Jose Altuve is having a Cooperstown-worthy career. Since debuting with the Houston Astros in 2011, the 35-year-old second baseman has logged 2,329 hits, including 246 home runs, while putting up a 129 wRC+ and 59.2 WAR. A nine-time All-Star who has won seven Silver Sluggers and one Gold Glove, Altuve captured MVP honors in 2017.

Turn the clock back to 2008, and the 5-foot-6 Puerto Cabello, Venezuela native was 18 years old and playing stateside for the first time. His manager with the rookie-level Greeneville Astros was Rodney Linares.

I recently asked the now-Tampa Bay Rays bench coach for his memories of the then-teenaged prospect.

“One guy that doesn’t get a lot of credit for Altuve is [current St. Louis Cardinals first base coach] Stubby Clapp, who’d been my hitting coach the year before,” Linares told me. “He always talked about Altuve, because he’d had him in extended spring. He was like, ‘You’ve got to watch this kid; this kid is going to be really good.’ I used to tell Stubby, ‘You think that because you’re small and played in the big leagues, anybody who is small can play.’”

Linares recalls the Astros organization’s wanting him to play 20-year-old Albert Cartwright at second, prompting him to tell Altuve ‘Go to short, go to third, go to left field. I’m going to make sure that you get your at-bats.” Read the rest of this entry »

Toward the end of May, I wrote about Pete Crow-Armstrong’s crimes of passion. When the Cubs win a game on a walk-off, Crow-Armstrong isn’t just the first one out onto the field to celebrate. He’s out on the field before the winning run has even scored. The game is still in progress, the ball is still in play, but there’s Crow-Armstrong sprinting across the third base line like a heat-seeking missile, breaking the rules and pulling the hero who just knocked in the game-winning run into the tightest hug imaginable. It’s a pattern; a jubilant, sensuous, illegal-but-not-actionable pattern that plays out over the rising strains of “Go Cubs Go.”

Well, in the past five weeks, the Cubs have walked off their opponents two more times, and Crow-Armstrong has not disappointed. In the bottom of the 10th inning on June 15, Ian Happ walked off the Pirates with a line drive single into right field. Crow-Armstrong was on deck at the time, which meant that he was busy warming up and thinking about hitting. It also meant that he was right next to home plate, so he ended up shadowing Vidal Bruján as he scored the winning run, and only then changing course and sprinting out onto the field to congratulate Happ. For these reasons, he didn’t actually enter the field of play until nearly a full second after the game had ended, but don’t worry. He was still the first Cub on the field and the first to wrap Happ in a big, shaggy hug. His love was so powerful that the energy surge temporarily overloaded the Marquee Sports broadcast system. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, we received a mailbag question from a Jacob Young fan named David. Actually, it was a multi-part question, and the third sub-question was particularly fun: Are we now in an era of Peak Centerfield Defense? It seems like every team has a centerfielder that can go get it.

My gut reaction to this question was simple: Yes, we’re probably in an era of peak center field defense. I suspect the game has probably been in that era more often than not ever since integration, and that peak has kept on rising. I saved David’s other sub-questions for this Saturday’s mailbag, but for this particular one, I thought it might be fun to think it through and dig deeper than I could in the mailbag.

First, let me explain my gut reaction. More than any other position, center field rewards pure athleticism, and the athletes keep getting better. The player pool keeps expanding, and players (and humans in general) keep getting bigger, stronger, and faster. All of this means the bar to make it to the majors at all is that much higher. I’ve got baseball-specific reasons, too. The league keeps getting better at positioning defenders where the ball is more likely to go, allowing them to make even more of their superlative talents. And because we keep getting better at accurately measuring defensive contributions, we’re able to recognize and reward defensive value better than ever.

After saying all that, though, I have to admit the obvious: There’s no way to know the answer definitively. We have precious little Statcast data about Ty Cobb’s sprint speed or Duke Snider’s reaction time. Up until this century, play-by-play data is all we have to go on in evaluating defenders. Sean Smith analyzed that data to create a defensive metric called Total Zone, which is what informs the defensive grades on our leaderboards up until 2002, when more advanced defensive metrics like UZR, DRS, and FRV take over. Today’s metrics are nowhere near perfect, but take a moment to stop and think about how far we’ve come. Statcast can tell you exactly how much time every outfielder had to reach every ball, how far they traveled, how fast they ran, how efficient their route was, and how quickly they reacted as the ball came off the bat. That’s a long way from extrapolating from play-by-play data.

I realize that David wasn’t necessarily asking about the overall quality of center field play, but whether we’re living in a time when we’ve got a particularly high number of excellent defenders. It feels that way, right? Think of all the center fielders right now whom you’d classify as extremely good defenders. My list would definitely include Young, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Denzel Clarke, Ceddanne Rafaela, Victor Scott II, and Jose Siri, and I wouldn’t argue with anybody who also included Byron Buxton, Julio Rodríguez, Jake Meyers, Kyle Isbel, Michael Harris II, Daulton Varsho, Harrison Bader, or Myles Straw. I’m not sure what’s happened to Brenton Doyle, but before the season we would have put him on this list, as well. All of a sudden, we’ve got half the teams in baseball with an elite center field defender.

Now maybe it’s always felt that way. Just to pick a date out of a hat, if you go back to 1999, you’ve got defensive standouts like Andruw Jones, Mike Cameron, Carlos Beltrán, Steve Finley, Darren Lewis, and Kenny Lofton. If you go back to the 1950s, you’ve got Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Duke Snider all in the same city. For that reason, I decided to see what I could do with the numbers available to me.

Even if we can’t know the answer definitively, we can have some fun with the data at our disposal. We have all these different numbers – TZ, UZR, DRS, DRP, OAA, FRV – but none of them matches up perfectly. They’re all working off different data sources. They’re all using different methods based on different philosophies. They’re looking at different eras with different styles of play. They’re all grading on different curves, judging players according to the league average in their particular year, which makes it very hard to compare players from different eras. It’s a glorious mess, but it means that we need to think of some other ways to analyze things.

Let’s start by considering how center fielders are earning their playing time. If you’re not hitting well and you’re not fielding well, you’re probably not going to stay on the field. If you’re doing one well, you can get away with doing a worse job at the other. Now take a look at how center fielders have hit since 1900.

That graph is going nowhere but down, and it’s been on that trajectory since the beginning. This season, the league has a combined wRC+ of 92 at center field. If it holds, it would be the lowest mark ever recorded. However, center fielders aren’t worse players than ever. Here’s a graph that shows defensive run value per 600 plate appearances. This is just the Def column that you see all the way on the right of our main leaderboard. Before you look at it, let me warn you that I’m cheating a little bit by showing it to you.

Here’s how I’m cheating. Not everybody is playing center field all the time. It just shows players whose primary position is listed as center field. We stopped using total zone for these numbers in 2002, so the more recent numbers are based on an entirely different formula. But the overall trend is about as unambiguous as it gets. For the first half of baseball history, the numbers say that center fielders weren’t necessarily great defenders, but that changed in the late 1950s, then cemented itself in the late 1980s.

The big reason why this is cheating, though, is because these numbers include a positional adjustment. As you likely know if you’ve made it this far, positional adjustments give more credit to tougher defensive spots and take credit from easier ones. If you look at center field defensive metrics for any one year, they should be right around zero more often than not. However high the bar is, there will be good, average, and bad center fielders, and they’ll cancel each other out. This graph is saying that the bar has gotten higher over time, compared to other positions on the field. That’s all the more apparent if you look at the same graph with the corners included.

This shouldn’t necessarily be my persuasive argument. After all, I didn’t crunch the numbers and decide on the positional adjustments myself. I’m just showing you their effect on the way we value outfielder defense. However, when you view this alongside the decreasing wRC+ of center fielders, the conclusion is obvious. Defense has never been a more important part of the job, and the gap between defense in center field and the corners has never been higher.

Knowing all this, what makes me say that this very moment could be peak center field defense? For starters, players are just plain faster these days – and I don’t just mean faster than they were in the 1950s. We have 11 years of Statcast data tracking every player’s average sprint speed. For each year, I calculated the sprint speed of the average center fielder, prorating it by innings played (and ignoring any player who didn’t play enough to register a sprint speed). In the first three years, from 2015 to 2017, the average center fielder had a sprint speed of 28.4 feet per second. In the last three years, from 2023 to 2025, the average is 28.6. That may seem like a small change, but it’s also taking place over an awfully short timeframe. We can honestly say that center fielders are measurably faster today than they were just 10 years ago! It’s not hard to extrapolate further back in time.

If we extend our gaze a bit to take in the entirety of the pitch-tracking era, we can see that balls just aren’t falling in the way they used to. The graph below goes back to 2008, and it shows the batting average for every ball classified as either a line drive or a fly ball hit straightaway (not including home runs). It starts at .393 and ends at .346. Nearly 50 points of average just disappeared into the gloves of center fielders.

This is pretty stark, but even this graph is underselling the difference a bit. Here’s the same graph, but now it includes wOBA, too. The new red wOBA line falls even steeper than the blue line. Center fielders aren’t just robbing batters of more hits. They’re also better at holding batters to singles and preventing extra-base hits. That drop-off is nearly 60 points.

I think this is about as definitive as it gets. Since 2008, there’s never been a worse time to hit the ball to center field. So far as we can tell, defense has never been a more important part of a center fielder’s job, and center fielders have never been so much better than corner outfielders. In all, we’re probably at peak center field defense right now. And we’ll probably stay there.

Charlie Condon was drafted just last year, so unlike the previous installments in this series, the 22-year-old corner infielder isn’t exactly revisiting “an old scouting report” here. The observations and opinions he is responding to were written by Eric Longenhagen this past January, less than sixth months after Condon was drafted third overall by Colorado out of the University of Georgia. At the time, the young power hitter had only 109 minor league plate appearances under his belt in the High-A Northwest League.

Eric wasn’t as bullish on him as many other evaluators were when our 2025 Rockies Top Prospects list was published. Our lead prospect analyst ranked Condon second in what he described as a “talented but imbalanced system,” but Eric also gave him just a 45+ FV, citing last year’s poor performance during his first professional season as one of the reasons to be concerned; Condon slashed .180/.248/.270 with a 40 wRC+.

The 6-foot-6, 215-pound right-handed hitter is doing his best to dispel doubts that he can develop into an offensive force at the big league level. After recovering from a non-displaced fracture of his left wrist suffered in spring training, Condon put up a 131 wRC+ over 167 plate appearances with High-A Spokane this season and earned a promotion to Double-A. Since joining the Hartford Yard Goats at the beginning of this month, he’s gone 6-for-27 with a pair of two-baggers.

In a twist to our Old Scouting Reports series, here are Condon’s responses to excerpts from Eric’s January write-up.

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“Condon went third overall, signed for $9.25 million, and then had a no good very bad pro debut at Spokane during which he hit .180 and struck out 31.2% of the time.”

“That’s just baseball, man, “ Condon said of his disappointing debut. “It’s part of the learning experience, and you have to be able to accept failure and take the positives out of it. I think I’ve learned since then. It’s a tough game.

“Some of it was timing,” the slugger said when asked to elaborate. “I was also getting a little big sometimes. I had to clean up some things with my bat path to help get ready for this year.”

“During instructs, Condon played defense but didn’t get at-bats, as if he was being given time away from the plate to reset.” Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Busch had a pretty nice 2024. In his first taste of everyday playing time in the majors, he hit .248/.335/.440 and socked 21 homers on the way to a 118 wRC+. After years spent in the minors in the Dodgers system, he looked to finally be delivering on his high-strikeout, high-BABIP, high-doubles promise. The Cubs penciled him in as their everyday first baseman. That’s not an imposing batting line, but it’s better than average, so the team spent its winter trading for Kyle Tucker, not trying to upgrade from an already-acceptable situation at first base.

You’ll notice that I said high doubles instead of high power. That’s because Busch had desultory bat speed numbers; he was in the 24th percentile with a 70.3-mph average swing speed. It wasn’t an issue of him having a hard swing and a soft swing that he deployed at different times, either. His fast-swing rate, or the percentage of his swings measured at 75 mph or higher, was a mere 11.3%; league average is around 23%. Busch was adept at getting his barrel to the ball and posting good exit velocity numbers, but that’s generally a recipe for doubles instead of homers. He hit 28 doubles, two triples, and 21 home runs last season, about what was expected from his profile. He got the ball in the air a lot and still hit for a high BABIP – sounds pretty good to me.

What do you think Busch could do to improve his performance in 2025? My immediate answer: Swing faster and hit more homers. Hey, check it out! Busch has already hit 18 homers this year in just over half a season. He’s on pace to shatter his performance last season in pretty much every statistic. He’s hitting .297/.382/.562 with a 165 wRC+. There’s just one problem with my swing-hard-and-prosper theory: He’s not swinging harder. Read the rest of this entry »

To say the last two-plus years haven’t gone the way Sandy Alcantara had hoped would be a massive understatement. Coming off winning the NL Cy Young award in 2022, his numbers dipped the following season, and he was shut down that September with a flexor strain that required Tommy John surgery in October. He returned this spring with his velocity and movement intact, but his performance to start to the season was rough; he ended April with an 8.31 ERA. The buzz about the Marlins trading Alcantara, a seemingly inevitable outcome for a franchise that is run like a glorified farm affiliate to the rest of baseball, died down temporarily. Sure, things have gone better for the ace recently, but his ERA is still inflated at 7.01, albeit with a relatively sunny 4.55 FIP. Has he done enough to fetch a high price if the Marlins trade him in the coming weeks?

My colleague Michael Baumann wrote about Alcantara back at the start of May, focusing on the righty’s poor April. One of the most concerning aspects of that dreadful start was his 14% walk rate, or 5.9 free passes per nine innings. It wasn’t so much an issue of control — Alcantara’s zone percentage was similar to past seasons — but one of command. You can see the contrast between Alcantara’s best seasons and April in botCmd (PitchingBot) and Location+ (Stuff+).

Read the rest of this entry »

Jake Bird is having a career-best season, and conquering Coors Field has been a big part of the reason why. Over 21 relief appearances comprising 26 1/3 innings, the 29-year-old right-hander has held opposing hitters to a .196/.276/.217 slash line at home. His ERA at the notoriously hitter-friendly venue is 1.71, and his strikeout rate is a healthy 34.3%. Folding in his 18 road outings — including last night’s ERA-inflating, five-run debacle in Boston — Bird has a 3.70 ERA, a 2.92 FIP, and a 27.8% strikeout rate over 48 2/3 frames.

Prior to this year, he’d been a run-of-the-mill reliever on moribund Rockies teams. From 2022-24, Colorado’s fifth-round pick in the 2018 draft had a record of 7-9 with one save and a 4.53 ERA over 177 innings. An unranked prospect coming up through the system, Bird was in possession of an economics degree from UCLA, but boasted little in terms of big league upside. He came into the current campaign projected to essentially replicate the nondescript performances of his previous three seasons.

What is behind Bird’s unexpected emergence as a high-quality bullpen arm? Moreover, what is allowing him to have so much success in his home ballpark? I asked him those questions before Monday’s Rockies-Red Sox game at Fenway Park.

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David Laurila: How are you having so much success at Coors this year? Can you explain it?

Jake Bird: “I think a lot of it is just the comfortability factor. After being here a few years, I’m realizing that Coors isn’t the big monster that everybody makes it out to be. It’s not that big of a deal. Sometimes [the ball] gets in the air, and the [pitches] move less, but as long as you have a plan of where you want to go with the ball, and sequence pitches, it doesn’t make too much of a difference. Read the rest of this entry »

A month ago, I checked in on Spencer Strider’s worrisome return from internal brace surgery. After four starts, Strider was 0-4 with a 5.68 ERA and a 6.40 FIP. His fastball had lost two ticks. His arm angle had fallen by seven degrees. He wasn’t getting chases. He wasn’t missing bats. In short, he didn’t look like Spencer Strider. “There’s no way for us to know how long it might take Strider to get back up to speed,” I wrote, “but the longer he looks like this, the more reason there is to worry.” One month later, I return to you with good news. Strider has made six more starts, and over the last five, he is starting to look different. He’s run a 2.70 ERA and a 2.35 FIP. His strikeout rate is up and his walk rate is down. You might even say that Strider is halfway back.

Once again, the velocity is the big ticket item, so let’s not waste any time:

Read the rest of this entry »

I owe George Springer an apology. Back in March, I wrote an article with a very simple premise: If Springer got off to a terrible start, the Blue Jays needed to be ready to sit him down. He was godawful at the beginning of spring training, he’d been a below-average player for two seasons in a row, and ZiPS saw him as the seventh-best outfielder on the team. Not the seventh-best defensive outfielder; ZiPS projected that Springer would put up 2.2 WAR per 600 plate appearances, a bounce-back campaign, but still worse than the projections of six other Blue Jays outfielders. I wasn’t saying he was washed or anything, but I was concerned that Springer might deliver more of the same, and that the Blue Jays would keep running him out there even though they had better options available. I needn’t have worried.

“I feel great, actually,” Springer told MLB.com’s Keegan Matheson while he was putting up those abysmal spring training numbers. “For me, it’s about the process. It’s not about the results. I want to make sure that I’m swinging at the right pitches and getting my swing off. Yeah, obviously everyone would like to see the ball hit the grass, but for me specifically, I’m working on the mechanical side of it.” Then the season started, and Springer went out and backed those words up. He’s having a renaissance. A couple months shy of his 36th birthday, he already has 1.8 WAR, and his 143 wRC+ is the best mark he’s put up since he was a fresh-faced 30-year-old Astro in 2020. He’s on pace for his highest home run total since 2019, and he’s running a career-best 12.4% walk rate. So Springer is walking more and hitting for more power, and because of a .303 BABIP, his best since 2016, he’s also running his best batting average in years. How is he doing all this? Read the rest of this entry »

Starting pitchers prepare for games in three-stage fashion. A few days after taking the mound, they throw a bullpen session under the watchful eye of the pitching coach, typically with a Trackman recording each throw. At the start of every series, there is a pitchers’ meeting with all arms present, as well as the catchers and pitching coaches. On the day of a start, the pitcher will go over that day’s game plan with the catchers and coaches.

And then there are the talks pitchers have among themselves. While informal, they can likewise play a meaningful role in preparedness. Every time a hurler takes the hill, he brings with him knowledge gleaned from his peers. That was a big part of what I was interested in when I approached three starters — Lucas Giolito, Kevin Gausman, and Ryan Pepiot — to learn how they get ready for an outing from an information perspective.

Here are excerpts from my conversations with the pitchers:

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PRE-SERIES AND PRE-START MEETINGS

Giolito: “You go over a lot of things in the pre-series meeting. You go over guys who like to run — stealing bases and things like that — and you obviously go over the hitters. Considering that you have a bunch of dudes in the room that have wildly different stuff and attack plans, that’s more surface level. You’re not going down the line and saying, ‘This is how we’re going to attack this guy,’ because we’re all different. That’s for when you have your pre-start meeting.

“In the pre-start meeting — that’s with the coaching staff and the catchers — we go over each hitter, talking about strengths, weaknesses, and attack plans. The attack plans are based on the individual pitcher’s stuff.” Read the rest of this entry »