Worldwide Sports News

Good morning.

• Three-time Cy Young Award winner and future Hall-of-Famer Max Scherzer has agreed to re-sign with the Toronto Blue Jays on a one-year, $3 million deal.
• There are some incentives in the deal as well.

• After the news broke, it was revealed that Scherzer’s young daughter wrote a letter to the Blue Jays asking them to bring back her dad. Keegan Matheson reports.
• Michael Baumann looks at what the 41-year-old Scherzer still has to offer the Blue Jays.
• Keegan Matheson looks at what the Blue Jays rotation looks like with Scherzer’s return.
• Davy Andrews has a positive reaction to the two-year (one year and a team option) extension that lefty Chris Sale signed with the Braves.
• The Athletics have approached first baseman Nick Kurtz about a long-term contract extension.
• Tyler Kepner reports that Kurtz is open to a deal. (The Athletic sub. req.) Kepner also goes into detail about why Kurtz is worth a lot to the A’s—or any other team.
• Baseball’s top prospect, Pirates shortstop Konnor Griffin, says he is open to a long-term extension with Pittsburgh. Mike Axisa tries to calculate what a deal for Griffin would look like.
• Ken Rosenthal reports that Griffin is impressing everyone in Spring Training (The Athletic sub. req.) as he makes his case for the Opening Day roster.
• Sad news as longtime umpire Bruce Froemming has died at age 86. Or condolences go out to Froemming’s friends and family.
• Those friends and family, as every longtime Cubs fan knows, does not include Milt Pappas. Tyler Kepner explains why and has a recap of Froemming’s career. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• The State Department denied visas to eight members of Cuba’s World Baseball Classic traveling party, reports Bob Nightengale. All of the players and on-field coaches did receive visas.
• Aaron Judge speaks with Brendan Kuty about captaining Team USA in the WBC and what it means to represent his country. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Jordan Schusterman has a preview of Group C in the WBC.
• Brian Murphy has 12 players in the Hall of Fame who played in the WBC. Hard to believe the WBC is 20 years old now and on its sixth edition.
• Dennis Lim and Ken Rosenthal report on five bids to buy the San Diego Padres (The Athletic free reg. req.). one of which includes former NFL quarterback Drew Brees as a minority owner. Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob is also reportedly a bidder on the Padres.
• The Yankees are retiring CC Sabathia’s number 52. The Yankees are going to be wearing jerseys with numbers in triple digits and/or fractions in the near future with all their retired numbers.
• Brian Murphy reports that even though Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton “can’t open a bottle” because of tennis elbow, he’s determined to play through the pain.
• Mike Axisa has every team’s most interesting non-roster invitee to Spring Training.
• Keith Law lists the 20 prospects most likely to make an impact in the majors this season. (The Athletic sub. req.) Mo Baller is one of them.
• Bob Nightengale reports that the rough spring of Dodgers pitcher Roki Sasaki is cause for concern.
• The MLB Pipeline team has the best power-hitting prospect for each team.
• Matt Snyder lists the teams who lost the most in free agency this past winter.
• Buster Olney has the top ten corner outfielders and the top ten center fielders coming into 2026.
• Michael Baumann thinks Rockies outfielder Jake McCarthy needs to stop trying to hit for power. I forgot the Diamondbacks traded McCarthy to Colorado this winter.
• David Schoenfield tries to predict the 2026 All-Star Game lineups. Even Schoenfield calls this “way-too-early,” but really? Are we already concerned about All-Star Game rosters?
• Davy Andrews explains why he thinks its unlikely that Mets outfielder Juan Soto ever wins an MVP Award.
• Tyler Kepner profiles the career of Brewers ace Brandon Woodruff, the ultimate comeback player as he attempts to come back one more time (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Dan Szymborski looks where Rangers pitcher Jacob DeGrom fits in all of the standards of the Hall of Fame.
• Melissa Lockard reports on a former Giants executive who left the organization to take on the challenge of running the minor league Oakland Ballers. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• The family of late Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs talk to Sam Blum about the lawsuit against the team. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Mariners first baseman Josh Naylor greeted and shook hands with Jen Pawol, the first woman to umpire an MLB game, during a Spring Training game. As Naylor said “Kindness is free.” Daniel Kramer with the story.
• Mike Petriello has an in-depth look at what the data tells us about challenging pitches with the Automatic Ball-Strike (ABS) system.
• New Giants outfielder Harrison Bader hit his first home run in Spring Training—and it dented a food truck in the parking lot. Maria Guardado with the story.
• On top of that, Bader signed the dent!

• And finally, this is my favorite story of the year so far and probably my favorite story in a while. Zack Meisel writes about the end of a 30-year quest by one Guardians fan to collect a photography of every one who had ever played in the organization when he finally found a photo of Charles “Shorty” Gallagher, who played one day for Cleveland in 1901. (The Athletic sub. req.)

Meet the Mets

Nolan McLean’s first outing of the spring was fantastic, and the Mets won their exhibition game against the Astros.

Mets minor league pitcher Ryan Lambert is fanatical about his dietary beliefs and once consumed thirty raw eggs per day for an entire month.

“Everybody says first base is easy, but it’s harder than what you expect,” said Jorge Polanco following some work the Mets had him doing at the position in an intrasquad game.

Around the National League East

Carlos Carrasco got rocked in a spring training start for the Braves as he faced the Yankees.

The Good Phight asked about realistic expectations for Zack Wheeler in 2026.

Federal Baseball asked what spring training numbers should matter to Nationals fans.

Pitching prospects Thomas White and Robby Snelling, who are roommates and consensus top-100 prospects in baseball entering the 2026 season, are eyeing their big league debuts with the Marlins.

Around Major League Baseball

Giancarlo Stanton is determined to play through the pain caused by tennis elbow in both of his arms—pain that prevents him from being able to open a bottle or a bag of chips.

Max Scherzer’s daughter wrote a letter to the Blue Jays in hopes that her dad would be back on the team this season, and she’s presumably very happy now that he’s signed a one-year deal to return to Toronto.

Drew Brees is among the people involved in the bidding to buy the Padres.

Dan Szymborski wrote about greatness, WAR, and Jacob deGrom.

Former major league umpire Bruce Froemming passed away at the age of 86.

Jon Heyman writes that baseball could be in a for a longer lockout because of Tony Clark’s ouster.

Yesterday at Amazin’ Avenue

Thomas Henderson looked at MJ Melendez as he tries to keep his major league career going heading into the 2026 season.

We asked which one of Gary, Keith, or Ron you’d choose to have lunch with if you had to pick just one of them.

This Date in Mets History

The sacrifice fly was introduced to baseball on this date in 1908, long before the Mets’ first season.

Good morning baseball fans!

As we approach the beginning of the season, we’re going to be doing some questions for y’all about your thoughts about the San Francisco Giants and baseball in general!

I had to take a couple of days off because Plague-ageddon 2026 finally got me this week. But going back to the theme of the week (the potential work stoppage after the upcoming season), today’s question is: What would be the cost of a work stoppage?

I don’t necessarily mean that financially, more in the sense of what would it cost the team, players, fans, etc. So for me, I would say that the cost would be most heavily felt by the players themselves. We saw what happened during and after the lockout in 2021/2022.

Players got signed really late, Spring Training was delayed, and that leads to players not getting as much time to ramp up before the season. This can lead to poorer quality performances, sure; but it can also lead to injuries. And both can have a large impact on the players’ future.

For the fans, it absolutely sucks to not have baseball to watch. For the front office and coaching staff, it hinders their ability to assess and plan for the team they are going to end up having, so I have sympathy there as well. And sure, from the owners’ perspective they want butts in seats with beers in hands and they take the most direct financial hit if the season gets delayed. But the players are the ones whose future livelihoods are on the line.

Which is part of why I get so frustrated when folks blame the players for these things. They are in the worst position to wait out any kind of delay in negotiations or lockout implemented by the owners because they are the ones most heavily, directly, and immediately impacted by it. And unless the stoppage comes from them deciding to implement a strike, they don’t really have a lot of say in any of it.

What would be the cost of a work stoppage?

Ron Hassey had a perfectly nice MLB career, but there’s not much that’s especially memorable if you just look at his career stats. He had a right around average 101 wRC+. He put up 16.9 fWAR in 14 seasons, spending a lot of time as a backup catcher, or at least one that split time a lot.

Yet, he did have a memorable career in the sense that there are several “fun facts” that you can name that directly involve him.

Ronald William “Ron” Hassey
Born: February 27, 1953 (Tucson, AZ)
Yankees Tenure: 1985-86

Born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, Hassey came to prominence in baseball in the city. He was a star at Tucson High School, helping them to a state championship, and getting selected by the Cincinnati Reds in the 1972 MLB Draft. However, he instead opted to go to college and attended the University of Arizona right in his home town.

After a couple seasons there, the Royals took him in the 1975 draft. Kansas City planned on moving Hassey to his eventual big league position of catcher, so he opted to turn down the deal and spend a year working behind the plate at the college level. The move worked somewhat in two ways. In 1976, he moved up his draft position by a couple rounds when he was eventually selected by Cleveland that year, and he also helped Arizona win the ‘76 College World Series.

Thanks to his impressive hitting, Hassey pretty quickly worked through the minors and was called up to the big leagues in 1978. He went up and down a couple times before finally fully earning a place on Cleveland’s roster in June 1979. He was pretty solid that season, and followed that up with arguably his career-best year in 1980, putting up 3.7 fWAR with a 131 wRC+.

In 1981, Hassey was behind the plate when Cleveland pitcher Len Barker threw a perfect game against the Blue Jays on May 15th. While Hassey’s defensive skills weren’t always the most highly regarded, he was widely praised for his work that day.

However, that defensive work eventually led him to be publicly criticized with manager Mike Ferraro in the coming years. Eventually, Hassey would be included in a trade that sent him, George Frazier, and, most notably, pitcher Rick Sutcliffe to the Cubs in 1984. Hassey put up pretty good hitting numbers with the Cubs, but an injury limited him to just 19 games following the trade. With Chicago making the NLCS with catcher Jody Davis contributing solidly, that led to the Cubs also deciding to move Hassey on. That offseason, he was part of a six-player deal that brought him to the Yankees.

Splitting duties with Butch Wynegar, Hassey then put up probably the best purely offensive season of his career in 1985. He hit a career high 13 home runs to go along with a 140 OPS+. Despite that, he would once again be on the market. With Carlton Fisk a free agent that offseason, the Yankees had an interest and sent Hassey to the White Sox for pitcher Britt Burns. But Fisk then opted to re-sign with the White Sox, leaving Hassey in a reduced role once again.

With rumors flying around, the White Sox initially insisted they would keep Hassey despite bringing back Fisk. However, the Yankees now once again had room for a catcher. In February 1986, barely two moths after the initial trade, Hassey went back the other way, as the White Sox traded him to the Yankees. Even more amusing, prospect Glenn Braxton, who had gone from the White Sox to the Yankees in the first trade, was sent back to Chicago too.

With Hassey once again in the Bronx, he again performed admirably, especially at the plate. In 62 games, he put up a 131 OPS+. In July, the Yankees found themselves still in the AL East race, four games back of first. Looking to make some savvy additions to shore up other spots, they considered Hassey expendable and once again traded him at the deadline. The most fascinating part was that they traded him to…the White Sox? For the third time in barely 18 months, Hassey was the subject of a trade between the Yankees and White Sox. No Glenns Braxton were involved in the trade this time.

After that, Hassey spent a couple years in Chicago, a couple with the Athletics, and ended his career with the Expos in 1991. In that final season in Montreal, Hassey made some history when he caught another perfect game, this one from Dennis Martínez on July 28th. Hassey became the first — and so far, still only — catcher to have ever caught two perfect games in their career. Others have done multiple no-hitters, but no one has matched Hassey yet. That’s a funny feat considering that offense was more his calling card.

Following his retirement from playing, Hassey spent many years as a coach in several organizations, both at the major and minor league levels. He’s since retired back to Arizona.

You occasionally see a player get caught in a loop between two specific teams in the DFA/waiver market. They’re usually minor league/depth pieces who probably won’t ever take up a significant role on either team. Ron Hassey was a legitimately pretty solid player for both the Yankees and White Sox, but they couldn’t stop playing hot potato with him.

See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here.

MLB and the Detroit Tigers social media team are pestering players daily with light-hearted questions when not roasting Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal for their coffee obsession. MLB had kind of a fun one yesterday that had a few of us cracking up trying to think of the ideal actor or celebrity voice to use as the voice of PitchCom.

As you’re probably aware, the catcher enters the pitch and location into the keypad on his arm, and the robotic sounding PitchCom voice says “curveball, down and away” or what have you. Some teams seemingly don’t use the location settings, but some do. Apparently the system isn’t advanced enough yet for the catcher to send messages like, “hey dummy, you’re flying wide open at release” or “perhaps you should attempt to throw a strike at some point.” The early days of technology always have some bugs to work out. Sarcasm upgrades will no doubt be available in PitchCom 2.0.

I can’t help thinking that if I was pitching, I might find myself calmed and focused by the voice of Yoda telling me “up and in with the fastball, you must” but hey everyoyne is different. Maybe you want Samuel L. Jackson emphasizing every pitch call with a choice expletive to keep you fired up. It’s your call.

Whose voice would you want as your personal voice of PitchCom if it was you on the mound? The pros had some solid answers.

The Rockies have always prided themselves on being a draft-and-develop team. Without the dollars to match the Dodgers or Yankees, they have to; however, they haven’t excelled in either area in recent years. 

Enter Colorado’s new general manager Josh Brynes, and his plan for development. Byrnes spent the last 11 years in Los Angeles, overseeing player development and scouting for the back-to-back reigning World Series Champion Dodgers — an organization that drew high praise from superstar Bryce Harper in a recent interview with The Athletic. 

“It bothers me when everybody talks about the Dodgers spending money. No, they draft, they develop, they do it the right way,” Harper said in a Feb. 15 article. “They understand what it takes to be the best team in baseball.”

Now Brynes will be bringing his philosophies on what worked in Los Angeles to Colorado, where the Rockies are coming off six straight losing seasons, including three straight 100-plus loss campaigns. Byrnes recently spoke with Purple Row to talk about his mindset on building a new development plan for prospects and veterans alike.

Maxing Out Players

Brynes explained that he likes to think about where a player has been, where he’s at now, and where he’s going. The end goal is always to collaborate with multiple coaches and analysts to make a plan for “maxing out players.”

“Getting the very best out of them is critical, and all that goes into that,” Byrnes said at spring training in Arizona. “There’s a lot of in the offseason, we’re looking at all the data and video and thinking about it and talking about it, and then when we get here, we share it with the player, but I think that sort of mindset and all that goes into it is critical.”

Byrnes, along with other members of the front office and coaching staff, is in the middle of this process right now — one month out from the season opener in Miami. Byrnes emphasized that it’s not a definitive list with easy answers. Instead, it’s a framework, “written in pencil,” that will be changed as needed. Most importantly, it’s a collaborative effort.

“[For] a garden variety player plan, we’ll probably bring in — and that’s just a small part — let’s say six or eight people who have direct contact with the player,” Byrnes said. “And that could be a hitting coach. It could be someone on the quantitative side, someone from performance science. [We’ll] put our heads together and try to come up with a few relevant points that are actionable for the player.”

These could be for a player who is in their first Major League level and climbing through the farm system for the only promotion that Brynes believes matters — the one to the Big Leagues — or for a seasoned veteran who struggled recently after having successful seasons in the past, like new Rockies Jake McCarthy, Edouard Julien, or Willi Castro. Each plan is unique, but all are detail-oriented and data-driven.

“There’s a lot of layers to it. But I think the main thing is even the players feel like we’re just relentless, thinking about every which way we can get the very best out of them,” Byrnes said. “Then we are in communication with them. It’s not hidden. It’s shared with them. That’s really important.”

The same thing goes for pitchers. Byrnes mentioned talking with Kyle Freeland and other veteran starting pitchers about how to stay ahead of hitters and being able to play at a high level year in and year out. 

“I do think it’s arguably the most important thing we can do is just like that constant drumbeat of ‘how do we get the very best out of these guys?’ At that point in their career, [the pitchers are] curious. [They ask] ‘What do you see? What can I do?’ It’s a constant process of adjustments or adaptation, but also relying on your strengths,” Byrnes said. “That’s the fun part. Ideally, and I’ve seen it, it really energizes the players. This grind, the actual daily work, is fun because they’re just chasing their best version.”

As a member of an NL West opponent’s baseball operations team, Byrnes was already familiar with a lot of the players in the Rockies system, as well as the new players the team added in the offseason. Byrnes believes there is “quite a bit of talent” on the roster, but also knows that some of the players were brought up before they were ready and were set up to fail because of it. It’s not a rare occurrence or something unique to the Rockies, but now it’s time to correct it.

“The game’s hard. Failure is part of baseball, so we’re not gonna stigmatize it,” Byrnes said. “We’ll learn from it and push forward.”

Adaptability

Another important feature in Byrnes’s outlook on development is positional flexibility for position players. Having outfielders who can play multiple spots, having utility players who can move around the infield and having players who are willing to change up position, depending on team need and ability, are key characteristics to earn a spot on the Rockies roster. Byrnes specifically pointed out the positional versatility of prospect Cole Carrigg, also known as the “super utility player” who can play every position and is a switch-hitter, and Willi Castro, who can play all three outfield positions, as well as second base, shortstop and third base, as huge assets for Colorado.

Byrnes oversaw successful positional changes and adaptability from Dodgers like Kiké Hernandez, Chris Taylor, Tommy Edman, Mookie Betts and Max Muncy. He believes their desire to help the team was very valuable.

“I think [playing multiple positions] is incredibly important. I mean, obviously, it was a big part of how we built rosters with the Dodgers,” Byrnes said. “I’ve talked to a lot of our players about it, so I think they know how important it is for them. I mean, it’s almost like it’s good for you, it’s good for us. It makes the whole thing work.”

Whether it’s evaluating players to trade for, to sign as free agents, or to draft, positional versatility will be a staple of the Colorado Rockies under Byrnes. So is curiosity, a desire to win and a drive to solve problems that have long plagued the Rockies.

“I think we are creating this environment that is a constant every day. We love baseball. We love the sort of puzzles we’re solving. We love the competition. We love all that,” Brynes said. “If that’s an environment you want to be in, this will be great for you. If you’re kind of like, you know, ‘I’m not that curious or not that engaged with other people,‘ then you probably need to go play somewhere else.”

As a long-suffering Rockies fan, that’s the kind of attitude I am thrilled to support from the front office and players.

Colorado Rockies News

Charlie Condon Burst At First Could Help Colorado Rockies Avoid Worst | Forbes ($)

Searching for their next first baseman has become a perennial quest for the Colorado Rockies. Last year, eight different players tried it out. This year, the competition is wide open to see who the Opening Day starter will be. Forbes’s Chuck Murr takes a look at where Charlie Condon, the Rockies’ No. 3 overall pick from the 2024 MLB Draft, has been and forecasts where he and the Rockies might be capable of going.

Rockies ready to crank up aggression on basepaths with additions of Castro, McCarthy | MLB.com

Willi Castro and Jake McCarthy are good baserunners. They know it. Warren Schaeffer and Paul DePodesta know it too, which is why the Rockies signed and traded for the speeders this offseason. Both players figure to be a big part of Schaeffer’s plan to create chaos — the good kind — on the basepaths this season.

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I recently finished this new book from Jane Leavy—previous biographer of the likes of Mickey Mantle, Sandy Koufax, & Babe Ruth. As baseball nonfiction tomes go, I found it—okay. A LOT of snark, but if you can handle that you’ll enjoy it even more than I did.

Make Me Commissioner’s basic premise is Leavy analyzing what seems to be holding MLB back at the moment compared to its previous heydays. The usual topics of analytics, rule changes, youth specialization, marketing, and economic structure are all present and accounted for. The author may be a tad late to the party for die-hard hardballers, but in the end comes to some cogent conclusions.

This got me thinking: what would I do if given the MLB commissionership (besides of course the obvious eviction of The Pohlad Bunch for my hometown residents)? I think my top three ideas would look something like this…

Decry #1: Fix—or at least work on—competitive balance

Right now, MLB is as out-of-whack economically as it has been since the late-1990s. Every offseason, the Los Angeles Dodgers & New York Mets—and maybe a few other clubs here and there—load up on the high-octane free agent talent while the rest of the league picks through the scrap heap. The luxury tax and cable TV contracts held the competitive balance line as long as they could—but no more.

For as nice of a bounce-back as baseball has had the last few years, this is a ticking time bomb threatening to destroy hope in most markets before Opening Day dawns. Put in a salary cap to appease the owners and institute a salary floor to make sure those same owners don’t just turtle up. But something needs to be done, even if—as much as I hate to say it—it means games lost in 2027.

Decry #2: Make SP matter again

Perhaps the idea I most agreed with Leavy on was the notion that “baseball used to tell a story”. The “hook” of the story was the starting pitcher—but now that position is more sacrifice-able pawn than endgame piece.

With hurlers on strict pitch counts to prevent injuries—even that hasn’t made much of a dent—and going max-effort on every throw, SP-as-focal-point of any given contest has faded away in favor of bullpen churn-and-burn. No doubt the statistically-significant way to gain an edge—but also dampening the overall aesthetic.

Gradually shrinking P roster spots? Losing the DH when the SP is removed? I’m not sure what the answer is, but if I’m commish I’m working on it right now.

Decry #3: Give a little away for free

From the early-00s to about 2022, TV contracts kept MLB afloat financially. Sure, there were still disparities even within that structure, but the Twins (or other small-market owners) were allowed the opportunity to re-invest that yearly big check without a ton of risk. Cord-cutting and streaming killed all that.

I like the new Sunday Night Baseball partnership with NBC—that’s a good first step. But MLB could go further—especially in-market. Why not put all Saturday/Sunday games on over-the-air (not cable/streaming) local TV? Keep them all on the MLB TV plans too, but entice more subscriptions by giving away some product for free.

MLB needs every new pair of eyeballs—especially the young ones—to continuing thriving. The on-field product has improved fairly substantially in the last 2-3 years—now more people need to be able to see it.

I don’t want to give the impression that MLB is a flailing endeavor. But there are clearly some areas that need work in order to preserve its integrity for future generations.

If you found your name taped over Rob Manfred’s at MLB headquarters, what would you focus on?

Last week, I started taking another look at how the Cardinals have done (historically) with draft-and-development. This is a journey more than end point and I have many more numbers to crunch. This week is an abbreviated update, since most of my time has been spent at Spring Training and sitting inside number crunching doesn’t seem like a thing to do right now. The pool calls. If you missed last week’s article, you can find it here.

I did a mash-up of ZIPS projections for 2026-2028 future seasons and Fangraphs fWAR results for seasons 2017-2025, but limited to players listed in the FanGraphs prospects boards, which ranks prospects dating back to 2017. That covers 9 seasons of “young guys”. With ZIPs doing most of the heavy lifting, I analyzed how ZIPs thinks teams have done with drafting (and developing?).

Interesting side note … I heard from Dan Szymborksi a few hours after my article published using the ZIPs projections. He kindly offered to provide some additional data he may have beyond what FG makes public. If I’m smart enough to figure out something, I will take him up on that.

Below, I’ve summarized, by team, all the fWAR that ZIPs thinks our list of prospects will have accumulated by the end of the 2028 season. I’ve added the perspective of showing (on the y-axis) how much teams have put out in signing bonuses for those prospects. Note the narrow range of spending, with a high of $56 million (over 9 years) to a low of $13 million. Peanuts compared to some of the FA contracts. The highs and low are effectively constrained by where teams draft and the international bonus pool limits. The teams at the low end of the spending (Dodgers, Astros, Yankees, Cardinals) are ones that typically draft low (by being good) or sign Free Agents regularly (losing draft choices and associated pool money). Or both. The teams that have more to spend (Cincy, Pittsburgh, Baltimore) are the opposite. They’ve been bad during the analysis period (drafting high, getting higher bonus pools) and generally avoiding the Free Agent market.

On the x-axis, you see a pretty wide spread of projected fWAR (through 2028). Washington and Miami trail the pack which the Cardinals lead. A quick observation is an oldie, but apparently a goodie. As noted in earlier work using different data sets, it is remarkable how consistently that poorly run teams both play and draft poorly and are unable to acquire much value through their much higher draft picks. As you look in the lower right quadrant, you see the same phenomenon occurs while studying 2017-2028 as occurred during the original study (2000-2019). Well run team, drafting lower, still draft better. Really, only San Diego has broken that mold. Tip of the cap to A.J. Preller. The Cardinals have now had two consecutive high draft picks. I am fascinated to see how that turns out.

The red and blue dashed lines divide the teams into 4 quadrants, with labels as shown. As surfaced with previous analyses using different data sets, the phenomenon continues to be that strong organizations do well on the field and still manage to acquire more measurable prospect talent than the other organizations. These are the ones shown in bottom right=hand quadrant – Low Investment, High Return. These are the organizations getting more fWAR for less dollars.

Which team is projected to derive the most fWAR value from the prospect ranks from 2017 through 2028? Your St. Louis Cardinals. Tops. Bar none. At 371 accumulated and projected fWAR, the Cardinals come out comfortably ahead of Atlanta at 354 accumulated and projected fWAR for their prospects. And the Cardinals were doing this under tighter constraints. Not self-imposed constraints like being cheap, but round/pick bonus constraints that come with drafting where they have typically drafted (except the last 2 years). As a side note, y-axis on this graph shows bonuses actually paid. I queried against pick value and almost all teams, all years have their paid bonuses fall within 5% of the pool allocated the by round/pick values assigned.

Interesting.

Other observations

Let’s look around the league for other tidbits. How about those Padres. They appear to be drafting well. Their bonus spending is right on average, too. Their only drawback is most of those projected WAR are projected to occur with other teams like Washington (the Soto trade) and Oakland (the Miller trade).

I note the Pirates and Reds have spent comparatively heavily, by virtue of being bad for multiple, multiple years. If I peek at only projected WAR (ignoring any WAR actually accumulated 2017-2025), ZIPs appears to like Pittsburgh (157 future WAR) a lot better than Cincy (106 future WAR), but over the 9 seasons views them both as average drafters, albeit spending more to get to that average mark. For the curious, ZIPs sees the Cardinals future (projected) WAR as exceeding both those teams.

Milwaukee and Pittsburgh’s short-term outlooks looks pretty strong. They are local competition. The Cubs and Reds? Not so much. Details upon request.

Clouds on the horizon?

From the Cardinals viewpoint, one dark spot is that if you look ONLY at future performance expected (2026-2028), the Cardinals are more mid-pack, with Detroit, Baltimore, Tampa, San Francisco and Milwaukee in the top 20%. This could be viewed as worrisome, but it is a point-in-time look unpolluted by actual performance data that could prove to be highly variable even by mid-season 2026. Also, I don’t believe any of the Cardinals recent acquisitions (Cinjtje, Doyle, Rodriguez and others) have ZIPs projections yet. I bet they do by this time next year. Let’s hope they are good ones.

I would be remiss if I didn’t note that IF the Cardinal’s projected WAR improves next year, it will be a result of replenishing the farm system via trades as well as good drafting. Later, I will look more deeply, but I suspect that 2021-2023 were not good draft years, creating a bit of a donut hole that all these trades had to backfill.

I would note that the Cardinal’s did underspend their slot money over the 2017-2025 time period. By $2m on a $25m spend over the 9 years. The $25m is calculated at 105% of the slot values, since teams can go over-slot by 5% with negligible penalties. The underspend is nothing egregious. But I do wonder if a team like St. Louis that is so reliant on draft/sign and develop can afford to miss even that much. Back of the envelop math tells me if $23m can produce 371 fWAR, then $2m more could well have produced an added 35 fWAR. That’s not nothing.

One other interesting (to me) thing I see in the data. I know that the Giants grew impatient with their development-oriented leadership and switched over to Buster Posey. Zaidi was hired in 2019 and let go in 2024. Although the graph above shows the Giants running below average on draft/sign talent acquisition, the ZIPs projection data is much more friendly on the view of more recent draft classes and the Giants will likely trend more to the right over the next couple of years (unless they trade all those prospects). The data hints that the Giants may have been too hasty to abandon the track they were on. I note that Bloom is on a similar 5-year timeline. Makes me wonder if that might be too little.

The Atlanta Braves went to Tampa on Thursday and returned with a 7-3 loss to the New York Yankees. Carlos Carrasco got the ball and lasted just 1.2 innings. Though his outing was short, he surrendered four hits and five runs. He struck out one and surrendered a base on balls.

Offensively, the Braves recorded eight hits but were only able to plate runs in the third and fourth innings. It was a pretty backup-heavy lineup for Atlanta, with most of the regulars getting the day off as the team continues to sort through its depth this spring.

The Braves host the Boston Red Sox this afternoon back in North Port.

More Braves News:

Just ahead of the World Baseball Classic, there is plenty of competition at Braves camp.

MLB News:

The Athletics have reportedly made an extension offer to first baseman Nick Kurtz, who is “open and interested” depending on the timing. 

Minnesota Twins right-hander David Festa will likely begin the season on the injured list after being diagnosed with a shoulder impingement. He will be shut down from throwing for two to three weeks. 

With the offseason behind us, it’s once again time to check in with the Over the Monster community and gauge fan opinion on how the Red Sox organization is doing.

Below are polls covering the job performance of the front office, ownership, and the manager, followed by some other topical items. Your job is to express your opinion on them.

As always, we try and run these four times per year (in late May as the season hits its stride, in early August right after the trade deadline, in early November after the World Series with the offseason kicking off, and in February as we transition into a new spring training).

So, without further ado—make your choices in our February check in, and let us know in the comments your overall feelings about the club.

Previous poll results for this question when it was run:

In November: Yes 60% vs. No 40%

In August: Yes 74% vs. No 26%

Previous poll results for this question when it was run:

In November: No 80% vs. Yes 20%

In August: No 75% vs. Yes 25%

Previous poll results for this question when it was run:

In November: Yes 66% vs. No 34%

In August: Yes 76% vs. 24%

Previous poll results for this question when it was run:

In November: Yes 88% vs. No 12%

In August: Yes 90% vs No 10%

Previous poll results for this question when it was run:

In November: Better 64%, Worse 12.4%, The Same 23.6%

In August: Better 90%, Worse 1%, The Same 9%

Previous poll results for this question when it was run:

In November: Offense 49.1%, Starting Pitching 28.2%, Defense 16.2%, Bullpen 4.7%, Other 1.4%

In August: Bullpen 34%, Starting Pitching 26%, Offense 21%, Defense 14%, Other 5%

Previous poll results for this question when it was run:

In November: Yes 76%, No 24%

Previous poll results for this question when it was run:

In November: Blue Jays 43%, Red Sox 27.9%, Yankees 21.3%, Orioles 2.1%, Rays 0.2%

Last February before the season started: Yankees 53%, Red Sox 36%, Orioles 9%, Rays 1%, Blue Jays 1% (Whoops!)

Previous poll results for this question when it was run:

In November: No 51%, Yes 49%

In August: Yes 62%, No 38%

Previous poll results for this question when it was run:

In November: Bring back the blues 50.1% vs. Keep the yellows 49.9%. (It literally came down to one vote!)

Now, let’s work some new questions into the mix:

(The next poll should end with “more than a month” but the poll space ran out of characters.)

Greetings, Brew Crew Ball community. Welcome to (almost) March, which means baseball is less than a month away!

Feel free to use this thread to chat about (almost) anything you want: video games, food, movies, non-baseball sports, the Brewers, you name it. As long as it’s appropriate and is allowed by our moderators, it’s fair game here.

You know the drill.

This is now an open thread:

This post is part of a series of daily questions that we’ll ask the community here at Amazin’ Avenue throughout the month of February. We hope you find the questions engaging and that our prompts can spark some fun conversations in the comments. We’ll see you there and plan to have staff chiming in, too.

What do you miss most about Shea Stadium?