It’s a great time to be a baseball fan. We just finished watching an exhilarating World Baseball Classic, which ended in a thrilling 3-2 Venezuela win over the United States, and we’re less than a week away from Opening Day. Part of the fun in the days leading up the start of the season is playing catchup with all the transactions that went down over the previous months. Sure, we all know that Kyle Tucker is a Dodger and Alex Bregman is a Cub, that Cody Bellinger returned to the Yankees and Pete Alonso joined the Orioles. We also don’t need to be told that Marcus Semien, Bo Bichette, and Luis Robert Jr. now play for the Mets, or that both Sonny Gray and Ranger Suarez slot in behind Garrett Crochet in the Red Sox rotation. But it can be hard to have a handle on how all these moves shape the outlook of teams across the league as we begin the season. The good news is that we at FanGraphs have been keeping tabs on everything throughout the offseason and spring training, so we’ve got you covered with everything you need to know about the coming year in baseball.
This week alone, we kicked off our annual Positional Power Rankings series, Dan Szymborski made his picks for the hitters who could boom and bust this season, and Ben Clemens looked into the importance of stars in the postseason. Michael Baumann analyzed the recent changes Walker Buehler has made as he looks to open the season in the Padres rotation, Ryan Blake examined the historically young White Sox catching tandem, and Brendan Gawlowski shared his latest notes from the Cactus League. Meanwhile, James Fegan ranked the top 30 prospects in the Astros system, and Eric Longenhagen reported on the experimental rule changes coming to the minor leagues this year. And if you haven’t read it yet, I encourage all of you to check out Davy Andrews’ excellent and revealing feature on the context of the recently installed Texas Ranger statue at Globe Life Field.
We won’t be talking about any of those topics in this week’s mailbag. Instead, we’ll answer your questions about whether Aaron Judge might finish with more career WAR than Mike Trout, where Juan Gonzalez’s 1996 season ranks among undeserving MVP wins, and which national soccer team would be the best at baseball. But first, I’d like to remind you that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com.