Maybe Walker Buehler will be all right, after all. Through his first two starts with the Red Sox — his first two since nailing down the final three outs of the 2024 World Series with a surprise bullpen appearance on his throw day — the 30-year-old righty had been pummeled, allowing three homers and nine runs in 9 1/3 innings. On Thursday afternoon at Fenway Park, he turned the page, putting on a “pitchability clinic” opposite Toronto’s Chris Bassitt.
Buehler shut out the Blue Jays over his first six innings of work, allowing just four hits without a walk while striking out seven. Bassitt matched him with zeroes until the sixth, when Jarren Duran walked with one out, stole second base, advanced to third on a fly out, and scored on an Alex Bregman single. Buehler departed two batters into the seventh, after he’d walked rookie Will Wagner on four pitches to lead off the inning and retired Ernie Clement on a fly ball to center. When reliever Justin Wilson allowed two hits and shortstop Trevor Story made a throwing error on a potential inning-ending double play, Buehler could only watch from the dugout as the Blue Jays took a 2-1 lead. The Red Sox tied the game up in the eighth, and won 4-3 in 10 innings when Toronto second baseman Andrés Giménezbobbled Story’s grounder with the bases loaded — and, oddly, threw to first base for a meaningless out as David Hamilton crossed the plate.
This was the kind of start the Red Sox envisioned when they signed Buehler to a one-year, $21.05 million deal in January, hoping that he could build upon the great postseason run with the Dodgers that helped him salvage his first season back from his second Tommy John surgery. During the regular season, Buehler pitched to an ugly 5.38 ERA and 5.54 FIP in 16 starts covering 74 innings, and missed eight weeks due to inflammation in his right hip. He showed faint signs of improvement in September, allowing two or fewer runs in three of his five starts, compared to just once over his first 11. Still, had the Dodgers rotation not suffered a variety of injuries and collapses, he wouldn’t have been anyone’s first choice for a playoff start, even given the big-game reputation he’d earned while helping the Dodgers win a pennant in 2018 and a championship two years later. Read the rest of this entry »
Jayne Kamin-Oncea and John Froschauer-Imagn Images
Hitting a baseball is an unthinkable accomplishment of timing. In order to strike a ball traveling from the pitcher’s hand to the plate in less than half a second with a slab of wood, a hitter must execute an elaborate sequence of movements on time. When do you lift your front foot? When do you load your hands? When do you fire your hips? It’s a sophisticated choreography; a beat late at any point can doom the swing.
Picture Fernando Tatis Jr. When Tatis is at the plate, he shifts around like a predator stalking its prey, eyes peeled for the exact moment when the pitcher lifts his front foot so that he, too, can get his toe down at the right time, and then his hands up, and then finally the barrel through the zone:
If hitting is such a delicate sequence, conditional on the pitcher’s own timing, it follows that pitchers who mess with that timing can improve their performance; by extension, pitchers who groove their deliveries will underperform their stuff. In an interview with David Laurila in 2017, Jason Hammel described changing his delivery for these precise reasons. Read the rest of this entry »
Nick Sandlin didn’t get his second save in as many games on Thursday. One day after breezing through three Boston batters on nine pitches, the Toronto right-hander was tagged with a loss after surrendering a pair of bottom-of-the-tenth-inning runs. The ending was anomalous. With the score tied, one out, the bases juiced, and the infield playing in, Sandlin induced a squibbed grounder that was mishandled, allowing a speedy Red Sox runner to score easily from third.
Making the walk-off unique was that Blue Jays second baseman Andrés Giménez, who had no chance to get the runner at home after bobbling the ball, threw to first for a meaningless out. The play went into the books as a 4-3. In other words, the game ended with the winning run crossing the plate on what looks like a routine groundout on the scorecard.
Which brings us to Sandlin, whom I’d decided to write about after his shutdown effort on Wednesday. Protecting a 2-1 lead in the 11th inning, the 28-year-old reliever fanned David Hamilton on three pitches, retired Rob Refsnyder on a pop foul to the catcher, then got Jarren Duran to slap a worm-killer to Giménez. Sandlin’s pitch breakdown comprised two splitters and seven sliders.
A sweeping slider is Sandlin’s bread and butter, and it’s what Refsnyder referenced when I asked him what makes the low-slot hurler so hard to hit. Read the rest of this entry »
Rob Schumacher/The Republic-USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Spring is a time of batting stance changes. As players come back from their offseason workouts and sessions with their private hitting coaches, they may have new setups and mechanics that they believe will make them better hitters in the year ahead. Typically, we can notice stance changes right away, but throughout spring training and the first few weeks of the regular season, it can be difficult to determine whether an alteration will have any real impact on a player’s performance. A lot of times, a change can be noise, so filtering through why it was made is critical to understanding its eventual effectiveness. I approach this by thinking about a hitter’s weakness and how the change might address it. In the case of Corbin Carroll, there is a straightforward story to be told that makes me confident his new stance will be impactful in the long term.
Before we get into why Carroll changed his stance from a data perspective, let’s discuss his reasoning behind the change and what it looks like, much of which was reported on during spring training. As Carroll told Alex Weiner of Arizona Sports, his intention with the stance change was to “have a better hand position to fire from.” Carroll has been tweaking his hand position since the second half of last season, but where his hands are now versus then is different, as you can see below in this side-by-side screenshot posted by DBacks Dispatch:
Corbin Carroll has changed his batting stance in spring, he’s brought down his arms and has crouched in a little more pic.twitter.com/MVihuS5I2x
My main focus is how he’s shifted his hands forward, closer to his face than they were even after he made his tweak last summer. That change alone puts him in a much different position before his downswing, and therefore, sets him up for a different bat path. Let’s get into why. Read the rest of this entry »
At risk of stating the obvious, Luis Arraez doesn’t strike out often. Since 2022, his first full season and the year he won his first batting title, Arraez has struck out 5.5% of the time. Let me put that into context. As of this morning, the Padres have a 6.0% chance to win the NL West. That means they are more likely to upset the baseball-ruining Dodgers than Arraez is to strike out in any given plate appearance. And that might be underselling his skills. In the second half of 2024, he reduced his strikeout rate even further, going down on strikes just five times over his final 57 games. That included baseball’s first 30-game strikeout-less streak in 20 years. Since the 2024 All-Star break, Arraez has struck out in 1.9% of his trips to the plate. Meanwhile, San Diego’s odds of winning the World Series currently sit at 2.2%. A pessimist might use that comparison to demonstrate that the Padres are long shots; 17 teams have a better chance to win it all. An optimist would counter that every time Arraez strikes out, it’s a reminder that the Padres are still World Series contenders. If that’s the way you see it, well, boy did the Padres get one heck of a reminder on Wednesday afternoon. For the first time all season, Arraez struck out.
It was the top of the ninth. The Padres were up 2-1. The inning began with a base hit by Martín Maldonado. That itself is a rare enough event. No other batter in recorded major league history has taken as many plate appearances as Maldonado (3,888) and has such a low batting average (.204) to show for it. Adding to the unlikelihood of Maldonado’s single, the batted ball had a mere .100 expected batting average, a 1-in-10 chance to be a hit. Yet, third baseman Max Schuemann, who entered the game that inning as a defensive replacement, flubbed the play. The ball slipped right out of his glove. As I watched his ill-fated attempt to retrieve the ball, I couldn’t help but think of my 6-year-old self trying to crossover dribble like Allen Iverson. Neither of us had any control of the ball:
With Maldonado on first, Arraez stepped up to the dish. He was already 0-for-4 with three fly outs, a strange enough day for a player who rarely hits fly balls. Since the day of his debut in 2019, Arraez has taken 2,916 plate appearances. Thirty-nine others have taken as many or more plate appearances in that time. None of them has a lower fly ball rate. But I’m getting off track. We aren’t here to talk about fly balls.
The pitcher on the mound was Justin Sterner, who somehow isn’t the A’s player with the closest-sounding name to a current or former Dodgers third baseman. Sterner, an offseason waiver claim from the Rays, has looked sharp so far in seven games for his new team. He entered this contest with nine strikeouts through his first six appearances. His 10th would be his most impressive yet. Arraez took Sterner’s first pitch, an 88-mph cutter on the upper-inside corner, for a strike. The count was 0-1:
Pitch number two was a 94-mph fastball that Arraez sent straight back into the crotch of catcher Shea Langeliers:
Is it funny when a man gets hit in the family jewels? I’ll let you decide for yourself. What I like so much about this moment isn’t the slapstick, but rather the subtle humor of how awkwardly Arraez behaves in the aftermath. One of my favorite bits from the little-known television comedy Friends is the scene where Ross picks up a lamp. That’s the first thing I thought of when I saw Arraez pick up that baseball. Why was his first instinct to pick up the ball as quickly as possible? I’m truly not sure. Was he worried someone would trip on it? Was he trying to hide the weapon? Or did he simply feel a need to do something, and picking up the ball was the first idea that popped into his head? He’s like a well-meaning but clueless husband trying to offer support while his wife is in labor. But instead of running for ice chips, he decided to pick up a baseball.
Arraez’s next move made more sense, as he went to pat Langeliers on the back. However, the consequences of his earlier actions soon returned to haunt him. He was still holding that damn baseball:
It became something of a dance for Arraez, who went back and forth between comforting Langeliers and dealing with the ball. It’s funny to watch because we’ve all been in that position before, facing a situation where we feel like we should help but there really isn’t much we can do. It’s even funnier in juxtaposition to the physical comedy of a man getting bopped in the beans. It’s certainly funnier than the A’s TV broadcaster suggesting they call the catcher “Shea Pain-geliers,” though perhaps not quite as funny as the Padres announcer blurting out, “They call him Langy!” in response to absolutely nothing (unless he was listening to the A’s broadcast). He just seemed to be reading the name plate on Langeliers’ chest protector because, much like Arraez, he wasn’t sure what else to do.
The third pitch of the at-bat was an 81-mph sweeper in the dirt. It never came close to Arraez, and indeed, he watched it bounce. Yet, seemingly still spooked by what happened on the previous pitch, he made a delayed effort to avoid getting hit. Maybe Arraez thought the ball was going to bounce off Langeliers and hit him in an act of swift poetic justice. That would explain why he shielded his face with his hand as he spun almost 360 degrees to avoid a projectile that did not come anywhere close to his body:
At long last, you’re all caught up on the series of incidents that set the stage for the strikeout. With a 1-2 count, Sterner threw another inside cutter, much like the first pitch of the at-bat. This time, however, he missed his spot badly:
The pitch hit Arraez squarely on his left thigh. Home plate umpire James Hoye called it strike three. The call was correct:
Indeed, there wasn’t anything controversial about it. Even as Arraez stood up and started walking to first base, and even when Mike Shildt came out to discuss the call, I don’t believe either was strong in his convictions. Simply put, it wasn’t close. This wasn’t a case of a batter accidentally bringing his bat around as he tried to avoid a missile hurtling toward him. Arraez began his swing with intention and didn’t even start to pull it back until the ball had already made contact with his body. Some umpires might be holding a grudge against Arraez for disparaging comments he made in spring training, but that’s not what this was. This was a strike:
Throughout his career, Arraez has only swung and missed at 16 of the 930 (1.7%) pitches he’s seen in the waste zone (per Statcast). That’s one-third of the league-average rate. Of the 257 batters who have seen at least 500 waste zone pitches since 2019, only five have a lower swing-and-miss rate than Arraez. It’s not often you’ll see him fail to make contact so miserably. In fact, having watched all 16 of his waste-zone whiffs, I could argue this was the single worst swing decision (category: context neutral) of his career.
Perhaps there was something in the air in Sacramento that day. After all, Maldonado got a hit, and Arraez did not. If that’s not a sign of the apocalypse, I don’t know what is. Supernatural or not, this strange, funny, and painful sequence of events that finally led to Arraez’s first strikeout is exactly why I love writing about baseball.
In 2023, the Braves didn’t just lead the league in basically every offensive category, they posted historic numbers. They followed up that performance with a more middle-of-the-pack showing in 2024. Some of that downturn can be classified as regression to the mean, while some of it was definitely injury-related, with key contributors such as Ronald Acuña Jr., Ozzie Albies, Sean Murphy, and Austin Riley missing large chunks of the season. Moving forward, those theories imply that a healthy Braves lineup should perform somewhere in between their historically great 2023 and their exceptionally mediocre 2024. So far, however, the 2025 Braves have posted a gaunt 82 wRC+ as a team, creating anxiety that 2024 wasn’t just an unlucky draw from the low end of the range of possible outcomes, but rather something representative of a new normal, an indication that the range of possible outcomes in Atlanta has shifted downward. Of course, it’s too early to say for sure, especially since Acuña hasn’t made his 2025 debut, but batted ball and swing data, as well as changes in opponent pitching strategy, may offer insight into how pitchers have regained the upper hand when facing the Braves’ lineup.
If the extreme discrepancy in outcomes between 2023 and 2024 really was just variation within the error bars around Atlanta’s true talent level, then we’d expect to observe some amount of luck (good or bad) in their batted ball outcomes, which would lead their expected stats to diverge from their actual numbers, but the table below indicates their expected stats align pretty closely with reality:
The SEC’s all-time hit king made his major league debut this week, to almost no fanfare. In some respects, the Tampa Bay Rays are a step down for Jake Mangum. The Rays currently play at Tampa’s Steinbrenner Field, capacity just over 11,000, while they await disposition after Hurricane Milton took the roof off the Trop last offseason.
Mangum played his college ball at Mississippi State, whose ballpark, Dudy Noble Field, holds 15,000, with a record attendance of 16,423 cowbell-whacking, barbecue-devouring maniacs. It’s one of the most electrifying (in good times) and demanding (in bad) environments in all of college sports. To someone who’s played at The Dude, as Mangum has, even the most raucous major league crowd probably feels like a Presbyterian church. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) In Baseball This Week. I was at a wedding this past weekend, a generally fun event for a baseball writer. That’s because strangers ask me what I do, and then I get to say, “I’m a baseball writer.” That plays a lot better than, “I work in accounting/finance/tech,” no offense to any of you in those fine fields. But this weekend, someone inquired deeper. “Oh, like sabermetric stuff?” “Yeah! Kind of. Also I make GIFs of dumb and/or weird plays. And bunts, lots of bunts.” Yes, it’s a strange job being a baseball writer, but also a delightful one, and this week delivered whimsy and awe in equal amounts. So unlike guests milling around at a wedding, let’s get straight to the point – after the customary nod to Zach Lowe of The Ringer for the inspiration for this article format.
1. Not Reaching Home
The third time a runner was tagged out at the plate in Wednesday’s Cardinals-Pirates clash came at a pivotal moment. Locked in a scoreless tie in the bottom of the 11th, Pittsburgh finally looked like it would break through when Joey Bart singled to right. But, well:
That was a good throw by Lars Nootbaar and a clean catch by Pedro Pagés, and that combination turned a close play into a gimme. I mean, how often are you going to be safe when the catcher already has the ball in his glove and you’re here:
Their $200 million shortstop has grounded into more double plays than he’s hit singles. Their star center fielder is striking out 37% of the time. Their oft-injured third baseman is (sigh) injured again and won’t return until sometime next month, and their top starter left Tuesday night’s game with a hamstring injury. After squandering a playoff berth over the final quarter of last season, then mostly remaining on the sidelines this winter, the Twins opened this year by losing eight of their first 11 games, their worst start since 2016 — a season in which they went 59-103.
These Twins — who did win on Wednesday night to improve to 4-8 — aren’t likely to be that bad. In fact, our preseason Playoff Odds favored the Twins to win the AL Central, albeit with a modest 36.2% chance of winning the division and a forecast for just 84.1 wins, with the Tigers, Royals, and Guardians all packed within five wins of their total. The system estimated Minnesota had a 55.2% chance of making the playoffs, but so far this does not look like a team that belongs in the postseason.
The Twins stumbled out of the gate, dropping three straight to the Cardinals in St. Louis before getting stomped by the White Sox in Chicago, 9-0; through their first four games, they were outscored 28-6. They recovered to win their next two games against the White Sox, but then returned home and lost two out of three to the Astros. Now in Kansas City, the Twins have lost two out of their first three games of their four-game set against the Royals. The dispiriting start feels like a carry-over from last season’s collapse. To refresh your memory:
As of last August 17 — the last time they had a streak of more than two wins in a row, ahem — the Twins were 70-53, second in both the AL Central (two games behind the Guardians) and the AL Wild Card standings (a game and a half behind the Orioles), with a 92.4% chance of making the playoffs. Though their odds rose as high as 95.8% circa September 2, they proceeded to go just 12-27 after August 17, half a game better than the historically futile White Sox. At 82-80, they placed fourth in the division, 10 1/2 games out of first, and fifth in the Wild Card race, four games out. Adding insult to injury, both the Royals and Tigers (whose fortunes mirrored the Twins) earned Wild Card berths. Read the rest of this entry »
Matthew Boyd has exceeded most outside expectations. Selected in the sixth round of the 2013 draft out of Oregon State University, the 34-year-old southpaw was ranked 29th when our 2015 Toronto Blue Jays Top Prospects list was published that March. He’d pitched well the previous year — a 3.17 ERA between High-A and Double-A — but as our then-lead prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel wrote, “Some scouts still think there isn’t enough here to stick as a starter.” Given Boyd’s relatively short track record of success, the skepticism was understandable.
The left-hander’s own expectations were loftier, and he wasted little time in proving his doubters wrong. Boyd made his major league debut three months later, and not only did he do so as a starter, he’s gone on to make 170 of his 184 career appearances in that role. Now in his 11th big league season, and his first with the Chicago Cubs, Boyd has never been front-of-the-rotation good — his career ERA and FIP are 4.79 and 4.56 respectively — but he’s been effective when healthy. The problem is that Boyd often hasn’t been healthy; over the past four years alone, he’s missed 390 days of the season due to injury. It’s early, of course, but so far in 2025, Boyd has been both healthy and effective. Across his two starts, he’s thrown 11 scoreless innings.
What did Boyd’s 2015 scouting report look like? Moreover, what does he think of it a full decade later? Wanting to find out, I shared some of what McDaniel wrote and asked Boyd to respond to it.
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“Boyd was a senior sign out of Oregon State in 2013 that got $75,000 in the 6th round after making real progress in his last amateur year.”Read the rest of this entry »
