Well, that didn’t take long. Less than a week into the season, we already have a big-name prospect coming to the big leagues. Better yet, he’s already hit his first home run. With Shin-Soo Choo sidelined by a calf strain, the Rangers have called upon top prospect Nomar Mazara. The move slots Mazara into the Rangers lineup much sooner than anyone anticipated. Not only has he played just 31 games above Double-A (including last year’s Triple-A playoffs), but he’s still two weeks shy of his 21st birthday.

Yet, despite his youth and inexperience, Mazara has given the Rangers plenty of reason to believe he’s up for the challenge of hitting big-league pitching. After a strong .284/.357/.443 showing in Double-A last year, he kicked things up a notch by slashing .358/.409/.444 following a late-season promotion to Triple-A. He carried that success over to 2016 by slashing .375/.394/.500 in spring training, followed by an exceptionally loud three games in Triple-A. Lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth gave Mazara’s hit and power tools present grades of 50 on the 20-80 scale, which suggests he’s capable of hitting .260 with 15-18 homers right now.

Read the rest of this entry »

Kirby Yates is beginning his third big-league season, and his first as a New York Yankee. That qualifies him as a success story. In his own words, “This was really close to never happening.”

Thanks to dogged determination, it is.

Yates went undrafted out of Yavapai (Community) College in 2009. It was a slap in the face. His resume was admittedly spotty — Tommy John surgery had limited his post-high-school looks — but not having his name called was nonetheless rough. He was “pretty bummed.”

Three days after the draft, with a scholarship offer from Division II Mesa State on the table, he got a call from “The one scout who liked me.” That was Jayson Durocher, who subsequently inked Yates to a contract with the Tampa Bay Rays.

“Teams weren’t exactly chomping at the bit to sign me, but the Rays needed a pitcher in rookie ball,” said Yates. “I ended up being that guy. The next thing I knew, I was on a plane to the Appalachian League.”

Yates pitched well, and he proceeded to do so at each step as he climbed the minor-league ladder. He had a chip on his shoulder. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes it’s hard to know exactly what to say. Trying to encapsulate the true feelings of a fan base can leave us searching for words, grasping at the disparate ends of an often tattered, communal cloth. Those words might not be too hard to find for the Padres fan base right now, however. After being swept by the Dodgers this week while scoring zero runs in their opening series, it probably consists of a long string of expletives. Maybe a few sudden sobs. The meat of this article might not make you feel better about the past three games, Padres fans. But something brought me back to this series — not just its historic futility on the part of one of the teams, but the nature of that futility.

First, the history. The 2016 Padres are the first team in baseball history to score zero runs in their first three games of the season. That’s been well publicized. There’s more, though. There always is, but in this case, the more is really just more of less. Take a look at where the 2016 Padres stand among the worst-starting teams in baseball history in terms of a few chosen statistics, found through Baseball Reference’s Play Index (all ranks are through the first three games of respective seasons):

The wrong kind of historic across the board, these are the sort of numbers we see when the team that was projected to score the fewest runs in the majors goes up against a Dodgers rotation featuring Clayton Kershaw, Scott Kazmir, and Kenta Maeda. And, looking at these numbers, a lot of readers are probably going to think the Padres deserved this sort of start from the way their team is constructed and the way they played. But what actually goes into a historically bad start like this? Was it truly the Padres’ futility, or did the baseball gods have a part to play in this series? The answer almost certainly lies somewhere in between, but the finding out is the fun part. So here we go!

Read the rest of this entry »

Trevor Story did something that has never happened in major-league history before: he homered in first three games of his career. People are generally pretty excited about that, and rightly so. Jeff detailed that excitement the other day, and backed it up with a couple of very good points about Story’s plate coverage and adaptability. It may very well be that we are watching the genesis of the next great Rockies shortstop. (Or, if you prefer, the second great Rockies shortstop.) But before we get carried away, I wanted to offer a few counterpoints.

Read the rest of this entry »

Early this March, I talked to Sean Doolittle after a game. He was excited. “I was throwing 93-94 today, and normally it takes me a little to get going,” he told me. “Normally I won’t hit ‘3 until the last week of March.” The excitement was infectious, as it often is with him. He’s an upbeat guy.

As I headed back to the press box, I tweeted something about what he said. Another writer pulled me aside and told me their source hadn’t seen anything over 92. That was a bit of cold water.

That back and forth? That up and down? That’s probably what it’s like to come back from labrum problems. Hope, false hope maybe, sadness, wash, and do it all again. You just hope that you’re building back to where you were. The good news is that, through two appearances, it looks like the old Sean Doolittle is back.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Rangers have assembled a pretty amazing collection of talent, one that enabled them to participate actively in the trade market last season without mortgaging their long-term success. They have an impressive mix of offense and defense among their higher-end prospects, though the hitters in this system, particularly, give them one of the best offensive pipelines in the league. Not only have they continued to be aggressive on the international market, but they are making solid picks in the draft and seem to have figured something out as an organization when it comes to bringing athletic hitters along.

You’ll see mostly familiar names at the top of the list, though Joey Gallo’s ongoing contact issues keep him from appearing ahead of some of the Rangers’ more well-rounded prospects like Lewis Brinson and Nomar Mazara. I’m really expecting big things out of Brinson’s bat, as his combination of present ability and future development is unparalleled by most minor-league hitters in the game. Luis Ortiz is a bit of an enigma for me, because projecting his stuff makes him look like a rotation front-man, but projecting his body may have him resembling a front man from a different discipline.

Perhaps the two biggest surprises are at number seven and eight, with Ronald Guzman and Ariel Jurado appearing higher than elsewhere. Jurado’s presence is mostly a function of my grouping prospects by likely outcome rather than ceiling, since his floor seems to be as a big-league starter. Guzman, however, is a hit-first first baseman who hasn’t shown enough power to be a legitimate future big leaguer, but I like enough about his swing and expected physical development to see more than just good upside.

It’s an exciting time to be a Rangers fan, since their somewhat surprising run at the postseason makes them more fun to watch in the immediate future, while their vast array of quality prospects gives them plenty of ammunition to supplement the team. Should they need more reinforcements beyond promoting their higher-level guys, they have enough quality depth to swing another big trade this season.

Read the rest of this entry »

Useless and true: Jake Odorizzi is currently the major league’s pitching WAR leader. He’s made one start! Danny Salazar has made zero starts. All this means is that Odorizzi’s first start was a good one, and maybe the best so far, or maybe not. Noah Syndergaard had a pretty awesome debut, too. Jose Fernandez was sweet. Chris Archer looked good. Odorizzi was right there. He struck out 10 Blue Jays in 5.2 innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on four hits and two walks. Nice little start! Against a nice little offense.

Tampa Bay’s rotation ranked 15th when we rolled out our positional power rankings, but it’s also a rotation that figures to posses considerable upside. Everyone’s young, and everyone’s hinted at a higher level. Archer, obviously, is fantastic. Last year, he positioned himself as an ace, and even he’s got room to improve. Drew Smyly struck out a shocking number of batters last season, and with just a year of health could reasonably go from a name that just baseball nuts know to a name that everyone knows. Matt Moore will seemingly always have potential. There’s plenty of talent down on the farm. Plus, there’s Odorizzi. You could make the case for anyone here as being on the cusp of a breakout. At the very least, everyone’s doing what they can to take that next step.

Odorizzi, in particular, has something in the works, something about which he’s been vocal as of late, and something that was on display in his season debut. It’s best to be up front right now and say the results, admittedly, were mixed, but Odorizzi understands he has a weakness, has formulated a plan to combat that weakness, and is seemingly committed to seeing it out.

Read the rest of this entry »

Luke Gregerson isn’t as slider-heavy as he was once was. The Astros reliever threw his signature pitch 41% of the time last season. Since he broke into the big leagues in 2009, his 54.4% slider rate is the highest among pitchers who’ve recorded at least 350 innings.

He’s been effective. Gregerson boasts a 2.79 ERA and 2.97 FIP in 500 career appearances. He notched 31 saves last year, and while he’s more about ground balls than punch outs, his K/9 is a more than respectable 8.81.

Most of the questions the 31-year-old righty has fielded this spring have revolved around Houston’s offseason acquisition of Ken Giles — a closer with the Phillies — and their roles going forward. On Wednesday, I approached Gregerson with a different subject in mind: his hard-to-square-up slider.

——-

Gregerson on what he considers ideal fastball-slider speed differential: “That’s a good question. I’ve never really thought about that too much. I just want it to move. That’s the biggest key for me. For guys who throw really hard, having a straight change that’s a slower speed is definitely a good thing. But for somebody like myself who’s not very overpowering… I’d say I’m looking more for late, hard movement, not a change of speed from my fastball.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Moreso than any of their other coaching brethren, pitching coaches develop rather specific reputations for the influence they exert on their respective clubs. Don Cooper of the Chicago White Sox, for example, is known for teaching his pitchers the cutter. The Mets’ Dan Warthen is known for the slider. Dave Duncan, in his time with Oakland and St. Louis, developed a reputation for his reclamation projects and also teaching the sinker. Ray Searage of the Pittsburgh Pirates now has a well-developed reputation for reclamation projects including A.J. Burnett, J.A. Happ, and Edinson Volquez. Jeff Sullivan noted in Spring Training that Juan Nicasio might be Searage’s lastest success story. After Wednesday night’s game against the Cardinals, the first phase of Nicasio’s transformation is complete.

Finishing off a sweep of the Cardinals which saw Pittsburgh pitchers record 37 strikeouts over three games, Nicasio produced a very good debut, throwing six innings, striking out seven while walking none, and giving up just one run on a solo shot to Jeremy Hazelbaker — one of just two hits allowed. He did it all without recording more than 15 pitches in any one inning. Nicasio has long had a high-octane four-seam fastball and a decent slider that has generated 13% whiff rate while being used 22% of the time — second only to his fastball (69% usage rate), per Brooks Baseball. What he hasn’t done previously, however, is utilize his arsenal to achieve extended success.

Read the rest of this entry »

Starlin Castro has spent a lot of his career being frustrating, and he’s spent a good chunk of it being disappointing, but a player can’t be either of those things unless he has a certain amount of ability. Fans have to like you before they can later be frustrated by you, and so Castro’s time in Chicago was a bit of a roller-coaster. His time in New York will also have its ups and downs, but in the earliest possible going, it’s been all gold stars. Castro has two homers and seven hits in 12 trips to the plate, so gone are the concerns about how he might adjust. Yankees fans haven’t been let down yet.

You know what time of year it is. This is when we make too much out of everything, because we’re just excited to have new data. By the end of the season, Castro’s slugging percentage is probably going to look more like .400 than its current 1.250. This much I can assure you, though: Castro is showing that he’s carried over his late-season adjustments from 2015. It got kind of lost, but Castro finished last year strong. Then he had a good spring training. Now he’s off to a hot start. Castro isn’t going to finish as the best hitter on the Yankees, I assume, but he’s a better hitter now than he was for a lot of last summer. Pictures are going to help with this.

Read the rest of this entry »