Al Woods is hardly a household name, but know this: Among members of the 1ABHR Club, reserved for those who go yard in their first big league at-bat (see Part I), he is the first to have his debut tater appear on YouTube.

Unwittingly, Woods introduced us to a time when we can relive both the visual drama and the verbal banality produced by the first-AB dinger. Before the cliches take hold, though, there is always the pioneering moment, wholly original and unspoiled by the triteness it fathers. This was — and is — Woods’ dinger on April 7, 1977. Not only was it Woods’ debut. Not only was it Opening Day for his Blue Jays. It was the first game the Jays ever played.

Roll tape: With Toronto leading the White Sox, 5-4, in the sixth, pinch-hitter Woods has worked the count to 1-and-2 against starter Francisco Barrios.

Crack!

Announcer: “Hit hard! Right field!”

Back goes Richie Zisk, to a wall made of blue trash bags.

Announcer: “Home run!”

The 22-second clip immediately jumps to Woods’ crossing home plate. Soon thereafter it ends, unceremoniously, with no hint of the hokum that will characterize the clips of many of his 1ABHR descendants. There is no mention of his getting the ball back, no camera shot of family and friends high-fiving. There is no silent treatment, no curtain call. Read the rest of this entry »

Dustin May is ready for prime time. The 22-year-old righty wasn’t even supposed to be part of the Dodgers’ rotation at the outset of the season, but he’s taken the ball three times thus far, including an emergency start on Opening Day. So far, he’s not only shown why he’s one of the game’s top pitching prospects but why he’s already worth making time to watch, and not just because the 6-foot-6 righty with the distinctive ginger mop top and the high leg kick is one of the most instantly recognizable players in the game.

On Tuesday night against the Padres in San Diego, May delivered the longest start of his young career, a six-inning effort; he fell one out short in each of his first three turns upon being called up last August. He allowed just three hits and two runs, the first in the third inning after hitting Francisco Mejía with a pitch and then surrendering a two-out double to Fernando Tatis Jr., and the second via a fourth-inning solo homer by Jake Cronenworth. At that point, he was in a 2-0 hole, but the Dodgers’ offense bailed him out, scoring three runs in the sixth and seventh innings en route to a 5-2 win.

May collected a career-high eight strikeouts against the Padres, the second of which — against Manny Machado in the first inning — set Twitter ablaze:

Dustin May, Ungodly 99mph Two Seamer. ? pic.twitter.com/uUeINZbKBq

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) August 5, 2020

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For the man from Castro’s Cuba, it happened at Great American Ball Park.

On August 2, 2012, in Cincinnati, Eddy Rodriguez departed the Padres on-deck circle and made his way to a big league batter’s box for the first time in his seven-year pro career. His larger journey had been less direct. Two decades earlier, seven-year-old Eddy had boarded his father’s rickety fishing boat and with dad Edilio, mom Ylya, and sister Yanisbet embarked on the 100-mile route from the northern shores of the communist country to the southern shores of the United States. En route, the family encountered 20-foot waves and a useless compass. The boat nearly capsized, threatening to send them to the sharks. By day three, they were low on fuel, water and food. Soon they had nothing but coffee beans. They ate them.

Desperate, they tied a white sheet to a pole.

In time, the U.S. Coast Guard arrived.

Now here he was, called up from the Single-A Storm just four months shy of his 27th birthday, getting his shot against Reds ace Johnny Cueto. On a 1-2 count, and with nearly 23,000 fans watching from the seats and many more on TV, Rodriguez drove a Cueto curveball “high and deep to left-centerfield!”

Just as it slammed into a seat 416 feet from home plate, announcer Dick Enberg added, “Rodriguez will touch ‘em all in his first big league at-bat!”

In that instant, Rodriguez had become the 112th player in big league history to join what I deem the 1ABHR Club. It looks like a vanity plate. It should be.

It’s an exclusive group. Through the end of the 2019 season, 10 additional players had homered in their first at-bat to put membership at 122; one more has joined so far in 2020. What binds these players is the singularity of their feat. Babe Ruth? Not a member. Bill Duggleby? A pioneering member.

On April 21, 1898, the man they called Frosty Bill hit a Cy Seymour fastball “right on the pickle,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, and sent it out of Philadelphia’s Baker Bowl for a grand slam. Not for another 107 years would a player belt a granny in his first big league at-bat. What made Frosty Bill’s four-bagger all the more remarkable is that he was a hurler, one of 20 now in the club.

Forty-one seasons hence, Boston left-hander Bill LeFebvre stepped in for his first at-bat and drove Monty Stratton’s first pitch to the Green Monster. As he approached second base, LeFebrve saw the ball carom onto the field. Head down, he rounded second and slid into third for a triple. Read the rest of this entry »

There weren’t a lot of bright spots on the 2019 San Francisco Giants. Pablo Sandoval was fun here and there, particularly when he pitched. Alex Dickerson hit a few dingers. Donovan Solano isn’t cooked just yet. For the most part, though, those were marginal. The real splash, the only real splash, was Mike Yastrzemski, who went from feel-good legacy to bona fide major league outfielder in the course of one slugging season.

2019 was already surprising enough for the career minor leaguer. After showing flashes of patience, power, and a feel to hit in previous seasons, he put them all together in Triple-A Sacramento, and there was no one blocking him from the majors. Four hundred plate appearances and a .272/.334/.518 batting line later, he was the best outfielder on the team, and the Giants were constructing their 2020 roster with one spot on the depth chart written in pen.

If the start of 2020 is any indication, however, last year wasn’t Yastrzemski’s ceiling. His ceiling is this year’s white-hot start: .310/.473/.643 with three homers, good for a 204 wRC+. Oh yeah — he’s playing freaking center field every day, too. Twelve games does not a season make, but if you could make his whole season out of the last two weeks, he’d basically be Mike Trout — an up-the-middle defender with a 200-ish wRC+.

Is he a good fielder? It’s unclear. He looked good both by the eye test and by the advanced statistics troika of DRS, UZR, and OAA last year in the corners, and looks at least reasonable in center so far this season. He’s not a long-term premium defender — he’s nearly 30, for one thing, and has only average straight-line speed — but tuck him in a corner, and he’ll be inoffensive at worst and an asset at best.

But the exciting part about Yastrzemski isn’t the fielding, at least not mostly. It’s the offensive value, the leading-baseball-in-WAR offensive explosion that makes Giants fans mostly shrug their shoulders but also rub their hands together greedily when they think no one’s looking. Sure, it’s early. Sure, it’s not our year. But it could be real, right? The team could have found a new superstar, right? Read the rest of this entry »

The list of things that haven’t gone according to plan in 2020 is long enough to reach to the moon and back, and to that, we can add the return of Shohei Ohtani to competitive pitching. After more than a year spent recovering from Tommy John surgery, the 26-year-old wonder’s reacquaintance with the mound was hotly anticipated, but after two brief and miserable outings, he’s injured, and Angels manager Joe Maddon said on Tuesday that he doesn’t expect to see Ohtani pitch again this year.

On Sunday, Ohtani made his second start of the season, and it began with promise, as he retired the top of the Astros’ lineup — George Springer, Jose Altuve, and Alex Bregman — in order on a total of eight pitches. He topped 95 mph a few times with his four-seamer, struck out Springer swinging at a splitter, and induced Altuve to pop up a bunt foul. Here’s the Springer strikeout:

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Our oddball 2020 season has featured a lot of strange sights and next week, we’ll get another one, when the Toronto Blue Jays stage their home opener (or at least, their first home game not played in another major league team’s park) in another country. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shall we say mixed success the United States has had combating the spread of the virus, Canada refused to grant the exemptions needed for the Blue Jays to play their season in Toronto.

“Based on the best-available public health advice, we have concluded the cross-border travel required for MLB regular season play would not adequately protect Canadians’ health and safety,” Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship said Saturday in a statement. “As a result, Canada will not be issuing a National Interest Exemption for the MLB’s regular season at this time.”

Canada’s statement seemingly leaves open the possibility that the Blue Jays could come home for a theoretical postseason series if the environment is more favorable. But that would be a few months away, so Toronto’s next home game will be played — or at least is scheduled to be played — in upstate New York rather than the Queen City. And when I say upstate New York, I mean upstate New York; we’re leaving behind the pizza, bagels, and pastrami of the city for beef on weck, grape pies, steamed hams, Buffalo’s eponymous chicken wings, and Sahlen Field, which is usually home to Toronto’s Triple-A affiliate and this year will host the migratory Jays. Read the rest of this entry »

A year ago, Lance Lynn finished fifth in the American League Cy Young race. While his 6.8 WAR was third in the AL (second at Baseball-Reference), his case didn’t seem to resonate with voters. His strikeout totals weren’t as gaudy as other contenders’ and while his 3.13 FIP pitching in a hitter’s park was very good, his 3.67 ERA looked more good than great. The difference between his FIP and ERA can mostly be attributed to bad luck or poor defense on batted balls, and once his home park is adjusted for, Lynn put up one of the best seasons in the AL. So far this season, Lynn has picked up right where he left off, with a 38% strikeout rate in two scoreless starts.

For some context, here are the top 10 pitchers in baseball by WAR since the start of the 2019 season:

Jacob deGrom is great and Gerrit Cole probably deserved the Cy Young award last year, but just behind those two is Lynn with a healthy lead over Max Scherzer and Shane Bieber, who Ben Clemens profiled yesterday. Lynn’s 2019 season was marked by a change in pitch usage; he reduced the use of his sinker unless there were runners on base. It’s only two starts, but his sinker usage has dropped even further in 2020, much like it did last September:

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Cleveland’s extended run of success during the last half-decade has been primarily sparked by their ability to develop pitching talent seemingly out of nowhere. Their rotation has been filled with contributors who didn’t have any major prospect hype but turned into outstanding members of the rotation once they reached the majors. Names like Corey Kluber, Danny Salazar, Mike Clevinger, and Shane Bieber have impressed. Last year, Aaron Civale made his case to be the next no-name to join the list of graduates from Cleveland’s development program. This year, it looks like it’s Zach Plesac’s turn.

Plesac is even less known than Civale or any of the other names above. Kluber, Clevinger, and Bieber were all fourth-round draft picks and each crept into the bottom of the team’s prospect rankings as they made their way through Cleveland’s organization. Civale might have had the most draft capital of the bunch — he was a third-round pick in 2016. In that same draft, Cleveland selected Plesac in the 16th round, and he never received any mention on any team prospect rankings before making his debut.

Plesac actually made it to the majors before Civale and accumulated more innings than he did last year. But where Civale enjoyed great success right off the bat, Plesac struggled a bit in his first taste of the majors. He made 21 starts last year, compiling a very good 3.81 ERA that masked an ugly 4.94 FIP. His strikeout rate was well below league average (18.5%), he walked a few too many batters (8.4%), and he had a real problem with the long ball. The skills he showed off during a very successful minor league career suddenly eluded him in the big leagues. That first major league hurdle derails so many pitching careers, but Plesac worked hard to fine-tune his repertoire during the offseason to ensure that he would have another chance to find success. Read the rest of this entry »

An exciting pitching matchup on Monday between the defending National League Cy Young winner and the NL Rookie of the Year runner-up turned grim in the third inning when 23-year-old Braves right-hander Mike Soroka suffered what appeared to be a leg injury while coming off the mound on a groundball.

Braves starter Mike Soroka leaves today's game after falling to the ground while attempting to cover 1st base. He was helped off of the field. pic.twitter.com/gJC0Dt3Xcz

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) August 4, 2020

The injury was rather apparent in zoomed-in, slowed-down videos shared on Twitter shortly after — I won’t link them here, you can find them yourself if you really want to — and within hours, the Braves confirmed the worst. Soroka tore his achilles tendon, which will cause him to miss the rest of this season and, depending on his recovery, possibly the beginning of 2021 as well.

Losing Soroka, 23, to a serious injury like this is awful. He was second in NL Rookie of the Year voting a year ago after throwing 174.2 innings and posting a 2.68 ERA, 3.45 FIP, and 4.0 WAR. That ERA was good for fourth among qualified starters, while his FIP was 14th. He didn’t get many strikeouts — he had the 14th-lowest K/9 rate in baseball last year — but instead pitched to contact, and was quite successful at it. He had the sixth-highest groundball rate among qualified starters, and according to Statcast, was in the 84th percentile in barrel rate allowed, the 65th percentile in exit velocity allowed, and the 60th percentile in expected slugging percentage. Underlying data didn’t necessarily believe he was the Cy Young contender his ERA portrayed him as, but he was still rated as a solidly above-average pitcher across the board — no small feat for someone who pitched most of the year at age 21 while attempting to buck some of the game’s most popular pitching trends.

This year, however, there was evidence he might be falling more in line with what modern pitching instructors are preaching. Soroka was a sinker baller last year, throwing the pitch 44.6% of the time, while his four-seam fastball rate was just 18.7%. In a small sample of starts this season, however, those two had converged. According to Statcast, in his first 13.2 innings, Soroka had thrown exactly 59 sinkers and 59 four-seamers. Read the rest of this entry »

When I launched this OOTP fan-sourcing project in March, the prospect of an actual season of baseball felt remote. I didn’t give much thought to how I’d feel virtually managing the Brewers while the real Brewers played, because it simply wasn’t an option. The real Brewers weren’t playing, regardless of what we did, so it hardly seemed to matter.

Why bring this up now? Because having both sets of Brewers play at the same time is making it difficult to keep track of the two. In the real world, Lorenzo Cain opted out of playing this season, leaving the Brewers scrambling for center field depth. They resorted to playing Avisaíl García in center yesterday, but they’ll be searching for answers elsewhere. In the Out Of The Park universe, Cain hurt his wrist throwing the ball — he’ll be out a week or more, leaving the team scrambling for depth in the interim.

In the real world, the rotation has some questions. Josh Lindblom left his first start early with back spasms, Brett Anderson looked shaky in his return from injury, and it feels like more arms will be needed. In OOTP, Lindblom missed the first four months of the season with injury, Anderson perpetually looks shaky in his return from injury, and even after an early trade for Kevin Gausman, more arms are surely needed.

Oh, right. There are some big differences. First, the OOTP Brewers are without the services of franchise cornerstone Christian Yelich for the next month or so after he strained his oblique. The team is running out a platoon of Tyrone Taylor and Matt Joyce in left field to replace as much as possible of Yelich’s production — oof. No team could replace Yelich’s production and not miss a beat, but that feels particularly bad, even if Joyce can still hit righties. Read the rest of this entry »