I might have a thing for guys who throw a lot of different fastballs. Earlier this week, I looked intoDrew Rasmussen’s novel approach to pitching: just make the entire arsenal out of fastballs. Rasmussen used to mix four-seamers and cutters, but then he added a sinker and kicked things up a notch. The multi-fastball approach has swept baseball in recent years, in fact, to the point where pitchers with only one option in their toolkit now stand out to me. But I think I’ve seen a new variation. Ben Joyce throws two fastballs, and one of them is an offspeed pitch.
You probably think of Joyce as one of the hardest throwers in baseball, if you think of him at all. He was a standout at Tennessee, showing big league velocity while closing games for the Vols. He threw a pitch 105.5 mph in 2024, still one of the five fastest pitches recorded in the Statcast era. He’s always been a little wild. He reaches back for everything he possibly has. It’s the kind of profile that makes you wonder what he’s going to pair with that absurd fastball.
In 2024, Joyce started experimenting with a splinker, a splitter/sinker hybrid. He turned to that pitch partway through the year after discussing sinker grips with some of the other Angels pitchers, and he spent a lot of that season playing with the different ways he could throw it. It was very much still a work in progress – he changed the shape and velocity of it quite a lot as he learned the grip – but adding something that sat between his fastball and slider was a great success, so much so that Michael Baumann blogged about his two fastballs way back in January 2025. Then Joyce got hurt five games into the year, had shoulder surgery, and missed the rest of the season. Read the rest of this entry »
On Monday morning, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal did what he does best. He unleashed a major trade deadline scoop. As it was a full week after the deadline, though, Rosenthal’s scoop wasn’t about who got traded where for what. It wasn’t about how the trades came together. It was, in fact, the opposite of the breathless deadline reporting and transaction analysis that can so often encourage us to view ballplayers as commodities rather than human beings who have little control over where they live and work. Rosenthal wrote about the emotional and logistical toll of being traded.
There’s a lot of that going around these days. The day after the deadline, Jacob Calvin Meyer of the Baltimore Sun reported that Adley Rutschman, Colton Cowser, Ryan Mountcastle, and Gunnar Henderson had been at the theater, about to see the new Spider-Man movie, when Rutschman found out he’d been traded to the Red Sox. “It was pretty emotional,” Cowser said. The foursome decided against watching the movie, which was probably for the best, as it’s about a talented young man with a powerful swing whose best friends have forgotten about him entirely after a move to Boston. Rosenthal’s article was about the team the Orioles faced the very next day.
On Sunday, August 2, the Angels broke a five-game losing streak with a win over the Brewers, then flew down to Baltimore. Monday, the day of the deadline, was an off day for both the Orioles and the Angels. Roughly a dozen Angels, plus assorted coaches and staffers spent the day in Vineland, New Jersey, playing a round of golf at Trout National – The Reserve. At Mike Trout’s golf course, they had what would no doubt have been a delightful day of fun in the sun if not for the fact that every couple holes, storm clouds showed up in the form of interim GM John Mozeliak, who was calling up another player to inform him that he’d been traded away. Oh, and there were literal storms too, so reliever Ryan Zeferjahn got his call while everybody was packed in a hut to stay out of the rain.
Those are just the Cliff’s Notes. You should read the whole article, and I don’t want to spoil it for you. It’s wild, and Rosenthal managed as well as anybody could have to report the facts and avoid editorializing without downplaying the over-the-top absurdity of the situation. Instead, what I’m going to do here is answer some of the more pressing, sillier questions raised by the story. It’s a sad story, but it’s also deliciously awkward. It’s absurdist comedy of the highest order. A third of the players who made the trip to Millville found out on the golf course that they’d been traded, because Trout planned a team-bonding event for the exact time when the team’s bonds would be dissolved with hydrochloric acid. Let’s get into it.
Mike Trout has a golf course?
No. Mike Trout doesn’t just have a golf course. In April, he opened a world-class, invitation-only golf club two miles from where he grew up. It cost $100 million. Tiger Woods designed it. It’s got a state-of-the-art training center, a lighted par-3 course named The Bullpen, and a 30,000-square-foot putting area. It’s got a spa, a barber shop, a bowling alley, a 2,500-bottle wine cellar, and a fitness center designed by Trout. It’s got a clubhouse named The Clubhouse. It’s got five-star accommodations that include two lodges, five cottages, and at least one hut. It’s got two comfort stations. One of them is called The Dugout, and it’s designed to look like a major league dugout (without the sunflower seeds, presumably). It’s got a freaking helipad.
It’s important to set the scene, but this is actually the least fun part of the story. As much as Millville loves Mike Trout, it does not love his 288-acre Shangri-La. Just a few weeks ago, Patrick Lanni of NJ.com wrote a deeply reported story highlighting the disconnect involved in building such a thing in Cumberland County, “widely considered New Jersey’s poorest county, with the state’s highest poverty rate, lowest median household income and an 8% unemployment rate.” Trout hasn’t necessarily gone out of his way to integrate Trout National – The Reserve into the community either. “It’s pure golf,” he told Golf.com. “You don’t see any houses.”
To be clear, the golf course is situated right next to many houses. You don’t see them because Trout National is surrounded by a stone wall that stands 15 feet tall. It’s built on an old silica salt mine and onetime farmland, but that wasn’t quite enough space. The developers also bought up at least 15 single-family homes for their land. Many neighbors now have a giant wall bordering their backyards. Some residents who refused to sell found their properties walled in on three sides. The Old Vineland Tavern sticks out like a sore thumb, but luckily Danny’s Pizza Pizzazz across the street is safe.
Google Maps
One resident told Lanni, “I’ve heard from the city council that everything is going to be so good for the community…. The club is its own thing. You go there, and you stay there. You don’t go to downtown Millville.” It’s hard to imagine the golfers arriving and departing by helicopter are going to spend all that much time outside walls of the compound, except maybe to duck into Danny’s for a pizza (and some pizzazz).
It may sound like the name of a fish stick company that went bankrupt in 1989, but Trout National has staked its brand on exclusivity and opulence. Its website doesn’t feature all that much copy, but whoever wrote it raided the thesaurus for “curated,” “luxurious,” “luxury,” “private,” “upscale,” “masterfully crafted,” “refined,” “secluded,” “custom,” “high-end,” and “luxury” one more time. Rosenthal didn’t provide any details about the hut where Zeferjahn found out he’d been traded, but I think we can safely assume it’s one of the fancier huts ever constructed.
Another Vineland resident told Lanni, “I think everyone understands that none of us will ever see inside of those walls.” Doing so would take quite an investment. Membership is limited to 227 people, a nod to Trout’s uniform number, 27. Mike’s brother Tyler told Golf.com that membership will be composed of athletes, young business professionals, and entrepreneurs. The fees aren’t public, but comparable ultra-exclusive courses have reported initiation fees in the vicinity of half a million dollars, along with annual membership fees around $200,000. And the place is literally called The Reserve; you know, as in an area that people are kept out of.
Mike Trout and his partners bought out more than a dozen people in his hometown in order to build a five-star golf paradise that no one in his hometown will ever be able to see. He surrounded it with a 15-foot wall so that none of his customers, 227 of the richest people on the planet, would be subjected to the sight of his hometown. You don’t have to be a resident of Millville to be offended by this kind of excess.
This is the setting for the day’s events. This is Trout’s fantastical chocolate factory, and much like Willy Wonka, his visitors kept getting whisked away one by one throughout the day. I’m sure you have more questions.
Oh yeah, when exactly did all the trades go down?
I’m so glad you asked. Not only can we timestamp the day’s events based on when the trades broke, but Rosenthal also told us what hole everyone was on when they got traded. Let’s update our scorecard, shall we?
First Hole: Brent Suter to the Braves
Suter got the first call right before everyone teed off. Some players were still warming up on a putting green; some were at the first tee box. ESPN’s Jeff Passan broke the news at 11:26 AM. As Passan said on Effectively Wild last year, he never breaks trade news until he’s sure the players involved have already been informed, so Mozeliak must have called Suter to deliver the news a bit beforehand. “Can I finish the round?” Suter asked. “Can I golf?” Mozeliak said yes, which makes him sound very magnanimous until you realize that he was no longer Suter’s boss.
Seventh Hole: Jo Adell to the Guardians Jon Heyman broke this news at 12:19 PM. “I was in shock,” Adell said. He finished out the front nine, then left. I honestly don’t know where Adell went or how he got there. I can’t imagine he went all the way back to Baltimore. The Guardians were at home at the time, so maybe he called an Uber for the 45-minute ride to Philadelphia, then caught a flight to Cleveland.
Hole Indeterminate: Reid Detmers to the Cubs (Not Real)
So an incorrect report had Detmers going to the Cubs around 2:45 PM. That rumor made it to Detmers, but his foursome, which included Trout, quickly gathered that it was inaccurate. “I think it was good he was golfing,” said Trout. “It took his mind off it.” Detmers, however, told MLB.com that even after confirming with his agent that no trade had taken place, he didn’t feel safe until 30 minutes after the trade deadline. Based on the timing, we can assume Detmers was somewhere around the 10th hole.
Twelfth or 13th Hole: Ryan Zeferjahn to the Cubs (For Real)
At 3:46 PM, Passan broke the news that Zeferjahn really would be traded to the Cubs. As you know, when Zeferjahn got the call, he was gathered in a hut with all his teammates to avoid the rain. He had no privacy. On the bright side, all his teammates who had played in Chicago were able to brief him about his new organization.
Nineteenth Hole: Kirby Yates to the Pirates
This was the buzzer-beater move of the day. It came just as everyone had finished up the round and was getting ready to leave. Rosenthal broke it himself (along with colleague Will Sammon) at 6:00 PM. “I didn’t think I had a chance,” Yates told Rosenthal. “I did not think there was a market for a 39-year-old throwing 90 mph.” In the final ironic twist of the day, the Pirates were about to kick off a series against the Brewers, so Yates had to fly right back to Milwaukee. He ended up making three straight appearances against the Brewers.
This must have all been so weird.
Uh, yeah.
So… did Mike Trout not know when the trade deadline was?
Well, Trout planned the outing back in the spring. He saw a day off on the east coast on the schedule, and he went for it. It’s not surprising that he didn’t immediately realize it was the trade deadline. August 3 is unusually late, a result of the fact that August 1 fell on a Saturday and the deadline can’t be on a weekend. It probably wasn’t top of mind anyway. He couldn’t know that early on that the Angels — a team that despite being bad for years has never embarked upon the type of teardown we saw this season — would be selling at the deadline. Plus, he’s Mike Trout. He’s never had to worry about getting traded.
But he figured it out eventually, right?
Yes. Mike Trout learned that the trade deadline was on August 3 prior to the morning of August 3. In fact, Mozeliak briefed him on the team’s deadline strategy a few days beforehand.
Oh yeah! Trout was part of the trade deadline war room, right? Didn’t he know his teammates were going to get traded away?
Trout has said this report was blown out of proportion, but… yes. Mozeliak and Trout met a few weeks before the deadline and established that he wouldn’t be traded, Then, a few days before the deadline, he was invited into the war room. “People were blowing it up,” he told MLB.com. “It wasn’t what everybody’s saying. Basically, just going over everything. It wasn’t like I was telling him, ‘Oh, trade this guy, trade that guy.’ It was basically just a plan. It was just Mo trying to build a relationship with me in the couple weeks he’s been here. Just being transparent. I think that’s the biggest thing.”
All of this would seem fairly standard. Trout is the face of the franchise, and he’s under contract through 2030. It only makes sense to get him on board with the vision for the future of the team, especially before a teardown. But it gets weird when you factor the golf outing into the equation. By Trout’s own admission, Mozeliak told him the team’s plan for the deadline, which clearly involved trading everything that wasn’t nailed down. They went over everything – Trout’s own words – so at the very least, he had to have had an idea that some of his guests would cease to be his teammates.
So why didn’t he cancel?
That’s the hundred-million-dollar question, and only Mike Trout knows the answer. Rosenthal described the situation in hilariously deadpan language. “Trout came to realize, as he organized the outing, that it might be an unusual day. The group, he said, had an idea that trades were coming.” All the same, I can think of plenty of reasons that might have pushed to keep this particular tee time on the books.
If I’ve learned one thing about Mike Trout in researching this article, it’s that the dude really loves golf. When baseball was shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, he would finish his baseball workout, then go play 36 holes of golf, then hit the driving range or the putting green to work on his game.
Trout National took years to build, and I’m sure Trout is very, very proud of it. He was probably really excited to show all his buddies his opulent little city-state. He planned this whole trip, and he was reluctant to give it up.
Remember when I mentioned that Trout saw a day off on the schedule and he jumped on it? That’s a bigger deal than you might realize. Last year, the Angels didn’t have a single off day on the east coast. You can understand why he wanted to hold onto this one.
I don’t subscribe to this notion, but if you want to be really, really cynical, you could also posit that he viewed this little trip as a recruiting venture for prospective members.
I imagine that baseball works a little differently for Mike Trout than for most players. He’s never been traded. He’s never been at risk of being traded. Considering how terrible they’ve been during his tenure, the Angels have done a surprisingly small amount of selling at the deadline. I don’t want to accuse him of a lack of empathy or anything, but the toll of this particular part of the game may just be a bit harder for Trout to grasp than for players who have lived through it or who enjoy less job security.
In that same vein, I’m sure Trout didn’t pressure anybody into coming on the trip – José Soriano found out he’d been traded in his hotel in Baltimore because he’s not a golfer – but he also may not have realized how hard it would be for his teammates to turn down that invitation. That’s just human nature. He may not fully comprehend the amount of authority he has in the clubhouse simply by virtue of being Mike Trout.
Trout may well have figured that cancelling would have just traded one form of awkwardness for another. He couldn’t exactly go around the clubhouse telling everyone they were uninvited because the deadline was going to be a bloodbath. But it would have been really weird to cancel without giving some excuse. Everybody knew he’d been briefed on the team’s deadline plans. They probably would have figured it out.
Maybe he just thought spending the day golfing with your buddies would be a better way to deal with the stress of getting traded than moping around Baltimore and waiting for your phone to ring (though he’d have probably felt differently if he had known about Bergers cookies, the Baltimore delicacy that can turn any rough day around). “I guess if you’re going to get news like that,” Mozeliak told Rosenthal, “you might as well be having fun.”
Now that it’s over, does Trout wish he’d just cancelled the whole thing and organized a team outing to go see the new Spider-Man movie?
We’ll never know for sure, but my guess is no. Rosenthal came as close as he could to asking this question without being rude. Asked whether the day went as he had envisioned it, Trout said, “It was just different. We were all enjoying a round of golf. It was different, for sure.”
Can we back up and talk logistics for a second? Is Millville even convenient to get to?
Millville is extremely convenient to get to. From Philadelphia.
From Baltimore, not so much. Assuming there’s no traffic whatsoever, it’s a two-hour drive away from Baltimore. The team flew from Milwaukee to Baltimore, then roughly a dozen players hopped on a bus bound for New Jersey. Several coaches and staffers arrived on their own bus in the morning. I’ve run all the numbers here, and this was a hectic day for the Angels.
Here’s the most optimistic timeline I can possibly imagine. Sunday’s game in Milwaukee ended at 2:45 PM Central. Let’s say everybody really hustled in the shower and the bus left the ballpark at 3:15. It’s a 15-minute drive to the airport, and we’ll assume no traffic (not even airport traffic) and just 15 minutes to get the plane loaded and the wheels up. The flight from Milwaukee is an hour and 55 minutes long, and you lose an hour to time zones. We’ll give everybody another five minutes to get off the plane and on the bus, and then it’s a two-hour bus ride to Millville (again assuming no traffic whatsoever). That would put everyone in Millville at 8:45 PM Eastern at the very earliest. In reality, I’d bet they arrived closer to 11 or 12. This timeline doesn’t even account for the fact that they presumably ate dinner at some point.
Then they had a full day of golf, starting around 11:00 AM and wrapping up a bit before 6:00 PM, which means they didn’t get back into Baltimore until 8 at the earliest.
So where did everybody spend the night? At the golf club?
No. Rosenthal reported that the dozen or so players “stayed overnight at Trout’s home.”
Must be a pretty big home.
Yeah, Trout’s New Jersey home is a house in the same way that the White House is a house. It’s a custom-built mansion that took a year to design and more than two years to construct. Nobody was sleeping on a futon.
Something’s been bothering me for a while now.
I’m pretty sure I know where you’re going with this.
It’s the rain.
Yeah.
It rained in the middle of Mike Trout’s big day and everybody was stuck in a hut. Did Mike Trout fail to check the weather report?
I feel confident that Mike Trout knew it was going to rain. In fact, I feel confident that Mike Trout spent most of Sunday and Monday talking about the chance of precipitation to anybody who would listen and several people who weren’t listening. Surely, this was his big chance to call off the event without raising suspicion or hurting any feelings. “Sorry, guys, can’t do the big golf day. It’s going to rain in Millville. Next year for sure, though.” Easy-peasy. He must have just really, really wanted to do it.
Did the Angels get to finish their round of golf, or did the rain ruin it?
It sounds like they finished, but this has got to be the funniest part of the whole situation. Even Mike Trout’s one true love, the weather, was in on the plot to ruin his big day.
So this doesn’t sound like a very restful day off. Did the Angels win the next day?
The Angels might be as adrift as ever, shedding players at the deadline, but they need someone — anyone — to throw enough innings to close out the season.
The biggest void in their pitching staff was left by José Soriano, who was traded to the Blue Jays a week ago on Monday. Soriano throws incredibly hard and gets a huge number of groundballs. This solidly built right-hander’s triple-digit fastball doesn’t get many whiffs — and his strikeout and walk rates are both cause for concern — but he does have a potent sinker-offspeed combination and a good breaking ball.
How do you replace that guy? Good news: The Angels don’t have to, because they’ve had another Soriano all along. Read the rest of this entry »
Plan A for Chicago’s starting rotation went out the window all the way back on April 4 when Cade Horton went down with a forearm strain. After he’d finished second in Rookie of the Year voting in 2025, the Cubs were counting on him as a key contributor in 2026. Instead, his season ended after just two starts. Then on April 6, Matthew Boyd hit the IL with a bicep strain. Fortunately, he was only sidelined for two weeks, but by May 6 he was out of commission again, this time with a meniscus tear that took him out until June 25. Offseason rotation addition Edward Cabrera has also logged multiple IL stints this year — first, a blister that sidelined him from May 24 to June 5, then a hamstring strain that has had him on the shelf since June 24. Strained hamstrings aren’t contagious, but if they were, Cabrera would’ve caught his from Jameson Taillon, who was out with the same injury from June 9 to July 20 and then designated for assignment a week following his return due to poor performance. Given the myriad of injured starters, by early May the Cubs were forced to move Ben Brown from his long-relief role in the bullpen back to the starting rotation. He made eight starts before landing on the IL with a neck strain.
After placing both Cabrera and Brown on the IL on June 24, the Cubs started their deadline shopping a little early, trading with the Mets for left-handed starter David Peterson on June 25. Peterson has not pitched well this season, posting a 5.52 ERA and a 4.11 FIP over 101 innings, but aside from one clunker against the Cardinals, his results have been much better with the Cubs. Over his last four starts, he’s pitched to a 1.52 ERA, albeit with a 4.20 FIP. Nevertheless, Peterson does not single-handedly fix the Cubs’ rotation, nor does Kevin Gausman, whom they acquired from the Blue Jays on Sunday. No, and even with Cabrera pitching in his first Triple-A rehab game last Friday (1 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 2 BB, 3 K), it’s always a good idea to go ahead and add one more guy. Maybe even two.
Even with rookie Chase DeLauter putting together a strong inaugural campaign, the Guardians have gotten less from their outfielders on the offensive side of the ball than all but a few other contenders. Ahead of Monday’s deadline, they acquired outfielder Jo Adell from the Angels in exchange for catching prospect Jacob Cozart, a move that appears to be a half-measure unless they can fit Adell into the short side of a platoon and limit his defensive exposure.
Currently 57-56, three games behind the AL Central-leading White Sox and occupying the American League’s third Wild Card spot, the Guardians have scored just 3.95 runs per game this year with a 93 wRC+, both of which rank as the league’s second-lowest marks. A lack of offense from their outfielders has contributed significantly to that problem:
The Atlanta Braves made a couple of minor moves over the weekend, adding pitchers Rick Mahler and Bruce Sutter, with the purpose of buttressing th…wait a second…
[Szym double-checks spelling]
The 1986 2026 Atlanta Braves made a couple of minor trades in recent days, acquiring pitchers Tyler Mahle and Brent Suter to shore up their pitching depth as we enter the season’s homestretch. Suter, who turns 37 in a few weeks, had a 4.12 ERA but a 3.65 FIP in 41 games for the Los Angeles Angels, who are apparently still a baseball team. Mahle is having his first full, healthy season in years, but has generally struggled otherwise in San Francisco, posting a 5.19 ERA and a 4.38 FIP for 0.8 WAR in 18 starts for the struggling Giants.
In return for Suter, the Braves are shipping infielder Nacho Alvarez Jr. to the Angels. After getting scattered playing time in the majors in 2024 and 2025, and putting up a disappointing .216/.296/.330 line in that span, he has spent the entire regular season with Triple-A Gwinnett, with his .664 OPS on the year providing ample explanation for why he didn’t pop up on the Braves roster at all this year. He did have at least one big highlight this season, getting Mexico onto the scoreboard first in its WBC game against Great Britain with a homer off Jack Anderson.
Heading to San Francisco for Mahle is reliever Anthony Molina, a name you might recognize from being on the fringes of Colorado’s roster the last few seasons. He’s only appeared in three games for the Braves this season, but has put up a 3.64 ERA/4.01 FIP for Gwinnett. Read the rest of this entry »
The Blue Jays are eight games under .500, 13.5 games out of the division lead and 4.5 games out of the second AL Wild Card, with five teams to climb over before they reach the Guardians. They came into Deadline Day with a 5.2% chance of making the playoffs. I’m as gung ho about going for it as the next guy, but that’s not a position from which you want to be trading prospects for big league talent. Read the rest of this entry »
I came into this week with a ton of trade deadline hype built up in my brain just waiting to spill onto the page the first time I had a deal to analyze. I had some clever turns of phrase, some bon mots (or “annoying puns,” if you’re not into it), and next week, you’ll surely get to hear those. But they’re staying in the proverbial writer’s quiver today, because the trade I’m analyzing is more of a mystery than a blockbuster. The trade in question: the Rangers acquired Logan O’Hoppe and Chase Silseth from the Angels in exchange for Low-A infielder Angel Arredondo, as Jeff Passan first reported.
The Rangers have lurched into the AL West lead in recent weeks, turning aside the equally-scuffling A’s and Mariners while trying to hold off the surging (surging to a .500 record, to be fair) Astros. They have one of the worst catching situations in the majors – the 0.2 WAR their catchers have accrued is 27th in baseball. So surely, that’s the play here, I innocently thought as I saw this trade cross the tape. But that was a red herring, the first twist in a deal full of them.
O’Hoppe was a catching prospect of some note, a late-round Philadelphia draft pick in 2018 who ascended to Top 100 prospect status and then got swapped straight up for Brandon Marsh in 2022. He hit well enough to cover up some defensive shortcomings in his first few seasons of injury-interrupted work, but then he posted a 72 wRC+ in 2025, dragging his total contributions below replacement level. He’s hitting .209/.271/.295 this year, good for a 59 wRC+, and is below replacement level again. In fact, the Angels have accrued negative WAR at catcher, so they’re hardly where the Rangers should be looking for improvement. And indeed, as I tried to puzzle through how much of an upgrade O’Hoppe would even be, the Rangers rendered my thinking moot: They optioned O’Hoppe to Triple-A. Read the rest of this entry »
We’re one week away from the August 3 trade deadline, and yet there’s still very little clarity for a handful of teams. The American League is a jumbled mess, and National League teams like the Nationals and Padres are straddling the buy/sell line, too. But one thing is for sure: The Angels will be sellers. What’s not yet settled is the extent to which they’ll sell.
With interim general manager John Mozeliak running the show after the ouster of Perry Minasian, the Angels suddenly have their most decorated baseball ops head since Bill Stoneman, the architect of the 2002 World Series champions, who briefly returned to handle the 2015 trade deadline. That came after a power struggle with manager Mike Scioscia led to Jerry Dipoto’s departure, and Stoneman went through with a handful of depth moves, bringing in post-prime David DeJesus, David Murphy, and Shane Victorino to bolster a club that was 55-47 at the July 31 deadline. Those Angels were just two games out of first place and had a three-in-four chance at making the playoffs. They finished 30-30, fading to third place and out of the playoff picture with an overall record of 85-77. They haven’t had a winning season since then, and they haven’t made the playoffs since the year before, when they won 98 games but were swept by the Royals in the ALDS. It’s been a miserable stretch for the Halos, one that will continue through the remainder of the season. As of Monday morning, our Playoff Odds projected the Angels to finish with their second-worst record in the last 30 years.
Still, these woes don’t have to drag on in perpetuity. The Angels have options aplenty as the trade deadline nears to try and change the direction of their wayward organization. Here are three paths they could take: Read the rest of this entry »
Controversy surrounding José Caballero’s pre-pitch routine struck twice in the Bronx this week, with the first time prompting the benches to clear and the second causing unnecessary confusion. In the eighth inning of the Yankees’ 8-5 win over the Pirates on Monday night, Caballero did what he usually does — he dug into the batter’s box and didn’t look up at the pitcher until there were eight seconds left on the pitch timer. The idea is to disrupt the pitcher’s rhythm. Pittsburgh reliever Dennis Santana took exception to Caballero’s tactic — which, again, he has done many, many times for the last four seasons — and yelled at him after getting him to ground into a double play. The benches emptied, and the Pirates complained to MLB about it.
Turns out, the griping worked. After the game, the league told the umpires to more strictly enforce the rules requiring batters to engage with the pitcher with no fewer than eight seconds left on the clock. Instead of warning the batter, and then calling an automatic strike for a repeat violation, the umpires were directed to assess a strike to Caballero for attempting to deceive the pitcher, no matter how much time was left on the pitch timer. Both Caballero and the Yankees claim the league did not notify them about the change. As crew chief Adrian Johnson told a pool reporter after, “He’s been warned all season. We were instructed not to warn him. We were instructed to violate him. That’s what it is. It’s a violation.” Along with Johnson’s poor phrasing, the sudden change in enforcement is quite jarring and, in my opinion, inappropriate. If what the Yankees said is true — that the league didn’t tell them about the change — then I think this is an overstep by MLB to single out a player. Caballero accused the umpires and the league of “picking on” him. But even if MLB did give the Yankees and Caballero the heads up, I think the escalated enforcement is an incorrect interpretation of the rule. I love that Caballero uses the pitch clock to his advantage; pitchers can hold the ball and run down the clock to zero, so why shouldn’t batters be allowed to wait their full allotted time before engaging with the pitcher? Moreover, I also don’t know how Caballero is deceiving the pitcher by doing something he does so frequently. He’s certainly trying to annoy the opposing pitcher, but that’s not deception — that’s good gamesmanship.
Anyway, that’s the last you’ll read about Caballero in this week’s mailbag. Instead, we’ll be answering your questions about Esmerlyn Valdez’s heater, Gunnar Henderson’s woes against fastballs, how to fix the Angels, and whether anyone will break Jesse Orosco’s record for games pitched. But first, I’d like to remind you that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »
