Blue Jays
• Alek Manoah has not requested a trade and will be fighting for a rotation spot next year.
The GM also said Manoah hasn’t requested a trade. Realistically, the Blue Jays might explore deals for the starter, but his trade value is at an all-time low, so the return may not be better than the upside of hoping he can rebound in 2024. Odds are, Manoah will be competing for a spot in Toronto’s rotation next spring.
Tommy John surgery week continues with the hitter edition. With both Riley Greene and Jasson Domínguez (Shohei Ohtani got the brace procedure) getting a Tommy John surgery, I wanted to know how their performance changed from when they were healthy, to hurt, to fixed.
Note: I’m pushing my limits on what I’d like with a sample was 26 hitters. Sometime the matched seasons doesn’t lineup thereby pushing the number even further down. I understand if someone feels the sample is too small and blows off the results.
I found the change by using a weighted change from season to season. The hitters who had the most matched plate appearance got the most weight. Read the rest of this entry »
• Yuki Matsui is considering signing with an MLB team.
Star closer Yuki Matsui looks to be interested in a potential move to Major League Baseball, as a Yahoo Japan report (Japanese language link) indicates that Matsui has exercised his international free agent rights, as well as his rights to freely negotiate with other Nippon Professional Baseball clubs.
• Here is a full list of all players with some form of an opt-out that must get decided this winter.
• Rich Hill plans on signing after the season has started, hopefully with a contending team.
Hill might not sign over the winter, however. While he’d previously expressed an intent to play in 2024, the 43-year-old (44 in March) now tells Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune he’s giving some thought to waiting until midway through the campaign before joining a new team.
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There are a few reasons behind Hill’s decision-making. The most straightforward one is health. MLB’s oldest active player, Hill conceded to Acee he has “a pretty good gauge and a monitor on my body” and considers “half a season … much more palatable than a full season.” Hill also pointed to a desire to spend more time with his family, noting that he’d like to watch his 12-year-old son play during his final year of Little League baseball next spring. By waiting until midseason, he’d also have a chance to survey the competitive landscape and look to land a spot with a playoff contender.
If a contending team signs Hill, they won’t be contending for long. Read the rest of this entry »
The following Asian player comps came about because I was tired of not having a reference when a player signed in the stats from Japan or Korea. The projections seemed off as either being too enthusiastic or just hated the player. This is my solution.
First off, this method is far from perfect. It’s not even close. The main problem is that the largest group to make the jump, pitchers from Japan, only have a sample size of 50 players with most of them being bullpen arms. Those who make projections are using the same sample. I wanted to know who was in that sample. One fact I fact I found while compiling this list is that any projection will have wide error bars so being close is a major achievement.
To create a reference I could use, I took all the players who made the jump from Japan or Korea. I took their single-season stats before the jump to their major league stats. I grouped similar players using z-score on a few core stats. Read the rest of this entry »
First, I know no one, and I mean absolutely no one besides myself cares how I performed this year. While I needed to do a final inventory of my teams, the following should be more of a guideline on how fantasy managers should evaluate their season. First, try to find any systemic holes in a strategy. Second, make a list of what worked and what didn’t work for you.
I always look back on my season and really try to figure out what went right and wrong. Over the season’s last few weeks, I was disappointed in my season with many of my teams out of contention and the few in contention were just scraping by. In the end, I turned a nice profit thanks to winning my NFBC Super, but overall I was disappointed with my performance. Here is a look at those teams. Read the rest of this entry »
This past season, the minor leagues experimented with several rules including pre-tacked baseballs and automatic strike zones. The following is a look at how those rules changed the amount of expected production from players.
First off, I’m not going to weave a narrative around this data dump. There is no polishing this turd. The information can be referenced later as fantasy managers begin to dive into 2023’s results while preparing for next season. Read the rest of this entry »
• Jung-hoo Lee 이정후 might get posted this offseason.
Lee doesn’t have Yamamoto’s high profile and he’ll come at a significantly lower price tag, but Lee could very well land a healthy contract himself during an offseason that is generally short on premium free-agent position players. Like Yamamoto, Lee is also 25 years old, would be subject to a posting fee, and has impressed observers over seven seasons of international ball.
Lee has hit .340/.407/.491 over 3946 career plate appearances for the Heroes, with 65 homers and 244 doubles. His resume includes KBO League MVP honors in 2022, five KBO Gold Gloves for his defense (mostly in center field), and a standout performance for South Korea’s team in the last World Baseball Classic.
• Reliever Yariel Rodriguez is now a bullpen option for teams to consider.
Per reporter Francys Romero, Cuban right-handed reliever Yariel Rodriguez has been granted his release by the NPB’s Chunichi Dragons. Rodriguez figures to apply for MLB free agency in the near future, which could put him on the radar to sign with a big league club ahead of the 2024 season. The Dragons have not confirmed the report.
He pitched for Cuba during the WBC but took this past season off.
When analyzing closers and the Saves they produce, this season’s results were mixed. Some trends continued (e.g. lots of pitchers getting Saves) and some bucked recent trends (e.g. more keeping the role for the full season). To start with, here are the initial (i.e. drafted) closers and how long they kept their job. Read the rest of this entry »
With the season over, it’s to find out how hitters performed who didn’t let an injury heal and played through the pain. Whether these hitters cause permanent damage to their bodies or pick up bad habits, they continue to underperform their projections. Besides collecting the names myself, I’ve asked for some help (article and Twitter) for this past season’s list.
I first determined the decline in an article covering 2017 to 2019 and have continued collecting names and results (2020, 2021, and 2022). Read the rest of this entry »
• A great article by the Athletic on a player from each team who took a major step forward this past season. For example, here is a bit on Ryan Jeffers reworking his swing.
Jeffers slashed .210/.285/.390 across his first three seasons and then watched the Twins sign free agent catcher Christian Vázquez to a three-year, $30 million contract. His response? He re-tooled his swing and transformed into one of the best offensive catchers in baseball while playing a part-time role, putting up an .841 OPS in 92 games.
Jeffers always showed some pop in his 6-foot-4 frame. But he’s cut down on his swing and miss while increasing his plate discipline. He’s hitting well against both righties and lefties, but as you might expect, he’s doing big-time damage against left-handed pitching.
I can’t do a cut and paste so read it all.