Well, I got my yearly, “Talk to the Boss First Before Publishing” article out of the way halfway through January. I started looking into hitter playing time and previously they were just one column in one of the tables. This year, we dove into why our projections came in near the bottom with some computer-generated projections beating them. Besides the results, there is a ton of other information so if someone blows off the specific results, at least read the summary.
Collection Information
Last season I collected about 20 projections right before the final last weekend when most fantasy managers draft. This is when projections needed to be their best. Here is the tweet I sent to mark when I pulled them.
In all, I collected 20 different projections. Eight were not freely available to the public. They will be just be labeled Paywall X. Here are the ones people could freely get from the internet.
ATC (aggregate of other projections)
Baseball-reference’s Marcels
Clay Davenport
Draft Buddy
THE BAT X
FanGraphs Depth Charts (aggregate of Steamer and ZiPS)
Fantasy Pros Zheile (aggregate of other projections)
• MLB.com compiled a list of prospects who have seen their playing time adjusted. I’d recommend going through all of them while here is a sample focused on some Mets outfielders.
Drew Gilbert/Ryan Clifford/Jett Williams, OF, Mets: Three of the Mets’ five Top 100 prospects either have outfield listed as their primary or secondary positions. You may have heard that New York signed generational hitter Juan Soto for 15 years and $765 million. So that’s one outfield spot locked down in Queens for both the short and long term. Gilbert (Mets No. 3/MLB No. 74) is the only one of the three to play as a full-time outfielder, and while he has enough arm to play right (Soto’s spot), it’s worth wondering if he’ll get more looks in center, where New York has a more pressing need. He has plenty of offensive work to focus on after posting a .684 OPS in the Minors during an injury-riddled 2024. Williams (Mets No. 2/MLB No. 52) could still get looks in center too because he was already bumping into Francisco Lindor at short, but if he shares a Syracuse roster with Gilbert, maybe he sprinkles in more time at second base. Clifford — a 21-year-old with plus power but contact issues — might be watching the Pete Alonso transaction wire closely since many believe the Mets’ No. 4 prospect (MLB No. 87) headed to first base long-term anyways.
RHP Lance McCullers Jr. (right flexor tendon surgery)
Expected return: 2025
McCullers, who hasn’t pitched since the 2022 World Series, is throwing off the mound with hopes of returning early this season. He had surgery in June 2023 to repair his right flexor tendon and remove a bone spur, but he suffered a setback in July 2024 and was shut down for the season.
General manager Ross Fenstermaker told the Rangers beat in the wake of the Martin deal that the Rangers “feel like we’ve done the bulk of our lifting at this point” (link via Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News).
That’s not a firm declaration that the team is done adding. Fenstermaker was careful to leave the door open for “creative” and “open-minded” solutions to further deepen the group. However, adding a seasoned closer is not something the organization feels is a pressing need.
…
For the time being, it looks like Martin could be the top choice in the ninth inning, but that’ll be left up to manager Bruce Bochy, Fenstermaker emphasized. The GM voiced confidence that Martin could fill the role and acknowledged that he’s in the “candidate pool” but added that the situation will “sort itself out” in the weeks/months ahead.
“I mean, philosophically, I am supportive of anything we can do to keep our best players on the field performing at a really high level, and this potentially could be one of them,” Breslow said. “It necessitates particular construction of a bullpen as well, right? We need to have relievers who are capable of throwing multiple innings. I think we have that when you think about guys like [Josh] Winckowski, guys like [Garrett] Whitlock, who has done this in the past, Criswell, who kind of bounced back and forth between the rotation and the bullpen. And so I do think that we’re well positioned to implement a six-man rotation, if that’s the direction that we want to go.”
While noting Rafeala’s positional versatility as an asset, Breslow made clear his preference to play Rafaela regularly in center, which would shift Duran to left and keep Abreu in right.
With second base still open, Breslow noted David Hamilton, Vaughn Grissom and Kristian Campbell give the club infield depth. Whether that means Campbell is the Opening Day second baseman remains to be seen, but his performance, in addition to that of Grissom in spring training, may go a long way in determining that.
But with Spring Training on deck, Woodruff knows he’ll have to answer these questions soon enough. So, he let down his guard on Monday. Yes, he is throwing bullpens twice a week in Mississippi as part of a normal offseason progression. Yes, his arm feels great. No, he hasn’t seen any radar gun readings, and that’s by design.
…
Woodruff will be patient. If it takes adjustments to his pitch mix to succeed, he says he’s open to it. He doesn’t expect to get a true estimate of his velocity and stuff until the second half. And he’ll push forward with a renewed love for the game, knowing how it feels when baseball is taken away.
The D-backs have the 29-year-old under team control for another two seasons. Manager Torey Lovullo told Arizona Sports’ Burns & Gambo during the winter meetings that Puk would be his internal pick at the moment, but the decision was far from being made.
“If you had me trapped in a corner and I had to fight you by telling you one name, I’d probably say A.J. right now, but it’s a wide open situation,” Lovullo said.
Patrick Bailey will be back as the Giants’ starting catcher in 2025, but there are some question marks surrounding veteran Tom Murphy, who appeared in only 13 games before suffering a season-ending left knee injury last May. Murphy remains in line to serve as Bailey’s primary backup after signing a two-year, $8.25 million deal last offseason, but Huff’s arrival should give the Giants some extra coverage in case they’re hit with more injuries this spring.
Huff is out of options, meaning the Giants won’t be able to send him to the Minors without exposing him to waivers. San Francisco’s catching depth chart also features Blake Sabol and veteran Max Stassi, who signed a Minor League deal in November.
None of the options are safe with Bailey being on the concussion IL three times in the past two seasons, Murphy coming back from knee surgery, and Sam Huff struggling before being released by the Rangers with his career 34% K%.
“I’ve had a tough time the last couple of years just with getting the ball off the ground,” Bell said. “Knowing that I’m a double-play candidate, one of the things I’m working on this offseason is just trying to get the ball in the air as much as possible and taking whatever comes with that.
…
“But this offseason, changing my hitting philosophy, changing the drills and just understanding that I have to hang on my backside a little bit more, focus on letting the ball travel, but also try to stay connected as tightly as I can to get the ball in the air. … [If I] train to do that and work with our strength team, and understand that I have a big frame, I should probably hit more than 19 home runs a season.
“Hopefully a year from now, I can be looking back at the season where I hit 40-plus [homers] and breaking my own records for slug in a season. So that’s the goal.”
Pirates
• This is the first mention I’ve seen of Endy Rodriguez playing some first base.
What should I expect from Endy Rodríguez this year? — @Robotron.blog on Bluesky
The good news is Rodríguez finished last season healthy and got a couple of Minor League reps. No winter ball this year, but I wouldn’t read into that.
Joey Bart has the inside track for the catcher job after a solid season, but the position is a competition. Rodríguez can play a little first base, too, so while Pittsburgh is going to want to make sure he gets at-bats, I could see a way he and Bart can coexist and get regular reps.
In the second half of the 2024 season, Lux batted .304 with an .899 OPS and seven homers over 61 games. He credited his improvement to mental changes in his approach.
“It helped getting further away from surgery and to start trusting it again,” Lux said. “I just tried to do more damage. I think I tried to get on base and control the strike zone so much that I didn’t really take any chances to do damage. I kind of just said, ‘Screw it, I’ll trust my eyes and I’m not going to chase the ball. I’m not going to swing at balls. I’m not going to chase outside of the zone.’ Then I just tried to start doing a little more damage, taking more shots.”
• After a solid season in Korea, Kyle Hart 하트 is looking to sign with an MLB team.
The Astros, Brewers, Orioles, Twins, and Yankees are among the teams that have shown interest in free agent southpaw Kyle Hart, according to The Athletic’s Will Sammon and Katie Woo. Earlier this month, FanSided’s Robert Murray indicated that a whopping 18 teams had at least checked in on Hart’s services as he looks to return to North American baseball after a tremendous year with the NC Dinos of the Korean Baseball Organization.
Hart posted a 2.69 ERA, 28.8% strikeout rate, and six percent walk rate over 157 innings and 26 starts with the Dinos, winning the Dong-won Choi Award (the KBO League’s answer to the Cy Young Award). Hart’s best pitch is his slider, but according to Fangraphs’ Eric Longenhagen, Hart used that slider less as a primary offering and more as a chase pitch to put batters away. Longenhagen isn’t sure how Hart’s arsenal of this plus slider but only a 90mph fastball and an okay changeup will translate back in the big leagues, and thus Hart is projected as a fifth or sixth starter even if Fangraphs ranked him 48th on their list of the offseason’s top 50 free agents.
The 2025 edition of The Process is now available. Like last year, only the appendix will have new studies and research. I wrote several studies with additional contributions from Jenny Butler, Patrick Davitt, Bryan Fitzgerald, Jake Maish, Carlos Marcano, Roger Strong, and Adam Warner. Read the rest of this entry »
Note: I started writing these and then stopped away from a while. The ADP changed quite a bit so the last three aren’t in perfect order with some arms now between them.
Brown said Smith will split time at third base, first base and right field. He is prone to moving prospects quickly through Houston’s system — and promised to repeat the process with Smith, provided his offense continues to progress. “Whichever position he’s playing the best, we’ll put him in that position as he moves up,” Brown said.
Q. When the guys return from injury, what do you think of your starting rotation at that point? Would you like another pitcher? How do you feel about your starters right now?
JOE ESPADA: Right now obviously I feel really good about Valdez. We’ve got Hunter Brown and Arrighetti and Ronel Blanco. We’ve got a couple of young pitchers that will fit right in if we have to. Gordon is a really nice fit we just put on the 40-man roster who threw the ball really well. Gusto is another guy we’ve had conversation about. He’ll be ready to contribute at the Major League level.
Again, we’re having conversations. Because I think you need more than just five or six guys. So that’s one area that we’ll be spending quite a lot of time here in the next couple of weeks talking about how can we improve our pitching depth.
Minasian mentioned Luis Rengifo and new additions Scott Kingery and Kevin Newman as players who can also handle third base. But he wouldn’t rule out adding a full-time third baseman via trade or free agency.
• Korea’s Hye-seong Kim 김혜성 and Japan’s Koyo Aoyagi have been posted.
Per Kiwoom Heroes. The negotiating period will open at 8 a.m. ET Dec. 5, and close at 5 p.m. ET Jan. 3.
I guess MLB will let teams know at noon ET Wednesday, Dec. 4, after all. (Since it's late at night in ET no3 and league and teams wouldn't be working at this hour) https://t.co/KVZULgdJN7
Frustrated by knee trouble that last season limited him to 117 1/3 innings, his lowest total for a full campaign excluding the 2016 season he missed while recovering from Tommy John surgery, Lynn adjusted his training regimen. In a phone interview Wednesday, the 6-foot-5 right-hander said he has lost 20 pounds, dropping from 280 to 260.
