Morning Rundown: PECOTA projections released, Clayton Kershaw signs, Jose Altuve extension
BP released their PECOTA projections, and a pair of veteran players sign new contracts.
Baseball Prospectus has released their initial PECOTA projections for the 2024 season, and have the Pirates finished last in the NL Central with a 73-86 record.
They have the St. Louis Cardinals going from last place to winning the division with 85 wins.
When it comes to the Pirates, 73 wins would be a decrease from their total in 2023 after winning 76 games. It would be the sixth-fewest wins in the majors, should the projections end up being right.
The Dodgers are expected to finish with the most wins at 101, followed by the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros.
Speaking of the Dodgers, they have agreed to a contract with Clayton Kershaw on a one-year deal.
Kershaw has spent his entire career with the Dodgers after being drafted by the organization in the first round of the 2006 MLB draft.
After shoulder surgery last year, Kershaw is expected to miss at least the first half of the season.
He’s made over 400 starts in his big league career and crossed the 200-win plateau this past season.
On Tuesday, the Houston Astros signed Jose Altuve to a five-year extension worth $125 million. The deal takes him through his age-39 season.
Altuve is coming off of a season that saw him hit 17 home runs and has over 200 for his career while owning a batting average of .307 in over 7,000 plate appearances.
This week, our site will release our top 25 prospects in the Pirates system. We will have tie-in articles throughout the week as a build-up along with the rankings.
With the rankings coming out and the start of the season, the site will be running a special on yearly subscriptions (20%). There’s a link in the article that will take you where you can subscribe.
Subscribing gives you complete access to our rankings, which come with complete player write-ups on each prospect and my video breakdowns and on-site features from my trips during the season.
With the discount, your subscription comes out to just $3.33 per month.
We started things off on Monday by looking at the three players who just missed out on our top 25 rankings. Yesterday, WTM took a look at three prospects outside our top 25 he’s watching for the 2024 season.
Later today, NolaJeffy will go over three prospects of his own he’s watching this year.
neat article on Fangraphs with Cherington talking about the high-end arms in the minors.
so the twitter guy who heard rumblings of the Perez singing before it happened has heard rumblings of us trading an IF to the Giants.