Newsletter Excerpt, August 12, 2025 -- "Third Third Previews, Pt. 5"

 

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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7. New York Mets (63-55, third-order 63-55, second in NL East, 77.7% playoff odds)

Added: Cedric Mullins, Ryan Helsley, Tyler Rogers, Gregory Soto

Subtracted: Jose Butto, ten minor leaguers

I have spent much of the last 18 hours responding to frustrated Yankee fans, and I expect I’ll spend the next 18 hours responding to frustrated Mets fans. Here’s the thing, though...

          Predicted    Projected

Mets        88-74        86-76

Yankees     84-78        85-77

The New York baseball teams are hewing as close to preseason projections as any teams in MLB. Through almost three-quarters of the season, the wisdom of Dennis Green carries the day, at least in this space.

That’s not going to make anyone happy because the Mets and Yankees both made the mistake of winning their games in the wrong order. The Mets’ patchwork starting rotation was the best in baseball in March and April, leading the majors in ERA and FIP and helping the Mets achieve a 21-10 start that extended to 45-24 by the middle of June. At that point, the Mets had stayed on rotation almost all season, using five starters for 13 starts apiece, 65 of 69 games started by those five. Their 2.79 starters’ ERA led baseball, their 3.51 FIP was third. 

If we’d been looking for it, though, we might have seen the flaw. For as stable as they were and good as that run prevention was, Mets starters were just 13th in MLB in innings pitched. Since then, the team’s rotation has collapsed: 25th in ERA, 29th in FIP, and dead last in innings pitched. That, in turn, has wrecked the bullpen, which -- after being the second-best unit in baseball through June 12 -- has thrown the third-most innings of any pen since to tune of a 4.89 ERA (25th) and 4.31 FIP (20th). The deadline additions of Ryan Helsley, Tyler Rogers, and Gregory Soto, designed to address the problem, have helped -- four runs in 15 1/3 innings as Mets -- but only so much. Mets relievers lost the two games over the weekend in Milwaukee that extended the team’s losing streak to seven.

The rightful focus on the collapse of the pitching staff, though, has perhaps served to protect another culprit, the Mets’ young hitters. The top six Mets batsmen are Juan Soto and five players 30 and older. The group of young hitters who were expected to fill out a strong lineup have, collectively, no-showed. Francisco Alvarez returned from a demotion to raise his wRC+ over par; no other homegrown young Met is at better than 100, league average. Brett Baty is hitting .228/.288/.408 (96 wRC+). Ronny Mauricio is at .234/.300/.409 (100 wRC+). Luisangel Acuña lost his roster spot for hitting .239/.295/.283 (68 wRC+). Most crushing is Newsletter favorite Mark Vientos, who has followed up his breakout 2024 by hitting .230/.277/.364 (81 wRC+).

The Mets were supposed to have an offense good enough to carry the pitching staff, but their young hitters have failed to advance, and the stars have been good, though a tick below established levels. Recent trends aside, the Mets’ offense is the disappointing unit relative to my preseason expectations. Based on the talent on hand, it should be better from here on in than a 106 wRC+.

That’s one reason, maybe the biggest, why I think the Mets will right the ship and end up as one of the NL’s wild-card teams. With seven games left against the Phillies, the NL East is still in play as well. As we’ve discussed, it’s a more shallow pool than it has been. This lineup, with the small offensive upgrade in center now that Cedric Mullins is here, can outscore the pitching staff. Again, this weekend aside, a back end of Edwin Diaz, Ryan Helsley, and Tyler Rogers is going to close down the 6-4 and 7-6 games well enough. My Mets panic meter is at 3/10. Join me over here. We’ve got cold drinks.

Why Watch? If I need to encourage you to watch the good team with Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor and Edwin Diaz, it’s possible you received this email in error.

Newsletter Excerpt, August 10, 2025 -- "Third Third Previews, Pt. 4"

 

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.

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24. Detroit Tigers (67-51, third-order 64-54, first in AL Central, 96.6% playoff odds)

Added: Charlie Morton, Chris Paddack, Kyle Finnegan, Rafael Montero, Paul Sewald, Codi Heuer

Subtracted: Dietrich Enns, Matt Manning

This was Scott Harris’s first opportunity to be a buyer at the trade deadline, and it was a little more Mike Elias-flavored than Tigers fans would have hoped. The Tigers have lost 16 of 24 after starting 59-34, and they’re down two starting pitchers, Jackson Jobe and Reese Olson. Adding Charlie Morton and Chris Paddack serves to add innings, but the Tigers could have used a #2 behind Tarik Skubal. A.J. Hinch’s best option in October may once again be pitching chaos -- no starting option outside of Skubal has better than a 4.00 FIP this year.

Harris’s bullpen additions serve a similar function, as Kyle Finnegan, Rafael Montero, Codi Heuer, and the currently-injured Paul Sewald are all 3.50 FIP and worse types. Finnegan has picked up three saves for the Tigers in three outings, but his career-low FIP is 3.76 and he had crawl back to the Nationals last winter after being non-tendered. Hinch has more options now, it’s just not clear he has better ones. Rookie righty Troy Melton may end up being more important than this group of pickups.

If I’m going to defend Harris, it’s to point out that the market wasn’t deep in the kind of starting pitching he needed. The best starter to move at the deadline was a #3, Merrill Kelly, and even the top guys who weren’t traded, like Dylan Cease and Mitch Keller, aren’t that much better. The lineup needs are up the middle, never easy to fill in July. (Javier Baez since he was named an All-Star starter: .222/.222/.346, 26 strikeouts and tied with you in walks. One of the dumbest All-Star selections ever.)  

The Tigers’ lead in the AL Central is down to five games over the Guardians, which is also their cushion for a playoff spot. They have a .280 OBP in the second half, and they didn’t get better at the deadline. The math still likes them -- they have just a 3.3% chance to miss October -- but a year ago today the math said they were a 500-1 shot to make the playoffs. Maybe the math isn’t as much a comfort as a couple more good baseball players would be. 

The Tigers and Guardians play six games in ten days over the final two weeks of the season, and the Tigers have worked very hard to make those games important.

Why Watch? Well, either they’re going to make the playoffs, or they’re going to complete the back half of one of the craziest two-season runs we’ve ever seen. 

Newsletter Excerpt, August 8, 2025 -- "Third Third Previews, Pt. 3"

 

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.

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16. Houston Astros (64-51, third-order 62-54, first in AL West, 84.9% playoff odds)

Added: Carlos Correa, Jesus Sanchez, Ramon Urias 

Subtracted: Ryan Gusto

So this is when I circle back to first principles. Whenever it’s reasonable to do so. I prefer to stick to my preseason projections, and I am going to do so here. I had the Astros finishing third behind the Rangers and Mariners in March, and that’s where I’ll leave them today.

This takes nothing away from my opinion of Joe Espada’s work. He has the Astros in first place giving 300 PA to Victor Caratini and Mauricio Dubon, a hundred to Cooper Hummel and Taylor Trammell. Ryan Gusto, Colton Gordon, and Brandon Walter are 3-4-5 on the Astros in innings pitched. Isaac Paredes is done for the year, Yordan Alvarez has been a zero, and let’s not forget that the team lost Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman in the offseason. Espada is my AL Manager of the Year.

With all that said, I don’t think the Astros, whose lead is down to 1 1/2 games in the division and 4 1/2 for any playoff spot, can hold on. The rosters of the Mariners and Rangers are just better, and not by a little bit. The Astros did buy at the deadline, but the players they added, Carlos Correa and Jesus Sanchez and Ramon Urias, are just average. Paredes to Correa at third base is a big downgrade, even if it’s less of one than Paredes to Shea Whitcomb. I do give Jim Crane credit for taking on $70 million in salary over three years for Correa, but that willingness to spend money would have been more helpful in extending Tucker or re-signing Bregman than bringing back a banged-up two-win player.

I said on KZNE the other day the Astros had a grade-B deadline, largely because they didn’t give up anything they will miss, and Correa and Sanchez are better than what they had. I just think they needed an A deadline. They simply don’t have the prospects to do that, and it’s going to take a lot of draft/international signings for them to build the farm system back up. They needed one more big deal, either for a lefty bat or a starting pitcher, and they couldn’t pull it off.

The Astros have lost 16 of 25 games, as the bullpen that had been so critical to them begins to leak oil: 28th in fWAR in the second half. They have a tough week ahead, with a trip to Yankee Stadium and then a home series against the Red Sox. The schedule is a mixed bag after that. Two years ago, the Astros, Rangers, and Mariners had a lot of late series with each other. This time around, the Astros have just three games left with the Mariners, seven with the Rangers, and they spend their last week on the road at Sacramento and Anaheim. That penultimate week, the team’s final homestand against the Rangers and Mariners the week of September 15, could be their entire season.

Why Watch? This section gets a little silly the deeper we go. The Astros are in first place with one of the best 1-2 pitching combos in baseball, at least one future Hall of Famer in Jose Altuve, an electric saves guy in Josh Hader, and hopefully a healthy Alvarez in September. 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, August 6, 2025 -- "Third Third Previews, Pt. 2"

 

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.

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13. Minnesota Twins (53-60, third-order 54-59, fourth in AL Central, 1.5% playoff odds)

Added: Taj Bradley, Alan Roden, James Outman, new #4 prospect Eduardo Tait, new #6 prospect Mick Abel, new #7 prospect Kendry Rojas

Subtracted: Carlos Correa, Harrison Bader, Willi Castro, Ty France, Chris Paddack, Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Danny Coulombe, Brock Stewart, Louis Varland

On July 31, 2024, the Twins held the second AL wild-card slot, tied with the Royals and 2 1/2 games clear of the Red Sox. FanGraphs gave them an 81% chance to make the playoffs. The Twins closed the year 23-32 and missed the playoffs.

One year later, they committed to one of the biggest sell-offs we’ve seen at the deadline. The Twins swapped out ten of their 26 active players during deadline week, including eight on deadline day itself. At 47-49 going into the All-Star break, the Twins dropped two of three to the Rockies coming out of the break and seven of 11 through July 30, setting them on this path. Derek Falvey and company traded away the top five pitchers in the second-best bullpen in baseball. In the moment, it was a shocking sequence of events.

Almost a week later, I find myself thinking, “Eh, they’re relievers. You can always make more.”

That’s what they had done already. Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, and Louis Varland were all minor-league starters moved to the pen. Brock Stewart is a 33-year-old injury case with less than 200 career innings in the majors. Danny Coulombe was let go by the Orioles eight months ago. The 2025 Minnesota Twins bullpen was both excellent and a great example of how you build excellent bullpens: from spare parts.

For their troubles the Twins likely filled out their 2026 rotation. Taj Bradley and Mick Abel slide in behind Joe Ryan, Pablo Lopez, and Bailey Ober. Well, that’s if Zebby Matthews and David Festa don’t complicate things. The Twins may already have seven average to average-plus starters for next season. They have the internal depth to deal a starter for a hitter on a like-for-like basis, perhaps matching up with the Red Sox this winter. Remember, Ryan and Lopez were trade pickups, the Twins have a recent history of choosing well and getting maximum performance from their acquisitions. 

The Correa trade was a surprise only in that it didn’t seem there would be a market for him. Correa has had two weak years in the last three and is guaranteed $92 million from 2026 through 2028. It may be that the Astros, short on infielders, with more cash than prospects, with the memory of three pennants with Correa, were the only team that would take the player and the contract. (The Twins are eating $33 million of the deal.) The Pohlad family, desperately trying to unload the Twins, was likely thrilled to see the future obligation come off the books.

If you accept that even a great bullpen wasn’t going to carry the Twins to glory this year, then you have to conclude that Falvey won the trade deadline. You can always rebuild a bullpen, but you can’t always find starting pitching. Heck, one of the Bradley/Abel/Matthews/Festa group may even be part of the 2026 bullpen. The Twins have Luke Keaschall back in the majors, with Emmanuel Rodriguez and Walker Jenkins coming behind him, and now the young catcher Eduardo Tait as well.

The Twins play in the AL Central, which has no great teams and no teams spending real money. Just eyeballing 2026 rosters, the Twins could be the favorite if a sale goes through and a new owner puts even a little cash into the product. Right now, the Twins owe $61 million to players next year, and they have some arb raises that could raise that number to $90 million or so. They could sign Kyle Tucker and still have a below-average payroll. 

Even without that kind of big splash, though, the Twins are in good shape for ’26. They were a disappointment the last two seasons, for sure, but in the end they did the second-best thing you can do with a great bullpen: turn it into hitters and starting pitchers.

Why Watch? We’ll see whether the Twins shut down Byron Buxton and Royce Lewis as they play out the string, and you wonder how hard they’ll push Pablo Lopez to return. Still, this isn’t a bad team -- Keaschall just came off the IL, Matt Wallner has been on fire, the rotation is good and getting better. The Twins’ schedule is loaded with playoff contenders, including a final-week trip to Texas and Philly, so a lot of their games will matter.

 

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, August 4, 2025 -- "Third Third Previews, Pt. 1"

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.

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29. Chicago White Sox (42-70, third-order 45-67, fifth in AL Central, 0.0% playoff odds)

Added: Curtis Mead

Subtracted: Adrian Houser, Austin Slater, Tristan Gray

In a pattern we’ll see repeated, the White Sox didn’t sell aggressively. They didn’t have much talent on offer and their top trade chip, Luis Robert Jr., is controlled past 2025 and wasn’t playing very well.  They turned a free Adrian Houser into some filler, with a chance that Curtis Mead is the Miguel Vargas who was promised. I confess that I am a little surprised Mike Tauchman is still here; he’s 34, a pending free agent, and has a .363 OBP in three seasons since returning from the KBO. With even good teams starved for OBP, he should have had a market. (Edit: Tauchman, despite his age, still is short of the service time needed for major-league free agency. He is arb-eligible, so the Sox did not need to trade him. --JSS)

Like the Marlins, the White Sox are starting to look more like a baseball team. I mentioned pulled-flyball rate, a measure of how often teams hit the most productive type of batted balls. The Sox have jumped from 16.6% to 18.5% this year, sixth-best improvement in the majors.

Modernizing the Offense (gains in pulled-flyball rate, 2024-25)

Cubs       +4.61%

Marlins    +3.27%

Tigers     +2.76%

Yankees    +2.51%

Rockies    +2.03%

White Sox  +1.95%

The Sox are walking more and striking out less, too. Their 2024 offense was one of the worst in the expansion era. This one is just conventionally bad. The new catching duo of Edgar Quero and Kyle Teel has been very good. Long-awaited rookie Colson Montgomery has hit the ground running. Holdovers Lenyn Sosa, Andrew Benintendi, and Vargas have been around average. This is still a pretty bad defensive team, and it’s not clear how much the younger players will help that, but again, baby steps.

The team has assembled a competitive starting rotation, one surprisingly homegrown -- the top-four Sox starters were drafted by the team, three in the Rule 4 draft and one in last year’s Rule 5 draft. Chris Getz augmented that with a free Adrian Houser and mostly free Aaron Civale, though Andrew Vaughn’s miracle summer has taken the shine off that move. Vaughn’s success with the Brewers, which is still just a few weeks of good hitting, does introduce the question of how well the Sox coach their own guys. We don’t know whether they can do that yet, though the starts of the three up-the-middle rookies are data points in their favor. The Sox are better now, and they aren’t that far from being relevant in a weak AL Central.

Why Watch? On days when both catchers are in the lineup, the White Sox can start as many as seven players 25 or younger, counting the starting pitcher. That’s a lot of fun to watch, even if not all of that young talent is clicking yet. When the Sox are up 1-0 in the 2027 AL Division Series, you can say you knew them when.

 

Newsletter Excerpt, August 1, 2025 -- "Movement, Not Action"

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.

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I like to break this down each year: There were 15 buyers, 14 sellers, and whatever you call the Dodgers. That’s shoehorning a lot of teams who did very little into these categories. I guess the Royals bought (Randal Grichuk, Mike Yastrzemski, Bailey Falter). I guess the Red Sox bought (Matz and May). I guess the Braves sold (Rafael Montero). I guess the White Sox sold (Austin Slater). I think if A.J. Preller doesn’t make the inexplicable De Vries trade, we’re telling a much different story about this deadline.