Liam Hicks is on the receiving end of some serious heat in Miami. Selected second overall by the Marlins in last winter’s Rule-5 draft, the 26-year-old backstop is catching the likes of Sandy Alcantara, Edward Cabrera, and Eury Pérez. Power arms aren’t new to him. Hicks caught Jackson Jobe in Double-A Erie last summer after joining the Detroit Tigers organization in the trade deadline deal that sent Carson Kelly to the Texas Rangers.

Who among the pitchers on the Marlins staff is most comparable to a healthy Jobe (the 23-year-old right-hander had Tommy John surgery in mid-June after making 10 starts for the Tigers and going 4-1 with a 4.22 ERA)? I asked that question of Hicks prior to a recent game.

“Comps are tough, but I would probably say the closest is Edward Cabrera,” replied Hicks, who is currently sharing catching duties with fellow rookie Agustín Ramírez. “Jobe had five different pitches he could throw [the same number the Marlins righty has in his repertoire].Their four-seams are pretty similar, although Jobe has a little bit lower slot and gets a little more ride, whereas Cabby’s is more just at the top of the zone. Cabby has a two-seam. Jobe wasn’t throwing a two-seam last year.

“Their changeups are very different,” added Hicks. “Cabby’s is more like a power changeup — it’s 94-95 [mph] — while Jobe’s had a lot bigger separation from his fastball. It was almost screwball-ish. Again, it’s hard to compare guys, but [Jobe] definitely had electric stuff.”

Cabrera’s stuff is likewise electric. Featuring a heater that is averaging 96.7 MPH this season, he has a 3.34 ERA and a 3.56 FIP over 21 starts comprising 113-and-a-third innings.

Hicks also caught Troy Melton in his month-plus with Erie. Called up to make his debut for the Tigers three weeks ago, the 24-year-old righty has a 2.82 ERA and 21 strikeouts over his first 22-and-a-third big-league innings. Melton has a six-pitch mix, including a heater that’s been averaging 96.5 mph.

Hicks couldn’t come up with a comp for Melton, but he certainly came away impressed with the arsenal.

“I like Troy a lot,” Hicks said of his short-time teammate. “I actually texted him a few days ago after I saw that he shoved against the White Sox. He’s got a really good fastball, as well as a really good changeup. Troy is another guy who has good secondaries that he can land. When you can also throw 97-98, it makes it pretty tough for hitters.”

As for the pitchers whose stuff most stands out, Hicks cited three of his current teammates.

“Cabby and Sandy are up there,” the Toronto native told me. “Eury, of course. His fastball is probably the best I’ve ever caught. It’s 98, and he’s also got seven feet of extension. It looks like he’s handing the ball to you.”

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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Chris Getz went 9 for 15 against Jeremy Guthrie.

Paul Janish went 5 for 6 against Ted Lilly.

Josh Barfield went 5 for 6 against Gary Majewski.

Phil Nevin went 5 for 6 against Chris Holt.

Carlos Quentin went 7 for 15 against Brian Bannister.

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How similar are Cincinnati Reds southpaws Andrew Abbott and Nick Lodolo?

“We’re a little similar pitch-wise, but our shapes are completely different,” Lodolo told me in early July. “Andrew has more carry than me, as he’s got a true four and I throw a two-seam sinker. We kind of throw the same breaking ball, although they’re from different arm slots — he’s more over the top than I am. He’s throwing a changeup more this year, but I don’t know if those are even close to mine.”

Even with their differences, the southpaws discuss how to go about attacking opposing hitters.

“He pitches in front of me, so I’m definitely going to pick his brain about what he saw,” said Lodolo. “But at the end of the day, our plans are going to be different. We’re going to attack guys a little bit differently, although with some guys it may be close to the same. But yeah, we have those conversations for sure.”

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While starting pitchers routinely throw a bullpen session between starts, that’s rarely the case for relievers. Much for that reason, I was surprised to see a sweaty Brent Suter strolling in from the visiting bullpen prior to an afternoon affair at Fenway Park. What had the 35-year-old Cincinnati Reds hurler been up to?

“Since April 2018, I’ve been doing dry visualizations,” Suter told me. “It’s kind of a mental and physical sensation of getting on the mound and doing my resets. I get the catcher down, giving a target for a common pitch that I throw, and then go through little dry-work throws. It’s not full arm action. I’m basically working on conviction, belief, and intensity with my visualization, getting the ball where I want it. I do this every day.”

The veteran of 10 big-league seasons went on to explain that if he hasn’t pitched in the previous three days, he will do “actual throws on that fourth day.”

The Harvard alum has other routines as well, and they go beyond studying scouting reports. On the first day of a series, Suter does “core activation,” while day two is “a total body lift,” and day three is “mobility/soft-tissue mobilization.” Moreover, he does “meditation/visualization” for 10 or 15 minutes on a daily basis. About 20 minutes before each game, Suter showers, then has Atomic Balm applied to his pitching arm, at which point he is “ready to rock.”

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A quiz:

Henry Aaron is the Boston/Milwaukee/Atlanta franchise’s all-time leader in home runs. Who ranks second?

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NEWS NOTES

Roki Sasaki made a rehab start on Thursday with the Triple-A Oklahoma City Comets. In his first game action since May 9, the Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander allowed six hits and three runs over two innings, with one walk and no strikeouts. He threw 41 pitches and reportedly topped out at 95.7 mph.

Bill Hepler, a left-hander who appeared in 37 games for the New York Mets in 1966, died earlier this week at age 79. Just 20 years old when he made his MLB debut, the Covington, Virginia native went 3-3 with a 3.52 ERA over 69 innings.

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The answer to the quiz is Eddie Mathews, who hit 493 of his 503 career home runs with the Braves (the Hall of Famer did so playing in all of Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta). Chipper Jones ranks third in franchise history with 468 home runs.

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Kansas City Royals manager Matt Quatraro was effusive in his praise when asked recently about Maikel Garcia. That’s understandable. The 25-year-old third sacker earned an All-Star berth this summer amid a breakout campaign.

“He’s grown up in front of our eyes.,” Quatraro told reporters prior to a recent game. “Off the field. Maturity level. Strength: he’s put on a good amount of muscle this year. He’s really worked on his swing, keeping his body in better control, so he’s hitting pitches that last year he was fouling off. He’s using the whole field. Defensively, he’s put in a lot of work on his range and his first-step quickness. We’ve seen a lot of growth.”

Garcia is slashing .301/.364/.467 with 11 home runs, 22 steals, and a 128 wRC+. Moreover, his 4.2 WAR is sixth-best among American League position players, while his nine Outs Above Average ranks first at his position. Overshadowed by Bobby Witt Jr. in small-market Kansas City, Garcia is emerging as a big-time performer.

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When our Bold Predictions For the 2025 Season were published in late March, I wrote that Ceddanne Rafaela would win a Gold Glove, record a wRC+ of 110 or better, and be worth 4.0 or more WAR. My optimism was based in part on how Rafaela would be “unburdened by having to move between the infield and the outfield.”

Boston manager Alex Cora is doing his best to foil my prediction.

Through July 11, Rafaela had played all but one of his 90 games in center field and boasted a 114 wRC+ and 3.0 WAR. Since July 12, Rafaela has had little stability, starting 15 games in center and 13 games at second base. Moreover, he’s had a 44 wRC+ and 0.0 WAR.

On the season, Rafaela has 16 Defensive Runs Saved as a centerfielder, and minus-one DRS as a second baseman. At the plate, he is slashing .257/.318/.483 in 377 plate appearances as a centerfielder, and .143/.182/.159 in 66 plate appearances as a second baseman.

Cora claims there is no correlation. Color me skeptical. Comfortability taken out of the equation has clearly done Rafaela no favors.

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Cody Ponce now has a record of 15-0, as well as a 1.61 ERA, a 1.93 FIP, and a 36.8% strikeout rate over 145-and-two-thirds innings for the Hanwha Eagles. The 31-year-old former Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander leads KBO pitchers in most categories.

Teruaki Sato leads the pitcher-friendly NPB in doubles (26) and home runs (31). The 26-year-old Hanshin Tigers third baseman/outfielder has gone deep eight more times than Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters DH Franmil Reyes, who has the circuit’s second-highest dinger total.

Miles Simington slashed .332/.385/.517 over 291 plate appearances while playing for three teams in the Mexican League, primarily the Tigres de Quintana Roo. The 25-year-old former Purdue Boilermakers outfielder spent last year with the independent American Association’s Winnipeg Goldeyes, as well as the Australian Baseball League’s Canberra Cavalry.

The ABL’s Brisbane Bandits announced that 18-year-old second baseman/outfielder Max Durrington will be back with the team for the 2025-2026 season. The Tweeds Head, New South Wales native — and son of former big-league infielder Trent Durrington — has spent this summer in the [don’t call us Sacramento) Athletic system, logging an 86 wRC+ between the Arizona Complex League and Low-A Stockton.

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A random obscure former player snapshot:

Fans of a certain age will remember Steve Renko. The tall right-hander logged 134 wins and a 3.99 ERA over 2,494 innings while playing for seven teams from 1969-1983. Renko’s rookie season was spent with the Montreal Expos in the expansion club’s inaugural campaign, and he went on to have his best years with the Quebec-based club. In 1971, he went 15-14 with a 3.75 ERA, and in 1973 he went 15-11 with a 2.81 ERA. Prior to pro ball, Renko played baseball, basketball, and football at the University of Kansas, where as a quarterback he shared a backfield with Hall of Fame running back Gale Sayers.

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On April 16, 2023, Sunday Notes led with my addressing the question, “Are Kenley Jansen and/or Craig Kimbrel Cooperstown Bound?” Sixteen months later, I’ve more or less come to a decision on the former. While Kimbrel remains a question mark, I am increasingly of the opinion that Jansen is having a Hall of Fame-worthy career.

Still going strong at age 37, Jansen now ranks fourth all-time with 470 saves, and he is poised to shortly move past Lee Smith (478) into third place. Moreover, Jansen ranks 21st all time with 920 appearances, and he is fourth in strikeout rate — right in front of Billy Wagner — among relievers who have thrown at least 500 innings (Josh Hader, Aroldis Chapman, and Kimbrel top the list).

Wagner is a meaningful comp, given the his recent induction. Jansen not only has the edge in saves and strikeout rate, he also has more WAR, WPA, and innings pitched. He also boasts a better FIP.

The belief that relievers — even closers — don’t belong in the Hall of Fame isn’t without merit. That said, if relievers do deserve the honor, Jansen has numbers on his side. They include 23 saves and a 2.74 ERA with the Los Angeles Angels so far this season.

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FARM NOTES

Nate George is slashing .345/.420/.502 with four home runs and a 166 wRC+ over 292 plate appearances between the Florida Complex League and Low-A Delmarva (and briefly) High-A Aberdeen. Drafted in the 16th round last year out of Minooka (Illinois) Community High School, the 19-year-old outfielder is No. 39 on our updated Baltimore Orioles Top Prospects list, with a 40 FV.

Yorman Gómez is 11-0 with a 2.62 ERA, a 2.91 FIP, and a 27.3% strikeout rate over 99-and-two-thirds innings between High-A Lake County and Double-A Akron. A native of Coro, Venezuela who was signed in July 2019, the 22-year-old right-hander is No. 38 on our updated Cleveland Guardians Top Prospects list, with a 40 FV.

Griffin Herring is 7-3 with a 1.79 ERA, a 2.76 FIP, and a 29.9% strikeout rate over 100-and-a-third innings between Low-A Tampa and a pair of High-A affiliates. Acquired by Colorado from the New York Yankees as part of the Ryan McMahon trade, the 22-year-old left-hander — a 2024 sixth-round pick out of LSU — is No. 21 on our our updated Rockies Top Prospects list, with a 40 FV.

Kendry Chourio has a 30.7% strikeout rate and a 1.2% walk rate to go with a 3.05 ERA and a 2.72 FIP over 41-and-a-third innings across the Arizona Complex League, the Dominican Summer League, and Low-A Columbia. The 17-year-old right-hander was signed out of Venezuela by the Kansas City Royals in January.

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These back-to-back passages in Jane Leavy’s new book, Make Me Commissioner (I Know What’s Wrong With Baseball and How To Fix It) caught my eye:

“[Jim] Palmer threw the first of his 211 complete games at Fenway Park in April 1966. He threw 177 pitches that day and hit a home run too. After the game, someone said to Orioles pitching coach Harry Brecheen, ‘Harry, that’s a lot of pitches,’ Palmer recalled. ‘Harry says, ‘Yeah, we wanna get that pitch count down into the 140s.’

“He missed most of the 1967 season and all of 1968 because of shoulder surgery, The Orioles left him unprotected in the 1968 expansion draft. The Kansas City Royals and Seattle Pilots passed on him.”

Palmer went 16-4 for the Orioles in 1969, then won 20 more games in eight of the next nine seasons. The Hall of Famer won four Cy Young awards.

And then there is this passage, regarding a managerial moment from Buck Showalter’s time with the New York Mets.

“When a valued relief pitcher, Trevor May, melted down over the death of his cat and couldn’t pitch for three days — that was in Buck’s portfolio. “I couldn’t tell the media that. So, I had to wear it. ‘Why didn’t you use Trevor May?’ Was I supposed to say because his cat died?”

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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

Baseball America has released its midseason farm system rankings, which have the Milwaukee Brewers on top and the San Diego Padres on the bottom.

Why do the small-market Milwaukee Brewers win, and the small-market Pittsburgh Pirates lose? Pittsburgh Baseball Now’s John Perrotto talked to Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold in an effort to find out.

The Athletic’s Aaron Gleeman wrote about how the Pohlad family’s pulling the Minnesota Twins off the market is a crushing blow to a fanbase that deserves better.

At NPR’s Morning Edition, Becky Sullivan delved into who is still trying to be an MLB umpire in an age of replay review and robot umps.

Unlike MLB, Little League Baseball wants nothing to do with gambling. Scooby Axson has the story at USA Today.

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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

The Detroit Tigers are 19-8 in one-run games this season. They are 7-1 in one-run games since the beginning of July.

The Boston Red Sox have 10 walk-off wins and 11 walk-off losses. The Baltimore Orioles have one walk-off win and three-walk-off losses.

In 2007, Greg Maddux allowed 221 hits and issued 25 walks. In 1975, Nolan Ryan allowed 221 hits and issued 202 walks.

Texas Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young went 2-0 with a 2.02 ERA over five postseason appearances. The right-hander pitched three hitless and scoreless innings and got credit for the win as the Kansas City Royals beat the New York Mets 5-4 in Game One of the 2015 World Series.

The San Diego Padres beat the New York Mets 15-10 in Monterrey, Mexico on August 16, 1996 in the first-ever MLB game played in a country other than the United States or Canada. Fernando Valenzuela was credited with the win.

On today’s date in 1990, Ruben Sierra hit a walk-off single in the 13th inning to give the Texas Rangers a 1-0 win over the Chicago White Sox. Nolan Ryan went the first 10 innings for the Rangers, allowing three hits, walking none, and punching out 15 batters.

Ernie Banks took Don Drysdale deep for a walk-off home run to give the Chicago Cubs a 1-0 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on today’s date in 1960. The blast was the All-Star shortstop’s 34th on the season. He finished with 41, the fourth consecutive year that Banks hit 40 or more home runs.

Players born on today’s date include Dick Lines, a left-hander who went 7-7 with six saves and a 2.83 ERA while making 107 appearances for the Washington Senators across the 1966-1967 seasons. A native of Montreal, Lines went 1-for-19 at the plate, his lone hit coming against Wally Bunker in a 9-7 Senators loss to the Baltimore Orioles in a game that took 19 innings to complete. Andy Etchebarren hit a walk-off homer.

Also born on today’s date was Dave Lemanczyk, a right-hander who led the 1977 Toronto Blue Jays with 13 wins in the team’s inaugural season. Originally with the Detroit Tigers, Lemanczyk went 37-63 with a 4.62 ERA while appearing in 185 games for three teams from 1973-1980. He threw a one-hitter against the Texas Rangers in 1979.

Count Campau played professionally from 1885-1905, with a handful of his seasons spent with teams in his home state of Michigan. The outfielder suited up for the Detroit Tigers, Detroit Wolverines, Detroit Creams, and Grand Rapids Bob-o-links. Campau recorded 1,999 hits, including 153 in the majors.

Friends, Red Sox fans, FanGraphs readers, lend me your ears,
I come to analyze the contract extension, not to bemoan it.
The free agency status that teams despise lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their luxury tax penalties.

Here, under leave of Meg and the rest,
For they are honorable editors,
Come ZiPS to speak at Anthony’s signing,
It is my computer, faithful and just to me.

While the Red Sox have quite the mixed record of letting players leave in free agency or trading them before they can sign elsewhere, the organization has been fairly aggressive at signing players with limited service time in order to buy out free agent years in advance. Brayan Bello is signed through 2030, at least if a club option is picked up, and both Kristian Campbell and Ceddanne Rafaela, well short of arbitration status, are under club control into the 2030s. When the Red Sox acquired Garrett Crochet, they didn’t muck around either, making sure he’d be kept in town on a six-year, $170 million contract extension that he signed a few months after the trade.

Now it’s Roman Anthony’s turn. The guaranteed portion of the contract calls for $130 million over eight years, beginning next season, with $125 million total in salary through the 2023 campaign and a $5 million buyout on a $30 million club option for 2034. If the Red Sox pick up the option, the total value of the deal would be nine years and $155 million. There is also a Halloween bucket full of various incentives that could net Anthony a maximum $230 million over the next nine years. However, that high-end figure will be quite hard to meet. As MassLive’s Chris Cotillo points out, for Anthony to earn that $230 million maximum, he would have to finish top two in the Rookie of the Year voting this season, make the All-Star team in all eight seasons of the extension and also in the option year, and win the next nine MVP awards — one for every year of the extension, plus the option season. Nobody has ever won nine MVPs; Barry Bonds has the most, with seven. So, in order to hit every incentive in his new contract, Anthony would have to become, without exaggeration, the best baseball player ever. If, in the pretty-much-impossible event that this happens, the Red Sox would be getting literally the greatest of all time for less money than the Angels are paying Anthony Rendon. Read the rest of this entry »

Prior to batting practice, pitchers stroll onto the outfield grass to play catch with each other. Keeping their arms loose is a primary objective of what’s known as “catch play,” but there is more to it than just that. As a rule, the pitchers are throwing with purpose, both in terms of velocity and making sure that their mechanics are in order. At times they are also tinkering with grips, trying to find — or rediscover — desired movement on a specific pitch. And then there is long toss. While not all pitchers employ the practice, it is common to see crow-hop throws from foul line to deep center field. One thing you’ll rarely see is the casual tossing of a baseball back and forth.

How do pitchers get paired up for catch play? Does it differ for starters and relievers? What knowledge can be gleaned from these partnerships? Are there teammates you would rather not have as a throwing partner, because they’re especially challenging to catch?

With those questions in mind, I talked to three starters (Garrett Crochet, Seth Lugo, and Michael Wacha), two relievers (Liam Hendriks and Kirby Yates) a position player turned reliever (Lucas Erceg), a pitcher turned pitching coach (Mark Prior), a pair of pitchers turned broadcasters (Jeff Montgomery and Steve Sparks, and a longtime bullpen catcher (Javier Bracamonte).

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Garrett Crochet, Boston Red Sox left-hander:

“Greg Weissert is my catch partner right now. Honestly, it kind of happened out of necessity. It was Justin Slaten for awhile, but Slaten went down [with an injury]. I was playing catch with our bullpen catcher for awhile, but I prefer to throw with another pitcher. Typically, starters either play catch with each other or with a bullpen catcher. In Chicago [with the White Sox], it was mostly a bullpen catcher for me.

“When I was coming out of the bullpen in 2021, I was throwing with Michael Kopech and everything was just real hard and real scary. Sometimes with Weisert it gets that way, too, especially with the curveball he throws. It’s different for Greg and myself, too, because he has to be ready to pitch every day, whereas I don’t. I’m probably the one that he hates to catch. But no, he loves it. He’ll get down on one knee, use a catcher’s mitt, catch flat-grounds. It’s cool. I try to get after it as much as my body allows me to. Read the rest of this entry »

Four years ago, Garrett Whitlock’s emergence as an elite major league reliever was one of my favorite stories in baseball. How could it not be? He was a Red Sox Rule 5 pick who had been on the Yankees. It doesn’t get much better than that. He was a dominant multi-inning reliever right from the jump, with a 1.96 ERA over 73 1/3 innings pitched and excellent peripheral statistics across the board.

The years since then haven’t been so halcyon. He followed up his breakout with another good year of relieving, but a foray into starting went only OK. Whitlock started 2023 season in the rotation but pitched poorly, hit the IL three times, and ended the year as a mid-leverage bullpen arm. Then he tried the rotation again in 2024, but hurt his elbow after four starts and had internal brace surgery. All told, those three seasons came with a 4.01 ERA, a 3.71 FIP, and not a ton of volume.

That internal brace surgery brings us to this year. Internal brace procedures come with faster turnaround times than full Tommy John surgery, and Whitlock was ready for Opening Day. He started the season as a middle reliever and mopup man, entering in the fifth, fourth, and eighth (down four runs) for two innings apiece in his first three appearances. He didn’t look immediately restored, but who would? After he acclimated to the majors again, though, his command snapped back to its prior superb level, his secondaries improved, and he’s been nothing short of outstanding. Welcome to Garrett Whitlock’s second act. Read the rest of this entry »

A lot has happened in the past week. When times were simpler, back when the Phillies signed David Robertson three lifetimes and somehow only two weeks ago, I raised the possibility that we might bring back the We Tried tracker for the trade deadline. It wasn’t a sure thing, because the trade deadline isn’t really the time for We Trieds. They tend to happen over the offseason, when news is slow and multiple teams are bidding on free agents – which is why Robertson had so many reported suitors – rather than when teams are trying to swing trades. Loose lips can sink the many relationships involved in trades, and in the aftermath of the draft and deadline, everyone’s too busy to reach out to a reporter with an unattributed attempt to assure fans they made an effort. At least that’s how it normally works. This deadline featured a record-setting number of trades, and a surprising number of We Trieds to go along with all the actual action.

I’m sure I didn’t catch every We Tried, mostly because I spent the entirety of the deadline with my head down writing up transactions, listening to intense film scores in order to push me to write faster. I didn’t have much time to comb headlines and social media, but I did have help from some friends. I offer special thanks to readers JD, Elizabeth, Joel, and Fox Mulder Bat Flip for sending We Trieds my way. If you’re aware of any that I missed, as always, you can let me know on Bluesky or by email at WeTriedTracker@gmail.com. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Red Sox acquired Dustin May from the Dodgers at Thursday’s trade deadline, they brought on board a starter with a pair of elbow surgeries in his rearview. The 27-year-old right-hander had Tommy John in 2021, then needed to have a flexor tendon repaired in 2023. Boston also brought on board a pitcher who has matured admirably since he was drafted 101st overall in 2016 out of a Justin, Texas high school.

“As a pitcher, I haven’t changed a whole lot,” May told me prior to the trade. “My stuff is pretty comparable to what it was before. But off the field, I’ve changed a lot. A lot of life changes have happened through the surgeries — a lot of good things — and I feel like I’ve definitely improved as a person and as a husband.

“We’re all very blessed, and talented, to be here,” he added. “Stuff can be taken away from you in an instant, and you can have no control over it. No matter how hard you work, or what you put into it, life can come at you very fast at times.”

A serious health scare last summer is an example. May suffered a torn esophagus that required emergency surgery. Less scary, but nonetheless troublesome, was his not bouncing back from TJ as well as he’d hoped. Read the rest of this entry »

In a deadline where things are shaping up to be a little spicier than anticipated — Mason Miller for Leo De Vries and friends, holy cannoli — Steven Matz’s arrival in Boston in exchange for first base prospect Blaze Jordan feels destined to get swept under the rug. But wait, don’t look away yet. This season, Matz shifted to short-term relief work for the first time in his career, and the results have been impressive. In 55 innings, he’s delivered a 2.87 FIP, mostly on the strength of a minuscule 4% walk rate and excellent home-run suppression.

Matz hasn’t really overhauled anything about his arsenal with his move to the ‘pen. His heater is up maybe a tick, but it’s still the same fundamental Matz package, remarkably unchanged since his 2015 debut: heavy sinker usage, a slow two-plane curveball, and a changeup to mix in against right-handed hitters:

The lateral movement and lack of carry on his sinker makes it a somewhat ineffective pitch against righties, but those same qualities render it a weapon against lefties. Same-handed hitters are hitting .179/.216/.226 against Matz this season, good for just a .199 wOBA. Among pitchers who have thrown at least 250 pitches to lefties this season, he ranks 13th best in wOBA allowed.

Early in counts, Matz pounds the outside edge with that sinker. The precision aim — he zones the pitch nearly 65% of the time while aiming for a fine target — gets him a ton of called strikes, allowing him to frequently work with count leverage. Armed with an edge, Matz deploys his loopy curveball as his preferred put-away option. It doesn’t get a ton of whiff, but it’s also tough to elevate. And if he sneaks it through the front door, there’s just no way a hitter is swinging:

From a roster fit perspective, the move seems a bit curious. According to RosterResource, Matz will be the fifth lefty in Boston’s ‘pen. Aroldis Chapman is the closer, so he doesn’t really count, but between Justin Wilson, Brennan Bernardino, and Chris Murphy, it may look like the Sox are well-covered on the lefty specialist front. But a closer look suggests why they might not want to stand pat with that crew.

Let’s take them in reverse order. Murphy is an up-down guy, throwing just 16.2 innings in the major leagues this season. Alex Cora and co. probably aren’t going to feel comfortable thrusting a guy that green into high-leverage work during a big playoff series. He might even get optioned to clear room for Matz.

Bernardino is a guy who has been around a while, and does have a prototypical lefty-killer arsenal: a sinker that hovers around the zero induced vertical break line from a super-low release point, and a “curveball” (it’s a sweeper) that breaks nearly three feet in the other direction.

The problem? Bernardino sits 91 mph and walks a ton of guys. Thinking about a future where the Red Sox need to get through, say, Josh Naylor and Dominic Canzone to stave off an ALCS sweep at the hands of the Mariners, it’s a bit scary to have a guy throwing 91, with the distinct potential of walking two of the three hitters he is obligated by law to face. By contrast, Matz feels like a trusty pair of hands — he’s got the fourth-lowest walk rate among relievers with at least 40 innings pitched this year, and he’s a veteran with big-game experience.

But there is a third lefty, and he’s one of the dozen pitchers who’s actually been better against lefties this season than Matz. Wilson isn’t exactly Tim Hill. He throws from a high slot and gets a ton of fastball carry, and he pairs his heater with an 88-mph bullet slider he throws below the zone for whiffs. Even though it looks like a platoon-neutral north-south attack package, he’s been much better against left-handed hitters than righties, holding them to just seven hits (one double, zero homers) and five walks in 63 chances. Matz, at first glance, seems a bit redundant given the presence of Wilson. But I’ll get back to that.

As for the return: The Red Sox are sending Blaze Jordan to the Cardinals. On short-form social platforms, I saw a not-insignificant share of Boston fans lamenting the departure of such a premium prospect. Perhaps the enthusiasm can be attributed to his 80-grade name, or the sterling stats he posted in Double-A Portland earlier this year. The reaction suggests Jordan is an incredibly valuable prospect, not someone who Eric Longenhagen (favorably) compared to Ryon Healy in a recent write-up.

Jordan’s numbers in the high minors, as Eric noted, are impressive, and he’s relatively young for the level. But… well, instead of summarizing Eric’s report, I’ll just paste it here:

The chase is concerning when you’re talking about a bad corner defender. So many toolsier guys have been undone by that and that alone. Jordan is slow-of-foot and has well below-average range at third base, though he does other stuff well and could play there in a pinch. He has mostly played first base in 2025, and that’s his better position. Low-OBP first basemen need to have titanic power to be impact players, and while Blaze has meaningful pop, it’s not in Yordan Alvarez territory or anything like that.

Eric put a 40 FV grade on Jordan, which seems like a totally fair return for a reliever like Matz.

The last bit that’s curious about this deal: There just aren’t that many good left-handed hitters on the likely American League playoff teams. Of the teams with at least 15% playoff odds, there are only five qualified lefties with at least a 120 wRC+: Cody Bellinger (133), Riley Greene (133), Trent Grisham (127), the aforementioned Naylor (122) and Zach McKinstry (121). (Corey Seager, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Addison Barger just missed the plate appearance cutoff, while Yordan Alvarez has yet to be activated from the IL.) That’s not exactly a murderer’s row. Given the lack of lefties in the way of their pursuit of a pennant, it does make one wonder why Boston would load up on lefty specialists.

But perhaps Boston is thinking optimistically. What if they find themselves in the first game of the World Series, and there are runners on first and second, and it’s the fifth inning, and Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman are due up, and they need Wilson for the next time through the order. Hey, it’s a long shot — but if it comes through, the Red Sox will be awfully happy to have a reliable Matz in their pocket.

Jordan Hicks wasn’t yet reaching triple digits when our 2017 St. Louis Cardinals Top Prospects list was published in January of that year. Ranked 14th in the system at the time, the 2015 third-round pick out of Texas’s Cyprus Creek High School was throwing — per Eric Longenhagen — a comparably modest 96 mph. That soon changed. The high-octane right-hander went on to eclipse the 100 mark that summer, and early the next season he was clocked at 105 while pitching in the big leagues against the Philadelphia Phillies.

He’s since ridden a bit of a rollercoaster. Hicks followed a solid 2018 rookie campaign by logging 14 saves and a 3.14 ERA over two-plus months in 2019, but he blew out his elbow in June and underwent Tommy John surgery. As a Type-1 diabetic, he sat out the entire 2020 pandemic campaign. More elbow woes cropped up in 2021, limiting him to just 10 big league innings.

Changes of address have been notable in Hicks’ subsequent seasons, as have his job descriptions. The righty remained a reliever throughout 2023 — a year that saw him dealt from the Cardinals to the Toronto Blue Jays at the trade deadline — but he was then converted to a starter after signing as a free agent with the San Francisco Giants prior to last season. His success in that role having been a mixed bag, Hicks now finds himself back in the bullpen — with yet another team. Acquired by the Boston Red Sox as part of last month’s Rafael Devers trade, he has gone on to make nine appearances and register a pair of saves while allowing four earned runs over seven 1.3 innings. His fastball velocity has topped out at 101.5 mph.

What did his 2017 FanGraphs scouting report look like? Moreover, what does he think about it all these years later? Wanting to find out, I shared some of what Eric wrote and asked Hicks to respond to it.

———

“A relatively undercooked prep arm from the 2015 draft.”

“Undercooked? I guess if you’re cooking a steak and you want it medium, I was rare,” Hicks said of that quote. “I didn’t have a lot of innings. At that point I had only thrown around 50 innings, and another 50 in high school. So, it was maybe 50 varsity innings and 50 pro innings. I think that’s probably what he meant by that.”

“His fastball sits 90-94, will touch 96, and comes in at an odd angle with some late sink.” Read the rest of this entry »

Sr. Data Engineer, Baseball Systems

Location: Boston, MA, United States
Department: Baseball Operations
Status: Full-time

DEPARTMENT OVERVIEW:
Members of the Baseball Systems team at the Boston Red Sox are focused on designing, building, and refining the software and data pipelines used within Baseball Operations. These tools and applications are an integral part of the decision-making process, are directly integrated in the workflows of all departments within Baseball Operations, and provide an efficient, consistent, and accessible experience when interacting with our internal data sources and applications.

POSITION OVERVIEW:
The Boston Red Sox are seeking a Senior Data Engineer, Baseball Systems who is a hands-on database expert responsible for administering and optimizing large-scale SQL environments, building robust data pipelines, and ensuring high-performance access to critical baseball operations data across on-prem and cloud platforms.

The ideal candidate thrives in a fast-paced environment, is comfortable managing both modern Snowflake-based pipelines and legacy SQL Server systems, and brings a strong sense of ownership to delivering scalable, efficient, and maintainable data solutions that directly impact decision-making throughout Baseball Operations. This role is central to the reliability and evolution of the Red Sox’s data infrastructure, supporting analysts, developers, and systems engineers across player evaluation, baseball sciences, and scouting domains.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Administer and optimize Snowflake and SQL Server environments, including warehouse sizing, query tuning, and access control policies
• Develop robust data transformation pipelines, leveraging data from both APIs and file-based sources
• Leverage tools like dbt, Snowpipe, and Snowpark for data transformations
• Design, manage, and monitor data pipelines that move structured and unstructured data from Azure Blob Storage into Snowflake, ensuring reliability, performance, and cost-efficiency
• Maintain and modernize legacy SQL Server data pipelines, improving performance through query optimization, indexing strategies, and resource tuning
• Contribute to the infrastructure design and software lifecycle phases—including technical design, testing, implementation, and quality assurance
• Provide proactive support for critical production systems, resolving pipeline or performance issues quickly and effectively
• Partner with software developers, analysts, and other stakeholders to support analytical, operational, and reporting needs across Baseball Operations
• Participate in code reviews, architecture discussions, and DevOps best practices with the data engineering and software development teams

COMPETENCIES

• Aptitude and ability to apply academic or applied experience in software development or data engineering related field.
• An advanced understanding of modern databases, SQL and query optimizations, stored procedures, views, and other db objects
• Able to design data solutions to allow for cost-effective, scalable, fast, and flexible solutions to support front-end development, analyst work, and data health and monitoring needs
• Able to pick up quickly and think both creatively and critically to solve problems
• A basic understanding of contemporary baseball and/or sports analysis and development practices
• A team-player that collaborates effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders

ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field
• 3-5 years of experience in a data engineering or data platform role with a focus on database performance and pipeline reliability
• Strong SQL development and optimization skills, including experience with stored procedures, indexing, and query tuning in SQL Server
• Hands-on experience administering and developing in Snowflake, including warehouse scaling, role-based access, and usage monitoring
• Proficiency in building and maintaining data pipelines from Azure Blob Storage to Snowflake, using tools like dbt, Snowpipe (or equivalent)
• Solid understanding of ELT/ETL concepts and data architecture best practices across cloud and hybrid systems
• Familiarity with DBT for data transformation and modeling is strongly preferred
• Experience with GraphQL is a plus but not required
• Ability to work autonomously and as a team in a fast paced environment
• High level of attention to detail with the ability to multi-task effectively
• Comfortable working remotely when required and using Zoom, Teams, Slack, Trello, and other tools to communicate with all team members
• High degree of professionalism and ability to maintain confidential information
• Excellent organizational and time management skills
In addition to the above requirements, all roles within Baseball Operations are expected to effectively demonstrate our universal competencies related to problem solving, teamwork, clarity of communication, and time management, along with embodying our culture of honesty, humility, relentlessness, and commitment to DEIB. 

In addition to the above requirements, all roles within Baseball Operations are expected to effectively demonstrate our universal competencies related to problem solving, teamwork, clarity of communication, and time management, along with embodying our culture of honesty, humility, relentlessness, and commitment to DEIB.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Boston Red Sox.

Yesterday, I wrote up the news that David Robertson had signed with the Phillies. In my (and, I assume, everyone else’s) favorite paragraph, I mentioned that several teams had reportedly been in on the veteran right-hander. Ken Rosenthal and Jon Heyman combined to mention interest from the Mets, Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers, and “many others.” Depending on your perspective, this marked either the last We Tried of the 2025 free agency period or the first of the trade deadline period. As a quick refresher, We Tried is a catch-all term for any time we find out, after a player has ended up with one team, that another team also tried to land them. In its purest form, the We Tried is a front office’s bid for partial credit, an attempt to curry favor with the fans by demonstrating that it is trying to build a winner for them. I spent the offseason documenting each and every one in a disturbingly comprehensive spreadsheet.

I didn’t make a meal of this yesterday, mainly because Robertson’s free agency was a real outlier. The offseason ended months ago. He’s a 40-year-old reliever who didn’t get an offer he loved, so he stayed in shape and spent the spring hanging out with his family, then held a workout for teams on Saturday in order to sign before the deadline. Lots of teams were in on him and lots of teams showed up to watch him pitch, so word of who was there was bound to come out at some point. It definitely represented a We Tried, but it didn’t seem earth-shattering, and it was by no means a typical one. Read the rest of this entry »