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

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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"

 

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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.

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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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.

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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.

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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.

 

Joe Sheehan Newsletter, January 22, 2026 -- "Queens Night Market"

 

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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It was the second Mets trade that caused a lot of chatter, and they weren’t even the main character in it. As had been anticipated for a while, the Brewers traded Freddy Peralta in the final year of his deal. They got infielder -- probably -- Jett Williams and right-hander Brandon Sproat. The two enter the Brewers’ system at #3 and #6 per Pipeline, and they will rank #46 and #71 on the upcoming Baseball Prospectus Top 101. These are real prospects, if ones with a bit less shine than they had a year ago.

In Peralta, the Mets get a starter who by the ridiculous standards of 2026 is a workhorse. Over the last three seasons, Peralta is tied for fifth in starts (95) and is 15th in innings pitched (516). He hasn’t missed a start in three years. That kind of availability is valuable to a Mets team that lacks it. They will be breaking in young arms, leaning on converted relievers, and hoping the healthy Kodai Senga returns from war. Peralta, with the usual caveats about pitchers, should stabilize that situation. The Mets needed what he brings to the table.

So why wouldn’t the Brewers, also contenders, coming off a season in which they had the best record in baseball, hold him? Peralta will make just $8 million this year, chump change by baseball standards, so it can’t be a payroll concern. What it is, rather, is the same thing that motivated them to trade Corbin Burnes two years ago: to get something for a player likely to leave in free agency. Burnes brought back a similar package, in fact, shortstop Joey Ortiz and lefty DL Hall.

Peralta, though, is no Burnes.

More Like Ace-Jack Suited (Burnes and Peralta, trade year and three-year stats)

                   GS     IP     ERA    FIP   xERA   bWAR   fWAR

Burnes 2023        32  193.2    3.39   3.81   3.38    3.5    3.4

Peralta 2025       33  176.2    2.70   3.64   3.47    5.5    3.6

                   GS     IP     ERA    FIP   xERA   bWAR   fWAR

Burnes 2021-23     93  562.2    2.94   2.92   ----*  13.1   15.5

Peralta 2023-25    95  516.0    3.40   3.88   ----*  10.0    8.9

*I can’t figure out how to get xERA over multiple seasons. Surely user error.

Burnes was a superstar when the Brewers traded him, with a Cy Young in his pocket and votes in four straight seasons. Peralta has gotten votes in one year, last year, finishing fifth. Peralta does throw a fair amount of innings, but in that time he’s tenth in ERA (min. 400 IP), 30th in FIP, 12th in bWAR, 19th in fWAR. That’s a good pitcher. It’s not an ace. This isn’t the Burnes trade.

I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth a little bit here, saying Peralta is what the Mets need while downplaying his importance to the Brewers. The Brewers’ projected rotation, down through the #8 spot or so, includes two pitchers who threw 150 innings last year, just three who have ever done so. It’s not like 150 innings of Freddy Peralta would hurt them. Pick your projection system: They all say the Brewers have to replace about three wins now. 

I just think they’re capable of doing that. Even throwing Tobias Myers into this deal, the Brewers have enviable pitching depth. They’ll get more from Jacob Misiorowski this year, more from Logan Henderson, probably more from Brandon Woodruff. Sproat, who reached the majors late in 2025 and had a 2.80 FIP in four starts, will be part of the mix. A top-50 prospect a year ago, Sproat was a mess at Triple-A for two months before he got straightened out.

The other prospect in the deal, Jett Williams, is in a tough spot, jammed between a good infield ahead of him in Milwaukee and some of the game’s best infield prospects in Jesus Made and Luis Peña behind him in Double-A and high-A. Like Carson Benge, Williams raked at Double-A before hitting the wall after a promotion to Triple-A. That’s probably where he starts 2026, and he needs to play well to avoid getting lapped by Made and Peña by the end of the season.

Look, I think teams should spend more money on players than they do, and the Brewers are going backward in this area. However, there has to be room to consider a bigger picture. Peralta isn’t an ace, and trading one year of his three-win work in return for potentially 12 years of Williams and Sproat is a good deal. Not everything maps to the money wars. The Brewers can replace Peralta’s work with the players they have on hand. Would I like to see them now sign Framber Valdez, especially with their infield defense? Absolutely. I’m OK with them stopping here, though. Forget the money -- the Brewers took a small short-term hit, and maybe not even that, for a big medium-term return.