When addressing his team’s acquisition of Garrett Crochet at the Winter Meetings, Craig Breslow said that the 25-year-old southpaw’s relationship with the Red Sox’ analytics group will be important, so that he “can continue to understand how he can get the best out of his stuff.” I subsequently asked Boston’s Chief Baseball Officer if, based on their pre-trade homework, they have identified any specific adjustments Crochet might want to make, or if they plan to mostly just let him keep doing what he does.
“I think the answer is probably both,” replied Breslow. “Right? We want to lean into what he does particularly well, and he does a lot of things really, really well. You look at the strikeouts, and especially the strikeouts relative to the walks; that’s a pretty good underpinning for a really successful starting pitcher. Once we have a chance to get to know him, have conversations with him, we’ll lean on [pitching coach Andrew Bailey] and the rest of the group. But it’s probably not fair to talk about what adjustments we might make before we’ve had a chance to have that conversation with him.”
Crochet is looking forward to the conversation. He expects it to take place in the coming week, and he’ll go into it with thoughts he’s been formulating since last summer. When I talked to Crochet in late August, he spoke of usage percentages and how he’d begun tinkering with a sinker. I reminded him of that earlier exchange when he met with the Boston media over Zoom on Friday, then proceeded to ask about his forthcoming discussions with the Red Sox pitching department.
“I’ve done a little bit of thinking on it, on my own, just in terms of [having] incorporated the sinker later in the year,” replied Crochet, whose repertoire also includes a changeup and a slider. “I feel like I truly have five pitches that I can throw at any moment, so it will definitely be a fine-tuning game. There are a lot of ways to skin the cat in that regard. Ultimately, I don’t think I’ll change the fastball-cutter usage a whole lot — that’s kind of my bread and butter, and a big reason I had success last year — but the addition of the sinker is a conversation worth having.”
The conversations that took place between Breslow and White Sox GM Chris Getz are also worth mentioning here. They also date back to last summer.
“These are the types of things where conversations kind of ebb and flow,” Breslow said of the trade talk. “There is a lot of checking in, a lot of feeling like you’re getting momentum and traction, and then things start to diverge or diminish a bit, [or] really start to pick up again. Over the last few days, the general concepts maybe had all been discussed, it was just a matter of figuring out how we could put the pieces together.”
According to Getz, the Red Sox were one of “probably five” teams in the running to acquire the All-Star left-hander. Boston’s pursuit was especially earnest. It began prior to the trade deadline, recommenced after the season, then came to fruition on Wednesday afternoon in Dallas.
“Discussions really heated up last night with the Red Sox,” Getz said after the deal was announced. “We took that into the morning, and it was very clear that they were motivated. They wanted to get something done, and we made a match. Both clubs should feel really good about the return.”
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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS
Nomar Garciaparra went 1 for 20 against Brandon Webb.
Elias Díaz is 1 for 22 against Logan Webb.
Spider Jorgensen went 4 for 7 against Elmer Riddle.
Freddie “The Flea” Patek went 6 for 7 against Paul Thormodsgard.
Craig Grebeck went 8 for 14 against Matt Young.
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Tyler O’Neill has been Baltimore’s most notable acquisition so far this offseason, but he isn’t the only potentially impactful player coming on board. Gary Sánchez has also been inked to a free agent deal, giving the Orioles a power-hitting backstop to caddy for Adley Rutschman, and occasionally serve as a right-handed-hitting DH. Mike Elias addressed the acquisition when he met with a small group of reporters in Dallas.
“Frankly, we needed another catcher, with James McCann being a free agent,” the Executive VP and GM explained. “I think it’s a good profile to match with Adley. He’s a guy that throws well. It’s good to have a Spanish-speaking catcher to pair with an American catcher. There are a lot of positive things about bringing him into the mix. He’s a veteran… who [was with] Milwaukee last year, and drew a lot of good reviews from their players and coaching staff.”
Power has long been Sánchez’s calling card — his résumé includes 33- and 34-home-run seasons — while his work behind the plate has never been viewed as a strength. That in mind, I asked Elias if he could elaborate on the positive reviews.
“I think his defense has been improving continuously, especially in the last few years, as he kind of matures into a veteran catcher,” Elias replied. “He changed some of his receiving tactics a few years ago. He’s getting to be a smarter, savvier player. We heard really good things about the way he was working with pitching staffs. And like I said, it’s not something that you always have to do, but it’s always good when you have one English-speaking catcher and one Spanish-speaking catcher. It’s a nice feature.”
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Scott Harris is bullish on the Tigers’ catching combo. Jake Rogers and Dillon Dingler aren’t exactly juggernauts with the stick — the former logged a 71 wRC+, the latter a 37 wRC+ in his first 87 big-league plate appearances — but their overall skillsets are to the executive’s liking.
“It’s fair to say that we feel really good about our catching group,” said the team’s President of Baseball Operations. “I think Jake and Ding compare very favorably to most catching tandems in the league from a blocking, framing, game-calling standpoint. Defensively, I think they’re as good, if not better, than the catching tandems around the league. Offensively, they can both change the score with one swing, which is something you can’t really find at that position very regularly. I think they’re both improving offensively.
“Ding’s performance in Triple-A didn’t quite translate to the big leagues, however, we threw a lot at him,” continued Harris. “He came up in the middle of the season and had to suddenly manage a major league staff, call a major league game, handle major league stuff behind the plate, and hit the best pitching he’s ever seen before. I’m not surprised he struggled, but that experience will allow him to adjust for next year. I feel really good about those guys.”
Dingler had 17 home runs and a 139 wRC+ with Triple-A Toledo prior to getting called up at the end of July. Rogers has gone deep 31 times in 702 plate appearances with the big-league club over the past two seasons.
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A quiz:
The Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays have each had just one player win an American League batting title. Who are they?
The answer can be found below.
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NEWS NOTES
The National Baseball Hall of Fame announced this week that Tom Hamilton is this year’s recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting excellence. The 70-year-old “Hammy,” who grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, has been in the Cleveland radio booth since 1990.
Thomas Boswell is the recipient of this year’s BBWAA Career Excellence Award. Now retired, the longtime Washington Post scribe is the author of seven books, including “Why Time Begins On Opening Day” and “How Life Imitates the World Series.”
Minor League Baseball honored Raquel Ferreira with this year’s Sheldon “Chief” Bender Award, which is presented to an individual with distinguished service who has been instrumental in player development. Ferreira joined the Boston Red Sox organization in 1999 and now holds the title Executive Vice President and Assistant General Manager.
Merv Rettenmund, an outfielder who played for four teams over a career that spanned the 1968-1980 seasons, died last weekend at age 81. A native of Flint, Michigan who won World Series rings with the both Baltimore Orioles and Cincinnati Reds, Rettenmund logged 693 hits, including 66 home runs, and a 128 wRC+. He was a prolific pinch-hitter toward the end of his big-league tenure.
Rocky Colavito, an outfielder who logged a 132 wRC+ and made six All-Star teams while playing from 1955-1968, died earlier this week at age 91. In April 1960, the slugger was involved in one of baseball’s most famous trades when he went from the Cleveland Indians to the Detroit Tigers in exchange for Harvey Kuenn. The previous season, Colavito led the American League in home runs, while Kuenn won the batting title.
SABR will be hosting a live oral history interview with Frank Viola on Tuesday, December 17 at 7:30 EST. It will be held over Zoom and you can register here.
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The answers to the quiz are Frank Robinson, in 1966 (his Triple Crown season) with the Orioles, and John Olerud, in 1993 (his .363/.473/.599 season), with the Blue Jays.
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Which team would get the better deal in a one-for-one Triston Casas–Luis Castillo trade? I asked that question in a Twitter poll on Friday, and the results were more one-sided than I’d expected. Of the 1,149 votes cast, 75.0% went to the Seattle Mariners, who would be receiving a slugging, soon-to-turn 25-year-old first baseman, while the Red Sox, who would be getting a just-turned 32-year-old right-hander, got just 25.0%.
A comprehensive breakdown the pros and cons of the rumored deal would require more words than we have room for here in Sunday Notes, but I will say that I agree with the majority… albeit with a caveat. Starting pitching is invaluable, and Castillo is a three-time All-Star who has averaged 3.3 WAR over the past four seasons. He would comfortably slot into any team’s rotation. Even so, I’d be disinclined if I were the Red Sox. Casas has a bright future with the bat.
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What advice would Roki Sasaki’s agent give the 23-year-old Japanese right-hander as he ponders which MLB team to sign with this offseason? Joel Wolfe was asked that question at the Winter Meetings.
“Go into it with an open mind,” replied Wolfe, who represents the high-profile flamethrower for the Wasserman Media Group. “With Yoshinobu [Yamamoto] last year, that was the first thing I said to him. All of your preconceived notions, everything you’ve seen on TV. Try to put it out of your mind and really listen to what the teams are going to present to you, and what they have to say. Talk to other players and hear what they have to say from their experiences. Put it all into the stew and form your own opinions. I think [Yamamoto] did a really good job of that.
“Trust your gut,” continued Wolfe, who has negotiated some of the baseball’s biggest contracts. “What I tell all my players is, ‘I want this to be your decision. You have a lot of people giving you advice, including myself, but at the end of the day, you know it when you see it. When you see it, tell me. That’s the direction we’ll go.”
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FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Yuto Akihiro is slashing .319/.390/.478 with two home runs in 80 plate appearances for the Australian Baseball League’s Adelaide Giants. The 22-year-old outfielder, who at 6-foot-6 is one of the tallest players in NPB history, played in 26 games for the Yomiuri Giants this past season, and in another 96 for the club’s top farm team.
Franchy Cordero is slashing .279/.429/.508 with two home runs in 77 plate appearances for the Dominican Winter League’s Leones del Escogido. The 30-year-old former MLB outfielder spent this past season with NPB’s Seibu Lions.
Renato Núñez has a circuit-best 19 home runs and a .309/.405/.691 slash line over 205 plate appearances for the Venezuelan Winter League’s Navegantes del Magallanes. The 30-year-old first baseman has played in Japan, and more recently Mexico, since seeing action with three MLB teams from 2018-2021. Nuñez went deep 31 times for the Baltimore Orioles in 2019.
Braden Nett has 23 strikeouts to go with 11 hits and two runs allowed over 17-and-two-thirds innings for the Puerto Rican Winter League’s Senadores de San Juan. The 22-year-old right-hander in the San Diego Padres system had a 3.88 ERA, a 3.98 FIP, and a 25.5% strikeout rate over 65 innings between High-A Fort Wayne and Double-A San Antonio.
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The Kansas City Royals had 52 wins when I talked to Matt Quatraro in mid-July, literally double the number they had at the same time the previous year. How was his team, which was eight games over .500, performing relative to it’s true talent level? Quatraro opted not to answer that question directly, saying instead that the focus was on staying in the moment and putting as many consistent games together as they could. At season’s end, the Royals were 10 games over .500 and had edged out the Mariners for the junior circuit’s final wildcard berth.
With the 2024 season now in the rearview, I asked the Kansas City manager the same thing I’d asked on the eve of the All-Star break.
“It’s an interesting question, because I really think at times I was disappointed that we hadn’t won more,” Quatraro told me in Dallas. “When you look back and think of where we had been, to where we had finished the year, overall it was a huge positive. But I do think we left some games out there, especially with how well our starting pitching did. We could have won more games, but everyone can say that. Right? You actually have to go out and execute it.”
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Milwaukee’s Pat Murphy chose not to give a definitive answer when I posed the question to him at the Winter Meetings.
“I don’t look at it that way,” said the 2024 National League Manager of the Year, who led the Brewers to a 93-69 record and a playoff berth of their own. “That’s for other people. I’m just proud of the guys, the way they competed. I don’t know what people thought in the beginning, but it sounds like nobody thought we could win the division, and we did. Could we have done better? Yeah. Everybody can do better in anything. There are ways to get better, and we plan on that, but what happened in 2024 serves as a reference to how we can learn from some things and move on, and get better. That’s it.”
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A random obscure former player snapshot:
Chicago White Sox infielder Tony Cuccinello fell percentage points short of winning the American League batting title in 1945, finishing at .30845771144, while New York Yankees infielder Snuffy Stirnweiss finished at 30854430379. The circumstances were controversial. The White Sox were rained out on the final day of the season, while Stirnweiss went 3-for-5, with one of his hits originally ruled an error, only to be changed to a hit by the Yankee Stadium official scorer. Cuccinello, who turned 38 a month later, was subsequently released and never played again.
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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE
Barry Bloom’s relationship with Ichiro Suzuki was far from friendly, but he nonetheless put a checkmark next to the iconic player’s name on his Hall of Fame ballot. The veteran scribe wrote about it at Sportico.
Andscape’s Sridhar Pappu wrote about how Dave Parker is a father figure to Black MLB legends.
Detroit Tigers pitching coach Chris Fetter was named Baseball America’s 2024 MLB Coach of the Year. The publication’s J.J. Cooper has the story.
At Our Game, John Thorn wrote about the history of the sacrifice-fly rule, including how Ted Williams would have batted .413, and not the currently recognized .406, under todays’s rules.
The Scout of the Year program celebrated its 40th anniversary Wednesday evening, and in doing so honored six people for their contributions to the game. Jim Callis has the story at MLB.com.
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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS
David Wright is the New York Mets’ all-time leader in hits, singles, doubles, total bases, times on base, walks, runs scored, RBIs, and WAR. He is second in home runs, behind only Darryl Strawberry.
CC Sabathia had 251 wins, a 116 ERA+, and 66.5 WAR.
Andy Pettitte had 256 wins, a 117 ERA+, and 68.2 WAR
Tommy John had 258 wins, a 111 ERA+, and 79.4 WAR.
Pokey Reese and Dmitri Young went a combined 0 for 23 with 17 strikeouts versus Billy Wagner.
The Boston Red Sox signed Hideo Nomo as a free agent on today’s date in 2000. The right-hander proceeded to throw a no-hitter in his first game with his new team, then go on to finish the season 13-10 with a 4.50 ERA.
On today’s date in 1900, the Cincinnati Reds traded Christy Mathewson to the New York Giants in exchange for Amos Rusie. The latter, who’d averaged 29 wins over his previous eight seasons, pitched in three games for the Reds, then retired. Mathewson, who was 0-3 in his young career, went on to win 373 games, all but one of them with the Giants. His final win came in 1906… with the team that had dealt him away 16 years earlier.
Players born on today’s date include Ken Crosby, a right-hander who won his lone decision while appearing in 16 games for the Chicago Cubs across the 1975-1976 seasons. A native of New Denver, British Columbia, Crosby went 1-for-2 at the plate, his base knock coming against San Diego Padres southpaw Brent Strom.
Also born on today’s date was Doug Rau, who logged 81 wins while appearing in 219 games for the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1972-1979, and in three games for the California Angels in 1981. A left-handed starter on three Dodgers teams to reach the World Series only to lose, Rau had his best year in 1976, going 16-12 with a 2.57 ERA over 231 innings.
William Thomas went 383-347 while pitching for numerous teams over a minor league career that spanned the 1926-1952 seasons. The right-hander’s time on the farm included stints with the Beaumont Exporters, Charleroi Babes, and Wheeling Stogies. He was suspended for alleged gambling in 1946, a season in which he went 35-7 with the Houma Indians. Thomas never pitched in the majors.
Content Source: blogs.fangraphs.com