hasn’t quite been the runaway success that was envisioned. Moncada has had some good years but has been inconsistent and held back by injuries. Kopech has shown flashes of his talent but hasn’t really put it all together yet.
That semi-successful return in the deal has coincided with a semi-successful stretch of contention for the club, who made the playoffs twice recently but now seem at risk of seeing it fall apart. Their 8-21 record has them in a hole that they will have to crawl out of soon or else they’ll have to consider another selloff like the one they started over six years ago.