Newsletter Excerpt, January 31, 2026 -- "Josh Lowe and the Angels"

 

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Today we’ll pick off the last of the no-hopers. You can make playoff cases for as many as 27 teams, though the ones for the Marlins and White Sox are pretty pie-in-the-sky. The three teams I can’t see being relevant under any circumstances this year are the Nationals, Rockies, and today’s team, the Angels. The Angels have managed to squander Mike Trout’s career and six years of Shohei Ohtani’s without a playoff appearance since 2014 or a postseason win since 2009. The Angels haven’t finished above .500 since 2015, their streak of ten straight sub-.500 seasons the longest in the game. Over those ten years, they have the seventh-worst record in baseball despite sharing the game’s second-largest market.

Their player development has been a problem, even granting some front-line successes. The Angels have emphasized drafting players who can make a quick impact. Since 2021, they have pushed seven players to the majors in the season they were drafted or the one following it. That hasn’t produced wins at the MLB level, and despite some success by Zach Neto and Nolan Schnanuel, it hasn’t produced much of a major-league core. The farm system today is ranked 23rd by ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel, 29th by Keith Law of The Athletic.

 

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, January 29, 2026 -- "Edouard Julien and the Rockies"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card. (Zelle users, please email me for details.)

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Rockies second basemen have posted a 64 wRC+ and -1.7 FanGraphs WAR the last two years. Last September, the team was playing Ryan Ritter (61/10 K/BB), Tyler Freeman (negative fielding value at every infield spot he’s played), and Orlando Arcia (literally Orlando Arcia) at second base. If Julien can find second base, he’s an upgrade. Don’t think he can do even that? Rockies first basemen had a 70 wRC+ and -4.8 fWAR the last two years. Last September, they were leaning on 28-year-old waiver bait Blaine Crim to play first. ZiPS has Julien as the team’s third-best hitter, Steamer pegs him fourth.

I don’t know if Julien can hit well enough to carry his glove, but he’s been sent to a place where he’ll have the best chance he’ll ever have to save his career. 

 

 

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, January 27, 2026 -- "Harrison Bader and the Giants"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

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By going to the Giants, Bader lines up everyday playing time rather than platoon work, largely because of his defensive value. Heliot Ramos and Jung Hoo Lee were simply bad in the pasture as the team’s most-used outfielders in left and center. Luis Matos has been bad in all three of his MLB seasons. Late-season call-ups Drew Gilbert and Grant McCray provided younger legs and no bats. Bader joins the team as, by far, its best defensive outfielder, even if you bake in some age-related decline at 32. I’m more concerned about his bat: Bader posted sub-.300 OBPs from ’22 through ’24, and while a .372 BABIP against northpaws hid it last year, he’s long been more a platoon player, often dominated by right-handed pitching, than an everyday guy.

Signing Harrison Bader to be the fourth outfielder on a team with a lefty-heavy outfield and at least one spot occupied by a poor glove man, that’s sharp. Signing Harrison Bader to be your everyday center fielder because at 32 he’ll be the best center fielder on the team...that’s a very 81-81 move. The Giants have been within a couple games of .500 for four straight seasons, exactly .500 twice, and that’s likely their ceiling again. 

 

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, January 26, 2026 -- "MacKenzie Gore and the Rangers"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

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On July 30, 2021, less than two years removed from a championship, the Nationals traded Max Scherzer and Trea Turner to the Dodgers for two highly regarded prospects in Keibert Ruiz and Josiah Gray. Having opened that door, the Nats would go on to trade Juan Soto for MacKenzie Gore, CJ Abrams, James Wood, and three additional players. All told, the Nationals’ 2021-22 teardown generated the following returns, through 2025:

- CJ Abrams, 10.2 bWAR for $2.25 million

- Lane Thomas, 6.4 bWAR for $7 million

- MacKenzie Gore, 5.7 bWAR for $4.86 million

- Keibert Ruiz, 4.8 bWAR for $16 million

- James Wood, 3.7 bWAR for $1.1 million

- Josiah Gray, 3.0 bWAR for $5.5 million

...plus Robert Hassell III and Jarlin Susana, still prospects. 

Mike Rizzo, put into an impossible situation by Nats ownership, absolutely crushed the teardown. He traded the core of a championship team and brought in the core of a championship team. It is a credit to him and the Nationals’ scouting staff that he did as well as he did. It is also stunning that having succeeded at it, the Nationals are starting the cycle all over again. That list above is a scathing indictment of the Lerner family, which was given a gift -- a young, inexpensive core of baseball players -- and did nothing to support it. The Nationals may now go the entire 2020s without putting a winning team on the field, simply embarrassing in this day and age. Don’t blame Rizzo, though. He did his job better than anyone could have expected.

  

Newsletter Excerpt, January 25, 2026 -- "Riffing"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card. (Zelle users, please email me for details.)

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I’m looking at snow falling sideways across 1st Avenue, as an older couple 12 stories below tries desperately to hail a cab in a blizzard. Inside and warm, I’m fortified with coffee and half a very tasty morning bun from a local, longstanding bakery. “The dead of winter” has no real definition, but the morning of January 25, 2026 seems as good a marker as any.

We’re at the halfway mark of the offseason preview series, 15 down and 15 to go, starting to make the turn from winter to spring. I have Cactus League plans now, and I’m starting to look less at teams and more at individual players as fantasy draft season approaches. The latest Baseball Forecaster is the first of the new annuals to reach my doorstep, and the new Baseball Prospectus won’t be far behind. We’re long past the days of the Bill Mazeroski annual, or Street and Smith’s, but one late-winter tradition, Strat-O-Matic Opening Day, is just 26 days out. “Effectively Wild” will be launching its season-preview series soon. We’ve almost made it, folks, and if the scene outside my window doesn’t quite support the case, the book on my lap and the e-tickets on my phone and the podcast in my ears all tell me spring is coming.

Newsletter Excerpt, January 23, 2026 -- "Stasis, and the Brewers"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card. (Zelle users, please email me for details.)

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The Brewers deserve all the praise they get for consistently winning through player development, be that traditional prospects or players they acquire. What we’re seeing though, as we’ve seen in places like Tampa Bay and Cleveland, is that success in the absence of spending money curdles into success becoming a shield for not spending money. Part of the benefit of developing good players who make $750,000 a year is freeing you to add good players who make market value. Not taking advantage of that benefit can and will cap a team’s upside.