With the start of the stateside start of the regular season just a week away, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:
1. Montgomery stands alone:
With fellow southpaw starter Blake Snell now off the board after joining the Giants, Jordan Montgomery is the clear top remaining free agent on the board. It appears the lefty’s market has begun to heat up in the days since Snell reached an agreement, with the Yankees having reportedly resumed negotiations with their former starter. Meanwhile, the Rangers’ move to sign right-hander Michael Lorenzen late last night fortified their rotation ahead of Opening Day without needing to re-enter the bidding for Montgomery’s services. The addition of another starting-caliber arm in Texas could spur Montgomery to look for a deal with another club in earnest, as previous reporting had indicated that the lefty was prioritizing a return to the Rangers this winter. With Texas now likely off the board, the Yankees and Red Sox stand out as the teams most frequently connected to Montgomery this winter. With just one week until Opening Day, will the 31-year-old sign in the coming days, or will he wait until the regular season begins to sign?
2. Lorenzen deal to become official:
While the Rangers reached a one-year deal with Lorenzen last night, that move has not yet become official. Not only is the pact pending a physical, which could be in line to happen as soon as today, but Texas will also have to clear space on its 40-man roster to officially add Lorenzen. That shouldn’t be much of a problem for now, as injured veterans Jacob deGrom, Tyler Mahle and Max Scherzer are not yet on the 60-day injured list despite the fact that each of those players isn’t expected to return to a big league mound until sometime this summer. That said, the Lorenzen signing taking one of those spots on the 40-man roster will leave the Rangers with less flexibility as they look to construct their 26-man roster ahead of Opening Day. Top prospect Wyatt Langford and veterans Jose Urena, Jared Walsh, and Diego Castillo could all be candidates to make the team out of camp, thereby requiring a spot on the 40-man roster in the coming days.
3. Reds struggling with injury woes:
Yesterday was littered with bad news for Reds fans, as the club announced that top infield prospect Edwin Arroyo underwent labrum surgery and will miss the 2024 campaign, while sophomore infielder Matt McLain is set to miss Opening Day and is receiving a second opinion on his injured shoulder, with surgery seemingly on the table as a possible outcome. The losses of McLain and Arroyo compound the club’s other absences, which include a potentially lengthy absence for center fielder TJ Friedl as he nurses a broken wrist and Noelvi Marte’s 80-game suspension for a failed PED test. The Reds have seemingly already moved to address the losses of McLain, Marte, and Arroyo by landing Santiago Espinal in a deal with the Blue Jays last night, and could also consider bolstering their outfield mix with an external addition in the wake of Friedl’s injury.
Montgomery should sign with the Pirates. PNC would pad those numbers, Bob just needs to pony up so it won’t happen.
Pirates should of signed Lorenzen.
The Pirates should have signed someone better than Lorenzen eliminating the need to sign Lorenzen.
They already have signed multiple guys better than Lorenzen. Lauer, German, Gonzales, and Perez are all better than Lorenzen as starting pitchers.
lorenzen, 32, finished his second season starting, which was first year healthy as a starter, with a 4.18 era. everyone knows well how he got obliterated after his first two starts with the phils, but he started 29 ballgames over the whole year and if he can show another healthy season his arm may be more ready to get through an entire season at a number closer to the 3.00 era he carried in august. gonzalez looked abysmal yesterday in spring. german and lauer will more than likely begin in the minors, and perez probably has a worse shot at a 3.50 era than lorenzen. bucs should have been in.
Lorenzen is a reliever that still wants to start. He’s a good reliever at that. Pirates should go with the higher upside, young arms instead of him. But, I’d take Montgomery on a one or two year deal in a heartbeat.
Lorenzen over Monty should tell everyone a whole lot.
@178iq
I don’t think skill set had as much of a part to play as much as the dollar amount did. The Rangers had a well known question mark with their tv deal that had a lot to do with their relatively quiet offseason.
@bucktober
Lorenzen has been a starter for two years. He’s more of a starter than Lugo.
And he’s been an average starter at his best, and at his worst he’s been bad. He’s a very good reliever, though. That’s where he’ll end up. There is a reason he didn’t have a market this offseason.
I can say the same about the Reds. They let so much real starting pitching talent pass them by the last two years.
I think it is time for the White Sox to step in and make a move on Montgomery. Let’s play poker! 2-year deal …. $50 million. ….. We will be trading him away before the deadline for a haul of prospects that basically cost whatever we pay him before we trade him.
haha love the handle @Tabata
Pirates should go all out on Montgomery and bringing Bauer back to the MLB.
I’d give Montgomery ad 6y/160 guarantee with two team options Throw in some perks like optouts based on team record.
Bauer, at worst is a mid->back end rotation arm with a possible ace level pitching and should be easily had at under 10M. I’d do a 1 year 10M, Triggered 2nd and 3rd year option for non-horrible behavior then two team options, all at 10m. and the two team options at 5M buy outs IF his contract makes it past the third year.
getting one or both would likely make the pirates have one of the best rotations in the NL for years.
Joew: The only owner I can think of that would have signed Bauer is George Steinbrenner. He would’ve gotten a prisoner out of jail if it could help his team win.
as long as he didn’t have a beard.
Are you allowed to give opt-outs or vesting or bonuses conditional on team performance?
If so, then ideally there would be a no-trade clause that would only allow him to be traded to a team within 2 games of a playoff spot, and only from July 1 to the trade deadline.
I believe you can put most anything in a contract with in reason as long as both sides agree to it.
Injuries and VERY BAD PITCHING= Long losing season.
I predicted 92 wins, might be 92 losses instead.
The starting pitching should have been addressed and wasn’t.
I thought adding more bullpen pieces was nice but the four inning pitchers will burn them out by July just like last year. Even Diaz was gassed due to too many needed two inning appearances.
I predict 1000 wins!!!! I am optometrist!
I should have seen that coming.
Confused by the reporting that signing lorenzen makes Texas less flexible. Does the reporter want them to have fewer options, and fewer options makes them more flexible?
No, the writer is saying that while the addition of Lorenzen is no doubt beneficial to the pitching staff, it creates further problems in clearing space for young guys who need to be added to the roster.
Adding Lorenzen is possibly going to force them to get rid of one more player then they wanted to.
The benefit of adding Lorenzen outweighs the possible loss of en extra guy, but it is a complicating factor at this time of year.
But they now need one less player. They lost flexibility, but gained certainty. There’s now a slight chance someone might get claimed on waivers. If its Urena, that’s a good thing.
So much for Yamamoto…
IP: 1.0
H: 4
R: 5
ER: 5
BB: 1
K: 2
HR: 0
PC-ST: 43-23
ERA: 45.00
Gives me a lot of joy to see that.
Eh let’s give it a full year.
1 game means little. Especially at 3am SD LA time in a completely different country.
Last year Senga went through a pretty rough stretch from mid April to mid/end of June just getting obliterated 6 out of 12 starts he was giving up 3 or more runs more like 4-5
Finished the season with 4.5 WAR and 2.95 ERA.
@Easy as 1 2 3
I wouldn’t get too excited about ERA. It’s a meaningless stat that seems to hold for no good reason.
His Forecasted Run Average (FRA) in 2023 was 4.14, which means he overperformed with a 2.98 ERA compared to his actual FRA. His xERA was 3.87, so he was definitely in for some regression this year, if he was actually pitching. He’s essentially a 4 ERA pitcher, which there are plenty of guys like that in the league.
Era is what he actually produced.
Oh he SHOULD HAVE been at a 4+ era
Oh he COULD HAVE been worse
He didn’t
He wasn’t
He pitched to a 4.5 WAR season
Estimators =|= actual outcomes.
It’s a guess at how they’ll perform not actually how they are performing.
Easy – Nobody is passing final judgement on him, we are just saying early impressions are not good. And you can’t totally ignore his ST performance either, which also sucked against weak competition.
@Easy as 1 2 3
The ERA is a team stat. There have been guys who have throw no-hitters with a low K tally and his defense helped quite a bit. Does that mean his 0.00 ERA for the game is proof he was unhittable? No, it doesn’t. It means he didn’t pitch as well and his defense helped out quite a bit.
The FRA & xERA actually give you an idea of how the pitcher actually performed based on what the pitcher can control.
As for WAR, I think WAR has zero real value. It is an artificial “statistic” based on unknowns like “win” and “replacement.” SABR-metricians use it because they’ve got nothing else.
Easy as 1 2 3….. you really don’t understand baseball statistics lol imagine thinking ERA is “what he actually produced”. You’re clearly a casual
@old York,
All statistics are artificial. Statistics are just attempts to mathematically model a reality. They are not reality. Their assumptions distort reality, emphasizing certain features of reality while downplaying others. Reminds me of the story about Simon Kuznets, the economist credited with refining the GNP statistic. The story goes that after presenting the statistic in a Congressional hearing, he warned, “remember the GNP is not the economy”. To which members of Congress, the press and the public chanted “GNP is the economy, GNP is the economy, …”. Even today most people use the GNP/GDP statistics as a measure of economic health, which it is not.
Statistics are all imperfect representations of reality. They have their uses and benefits, but should never be confused with reality.
As to your pitcher example above, perhaps the pitcher is an excellent pitch to contact pitcher who generates weak contact and finishes innings with few pitches as the batters get themselves out. As the old saying goes, “there are more than one way to skin a cat.”
@Skeptical
Fair enough. The point I’m making is that the ERA itself, while useful at the time, is now being viewed in a new light that it really isn’t the tell all of a pitcher. As you said, the pitcher might create a lot of weak contact but it finds holes or drops in a void in the OF and ends up giving up a 3-run HR or something. Sure, it could have only been 1 run but now it’s 3. That’s why FRA & xERA exist to better evaluate the performance of the pitcher.
But, ultimately, stats are part of baseball culture so it’s better to improve upon them than leave them be.
Meh, foreign players will always get a first year pass from me. It’s a big culture shock to go from Japan to the US and even a bigger one going to LA. Shohei Ohtani is the exception not the rule. Senga had a bad stretch last year before he adjusted. Cuban players come here knowing they probably won’t see their families again. There is no press coverage in the Dominican Republic that I can think of. So I think getting their families acclimated to stardom in the US takes at least 12 months. We begin to see what they got in year 2.
What was his actual era then?
Guesses at how he SHOULD or COULD be pitching aren’t actual results. It’s guesses
Imagine thinking imaginary stats matter more than actual results. .
You COULD win the lottery. I wouldn’t blow your entire pay check on lottery tickets though.
Statistics like exit velocity spin rotation etc are great. Those are based on real time data.
Statistics like FIP xFIP whatever you take with a grain of salt because saying oh he SHOULD be pitching worse =|= he is actually pitching bad.
Number junkies like Travis wood rely too much on useless data.
@Easy as 1 2 3
Imagine thinking a simplistic stat like ERA tells you how a pitcher actually pitched.
The FRA & xERA have mothing to do with SHOULD or COULD. It tells you how they actually pitched. The ERA is just a stat of how his team performed while he pitched.
York – I’ve been picking apart every “better new stat” for decades, going back to Mike Gimbel (look him up).
Until stats geeks realize pitcher performance is impacted by game situations (ie: RISP, score, opposing hitters, pitcher usage) they will never comprehend how to properly evaluate a pitcher.
I do find it entertaining when some fight over which stats are better, it’s kinda like listening to an argument between Howard and Leonard and Sheldon.
The bottom line is 84% of all defensive plays are basically routine. Only 1.6 out of every 10 plays are considered difficult. It would take an extremely good or extremely bad team defense to swing a pitcher’s ERA either way.
But hey, Dan Richards wants to be famous so keep on buying what he’s selling.
@Fever Pitch Guy
The stats revolution has taken over ever since they kept track of stats If you want to remove stats, that’s fine, but we’d need a better way to evaluate players.
Now, there are actual stats guys out there who are looking at how to better evaluate defense but that analysis is in its early days. For example, if a guy makes 95% of defensives plays, were they mostly easy compared to the average play? Can we play someone who has better range in an area of the ball park where balls often drop when pitcher A it pitching and then move him to a different spot in the field when Pitcher Z comes in.
I’m not saying one stat is perfect for evaluating but for someone to sit there and tell me the ERA tells us a lot about how a pitcher performs is
York – Nobody has ever believed ERA is a tell all. But it’s still probably the best way to gauge a starting pitcher, because it’s all about Run Prevention. That is always the goal, not allowing the other team to score.
Milt Gaston once gave up 14 hits and 2 walks in a 9-inning complete game shutout. He had only 2 strikeouts, but still he was perfect, he did his job, he didn’t allow any runs.
Old York: ERA is not a team stat. It’s a P stat so the P doesn’t get errors made by his teammates added onto the runs he, the P, is actually responsible for.
You guys are so absorbed with analytics, metrics, peripherals that you’re taking the fun out of the stats that were good enough for the game for over a century. A poster once told me that he doesn’t even watch the games because analytics (expected this, expected that) told him all he needed to know. You may turn your noses up at basic statistics. Just remember, the batting champion is determined by best batting averafe. Nothing else.
@Fever Pitch Guy
But again, that brings in the factor of how ineffective the offense was to not be able to drive in runs, which ends up playing a part in the formula of Milt’s game. The Padres had trouble driving in runners as well last year, which would have helped the other team’s pitcher’s ERA. It just goes to show how ridiculous the actual stat itself is, when most context is removed from it. On the flip side, the Padres had one of the top defenses in the game and contributed saving 54 runs for the team. Their team ERA goes from 3.73 to 4.08 if the defense wasn’t as skilled and capable of saving those runs.
@avenger65
I don’t think I’m preventing you from enjoying the basic stats of baseball. If you want to look at ERA & AVG and evaluate the player, by all means, do so. Just understand that the business of baseball has moved on from that many decades ago so it’s going to be in the conversations.
@avenger65
The basic ERA stat is an evaluation of the team’s abilty to prevent runs. The pitcher is there to throw the ball and help the defense (remember, the pitcher is on defense) get outs. However, a lot of the outs involved are thanks to the defense. If a guy hits a hard ground ball to 3B, and it’s scooped up and thrown to 1st for the out. Did the pitcher actually help ensure that the batter got out? Sure, but it wasn’t the pitcher himself that got the batter out. He needed the help of the 3B and 1B players to record those outs. That’s why it’s a team stat and not a P only stat. Yet, we’ve now recorded that the pitcher has thrown 1/3rd of an inning and has an ERA of 0.00.
You can tell it’s a team stat from the fact that they had the shift in place. Teams realized that they could shift players around to get more outs. So, the pitcher throws the ball and it’s hit to right field but because they have the SS out in shallow RF, they get an out and the pitcher is awarded the stat of the out, which is really an out for the team defense.
Just like a ball hit into the alley with a slow runner at 1B becomes a single instead of a double, baseball is a team game. In reality, its a single for the batter, not a double. ERA is the result of how the pitcher performed, with fielders. The game is played with fielders. A good pitcher uses contact to save his arm from high pitch counts. These imaginary stats, like FIP, cause pitchers to try to strike out everyone. That leads to more pitches per inning, and more pitchers per game, and overworked bullpens. It likely leads to arm injuries. As long as baseball continues to be played with fielders, any numbers that reflect otherwise, does not apply to the game of Baseball.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Mine is that those are not improvements.
The warnings that MLB is a different animal were realized.
At the same time, it was one game
Chris Bassitt’s first game for the Jays last year was a brutal loss in which he went 3 1/3 innings giving up 10 hits and 9 earned runs.
Chris finished the season with 200 innings pitched (second best in the AL), a 3.60 ERA, and ERA+ of 118, and finished 10th in Cy Young voting.
How you start isn’t how you finish.
Obviously, for $300 million, the Dodgers hoped for a better start, but one game is one game.
@Canuckleball
I think a lot of this has to do with expectations. If he was some random Japanese pitcher that signed for $25M for 3 years or something, no one would really notice but this guy was hyped as the next mega pitcher and since ST, he’s underperformed. Of course, things will even out as the season goes on and he’ll probably turn into a 3.00+ ERA pitcher but so far, it hasn’t really been what was hyped all this time.
It was massive theft .
it was also one inning
Yamamoto got Pearl Harborerd, baby!!
Send him to OKC!!!
@solaris602
I know you’re joking but just so everyone is clear, in his contract, he cannot be assigned to the minor leagues without his consent.
Did anybody read the beginning of the report? It said that Snell has reached the agreement with the Yankees like the second or third paragraph lol
Not really Juggy, read it again, there’s a coma after “agreement”. I almost fall on the same thing but what’s written afterwards clarifies it.
Rangers really have 6 free agency starters signed
Marte really screwed the Reds with his selfishness.
Or maybe that’s why he became a touted prospect. Sometimes it takes a while to get caught. He’s had work ethic questioned, so maybe a guy who likes shortcuts.
Em dudes I see at the gym can’t hit baseball
Fair argument.
I wonder what Showtime bet on Yamamoto’s outing ….
I bet against him and made him good cash. Guy’s a decent 4th or 5th starter at best.
Boston has room to at least push the price up for the Yankees if either team is even half-interested in Montgomery. The Yankees are having Soto-trade hangovers. Too much money on the books, not enough pitching.
@Mikenmn
Who needs pitching when they only go 4 innings?
Hopefully, four good innings?
I doubt if the Red Sox are still interested in Montgomery after the injury to Giolito. They would be facing long odds to make the playoffs this year in any event, and after that injury it is even more of a reach.
I would think the owners are thrilled with what;’s happened to Montgomery, and the rest of the Boras 4 (or 5). Big message to players. to not reach. I’m not sure the owners would be totally thrilled by the JD Davis message–maybe they intimidate some players into taking what’s offered before they go to arbitration, but most teams won’t want the instability and distrust. Davis may be an easy target because he’s a replaceable talent who became superfluous, but teams generally offer arb to players they have an interest in retaining. There just won’t be as many Davis-like players out there.
Mookie Betts is on pace to collect 486 hits this year. We should never have traded him.
San Diego must be pleased with all the pitchers they got for Soto getting hit hard
King did well for the barnburner today, may have been the pitcher of the game.
@straightuphonestguy
Pitcher of the game was R. Suarez
Ehhh maybe if he got Mookie out. He’s hard to trust without a multirun lead and Dodgers batters were mowed down only after the Machado gut punch. 2 ER/3 IP with 5Ks is a respectable line when both teams score diuble-digit runs.
@straightuphonestguy
Michael King:
40% of the batters got a hit
On 30% of the batters, an earned run scored
30% of the batters got a walk.
50% of the batters struck out.
It took him 7.5 pitches per batter faced.
Robert Suarez
25% of the batters got a hit.
On 0% of the batters, an earn run scored.
0% of the batters got a walk.
50% of the batters struck out.
It took him 6 pitches per batter faced.
The pitcher of the game is Suarez.
King had 10 outs to Suarez’s 4.
Yankee prospects are always over rated.
To bad MR. Montgomery has priced himself out of the Cardinals range as he would have been a better option than Lynn or Gibson!
You don’t know that. He may have fit. Cards just blew their wad first day of FA
Why is it that you get a pending if you say the names of presidents #45 or #46?
Well lol, I guess Jonathan India may be the only Reds fan in the world that is happy.
Boras is gonna lose alot of clients after this offseason debacle
Players gonna have to pivot to short term deals from now on. No matter how many cy youngs you have
@Johnny utah
Cy Youngs are overrated. I look at real stats like FRA & xERA for a better picture under the hood. Do you buy your used cars based on the number of consumer choice awards the company has?
The Reds really needed everything to go well this year to snag a wild card position. With Friedle, McLain, Marte and Arroyo (although he was unlikely to play in the Majors this season) and Williamson likely to miss a chunk of time, the Reds are probably looking at 4th place and to be honest may be looking at the cellar.
There was no excuse for not having a back up CF. Benson was scary in LF last year, if he is the starting CF it’s going to be a very long year. I don’t think it’s out of the question that this team loses 90+ games this year.
Pagan, Martinez, Montas, Moll, Suter and others are likely to be dealt at the trading deadline. This season will mark the 30th straight season the Reds haven’t won a play off series. It’s embarrassing to be a Reds fan.
JD Martinez to the Reds to DH. Make it happen.