The 2023 season isn’t off to the best start for last year’s AL Cy Young finalists. Reigning winner Justin Verlander missed the first five weeks with a shoulder strain and now faces the unenviable task of rescuing an ailing Mets rotation. Runner-up Dylan Cease has had his moments but an equal number of surprisingly poor outings. Finally, third-place finisher Alek Manoah is struggling most of all. His ERA has doubled, his WAR is in the negatives, and his 1.28 K/BB ranks last among qualified major league pitchers.

Manoah’s slow start has been difficult to watch. Last season, at just 24 years old, he established himself as the ace of the Blue Jays’ staff, securing his first All-Star selection and earning the nod for Game One of the Wild Card Series. Six months later, he was awarded the Opening Day start, making him the youngest Opening Day starter in the American League. The analytics crowd (myself included) might have argued Kevin Gausman was the true no. 1 in Toronto, but the Blue Jays clearly chose Manoah, and it wasn’t hard to understand why: Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday night, Drew Rasmussen baffled the Yankees, holding them to just two hits in seven scoreless innings and only getting to a three-ball count once; he didn’t walk anybody while striking out seven. Within 24 hours, however, the Rays all but announced that the 27-year-old righty’s season was in jeopardy, placing Rasmussen on the 60-day injured list with a flexor strain and putting yet another damper on the team’s hot start.

Indeed, it was just about a month ago that the Rays lost another starting pitcher. Jeffrey Springs had allowed just one run in 16 innings over three starts while striking out 24 before he was sidelined by what was initially identified as ulnar neuritis and then diagnosed as a flexor strain, though it turned out he needed Tommy John surgery as well, knocking him out for the remainder of the 2023 season. Read the rest of this entry »

Caleb Durbin is an underdog’s underdog in an organization that boasts big-time star power. Acquired along with Indigo Diaz by the New York Yankees from the Atlanta Braves last December in exchange for Lucas Luetge the 23-year-old infield prospect is a former 14th round draft pick out of a Division-3 school. Moreover, he’s never going to be mistaken for Aaron Judge or Giancarlo Stanton. Listed at 5-foot-6 (he claimed to be an inch taller when I talked to him earlier this week), Durbin looks like a stockier version of Jose Altuve.

He’s currently hitting not unlike the diminutive three-time batting champion. In 112 plate appearances — 97 with High-A Hudson Valley and 15 with Double-A Somerset — Durbin went into yesterday slashing .319/.446/.385. His bat-to-ball skills have been impressive. The Lake Forest, Illinois native has fanned just nine times while drawing 15 walks.

Durbin’s numbers at St. Louis’s Washington University were even more eye-opening. With the caveat that D-3 isn’t exactly the SEC, the erstwhile WashU Bear batted .386 with 42 walks and 10 strikeouts in 439 plate appearances over his three collegiate seasons. Since entering pro ball in 2021, he has 70 walks and 62 strikeouts in 631 plate appearances.

“Low strikeout rates are something I’ve always had,” said Durbin. “That’s kind of been my elite tool, if you want to call it that. I feel like that’s always going to be there, so it’s just a matter of building on my contact quality.” Read the rest of this entry »

Position changes can be risky. The outcome depends heavily on the timing and circumstances of the switch, and the natural ability of the player. Sometimes, rookies need to carve out a roster spot for themselves and end up switching on the fly, like Jordan Walker. His shift to the outfield is a work in progress, just like it would be for most rookies. Then there are cases of a more experienced player moving due to roster construction, as with Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s move to center field.

Chisholm’s switch was precipitated by the Marlins’ offseason trade for Luis Arraez. With the sixth-worst offense (88 wRC+) in all of baseball in 2022 and good starting pitching depth, a pitcher-hitter swap to improve the lineup was highly logical, and the Marlins saw their best chance to obtain an impact bat in Arraez. That created something of an infield logjam. With Joey Wendle penciled in at shortstop and Jean Segura at third, the question became what they would do with their young star, who was slated to start at second base. Soon after the announcement of the trade, Kim Ng revealed that Jazz would be moving to center field, their most important position of need. His speed, athleticism, and lack of premium defense on the infield made it worth a try. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not going well for the Mets these days. Since jumping out to a 14–7 start despite a slew of injuries, particularly to their rotation, they’ve lost 13 of 17 amid a particularly soft stretch of their schedule. Now, just as Justin Verlander is settling into the rotation after recovering from a teres major strain that delayed his debut, Max Scherzer has been scratched from a start for the second time this month, which at least sheds light on his early struggles. Alas, the Mets’ problems hardly end with their co-ace.

On Tuesday, the 38-year-old Scherzer was scratched from his scheduled start against the Reds due to neck spasms; on Wednesday, he couldn’t even play catch:

Max Scherzer tried to play catch just now but it didn't last long or go well. His neck is still "in spasm," as he put it. But he feels better today than he did yesterday.

"It hasn't fully let go yet," he said.

The Mets plan to slot him in during the Nationals series.

— Tim Healey (@timbhealey) May 10, 2023

Scherzer was able to throw out to 90 feet in a flat-ground session on Thursday but won’t be able to start until Saturday at the earliest. That’s left the team’s rotation plans in apparent disarray…

Mets rotation looking dangerous ? pic.twitter.com/JBYudQGg0u

— B/R Walk-Off (@BRWalkoff) May 11, 2023

… not that a whole lot of good answers abound within a unit that ranks 12th in the NL with a 5.38 ERA, 14th with a 5.64 FIP, and dead last with -0.4 WAR. I don’t want to pile on here or overstate the obvious, but a $358 million payroll should probably buy more than that. Read the rest of this entry »

The bat waggle is by far the most popular way to stay loose at the plate. Presumably that’s because waiting for a pitch is one of the few situations when it’s socially acceptable to waggle something. Life just doesn’t offer that many opportunities to waggle. Also, it’s a two-fer. It doesn’t just keep you loose; it also keeps your bat loose. It’s all well and good if you’re body’s ready to hit, but good luck trying to catch up to a Justin Verlander fastball with a tight bat. (Fun Fact: It turns out that bats — you know, the actual winged creatures — have their own waggle.)

But even after you waggle your bat, those last couple seconds are tricky. You’re locked into your batting stance, and now you’re just waiting there at the mercy of the pitcher (and the pitch clock). You’ve got to do something to maintain attack readiness. Some players bounce the bat off their shoulder, or bounce a little bit deeper into their crouch a few times. They rock back and forth, raise and lower their hands, or grind the toe of their cleat into the dirt. Some even make sure their pelvis is loose. Like, really loose. Like, very, extremely, possibly even dangerously loose.

That’s an entirely different kind of waggle. Read the rest of this entry »

Bad injury news for a member of your rotation is always unwelcome, so the Braves had a very unhappy Wednesday, with two starting pitchers hitting the IL to go along with a loss in their series closer with the Red Sox.

In Atlanta’s current era of success since its last rebuild, there’s no pitcher that has been more crucial to the team’s fortunes than Max Fried. Since his debut in 2017, he has amassed 14.4 WAR, more than double that of any other pitcher on the roster (next up is Charlie Morton at 6.5). He’s already missed time this season due to an injury, a hamstring strain that cost him two weeks in April. The current injury, however, is far more serious, one that will measure in months rather than days or weeks.

Expectation has been Fried and Wright will both be sidelined for at least two months. With this being his second shoulder ailment of the year, Wright thinks he could be out longer than Fried.

— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) May 10, 2023

A forearm strain is usually enough to cause serious and forlorn eyebrow-raising, but the silver lining here is that the MRI on Fried’s elbow didn’t reveal an injury severe enough to require surgery. This is especially important given that he already had Tommy John surgery back when he was a prospect with the Padres. That previous procedure cost him part of 2014 and all of ’15, and the basic truth is that though medicine has made progress and that Tommy John surgeries aren’t career-enders to the degree they used to be, repeat procedures have considerably less success. In this 2016 study of so-called revision Tommy John surgery, less than half of the pitchers looked at even pitched in 10 major league games afterward, and they saw their average career length drop in half compared to first-time patients. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re closing in on the quarter-season mark on the 2023 MLB schedule, and the Twins are off to a first-place start. Sure, that’s thanks in part to a sluggish performance of the rest of the sorry AL Central – the second-place Tigers are the fifth team out of a Wild Card spot at the moment – but Minnesota looks just about poised to run away with the division, and the team has its arms to thank. By ERA, FIP, xFIP and WAR, the Twins have one of the top three pitching staffs in baseball to this point, and despite an offense that has yet to really find its rhythm, the Twins’ run prevention efforts – led by a slew of impressive right-handed starters – have been something of a revelation.

Sonny Gray has had perhaps the sunniest start of all, allowing no more than one earned run in each of his first six starts and showing flashes of his vintage All-Star form. Newcomer Pablo López had a pair of starts he wishes he could take back at the end of April, but for the most part looks as advertised. With early injuries to Kenta Maeda and Tyler Mahle – who the Twins just announced will undergo Tommy John surgery – the depth is already being put to the test, but Bailey Ober has looked fantastic in his three outings and Louie Varland has handled his call capably, most recently allowing a single run in six frames against the Padres on Tuesday.

Then there’s 26-year-old Joe Ryan, who seems to have taken a step forward after a respectable 2.1-WAR rookie season last year. Through seven starts, the right-hander has a 2.45 ERA, 2.87 FIP, and 3.31 xFIP with 47 strikeouts and just six walks in 44 innings, leading Minnesota to a 5-2 record in those games. He’s one of just nine pitchers in the majors with as many as six quality starts; he’s allowed 1 or 0 earned runs four times and three or fewer hits four times. In just his second full season in the majors, Ryan looks as though he’s been there for years. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s something we all know about Joey Gallo: He’s got power to spare. Even before he was a big leaguer, tales of his top-of-the-charts power made the rounds among talent evaluators and fans alike. The question was never whether his power would play in the majors, it was whether the strikeouts that came with that power would drag his production down. Those discussions didn’t stop when he made the majors for good in 2017. In fact, it’s 2023 now, and most of the same positives and negatives are still up for debate.

To wit: Through Tuesday’s games, Gallo has hit .189/.326/.541, which works out to a 137 wRC+. He’s also striking out 32.6% of the time – and that would be the lowest strikeout rate of his career. In just 89 plate appearances, he already has seven home runs. By most accounts, it would appear that Gallo is Galloing as hard as ever.

Plot twist: Gallo has made a big adjustment this year, one that seems to have steered him out of the rut he fell into in recent seasons. See, Gallo had a second carrying tool offensively, beyond the power. His thump made opposing pitchers so afraid of him that he ran up massive walk totals merely by being passably selective. In 2019, the season that saw him post his best batting line, he walked 17.5% of the time. In 2021, his second-best, he walked 18% of the time. It’s not so much that he had a perfect batting eye; rather, he just started swinging less in 2019, and pitchers avoided the zone against him to such an extreme degree that he drew piles of walks. He kept it up for a few years before starting to swing more again in 2022. Read the rest of this entry »

Like a riddling Batman villain, the Red Sox entered the 2023 season draped in question marks. Much of the uncertainty surrounded their rotation, which was set to include injury-prone veterans Chris Sale, Corey Kluber, and James Paxton; perennial “breakout” candidate Nick Pivetta; and converted reliever/inexperienced starter Garrett Whitlock. Moreover, the Red Sox were heading into battle without their three most valuable defensive players from the year before. Christian Vázquez, Xander Bogaerts, and Trevor Story combined for 20 DRS and 28.8 DEF in Boston last season; the rest of the team produced -51 DRS and -40.8 DEF. Reese McGuire, Enrique Hernández, and Christian Arroyo had big shoes to fill. Read the rest of this entry »