Archive for Teams

As I was scrolling The Website Formerly Known As Twitter on Sunday, perusing for articles to read and news to get caught up on, I stopped dead in my tracks at this post from Giants reporter Alex Pavlovic:

The Giants now have 16 players on the 60-day IL, which will make for an insane series of roster moves at the start of the offseason. When Scott Bandura takes his first at-bat tonight, they'll set a franchise record by using 67 different players.

— Alex Pavlovic (@PavlovicNBCS) September 13, 2026

If you’re a normal baseball fan, that’s not the most interesting piece of news Pavlovic reported around that same time; that would, of course, be the bombshell that Rafael Devers was undergoing core muscle surgery, ending his season and making him that 16th player on the 60-day. The lefty slugger finished his season scorching hot before it came to its abrupt end. He ultimately finished with 3.4 WAR and 37 home runs, just one off his career high set back in 2021. Had he remained healthy and clubbed three more, he would’ve become the first Giants player since Barry Bonds in 2004 to reach the 40-homer threshold.

But from my purview as a roster freak, my wheels immediately started turning and thinking about how the Giants were going to clean up their 40-man roster at the start of the offseason. Our RosterResource data goes back to 2021, and for only one other stretch has a team had 16 players on the 60-day IL: The 2021 Rangers from August 27-30. But that late-August timing afforded the Rangers some in-season wiggle room to work through the 40-man shuffle, a luxury the Giants won’t have. Nobody on San Francisco’s 60-day is expected back this season, the 60-day IL can’t be used again until the onset of spring training, and the Giants have just one pending free agent in JT Brubaker. Needless to say, Buster Posey, Zack Minasian, and the rest of the team’s decision makers have their work ahead of them, with 55 names to sort through all at once and no intermediate moves in the offing.

I began where I tend to start my rabbit hole of research: tabbing back and forth from RosterResource and a spreadsheet of categorizing players into various buckets. I settled on 24 players for the initial 40-man who should be in no danger of getting cut. This includes all the usual suspects and big contracts, plus some nice mini-breakouts representing silver linings of a lost season.

A special shoutout is in order for Trent Harris, who may singlehandedly be keeping the rainbow curveball alive. The bullpen hasn’t had a set closer all season (Caleb Kilian, currently on the Phillies’ IL, leads San Francisco with eight saves), but Harris and 2025 All-Star Rodríguez (on the IL all year after undergoing Tommy John surgery) could make for an interesting one-two punch next year. Hey, there has to be something positive about the future of the club.

That leaves 31 players for 16 spots, which for many teams would be a gargantuan task. Imagine if the Rays or Dodgers had to sort through that many names with how deep their rosters always are. But not for the Giants, because there is, shall we say… a lot of slop here.

The most puzzling situation here is Bader, whom the Giants signed to a two-year, $20.5 million contract this past offseason. While it’s smaller scale than the contracts of Adames and Chapman, which have been a mixed bag so far, the Bader deal is probably the single biggest disaster of Posey’s tenure. He’s gotten into just 30 games this year, been placed on the IL twice, and the Giants are currently suspending payment to the 32-year-old following a scooter accident, which he suffered while already on the injured list, that ruled out a 2026 return. When able to play, he’s been 51% worse than league average by wRC+ and merely scratch in center field by FRV. Whether the Giants have to pay Bader or not, it’s hard to envision a significant role for him on the roster in 2027, the final year of his contract, especially with the emergences of Schmitt, Gilbert, Cox, and Hill.

Where the Giants go with the rest is anyone’s guess, though some of these players’ jobs are certainly safer than others. For example, they traded Patrick Bailey in part to accommodate Susac, meaning his spot is likely secured. However, I’ll be the first to admit there are plenty of easy cuts here, even if there isn’t consensus on who those easy cuts are. When I teased I was writing this article, a few Giants fans came into my mentions with their ostensible obvious cuts, but their cut lists didn’t even match each other’s, and the Giants’ own list is impossible to nail perfectly without being inside the room with them. (Buster, if you’re reading this, call me.)

The above lists, which feature a combined 55 names, don’t even account for the players who need to be added to the 40-man roster to protect them from the Rule 5 draft. At a minimum, the Giants will add Henry Lalane and Bo Davidson, but the club has other Rule-5 eligible 40-man candidates, including Marty Gair, Luis De La Torre, Joe Whitman, Reggie Crawford, and Sabin Ceballos. The deadline to protect players is a bit later, though (it was November 18 this past offseason), affording the front office more time to shuffle the furniture and make further cuts.

Most of these roster cuts won’t garner major headlines when they happen, but they are decisions that teams don’t make lightly because they could end up biting them later on. This initial roster culling won’t determine the overall trajectory of the 2027 Giants, whether they are a good or bad team, but these moves could make the difference of a few wins — which could be crucial if they are to have any hope of claiming a wild card berth next season.

Alex McCoy isn’t a high-profile prospect. Signed as a non-drafted free agent in 2024 out of Hofstra University, the 24-year-old corner outfielder is ranked just 25th in the San Diego Padres system with a 35+ FV. That doesn’t mean he’s without upside. Over 541 plate appearances this season, the Baltimore native left the yard 19 times while logging a 112 wRC+ and a .278/.355/.467 slash line between High-A Fort Wayne and Double-A San Antonio. Last year, in an injury-limited first professional campaign, he put up a 146 wRC+ over 226 plate appearances in Low-A.

McCoy does serious damage when he squares up baseballs. Asked for a scouting update, Eric Longenhagen recently told me that the 6-foot-5, 260-pound slugger possesses “crazy high-end power [with] max exits and 90th-EV markers [that] are plus-plus on the scale.” That came with a caveat. Our lead prospect analyst also said “a lack of feel means the consistency of the contact is not as good… his 66% contact rate is a 30 on the scale.”

McCoy didn’t shy away from the power-hitter label when I spoke to him shortly before his mid-August promotion to Double-A. Even so, he sees himself as more than just an all-or-nothing masher.

“I would say I am [a power hitter],” acknowledged McCoy, whose 2026 ledger included a 9.2% walk rate and a 26.2% strikeout rate. “At the same time, I try to build my game around being gap-to-gap and getting base. Home runs will come if I put a good swing on the ball, but getting base hits plays too.”

Baseball wasn’t the only game he played at Essex, Maryland’s Our Lady of Mount Carmel High School. He also hit the hardwood — “I was actually pretty bad at basketball” — and the gridiron. Both a tight end and a defensive end, he received a walk-on offer to play collegiately, but as McCoy explained, “I didn’t love football like I love baseball.” Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday night at Citi Field, the 2026 Mets season reached either a rather humiliating new low or a moment of catharsis, depending upon your point of view. With one out in the top of the ninth inning and the Mets clinging to a 3-2 lead over the Orioles, closer Kodai Senga left an 82.5-mph forkball over the plate, and Pete Alonso absolutely hit the fork out of it for a game-tying solo shot, the 300th home run of his career. The 31-year-old slugger punctuated the shot with an emphatic bat toss as the ball caromed off the face of the second deck in left-center field. While most opponent homers in such situations would elicit groans and boos, Alonso — who made his long-awaited return to Queens this week after signing a five-year, $155 million deal with the Orioles last December — instead received a standing ovation and made a curtain call.

Though unorthodox, the response from the crowd was understandable. Alonso hit 264 home runs during his seven seasons with the Mets, the most homers in franchise history, making five All-Star teams and two trips to the postseason while earning a spot in the hearts of fans as their beloved Polar Bear. Tuesday night’s game was just his second at Citi Field as a visitor, and as they’d done the night before, Mets fans brought their homemade cardboard signs displaying sentiments such as: “Thank You Pete — Forever a Met,” “Mets Fans Still Love Pete,” and “Should’ve Paid Pete.” The last of those also featured a Mets logo in front of the phrase “Fans Rooting For” before an Orioles logo.

Prior to Monday night’s first pitch, the Mets presented a tribute video, and shortstop Francisco Lindor joined the crowd of 35,880 in an ovation before Alonso’s first plate appearance. Alonso went 0-for-3 with a walk in Baltimore’s 2-1 win that night, a victory that officially eliminated the Mets from playoff contention. Tuesday’s homer, his 36th of the season, was his lone hit in five plate appearances, though it loomed large in an 11-inning, 7-5 win that sent the Mets to their 82nd loss, guaranteeing them their first sub-.500 season since 2023, before David Stearns took over as president of baseball operations.

In the wake of Alonso’s homer, the scene at Citi Field took a surreal turn, as chants of “Fire Stearns!” followed Alonso’s cameo, ringing out around the ballpark. The crowd — officially 28,097 but in actuality much more sparse, befitting a home team playing out the string — vented its anger and disappointment regarding Stearns’ offseason overhaul of the roster.

Pete Alonso grins as Mets fans chant “fire Stearns” after Alonso hit his 300th home run in his old ballpark pic.twitter.com/XbNLhDE7yn

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) September 16, 2026

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a time traveler who jumped forward from late May 2026 to today, you’d probably recognize most of what’s going on. Gas is expensive. People hate data centers. Super El Niño is coming, even if no one knows exactly what that means for the weather. But if you’re a time traveler from San Diego in particular, one thing will no doubt floor you: Fernando Tatis Jr. isn’t in the biggest slump of his career. He’s been the second-best position player in the majors since the calendar flipped to June, in fact. So let’s make a trade. You can give me the secrets of your time travel down in the comments. I, in turn, will try to use Tatis’ resurgence to explain variance. No pressure.

Tatis hit his first home run of the year May 30, in his 239th plate appearance of the season. Up to that point, he’d looked like a completely different hitter from his 2025 form. Here’s a big old smorgasbord of statistics that changed:

It’s almost too much to think about. He swung harder and hit the ball softer. He put it on the ground too much, but also didn’t pull it often enough. If you looked up what not to do in a baseball textbook, it’d probably say something like that. Now let’s add on the rest of the year:

Read the rest of this entry »

On August 24, I wrote about the Phillies, who’d just completed a nine-game winning streak in terrific style. After dropping the first two games of an extended West Coast road trip, they ripped off another six-game winning streak, with a run of seven games against the first-place Braves in a 10-day stretch to come.

Things haven’t gone so well since. Over the past two weeks, the Phillies are 4-8, with five of those losses coming by a single run. The bullpen is showing fatigue cracks; Jhoan Duran has lost twice while pitching in non-save situations, while on Friday, three different Phillies relievers blew saves in the span of three innings.

One of the bright spots of the Phillies’ last homestand came on Labor Day, when Jesús Luzardo threw a shutout in a 1-0 victory over Atlanta, thus obviating the need for a bullpen. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been almost four months since one of my periodic check-ins on Sandy Alcantara. And everything’s going well. In May, I declared the 2022 NL Cy Young winner “part of the way back,” after he’d lowered his ERA from 5.36 in 2025 to 3.53 in his first 10 starts of 2026.

Alcantara has started another 21 games since that post, and the results have been similar, if not quite as good. Since May 21, Alcantara is 10-8 with a 4.01 ERA, with xERA and FIP marks in the low 4.00s as well. Even in 2022, Alcantara was never a big per-inning strikeout guy; he was fourth in the league in punchouts mostly on the strength of how many innings he threw. That year’s NL strikeout leader, Corbin Burnes, struck out 36 more batters in 26 2/3 fewer innings.

But Alcantara used his height and changeup and three-fastball combination to get lots of groundballs and allow basically zero homers. Thus: The no. 11 strikeout rate in the NL (out of just 22 qualified starters) led to the no. 2 ERA. Read the rest of this entry »

Reacher needs our help. Reacher is in trouble, and only we baseball nerds can provide the assistance he needs. Wait, I should back up.

Reacher is the eponymous protagonist of the television show Reacher, based on Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels. He’s an enormous former military policeman and current drifter who wanders across America maiming, torturing, and murdering people – but, like, in a good way. It’s another in a long line of entertainments based on the simple premise that it’s perfectly fine to enjoy watching somebody commit horrific acts of violence so long as they visit that violence on people who deserve it. It’s also a baseball show. Reacher likes baseball. Most of the characters like baseball. They tie themselves in knots wedging baseball into conversations where it absolutely does not belong, and for that I not only salute them. I want to help.

Trouble always finds Reacher. He visits Georgia to pay his respects to a legendary blues singer and stumbles onto the world’s largest counterfeiting operation. He visits Philadelphia to watch an unnamed Phillies pitcher who touches 105 mph and winds up entangled in a plot to auction off chemical weapons to the highest bidder. He visits Maine for lobster and just happens to run into a man he once marched to the edge of a cliff, shot in the head, and left for dead. (Just to clarify once more: In this world, the guy who got shot in the head and fell off the cliff is the bad guy; the shooter is the good guy.)

Because trouble always seems to find him, Reacher takes precautions. He stays off the grid. He travels by bus. He checks into fleabag motels under false names. And because he’s a baseball fan, he always uses the names of Yankees second basemen. We’re going to help him do a better job of that, because, well, he sucks at it. Read the rest of this entry »

Direct links to applications (please see job details below):

Manager, International Baseball Strategy and Information
Analyst, International Baseball Strategy & Information

Manager, International Baseball Strategy and Information

Description
The Los Angeles Dodgers currently have a job opportunity for Manager, International Baseball Strategy and Information. Following you will find a brief description of the job and application process. For additional information, please contact TalentRelations@ladodgers.com.

Title: Manager, International Baseball Strategy and Information
Department: Baseball Strategy & Information
Status: Full-Time/Non-Union
Pay Rate: $120,000 – $135,000
FLSA: Exempt
Reports to: Director, Baseball Strategy and Information/Vice President, Player Personnel
Location: Los Angeles, California
Posting Date: September 15, 2026

Job Summary
The Baseball Strategy and Information team of the Los Angeles Dodgers is responsible for supporting Major League Coaches, Baseball Operations Leadership, and multiple other key stakeholders with data and information needed for strategic decision making.

As a Manager, you will take on a brand-new role focused on advancing the statistical rigor and tooling we bring to International Scouting. The ideal candidate will have some experience working with multi-source data, will help us evaluate what priorities should be and what to build next, and will work collaboratively across departments to create tools and reports.

Essential Duties/Responsibilities:

Data Foundation

• Take ownership of understanding what international scouting data we have — across every vendor, internal system, and tool — and determine what’s trustworthy, what’s missing, and what’s not being used
• Establish what “data quality” should mean for this function and build the validation processes to get us there, leveraging existing tools when appropriate.
• Identify and propose new data sources (vendors, scraping, or otherwise) where you see gaps worth closing

Analytical Tools

• Build tools that let scouts, coordinators, and analysts explore historical trends by combinations of country, league, position, age, and signing bonus
• Make this self-serve for non-technical stakeholders, not locked in a notebook only you can run
• Use your own judgment on where analytical effort is best spent, and bring recommendations rather than waiting to be assigned a specific question

Valuation & Projection

• Once the data foundation is solid, lead or significantly contribute to building broader valuation and projection models for international players. This includes but isn’t limited to advancing our understanding league translations, bonus pool allocation strategies, and leveraging biomechanical data into our evaluations and projections.

Day-to-Day

• Write code daily — SQL for data work, Python/R for analysis, some blend of manual coding and AI-assisted development
• Work closely with international scouts, analysts, and data engineering/IT
• Translate ambiguous baseball questions (“what’s the track record of X archetype”) into data pipelines and analysis
• Present findings to non-technical stakeholders (scouts, coordinators) in usable form

Basic Requirements/Qualifications:

Education

• B.A. or B.S. in mathematics, economics, statistics, computer science, data science, operations research, or a related quantitative-field.

Work Experience

• 3-5+ years of experience working with messy, multi-source data — sports/scouting data experience is a plus but not required if the underlying skill set transfers
• Strong track record of writing production-quality SQL and Python or R; real experience with data pipelines or ETL
• Experience distilling complex analyses into compelling, executive-level narratives and visualizations
• A demonstrated history of identifying problems and proposing solutions without being asked — this role rewards initiative, not just execution
• A solid understanding of baseball and international markets — you don’t need scouting/evaluation ability, but you should have some knowledge of signing dynamics and the leagues/markets involved
• A. or B.S. in mathematics, economics, statistics, computer science, data science, operations research, or a related quantitative-field.
• Able to communicate technical findings and recommendations to non-technical baseball people
• Ability to spend extended time in Los Angeles for onboarding, if not able to relocate
• Ability to work a varied schedule including evenings, weekends, and holidays.
• Nice to have: fluency in Spanish or Japanese; prior work with geographically distributed / multi-source data; experience with cloud data infra (AWS S3/RDS/Lambda) or BI/dashboard tools.

Current Los Angeles Dodgers employees should apply via the internal job board in UltiPro by following these prompts:

MENU > MYSELF > MY COMPANY > VIEW OPPORTUNITIES > select the position > CONSENT > APPLY NOW

LOS ANGELES DODGERS LLC is an equal opportunity employer.

LOS ANGELES DODGERS LLC is firmly committed to providing equal opportunity for all qualified applicants from every race, creed, and background. LOS ANGELES DODGERS LLC is also firmly committed to complying with all applicable laws and governmental regulations at the state and local levels which prohibit discrimination.

LOS ANGELES DODGERS LLC considers all applicants without regard to national origin, race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, disability, military status, citizenship status, pregnancy or related medical conditions, marital status, ancestry-ethnicity, or any other characteristic protected by applicable state or federal civil rights law. The Immigration Reform and Control Act requires that LOS ANGELES DODGERS LLC obtain documentation from every individual who is employed, which verifies their identity and authorizes their right to work in the United States.

LOS ANGELES DODGERS LLC is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, LOS ANGELES DODGERS LLC will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations for the hiring process. If reasonable accommodation is needed, please contact TalentRelations@ladodgers.com.

To Apply
To apply, please follow this link.

Analyst, International Baseball Strategy & Information

Description
The Los Angeles Dodgers currently have a job opportunity for Analyst, International Baseball Strategy & Information. Following you will find a brief description of the job and application process. For additional information, please contact TalentRelations@ladodgers.com.

Title: Analyst, International Baseball Strategy & Information
Department: Baseball Strategy & Information
Status: Full-Time/Non-Union
Pay Rate: $80,000 – $95,000
FLSA: Non-Exempt
Reports to: Director, Baseball Strategy and Information
Location: Los Angeles, California
Posting Date: September 15, 2026

Job Summary
The Baseball Strategy and Information team of the Los Angeles Dodgers is responsible for supporting Major League Coaches, Baseball Operations Leadership, and multiple other key stakeholders with data and information needed for strategic decision making.

As an Analyst, you will take on a brand-new role focused on advancing the statistical rigor we bring to international scouting. This is an early-career role for someone who can help us audit, consolidate, and validate data, and can help build real infrastructure, not just run existing reports. The best candidates will be able to bring expertise that allows them to contribute across Baseball Operations.

Essential Duties/Responsibilities:

Phase 1: Data Audit & Quality

• Inventory every international scouting data source we currently purchase or have access to verify what’s being ingested, where it lives, whether it’s accurate, and how it’s being used
• Build data quality and validation checks so we have confidence in what we’re looking at, and leverage existing internal tools for this.
• Identify gaps — data we don’t have but should, including evaluating new vendors or scraping/collecting publicly available sources

Phase 2: Exploratory Tools

• Build tools that let scouts, coordinators, and analysts explore historical trends by combinations of country, league, position, age, and signing bonus
• Make this data self-serve for non-technical stakeholders, not locked in a notebook only you can run

Phase 3: Valuation & Projection

• Once the underlying data is trustworthy and well-understood, contribute to building broader valuation and projection models for international players. This includes but isn’t limited to advancing our understanding league translations, bonus pool allocation strategies, and leveraging biomechanical data into our evaluations and projections.

Day-to-Day

• Write code daily — SQL for data work, Python/R for analysis, some blend of manual coding and AI-assisted development
• Work closely with international scouts, analysts, and data engineering/IT
• Translate ambiguous baseball questions (“what’s the track record of X archetype”) into data pipelines and analysis
• Present findings to non-technical stakeholders (scouts, coordinators) in usable form

Supervisory Responsibilities

• This role will have no supervisory responsibilities

Basic Requirements/Qualifications:

Education

• B.A. or B.S. in mathematics, economics, statistics, computer science, data science, operations research, or a related quantitative-field.

Work Experience

• 0-3 years of experience with strong quantitative/statistics/data science training

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Comfortable writing production-quality SQL and Python or R; experience with data pipelines, ETL, or dbt-style workflows a strong plus
• Genuine interest in baseball and international markets — you don’t need scouting/evaluation ability, but you should understand signing dynamics, international free agency rules, and the leagues/markets involved
• Comfortable with ambiguity — this role starts with “we don’t fully know what we have,” not a clean spec
• Able to communicate technical findings and recommendations to non-technical baseball people
• Ability to relocate to Los Angeles and commute to Dodger Stadium
• Ability to work a varied schedule including evenings, weekends, and holidays.
• Nice to have: fluency in Spanish or Japanese; prior work with geographically distributed / multi-source data; experience with cloud data infra (AWS S3/RDS/Lambda) or BI/dashboard tools.

Current Los Angeles Dodgers employees should apply via the internal job board in UltiPro by following these prompts:

MENU > MYSELF > MY COMPANY > VIEW OPPORTUNITIES > select the position > CONSENT > APPLY NOW

LOS ANGELES DODGERS LLC is an equal opportunity employer.

LOS ANGELES DODGERS LLC is firmly committed to providing equal opportunity for all qualified applicants from every race, creed, and background. LOS ANGELES DODGERS LLC is also firmly committed to complying with all applicable laws and governmental regulations at the state and local levels which prohibit discrimination.

LOS ANGELES DODGERS LLC considers all applicants without regard to national origin, race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, disability, military status, citizenship status, pregnancy or related medical conditions, marital status, ancestry-ethnicity, or any other characteristic protected by applicable state or federal civil rights law. The Immigration Reform and Control Act requires that LOS ANGELES DODGERS LLC obtain documentation from every individual who is employed, which verifies their identity and authorizes their right to work in the United States.

LOS ANGELES DODGERS LLC is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, LOS ANGELES DODGERS LLC will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations for the hiring process. If reasonable accommodation is needed, please contact TalentRelations@ladodgers.com.

To Apply
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

ZiPS has been generally one of the most positive projection systems in recent years regarding the Cleveland Guardians, but it has not been quite as excited about them when it comes to the postseason. The reason? Throughout the 2020s, their rotation has typically been thoroughly competent, but not very top-heavy, and the sprint of the playoffs is a different beast than the marathon of the regular season.

This season, Cleveland is hovering around the .500 mark, but that’s no fault of the starting pitching, where there’s an argument that it has now developed two aces, an ingredient that’s an important part of a recipe for making a deep postseason run. One is Parker Messick, who previously dominated in the upper minors and seemingly didn’t need an adjustment period when he debuted with the Guardians last August. He’s emerged as one of the top pitchers in the AL, and he’ll almost definitely get downballot Cy Young votes this season. Gavin Williams, on the other hand took a bit longer to really arrive in the majors, but I think he’s unambiguously there now. Read the rest of this entry »

The Washington Nationals haven’t pitched well this season. Employing 41 different hurlers — the most in the majors — the NL East club ranks fourth from the bottom in both ERA and FIP, and has the fifth-worst strikeout rate. With a handful of exceptions, the often-patchwork staff has been mediocre at best.

The future is nonetheless promising. Under the leadership of Paul Toboni, who was named president of baseball operations 11 months ago, the Nats have cast aside their old-school ways and adapted an analytically driven approach to securing outs. Bringing on board Simon Mathews as pitching coach and Grayson Crawford as director of pitching were especially meaningful steps in the organization’s much-needed retooling.

Retaining Sean Doolittle was likewise a shrewd move. Now the assistant pitching coach after serving as pitching strategist in 2024 and 2025, the 39-year-old former closer is simpatico with Toboni, Mathews, and Crawford when it comes to modern-day methods. Data savvy while also bringing a been-there-done-that understanding of what translates to success on a big league mound, Doolittle is an important part of what the Nationals are working to build.

Doolittle sat down to talk pitching when the Nats visited Fenway Park earlier this summer.

———

David Laurila: The organization overhauled its pitching infrastructure this year. What are some of things you, and the staff as a whole, have been focusing on?

Sean Doolittle: “One thing that we’ve paid a lot of attention to this year is getting guys to use both of their fastball shapes, even to off-handed hitters. For our group, that’s been new. We don’t have a ton of velocity, so we have to be really conscious of our combos and our sequencing. I think it’s helped a few guys in our group quite a bit this season. Guys like Brad Lord have thrown a lot more sinkers this year to lefty batters. It’s still not a high-percentage-usage pitch for him, but overall it’s been a big part of our education process with helping our pitchers and our catchers read swings and sequence. Game calling and stuff like that.”

Laurila: I believe Andrew Alvarez is throwing more two-seamers this year? Read the rest of this entry »