Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
I don’t love to evaluate teams just by watching them and feeling the vibes, but in deciding what to write about for this morning, I kept coming back to the feeling that the Giants have played a lot of ugly, soulless, lopsided losses. They’re not horrible overall, but they definitely haven’t been good, which puts them in a purgatory of sorts. Fortunately, we’ve got have a good encapsulation in statistical form to prove how disappointing they’ve been. Connor Grossman, a former Sports Illustrated baseball editor who writes “Giants Postcards” on Substack, noted something interesting in Tuesday’s newsletter: That the Giants are 1-20 in games when they give up four or more runs.
I hopped over to Stathead to get a look at how San Francisco compared to other teams in such games, and it’s certainly not a pretty picture. Entering play Tuesday, only seven teams have allowed at least four runs in a game more often than the Giants, and no other team has performed worse when they do. To be clear, these are hard games to win; only the Orioles are breaking even in such games, and the league as a whole is a ghastly 143-425, winning just over 25% of the time. But the Giants’ pitifulness in these situations is setting them further back than any other team; the lowly Marlins, Angels, White Sox, and Rockies are the only other teams with at least 20 losses when they allow more than three runs in a game, but they’ve won more than one of those games. The Giants, of course, had visions of contending this season. Instead, it looks like whatever they were seeing was a mirage.
Here’s the thing: It’s true that the San Francisco offense isn’t good, but it really isn’t bottom of the barrel, either. The problem isn’t so much that the Giants can’t score; it’s that they just can’t score enough runs when they need them. They are scoring 4.8 runs per game when their pitchers give up three or fewer runs, but they are averaging a putrid 2.9 runs in the games when they allow at least four.
San Francisco’s lineup, as it has been for the entirety of the Farhan Zaidi era, was constructed to have the whole be greater than the sum of its parts, even with the additions of everyday bats Matt Chapman, Jung Hoo Lee, and Jorge Soler. Sure, these aren’t Gabe Kapler’s Giants with platoons seemingly all over the diamond, but the team still uses tandems at first base (LaMonte Wade Jr. and Wilmer Flores) and right field (Mike Yastrzemski and Austin Slater). This strategy could have worked, except Flores and Slater aren’t pulling their weight against lefties and the three new guys have all been somewhere between underwhelming and bad. That puts a lot of pressure on the pitchers to be perfect, and this rotation sure isn’t that, even with Logan Webb.
As if to provide further support that they can score, but only when they get good pitching, the Giants beat the Rockies on Tuesday night, 5-0. They’re now 15-1 in games when their pitchers allow no more than three runs.
Rhys Lightning Is Sparking With the Brewers
After missing all of last year recovering from ACL surgery, Rhys Hoskins signed a two-year, $34 million contract with the Brewers that affords him the opportunity to opt out at the end of this season. It’s too early to tell if he’ll decide to test free agency again this offseason, but so far, he’s fared quite well in his new digs.
Over 33 games, Hoskins is batting .218/.324/.437 (118 wRC+), down from his Phillies norm of .242/.353/.492 (126 wRC+) but still solid. Considering he just came back from a serious knee injury, it’s not surprising that he isn’t running well, both by the eye test and the statistics (his sprint speed is down 0.4 feet per second), or that he’s required more maintenance (15 DH days to 18 games at first base), but at the plate he’s been about as good as Milwaukee could’ve hoped.
Hoskins is a far more selective hitter this season, with a swing rate under 40% for the first time since 2019, and his 20.8% chase rate is the lowest it’s been since 2018, his first full year in the big leagues, according to Statcast. More interesting, though, is what happens when he actually does pull the trigger: He’s running the lowest in-zone contact rate of his career, yet he’s connecting more often than ever on pitches out of the zone. His 68.3% contact rate on pitches outside the zone is over six points above his previous career high and a staggering 10 points higher than it was in 2022.
While “hit fewer pitches inside the zone and make more contact outside of it” doesn’t seem like a sound strategy, it hasn’t affected Hoskins’ underlying numbers and may counterintuitively be helping them. The righty thumper’s xSLG and xwOBA are both markedly improved from 2022 and much more in line with his stronger 2021, and he’s also hitting fewer groundballs than at any point in his career. That’s important because the Brewers signed him to slug, not to try and beat out infield singles, and so far, slug is what he’s done. In Tuesday’s 6-5 win over the Royals, Hoskins hit his seventh home run over the season, tied for the most on the team.
Quick Hits
• The Cubs’ streak of scoreless starts ended on Tuesday when Craig Counsell extended Shota Imanaga to the eighth inning, only to watch him give up a two-run homer to Jurickson Profar that gave the Padres the lead. The Cubs came back and won, 3-2, on a Michael Busch walk-off home run to maintain their virtual tie with Milwaukee atop the NL Central.
• The Yankees pounded Justin Verlander for seven runs in their 10-3 win over the Astros on Tuesday. The highlight came when Giancarlo Stanton led off the fifth inning with a 118.8 mph home run; that’s the hardest ball hit off Verlander since at least 2015, when Statcast started measuring exit velocity.
Kyle Harrison was pitching for the Double-A Richmond Flying Squirrels when he was first featured here at FanGraphs in August 2022. Then a fast-rising prospect in the San Francisco Giants system, the now-22-year-old southpaw had broken down the early evolution of his arsenal for me prior to a game at Portland, Maine’s Hadlock Field. Fast forward to this past week, and we were reacquainting at a far-more-fabled venue. Harrison was preparing to take the mound at Fenway Park for his 14th big-league start, his seventh this season.
As I’m wont to do in such scenarios, I asked the dark-horse rookie-of-the-year candidate what’s changed since our 20-months-ago conversation. Not surprisingly, he’s continued to evolve.
“I’ve added a cutter, although I haven’t thrown it as much as I’d like to,” Harrison told me. “Other than that, it’s the same pitches. The slider has been feeling great, and the changeup is something that’s really come along for me; it’s a pitch I’ve been relying on a lot. I really hadn’t thrown it that much in the minors — it felt like I didn’t really have the control for it — but then all of a sudden it clicked. Now I’ve got three weapons, plus the cutter.”
Including his Thursday effort in Boston, Harrison has thrown his new cutter — Baseball Savant categorizes it as a slider — just six times all season. Which brings us to his other breaking ball. When we’d talked in Portland, the lefty called the pitch a sweepy slider. Savant categorizes it as a slurve.
Roughly a month’s worth of the 2024 season is now in the books. The American League East looks great. The Brewers and Guardians are standing up for the Central divisions. The White Sox can only beat the Rays, and the Astros somehow can’t beat anyone. Enough time has passed that I feel confident saying all of those things. On the other hand, it still feels too early to be certain about which players are over- or under-performing. But that doesn’t mean our opinions can’t change a bit. There’s enough data to make some educated guesses, so let’s put on our speculation caps. Here are four players — two hitters and two pitchers — who have risen in my estimation over the last few weeks. Tomorrow, I’ll follow up with four players who have gone the other way.
Elly De La Cruz, SS, Cincinnati Reds
I already thought De La Cruz had the potential to be one of the best players in baseball before the season started. Quite reasonably, though, I was worried about the downsides. A guy who struck out 33.7% of the time last year is always risky, and that’s particularly true given how he did it. He swung more often than league average at balls and less often than average at strikes; he also made less contact than average. You can have one of those three things be true, or maybe even two of three if you make up for it elsewhere, but three of three? Yikes. Read the rest of this entry »
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the San Francisco Giants. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our 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 »
Welcome to another edition of Five Things, my weekly column that highlights strange and often delightful happenings from the last week of baseball. My own baseball watching was a bit stilted this week, for the best possible reason. I went to three Giants games, an exciting event made possible by cheap ticket deals, a friend’s birthday, and some last minute cancellations of non-baseball weekend plans. Two of those games were pretty awful; Blake Snell got shelled Friday night, and then Blake Snell’s replacements got shelled Wednesday afternoon.
The good news is, there’s still *so much* good baseball going on all the time that I had plenty in the tank to write about. You don’t have to look too far to find things to like about baseball these days. We’ve got new holidays, old AL Central rivals, stadium gimmicks, and pure unadulterated velocity. As always, this column is inspired by Zach Lowe’s basketball column, Ten Things (Zach inspired Will Leitch to start his own Five Things column over at MLB.com, in fact). Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
Blake Snell’s Giants tenure couldn’t be going much worse. In three starts spanning just 11.2 innings, he’s allowed 15 runs — nearly a third of last year’s total in only 6.5% of the innings — with a hard-hit rate that’s up nearly six percentage points from last year. Some of his woes can be attributed to small samples and bad luck — his 11.57 ERA is much higher than his 4.05 xERA — but this clearly isn’t how he and San Francisco drew it up. And that was before news broke Wednesday that the Giants were placing Snell on the 15-day injured list with an adductor muscle strain in his groin area. He has dealt with this injury twice before in his career, though he doesn’t seem worried that it’ll a long-term issue:
Snell had the same injury in 21 and 22, says he caught it early and is hopeful he misses minimal time. Maybe just slightly more than the 15 day minimum.
After his disappointing free agency, Snell could at least look forward to the possibility that he’d earn $32 million this year and pitch well enough to opt out and seek a more lucrative deal after the season. But now that he is going to miss at least three starts, following his three clunkers, it appears unlikely that he’ll be in a position to risk the $30 million he’s set to make next year if he stays.
The more immediate concern for the Giants, though, is how they’ll fill Snell’s spot in the rotation. Logan Webb is on a roll (29 innings in his last four starts, with just three runs allowed), and Jordan Hicks is pitching quite nicely, with a 1.61 ERA in five starts. Keaton Winn (3.54 ERA) is also chipping in on the back end, and while top prospect Kyle Harrison has struggled to a 5.00 ERA so far, there’s certainly room for him to get better. The fifth spot, however, looks like something of a mess.
The Giants had hoped Alex Cobb would be in the rotation by now after he recovered from hip surgery more quickly than expected, but he strained his elbow as he ramped up and was transferred to the 60-day IL instead. That leaves the Giants with two options: go with bullpen games, as they did in a pinch on Wednesday when Snell was scratched, or bring up someone from Triple-A. The latter feels far more likely, especially with Mason Black (1.53 ERA in four starts) pitching very well with Sacramento. Black hasn’t thrown more than five innings or 70 pitches in a start this year, so he won’t exactly take the load off San Francisco relievers, who have the second-highest bullpen ERA in the majors. Still, promoting Black appears to be the best way through this unfortunate situation.
…
On the opposite coast, the Red Sox placed Opening Day starter Brayan Bello on the IL with lat tightness, joining fellow starters Lucas Giolito, Nick Pivetta, and Garrett Whitlock. As with Snell’s injury, Bello seems to have avoided serious injury, but in the best division in baseball, Boston can hardly afford to miss its no. 1 starter for even the minimum 15 days.
Rather amazingly, despite all those injuries, the Red Sox have the lowest ERA and FIP in the majors, with Kutter Crawford leading the way with a 0.66 ERA (two earned runs in 27.1 innings) that’s backed up by an also excellent 2.28 FIP. Tanner Houck (1.65 ERA/2.24 FIP) has become indispensable as well.
But things get dicey after that. The rest of the rotation now consists of Cooper Criswell, Josh Winckowski, and Chase Anderson, and because the latter two opened the season as relievers and aren’t stretched out to start just yet, their outings have turned into bullpen games.
This creates an awfully precarious position for the Red Sox bullpen, which has performed well thus far but doesn’t have the depth to cover an extended workload. Boston has already tapped into its pitching pipeline by calling up Criswell, and none of its other Triple-A pitchers are performing well enough to warrant a promotion to the majors. Moving Winckowski and Anderson to the rotation, then, has the compounding effect of weakening the bullpen, especially since Winckowski had pitched in high leverage situations.
Checking in on Wyatt Langford
Things certainly haven’t been rosy for Rangers rookie Wyatt Langford, who is batting .253/.337/.308 (89 wRC+) with no home runs across 104 plate appearances.
The 22-year-old has excellent raw power but just hasn’t tapped into it in the majors yet. His average exit velocity and hard-hit rate are both well below league average, with his barrel and sweet spot rates just barely above it.
It’s not all bad for Langford; he has elite speed that’s allowed him to beat out some infield hits, and his swing decisions are generally good, with chase and contact rates both well better than major league averages. But having great plate discipline can sometimes handcuff batters when they’re scuffling, and that seems to be the case with Langford. He’s talking too many pitches over the heart of the plate.
Pitch selectivity is a skill that depends just as much on swinging at the right pitches as it does laying off the wrong ones. A hitter may not get his ideal pitch during an entire game, let alone a single plate appearance, and taking too many hittable pitches leads to a lot of pitcher’s counts. It appears Langford would be much better off swinging more and using his quick hands and raw talent to make the most out of the pitches he gets over the plate rather than waiting around for the best possible one.
About two months ago, pitchers and catchers reported to spring training, marking a ceremonial end to the winter and the beginning of a new season. But as players showed up to camp and exhibition games began a couple weeks later, two pitchers were notably absent.
Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery, our fifth and sixth ranked free agents entering the offseason, each signed contracts dangerously close to the start of the season, with the latter coming off the market just two days prior to Opening Day. Both had to settle for much shorter-term deals than they were expecting, with combined guarantees undershooting our crowdsourced projections by $188 million.
As the first to sign, Snell was the first to make his debut, starting the Giants’ 11th game of the year after pitching in simulated games against his teammates. Montgomery reported to Triple-A, making two starts in Reno before being activated by the big club last Friday. His first start of the year, interestingly, came against the Giants and opposite Blake Snell, so it offered an early look at how this unconventional offseason might have impacted each pitcher.
Snell vs. Montgomery was an exciting matchup thanks to their track records of excellence and the intrigue surrounding their offseasons, but also one that came with many unknowns. How would Montgomery fare in his first major league action of the season? Would Snell bounce back after two consecutive poor outings? How much rust would each deal with after a month of ramp up time?
Snell’s top of the first inning was relatively uneventful; he used his slider and changeup to record three straight outs after a leadoff single. Next, it was Montgomery’s turn to face a Giants lineup stacked with right-handed platoon hitters like Austin Slater and Tom Murphy. Slater led off, and Montgomery’s first offering of the year was a sinker that clocked in at 91.4 mph, two ticks shy of last year’s average. He sat in that velocity band throughout the game, a symptom of the late start to his spring. Slater eventually grounded out on a curveball low in the zone, and the next two hitters were also retired on routine grounders.
Outside of being left-handed pitchers on short-term contracts, Snell and Montgomery have little in common, especially with respect to their pitching styles. Snell refuses to conform to the so-called strike zone, rapidly changing batters’ eye levels with fastballs above it and breaking balls below it. His brand of high-strikeout, high-walk baseball has netted him two Cy Young awards, though he ran a more pedestrian 96 ERA- across the four seasons separating them. Montgomery, on the other hand, prefers to live in the zone with his plus command and arsenal of downward-breaking pitches. He’s never reached the heights of Snell’s peak years, but has outproduced him by WAR over the past three years.
Snell pitched a clean second inning, capped off by a seven-pitch showdown against Gabriel Moreno. After falling behind in the count 3-1, he got Moreno to swing and miss below the zone, then foul off the next pitch to keep the count full. He threw two fastballs and four sliders to get here. So what did he do next?
This is an example of Snell at his best, the version that knows where each pitch is going even when not throwing strikes. Primed for a fastball or slider that would have ended up down the middle had it been aimed at the same spot out of the hand, Moreno went down on a curveball that dropped two feet more than any of Snell’s other pitches. Last season, Snell’s 310 swinging strikes on out-of-zone pitches ranked second in baseball, and most of them came on breaking balls that tunneled well with his fastball before falling off the table.
Unfortunately, Snell failed to execute this strategy for the rest of his start, as too many offerings leaked over the middle of the plate. In the third, a slider and changeup down the middle resulted in loud contact from Blaze Alexander and Ketel Marte. In the fourth, Alexander struck again, this time against the fastball. Snell allowed four more hits in the fifth before being pulled mid-inning, failing to complete five frames for the third consecutive start. The Diamondbacks collected nine hits, the most he’s allowed in a start since 2019.
Most of the hits Snell allowed were the result of the Diamondbacks capitalizing on pitches down the middle, which were uncharacteristically frequent from someone whose pitches tend to magnetize away from the zone. But in this three-start sample, Snell has been leaving more pitches over the heart of the plate, resulting in both more loud contact and fewer swinging strikes in the zone.
Blake Snell Heart% by Pitch
2023
2024
Fastball
24%
25%
Curveball
12%
19%
Slider
14%
16%
Changeup
16%
29%
SOURCE: Baseball Savant
While Snell’s command certainly isn’t where it was last year, Montgomery had no such issues locating his pitches throughout his start. He landed an impressive 23 of his 30 sinkers in the strike zone, taking advantage of its high groundball rate; batters have slugged under .375 against in each of the past two seasons. With a strike-stealing machine in his arsenal, many matchups against Montgomery ended in either an early groundout or a pitcher-friendly count that allowed him to deploy his curveball and changeup, the latter of which earned four of his eight whiffs on the night. While he spiked a few curveballs in the dirt, he had excellent feel for locating his changeup, consistently landing it on the armside half of the plate.
Without his typical velocity, Montgomery struck out just three batters (one of which came on a pitch clock violation). Instead, he recorded outs by keeping his pitches away from barrels and limiting the quality of contact against him, tallying nine groundouts in six innings of work while allowing a hard-hit rate of just 32%. Aside from a Jorge Soler homer that marked the only blemish on Montgomery’s record, none of the other batted balls he allowed were particularly threatening; over two-thirds of them had an xBA below .200.
Another trend to watch from Montgomery’s start was his increased use of his changeup and curveball. He’s thrown his fastballs about half the time throughout his career, but he dropped that usage to about 40% in his first game with the Diamondbacks. This shift may simply be the result of good advance scouting — Giants’ right-handed hitters currently rank 28th in wOBA against non-fastballs — but it could also be part of Arizona’s teamwide shift toward more diverse arsenals, especially from its starting pitchers. This season, Merrill Kelly has added a slider to his kitchen-sink arsenal while Slade Cecconi is throwing far more splitters at the expense of his fastball. Montgomery’s curveball has been a successful out pitch and could potentially generate even more outs if he continues to throw it 30% of the time; during his career, batters have generated a pitiful .177/.209/.307 line against it.
Jordan Montgomery Pitch Usage vs. RHH
2023
Friday
Sinker
41%
37%
Changeup
26%
31%
Curveball
21%
28%
Four-Seamer
11%
4%
SOURCE: Baseball Savant
Montgomery was removed from the game after six innings and 78 pitches, and Arizona’s offense teed off in the late innings of the game, which ultimately resulted in a 17-1 wallop. Both starting pitchers still have more ramping up to do at the big league level, with Montgomery working back to regular season velocity and Snell still searching for his command after three bad outings. That said, I think there’s reason to be optimistic about both pitchers. Even with an 11.57 ERA, Snell’s peripherals are nearly in line with last season’s numbers, and he tends to improve as the year goes on, with a career FIP nearly a run better in the second half of seasons. Montgomery showed off his advanced pitchability despite his diminished stuff, with a possible arsenal change that could lead to improvements.
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:
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:
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.
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
Finally, after what felt like the longest less than two weeks of our lives, the moment has arrived: The Baltimore Orioles are calling up shortstop Jackson Holliday, the top prospect in baseball. He will make his MLB debut with the Orioles as soon as Wednesday, sliding in at second base because Baltimore already has Gunnar Henderson, another former no. 1 overall prospect, at shortstop.
The 20-year-old Holliday exceeded even the rosiest of expectations in spring training, hitting .311/.354/.600 with two home runs in 48 plate appearances. But he didn’t make the Opening Day roster despite all that, with general manager Mike Elias citing Holliday’s performance against lefties in the minors and his need to further acclimate to the keystone as reasons to delay his big league career. But, with Holliday off to a bonkers start at Triple-A (.333/.482/.605 with a 189 wRC+) and the Orioles, at 6-4, in need of a jolt, now was the right time to bring him up.
Like both Adley Rutschman and Henderson before him, Holliday is great at everything but perhaps not truly elite at anything. No, he doesn’t have the raw power or speed of Wyatt Langford, the American League’s other tantalizing rookie, but Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin grade Holliday as a future five-tool star with plenty of development still ahead of him.
Ben Clemens wrote that it would be the wrong decision for Baltimore to keep Holliday down past the Super Two deadline (typically 30 or so days into the season), not only because it would be a bad-faith gesture to Holliday, but also because it would be a terrible baseball move. With the Orioles’ offense looking more good than great in the early going, they’re making the right choice to call him up now: Holliday is simply better than the players he’s replacing; Jorge Mateo is best used as a super-utility man and Ramón Urías has struggled to start the season. Moreover, the O’s had little service-time incentive to keep him stashed in the minors; if he wins the AL Rookie of the Year award, they will be rewarded with an additional draft pick and Holliday will receive a full year of service, no matter how long he’s on the big league roster. Assuming he’s ready for the majors, the Orioles stand to benefit more from having him on the roster for as long as possible.
So now, and apologies for what you’re about to read… What a bright time, it’s the right time to call up Holliday.
Blake Snell Will Be Fine
From a results standpoint, Blake Snell’s Giants debut was not a good one. Facing the Nationals at home on Monday, he allowed three runs on three hits and two walks while striking out five, and it took him 72 pitches to get through three innings. But with his late signing, lack of a true spring training, and relatively quick ramp-up, San Francisco should consider the start a muted success. Sure, the Giants lost 8-1, but Snell got through the outing without injury — something that is hardly a guarantee for any pitcher, especially so far this season — and he should be built up for about 90 or so pitches his next time around. Overall, that’s encouraging.
Besides, it wasn’t all bad when you take a look under the hood. Snell’s stuff didn’t look too far off from the arsenal that won him his second Cy Young award last year. As you’d expect, his average velocity for all four of his pitches was down, but none alarmingly so: His fastball dipped just 0.1 mph, while his slider had the biggest velocity drop, at 1.1 mph. As a result, his spin rates also decreased, but again, this shouldn’t be concerning.
Additionally, Snell got 11 misses on 25 swings (44%), and 33% of his pitches resulted in either a called strike or a whiff; both rates were higher than his marks from last year. The quality of contact against him was anemic as well, with the seven balls in play averaging an exit velocity of just 80 mph. This is who Snell is: an elite contact suppressor and whiff-inducer who will more often than not run into high pitch counts because he avoids the middle of the plate.
As recently as a month ago, I was lamenting the state of the Giants rotation, but things are looking up now. Snell joins Logan Webb to give them a formidable frontline duo, one that is as strong as any other in baseball. Meanwhile, their decision to convert offseason acquisition Jordan Hicks into a starter has gone better than anyone could’ve expected, and they also have top prospect Kyle Harrison. And let’s not forget that San Francisco’s staff has more reinforcements on the way. Alex Cobb was initially on track to return from offseason hip surgery ahead of schedule, perhaps as soon as sometime this month, before he suffered a mild flexor strain; the setback will keep him out until early May. Lefty Robbie Ray, the 2021 AL Cy Young winner, could make at least a handful of late-season starts once he’s back from Tommy John surgery; and Tristan Beck and Sean Hjelle could be factors as well.
To be clear, this team still has flaws — its offense has been one of the worst in the National League and its relievers collectively were below replacement level entering Tuesday — but Snell and the starting staff will be just fine.
The Free-Swinging Giancarlo Stanton
I’m confident in saying Snell is the same player he was at last season’s peak, but I have no idea how to evaluate Giancarlo Stanton, the most enigmatic player in baseball. He is still hitting the crap out of the ball despite overhauling his conditioning in the offseason and coming to camp noticeably slimmer, and his surface-level numbers so far are good: .250/.268/.550 with three home runs and a 134 wRC+.
But as the OBP foreshadows, Stanton’s plate discipline has eroded, and I’m just not sure he can make this work. He’s chasing 45.7% of the pitches he sees outside the zone, which is the worst rate of his career by 15 points. His contact rate is also down, and his overall swing percentage is above 50% for the first time in his career. Stanton has always been streaky, but usually his plate discipline is indicative of where his results will be.
The concern here is that this solid start is nothing more than luck, that Stanton is flailing but essentially running into a few homers with guesswork. If that’s the case, it might be wise for pitchers to stop throwing him anything near the zone to see if he’ll keep chasing. In the meantime, it’s too soon to know what to make of Stanton.
The 40-Year-Old Legend
I really thought it might be curtains on Jesse Chavez’s career when he got rocked in his first spring training outing, and I really, really thought it was when the White Sox released him last month. After all, if he couldn’t crack the bullpen that sure looked like it was going to be the worst in baseball, whose would he join?
Well, of course, I discounted both the Braves connection and his apparent comfort pitching in Atlanta. Soon after being released, Chavez signed a minor league deal, and later had his contract selected to give him a spot on the Opening Day roster. And as he’s done whenever he’s worn an Atlanta uniform, he’s piling up outs.
The 40-year-old has allowed just one run in 6.1 innings across three appearances, helping to save the rest of the bullpen in each outing. Indeed, he’s still kicking in what’s set to be his last season, all while pitching with guile and a funky arm action (and wearing sunglasses no matter the lighting or time of day). Each outing brings him closer to retirement, but I’m convinced Chavez’s vibes will live forever.
Well, That Didn’t Last Long
Some quick finality on the Julio Teheran signing, which I wrote about on Friday: He was DFA’d after just one start, in which his former Braves squad trounced him for four runs on just eight outs, with six hits and a couple of walks to boot.
We’ve since learned that his $2.5 million contract is not, in fact, for the full $2.5 million, but that it’s rather a split contract that pays him at that rate in the majors but only $150,000 in the minors. Still, the MLB split makes it implausible that anyone claims him, and it also makes it a near-guarantee that he accepts an outright assignment to Triple-A, since he’d be forfeiting his right to earn that hefty rate if he’s needed back in the bigs again.
In 2022, Jordan Hicks briefly converted from relieving to starting for the Cardinals. The experiment didn’t go particularly well. He made eight starts and lasted a combined 26.1 innings with an ERA of 5.47. He walked nearly 20% of the batters he faced, barely struck anyone out, and seemed to struggle to adjust from his old role. He threw sinkers or sliders 94% of the time, didn’t dial down his velocity much, and looked exactly how you’d expect a closer cosplaying as a starter to look. So much for that experiment; he promptly returned to late-inning duty.
When the Giants signed Hicks this offseason, rumors of his return to the starting ranks bubbled up, but I didn’t believe it. After all, we’d already seen this exact experiment before. But fast forward to today, and Hicks looks like a revelation. Through two starts, he’s thrown 12 innings and allowed a single earned run. His strikeout rate has barely budged from his career average, and he’s only issued two free bases (one walk, one HBP). It’s a remarkable turnaround, and one that I can’t help but dive into. How has he done it? Read the rest of this entry »
