Yesterday, I wrote about at the mysterious disappearing zone rate of Mookie Betts. Today, we’ll be looking at a player who has seen his zone rate go in the other direction: Adley Rutschman. This season, opponents are throwing 51.7% of their pitches in the zone against Rutschman, up from 47.3% in 2023 (and 45.9% in 2022). That jump of 4.4 percentage points is the fourth largest among all qualified players. The trend is much stronger when Rutschman is batting right-handed, but as you can see from the world’s tiniest table, it’s also there when he’s batting lefty.

In yesterday’s article, I broke down the reasons that throwing fewer pitches in the zone to Betts (or at least the approach that led to fewer pitches in the zone) made some sense. I don’t have any such argument today. If anything, I think pitchers should be throwing Rutschman way fewer strikes. The reason is simple: He’s chasing way more than he did last year. In 2023, Rutschman swung at 23.4% of pitches outside the zone, which put him in the 81st percentile. This season, he’s at 32.5%, which puts him in the 22nd percentile. That is an enormous change, the third highest among all qualified players, and it hasn’t been limited to one side of the plate. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a great time to be a fan of the Baltimore Orioles. This is now the third season since their emergence from the dark basement of the AL East, and they no longer retain their tatterdemalion appearance. The O’s, at 20-11, have been winning by the very straightforward method of beating their opponents into submission, not by collecting more than their fair share of extra-inning and one-run victories. While the pitching staff has been a big part of the team’s success, what has made the Orioles so dangerous is a lineup that leads the American League in runs scored and wRC+. Even better for an O’s fan, they’re terrorizing opposing pitchers with a lineup that’s largely made of players that came up with the franchise and are several years away from hitting free agency. And there’s more on the way, giving the team a rather novel first world problem: having too many hitters and not enough lineup spots.

That the O’s have some of the best young offensive talent in the majors should not be lost on anyone who is into baseball. Adley Rutschman was the runner-up for AL Rookie of the Year in 2022, Gunnar Henderson took the award last year, and Jackson Holliday was the heavy favorite before his poor debut. Holliday could very easily come back and win it in the end, but if he doesn’t, one of the current favorites is yet another young Baltimore left-handed hitter, Colton Cowser. Through Thursday’s games, Cowser stands with the top WAR among AL rookies, with a .277/.351/.578, 164 wRC+ line. I haven’t even mentioned Jordan Westburg, who has an .890 OPS while splitting time between second and third base.

Even with Holliday falling flat in his first 10 games in the majors – something I expect him to rectify in the not-too-distant future – the O’s are leading the league in WAR from players younger than the traditional peak age of 27.

In franchise history, including its first year as the Milwaukee Brewers in 1901 and through decades as the St. Louis Browns, the 2023 team ranked seventh in WAR (12.2) from position players younger than 27, and this year’s team is already within shouting distance of halfway to that mark. So naturally, my question is how this team is likely to end up by the end of the season, and whether it would stack up to the best young offensive teams ever. For this, I’ll use our Depth Charts playing time to give plausible estimates of how the O’s will use their lineup for the rest of the season.

Even with Depth Charts projecting a much more conservative promotion schedule for Holliday than expected at the start of the season, the O’s have a mean projection of 21.7 WAR from this group of players. That would be the best in team history, edging out the 1973 club with Bobby Grich, Don Baylor, Earl Williams, and Al Bumbry as the headliners. And yes, it’s significant on a historical level as well.

Their 21.7 WAR would be enough to put the Orioles in the top 25, and there’s an argument that this undersells the group. The vast majority of the teams with the most 26-and-under contributions come from the pre-World War II era, when players were called up at younger ages and there was no ticking service time clock. Looking at just the divisional era – which now covers more than half a century – the Orioles rank impressively among recent stables of young talent.

There are some mighty impressive teams on that list, most notably the Big Red Machine and the early 1970s Athletics before free agency.

And even this perhaps underrates Baltimore’s offensive talent. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Holliday destroy in the minors and get a quick call back up, and if he does, he would slide right into the everyday lineup. Otherwise, though, the Orioles are now up to the practical limitation of roster and starting lineup spots. Cowser is an example of this: It would have been hard to get him regular playing time if not for Austin Hays’ dreadful start to the season. (Hayes is now on the IL). Heston Kjerstad was called up to replace Hays on April 23, after hitting .349/.431/.744 at Triple-A Norfolk, yet the former first rounder has gotten only eight plate appearances total in three games — the O’s have played 10 games with him on the roster.

Kjerstad is far from the only Orioles farmhand who likely would have gotten more playing time on a team with a thinner roster. At Triple-A, Coby Mayo is hitting .333/.397/.683 with 11 homers while mostly playing third base, a position at which the Orioles are already overflowing. Connor Norby has split time at second base and the outfield with an .829 OPS at Norfolk, but there’s no obvious place for him to get playing time unless the team decides to cut Ramón Urías. Using up-to-date minor league translations for Kjerstad, Mayo, and Norby, we can get an idea, via some up-to-date ZiPS projections, at what this trio could do if they O’s had playing time to give them.

All three players project as league average or better if they started in the majors right now.

While this represents a pretty enviable problem for the Orioles to have, it also can be an opportunity. The organization is deep in hitters, but its farm system does not have anywhere near the same depth when it comes to pitching. We don’t yet have a 2024 farm system ranking up for the Orioles, but in the updated 2023 list, the top 15 prospects featured just two pitchers, Cade Povich and Seth Johnson. Corbin Burnes was a great acquisition, but it doesn’t have to end there; as teams fall out of contention, the possibility exists for Baltimore to add a pitcher who can not only pitch down the stretch or in a possible playoff series or three, but in 2025 and beyond. The surplus of offensive talent should give the Orioles the ability to offer more for the right pitcher than practically any other team in baseball can, and if they do swing a trade, they’d still have so many other hitters in the pipeline that such a move likely wouldn’t make a dent in the team’s long-term outlook in a meaningful way.

Whether Baltimore gets to the World Series after a drought of more than 40 years is still uncertain. But this is the Orioles team that looks the most like the ones of the early Earl Weaver years: It’s a club that’s built mostly from within and overflowing with young stars. That worked out pretty well the first time around.

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.

It would be an overreaction to declare a good-on-paper team dead in the water after 20 games, but the Twins certainly weren’t doing themselves any favors with their 7-13 start. A few games before that, I wrote about their anemic offense, which at that point was third worst in the league overall, and second worst against right-handed pitching. But, as the Twins seemingly have figured out, the best way to recover is to simply not lose again.

Since their 6-1 loss to the Tigers on April 21, Minnesota has won all 10 of its games. That lineup that was so bad? Well, with the help of some summer sausage, the Twins have beefed up their offense, which leads the majors with a 167 wRC+ since the streak began.

Nearly every position player on their roster has contributed during the 10-game span, with five hitters posting a wRC+ above 200 since the losing stopped: Trevor Larnach (241), Ryan Jeffers (233), Willi Castro (229), Edouard Julien (218), and Jose Miranda (210). Meanwhile, after a dreadful start to his Twins tenure, veteran first baseman Carlos Santana has caught fire, too, blasting all four of his home runs this season during the winning streak.

Twins pitchers have been closer to good than great over these 10 games, with a 3.40 ERA and 3.56 FIP. They’ve kept opposing lineups in check despite some uncharacteristic struggles from ace Pablo López, who’s allowed seven runs combined over a total of nine innings in his last two starts. Flamethrowing closer Jhoan Duran, who returned from the IL with a scoreless inning on Tuesday in his first appearance of the season, should fortify the bullpen, and setup man Justin Topa is expected to be back soon.

But even the best of times can’t come without some heartbreak. Byron Buxton left Minnesota’s most recent win with soreness in his right knee, the same one he had two surgeries on last year. After entering camp healthy enough to play center field for the first time since 2022, he has appeared in all but two of the 30 Twins games so far this season, and was beginning to heat up at the plate following a slow start. They sent him for an MRI but have not yet announced the results. Buxton’s injury history is not encouraging, and depending on the MRI, he could join another often-hurt slugger, Royce Lewis, on the IL.

Things will get tougher for the Twins beginning Friday. Their winning streak has included a three-game sweep of the Angels sandwiched between two sweeps of the White Sox for the other seven wins — hardly stiff competition. Minnesota faces the Red Sox, Mariners, and Blue Jays for three games each before its next off day, and potentially having to continue the streak without Buxton could require even more creativity from manager Rocco Baldelli, who’s already using platoons at both corner outfield spots, second base, and DH. The hot-hitting Castro could see more time in the outfield if Buxton is out, and rookie Austin Martin, who was optioned when shortstop Carlos Correa returned from injury earlier this week, could come back up to carry some of the load.

Jacob Young and the Nationals’ Outfield Puzzle

When I played baseball, all I was good at doing was beating out infield grounders and bunting my way on so I could steal two bases and score on a hit. (I think I hit one ball in the air to the outfield in my whole playing “career”). North Chicago suburbs don’t exactly have a lot of catching depth in the youth ranks, nor could many infielders make a good enough throw to first to get me out, so I was a good player as long as I could actually make contact with pitches (which lasted until I was about 13). All of that to say: I love one-tool speedsters who don’t do much else on offense. I loved Tony Campana as a kid, was a Billy Hamilton believer for far too long, and now I’m hanging my hat on Nationals outfielder Jacob Young.

Young is 24 years old but comes with little pedigree; we’ve never ranked him as a top prospect within the Nationals organization since they drafted him in 2021 out of the University of Florida. He’s never been explosive with the bat: At Florida, he hit just eight home runs across 571 plate appearances with a metal bat. He had the same number of round-trippers in more than twice as many minor league plate appearances in the minors, and he’s still looking for his first major league dinger. But goodness, he can run.

Young was caught stealing for the first time in the majors on Wednesday, ending a 25-for-25 run to start his career. Those 25 steals came in just 54 games: a 75-steal pace over 162. His 98th-percentile sprint speed has buoyed his production, with a .306 average backed up by an xBA of .288. He doesn’t take walks, but he rarely strikes out, giving him enough of a floor perhaps to be a solid fourth outfielder.

When Victor Robles, Stone Garrett, Joey Gallo, and Lane Thomas return from injury (the first two are on rehab assignments), the Nationals will have some personnel decisions to make, but Young should stay for as long as he’s producing. Eddie Rosario has been absolutely awful (-19 wRC+); meanwhile, Alex Call has been great in limited time, but considering he was called up after Young, Call is probably behind Young on the depth chart. The rest of the puzzle may be harder to figure out without another injury, but it might be time for the feel-good Joey Meneses story to end when Gallo returns, and Gallo himself may have to perform better to keep his spot. All of that maneuvering could set up an outfield with Young, Robles, and Thomas, with Jesse Winker at DH and Gallo or Meneses playing first.

The Orioles Strike First

A four-game series this early in the season doesn’t tell us a whole lot about how a division race will turn out come October. So let’s not make any sweeping declarations about who will win the AL East just because the Orioles took three of their four games at home this week against the Yankees to move into first place. That said, the O’s looked like more complete team, though certainly the margin is tight.

Except for Thursday’s game, which Baltimore won 7-2, the pitching was excellent for both teams in this series. Interestingly enough, the only Orioles pitcher the Yankees beat was Corbin Burnes, who went six innings on Wednesday and whose only blemish was the two-run home run he allowed to Oswaldo Cabrera with two outs in the fifth. Those were the only runs scored in that game, as Luis Gil and the New York bullpen shut out the Baltimore bats. The score was flipped two nights earlier in the series opener, with the O’s shutting out the Yankees. In the second game of the series, Dean Kremer went seven innings and allowed two runs, both on solo home runs, in a 4-2 Baltimore win.

The biggest difference right now seems to be on offense, specifically that the Orioles have the more dynamic lineup. The two teams have produced about the same at the plate this season, based on wRC+, but the Yankees — as they’ve been for years — are more reliant on the home run. Five of New York’s six runs in the series came on homers, with only one dinger — the one Cabrera hit — coming with someone on base. Conversely, the O’s are better equipped to string hits together to score without the long ball.

Anthony Volpe represents the only real base-stealing threat on the Yankees — though after swiping two bags Wednesday, Juan Soto has four steals already this season — and overall, they’re the second worse base-running team in the majors by BsR, with only three players (Volpe, Cabrera, and Gleyber Torres) grading out as above average. Meanwhile, the Orioles rank fourth in BsR, and Gunnar Henderson alone has been worth 2.4 runs on the bases. Relatedly, the Yankees have hit into more than four times as many as double plays as the Orioles have this year, killing potential rallies before they really have a chance to get started.

Spending money can be a lot of fun, but spending someone else’s money is even better. And that’s exactly what we’re doing today!

About a month into the season is typically when I look at some of the players who are prime extension candidates and the possible deals they might work out with their teams. As usual, the contracts here are not necessarily what I would offer the players or what they will get, but what the mean, cold-hearted projections think would amount to a fair agreement. For each player, I’ve included their ZiPS projections with the latest model updates.

Elly De La Cruz, Cincinnati Reds (Nine years, $192 million)

It’s going to be a long time until Elly De La Cruz is eligible for free agency, but if the Reds wish to signal to the fans that the best players they develop will be in Cincinnati for longer than their middle arbitration years, ownership is going to have to make a real commitment to one of them at some point. And who is a better option than De La Cruz? I would have said Matt McLain a few months ago, but his major shoulder surgery makes it a risky time for both team and player to come to a meeting of the minds on a future dollar figure. De La Cruz still has issues making contact, but his plate discipline has continued to improve since his debut. He’s drawing a lot more walks this year and he’s actually been better than the average major leaguer at not chasing pitches. And with better plate discipline should come more power because a greater percentage of his swings will come against pitches that he can actually drive.

As you can see below, he wouldn’t need to exceed his 50th percentile projections for home runs by much to secure a 40/40 season. In fact, after hitting his eighth home run of the year Monday night, De La Cruz is currently on pace for 45 homers and an absurd 101 steals this season — and he still has a lot of polishing left to do. He’s also showing he’s far from a defensive liability at shortstop, even though a healthy McLain is still probably preferable there. This contract buys out some of De La Cruz’s early free agency years and gives him a big wad of guaranteed dough.

Corbin Burnes, Baltimore Orioles (Eight years, $210 million)

If you’ve been following my work for a while now, you surely know I’m an Orioles fan. And like many other Baltimore fans, I remember the moment when I became unhappy with the ownership of the late Peter Angelos. My feelings toward him soured because of how he and the Orioles handled their free agent negotiations with Mike Mussina. After Moose had previously taken a hometown discount, the O’s assumed he would continue to pitch for them at a below-market rate, and as a result, they lowballed him the next time he was eligible for free agency. He declined, leading to the second-best pitcher in team history finishing his career wearing Yankee pinstripes and ensuring that his Hall of Fame plaque wouldn’t have an ornithologically correct bird on the cap.

While I still think the team should lock up Grayson Rodriguez long term, it’s far more urgent< for the O’s to extend Corbin Burnes, given that he hits free agency after the season. No better pitcher will be available this winter, and nobody in the minors anywhere, for any team, is a safe bet to be better than Burnes over the next five or six years. New owner David Rubinstein has said all the right things, and he made a nice gesture when he bought everyone at Pickles a round of drinks, but the best way to show that he’s serious about building a perennial contender is to not let his team’s ace sign elsewhere. Given the O’s have just about nothing in the way of financial obligations, there’s no reason not to extend him. If that means paying more than that figure above, so be it.

Bo Bichette, Toronto Blue Jays (Seven years, $151 million)

Let’s be clear, despite his uncharacteristic struggles so far this season, I think Bo Bichette will command more than $151 million, and while the Blue Jays may balk any amount greater than that figure, they should still be willing to pay him whatever it takes to keep him around for the bulk of his career. Because of his position and his consistency (again, his first month of this season notwithstanding), Bichette has emerged as the best scion of a baseball family in Toronto, and time’s running out to extend bounty hunter Boba Chette before he hits free agency after the 2025 campaign. I actually think he’ll age better than ZiPS does, at least offensively. Either way, shortstops get super expensive if you wait until they hit the open market. That means that now’s the time for the Blue Jays to extend him if they’re going to keep him, even if that means going over this projected offer to ensure he doesn’t reach free agency.

Alex Bregman, Houston Astros (Four years, $101 million)

The Astros have been able to let some of their offensive contributors walk in free agency — Springer and Carlos Correa among them — mainly because they’ve had pretty solid replacements coming up at the same time, such as Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Tucker, and Jeremy Peña. There’s no similar player on the horizon who can take the place of Alex Bregman. And with Houston already reeling with its pitchers, it would be a lot to ask the front office to fill a gaping hole at third base as well.

Max Fried, Atlanta Braves (Six years, $150 million)

Atlanta has a knack for being able to survive epidemics of pitcher injuries in ways that are fascinating if you’re a fan of the team and maddening if you root for another one. But with Spencer Strider already out for the rest of this season after undergoing internal brace surgery for his damaged elbow, can Atlanta really afford to let Max Fried and Charlie Morton depart this offseason? I like what Reynaldo López has done this season, but you don’t really want to go into 2025 counting on his continued success, Chris Sale’s health, and a full recovery from Strider following his second UCL procedure? The Braves reportedly offered six years, $162 million to Aaron Nola; how could they not make a similar offer to Fried, a similarly valued pitcher who has been a large part of their recent success? Now, all reports I’ve heard suggest Fried’s not keen on discussing an extension during the season, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t change his mind if Atlanta gives him a good reason to do so.

Josh Naylor, Cleveland Guardians (Four years, $80 million)

Since the start of the 2002 season, the Guardians have received 10,109 plate appearances from first basemen not named Jim Thome, Carlos Santana, or Josh Naylor. Those 57 hitters have combined to hit .253/.324/.426 for 7.7 WAR, or about 0.5 WAR per 600 plate appearances. This is a franchise that has struggled to find solid fill-in first basemen, so it’s hard to imagine the Guardians would be able to find an an adequate replacement if Naylor walks after 2026. And this is hardly a blockbuster deal; it’s similar to what Kyle Schwarber got from the Phillies coming off the best season of his career (2.7 WAR in 2021). Naylor’s not a superstar, but he’s in his prime years. That should be enough incentive for the Guards to pay for him to stick around, and so long as the deal is fair, the fact that Josh’s younger brother Bo also plays for Cleveland might make him more inclined to stay.

Jackson Merrill, San Diego Padres (Seven years, $95 million)

Jackson Merrill has one of the odder long-term projections according to ZiPS, which expects him to have a long, stable plateau rather than a period of significant growth followed by a steady decline (at least in the years covered below). But ZiPS is increasingly coming around to his reputation as a good bad-ball hitter, and his batting average projections have improved considerably since the winter. Merrill looks to be a solid player, and he’s one the Padres may need toward the end of their long-term deals with infielders Xander Bogaerts, Manny Machado, and Jake Cronenworth.

Pete Alonso, New York Mets (No offer)

Pete Alonso is rightfully a very popular player in New York, and I’ve always had a soft spot for the Polar Bear, both because homers are fun and because ZiPS was in on him very early when he was a prospect (everyone likes looking smart). And with his free agency imminent, this would be a suitable time to extend him on a long-term contract. The problem is, the more I look at the situation, the harder it is for me to think of a scenario in which he and the Mets could come to terms on a deal unless one party was willing to come out of the negotiation feeling very unhappy. ZiPS suggests a four-year, $70 million contract, and I can’t imagine Alonso feeling anything but insulted by an offer like that. I think given Alonso’s place in the organization and the hiccups in the development of Brett Baty and Mark Vientos, the Mets would be willing to pay Alonso more than a projection suggests, but I can’t see them offering him Freddie Freeman or Matt Olson money, either. Because the basic fact is that Freeman and Olson are more well-rounded players than Alonso, who has one amazing dimension. Just to illustrate, below Alonso I’ve included the projections for Freeman and Olson over the next six years.

Alonso projects to be slightly worse than them in the short term and then to be similar in the later years, though that’s likely because he is younger than them. Plus, by the end of 2024, the other players’ contracts already will have covered two additional prime seasons from Olson and three from Freeman. I don’t think any pending free agent has a bigger gulf than Alonso does between the perceived value of his past and the expected value of his future, and as such, this has contract boondoggle written all over it, as big as it was with Kris Bryant a couple years ago. I don’t envy the Mets for the decision they have to make with Alonso, because letting him go, trading him, and keeping him all feel like poor options.

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.

Remember when the Mets started their season with five straight losses? It sure seems like they don’t. They’ve since gone 12-4, including a six-game winning streak that was snapped by Tyler Glasnow and the Dodgers on Sunday.

Nothing can come easily for any team, though, even one on a roll, and they’ll now have to keep their winning ways going without Francisco Alvarez. The 22-year-old catcher tore a ligament in his thumb on a slide into second base on Friday, and will ultimately need surgery that could keep him out as long as eight weeks; a return in early June looks like a best-case scenario. Alvarez has struggled at the plate so far this season; he had just one home run and an 86 wRC+ after clobbering 25 dingers and posting a 97 wRC+ last year as a rookie. While he has struck out less often, his balls in play have been far less dangerous, with downturns in average launch angle, sweet spot percentage, and hard hit rate. Still, it goes without saying that his upside is far greater than that of the current tandem, Omar Narváez and Tomás Nido, especially in the power department. Alvarez’s 25 homers last year were more than Narváez has hit since the start of 2020 (though he did hit 22 in 2019) and more than Nido has in entire MLB career (over 800 plate appearances).

That all sounds pretty bleak, but the Mets are hoping that in the absence of Alvarez, they will continue to get production from several unlikely contributors whose strong starts have propelled the team’s early success. In addition to Pete Alonso, who has six home runs and a 126 wRC+, the offense has been driven by — of all people — Tyrone Taylor (122 wRC+) and DJ Stewart (172 wRC+). Stewart leads the team in wRC+ even though he was the last man to earn a 26-man roster spot and was initially viewed as likeliest to be sent down whenever the Mets were ready to bring up J.D. Martinez, who signed toward the end of spring training and needed to ramp up for big league action in the minors. But Stewart has earned his stay with the way he’s slugging. 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 »

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 »

For four years, Craig Kimbrel was the best reliever in baseball. He wasn’t arguably the best reliever in baseball, or tied for the best; he was just the best. From 2011 through 2014, he compiled a 1.51 ERA with a 1.52 FIP. He struck out 42% of opposing hitters. He allowed a measly .269 BABIP, and didn’t give up home runs either. He averaged more than 65 innings a year and racked up 185 saves as the foregone conclusion of any game that Atlanta led going into the ninth inning.

For the next four years, he was merely a very good reliever – 2.47 ERA, 2.49 FIP, 41% strikeout rate. He started walking more batters and allowing more home runs. He was 30 years old in 2018, and the path forward felt murky. He signed with the Cubs in June of 2019 after a qualifying offer depressed his market, and he was downright abysmal. In 2019 and 2020 combined, he racked up a 6.00 ERA, a 6.29 FIP, and a ghastly 14.6% walk rate to go with 2.75 homers per nine innings. You know the story arc from there, more or less; that run signaled the end of his dominance, and even with occasional flashes of brilliance in the intervening three years, he was back to just a nice arm instead of an unconquerable monster.

I’ve always been interested in the idea of a Craig Kimbrel retrospective, because at his peak he felt so different from the rest of the league, with the wild strikeout rates and the misprint-looking ERA. Mariano Rivera never had a four-year stretch as good as Kimbrel’s, even though he obviously had far greater longevity. I can’t remember who invented it, but Kimbrel even inspired a new junk statistic: a Kimbrel is a game where a pitcher records a negative FIP. That was his specialty; it requires at least two strikeouts, no walks, and no homers over an inning of work. Games like that just felt inevitable at his best. Read the rest of this entry »

Life in the minor leagues differs greatly from life in the majors, often leaving those who climb the affiliated ladder with a multitude of stories. While some of those experiences are amusing in hindsight, many of them also underscore why minor leaguers fought so hard to unionize in an effort to improve their pay and working conditions. From torturous bus rides to cheap motels and ballpark mishaps, life before players make the big leagues can leave you laughing – and shaking your head. Here is a collection of a few such stories, courtesy of nine people in the game well versed in life on the farm.

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Liam Hendriks, Boston Red Sox pitcher:

“The minor leagues are character building. You go through the adversity to get to the [big leagues], and the juice is worth the squeeze. It’s been a minute since I’ve been down there, but the minors are just a grind. You wake up early in the morning to travel to the next town, then you stay in shitty hotels. You learn to find the silver linings in everything.

“One story I’ll always remember is Chris Colabello getting called up. He had spent [seven] years in indie ball, got signed as a 27-year-old to Double-A with the Twins, and I was with him in Triple-A in 2013. We were on the bus — I think it was Lehigh Valley to Rochester — playing cards in back. I don’t remember what game we were playing, but I had the best hand I’ve ever had in my life. One of the other guys had one of the best hands of his life. The manager, Gene Glynn, comes walking down. He says, ‘Hey Chris, got a minute?’ Tells him he’s getting called up. Twenty-eight years old, all those years grinding in indie ball, and he’s getting his first call-up. Calls his old man, was crying on the phone. 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 »