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The A’s Draft Gamble That Paid Off

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The A’s have built a pair of reigning playoff teams, a much-welcome return to relevancy after three consecutive last place finishes from 2015-17. Recently, they’ve been anchored by a perhaps still-underrated superstar. Over the past two seasons, Matt Chapman has hit .263/.348/.507 (131 wRC+) with 60 home runs in 1286 plate appearances. More notably, he’s proven himself a wizard at third base, racking up an absurd 68 defensive runs saved. With his achievements on both sides of the ball, Chapman has been worth 12.8 fWAR/16.6 bWAR in the last two seasons alone. Baseball Reference’s value metric places him as the third-most valuable position player in that time (behind only Mike Trout and Mookie Betts). Fangraphs slots him sixth, with Alex Bregman, Christian Yelich and Anthony Rendon joining Trout and Betts in the top five.

Regardless of where specifically one would slot Chapman among the game’s best players, it’s apparent he’s at least in the conversation. Given the player he’s become, it’d be easy to assume he was seen as a ’can’t-miss’ talent dating back to his amateur days. That’s not really the case. He was the A’s first-round pick back in 2014, 25th overall. At the time, though, that pick could’ve been considered a bit of a reach, at least in comparison to public rankings.

Neither Baseball America nor MLB Pipeline had Chapman in their top 50 prospects pre-draft (BA slotted him 64th, while Pipeline placed him 82nd). Nor did he crack the top 30 of then-ESPN analysts Keith Law and Christopher Crawford the fall prior. That’s not meant to be a criticism of draft prognosticators. Despite his frame, Chapman never showed much power in games as an amateur. He hit a cumulative 13 home runs over his three years at Cal State Fullerton. It’s hardly surprising evaluators didn’t see a future 36-homer bat in the big leagues.

Questions about Chapman’s hitting prowess were prevalent enough that both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline pointed to pitching as a potential fallback. The elite arm strength he now shows off at the hot corner in Oakland helped him touch 98 MPH on the mound in college. While the consensus was that Chapman should be a given a shot in pro ball at third, where reviews on him defensively were always positive, it wasn’t hard to imagine him flaming out and moving to the mound someday.

To the A’s credit, they never seemed to budge on their evaluation of him as a hitter. Asked about a potential mound conversion for Chapman after the draft, A’s scouting director Eric Kubota shot down the idea to Jimmy Durkin of the Bay Area News Group. “He’s got a chance to be an elite defender at third base,” Kubota told Durkin. “He can really throw. We think his bat is ever-improving. We think there’s untapped power there. We think this is a guy who is going to develop into a power hitter.”

Kubota’s words look awfully prescient in hindsight. Obviously, the organization’s belief in Chapman wasn’t shared throughout the league. There’s no chance he’d have fallen to pick 25 if it were. If teams were to redraft the 2014 class today, Chapman would no doubt be at the top of most teams’ boards. His emergence is a credit to the A’s scouting and player development staffs (and a testament to Chapman himself), an example of the ideal progression teams dream of when they bring a talented player into the system. It’s also a reminder that teams’ evaluations of draft prospects can vary, sometimes to their immense success.

The Pitcher To Receive The Most Extra Strikes In 2019 Was…

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In a recent bout of strike zone curiosity, I started looking into umpire accuracy metrics to try to visualize the baseball world at our doorstep: a world in which balls and strikes are called by robot umpires. While referring to an electronic strike zone as “robot umpires” no doubt adds an unnecessary measure of Asimovian flourish, the reality of baseball’s future is bearing down on us. Electronic strike zones are coming to baseball.

Then again, COVID-19 threw a wrench into all pockets of predicting baseball’s future, and there’s no longer any certainty in, well, just about anything. So there will be no more crystal ball voyeurism from me today, no more speculation, only a cold, hard look at the past.

Of course, the issue of umpire accuracy is hardly reserved for the future. Until electronic strike zones are implemented, the human models making the calls behind the plate remain incapable of ridding themselves entirely of human error – try as they might. Sometimes a ball misses the plate, and they call it a strike. Sometimes it crosses the dish, and the arm stays at the umpire’s side. The question for today is this: which pitcher got the most extra strikes in 2019?

With my previous look into Statcast pitch data, I looked for clusters of pitchers that would illuminate certain things about how umpires called balls and strikes. Today is about passing along some of the trivia. Statcast data, after all, holds a ton of information, including whether or not each ball or strike was correctly called. Using machine learning, we can pretty cleanly find those pitchers who benefited the most from gifted strikes, as well as those who were hurt the most by stolen strikes.

And that brings us to Adam Warren of the San Diego Padres (frequently and presently a member of the New York Yankees). Of the pitchers who threw as many as 200 pitches in the majors in 2019, it wasn’t close: Warren benefited more than any other pitcher in 2019 from umpires gifting extra strikes.

To be perfectly clear, a gifted strike here is a pitch that lands outside the strike zone that the umpire calls a strike. This alone does not make Warren the luckiest pitcher in baseball. Nor does it make him the umpires’ favorite (though it probably gets him a look). In a vacuum, that Warren led the league in percentage of called strikes that were gifted means only this: no pitcher had a higher percentage of their called strikes come from pitches that missed the zone.

This was important for Warren because, even with the added help, only 31.4% of his pitches landed in the zone (league average was 39.4%). And while batters swung and missed at a relatively average rate when Warren was throwing strikes, batter O-Contract% – the percentage of times a batter makes contact when swinging at a ball outside the zone – was just 61.9%, much lower than the 67.3% average. So the more Warren got batters to chase, the more effective he became (surprise, surprise). Still, he only registered 7.85 K/9 versus 3.77 BB/9.

For context, MLB pitchers – on average – had ~16% of their called strikes come on pitches outside the zone. Warren, by contrast, received a gifted strike on almost 42% of his strike calls. This was an extreme outlier. The second-place finisher for highest percentage of gifted strikes was Michel Baez at ~30% – interestingly, also of the Padres (and the conspiracy is on!). Not for nothing, but Warren also fits the profile of the type of pitcher more prone to getting extra calls. He averaged just 86.4 mph this season (fastball clocking at 91.4 mph), he’s right-handed, and both his fastball and curve register in the bottom quartile for spin rate.

If he were a starter, he’d fit the mold exactly. Of course, sample size is likely a culprit here in Warren’s numbers being so far outside the norm. Warren wasn’t exactly a spotlight pitcher in 2019. He threw 555 pitches for the Padres across 25 games, 28 2/3 innings. He ended the year 4-1 with a 5.34 ERA/6.91 FIP making his season worth -0.2 bWAR/-0.8 fWAR. This is not to say he will be a total disaster if he suits up for the Yankees sometime this season, nor is it to say he’ll receive the same measure of umpire error if he does. Though Warren has been received favorably by umpires in the past, his overall average percentage of gifted strikes over the past 5 seasons is just under 28%. That still puts him two standard deviations above the mean, but nowhere near the outlier of his 2019.

Three Teams Who’ve Yet To Win Their Division

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It is somewhat amazing that there are three National League teams – one each for the West, East, and Central – that have yet to win their division.

Make no mistake, the American League has its share of heartbreak. The Mariners have yet to return to the playoffs after their 116-win season in 2001. The Rangers are far away as ever from capturing their first World Series after the so-close-you-can-taste-it near-misses of 2010 and 2011. Fans of the Astros and Red Sox have suffered different brands of heartbreak after the legitimacy of their recent winners was called into question. 

But in the National League, the Rockies, Marlins, and Pirates have never won their respective divisions.

Granted, the Pirates were crowned champs of the National League East 9 times, including a three-peat for Jim Leyland’s clubs from 1990 to 1992 and a title-winner way back in 1979 – but since they moved to the NL Central in 1994: goose eggs. That’s a 26-year-run without a divisional crown, a mark of futility eclipsed only by the Rockies and Marlins. Colorado and Florida both entered the league in 1993, and neither has landed the top spot in their division in the 27 seasons since. 

Back in the junior circuit, every team in the AL East has won since 2010 (Tampa Bay). In the Central, the White Sox have the longest drought (11 seasons), going back to their first-place finish in 2008. Everyone in the AL West has taken their turn at the top since 2012 – except the Mariners, of course, who won the division in 2001 and 1997.

But each division in the National League has its slow-and-steady competitor, so let’s take a quick look at each.

Colorado Rockies

Of these three clubs, the Rockies’ reputation took the fewest hits over the last 27 years. The Blake Street Bombers hold a particular place in baseball lore, and there’s a general sense of “unfortunate circumstances” around the Rox because of the thin air in Colorado. The impossibility of housing a winning pitching staff at Coors Field is baseball cliche now, but that doesn’t make the challenge any less potent.

Here’s what I wrote of Colorado in their Offseason In Review post back in March: “Colorado pitching, after all, has proven one of the more frustrating team-building challenges in the major leagues. The Sisyphean task of constructing even a league-average pitching staff at Coors Field persists year-after-year. Over the course of their 27-season history, the Rockies posted a league-average or better team ERA just three times (2010, 2009, 2007). In 2010, Jim Tracy’s 83-win squad finished with an exactly-league-average ERA, but those other two seasons — 2009, 2007 — happen to be two of the only three seasons in which the Rockies won 90 games in their history.”

Adding to the task at hand for Colorado, there’s at least a possibility that ownership believes this team is better than it is. They lost 91 games last year and have exhibited zero financial flexibility. If they end up losing close to 90 games again (or the equivalent in whatever kind of season is played in 2020), then the Rockies are still probably in the decline phase, not yet having rebooted into a full-blown rebuild. Rebuilds, of course, are time-intensive when done right, and very time-intensive when rushed.

The Rockies have made the postseason a handful of times, and they won the pennant in 2007, but they’re caught in no-man’s-land now. The Dodgers have won the division 7 years running, and Walker Buehler, Cody Bellinger, and company have plenty left in the tank. The Padres’ stable of young arms makes them one of the more intriguing up-and-coming teams in the league, and the Diamondbacks continue to impress with their ability to retool on the fly. After coming within a play-in game of taking the crown from the Dodgers in 2018, the Rockies might have missed their best shot.

Miami Marlins

The Marlins entered the league at a tough time to be a member of the NL East. The Atlanta Braves held a hammerlock on the division, taking the crown every season from 1995 until 2005 (they were in the NL West before that). To their credit, the Marlins made themselves into a competitive squad pretty quick, making the playoffs as a wild card in 1997, just their fifth season of existence. The organization made its name the year after, however, in selling off the pieces of their World Series winner and cratering into a 108-loss squad. After that horrid 1998 season, it took the Marlins five more years to get back to the playoffs again, at which point it was second-verse-same-as-the-first. They didn’t sink quite so fast or quite so far the second time around, but they also haven’t recovered (no playoff appearances since 2003).

That said, the Marlins have begun to see the light from their decade-plus in limbo. MLBTR’s own Mark Polishuk wrapped up the Marlins offseason back in March with this: “It’s a sign of progress, however, that the scorched-earth phase of the rebuild seems to be over.  Villar, Kintzler, or other veterans on short-term deals could well end up being moved at the trade deadline, but it doesn’t seem like younger talent is on the move…Miami seems ready to find out if the young players it already has in the fold could end up being part of that next Marlins winner, and it will be intriguing to see which of the pitchers and position players take that next step in 2020.”

The current era of Marlins baseball is best known for shepherding the likes of Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, and Marcell Ozuna out of town prior to the 2018 season. But they’re also a unique entrant on this mini-list because they won not just one, but two World Series titles over this span. Derek Jeter now helms the organization, and though they don’t have that face-of-the-franchise type player soaking up their spotlight, they’ve become increasingly competitive. Heading into whichever season of baseball comes next, they’ll have a decent collection of starting pitchers to keep them in games – with a smaller host of position player prospects nearing the majors. Whether they have that franchise-changing talent in the upper ranks is unclear. Business might not yet be booming in Miami, but it’s better. 

Pittsburgh Pirates

As stated above, it’s a bit unfair for the Pirates to be lumped in with the expansion clubs from the nineties, as they do have a history of success in the major leagues. They have 9 division crowns, 7 World Series appearances, and 5 World Series banners. But that’s all ancient history.

Since moving to the NL Central in 1994, the Pirates are a firm contender for the most moribund franchise in the sport. The departure of Barry Bonds after the 1992 season put an unfortunate face on their decline – much in the way that Babe Ruth’s departure doomed Boston baseball for so long – but there has been ample time to rebound from those back-to-back game 7 losses to Atlanta in 1991 and 1992.

In the time since the Pirates’ primary distinction is claiming the title for the longest streak of losing seasons in North American sports history. Forget about division titles. The Pirates weren’t able to finish over .500 one time from 1993 to 2012.

Pittsburgh fans finally had something to cheer for in 2013 when Clint Hurdle’s club broke through with 94 wins and a wild card berth. They even won that first playoff game against the division rival Cincinnati Reds and pushed another rival – the Cardinals – to five games in the NLDS. The club followed its star outfield of Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte, and Gregory Polanco to two more wild card berths in the following two seasons. Unfortunately, they were unable to get more than one playoff game in either of those years.

After finishing over .500 again in 2018, last season brought on a complete reset. Most of the organizations’ management turned over, and the remaining faces of those competitive clubs – Hurdle, Marte – were also sent packing. The organization is now in the hands of GM Ben Cherington, but they’re facing a complete philosophical overhaul. While they have talent, they’re not an easy club to put a timeline on returning to contention. Not until they put together a pitching staff with a more effective (and less pugilistic) philosophy. The division isn’t dominated by one team like the current AL West, but the Cardinals build a winner year after year, and the Cubs and Brewers aren’t far off in terms of their recent consistency.

Looking ahead, a shortened season in 2020 could open the window for a bizarre sort of division champ. All hope is not lost. On the whole, however, I don’t think there are a lot of pundits who would pick any of the Rockies, Marlins, or Pirates to breakthrough next season. Still, it’s bound to happen one day, right? All three teams will work to end their respective droughts, and in the meantime, thank goodness for the wild card.

(Poll link for app users.)

(Poll link for app users.)

 

Quick Hits: Draft, Player Salaries, Blue Jays

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Some items from around the sport…

  • The league’s decision to limit this year’s amateur draft to five rounds is explored by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (subscription required), who notes that the players’ union turned down a proposal from MLB to have a ten-round draft, with the signing bonuses attached to the picks in rounds 6-10 reduced to half of their usual value.  The gap between the cost of full bonuses and half-bonuses was relatively minor, only around $500K per team, yet the MLBPA “did not want to set the precedent of altering the March deal, knowing the league will likely seek a similar opening next week and ask for additional sacrifices.”  This is in reference to the public discord that has already taken place between MLB and the union about the possibility of reduced player salaries should the season begin without any fans in attendance.
  • Speaking of salaries, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney points out that some players managed to avoid the financial crunch that most of the players around baseball will face under the terms of the March agreement between the league and the MLBPA.  Those with deferred contracts will take less of a financial hit in 2020 since they’ll be getting their money down the road, while other players (i.e. Dellin Betances) who had up-front signing bonuses in their contracts have already received those full payments.  Zack Cozart will receive the full $12.167MM salary owed to him in 2020 since the Giants released him in January, whereas Cozart would have had his salary greatly reduced had he still been on San Francisco’s roster at the time of the shutdown.
  • While nothing has been decided about the location of any possible 2020 games for any team, restrictions on the Canada/U.S. border adds another layer of difficulty to the possibility of Blue Jays games in Toronto, Sportsnet.ca’s Shi Davidi writes.  International visitors to Canada are currently subject to a mandatory 14 days of either self-isolation or quarantine upon arriving in the country, depending on whether or not they show any coronavirus symptoms.  While the Jays have had some discussions with civic and provincial officials about the feasibility of playing games at Rogers Centre, Davidi notes that the club could end up playing regular season games at its Spring Training facility in Dunedin unless the situation changes (such as “expected advancements and the wide-scale deployments of rapid-result diagnostic testing”).

Miguel Andujar Feeling “100 Percent” After Shoulder Rehab

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After a small tear in his right labrum limited Miguel Andujar to just 12 games last season, the Yankees slugger declared himself healthy and ready to hit the field whenever (or if) the 2020 season gets underway.  In an e-mail to George A. King III of the New York Post, Andujar said he is “very happy where I am at physically” as he approaches one full year since his last MLB game (last May 12).

“I feel great.  I am working out five days a week building strength, working with the trainers, exercising and doing my best to stay sharp,” Andujar wrote.  “It’s been almost a year since my injury and I feel 100 percent….For a while I was working out away from (Steinbrenner Field) with a trainer, hitting and staying sharp. I am back at the complex doing everything I can to prepare myself.”

Andujar was tentatively expected to be ready for Opening Day even if the season had started on time, and the 25-year-old admitted to being especially anxious to get back to action given that he missed virtually all of the 2019 campaign.  That lost season opened the door for Gio Urshela to unexpectedly emerge as a big offensive contributor at third base, leading to the Yankees’ desire to try Andujar out at first base and left field during Spring Training in order to figure out ways to keep his bat in the lineup.

For his part, Andujar is happy to learn these new positions.  “I am ready to play wherever the team needs me. I am ready to play, period,” he said.  “I’ve continued to prepare to play any position I am asked to play.  I look at it as having a number of doors open for me.  They are all opportunities for me to play and I am going to try to take advantage of everything that is presented to me.”

Given that Andujar has struggled defensively over 143 career games as a third baseman, there was speculation even before his injury that a move off the hot corner was inevitable.  His spring audition as a first baseman was a little shaky, and he was slated for much more corner outfield playing time in camp before the COVID-19 shutdown.

Delivering even passable glovework at any position would make Andujar all the more valuable, considering what Andujar has already shown at the plate.  Andujar quickly emerged as one of the game’s top young hitters in 2018, batting .297/.328/.527 with 27 homers over 606 plate appearances and finishing second to Shohei Ohtani in AL Rookie Of The Year voting.

Revisiting (And Re-Imagining) The 2010 Draft

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The 2010 amateur draft officially launched the pro careers of several of the modern game’s biggest stars, and since we’re almost a decade removed from that draft class, it seems like a natural time to look back at what ended up being a particularly fascinating draft in hindsight.

Of course, it’s very easy to pick apart any draft with the benefit of years of hindsight, which is why we’re stopping short of any full mock redraft.  First off, given the long period of minor league seasoning that every prospect requires and the fact that virtually every team deploys a “take the best player available” approach, it’s hard to look back at each team’s 2010 roster and try to re-draft by positional needs at the time.  Secondly, that long minor league process is such a major element in how a player develops, it’s quite possible that any of the superstars at the top of this list might have fallen into obscurity (to say nothing of an injury or some other random setback) had they come up in another organization’s farm system.

So in short, perhaps the simplest method is just to list the top 43 players from 2010 by bWAR, stopping at the somewhat arbitrary cutoff point of 3.0 bWAR.  (The actual 2010 first round consisted of a whopping 50 players, thanks to an unusually long 18-pick sandwich round of compensatory picks, as per the old Type A/Type B free agent designation system).  We will also only be listing the drafted players who actually signed with their teams, so such notables as 546th overall pick Kris Bryant or 935th pick Aaron Judge aren’t included.

As a refresher, here’s a list of the actual first round of the 2010 draft.  As a further reminder of how the draft is in many ways a crapshoot, consider that of the 50 real life first-rounders, 18 never reached the big leagues, and 13 have yet to generate anything beyond a replacement-level 0.0 bWAR at the Major League level.  The Rays had three first-round picks (Josh Sale, Justin O’Conner, Drew Vettleson) who never made it to the Show, yet they struck gold on a future Gold Glove winner in the 31st round.

1. 45.3 bWAR: Chris Sale (13th overall, White Sox)
2. 36.7 bWAR: Manny Machado (3rd, Orioles)
3. 36.3 bWAR: Andrelton Simmons (70th, Braves)
4. 35.5 bWAR: Jacob deGrom (272nd, Mets)
5. 31.8 bWAR: Christian Yelich (23rd, Marlins)
6. 31.8 bWAR: Bryce Harper (1st, Nationals)
7. 25.7 bWAR: Kevin Kiermaier (941st, Rays)
8. 19.3 bWAR: Adam Eaton (571st, Diamondbacks)
9. 18.4 bWAR: J.T. Realmuto (104th, Marlins)
10. 17.2 bWAR: Yasmani Grandal (12th, Reds)
11. 15.7 bWAR: Noah Syndergaard (38th, Blue Jays)
12. 15.7 bWAR: Kole Calhoun (264th, Angels)
13. 13.3 bWAR: Whit Merrifield (269th, Royals)
14. 13.3 bWAR: James Paxton (132rd, Mariners)
15. 13.0 bWAR: Corey Dickerson (260th, Rockies)
16. 10.9 bWAR: Joc Pederson (352nd, Dodgers)
17. 10.8 bWAR: Drew Pomeranz (5th, Indians)
18. 10.7 bWAR: Eddie Rosario (135th, Twins)
19. 10.3 bWAR: Matt Harvey (7th, Mets)
20. 9.7 bWAR: Nicholas Castellanos (44th, Tigers)
21. 9.2 bWAR: Drew Smyly (68th, Tigers)
22. 8.9 bWAR: Aaron Sanchez (34th, Blue Jays)
23. 8.9 bWAR: Jedd Gyorko (59th, Padres)
24. 8.8 bWAR: Robbie Ray (356th, Nationals)
25. 8.5 bWAR: Evan Gattis (704th, Braves)
26. 8.2 bWAR: Jameson Taillon (2nd, Pirates)
27. 6.7 bWAR: Adam Duvall (348th, Giants)
28. 6.1 bWAR: Mark Canha (227th, Marlins)
29. 6.0 bWAR: Alex Claudio (826th, Rangers)
30. 6.0 bWAR: Addison Reed (95th, White Sox)
31. 5.8 bWAR: A.J. Griffin (395th, Athletics)
32. 5.8 bWAR: Taijuan Walker (43rd, Mariners)
33. 5.7 bWAR: Michael Lorenzen (221st, Rays)
34. 5.6 bWAR: Sam Dyson (126th, Blue Jays)
35. 5.3 bWAR: Delino DeShields Jr. (8th, Astros)
36. 5.2 bWAR: Vince Velasquez (58th, Astros)
37. 5.2 bWAR: Derek Dietrich (79th, Rays)
38. 4.9 bWAR: Mike Foltynewicz (19th, Astros)
39. 3.8 bWAR: Tyler Thornburg (96th, Brewers)
40. 3.8 bWAR: Jimmy Nelson (64th, Brewers)
41. 3.3 bWAR: Greg Garcia (229th, Cardinals)
42. 3.2 bWAR: Brandon Workman (57th, Red Sox)
43. 3.0 bWAR: Chad Bettis (76th, Rockies)

A few more observations….

  • It’s fun to imagine a world where the Nationals follow up drafting Stephen Strasburg with the #1 overall pick in 2009 with another ace in Chris Sale in 2010, though Harper was widely considered the top player available a decade ago.  Many scouts at the time felt Sale was a risk for a future arm injury, which led to his drop to the White Sox at the 13th overall spot.  While Sale recently went under the knife for a Tommy John procedure, his decade of near Cooperstown-level performance made his selection of the best picks in White Sox history.
  • The Blue Jays still end up with Noah Syndergaard in this reality, as the Jays had the 11th overall pick of the 2010 draft.  Syndergaard was the headliner of a four-prospect package sent by Toronto to the Mets in December 2012 in the trade that brought R.A. Dickey to the Jays.
  • Even in the modern era of heavy player movement, it stands out that so few of the players on the list are still with the teams that originally drafted them.  DeGrom, Kiermaier, Merrifield, Pederson, and Rosario are the only players in the top 25 who are still playing with their original teams, and Pederson came seemingly within a hair of being dealt to the Angels this past offseason.
  • Upon seeing Matt Harvey in the 19th spot on this list, Mets fans may immediately question the logic of re-ordering the draft solely by bWAR.  Needless to say, in a strict re-draft, Harvey would certainly drop a lot lower given the uncertainty surrounding his future.  That said, Harvey’s solid bWAR total is perhaps a reminder of just how good the Dark Knight was before injuries curtailed his status as one of baseball’s top pitchers.
  • Left-hander Dean Kiekhefer, the 1099th overall pick, was the lowest-drafted player to reach the majors.  Kiekhefer climbed from the 36th round to appear in 30 MLB games with the Cardinals (his drafting team) and Athletics from 2016-18.

NL East Notes: Phillies, Bonds, Braves

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Some items from around the NL East…

  • The Phillies have promised their full-time employees that “there will be no furloughs or layoffs due to the coronavirus crisis through the end of our fiscal year (October 31, 2020),” managing partner John Middleton wrote in a letter to staff.  (NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jim Salisbury reported on the letter’s contents.)  Most teams in baseball have already committed to retaining their employees at least through the end of May, with the Padres, Rockies, and Tigers also taking steps to keep jobs intact beyond May 31.  As per Middleton’s letter, Phillies full-time employees could potentially still face “possible salary reductions,” in the fact of the organization’s revenue loss, staffers “can be assured of your job and health insurance for the next five-plus months.”
  • Barry Bonds in a Braves uniform?  Atlanta’s failed attempt to land the superstar prior to the 1992 season has long been the subject of regret for Braves fans, though as The Athletic’s David O’Brien notes, some of the long-held beliefs about the trade may be inaccurate.  For instance, former Braves GM John Schuerholz wrote in his book “Built To Win” that then-Pirates manager Jim Leyland strongly protested the idea of trading Bonds, which led Pittsburgh to back out of the deal.  However, Leyland tells O’Brien that he “would have never had the authority to nix a trade.  That would have never happened.”  Needless to say, the concept of Bonds being added to the 1992 Braves (a team that lost the World Series to the Blue Jays in six games) is a fascinating one, not to mention the wider-ranging impact on baseball history if Bonds had re-signed with Atlanta rather than join the Giants in free agency during the 1992-93 offseason.
  • It has been over two and a half years since the shocking international signing scandal that resulted in then-Braves GM John Coppolella being permanently banned from baseball, and John Hart leaving his post as club president.  As for the 13 international prospects who became free agents after the Braves lost their rights, Gabriel Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution catches up with how the players are developing in their new organizations.  None have yet reached the big leagues, and only four of the 13 are ranked as top-30 prospects (as per MLB Pipeline) within their new farm systems.  This isn’t to say that Atlanta emerged unscathed from the scandal, of course, as the club has since been hugely limited in the international market, and they also missed out a 14th prospect in shortstop Robert Puason, who went on to sign with the A’s and is “by far the highest regarded player of this group,” Burns writes.  The Braves were prohibited from signing Puason after the league’s investigation into their international signing improprieties revealed that the club had arranged to sign Puason before he was eligible.  MLB Pipeline rates the 17-year-old Puason as the fourth-best prospect in Oakland’s farm system.

When CC Sabathia Put A Team On His Back

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We’re 12 years removed from one of the highest-impact trade deadline deals in recent history. On July 7, 2008, the Indians parted with homegrown star and pending free agent CC Sabathia, sending the left-hander to the Brewers for first baseman/outfielder Matt LaPorta, southpaw Zach Jackson, righty Rob Bryson and a player to be named later who became outfielder Michael Brantley. In hindsight, it may have been a win-win transaction.

When the Brewers made the bold move to acquire Sabathia, they were mired in a seemingly interminable playoff drought that went back to the early 1980s. But the team and then-general manager Doug Melvin saw a way out when they picked up Sabathia, who joined a roster that was 49-40 at the time. There were some terrific players on that club – Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Mike Cameron, J.J. Hardy and Ben Sheets were among them – but Sabathia became the face of the franchise down the stretch and all but willed the Brewers to the postseason.

Already a three-time All-Star and the reigning AL Cy Young winner when he became a Brewer, the 28-year-old won 11 of his 13 decisions and posted a 1.65 ERA with 8.8 K/9 and 1.7 BB/9 after heading to Milwaukee. His workload was enormous, too, as Sabathia amassed 130 2/3 innings across 17 starts in Milwaukee and piled up seven complete games in the process. Sabathia’s final complete game of the year came when he pitched the Brewers to the playoffs in their regular-season finale with nine innings of one-(unearned) run ball in a victory over the Cubs (here are Bob Uecker and Brian Anderson’s calls of that triumph for Milwaukee).

The Cubs did take the National League Central with ease, finishing with 97 wins to the Brewers’ 90, which set the Brew Crew up to face the Phillies in the NLDS. That proved to be the end of the line for the Brewers, who were no match for the eventual World Series winners and fell in four games. As excellent as he was during the season, Sabathia had nothing left against the Phillies, who battered the workhorse for five earned runs in 3 2/3 innings in Game 2 – his lone appearance of the series. That proved to be the final Brewers outing for Sabathia, as he left for a far bigger payday than they were able to offer in the next offseason. Sabathia signed with the Yankees for seven years and $161MM, and the now-retired 39-year-old further continued to make a resounding Hall of Fame case while wearing pinstripes.

While Sabathia wasn’t a Brewer for long, they don’t regret his magical run in their uniform or the long-awaited return to respectability he helped provide as a member of the team. That’s not say they came away from the trade unscathed, though. None of LaPorta (a once-promising prospect), Jackson or Bryson were impactful in the majors, but Brantley has been outstanding for the most part. A seventh-round draft pick of the Brewers and now a soon-to-be 33-year-old member of the Astros, Brantley has put together a lifetime line of .297/.354/.439 in 5,120 plate appearances. The majority of the damage has come in an Indians uniform, but they weren’t contenders in 2008 and weren’t going to re-sign Sabathia, so selling him for the best possible return made sense.

Losing Sabathia certainly hurt for Cleveland, but getting several productive seasons out of Brantley made for a nice consolation prize. Conversely, it must have stung the Brewers to see what Brantley turned into, but neither they nor their fans will ever forget what Sabathia gave them over a couple incredible months.

Pittsburgh’s Promising Middle Infield

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If you hear the names Frazier and Newman, you might think of a couple shows from the 1990s NBC television schedule (yes, I know the great sitcom’s spelled “Frasier”). In this case, though, we’re talking about the Pirates’ modern-day middle infield. Although the team looks as if it’s a ways away from returning to contention, it does seem to have a promising second base-shortstop combination in Adam Frazier and Kevin Newman. They’re two of the reasons why all hope isn’t lost for a franchise that has cratered in recent years after it went to the playoffs in each season from 2013-15.

Looking back to 2013, Frazier was a sixth-round pick (that means he wouldn’t have been selected this year) who topped out as Baseball America’s 27th-ranked Pirates prospect after the 2015 campaign. As BA noted then, Frazier somehow went three seasons at Mississippi State without hitting a home run, but he has since shown more pop in the majors. Last season was his second straight 10-HR showing, which isn’t saying much in such a power-happy era, but he has still been a roughly average offensive performer since debuting in 2016. He’s the owner of a respectable lifetime .279/.342/.420 line and a 103 wRC+ across 1,574 plate appearances, and he managed a decent fWAR of 2.2 in 608 PA last year. And while Frazier’s penciled in as the Pirates’ second baseman, he’s versatile enough to move around the diamond if they find a better option there. The 28-year-old has logged a substantial amount of time in the outfield, where he has played all three spots, and has seen a bit of action at shortstop and third base.

Newman, 26, has also shown off a good amount of versatility, having lined up at both middle infield positions, third and in left since he got to the majors in 2018. The majority of Newman’s work has come at short, though, and that’s a position he has on lockdown – at least, until rising prospect Oneil Cruz gets to MLB.

Even if Cruz does reach the league sometime soon and bump Newman off short, the club may still have a keeper in the latter. A first-round pick in 2015 and a former top 100 prospect, Newman impressed in his first full season in 2019 with 2.4 fWAR and a .308/.353/.446 line with 12 homers and 16 steals in 531 PA. Newman doesn’t hit the ball that hard or bring a lot of power to the table, but he’s a fast runner who consistently makes contact. Those factors make him a good candidate to continue posting high averages. Just four hitters outdid Newman’s strikeout percentage of 11.7 last season, and only three bettered his 87 percent contact rate.

Frazier and Newman aren’t exactly exciting players, but they could make for a nice, inexpensive duo for the Pirates going forward. They’ll combine for less than $3.5MM this year, which is important for a low-budget Pirates team that will put a dirt-cheap roster on the field if a season does happen. Of the two, though, Newman seems more likely to stick around for longer, considering he has five years of control left to Frazier’s three. The Pirates haven’t been shy about selling off players with dwindling team control, but perhaps that will change with new general manager Ben Cherington at the helm. In the meantime, the hope for Pittsburgh is that Frazier and Newman will continue as the effective, low-cost performers they’ve been so far.

Let’s Name The Defining Trade Of The Past Decade

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Back at the start of the year, I ran down the most memorable trades of the preceding decade. It was tough to nail down the swaps that I found most compelling; many folks wrote in with others that I added in an honorable mention section. In some cases, people suggested deals that were highly notable to them but relatively unexciting to me. Just as with the game itself, we all experience the hot stove differently.

At the time, I was gathering up the most notable deals. I thought about doing a ranking, but dismissed the idea. It was tough enough to pull together a list. Now I’ve come to wonder … in spite of our differing experiences, and the inherent subjectivity of it all, can we find some amount of consensus on the topic?

I don’t want to spread this too thin, so I’m not going to include every deal mentioned in the original post. Oh, and I went ahead and included a new entrant! You should read the original post on the subject — or click the links below to the deals themselves — for more details on the swaps. I’ll present them here in chronological order.

Brewers Acquire Zack Greinke (12/19/10)

Royals Acquire James Shields, Wade Davis (12/9/12)

Red Sox, Dodgers Complete Nine-Player Blockbuster (8/25/12)

Blue Jays, Marlins Complete 12-Player Blockbuster (11/13/12)

Blue Jays Acquire Josh Donaldson (11/28/14)

Padres Acquire Craig Kimbrel (4/5/15)

Wilmer’s Tears: Astros Acquire Carlos Gomez, Mike Fiers / Mets Acquire Yoenis Cespedes (7/31/15)

Diamondbacks Acquire Shelby Miller (12/9/15)

Cubs Acquire Aroldis Chapman (7/25/16)

Red Sox Acquire Chris Sale (12/6/16)

Astros Acquire Justin Verlander (9/1/17)

Marlins Trio: Yankees Acquire Giancarlo Stanton / Cardinals Acquire Marcell Ozuna / Brewers Acquire Christian Yelich (12/17-1/18)

Dodgers Acquire Mookie Betts, David Price (2/9/20)

You have a baker’s dozen to choose from. The response order is randomized in the poll. Let’s name the defining trade of the past decade! (Poll link for app users.)

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