A refresher of the methodology before I begin:
Injury risk is only relevant in the most severe cases (i.e., Kershaw, Buxton, deGrom). Injuries are inevitable, and some players will tend to get them more than others, even if it was just random chance. Of course, some injuries are more likely to be reaggravated in the future, but I'm not going to play doctor and try to figure out which injuries are problematic enough to matter. Health is essential, but I'm not the one to speak on it - outside of the most extreme cases where it's endured for years and clearly influences how the teams use them.
They are ranked in order of players I would select in a theoretical draft for next year and only next year, prorated. If you want to consider it a projected WAR/650 list that’s adjusted for position, go ahead. That's the general vibe. Whenever I reference WAR, it is raw Baseball Reference WAR (rWAR) for pitchers and FanGraphs WAR (fWAR) for hitters.
There will be less stat explanations than normal because it’s long enough as it is. Google is your friend. Pretty much all the stats I use are referenced in other articles I’ve written anyway.
This is the second part covering my ranks 26-50.
26. Spencer Strider, 24, SP - Atlanta Braves
Spencer Strider was a revelation for the Braves last year. After starting off the year as a flamethrowing reliever straight from the minors, he moved to the rotation following an injury to Jake Odorizzi, where he flourished. His 38.3% K rate was 5% better than any other starter (min. 100 IP), as were his SIERA, xFIP, K-BB%...the list goes on. Stylistically, he's most similar as a pitcher to deGrom and Rodon, from the elite velocity on an often-used fastball to the reliance on a slider as the primary secondary. It makes even more sense when one learns, as I did a few weeks ago that Strider modeled his slider off deGrom's, and Strider's and Rodon's pitch mixes are nearly identical percentage-wise. None of them have mirrored spin in their arsenal either, and none seem to care.
One may question why Strider is not held in nearly as high of regard. My ranking of 26th is actually more positive than almost every other ranking of him I've seen, and I'd chalk the pessimism up to two reasons. One, people "want to see more," which is strange given how dominant his repertoire is. His fastball averaged 98.2 mph with plus ride at +.60॰ VAA, and he also has an 86.3 mph slider (perfect speed differential) with a 10-inch difference in horizontal movement (pretty much optimal). I'm unsure what else he must prove in conjunction with the above stats.
The more prudent concern is that he only throws two pitches. He threw an 89 mph changeup around 5% of the time, and despite a great 1.32 pCRA, it has a horrible PLV of 4.65. It's safe to say that it's average at best for the time being and is simply propped up by the fantastic fastball. The danger of two pitches is that when one is off, you must ride the other almost exclusively to safety. DeGrom has more than just his fastball and slider; he just never needs to use them. Strider doesn't have anything else to turn to other than his fastball and slider unless he feels like getting funky with the change.
Strider could easily dominate again this year and become the best starting pitcher in baseball. Or he could stay around Carlos Rodon's level of ability, given all the similarities in both pitch mix (almost all fastball/slider) and velocity (they throw gas). At least if he dominates, I'll be the least wrong? Fantastic. Speaking of Rodon:
27. Carlos Rodon, 30, SP - New York Yankees
Rodon has managed to reinvent himself since his disastrous 2019, which was the low point of a painfully average career (5.19 ERA that season, 4.08 ERA overall to that point). He has done this by focusing on his two best pitches: his fastball and slider. He changed his grip on his always-effective slider to create more break and the spin axis to make it tunnel better with his fastball, and he has constantly made his fastball flatter and flatter over the years to improve its effectiveness at the top of the zone. During this time, he continued to improve his velocity and now throws both offerings 2 mph faster than he did in 2019, which always helps. The results on his four-seamer with these changes, which put up an 8.06 pCRA in 2019, are outstanding: his whiff rate improved from 12.9% in 2019 to 27.9% in 2022, and xWOBA from .443 to .278. It was the 3rd-best 4-seamer in all of baseball by run value! People always lament two-pitch starters, but Rodon is a proven example of it being able to work. It may be hard for him to adjust when his velocity inevitably declines in later years, but for now, he's a stud that may be the #2 to Gerrit Cole. The Yankees rotation - if healthy - looks very, very scary.
Note post-injury: My outlook on Rodon's talent has stayed the same after his forearm injury, although my stance on his future health has changed. I didn't move him down at all because of it, but Rodon's reliance on his velocity with his two-pitch repertoire is undoubtedly concerning for the future.
28. Carlos Correa, 28, SS - Minnesota Twins
Carlos Correa bet on himself in 2022, but he, unfortunately, struggled to match what fellow risk-taker Aaron Judge did in 2022. His 4.4 fWAR was a disappointment considering the 6.2 he put up last year and was a far cry from the 7+ fWAR paces of 2017 and 2019. This decline is assuredly from general wear and tear that has left teams questioning how long they want to believe in Correa's ability to remain productive. San Francisco pulled their 13-year/$350 million offer off the table, and then the Mets took their turn of making an offer just to cancel it after the physical confirmed the worst. Up to this point, Correa has averaged around 5.5 fWAR/650, which is a solid rate, until you realize he's missed about a quarter of available games since his 2015 debut. The adjusted rate of 4.13 fWAR/season is much more sobering and insufficient to merit any major free-agent contract for a decade or more.
To be clear, this article ranks projected 2023 production rather than projected production years down the line. Correa still put up a 140 wRC+ in 2022, albeit with far weaker defense than usual (-3 OAA). In 2019-2021, he put up +26, which makes one wonder if 2022 was the sign of things to come or just single-season variance. Correa did put up +10 at SS in 2021, despite speed that isn't what he used to be, but upon further decline, one can presume that number will drop as well.
I would expect a slight bounce back, but I worry that Correa will never reach the highs he once enjoyed in Houston. This offseason has shown that teams are willing to take on significant long-term liabilities in order to contend in the short to medium term, so there must be something seriously wrong to make two teams pull out on the final straight. I'd expect average SS defense and the same range of 130-140 wRC+ that Correa is used to for at least the next year or two.
29. Francisco Lindor, 29, SS - New York Mets
Remember when people said Lindor was overpaid? That was just two years ago - now he's considered a steal, supported by BaseballTradeValues assigning him a higher trade value than any of the "Big 4" shortstops this past offseason and a contract that "only" runs until 38. Lindor seems set for the Hall of Fame with his current trajectory, on the back of consistently elite shortstop defense with superb hitting and solid baserunning for his position group.
Defensively, he has been in the top 2% of fielders every year since OAA began tracking in 2016 and also has by far the highest OAA of any player, averaging more than +18 per 162 games. For reference, only five players matched or surpassed that mark last year on their own. He also consistently steals 10+ bases with efficiency and has never been a below-average hitter, with a 2nd-best mark of 127 wRC+ for his career in 2022.
Lindor has been incredibly consistent throughout his career, and I expect more of the same going forward. His wRC+ has never been outside the range of 100-135, typically falling in around 120, and he is elite at SS year in and year out. Maybe the Mets moving the fences in straightaway right field will help in the counting stat department for more serious MVP consideration
30. Aaron Nola, 29, SP - Philadelphia Phillies
Aaron Nola's death was greatly exaggerated. I'll admit that I doubted him a bit last year, primarily because I wasn't sure how much the ballpark and division would inhibit him despite outstanding peripherals. It surely didn't phase him in 2022, as he waltzed his way to a 3.23 ERA and 125 ERA+ in 205 innings. Nola has always been elusive to free passes, but his 3.6 BB% was 2nd to Corey Kluber among all starters, paving the way to the 4th highest K-BB% (25.5%), 3rd-highest SIERA (2.80), 5th-highest CSW% (33.4%), and 4th-highest xFIP (2.77). The main reprieve for Nola was his left-on-base rate, which was a pitiful 66.8% in 2021, the lowest in the league. In 2022 it was still below average at 73%, but that 6% difference was a significant reason for his improvement by 1.4 runs in ERA.
Nola tunnels his fastball, sinker, changeup, and cutter with his curve, which is by far his best pitch at 1.83 pCRA and .235 xWOBA, dominating lefties for a 43% CSW%. His fastball and sinker come out of his hand at the same velocity and on the same spin axis but go in two completely opposite directions, only being bolstered by Nola's fastball VAA that ranks 3rd amongst all starters, just behind soft-throwing VAA merchant Joe Ryan. Those two pair nicely against righties and give his sinker an elite 33.4% called-strike rate on the outer part of the zone. There's some thought that sinkers with high VAA have similar properties, creating less break and making hitters swing over them rather than under them - Hader is by far the best in that department - and Nola's is 2nd in that area as well.
One pitch to watch is his least thrown: the cutter. He threw it just 7% of the time with a horrendous 5.70 pCRA and .349 xWOBA in its second year of use. He added it right before the 2021 season and, in minimal sampling, performed exceptionally well. He expanded its use slightly last year, and it was by far his worst pitch. Will he stick with it and try to find his groove with it, or ditch it and let his four great pitches ride?
31. Zack Wheeler, 32, SP - Philadelphia Phillies
Zack Wheeler has been born again as a Phillie, dropping his problematic sinker from his Mets days in priority heavily in exchange for his much more effective fastball. The results have been tremendous, with 3 consecutive ERAs under 3, despite the move to a much more hitter-friendly ballpark. His fastball matches the spin of his sinker while also tunneling very well with his elite curveball. He also occasionally throws a slider, which acts as a bridge between his fastball and slider in terms of both velocity and break.
Wheeler is shockingly similar in how he allocated his pitch mix between 2021 and 2022, so it initially confused me why his strikeout rate dipped and general batted ball numbers went up. Then I remembered his early-season dip in velocity that caused concern all around Philadelphia, especially after a 3-inning 7-run disaster against the Marlins in his second start of the year. Was some shoulder soreness from December 2021 partially to blame as well? Either way, it reduced his velocity on every pitch by at least 1 mph, a costly amount of regression for someone only 32. He seemed to adjust well after that horrific Marlin start, though, and contributed 5.0 much-needed wins to the eventual NL champs.
Despite the pitches' lost velocity, they remain elite in execution. Wheeler was fourth in PLA last year amongst starters (the overall grade of PLV scaled to ERA), only behind deGrom, McClanahan, and Ohtani. Except for his changeup, which he uses just 2% of the time, every pitch is well above average, with a sinker and fastball combination that is just as effective as his co-ace Aaron Nola's.
Wheeler’s pitches are performing as well as ever despite a velo drop that scared people early in the season.
I think Wheeler is definitely being sold short in general this offseason, but that lost velocity probably won't be returning to catapult him back into Cy Young frontrunner form. He is still an ace - he remains next to Nola for that reason - but don't be surprised if he makes a shock run for the crown of best NL pitcher.
32. Corey Seager, 28, SS - Texas Rangers
Don't sleep on Kyle Seager's brother - despite a 4.5 fWAR season that surprised even me, given he only had a 117 wRC+ last year, he is slated for a potentially monstrous 2023 with the way the stars are aligning. He put up a career-high 33 HR and a career-low .245 average in his first year in Texas, so one would suspect that he sold out for power. But on further inspection, that isn't the case.
His BABIP was a career-low .242, the first time in any of his seasons that it fell below .300. Seager's not a fast runner, but his elite barrel rates and exit velocity makes his BABIP generally remain around the league average despite that. His K rate was the exact same as his career average, and so were his walks. His xwOBA was good for 11th in the league, and best among shortstops. That demonstrably lousy luck, in tandem with the banning of the shift, might make Seager soar to an MVP-caliber season. In 2022, he had a .397 wOBA against straight-up defense, as opposed to a .326 wOBA against the shift. A .397 wOBA in 2022 would have tied him for 5th in the majors.
Seager also has a reputation for being a poor defender, but it's not that clear-cut. Seager ran a +4 in 2022 but just -9 in 2021, with strong defensive years in the years prior. I'm not sure how good Seager will be in the field in the coming years, but his bat was the primary reason I thought he was the top player on the market a year ago. If things start to turn his way in 2023, he might return to that 2020 level of form that won him both NLCS and World Series MVP.
33. Brandon Woodruff, 30, SP - Milwaukee Brewers
It feels wrong to put Woodruff this low, given his dominance since becoming a full-time starter in 2019. He's held a superb 3.02 ERA in that time, with his weakest season by far coming in 2019 itself, at a 3.6. That level of consistency, which comes with ERAs at or below 3 the three seasons since, is stuff most starters can only dream of. His ERA of 3.05 in 2022 doesn't even do him justice, considering he missed several starts to Reynaud's Syndrome, a condition that leads to a loss in blood flow to the extremities. If a pitcher is trying to pitch with that, you might as well have chopped their fingers off entirely -- they're not throwing 95 or applying sufficient finger pressure with that. After his return from a month-long hiatus to deal with the problem, he had a 2.38 ERA until the end of the year, which ranked 8th amongst all starters in that time.
Woodruff is a fairly traditional starter with a great fastball and three effective secondaries - change, curve, and slider. He also throws a sinker to change things up. He turned to his fastball and changeup most against his lefties, with his changeup devouring them with a 31.5% swinging-strike rate and a 61% whiff rate (what?) That means when a left-handed hitter swung at his changeup, they missed 61% of the time. Horrifying stuff. His curveball provided a similar quality of results in much more limited use as well.
Against righties, he turned to his fastball and sinker the most, despite pretty mediocre results from the sinker (presumably for tunneling reasons). His curveball is the standout, though, with a 30% called strike on the pitch, presumably from sitting on the heater. They are worried about it for good reason - he uses it up in the zone to generate a 28% whiff rate (98th percentile) while also limiting damage on the frequent fly balls the approach brings. I expect Woodruff to prove me wrong and climb up the rankings next year.
34. Austin Riley, 26, 3B - Atlanta Braves
Riley is very similar to the next player on the list (spoilers), Rafael Devers: a consistent hitting left-sided infielder who struggles to defend. Some may point to a DRS of +6 last year, but I prefer OAA's track record and favor their assessment of -7. Last year, I didn't buy into his results with the .368 BABIP that came along with it. This year, he built on his remarkable 2021 campaign with a 142 wRC+, bolstered by a reasonable .315 BABIP, elite .377 xwOBA, and balls that are coming off the bat harder than ever. He has other tools that could come to the fore soon, too.
Riley is actually sneaky fast with 61st percentile sprint speed, so I wouldn't be surprised if he stole more bags in the future with the rule changes. It's hard to say what his future defense holds, given his arm strength is only 39th percentile at 3rd base, but it's clearly not a priority. He would be better suited for first, but Olson currently occupies that spot, and with his extension, for years to come. There's no question about his offensive abilities; being top 5% in almost every hitting analytic will do that for you.
35. Rafael Devers, 26, 3B - Boston Red Sox
Devers signed a 10 year/$310 million extension earlier today. Not actually today, of course, but the day I'm writing this summary. According to BaseballTradeValues, the deal's dead-on in terms of market value with a 16.4. Everybody wins!
Devers had a season of two halves. He had an elite 170 wRC+ (4th) in the first half and 4.3 fWAR (5th). At the onset of the second half, he suffered a hamstring injury, and in his last 55 games, he had just a 93 wRC+ and 0.6 fWAR. While he finished with a career-high 141 wRC+ with his fast start. I'm not sold that he's more than a 150 wRC+ bat without a sustained top 20 barrel rate or an improvement to his pulled flyball rate, the latter of which is just dead average. He possessed below-average plate discipline and speed (he was 46th percentile last season), but further growth is not out of the realm of possibility. He had his best defensive season thus far in his career in 2022, at -2 OAA, which means his time at 3B may be numbered. Oh, he randomly had +17 OAA in 2019? I'll just pretend I didn't see that.
I'm not sold that Devers will benefit too much from banning the shift, and teams have always found ways to cheese it. But Devers can continue to enjoy Fenway Park in the meantime either way. It's the 2nd best park for lefties in the majors, after all.
36. Alex Bregman, 29, 3B - Houston Astros
The Minute Maid Merchant is the third-best third baseman in this stretch of three players. While he had a strong 5.5 fWAR, it's far worse than his 8-win seasons from 2018 and 2019. His ranking reflects that his continued success heavily depends on him remaining an Astro, an interesting fact given his contract expires after the 2024 season. Despite extremely average exit velocities and launch angles, he averages 25 HR per 650 PA. He has peaked over 30 due to a concerted effort to pull everything in the air straight down the line toward the Crawford Boxes. He has both the 9th-highest pull rate and flyball rate, which is very beneficial in a park that rewards fly balls pulled down the line very well. Just look at his spray chart, which shows that all of his HRs end up in that Crawford Box area.
24 of Bregman's 26 HRs were hit to left and left-center. Notice that many hits are sprinkled in with the homers, which certainly came when he was on the road. [BaseballSavant]
Bregman's plate discipline will always make him relevant, along with his great pulled fly ball rates. But he's generally overrated because of the park he plays in. Interestingly, despite hitting 26 home runs last year, Bregman would have hit 9 if he had played all of his games in Baltimore. Nine. I don't care how tall that wall in left field is; nobody is giving Mountcastle leniency if he were to hit 9 HR over an entire season. Bregman is a great player either way, but be careful with how players benefit from their home ballpark.
37. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., 24, 1B - Toronto Blue Jays
I wasn't a big fan of Vlad Guerrero entering 2022 after his "breakout" in 2021, and I am keeping that energy this year. As one of two players in the modern era to have an 80/80 Contact grade (Wander Franco) while possessing elite power, expectations were high for the 2004 MVP's son entering 2022. But unfortunately, Guerrero didn't perform anywhere near expectations despite a stellar 2021.
While Vlad had a great season in 2021, the stars aligned for him to do so. He played 44 games in offense-happy ballparks in Buffalo and Dunedin while exiled from Canada during the pandemic, where he posted a staggering 1.291 OPS. Outside of those 44 games, he had just a .894 OPS on the year. Most notably, he had a .935 OPS at the Rogers Centre, a clear improvement in the park that gave him lots of trouble in prior years but far below his overall OPS for the season. Typically, one can use park-adjusted stats to account for this. I'm hesitant to use them in this specific case because park factors typically use 3 years of data (243 games) to assign a value to its run-scoring proficiency. With around 50 games in Buffalo and 30 in Dunedin, park-adjusted metrics won't be on the mark. He posted a .842 in the Rogers Centre in 2022, which, accounting for depressed offense, seems fitting.
Guerrero's other problem is his launch angle. Like Soto, his great exit velocities can keep him ticking, but unlike Soto, he lacks the plate discipline to remain elite in poor stretches. His standard deviation of launch angle in 2022 was a poor 28.1, slightly below-average, but it probably still gives him too much credit. His flyball rate has dropped 6%, and his groundball rate has risen 7% to 52.1%, which is a productivity killer for someone with Vlad's speed. He ranks 7th overall in MLB, which includes 3 speedsters, Brendan Rodgers, DJ LeMahieu, who dealt with injury issues, and old man Nelson Cruz. That's not the greatest company, and it implies that his SD is poor because of how many fly balls turned into ground balls between 2021 and 2022 rather than any improvement in actually elevating the ball.
Like Soto, I think Vlad will figure it out eventually with the use of swing data. Once he does, he will probably be top-20 every year and will enjoy greater walk rates (12.3% in 2021, 18th overall) as his power scares aggressive pitchers away. Until that day, though, Vlad will remain lower than his potential would ever indicate.
38. Justin Verlander, 40, SP - New York Mets
Verlander returned from Tommy John after a two-year hiatus in good form in 2022, winning a Cy Young award and looking like he never skipped a beat. He retained all of his velocity and command from his 2019 Cy Young season, although he did lose a lot of break with the sticky substance ban in the middle of his time away. It didn't matter, as he rode a curveball with improved command to great success with his extremely spin-efficient heater and always-effective slider.
Speaking of the heater, let's talk about it. It improved its pCRA from 5.67 to 4.77, despite a VAA of -.81॰. If you don't remember, the higher the VAA on a fastball, the flatter it is, which is what one wants. -.81॰ is about as far from flat as one can get, but it didn't seem to matter. It generated just a 24 CSW%, one of the bottom in the league, and created popups 37.6% of the time. This gave him a league-leading 19.7% infield flyball rate, by far the most in the majors. This revelation and an improved curveball cut his HR rate from 9.5% to just 1.8%. This sounds great, but his VAA implies that he should get fewer popups because the ball is beneath where a hitter would expect, not above.
Is that genuinely sustainable? Remember, aside from lower spin rates, his repertoire is virtually identical. His fastball has one of the worst CSW% and VAAs in the league, making it a potential BP Pitch with any loss in velocity. Cameron Grove rates him as just a 45/80 in stuff, substantiated by a 5.5% drop in K rate from 2019 with no velocity drops along the way. His three secondaries still perform superbly, but they're built off the fastball. I question how well he'd do "pitching backward" without a trustworthy fastball. Can he really keep the popups up amongst all these factors? He can still survive next year, but it will be hairier in the dangerous NL East.
39. Max Scherzer, 38, SP - New York Mets
Is this the beginning of the end for Max Scherzer? The Mets hope it doesn't come too soon, with them on the hook to him for $86 million over the next 2 years. Scherzer put up a solid statline in 2022, including an outstanding 2.29 ERA in a stacked NL East, but an injured oblique cost him seven starts and a chance to qualify for the ERA title. The primary concern is his velocity: all of his pitches lost velocity, and other than his fastball, which lost 0.3 mph, every pitch lost at least 1 mph. This trend is unlikely to stop, and it'll continue to weaken his ability to attack in the way he loves. He only had a 4.2% walk rate last year! That won't last.
Scherzer turns to his fastball nearly half the time, but it performed horribly last year despite still being 94 mph. It had a 5.99 pCRA and .331 xWOBA, compared to its 4.01 pCRA and .284 xWOBA in 2021. Was this the fastball itself regressing, or was it the other pitches' loss of velocity that ruined his tunneling ability? After a peek under the hood, it can be either: while his cutter and changeup were better in 2022, his curveball was worse, possibly from an increase in horizontal and vertical break. When a pitch has too much break, it breaks too early, and tunneling it properly with a fastball is challenging. At the same time, though, the fastball is not as flat as last year, a trend that has continued from the beginning of my source of pitching metrics in 2019, costing it whiffs and efficacy at the top of the zone.
I'm not sure to write off Scherzer quite yet, but it's clear the decline is coming, and perhaps more quickly than one would have initially expected. His secondaries all work well overall, but like Verlander, how long can it last? An inability to tunnel the fastball can be fixed, but gone untouched, could have disastrous results with any more decline in velocity. His VAA on the fastball has also deteriorated from its once elite status, so he can't rely on that to make up for its other deficiencies. He will have to reinvent himself akin to his old teammate Verlander into a finesse pitcher if he wants to pitch much longer.
40. Pete Alonso, 28, 1B - New York Mets
Pete Alonso continues to improve four years into his already illustrious career. He had his lowest ground ball rate of any season in 2022, while also improving his contact rate in the zone. As a direct result of becoming more disciplined at the dish, he cut his K rate by 19%, a special rate for someone with his level of power. These improvements came at the cost of barrel rate and damage done on contact, but when aggregated together still led him to a season comparable to his 2019 year in overall offensive production, at a 143 wRC+.
The changes to the dimensions of Citi Field likely won't help him at all, but the adjustments he's made over the past few years could spur him on for his best year yet. I'll give a prediction of another 40 HR and a career-high 150 wRC+ as he makes an emphatic case for the Mets to extend him through the rest of his prime. There's no way Uncle Stevie lets the Polar Bear play anywhere else.
Alonso’s raw power has netted him the most home runs since his debut in 2019, as well as multiple HR Derby titles.
41. Xander Bogaerts, 30, SS - San Diego Padres
Xander is Mr. Consistent, with a wRC+ above 125 and an fWAR/650 above 4 every season since 2018. He saw a decline in quality of contact in 2022, with his barrel rates and average EV at its worst marks since that 2018 breakout year. Some people speculate a wrist injury suffered in late May is the cause for the loss in power, which is certainly possible. But a move from hitter-friendly Fenway Park to the cavernous Petco Park certainly won’t help his counting stat production.
Did Xander deserve an 11-year contract? Absolutely not. But he can play a passable SS with consistently great offensive contribution that will likely age better than most with his line drive centric approach. With Machado holding down 3B, I struggle to think of where Bogaerts will play as he ages, especially if Soto is re-signed. Soto and Bogaerts can’t DH at the same time, and you don't really want either one playing the field. Bogaerts wears #2 for Jeter, and he may be forced to stick there like his childhood idol well past his prime.
42. Will Smith, 28, C - Los Angeles Dodgers
Unlike the other Will Smith, this Louisville Slugger is no slap hitter. He's a genuine power threat that, unlike most offensive catchers, can defend at a league-average level. His framing is dead-average, and his blocking is well above average at +6 runs saved (tied for 11th in the league). Paired with a 120-130 OPS+, 10% BB rate, and average baserunning, Will Smith is a threat on all sides of the ball. Wait, don't spheres only have one side? Or is it no sides? Does a straw have one or two holes? I lost my train of thought.
43. Marcus Semien, 32, 2B - Texas Rangers
Marcus Semien is impossible to rank for me. His quality of contact has been abysmal - less than a .340 xWOBA every year other than 2019, but he finds a way to still produce and remains a great defender at 2B. Semien's saving grace is his pulled fly ball rate - in the top 30 of all qualified players both of the last two years - despite the fly balls being of average quality off the bat. While he did manage a cut in K rate by 3.5%, it coincided with a 2% drop in walk rate, a 6.5% drop in hard-hit rate, a reduction in average EV by 2.5 mph, and a decline in barrel rate by 3%. Not a great trend at age 32.
Are these problems caused by a change in park or overpressing? Perhaps. His swing aggression implies that after posting a .442 OPS for April, far worse than the .775 he hit for the rest of 2022. Unfortunately, he's already turning 33 before the end of the year and has undergone a severe decline in quality of contact already. Without getting some of those skills back, I believe Semien will fall out of top 50 player contention entering 2024. Let's hope he plays at that .775 OPS level again, for the Rangers' sake. 6 more years at $25 million? Tough.
Semien's swing aggression peaked when he was under the most pressure to perform to his new contract.
44. Brandon Nimmo, 30, OF - New York Mets
Everyone calls Nimmo underrated, but I think it's more so that most people undervalue OBP and the ability to draw walks in general than Nimmo himself. Since his emergence as a starter in 2017, he ranks 7th in the league in OBP at an astounding .387. That's higher than the likes of noted sluggers Yordan Alvarez and Mookie Betts. Nimmo's biggest hurdle to getting appreciated by the general public is his ability to stay on the field; since 2017, he's only appeared in 67% of available games. In that time, his StatCast profile has been remarkably consistent as a quick, disciplined hitter who can play a positive CF. +4 OAA in 2021 and +6 OAA in 2022 in CF is pretty good!
The biggest problem offensively for him is his groundball rate, which was a career-worst 50.5% (10th highest). That won't do his power, which already is about average, any favors. Also, despite being top 10% in sprint speed, he's dead average on the bases, but he is also a well-above-average CF? Nimmo is confusing, but at least he's constantly confusing. The bigger bases may spur him on in the baserunning department.
45. Max Fried, 29, SP - Atlanta Braves
Max Fried does what he does, year after year, and he does it well. His calling card is his elite curveball that runs just 74 mph, 20 mph slower than his fastball, and has a crazy amount of break: 16 inches vertically and 9 horizontally (half the width of the plate!). Despite its 20% usage and command that leaves it over the plate a bit too much for my liking, it has a .191 xwOBA and 40% whiff rate. His changeup also demands high marks for its 1.96 pCRA and .209 xWOBA, coming in at 87 mph.
His focus is on inducing weak contact, which like for Alcantara, can only get you so far. His biggest limiter is a fastball at 94 mph that is not as flat or efficient as the game's elite, although it can still create a proper base for his killer curve to flourish. Its spin rate certainly doesn't help either: 19th percentile despite an above-average velocity. Fried seems content to pitch to his style, but if he can find mechanical improvements toward an elite fastball could take him to the next level with the fastball/changeup/curve combination.
46. Byron Buxton, 29, OF - Minnesota Twins
Buxton is probably the hardest player to rank, considering his inability to stay on the field. Since his debut in 2015, he's played just 49% of all regular season games scheduled for his Twins, yet has posted a stellar 5.5 fWAR/650 for them in that span. That's good for 16th amongst hitters with at least 1000 PA in that time; that's a better rate than Harper, Machado, and Tucker, which makes his durability issues all the more frustrating. That rate doesn't even give him the credit he deserves - despite likely playing hurt for parts of the past two seasons, he's been on an 8-win pace across both of them, which is easily top-5. His 28 HR in 92 games in 2022 is a 49 HR pace in 162 games, which would have been 2nd amongst all hitters in 2022. Also, he's a top-5 base runner and defender in the league. If I didn't account for his injury issues, he'd have a strong case for 2nd place. One year he'll be fully healthy, put up 8 fWAR and win MVP. Until then, he's here, unfortunately.
Buxton has started less than 50% of games since 2015, which as a perennial top player for the Twins, indicates serious health issues. Buxton is in red just past player 200.
47. Andres Gimenez, 24, 2B/SS - Cleveland Guardians
Andres Gimenez had 6.1 fWAR in 2022! Everybody's surprised - even the Guardians, who continued to hit him 5th and 6th in the lineup despite sharing the team lead in wRC+ at 140. Tough break. He was a great hitter, a great defender (+13 OAA), and a good baserunner with a solid 3.4 baserunning runs above average last season. Adding all that together creates a concoction that was the 14th-best player in 2022. Is he for real?
Short answer? Maybe. Long answer? The season reeks of similarities to the 2021 Nicky Lopez campaign, which totaled 5.9 fWAR. Lopez relied on great one-season baserunning and defense performances to reach those numbers. While Gimenez derives far more value from his hitting than Lopez, which will create more sustainability, it doesn't add up. He had the 7th highest chase rate in the league, meaning he won't get many walks to take advantage of his elite speed. He outperformed his xWOBA by .038, the 9th-highest difference in that department, and his barrel rate and exit velocity are pretty brutal.
Will Gimenez be a 4+ fWAR player in the future? Probably. Lopez regressed to 1.2 this season, but a pairing of Gimenez's decent hitting ability that has room to improve (his average EV and barrel rate both went up last year), and his defense that has been elite since his promotion in 2020, likely will keep him ticking and was the main reason for his inclusion here. Steamer has him slated for 3.9 fWAR and 119 wRC+, which is about where I'd put him. It all rests on his ability to remain a stalwart defender in a more standard alignment with the shift rules gone.
48. Michael Harris II, 22, OF - Atlanta Braves
I love Michael Harris as much as the next guy, but is he just too good to be true? His 162-game average following his rookie season is the following: .297/.339/.853 136 wRC+ (26th amongst hitters with at least 400 PA), 38 2B (20th), 27 HR (25th), 28 SB (7th) on 31 attempts, 8.1 baserunning runs above average (2nd), +10 OAA in CF (6th), 6.8 fWAR (6th). That player is easily top 10 and best summed up as a left-handed prime Luis Robert, except Harris is already at Robert's peak before he is.
Obviously, nobody is putting him in their top 10 yet, but their reluctance is justified. He was on pace for just 19 home runs in AA and was never considered a real power bat. His 2022 FanGraphs prospect report gave him just a 45/80 in fielding, which is below average, far below what a +10 OAA/162 game mark in CF would indicate. His xWOBA is a pedestrian .335, which, while not mediocre given his incredible speed, doesn't scream more than a 120 wRC+ hitter to me at the moment. For reference, he had a .878 OPS through 43 games when he started the year in AA. To compound things further, his ground ball rate last year was 4th highest, at 56.2%. A .361 BABIP will buoy that nicely, but I wouldn't expect that to continue in 2023 without some adjustments.
Lastly, his plate discipline is unrefined. His 4.8% BB rate is just 18th amongst hitters with 400+ PA, and his chase rate is in the 6th percentile, creating the inevitable brutal stretches of bad ground ball luck creating completely unproductive slumps. His average launch angle was 4.5°, just 0.2° ahead of Vlad Jr.
After looking into him more, he seems like a younger version of Trea Turner, who has the potential to play well above-average defense in center field. He looks like 2022 Trea Turner, but his peak could bring that comparison to life. I expect ~4.0 fWAR(?) from Harris in 2022 while finishing with a similar statline in 200 more PAs. I'm unsure how Harris prevents his Statcast dam from breaking in his second year.
49. Sean Murphy, 28, C - Atlanta Braves
Sean Murphy sneaks onto the list by virtue of his consistently great defense behind the plate. He has averaged 4.5 fWAR/650 throughout his career thus far, with almost half of that total coming from his framing prowess. This year, he was 5th in framing runs above average, according to FanGraphs, and since his first full season in 2020, ignoring the oxymoron, he's been 3rd.
Offensively, he's above league average and has shown the potential to be consistently in the realm of 120 and 130 wRC+. One cause for concern might be consistently declining barrel rates over the past 3 seasons, but an improved line-drive rate to a solid 20%, has kept him ticking. For the sake of his place in the ranking, let's hope that automated strike-calling won't appear in the league soon. It seems the Braves have already thought of that possibility, and baked it into the extension they gave him after arriving in Atlanta (66.2 value on BaseballTradeValues). The contract is so team-friendly for that eventuality that he has a higher trade value now than he did immediately before the extension! I've nver seen that before with someone who's already 28.
50. Wander Franco, 22, SS - Tampa Bay Rays
This was a last-minute audible for me - I didn't buy into the hype last year, but after another half-season that saw him improve both on defense and the bases, I'm confident he'll at least be a push at this spot for next year. The problem with Franco is that he makes too much contact; he sells out to put the ball in play and creates poor outcomes as a result. He ranks 99th percentile in K% and 98th in Whiff%, but just 16th percentile in average EV. His biceps are as big as my head, so there's a problem with that reality.
Another source of concern is his switch-hitting, which has held him back thus far. He has a 160 wRC+ in 471 PA against RHP as a LHB, but just a 106 in 141 PA against LHP as a RHB. It's too early to say whether he should be a pure left-handed hitter yet, but often switch hitters are far better on one side of the plate than the other. If it does prove to be the case, I bet the Rays will make the adjustment when the time comes.
I'm not concerned for the long term either way. He's only 22 and was on pace for 28 HR in 162 games for the Rays' AAA team, the Durham Bulls, in 2021, at age 20. People believe he can consistently hit 30 HR one day, which I find questionable. But I think 20-25 with tons of doubles in the mix is undoubtedly possible. The Rays gave him the largest contract in their team's history by a factor of 3 for a reason.
Conclusion
That’s it! I’ll be away for the next 10 days so I hope there aren't any mistakes with the article.
Sorry for the delay, but I had a good excuse. I had 2 midterms the day before Opening Day. I didn’t want to rush it and have it be bad. Support is always appreciated.