Cleveland Sports Forum

If the Pirates might possibly willing to retain young pitchers [they gave up Garret Cole, Tyler Glasnow , J. Taillon, etc] Hedges could help develop them; but Pittsburgh constantly makes terrible deals.

Will You Still Need Them, Will You Still Play Them, When They’re 41?
[it started with Wayne Garland]

Carlos Correa, Trea Turner and Xander Bogaerts were each signed to deals of 11 or more years this off-season. History suggests they could be on the move relatively soon.

Throughout the nearly 50 years of free agency in Major League Baseball, the high-end money available to players has expanded exponentially.

The emotions, though, remain remarkably similar at the start of long-term megadeals: Gratitude, wonder, and, at times, disbelief at a player’s own good fortune.

Xander Bogaerts last week made no secret of how he would have reacted earlier this off-season had his agent informed him that signing an 11-year deal was possible, let alone one that carried a guarantee of $280 million.

“I would have kissed him,” Bogaerts said at a news conference at Petco Park in San Diego last week, glancing at his agent, Scott Boras. “I would have. I haven’t yet, but I might do that.”

Back in 1976, when the pitcher Wayne Garland became the first player to sign a free-agent contract of at least 10 years — for $2.3 million, with Cleveland — he called his mother.

“I didn’t get the million dollars,” Garland, who was seeking that sum over five years, told his mom.

“You’re not worth it,” she responded.

“I got two million dollars and 10 years,” he answered. She repeated the sentiment.

“She spoke the truth,” Garland, 72, said over the phone from his home in Nashville on Wednesday. “She put it plain and simple.”
Credit...Sporting News via Getty Images

‘Some people were happy for me, some were jealous of me, some people said nobody is worth that.’


Garland was a trailblazer as a member of baseball’s first free-agent class. The path forged by his 10-year deal leads directly to three All-Star shortstops who were given contracts this month that combine for nearly $1 billion in guarantees.


On Tuesday, Carlos Correa, 28, agreed to terms with the San Francisco Giants on a 13-year, $350 million contract that surpassed the deal signed by the Mets’ Francisco Lindor (10 years, $341 million) for the most total dollars committed to a shortstop. Trea Turner, 29, signed with the Philadelphia Phillies for 11 years and $300 million. And Bogaerts, 30, got $280 million from the Padres.

When their contracts finally expire, Correa, Turner and Bogaerts will all be in their early 40s. The Giants, Phillies and Padres do not — and cannot — expect their All Star-caliber play to continue through the later years of these deals. Eventually, those players are likely to require position changes and extra days off. History would suggest they all stand a decent chance of being traded or released long before their deals expire.

“It’s not an exact science,” Dave Dombrowski, Philadelphia’s president of baseball operations, said of projecting a player’s production as he ages. He added: “One thing I do think is, sometimes you have to differentiate between a normal big-league player and an elite athlete. I do think there are some differences in that regard. We’ve done a lot of research. An elite athlete can last longer at that performance level than other individuals can.”

With this season’s additions, there have been 24 contracts that guaranteed a player at least 10 years — 13 via free agency and 11 via extensions. No free agent signed to such a deal has remained with his team for the entire term of the contract.

Dave Winfield’s contract aged better than most. He signed a 10-year, $23.5 million free-agent deal with the Yankees in 1980, and despite his sour relationship with the Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who called him Mr. May and was eventually suspended for two years for paying a gambler to try to dig up embarrassing information on him, Winfield made eight All-Star teams in New York.

Winfield missed all of 1989 with a back injury and was traded to the Angels in 1990, but the ability was still there: In 1992, two years after his 10-year deal had expired, he finished fifth in the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award voting and helped Toronto win the World Series. And he was still a good player at 41 the next season.


Other free-agent deals of 10 or more years were far less successful.

At 41, Albert Pujols, who had signed a 10-year, $240 million contract with the Angels in 2012, was released in the 10th year of his underwhelming tenure in Anaheim, Calif. — his resurgent 2022 season with St. Louis came a year after that contract expired. Robinson Canó (10 years, $228 million with Seattle in 2014) washed out of the game last summer at 39 following two suspensions for performance-enhancing drugs — he still has one season left on the contract.


Alex Rodriguez signed two 10-year deals. The first ($252 million) was with Texas in 2001, and he was traded to the Yankees only three seasons later. Seven seasons and three M.V.P. Awards into the deal, he exercised an opt-out clause, signing a second 10-year contract ($275 million). He helped lead the Yankees to a World Series title in 2009, but he was suspended for the entire 2014 season because of connections to performance-enhancing drugs and the team released him with a year left on the deal.

For a time, those failures seemed to sour teams on making such long agreements. But with clubs looking to lower the average annual value of contracts, partially for competitive balance tax reasons, the long deals have come back in full force. Some have even gone to players who have yet to fully establish themselves in the majors.

Fernando Tatis Jr. has had a rocky start to the 14-year contract he signed with the Padres before the 2021 season, but optimism abounds that he will return to stardom when he gets through his suspension and injuries. Other young players signed to speculative megadeals include Seattle’s Julio Rodríguez (12 years, with options that could make it 18), Tampa Bay’s Wander Franco (11 years, with an option for 12) and Atlanta’s Austin Riley (10 years, with an option for 11).


Garland was only 26 when he signed his 10-year deal, which came after a breakout 1976 season in which he went 20-7 for the Baltimore Orioles with a 2.67 E.R.A. over 232⅓ innings. With free agency a new concept, not everybody understood Garland’s motives — even with his big payday.

“Some people were happy for me, some were jealous of me, some people said nobody is worth that,” Garland said of his contract, which was negotiated by Jerry Kapstein, his agent. Kapstein also secured a 10-year deal for the outfielder Richie Zisk in 1978 — the first contract of that length given to a position player.

In addition to getting more money — Baltimore had offered him only five years with far lower salaries — Garland liked the idea of joining a winning team (Cleveland had gone 81-78 in 1976). However, after posting an American League-leading 19 losses while throwing 282⅔ innings for Cleveland in 1977, the right-handed Garland felt a twinge in his shoulder the next spring and, by April’s end, could barely get the ball to the plate. Garland had suffered a torn rotator cuff and had season-ending surgery. He was never the same.

It was a different world back then.

After his surgery, Garland said, “they made me travel with the team. I had to come to the ballpark every day.” They set him up with a walkie talkie in the press box and, from there, he assisted the coach Rocky Colavito in positioning outfielders.

“They made me do it,” Garland said. “If I didn’t do it, I was going to get fined.”

Players today are not asked to perform such duties, but the various megadeals have tended to be cut short for one of two reasons: declining ability as the player ages, or a dramatic shift in a team’s philosophy.

“Giancarlo Stanton has come of age, and he’s going to be here a long time,” Jeffrey Loria, the Marlins’ owner at the time, said upon signing Stanton to an eye-popping 13-year, $325 million extension in 2014.

Three years later, the Marlins were sold and Stanton was traded to the Yankees.

Of the all the deals — whether via free agency or an extension — that called for 10 or more years, Derek Jeter (10 years, $189 million with the Yankees in 2001) is thus far the only recipient to play the full term with the signing team. It was a top-to-bottom success, with Jeter making eight All-Star teams and collecting 1,918 hits over those 10 seasons. Cincinnati’s Joey Votto, 39, is entering the final season of a 10-year, $225 million extension and has a chance to join Jeter as players who completed such a deal with the signing team.

It did not end so well for Garland, who was released by Cleveland in 1982, five years and 99 appearances into his deal. He said he had a difficult relationship with other players after his injuries and had harsh words with team officials upon his exit, telling them “just make sure you send the check every two weeks.” He was 30.

It wasn’t until he became a coach in the Pittsburgh and Cincinnati organizations in the 1990s, he said, that the ice melted.

“I got more thanks after I was through playing,” Garland said. “From the younger people saying ‘thanks to you, you made it better for all of us.’”

He hasn’t watched baseball in 20 years, he said, and added that he wasn’t even familiar with this off-season’s big-money shortstops.

Nevertheless, when details of Correa’s contract were relayed, Garland said, “God bless him.”

Grading Every MLB Team's Offseason Thus Far

KERRY MILLER

DECEMBER 19, 2022

Cleveland Guardians

Free-Agency Adds: 1B Josh Bell, C Mike Zunino

Free-Agency Losses: C Austin Hedges, C Luke Maile, RHP Bryan Shaw

Noteworthy Trades: Nolan Jones to Colorado Rockies for IF Juan Brito; Carlos Vargas to Arizona Diamondbacks for RHP Ross Carver

Re-Signings/Extensions: n/a

Grade: A-

The Guardians won 92 games last season, and all they had hitting free agency was a pair of replacement-level catchers and a 34-year-old reliever who has posted an ERA north of 5.00 in four of the past five years.

As such, adding a catcher and perhaps upgrading at first base to allow Josh Naylor to become the full-time DH was pretty much the entire offseason wish list for the Guardians, which they pretty well knocked out of the park.

On the first base front, they got a good one in Josh Bell. He had a rough stretch with the Padres over the second half of last season, but he has a good bat and a good enough glove to hold down the fort. And at $16.5 million with a player option for the same amount in 2024, they didn't need to break the bank to get him.

On the catcher front, signing Willson Contreras or trading for Sean Murphy would have been the preferred route, but maybe they'll get the 2021 version of Mike Zunino who got MVP votes as opposed to the 2022 version who couldn't hit anything or stay healthy. He's an intriguing buy-low candidate for just $6 million.

AND THE REST

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/100 ... n-thus-far


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https://twitter.com/i/status/1605320040495976448

Austin Hedges on leaving the Guardians.

Cleveland Guardians rumors: Does a reunion with Corey Kluber make sense?

By Steve DiMatteo

Dec 19, 2022

The Cleveland Guardians could go in a number of directions to help improve the team the rest of this offseason. While the offense has been the major focus so far, there's certainly a case to be made that the starting rotation could use a little more depth.

That being said, there are some intriguing options out there on both the trade and free-agent fronts. Allegedly, Carlos Carrasco is available from the New York Mets, and another old friend in Corey Kluber is currently a free agent.

So Should the Guardians Sign Corey Kluber?

Would Kluber, turning 37 next season, be worth bringing back as a veteran presence for the back-end of the rotation?

He is, of course, one of the best pitchers in Cleveland baseball history. For a five-year stretch from 2014 to 2018, Kluber was one of the best pitchers in all of baseball as well, winning two Cy Youngs and almost single-handedly carrying the then-Indians to Game Seven of the 2016 World Series.

And despite some gnarly injuries since then - including a fractured right arm and various shoulder issues - Kluber has pitched pretty well when healthy. He threw a no-hitter with the Yankees in 2021, and had a decent season with the Rays in 2022. Though his ERA in 31 starts was 4.34, Kluber had a much more respectable 3.57 FIP and actually led all of baseball with only 1.2 walks per nine innings. His xERA was 4.00 and he did sport the highest xBA of his career at .261, but it's clear Kluber still has some of that juice left.

There's a distinct possibility the Guardians could be parting ways with either Zach Plesac or Aaron Civale sometime soon. It could happen as part of a trade this offseason or either one could simply get squeezed out by one of the billion talented pitching prospects in the system. But the Guardians don't want to just rely on endless raw talent if they can help it; Kluber would help bridge the gap to the new generation of Cleveland pitchers should Plesac or Civale be used as part of some type of trade.

Maybe it's just a slight desire to go on a nostalgia tour and reunite some of Cleveland's baseball past with its exciting future. But Kluber would genuinely be a solid addition to the back-end of the rotation at the right price - and if he can stay healthy.

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Amed Rosario’s future with Guardians: With top shortstops off the board, is a trade possible?

Aug 24, 2022; San Diego, California, USA; Cleveland Guardians shortstop Amed Rosario (1) throws to second base late on a single hit by San Diego Padres shortstop Ha-Seong Kim (not pictured) during the seventh inning at Petco Park. Mandatory Credit: Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports
By Zack Meisel


CLEVELAND — Teams that needed a shortstop this winter had two options.

1. Spend a nine-figure sum to land one of the four star free agents who play the position.

2. Sign someone far, far inferior.

Well, three options.

3. Wait for one of those stars to escape his new team via an iffy medical exam and then scoop him up with a 10 percent discount.

OK, there’s actually a fourth option: a trade.

The Guardians don’t need a shortstop. They employ Amed Rosario, and several other younger, less experienced candidates. Andrés Giménez is a natural shortstop, too, and he has played the position in the Venezuelan Winter League in recent weeks. Gabriel Arias and Tyler Freeman made their major-league debuts in 2022, and Brayan Rocchio might not be far behind.

All of that depth sparks the same question that surfaced over the summer: Does it make any sense for the Guardians to trade Rosario and tap into their middle-infield surplus?

The question isn’t spurred by Cleveland’s eagerness to deal him. He’s a productive major leaguer on a team with postseason aspirations, after all. It’s spurred more, at the moment, by teams that missed out on those four prized free-agent shortstops searching far and wide for a better solution than those who remain unsigned. (Along the same lines, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported teams have called the Orioles about shortstop Jorge Mateo.)

The Guardians front office will listen to any proposal floated their way, but it’s difficult to envision something logical involving Rosario taking place before Opening Day. Cleveland’s conundrum is the same as it was in July: Any trade return would need to at least offset the risk of receiving less output at the position from either Arias or Freeman. Remember, the Guardians weren’t comfortable simply handing rookie Bo Naylor the keys at catcher, in part because they’re gunning for a deep playoff run and don’t want to place such a burden on a player with no track record.

Amed Rosario is under team control through next season. (Ken Blaze / USA Today)

Rosario was once a top-five prospect in the sport as he rose through the Mets’ ranks. The past two years, he has produced nearly identical numbers.

2021: .282/.321/.409 slash line, 25 doubles, 11 home runs, 13 stolen bases

2022: .283/.312/.403 slash line, 26 doubles, 11 home runs, 18 stolen bases

Unsurprisingly, FanGraphs’ Steamer projection system forecasts a similar line for him in 2023. Here’s how Rosario compares to the youngsters.

Rosario: .277/.314/.413 slash line
Arias: .244/.304/.402 slash line
Freeman: .273/.332/.385 slash line

As for the ZiPS projection system …

Rosario: .276/.309/.400 slash line
Arias: .239/.300/.377 slash line
Freeman: .263/.328/.349 slash line

The bottom line: The projections indicate there might not be a drastic drop-off in output (and, defensively, there could be an upgrade), but there’s still a lot of inherent risk because Rosario is a pretty safe bet given his consistent track record, whereas the outcomes for the rookies could be all over the map because of the unknown.

What would a trade even look like? Is Rosario more valuable to Cleveland or to another team?

Only a contender would exhibit interest because Rosario can become a free agent after the 2023 season. The Braves, Red Sox, Twins, Dodgers and Angels could all be fits, to some degree. Obviously, a trade with the Twins wouldn’t happen given the AL Central ties; The Athletic’s Dan Hayes has suggested the club is content to proceed with Kyle Farmer and, once he’s healed from ACL surgery, Royce Lewis. Our Red Sox writers, Jen McCaffrey and Chad Jennings, indicated Boston had discussed Rosario internally earlier this winter, but not so much recently. Pinpointing a sufficient return proved challenging as well. Our Braves writer, Dave O’Brien, said Rosario would fit well in Atlanta, but he was skeptical that the Braves would offer much in return and wondered if Atlanta would be comfortable paying the $9 million or so Rosario is set to earn via arbitration.

The other side of a potential trade is the reason this is a long shot, and why the Guardians opted to keep Rosario over the summer. With Rosario’s limited control, no team is going to overwhelm them with an offer they can’t refuse. Dealing Rosario for a prospect only adds risk to the team’s 2023 outlook. The only somewhat sensible scenario would be to flip Rosario for another useful major leaguer. Think of a couple of moves the Mariners executed this winter: They dealt reliever Erik Swanson (and a minor-league pitcher) for outfielder Teoscar Hernández and swapped outfielder Jesse Winker for second baseman Kolten Wong.

The Guardians held these same debates over the summer. From a long-term perspective, there were benefits to trading Rosario since he wasn’t the shortstop of the future. Had the club been on the outside looking in at the playoff picture, it would have been more motivated to do so, much to José Ramírez’s dismay. But the Guardians opted to hang onto him, and it’s important not to just dismiss the vital role Rosario played in the lineup and the clubhouse. He and Ramírez captained the club’s contact-and-speed movement.

There’s one other factor to note: The most likely course of action is letting Rosario play out his final year of team control. The Guardians could present him with a qualifying offer at the end of the year. They would net a draft pick if he declines it and enters the free-agent market in an offseason in which there won’t be four shortstops ready to collect a combined $1.1 billion. His primary competition would be Isiah Kiner-Falefa, a 37-year-old Brandon Crawford and maybe Paul DeJong. If the Guardians falter out of the gate and are staring up at the White Sox in the standings in July, they could revisit their trade options then, too.

Zach Plesac and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year
All of 2022 stunk for Plesac. There’s no other way to look at it.

It’s pretty much the consensus these days that we just don’t care that much about a pitcher’s win-loss record. With starts getting shorter and shorter, with a better understanding every day of all the little things that a game can turn on, a guy being a “20 game winner” is as much viewed as a neat confluence of luck and curiosity as it is a demonstration of actual talent.

That said, I don’t care what year it is if you go 3-12 on the year, or if in the 25 games you start, your team goes 10-15 — that’s not great. There are a lot of moving parts there, and defense or wind or weird eccentricities of the field can have a hand in where a batted ball goes, but it’s hard to not look kind of hard at the one common denominator in that. That’s where we find Zach Plesac.

By most metrics, Plesac was comfortably the worst pitcher to wear a Cleveland Guardians uniform for any real stretch of time, and if not for the parade of overmatched rookies we saw all year you couldn’t even start the argument of who might be worse. The stats tell part of the story, but if ever there was a train wreck of a season for a guy, this was it in every sense.

It’s hard to really gauge now where people stood on Plesac when the season kicked off. He was coming off a dreadful 2021 season that included him fracturing his thumb trying to take his shirt off, a year after he violated COVID protocols and gave a wonderful driver’s seat diatribe to his front-facing camera, but there was still a glimmer of hope that he could be a solid mid-rotation guy after two very good years to start his career. Even if his stuff was considerably less than electric, the general idea/Kool-aid flavor was that he was more than the sum of his parts, a true pitcher that thinks his way through the game and uses everything in his repertoire along with a preternatural sense of the game as a whole to limit mistakes, slow down the running game, and keep the team competing.

Again, looking back now, it’s hard to see where this whole “thinking man’s pitcher” thing came from.

It was a bad year. Only Cal Quantrill allowed more runs than Plesac’s 74 and allowed his 78 in over 55 more innings. He set a new personal high in walk rate at 6.7%, he logged his second worst strikeout rate at 17.6%, his line drive rate was a career-high 26.4%, and his win probability added was a miserable -0.9. In essence, his 131.2 innings cost the Guardians as a team a win in the aggregate. That WPA was the 18th worst in baseball and would have been higher if he’d gotten the chance to throw a full complement of innings.

What happened though? Nothing really, it just turns out that he never had a repertoire that was any good. His fastball has slipped from a merely average 94 mph to less than good 92 mph even as the average MLB fastball has gone up in velocity over the last few years. His slider — ostensibly his out pitch — has horizontal break 75% worse than the average MLB slider and 16% worse vertical movement. Again, that’s just the average slider. He doesn’t come close to what some of his teammates can do. His changeup we can forget about, his curve is more like a meander, and putting that together you just get a bunch of batting practice.

So there’s the not being good, stuff-wise, that certainly doomed him. But also, he just seemed to self-sabotage over the course of the season. He punched the ground and broke his hand after giving up a homer in Boston in May, and ended up getting dropped by his agency as the season wore on. His best stretch of starts was a four-game set between June 17 and July 4 that saw him log a 1.50 ERA over that stretch (with a corresponding 3.90 FIP), and he followed that up with eight games that held a 5.62 ERA over 41.2 innings, and then he went on the IL.

It’s not so much about what you can say about Plesac, but more about what do you do with him? The door is quickly shutting on his role as anything more than an occasional spot starter once some of these heralded arms climb out of the minors, and even then there are probably better options that can at least throw the ball harder. To see a career just collapse in front of you, that’s what this whole season was for Plesac. That’s sad certainly, and not at all where we thought this guy would end up after he was so good for two years, but the writing is on the wall. If he wants to improve, to find what makes him special, he’s in the right place. Cleveland has been turning pitching dross into gold for over a decade, and he can see if there’s an opportunity there.

Otherwise, it’s not a stretch to say this is likely the last we’ve seen of Zach Plesac as anything real for the Cleveland Guardians.
Zach Plesac’s 2022 stats
IP K% BB% ERA ERA- WAR
131.2 17.6% 6.7% 4.31 111 0.9

Wow!

Who wrote that article?

Don't show it to any FOs you want to dump him on.

coveringthecorner.com

A fan-based site; don't think scouts or front offices would rely on anything posted there.

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer has won the appeal of his 324-game suspension.

Bob Nightengale of USA Today shared a statement from Major League Baseball announcing arbitrator Martin Scheinman reduced Bauer's suspension to 194 games on Thursday, meaning he is reinstated.

[Do we now expect a big surge of demand for Bauer's services?]

Owners' Nightmare

Mets owner Steve Cohen: *spends an absurd amount of money on top-tier talent*
The other 29 owners:
According to a Thursday Athletic report, owners and execs around the league are really mad at Cohen for, uh, spending too much.
"'I think it's going to have consequences for him down the road,' said one.
'Our sport feels broken now,' said another.
Ask Carlos Correa if his sport feels broken
To be specific, the league is mad because Cohen's committed $806M to free agents this year, and projects to pay $495M for the Mets' 2023 roster.
And he can do that because he's worth $17.5B and appears unworried by the opinions of other owners.

And if they're mad now, wait until Shohei Ohtani becomes available.

It's not just owners; what fan wants to see one team sign up the entire All Star team?
So the Team to Hate has relocated from the Bronx to Queens with a stop for a few years in Houston

Guardians ZiPS Projections-Overs
Which Guardians appear poised to clear ZiPS projected totals?

Mike Hattery
Dec 22
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! (If you are into projection system outputs, cold weather, and perhaps other stuff…) This week Dan Szymborski rolled out his 2023 ZiPS Guardians projections. This follows Fangraphs’ release of updated Steamer projections systems.

Of note, ZiPS projection system is well regarded by industry folks exposed to internal projection systems and ultimately a treat for us in the public. Without getting into the nitty-gritty of the inputs and weights of the ZiPS system, this quote from Dan provides good context on a basic understanding of the output:


“It’s also important to remember that the bottom-line projection is, in layman’s terms, only a midpoint. You don’t expect every player to hit that midpoint; 10% of players are “supposed” to fail to meet their 10th percentile projection and 10% of players are supposed to pass their 90th percentile forecast. “

One of the best values of projection systems, especially ones as well calibrated as ZiPS, is that it confronts our recency bias, or the tendency to think that the most current data is a reasonable expectation. This is most helpful with young players where our instinct may be to say that 2022 was the floor of growth for Steven Kwan, Andres Gimenez, or Oscar Gonzalez. A more comprehensive look at the cumulative data results in a more conservative projection. This can occasionally make a projection slow to react to “breakout”, where the fan may be more likely to err on an outlier or career season as a “breakout”.

Still one of the more fun exercises on a yearly basis is to make over/under wagers against projections systems and test ones acumen to outperform a model. With that in mind, this column analyzes the three instances where I take the over on a ZiPS projections.

Steven Kwan-ZiPS Seven Home Runs and .103 IS0

Mike Hattery- Over!

Perhaps, it is Steven Kwan-centric hubris or recency bias, but this author expects a substantive over on these totals in 2023. In over 638 PAs during 2022, Steven Kwan had six home runs and an ISO of .10. Therefore, the home run and ISO percentage projections from ZiPS would not exactly require an enormous leap in these categories from Kwan. However, even if the total were ten home runs, I would take the over. Furthermore, if Kwan were getting Aaron Judge baseballs, I might take the over on 15.

One key reason for taking the over is that players with Kwan’s elite barrel control, feel for contact, and discipline can often find opportunities to leverage counts and situations to add power. Cleveland has seen success with Michael Brantley, Francisco Lindor, and, most notably, Jose Ramirez adding power to contact heavy profiles due to attacking the pull side in certain counts. Pull side is important because with limited exit velocity like Kwan’s, it is the only place to generate power. This is displayed in Kwan’s 2022 ISO, where his ISO to pull field was .273 and below .060. to all other fields.

Then, we have Kwan’s second half spike, where he posted five of his six home runs and posted an ISO of .123.


Kwan’s pull spike occurred with a tight relationship to ISO, particularly in the last 30 games. Kwan has seen success when he takes advantaged counts to attack the fastball to pull field, and it is recognized by the Guardians organization. Here’s Guardians hitting coach Chris Valaika this summer in an interview with Fangraphs:

“Seeing him in-person [Kwan], how he can navigate an at-bat and how calm he is in the box… and while he doesn’t have the highest exit velocity, he’s got enough to hit it over the wall. The more settled in he gets to the big leagues, the more power I think we’re going to see from him.”

With a few adjustments and an increasingly comfortable Kwan, a bit more fly balls to pull field should have Kwan cross the 10 home run threshold without injuring his overall approach.

Will Brennan- ZiPS OPS+ of 91

Mike Hattery- Over!

For context, OPS+ is OPS on a scale where 100 is average below 100 is x% below average and above 100 is x% above average. Additionally, OPS+ folds in some important adjustments for park and other considerations. With this in mind, Will Brennan is projected to be essentially 9% below league average offense on the OPS+ scale. His projections form ZiPS also include a middling .315 OBP and .115 ISO. It is worth noting that Brennan is a divergent player for projection systems, as Steamer projects him with a .334 OBP and a .139 ISO.

Largely, I think the biggest gap which inputs into my skepticism about ZiPS OPS+ projection is that Brennan’s skills indicate a high OBP floor for me. While not in the unicorn category in terms of both low-strikeout rates and high walk rates for minimal power like Kwan, Brennan is not far behind. Further, where we have limited minor league batted ball data, Brennan ran high BABIP’s throughout his minor league career. Normally, this represents a decent proxy for contact quality and athleticism. BABIP and contact profile is particularly magnified for Brennan because he is going to put a ton of balls in play. If he posts 500 plate appearances, he will likely be in the top ten in terms of lowest strikeout rate.

In terms of contact quality, Brennan had some positive indicators. His top-end exit velocity was 46th percentile, which means it will not be a dramatic limiter. Additionally, Brennan has a long history of 20%+ line drives, which further serves to boost batted ball outcomes.

Simply put, it is rare to have this level of contact frequency, average to above average speed, decent contact authority and dispersion along with posting below average production. With that in mind, hit the over on an OPS+ of 91.

ZiPS-Jose Ramirez 30 home runs

Mike Hattery-Over!

In 2022, Jose Ramirez had 29 home runs, 19 of which were in the first half of the season. Essentially, this is a health bet on Ramirez bouncing back from a thumb injury. Ramirez was simply not the same player following a thumb injury in mid-June, which resulted in an offseason surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament. Evidenced below as a show of ISO, the power disappeared for Ramirez in mid-June:


This aligns with any Guardians fans visual experience, as they watched Ramirez wince from the right hand release of his bat on inside pitches that he used to yank with authority. Of course, aging is not a kind business and the body rarely improves. Yet, Ramirez should still clear 30 home runs at the age of 31 and entering spring training fully healthy. Over!

Cleveland Guardians trade target: Starting pitcher Pablo López

By Steve DiMatteo

Dec 22, 2022

The Cleveland Guardians have had a productive offseason, but they shouldn't be done improving their roster by any means.

To this point, the pitching staff looks roughly the same from last season, and the starting rotation in particular could stand to be improved. It would appear that Miami's Pablo López is available, and the Guardians should absolutely look to trade for him.

What Would a Pablo López Trade Look Like?

The Marlins are in desperate need of offensive talent, primarily in the form of young, controllable talent that can get on base. In that respect, the Guardians have an embarrassment of riches, even in the minors. And for López, who isn't even a free agent until 2025, Cleveland might just have the firepower to get a deal done.

López would be a huge get for the Guardians' rotation. In five seasons, López, 26, sports a 3.94 career ERA, though he has a 3.52 ERA over the past three seasons. From 2020 to 2022, he has maintained a 3.48 FIP and 119 ERA+ in 63 starts. He keeps the walks in check for the most part and strikes out his fair share of batters, thanks to a five-pitch mix that includes a four-seam fastball (averaging close to 94 miles per hour), changeup, cutter, sinker, and curveball.

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Former Cleveland Pitcher Signs With The Yankees

DEC 23, 2022 9:26 PM EST

The New York Yankees picked up a former Cleveland pitcher as they continue to make move after move this offseason. The pitcher that the Guardians lost and the Yankees picked up is Tanner Tully.

Tully was a 26th-round pick in the 2016 MLB Draft and has spent his entire career with the Cleveland organization.

He had a limited role out of the Guardians' bullpen in 2022. Tully pitcher in three games and a total of only six innings. Over that short time frame, he had an ERA of 6.00 and gave up four runs.

This included a homerun to his new teammate Aaron Judge.

Tully's Minor League starts were a little more promising though. He threw 122.0 innings over 24 games and had a 4.72 and a WHIP of 1.38. He also started 20 games for the Columbus Clippers This led him to a record of 8-6 during the 2022 Minor League season.

The Yankees have a stacked pitching rotation and one of the better bullpens in baseball. This means that Tully is unlikely to get a ton of time at the Big League level unless there is an unexpected injury.