Ryan Noda was a 22-year-old Toronto Blue Jays prospect coming off his first full professional season when he led Sunday Notes on December 15, 2018. Drafted in the 15th round out of the University of Cincinnati a year earlier, Noda had logged 20 home runs and a .421 OBP with then-Low-A Lansing, prompting me to compare him to former Bearcat Kevin Youkilis. With the caveat “I’m not close to being in his class,” he told me that he modeled his game after Joey Votto.

Five years and two organizations later, Noda is now a big-leaguer himself. Selected by the Oakland Athletics out of the Los Angeles Dodgers system in last winter’s Rule 5 draft, the left-handed-hitting first baseman proceeded to put up solid numbers with MLB’s worst-performing club. In 495 plate appearances, Noda logged a team-best .364 OBP and slugged 16 home runs with a 123 wRC+.

“I don’t mind those two comps at all,” Noda replied when I reminded him of our bygone conversation. “I certainly wouldn’t mind having either of their careers, either.”

It’s probably safe to say that Noda won’t go on to match, or even approximate, what Votto has accomplished over his storied career. Channeling Youkilis, who was 27 years old — Noda’s current age — when he established himself as a big-league regular could be another story. The erstwhile corner infielder averaged 20 home runs with a .385 OBP and a 127 wRC+ in his seven-season prime.

Stylistically speaking — Youkilis being a righty aside — would he comp himself more to one than the other?

“Not really,” said Noda. “But I do take both of them into account with how I go about hitting. I’m trying to get a pitch to drive and from there hopefully driving it. In this game, patience is important — and not just at the plate. It’s a long season, and if you can stick to what you do best, even when you’re going bad, you can be successful.”

Noda and I were at Fenway Park when he spoke those words, which brought to mind yet another comp. I asked him how familiar he is with 23-year-old Red Sox rookie Triston Casas.

“Not too much,” Noda responded. “I know he’s a good ballplayer and that he can swing it well. It will be interesting to see him play over the years and watch how similar we maybe are. But again, I don’t know too much about him.”

Casas had a 13.9% walk rate to go with 24 home runs and 129 wRC+ in 502 plate appearances this season. Noda had a 15.6% walk rate to go with his aforementioned 16 home runs and 123 wRC+ over 495 plate appearances. With the caveat that Casas is three years younger and has a first-round pedigree — Boston drafted him 26th-overall in 2018 — there are definitely some similarities. If Casas goes on to meet expectations, Noda wouldn’t mind having his career either.

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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Bryce Harper is 20 for 49 against Julio Teheran.

Brian Harper went 18 for 44 against Dave Stewart.

Tommy Harper went 21 for 56 against Dave McNally.

Terry Harper went 11 for 18 against Bruce Ruffin.

George Harper went 32 for 71 against Grover Cleveland Alexander.

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Left on the cutting-room floor from Thursday’s interview with former Seattle Mariners scouting director Tom McNamara were his reflections on the club’s fourth-round pick in the 2012 draft. With the 131st-overall selection, Seattle took a third baseman whose collegiate career comprised all of 51 games and 229 plate appearances.

“We needed a senior, because we’d spent money,” McNamara told me. “Patrick Kivlehan was a safety on the Rutgers football team. He played both baseball and football. The amazing story about Kivlehan is that he didn’t play college baseball for his first three years. I remember flying in and talking to the coach at Rutgers. I asked him, ‘How did he make the team?’ He said, ‘He asked if he could try out for the team. I told him we had a spot, but he was probably never going to play.’ Well, what happened is that Rutgers’ third baseman tore a hamstring and Kivlehan ended up playing third base and almost winning the Triple Crown in the Big East. We took him in the fourth round and he got to the big leagues. He played with Arizona and Cincinnati, and I think San Diego.”

The Mariners traded Kivlehan to the Texas Rangers in December 2015 as part of a five-player deal, reacquired him six months later in exchange for Justin De Fratus, then released him in early August. The Padres picked him up, and Kivlehan made his MLB debut a few weeks later. He went to log a 84 wRC+ over 250 plate appearances in what was ultimately a modest big-league career.

The player taken one pick after Kivlehan has had a notable career that took awhile to get off the ground. The Baltimore Orioles selected Christian Walker 132nd overall out of the University of South Carolina, only to place him on waivers five years later after 31 nondescript big-league plate appearances. Then came a four-week rollercoaster that eventually landed the slugging first baseman in his current home. The Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds both claimed, but then waived, Walker before the Arizona Diamondbacks inked him to a contract on the eve of the 2017 season. The rest is history. Hitting in the middle of the D-Backs lineup, Walker has 69 home runs and a 122 wRC+ over the past two seasons.

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A quiz:

Which pitcher holds the Pittsburgh Pirates franchise record for strikeouts in a single season? (A hint: he also has the franchise’s second-highest single-season strikeout total.)

The answer can be found below.

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NEWS NOTES

Brad Ciolek, who has been serving as Baltimore’s director of draft operations, is leaving the organization and will be joining the Washington Nationals. Ciolek has overseen the last five Orioles drafts, which include the selections of Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holliday, Heston Kjerstad, and Adley Rutschman,

Toronto Blue Jays coach Luis Rivera has decided to retire. The 59-year-old former big-league infielder had coached and managed in the Jays system since 2010.

Casey Cox, who pitched for the Washington Senators/Texas Rangers from 1966-1972, and then briefly for the New York Yankees, died earlier this month at age 82 (per Baseball Player Passings). The right-hander’s best season came in 1969 when he went 12-7 with a 2.78 ERA.

SABR’s Larry Dierker chapter will hold a dual in-person/Zoom meeting tomorrow (Monday October 16) beginning at 7pm with former Astros announcer Bill Brown the guest speaker. More information can be found here.

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The answer to the quiz is Bob Veale, with 276 strikeouts in 1965. A year earlier, the hard-throwing southpaw logged an NL-best 250 strikeouts, the second-highest total in Pirates franchise history.

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The Houston Astros advancing to their seventh consecutive LCS ranks right up there with the 1990s Atlanta Braves and multiple decades of New York Yankees American League supremacy. The grownup sons of the expansion Colt .45s are eight wins away from a third World Series title since 2017.

The Brooklyn Dodgers deserve some love here. Shortly before being relocated to Los Angeles in 1958, “Dem Bums” reached the World Series five times from 1949-1956. and their win totals in the three years they fell just short were 89, 97, and 92 (in what was then a 154-game-schedule). The winningest of those not-quite seasons was famously painful — Bobby Thomson’s Shot Heard ‘Round the World capping a four-run bottom of the ninth inning for the New York Giants. Four years after that soul-crushing 1951 defeat, Brooklyn won its only World Series by beating the Yankees in seven games. Johnny Podres was on the mound for the 2-0 clincher, while Gil Hodges drove in both runs.

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

NPB’s postseason got underway on Saturday with the Chiba Lotte Marines beating the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks 8-2. Twenty-one-year-old wunderkind Roki Sasaki threw three scoreless innings for the winning side, while 2018 Atlanta Braves first-round pick Carter Stewart was tagged with the loss.

NPB’s other first-stage contest saw the Hiroshima Carp edge past the Yokohama DeNA BayStars 3-2 in 11 innings with a pair of former MLB pitchers getting the decisions. Nik Turley was credited with the win, while J.B. Wendelken was tagged with the loss. Game 2 of each best-of-five, first-stage matchups are today.

Update: Hiroshima defeated DeNA 4-2 and will go on to play the Central League champion Hanshin Tigers in the next round. SoftBank beat Chiba Lotte 3-1, setting up a deciding Game 3 to determine who goes up against the Pacific League champion Orix Buffaloes.

Yuki Matsui, who will reportedly be exercising his international free agent rights this offseason, made his 500th NPB appearance in his final game of the regular season The 27-year-old Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles southpaw had 39 saves and a 1.60 ERA this year.

Seunghwan Oh recorded his 400th KBO save, and his 522nd professionally, on Saturday. The 36-year-old Samsung Lions right-hander’s resume includes 80 saves in NPB and 42 more in MLB.

Erick Fedde went 20-6 with a 2.06 ERA for the KBO’s NC Dinos. The 30-year-old former Washington National right-hander had 204 strikeouts and 134 hits allowed in 174-and-two-thirds innings.

Dong Ju Moon went 8-8 with a 3.72 ERA over 118-and-two-thirds innings for the KBO’s Hanwha Eagles. The 19-year-old right-hander went six scoreless in his last start of the season.

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Dixie Howell holds three obscure big-league records. Per his B-Ref bio page, the Harold, Kentucky native is the last relief pitcher to hit two home runs in the same game, having done so with the Chicago White Sox on June 16, 1957. Moreover, all five hits he had that season — a double, a triple, and three home runs — went for extra bases (Rick Wrona subsequently tied Howell’s most-hits-sans-a-single record in 1994 while playing with the Milwaukee Brewers). Howell also holds the record for the longest time between when he first pitched in the majors and when he got his first victory. He made his MLB debut in 1940 and wasn’t credited with a win until 1955.

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FARM NOTES

Alexander Albertus slashed .310/.471/.468 with five home runs and a 152 wRC+ in 170 plate appearances between the Dominican Summer League and the Arizona Complex League. A native of Oranjestad, Aruba, the 18-year-old infielder in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization drew 38 walks and fanned just 19 times.

Cesar Quintas had a .516 BABIP in 168 plate appearances with Giants Orange, one of two San Francisco entries in the Arizona Complex League. The 20-year-old outfielder fromValencia, Venezuela slashed .372/.506/.473 with one home run and a 159 wRC+.

Jakob Marsee has 19 hits, including nine for extra bases, in 38 at-bats for the Arizona Fall League’s Peoria Javelinas. The 22-year-old outfielder in the San Diego Padres system slashed .274/.413/.428 with 16 home runs this year between High-A Fort Wayne and Double-A San Antonio. Marsee is a former Central Michigan University Chippewa.

Carter Howell has seven hits, including a triple and a pair of home runs, in 21 at-bats with the Arizona Fall League’s Scottsdale Scorpions. The 24-year-old Fargo, North Dakota-born outfielder in the San Francisco Giants system swatted 10 taters and had a .295/.369/.442 slash line between Low-A San Jose and High-A Eugene.

Liam Hicks is 16-for-28, including four doubles, for the Arizona Fall League’s Surprise Saguaros. The 24-year-old, Toronto, Ontario-born catcher in the Texas Rangers organization slashed .275/.414/.373 with four home runs between High-A Hickory and Double-A Frisco.

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The following paragraph is included in Jonathan Mayo’s Smart, Wrong, and Lucky: The Origin Stories of Baseball’s Unexpected Stars:

“It begs the question, of course. If the Padres area scout and regional crosschecker had him in as a second rounder, if a national crosschecker saw him, if the the scouting director came in to see a private workout, all of which occurred according to Campbell, how on earth did Mookie Betts become a San Diego Padre?”

Betts, as has been well chronicled, lasted until the fifth round of the 2011 draft when he was taken by the Boston Red Sox with the 172nd-overall pick. The Padres, who had the 173rd pick that year, had taken eight players earlier in the draft, including four supplemental first-round selections. None of them have come close to matching Betts’s accomplishments.

Mayo addresses that part of the backstory, as well as how Betts ultimately landed in Boston, in his must-read book.

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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

MLB.com’s Michael Clair wrote about how power-hitting Japanese high school phenom Rintaro Sasaki will reportedly bypass the NPB draft and, with MLB in mind, instead attend college in the United States.

Dan Connolly offered some observations from the Orioles’ postseason press conference, and opined on the Mike Elias-Brandon Hyde partnership, at Baltimore’s WHAR.

True Blue LA’s Eric Stephen wonders if Clayton Kershaw has thrown his last pitch for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Covering the Corner’s Matt Dallas looked back at the 1949 Cleveland Indians, who failed to defend a World Series championship. More than seven decades later, the fanbase awaits its first title since 1948.

Over at Bless You Boys, Patrick O’Kennedy gave us an offseason calendar covering not only the Detroit Tigers, but also MLB as a whole. From the GM Meetings to the non-tender deadline to the Rule 5 draft, it’s all here.

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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

Including the postseason, NLCS managers Torey Lovullo and Rob Thomson have a combined 672 managerial wins. ALCS managers Dusty Baker and Bruce Bochy have a combined 4,379 managerial wins.

Lance Lynn allowed 48 home runs in 186-and-a-third innings (including the postseason). Sonny Gray allowed 10 home runs in 193 innings (also including the postseason).

Mookie Betts is 6-for-48 with two extra-base hits over his last three postseason series. Trea Turner is 18-for-42 with 10 extra-base hits over his last three postseason series.

Ronald Acuña Jr’s combined runs scored-RBI total during the regular season was 255. Matt Olson’s combined runs scored-RBI total was 266.

The league-average team totals for stolen bases and caught-stealings this year were 117 and 29 respectively. The most-league-average team was the Seattle Mariners, with 118 stolen bases and 30 caught-stealings. The New York Mets swiped 118 bases and were caught just 15 times.

Arizona Diamondbacks batters combined for 36 sacrifice hits this season, the most of any team. Atlanta Braves batters combined for two sacrifice hits this season, the fewest of any team

Minnesota Twins pitchers combined to allow 443 walks with a franchise record 1,560 strikeouts. Pitchers for the 1991 World Series champion Twins combined to allow 488 walks with 876 strikeouts.

Bob Gibson got the win as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the New York Yankees 7-5 in World Series Game 7 on today’s date in 1964. The Boyer brothers both homered — Clete for the losing side and Ken for he victors — as did Lou Brock, Mickey Mantle, and Phil Linz.

On today’s date in 1975, Luis Tiant went the distance as the Boston Red Sox edged the Cincinnati Reds 5-4 in Game 4 of the World Series. El Tiant threw 163 pitches while scattering nine hits and four walks. The Reds stranded eight runners, including two in the bottom of the ninth.

Players born on today’s date include Tommy Toms, a right-handed pitcher who appeared in 18 games for the San Francisco Giants from 1975-1977. The Charlottesville, Virginia native went 0-1 in each of the three seasons, and was credited with one save.

Also born on today’s date was Jim Command, a third baseman who went 4-for-25 while getting cups of coffee with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1954 and 1955. The Grand Rapids, Michigan native’s lone home run was a grand slam off of Brooklyn Dodgers right-hander Carl Erskine.

Phil Maton can spin a baseball. His four-seamer averaged 2,563 rpm this season, and his signature curveball was an even-more-rotational 3,154. These weren’t new developments. The 30-year-old Houston Astros reliever has long been known for that attribute, with a July 2017 interview with the then-San Diego Padres rookie having served as its first detailed mention here at FanGraphs.

He’s also had a career-best year. In 68 regular-season appearances out of the Houston bullpen, Maton augmented his 4–3 record and one save with a 3.00 ERA, a 3.74 FIP, 74 strikeouts, and just 49 hits allowed in 66 innings. Moreover, October has once again been his friend. Thanks to a pair of scoreless outings in the ALDS, the righty boasts a 1.04 ERA over 16 career playoff appearances.

Maton revisited the importance of spin and discussed a meaningful change to the movement profile of his fastball when the Astros visited Fenway Park at the end of August.

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David Laurila: Your spin rate was the primary topic when we first spoke six years ago. Now pure spin isn’t considered nearly as important. Do you agree?

Phil Maton: “I think that’s right. Over the years, organizations have figured out that it doesn’t tell the whole picture. There are guys with big breaking balls and hoppy heaters who don’t spin the ball particularly well. That’s where things like spin efficiencies come into play. We’ve identified guys where it’s the entry angle. There are so many different factors in what creates ‘a good pitch.’ Back in 2017, when the spin-rate phase was going on, everyone thought that was the answer. It’s much more complex than that.” Read the rest of this entry »

Tom McNamara remembers the 2012 draft well. Now a Special Assistant to the General Manager with the Kansas City Royals, McNamara was then the Director of Amateur Scouting for a Seattle Mariners team that landed Mike Zunino with the third overall pick, this after the Houston Astros had tabbed Carlos Correa and the Minnesota Twins followed by taking Byron Buxton. Other first-round notables that year included Kevin Gausman to the Baltimore Orioles at four, Max Fried to the San Diego Padres at seven, and Corey Seager to the Los Angeles Dodgers at 18.

As is the case with every MLB draft, woulda-coulda-shoulda is in no short supply when you look back with 20/20 hindsight. Eight of the first 30 picks that year have never reached the majors, and a dozen more have yet to accumulate 10 WAR. It’s safe to say that numerous teams would go in a different direction if given an opportunity to do it all over again.

How might have things unfolded differently for the Mariners in 2012? McNamara shared some of his thoughts on that subject during a visit to Fenway Park in September.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with a player you drafted but didn’t sign. You took Mike Yastrzemski in the 30th round out of Vanderbilt.

Tom McNamara: “Our area scout in the Northeast really liked him in high school. He got to know him, so we knew Mike’s makeup. I also knew how much the head coach at Vandy, Tim Corbin, liked him both as a player and a person. Mike didn’t put up loud numbers there in his junior season, but I remember going to our GM, Jack Zduriencik, and telling him there was a player still on the board I’d love to give a nice bonus to. We ended up offering Mike $300,000. I remember flying across the country and meeting him in Boston. It was Mike, his mom. his agent, his grandfather…”

Laurila: His grandfather being pretty notable.

McNamara: “Yeah. He was a pretty good player. I was always a big fan of Mike’s grandfather, even though I was from New York. And I think Mike was actually a little surprised with the offer we made him. He’s a great kid. He told me that he needed a day to think about it.

“I could tell that his grandfather kind of liked the fact that it was Seattle, that it was away from the Northeast. That’s understandable. When you’re Carl Yastrzemski’s grandson, there is a lot of pressure there. But Mike told me he had promised his family that he would finish school on time before he signed, and it’s pretty tough to put up a fight when a kid says that. There were definitely no hard feelings with him not signing with us. Looking back, the mistake we made was not drafting him the following year. We should have, because we knew him and we liked him as a player. Baltimore took him, I believe. The rest is history.” Read the rest of this entry »

Caleb Ferguson is far from the biggest name on a Los Angeles Dodgers team that won 100 games during the regular season. Much for that reason, people who don’t closely follow the perennial NL West powerhouse probably don’t know how effective he’s been. To little fanfare, the 27-year-old southpaw made 68 appearances and went 7-4 with three saves while posting a 3.43 ERA and a 3.34 FIP over 60-and-a-third innings. Moreover, his numbers were even better if you discount the seven times he served as an opener. As a reliever, Ferguson won seven of nine decisions with a 3.02 ERA and a 3.07 FIP. His K-rate out of the pen was a tasty 27.5%.

Home cooking has been to his liking. Pitching at Chavez Ravine — Dodger Stadium if you will — the Columbus, Ohio native logged a sparkling 1.10 ERA while holding opposing hitters to a paltry .190/.258/.267 slash line.

Those things said, Ferguson is a square peg in a round hole when it comes to one of the organization’s well-known strengths. Analytics aren’t his thing.

“I guess it has the characteristics of a high-spin fastball,” Ferguson replied when I asked about the movement profile of his mid-90s four-seamer, a pitch he relied on 66.5% of the time this year. “But I don’t really look at the metrics, to be honest. I just come in and try to make good pitches. More than anything, I try to throw the ball in the safest spot to each guy. When I look at scouting reports, it’s basically just the safe zones and the danger zones.”

Ferguson likewise claimed not to know the metrics on his 33.5 percent-usage slider (Baseball Savant classifies the pitch as a cutter). Nor is he interested in knowing. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in August, my colleague Ben Clemens crafted an article titled Wait, Zack Littell is a Starter Now?! It was an apt headline. Not only had the 27-year-old right-hander been DFA’d by the Red Sox a few months earlier — Boston having been his third organization in as many years, and his sixth overall — he’d logged a 4.08 ERA over 145 big-league appearances, all but four out of the bullpen, with just three saves. As Clemens pointed out, Littell “wasn’t even a dominant reliever.”

Of course, this was the Tampa Bay Rays who’d moved him into their rotation. Much for that reason, Clemens qualified his skepticism by saying, “What else can we do but wait and see the results?”

The results have remained largely positive. Littell has a not-so-great 6.75 ERA in 14 appearances out of the bullpen this year, but in the same number of outings as a starter his ERA is 3.41. Moreover, he’s consistently gone five-plus innings. As Rays beat writer Marc Topkin told me for an article that ran here at FanGraphs on Friday. the under-the-radar righty “has basically saved the starting rotation.”

How did the opportunity come about? Read the rest of this entry »

“Let’s Talk About Underrated 2023 Orioles” was the subtitle of my Sunday Notes column on September 10, with the opening section having featured a combination of Baltimore broadcasters and scribes opining on that very topic. Today, we’ll head south and talk about underrated Tampa Bay Rays — arguably an even more subjective exercise. Few teams in any sport have enjoyed as much success while getting contributions from as many players who largely fly under the radar from a national perspective.

The six people quoted below — four Tampa Bay broadcasters and a pair of the team’s beat writers — offered their perspectives on Wednesday when the Rays played the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

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Brian Anderson, Rays broadcaster:

“The guy who had the big game tonight: Josh Lowe. Coming into the season, it was Vidal Bruján, Jonathan Aranda, Luke Raley, and Josh Lowe — those four guys for two spots — and it was a battle right to the end of spring training. Raley and Lowe got them. Not only did [Lowe] fight for a roster spot and get it, he turned it into .290 with 20 home runs, and he’s 32-for-35 in stolen bases. He’s third on the team in runs driven in. He plays a good outfield. I mean, he’s gone through the roof for a guy who, until the end of camp, didn’t know if he was going to make the team or not. To be able to do what he did… I don’t think anyone saw him putting together the kind of year he’s put together.” Read the rest of this entry »

Kenta Maeda has had a stellar career on two continents. Now in his seventh big league season — three with the Minnesota Twins preceded by four with the Los Angeles Dodgers — the 35-year-old erstwhile Hiroshima Carp has a 2.95 ERA and a 162-115 won-lost record between NPB and MLB. He’s been as good as ever in September. The Osaka native has been credited with a win in each of his last three decisions while allowing just four runs over 17-and-two-thirds innings. When he next takes the mound it will be with a 4.28 ERA and a 3.96 FIP on the year.

Maeda discussed his evolution as a pitcher, and offered some thoughts on NPB, when the postseason-bound Twins visited Cleveland earlier this month. Daichi Sekizaki served as an interpreter for the interview.

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David Laurila: How much have you changed as a pitcher since coming over from Japan?

Kenta Maeda: “The first couple of years I was pretty much just myself; I was the same pitcher that I was in Japan. After pitching here for several years, I know what the different hitters’ weaknesses are and when they are getting on to me. I ironed some things out and made adjustments to become better, to become the pitcher that I am today.” Read the rest of this entry »

Justin Steele has an uncommon pitch profile and an uncomplicated approach to his craft. He also has an outside chance of capturing this year’s NL Cy Young award. With two starts remaining (one if the Cubs clinch a Wild Card berth prior to Sunday’s regular-season finale), the 28-year-old southpaw is 16–5 with a 3.00 ERA and a 2.99 FIP over 168 innings. He’s not only been Chicago’s best pitcher, but he’s also been one of the best in the Senior Circuit.

Steele’s emergence as a frontline starter was portended by last year’s performance. While his won-lost record was an anything-but-eye-catching 4–7, his 3.18 ERA and his 3.20 FIP weren’t notably higher than this year’s marks. Moreover, his strikeout and ground-ball rates were actually better, as were his xFIP and HR/9. His BABIP was nearly identical. The only meaningful difference, on paper, was his walk rate, which at 3.78 was essentially double this season’s 1.88.

Prior to his last outing — a game in which he was BABIP’d to death by six consecutive fourth-inning singles — I approached Steele in Wrigley Field’s home clubhouse to get his thoughts on what has been an outstanding season. The following day, I asked Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy about the pitch characteristics that make Steele a Cy Young contender.

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David Laurila: Won-lost record and walk rate aside, a lot of your numbers aren’t all that different from last year’s. Are you more or less the same pitcher?

Justin Steele: “I would say that I’m better. The pitches are the same, I’m the same pitcher as far as that goes, but I’ve been more consistent this year. I’m not walking as many guys. I’m being competitive throughout the count, I’ve cut down on non-competitive pitches big time. So yeah, a lot more consistent.”

Laurila: Were you happy with last year?

Steele: “I think so. I was definitely happy with how I finished up [a 0.99 ERA over his last seven starts]. I felt like the entire season I was improving. That’s something that’s really important to me, always improving from start to start.”

Laurila: What’s behind this year’s improved consistency?

Steele: “I think it’s just more reps, getting more and more comfortable out there each time I take the ball. It’s like anything in life: you do it more and you get more comfortable doing it. You also get better at it.” Read the rest of this entry »

Hao-Yu Lee will be one of eight Detroit Tigers prospects participating in the forthcoming Arizona Fall League, and while he doesn’t possess the highest profile of the bunch, he does have the most-traveled backstory. Acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies at the trade deadline in exchange for Michael Lorenzen, the 20-year-old infielder hails from Taiwan and began dreaming of playing professionally in the United States at age 16 after a strong performance in a U-18 tournament, in Korea. Two years earlier he’d excelled in a tournament that took place 15-plus miles southwest of Comerica Park.

The Phillies signed Hao-Yu in June 2021—the Cincinnati Reds and Tampa Bay Rays were among the other MLB teams that had expressed interest — once he’d finished high school. No. 8 on our Phillies Top Prospects list with a 40+ FV coming into this season, he slashed .273/.362/.399 before going on the shelf with a quad strain in mid-August. He ended up playing in just eight games for the High-A West Michigan Whitecaps before missing the duration of the campaign.

The first big-league game Hao-Yu attended was in 2017 when he was competing in the Junior League World Series, which is held annually in Taylor, Michigan. He doesn’t remember if the Tigers won that day, but he does recall his first impression of Comerica Park. “I told my teammates that I was going to play here someday,” the confident youngster said of the experience.

He also remembers the tournament, and for good reason. Not only did Taoyuan, Taiwan capture the international bracket, they went on to beat Kennett Square, Pennsylvania in the finals. Moreover, Hao-Yu “raked that tournament; five games, five homers!” Read the rest of this entry »

Austin Hays knows his numbers. More importantly, he understands the process behind his production. He’s also having a career-best year: the 28-year-old outfielder has a 117 wRC+ to go with 36 doubles, 16 home runs, and a .283/.330/.462 slash line as a rock-solid contributor for a postseason-bound Baltimore Orioles team with the most wins in the American League. Overshadowed by young stars like Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman, he is nonetheless an important piece of the puzzle.

The personable Port Orange, Florida product hasn’t revamped his approach this season, but he has tweaked it in search of more thump. Hays explained how when the Orioles visited Fenway Park earlier this month.

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David Laurila: When I brought it up yesterday, you told me you were aware that many of your 2023 counting stats are almost identical to what they were at the end of last year. What percentage of guys in this clubhouse would you say keep up with their numbers?

Austin Hays: “I think it’s probably about half and half. There are guys who like to follow where they’re at, follow what they’re doing, and there are others who just like to look at the end of the season. I find numbers interesting, so I like to look at my own, and other people’s numbers as well. It’s something I’ve always been interested in.”

Laurila: You’re in the process of passing some personal milestones. Which of your numbers do you care the most about?

Hays: “Doubles is a big one for me, because that seems to be the thing that helps me out the most with my power numbers. I don’t hit a ton of home runs, so the more doubles I can hit, the higher my slug and my OPS can be. You can get doubles in so many different ways, too. It’s kind of a hustle stat in a way. If you can accumulate five to 10 hustle doubles by going hard out of the box throughout the season, they’ll start to add up, That’s thing I’m probably trying to boost up the most.” Read the rest of this entry »