Job Summary:
The St. Louis Cardinals are looking for a Cloud Engineer to join our St. Louis-based Baseball Development team. Candidates should either live in, or be willing to relocate to, the St. Louis metro area. Candidates should also have a deep love of baseball, like the idea of being on a small, dynamic team with high individual flexibility and responsibility, and be competitively driven with a growth mindset. We compete with other teams in our domain just like our MLB players compete with other teams on the field. This position must have open flexibility during the season with hours and availability.
Job Duties:
The role of Cloud Engineer will be a cross-functional role that balances Google Cloud Platform systems engineering with software engineering and data engineering. Some example projects this position would be working on:
Profiling a BigQuery procedure to determine a way to improve performance and reduce costs
Writing a tool in Go to automate some common data engineering task
Assessing options to improve resource utilization in a Kubernetes cluster
Extending our Python ETL framework to support a new data source
Planning, testing, and upgrading a database server to the latest version
Other essential job functions include:
Maintain a small number of hosted servers/services: Google Composer, Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud SQL (PostgreSQL)
Diligently monitor cloud performance and cost
Maintain a self-managed Microsoft SQL database server
Experience Required:
Advanced knowledge of Google Cloud Platform offerings and best practices
Intermediate knowledge of either Go or Python or two other programming languages
Job Summary:
The role of Major League Strategy Fellow will utilize Baseball Development applications to identify actionable insights for the MLB team. This position will report to the MLB Analyst and will be based in St. Louis in the MLB clubhouse. Travel to Jupiter for Spring Training will be required. Even though not always there in person, this person should be available on the MLB team’s schedule from the start of spring training to the end of the MLB season.
Job Duties:
Provide MLB staff with detailed analyses of player data trends and deviations from their typical performance
Give strategic insights and recommendations based on Baseball Development information
Be a point of contact within Baseball Development for MLB staff with data related questions and ideas
Identify new tools that Baseball Development can build to better serve MLB team
Collaborate with Baseball Development in building new predictive models or actionable metrics
Build prototypes, or collaborate with Baseball Development in building production versions, of future automated reports and applications
Assist in the capture, dissemination, and utilization of video and data
Assist in quality control of reports and applications created by Baseball Development and sent to MLB staff
Experience Required:
Strong ability to communicate clearly and concisely in both written and verbal form
Ability to work effectively with various stakeholders in a fast-paced team environment
Humility, curiosity, and ability to interact productively with others
Experience with modern baseball data including ball tracking, player tracking, and limb tracking data
Demonstrated ability to communicate technical baseball data to non-technical audiences
Experience communicating with baseball coaches and staff
Familiarity with database querying languages
Awareness of predictive modeling and machine learning concepts
Proficiency at building easy to read data visualizations and reports is a plus, but not required
Ability to build automated applications and/or websites is a plus, but not required
Experience writing published articles and/or speaking on radio/podcasts/television about modern baseball data is a plus, but not required
Job Summary:
The Minor League Affiliate Fellow will manage all aspects of video and technology at a domestic minor league affiliate location in supporting the minor league coaching staff (manager, hitting coach, and pitching coach, etc.). The data collected from video and technology will be utilized to provide feedback to players for development. This position will be placed at one of our minor league affiliates during the 2026 season.
Pre-game tasks will include managing distribution, set up and usage of all baseball technology along with any advance scouting needs from staff. During the game, this position will manage technology resources for the minor league coaches from the dugout. Post-game tasks will ensure all data and video collected from the day is available for reporting & analysis and create reports for players and coaches as required. This position will work directly with the Baseball Technology Department and reports to the relevant minor league manager for day-to-day responsibilities at the affiliate.
The ideal candidate will have demonstrated a strong work ethic and impressive intellect. The position is a seasonal job for the 2026 season but may lead to full-time employment in Baseball Technology or elsewhere within Baseball Operations.
Job duties:
Manage baseball technology and video capture at the affiliate (e.g. Trackman, Blast Motion, Edgertronic Camera, etc.).
During the game, depending on staff needs:
Manage in-game capture of technology and video from the dugout
Quality assurance of the video and data collected for analyses
Setup video camcorders for game recording
Communicate any implementation issues to the Baseball Technology Coordinator that are not remediated through initial troubleshooting
Attend Spring Training and travel with assigned minor league team on the road throughout the season
Experience/Education Required:
Postgraduate or college senior available to start work during Spring Training
Proven ability to use and troubleshoot baseball or sport science technology (like pairing portable trackman to an Edgertronic camera, syncing wearable technology to a mobile device, etc.)
Familiar with and/or demonstrate the willingness to learn technology such as Blast Motion, Trackman, and video integration
Ability to communicate effectively and efficiently
Proficient with computers, iPads, and other electronics
Ability to work weekdays, nights, weekends and holidays
Welcome to the final Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week of the year. As we prepare to leave the normal cadence of regular season baseball behind, we’re all already mentally preparing for the madcap pace of the playoffs, when the games are fewer but more momentous. This last week is more of a transitional phase; some of the series are monumentally important, while others feature the Royals and Angels (just to pick a random set) playing out the string. Maybe this is the best time for baseball, actually. If you’re looking for it, there’s more drama in the back half of September than in any other regular season month. But if you just want silly baserunning in inconsequential games, or role players making the most of big opportunities, there’s plenty of that too. I love October baseball, but I’ll be sad when September ends.
Of course, no Five Things intro would be complete without me thanking Zach Lowe of The Ringer for the format I’ve shamelessly copied. So Zach, I hope your Mets fandom isn’t too painful this week. To the things!
1. Playoff Races
Obviously. If this isn’t the thing you like most in baseball this week, you’re probably a Mets or Tigers fan, and even then, you’re probably lying to yourself a little. The thrill of a pennant race coming down to the wire is one of the great joys of this sport. Most of the time, I like baseball because no single outcome matters all that much. Lose a game? Play the next day. Strike out in a big spot? Everyone does that sometimes. Give up a walk-off hit? I mean, there are 162 games, you’re going to give up some walk-offs. But every so often, as a treat, it’s fun when the games suddenly transmute from seemingly endless to “must have this next one.”
Has the new playoff format played a role here? It’s hard to argue it hasn’t. This is the fourth year of the 12-team field, and it’s the fourth straight year with an unsettled playoff race in the last week of the season. It’s the third straight year with multiple good races, in fact. That’s not exactly unimpeachable evidence – the final year of the old format saw its own thrilling conclusion to the regular season – but the point is that when the last week of the regular season is filled with drama, it makes for a great playoff appetizer. I’m still unsure what the new format does to the competitive structure of the game, and I haven’t liked the way trade deadlines work when the line between contender and pretender is so hazy. But in late September, it sure seems to be giving me more of what I want. Read the rest of this entry »
Job Summary:
This position supports the Advisor to the President in preparation for, and then through, the upcoming transition to the President role at the end of the 2025 season. Prior to the transition, responsibilities may include research projects, presentation writing, meeting planning and summaries, note-taking and correspondence, and other tasks as assigned. Following Advisor’s transition to the President role, this Assistant will continue in a support role, working closely with the Sr. Executive Assistant to the President. The Assistant will have wide exposure to the baseball operations senior leadership team and all underlying sub-departments. The role will then help ensure top-notch communication and execution throughout baseball ops, provide strategic support for processes and decisions and for the President, and help with projects and research as appropriate.
Job Duties Beginning Immediately:
Design and produce complex documents, reports, and presentations, for a variety of internal audiences.
Conduct baseball research projects as directed by Advisor to the President.
Compose memos and correspondence and assist with other writing and communication projects.
Become a power user of internal systems and valuation materials. Assist in ongoing efforts to improve and streamline those systems and materials.
Work to stay current on industry best practices and developments relevant to Cardinals current and future initiatives. Regularly summarize and communicate findings of note.
Job Duties Following the 2025 Season:
Provide strategic support on various issues, including staffing and department administration, operational process improvements, and player personnel matters.
Attend various baseball operations staff meetings, take notes, and monitor action items for proactive follow-up as appropriate.
Work with Sr. Executive Assistant as appropriate to support President, including with scheduling and preparation for internal and external meetings and engagements. Anticipate needs in advance and attend meetings as requested, in a support/documentation role.
Serve as conduit between and among President and department leaders, to ensure ongoing communication and alignment, and to monitor execution of strategic decisions and planned initiatives.
Work to gain familiarity with all aspects of baseball operations, in particular to better support President’s oversight of those areas, to promote better communication across departments, and to improve efficiency and excellence of processes.
Travel to spring training, winter meetings, and occasional other trips as appropriate.
Experience/Qualifications Required:
Proficiency in Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Excel, and Word) is required.
Existing familiarity with data analysis and basic SQL knowledge is desirable, but candidates willing to learn are also encouraged to apply.
Prior baseball experience is a plus but not required. Experience in other private or public sector jobs (e.g. sports, politics, management consulting, investment banking, technology and/or startups) with fast-paced environments requiring strong communication, organization, writing, and presentation skills is also helpful.
Humility, curiosity, and ability to interact productively with others.
Ability to work effectively with various stakeholders in a fast-paced team environment.
Organized, detail-oriented, and observant.
Solution-oriented and team-focused, with great ability to build relationships and collaborate.
Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Ability to create effective presentations.
Proactive in finding ways to improve existing processes and contribute to the organization’s success.
Trustworthy; can handle sensitive/confidential info and conversations well.
Great work ethic; available to work evening, weekend, and holiday hours.
This is the second post in a series I’m working on in which I not only do a deep dive analyzing shortstop prospects’ defense, but also cut together a video package so that you can too. The first installment can be found in the navigation widget above. Today, I’m tackling Red Sox prospect Franklin Arias, Yankees prospect George Lombard Jr., Cardinals prospect JJ Wetherholt, and Reds prospect Edwin Arroyo. Let’s get started. Read the rest of this entry »
“You told me to flump off,” said umpire Derek Thomas. He pulled home plate duty for Monday’s game between the Cardinals and the Pirates, and it turned out to be a tough assignment. In the bottom of the seventh, Thomas rang up designated hitter Willson Contreras on a called strike three. He didn’t like what he heard as Contreras walked back to the dugout, so he ran him too. The flabbergasted Contreras asked why he’d been ejected, then raced back toward home plate and asked Thomas to repeat himself. The debate that ensued was short but spirited, and packed with dazzling rhetorical flourishes.
“You told me to flump off,” Thomas said again before turning to manager Oliver Marmol. “He told me to flump off.”
“No,” said Contreras. “I did not. I did not.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I did not.”
“Yes, you did.”
Diplomatic relations finally reached their breaking point. Contreras decided that if he was going to be punished for telling Thomas to flump off, he might as well get his money’s worth. He told him to flump off with gusto. “How is that?” he shouted. He repeated himself again and again, exploring various intonations while ratcheting up the intensity to make sure the message sank in fully. It was a powerhouse performance. Inspired, Marmol told Thomas where to flump as well. At that point, a less resolute individual probably would’ve just flumped off.
Contreras threw his helmet, then his bat, which ended up hitting a coach. The pièce de résistance came in the form of a large pail of Hi-Chew, which Contreras retrieved from the dugout and tossed onto the field:
Watching all this, I couldn’t help but be amazed. They have Hi-Chew in the dugout! Did you know they have Hi-Chew in the dugout? I watch a fair amount of baseball, and I definitely did not. For the uninitiated, Hi-Chew is Japanese candy that comes in a wide variety of fruit flavors. I love Hi-Chew. Everyone loves Hi-Chew. But it’s candy. It’s not bubble gum, which has storied history in baseball and may even improve athletic performance. And it’s not sunflower seeds, which have their own storied history, not to mention protein and electrolytes that confer their own plausible nutritional benefits. It’s just regular candy.
Every year or two, we get a few articles oohing and aahing at the state of nutrition for professional athletes. I will confess that I eat these articles up. I love them all. A catalog of the new, healthy snacks in the dugout? Don’t mind if I do. A deep-dive into the NBA’s love affair with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? I’ll take a dozen. Puff pieces about the Marlins nutrition team, the Angels dietitian, the Twins dietitians, a minor league dietitian, or the Mets kitchen staff? Keep ‘em coming. Every one of these articles makes me want to be a major leaguer, starting my day with a protein shake designed to suit my exact metabolic needs, drinking tart cherry juice to aid my recovery, and eating healthy meals that are also delicious because they’re designed and prepared by world-class professionals. I’d also get to enjoy the odd bit of cotton candy:
Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images
That part’s actually important. All of the cooks, dietitians and nutritionists interviewed in these articles go out of their way to acknowledge that they’re fine with the occasional treat. They don’t want to be the junk food police, and athletes burn through so much energy between practice, warmups, workouts, and the actual games that they have absurdly high caloric needs anyway. (Left unsaid in most of these articles is the fact that these are hyper-athletic 20-somethings who could probably subsist on a diet of Cocoa Puffs anyway, even if it wouldn’t necessarily optimize performance.) Instead, they detail the many ways they’ve replaced junk with healthy options. Energy comes from sources like fruit, nuts, string cheese, and jerky. Cookies are out; Honey Stinger stroopwafels are in. Nutri-Grain bars, which are essentially a prayer to the god of Type 2 Diabetes, have been replaced by Rx Bars. And so on. With so many lesser evils available, players can indulge without wrecking their carefully-calibrated dietary regimens.
All of this makes sense. None of it is compatible with the big, surprisingly aerodynamic tub of Hi-Chew in the St. Louis dugout. There’s no decades-long history here. Hi-Chew is just a big cube of glucose. I’m going to pull a few quotes from the articles I linked to above, but I’ve doctored them just a little bit. It’s subtle, but see if you can tell what I changed.
“Everything in our clubhouse is geared toward helping promote recovery and reduce inflammation. We try to stick to snacks and foods with good nutrition. That’s why we provide Hi-Chew, which is 61% sugar and 10% fat. What’s the other 29%? I shudder to think.”
…
“How do we get the right energy in them in order to optimize their performance during the game? Also, how do we dispose of this giant tub of Hi-Chew my uncle gave me for my birthday?”
…
“Obviously, not feeding your body with the right stuff is not going to be able to help you maintain your body and your energy levels throughout the whole year, because it’s a long year. Except for Hi-Chew. Hi-Chew is fine.”
This article is not about how Hi-Chew got in the dugout. That article has already been written more than once. The story goes that as the least-tenured reliever on the Red Sox in 2012, Japanese-born Junichi Tazawa was in charge of keeping the bullpen stocked with gum. He added his own supply of Hi-Chew, which proved so popular that he couldn’t find enough to keep up with clubhouse demand. He asked the manufacturer if he could buy in bulk. Instead, the manufacturer sent it for free, then started sponsoring teams. There are big tubs of Hi-Chew in dugouts around the league because the players like it, but mostly because Hi-Chew pays for that privilege. I imagine they’re preparing to send Contreras the world’s sweetest care package in exchange for all the free publicity.
No, this article is my attempt to find out what’s actually being eaten in major league dugouts. Hi-Chew can’t be the only transgressor that somehow failed to come up in the dozens of empty-calorie articles about big league nutrition that I’ve consumed over the years. Here I should confess that this is a subject near to my heart. I was a ravenous child. I ate seeds and chewed gum during baseball games when I was younger. By middle school, I was loading boxfuls of Pop-Tarts and Fruit by the Foot in my bag at the beginning of each week. My spikes would inevitably crush the Pop-Tarts and shred their thin foil wrappers. By the end of the season, my bag would be covered in a fine, inch-deep mélange of dirt, pastry crumbs, and brown sugar filling. It smelled heavenly.
I used a brute force research methodology, hunting for sweets through thousands of photo service pictures of dugouts, bullpens, Dubble Bubble celebrations, and Gatorade baths. The hit rate was infinitesimal. Unless they’re taking a few establishing shots of gum and sunflower seeds during spring training, there’s no reason for photographers to waste their time on the snacks in the dugout. The pictures I found were usually candids, players who happened to be photographed holding a bag of seeds, dumping snacks on the player who just hit a walk-off, resting in front of the Hi-Chew tub, or digging through it looking for a very specific flavor. Behold:
Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Lon Horwedel-Imagn Images
I found enough pictures of Dubble Bubble and sunflower seeds to make your head spin, though that big pail of Dubble Bubble in the dugout has changed with the times too. The next time you see a player hit a walk-off homer and receive a Dubble Bubble shower, keep an eye on the individual pieces of gum. If they’re wrapped in paper with the ends twisted, that’s regular gum, but if it’s in a plastic wrapper, that’s the sugar-free version. The Orioles also stock Dubble Bubble gumballs, along with the largest bucket of Hi-Chew in the entire league. Contreras would’ve thrown out his back trying to toss this monster:
Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images
It’s hard to account for the ubiquity of Dubble Bubble. It’s not the official gum of Major League Baseball. So far as I can tell, Bubble Yum is the only gum that has ever borne that distinction, taking the mantle in 1998 and presumably setting it back down again at some point in the past couple decades. And it can’t be because Dubble Bubble is a pleasure to chew. If you’ll allow me to editorialize for a moment, Dubble Bubble is trash. It tastes sugary and delicious for approximately two and a half seconds, and then it turns into a tough, bitter lump in your mouth. It’s as poorly suited for blowing bubbles as it is for human consumption. (According to a 2017 Mercury News article by Andrew Baggerly, the trick to creating a wad that produces impressive bubbles is to mix the regular and sugar free versions.)
Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images
I saw more pictures of sunflower seeds than any other dugout snack. However, I was surprised not to see any David brand seeds. David was once the official sunflower seed of MLB. It provided seeds to teams for many years, and it also seemed to be the only game in town. No longer. The brand Giants is now ubiquitous. Apparently, Giants became the official sunflower seed of the Twins in 2004, and visiting players were so taken with them that other teams started ordering them too. Giants took the league by storm, but amazingly, it would take another 11 years before it became the official sunflower seed of the San Francisco Giants. According to a 2019 article, Giants ships two or three pallets of seeds to every major league stadium each year. Why were visiting players so into Giants sunflower seeds? Because they are actually giant. They’re bigger than normal sunflower seeds, and apparently that’s a desirable trait. It also provides the delightfully rare case of a giant David taking down a goliath named David.
Here’s Hunter Greene comparing two bags of seeds. In his right hand are roasted and salted pumpkin seeds. In his left are salt and pepper sunflower seeds with grilled steak seasoning:
Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK
What makes this picture fun is that Greene is very clearly comparing the nutrition facts on the back of the bags, and he’s doing so with the help of Ashley Meuser, Cincinnati’s director of major league nutrition. I imagine if you grabbed someone off the street in 1970 and asked them what a major league nutrition director does, this is exactly what they’d picture.
I did find plenty of pictures of honest-to-goodness healthy snacks. We’ve got an apple and a smoothie in an adorable little smoothie pouch:
Troy Taormina-Imagn Images, Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK
And we’ve got bananas. We’ve got lots of bananas. Oneil Cruz’s giant hand absolutely dwarfs this banana, but he nonetheless looks as if he’s about to launch into a soliloquy about its virtues as snack:
Clockwise from top left: Charles LeClaire, Kiyoshi Mio, Kirby Lee, Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images
What could be more wholesome than that? And just look how happy Adam Engel is to be eating this banana. Surely that’s not the facial expression of a man who wishes it were still acceptable for a professional ballplayer to crush a hoagie between innings:
Thomas Shea-Imagn Images
I also found some pictures of those healthy-ish stroopwafels, but that’s where the health foods stopped. Here’s Alec Marsh eating a salted caramel Honey Stinger stroopwafel (Honey Stinger calls them “energy waffles”) between innings during a game last May. But take a look at what’s in the bin in the foreground:
Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images
There’s a blue bag of seeds of course, but does that yellow package behind it look at all familiar? I am genuinely embarrassed to say that I instantly recognized what it was. That might not say anything good about me. Computer, enhance!
Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images
That’s right. That is a family size bag of Sour Patch Kids. Despite their atrocious taste in gum, major leaguers really know their gummy candies. Also, your eyes are not deceiving you. The back of the package really does encourage you to bake cookies with Sour Patch Kids in them. Even contemplating such a revolting concoction is an affront to the senses, and despite what the package shouts in all caps, it absolutely is not a thing.
Our last batch of pictures comes courtesy of the 2023 Phillies, which shouldn’t be all that surprising, as they were one of the loudest, most fun teams in recent memory. Here’s Jake Cave chowing down on another salted caramel stroopwafel at the urging of Brandon Marsh. While his teammates gave postgame interviews, Marsh made a habit of being the one to dump alarming combinations of foods and beverages on them. He would then pressure them into eating an often-soggy snack, all while the interview was still going on. It was usually easier to give in and eat the thing than to fend off Marsh while on live television:
Eric Hartline-Imagn Images
During Cave’s interview, Alec Bohm heaved handfuls of sunflower seeds at him from the dugout. Someone else lobbed a steady stream of Dubble Bubble at his head. Marsh and Bryson Stott crept behind Cave holding two paper cups each. Marsh held the stroopwafel between his teeth. After he and Sott emptied their cups, and Bohm chipped in a perfectly timed long-distance pumpkin seed strike, he ripped the wrapper open. “Here’s a Honey Stinger,” he said, proffering it to Cave. “You have to eat it.” This picture was taken the moment Cave took a bite, and you can see how happy it made Marsh. But what I really want you to notice Cave’s hat. Marsh dumped water, while Stott dumped solids. You can see the inescapable Dubble Bubble, but I also spy a rainbow, a blue moon, a red ballon, and a green clover. The Phillies have Lucky Charms in the clubhouse! And that’s not all.
Here’s Trea Turner 10 days later, on the receiving end of gum, water, dried mango from Whole Foods, Lucky Charms, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch:
Bill Streicher-Imagn Images
As someone who has literally recorded an entire album about the monster cereals, I was genuinely taken aback by this picture. There is a big gap between having some candy available in the dugout and stocking multiple sugar cereals in the clubhouse. Candy can be an occasional indulgence. Having both Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch on hand is something else entirely. I have no idea whether the Phillies are a little laxer in the kitchen or whether they’re the only team whose sugar cereal habit we know about because they’re the only ones raiding the pantry every time they celebrate a win. Either way, it’s possible that big league clubhouses aren’t exactly the high-performance cathedrals that they’re made out to be.
I never would not have expected Cinnamon Toast Crunch to be anywhere near a major league baseball team. It’s genuinely hard to think of something that could be worse for a human body. Even as a child, you felt like you were getting away with something when you had Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast. Or at least you felt that way until 10:30 AM rolled around and the sugar crash kicked in. It doesn’t stop at Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, either. After a victory a few weeks later, Marsh and Stott dumped a cooler of Gatorade on Turner, then Stott handed him a stick of beef jerky.
After the celebration ended, photographer Bill Streicher had the presence of mind to capture a shot of the unholy accumulation of makeshift confetti that had rained down on Turner and settled into the dirt like a pop art depiction of the night sky:
Bill Streicher-Imagn Images
You can see crushed ice, various Dubble Bubble flavors, the wagyu wrapper, and a packet of energy gel. You can see cookies-and-cream flavored Made Good granola minis, a classic example of the replace-something-terrible-with-something-not-so-bad approach. But you can also see a Cinnamon Toast Crunch breakfast bar. I didn’t even know such a thing existed, but allow me to say the most damning thing I possibly can about it: This is the kind of thing I would’ve put in my baseball bag as a high schooler. It’s basically a brick of loose Cinnamon Toast Crunch squares that have been glued together with sugar. There’s nothing less healthy that it could have possibly replaced, except maybe an actual brick, but apparently it’s part of a complete breakfast over in Philadelphia.
You might also notice some green and brown rectangles in that picture. Those are sugar and stevia packets, the kind you’d put in your coffee. Unsurprisingly, the people who get the most joy out of dumping comestibles on their teammates also get a lot of joy out of making whatever they’re dumping both as eclectic and as gross as possible. Here’s MJ Melendez emptying an entire coffee urn into a cooler of Powerade that will soon unleash its repulsive contents on the Royal unfortunate enough to have been the star of the game:
William Purnell-Imagn Images
I still love those those puff pieces about the nutritional advances in the big leagues. I will always love them, and I genuinely believe that the nutritionists, dietitians, and chefs involved do great work. They have dragged the game past the days of between-innings hot dogs. I’m just as certain that the vast majority of players put a huge amount of thought into how they fuel themselves. Still, it’s nice to know that in addition to all the healthier options, you can also walk into a clubhouse and get your fill of the very worst the culinary-industrial complex has to offer. Besides, it could be worse. They could start feeding the players Sour Patch Kids cookies.
On June 30, the Rangers lost to fall to 41-44, 10th place in the American League. Then they turned it on. Since the calendar flipped to July, they’ve gone 16-8 and rocketed into the playoff picture. They’re tied with the Mariners for the last AL Wild Card spot. With their sights now set on thriving in October, they needed to reinforce a pitching staff that has been quite good up top but got shakier as you went down the depth chart, and the Diamondbacks were happy to oblige. As Ken Rosenthal first reported, the Rangers are getting Merrill Kelly in exchange for Kohl Drake, Mitch Bratt, and David Hagaman. They also acquired Danny Coulombe and Phil Maton in separate deals to shore up the middle of their bullpen.
Texas has a famous starting rotation. The two stars, Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi, need no introduction. Second on the team in innings, slightly ahead of Eovaldi? That’d be World Series winner Patrick Corbin, famous both for his high highs and low lows. The back of the rotation? Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker, famous college teammates before they were famous prospect teammates. But Leiter and Rocker have been flat this year, and Corbin was bad enough for long enough that I’d be a little scared of counting on him. Tyler Mahle, another celebrated Rangers starter, has been out since June. Jon Gray is headed for free agency and has perhaps been banished to the bullpen for the remainder of 2025. And it’s not like deGrom has been the paragon of health over the last few years.
Kelly lengthens the playoff-ready portion of Texas’s rotation immediately. His career 3.74 ERA and 3.97 FIP are accurate representations of his work, as are his 22% strikeout rate and 7.4% walk rate. In other words, he’s a perfect mid-rotation arm, better than average (he’s managed a 3.22 ERA and 3.53 FIP this season) but squarely short of an ace. He’s 36 and a free agent after this year, which limits his return somewhat, but he’s a dependable playoff starter and thus a very desirable deadline target. 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.
The National League East is shaping up into full-on sprint down the homestretch. Entering the day of the trade deadline, the Mets find themselves half a game ahead of the Phillies, but our playoff odds give Philadelphia a 51-49 edge at winning the division. Both teams have spent past two weeks reinforcing their bullpens, and on Wednesday night, just hours after the Phillies traded for a fireballing closer in Jhoan Duran, the Mets found their own slightly-less-fireballing closer in Ryan Helsley. The 31-year-old Helsley is a rental in his final year of arbitration, and for his services the Mets sent the Cardinals prospects Jesus Baez, Nate Dohm, and Frank Elissalt. After trading for Gregory Soto last week and Tyler Rogers earlier on Wednesday, the Mets have now completely reshaped the backend of their bullpen. Jon Heyman of the New York Post and Anthony DiComo of MLB.com were the first to report different parts of the deal.
Before we get into the trade, let’s take a moment to marvel at how quickly the Mets and Phillies have remade their relief corps. I should start by crediting the prolific Michael Baumann, who wrote up the Soto deal, the Rogers deal, and the Duran deal. I also wrote up the Phillies’ signing of David Robertson last week. Put all that together, and the Mets and Phillies have added the players who rank ninth, 12th, 37th, 54th, and 72nd in reliever WAR since the start of 2024. Impressively, Robertson comes in at 37th even though he hasn’t pitched in the big leagues yet this season, because his 1.9 WAR ranked ninth among all relievers last year. This measuring stick also underrates Rogers, who came in at 54th, because our version of WAR relies on FIP, and the submariner has made a habit of beating his through the mystical art of groundball induction; when using RA9-WAR, Rogers jumps all the way up to 10th. In other words, we’re talking about four of the most valuable relievers in all of baseball and Soto, who is also pretty good.
This is what it looks like when your goal is to win a World Series. The Phillies and Mets are paying heavy prices to give themselves the best possible chance of locking down games late in October. The Mets started out in a better position, as their bullpen currently ranks 11th in baseball with a 3.80 ERA and 4.02 xFIP, and eighth with a 3.70 FIP, and they’ve added one more reliever than Philadelphia. But the Phillies have now added the best reliever on the market (note: I wrote this sentence before the Mason Miller trade went down) and one of the best and most consistent setup men in the game. None of this guarantees that the division will come down to the wire or that these relief corps will actually shut down the opposition in October, but it’s awfully fun to watch them gearing up for a championship run.
Now to the deal! As Anthony Franco noted for MLB Trade Rumors, Helsley has $2.65 million remaining on his $8.2 million salary. Because the Mets are in luxury tax territory, they’ll actually pay something like $5.6 million in total for him over the next two months.
With Edwin Díaz ensconced in the closer role, Helsley and Rogers should slot in as shutdown setup men. After making his debut in 2019, Helsley really took off in 2022, running a 1.25 ERA and 2.34 FIP over 54 appearances and taking over the St. Louis closer role that July. Helsley led baseball with 49 saves last year, and that total represented more than half of the Cardinals’ wins. Though still excellent, it wouldn’t be unfair to say that he has taken a step back this season. He’s currently running a 3.00 ERA, though FIP, xERA, and xFIP all see him as deserving something closer to 3.50. This is a far cry from the combined 1.83 ERA, 2.35 FIP, and 3.04 xFIP he put up over the three previous seasons.
As for why this is happening, Helsley’s strikeout rate has fallen in each of the last three seasons, from a massive 39% in 2022 to a merely good 26% this season. After running absurdly low home run rates on his fly balls for the past two seasons, Helsley is up to a 2.5% home run rate. Because he’s a reliever, we’re only talking about four home runs this season. That could just be randomness evening out, but his hard-hit and barrel rates have also increased. Batters are having less trouble elevating and celebrating than they used to against him. That 2.5% home run rate is the same as his mark in 2022. The difference is that because he was striking out so many batters back then, a few home runs didn’t matter all that much. Dingers were all hitters were going to get, and I mean that literally. In 2022, Helsley allowed nine earned runs. All nine of those runs scored on homers.
Home runs are always going to be a risk for a pitcher who depends on high four-seamers. When players aren’t swinging under them, they’re elevating them. Helsley is still averaging 99.3 mph on his fastball this season, and stuff models are still swooning over the slider that he throws nearly half the time and the curveball he throws 5% of the time. The issue is location. He has an extreme overhand delivery, averaging an arm angle of 63 degrees. That should make for a really fun contrast when Rogers pitches the seventh and Helsley pitches the eighth. It also means that Helsley’s four-seamer is almost pure rise, averaging 17.6 inches of induced vertical break and just 2.3 inches of arm-side break. A pitch like that plays best at or above the top of the zone, but he has struggled to keep the ball up there this season.
As a result, Statcast’s run values have the pitch going from being worth 0.7 runs per 100 pitches in 2024 to worth -2.0 runs this season. Its whiff rate has fallen, its hard-hit rate has risen, and its wOBA has climbed from .325 to .439.
This is still a dangerous pitch, and if Helsley can locate it better and pair it with his unhittable gyro slider, he instantly returns to being one of the best relievers in the game. Maybe the Mets think they can help him find his command or that it will come back in time anyway. Maybe they’ll just tell him to keep throwing hundos over the heart of the plate and trust in his stuff. No batter is dying to see a 100-mph heater, even if it comes in a couple inches lower than the pitcher hoped. If all Helsley does it keep pitching to a 3.00 ERA, he’ll still be very useful over the next couple of months.
That brings us to the prospects going back to the Cardinals. Baez is the main attraction here, and he happened to be on base when the trade went down, which meant that he learned the news when a pinch-runner came to take his place. Eric Longenhagen just wrote up the Mets top prospects a month ago, at which time Baez ranked 16th in the system with a future value of 40+. It’s at least worth noting that Baseball America had him ranked all the way up at sixth in the organization, though he was at least somewhat blocked in an organization with young infielders like Mark Vientos, Luisangel Acuña, Brett Baty, and Ronny Mauricio, along with two other infielders who came in ahead of him on our prospect rankings — Jacob Reimer and Elian Peña — and two 2024 draft picks: Mitch Voit and A.J. Ewing. Eric updated his blurb about Baez in light of the deal, so here it is in its entirety:
A $275,000 signee from 2022, Baez slashed .262/.338/.444 at St. Lucie last year and was given the quick hook up to Brooklyn after just a few games back there to start 2025. As of his trade to St. Louis for Ryan Helsely, he had a .740 OPS as a Cyclone, and is on his third consecutive season of a K% in the 15-17% range. This is a sensational hip-and-shoulder athlete who wows you with his ability to throw across his body, as well as his ability to rotate hard through contact. It’s a special, if specific, characteristic that creates some highlight reel plays on both sides of the ball, but doesn’t make Baez a great player or prospect on its own.
Let’s start with defense, where Baez continues to mostly play shortstop. He has the pure arm strength and actions to play short but nowhere near the requisite range, and his first step is slow enough that at times he looks lacking at third base, too. There is a subset of plays where Baez is forced to throw from a low arm slot that he appears most comfortable making, but he isn’t as consistent when he has to get on top of the baseball to throw long distance. This might make his best long-term position second base, where a lot of throws are made back across your body.
On offense, Baez has all-fields doubles power right now thanks to his lubricated hips, and he’s posting roughly average contact and power metrics under the hood. He has pull power even when his feet are early because he’s able to keep his hands back and rotate well through contact. The shaky Jenga block in Baez’s profile is his plate discipline, which gives his profile a Maikel Franco flavor that I can’t quite get out of my mouth. He’s been more patient in early counts this year than in seasons past, but he still expands too much with two strikes. Baez cuts his leg kick with two strikes to be in a better position to spoil tough pitches and grind out long at-bats, but this limits his pop; he had a paltry .490 OPS with two strikes at the time of the trade. This is a talented player who has performed like a future average everyday player on the surface, but who has some issues (defensive fit, strike zone judgment) that force one to round him down into a second division or bat-first utility FV tier.
Dohm and Elissalt are right-handed pitching prospects drafted out of college in 2024 who came in toward the end of the Mets list with future values of 35+. The Mets drafted the 23-year-old Dohm out of Mississippi State in the third round in 2024, and he has put up good results so far as a professional. He has looked solid this season, striking out nearly 30% of the batters he faced in seven games at Low-A and 11 games at High-A. He has a combined 2.87 ERA and 3.25 FIP over nearly 63 innings. Here’s what Eric wrote about him last month:
Dohm transferred from Ball State to Mississippi State, moved from the bullpen to the rotation, and had a hot start to his 2024 season before he was sidelined with an elbow injury. His mid-90s fastball has uphill angle and ride that helps it miss bats at the belt, and Dohm commands his slider (which isn’t especially nasty) to the bottom of the zone. He’s already blown through his career innings high in 2025 and is more of a dev project than the typical SEC arm. He projects as a fastball-heavy reliever.
The Mets took Elissalt in the 19th round of the 2024 draft out of Division-II Nova Southeastern. He was just promoted from Low-A to High-A, and he has a combined 3.04 ERA and 3.46 xFIP over 20 appearances and 56 1/3 innings. So far he’s also striking out right around 29% of the batters he faces. Elissalt can now touch 98, but Matt Eddy and Geoff Pontes of Baseball America have noted that he struggles with both command and maintaining consistent pitch shapes. Here’s what Eric wrote about him last month:
Elissalt went to high school in Miami but somehow ended up in Philly at LaSalle for his freshman season of college ball. It was his only one, as he would then transfer to Florida Southwestern and then Nova Southeastern before he was drafted. Elissalt has already experienced a four-tick bump to his fastball and an eight-tick bump to his primary breaking ball. He’s now averaging 95 mph and releasing from a low point that creates flat angle on a fastball with mediocre movement. Elissalt’s college curveball was scrapped in favor of a harder slider with plus length and bite. It’s the mix of a middle reliever if Elissalt can command his fastball to the location where it thrives.
In all, this is exactly the kind of deal we expect to see at the deadline. The Cardinals aren’t going anywhere with or without Helsley. He’s a pure rental who now has the chance to serve as a crucial piece in a playoff run. The Mets have built up their farm system to the point where they have enough players who may one day end up as good everyday infielders that they can afford to lose one. Dohm and Elissalt have a lot of developing to do for 23-year-old college arms, and they’re likely to get more chances as the Cardinals rebuild than they would have for a Mets team that is intent on building a dynasty.
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 »
The weekend before the trade deadline was light on big names moving — poor Eugenio Suárez has probably had to take his phone charger out of his go bag a dozen times this month — but we did see plenty of preliminary action. The Orioles began their sell-off by shipping hard-throwing left-hander Gregory Soto up to the Mets. Meanwhile, the Royals sought to maintain their spot on the postseason wait list by picking up a right-handed bat from Arizona: not Suárez, but Randal Grichuk.
