No manager defined the era of baseball marked by artificial turf and distant outfield fences as Whitey Herzog did. As the manager of the Royals (1975–79) and Cardinals (1980, ’81–90) — and for a short but impactful period, the latter club’s general manager as well — he assembled and led teams built around pitching, speed, and defense to six division titles, three pennants, and a world championship using an aggressive and exciting brand of baseball: Whiteyball. Gruff but not irascible, Herzog found ways to get the most out of players whose limitations had often prevented them from establishing themselves elsewhere.

“The three things you need to be a good manager,” he told Sports Illustrated’s Ron Fimrite in 1981, “are players, a sense of humor and, most important, a good bullpen. If I’ve got those three things, I assure you I’ll get along with the press and I guarantee you I’ll make the Hall of Fame.”

Herzog was finally elected to the Hall in 2010, an honor long overdue given that he was 20 years removed from the dugout and had never been on a ballot. He passed away on Monday in St. Louis at the age of 92. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things, where I highlight some strange and amusing happenings from the last week. We’re getting into the rhythm of the season now; 20 games in, you start to get a feel for how watching your team will feel this year. Are they going to be exasperating? Do they look like a fun group? Have a few new players completely changed the vibe from last year? Are they hitting so many homers that they had to make a new dong bong homer hose?

That’s part of the fun of watching baseball, in my opinion. Playoff odds are one thing, but how you feel watching your guys get from point A to point B matters a lot more in the long run. If you’re reading this article, I’m willing to bet that you’re watching dozens of hours of baseball throughout the year – perhaps even hundreds. The playoffs for your team might last 15 hours of game time. The little things are the point, and there were some great little things this week. As always, I’d like to thank Zach Lowe, whose basketball column inspired this one in both name and content. Let’s get going.
Read the rest of this entry »

There are a couple records I love so much that I don’t actually listen to them very often. I know that sounds weird, but I’m afraid of losing what makes them special. I’ve gotten sick of records before, listened to them so often that they’ve completely lost their ability to surprise me and started feeling flat. Some music is too important to risk it. I don’t ever want to live in a world where I’m not completely dumbstruck by the opening chords of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. That would be an unimaginable loss. So I only listen to it a couple times a year. I’m not a hoarder in other aspects my life, but this particular calculus seems worthwhile to me.

I tend to think a lot about the lasting power of music. I spent Sunday in a recording studio in New Jersey. To nobody’s surprise, I was the member of the band who was slowing down the mixing process to ask whether we could throw some tremolo on the lead guitar track, or turn down the reverb on the vocals in “Rat Czar.” (Technically, the song is called “Rat Czar Czar,” and it takes the form of a job posting. I wrote it when New York City announced that it was hiring a Rat Czar to eradicate the rats. I figured that the rats must also be hiring a Rat Czar Czar, whose job was to eradicate the Rat Czar.) I understand that no song is going to be perfect, but I just didn’t want to wish I could change it every time I heard it. I love live music, but to me personally, records are just that: the official record of a song. They’re forever. For that reason, I was all over it when Eric Nusbaum tweeted a question: How many times do you think the average Major League Baseball player has heard the song “Centerfield” by John Fogerty? Eric is the editor-in-chief of Seattle Met and the author of the fantastic book Stealing Home. Like a vulture, I immediately swooped in and asked Eric if I could steal his idea. Like a busy editor-in-chief of a magazine, he very graciously let me have it.

“Centerfield” is ubiquitous in baseball, and its digital handclap intro is also a ballpark staple. John Fogerty is a musical legend, the lead singer and songwriter of the iconic Creedence Clearwater Revival. The song is the title track off of his comeback 1985 solo album, and it was an immediate hit. He’s played it in center field at Dodger Stadium, and at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Cooperstown (on a baseball-shaped electric guitar that was very definitely plugged into absolutely nothing). I’ve heard it at big league ballparks, and I remember hearing it over the press box speakers during regionals when I was 9 years old. “Centerfield” has been able to stick around for so long because it walks a very fine line. It’s kitschy, but not tiresome. It’s catchy, but it’s not gouge-your-eyes-out-because-that’s-the-only-way-it’ll-ever-leave-your-head catchy. It’s too innocuous to reach the heights of CCR’s best work, but that also makes it very appropriate for a public setting. For the most part, people don’t groan when they hear it; if they notice it at all, they just get nostalgic for the ballpark.

Naturally, there’s no actual way to answer this question precisely. It’s a Fermi problem, which means that the best we can do is make a good estimate. As Caroline Chen wrote in The New York Times Magazine, “The goal here isn’t knowing the exact number but rather being able to estimate the right order of magnitude using nothing but common sense.” Now that I’ve stolen the question from Eric, it’s time to try solving it. As I was finishing this article up yesterday, I circled back with Eric and asked him if he had a guess: he went with 600. JJ Cooper, editor-in-chief of Baseball America, made an extremely thoughtful estimate and came up with 1,000, but that was only for American-born players.

My estimate is made up of a bunch of sub-estimates. I tried to approximate how many games the average player spent at each level of baseball, from little league up to the majors. Then I estimated what percentage of games the song was actually played in. I started with data from our major and minor league leaderboards and pulled in data from various sources along the way. I also consulted with some of my more knowledgeable colleagues in order to come up with estimates for how often the song is played at each level of baseball. What follows are just my best guesses. I encourage you to use the comments section at the bottom to quibble with my estimates, to make your own, or just to get in some savage burns about my musical taste, if that happens to be your thing.

Major Leagues

In 2023, 1,457 players saw time in the majors. According to my rough calculations, they had to that point averaged 4.83 big league seasons. The average team plays 28.13 spring training games, 162 regular season games, and 1.25 playoff games, for a total of 191.38. I’m not knocking off any games to account for the short 2020 season, because this is a theoretical exercise, and because I’m so sick of factoring that into all my non-theoretical research.

“Centerfield” is played before every game in both Seattle and Atlanta. That represents 6.67% of all regular season games, and it’s also the reason Eric thought to ask this question in the first place. He brought his kids to a Mariners game, and the song came on while the Guardians were taking batting practice. Although it’s not an every-game staple in the other 28 parks, it definitely gets played a fair amount of the time, whether during batting practice, between innings, or in other mid-game pauses. I’ll estimate that it’s played at 12% of all big league games.

4.83 seasons x 191.38 games x 12% of games = 110.9

Minor Leagues

I calculated 4.45 seasons in the minors for the average player. The length of the minor league seasons varies by level, but between spring training, the regular season, playoffs, and fall leagues, I estimate 80 games per player each year.

I also estimate that “Centerfield” gets played a lot more often in the minors than it does in the majors. By design, the minor league experience is sillier and kitschier than the major league experience. Eric Longenhagen told me, “There are definitely affiliates in the minors who play that song every night, and their guys hear it 80 times a year. It’s played in every game at Scottsdale Stadium during Fall League.” I’m going with 40% of the time. As Eric said, “All you need is a person of a certain age on the Aux cord.”

4.45 seasons x 85 game x 40% of games = 142.4

College

According to Spotrac’s MLB college tracker, there are 566 active players who attended college, so we’ll call that 39% of all players. Nearly all MLB players who went to college played there for three years, and last year’s College World Series participants averaged 56.5 total games. We’ll bump it up to 70, because MLB-bound players were probably good enough to get invited to play in summer leagues like the Cape Cod League.

I estimate that “Centerfield” is played at 42% of college games, slightly higher than in the minors. I was going to put it at 40%, but Michael Baumann, our resident college baseball expert, thought the number was likely a bit higher. Baumann also had a surprisingly generous opinion of the song. He acknowledged that he’s heard it too many times and that it’s one of Fogerty’s minor works — it ain’t no “Fortunate Son” — but it doesn’t drive him up the wall either. “Which is no small feat for a song about sports,” he said. “Given the choice between spending eternity in a hell in which ‘Centerfield’ is the only music and listening to ‘The Hockey Song’ by Stompin’ Tom Connors even once all the way through, I’d pick the former and not think twice.” I had actually never heard of “The Hockey Song” until Baumann mentioned it, and after I finish writing this sentence, I’m going to look it up on YouTube and give it a try.

And I’m back. Holy God. I made it 12 seconds before I had to stop.

39% of players x 3 seasons x 70 games x 42% of games = 34.4

International Players

From this point on, we’re in the realm of high school and little league ball. That means we need to start drawing a distinction between American-born players and international players. I just can’t imagine that kids in the Dominican Republic or Venezuela are hearing much John Fogerty. For the last several years, MLB.com has published the percentage of international players on opening day rosters. It has stayed right around 28.5%. We’ll assume those international players heard the song twice at some point or another before arriving in the states.

28.5% of players x 2 = 0.6

High School and Travel Ball

First, we’re starting with the 71.5% of American-born players. According to Baseball America’s rankings, the top 50 high school teams averaged 32.74 games in 2023. Presumably, players who were good enough to end up as big leaguers also attended some showcases and played travel or American Legion ball, so we’ll bump it up to 52 games. We’ll also estimate 3.5 varsity seasons. After all, these are future big leaguers; most of them were probably insufferably cool four-year starters in high school.

I’m estimating that “Centerfield” is only played at 10% of high school games. Eric Nusbaum’s high school played it before every game, but most high schools either don’t have a PA at their field, don’t play music at their games, or just specifically choose not to play novelty songs from the 1980s at their games. Some of us didn’t even have a baseball field in high school.

71.5% of players x 3.5 years x 52 games x 10% = 13.0

Little Leagues

For our purposes, little league runs from ages 9 to 15, as it’s unlikely there’s themed music playing during coach-pitch games of 8-year-olds. (Note: This is for all little leagues and not just Little League, because plenty of kids play in Cal Ripken or the various other youth leagues that are not affiliated with Little League International.) For those seven years, we’ll estimate 25 games played. That’s a long little league season, but consider the fact that most future-MLB players probably made it to the all-star tournaments that can extend the season for weeks.

I’m estimating that 8% of little league games featured “Centerfield.” I’m sure that some leagues play music all the time and that “Centerfield” is a staple for them. However, in general, most little league games don’t feature music until you get to those all-star tournaments.

71.5% of players x 7 years x 25 games x 8% = 10

Everywhere Else

There are plenty of other places a player could hear the song. Those who listen to classic rock or country could hear it on the radio somewhat regularly. Besides, among the 1,500 MLB players, hasn’t there got to be just one Fogerty superfan who finds “Centerfield” at the very top of his Spotify Wrapped every season? I say there is, and for facial hair reasons, I’ll go ahead and assume that it’s Andrew Chafin. However, there’s no way there’s more than one MLB player who’s listening to this song that frequently by choice. They just hear it too often at work.

The song has also been in plenty of movies and TV shows. Most recently, it soundtracked a particularly memorable scene in Ted Lasso. I estimate the average player has encountered the song in a non-baseball context 10 times.

Some American-born players probably heard it during practices and events. They certainly heard it when they were growing up and attending professional games as a fan. Combining all of these edge cases, I estimate they’ve heard it 32.9 times.

And that’s all our variables. Here’s one last table that adds up all our estimates.

Well, there’s our answer. According to these estimates, the average major league player has heard “Centerfield” 354.2 times. If we just limit ourselves to American-born players, that number grows to 418.3.

I suspect that number will feel way too low for many people. If you grew up hearing this song at every single little league, high school, or big league game, your guess was probably closer to the 600 or 1,000 that Eric and JJ went with. I’m sure there are some big leaguers who have heard it that many times (not to mention Andrew Chafin, whose number might well be in the millions). But we also need to balance them out with the American-born players who rarely heard it and the international players who might not have heard it at all until they arrived in the United States.

Of course, there’s an even trickier question waiting for us: How many times do you think the average player has actively noticed that they were hearing this song? For those of us who go to the ballpark with any frequency at all, it quickly starts to blend in with the rest of the ballpark noise. For someone who spends their life at the ballpark, that probably happens much faster. I don’t even know how we would go about estimating the answer to that question, so we’re stuck with the first one. Regardless, however you feel about my estimate or about “Centerfield” itself, I’m sure we can agree on one thing: It’s a whole lot better than “The Hockey Song.”

Many thanks to Eric Nusbaum, without whom this article wouldn’t exist, and JJ Cooper, without whom it would be much worse.

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Colorado Rockies. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fourth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

For more than a decade now, the Dodgers have reigned over Major League Baseball through a combination of top-end talent and robust depth. Versatile role players like Enrique Hernández and Chris Taylor have complemented stars like Clayton Kershaw, Corey Seager, and Mookie Betts, while excellent scouting and player development departments have meant that the team has never had to scrounge for spare parts. That mix has usually kept Los Angeles clear of our Replacement-Level Killers series. This season, however, the Dodgers have a giant hole: the entire outfield. Dodgers outfielders have accrued -0.5 WAR, tied with the Phillies for dead last in baseball. Next time someone tells you to imagine trading Mookie Betts, take a moment to feel sorry for the Los Angeles outfielders, which didn’t even get to trade Betts to the infield; they just gave him away without getting so much as a Jeter Downs in return. Let’s take a look at what’s going on out there, courtesy of our the shiny new splits on our leaderboard.

Well, that’s simple enough. The offense has been terrible, the defense has been not great, and Mookie Betts is a shortstop now. Before we go any further, it is time for me to shout the word April a few times. The stats above are based on just 239 plate appearances. Lots of things are going to change. In fact, one thing has already changed: On Tuesday, the Dodgers called up prospect Andy Pages and started him in center (presumably because they hacked the FanGraphs Slack and knew I was writing about their outfield needs). He knocked an RBI single on his first pitch.

That said, it’s not too early to look at what’s going on and ask some questions. First of all, Jason Heyward is on the IL with lower back tightness. He hasn’t played since March 30, which means the Dodgers have only gotten to run out their preferred outfield lineup five times. According to Dave Roberts, Heyward’s injury is not improving enough for there to be a firm timetable on his return. Following the injury, the Dodgers claimed Taylor Trammell off waivers from the Mariners, but have only given him six plate appearances. With Heyward gone, Teoscar Hernández has been the everyday right fielder. James Outman and Enrique Hernández have platooned in center. Chris Taylor has started in left, with Enrique Hernández also getting a few starts there against righties. With none of that working, Roberts said on Tuesday that Pages will likely see significant playing time against both righties and lefties.

This seems like the right place to acknowledge how confusing the landscape is in terms of names. There are two Hernándezes, a first-name Taylor and a last-name Taylor, and an Outman who is suddenly living up to his name after all.

Let’s start with the good. Teoscar Hernández is crushing it right now. After a down year in Seattle — possibly the result of having trouble seeing the ball at T-Mobile Park — Hernández signed a one-year deal in January, and is off to a running start. However, it’s early and he has a .314 xwOBA, which would be his worst mark since 2019. So far, Hernández is chasing much less, making a lot more contact, and not sacrificing any contact quality. He may not stay lucky forever, but those underlying numbers are encouraging.

In 2023, James Outman put up a four-win rookie season by doing what we nerds so often ask of hitters: making the most of his hard contact by pulling the ball in the air. As a result, he launched 23 homers and ran a great barrel rate despite below-average contact quality and lots of strikeouts. That also made him a likely regression candidate. Despite a 118 wRC+, he ran a DRC+ of 84. The D stands for Deserved, and this season, his DRC+ is 81. However, it’s way too early to assume that Outman can’t replicate his 2024 performance or find ways to get better in his sophomore campaign. So far this season, he’s hitting the ball a bit harder and his contact rate has improved from infinitesimally small to merely microscopic. Outman isn’t going to run a .242 BABIP all year, and it’s too early to panic about him. However, he needs a platoon partner, and right now, he really doesn’t have one.

Chris Taylor isn’t going to keep running a hilariously low .069 BABIP or a not at all funny -25 wRC+. Even over a short sample size, those are astoundingly unlucky numbers. He’s been extremely aggressive on pitches in the strike zone. That should be a good thing, but he’s made contact with them just 67.7% of the time, leading to a 42.9% strikeout rate. Because he’s walking and striking out like Joey Gallo, Taylor has put only 18 balls in play. That’s a tiny sample size, so it’s too early to do anything more than note that his contact quality has been dreadful. Taylor is coming off a 104 wRC+ in 2023, and he’s only been below 100 once in the last eight seasons.

Enrique Hernández hit his first homer of the season Tuesday night. Maybe the Dodgers can help him find his swing; after all, he hit much better following the trade that sent him from Boston to Los Angeles in 2023. But please understand how big a reclamation project that would be. From 2022 to 2024, Hernández has run a 72 wRC+, making him the sixth-worst hitter in all of baseball (minimum 700 PAs). The players below him could all be more or less described as defensive specialists; they’ve all put up positive WAR totals thanks to good defensive marks (with the exception of Martín Maldonado, whose defensive value is invisible to defensive metrics and quite possibly visible only to MLB managers). But Hernández has been worth -8.9 runs in the field, and -0.9 WAR overall, making the seventh-worst position player overall. That’s not just a replacement-level killer. His ugly defensive numbers at shortstop in 2023 were eye-opening, and if he doesn’t have the glove for center or the bat for left, that’s a big problem.

Lastly, there’s Pages (pronounced PA-hez), who was called up Tuesday. The 23-year-old Cuban missed most of the 2023 season due to surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder, but he’s already hit five homers at Triple-A this season. We have him ranked seventh in the Dodgers system. MLB Pipeline has him ranked higher: third in the system and 96th overall. After discussing Outman and Teoscar Hernández, Pages’ profile might sound familiar. His swing is designed to generate lift, allowing him to do plenty of damage even though he doesn’t boast tons of raw power. Like Outman and Hernández, that also means he’s going to strike out quite a bit. He started in center on Wednesday and has played there some in the minors, but he’s destined for a corner spot long-term, with a big arm that makes right field most likely.

Pages brings one more thing that the Los Angeles outfield sorely needs: youth. Until the arrival of Pages, Outman was the baby, but he’ll turn 27 in a week. Prorated by plate appearances, Dodgers outfielders are 30.5 years old, making them the third-oldest outfield in baseball. The oldest players are also the ones with the biggest question marks. Can Heyward stay healthy, and if he does, can he repeat his 2023 breakout? Are Taylor and Enrique Hernández still useful pieces at this stage of their careers? The overall strength of their roster means that the Dodgers can likely coast to the playoffs even if they keep getting absolutely nothing from their outfield, but that’s not usually how they operate.

The Orioles’ talented young hitter, a former top-five pick, was just named AL Player of the Week. No, not that one. Or that one. Or the other one. Colton Cowser, the no. 5 overall pick in 2021 out of Sam Houston State, went 10-for-23 with four home runs during the six games in question, and in the process became the first Oriole to drive in 10 runs in a single series at Fenway Park.

That’s a pretty solid week at the office, if you ask me. The Orioles have been playing series at Fenway Park for more than 70 years, and in that time nobody had ever driven in 10 runs in one series — a three-game series, no less! Read the rest of this entry »

What’s gotten into the Central divisions? Often an afterthought behind the big market clubs on either coast, it’s the Central teams in both leagues that are providing the most surprising starts, and most entertaining baseball, so far this season.

This season, we’ve revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined since March. That’s why we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance.

To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds (specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%). As the best and worst teams sort themselves out throughout the season, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise will remain reactive to hot streaks or cold snaps. Read the rest of this entry »

Max Fried is unusual; he’s a good homegrown Braves player who didn’t sign a team-friendly, million-year contract extension. (It feels like this team hasn’t had one of those since Johnny Sain.) As a result, Fried will be a free agent at the end of the season, but insofar as the Braves are preparing for life without Fried eventually, they very much need him now.

Now that Spencer Strider is out for the season, the Braves rotation consists of Fried, two aging big names (Chris Sale and Charlie Morton), one guy who was a reliever next year (Reynaldo López), and we’ll figure out the no. 5 spot when we get there. It’s a lot of upside, and all things considered it’s not that bad when every team seems to be down at least one starter. But suffice it to say that Atlanta has less wiggle room, pitching-wise, than it did two weeks ago.

Therefore it was a bit alarming when Fried came out of his first two starts having completed just five innings total. In those two outings, he allowed 12 hits and 11 runs, 10 of them earned, to bring his ERA up to 18.00. The Braves’ offense is good, sure, but no baseball team ever made could reliably provide 18 runs of support per game for its no. 1 starter. Read the rest of this entry »

The first thing Jerry Narron remembers about Major League Baseball is going to games three, four and five of the 1960 World Series with his parents. Four years old at the time, he saw the New York Yankees face the Pittsburgh Pirates, the latter of which had his father’s brother, Sam Narron, on their coaching staff. To say it was the first of many diamond memories would be an understatement. Now 68 years old, Jerry Narron is in his 50th season of professional baseball.

The journey, which began as a Yankees farmhand in 1974, includes eight seasons as a big-league backstop and parts of five more as a big-league manager, none of which culminated in his team reaching a World Series. That there was an excruciating near-miss in his playing days, and another when he was on a Gene Mauch coaching staff, register as low points in a career well-lived. More on that in a moment.

His uncle got to experience a pair of Fall Classics during his own playing career. A backup catcher for the Cardinals in 1942 and 1943, Sam Narron was on the winning side of a World Series when St. Louis beat the Yankees in the first of those seasons, and on the losing end to the same club the following year. He didn’t see action in the 1942 Series, but he did get a ring — according to his nephew, the last one ever presented by Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Moreover, it was the last of Branch Rickey’s 20-plus seasons with the Cardinals.

The first World Series opportunity Jerry just missed out on was in 1986 when he was catching for the Angels, the team he currently coaches for. The second came as a coach with the Red Sox in 2003. Read the rest of this entry »

The biggest story in baseball this week might be Jackson Holliday’s call-up. If it’s not that, it’s certainly the news that Ippei Mizuhara is set to be charged on allegations, which were detailed in a federal affidavit filed Thursday, that he stole more than $16 million from Shohei Ohtani. Each of those are huge topics, with impacts that will echo through the game far into the future. But a lot of other stuff happened in baseball too this week, so let’s talk about pitchers playing defense and crazy baserunning, shall we?

Welcome to another edition of Five Things, a weekly look into the most entertaining or downright weirdest stuff I saw while doing my day job: watching an ungodly amount of baseball. As always, a big shout out to ESPN’s Zach Lowe, who started writing a similar column years ago and forever changed the way I watch basketball. This is a long one, so let’s get right into it.

1. Elly, Obviously
I mean, did you think anyone else was leading off here? Elly De La Cruz is the kind of player you’d create in a video game, and he was up to his usual tricks this week. You’ve heard about this one already, I’m sure, but he hit the first inside-the-park homer of the year:

If triples are the most exciting play in baseball, what does that make this? Incidentally, that play is a triple for almost everyone. It’s just that De La Cruz is so dang fast. He went home to home in less than 15 seconds, which is absolutely ridiculous. Set a 15-second timer and try to do something around the house. You probably didn’t get very far into what you were doing in the time it took Elly to get around the bases. Just watching him in motion is a joy:

Elly De La Cruz just went home-to-home in 14.96 SECONDS! pic.twitter.com/pTgIYsbPgj

— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) April 9, 2024

In fact, De La Cruz is fourth in the majors in average sprint speed so far this year. I mean, obviously he is! Look at him go. The only guys ahead of him are true burners: Trea Turner, currently chasing the record for most consecutive steals; Victor Scott II, who stole 94 bases in the minors last year; and Bobby Witt Jr., one of the best athletes in the majors. Of course, De La Cruz has way more power than that trio, with only Witt coming anywhere near Elly’s level of power.

Oh, right. He hit a massive bomb in this game too:

That’s what 70-grade power looks like: 450 feet, dead center. And I hope the Reds have home insurance because that wall probably needs fixing now. Pitchers are challenging him more this year because he cut down on his swing rate significantly at the end of last season, and he hasn’t yet adjusted by getting aggressive in the strike zone. When he does offer at something, though, he’s making it count. I’m not sure if his approach can stick, but I’m also not sure if opposing teams are going to keep letting him hit mammoth blasts while they find out whether their plan is sustainable. It’s pretty demoralizing to throw strikes to a guy who can casually swat them out of any park in baseball.

Oh yeah, he did this a few days later:

I’m almost at a loss for words on that one. He absolutely destroyed that ball to the opposite field. Across the majors last year, there were fewer than 40 line drives hit harder the opposite way, pretty much all by household names like Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, and Giancarlo Stanton. This one was hit by the fourth-fastest man in the game. It feels vaguely unfair.

To be clear, it’s still not clear how well this will translate into long-term baseball value. De La Cruz is absolutely mashing so far this year, to the tune of a .318/.375/.659 slash line and a 171 wRC+ entering Friday, but he’s also striking out 35.4% of the time, with his line held up by a .458 BABIP. He looks worse defensively at shortstop than he did last year. But he’s only 22, and he just did all those things up above. I’m pretty excited to watch him try to put it all together.

2. Lamonte Wade, Grinding
Most of the plays that catch my eye in baseball are, by definition, eye-catching. They’re Elly at full speed, or defenders making diving stops, or anything else that makes you stop and stare for a while. But most of baseball isn’t those plays. It’s a long season, and most of it takes place without the bases juiced and the game on the line.

Monday night’s Giants-Nationals clash was one of those quiet times. The Nats put together a three-run inning early against Blake Snell and then piled on against the San Francisco bullpen. Washington took a 6-1 lead into the bottom of the sixth inning, with LaMonte Wade Jr. due up first for the Giants. This was squarely into garbage time; per our win probability odds, the Nats had a 95% chance of hanging on.

There’s not a lot of glory to be found when you’re trailing by five runs late. It still counts, though, and Wade never takes a play off. He faced Derek Law, one of those classic “oh he plays where now?” relievers who sticks around thanks to his excellent stuff but keeps bouncing between teams because of his inability to consistently locate it.

On this particular night, Law was on. He started Wade off with the kitchen sink, a cutter/fastball/changeup combo that ran the count to 1-2 in a hurry:

That’s a tough spot for a hitter, but Wade isn’t the type to give anything up. He switched into defensive mode and fought off Law’s next offering, a surprisingly aggressive fastball:

Wade’s game is heavy on batting eye and patience, built to take advantage of lapses in command from the opposition. That paid off as Law briefly lost command of the zone:

That said, the job wasn’t done. Law regained the strike zone and started attacking the upper third again:

And again:

And again:

Fouling these pitches off matters. Even that last one was too close for comfort. If you want to draw walks and stay in counts, you have to do it. But it’s not glamorous, particularly when the pitcher is hitting his spots. Wade is a great fastball hitter, but part of being a great fastball hitter is staying alive when you don’t catch them clean. Surely, Law would eventually break. And indeed he did, on the 10th pitch of the at-bat:

Hitting is hard! Most of what you do is drudge work. No one wants to foul off a bucketful of 95 mph fastballs when their team is headed for near-certain defeat. But if you want to succeed the way Wade does, by controlling the strike zone and ambushing occasional pitches with power, you can’t take an at-bat off. Law would have beaten plenty of batters on an earlier pitch, but he eventually threw a pretty bad one, 91 mph and with far too much plate. That’ll happen when you have to throw 10 pitches to the same guy.

That at-bat didn’t affect the outcome of the game even a little bit. Law retired the next three batters in order, two via strikeout. He threw another scoreless inning after that for good measure. The Nationals won comfortably, 8-1; no Giants so much as reached second base after Wade’s double. But even though this at-bat didn’t matter in the short run, playing like this in the long run is why Wade has been so successful in the majors. When the game is on the line, he’s Late Night LaMonte. When it’s the lowest-leverage situation you can imagine – down huge to a bad team on a Monday night in April – he’s still working as hard as ever. He’s a joy to watch in good times and bad.

3. The Duality of Corbin Burnes
If you watch Corbin Burnes’ mannerisms, you’re liable to get the impression that he’s a great fielder. This smooth catch against the Red Sox last Tuesday was a great, reflexive play:

His celebration was absolutely wonderful: He completely no-sold it. “Oh, me, catching baseballs? Yeah, that’s just normal, I catch ones like that all the time.” This is the self-assured strut of someone who habitually robs hits:

Burnes is a pitcher, though. They aren’t exactly known for their elite glovework. As best as I can tell, he’s somewhere in the middle of the league defensively. Pitcher defense isn’t particularly well quantified, but he looks average by those metrics, average to my eye, and a Google search for “Corbin Burnes defense” turns up a lot of people writing defenses of his pitching and no one talking about his fielding prowess. He was a Gold Glove finalist once, but didn’t win, and I’m not exactly sure how those awards work anyway.

Does he just act cooler than he is, so to speak? That was my impression after seeing that play; maybe he was just feeling particularly good that day and wanted to have some fun with it. I chuckled a little bit at the play – pitchers, what a funny group! – and went back to watching the game without giving it much thought.

But a few innings later, the ball found Burnes again in a much funnier way. This time, it all started with what looked like an innocent popup to second:

The sun was absolutely blinding at Fenway that afternoon, however. As it turns out, Tony Kemp had been completely bamboozled. The ball was actually making a beeline for Burnes as he stood unawares at the side of the mound. Even as Ryan Mountcastle and Gunnar Henderson turned toward the mound, Burnes sat there coolly. But then the ball got too close:

There was no audible conversation on the field on either broadcast, but I like to imagine Burnes giving a yelp as he got out of the way. It’s so classic. The ball finds you when you’re trying to hide, or trying to look more comfortable than you are. The guy who snags the line drive nonchalantly is also the one ducking away from a harmless popup that he lost track of. Also, he’s maybe the best pitcher in the game. Delightful.

4. On The Other Hand…
I know that I just got finished poking fun at a pitcher’s defensive chops, but we’re going to do another pitcher defense item. Why? Because Bryce Jarvis did this on Wednesday, that’s why:

Jarvis is the very definition of an up-and-down arm. He broke into the majors last year with the Diamondbacks as a long man, throwing 23.2 innings in 11 games. He’s back for more of the same so far this year – eight innings in four appearances. He’s not a star, nor does he ever look likely to be one, despite being a first-round draft pick, ahead of both Slade Cecconi and Brandon Pfaadt on the Arizona board.

Draft picks turn into guys like that all the time. You can’t run a big league organization without the Jarvises of the world, in fact. Those innings aren’t going to fill themselves. The teams who develop C-level guys instead of D-level guys just do better in the long grind of the season.

I’m probably digressing too much, though. Jarvis’ story isn’t particularly remarkable; first-round draft picks don’t pan out as often as you’d think. His athletic talents, on the other hand? They were on full display here. Elehuris Montero’s grounder was hit so softly that Jarvis had to be on a full charge to get to the ball at all:

But getting to the ball was only part of the problem here. It’s not like Montero can fly, but he’s not the slowest runner around either. He could smell an infield hit, too; those weak-contact grounders trigger something in hitter’s brains that says, “Get down the line and claim your luck.” Jarvis had to smoothly pivot from a mad dash for the ball into a throw. Or, well, that’s the theory, at least. In practice, Jarvis ended up with what I like to call falling-backwards-shotput form:

Pitchers miss these throws all the time. They miss them more often than not. Managers would prefer pitchers to hold onto the ball there, if I had to guess. An error seems more likely than an out there, and an injury – hamstrings are tricky beasts – is definitely an option as well. Jarvis is living on the fringes of the majors, though. Every game is a chance to prove himself or be found wanting. Every out makes an extended major league career more likely. Some of them are simply more spectacular than others. And while I’m on the subject, Jarvis should probably buy Christian Walker a drink after he absolutely flattened himself receiving the ball at first base.

5. Tim Anderson, Agent of Chaos
Housing costs in Manhattan are ridiculous these days. Whether you’re looking to lease or own, you’re looking at paying double the national average or more. In price per square foot, it gets even wilder. It’s not a problem for Tim Anderson, though, because he’s living rent free in the Yankees’ heads after Wednesday night.

Anderson didn’t figure into the early parts of Miami’s offensive attack; when he came to the plate in the ninth inning, he was hitless but the team was up 4-2. He led off the inning with an innocuous single to right. Then the fun started. The Yankees decided that Anderson was going to run. He’d swiped a base early the previous night, and this was his first opportunity to double up since then. Dennis Santana checked on him almost right away:

Two pitches later, Jose Trevino followed suit:

Bryan De La Cruz flied out on the next pitch, but the Yankees were still shook. Before the first pitch to Nick Gordon, Santana threw over again:

Then Trevino faked a back-pick:

Then Santana threw over again:

Now Anderson had the upper hand, but he didn’t take off. In fact, he almost got stuck in between, with enough of a secondary lead that Trevino took yet another bite at the apple:

That was almost a disaster for the Marlins. Anderson was just hanging out pretty far off the base, and only beat the throw due to a combination of a good slide and a missed tag:

Meanwhile, Santana completely lost track of what was going on at home plate. He walked Gordon on the next pitch, an uncompetitive fastball low. To make matters worse, Anderson got such a good jump that he would have stolen second easily even if the pitch had been a strike.

Now he was feeling frisky, and started dancing off of the base in Santana’s line of sight. It nearly led to a balk:

Anderson finally got a clean jump for a steal. At first, it looked like it might not matter:

But as it turns out, Anderson’s speed drove the Yankees over the edge. Take a second and watch Anderson, and you’ll realize that he took a hard turn around third. He was thinking about more than a single base, and when Anthony Volpe didn’t look him back, he went for it:

From an overhead view, things get even clearer. When Anderson took off, Anthony Rizzo realized he had to make a phenomenal scoop and also fire the ball home in a single motion. He went for it, but failed. Anderson had essentially conjured a run out of thin air:

Anderson is off to a pretty miserable start to the season. He was downright awful last year. But wow, he’s fun to watch, whether at the plate, in the field, or on the basepaths. I hope he continues to terrify opposing defenses for years to come.