Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 2/28/23

2:01
Avatar Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to the second edition of my chat in my new (old?) timeslot. I’ve got a piece up today about Gavin Lux’s season-ending knee injury (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/gavin-luxs-knee-injury-further-compromises…), and yesterday checked in on Joey Votto as he work his way back from shoulder surgery (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/joey-votto-tries-to-bounce-back/).

2:01
Broken Bat: Looks to me the Dodgers must procure a shortstop to support the aging Rojas who all of a sudden the light is shining on. I don’t think they one ready in MILB. So… what team do they toss one of their pitching prospects to get one from? Would they dare pay Baez? I think Tigers would be content to get out of that contract for a decent tier 3 SP. What about trading with Reds? The ex Pirate Frazier? Might be available cheap. Thoughts on what they do?

2:08
Avatar Jay Jaffe: I don’t think the Dodgers see anything as “must” at least in the near term. They have reason to hope that after undergoing wrist surgery, Miguel Rojas can provide something closer to a league-average bat with plus defense filling in for Lux, and that they have enough depth to allow Chris Taylor to play there as well. There’s no way on God’s green earth they’re taking on Javier Baez’s contract or giving up a starting pitcher prospect for him, and I doubt they see Isiah Kiner-Falefa as an option, either. Not sue who you see on the Reds as an option, but ex-Pirate Adam Frazier (now an Oriole) isn’t a shortstop, totaling just 26 innings at the position in the majors.

One guy worth keeping an eye on is the Cardinals’ Paul DeJong,  who after being displaced by Tommy Edman worked to rebuild his swing after being sent down last year, though the dividends certainly weren’t apparent at the major league level. If he’s recovered his form, he could be of interest.

2:08
Oaktown Blues: Is a Cristian Pache DFA in the cards this spring or will the A’s give him one more shot?

2:10
Avatar Jay Jaffe: he’s out of options but as the A’s are playing for crickets, I imagine they’ll give him every chance to hold onto a roster spot unless they have a crunch that they need to alleviate.

Still not sure I can name six A’s even after looking at their depth chart.

2:11
TheVoiceInYourHead: Why are people so stubborn about Rojas taking over for Lux?

Read the rest of this entry »


Triston McKenzie and the Return of the Strikeout Stuff

Triston McKenzie
David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

Triston McKenzie recorded double-digit strikeouts three times last season. That puts him in some good company — other pitchers who did so include Framber Valdez, Taijuan Walker, and Shane Bieber — but hardly elite territory. Carlos Rodón led the way with 11 double-digit strikeout games, and 19 different pitchers had at least four such outings.

Now let’s bump up the strikeout threshold. McKenzie recorded at least 11 strikeouts in a game three times last season. This feat was a little more unusual; other starters with three 11-strikeout games were breakout star Nestor Cortes and Cy Young winner Sandy Alcantara. Only nine pitchers had four or more appearances with 11-plus strikeouts. Shohei Ohtani led the way with seven such starts.

Let’s keep going. McKenzie recorded at least 12 strikeouts in a game three times last season. No pitcher in baseball had more such starts. The only pitchers to match his total were Ohtani, Rodón, Gerrit Cole, and Spencer Strider. That’s a damn good group to be a part of:

A Damn Good Group To Be a Part Of
Pitcher IP K/9 ERA FIP xFIP
Shohei Ohtani 166.0 11.87 2.33 2.40 2.65
Carlos Rodón 178.0 11.98 2.88 2.25 2.91
Gerrit Cole 200.2 11.53 3.50 3.47 2.77
Spencer Strider 131.2 13.81 2.67 1.83 2.30
Triston McKenzie 191.1 8.94 2.96 3.59 3.77

Hopefully, you’re starting to pick up on something atypical about McKenzie. He had three games with 12 or more strikeouts but never topped eight in his 28 other outings. He was one of only six pitchers to twirl a 14-strikeout game, yet he averaged seven strikeouts per start with a median of six. His name and numbers look wildly out of place in the company of Ohtani, Rodón, Cole, and Strider. Read the rest of this entry »


Gavin Lux’s Knee Injury Further Compromises Dodgers’ New-Look Infield

Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

In the wake of a free agent exodus that included shortstop Trea Turner and third baseman Justin Turner, the Dodgers entered the spring with a new-look infield that offered considerable uncertainty relative to the previously star-studded unit. Now the team will have to adjust its plans, because on Monday, Gavin Lux, who was slated to be the starting shortstop, tore the anterior cruciate ligament of his right knee, which will require surgery that is expected to sideline him for the entire season.

During the sixth inning of an exhibition game against the Padres in Peoria, Arizona, the 25-year-old Lux began running from second to third base on an infield grounder to third baseman Jantzen Witte. In ducking to avoid Witte’s throw to second base, Lux lost his balance, first stumbling and then tumbling into third as his right leg bent awkwardly. Upon crash-landing at the base, he clutched his right knee, clearly in pain, and could not leave the field under his own power, so the Dodgers called for the trainers’ cart. The video is here, but it’s not for the faint of heart. Read the rest of this entry »


When It Comes to the Pitch Clock, Players and Fans Will Adjust Quickly

Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports

This is the story of two games that both took place on the evening of April 27, 2022. In an inland Los Angeles suburb, the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes and Visalia Rawhide took part in an early-season battle under the shadow of the San Bernadino Mountains. The Quakes, a Dodgers affiliate, were on their A-game that night. 2021 fifth-round pick Ben Casparius and 21-year old lefty Benony Robles were dominant in a tandem start, combining to strike out a dozen batters while allowing just three to reach base. Tommy Kahnle faced one batter in a rehab appearance, and the Quakes shut out their opposition. Meanwhile, the Rawhide, a Diamondbacks affiliate, didn’t have the evening they wanted. Their four arms combined to walk nine hitters and the defense behind them didn’t help, committing three errors (including one each by highly ranked prospects Jordan Lawlar and Deyvison De Los Santos). In total, 21 Quakes reached base, and Rancho Cucamonga cruised to an 8-0 victory.

A few hundred miles north at Oracle Park, the A’s and Giants played a crosstown matchup. Fresh off the IL, Chad Pinder took a 2-2 changeup from Sam Long into the left field seats for a homer to lead things off. Then neither team scored for the rest of the game. The Giants’ pitching quickly stabilized, with piggyback man Jakob Junis contributing five scoreless on an efficient 64 pitches, while Paul Blackburn and his bullpen combined to blank San Francisco’s bats. But while this low-scoring affair took three hours to complete (just shy of the nine-inning average of 3:03), Visalia’s comedy of errors and walks was over in just 2:15. Read the rest of this entry »


When Can Cincinnati Paint the NL Central Red?

Elly De La Cruz
Sam Greene–The Enquirer

To put it charitably, it’s been a rough 18 months for fans of the Reds. Finding themselves surprisingly in the wild card race in July 2021, the team’s front office bravely ran away at the trade deadline, choosing only to improve the bullpen depth slightly. The downhill slope has only grown steeper since then, as the organization chose to go into full fire sale mode, trading practically every player with a significant contract who drew interest from another team. The exodus of talent had immediate results in Cincy: the team lost 100 games for the first time since 1982, when Reds GM Dick Wagner conducted his own fire sale on the dried-up husk of the Big Red Machine.

For anyone who may have thought that Cincinnati’s suddenly hard-line approach to spending was a temporary rebuilding strategy, ownership has done its best to disabuse fans off the notion. Bob Castellini was reportedly one of the owners who didn’t want to raise the luxury tax threshold at all, and he’s spoken repeatedly about the team’s finances. Club president Phil Castellini, during a lunch with a Reds booster group, gave a confusing presentation about how awful it was to own a baseball team, complete with a bizarre presentation that either made myriad mistakes or simply made up playoff projections from this very site. Most prognostications have the Reds challenging the Pirates for fourth place in the NL Central in 2023.

Against this backdrop, not all is doom and gloom. Despite the disappearance of talent at the major league level, there are a lot of interesting players in the minors. The farm system improved to eighth in the league in our late 2022 rankings, and five prospects made our recently released Top 100 Prospects list. The 2023 ZiPS projections for the Reds are bleak, but it’s more optimistic about the state of the farm system, ranking seven Cincinnati prospects in its Top 100. Overall, 11 players made the Top 200 in the ZiPS prospect list, including a ludicrous numbers of shortstops (five).

ZiPS Top Prospects – Cincinnati Reds
Player Position ZiPS Rank FanGraphs Rank
Elly De La Cruz SS 14 6
Noelvi Marte SS 15 94
Matt McLain SS 30 Unranked
Spencer Steer 3B 51 47
Edwin Arroyo SS 58 52
Allan Cerda CF 73 Unranked
Christian Encarnacion-Strand 3B 96 Unranked
Connor Phillips P 160 Unranked
Andrew Abbott P 170 Unranked
Jose Torres SS 190 Unranked
Chase Petty P 196 Unranked
Alejo Lopez 2B 211 Unranked
Michael Siani CF 223 Unranked
Rece Hinds RF 254 Unranked
Tyler Callihan 2B 308 Unranked
Ivan Johnson 2B 322 Unranked
Jay Allen II CF 335 Unranked
Matheu Nelson C 362 Unranked

There’s not a whole lot of pitching on this list, but the good news is that the Reds already have some promising arms on their roster. ZiPS thinks that the three front-end starters — Hunter Greene, Graham Ashcraft, and Nick Lodolo — will all make positive contributions in 2023, and odds are they’ll be even better come ’25 or ’26. Before and after a shoulder strain that cost most of his August, Greene was dominant in his 35 1/3 second-half innings, with a 1.02 ERA, 1.70 FIP, 13 strikeouts per game, and a walk rate cut in half from before the All-Star break. The last may be the most important; it doesn’t take a whole lot of innings to establish an improved (or worsened) walk rate. Lodolo, meanwhile, barely needed a half-season to put up 2 WAR, and Ashcraft and his high-90s fastball ought to have some strikeout upside.

If we construct a roster based on who is under contract or team control, you can cobble together most of a pretty interesting 2025 roster. Now, not all of these players will actually be on the roster in two years; the idea is to get the baseline for a team with the players the Reds currently have.

C Tyler Stephenson
1B Christian Encarnacion-Strand
2B Jonathan India
3B Noelvi Marte
SS Elly de la Cruz
LF Spencer Steer
CF Matt McLain
RF Allan Cerda
DH Jake Fraley

C Mat Nelson
IF Edwin Arroyo
OF Michael Siani
OF Stuart Fairchild

SP Hunter Greene
SP Nick Lodolo
SP Graham Ashcraft
SP Andrew Abbott
SP Connor Phillips

RP Alexis Díaz
RP Tejay Antone
RP Justin Dunn
RP Reiver Sanmartin
RP Ian Gibaut
RP Connor Overton
RP Joel Kuhnel
RP Ricky Karcher

You can no doubt quibble with any of these choices, because this is highly speculative. Maybe the shortstops sort themselves out in a different way, assuming that some aren’t directly traded for outfield help. Perhaps the Reds stick with Nick Senzel through his free-agent season, but I personally feel that he’s a prime suspect to be non-tendered after 2023. There are myriad choices that can be made differently, but generally speaking, if you can only make the 2025 Reds using in-organization players, the basic framework is likely to be something in this ballpark.

I did this with the Pirates last week (and the rest of the league), and I only got the Bucs to 76 wins in 2025. But the Reds have a sunnier baseline; with all teams under the same constraints, they “start” 2025 with a baseline projection of 85 wins. That’s not to say that will be the projection, only where the team stands in talent in 2025 compared to the rest of the league. And an 84-win team in the NL Central is a contender, unless someone decides to go all-in, Padres-style, in the next couple years.

This is where Cincinnati hits an important decision point. If a team like this looks to be a contender in 2025, would there actually be investment in the roster in free agency to get it over the top? The lack of this was the crucial element that doomed the good 2010s Pirates teams. Will the Castellinis, if they’re still the owners, stick to their financial guns when there’s a real chance at playoff contention? It doesn’t really make sense to spend a lot on the Reds as they’re currently constructed, but what happens when there’s a compelling reason to? I don’t know the answer to that question, though I’m cautiously pessimistic.

There’s a lot to not like about the Reds right now. But there’s a lot to like about their future, if ownership is willing to allow that future to fully bear fruit.


Effectively Wild Episode 1974: Season Preview Series: Cardinals and Diamondbacks

EWFI
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Manny Machado’s extension, whether the Padres have spending constraints, and what the team’s future might look like, then (18:51) discuss their impressions of the pitch clock in spring training so far and offer a brief update on their podcast editor search (30:42). After that, they continue their 2023 season preview series by discussing the St. Louis Cardinals (33:55) with Katie Woo of The Athletic, and the Arizona Diamondbacks (1:09:31) with Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic, plus a Past Blast from 1974 (1:44:41).

Audio intro: Robyn Hitchcock, “1974
Audio interstitial 1: Ween, “Stay Forever
Audio interstitial 2: Rotten Mind, “Serpent Eyes
Audio outro: David Crosby, “1974

Link to Dan S. on Machado
Link to MLBTR on Machado
Link to WaPo on the Padres
Link to payroll breakdown
Link to next year’s FA class
Link to Colbert Stat Blast
Link to game-ending violation video
Link to game-ending violation story
Link to Sawchik’s game-time thread
Link to Ben on spring training
Link to Jeff on spring training pace
Link to FanGraphs playoff odds
Link to Cardinals offseason tracker
Link to Cardinals depth chart
Link to Katie’s spring preview
Link to Katie on players to watch
Link to Katie on bounceback players
Link to Katie’s author archive
Link to D-backs offseason tracker
Link to Diamondbacks depth chart
Link to BJOL regression article
Link to Nick’s spring preview
Link to Nick’s author archive
Link to 1974 article source
Link to 1959 article source
Link to Trueman’s CSUN page
Link to Trueman’s book
Link to Trueman’s other book
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack
Link to Britton on Mets pickoffs
Link to Woodward on Mets pickoffs

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San Diego Strikes Again With 11-Year Extension for Manny Machado

Manny Machado
Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

The speculation about Padres third baseman Manny Machado exercising his opt-out clause after the 2023 season came to a stunning conclusion over the weekend, as club and superstar agreed to an 11-year, $350 million contract. The new deal rips up the final six years of the contract that Machado signed before the 2019 season.

If nothing else, tally one team that is apparently not concerned with the short-term hiccups in baseball’s revenues due to the Bally/Diamond bankruptcy; the Padres are one of the teams with a regional sports network (RSN) that is affected. If revenues are up in the air, they have made sure that third base certainly is not, following an extension that will also keep Yu Darvish in town for all or most of the rest of his career. The Padres aren’t trying to be the Rays, the scrappy underdogs that hunt very large game with a sharpened stick; they’re trying to go toe-to-toe with the Dodgers at their own game. This is less David versus Goliath and more M. Bison versus palette-swapped M. Bison in “Street Fighter II.”

My colleague Jay Jaffe covered a lot of the particulars about the Manny situation in San Diego last week, so I’m going to skip the exposition. I think Jay and I both underestimated just how motivated the Padres were to ensure Machado stayed in mustard-and-brown for a long time. We had a ZiPS projection in that piece, but now that we know where he will play and for how long, I ran a new projection.

ZiPS Projection – Manny Machado
Year BA OBP SLG AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB OPS+ DR WAR
2023 .266 .338 .469 561 87 149 28 1 28 95 62 119 8 125 2 4.8
2024 .262 .336 .460 541 82 142 27 1 26 89 61 115 7 123 1 4.3
2025 .254 .328 .438 520 76 132 25 1 23 81 58 112 6 115 1 3.5
2026 .249 .323 .422 490 69 122 23 1 20 73 54 106 5 109 0 2.8
2027 .245 .320 .408 453 61 111 21 1 17 63 50 100 4 105 -1 2.2
2028 .237 .311 .388 410 53 97 18 1 14 54 44 93 3 97 -2 1.4
2029 .234 .308 .376 359 44 84 16 1 11 46 38 83 2 93 -2 0.9
2030 .230 .303 .362 304 37 70 13 0 9 37 32 71 2 88 -3 0.5
2031 .226 .297 .347 265 30 60 11 0 7 31 27 62 1 82 -3 0.2
2032 .225 .296 .348 178 20 40 7 0 5 20 18 43 1 82 -3 0.1
2033 .220 .289 .339 109 12 24 4 0 3 12 11 26 0 78 -2 -0.1

Let’s just say that ZiPS isn’t overly enthusiastic about the contract, valuing Machado’s future services at $181 million over 11 years. He is a superstar, but there’s a big difference between signing a player before their age-26 season and their age-30 season. Just to illustrate, here’s the projection a second time, but with Machado the age he was when he signed his initial deal with the Friars.

ZiPS Projection – Manny Machado (Four Years Younger)
Year BA OBP SLG AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB OPS+ DR WAR
2023 .269 .343 .481 572 91 154 29 1 30 102 65 118 9 130 2 5.2
2024 .270 .344 .487 571 92 154 29 1 31 101 66 116 8 132 2 5.4
2025 .265 .343 .476 569 91 151 28 1 30 99 68 114 7 129 3 5.2
2026 .260 .338 .466 569 89 148 28 1 29 97 68 114 7 125 2 4.8
2027 .259 .337 .461 557 86 144 27 1 28 93 67 112 6 123 1 4.5
2028 .251 .331 .441 537 80 135 25 1 25 86 65 109 5 116 0 3.7
2029 .252 .332 .443 515 77 130 24 1 24 81 62 105 4 117 0 3.5
2030 .249 .328 .434 486 71 121 22 1 22 75 58 100 4 114 -1 3.0
2031 .248 .327 .427 487 69 121 22 1 21 73 57 101 3 112 -2 2.7
2032 .247 .326 .422 453 63 112 20 1 19 67 53 95 3 110 -3 2.3
2033 .243 .321 .407 420 56 102 19 1 16 60 48 89 2 105 -4 1.8

That’s a valuation over $400 million, a notable difference! The sad truth is that even for superstars, the 30s are more often than not a tale of significant decline. Just to illustrate, here are all non-active position players worth between 41–51 WAR through age 29 (Machado is at 46.6) and how they fared in their 30s.

20s WAR vs. 30s WAR for Selected Stars
Name 20s PA 20s HR 20s BA 20s OBP 20s SLG 20s WAR 30s PA 30s HR 30s BA 30s OBP 30s SLG 30s WAR
Honus Wagner 3888 37 .341 .396 .489 41.2 7851 64 .320 .388 .455 96.9
Mike Schmidt 4506 235 .255 .374 .511 50.0 5556 313 .277 .385 .540 56.5
Joe Morgan 5298 103 .270 .384 .414 43.5 6031 165 .272 .399 .439 55.3
Nap Lajoie 4290 66 .363 .396 .545 48.3 6170 17 .320 .369 .410 53.9
Wade Boggs 3910 56 .354 .439 .484 43.0 6830 62 .313 .401 .419 45.3
Jeff Bagwell 4410 187 .304 .409 .536 42.3 5021 262 .290 .406 .544 37.9
George Davis 6095 60 .314 .378 .444 48.1 4056 13 .265 .336 .345 36.5
Paul Waner 4735 60 .351 .422 .521 41.2 6027 53 .319 .391 .436 35.8
George Brett 5338 125 .316 .369 .497 50.7 6287 192 .295 .370 .479 33.9
Sam Crawford 6133 58 .307 .354 .447 43.5 4461 39 .313 .372 .459 27.6
Joe Cronin 5218 62 .301 .381 .449 41.2 3620 108 .303 .402 .496 27.5
Reggie Jackson 5056 254 .265 .359 .503 45.8 6360 309 .259 .353 .480 27.0
Eddie Murray 5837 258 .298 .373 .509 45.0 6980 246 .278 .348 .449 27.0
Billy Hamilton 4378 26 .348 .455 .447 43.5 3206 14 .338 .456 .412 26.8
Johnny Mize 4189 184 .331 .413 .588 44.5 3182 175 .287 .376 .528 26.2
Al Simmons 4752 173 .363 .405 .596 47.4 4763 134 .305 .355 .475 23.6
Frank Thomas 4790 257 .330 .452 .600 48.7 5285 264 .276 .389 .515 23.4
Gary Carter 5025 188 .269 .342 .457 46.2 3994 136 .254 .326 .416 23.2
Ivan Rodriguez 5622 196 .304 .341 .485 46.2 4648 115 .288 .325 .438 22.8
Scott Rolen 5122 226 .286 .378 .520 47.8 3396 90 .274 .344 .447 22.0
Robin Yount 7148 144 .285 .331 .428 44.9 5101 107 .286 .357 .432 21.6
Goose Goslin 5600 145 .328 .393 .522 44.3 4222 103 .300 .380 .471 21.1
Alan Trammell 5949 118 .288 .355 .420 43.1 3427 67 .281 .346 .407 20.6
Manny Machado (Projected) 6273 283 .282 .341 .493 46.6 4645 163 .246 .319 .412 20.6
Tim Raines 5621 87 .303 .391 .442 46.4 4738 83 .283 .378 .405 20.0
Joe Torre 5481 181 .297 .362 .465 44.2 3321 71 .298 .369 .431 18.1
Lou Boudreau 5175 40 .292 .374 .410 49.9 1848 28 .304 .397 .427 17.6
Larry Doby 4182 164 .296 .403 .517 44.0 2731 109 .277 .368 .473 17.6
Dick Allen 4872 234 .297 .381 .543 43.9 2442 117 .282 .371 .514 17.4
Ernie Banks 4632 269 .292 .354 .557 46.7 5763 243 .260 .310 .454 16.6
Richie Ashburn 6109 19 .313 .393 .393 42.0 3627 10 .298 .402 .362 15.9
Jimmy Sheckard 6154 43 .284 .370 .394 41.6 2964 13 .251 .385 .344 15.1
Hank Greenberg 4587 247 .326 .418 .625 48.0 1509 84 .275 .393 .544 14.7
Bobby Bonds 5236 218 .273 .358 .482 42.5 2854 114 .258 .345 .450 14.6
Willie Keeler 5176 23 .376 .419 .470 41.4 4418 10 .300 .350 .347 14.3
Buster Posey 3692 116 .307 .373 .476 43.7 1915 42 .293 .369 .429 13.8
Elmer Flick 4701 43 .320 .397 .460 42.4 1713 5 .295 .367 .404 13.6
Duke Snider 5494 276 .306 .385 .557 51.0 2743 131 .275 .369 .504 12.8
Brian McCann 4354 176 .277 .350 .473 42.5 2496 106 .236 .315 .413 12.0
Willie Wells 3129 121 .336 .417 .571 46.8 1306 19 .314 .385 .451 10.3
Ted Simmons 5888 151 .297 .365 .454 44.0 3797 97 .266 .322 .411 10.2
Joe Medwick 5901 180 .332 .370 .542 47.8 2241 25 .302 .343 .406 9.3
Joe Kelley 5552 56 .335 .422 .485 46.0 2568 9 .279 .357 .378 9.0
David Wright 5453 204 .301 .381 .506 43.1 1419 38 .279 .357 .436 8.2
Vern Stephens 5694 207 .289 .360 .472 43.9 1546 40 .276 .337 .418 7.1
Ralph Kiner 4557 294 .281 .405 .571 42.4 1699 75 .274 .378 .489 6.4
George Sisler 4574 60 .361 .404 .510 46.4 4439 42 .320 .354 .426 6.2
Travis Jackson 5053 103 .298 .346 .446 41.2 1626 32 .268 .307 .394 5.8
Charlie Keller 3839 162 .292 .414 .530 42.7 765 27 .260 .390 .455 5.0
Vada Pinson 6850 186 .297 .341 .469 42.8 3553 70 .265 .301 .390 4.5
Cesar Cedeno 6051 158 .290 .353 .458 46.0 2082 41 .271 .327 .401 3.9
Jim Fregosi 5944 115 .268 .340 .403 42.6 1458 36 .249 .329 .381 1.6
John McGraw 4893 13 .334 .466 .411 48.8 33 0 .280 .455 .280 0.2

ZiPS actually has Machado aging slightly better than the average player in this group, with an additional three WAR over about 1,000 more plate appearances. The three active players at the end of their careers that I chopped off wouldn’t make this any sunnier a list; none of Miguel Cabrera, Evan Longoria, or Andrew McCutchen have aged particularly well.

Some of the decreased projection is due to the fact that Machado is no longer a defensive star at third base as he was earlier in his career. Defense doesn’t decline as rapidly as people think at the non-speed positions, and the fact that Nolan Arenado’s glove has stayed quite steady gives him kind of a fallback position if his bat declines. Machado no longer has that luxury.

Despite my grumpiness as an analyst who inevitably has to play devil’s advocate, let me emphasize that I’m certainly not shedding any tears for the pocketbooks of team ownership. While speculating what the Padres’ analytics gang has for Machado over the next 11 years would be a wild-ass guess, I know enough to know that ZiPS does not generally give projections that are grossly different from ones that teams run internally. The team’s ownership group, led by Peter Seidler, was no doubt given all the information the team had internally of this type and is also aware of the revenue situation, his personal net worth, and the fact that the big jump in baseball’s luxury tax threshold from 2021 to ’22 is much, much smaller in subsequent seasons of the CBA. They take this risk with the eyes wide open.

Even as a risk, it’s hard to dislike this signing as a fan of baseball. It’s refreshing to see owners who want to keep their teams together, who prioritize putting the best team on the field right now, and who directly challenge another of baseball’s elite franchises. Baseball’s system of playoffs and revenue sharing incentivizes just sneaking into the postseason every year, and if I worked for a team, I’d recommend the same cynical view that is prevalent among franchises. So it’s nice to see a team with a little more ambition, one willing to be happy with the increases in team value rather than also requiring a healthy profit every season to boot.

There remains a big unanswered question in the form of Juan Soto. Keeping him may cost $40 million a year, and I now have to wonder just how far San Diego’s willingness to spend will stretch. Are the Padres really willing to already be at $200 million for 2025–27 with two starting pitchers under contract? The farm system has nowhere near the depth that it had a few years ago, after all; ZiPS had no Padres prospects in its Top 100. While our prospect team placed two, the farm system ranked 26th at the end of last year, and though the new rankings aren’t out yet, I can’t imagine they’ve moved up a ton. But we’ll worry about Soto later.

By signing Machado, the Padres have signaled that they’re here to win now, and that the current aggressive spending isn’t just the apogee between the fire sales that have peppered San Diego’s franchise history. They’re going after the Dodgers on their own turf, and that’s pretty cool. Now the win now team just has to do the hard part and actually win now.


Joey Votto Tries to Bounce Back

Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK

Joey Votto has yet to play a spring training game, and he probably won’t for at least a little while longer as he recuperates from the surgery on his left shoulder that ended his 2022 season. That hasn’t stopped the 39-year-old future Hall of Famer from filling reporters’ notebooks now that camp has opened, particularly as he heads into the final year of his 10-year contract and perhaps his final year in the majors.

Votto hit just .205/.319/.370 with 11 homers in 376 plate appearances last year; all of those slash stats were career lows, as were his 92 wRC+ and -0.9 WAR. His performance was particularly dismaying given his 2021 resurgence. Reversing a 2019-20 skid during which he had managed just a 101 wRC+, 26 homers, and 1.1 WAR, he hit .266/.375/.563 (139 wRC+) with 36 homers in 533 PA; all told, it was his best season since 2017.

That made the sudden arrival of Votto’s worst season all the more jarring, even though we’ve all become accustomed to seeing even great players in their late 30s fall apart. Last week, Votto offered an eye-catching, blunt assessment of his season:

Read the rest of this entry »


Royals Prospect Gavin Cross Talks Hitting

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Gavin Cross loves to hit, and he does so, figuratively speaking, with his feet planted firmly on the ground. The son of a former minor leaguer who went on to become a scout and a coach, the sweet-swinging 22-year-old outfielder was drafted ninth overall last year out of Virginia Tech and is now one of the top prospects in the Kansas City Royals organization. His smooth left-handed stroke is a big reason why. Cross logged a 1.071 OPS in his final collegiate season, and he essentially matched that number in his first taste of pro ball. Playing all but three of his games with Low-A Columbia, he put up a 1.070 OPS over 135 plate appearances.

Cross talked about his development as a hitter, and his ability to stay in the moment, last week.

———

David Laurila: How would you define yourself as a hitter, and how have you evolved?

Gavin Cross: “My dad played, and from a young age I was taught to be a hitter first. I was really conventional with my setup all the way until college, and was always trying to hit line drives to left-center. My freshman year — that was the COVID year — I had 24 hits, and 23 were singles. But I was second on our team in exit velo, so I was hitting the ball hard. I just wasn’t really hitting it in the air [and] splitting the gaps. Read the rest of this entry »


Pitch Framing Is Evolving Along With the Strike Zone

Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports

Earlier this month, I wrote about the improvements that umpires have made in calling balls and strikes according to the rulebook strike zone. Today, I’d like to focus on the other side of that equation: pitch framing. The consensus around baseball is that pitch framing’s story has followed a very familiar arc. Call it the Competitive Advantage Life Cycle:

  • Teams realize the immense value of a skill.
  • An arms race ensues as they scramble to cultivate it.
  • The skill becomes widespread across the league.
  • Since the skill is more evenly distributed, it loses much of its value.

Once everybody got good at pitch framing, nobody was great at it. As Rob Arthur has put it, “Catcher framing felt like it was disappearing almost as soon as it was discovered.” I even have fun graphs to drive the point home. There are definitely more useful ways of presenting the data, but I like how these ones let you watch the entropy dissipate over time in open defiance of the second law of thermodynamics:

Read the rest of this entry »