Thursday, December 21, 2023

Newsletter Excerpt, December 21, 2023 -- "Hall of Fame Ballot"

 

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.

--
 
"Utley gets my vote, though it was closer than I would have expected. He’s one of eight players on this ballot I consider to be Hall of Famers:

Adrian Beltre
Carlos Beltran
Joe Mauer
Andy Pettitte
Manny Ramirez
Alex Rodriguez
Gary Sheffield
Chase Utley"

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Newsletter Excerpt, December 20, 2023 -- "Driving Cadillacs in Our Dreams"

 

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.

--
 
"The Royals had a .303 OBP last year, the sixth straight in which they’ve run a team OBP under .310. They haven’t had an OBP above the AL average since 2015, when they reinvented baseball. Renfroe has a career .300 OBP, Hampson .305. The Royals are chasing defense, speed, and power when their problem is what it’s been for most of the last 40 years: They make too many outs. Piccolo has the same blind spot Dayton Moore did, and it’s why the Royals are going nowhere with him in charge.

"The Royals are getting positive press for doing less than the bare minimum. They have invested so little for so long that spending $50 million on a bunch of zero- to two-win players looks like progress. It’s not. Good teams don’t buy these players, they develop and create them. The Royals will pay this group $48.5 million next year. That’s Shohei Ohtani money, and the Royals are doling it out to a supporting cast. The Royals already had a supporting cast. They need a core." 
 
 

Monday, December 18, 2023

Newsletter Excerpt, December 18, 2023 -- "Dodgers/Rays Trade"

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.

--
 
"For the Dodgers, though, there’s more to the deal. They’ve quietly gotten old. Mookie Betts is 31, Freddie Freeman is 34, Will Smith is 29, Max Muncy is 33. Shohei Ohtani is 29. Parallel to this, the Dodgers haven’t turned their highly rated farm system products into inexpensive young replacements who might have kept them from needing to commit so much to thirtysomethings. Josiah Gray and Keibert Ruiz are in D.C. I mentioned Busch and Vargas above, two guys who failed to launch in 2023. The Dodgers’ playoff exit was accelerated in part because a whole crop of young pitchers, save Bobby Miller, didn’t contribute."
 
 

 

Thursday, December 14, 2023

Newsletter Excerpt, December 14, 2023 -- "Starting Pitcher Tiers"

 

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.

--
 
'One framing of this philosophy is through Cy Young voting. There are just three pitchers who have received Cy Young votes in all of the last three years: Cole, Kevin Gausman, and Corbin Burnes. If you look at just the last two years, you add in Framber Valdez, Logan Webb, Zac Gallen, and Spencer Strider. There just aren’t very many pitchers you can count on to be among the best in baseball -- to be #1 starters -- on a year-to-year basis anymore. Even those are providing many fewer innings than they did just ten years ago, and a fraction of what they did 30 years ago."
 

 

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Newsletter Excerpt, December 12, 2023 -- "Sho-Bag"

 

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.

--
 
That money could have been used to sign three serviceable starting pitchers and a third baseman who would get Max Muncy off the infield. Will Ohtani inspire Betts, Freeman, and Muncy to show up in October? Guess we will find out.

--Dan Z.


The money doesn’t matter, the room on the payroll does, and the contract structure minimizes the impact of that. They’ll still acquire two starters, I think, one up top and one for bulk innings. I’m more bullish on the Gavin Stone/Michael Grove/Ryan Pepiot/Emmet Sheehan group than you may be. I think collectively they’ll provide 300-400 average innings, though I don’t know which pitcher will emerge. Probably Stone and Pepiot, if I’m guessing today.

Those four combined for 202 innings with replacement-level performance in 2023. I think they double the innings and are worth five wins in 2024.

--J.
 
 

Newsletter Excerpt, December 12, 2023 -- "Transaction Analysis (Derogatory)"

 

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.

--
 
"So you don’t need to look at the statistics that show Kimbrel to be an average reliever, someone in a slow decline, someone whose talents are common in the modern game. All you need to do is look at how every time a team signs him, it ends up looking for ways to use him less, and in less important situations, usually before he’s even been around for a full year."
 
 
 

Thursday, December 7, 2023

Newsletter Excerpt, December 7, 2023 -- "Padres/Yankees Trade"

 

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.

--
 
"Adding Soto, one of the five or so best hitters in baseball. is a targeted strike at their weaknesses. The Yankees were 27th in OBP last year, with a .304 mark that was their lowest since 1990. Yankees history tip: You never want to be part of a sentence with '1990' in it. Soto leads MLB in OBP over the last three years by more than 20 points over the next guy. Four players have a .400 OBP since 2021, the Yankees will be hitting two of them back to back. Soto is on the short list for best left-handed batter in baseball; the Yankees’ left-handed batters had a 79 OPS+ against righties last year, 29th in MLB. Yankees left fielders were 27th in MLB with a 78 OPS+ last year. Soto takes over in left, nominally, though we’ll see how the additions of Trent Grisham and Alex Verdugo shape the lineup."

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

Newsletter Excerpt, December 6, 2023 -- "AL East Notes"

 

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.

--
 
New York Yankees

The Yankees add Verdugo to a mix of corner outfielders who can play center if they have to, like Aaron Judge and Everson Pereira. Jasson Dominiguez will be back in the second half to take over in center, and the team would love to see Estevan Florial hit well enough to hold the job until then. This whole deck gets shuffled if the Yankees trade for another outfielder, though I can’t imagine who that might be.

Having buried Verdugo above, let me take a second to consider the possibility that he could be an asset for the Bronx Bombers. I’m thinking specifically of another trade pickup of a left-handed hitter who had been disappointing to that point in his career, and who turned himself into a different player in the Bronx, making himself a lot of money in the process.

Didi Gregorius was 25, three years younger than Verdugo is today, when the Yankees acquired him for Shane Greene as part a three-way trade with the Diamondbacks and Tigers. He’d hit .243/.313/.366 (88 OPS+) in 724 PA in parts of three seasons with the Reds and Snakes. The Yankees were adding him to replace Derek Jeter after Jeter chose to exit stage...well, it would have had to have been stage right, I guess. 

Gregorius had largely been an all-fields hitter to that point, with a pull rate around 35% and a flyball tendency that hadn’t produced much power. With the Yankees, though, Gregorius took aim at the short right-field porch; he pulled 38% of his batted balls in his first two seasons in the Bronx, and then 41% over his last three. His flyball rate peaked at 43-44% while with the Yankees, and all those pulled fly balls made him a good hitter. Gregorius hit 20 or more homers from 2016 through 2018, slugged .472 in that time, and had a 108 OPS+. He even got some stray MVP votes in 2017 and 2018. 

Verdugo, like Gregorius, arrives in New York without a track record of pulling the ball. Worse still, he hasn’t been much for hitting the ball in the air. Verdugo was among the bottom quartile of hitters last year in barrel rate, and he’s in the middle of the pack with a .417 expected slugging. Unlike Gregorius, though, Verdugo is playing for his next deal. He’s lost a lot of his perceived value, and as a free agent after 2024, should be motivated not just to play well, but to adapt.

The path to 25 homers, a .475 SLG, and a $50 million contract is all right there in front of him. If Didi Gregorius can become a slugger, Alex Verdugo can, too.

 
 
 

Tuesday, December 5, 2023

Joe Sheehan Newsletter, December 5, 2023 -- "NL East Notes"

 

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.

--
 

The Joe Sheehan Newsletter: NL East Notes
Vol. 15, No. 143
December 5, 2023

With the winter meetings running a bit slow -- passing nod to Wade Miley -- I’ll skip sending out another doorstop and stick to just one of the two remaining divisions today. 


Atlanta Braves

The Braves’ side of the Mariners trade was basically them paying cash and a high-variance arm in Cole Phillips for Jarred Kelenic. The thing about the way they’ve built their roster is that they’re left without much to do in most offseasons. Eleven players got 100 PA for them last year, and nine of those are under contract for 2024; seven are under contract for 2025. Alex Anthopoulos has already stretched out the bullpen by signing Reynaldo Lopez and trading for Aaron Bummer, and there’s no path by which he’ll get under the 2024 luxury tax threshold.

The team could use some rotation depth, and given their payroll situation I could see them digging into the middle class -- Michael Wacha, Mike Clevinger, Michael Lorenzen -- to back up their top three. Mostly, though, the hole is in left field, where Eddie Rosario and Kevin Pillar are both free agents.

So dealing for a high-risk player in Kelenic makes sense. As I wrote yesterday, I’m not that excited about Kelenic, whose 2023 “breakout” was one good month followed by a return to being a disappointment. If you’re the Braves, though, you look at pairing him with hitting coach Kevin Seitzer and see some potential. Seitzer helped turn Austin Riley into a star, he proctored Ronald Acuña Jr.’s elevation into an MVP winner with an 11% strikeout rate, and he has been the coach for the best seasons by Orlando Arcia, Marcell Ozuna, and Matt Olson. Seitzer is one of the best hitting coaches of his era, and while we’ve already seen Kelenic be rebuilt once, this pairing has some upside that deserves attention. 

Because the Braves have been picked off by the Phillies in best-of-fives the last two years, they don’t get enough credit for the gap between them and the competition in the NL East. The Braves have won six straight division titles, and since 2021 they’re lapping the field.

Braves     293  192  .604     --
Phillies   259  227  .533   34.5
Mets       253  233  .521   40.5
Marlins    220  266  .453   73.5
Nationals  191  295  .393  102.5


Our modern emphasis on the playoffs has cost teams like the Yankees, Guardians, and Dodgers proper credit for their extended stretches of success. Let’s not lose sight of what the Braves are doing right now.


Miami Marlins

As with the Diamondbacks, maybe moreso than with the Diamondbacks, it’s important to evaluate the Marlins for what they were. Even as they squeaked into the expanded postseason for 28 hours or so, they were a bottom-half team in MLB.

The Marlins were outscored by a whopping 57 runs and had the eighth-best third-order record in the NL. Their offense was mostly empty batting average: second in the NL at .259, but tenth in OBP, SLG, and homers, 12th in doubles, 13th in steals, 14th in walks. The Marlins’ pitching was better, even wracked by injuries, in part because Skip Schumaker squeezed a strong year from a largely anonymous bullpen. Marlins relievers finished third in the NL in fWAR, as lefties Tanner Scott, A.J. Puk, and rookie Andrew Nardi all had breakout campaigns.

The Marlins head into the offseason already behind the eight-ball, knowing Sandy Alcantara will miss 2024 following Tommy John surgery. The Marlins have pitching depth, to be sure, but it was from that depth they were going to need to deal to fix their offense. Luis Arraez had a career year in 2023, but identifying the Marlins’ second-best hitter takes some work. Jorge Soler declined his option. Trade pickups Jake Burger and Josh Bell were excellent down the stretch but are 28 and 31, respectively. Jazz Chisholm Jr. has a career 103 OPS+ heading into his age-26 season, and he still looks more like a fantasy star than a real one. (The numbers on his defense in center field were split; I thought he looked awkward out there, and missing 67 games didn’t help him develop.)

Chisholm is representative of a serious Marlins problem: They’ve stopped developing hitters. For a while there in the 2010s, it was a real skill, as Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, J.T. Realmuto, and Marcell Ozuna were all drafted and developed...and traded...by the Fish. Over the last five years, though, the Marlins’ best hitters are all imports, and their homegrown bats have largely tanked. 

[“Fish” Pun Here] (homegrown Marlins hitters, 2019-23)

                     PA    AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS+
Brian Anderson     1597   .247  .333  .417   103
Jazz Chisholm Jr.  1193   .245  .304  .452   103
Nick Fortes         597   .220  .285  .358    76   

That’s the entire list of drafted/signed Marlins hitters who have gotten 200 or more PA with the team over the last five years. If you expand the pool to include young hitters the Marlins acquired in trade, it doesn’t make things better. Bryan De La Cruz (98 OPS+) and Jesus Sanchez (100) have been part of the problem. JJ Bleday, the fourth overall pick in 2019, hit .167/.277/.309 before being traded to the A’s. Garrett Cooper, with his 111 OPS+ in parts of four seasons, is the success story, and he was 27 when he was acquired.

New Marlins President of Baseball Operations Peter Bendix has many challenges in front of him, but near the top is getting the Marlins back to at least an average offense, and that will entail developing bats.


New York Mets

There may not be a tougher read right now than the Mets, who have been all over the map the last three seasons. They won 101 games in 2022 and got no credit for it. They spent more on players in 2023 than any baseball team ever has, and they got no success for it. They shifted gears midseason and collected a significant number of high-value prospects, and they pushed out the executive who did it.

David Stearns inherits a very good situation in Queens. The additions of Luisangel Acuña, Drew Gilbert, Ryan Clifford, and Marco Vargas, all by Billy Eppler in his final summer as GM, give Stearns a stronger base of minor-league talent than he had in Milwaukee. The major-league team isn’t as bad as it looked last year, though it lacks starting pitching. Few teams have both a core of contender-level talent, with Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, and Pete Alonso, and a group of young high-upside players such as Francisco Alvarez, Ronny Mauricio, and Brett Baty.

Stearns could go in a couple of directions here, either shopping for starting pitching depth in an effort to move to the front of the wild-card class in the NL, or moving Pete Alonso and, if there’s a market for them, Starling Marte and Jose Quintana, with an eye towards 2025 and beyond. It is unlikely that the Mets can challenge the Braves in 2024, though we’ve seen the value of just getting into the tournament the last two years. There’s value in bouncing back quickly, especially given Steve Cohen’s desire to build a casino complex next to Citi Field. As we’ve seen in other places, the success of a baseball team can be the driver of goodwill for non-baseball projects.

Still, looking at the talent the Mets have on hand, what they have coming, and the 2024-25 free agent class, an eye towards the future seems a better play. The Mets could have a top-ten farm system shortly, to go with the young players who debuted a year ago. Their 2024 payroll is still feeling the effects of the shopping sprees the last two years, but the team’s 2025 commitments are cut nearly in half, down to $141 million, as Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, and likely Pete Alonso come off the payroll. Next winter’s free-agent class could be led by Juan Soto and include Gerrit Cole, Zack Wheeler, Corbin Burnes, Tyler Glasnow, and Gleyber Torres. The next year might feature Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Kyle Tucker, Zac Gallen, and Dylan Cease. There are going to be opportunities to bring in superstars to augment the young players the Mets have, and to build a team that can challenge not for wild-card slots, but for division titles.

So a quiet first offseason for Stearns won’t be the worst thing. Maybe he chases Ohtani and Jung Hoo Lee and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, taking the tax hit -- Cohen can afford it -- to get high-level talent. If he whiffs on those, though, he’s better off waiting out the winter and keeping a focus on the future. 


Philadelphia Phillies

The Phillies made what may be their big move of the offseason by retaining Aaron Nola on a seven-year contract. With the decision made to leave Bryce Harper at first base, their roster holes are now in the outfield, and even “holes” elides them having Kyle Schwarber, Nicholas Castellanos, and Brandon Marsh on the team, as well as glove men Cristian Pache and Josh Rojas. Still, if they were going to take a swing at upgrading, it would have to be in the pasture. 

The combination of Dave Dombrowski’s predilection for the big transaction, the win-now focus of the Phillies, and the limited free-agent pool, makes me wonder if Philadelphia will be Jung Hoo Lee’s landing spot. Lee, 25, has been posted by the Kiwoom Heroes and is eligible to sign with any MLB team. The left-handed hitter is a career .340/.407/.491 hitter in the KBO, with a 383/304 K/BB. While he’s hit for power in some seasons, he’s more of a gap hitter, and in fact, the kind of leadoff man we don’t have much of in MLB these days. Deferring to Keith Law here...

He’s the best hitter in Korea right now, and while the pitching he’s faced isn’t at the level of MLB pitching, he’s done everything you might reasonably ask a hitter to do in that environment, making a lot of hard contact and rarely swinging and missing, with some platoon split and not a ton of power.

I find the match in Philadelphia to be interesting because signing Lee might provide an out for the Kyle Schwarber problem. Schwarber moved into the Phillies’ leadoff spot around Memorial Day 2022, and he’s been there ever since. Now, I’m all in favor of non-traditional leadoff men, but in ’23 Schwarber’s skill set went full Adam Dunn, with a .197 batting average thanks to 215 strikeouts. He’s stayed there as much out of inertia as anything else, but there’s no question he’d be a better fit lower in the lineup. Adding a true leadoff man in Lee would provide an avenue for Rob Thomson to restructure the batting order with Lee and Trea Turner up top, Harper and J.T. Realmuto following, and then Schwarber in the #5 hole.

Schwarber batted 429 times with no one on base last year and hit 29 solo home runs. Giving him more opportunities to drive in teammates in 2024 will make the Phillies’ offense work more efficiently.


Washington Nationals

Go back and look at those 2021-23 standings. The Nationals have been the worst team in baseball since we got back to playing 162-game seasons, and they haven’t made much progress in that time. I have written repeatedly that I’m sympathetic to the Nationals, who won the World Series in 2019 and got no bump from that success; the pandemic cost them more than it did any other team in baseball. 

However, it’s four years later and it’s time for them to get off the mat. The Nationals got some production last year from their rebuild trades, with Keibert Ruiz and CJ Abrams establishing themselves as average to average-plus regulars up the middle. The two are 25 and 23 heading into the 2024 season, and they still have some projected growth. Josiah Gray and MacKenzie Gore combined for 295 innings and five WAR. They will be 26 and 25 next year. It was a rough year in the farm system, as James Wood and Robert Hassell III both struggled, and 2020 first-round pick Cade Cavalli underwent Tommy John surgery. Adding the second pick in the draft, outfielder Dylan Crews, helped bolster their prospect list, and Brady House played well at three levels in his first year as a third baseman. 

What we haven’t seen in a while is the Mike Rizzo of old, the guy who makes big moves to make the MLB team better. Whether feeling burned by the Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin deals, or having his hands tied by Mark Lerner, Ted’s son and the new managing partner of the Nats, Rizzo has kept his powder dry in recent years. His biggest signing last winter was Trevor Williams for two years and $13 million. He added Jeimer Candelario for one year at $5 million. The year before he signed Nelson Cruz for $15 million for one year. Rizzo is playing in the lower reaches of free agency with a roster crying out for six-win players.

As we keep saying, it’s a tough year for teams needing star power. The Nationals, though, have to start climbing out of the cellar. Look at those NL East standings again. The Nats are making themselves irrelevant right at the moment the Orioles are becoming one of the most interesting teams in baseball. Rizzo has to, whether through free agency or trades, begin to elevate the Nationals to that level again.


Newsletter Excerpt, December 4, 2023 -- "NL West and AL West Notes"

 

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.

--
 
Seattle Mariners

The Mariners have now made two trades to wipe $32 million off their 2024 payroll, trading Eugenio Suarez to the Diamondbacks and, just last night, strapping Jarred Kelenic to the contracts of Marco Gonzales and Evan White and shipping them all to the Braves. 

Trading Kelenic is an attention-getter. The once top-ten prospect failed to launch in 2021 and 2022 before getting off to a hot start in 2023: .308/.366/.615 in April. It was a mirage; Kelenic hit .235/.314/.356 after that with a 33% strikeout rate and a 104/28 K/UIBB. In his three-year career, Kelenic is now at .204/.283/.373, with fair defense and speed. It’s certainly possible that there are better days to come. But remember, we have already seen Kelenic rebuild his swing once, and he got one good month out of it. At this point, Kelenic is more famous than he is good, and trading him to get out from under a total of $29 million owed to Gonzales and White over the next two years isn’t as crazy as it looks. 

I’d say much the same about trading Suarez, who is guaranteed $13 million in salary and buyout money. Suarez is a 32-year-old coming off a two-win season with declining defense and absolutely no speed. I can see why the Diamondbacks would take him, and I also see a player who may have no floor, who might not have three wins left in his career. 

Individually I can make both these moves make sense. It’s together that they become interesting. There are two possible explanations. One is that the Mariners are pulling back on player expenditures as they face potential drops in local-TV revenue. The Mariners own 60% of their broadcast outlet, ROOT Sports, and cable companies in the region have been moving the channel to its pay tier. On the other hand, the Mariners have been free to do marketing deals like they have with Fubo Sports, which offers streaming access to ROOT. This isn’t so much like the Diamond Sports Group/Bally’s teams, who might lose all their revenue, but rather a team dealing with uncertainty over the short term.

The other possibility is that the Mariners are clearing room for a large acquisition: Shohei Ohtani or Cody Bellinger in free agency, Juan Soto or Mike Trout in trade, someone who would fill the desperately needed role of a big bat in the middle of the lineup. The Mariners had a payroll of $180 million last year, highest in franchise history, and they’ve comfortably been in the $170-million range in the past. These moves leave them at $136 million for 2024 and under $100 million in 2025 and 2026.

The Mariners are in no position to tank, not with the championship-caliber core they have in place for the next three seasons. They have a very high floor. The next ten roster spots, though, were a problem last year. One way to fix that is to dance fast on the trade and free-agent markets to accumulate two- and three-win players for zero- and one-win prices. Another is to just add another six-win player to that core. 

I’m inclined to think this is the Mariners pinching pennies. If you make me pick, that’s what I’m going with. It’s not a 90/10 thing for me, though, and it may not even be 54/46. It’s December 4. There are a lot of stars still available. It’s just too early to evaluate any team’s moves as if they’re the only ones the team is going to make.

 

Newsletter Excerpt, December 1, 2023 -- "NL Central Notes"

 

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.

--
 
Cincinnati Reds

There’s a thing where teams that feel constrained by their budgets will go out and spend money on the silliest things in an effort to buy “what they can afford” and make it seem like they’re doing something. Buying relief pitchers, which tend to be the cheapest talent, is the quickest path to my ridicule. Relievers, in today’s game, are common talents. You don’t need to buy them, you just need to find them.

So signing Emilio Pagan for two years and $16 million just makes me shake my head. This is what the Reds and teams like them do, and it never works out. Pagan had a stone fluke year with the Twins in which he had a 51% flyball rate and managed to allow just five home runs. Let’s look at some stat lines:

        Brl    AVG    SLG    wOBA   HR
2021     24   .833  2.917   1.513   15
2022     16   .875  3.000   1.610   10
2023     14   .571  1.857    .982    5


In 2022 and 2023, Pagan allowed about the same number of barrels and barrel rate, with wildly different outcomes on those batted balls. As you can see based on his 2021 stats, his 2023 is quite the outlier. The league as a whole hit .742 with a 2.492 SLG and a 1.290 wOBA on barrels in 2023, so Pagan’s numbers are well below both his norms and league norms. Pagan’s expected stats on those barreled balls are basically identical through the three-year sample.

        Brl   xAVG   xSLG   xwOBA
2021     24   .751  2.635   1.369
2022     16   .736  2.465   1.335
2023     14   .725  2.541   1.317


That’s a lot of jargon and stats, but what it comes down to is this: when Pagan got hit the hardest last year, he got lucky and the batted balls turned into outs more than they should have. That is highly unlikely to continue. With the move to Great American Ball Park, I set his 2024 line at 11.5 home runs allowed, with concomitant changes to his ERA and FIP. The Reds set money on fire by signing him.

I’m not here to just dunk on the Reds, though. The other move they made, signing Nick Martinez to a two-year deal, has a better chance to work out. Brought back from Japan by the Padres two years ago, Martinez was a big part of the team’s postseason run in 2022, and in two years allowed a 3.45 ERA (4.17 FIP) in 216 2/3 innings. He didn’t fail as a starter, either: a 3.41 ERA in 19 starts, though his walk rate spiked when asked to start. The Reds, who were down to pitching volunteers in September, needed to fill out the rotation given the health questions that surround all their young pitchers. Martinez should be able to hold down a low-volume #4 role. 

At some point, though, the Reds have to get serious about picking the guys who are going to play and picking the guys who will be traded for pitching. Right now, they have a strong young infield of rookies and sophomores, plus Spencer Steer tasked with playing left field, plus Cam Collier and Edwin Arroyo in the minors. Jonathan India, a perfectly adequate starting second baseman, has no real role. The Reds need the talent these hitters can bring back, but perhaps more importantly, they need to avoid a situation where nine players are competing for six spots and no one ever gets established. (See below, the 2023 Cardinals.) Making those choices is what this offseason is about for the Reds.