The Cubs are in playoff contention at the end of August, and Kyle Hendricks is getting hitters out with a tasting menu of exquisitely located mid-80s funk. (Grabs nearest passerby) “The date! I need you to tell me the date!…God Almighty, my time machine works!”

For most of the late 2010s, Hendricks was not quite an ace but was a bankable no. 2 or no. 3 starter. Even in his relative youth, he never threw hard; the fastest pitch of Hendricks’ entire career was 93.1 mph, and he hasn’t even hit 91 since 2016. People who apparently never watched Greg Maddux loved to stamp a “next Greg Maddux” label on any bookish right-hander with great command, and of those, Hendricks probably came the closest to living up to the comparison. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey there. Are you a major league general manager or president of baseball operations? Do you work in a front office role for a playoff-contending team? Do you wish you had another starter, a good closer, or maybe an outfielder? Well, I’ve got great news for you, my friend. Operators are waiting now for your call: the Los Angeles Angels just yelled “Everything must go!” and threw their roster on the waiver wire like a miffed fantasy owner.

More specifically, the Angels placed Lucas Giolito, Matt Moore, Reynaldo López, Dominic Leone, Hunter Renfroe, and Randal Grichuk on waivers. For the next 47 hours, any team in baseball can place a claim on any or all of their services. It’s an unprecedented maneuver that could inject talent into playoff races across the league, and in an unpredictable fashion. If you’re on the fringes, you’ll get the first bite at the apple, but there are so many players here that even some teams currently in playoff position might end up with someone. If you’re looking for more specifics on the waiver process, Jon Becker wrote a nice explainer here.

Let’s talk about the way this works for the Angels first. Coming into yesterday, we projected them for a competitive balance tax payroll of $234,398,925. The first CBT threshold for this year is $233 million. That means they need to save around $1.5 million to duck under that threshold. The players put on waivers are owed around $6.44 million over the remainder of the year, and a similar amount even when CBT tax calculations are applied. The total tax savings will be slightly less than that, because the Rockies are paying a portion of Grichuk’s salary, but assuming most of these players find takers, the Angels will end up below that threshold. Read the rest of this entry »

By now, you’ve probably seen that the Angels put what we in the business call “Darn Near a Whole Roster Of Players” on waivers. Per ESPN’s Jeff Passan, Lucas Giolito, Matt Moore, Reynaldo López, Hunter Renfroe and Randal Grichuk are all free for the salary relief taking; USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reports that Dominic Leone is on waivers as well. Meanwhile, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that Harrison Bader, Carlos Carrasco, Mike Clevinger and José Cisnero have also been placed on waivers by their respective clubs. What does this mean for those players? What about the teams waiving or claiming them? What about you, the reader? Let’s dive in to some of the common questions I’ve seen since the news broke.

Q: What does “being placed on waivers” even mean anyway?

In the context of post-trade deadline transactions, being placed on waivers is similar to the waiver action that occurs when a player is designated for assignment. However, since the trade deadline has passed, the option to trade a player who has been placed on waivers is gone. The only option for a claiming team is to claim the player straight-up, paying all of his remaining salary for the rest of the season. Read the rest of this entry »

While Bryce Harper made the quickest return from Tommy John surgery of any position player on record, it came with a cost. Not surprisingly, he didn’t hit the ball as hard as usual in the early months of his return, or do as much damage because he wasn’t elevating it with consistency. At one point, he went 166 plate appearances without a home run, the longest drought of his career, but even then, he remained a reasonably productive hitter. Lately he’s been heating up, crushing the ball while helping the Phillies climb to the top of the NL Wild Card race.

In the fourth inning of Monday night’s game against the Angels in Philadelphia, Harper demolished a Lucas Giolito fastball that was playing in the middle of the road:

The homer — a 111.9-mph scorcher with a projected distance of 429 feet — was Harper’s fourth in a seven-game rampage, during which he’s hit .500/.613/1.037. It was his eighth homer of the month, his highest total since he hit nine in September/October 2021 (and 10 in August of the same season) en route to his second MVP award. He maxed out at seven homers in May of last season, the month he was diagnosed with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. Read the rest of this entry »

Gavin Stone was credited with his first big league win on Sunday. Working in a bulk role behind opener Caleb Ferguson, the 24-year-old rookie right-hander went six solid innings as the Los Angeles Dodgers topped the Boston Red Sox 7-4 at Fenway Park. His changeup played a predictably prominent role. Stone threw the pitch that our lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen has assigned a 60/70 FV (current/projected) on the 20-80 scouting scale a total of 22 times, with a vertical break averaging 30 inches and diving as low 39 inches. Velocity-wise, it ranged from 82.6 mph to 87.7 mph.

Stone was making his fifth major league appearance (and his first since July 4) when he took the mound in Boston. His earlier outings had been on the rocky side — his ERA and FIP are now 10.50 and 6.72 respectively — but there is no denying his potential. The 2020 fifth-round pick out of the University of Central Arkansas is currently no. 40 on The Board with a 50 FV.

Stone told the story behind his signature pitch the day before facing the Red Sox. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a month of upheaval in the AL West. As Jay Jaffe detailed, the Mariners are playing their best baseball of the season right now. A 9-1 stretch has carried them to the top of the division, turning what had been a two-team race all year into a three-way showdown. It’s the most competitive division race remaining, so a lot of people searching for a jolt of excitement down the stretch will be looking west.

Of course, Seattle’s climb to the top of the division didn’t happen in a vacuum. For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction, and at the moment, that reaction is happening in Texas. The Astros spent the last week treading water, which allowed the Mariners to roar past them. The Rangers did them one worse; they’ve fallen into a 3-9 tailspin that turned a season-long lead in the division into a deficit.

It’s always tempting to turn a 3-9 stretch – or a 4-8 stretch, or really any stretch that takes a team out of first place – into a referendum on the squad. The Rangers should have seen this coming, the thinking goes. This team? With these weaknesses? It was always going to happen. But let’s withhold judgment for a few minutes and break it down like this: What’s going on in Arlington, and what has to change to turn the team’s fortunes around? Read the rest of this entry »

Félix Bautista has been as emblematic of and as crucial to the Orioles’ sudden breakthrough as any player. In his second major league season, the imposing 28-year-old closer — nicknamed “The Mountain” for his 6-foot-8, 285-pound physique — has emerged as one of the game’s most dominant and valuable relievers, the biggest cog in a bullpen that’s helped to prop up a wobbly rotation. Unfortunately, Bautista’s season is at the very least on hold after he left Friday night’s game with what the Orioles have called “some degree of injury” to his ulnar collateral ligament.

Facing the Rockies at Camden Yards, Bautista entered a 5-4 game in the ninth inning in search of his 34th save and his second in as many nights. He battled Jurickson Profar for six pitches before striking him out on a 101.7-mph fastball, then induced Harold Castro to ground out on a 1-0 pitch. He was one strike away from finishing off Michael Toglia when he stumbled off the mound while uncorking a 102.3-mph fastball that missed up and outside. After he called for time to recover, the sight of him flexing and squeezing his right hand prompted manager Brandon Hyde, head athletic trainer Brian Ebel, and coach José Hernández to check on him and ultimately pull him from the game.

While Danny Coulombe struck out Toglia on his first and only pitch of the night to finish the game, the sequence understandably put a damper on the Orioles’ comeback win. On Saturday, general manager Mike Elias announced that Bautista had injured his UCL and would be placed on the 15-day injured list. It’s unclear yet whether the injury — likely a sprain of the ligament, meaning some kind of tear — is severe enough to require Tommy John surgery. Read the rest of this entry »

Throughout the 2019 postseason, the Washington Nationals made a habit of using their entire margin of error. They needed a three-run, last-ditch rally to get out of the Wild Card game, then another 11th-hour comeback to get past the Dodgers in Game 5 of the NLDS. Dave Martinez tried to shorten his pitching staff as much as possible, a desperation move that’s backfired on manager after manager as long as there have been playoffs.

By the time Game 6 of the World Series rolled around, the Nationals were facing elimination once again. They’d lost three straight to the 107-win Astros and needed to beat Justin Verlander on the road to stay alive. Patrick Corbin had been run ragged. Max Scherzer’s body had locked up to the point where he couldn’t dress himself. Martinez had already gambled with the likes of Tanner Rainey and Wander Suero more than anyone was comfortable with.

Then Stephen Strasburg stepped up and did something you don’t see pitchers do much anymore. He handled it.

After a rocky first inning, Strasburg kept the irrepressible Astros offense off the board into the ninth. The Nats once again scored bunches of runs late, and the next evening they were hoisting the proverbial piece of metal. Read the rest of this entry »

John Michael Bertrand is an under-the-radar pitching prospect with multi-sport bloodlines and a good backstory. Moreover, he’s performing above expectations in his first full professional season. Drafted in the 10th round last year by the San Francisco Giants out of the University of Notre Dame, the 25-year-old left-hander is 10-5 with a 3.17 ERA in 99-and-a-third innings across three levels. Bertrand began the campaign at Low-A San Jose and has since progressed to High-A Eugene and Double-A Richmond.

Growing up in Alpharetta, Georgia, the 6-foot-3, 225-pound hurler aspired to play college basketball, but it eventually became apparent that baseball would provide him with the better long-term opportunity. The decision proved prudent, but only after a bumpy beginning. Bertrand’s Blessed Trinity School prep days were followed by a pair of disappointments that might easily have ended his career before it even started.

“I went to the University of Dayton for a camp, and they told me that I didn’t throw hard enough,” Bertrand explained. “I was around 82 [mph] and had a loopy curveball, so it was basically, ‘Thank you for your time.’ After that, my guidance counselor suggested Furman [University]. It was closer to home, and purple happened to be my favorite color, so I was like, ‘Perfect, I’ll go.’ I walked on to their baseball team, but ended up getting cut my first fall. The coaches told me that I wasn’t good enough to play Division One baseball.”

Undeterred, and more determined than ever, Bertrand decided that not only would he return the following year and make the team, he intended to go on to play professionally. As he put it, ‘God kind of called me to go back to that campus and work even harder.’ That started that train, started my journey.” Read the rest of this entry »

You’re going to hear a lot about the Braves over the next couple months. They’re the best team in baseball, and that’s how it goes. Some of you are Braves fans, so getting to see more of your favorite team in October will just be one more drop of good news in a season filled up to the brim with happy headlines. But for those of you who are indifferent or ambivalent toward the Braves, for those of you who loathe them in your very core, I have a little treat. That’s all this article is: a treat to bring a bit more fun to the wall-to-wall coverage awaiting us all.

On Tuesday night, Daniel Vogelbach homered to straightaway center field and Michael Harris II attempted to rob it. Harris tried very hard, and I went back and watched the replay to see exactly how close he came to making the play. However, after watching a few times, my attention shifted. I kept rewinding because I noticed that something was sticking out of Harris’ glove and flapping like the tongue of a golden retriever:

That’s the little positioning card that tells Harris where to stand for each batter. Those cheat sheets are a small part of the revolution in outfield positioning that has hammered BABIP league-wide over the last several years. Your local sports outlet probably wrote about the phenomenon when these cards started appearing back in 2018, but at this point they’re old hat (especially for the Yankees, who literally kept the cards in their hats). Read the rest of this entry »