Collin Snider is with Chicago looking to recapture what he had two seasons ago with Seattle. Currently in camp with the Cubs, the 30-year-old right-hander was a pleasant surprise for the Mariners in 2024, logging a 1.94 with a 27.8% strikeout rate over 42 relief outings comprising 41-and-two-thirds innings. Last year was a different story. Hampered by a flexor strain and unable to get back on track, Snider struggled to the tune of a 5.47 ERA across 24 appearances in the majors, then posted an even uglier 8.06 ERA across 25 games with Triple-A Tacoma. Cut loose by Seattle in November, he subsequently inked a deal with the Cubs in December.

Despite the dismal results, Snider wasn’t without suitors. He had options — every team can use more pitching — and in the case of the Cubs, he also had connections. Tyler Zombro, the NL Central club’s Vice President of Pitching Strategy, previously worked at Tread Athletics, where Snider trained in previous offseasons. As the erstwhile Vanderbilt Commodore put it, “That really steered my decision. I like the way the pitching development is here.”

Asked about his poor 2025 performance, Snider pointed to how his injury contributed to bad mechanical habits that resulted in a drop in velocity, as well as “pitch shapes that weren’t the same.” He knew what was happening, but correcting it was another matter.

“I was very rotational, throwing too side-to-side, whereas I need to be north-south,” Snider said. “Side-to-side made the velo go down, because I couldn’t get behind the baseball. I was aware of what was going on, but I didn’t know why I was doing it, or how to make the adjustment quickly. It ended up being one of those things where I needed the offseason to straighten it out.”

Snider averaged 92.5 mph with his four-seamer last season, whereas in the prior two years that number was 94.2 and 95.3. His sweeper was also impacted by his delivery being out of sync. Read the rest of this entry »

MIAMI — Mere seconds after the ball left his bat in the bottom of the sixth inning, Junior Caminero was booking it around the bases, euphoria smothering all sense of reason. You see, he’d just tattooed a two-run homer to straightaway center field to give the Dominican Republic the lead in its opening game of the World Baseball Classic, and even though nobody could possibly get him out, the 22-year-old slugger couldn’t contain himself.

He sprinted so fast toward second base that his helmet flew off. He skipped to third, where he seemed to finally realize that he didn’t have to run. He paused and gestured toward the Dominican fans behind the dugout, then pranced home.

It was one of the most electric home run celebrations in the history of the World Baseball Classic, a moment of catharsis after five and a half bewildering innings. The blast snapped the Dominican squad out of its temporary daze, as one of the most lethal lineups ever assembled pummeled Nicaragua’s pitchers for the remainder of the game. The final score of 12-3 didn’t reflect the chaos of what could have been. Up until that point, the Dominicans were getting outplayed by a vastly inferior Nicaragua team, whose leadoff batter, Chase Dawson, is from Northern Indiana and has never played affiliated baseball; it was only last year that he established residency in the country while playing winter ball there. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello from loanDepot Park in Miami, where I am covering Pool D of the World Baseball Classic. In the two games here Friday, Venezuela beat the Netherlands, 6-2, and the Dominican Republic defeated Nicaragua, 12-3. I am writing about those two games in a separate piece that will go live later today. You can find all of our WBC preview stories, as well as our coverage throughout the tournament, on the blog roll here.

Of course, those were just two of the eight games that took place on Friday. (Well, Friday in the United States, anyway.) Elsewhere in the WBC, Team Japan was every bit as dominant as expected in the first game of its title defense, blowing out Taiwan 13-0 in seven innings. Shohei Ohtani went 3-for-4, with his grand slam getting Japan on the board and kicking off a 10-run second inning. Cuba opened the action from Pool A in San Juan, Puerto Rico, with a 3-1 win over Panama. Puerto Rico, despite being without many of its best players because of insurance issues, shut out Colombia, 5-0, in the second game of that pool. Over in Houston for Pool B, Great Britain kept things tight with a superior Mexican team for the first seven innings before Mexico exploded for three runs in the eighth and four more in the ninth to win, 8-2. Then, in the second game at Daikin Park, Team USA routed Brazil, 15-5, in one of the oddest-looking blowout box scores that I can recall. The leadoff batter for Brazil, Lucas Ramirez, son of Manny, hit more home runs (2) than the entire United States team. The lone U.S. homer came when Aaron Judge a two-run shot in the first inning. The key difference in the game was the Americans drew 17 walks while issuing only one. Later, back in Tokyo for the final game of the night, a matchup of 0-2 teams, Taiwan trounced Czechia, 14-0, in seven innings.

We’ll be talking more about the World Baseball Classic in today’s mailbag, when we answer your questions about the future Hall of Famers playing in this year’s tournament, as well as the Dominican Republic’s chances of contending for the title with Japan, the United States, and Pool D rival, Venezuela. Also in today’s mailbag, we’ll look at the best baseball birthdays and honor Bill Mazeroski with the all-time Az team. 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.

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Hi,

Thanks for all the amazing FanGraphs work! It has really transformed my understanding of baseball. — Dovi Bergman

Jay Jaffe: Dovi, thanks for the kind words, and for creating an opening for me to dip my toe into WBC coverage for the first time in this cycle. Based on the rosters for the pool play stage, I count six teams (out of 20 participating) that have players who are on my radar, Hall-wise, and a seventh if you count managers and coaches. That’s not to say somebody from one of the other teams couldn’t make it, but I’d just be idly spitballing about them rather than analyzing.

Since I will cite JAWS, all WAR used here will refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated. I’ll start with Team USA, which you specifically asked about and which not coincidentally has the most candidates, both in terms of likely Hall of Famers and longer shots.

The American squad has three players who are already above the JAWS standard at their position. Clayton Kershaw (80.9 career WAR/49.7 adjusted peak WAR/65.3 S-JAWS, 20th among starting pitchers) announced his retirement last September, but after having to withdraw from participation in the 2023 WBC for insurance reasons, he’s on board to check one more item off his bucket list. Paul Goldschmidt (63.8/45.0/54.4) now sits 15th among first basemen, 0.2 points above 2024 inductee Todd Helton. And despite a late start to his major league career, Aaron Judge (62.3/56.9/59.6) ranks 11th among right fielders, with the fourth-highest peak score, behind only those of Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, and Henry Aaron; while he enters his age-34 season with “only” 368 homers and 1,205 hits, he’s got three home run titles and three MVP awards to his credit, and he’s coming off back-to-back seasons (and three out of four) with a wRC+ of at least 200. The only other hitters with at least three such seasons in AL/NL history are Ruth (nine), Ted Williams (six), and Barry Bonds (four). Ahem.

Bryce Harper (54.0/38.5/46.2) isn’t at those players’ level, career-wise, but he’s six months younger than Judge and has 363 home runs plus eight All-Star appearances, two MVPs, and a stellar postseason track record. Between his penchant for raw milk and his embrace of Extracorporeal Blood Oxygenation and Ozonation (EBOO) equipment, he’s got some strange personal habits, but if those don’t backfire, I think he’ll wind up in Cooperstown. I’m less convinced when it comes to Alex Bregman (43.0/37.7/40.4), as he has just two seasons with at least 5.0 WAR, the last of them in 2019, but he’s close enough to the magic 40-WAR peak mark — about three-quarters of players who reach it are eventually enshrined — that he bears noting. I’m even less convinced when it comes to Kyle Schwarber, who despite hitting 340 home runs through his age-32 season and leading the league twice has just 19.9 WAR.

Beyond that, Cal Raleigh (22.9 fWAR through age 28) and Will Smith (22.4 fWAR through age 30, not to mention three World Series rings) have laid some groundwork; I’m citing our version of WAR there because it includes pitch framing, while the version at Baseball Reference does not, and even with the arrival of the ABS challenge system, framing is going to remain valuable. Both of those guys have a long way to go to become serious Hall of Fame candidates, but they already have more fWAR than Venezuela’s Salvador Perez (19.0 due to -124.6 framing runs). More on him below. Also laying significant groundwork, but too early to merit more than a brief mention at this stage: Bobby Witt Jr. (21.7 WAR through age 25), Paul Skenes (13.5 WAR, a Cy Young and a Rookie of the Year though age 23), Tarik Skubal (54 wins and two Cy Youngs but just 17.9 WAR through age 28).

On the coaching staff, the candidacy of Andy Pettitte (60.2/34.1/47.2, along with 256 wins and a slew of postseason records) has new life. He just jumped over 20 percentage points to 48.5% in his eighth year of eligibility, a share that suggests eventual election, though he’s running out of time on the writers’ ballot, and has admitted to HGH use, which could present an obstacle if the Hall continues to stack Era Committees with PED hardliners.

With that out of the way, I’ll work in alphabetical order for the other countries with at least one candidate who merits mention.

Dominican Republic
The Dominican team is the only one besides Team USA to have more than one likely Hall of Famer, and I’m not even counting manager Albert Pujols, who will become eligible in 2028 and has 703 homers and 3,384 hits to his name. The player who’s done most of the heavy lifting is Manny Machado, a seven-time All-Star and two-time Gold Glove winner with four top-five finishes in the MVP voting. He’s 18th in JAWS among third basemen, with a line of 61.7/42.6/52.2. He collected his 2,000th hit last summer, the day after his 33rd birthday, and when I checked in at the time, his odds of reaching 3,000 stood at 31%, according to Dan Szymborski. Both his 4.1 WAR and 169 hits were his highest marks since 2022.

Juan Soto isn’t as far along as his former Padres teammate, but at age 27, with just eight seasons — including his age-19 rookie season, when he was called up in late May, and the pandemic-shortened 2020 season — under his belt, he’s already got 244 home runs and a 42.6/40.4/41.5 line. The MVP award has eluded him because his defense generally dents his WAR, but like Machado, he does have four top-five finishes in the voting. For now, I’m going to put him at the same level as Harper – a likely Hall of Famer, but still with some work to do.

From among the rest, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (25.9 WAR through age 26) and Julio Rodríguez (22.9 WAR through age 24) are off to fine starts, but both have much more to do. Fernando Tatis Jr. (27.2 WAR through age 26) is ahead of both in terms of WAR, but until voters break the precedent, his 2022 PED suspension will presumably be an obstacle.

Japan
The reigning WBC champions have just one likely Hall of Famer, but he happens to be the best player on the planet: four-time MVP and two time World Series winner Shohei Ohtani, who in his last tournament action struck out then-teammate Mike Trout to seal the championship for Samurai Japan. Though Ohtani has played just eight seasons stateside, between his pitching and his hitting he’s already accumulated 51.5 WAR, 15th among active players (not counting Kershaw), with 51.9 peak WAR in his best seven seasons (he had -0.4 WAR in his worst one in 2020), and thus a JAWS of 51.7. I don’t have a positional standard for unicorns, but that’s a guy who’s going to have a bronze plaque some day.

Of Ohtani’s WBC teammates who have come to the U.S., only Seiya Suzuki is even in double digits in WAR (11.1), and that’s in four seasons; he’s not on a Hall path. On the other hand, I’m not yet ready to rule out Ohtani’s Dodgers teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who arrived in the U.S. early enough that his best years may still be ahead of him. The 6.7 WAR he totaled in his age-25 and -26 seasons is respectable but not exceptional; it’s his October work that puts him on my radar, as he’s gone 7-1 with a 2.25 ERA and two complete games in 56 innings over two postseasons, capped by a legendary 2 2/3-inning relief appearance on zero days of rest in Game 7 of the 2025 World Series, which earned him the series’ MVP award.

Netherlands
Curaçao-born manager Andruw Jones was elected to the Hall of Fame in January and will be inducted in July. Of the players, Kenley Jansen — who has the distinction of participating in the WBC both as a catcher (2009) and as a pitcher (2017) — has positioned himself as the next reliever likely to be enshrined. Though he’s no longer the dominant force he was with the Dodgers, his signature cutter still baffles hitters, so he’s been able to continue piling up saves (476, fourth all-time, and just two behind third-ranked Lee Smith) and climb the Reliever JAWS rankings, where he’s sixth behind Mariano Rivera, Dennis Eckersley, Hoyt Wilhelm, Rich Gossage, and Trevor Hoffman, and just ahead of 2025 inductee Billy Wagner.

Of the roster’s other players, Aruba native Xander Bogaerts is the most accomplished. He’s a four-time All-Star with a 42.0/34.3/38.2 line, but he’s now 33 and has totaled just 3.2 WAR over the past two seasons, with his last five-win season coming back in 2022, his final one with the Red Sox. His only shot at reaching Cooperstown would be exceptionally strong play in his mid-30s.

Nicaragua
When the best-known player on the roster is Mark Vientos, you won’t find any future Hall of Famers in Nicaragua’s lineup, but the dugout is another matter. By his own admission, 76-year-old Dusty Baker has never set foot in Nicaragua, but he was successfully recruited to manage its WBC team by Marvin Benard, who played outfield for the Giants under Baker from 1995–2002 and became the most successful major league position player the country has produced — a coup that shocked Team Nicaragua executives.

Baker is eighth in career wins (2,183) and games managed (4,046), and 16th in games above .500 (321). He’s the only manager to take five teams to the postseason, which as of 2021 was a sore spot for him given that he was forced out of jobs where he had recently been successful, but it’s impressive just the same. His total of 13 postseason appearances ranks fourth all-time and is a product of working in the Wild Card era, but he did win 10 division titles, three pennants, and a championship, finally shedding the reputation that he couldn’t win the big one with the Astros’ victory in 2022. He could be elected as soon as next year via the Contemporary Baseball Era/Managers-Executives-Umpires Ballot.

Puerto Rico
Injuries and insurance issues have cost the team Francisco Lindor (55.7/42.4/49.0, 19th among shortstops) and Carlos Correa (45.7/38.4/42.1, 29th), but Nolan Arenado (57.8/44.2/51.0, 20th among third basemen) is here. He’s totaled just 6.0 WAR over the past three seasons, but has already banked 10 Gold Glove and eight All-Star appearances, not to mention 353 home runs, including three league-leading seasons. He doesn’t have the momentum of Machado, but the hardware and the higher peak score give him a case that looks like a cross between Helton and Jones.

Other than that, the pickings are slim among the players. Edwin Díaz does have 253 saves through his age-31 season, but just 12.4 R-JAWS, so I wouldn’t hold my breath. Manager Yadier Molina has 55.6 fWAR thanks to elite framing numbers, and I expect he’ll be elected someday. One of his coaches, Edgar Martinez, is already in the Hall.

Venezuela
Coach Miguel Cabrera is one of seven players with at least 3,000 hits and 500 homers; he’ll be an easy first-ballot honoree in 2029. Coach Johan Santana is a two-time Cy Young winner and a two-time hard-luck story, first in the injury department (he threw just 117 innings after his age-31 season) and then while going one-and-done on an overcrowded 2018 ballot. Cribbing from what I wrote in this space last week, given the recent discourse on starting pitchers, I strongly believe he’d fare better now than any other starting pitcher on the ballot. Despite his short career, he ranks 70th in S-JAWS at 48.3, two spots above Cole Hamels (48.2) and 27 spots above Félix Hernández (44.1), who surged to 46.1% in his second year on the ballot despite his own shortened career. Basically, Santana is Jacob deGrom plus another 500 innings, a no-hitter, and what should have been a third Cy Young. He could appear on the 2029 Contemporary Baseball ballot, but even that isn’t a given.

As noted above and in a million other spots over the past several years, I’m not on board with the notion that Perez is Hall-worthy despite an impressive résumé that includes seven All-Star appearances, five Gold Gloves, and a World Series MVP award. Royals fans love him and rightly so, and he has his boosters in the media, as well. But even if you ignore his pitch framing — and how can we, given the abundance of data from the past two decades? — he’s just 32nd in bWAR-based JAWS (35.5/24.2/29.2), ahead of only two of the 17 enshrined catchers, Ray Schalk and Rick Ferrell. In a related note, I don’t think bWAR-based JAWS is the right tool for the job of evaluating catchers. I’m not at all looking forward to the debate around his candidacy.

Beyond that, two of Venezuela’s young outfielders have taken steps toward building a case. Ronald Acuña Jr. has 28.6 WAR through his age-27 season, not to mention MVP and Rookie of the Year awards and a World Series ring, but he’s only played in at least 100 games twice in the past six seasons, and he has just two seasons with at least 5.0 WAR. Jackson Chourio, like Acuña, debuted at age 20 and more than held his own; while he more or less replicated his rookie season with the bat in 2025, his defense fell off, from 12 DRS to -4, and so did his WAR. Compiling 6.0 WAR through his age-21 season is a very good start, but only a start.

All told, I’d say we have seven players I’d classify as highly likely or locks for Cooperstown (Arenado, Goldschmidt, Jansen, Judge, Kershaw, Machado, and Ohtani), and two more that I think are likely but not yet in that group (Harper and Soto), with everybody else I’ve mentioned working to get to at least that point. Counting only the highly likely/locks among managers and coaches — since it’s not like they can add to their credentials at this point — and excluding the ones already enshrined, I see four (Baker, Cabrera, Molina, and Pujols.) Age and injuries have cost us the participation of several other potential Hall of Famers, but I think we have enough to add another dimension to what’s already been a very fun tournament.

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We know the Dominican Republic’s lineup is stacked, but does this team have enough pitching to compete with the U.S. and Japan, or even Venezuela in pool play? The D.R. famously didn’t make it out of pool play last time out. Is the team at risk of an early exit again?

Thanks,
Vincent

Michael Baumann: Great question, Vincent.

The real issue for the Dominican Republic is not the pitching staff; it’s the pool assignment. Last time around, the Dominican Republic got drawn in to the Miami group with Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Israel, and Nicaragua. I’d argue that this group had three teams that were better than any of the ones that got placed in Pool A (Cuba, Italy, the Netherlands, Panama, Taiwan).

And the unbalanced seeding didn’t stop there. The Phoenix group had the U.S., Mexico, one cupcake (Great Britain), and two teams either of the favorites could lose to, but only if a lot of stuff went wrong (Canada and Colombia).

That stunk for the Dominican Republic, which lost to two teams (Venezuela and Puerto Rico) that there isn’t any shame in losing to. And in 2026, it drew almost the same group, with the Netherlands swapped in for Puerto Rico. So the Dominican team has one brutal game it can afford to lose, against Venezuela, plus two others in which it will be a favorite, but not a prohibitive one.

This Dutch team is a bit weaker than the one that went to the semifinal in 2013 and 2017, especially on the pitching side. But Israel is going to be a tough out; its best position player is probably Harrison Bader, but the Israeli pitching staff has a lot of big league-quality players, plus a couple of guys (Charlie Beilenson and Ryan Prager) who aren’t known to MLB fans but were absolute monsters in college.

But you asked about the Dominican pitching staff. It’s not as good as the American pitching staff — few baseball teams in history have been — but it doesn’t look that bad to me. I’ll call back to two things I wrote in my appraisal of Team USA earlier this week: the Dominican Republic has Cristopher Sánchez, one of two non-U.S. starters (the other being Yoshinobu Yamamoto) who’s good enough to break the Team USA rotation of Paul Skenes, Tarik Skubal, Logan Webb, and Nolan McLean.

That’s huge. The other thing I mentioned about Team USA is that by lining Skenes up to pitch third, the Americans have their best pitcher in line to start both their toughest group stage games, and to come back on full rest for either the semifinal or final.

If I were Dominican manager Albert Pujols, I would’ve saved Sánchez for the last pool stage game, which is against Venezuela. Pujols, unfortunately, threw Sánchez first against Nicaragua, followed by Luis Severino against the Netherlands, Brayan Bello against Israel, and Sandy Alcantara against Venezuela.

Of course, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Sánchez lasted just four outs against Nicaragua, in which he allowed three runs and seven baserunners. So much for that Skenes-like ace performance. Besides, Alcantara is a recent Cy Young winner; it’s not like Pujols is starting a recently un-retired Vance Worley or Phillippe Aumont here. It’ll probably be OK.

The other two pitchers in the Dominican rotation are Severino (who’s starting against the Netherlands) and Bello (who’s starting against Israel). Those are two good big league starters. If Sánchez and Alcantara swapped spots in the rotation, the Dominican Republic would have the better starting pitcher in every pool stage game; this still might be the case, depending on who Venezuela goes with for its final game.

That only counts for so much, with starters limited to 60 pitches in group play, but the Dominican Republic has some good relievers, too. Dennis Santana is an elite closer. Carlos Estévez is a very good closer. Seranthony Domínguez, Gregory Soto, Abner Uribe, and Camilo Doval are now or have recently been high-leverage relievers on playoff teams. You can run out of pitchers in a tournament where it’s against the rules to pitch on consecutive days, but the Dominican Republic will have to do that a maximum of twice. It’s a perfectly manageable situation.

Now, after that core cadre of high-leverage guys, it gets into Remember Some Guys territory pretty quickly. For instance, I saw Albert Abreu’s name and thought, “Oh, he was serviceable for the Yankees not that long ago,” not realizing that he hasn’t thrown a pitch in the majors since 2023. The key for Pujols, who has as much professional managerial experience as you or I do, will be finding places to hide his Albert Abreu innings. Easier said than done.

When Sánchez recorded just four outs against Nicaragua, and his own lineup failed to break the game open until late, Pujols had to dip into that high-leverage group in the middle innings. Santana, Domínguez, and Doval each had to eat an inning against a team that should’ve been beatable with weaker pitchers. But hey, they combined to allow just one hit in three scoreless innings, which goes back to my original point: Yes, the Dominican Republic does have enough quality pitching.

Is this pitching staff as good as the American or Japanese pitching staffs? No. It’s definitely not as deep. But is it good enough to beat Venezuela, get out of the group, and even win the tournament? With this lineup, absolutely to all three questions.

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Hi guys — 

Warren Taylor
(“War2D2” in the chats)

Ben Clemens: Ah, the birthday question. That Gladwell finding was great, and in my opinion it was the single fact that made his empire. I’ve related that anecdote to tons of different people over the years, and they all go “ohhhhhh” with appreciation if they haven’t heard it. It’s just so cool! Of course, some hidden variable like a junior hockey calendar is the secret reason for a distribution of birthdays. Life is cool that way sometimes.

I ran the same analysis of baseball birthdays to see if I could turn anything up. The first thing I found out was that Babe Ruth produced more than half of the WAR of all players with his birthday, February 6. That’ll happen when you account for 180 WAR (batting plus pitching.) The next thing I found out is that if you create a database of birthdays and WAR totals, you’ll play around with it endlessly. For example, Ruth accounts for 50.5% of the WAR from February 6 birthdays, but that’s not the highest ratio in history. That honor goes to Barry Bonds, whose 164 WAR represents a whopping 67% of all WAR accrued by players born on July 24. In fact, Ruth isn’t even second. Al Rosen was born on February 29, leap day, and his 35 WAR is 50.7% of all leap day WAR.

None of those three days comes close to being the best in history, though. That’s November 26, with a staggering 554 WAR accrued by players born on that day. It’s one of only three days – along with September 19 and April 2 – to top the 500 mark. But while September 19 and April 2 have glitzy headliners – Joe Morgan and Don Sutton respectively – November 26 gets there in bulk. The best player born on November 26? That’d be Bob Johnson, a seven-time All Star who played from 1933-1945 and finished in the top 10 of MVP voting three times. His 57 WAR wasn’t enough to get him into Cooperstown, but as Birthday King, maybe it should have been. It’s striking, in fact: November 26 is one of only two days among the top 10 without an inner-circle Hall of Famer leading it, and other other is led by a player (Bill Dahlen) who should be an inner-circle Hall of Famer but somehow, insanely, isn’t.

Is there a Gladwell pattern? Kind of, and it starts in August. This is a familiar effect, more or less the same one as Gladwell’s. Many school systems in the United States have August 1 cutoffs; if you’re born on or after that date, you go down a grade, whereas a July 31 birthday will generally place you up a grade. August has the most WAR of any month, with 9,435. October is second. The last five months of the year have produced an average of an extra 1,000 WAR per month compared to the first seven:

What did I learn from this? School systems exert a powerful pull on the world. Also, maybe the fact that I was born four days after my own school system’s grade cutoff helps explain why I was good at sports. Dangit! Finally, Bob Johnson is under-appreciated. Here’s the day-by-day list of WAR by birthday, in case you feel like perusing more of it.

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Dear Matt,

PS: I’m going to be off March 9 for jury duty.

Matt Martell: To paraphrase Taylor Swift, this is our mailbag; we make the rules. And the rule is this: If Davy submits a question to the mailbag, he has to answer it himself. So now, let’s kick it back to him, shall we?

Davy Andrews: Fine words! I wonder where you stole ‘em.

Wait, sorry Matt, that was Jonathan Swift. I didn’t realize Taylor Swift wrote songs about mailbags, but here we go.

Wow, what an excellent question, Davy! I’m so glad we have members like you. So obviously, we’re going to include everybody you mentioned. A shockingly large percentage of our guys are or were second basemen, but Mazeroski obviously gets pride of place. Kaz Matsui spent a little bit of time at short, so he’ll shift over. Jazz Chisholm Jr. has played quite a bit of third base for the Yankees, so he’ll go there. Hall of Famer Tony Lazzeri spent a whopping three innings at first base, but tough luck, Tony, you’re our first baseman. That takes care of the infield.

The battery is composed entirely of Hall of Famers. Mike Piazza is our catcher, and our pitcher will be none other than Dazzy Vance, who in 1924 struck out more batters than the next two pitchers in the league combined!

The outfield starts with Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski in left field, and his grandson Mike Yastrzemski heads to right. Yes, I know they technically spell their last name with an “as” instead of an “az,” but as you said, we make the rules here. Center field will belong to Cuban Lázaro Salazar, whose name has two different Azzes, and who excelled over a 22-year career between the Negro Leagues and the Mexican and Venezuelan leagues from 1930 to 1952. Salazar spent most of his time in center, but he played all over the diamond and even pitched. His complete stats aren’t available, but Baseball Reference has stats for 560 of his games, during which time he had a .332 batting average. He also managed in Venezuela and was inducted into the Cuban, Mexican, and Venezuelan halls of fame.

Our DH is Zaza Harvey, who ran a .332 batting average from 1900 to 1902 with the Cubs (technically, they were the Chicago Orphans at the time), the White Sox, and the Cleveland Blues. Harvey played only 72 major league games, but that extra Z earns him the final spot.

Put it all together, and you get this:

C: Mike Piazza
1B: Tony Lazzeri
2B: Bill Mazeroski
SS: Kaz Matsui
3B: Jazz Chisholm
LF: Carl Yastrzemski
CF: Lázaro Salazar
RF: Mike Yastrzemski
DH: Zaza Harvey
P: Dazzy Vance

We’ve got Daz, Jazz, Kaz, Lazz, Láz, Maz, double Yaz, Zaz, and Mike Piazza. It’s a pretty good team! Counting Salazar, we’ve got six Hall of Famers, though it still leaves a lot of notable players on the bench. My apologies to Johnny Lazor, Javier Vazquez, Yonathan Daza, Alejandro De Aza, Joe Azcue, and Eddie Kazak. It was a real shame to miss out on Mike Gazella (nickname Gazook!), and I absolutely would’ve crammed Jeremy Hazelbaker on here if I could have.

After slipping from 89 wins and a trip to the National League Championship Series in 2024 to 83 wins and the short straw in a tiebreaker for a Wild Card berth in 2025, the Mets have a new look to their outfield thanks to an active offseason, some position changes, and an astute draft pick. While the right field job has yet to be settled, several players battling for time at the position have put their best foot forward during the first two weeks of exhibition season, with the two who figure most prominently in the team’s plans homering earlier this week. On Wednesday, top prospect Carson Benge hit his first home run of the spring in an exhibition game against Team Israel, and on Thursday, Brett Baty went deep against the Nationals while making his debut in right field, a continuation of his effort to expand his defensive repertoire.

Meanwhile, MLB.com beat reporter Anthony DiComo summarized last week’s highlights:

It's been quite the week for the Mets' right-field competition.

Tuesday: Mike Tauchman homered in his first Grapefruit League at-bat.

Thursday: Carson Benge went 3-for-3, and Tyrone Taylor hit a three-run homer.

Friday: MJ Melendez hit a pair of opposite-field homers. pic.twitter.com/Tnti901ZLa

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) February 27, 2026

No spring training result should be taken at face value given the varying levels of competition, and that’s especially true before people have been warned about the Ides of March, but the whole situation is worth a closer look. Read the rest of this entry »

The World Baseball Classic is officially back! We’re been running preview content for the last two weeks, but now that the tournament is actually underway, you’ve got to pick a team to root for. You may even have to pick one team from each of the four pools. To help you choose a your favorite, I’ll be offering a reason to cheer for each of the 20 teams in the field. This is our last installment. Click the links below to read the previous entries:

Pool B – Pool C – Pool D

Brazil

Brazil is the clear underdog of Pool B. The team has got a tough road ahead of it, and its roster doesn’t feature a single major leaguer. What it does have, though, is pedigree. If you’ve watched Field of Dreams enough times to believe that baseball is the game of fathers and sons, then this is the team for you. Brazil boasts Joseph Contreras (the son of José Contreras), Lucas Ramirez (the son of Manny Ramirez), and Dante Bichette Jr. (you’ll never guess who his dad is). Also, in its final qualifier, Brazil defeated Germany, hanging a loss on pitcher Jaden Agassi, son of tennis legends Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf.

Now 33, Bichette was a first-round pick of the Yankees back in 2011. He last played affiliated ball in 2019, and he’s now training youth ballplayers in Los Angeles. He may have another gear when suiting up for Brazil. He batted .375 in the qualifiers, and back in the 2016 WBC, he went 4-for-10 in three games with a double, a triple, and two walks.

Ramirez is just 19. The Angels drafted him in the 17th round in 2024. Last year, he earned a promotion to High-A after running a 115 wRC+ in the complex league. He may not be the second coming of his father just yet, but he did have a 12% walk rate in the complex, too. Despite his youth, he batted .385 in the qualifiers.

Contreras is the most exciting son on the team. The 17-year-old right-hander is the youngest player in the entire tournament. He’s a high-school senior who’s committed to Vanderbilt, though that commitment may well get tested. He’s already listed at 6-foot-4, just like his dad, and he’s a serious prospect. “He has legitimate first-round upside,” wrote Mark Chiarelli of Baseball America, which ranked Contreras 34th in its preseason draft rankings. He can touch 98 mph with his fastball, which sits 92-96. He also throws a vulcan-grip forkball and a mid-80s slider that Chiarelli said “flashes plus.” Contreras didn’t play in the qualifiers last year, because, uh, he was 16. Next year, he’ll be old enough to vote, but Friday night, he may well be facing off against Aaron Judge.

Great Britain

How times have changed. Three years ago, the story for Great Britain was all about Harry Ford, the 20-year-old catching phenom with the big bat. He’d hit. 455 with three home runs in three games during the qualifiers. Then, in the actual WBC, fresh off batting .413 in the Arizona Fall League, he batted .308 with two homers and a double in four games.

Today, a fair bit of Ford’s prospect shine has faded. He’s still just 23, plenty young for a catcher, but he was blocked by Cal Raleigh in Seattle, so he was traded to the Nationals during the offseason. But let’s not forget that he’s likely to become Washington’s primary catcher, and he’s still the 74th-ranked prospect in the game, with 50 future values across every tool category. He’s athletic, he’s got a great approach at the plate, and he’s improved his receiving enough that he should be an average defender. He’s about to sink or swim in the majors.

Ford could absolutely be the star of this team again, but he’s got more company this year. Joining him are major leaguers like Tristan Beck, Trayce Thompson, and Nate Eaton (who should really be pitching in this tournament, if you ask me), along with a host of minor leaguers. The 38-year-old Vance Worley is back for one last ride, nine years removed from his final major league appearance. But Great Britain also has a genuine star in Jazz Chisholm Jr. The Bahamian Bomber is fresh off a 2025 season in which he set career highs with 31 home runs and 4.4 WAR. This could be his team now.

Italy

Maybe this is because I just wrote a whole article about Jac Caglianone, but the obvious reason to root for Team Italy is because it’s fun to walk around your house pronouncing all the names the way you imagine an actual Italian speaker would pronounce them. Will I be cheering as hard as I can for Gordon Graceffo? You bet I will.

Team Italy has a solid roster with enough major league regulars to fill out a whole lineup. But I’m still in it for the big boys. You know who I mean: Caglianone and his fellow Royal Vinnie Pasquantino, the 6-foot-3 Italian Nightmare himself. The 6-foot-4 Caglianone already has some nicknames – Cags, Jachtani, JacHammer, and the Vacuum, according to Baseball Reference – and for that matter, Jac is a nickname, too. But I think we can agree that we haven’t found a winner yet, and we definitely haven’t found one that makes the most of his Italian heritage.

For now, we’ll just call him the Italian Daymare. Is it derivative? Very much so. Is it terrible? Yes, it’s that, too. But do the math here. The Pasquatch (man, that guy has a lot of good nicknames) haunts you during the evening hours. The Cagsquatch (just go with it) haunts you during the daytime. It’s 24 hours of terror. You’ve got nowhere to hide. When will you get your precious restorative sleep? Every time you close your eyes you see two hulking lefties with plus bat speed sending flaming fragments of a baseball over the right field wall. Together, they’re a listed 495 pounds of panic (or 225 kilos, if you’re in Italy).

Mexico

Look, as long as Randy Arozarena is playing for Team Mexico, Randy Arozarena is the reason to be excited about Team Mexico. The Cuba native has always come up huge under the bright lights, and he takes playing for his adopted country very seriously. He has a career 162 wRC+ in the playoffs, and in the 2023 WBC, he batted .450 with nine RBI in just six games. You might also recall that he crossed his arms kind of a lot.

Arozarena is by no means the only fun player on the team. Andrés Muñoz’s cat is a social media star, and Team Mexico leads the WBC in players named Nacho. More importantly, it also leads in diminutive players who have entertaining running styles.

Alek Thomas is 5-foot-9, and his short legs seem to churn up the outfield grass when he tracks down a ball in the gap. The 6-foot Jarren Duran always plays at 100%, and his bandy-legged gait and full-body tilt when he turns a corner have earned him the nickname, “The Lizard.” It’s a joy to watch the 5-foot-8 Alejandro Kirk motor around the bases. As a bonus, both Duran and Kirk have severe cases of karate chop hands when they run. Still, none of them does this.

United States

Aaron Judge has taken some heat for the lackluster speech he gave to his teammates earlier this week, but not all of this was Judge’s fault. First, it wasn’t his idea. Tarik Skubal and Paul Skenes pushed him to make the address in spite of his legendary ability to speak to the media without saying anything at all. Second, even if the speech had been a bit more substantive and delivered with a modicum of intonation, the setting wasn’t exactly conducive to rousing oratory. Everything about it felt artificial. The team was in full uniforms, plus sneakers. Judge was addressing his teammates in some sort of conference room with a wall of officials and reporters behind him and a cameraman snapping away. He wasn’t even standing in front of the team. He was off to the side of the room, and studies have proven that it’s physically impossible to be whipped into a frenzy while developing a crick in your neck.

More important than the context, though, is that people are misinterpreting the content. Here’s Judge’s grand finale:

So sacrifice for your family at home, you’re sacrificing for your country, and you’re sacrificing for the brothers in the trenches with you every single day. And that’s one thing I want us to do, fellas. I want to die on that field with you. We’re down, we’re beat up a little bit, man? Lean into each other, man. We’re going to lay it all on the line. And if we do that, we’re bringing the gold home.

Critics have interpreted Judge’s words as a military analogy, which would have been both crass and colossally tone deaf considering what the United States military is doing at this very moment. They’ve wondered what exactly these superstars are sacrificing, aside from a couple weeks of spring training. They’ve wondered whether the winner of the WBC now gets gold medals, too, or whether Judge just spent too much time watching the Olympics.

The critics have it wrong. Judge wasn’t channeling Henry V. That was just a metaphor and a clever bit of double entendre. He was actually talking strategy. Team USA is going to sacrifice its way through this tournament. Since it seems to have gone over so many heads already, let me lay out the Cliff’s Notes for you:

So sacrifice [bunt] for your family at home, you’re sacrificing [flies] for your country, and you’re sacrificing [more bunts] for the brothers in the trenches [fancy word for dugout] with you every single day. And that’s one thing I want us to do, fellas. I want [our bunts] to die on that field with you. We’re down, we’re beat up a little bit, man? Lean into [inside pitches and get hit], man. We’re going to lay it all [our bodies, and also all the bunts] on the line. And if we do that [hit and run], we’re bringing the gold [still unclear] home.

Get it now? Judge and his comrades-in-bats are going to lay bunts on the line. They’re going to safety squeeze and suicide squeeze. They’re going to give away outs like nobody’s business. Manager Mark DeRosa assembled a monster lineup of power hitting superstars as a colossal fake out. They’re going to small ball their way to… some sort of gold something. And even though Judge announced it in a speech, the world will never see it coming.

Read the rest of this entry »

The World Baseball Classic is officially back! We’re been running preview content for the last two weeks, but now that the tournament is actually underway, you’ve got to pick a team to root for. You may even have to pick one team from each of the four pools. To help you choose a your favorite, I’ll be offering a reason to cheer for each of the 20 teams in the field. We started with Pool C and Pool D yesterday. Pool B will run later today.

Canada

The big reason to root for Canada is that this might finally be the year the team breaks through and makes it to the knockout round. With Puerto Rico at the top, Pool A is by no means a cakewalk, but the second spot doesn’t have a hands-down favorite. Baseball America’s power rankings have Canada ranked seventh in the tournament, with Cuba ninth, Colombia 14th, and Panama 16th. Canada’s outfield is going to be really fun. Let’s break it down.

Right Field: When healthy, Tyler O’Neill is a human mountain who hits majestic dingers. (When not healthy, he’s still a human mountain, just without the dingers.) O’Neill had an ugly 2025 season, getting into just 54 games for the Orioles (due to not healthy) and running a wRC+ of 93. However, the underlying numbers weren’t bad at all. He posted a paltry .218 BABIP and a robust .360 xwOBA, the second-highest mark of his career. The small sample size is messing with us here. O’Neill is just one year removed from a 2024 season in which he launched 31 home runs with a 133 wRC+, and he’s raked in spring training. He also batted .615 in the 2023 WBC. Watch out.

Center Field: O’Neill was once a plus defender, but age and injuries have slowed him down, and his numbers in recent years aren’t great. Luckily, Denzel Clarke can cover for him. Denzel Clarke can cover everything. The A’s center fielder has a weak bat, but you could make a strong argument that he was the best defensive outfielder in baseball last year. According to Statcast, his 11 fielding runs ranked 30th among all outfielders, even though his 383 2/3 innings played ranked 123rd. On a per-inning basis, no one could touch him.

Left Field: We’ve got more power in the corners. Marlins prospect Owen Caissie just came in at 62 on our Top 100 Prospects list. Last year with the Cubs, he struck out a whopping 41% of the time in his brief major league debut, but he also launched 22 homers in 99 games at Triple-A Iowa. The 23-year-old Caissie is going to make loud contact or whiff big. Either way, it’ll be fun to watch. Should we finish with some gratuitous Denzel Clarke highlights? Of course we should.

Colombia

If you want to root for the team that’s most likely to have a pitcher take a deep breath and say, “I’m getting too old for this sh*t,” then Colombia is your squad. The team features the starting pitching duo of Jose Quintana and Julio Teheran. The 37-year-old Quintana made his major league debut in 2012, and he’ll be suiting up for the Rockies this season. Teheran is a mere 35, but he debuted for the Braves in 2011 at the tender age of 20. He spent 2025 in the Mexican League and is currently a free agent. If he pitches well, he could earn one last ride. Together, Quintana and Teheran have played for 11 different major league teams and made more than 600 major league starts. Their backs must be killing them.

Neither pitcher appeared in the 2023 WBC, but both pitched brilliantly in 2017, giving up one run apiece in their respective starts. Teheran won his, but Quintana earned a no-decision as Colombia went on to lose in extra innings. This team also has a real shot here. Colombia will definitely be relying on experience more than youth – I didn’t even mention the 38-year-old Donovan Solano – but Pool A is pretty wide open, and the team allowed just one run during its three-game qualifiers. How time flies.

Cuba

Once again, it’s all about the arms. Cuba is without several prominent major leaguers, but the roster may well have enough pitching to make it work anyway. We have to start with the 30-year-old Livan Moinelo, who plays in Japan for the SoftBank Hawks. The southpaw debuted in Japan in 2018, and he looked fine in his first season. Then he turned into one of the best pitchers in the league. Pitching in relief, he ran a 1.32 ERA and a 1.80 FIP from 2019 to 2023. That’s five years, and his ERA never rose above 1.69! In 2023, he put up a 0.98 ERA despite an elbow issue and a hip injury that required surgery after the season. Naturally, at that point, SoftBank decided to turn him into a starter. Risky move with a guy who’s coming off surgery and just put up a sub-one ERA, right? Don’t worry. Over the past two years as a starter, Moinelo is 23-8 with a combined ERA of 1.67. He’s fun to watch, too. He’s listed at just 5-foot-10 and 154 pounds. He features a four-pitch mix with a big, loopy curveball he’s not afraid to locate in the strike zone and a sneaky mid-90s fastball that seems to jump out of his hand.

If that’s not enough, can I interest you in Raidel Martínez, who spent the first 10 years of his career with the Chunichi Dragons and is now with the Yomiuri Giants? Martínez is in some ways the opposite of Moinelo. He’s a lanky right-handed closer with a career 1.99 ERA in NPB. The last time he ran an ERA above 2.00 was 2021. In 2023, he allowed just two runs in 48 appearances. He posted a 0.39 ERA. Over the past two years, he has a combined 89 saves. Maybe he should try starting.

Last, you might be familiar with Yariel Rodríguez, who put up a 3.08 ERA across 66 appearances for the Blue Jays last year. Thanks to an ugly walk rate, his peripherals weren’t as rosy, and he got lit up in the playoffs. Still his fastball touches the upper 90s.

Panama

On Wednesday, MLB.com published an article titled “World Baseball Classic partners with more than 150 brands from around the world.” Did you know that there was an entity called World Baseball Classic, Inc.? I’m betting you didn’t, because nothing kills the romance of a big worldwide sporting event like contemplating the filthy lucre that makes the whole thing run. And yet, right there on MLB.com, nestled among stories about thrilling prospects and grizzled managers and sibling connections, is a press release trumpeting the triumph of corporate synergy that is the WBC. What does this have to do with Panama? Well, I’m writing up different reasons to root for 20 different teams, and I figured with 150 different corporate partners around the world, at least one of them deserved to be rooted for. So I just picked one.

Congratulations, Panama. Sure, we will be cheering for old friends like Christian Bethancourt and Rubén Tejada and exciting prospects like Enrique Bradfield Jr., but mostly we will be cheering for your jersey sponsor, Caja de Ahorros, which is a bank.

Let’s go Caja de Ahorros! Who wants a checking account? Loans for everybody! Panama means business.

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico has one of the better rosters in the tournament, but it’s hard to talk about this team without talking about what might have been. The insurance providers for the WBC refused to insure at least eight different Puerto Rican players, including stars Carlos Correa, José Berríos, Victor Caratini, and Francisco Lindor, citing an increased injury risk. One imagines that the actuaries at the insurance companies threw a small, sad breakroom party with soda and mini cupcakes when they found out that Lindor had injured himself anyway. That all this happened right before the tournament started added insult to injury, and the team considered pulling out altogether. It’s not all that often that you get to combine two truly rewarding passions: rooting for a baseball team and heaping scorn on insurance companies, so you should really grab this opportunity while you can.

If you’re looking for a more positive reason to cheer for Puerto Rico, look no further than the catcher position. Without Caratini, Team Puerto Rico is running out 39-year-old Martín Maldonado and 35-year-old Christian Vázquez. These two share more than just a position, an advanced age, and a place of birth. They’re both no-bat catchers who don’t grade out well according to the advanced defensive metrics. They’re still playing regularly because wherever they go, their team believes they’re bringing the intangibles. It’s Nichols’ Law of Catcher Defense in action at a global scale, and Maldonado and Vázquez are playing their trade under manager Yadier Molina. Can vibes-based catching take Puerto Rico to a championship? Maybe, but only if you believe hard enough.

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the New York Mets. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »