• Free Agent Lucas Giolito made an adjustment with the Angels to regain some velocity.

Laurila: What about your fastball velocity?

Giolito: “That’s roughly the same, it’s still low- to mid-90s. My velo was kind of down earlier this year, but I made a mechanical adjustment while I was with the Angels [from July 26 to August 31] and got it to tick back up a little. A lot of that was getting back on top of the fastball, which also helped me get a little more ride and hop.”

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• Free agent James Paxton had issues with his front leg at the season’s end.

Laurila: You obviously had some really good outings this year. What tended to be the issue when you weren’t going well?

Paxton: “Honestly, just the execution of my breaking stuff. And then toward the end, my last few games, I was having trouble with my front leg. I wasn’t able to brace on my front leg, so I was kind of falling off and not being able to finish my pitches. That was nothing too serious, though. It’s already feeling better.”

Paxton’s knee started acting up on June 24th. Before the injury he had a 3.29 ERA (3.13 xFIP), 12.0 K/9, and 1.07 WHIP. After the inury, he posted a 5.31 ERA, 7.8 K/9, and 1.47 WHIP. His performance decline can be seen with a drop in his fastball velocity.

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Note: For the next few weeks, I’m going to focus on some pitchers who I thought were interesting but haven’t had time to dive in. Most were late-season debuts while others had an arsenal change. Others came of the IL as the season was coming to a close. I’m just going to work through them in alphabetical order and once done, I move to my normal late-round starters.

Frankie Montas

The 30-year-old Montas faced just seven batters last season where he struck out one and walked another. In his appearance, his fastball velocity was down 1.6 mph compared to last season and 2.0 mph from 2021. Read the rest of this entry »

Note: For the next few weeks, I’m going to focus on some pitchers who I thought were interesting but haven’t had time to dive in. Most were late-season debuts while others had an arsenal change. Others came of the IL as the season was coming to a close. I’m just going to work through them in alphabetical order and once done, I move to my normal late-round starters.

José Butto

The 25-year-old righty made nine appearances for the Mets last season including seven starts. His surface stats seem decent with a 3.64 ERA and 1.33 WHIP but a 0.6 HR/9 and .261 BABIP kept them in check. He posted a 4.90 xFIP and 5.11 SIERA with a 4.9 BB/9 pushing them up. His struggles with walks just started this season with a 4.9 BB/9 in AAA. In 2022 he had a 3.4 BB/9 in AAA and 2.2 BB/9 in AAA. His 4.5 BB/9 in the majors was just in 4 IP and irrelevant.

This year in the majors, he had three stints, one in April and May (3 G), a single relief appearance in August, and five starts to end the season. Here are his stats from the first two stints and then the last one.

Stints: K/9, BB/9, xFIP
1 & 2: 6.1, 8.6, 6.33
3: 9.2, 3.0, 4.13

What a major improvement. He just found the plate and the results are comparable to the 2022 results of Yu Darvish, Reese Olson, Lance Lynn, and Clayton Kershaw. I couldn’t find any changes to his arsenal with his velocities being constant and no major changes to his pitch mix (added a sinker) He just pounded the strikezone. Read the rest of this entry »

Note: For the next few weeks, I’m going to focus on some pitchers who I thought were interesting but haven’t had time to dive in. Most were late-season debuts while others had an arsenal change. Others came of the IL as the season was coming to a close. I’m just going to work through them in alphabetical order and once done, I move to my normal late-round starters.

Orion Kerkering

The 22-year-old righty flew through the minors spending time at Low (10 IP) and High-A (20 IP), AA (22 IP), AAA (1 IP), and the majors (3 IP). He has closer material written all over him and won’t be an unknown after making seven post-season experiences where he threw more innings (5.1) than in the major league regular season (3). While in the majors, he posted a combined 11.9 K/9, he struggled with walks (5.4 K/9). In High-A, he posted a 2.7 BB/9 and 2.1 BB/9 in AAA, so walks weren’t always an issue. Read the rest of this entry »

Note: For the next few weeks, I’m going to focus on some pitchers who I thought were interesting but haven’t had time to dive in. Most were late-season debuts while others had an arsenal change. Others came of the IL as the season was coming to a close. I’m just going to work through them in alphabetical order and once done, I move to my normal late-round starters.

Tristan Beck

The 27-year-old Beck was a multi-inning reliever until late in the season when he made three starts including five innings of one-run ball on September 30th. He leans into his slider (55% usage, 14% SwStr%) since it is his only above-average pitch. His fastball averaged 94-mph but it didn’t miss many bats (6% SwStr%).

With just the two pitches (showed a horrible curve), he struggled the second time through the order when starting (5.97 xFIP) and relieving (4.82 xFIP). For his fantasy value to increase, he needs another average secondary or his fastball to take a step forward. Read the rest of this entry »

• Adam Plutko 플럿코 wants to test the MLB free agent market.

Adam Plutko is a free agent looking to return to MLB after two excellent years in Korea. He was 15-5 with a 2.39 ERA in 2022 and 11-3 with a 2.41 ERA in 2023 (both for LG). Overall 26-8, 2.40 ERA, .596 opponent OPS. Slider spin rate improved from 2,486 to 2,592 with more break

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) November 15, 2023

In five MLB seasons, he posted a 5.39 ERA and 1.38 WHIP over 273 IP. While his results in Korea were better, his average fastball velocity dropped to 89.3 mph. Read the rest of this entry »

American League

Athletics

• The team isn’t sure what position Miguel Andujar will play next season.

A’s general manager David Forst, who met with Andujar’s agent at the annual GM Meetings in Scottsdale, Ariz., this week, spoke highly of the 28-year-old.

“He had a fantastic year at Triple-A for the Pirates,” Forst said. “This is still a young man. He obviously was highly regarded when he came up with the Yankees. It’s a hard place to come up in New York and a lot of attention was paid to his defense at the time and whether he could play third base. I think we believe he’s still a Major League hitter.

“He’s done a nice job transitioning to the outfield. He played both left and right field in Triple-A last year. He’s played some at first base as well, which is a nice option to have because we’re very left-handed at first base between [Ryan] Noda, [Seth] Brown and [Tyler] Soderstrom. I think the bat is a really good fit for us. It’ll remain to be seen where he fits overall on the roster. But there’s a lot of people here who believe he is a Major League hitter.”

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With Jacob deGrom and Walker Buehler coming back from their second Tommy John surgery (TJS), I wanted to go back and look at how pitchers performed after going under the knife a second time. While I had high hopes this study would find some useful adjustments, the results were mixed and probably point to the pitcher being more of the same. Read the rest of this entry »

• Here is the average age (per batter faced) for all the pitchers in the league. The age went up even with several high-profile rookies being promoted to the majors. I suspect even more prospects to be promoted to bring the average age down some.

American League

Astros

• Jake Meyers made some mid-season swing adjustments.

Meyers made some swing adjustments during the season, but still slashed just .227/.296/.382 in 341 plate appearances. His average exit velocity dropped to 86 mph — in the fifth percentile among major-league hitters — and he didn’t make enough contact to allow his speed to shine.

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