Tag Archives: boston red sox

Gammons, Stark and Rosenthal on the Hall of Fame results, and why Scott Rolen’s election mattered

January 26, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

Going into the final day of Hall of Fame voting, public balloting showed there was a real chance that the BBWAA would not elect a player for the second time in three years. Ultimately, Scott Rolen got in with 76.3 percent of the vote, while not electing Todd Helton (72.2 percent) and Billy Wagner (68.1 percent) who were close behind. This was the first election in a decade not to be dominated by the talk surrounding Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, but a series of other issues emerged as the Hall and the voting process move into a new era.

To better understand the results and what’s ahead, The Athletic brought together three of its most esteemed writers — Jayson Stark, Ken Rosenthal and Peter Gammons — to discuss the voting and look ahead at what may come for the Hall and its candidates in the next few years. Stark and Gammons are both recipients of the BBWAA Career Excellence Award, the highest honor for baseball writers, and are recognized in a permanent exhibit at the Hall of Fame itself.

1. Scott Rolen got 10.2 percent of the vote in his first year. And by his sixth he was getting elected. Is that an indictment of the process or a validation of how hard it should be to get elected?

Stark: My Twitter timeline has been full of people telling me no player should ever be a Hall of Famer if he once got 10 percent of the vote. C’mon. That’s ridiculous.

First off, it’s supposed to be hard to get elected to the Hall of Fame.

Second, Rolen’s first year on the ballot might have been the most loaded ballot ever. There were seven players on that ballot who eventually got elected by the writers, plus Fred McGriff, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling — and Billy Wagner, Andruw Jones, Gary Sheffield and Jeff Kent. We only have 10 slots. So it was pretty much impossible to figure out who should fill them in that election.

And finally, one of my favorite things about Hall of Fame voting is that not every journey to 75 percent is the same. That journey can provide a vehicle for thought, reflection, perspective and debate. And in many ways, that’s the best part about being a Hall of Fame voter. I love all of that.

Rosenthal: Rolen going from 10.2 percent of the vote to the necessary 75 percent for election in six years is not an indictment of the process. It’s more a reflection of two things. First, the crowded ballot that hampered a number of candidates in recent years. And second, our ability to better measure and understand the value of gifted all-around players than voters in the past.

If anything, the crowded ballot was an indictment of the process, the restriction on only voting for 10 players and the decision by the Hall in 2014 to reduce a player’s eligibility from 15 years to 10. Several strong candidates dropped off the ballot as a result, failing to get the minimum 5 percent of the vote. Others, like Rolen, did not get the support they deserved in their early years of eligibility.

The encouraging part of Rolen’s election is the recognition that not all Hall of Famers require the fabled Black Ink, years of leading the league in several categories. I know some fans did not necessarily perceive him as a Hall of Famer when he played. I’m not sure I did, either. But when considering the entirety of his career, I found it a pretty easy call. He was an all-time great at an under-represented position, third base.

Gammons: That Scott Rolen is a Hall of Famer by five votes is an anthem to what the road to Cooperstown represents. I think back to 1997, talking to then-Phillies general manager Lee Thomas about two players whose first full seasons came that year. One was Rolen. The other was Nomar Garciaparra. “Some day,” Thomas said, “we may remember that we watched two Hall of Famers begin journeys to Cooperstown.”

For Garciaparra, the injuries began in 2001, taking him off that Hall of Fame track. At the 2004 trading deadline, he was traded to the Cubs, Orlando Cabrera took the Boston shortstop job, and Garciaparra became an afterthought as the Red Sox won the World Series.

Rolen had his share of injuries too, but he managed to play 17 major league seasons with four teams, earn eight Gold Gloves and mash 316 home runs. Another future Hall of Famer who began his major league career as a third baseman, Jeff Bagwell, said of playing against him that “it’s hard hitting when there’s an office building playing third.”

There are many of us who believe Rolen is not simply a no-doubt member of what Tom Seaver called “the most exclusive club in America,” but is one of the 10 best third basemen to ever play the game. Garciaparra was on track to be that good, too. He got hurt. Players get hurt, great players. Don Mattingly had a congenital back condition that thus far has cost him a plaque. Bobby Grich hurt his back lifting an air conditioner. The game is tough enough; playing it on Scott Rolen’s level for 17 years is unimaginably tough.

Rolen’s election is historic in terms of what it says about the voting process itself, and the electorate. Rolen was never an MVP, and his page on Baseball Reference isn’t a blur of black ink. He wasn’t elected on traditional offensive stats. He joins the Hall because he was a great all-around player — a 235-pound giant who could run the bases, make perfect throws on 5-4-3 double plays, and take out second basemen on potential double plays.

What made Rolen’s 2022-23 jump from 63.2 percent of the ballots to the all-important 75 percent so uncertain is the difficulty of defining exactly what a Hall of Famer is. Some love the offensive numbers. Some love Wins Above Replacement because it takes defense and the whole game into consideration, which would seem to help Andruw Jones. Billy Wagner is the most difficult pitcher to hit in baseball history. But even in this era when bullpens are such an invaluable and inescapable part of championship teams, some do not consider relievers to be whole pitchers.

Fortunately, we are finally moving past the Steroid Era, passing such decisions on to Veterans Committees in the next few elections. The fact that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens — two of the greatest players ever — were not on the ballot cleared room and put Wagner, Todd Helton and Jones on track to stand at the podium in Cooperstown.

2. Which player didn’t get a lot of support on this ballot who you think deserves more? (That can include players who didn’t get 5 percent.)

Jeff Kent is the kind of candidate who could be viewed favorably by one of the Hall of Fame’s committees. (Jed Jacobsohn / Allsport)

Stark: Am I allowed to say Jeff Kent deserved more love, even though he’s now off our ballot? I never could figure out why it took him seven years on the ballot just to get above 20 percent. And now he’s off without ever reaching 50 percent?

I used to say McGriff was the most criminally undersupported candidate in my time as a voter. I’m now handing that crown to Kent. As I wrote in my column explaining my ballot, I always look for players with a claim to historic greatness. And it’s so easy to argue that Kent is the most dominant offensive second baseman of modern times. He has something for everybody.

For the old-school crowd: the most home runs and RBIs by any second baseman in history. For the new-age crowd: the highest slugging percentage by any second baseman in the live-ball era — plus a .500 slugging percentage in the postseason, over 43 games (not a small sample), and some incredible October moments. As I wrote in my piece on the five things we learned from this election, nobody feels like a more slam-dunk choice to get elected by the Contemporary Era committee in a few years than Kent does.

Rosenthal: Gary Sheffield deserves more support, and as Jayson noted in his Hall of Fame wrap-up, he’s running out of time. While Sheff jumped a healthy 15.6 percentage points, he’s still only at 55 percent, with only one year left on the ballot. A 20 percent jump in a stronger class next year would seem … unlikely.

A former player, a contemporary of Sheffield’s, texted me this morning, saying, “the Sheff defense argument is maddening.” The former player’s point: Sheffield, for better or worse, actually played defense. Edgar Martinez, on the other hand, barely was out in the field, whether due to health or lack of skill. “Can’t hold it against Sheff if it wasn’t held against Edgar,” the former player said. “And that is where WAR comes up short.”

Some voters probably demur on Sheffield because of what he said was an inadvertent use of PEDs before and during the 2002 season. Each voter is entitled to his or her opinion on that subject, but we’ve already elected a number of alleged PED users. Sheffield hit 509 home runs and had a career OPS+ 40 percent above league average. Ken Griffey Jr. was a mere 36 percent above.

Gammons: Now that Sheffield is up over 55 percent before his final year on the ballot, he has a slim chance. His candidacy is burdened by a chemical called The Clear he bought from BALCO, but he never denied getting it, he denied knowing it was a steroid. He went on to hit 509 home runs, and with one of the fiercest swings in the game had 304 more walks than strikeouts in his 2,576-game career. Perspective? The only players who hit 500 homers and had fewer strikeouts are Ted Williams and Mel Ott. When his career ended, Sheffield went on to be a player agent. He wasn’t Rolen; he was a basher who didn’t strike out.

Carlos Beltrán will make it in the next year or two as the 2017 Astros scandal recedes further into the past. There is absolutely no questioning that he is a Hall of Fame performer. He is one of five players to finish with 400 homers and 300 stolen bases, alongside Bonds, Willie Mays, Alex Rodriguez and Andre Dawson. He has the highest stolen base success rate (86.8 percent) in history. His 1.021 career postseason OPS is topped only by Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and George Brett. Reliability and availability are what Buck Showalter calls “the sixth tool;” Beltrán played center field in 1,312 games and started 1,306 from 2001-10. Beltrán has devoted much of his life to his academy, to helping young players in Puerto Rico who might have trouble finding the money and schooling to develop and either be drafted or go to a college in the United States.

So if admission to the Hall of Fame can be denied by what is considered “wrong” or “cheating,” can we consider what a player has given the game, and if he leaves the baseball world better than we found it, can we then take that as an addition to OPS+?

3. The writers have only elected two center fielders in the last 40 years: Ken Griffey Jr. and Kirby Puckett. We have three of them still on this ballot: Carlos Beltrán, Andruw Jones and Torii Hunter. Why has it been so tough for these center fielders — and more (Jim Edmonds, Bernie Williams, etc.) — to get elected? And how many of the three guys on this ballot will eventually make it?

Stark: I first realized that center field was a different position from all the other positions over a decade ago, when I was working on the center-field chapter in my Stark Truth book, on the most overrated and underrated players in history. For a while there, I thought it would be impossible to make a case for any great center fielder as “overrated” because they were all legends! Mays, Cobb, Mantle, Griffey, DiMaggio, etc. They set this high jump bar so high, it’s hard for anyone to clear it.

But I think Beltrán will get elected one of these years, based on what we saw in this election. As I wrote in my Five Takeaways column, the most important thing we saw there was how many voters there were who voted for him but were not supporters of the PED crowd. That tells me he’s in great position to pick up steam.

And it’s hard not to think Andruw Jones makes it at some point, too. Heck, this guy has piled up almost 200 new votes over the last four elections. So even though I haven’t been one of those, as I explained in my ballot column, I’m always open-minded about examining players like him over and over.

I do feel badly that Torii Hunter hasn’t fared better, though. I think he falls below the Hall of Fame line. But he was as fun to watch play as any center fielder of his generation. And if we had a Hall of Fame for guys who found joy in playing baseball, he’d be a first-ballot pick!

Rosenthal: Our treatment of center fielders really bothers me. At a time when voters supposedly are assigning greater weight to defensive value, how is it that we are not honoring more players at a critical up-the-middle position?

The crowded ballot during the 2010s was part of the problem. Jim Edmonds fell off the ballot after one year despite eight Gold Gloves and 393 homers. Kenny Lofton also was one-and-done even though his 622 stolen bases rank 15th all-time. Bernie Williams lasted only two years despite his .850 career OPS in 545 (!) career plate appearances in the postseason.

Jim Edmonds was known as much for his defense as his offense. (Scott Cunningham / Getty Images)

Are all of those players Hall of Famers? Maybe not, though Edmonds, in particular, should get a long look from the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee. All of them, though, deserved greater consideration. Absolutely. The eventual elections of Jones and Beltrán should help reverse the trend. I’m not sure Hunter is quite at their level. But he warrants deeper examination, too.

Gammons: When Andruw Jones’ name is on the ballot, how can that not be something to think about? I think about Dale Murphy, and wish somehow, somewhere, there is a place in the Hall for a plaque remembering him. In spring training, 1977, I saw him make a throw to second base that Barry Bonnell caught on the fly in center field. He went from catcher to first base to right field to center, in 1981-90 started more games in center than anyone but Lloyd Moseby, hit 398 homers, won two MVPs, started all 162 games every year from 1982 to 1985, and in 1988 was honored by Sports Illustrated in its Athlete of the Year issue with those from other sports with the cover, “Athletes Who Care.”

OPS+, WAR, Athletes who care. Problem is, too many of us have too many ideas of what it means to be a Hall of Famer.

4. Next year looks like a fascinating election, with Adrián Beltré, Joe Mauer and Chase Utley (among others) debuting on the ballot. How many of those guys do you think will get elected — eventually if not next year?

Stark: I think all three will get elected! Not next year, because I think we’ve got a Beltré/Helton/Wagner trifecta almost locked up. So I obviously see Beltré as the easiest first-ballot Hall of Famer since Derek Jeter. It would take some serious overthinking not to vote for a guy with five Gold Gloves and 3,166 hits. So he’s not in debate.

Mauer might be in the short term. But I think once the voters really understand that his case is not just as a catcher, but as one of the greatest-hitting catchers ever, it will mean that they’ll put less weight on the first-baseman portion of his career. Once that happens, he should zoom up the board.

And then there’s Utley. He’s a sabermetric cult hero, right? So maybe once upon a time, 1,885 hits would have disqualified him. But I think we live in a very different time. Over the next 10 years, wouldn’t you guys bet on this voting being overwhelmingly dominated by data-driven thinking? I would. So who on this ballot would benefit from that thinking more than Utley? Plus, he should get bonus points for finding more innovative ways to contribute to winning — for two great teams (Phillies and Dodgers) — than any player I’ve ever been around. And I mean that. Sorry, Derek!

Rosenthal: Beltré is a no-question, first-ballot Hall of Famer. He hit 477 homers and compiled 3,166 hits while making 94.5 percent of his career starts at third base and playing elite defense at the position. He was a model player and model teammate, all but impossible to pull out of the lineup, better in his 30s than in his 20s. An all-time favorite for many of us who covered his career.

Utley will face a more difficult path. He played almost 1,000 fewer games than Beltré and finished with 1,885 hits. The BBWAA has yet to elect a post-1960 expansion candidate with fewer than 2,000 hits to the Hall. Tony Oliva, the only such player to make it, was honored by the Golden Days Era Committee (Worth noting: Andruw Jones and Edmonds also had fewer than 2,000).

Chase Utley lacks the counting stats of most Hall of Famers, but his impact was significant. (Jeff Gross / Getty Images)

Yet, while Utley never won a Gold Glove at second base or finished higher than seventh in an MVP vote, there was something about him — a special brand of talent, toughness and intelligence that teammates and opponents revered. Maybe his intangibles aren’t enough. Maybe if I feel that strongly about him, I should feel more strongly about his double-play partner, Jimmy Rollins, who had 2,455 hits and won an MVP, but has yet to receive my vote. These are all good questions!

Mauer, too, will be a difficult call for some. His first 10 seasons as a primary catcher were Cooperstown-worthy. His final five seasons as a first baseman were not. But one of the first things I look for in a Hall of Famer is 10 years of dominance. Mauer achieved that. His slash line as a catcher was .328/.408/.481. He won an MVP, three Gold Gloves and three batting titles, the most of any catcher. Maybe he won’t get in right away. But he should get in.

Gammons: One of the most striking takeaways from the MLB Network presentation Tuesday was the potential shift from a time when voters were dubious of the majority of candidates, to one where in 2023 it is clear that many voters were looking for players whose boxes they could check on the ballot. Todd Helton, Wagner, Jones and Beltrán all could cross the 75th parallel. Beltré is seemingly a first-ballot walk-in; 3,166 hits, 477 home runs, a 93.5 WAR that’s third among all-time third basemen behind Eddie Matthews and Mike Schmidt, an amazing snap-flip throw and the ability to drop to one knee and hit 400-foot homers.

The other strong candidates who may take two to eight ballots are Mauer and Utley. Mauer’s age 26-30 years were historic, with an MVP and three batting titles in five years, but the physical wear of catching every day and the abuse a big catcher takes with foul tips and concussions eventually forced him to first base. Utley’s numbers may take a while to resonate, but few players in this century have been more respected, his 64.5 WAR is fringe Hall of Fame-worthy and anyone who ever played with him will recall that in his career he never arrived at the park thinking about anything but what he could do to help his team win that day.

Then one adds David Wright and Matt Holliday and remembers they were not only great players, but left the game better than they found it. Wright likely doesn’t have the Rolen or Beltré or Chipper Jones numbers to get 75 percent from the writers, but as with Mattingly and Garciaparra, we are reminded just how hard it is to have the human body hold up for 15 productive seasons.

Which reinforces that voting for Rolen was absolutely the right thing to do.

(Top photo of Rolen: Ezra O. Shaw / Allsport)

Read original article here

Sports

Baseball Hall of Fame election: 5 takeaways from Scott Rolen’s triumph and a historic vote

January 25, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Some Hall of Fame third basemen make it easy. George Brett cruised into the Hall with 98 percent of the vote. Chipper Jones was never in doubt, with 97 percent. Mike Schmidt was just behind them at 96.5 percent. They all breezed into Cooperstown on the first ballot. No fuss. No muss. No suspense.

And then there was Scott Rolen.

He didn’t exactly cruise into the Hall on a stunning Tuesday evening. He certainly didn’t breeze. But when the ballot counting was finally complete, he had just enough votes to become the newest Hall of Famer.

Only five players in the history of the annual Hall balloting had ever cleared the 75 percent bar by five votes or fewer. But Tuesday, Rolen slithered over that line by exactly five.

It was the smallest margin since Pudge Rodriguez made it by four in 2017. And the only other player in the last 35 elections to eek in by this slim a margin was Ferguson Jenkins, by one vote, in 1991. So maybe history will show that Rolen attracted “only” 76.3 percent of the vote. But it was enough — to change his whole life.

Rolen single-handedly saved us from the second shutout in the last three elections by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. But he almost had company.

There was Todd Helton (72.2 percent), who almost made an unprecedented leap from 52.0 percent last year to election, but wound up missing by only 11 votes. And right behind was Billy Wagner, who made a massive jump to 68.1 percent, leaving him 27 votes short.

They’re both now seemingly on the verge of election. But at least they’re not stuck alongside Rolen, gridlocked in a ballot traffic jam that nearly resulted in another shutout and another seriously overcrowded ballot next year.

Nevertheless, this still makes just two players elected by the writers (Rolen and David Ortiz) in the last three years. And that ties the record for any three-year period since the dawn of yearly elections in 1966. The other periods with two were from 1966 to 1968 (Ted Williams, Joe Medwick), 1994-96 (Steve Carlton, Mike Schmidt) and 1996-98 (Phil Niekro, Don Sutton).

But now that we’ve got those pesky details out of the way, what did this election tell us about Rolen’s candidacy — and about some of the players who didn’t get elected? Thanks for asking. I can help with that, with this edition of five things we learned from the 2023 Hall of Fame election.

1. The Scott Rolen bandwagon had just enough gas in the tank

Scott Rolen (Jonathan Daniel / Getty Images)

I’ve been a Hall of Fame voter for a long time. I’ve always had a theory about elections like this one. It almost turned out to be totally bogus, but in the end, it held true again.

As voters, we sometimes find ourselves with a choice — between pitching a shutout or listening to that voice in our head that says it’s always better to elect somebody. And when those sorts of elections come along, we have a long history of looking at the most electable candidate and deciding: I’m voting for That Guy!

I think that happened last year with Ortiz … and in 2012 with Barry Larkin … and 2010 with Andre Dawson … and, hey, I could give you a half-dozen more examples. But here’s why I mention it — because …

That came dangerously close to not happening this year, with Rolen.

Heading into this election, he seemed so perfectly positioned to ride that Let’s Elect Somebody wave. He was only 12 percentage points away after last year. All he needed was another 50 votes or so. There was no reason to think it would be this close. But now that we’ve seen how the votes lined up, it’s easier to dig in on why.

It’s hard to add 200 votes in four years. As recently as the 2019 election, there were “only” 73 voters (17.2 percent) voting for Rolen. Then he hopped on the Larry Walker/Edgar Martinez Hot Candidate Expressway — and jumped by 18 percentage points, 17 percentage points and 10 percentage points over the next three elections. So among candidates who remained on the ballot, he had three years in a row in which nobody was adding more votes than him. I can’t find anyone who ever did that four elections in a row. After all, there are only so many votes to add.

The Ortiz/Bonds/Clemens/Schilling exit didn’t help him much. When Ortiz, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling waved sayonara to this process after last year, it meant the 1,055 ballot slots they took up in 2022 were officially up for grabs. That was great news for Helton, Wagner and others. But it didn’t help Rolen anywhere near as much as those guys — and why not? Because, according to data gathered by the brilliant Hall election analyst Jason Sardell, almost all of the Ortiz/Bonds/Clemens/Schilling voters were already voting for him.

He had to depend on the “Old School” voting crowd. Another thing I learned from Sardell: The key to close elections is often the Old School/Small Hall voters, a group that isn’t big on analytics and can be notoriously hard to crack. Of the 51 public voters who fit that definition last year and made their ballots public, only 39 percent were voting for Rolen this year.

On one hand, that was second only to Billy Wagner (43 percent) among all the candidates on this ballot. On the other, compare that with Ortiz, who pulled in 68 percent from that crowd last year. Edgar Martinez was at 62 percent from that group the year he made it. Larry Walker reeled in 57 percent of them. I’m not sure why an old-school type player like Rolen had so much trouble connecting with old-school voters. But that nearly became an election-swinging factor this year.

Fortunately for him, though, he attracted just enough of those votes to soar above that 75 percent line. And because he did, he wound up following almost an identical path to Mike Mussina, who also was elected in his sixth year on the ballot, in 2019.

Year	Mussina PCT	Rolen PCT
Year 2	24.6%	17.2%
Year 3	43.0%	35.3%
Year 4	51.8%	52.9%
Year 5	63.5%	63.2%
Year 6	76.7%*	76.3%*

(*elected)

2. Four historic leaps — by guys not named Rolen

Todd Helton (Brian Bahr / Allsport via Getty Images)

A funny thing happened to four other guys on this ballot while we were busy fixating on Rolen. Todd Helton, Billy Wagner, Gary Sheffield and Andruw Jones went flying up the Big Board.

Player	Increase	2022	2023
Helton	20.2 percentage points	52.0%	72.2%
Wagner	17.1 percentage points	51.0%	68.1%
Jones	16.7 percentage points	41.4 %	58.1%
Sheffield	15.6 percentage points	40.6%	55.0%

As a longtime student of Hall of Fame voting trends, I was blown away by that fiery ball in the Hall of Fame sky. Why? Because you don’t see that much. By which I mean ever.

I couldn’t recall an election in which four players in their voting tier — who had already crossed the 40 percent line (or higher) — saw their vote totals rocket upward at a level like that. So I double-checked with my friends from STATS Perform. They confirmed that has never happened.

The Hall of Fame started holding annual elections more than half a century ago. Never, in any previous election, had more than two players each jumped by at least 15 percentage points after entering that election with a floor as high as this group.

The previous record was set in 2017, when Edgar Martinez and Tim Raines reeled off gains of 15.2 percentage points and 16.2 percentage points, respectively, with Raines getting elected.

But in this election, we somehow had four? How did that happen? Mostly, it happened because the ballot departures of Ortiz, Bonds, Clemens and Schilling opened up those 1,055 ballot slots we mentioned earlier. And Helton, Wagner, Jones and Sheffield were delighted to fill them.

Sardell was able to pinpoint exactly where those new votes were coming from. At last look, 53 percent of Helton’s added public votes were from writers who filled up all 10 slots on their ballots last year (meaning they previously didn’t have room to include him). Same for Jones (59 percent), Sheffield (52 percent) and Wagner (59 percent).

But that wasn’t an option for Rolen, who picked up only 14 percent of his new votes from that group. Why? Because, as we said earlier, those voters were mostly already voting for him.

So that breakdown is fascinating in and of itself. But wait a minute. I think we might be burying the most important part:

We now have to take a whole new view of the electability of these four guys. So let’s do that.

Helton: He almost did something that has never been done: Leap from 52 percent last year to election the next. But even though he came up nine votes short, he’s now at 72.2 percent, with five years left on the ballot. So it’s time for him to start renting a bunch of Vrbos in Cooperstown in July 2024, because he’ll be giving a speech! Over the last 50 elections, you know how many players have gotten this close within their first five years on the ballot and not been elected the next year? Right you are. Not a one (11 for 11).

Wagner: A 17.1 percentage point surge in one year? Incredible. Wagner’s big move should command our attention for two reasons. One is, it’s the largest year-to-year jump by any reliever ever — topping a 15.5 percentage point leap by Rollie Fingers in 1992. The other is, Wagner is now at 68.1 percent, with two years left on the ballot. So he’d have to make the wrong kind of history to not get elected in one of those two years.

Five previous relievers — Trevor Hoffman, Goose Gossage, Bruce Sutter, Hoyt Wilhelm and Fingers — crossed the 60 percent barrier with at least as many years left on the ballot as Wagner has. All five of them got elected within two years. They apparently now have a 100 mph left-handed smokeballer ready to join them one of these July afternoons.

Jones: Four years ago, who, other than his immediate family members, would have envisioned Andruw Jones closing in on the 60 percent barrier? His first two years on the ballot, in 2018 and ’19, he got 7.3 percent and 7.5 percent of the vote, respectively. That’s 31 votes the first year, 32 the second. That’s not your typical harbinger of a trip to the plaque gallery.

But Jones has since added another 194 votes — so he, too, is now positioned for election some day. He has four years to pick up another 100 votes or so. And if he does, he’ll become the first player in the history of the modern voting system to go from less than 8 percent in Year 1 to later getting elected by the writers. I guess it wouldn’t be the first time he covered more ground than your average center fielder. Right?

Sheffield: Meanwhile, Sheffield has made a similar ride up the election elevator, from 13.6 percent in 2018 to 55 percent this year. But he’s the one guy on this list we wouldn’t advise betting on eventually getting the call. This was his ninth orbit on this ballot. So he’s down to one shot left. Since he was at only 40.6 percent a year ago, his unlikely path to election would be via a 34.4 percentage point bungee jump over his final two go-rounds on this ballot.

Only three players in the history of this election have ever done that:

Luis Aparicio, 1983-84 — +42.7%
Larry Walker, 2019-20 — +42.5%
Barry Larkin, 2011-12 — +34.8%

But of that group, just Walker was down to his final two elections before he caught fire. And it’s hard to envision anybody with ties to performance-enhancing drugs, vague as Sheffield’s may be, repeating that history, especially with the ballot getting more crowded again next year.

3. Beltrán gets more love than those PED “cheaters”

Carlos Beltrán (Bryan Yablonsky / Getty Images)

I can’t tell you how many votes Carlos Beltrán would have gotten if he’d just lived on an alternative planet where there was no such thing as the 2017 Astros. I can tell you that his jury has now filed back into this courtroom. And we have a shocking verdict on our hands.

Was Beltrán guilty of the crime of heinous cheating, just like those notorious PED scoundrels this jury has been pummeling and punishing for a decade and a half? Surprisingly, nearly half of our distinguished jurists/voters (46.5 percent) have decided:

Whatever! Not guilty!

Full disclosure: If you’ve read my Hall ballot column, you know I agree with this verdict. I voted for the guy. I just didn’t expect that many of my fellow voters would see it this way.

Beltrán’s 70.1 Wins Above Replacement would make him essentially a sure Hall of Famer on that alternative planet. But now consider how differently Hall voters over the last two decades have treated 70-win players with PED ties in their first year on the ballot:

Barry Bonds — 36.2 percent
Alex Rodriguez — 34.3 percent
Rafael Palmeiro — 11.0 percent

So the message seems clear: Their “cheating” is officially being viewed as more scandalous than Beltrán and his fancy, high-tech, trash-can “cheating.” That’s obvious, just from looking at his vote totals. But let’s zoom in a little closer.

When the first public ballots began to show up in Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall of Fame Tracker, many of Beltrán’s votes were coming from the same voters who were checking the names of A-Rod and Manny Ramírez. But now that we have hundreds more votes to break down, it turns out that those voters weren’t the best ones to study. The most revealing group, Sardell reports, was the voters who tend to vote for lots of non-PED guys.

According to Sardell, at last look Beltrán was showing up on 70 percent of the ballots of writers who voted for at least six players with no PED ties. Beltrán was at 55 percent with voters who supported four or five non-PED candidates. But he was at only 31 percent among those who voted for three or fewer players in that group.

So what does that tell us? It tells us there was a surprisingly small link between how voters felt about Manny and A-Rod (who received 33.2 percent and 35.7 percent of this year’s vote, respectively) and how they looked at Beltrán. And if that means most voters are willing to look at Beltrán from a place where they don’t view him through the bars of Cheaters Jail, I think he’s going to get elected someday.

Who knew!

4. Say Goodbye/hello to Jeff Kent, the next Fred McGriff

Jeff Kent and Fred McGriff (Todd Warshaw /Allsport via Getty Images)

Unfortunately for Jeff Kent, his time on this ballot has expired. But fortunately for Jeff Kent, in his 10th and final election, he did zoom past 40 percent for the first time. And that’s quite a development, considering four years ago he hadn’t even made it to 20 percent.

Even with his surge this year, from 32.7 percent to 46.5 percent, he was still more than 100 votes away from getting elected. But I wouldn’t be worrying about any of that if I were him.

That’s because in a few years his Hall of Fame mulligan arrives, via the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee. And that committee has already shown us — and him — the most irrelevant thing that has ever happened to him in his career was spending 10 years on the writers’ ballot and never coming close to getting elected.

Exhibit A is a gentleman named Fred McGriff. He, too, logged 10 years on the writers’ ballot. He never made it to 40 percent in any of those years (peaking at 39.8 in Year 10). And how’d that work out? Pretty, pretty good. Just last month, the Contemporary Era Committee took one look at his candidacy and … unanimously elected him on the first ballot.

So check out Kent’s credentials and tell us you don’t think he’s the perfect candidate to follow that same trail to Cooperstown. Like McGriff, Kent has an old-school claim to historic greatness that seems to play well with all versions of these veterans committees: Most home runs ever by a second baseman (351) … most RBIs ever by a second baseman (1,428) … most 100-RBI seasons ever by a second baseman (eight) … highest slugging percentage by a second baseman (.509) since Rogers Hornsby retired, over 100 years ago.

And while it may not matter much to the voters on that committee, Kent’s late momentum on the writers’ ballot also mirrors McGriff’s.

VOTE PERCENTAGE INCREASE IN FINAL FOUR ELECTIONS

McGriff — +25.9% (12.9% to 39.8%)
Kent — +28.4% (18.1% to 46.5%)

Kent’s first year of eligibility via the Contemporary Era Committee is 2026, with the election held at the Winter Meetings in December 2025. Would it shock you if that committee sized him up that week and decided: Yep, he’s our guy? Let’s just say it shouldn’t!

5. I already can’t wait for next year’s election

Adrián Beltré (Rick Yeatts / Getty Images)

Is it OK to gaze into the future on a day like this? Heck, yeah. Why not? Maybe this wasn’t the most earth-rattling Hall of Fame election of modern times. But next year? Next year is going to be a blast. Let’s tell you why.

The first-year class is so much fun. Adrián Beltré joins the ballot next year. He’s the most surefire first-ballot lock since Derek Jeter in 2020. The highest first-ballot percentage ever by a third baseman was 98.2, by George Brett in 1999. Could Beltré beat that? Not impossible. I don’t know who could find a reason not to vote for a five-time Gold Glove Award winner with 3,166 hits. But hey, weirder non-votes have happened.

But after Beltré, we’ll have two more super interesting first-year attractions to chew on: Joe Mauer and Chase Utley. There had never been any such thing as a catcher who was a three-time batting champ, until Mauer. Except Mauer then finished his career with five seasons at first base that didn’t quite remind anybody of Lou Gehrig. So if the first-base years are stuck in some voters’ heads, he’ll be a fascinating candidate.

And so will Utley, a Sabermetric cult hero who ranks higher, according to Jay Jaffe’s essential JAWS metric, than Roberto Alomar, Craig Biggio and eight other Hall of Fame second basemen. So that’s a cool new-age/old-school debate waiting to happen.

But David Wright, Bartolo Colon, Matt Holliday, José Reyes and Adrián González also will appear on next year’s ballot. And they don’t all seem like your typical one-and-done candidates, either. So there’s a lot to ponder there.

How many holdovers get in? Now back to this election. When the dust settled on the returns Tuesday, we had only one player elected — but we also had a half-dozen players all lined up to chisel their plaques someday. So with a 2024 ballot that’s suddenly a whole lot more packed with excellent candidates, how many holdovers will there be room for?

• Two of those holdovers (Helton and Wagner) racked up more than 68 percent of the vote apiece. And that will make next year just the fifth election in the modern voting era to feature two returning candidates with vote totals that high. And in all four of the previous elections, both of those players got elected the next year:

2018 — Trevor Hoffman, Vladimir Guerrero
2017 — Jeff Bagwell, Time Raines
2011 — Bert Blyleven, Roberto Alomar
1987 — Billy Williams, Catfish Hunter

• But next year will also feature five returning candidates who got at least 46 percent of the vote. And there have been just seven previous elections in the last 37 years when that happened. In only two of them — 2013 and last year — were none of those returning candidates elected. But, as we’ve covered, Helton and Wagner are both solidly in the imminent-election zone.

No matter how many get to 75 percent next year, though, the first-ballot influx will no doubt have a ripple effect on vote totals up and down the ballot. So will that lead to some of this year’s high jumpers abruptly riding the escalator back down next January? Could happen.

All I know is, 2024 is shaping up as one of the hardest Hall of Fame elections to project in years. I’m looking forward to it already. Can you tell?

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic / Getty Images)

Read original article here

Sports

Every MLB team’s best international signing of the last decade

January 12, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

Baseball’s international signing period for 2023 opens Sunday, which means this would be a good time to see which clubs have most effectively tapped into this critical talent pipeline. We asked The Athletic’s baseball writers to name each team’s best international free agent signing of the last decade. The answers reveal which teams have done well, perhaps a reflection of an investment in scouting (or even a willingness to lavish sizable deals on players who had already established themselves as stars overseas). The answers also reveal which franchises have some work to do.

Arizona Diamondbacks: Jazz Chisholm

Arizona’s international efforts have ramped up under the current regime, but it takes years for that to bear fruit. As such, the organization’s best international signing of the last 10 years can be credited to the Dave Stewart administration, which inked shortstop prospect Jazz Chisholm for $200,000 out of the Bahamas in 2015. Chisholm’s major-league career has just begun, although he’s already earned an All-Star nod at second base. Yes, it was with the Marlins, but trading Chisholm in 2019 allowed current general manager Mike Hazen to acquire ace Zac Gallen, who has been and should continue to be a perennial Cy Young Award candidate for years to come. — Zach Buchanan

Atlanta Braves: Ronald Acuña Jr.

Ronald Acuña Jr. wasn’t ranked among the top 30 international prospects in the 2014 class when the Braves signed the young Venezuelan for $100,000, which was twice as much as the next-largest bonus he was offered, from the Royals. Four years later, a 20-year-old Acuña was a near-unanimous choice for NL Rookie of the Year over Juan Soto, and now he’s a three-time All-Star and two-time Silver Slugger Award winner who’s regarded as one of the top young players in baseball. A torn ACL in July 2021 is the only thing that’s managed thus far to stall his otherwise steady ascent. — David O’Brien

Baltimore Orioles: César Prieto

The Orioles ignored the international market for more than a decade under owner Peter Angelos. That philosophy changed in 2018, when his sons took over and hired general manager Mike Elias and international director Koby Perez. The organization is setting signing-bonus records annually now, but most of their acquisitions are at the low levels of the minors. The exception is infielder César Prieto, a 23-year-old Cuban defector who signed last year for $650,000. Prieto tore through High A (.340/.381/.619) in 25 games and spent the rest of 2022 at Double A, where he slashed .255/.296/.348. He’ll likely start the year at Double A, but should push toward Norfolk once there’s an opening at second, shortstop or third base. — Dan Connolly

Boston Red Sox: Rafael Devers

Rafael Devers signed for $1.5 million as a 16-year-old out of the Dominican Republic in August 2013 and debuted when he was just 20 years old in late 2017. He’s been the team’s Opening Day third baseman every year since. In his five and a half seasons, he’s etched himself into Red Sox record books in several categories and since the beginning of 2019, Devers leads the majors in doubles (149) and extra-base hits (264) and leads the AL in hits (591) and total bases (1,078). Earlier this month, the Red Sox reached an agreement on an 11-year, $331 million deal with Devers, the largest contract in team history. — Jen McCaffrey

Chicago Cubs: Eloy Jiménez

The debate is probably between Eloy Jiménez and Gleyber Torres, neither of whom has taken a single big-league at-bat with the Cubs. Both were traded at the height of the Cubs’ most recent string of success and both have been generally strong performers when healthy. But it’s Jiménez’s power bat and potential to slug among the best in baseball that sets him apart in this writer’s eyes. The trade that sent him to the White Sox along with Dylan Cease and brought José Quintana to the Cubs will be one baseball fans in Chicago will bring up for years. Maybe a 2023 breakout from Cristian Hernández will slightly ease Cubs fans’ pain. — Sahadev Sharma

Eloy Jiménez. (Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)

Chicago White Sox: José Abreu

This sure has the potential to be awkward. Recent tumult aside, Fernando Tatis Jr. has more than a puncher’s chance to accumulate the most career WAR of any international player signed by the Sox during the past 10 years, and he’s accumulating it all in San Diego after being dealt for the last gasps of James Shields in 2016. Luis Robert has the tools to maybe match him long-term, but similar issues staying healthy and less realized production. Since the Sox immediately knew what they had in Robert and made him a franchise centerpiece, maybe he is the best signing. Or we could make this simple. José Abreu was signed in late October 2013 at age 26, giving us the benefit of looking at the bulk of his MLB career in hindsight. Two RBI titles, five 30-homer seasons, three All-Star teams, three Silver Sluggers and an MVP award. That’ll do. The only awkward part there is that he plays for the defending champion Astros now. — James Fegan

Cincinnati Reds: Elly De La Cruz

It may be odd to say a player who has fewer than 50 games above A ball is the best signing of the last 10 years, but Elly De La Cruz’s ascension to the top of prospect lists after signing for $65,000 in 2018 shows just how much promise there is in the 21-year-old switch-hitting shortstop. — C. Trent Rosecrans

Cleveland Guardians: Yandy Diáz

It’s actually astounding how little Cleveland’s franchise has benefitted from its international signings, especially considering they’ve contended for much of the last decade. José Ramírez, obviously, was a home-run pickup, but he signed in 2009, out of range for this prompt. The only international player who signed with the organization within the last 10 years and has totaled at least 0.5 fWAR with Cleveland: Oscar Gonzalez. It seems as though strides have been made on the international front in recent years, with George Valera, Brayan Rocchio and Angel Martinez among the club’s top prospects. Yandy Diáz logged 0.4 fWAR with Cleveland before the team jettisoned him to Tampa — where he has blossomed — in a deal that brought Carlos Santana back to Cleveland (oh, and Jake Bauers, too). — Zack Meisel

Colorado Rockies: Ezequiel Tovar

The Rockies don’t tend to be major players in the international market, choosing instead to pick around the edges looking for lottery tickets. Big bonus spending on teenaged free agents is not their style, not until last year at least. And once in a while, they find an undervalued player who makes it. Righthander Antonio Senzatela, then 16, was a nice get out of Venezuela in 2011 for a $250,000 bonus. Within the last decade, they signed shortstop Ezequiel Tovar, also 16 and from Venezuela, for $800,000 in 2018. He became one of their top prospects and debuted late last season. The verdict on his major league career will wait, but Tovar is set to become Colorado’s No. 1 shortstop. — Nick Groke

Detroit Tigers: Gregory Soto

The Tigers’ past decade on the international market has been unbelievably dry. Gregory Soto (recently traded to the Phillies) was their only productive big leaguer in a generation of international prospects. Their last true international win was Willy Adames, who signed in 2012. He was traded to the Rays in 2014 and has gone on to post 15.5 bWAR in the majors. — Cody Stavenhagen

Gregory Soto. (Kim Klement / USA Today)

Houston Astros: Framber Valdez

The Astros have had significant success in the international market in recent years. It is a big reason why the organization has been able to lose players like Gerrit Cole and George Springer in free agency and not miss a beat. Cristian Javier, Yurí Gurriel, Luis García and José Urquidy were all signed as amateur free agents within the past 10 years. But the best of the bunch is Framber Valdez, who overcame countless rejections to finally land a pro contract with the Astros in 2015 and has quickly become one of the elite left-handed starters in baseball. — Melissa Lockard

Kansas City Royals: Esteury Ruiz

The Royals won the World Series in 2015 with Salvador Perez, Yordano Ventura and Kelvin Herrera playing major roles, but the club hasn’t turned an international signing into a regular player in more than a decade. The oft-injured Adalberto Mondesi, for instance, was signed in 2011. The best signing is probably Dominican infielder turned outfielder Esteury Ruiz, who was signed in 2015. Ruiz was traded to the Padres in 2017 and was on the move a lot in the last year, eventually ending up in Oakland. One other name to watch: 22-year-old Venezuelan shortstop Maikel García. — Rustin Dodd

Los Angeles Angels: Shohei Ohtani

This is an easy one for the Angels. Roberto Baldoquin has to be the choice. I kid, and apologize for that, Angels fans. The real answer is Shohei Ohtani. The Angels haven’t had much success in developing international free agents. But Ohtani is clearly the outlier. The modern-day Babe Ruth. One of the most unique and talented players of his time, or all time. There’s no one close to him on the list of Angels signings to choose from. Ohtani has also come at a relative bargain, with 2023 his first significant payday. The question is how long he’ll stay in Anaheim. — Sam Blum

Los Angeles Dodgers: Yordan Alvarez

Julio Urías missed this cutoff, having been signed in 2012. That leaves the Dodgers’ most notable international signing of the last decade as a reminder of one of their few major whiffs on the trade front in that period as well. Yordan Alvarez never played a game in the organization before being dealt to Houston for reliever Josh Fields, but has since emerged as one of the most fearsome hitters in the sport. He’s already accumulated 13.6 bWAR in four seasons despite largely serving as a designated hitter and missing nearly all of 2020, punctuating things with a top-3 finish for MVP last year and a titanic blast to help the Astros clinch a World Series win. It’s been a productive signing, even though the Dodgers surely wish that production came in their uniform. — Fabian Ardaya

Miami Marlins: Eury Pérez

The Marlins have a sizable heap of promising international prospects that would fit in this category. The jury is still out on them, but given the strides made in 2022 it feels appropriate to spotlight Eury Pérez here. The lanky fireballer towers over everyone who steps into the box against him. His 6-foot-9 frame makes it hard for even the likes of Reds star prospect Elly De La Cruz to get a good read on anything coming out of Pérez’s hand. He’s far from a one-trick pony, though. He couples his hard heater with three plus or better pitches. He’s also so poised that at 19 years old last season he outdid Double-A Southern League competitors who were on average five years older than him. — Maria Torres

Eury Pérez. (Photo courtesy of the Pensacola Blue Wahoos)

Milwaukee Brewers: Jackson Chourio

The answer here shows how unsuccessful many of the recent international signing classes have been for the Brewers and it also highlights just how good the player can be. It’s Jackson Chourio. The Brewers signed Chourio as a 16-year-old shortstop/center fielder from Venezuela in 2021. Already, he has skyrocketed atop Milwaukee’s prospect rankings. He has a shot to claim the top spot among prospects in baseball. In his age-18 season last year, Chourio slashed .288/.342/.538 with 20 home runs and 16 stolen bases. He split time mostly between the Class A levels, but he also appeared in six games for Double-A Biloxi. — Will Sammon

Minnesota Twins: Luis Arraez

Luis Arraez was far from a top prospect when he signed with the Twins for just $40,000 as a 16-year-old out of Venezuela in 2013. He was 5-foot-nothing, with zero power and mediocre speed, and it wasn’t clear where he’d fit best defensively. Turns out, it didn’t really matter, as Arraez’s exceptional bat control and plate discipline got him to the big leagues in 2019. He’s a career .314 hitter in 389 major-league games after hitting .331 in the minors, and now he’s a 25-year-old All-Star and batting champion. — Aaron Gleeman

New York Mets: Andrés Giménez

The Mets signed Andrés Giménez for $1.2 million as part of their 2015 international signing class. In 2020, Giménez, a gifted infielder from Venezuela, finished seventh for NL Rookie of the Year. In January 2021, the Mets included Giménez in their trade package for Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco. With the Guardians last season, Giménez posted a terrific season: In 557 plate appearances, he had 17 home runs and a .837 OPS with 20 stolen bases and a 6.1 fWAR. For those curious, Amed Rosario, who was also part of that trade with Cleveland, signed during the cycle before the cutoff period for this exercise. — Will Sammon

New York Yankees: Oswald Peraza

New York signed the shortstop prospect out of Venezuela in 2016, and he’s quickly turned into one of the Yankees’ best overall prospects. Oswald Peraza was briefly called up at the end of this season and flashed enough at the plate and in the field to make those around the team believe he’s ready to have an opportunity to be the Yankees’ starting shortstop by opening day. An honorable mention should go to fellow Venezuelan Oswaldo Cabrera. The Yankees signed Cabrera when he was 16 years old for $100,000. Now the 23-year-old might become the team’s starting left fielder this season. — Chris Kirschner

Oakland Athletics: Jordan Díaz

Twenty-five years ago, the A’s had a strong pipeline of talent flowing from their international scouting efforts, which produced All-Stars like Miguel Tejada, Ramon Hernández, Angel Berroa and Santiago Casilla. Since then, the pipeline has run dry, first from lack of funds, and more recently from development not going as planned. Despite giving out large six-figure bonuses to players such as Lazaro Armenteros, Robert Puason and Pedro Pineda, the A’s biggest international signing success of the last decade has been Jordan Díaz, who signed out of Colombia for $275,000 in July 2016. Infielder Jordan Díaz had an .881 OPS in his age-21 season last year and made his major-league debut. He’s one of the best pure hitters in the A’s organization. — Melissa Lockard

Jordan Díaz. (Danne Braden / Midland RockHounds)

Pittsburgh Pirates: Rodolfo Castro

It’s a close race between infielders Rodolfo Castro and Ji Hwan Bae. Castro, 23, signed for $150,000 in October 2015 out of the Dominican Republic. He’s had brief stints in the majors the past two seasons and batted .224/.288/.419 with 16 homers. This year, he’ll go into spring training with a chance to win the starting job at second base. Bae, 23, originally was signed by the Braves, but joined the Pirates in 2018 for $1.25 million when the Braves were penalized for rule violations. Bae made his big league debut last summer and has a good chance to break camp with the Pirates this year. Castro has gotten a bit more big-league playing time and has more pop in his bat, so for now I’ll go with him — Rob Biertempfel

Philadelphia Phillies: Sixto Sánchez

He never threw a pitch in the majors for the Phillies, but Sixto Sánchez was one of the club’s best investments in the last decade. Sánchez cost only $35,000 to sign. He developed into a top prospect before he turned 19 and the Phillies used him as the centerpiece in a trade with Miami for J.T. Realmuto. The Phillies have had success in turning small-bonus international amateurs into prospects but not necessarily big-league talent. Sánchez, who last pitched in the majors in the 2020 postseason, is still only 24. But injuries have derailed him. — Matt Gelb

San Diego Padres: Emmanuel Clase

The Padres signed Emmanuel Clase for $125,000 in January 2015, and he spent three seasons in the low levels of the organization as a talented but erratic right-hander. Questions about his maturity encouraged San Diego to trade him for catcher Brett Nicholas in 2018. Over the last couple of years, Clase has made multiple teams regret moving on from him; since Texas sent him to Cleveland in a 2019 deal to acquire Corey Kluber, Clase has emerged as maybe the best reliever in baseball, wielding an absurd cutter that averages 100 mph. That pitch, along with a similarly elite slider, has helped the 24-year-old closer to a 1.47 ERA across his first two seasons with the Guardians. In 2022, Clase logged a 1.36 ERA while leading the majors in saves, appearances and games finished. — Dennis Lin

San Francisco Giants: Camilo Doval

Only two international free agents signed after 2013 have made the majors for the Giants: Camilo Doval and Kervin Castro. So the answer is Doval from a pure value standpoint. So, uh, the answer is Doval. And maybe the Giants should fix this.

The answer will almost certainly be Marco Luciano, though. Prospects are volatile, but it’s hard to see how someone with his bat speed and ability to stick up the middle of the diamond can’t have at least an average major-league career. Considering the last international player to get an at-bat with the Giants was Pablo Sandoval, who signed as a free agent in 2003, back when most people had dial-up modems, Luciano can’t come soon enough. — Grant Brisbee

Seattle Mariners: Julio Rodríguez

It took $1.75 million for the Mariners to sign outfielder Julio Rodríguez in 2017, which probably now feels like couch change after the return the 22-year-old has already provided the club. Rodríguez ran away with the American League Rookie of the Year Award and even earned a seventh-place finish in the AL MVP vote after a big first season in the big leagues. Add to that the 12-year extension he signed in the summer that will guarantee him $210 million (with a chance to earn much more). The sky is the limit for him. — Corey Brock

Julio Rodríguez. (Joe Nicholson / USA Today)

St. Louis Cardinals: Sandy Alcántara

The Cardinals signed then-18-year-old Sandy Alcántara as part of their 2013-2014 international class, back when current assistant general manager Moisés Rodríguez served as the organization’s director of international scouting. Alcántara debuted for St. Louis in 2017 but was traded to Miami the following offseason for Marcell Ozuna, a move president of baseball operations John Mozeliak has probably lost some sleep over in hindsight. Since that trade, Alcántara has established himself as one of the top starting pitchers in baseball with two National League All-Star berths under his belt along with unanimously winning the National League Cy Young Award in 2022. — Katie Woo

Tampa Bay Rays: Wander Franco

Wander Franco the Wunderkind is a star for a reason. He was limited to 83 games because of lower body issues and a hamate bone fracture that required surgery, but he still showed glimpses of his star status at points throughout the year. Despite missing large swaths of the season, the Rays’ manager still pointed to his own excitement to watch Franco put up big numbers in 2023. We should side with Kevin Cash on this. Franco, signed out of the Dominican Republic not even six years ago, is just barely getting started. — Maria Torres

Texas Rangers: Jonathan Hernández

The obvious answer would be Leody Taveras, but for the price ($300,000), it’s hard to top Jonathan Hernández. At the time, his fastball was in the 80s and he was considered a deception-first guy who wouldn’t overpower hitters. Now armed with a triple-digit “turbo-sinker,” he’s a legit back-end reliever who could find himself in the closer role in 2023. Ask again in a few years, though: it’s very possible that the answer could change to Taveras or Luisangel Acuña. — Levi Weaver

Toronto Blue Jays: Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

The Blue Jays have become highly regarded for their international scouting over the last several years, but their best signing of the last decade has to be Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Signed as a 16-year-old out of the Dominican Republic in 2015, his family ties meant Guerrero was a recognizable name, but his hitting prowess is what got him noticed. He continued to blossom in their system and debuted with the Blue Jays in 2019 to much fanfare. After an adjustment period, he’s developed into one of the best young hitters in baseball, a Gold Glove-winning first baseman, and a player the Blue Jays are building a playoff-calibre team around. — Kaitlyn McGrath

Washington Nationals: Juan Soto

Remember the kid who had to wait until the 2019 World Series was almost over to legally consume alcohol in beer showers? The one with the swaggy shuffle at the plate? Who once carried his bat all the way up the first base line and dropped it at the feet of his first base coach after obliterating a Justin Verlander heater? It was Juan Soto. His short career in Washington will resonate forever in the nation’s capital. — Maria Torres

(Top photo of Shohei Ohtani: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)

Read original article here

Sports

Law: The Red Sox bet big on Masataka Yoshida; Cubs sign Jameson Taillon and more

December 8, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

The Red Sox certainly made a choice in giving Masataka Yoshida, an outfielder who has spent his career to date in Japan’s NPB, their first big outlay of the offseason, signing him to a five-year, $90 million deal — money they could have spent on Willson Contreras, who would have filled a bigger need. Yoshida didn’t even make my top 50 free agents, even though he was eligible, as he’s an often-injured outfielder whose power output in Japan seems unlikely to carry over to MLB.

Yoshida’s most notable attribute is his gaudy walk and strikeout numbers — he rarely punches out, often choking way up on the barrel to just get the bat on the ball any way he can, and he has walked more than he’s struck out in four straight years, with 64 unintentional walks and 42 strikeouts in 2022. He hit .335/.447/.561 for the Orix Buffaloes this past season, and .339/.429/.563 the year before, with 21 homers in each of those two years.

Of course, we’ve seen a lot of hitters come from NPB to the majors and lose their home-run power somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. Seiya Suzuki hit 38 homers for Hiroshima in 2021, and 14 for the Cubs last year. Kosuke Fukudome hit 31 and 34 in his two best seasons for Chunichi, and then hit 37 homers in MLB … but it took him five seasons to do it. Yoshi Tsutsugo hit 44 and 38 homers in his two best years in NPB and then hit 18 total in 182 major-league games. NPB parks are smaller, and the pitching is very different, not just in stuff but in approach.

The undersized Yoshida (5-foot-8, 176 pounds) has an extremely short, punchy swing that favors contact over impact, almost like he’s playing pepper with the infielders. Not only does that approach not lend itself to power, even extra-base power, but it also can leave hitters vulnerable to pitchers who can come inside with velocity. Ichiro was legendary for his inside-out swing and his ability to make good contact almost anywhere he was pitched, but we’ve had a generation of hitters trying to imitate him, and no one has been able to do it. He’s not a runner and is probably limited to left field. That leaves Boston’s investment depending entirely on Yoshida’s ability to get on base, and that’s likely to take a hit as well, as pitchers aren’t going to pitch around a guy who lacks the impact to hurt them with extra bases. Yoshida probably won’t strike out much here, and that has some value, but he’s also likely to strike out more here than he did there. That leaves the Red Sox with a guy who gets on base at a decent enough clip, probably in the .350-360 range, without power, speed, or much defensive value. He might be a regular on some teams, but I think for a contender, he might fit more as an extra outfielder — and if I’m right, this is not a good deal for Boston. Given the massive void they have behind the plate right now, and the fact that Willson Contreras just signed for less than Boston spent just on Yoshida (before the $15.4 million posting fee), I’m just confused.

• The Red Sox also agreed to sign right-hander Kenley Jansen on a two-year, $32 million deal that is … fine. He’s not a capital-C Closer type anymore, and that’s probably more money per year than he should have gotten, but it’s hardly going to sink the payroll, and if they’re more comfortable with a veteran closer, better to get him on a two-year deal than a longer one. My guess is Jansen gives them about two wins worth of production in about 110 innings over the two years, accounting for some time off here and there for minor injuries. I’m assuming Alex Cora will leave Jansen for the last three outs and use one of their better relief options for high-leverage spots before that.

• The Cubs’ rotation right now is Marcus Stroman and a bunch of fourth/fifth starter types, so if they want to contend in 2023, they needed to go add one and probably two more starting pitchers who are better than the Justin Steele/Adrian Sampson group. They got one of them Wednesday in Jameson Taillon, signing the former Yankee and Pirate to a four-year, $68 million contract that values him more like a third/fourth starter and leaves the team with some room to come out ahead if he continues to see improvement in his command. He’s a four-and-a-half pitch guy who came back from his second Tommy John surgery throwing more strikes than ever, becoming a groundball guy as well, although he can still be homer-prone because his command within the zone isn’t great. He’s had a lot of injuries, including the two surgeries and a bout with testicular cancer, but he was mostly healthy the last two years, and he’s only 31 this year. The Cubs gave him almost exactly the deal I thought he should get, for which I take no credit, but I bet they see what I see — a solid mid-rotation guy who could still become more than that.

• The Cubs also signed Cody Bellinger to a one-year, $17 million deal. I really have no idea what to make of Bellinger at this point. His pitch selection is terrible, his swing is kind of the same as it always was but looks a lot worse when he’s swinging at the wrong pitches, and he gives the Cubs a first baseman with elite defense who can also play the outfield. I hope they can fix him.

• The Mets continued to add to their rotation with a two-year agreement with lefty José Quintana, who bounced back in a big way in 2022 after five years of replacement-level work. Quintana used his changeup more often last year, and that in turn made his four-seamer much more effective, while he can still get whiffs on his curveball and throws just about everything for strikes. I do think his home run rate is going to regress (upward) to the mean, but he could give the Mets some league-average innings, or close to it, in the fourth spot and lets them move Tylor Megill out of the rotation into a swing role or to be the extra guy if Justin Verlander or Max Scherzer needs an extra day.

(File photo: Kiyoshi Ota / Getty Images)

Read original article here

Sports

Stark: It’s over for Bonds, Clemens — 5 things we learned from the Hall of Fame Contemporary Era election

December 5, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

SAN DIEGO — It wasn’t just an election. It was a proclamation.

The headlines will say that the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee unanimously elected Fred McGriff to the Hall of Fame on Sunday. And that in itself is cause for celebration.

But in elections like this one, it isn’t just the player who got elected who was the story. In some ways, the players who didn’t get elected represented an even bigger story, a more momentous statement of where the Hall of Fame goes from here.

I’m thinking of two of those players in particular, but also of their entire tainted generation. So let’s start there, as we contemplate …

Five Things We Learned from the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee election.

1. Slam the door on Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and the performance-enhancing drugs generation

Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds couldn’t even muster four votes apiece. (Matt York / Getty Images)

It’s over. It’s all over for Barry Bonds. And for Roger Clemens. And, when you really think this through, for the whole generation of PED history makers who haven’t already sneaked into the Hall.

What’s the scenario now where any of them ever walk to the podium in Cooperstown on any Induction Weekend? I’m no visionary, but I can’t see one.

I guess I can’t predict how some era committee might vote in 50 years — or 500 years. So I’m going to stop myself from using the word, “never.” And also “ever.” But the vote of this committee feels like a deal-breaker … and a debate-ender … for the foreseeable future, at least.

There were 16 ballot casters who stepped into the Era Committee voting booth. Bonds and Clemens couldn’t even collect four votes apiece. They needed 12 votes to start working on their induction speeches. That was never going to happen.

So whaddaya know. It turned out that the baseball writers were actually their best shot — and quite possibly, their only shot. They both cleared the 60 percent bar in their final appearance on the writers’ ballot last year. You think they’ll ever top 60 percent in any election in which the voters include clean players they played against? Ha.

How about executives who are probably terrified of being viewed as sympathetic to two men who have become this radioactive in the industry? There will always be four or five of those folks on these committees, too.

Remember, it only takes five “no” votes or “non” votes to prevent any candidate from getting 75 percent in this 16-voter format. So what version of this committee will ever be made up of a group so open to a Bonds/Clemens induction extravaganza that there won’t even be five “no’s” in the room? Hard to imagine.

So that’s The End for them, right? Bonds and Clemens had 10 chances on the writers’ ballot and never made it. Now they’ve been rebuffed by a different group of voters. So will they even get another shot when this committee meets again three years from now? They might not.

Rafael Palmeiro, one of only seven members of the 3,000-Hit/500-Homer Club, was also on this ballot. He failed to get four votes, either.

And if you think Alex Rodriguez or Manny Ramirez are ever getting elected by the writers, you’ve been analyzing very different Hall of Fame election results than I have.

So let’s stop and recognize what just happened. The PED sentences have been handed down now. And it sure looks as though they’re lifetime sentences.

Oh, not for everyone, of course. The Hall asked us, the writers, to play an impossible guessing game of who did what before testing and suspensions kicked in. We were really, really not good at that game. But of course we weren’t. It was impossible.

So I don’t know how many PED users we’ve elected to the Hall already. Five? Ten? More? Less? Whatever. It now looks as if that’s probably going to be it — from an entire generation.

But hold your applause out there. I want you to consider what that means in the big picture. It means this is going to be a Hall of Fame that is unlike anything the founders could possibly have envisioned when the plaque gallery honored its first members nine decades ago.

It means the all-time home run king (Bonds) will be missing from this Hall of Fame.

It means the all-time Cy Young Award king (Clemens) will be missing from this Hall of Fame.

The guy who broke Roger Maris’ exalted home run record (Mark McGwire)? No plaque for him.

The man with more 60-homer seasons than any hitter who ever lived (Sammy Sosa, with three of them)? No plaque for him, either.

And then there’s the Hit King (Pete Rose). Don’t plan any future trips to go see his plaque in this Hall of Fame. He wrote an eloquent letter recently, taking one last shot at finding sympathy from the commissioner. But there was none to be found.

So think about this now. Are you sure that’s the kind of Hall of Fame you want? Is it the kind of Hall of Fame baseball should want? Just asking — because I’ll admit I feel a little funny about that.

But that’s the kind of Hall of Fame we’re almost guaranteed to have now. And that’s the most powerful thing we learned Sunday from the election results from the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee.

It’s over. It’s all over. For Bonds. For Clemens. For the kind of Hall of Fame that will only exist now in an alternate universe — where the plaques are chiseled only in the Bonds and Clemens family’s imagination.

2. Here’s to the Crime Dog

Fred McGriff watches a blast during his time with the Braves. (Focus on Sport / Getty Images)

I never like to go this deep into any column like this without saluting a man who actually did get elected. But sorry. I had to get that other rant off my chest first.

But now that it’s out of the way, here’s to Fred McGriff. It couldn’t possibly have been more fitting that this man got elected this year, in this election — because that, too, was a statement by this committee about the PED era.

I’ve written and said this many times over the years. I’ll say it again. No hitter of the last 35 years has had his Hall of Fame candidacy overshadowed by the PED era more than McGriff — until now.

Who embodied the fate of “the clean player” in that era more than he did? The correct answer is: Nobody.

Allow me to repeat what I wrote about him in his final year on the writers’ ballot (2019). It’s as true as ever — and, now, more meaningful than ever.

For a decade and a half, the 15 seasons from 1988 through 2002, the Crime Dog was pretty much exactly the same player. He never changed. What did change, obviously, was the sport around him.

So over the first five years of his consistently great 15-year peak, he was a constant presence on the league leaderboard, a home run champion waiting to happen. And then, in 1993, everything changed — except him.

Over the next 10 years, McGriff’s production was virtually identical. The only difference was, instead of finding him all over those league-leader lists from 1993 on, you suddenly couldn’t find him on those leaderboards with the Webb Telescope — even though he hadn’t changed at all. Here’s the breakdown:

1988-1992 — .283/.393/.531
1993-2002 — .290/.373/.506

TOP 5 IN HR — 5 of first 5 seasons, 2 of last 10 seasons

TOP 5 IN HR RATIO — 5 of first 5 seasons, 0 of last 10 seasons

TOP 5 IN OPS — 5 of first 5 seasons, 2 of last 10 seasons

TOP 5 IN SLUGGING — 4 of first 5 seasons, 1 of last 10 seasons

The writers had 10 years to figure that out and right that wrong. We never came close. It took this committee to see McGriff from a different perspective and honor his greatness. It’s the reason these committees exist, and it’s an important one.

So this group didn’t merely make a statement about the PED era by punishing the players it viewed as that era’s greatest offenders. The committee made just as powerful a statement by unanimously electing the man it honored. And it was a statement that made more people happy, in the always complicated sport of baseball, than you could possibly imagine.

3. For Curt Schilling, um, careful what you wish for

I think Curt Schilling is a Hall of Famer. I remind you that 70 percent of my fellow writers thought so, too, because 70 percent of us voted for him in our elections — twice!

But two years ago, after he missed out by just 16 votes, Schilling told us he didn’t want to be elected to the Hall by the likes of us. He wanted to be judged by a committee like this one. So OK, he got what he wished for. And it turned out the committee treated him more harshly than the writers. Life is cruel like that sometimes.

He appeared on the ballots of just seven members of this 16-person committee. That’s 43.8 percent. For the record, he got a higher percentage than that in seven consecutive writers’ elections. Merely passing along that helpful fact because that’s what we do around here.

Just as I would have loved to be in that room for the committee’s Bonds/Clemens conversation, I’m even more curious about what the Schilling debate was like. Unlike McGriff — who had a longtime ex-teammate, Greg Maddux, and the one-time president of the Blue Jays team he debuted for, Paul Beeston, in the room to stump for him — Schilling seemed to lack a strong advocate on the committee.

Only former Red Sox franchise-changer Theo Epstein, who once joined Schilling at Thanksgiving dinner in 2003 and then traded for him, had a direct connection. It would have been awesome to hear Theo’s take on a man who helped win him two World Series. But these committees are sworn to secrecy, so we’ll never know.

At any rate, here’s the historic angle on how the committee handled Schilling: When a guy gets 70 percent in the writers’ election, that’s always been an automatic ticket to election by these committees. Always.

The history of the writers’ modern voting system goes back about half a century. And until now, every player who reached 70 percent on the writers’ ballot — and then came before some version of the Veterans Committee — had gotten elected by that committee on the first try. It’s not a long list of players who got that many votes without getting elected by the writers. But still …

Orlando Cepeda — elected by the committee in 1999. Peaked at 73.5 percent in his final year on the writers’ ballot (1994).

Nellie Fox — elected by the committee in 1997. Peaked at 74.7 percent (two votes short) in his final year on the writers’ ballot (1985).

Jim Bunning — elected by the committee in 1996. Followed a very Schilling-like path before that. Got 70-plus percent in two writers’ elections. Peaked at 74.2 percent in 1988, when he still had three elections to go, but never even got back to 64 percent after that. Strange.

So this year, it was Curt Schilling’s turn. And for whatever reason, he was the one who brought that streak to a crashing halt. One thing we should keep in mind, though, is that the voting rules also changed this year, now that each committee member can vote for just three players instead of four.

Once McGriff collected his 16 votes, there were only 32 total spots left on 16 ballots. So the chances of any other candidate occupying at least 12 of those 32 spots were incredibly small. Ask your favorite mathematician to explain it sometime.

But unlike Bonds and Clemens, Schilling at least seems positioned to get another chance with the next Contemporary Baseball committee in December 2025. Will that election turn out like this one? Who knows. But I still think that one of these years, there will be a Hall of Fame plaque with his name on it.

4. Is there new life for Dale Murphy and Don Mattingly?

Is it three strikes, you’re out, for Dale Murphy and Don Mattingly? Honestly, I hope not. They both made progress in this election. So I’m guessing that they, too, have earned the right to try out this system again in three years.

Mattingly actually got more votes in this election than anyone other than McGriff. He was named on eight of the 16 ballots. That’s 50 percent — nearly double the most he ever received in any writers’ election (28.2 percent).

And Murphy finished fourth, with six votes. That computes to 37.5 percent, which is also a bigger number than he got in any of his 15 spins on the writers’ ballot (23.2 percent).

But they were still a long way from getting elected. And that’s tough news if you’re one of those people who thinks any player belongs in the Hall who had a run of multiple years in the thick of the “Who’s the best player in baseball?” debate.

That’s always been the appeal of both Murphy and Mattingly, two of the early 1980s most magnetic attractions. But these committees rarely seem to elect players like that. And no one knows that better than these two guys.

They were also on the ballots of the 2018 and 2020 Modern Era Committees. (Full disclosure: I served on that 2018 committee.) And those two years, they didn’t even get close enough to have their vote totals announced to the public. So while this committee didn’t elect them, it did lay the groundwork for some future group to pick up where this one left off.

Until then, you know what Murphy and Bonds have in common? They’re sharing space on the very short list of retired players who won multiple MVPs and are not in the Hall of Fame.

MOST MVPS, NOT IN HOF, RETIRED PLAYERS*
(*-no longer eligible on writers’ ballot)

Barry Bonds — 7
Dale Murphy — 2
Roger Maris — 2
Juan Gonzalez — 2

NOT ON BALLOT YET

Albert Pujols — 3
Mike Trout — 3
Miguel Cabrera — 2
Bryce Harper — 2

STILL ON WRITERS’ BALLOT

Alex Rodriguez — 3

But of course, Bonds and Murphy are on this list for two very different reasons. It’s actually only Murphy and a different home-run record-breaker, Maris, who have won multiple MVPs and not gotten elected despite no PED ties. So if the Hall ever builds a Clean Players wing, those two might sail in on the first ballot.

5. Fred McGriff escaped one of history’s most notorious clubs

And now one last related development. Fred McGriff is out of the club!

So what club is that? The Most Homers But Not in the Hall of Fame Club. What else?

Until this election, his 493 career home runs were the 10th most in history by a non-Hall of Famer. But if you check out everyone ahead of him, it’s clear why McGriff never fit in the first place.

MOST HOME RUNS, NOT IN HOF

PLAYER	HR	WHY NOT ELECTED
Barry Bonds	762	PED TIES
Albert Pujols	703	NOT ON BALLOT YET
Alex Rodriguez	696	PED TIES
Sammy Sosa	609	PED TIES
Mark McGwire	583	PED TIES
Rafael Palmeiro	569	PED TIES
Manny Ramirez	555	PED TIES
Gary Sheffield	509	PED TIES
Miguel Cabrera	507	ACTIVE
Fred McGriff	493	NEVER MIND!

There are so many reasons to appreciate McGriff’s election — but none more than this. Never has anyone been more grateful to get booted out of a club he never should have been admitted to in the first place.

(Top photo of Barry Bonds: Tom Szczerbowski / Getty Images)

Read original article here

Sports

Rosenthal: What I’m hearing about MLB free agency with Justin Verlander, Anthony Rizzo and more

November 15, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

What I’m hearing:

• The market for free-agent starting pitchers is quite active, and the early asks from the three biggest names — Jacob deGrom, Justin Verlander and Carlos Rodón— are, to no one’s surprise, quite high.

Rangers general manager Chris Young, who already traded for Jake Odorizzi and extended a qualifying offer to Martín Pérez, has said he will explore “all ends of the market.” But the early asks by the big three might compel the Rangers and other clubs to pivot to trades and lesser starters.

• Verlander, who personally negotiated his free-agent deal with Astros owner Jim Crane while vacationing in Italy last offseason, seemed a good bet to re-sign quickly with Houston. But it has not happened, perhaps because Verlander sees the potential for lucrative opportunities with the Mets, Yankees and Dodgers, among others. Unlike deGrom and Rodón, he was not eligible for a qualifying offer. And because he did not receive one, he is not subject to draft-pick compensation.

The likely AL Cy Young winner, who turns 40 on Feb. 20, could be a short-term, high-dollar fit for any of those clubs. The Mets face the losses in free agency not just of deGrom, but also Chris Bassitt and Taijuan Walker. The Yankees declined to pursue Verlander at the 2017 trade deadline and missed on him in free agency last offseason. The Dodgers might pursue Verlander if Tyler Anderson rejects their $19.65 million qualifying offer — and heck, even if he accepts, too.

• Lesser starters who did not receive qualifying offers (Andrew Heaney, José Quintana, etc.) also are drawing considerable interest. Some of those pitchers might come off the board quickly after Tuesday’s deadlines for teams to set 40-man rosters and players to accept their qualifying offers.

Nathan Eovaldi, who received a qualifying offer, is another starting pitcher to watch. The Red Sox reportedly made him a multi-year offer and are among the many teams that like the top Japanese pitcher in the free-agent market, Kodai Senga.

Anthony Rizzo (Dustin Satloff / Getty Images)

• The Astros have identified Anthony Rizzo as their No. 1 free-agent target at first base. They also are considering Yuli Gurriel and José Abreu, but signing Rizzo would serve the dual purpose of bolstering their own roster while weakening the Yankees’.

Rizzo, 33, faces an interesting decision on whether to return to the Yankees. If he accepts the team’s qualifying offer, he would earn a higher one-year salary than he might receive in a multi-year deal. He then could spend another season hitting at Yankee Stadium, while also benefitting from the new shift restrictions, and re-enter the market without a qualifying offer. A player cannot receive one twice.

• The Braves are not considering trading right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. — or, for that matter, any other young player they have signed to an extension.

While the club, as a matter of policy, does not award no-trade clauses, a player who signs an extension does it with the implicit understanding he will not be traded. Obviously, things can change — a player, for example, eventually might want out. But if the Braves break the trust they’ve created internally, players will become more resistant to the extensions that have positioned the team for long-term success.

• Two other things that are highly unlikely for the Braves: The signing of deGrom or a shortstop other than Dansby Swanson. If the Braves cannot keep Swanson, they probably will be out of the picture for Trea Turner, Carlos Correa and Xander Bogaerts, all of whom figure to be more expensive. Which is why president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos at the GM meetings mentioned Orlando Arcia and Vaughn Grissom as internal options.

No player currently with the Braves will earn more than $22 million in any season over the course of his contract, seemingly creating the flexibility for a major expenditure. But the Braves are reluctant to enter into a deal with any player who takes up too high a percentage of their payroll, knowing in future seasons the salaries of their young players will rise.

• The chances of the Brewers trading shortstop Willy Adames probably are slim. Luis Urías and Brice Turang both can play short, but Adames is a core player for Milwaukee. And the Brewers’ newly promoted GM, Matt Arnold, is well aware of what happened to the team after his predecessor, David Stearns, subtracted another core player, closer Josh Hader, at the deadline.

Granted, a clubhouse can more easily recover from an offseason trade than one at midseason. The Brewers, though, have other position players they can move if they want to reconfigure their payroll. Second baseman Kolten Wong is set to earn $10 million. Right fielder Hunter Renfroe is projected to get $11.2 million in arbitration. Both will be free agents at the end of the 2023 season.

Adames, projected to earn $9.2 million in arbitration, is under club control through 2024.

• Free agent Adam Frazier is coming off a career-low .612 OPS in 602 plate appearances with the Mariners, but some teams see potential in him as a super-utility type. Not a bad thought, particularly if Frazier regains the offensive form he displayed in 2021 before his trade from the Pirates to the Padres.

Frazier, who turns 31 on Dec. 14, received Gold Glove votes in left field in 2017, his first full season, and was a top-five finisher at second base in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Last season, he played in all three outfield spots as well as second and short, his position at Mississippi State.

• This is my own speculation, and not anything I’ve heard specifically. But Matt Carpenter’s deep and enduring connections to the Cardinals would seem to make a potential reunion feasible.

Carpenter was a roommate in rookie ball with Cardinals manager Oli Marmol. His transformation last offseason included a visit to the Marucci’s baseball performance lab in Baton Rouge, La., with Cardinals stars Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado, as well as hitting sessions with former teammate and new Cardinals bench coach Matt Holliday.

The retirement of Albert Pujols potentially creates an opening for Carpenter, who turns 37 on Nov. 26. And the departure of hitting coach Jeff Albert also could enhance the possibility. Carpenter did not blame Albert for his struggles in his latter years with the Cardinals, but said, “I just never bought into (analytics) like I should have.”

(Top photo of Justin Verlander: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)

Read original article here

Sports

Ranking the top 20 free-agent starting pitchers in a deep, question-filled class

November 8, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

If you’re looking for former Cy Young Award winners and future Hall of Famers, this is a fantastic, all-time crop of free-agent starting pitchers.

If you’re looking for in-their-prime starting pitchers without any major injury risk attached on a long-term contract, this offseason class is a bit lacking.

It’s a fascinating mix of past greatness and future question marks, meaning front offices in search of impact arms will have to take some big gambles, while teams needing mid-rotation help can choose from a deep group of appealing options.

Below is The Athletic’s guide to the biggest names, the best and worst bets, and the potential diamonds in the rough among free-agent starting pitchers.

(Note: All listed ages are as of June 30, 2023.)

1. Jacob deGrom, RHP

Age in 2023: 35
Last team: Mets

Jacob deGrom’s free-agent market is capped only by aging and injuries, because when healthy enough to take the mound he’s been the best pitcher in the world for five years and one of Major League Baseball’s top half-dozen pitchers for nearly a decade. He won back-to-back NL Cy Young Awards in 2018 and 2019, and placed third in the abbreviated 2020 season, but was limited to 26 starts the past two seasons.

Elbow and shoulder injuries sidelined deGrom from July 2021 to August 2022, but he returned with his high-90s fastball and power slider intact, striking out 102 in 62 innings. Among all starters in MLB history with at least 60 innings, his 2022 strikeout rate of 14.3 per nine innings is tied for first … with himself from 2021. His career ERA is 2.52, including 2.05 since 2018.

DeGrom was a late bloomer, making his MLB debut at 26, and he’s somehow gotten better with age while maintaining his otherworldly raw stuff despite the injuries. His average fastball velocity led all starters in 2022 (98.9 mph), 2021 (99.2) and 2020 (98.6), and it’s not even deGrom’s best pitch. That honor goes to his low-90s slider, which is one of the great breaking balls of all time.

Opponents have hit .170 versus deGrom’s slider in the past five years, including .139 with a 54 percent swing-and-miss rate in 2022 and .096 with a 58 percent whiff rate in 2021. Oh, and he also occasionally uses a low-90s changeup that’s as good as many All-Stars’ best pitch. He’s like a video game’s create-a-pitcher with all of the ratings maxed out. Except for health. Had to skimp somewhere.

DeGrom seems certain to join Max Scherzer ($43 million) and Gerrit Cole ($36 million) as the only pitchers making more than $35 million per season, but how many years will even the biggest-payroll teams be willing to hand a soon-to-be 35-year-old with 156 innings the past two seasons? No one compares on a per-start basis, so we’re about to find out how front offices weigh risk versus reward.

Jacob deGrom’s first 10 pitches were ALL 100+ MPH, then he dropped a nasty slider to end the inning. pic.twitter.com/O8iSxpIvxQ

— MLB (@MLB) June 1, 2021

2. Carlos Rodón, LHP

Age in 2023: 30
Last team: Giants

Shedding an “injury-prone” label takes time and it never fully goes away. Carlos Rodón was the No. 3 pick in the 2014 draft and reached the majors 10 months later, but shoulder problems kept him from being the front-line starter everyone expected. Then elbow surgery knocked him out for most of 2019 and 2020, and the White Sox cut him. Two months later, he re-signed for just $3 million.

Rodón’s long-awaited breakout came in 2021. He threw an April no-hitter, and had a 2.38 ERA with 160 strikeouts in 110 innings through early August. Then more shoulder issues limited him to just 23 innings in Chicago’s final 50 games. He was a free agent again last offseason, but teams weren’t willing to make him a big long-term offer, so Rodón settled for a short-term deal with the Giants.

This time Rodón was dominant and healthy all season, posting a 2.88 ERA in a career-high 31 starts and striking out 237 in a career-high 178 innings. Among pitchers with at least 50 starts in the past two years, he was first in strikeout rate (12.2/9), second in OPS against (.567) and fourth in ERA (2.67). Back on the market at age 30, will past injuries again keep him from being paid like an ace?

There’s no doubt Rodón’s injury history carries major risk on a multi-year deal, but that’s not unique in this class. DeGrom is five years older and just returned from a 13-month absence. Justin Verlander is 10 years older and spent two of the past three seasons recovering from elbow surgery. Clayton Kershaw is five years older and hasn’t made 30 starts in a season since 2015. You get the idea.

Rodón is a 30-year-old lefty with a mid-90s fastball and a filthy slider coming off back-to-back Cy Young-caliber seasons, and if anything he’s been healthier recently than many free-agent starters. Last offseason, Robbie Ray and Kevin Gausman got five-year deals worth $115 million and $110 million, respectively. That should be the baseline for Rodón unless the injury-prone label intercedes.

Carlos Rodón, Elite Walkoff K Struts, 2022 🔥🔥🔥
cc: @PitchingNinja pic.twitter.com/CEYlHV2Q02

— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) May 10, 2022

3. Justin Verlander, RHP

Age in 2023: 40
Last team: Astros

Justin Verlander won his second Cy Young Award in 2019 and then missed all but one start of the next two seasons following Tommy John surgery, returning in 2022 to likely win his third Cy Young, at age 39. With an MLB-leading 1.75 ERA in 175 innings, he produced the most Wins Above Replacement by a 39-year-old pitcher since Joe Niekro five years before Verlander was born.

It’s remarkable, on every level, further solidifying Verlander’s place as an inner-circle Hall of Famer and one of the greatest pitchers of all time. But now he’s a soon-to-be 40-year-old looking for what may be his final contract. Last spring, when Verlander hadn’t pitched in 20 months, the Astros gave him a two-year, $50 million deal with an opt-out. So what’s he worth after a third Cy Young?

From a stuff standpoint, Verlander is as overpowering as ever, throwing harder than he did 10 years ago and holding opponents to sub-.200 batting averages on each of his three main pitches. His mid-90s fastball, thrown about half the time and mostly up in the zone, was the second-best four-seamer used by a starter in 2022, and his hard slider and slower curveball were elite, bat-missing weapons.

Verlander relentlessly attacked hitters, with just 29 walks versus 185 strikeouts, and he allowed only 12 homers after serving up an average of 30 a season from 2016-19. His strikeout rate dipped last season, going from great to very good in what could be a potential red flag, but that’s also something that often improves further from surgery. If any 40-year-old can get a three-year contract, it’s him.

Justin Verlander ➡️ Josh Donaldson ➡️ Sword ⚔️

🎥 @PitchingNinja pic.twitter.com/Xe1lEL9sXL

— The Athletic MLB (@TheAthleticMLB) October 20, 2022

4. Clayton Kershaw, LHP

Age in 2023: 35
Last team: Dodgers

Clayton Kershaw was a free agent last offseason and flirted with his hometown Texas Rangers before re-signing with the Dodgers in mid-March, agreeing to a one-year deal worth $17 million plus incentives. It’s hard to envision the future Hall of Famer not ending up back with the Dodgers again, because he’s played his entire 15-year career in Los Angeles and because he’s still damn good.

Kershaw avoided the elbow problems that ended his 2021 season early, but he was limited to just 22 starts by the back issues that have plagued him on a near-annual basis for almost a decade. He hasn’t thrown 180 innings since 2015 and hasn’t topped 130 innings since 2019, and his fastball is down almost five mph from his peak, averaging just 90.7 mph in 2022.

And yet Kershaw still posted a 2.22 ERA with a sparkling 137-to-22 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 126 innings, numbers most starters would call a career year. It’s a credit to his pitching genius that the diminished health and velocity can’t stop him from sub-3.00 ERAs. Kershaw has thrown his fastball less than 40 percent of the time in back-to-back seasons, rebranding as a slider-first pitcher.

On a per-start basis the three-time Cy Young winner remains elite — his 2.76 ERA since 2020 ranks seventh in MLB — but the goal is now 125 innings and playoff readiness. Verlander left Detroit at 34 and became a late-career legend for a second team, so perhaps Kershaw doing the same shouldn’t be dismissed, but another one-year deal with the Dodgers makes sense for everyone involved.

Clayton Kershaw, Wicked Sliders. 🤢 pic.twitter.com/xNLkWNNWbS

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) October 13, 2022

5. Kodai Senga, RHP

Age in 2023: 30
Last team: Hawks (Japan)

One of the elite pitchers in Japan for the past decade, Kodai Senga is the wild card of this free-agent class. Regardless of the country or league, there’s rarely certainty that star-level performances elsewhere will translate to MLB, and in this case the price to find out figures to be substantial given Senga’s impressive resume through age 29 and his status as an outright free agent.

Senga has a 2.42 ERA and 10.0 strikeouts per nine innings across 11 seasons in Japan, including a 1.96 ERA and 159 strikeouts in 148 innings last season. His relatively high walk rate is a potential red flag, but Senga’s raw stuff is billed as excellent, with a high-90s fastball that reaches triple digits, a very good forkball and two usable breaking balls.

Some scouting reports on Senga suggest his best chance to dominate in MLB could be as a two-pitch reliever, and perhaps that will become a fallback plan if his control issues are difficult to overcome, but enough teams likely view him as a starter to receive big long-term offers. He recently signed a five-year extension with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, but included an opt-out to pursue MLB.

Kodai Senga, 98mph Fastball and 83mph Ghost Fork, Individual Pitches + Overlay (synched at release/tails). 👻🍴

And Kodai Senga’s Ghost Fork Grip. pic.twitter.com/iWmjhyGWue

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) March 18, 2022

6. Nathan Eovaldi, RHP

Age in 2023: 33
Last team: Red Sox

Nathan Eovaldi followed up 2021’s fourth-place Cy Young finish by carrying a 3.16 ERA into mid-June, but the rest of his 2022 was wrecked by shoulder and back injuries. He started just eight of Boston’s last 105 games, allowing 27 runs in 41 innings as his average fastball velocity dipped from 96.8 mph in April and May to 94.1 mph in August and September.

Eovaldi has always been one of MLB’s hardest-throwing starters, so it’s unclear if he can remain a front-line arm throwing 93-95 instead of 96-98. He’s become a strike-throwing machine in his 30s, with just 1.6 walks per nine innings since 2020, but command lapses within the zone have turned into homers. If the velo doesn’t return, his splitter and curveball will need to do a lot of heavy lifting.

Like many of the starters listed above him, health is the biggest key for Eovaldi, who ranks 20th in FIP and 27th in ERA+ since 2020 for pitchers with 50-plus starts. If healthy and throwing 96-98, he’s a good No. 2 starter, but his second-half struggles can be traced directly to injuries that have the potential to linger and he’s never been known for durability.

Age in 2023: 34
Last team: Mets

Chris Bassitt totaled just 191 big-league innings in his 20s, but since returning from Tommy John surgery in 2018 he’s quietly been one of MLB’s best starters, posting a 3.29 ERA in 594 innings. Over that span, his 124 ERA+ ranks 19th among pitchers with 75-plus starts, sandwiched between Zack Wheeler (127) and Luis Castillo (123).

Bassitt lacks high-end stuff, instead relying on a deep pitch mix led by a 92-94 mph sinker to generate grounders while his four-seam fastball, cutter, slider and curveball each miss a fair amount of bats. His walk and strikeout rates are good, not great, but he limits damage by being hard to square up, allowing fewer than one homer per nine innings each of the past three seasons.

Traded from the A’s to the Mets after the lockout, Bassitt set career-highs with 30 starts and 182 innings, showing that his approach still works away from the pitcher-friendly dimensions in Oakland. Bassitt straddles the line between No. 2 starter and mid-rotation starter, and he’s older than his résumé would suggest, but few pitchers have been as consistently competent for the past five seasons.

8. Tyler Anderson, LHP

Age in 2023: 33
Last team: Dodgers

Tyler Anderson came into 2022 with a career 4.62 ERA, including a 4.49 ERA the previous two years even after leaving Colorado. Far from a hot commodity last offseason, he signed a one-year, $8 million deal with the Dodgers after the lockout and made his first All-Star team at age 32, going 15-5 with a 2.57 ERA in 179 innings, including a 2.01 ERA after July 1. And yet, skepticism abounds.

Los Angeles has led the NL in ERA every year since 2017. No team reinvents more scrap-heap finds like Anderson with coaching and analytics. And no team more optimally positions its defense to aid pitchers by turning an absurdly high percentage of balls in play into outs. They tweaked his changeup, turning it into a weapon, and they allowed a .257 batting average on balls in play behind him.

Only five NL starters had a lower BABIP than Anderson and two of them were rotation mates Julio Urías and Tony Gonsolin. It’s not a coincidence. As a staff, the Dodgers had a .256 BABIP. No other NL team was below .280. Anderson is better than he was before joining the Dodgers, but he’s unlikely to be as good anywhere else. How much of his improvement can stick is the big question.

9. Jameson Taillon, RHP

Age in 2023: 31
Last team: Yankees

After spending the majority of 2019 and all of 2020 on the Pirates’ injured list, Jameson Taillon turned in back-to-back healthy years in the Yankees’ rotation, starting 29 and 32 games. Taillon no longer has the high-octane raw stuff from his prospect days, which is understandable after multiple elbow surgeries and a bout with testicular cancer, but he’s settled in as a solid mid-rotation starter.

Taillon’s control took a big step forward two years removed from elbow surgery, with just 32 walks in 177 innings for the AL’s fifth-lowest rate. He’s got a deep pitch mix led by a mid-90s fastball, using curveballs (versus righties and lefties) and sliders (versus righties) to get swinging strikes. Dialing back his sinker has turned Taillon into a fly-ball pitcher susceptible to homers.

Given his non-linear career path and demonstrated ability to alter his approach, Taillon seemingly has more potential for upside than most 30-year-old veterans, but he’s also a league-average starter as is. In recent offseasons, starters like him have tended to get two- or three-year deals worth around $12 million per, but it wouldn’t be surprising if some teams value the former No. 2 pick a bit higher.

10. Taijuan Walker, RHP

Age in 2023: 30
Last team: Mets

Needing to reinvent himself after several years wrecked by arm injuries, Taijuan Walker developed a splitter that can be the key to the second half of his career. Playing off his mid-90s fastball, Walker’s high-80s splitter tricks hitters before falling off the table, inducing some pitiful-looking swings and misses. He threw 28 percent splitters in 2022, but the pitch ended 41 percent of his strikeouts.

And when contact was made against Walker’s splitter it had a negative average launch angle, meaning hitters pounded it directly into the ground, producing a .195 batting average and just two homers. That pitch, and back-to-back healthy seasons topping 150 innings for the first time since 2017, have Walker looking like a viable multi-year investment again. And he’s still just 30 years old.

Walker lacks a second above-average pitch, and his fastball got knocked around too often last season despite good velocity, but he has a deep repertoire of usable offerings and generally throws strikes. Two offseason ago, when injuries were a much bigger worry, Walker got a two-year, $20 million deal from the Mets that included a $6 million 2023 player option that became a no-brainer to decline.

Taijuan Walker, Filthy 87mph Splitter. 😷 pic.twitter.com/M6ZzaYbKFD

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) October 5, 2022

11. José Quintana, LH

Age in 2023: 34
Last team: Cardinals

José Quintana was one of MLB’s best left-handers during six seasons with the White Sox, but his performance declined after a mid-2017 trade to the Cubs, and he was so bad in 2021 that the Pirates were able to sign him for $2 million last offseason. Pittsburgh got Quintana back on track and then shipped him to St. Louis, where he posted a 2.01 ERA in 12 starts after the trade deadline.

Quintana’s strikeout rate was just 20.2 percent, below the MLB average and his worst mark since 2013. His walk rate was average-ish and nearly identical to his career mark. So how did he turn things around and throw 166 innings with the first sub-3.00 ERA of his career at age 33? By not allowing homers. He gave up an MLB-low 0.4 homers per nine innings, including just one for the Cardinals.

While he’s generally done a good job limiting homers in the past, eight homers in 32 starts simply isn’t sustainable, especially attached to a neutral ground-ball rate. That doesn’t mean Quintana hasn’t legitimately resurrected his career, but rather that expecting him to be more than a quality mid-rotation starter would probably be a mistake requiring his low-90s fastball to remain damage-proof.

12. Andrew Heaney, LHP

Age in 2023: 32
Last team: Dodgers

Andrew Heaney was one of the first free agents to sign last offseason, getting a one-year, $8.5 million deal from the Dodgers in early November despite a 5.73 ERA in 2021 and a career 4.72 ERA. As usual, the Dodgers were right. He had an age-31 breakout, posting a 3.10 ERA and 13.6 strikeouts per nine innings by all but ditching his changeup and relying almost solely on fastballs and sliders.

His raw stuff was legitimately on another level in 2022, as Heaney’s fastball was up 1-2 mph and his slider was 3-4 mph harder than the curveball that served as his primary breaking ball previously. However, he also gave up 14 homers in 73 innings, a near-match for his bloated career rate, and Heaney was limited to 14 starts by shoulder problems that required two lengthy injured list stints.

Clearly the Dodgers were able to unlock something in Heaney, but interested teams must now decide how much they believe in his overall improvement and how much they trust his shoulder. Reintroducing his once-decent changeup to go with the souped-up fastball-slider combo may be intriguing, although suitors betting on his breakout probably don’t want to stray far from the Dodgers’ plan.

13. Noah Syndergaard, RHP

Age in 2023: 30
Last team: Phillies

Noah Syndergaard’s full-season return from Tommy John surgery was a success in that he stayed off the injured list and posted a decent-looking 3.94 ERA, but it was otherwise pretty discouraging. Once the majors’ hardest-throwing starter, Syndergaard’s fastball was missing 4-5 mph, and as a result his go-to changeup lost effectiveness when paired with a pitch that was 93-95 instead of 96-98.

Syndergaard whiffed at least a batter per inning in each season with the Mets, but his strikeout rate plummeted to 6.3 per nine innings last season, well below the MLB average of 8.2 for starters. He totaled just 31 strikeouts in 55 innings after a midseason trade to the Phillies, abandoning his four-seam fastball and nearly doubling his sinker usage in search of grounders rather than strikeouts.

That version of Thor lacks upside beyond a mid-rotation starter, but pounding the strike zone and keeping the ball on the ground is certainly a viable recipe for success in that realm. Syndergaard got a one-year, $21 million contract from the Angels last offseason and that level of annual salary is surely out of the question now, but some teams may still be willing to bet on his velocity returning.

14. Martín Pérez, LHP

Age in 2023: 32
Last team: Rangers

One of last offseason’s great values, Martín Pérez signed a one-year, $4 million deal with the Rangers after the lockout and became a first-time All-Star at age 31, logging 196 innings with a 2.86 ERA following eight straight seasons with an ERA over 4.00. Pérez has had plenty of successful stretches before, but this was the first time he sustained it for an entire season.

Now the question is how much his improvement can be trusted as teams weigh whether to value Pérez as the 2022 All-Star or as the journeyman with a career 4.71 ERA coming into 2022. Pérez ditched his four-seam fastball and threw 60 percent sinkers and cutters, leading to a large increase in ground-ball rate. And his changeup remained an effective weapon versus right-handed hitters.

Pérez made enough clear approach changes to avoid labeling his 2022 purely a fluke, but ultimately his improvement can be traced almost entirely to allowing just 11 homers in 196 innings. His strikeout and walk rates were middling, and similar to career norms, but he gave up just 0.5 homers per nine innings, down from 1.3 the previous five seasons. That’s unlikely to be sustainable.

15. Sean Manaea, LHP

Age in 2023: 31
Last team: Padres

Sean Manaea’s go-to changeup failed him in 2022, turning his lone season with San Diego into a mess after six solid years in Oakland. As usual, the left-hander used the pitch nearly a third of the time versus right-handed batters, but instead of neutralizing them, his changeup got clobbered for a .528 slugging percentage compared to .305 the previous three years. He had a 4.96 ERA in 158 innings.

Within his overall struggles, Manaea’s sinker-slider combo was still effective as he held lefties to a .185 batting average and posted a strikeout rate in line with career norms. Teams convinced they can fix Manaea’s changeup likely view him as a solid mid-rotation option, but below-average velocity and middling control leave little margin for error if they’re wrong.

Manaea has benefited from pitcher-friendly home ballparks in both Oakland and San Diego. His career ERA is 3.68 at home and 4.45 on the road, with a 20 percent increase in homers and a 25-point jump in batting average on balls in play explaining the difference. He also hasn’t been quite the same since his 2019 shoulder surgery, looking much more like a No. 4 starter than a No. 2 starter.

16. Zach Eflin, RHP

Age in 2023: 29
Last team: Phillies

Zach Eflin is the youngest pitcher on this list, reaching free agency five months before his 29th birthday, but knee surgeries in multiple seasons mean he carries injury risk like many older starters. He missed three months in mid-2022 with knee pain, returning as a reliever in September and throughout October to post a 2.45 ERA and 21-to-2 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 18 innings.

Eflin has been an average-or-better starter in five straight years, but he’s thrown more than 130 innings just once, in 2019. He throws strikes with a 92-94 mph sinker that limits homers and a slow curveball that got a whiff on 44 percent of swings in 2022, giving Eflin a bit more upside than standard mid-rotation fare. It’s possible some teams will prefer him as a reliever if they don’t trust his knee.

17. Ross Stripling, RHP

Age in 2023: 33
Last team: Blue Jays

He’s spent most of his career bouncing back and forth between the rotation and the bullpen, first in Los Angeles and then in Toronto, but when given extended chances to start Ross Stripling has more than held his own. He began 2022 as a long reliever, but ended up making 24 starts for the Blue Jays with a 2.92 ERA and 100-to-14 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 123 innings.

Stripling’s low-90s fastball and lack of a swing-and-miss breaking ball are why he hasn’t been handed full-time rotation spots, but he’s got a 3.86 ERA in 104 career starts, including a 3.77 ERA in 45 starts for Toronto and a 3.93 ERA in 59 starts for Los Angeles. His mistakes tend to get crushed for homers, but he throws strikes and keeps left-handed hitters off balance with a good changeup.

Ross Stripling, Dirty 83mph Changeup. 👌 pic.twitter.com/KKgCxJCVTA

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) August 17, 2022

18. Mike Clevinger, RHP

Age in 2023: 32
Last team: Padres

Mike Clevinger seemed to run out of gas in his first season back from Tommy John surgery, allowing 34 runs in his final 54 regular-season innings before two awful playoff starts. However, before things unraveled he was looking a lot like his pre-surgery self, averaging 94.1 mph on his fastball and posting a 3.13 ERA with 59 strikeouts through 60 innings.

Clevinger turns 32 in December and this was his second Tommy John surgery, so the front-line, bat-missing starter with a 3.20 career ERA for Cleveland may be gone for good, but it seems natural to think he could be a solid mid-rotation option another year removed from surgery. He feels like a prime candidate for a one-year deal to reestablish his value and re-enter the market next offseason.

19. Michael Wacha, RHP

Age in 2023: 31
Last team: Red Sox

Micheal Wacha struggled for most of 2021 with Tampa Bay, but he finished on a high note with a 45-to-7 strikeout-to-walk ratio in his final 39 innings to earn a one-year, $7 million deal from Boston last offseason. Building on that success in 2022, he started 23 times with a 3.32 ERA and 104-to-31 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 127 innings for his best season since his lone All-Star year in 2015.

Wacha never became the front-line starter many expected based on his excellent first few years with the Cardinals, posting a combined 4.62 ERA in 673 innings from 2016 to 2021. However, he’s still just 31 years old and, while his fastball is far too hittable, Wacha has relied on it less and less recently while leaning more on his great changeup. His last 30 starts show some upside remains.

20. Johnny Cueto, RHP

Age in 2023: 37
Last team: White Sox

Multiple contending teams with rotation holes bypassed Johnny Cueto after the lockout, preferring other low-cost veterans. He waited until after the season was underway to get a minor-league contract from the White Sox and wasn’t added to the active roster until May 16, at which point he started every fifth game for the next five months and finished with a 3.35 ERA in 158 innings.

Gerrit Cole, Shane Bieber and Framber Valdez were the only AL pitchers with more innings than Cueto after mid-May, which is remarkable for a 36-year-old who hadn’t topped 150 innings since 2016. His velocity tank is empty, but he’s a master at keeping hitters off balance with a five-pitch mix and varied deliveries, avoiding walks and hard contact while getting chases outside the strike zone.

(Top photo of Jacob deGrom: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)

Read original article here

Sports

Liverpool put up for sale by FSG: How much are they worth and who owns them?

November 7, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

Liverpool have been put up for sale, as The Athletic exclusively revealed on Monday.

But who owns the club? How much did they pay for it? And how much are Liverpool worth now?

Read on to find out everything you need to know about the sale situation.

Who are FSG?

Founded in 2001, Fenway Sports Group (FSG), initially known as New England Sports Ventures (NESV), is a sports investment firm based in Boston, USA.

American businessman John W Henry and his friend and fellow businessman Tom Werner established the company.

The following year, Henry and Werner joined forces with investors including The New York Times and Les Otten to purchase Major League Baseball’s Boston Red Sox. Since then, the company has continued to build its portfolio, most recently acquiring the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League.

How much did FSG pay for Liverpool?

It purchased Liverpool Football Club in October 2010 for £300million ($343m today), with the club on the brink of administration following the ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

The firm’s name was changed from NESV to FSG the following March.

How much are Liverpool worth now?

No figure has been put on the club by Liverpool themselves, but industry experts have had their say.

Conrad Wiacek, head of sport analysis at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, said: “Given the sale of Chelsea in the summer of 2022 reached $4.15billion (£2.5bn at the time of the sale), the sale of Liverpool could reach in excess of $5bn (£4.36bn), with the club generating over $160million (£140m) from its sponsorship deals for the 2022-23 season alone.”

What is the state of play?

A full sales presentation has been produced for interested parties.

FSG has looked at opportunities in the past but decided against moving forward with any of them. It is unclear whether or not a deal will eventually be done this time, but FSG is inviting offers.

Financial giants Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have been retained to assist with the process.

How has FSG’s ownership of the club gone?

The ownership has coincided with the club’s most successful era since the 1980s, with manager Jurgen Klopp leading them to Premier League and Champions League glory. They have also won the Club World Cup, FA Cup, Carabao Cup, UEFA Super Cup and Community Shield in this time, reaching 11 finals in various competitions.

FSG has also transformed Anfield with the development of the £110million new Main Stand while work continues to expand the Anfield Road Stand. That £80m project will be completed next summer, raising the capacity of the ground to 61,000. It has also funded the club’s move from Melwood, their training base for over 70 years, to a new £50million facility in the Kirkby district of the city.

However, FSG fell out with supporters over the European Super League project in April last year.

FSG was one of the driving forces behind the divisive idea and Liverpool fans felt they had been betrayed and kept in the dark. This was the lowest point of FSG’s ownership.

Who is in the FSG ownership group?

Henry is the principal owner of FSG and assumes the same role with Liverpool. Werner is the US company’s chairman and also has the same title at Liverpool. He is the second-highest stakeholder behind Henry.

Mike Gordon is the firm’s president and was the third-highest stakeholder until the investment by RedBird Capital Partners in 2021. Gordon has had a very active role at Liverpool, managing the day-to-day operations of the club and has a strong relationship with Klopp.

FSG has 30 partners overall, including Henry’s wife Linda, Liverpool director Michael Egan, vice-chairmen David Ginsberg and Phillip Morse, as well as Sam Kennedy and Larry Lucchino — respectively the Boston Red Sox’s current and former chief executive officers.

What about RedBird Capital Partners?

RedBird Capital Partners is a private investment firm. It bought 11 per cent of FSG for £655million ($750m) last year. Key to this is that it invested in the parent company, not Liverpool FC specifically.

When the investment was announced in March 2021, the aim was to reduce the financial burden on FSG, with the funds coming in from RedBird providing more money for new signings.

The move also saw global basketball superstar, and Liverpool fan, LeBron James and his business partners Maverick Carter and Paul Wachter become part of the FSG ownership group.

Who is on Liverpool’s board?

There are seven members of Liverpool’s board of directors.

It includes three investors holding more than 10 per cent interest in Henry, Werner and Gordon. Chief executive officer Billy Hogan, who initially arrived at the club in 2012 as chief commercial officer having already working for FSG, stepped into his current role in 2020 after the departure of Peter Moore as the board’s fourth member.

Managing director Andy Hughes, who joined the club as chief financial officer in 2013, is also involved and so is Egan.

The seventh and final director is Sir Kenny Dalglish, who is one of the greatest players in the history of the club and has also managed them in two separate spells from 1985-91 and 2011-12.

What has FSG said?

A statement from FSG to The Athletic reads: “There have been a number of recent changes of ownership and rumours of changes in ownership at EPL clubs and inevitably we are asked regularly about Fenway Sports Group’s ownership in Liverpool.

“FSG has frequently received expressions of interest from third parties seeking to become shareholders in Liverpool. FSG has said before that under the right terms and conditions we would consider new shareholders if it was in the best interests of Liverpool as a club.

“FSG remains fully committed to the success of Liverpool, both on and off the pitch.”

FSG and Liverpool timeline

October 15, 2010 – FSG takes over Liverpool, purchasing the club from the previous ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jnr.
January 8, 2011 – FSG sacks Roy Hodgson and appoints its first manager in club legend Kenny Dalglish.
February 26, 2012 – Liverpool win the League Cup final, beating Championship side Cardiff City in a penalty shootout after a 2-2 draw at Wembley.
May 16, 2012 – Dalglish is sacked after finishing eighth with 52 points.
June 1, 2012 – FSG appoints its second manager, Brendan Rodgers.
May 11, 2014 – Liverpool finish as Premier League runners-up, having been five points clear with three games to go.
December 4, 2014 – Club share plans to redevelop Anfield’s Main Stand, increasing capacity to around 54,000.
February 5, 2015 – Club announce that New Balance will become their new kit supplier.
October 4, 2015 – Rodgers is sacked, with Liverpool 10th in the table after eight games.
October 8, 2015 – FSG appoints its third manager in Jurgen Klopp, who was on a sabbatical after leaving German club Borussia Dortmund at the end of the previous season.
February 6, 2016 – FSG is forced to back down over a proposed ticket-price rise and issues a public apology after fans walk out of a home game against Sunderland in protest.
February 28, 2016 – Liverpool lose the League Cup final in a penalty shootout after a 1-1 draw with Manchester City.
May 18, 2016 – Liverpool lose the Europa League final 3-1 to Spain’s Sevilla.
September 9, 2016 – Liverpool open new main stand, boosting Anfield’s capacity to 54,000
June 22, 2017 – Mohamed Salah is signed from Italy’s Roma for £36million.
January 1, 2018 — Virgil van Dijk is signed from Southampton for £75million, a world-record fee for a defender.
May 26, 2018 – Liverpool lose the Champions League final 3-1 to Real Madrid.
June 1, 2019 – Liverpool win the Champions League final, beating Tottenham Hotspur 2-0.
September 26, 2019 – FSG’s bid to trademark the word ‘Liverpool’ is rejected by the UK’s Intellectual Property Office.
December 21, 2019 – Liverpool win the Club World Cup final, beating Flamengo of Brazil 1-0 after extra time.
January 7, 2020 – Liverpool announce multi-year Nike kit deal from 2020-21 season.
June 25, 2020 – Liverpool win the Premier League, their first domestic title since 1989-90.
November 10, 2020 – The club move to a new training facility in the Kirkby area of the city, after over 70 years at previous base Melwood.
April 1, 2021 – Fellow US firm RedBird Capital Partners buys a stake in FSG for £533million.
April 18, 2021 – Liverpool confirm they are one of the 12 founding clubs for a new European Super League (ESL).
April 20, 2021 – Liverpool withdraw from the ESL project following fan protests.
April 21, 2021 – Principal owner John W Henry formally apologises for the club’s ESL involvement.
February 27, 2022 – Liverpool win the League Cup final, beating Chelsea on penalties after a goalless draw.
May 14, 2022 – Liverpool beat Chelsea on penalties again at Wembley after another 0-0 draw, this time in the FA Cup final.
May 28, 2022 – Liverpool lose the Champions League final 1-0 to Real Madrid.
October 19, 2022 – Klopp comments on Manchester City’s spending power, stating that “they can do what they want financially” while talking about the clout of City, Newcastle and Paris Saint-Germain in the transfer market.
October 31, 2022 – Liverpool announce the start of the next stage in the Anfield Road Stand expansion project, which will raise capacity to 61,000.
November 7, 2022 – The Athletic reveals Liverpool are up for sale.

(Photo: Michael Regan — UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

Read original article here

Sports

Yankees nip Red Sox thanks to review overturn, Little League HR

September 15, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

BOSTON — It’s still unclear what the Yankees roster is going to look like in October, as they wait for key players to potentially return from injury.

The lineup is a mess and the bullpen has holes, but the Yankees have won four straight since seeing their lead in the AL East fall to the slimmest it had been since early May.

“We’re getting better, getting healthier and more help is on the way,’’ Aaron Boone said after the Yankees beat the Red Sox for a second night in a row on Wednesday, this time 5-3 in front of a sellout crowd at Fenway Park.

The victory allowed the Yankees to preserve their six-game lead over the second-place Blue Jays, who beat Tampa Bay.

“We know what time of year it is and we know we’ve got to put our best foot forward,’’ Boone said. “So it’s been good to see guys really come together as we’re still piecing it together.”

Aaron Judge gives a safe signal after Gleyber Torres rounded the bases to score on a single and a three-base error, giving the Yankees three runs on the play in their 5-3 win over the Red Sox.

N.Y. Post: Charles Wenzelberg

In these two games, it hardly mattered that the Red Sox are in last place in the division.

After they nearly came back in the 10th inning on Tuesday, Boston rallied again in the bottom of the eighth and nearly made it a one-run game before the Yankees caught a break to end the inning.

With the Yankees clinging to a two-run lead, J.D. Martinez seemed to avoid hitting into an inning-ending double play by beating Gleyber Torres’ throw from first, which would have allowed Alex Verdugo to score and cut Boston’s deficit to a run. But the Yankees challenged the play and replays showed Martinez stepped just in front of the base, never touching the bag, and was ruled out.

Nestor Cortes, who allowed one run in five innings, claps his hand after getting Enrique Hernandez to pop up to end the second inning in the Yankees’ win.

Boone called the play “huge.”

The Yankees then held on in the ninth, despite Clay Holmes allowing a run for a third consecutive outing.

And while Aaron Judge remained at 57 homers, they got enough offense from their depleted lineup, since Nestor Cortes gave up just one run in five-plus innings in his second start back after missing time with a strained groin.

Torres sparked the win with another productive game at the plate.

Aaron Judge, who didn’t homer in the game, hits an infield single during the fifth inning of the Yankees’ victory.

The second baseman’s resurgence continued with his RBI single in the fifth inning that turned into a Keystone Kops home run thanks to some inept defense by the Red Sox, who made three errors on the night that led to four unearned runs.

In the fifth, Torres singled to right to drive in Aaron Hicks and then catcher Connor Wong took Verdugo’s throw from right and in an attempt to get Torres who had wandered too far around first, threw the ball back into right field.

It allowed Judge to score easily and a hustling Torres circled the bases and slid home safely.

Torres had a role in the Yankees’ final run of the night, when Abraham Almonte misplayed his long fly ball to center in the top of the ninth, allowing Tim Locastro to score after he pinch ran for Giancarlo Stanton.

Cortes pitched out of trouble in the second and then retired nine in a row at one point.

Boston got a run back in the bottom of the fifth on Wong’s double into the left-field corner that scored Rob Refsnyder from first.

Jose Trevino’s double high off the Green Monster in left scored Isiah Kiner-Falefa to make it 4-1.

Cortes left after walking Verdugo to start the bottom of the sixth and Clarke Schmidt entered and pitched two scoreless innings. Jonathan Loaisiga got into a jam in the eighth, allowing a run before the rally-killing double play by Martinez.

But the Yankees were able to put their second-half struggles further in the rearview mirror with just 19 games to play.

They’ve won eight of 10 since dropping six of seven earlier in the month.

“I think our confidence never died down,’’ Cortes said. “I know we’ve gone through tough stretches and I think that’s kept us stronger. What we’re doing now shows what type of team we are. I think we found our stride.”

Read original article here

Sports

Yankees’ offense disappears in shutout loss to Red Sox

August 15, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

BOSTON — By the end of this three-game set at Fenway Park, it was hard to believe the Yankees were the team easily in front of the AL East and the Red Sox in the cellar.

The Yankees’ poor play began with consecutive losses at home to the Mariners and continued with a road trip in which they lost seven of nine, including Sunday night’s 3-0 defeat in front of another sellout crowd in a crisp 2 hours, 15 minutes.

It was the third time the Yankees were shut out on the trip and they’ve lost nine of 11 as they return home to The Bronx to face the Rays and Blue Jays this week, up by 10 games on second-place Toronto in the division.

“It was not our best road trip,’’ said DJ LeMahieu, who missed the finale with a sore right big toe. “We’re all frustrated. We know how good a team we are, we just haven’t been playing like it.”

They’ve scored eight runs over their last five games — four of them losses — as they deal with injuries to LeMahieu, Giancarlo Stanton (Achilles) and Matt Carpenter (foot).

On Sunday, they were overmatched by Michael Wacha.

Aaron Judge walks back to the dugout after striking out in the sixth inning.

Corey Sipkin for the NY POST

Michael Wacha dominated the Yankees’ lineup.

In his first game back off the injured list after right shoulder inflammation after more than a month on the injured list, the right-hander retired the first 14 batters he faced until Miguel Andujar with two outs in the fifth.

With Isiah Kiner-Falefa at the plate, Andujar swiped second before Kiner-Falefa walked.

Kyle Higashioka followed with a hard grounder to third, where Rafael Devers made a nice play to end the threat.

And that’s about all the Yankees could get off Wacha, who gave up just a pair of singles and has held the Yankees to one earned run in 23 innings over his last four starts against them, dating back to last season.

Jameson Taillon pitches on Sunday during the Yankees’ loss to the Red Sox.

“He kind of mowed through us,” manager Aaron Boone said.

It didn’t give Jameson Taillon much of a chance.

The right-hander allowed three runs in seven innings, but put the Yankees in a hole in the first inning.

Taillon gave up a leadoff double to Tommy Pham, who moved to third on a groundout by Devers and scored on a grounder to shortstop by Xander Bogaerts to give the Red Sox a 1-0 lead.

Rafael Devers (11) celebrates after his two-run home run in the sixth inning.

Jameson Taillon reacts after Rafael Devers’ homer.

After the Yankees squandered a pair of baserunners in the fifth, Andrew Benintendi picked up their second hit of the night with a single to left, but Aaron Judge and Josh Donaldson struck out.

Pham led off the bottom of the sixth with a single to right and Devers then took Taillon deep to make it 3-0.

Devers has 19 career homers against the Yankees, his most against any single opponent.

Once Wacha exited, Ryan Brasier tossed a scoreless eighth before Garrett Whitlock finished it in the ninth.

“We obviously have not been playing the way we want, but we put ourselves in a nice position at this point of the season,” Taillon said of their sizable divisional lead. “We have the people in here to do [turn it around]. It will be nice to go home after a tough road trip.”

Those were words seldom heard during the first half of the season, when the Yankees seemed set to stroll to the best record in the American League.

“It’s baseball,” Judge said. “You’re gonna go through stretches like this. Every team does. We’re not happy with it … [but] we’re in first place. If you asked me at the start of the year if we’d like a 10-game lead in the middle of August, we’d like that. We’ve got to pick up and it starts [Monday]. We’ve still got a good ballclub here.”

Boone agreed they could get back to where they were earlier in the season.

“We’ll get guys back and we’ve got everything we need,” the manager said.

Read original article here

1. Scott Rolen got 10.2 percent of the vote in his first year. And by his sixth he was getting elected. Is that an indictment of the process or a validation of how hard it should be to get elected?

2. Which player didn’t get a lot of support on this ballot who you think deserves more? (That can include players who didn’t get 5 percent.)

4. Next year looks like a fascinating election, with Adrián Beltré, Joe Mauer and Chase Utley (among others) debuting on the ballot. How many of those guys do you think will get elected — eventually if not next year?

1. The Scott Rolen bandwagon had just enough gas in the tank

2. Four historic leaps — by guys not named Rolen

3. Beltrán gets more love than those PED “cheaters”

4. Say Goodbye/hello to Jeff Kent, the next Fred McGriff

5. I already can’t wait for next year’s election

Arizona Diamondbacks: Jazz Chisholm

Atlanta Braves: Ronald Acuña Jr.

Baltimore Orioles: César Prieto

Boston Red Sox: Rafael Devers

Chicago Cubs: Eloy Jiménez

Chicago White Sox: José Abreu

Cincinnati Reds: Elly De La Cruz

Cleveland Guardians: Yandy Diáz

Colorado Rockies: Ezequiel Tovar

Detroit Tigers: Gregory Soto

Houston Astros: Framber Valdez

Kansas City Royals: Esteury Ruiz

Los Angeles Angels: Shohei Ohtani

Los Angeles Dodgers: Yordan Alvarez

Miami Marlins: Eury Pérez

Milwaukee Brewers: Jackson Chourio

Minnesota Twins: Luis Arraez

New York Mets: Andrés Giménez

New York Yankees: Oswald Peraza

Oakland Athletics: Jordan Díaz

Pittsburgh Pirates: Rodolfo Castro

Philadelphia Phillies: Sixto Sánchez

San Diego Padres: Emmanuel Clase

San Francisco Giants: Camilo Doval

Seattle Mariners: Julio Rodríguez

St. Louis Cardinals: Sandy Alcántara

Tampa Bay Rays: Wander Franco

Texas Rangers: Jonathan Hernández

Toronto Blue Jays: Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Washington Nationals: Juan Soto

1. Slam the door on Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and the performance-enhancing drugs generation

2. Here’s to the Crime Dog

3. For Curt Schilling, um, careful what you wish for

4. Is there new life for Dale Murphy and Don Mattingly?

5. Fred McGriff escaped one of history’s most notorious clubs

1. Jacob deGrom, RHP

2. Carlos Rodón, LHP

3. Justin Verlander, RHP

4. Clayton Kershaw, LHP

5. Kodai Senga, RHP

6. Nathan Eovaldi, RHP

8. Tyler Anderson, LHP

9. Jameson Taillon, RHP

10. Taijuan Walker, RHP

11. José Quintana, LH

12. Andrew Heaney, LHP

13. Noah Syndergaard, RHP

14. Martín Pérez, LHP

15. Sean Manaea, LHP

16. Zach Eflin, RHP

17. Ross Stripling, RHP

18. Mike Clevinger, RHP

19. Michael Wacha, RHP

20. Johnny Cueto, RHP

Who are FSG?

How much did FSG pay for Liverpool?

How much are Liverpool worth now?

What is the state of play?

How has FSG’s ownership of the club gone?

Who is in the FSG ownership group?

What about RedBird Capital Partners?

Who is on Liverpool’s board?

What has FSG said?

FSG and Liverpool timeline

The Ultimate News Site