MLB history includes 54 players born in the state of New Hampshire. Cody Morissette is hoping to become the 55th. A 22-year-old infielder who was drafted 52nd overall last year out of Boston College, Morissette is No. 11 on our newly-released Miami Marlins Top Prospects list.

A Manchester native who attended high school in Exeter, Morissette excelled at the collegiate level — he posted a .337/.400/.507 slash line in his three seasons as an Eagle — while being overshadowed by a high-profile teammate. Sal Frelick, himself a native New Englander, was taken 15th overall last year by the Milwaukee Brewers.

Morissette, who is slashing .232/.314/.444 with 12 home runs for the High-A Beloit Sky Carp, touched on his New Hampshire roots, and his big league aspirations, earlier this week.

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Morissette on his three-homer game on June 17:

“That was a special night for me. Along with being able to help the team win, it was really cool to hit three home runs, because it’s the first time I’ve done it on a big diamond. Baseball is a weird game. The night before, I was 0-for-5 with five strikeouts. I wanted to come back the next day and respond in a good way, and three home runs was definitely a good way to respond.”

On reports that he projects as hit-over-power: Read the rest of this entry »

The Learning and Developing a Pitch series is back for another season, and we’re once again hearing from pitchers on a notable weapon in their arsenal. Today’s installment features Detroit Tigers left-hander Andrew “Big Country” Chafin on his signature slider.

Chafin has a keep-it-simple-stupid [K.I.S.S.] approach to his best pitch, and it’s hard to argue with success. Since the start of last season, the mustachioed southpaw boasts a 2.17 ERA and 2.78 FIP over 94 relief outings, allowing just 62 hits and fanning 88 batters in 87 innings. Chafin has thrown his breaking ball 35.8% of the time this year.

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Andrew Chafin: “I hold a curveball grip, throw it as hard as I can, and it comes out a slider. So, is it a curveball or a slider? I guess whatever it does is what it is. Really, I don’t care what people call it as long as the hitters swing and miss. If that happens, I’m happy.

“I want to say I started learning [a breaking ball] in my junior year of high school, give or take. I don’t remember who I was working with in particular, I just found a grip that felt comfortable, and I tried to make it spin. There’s nothing special about how I grip it or throw it. Read the rest of this entry »

Miguel Cabrera, Albert Pujols, and Joey Votto are three of the best hitters of our generation. All are future Hall of Famers. They are also aging veterans. The illustrious threesome has combined to play 58 big league seasons, with Votto the baby of the bunch at 38 years old. Cabrera is 39. Pujols is 42. Their cumulative experience is nearly as notable as their prodigious statistical accomplishments.

What is it like to work with legends like Cabrera, Pujols, and Votto? I asked that question to their current hitting coaches: Detroit’s Scott Coolbaugh, St. Louis’ Jeff Albert, and Cincinnati’s Alan Zinter.

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Scott Coolbaugh on Miguel Cabrera

“It’s a privilege and an honor to be around somebody as good as Miggy. He’s obviously a future Hall of Famer. To accomplish the things he’s been able to is eye-opening. I obviously haven’t been around him his whole career — just the last few years — but the way he goes about his business, and the enjoyment he has in the game… he’s still a young kid, even though he’s 39 years old. He treats it like a game. He has fun with it. He keeps it simple.

“Everybody is in awe of how pure of a right-handed hitter he is, how pure his swing is. The things he can do with the baseball a lot of guys have worked hard to do just one time. He does it on a consistent basis. It makes you a better coach to be around somebody like that, to see how he goes about it, and hear what his thoughts are. To sit in a cage and have the conversations with him… and sometimes it’s not even about hitting. It’s about how simple he keeps the game. Read the rest of this entry »

What is your favorite baseball memory? I posed that question to 10 major league players, and in nearly every instance, the response began with a question of their own: “Does it have to be from my own career?” While all were happy to share one (or more) meaningful memory from their time in the big leagues, it was primarily magic moments from their days as fans and/or young amateurs that stood out the most.

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Jackie Bradley Jr., Boston Red Sox

“I have two. Being able to have all of my family members at the All-Star game with me in San Diego in 2016 is one. The other is having my family with me in London, England for the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry series [in 2019]. They were all with me for the [2018] World Series as well, so there are actually three: All-Star Game, World Series, and being able to travel all the way to London, halfway around the world, to watch me play. In no particular order, those would be my favorite baseball memories.” Read the rest of this entry »

The St. Louis Cardinals played Friday night’s game in Boston with one catcher. Iván Herrera had been called up from Triple-A to replace the newly-sidelined Yadier Molina, but cancelled flights delayed his arrival. The highly-regarded prospect didn’t get to Fenway Park until the final inning of a 6-5 Red Sox win.

Asked who would have been used in an emergency had Andrew Knizner been injured, St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol named three possibilities: Edmundo Sosa, Brendan Donovan, and Nick Wittgren. That Marmol added, “Not necessarily in that order,” is intriguing, if not suggestive. Sosa and Donovan are infielders. Wittgren toes the rubber.

Might we have seen Wittgren, a 31-year-old pitcher with no professional experience at any another position, donning the tools of ignorance? It’s a definite possibility. Prior to the game, Marmol approached Wittgren and asked, “How do you think you’d do catching?” Wittgren replied that he’d be perfectly fine. Marmol responded with “I think so too.”

According to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Derrick Goold, Wittgren isn’t the first Cardinals pitcher to be designated (or at least hinted) as an emergency catcher. Jason Motte, who worked out of the St. Louis bullpen from 2008-2014 previously claimed that distinction. Even so, Motte had caught in the minor leagues. Wittgren would have been a novice.

He has little doubt that he could have done it. Read the rest of this entry »

The Learning and Developing a Pitch series is back for another season, and we’re once again hearing from pitchers on a notable weapon in their arsenal. Today’s installment features Oakland Athletics right-hander Paul Blackburn on his curveball, a revamped pitch playing a key role in what has been a career-best season.

On track to represent Oakland in next month’s All-Star game, Blackburn has won six of eight decisions — this for the team with baseball’s worst record — while logging a 2.26 ERA and a 3.09 FIP over 13 starts comprising 71-and-two-thirds innings. He’s thrown his curveball, a pitch he no longer grips in atypical fashion, 18.5% of the time.

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Paul Blackburn: “I started throwing a curveball right around my sophomore year of high school. I learned it from watching Barry Zito. I grew up in Northern California — I’m a Northern California guy — so I saw a lot of Barry Zito and his big curveball. Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Youkilis could swing the bat. In 10 big league seasons, the player immortalized in book and movie form as “The Greek God of Walks” logged a .281/.382/.478 slash line and a 127 wRC+. At his peak, he was one of the best hitters in the American League. From 2008-10, Youkilis averaged 25 home runs annually while putting up a .308 batting average and a 150 wRC+. Over that three-year stretch with the Boston Red Sox, he walked 197 times and stroked 429 base hits.

In the latest installment of our Talks Hitting series, Youkilis — now a part-time analyst on Red Sox TV broadcasts — discussed the art and science of what he did best: squaring up baseballs.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with the nickname you got early in your career. Looking back, what do you think of it?

Kevin Youkilis: “It was interesting more than anything. It’s not something I equated to. I saw myself as a hitter, and the walks just a byproduct of not getting good pitches. Part of the game is that you walk if you don’t get pitches to hit.

“At the beginning, it was a lot of… it was kind of crazy. There were all these media-driven things coming my way. That was the hardest part. I was like, ‘Wait, what?’ It was all fixated on walking, versus the other things I did well.” Read the rest of this entry »

Kyle Bradish has a promising future in Baltimore. The 25-year-old rookie right-hander has a 6.86 ERA and a 6.06 FIP over his first 42 big league innings, but he’s also got plus stuff and improving command. Acquired from the Angels in the December 2019 Dylan Bundy deal — Los Angeles had taken him in the fourth round of the previous year’s draft out of New Mexico State University — Bradish came into the current campaign ranked seventh on our Orioles Top Prospects list.

Bradish discussed his developmental path, and the M.O. he takes with him to the mound, when Baltimore visited Fenway Park in late May.

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David Laurila: What do you know about pitching now that you didn’t when you entered pro ball?

Kyle Bradish: “A lot of it is the analytics, which we didn’t have to the same extent when I was in college. I’m getting adjusted to that, learning about things like spin efficiency and all that stuff.”

Laurila: How much of it is impacting what you’re doing on the mound? Read the rest of this entry »

Jared Walsh is a studious hitter. He’s also a productive hitter in the middle of the Los Angeles Angels lineup. In just over 1,000 big league plate appearances, the 28-year-old first baseman has 50 home runs to go along with a .269/.325/.499 slash line and a 122 wRC+. This past Saturday, Walsh went deep for the 11th time on the season while hitting for the ninth cycle in franchise history.

A two-way player at the University of Georgia who has also taken the mound in pro ball — including five times for the Angels in 2019 — Walsh lasted until the 39th round of the 2015 draft. To say he’s gone on to exceed most expectations with the bat would be an understatement.

Walsh discussed his watch-and-learn approach to hitting when the Angels visited Fenway Park last month.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with your M.O. as a hitter. What are you looking to do when you’re in the box?

Jared Walsh: “In my perfect world, I’m a line drive into left-center and a line drive into right-center kind of hitter.”

Laurila: Is that an approach you’ve always had, or have you evolved over time? Read the rest of this entry »

Ezequiel Tovar came into the season ranked as the No. 4 prospect in the Colorado Rockies system. Despite being just 20 years old, he might finish it in the big leagues. In 229 plate appearances with the Double-A Hartford Yard Goats, Tovar is slashing .317/.393/.579 with a 165 wRC+. Moreover, he has a dozen home runs and has swiped 16 bases in 17 attempts.

His calling card is his glove. Described by our own Eric Longenhagen as “a no-doubt shortstop with balletic defensive footwork and a well-calibrated internal clock.” Tovar had received similar rave reviews from MLB scouts in the Arizona Fall League. And that was before he blossomed with the bat.

I asked Yard Goats manager Chris Denorfia about the offensive strides that have elevated Tovar’s profile.

“Coming into this year, I was told that there was some chase on down-and-away sliders,” said Denorfia, who played 10 big-league seasons. “But I haven’t seen what everybody was talking about. Somewhere between the Fall League and this spring, he’s made this developmental jump. Something clicked to where he’s recognizing situations where pitchers are going to try to get him to chase. Whether you call it slowing the game down, or just having enough reps, he’s made that adjustment. It was probably the one thing that was holding him back, which is kind of weird to say, because he was only 19 last year.”

The discipline is reflected in the numbers. Despite being one the youngest players in his league, Tovar possesses a 9.6 walk-rate and a 22.3% K-rate. When you add his improved pop to the equation, it’s easy to see why speculation of a call-up — premature that it may be — has begun to grow legs. Read the rest of this entry »