Today, we we wrap up my yearly breakouts/bust series with the pitchers I’m pessimistic about in 2023 to some degree. Since any breakouts or busts beyond what a projection system suggests are naturally going to be low-probability outcomes, there’s a high probability of me looking pretty silly — something writers try to avoid. Let’s start by looking back at how smart I was last year… or how foolish.

All in all, this doesn’t look too bad. Karinchak was about at his typical levels, but the rest of the list didn’t generally provide much excitement. Syndergaard was the most valuable of the group, but hardly as the God of Thunder, and a league-average season was certainly a disappointment compared to what we remembered of him. Flaherty may have the been saddest bust on the list, as he was more or less a mess.

From the comments in the hitter articles, there’s still some lingering confusion on what I mean by a breakout or bust. When I pick a player to break out or bust, I’m basing this relative to the general expectations as I perceive them, not relative to the previous season’s performance. For example, Joey Gallo is a bust not because I think he’ll be worse than last season, but because I think he’ll be worse than those baked-in expectations; there has been a lot of speculation that the shift will save him, and I don’t think that’s true. You see this on the financial markets quite a bit, when the market reacts negatively to good news that’s not as good as what was already priced into the valuations, and vice-versa. Also remember that this isn’t necessarily me versus ZiPS; sometimes ZiPS agrees with me, and sometimes it angrily disagrees, or at least it would if I didn’t have the power to delete it from existence.

Without further ado, let’s get to the picks, and may the baseball fates have mercy on my soul. As this piece was completed over the first few days of the season, all eight players were finalized before the season started. A few of these players did have awful 2023 debuts, but that’s just “luck” on my part.

Sandy Alcantara, Miami Marlins

Alcantara is still likely to be one of the better pitchers in the league, and ZiPS certainly likes him, placing him among the leaders in WAR. But ZiPS is explicitly not trying to take into account rule changes, and I think Alcantara is one of the pitchers with the most significant chances to be affected by them. That’s a common theme among several of my bust picks this year, simply because this year, it’s something that causes additional uncertainty.

In this case, Alcantara, by far, had more groundballs hit into shifts than any pitcher in baseball in 2022, with 166; only seven other pitchers were above 100. I still think he’ll be a really good pitcher, but I expect his platoon splits will rise farther than ZiPS does, and before remaining confident he’s in ultra-elite territory, I want to make sure that the changeups that lefties facing Alcantara drive into the ground aren’t sneaking through at high rates.

Robbie Ray, Seattle Mariners

I’m a bit worried about Ray’s strikeout rate. While the dip from 2021 to ’22 wasn’t a big one, his peripherals in this department took a giant splat last year, with his swinging-strike rate falling off by 30%. His contact rate was his worst as an established major leaguer, and his called-strike performance also dropped considerably. ZiPS thought his peripherals, which are a leading indicator of strikeout performance, suggested a whopping 37 fewer strikeouts than were actually reflected in the record. And this isn’t a case of ZiPS having a pattern of underrating Ray’s strikeouts; zSO predicted 1,149 strikeouts for him in 2016–21 versus his 1,152 actual strikeouts. The dropoff in first-strike percentage also tends to mean an increase in walks, though Ray should at least be better than his first start this year!

At least, that is, when he returns from his current flexor strain. If that turns out to be more serious than it looks right now, we’ll have to call this an incomplete; it would be manifestly unfair for me to claim victory in a small sample size.

Corey Kluber, Boston Red Sox

ZiPS already isn’t too bullish on Kluber, so I’m in agreement with the computer in this case. I think what we have here is a perfect storm of risky indicators. He was solid in 2022 but also in a beneficial environment, with the Rays’ defense and the Trop being a good fit for him. He was never a flamethrower, but his limited velocity is getting even worse; he’s lost two mph from 2021, placing him at risk of “going Jered Weaver.” What’s more is that in a year in which there are additional incentives for putting balls in play — already less than ideal for Kluber — Fenway is the best non-Coors park for BABIP, and the Red Sox don’t have a particularly good defense. I think Kluber can still have success as the saavy, groundball veteran in a Chelcie Ross/Eddie Harris sense, but it’s more likely when he has the right support behind him.

Johnny Cueto, Miami Marlins

While Cueto has never been a pitcher who has relied on high strikeout rates, dipping under six last year was quite worrisome, both in its absolute number and the dropoff from the year before with the Giants. A large part of his success was one of his best seasons for home run rate allowed — especially impressive in Guaranteed Rate Field — but ZiPS thought that even his good exit velocity numbers last year should have yielded an additional seven homers. The fact that Cueto is the second Marlin on this list reflects one of the reasons I’m uneasy about the Pablo López trade: I think the Marlins would have been a lot better off had they tried to meet their offensive needs with money instead of lopping off some of their pitcher surplus. If Cueto struggles (and in his first start on Monday, he did, and also had to leave the game with a trainer), that pitcher surplus becomes more and more iffy.

Craig Kimbrel, Philadelphia Phillies

Kimbrel’s occasional implosions are a lot easier to stomach if he’s striking out 15 batters a game. He wasn’t in 2022, with easily the worst strikeout rate of his career, and that’s with the Dodgers, who seem to have a shocking ability to wring good performance out of practically anyone. Once one of the hardest pitchers in baseball to make contact again, he’s gradually degraded towards league average in this number, which isn’t exactly a formula in which he’ll find success given his penchant for occasionally getting hit very hard. While I wouldn’t overreact to his first appearance with the Phillies, I think he’s a very ordinary reliever who is getting by more on reputation than performance.

Mike Clevinger, Chicago White Sox

Clevinger got two starts in the playoffs last year, but his stint with the Padres has to go down as a major disappointment, one somewhat camouflaged by the decline in offense and being in a pitchers’ park. Losing a couple miles on his fastball may not have been fatal in itself, but it was hit quite hard last year, and none of his pitches were able to put away batters effectively on two strikes. I think he’s more of a reclamation project than a bounceback solution, and I don’t think an allegedly competitive team in a home run friendly park is necessarily the best place for that to happen.

Chris Bassitt, Toronto Blue Jays

ZiPS isn’t worried about Bassitt, at least in the short term (it has him dropping off fairly quickly in future seasons). But what ZiPS doesn’t know is that his velocity took a big dip in the spring. Last year, he was regularly in the 93–94 mph range with the occasional pitch at 95 or 96; in Florida, it was 90–92. It’s not unusual for a pitcher to dial it back a bit before the season starts, but he wasn’t just applying the brakes more often; all his fastballs were off. Bassitt’s fastest pitch this spring was 93.5 mph, below his average in more than half of his starts last year. If he were averaging 90–92 but still hitting 95–96, I’d be less worried, but I’m skeptical that he simply chose to go through a whole month without ever throwing his fastest fastball. Velocity drops tend to be red flags, so I think there’s additional risk here.

Kyle Freeland, Colorado Rockies

ZiPS thought that Freeland should have allowed 12 more homers in 2022 than he actually did, a pretty hefty number. To put this into context, zHR has been part of ZiPS since 2015, and over that period, only Madison Bumgarner in 2018 has “underperformed” by at least 10 homers (10.7). This isn’t a case in which Freeland has a history of beating his peripherals here either; zHR has never missed on him by more than two homers over a season. Add in the decline in his velocity, more flyballs than ever, and a park that’s still somewhat of a pinball machine post-humidor, and I think Freeland is a very risky pitcher.

The 2023 season is only a handful of days old, but already another Cy Young winner is on the shelf. After Justin Verlander was placed on the injured list last Friday, Robbie Ray joined him the following afternoon. The Mariners lefty was removed from his season debut against the Guardians in the middle of the fourth inning, having thrown 91 pitches and given up five walks and five runs. It wasn’t clear his exit was injury-related at the time, but Ray later revealed he’d been feeling pain since the second inning. He was ultimately diagnosed with a left flexor strain, which will keep him out for four to six weeks.

Even before Ray’s injury was diagnosed, the Mariners had cause for concern. For one thing, five walks in three-plus innings is certainly a worrisome sign. To make matters worse, two of those walks came in the first inning, before he began to feel sore. Ray has been notoriously wild in the past — he leads all active pitchers in five-walk games — but he had seemingly gotten his free passes under control the last two years:

In his second start of the 2021 season, Ray walked six batters in five innings of work. From that point onwards, he has posted a perfectly respectable 2.64 BB/9 (84 BB/9+). He needs to keep his walk rate in check to succeed going forward; hopefully his control will improve when his flexor strain heals. Read the rest of this entry »

When MLB added a pitch clock for the 2023 season, stolen base fans started salivating immediately. They had good reason to: when the pitch clock and its associated limit on pickoffs came to the minor leagues, stolen bases exploded. As spring training progressed, the evidence mounted: teams would steal more often, and they’d be successful doing it.

Still, there was no knowing how cleanly those warmup game stolen base numbers would translate into regular season games. Maybe teams were getting their stolen base practice in so that they could use it in key spots but would dial their aggression back when faced with the prospect of making real-life, actual outs on the basepaths. Maybe pitchers were sandbagging their best moves in anticipation of over-eager base stealers and would start racking up free outs left and right starting on Opening Day.

With the first 50 games of the seasons in the books, it’s safe to say that steals are here to stay. Just watch the Orioles, as Michael Baumann noted, and you can’t help but see it. To get an idea of just how much things have changed, I came up with a straightforward idea: compare the first 50 games of this season to the first 50 games of last year. Figuring out the right sample to compare to is always tricky, but one way to get around that is by simply looking at the start of each season. Against that backdrop, a huge change in stolen base rate probably means something.

And oh yes, the change in stolen base rate is huge. In the first 50 games of the 2022 season, teams stole 33 bases on 47 attempts, getting picked off four times. That was a slow start to the year, and both stolen base attempts and success rate ticked up slightly as the year went on, to just over one steal per game. This year, the first 50 games have featured 70 successful steals already, more than double last year’s rate. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Angels signed Anthony Rendon to a seven-year, $245 million deal in December 2019, the expectation was that he’d be a difference-maker, augmenting a lineup that already included Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani and helping the Halos return to the postseason after a five-year absence. Though he played up to his capabilities in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Rendon’s last two years have been greatly limited due to injuries, and so far his ’23 season is off to a less-than-auspicious start.

On Opening Day, following a 2–1 loss to the A’s at Oakland’s Ring Central Coliseum, Rendon was involved in an altercation with a fan wearing an A’s hat as he exited the field. Apparently displeased by something the fan yelled, Rendon confronted him, reaching up and grabbing him by the shirt, then taking an open-handed swipe at him. In the video that circulated after the game, you can hear Rendon’s side of the story, not all of which is safe for work:

Wow! Uncool! pic.twitter.com/FNRFWL46A0

— PetrosAndMoneyShow (@PetrosAndMoney) March 31, 2023

Here’s another angle:

Here’s another angle of the Anthony Rendon altercation with a fan pic.twitter.com/BpmmsyGFEp

— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) April 1, 2023

Whatever the fan said to Rendon isn’t part of either video, but even if it were, it’s unlikely to justify the third baseman’s actions; a player simply can’t mix it up in a physical altercation with a fan, period. Rendon is lucky he didn’t actually hit the man, because he’d almost certainly face a more severe fine and suspension than he might receive. As it is, both Major League Baseball and the Oakland Police Department are investigating the incident, with the latter saying it was investigating a battery:

When asked if Oakland Police Department was investigating the incident with Anthony Rendon, this is what the department said: pic.twitter.com/2If9BU23D6

— Sam Blum (@SamBlum3) March 31, 2023

The Angels and A’s were off on Friday. On Saturday, the team made Rendon available to the media prior to the game, but he repeatedly said that he couldn’t comment on an ongoing investigation. Manager Phil Nevin and general manager Perry Minasian made similar no-comments, with the former saying that “at some point” he would address the matter.

Beyond the altercation (and, if we’re being cheeky, including it), Rendon is so far hitless with a walk, a sacrifice fly and two strikeouts in eight plate appearances during this young season. He started in Saturday’s 13–1 win but was pulled in the sixth inning, having banged his left knee on the tarp in pursuit of a foul ball. He sat out Sunday’s contest after getting treatment; the 32-year-old third baseman said that he was well enough to play but that it was already a planned day off for him.

Rendon is coming off not one but two disappointing, injury-shortened seasons in a row, which makes it easy to forget just how he earned that big contract, which still has the fourth-highest average annual value ($35 million) of any position player besides Aaron Judge ($40 million), Trout ($35.54 million), and Carlos Correa ($35.1 million). From 2017 to ’19, Rendon hit for a 145 wRC+ (eighth in the majors) with 18.7 WAR (tied for fifth) and capped that by helping the Nationals win the World Series in 2019, driving in a series-high eight runs, including six (with two homers) in Games 6 and 7. After signing with the Angels, he hit a robust .286/.418/.497 in 52 games in 2020, placing seventh in the league with a 152 wRC+ and tying Trout for third with 2.5 WAR; unfortunately, terrible run prevention cost the Angels a playoff spot.

In 2021, Rendon was sent to the injured list by groin and hamstring strains as well as a knee contusion; he played in just 58 games, none after July 4, and while rehabbing from the hamstring injury suffered a bout of right hip impingement that necessitated season-ending surgery in August. He hit just .240/.329/.382 with six homers, setting career lows with a 94 RC+ and 0.1 WAR. Last year, he landed on the IL due to right wrist inflammation in late May and played just four games in mid-June upon returning before undergoing surgery to repair a subluxation of a tendon. The surgery was supposed to be season-ending, but Rendon healed more quickly than expected and was able to return near the end of the year. That allowed him to serve a five-game suspension for his role in a June 26 benches-clearing brawl with the Mariners and then play in two games, during which he went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts.

If Rendon’s season-ending coda wasn’t exactly impressive for its performance, it at least sent him home “just having the peace of mind of going into the winter and having a normal offseason,” as he said at the time. “It was good to show myself going into the offseason that I could play… It wasn’t the greatest playing those last few games, but just to have that in the back of your mind knowing that I had another three months knowing I could continue to get stronger.”

Following a normal offseason, Rendon hit a sizzling .500/.561/.806 in 41 PA of Cactus League play. Obviously, one can’t put a ton of stock in such numbers, but they at least back up his assertion that he was fully healthy. For what it’s worth, he averaged an exit velocity of 94.4 mph on the 11 balls he hit in parks equipped with Statcast. As Davy Andrews noted last week, there’s at least some signal within the noise when it comes to spring exit velos, albeit at the 15-batted ball level.

Rendon is rejoining what projects to be the strongest Angels squad in recent years, at least going by their preseason Playoff Odds projection of 83.5 wins, which translates to an 18.5% chance of winning the AL West and a 44.7% of reaching the postseason for the first time since 2014. With the offseason additions of free agents Brandon Drury and Gio Urshela, the Angels have upgraded their infield, notably adding some depth that seems designed to insure against another Rendon outage. With first baseman Jared Walsh sidelined by headaches and insomnia, Drury is starting at first base instead of second, though hopefully that’s a short-term issue.

There aren’t a ton of small-sample positives to be taken from Rendon’s performances in the past two seasons, but a few things do stand out. Even while swinging and missing more than ever last year (7.1% swinging-strike rate), he remained an exceptionally disciplined hitter, chasing just 23.4% of pitches, walking 11.9% of the time and striking out 18.1% of the time (his highest mark since 2016). His 8.3% barrel rate was his highest since 2019 and would have placed in the 54th percentile; as it was, it exceeded his previous Statcast career mark by 0.9 points.

Considering that he missed well over 200 games over the past two seasons and will turn 33 on June 6, Rendon still projects to be a force if he’s healthy. His Depth Charts projection forecasts a .264/.359/.442 line in 131 games; his 128 wRC+ matches that of Manny Machado for the seventh-highest among third basemen, and his 3.8 WAR is tied for eighth. The systems don’t know any details about Rendon’s physical condition, but even while accounting for the significant outages of his past two seasons, they project him for something near a star-level contribution, which shouldn’t be too surprising given that he reached or exceeded 5.9 WAR four times from 2014 to ’19 and on a prorated basis would have cleared that as well in ’20.

With Ohtani and Trout coming off exceptional showings on the big stage of the World Baseball Classic, the Angels do have a certain aura of optimism surrounding them for a change. A healthy Rendon should be part of that, but we’ll have to wait and see whether his lapse of good judgment in Oakland costs him some playing time.

On Saturday, the Padres announced a seven-year extension with two-time All-Star Jake Cronenworth, a deal that will begin next season and is valued at $80 million over what would have been his final two years of arbitration and first five of free agency. For Cronenworth, a relative late-bloomer (at least among the crowd that goes on to sign $80 million contracts) who didn’t debut in the majors until he was 26 years old, it’s a day he admits he couldn’t have seen coming two or three years ago before distinguishing himself with a solid COVID-shortened rookie season, consecutive 4-WAR campaigns in 2021 and ’22, and a postseason resume that includes the hit that sent the Dodgers home last October.

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It’s also likely the only way that Cronenworth was going to find himself with a deal of this size and length in his career. While a younger player might be hesitant to sign an extension and surrender an opportunity at free agency, Cronenworth is already 29, and this contract buys out five free-agent years he would have been selling at the age of 32. During the last four offseasons, the only players to sign five-plus-year deals at the age of 32 or older have been DJ LeMahieu in 2021 (coming off consecutive top-five MVP finishes) and Freddie Freeman in 2022 (coming off four straight top-ten MVP finishes) — which is to say, it isn’t easy.

For the Padres, it’s the latest in a series of long-term commitments to core members of their current club: Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove, Robert Suarez, and now Cronenworth. Despite handing out all those extensions, San Diego has left enough on the books (or maybe just set those books on fire) to bring in Xander Bogaerts, Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo, Matt Carpenter, and familiar face Nick Martinez. It’s a combination of the Braves’ readiness to commit to players within the organization who have proved to be a good fit and the Mets’ willingness to go longer and deeper into their pockets than their market competitors.

How has that worked? In the short term, it’s enough to give the Padres our second-highest odds of winning the World Series and make them the title favorite of our staff. The long term is a question mark, but find me a fan who wouldn’t want to spend a half-decade with the above group, not to mention MVP favorite Juan Soto, whose name you have to assume is at the top of the to-do list on A.J. Preller’s office white board. Read the rest of this entry »

We can officially stop worrying about Gary Sanchez: The two-time All-Star catcher has signed a minor league contact with the Giants. Ken Rosenthal broke the news on Friday, reporting that Sanchez will be heading to the team’s spring training facility in Scottsdale before being assigned to an affiliate (presumably Triple-A Sacramento). The deal is for $4 million, prorated for the amount of time Sanchez spends with the big club, and it includes an opt-out if he’s not called up by May 1.

Among the free agents who accrued at least 1.0 WAR last year, Sanchez is the last to find a home. He received interest from just a few teams during the winter and was unable to improve his stock while playing for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic, where he made just six plate appearances, going 0-for-5 with a walk and two strikeouts. It looked like he’d be left in limbo, waiting to sign with whichever team found itself in need of a catcher due to injury. Instead, Sanchez is heading to a San Francisco team that could certainly use some help behind the dish — one that ranked 27th at catcher in our Positional Power Rankings — but already has a very clear Plan A in mind: Joey Bart. Read the rest of this entry »

Coming into 2023, the biggest question concerning major league baseball was how the past offseason’s rule changes would impact style of play. For example, would bigger bases and restrictions on pickoff plays tilt the balance of the game in favor of basestealers? If so, by how much? And would offenses, coming off a period of historic league-wide reluctance to run, take advantage?

Enter the Orioles, who in the first weekend of the season came over all Pink Floyd and ran like hell. Baltimore stole 10 bases in the first two games of the season, and though the team settled down on Sunday and did not attempt a stolen base in the series finale, its runners had already done impressive damage: This was the first time in 10 years that any team had stolen 10 bases over two consecutive nine-inning games. The Orioles also became the first team to hit double figures in the first two games of a season; the previous record, nine, had been set by the 1976 Reds and 1983 Dodgers in the stimulants-and-Astroturf era of baseball, when stolen bases were commonplace.

So what got into the Orioles? And if they can go 10-for-10 on stolen bases in two games, why can’t everyone else? Read the rest of this entry »

Zac Gallen has a 3.16 ERA over 82 big-league starts. He also has just 22 wins, a total that deserves to be far higher. On 29 occasions, the 27-year-old Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander has had either a loss or a no-decision while working five or more innings and allowing two or fewer earned runs. In 20 of those games he’s gone at least six innings, and in eight of them he’s gone at least seven. Moreover, there have been no undeserved Ws. The most earned runs Gallen has allowed while being credited with a win is three, and that has only happened twice.

I recently asked the hard-luck hurler about his run of bad fortune.

“I’m aware of it,” responded Gallen, whose career record stands a modest 22-23. “It’s something my family looks at and kind of jokes around with, that I’m an unlucky pitcher in the sense of getting wins. But my job is to throw up as many zeros as I can and keep us in the game. As baseball has gone on, the win has also been, for lack of a better word, devalued. Starters aren’t going as long in games, which contributes to that.”

Not allowing any runs — regardless of the number of innings you throw — is the ultimate goal for any pitcher, and Gallen had baseball’s best scoreless streak last season. Over a seven-start stretch from August 8 to September 11, he went 44-and-third consecutive innings without allowing a runner to cross the plate. That he was credited with a win in all but one of those starts isn’t exactly surprising, but at the same time, Gallen has learned not to to take anything for granted. Four times in his career he’s gone six or more scoreless innings without a decision.

“It was awesome,” Gallen said of his impressive string of zeros. “I’ve kind of taken on the thought that you really have to earn your wins. [Manager] Torey [Lovullo] talks about it all the time. Pitching deep into games is how starters are often going to earn those wins, so that is something I take pride in.”

Gallen went at least seven innings 10 times last year on his way to a 12-4 record — which, like his career ledger, should have been much better. With solid run support, the snake-bitten D-Back could easily have been a 20-game winner. Devalued or not, that number has long been a mark of distinction for starting pitchers. That in mind, is 20 a goal for Gallen this year?

“My goal for us is to make the playoffs,” Gallen told me. “If 20 wins falls within that, great. If it’s 10 wins — whatever the number — that’s fine, too. As long as we’re in the playoffs, I don’t care. I just want to pitch well and help us get there.”

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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Bobby Bonds went 2 for 22 against Lowell Palmer.

Jeffrey Leonard went 3 for 23 against David Palmer.

Chuck Hinton went 4 for 24 against Jim Palmer.

Dean Palmer went 6 for 7 against Shane Reynolds.

Luke Easter went 4 for 4 against Cuddles Marshall.

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Watching Rafael Devers get called out on strikes on Opening Day because the home plate umpire ruled that he wasn’t ready in time brought to mind something Rich Hill said following a spring training start. Asked about the ramifications of the new pitch clock rule, the veteran left-hander aptly brought up common sense — something MLB’s powers-that-be seemingly don’t always consider.

“I’m not against a faster game — there’s no question about that — but I am 100% against an outcome that is a result of non-competitive action,” said Hill. “I think everybody should be.”

“Maybe five more seconds,” added Hill. “Again, I’m not against a fast game, it’s just that it’s tough to watch some of these results, like getting ball four, or a guy striking out [without a pitch being thrown]. It’s not fair to anyone. The fans are booing. They want to see action. They want to see a quicker game — there are positives — but that big drawback is such a negative.”

I’m on board with Hill’s opinions. An extra five seconds on the pitch clock is far from a bad idea, and more importantly, ending a plate appearance without a pitch being thrown is anathema to fair play. That said, if the rule is indeed going to be enforced, I’d like to suggest an official-scoring change. A pitcher isn’t charged with an earned run when an extra-innings zombie runner (the worst rule in the history of professional sports) scores, so why would a pitcher be credited with a K on a pitch he never threw? The hurler who “struck out” Devers did so via a non-competitive action, and statistically speaking, that’s illogical. Accomplishments should be earned, not arbitrarily assigned.

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A quiz:

The New York Yankees franchise record for career games started is co-held by two pitchers. Who are they?

The answer can be found below.

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NEWS NOTES

The Midwest League’s Great Lakes Loons have hired John Vicari to work alongside Brad Tunney in their radio booth this season. A 2021 Ithaca College graduate, Vicari was with the High-A Lake County Captains last year.

Roberto Barbon, who spent 1954 in the Brooklyn Dodgers system before becoming Japan’s first Latin American player, reportedly died last month at age 89. A Cuban-born infielder, Barbon played for the Hankyu Braves from 1955-1964, and for the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes in 1965.

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The answer to the quiz is Whitey Ford and Andy Pettitte, with 438 starts each.

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Tyler Rogers had just finished his rookie season with the San Francisco Giants when he led Sunday Notes in October 2019. The subject at hand was the righty’s submarine delivery, which confounds enough hitters to make him effective despite a fastball that ranks, per Statcast, in the first percentile for velocity, and in the second percentile for spin. Thanks largely to his uniqueness, Rogers has a 2.92 ERA and a 3.23 FIP over 195 relief outings comprising 203-and-a-third innings.

What has the twin brother of teammate Taylor Rogers learned about how his stuff plays from analytics?

“Nothing, to be honest,” Rogers told me on my recent visit to Giants camp. “The Rapsodos, and the TrackMans we have in the bullpen, don’t even pick me up. Plus, I never really dive into the numbers. That’s for the coaches, and the people who know what they’re looking at. I just go out there and pitch. I’m pretty much old school in that regard.”

Do hitters ever tell him how his pitches play, particularly when they’re thrown in certain areas of the zone?

“Oh, they tell me,” the right-hander responded with a laugh. “They definitely tell me that”

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MLB announced that a total of 269 players representing 19 different countries and territories outside of the 50 United States were on Opening Day rosters and inactive lists. The Dominican Republic had the most, with 104, followed by Venezuela (62), Cuba (21), Puerto Rico (19), Mexico (15), Canada (10), Japan (8), Colombia (7), Curaçao (4), Panama (4), South Korea (4), the Bahamas (2), Nicaragua (2), Aruba (1), Australia (1), Brazil (1), Germany (1), Honduras (1), and Taiwan (1).

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

The 2023 NPB season kicked off this week with the Rakuten Golden Eagles beating the Nippon Ham Fighters 3-1. Masahiro Tanaka went five-and-two-thirds innings for the win, while Maikel Franco had three hits and drove in a pair of runs.

The Tokyo Yakult Swallows topped the Hiroshima Carp 4-0 behind seven shutout innings by Yasuhiro Ogawa and a home run by Munetaka Murakami. The latter is coming off of a season where he slashed .318/.458/.711 with 56 home runs.

Opening Day in the KBO was highlighted by a 12-10 Doosan Bears win over the Lotte Giants. Jose Rojas hit a walk-off, three-run homer in the bottom of the 11th inning to end the high-scoring affair.

Anthony Alford and Baek-ho Kang combined to go went 7-for-9 with six RBIs to lead the KT Wiz to an 11-6 win over the LG Twins. Wes Benjamin threw six scoreless innings for the winning side.

Shin-Soo Choo homered in SSG Landers’ 4-1 win over the Kia Tigers. The 40-year-old DH was also called out while attempting a straight steal of home.

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C.J. Cron has had a solid career with the bat, particularly in the power department. Now in his 10th big-league season, and his third with the Colorado Rockies, the 33-year-old first baseman has averaged 28 home runs over the previous four non-COVID campaigns. And he’s off to a stellar start in 2023. Through his first two games, Cron is 7-for-11 with a pair of walks and three bombs.

I first interviewed the right-handed-hitting slugger in 2013 when he was a Los Angeles Angels prospect playing in the Arizona Fall League. When I caught up to him in Rockies camp a few weeks ago, I asked him if his career path has gone much as he’d expected. His response quickly segued into a nod to one of the best hitters of our generation.

“I never really had an idea of what it was going to be like,” claimed Cron. “I kind of just went step by step, always trying to play well and help the team as much as possible. Obviously, when you come into the league playing behind Albert Pujols, the opportunity might be a little more limited than you would love. But it was so great to learn under him. Watching how he went about his business — his solid baseball routine, how he hit in the cage, the way he hit in BP, the way he approached the game — taught me a lot.”

I asked Cron about the degree to which he followed Pujols’s routine.

“Not specific drills, and stuff like that,” Cron responded. “But definitely how often he hit in the cage. He was in there all the time. So yeah, I was in the cage quite a bit too. Little things like that.”

Cron has 177 career home runs to go with a 112 wRC+. He made his first All-Star team last year.

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FARM NOTES

New York Mets prospect Brett Baty went 4-for-5 with a pair of home runs yesterday as Triple-A Syracuse topped the Worcester Red Sox 16-6. The 23-year-old third baseman is No. 23 on our Top 100.

Keston Hiura, who cleared waivers after being DFA’d by the Milwaukee Brewers last week, homered yesterday in Triple-A Nashville’s 5-4 win over Louisville. The former first-rounder also drew three walks.

Daniel Murphy has signed with the independent Atlantic League’s Long Island Ducks. A veteran of 12 big-league seasons, the 38-year-old (as of yesterday) infielder last played with the Colorado Rockies in 2020.

Kole Cottam signed with the Atlantic League’s Frederick Baseball Club. A 25-year-old catcher out of the University of Kentucky, Cottam has been in the Red Sox system since 2018 and spent last year in Double-A Portland and Triple-A Worcester.

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When Brandon Hyde met the media following Thursday’s 10-9 win at Fenway Park, the Baltimore manager was asked by The Athletic’s Dan Connolly about Adley Rutschman’s big day. As Connelly pointed out, no Orioles player going back to 1954 — the franchise’s first year in Baltimore — had ever had an Opening Day where he logged five hits and reached base six times. To Hyde, the 5-for-5-with-a-walk-and-a-home-run performance wasn’t so much surprising as it was a sign of what the 25-year-old catcher is capable of.

“If you do anything historical for the Baltimore Orioles, it’s… there have been a lot of great players who have worn this uniform,” said Hyde. “It’s not the only time you’re going to say that about Adley. He’s going to be doing other things that are firsts, as well. He’s just a super special player. He’s a really good hitter and he hasn’t even played a full year yet. Good things are coming.”

Rutschman — the runner-up in last year’s A.L. Rookie-of-the-Year voting — told reporters that he had no idea he’d gone into the record books, only that he was glad they’d won a “well-fought”game. That it was his first big-league Opening Day — the erstwhile Oregon State Beaver made his MLB debut in mid-May — did resonate with Rutschman.

“I’ve had a couple of Opening Days in college, down in Arizona in front of 5,000 people, and this definitely blows that right out of the water,” said Rutschman. “To have that close game in the ninth inning, and the crowd getting so loud, I was sitting there thinking, ‘This is pretty cool.’”

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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

Team Japan manager Hideki Kuriyama was critical of WBC organizers for changing the bracket mid-tournament, a decision that scrapped his plans to pitch Roki Sasaki against the United States. Jason Coskrey has the story at The Japan Times.

MLB.com’s Anne Rogers wrote about Melissa Lambert, who as the club’s Director of Behavioral Science is the first-ever woman to be part of the Kansas City Royals’ on-field staff.

The Athletic’s Andrew Baggerly wrote an ode to the recently-retired Sergio Romo (subscription required).

Arte Moreno recently cited economics as the main reason why the Angels aren’t sending their radio broadcasters on the road this year. Sean Keeley wrote about the unpopular owner’s inexcusable decision — and his equally embarrassing explanation — for Awful Announcing.

The editorial board of The Baltimore Sun has issues with Orioles chairman and CEO John Angelos twice stating — unsolicited, no less — that he will share information about the team’s financials, only to then criticize one of the publication’s writers for expecting him to keep his word.

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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

Miguel Cabrera played in his 20th career Opening Day on Thursday. The Detroit DH doubled in one of his four at-bats, giving him 3,089 career hits, tying him with Ichiro Suzuki on MLB’s all-time list. Miggy has since recorded hit number 3,090 and is now 24th all-time.

Paul Goldschmidt had a stolen base on Opening Day and has been successful on each of his last 23 attempts. The streak dates back to the 2019 season.

The Chicago White Sox went 19-3 against the Washington Senators in 1909. They beat Walter Johnson six times, by final scores of 1-0, 1-0, 1-0, 2-0, 3-0. and 6-3.

Pete Alexander and Christy Mathewson finished their Hall of Fame careers with 373 wins each. Alexander threw 436 complete games and had a 135 ERA+. Mathewson threw 435 complete games and had a 136 ERA+.

The Detroit Tigers returned Maury Wills, whom they’d purchased on an option basis, to the Los Angeles Dodgers on today’s date in 1959. Wills went on to make his MLB debut that summer, then lead in the National League in stolen bases each year from 1960-1965.

The Milwaukee Brewers signed Willie Randolph as a free agent on today’s date in 1991. The longtime New York Yankees second baseman, who had spent the previous season with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics, went on to slash .327/.424/.374 over 512 plate appearances in his one-year Milwaukee stint.

Players born on today’s date include Dick “The Monster” Radatz, who was one of the game’s most dominant relievers before arm woes curtailed his career. In his first three seasons with the Boston Red Sox (1962-1964), the Detroit native went a combined 40-21 with 76 saves and a 2.17 ERA over 414 innings. Radatz holds the MLB record for strikeouts in a season by a relief pitcher with 181.

Also born on today’s date was Cotton Pippen, who pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Athletics, and Detroit Tigers from 1936-1940. The right-hander from Cisco, Texas had his best season in the Pacific Coast League, winning 20 games with the Oakland Oaks in 1943.

The ribbon has been cut on the 2023 season and I wanted to push a few prospect updates live to The Board, including a few tweaks to the Top 100 list. This update also includes publication of scouting reports such that every rookie currently on an active roster now has a current record on The Board, and a few additions the farm systems I’ve already audited during this cycle based on things I saw during spring training.

Let’s start with injury-related updates to the Top 100. Phillies top prospect Andrew Painter has a partially torn UCL and is approaching the end of his four-week shutdown period. Rule of thumb: Among a similarly talented group of players, you’d most want to have the healthy guys. Painter slides from fifth overall to 12th, right behind newly minted big leaguers Anthony Volpe and Jordan Walker, who are comparably talented, healthy, and making a big league impact right now. This is just a cosmetic change to the list; Painter’s evaluation hasn’t changed. If it turns out he needs Tommy John, whether or not I slide him any further will depend on its timing. If rest doesn’t work and his surgery is timed such that he also misses all of 2024, that’s the worst case scenario for Painter and the Phillies. We know for sure that Nationals pitching prospect Cade Cavalli needs Tommy John, so in a similar fashion he falls within the 50 FV player tier, sliding from 63rd overall to 99th, right next to Mason Miller of the A’s, with whom he now shares injury-related relief risk.

Tigers prospect Jackson Jobe, the third overall pick in 2021, is going to miss three to six months due to lumbar spine inflammation. This injury is more novel than a TJ, and Jobe isn’t exactly coming off a great 2022. Unfortunately, this situation merits a more meaningful shift, but I still want to reflect the upside of a healthy Jobe, so he downshifts to the 45+ FV tier, where the most talented of the young high-variance prospects reside. Assuming he comes back late this season, he’ll be one of the higher-priority evaluations in the minors. Read the rest of this entry »

Justin Verlander wasn’t scheduled to start on Thursday, but he couldn’t even make it to the first pitch of his first Opening Day as a Met unscathed. The 40-year-old righty officially opened the season on the injured list due to a low-grade strain of his teres major, and while his absence isn’t expected to be a lengthy one, it comes at the tail end of a spring in which the Mets already lost starter José Quintana for about half the season and closer Edwin Diaz for most if not all of it.

Unfortunately, Verlander isn’t the only frontline starter to be sidelined by a teres major strain this week, as the Guardians’ Triston McKenzie recently suffered a more serious strain of the same muscle. Likewise, Verlander isn’t the only big-name hurler for a New York team who was sidelined this week (the Yankees’ Luis Severino is out again), nor is he the only NL East starter to turn up lame on Thursday (the Braves’ Max Fried took an early exit), or the only over-40 star whose plans took a turn (the Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright missed his Opening Day assignment). If it’s not a party until something gets broken, it’s not a new baseball season until a star pitcher goes down. Perhaps the only consolation to be had in this round-up is that all of these injuries are muscle strains of some sort rather than ligaments or tendons. Read the rest of this entry »