This young season has already introduced us to a few unique offerings. Brent Honeywell Jr. throws a true screwball. Kodai Senga throws a ghost fork. But one fascinating pitch has flown somewhat under the radar: Ian Hamilton’s slambio.

Maybe it’s because of the right-hander’s lack of a pedigree, or his status as a non-roster invitee during spring training. After all, Hamilton is a 27-year-old reliever who struggled through injuries and ineffectiveness over the past four years. At the same time, he looked like a find as recently as 2018, when he pitched to a 1.74 ERA and 2.44 FIP across 51.2 innings between Double- and Triple-A; he even averaged 96.7 mph on his heater in a brief eight-inning callup. The next season, he seemed poised to play an integral part in the White Sox bullpen, but he was struck by a foul ball while rehabbing separate shoulder and head issues stemming from a car accident. His poor luck nearly brought his career to an end, but he finally began to feel back to normal this offseason.

If you didn’t know about Hamilton before, I’ll be the first to tell you that he has been a joy to watch this season, not only because of his unique offering but also his comeback story, parlaying his rediscovered health into a spot in the Yankees’ pen, where he’s found early-season success with a resurgent fastball (averaging 95.4) and the slambio. The latter pitch has been nothing short of excellent thus far: a ludicrous 29.9% swinging-strike rate and worth 3.8 runs, which rank third and tied for fourth, respectively, among the 85 sliders thrown at least 50 times this year (as of Saturday night). The pitch’s unusually high rate of called strikes, 15.6%, given its whiffiness, also places it second among the 85 sliders in CSW%. Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday, the Giants announced a five-year, $90 million contract extension with star right-hander Logan Webb. The 26-year-old Webb came to national attention during the 2021 NLCS, in which he allowed a single run across two starts against the Dodgers, striking out 17 and walking one over 14 2/3 innings. Across 2021 and 2022, Webb was 12th in baseball in pitcher WAR, one spot behind Gerrit Cole, and 20th in ERA among pitchers with at least 200 innings pitched, one spot ahead of Shane Bieber.

Webb was due to reach free agency after the 2025 season. This contract will buy out his two remaining arbitration years for a total of $20 million, then pay him $23 million, $23 million, and $24 million from 2026 to 2028. It’s a deal indicative of Webb’s special status in the Giants’ organization, and it could nonetheless be an enormous bargain for the team. Read the rest of this entry »

Billy Wagner was the club’s closer when Craig Kimbrel joined the Atlanta Braves in 2010. Thirty-nine years old by season’s end, Wagner logged the last 37 of his 422 career saves, and he was as dominant as ever while doing so. Over 69-and-a-third innings, the left-hander fanned 104 batters while allowing just 38 hits.

Kimbrel, who was just 21 years old when he debuted that May, was every bit as overpowering. In 21 appearances comprising 20-and-two-thirds innings, the rookie right-hander fanned 40 batters while allowing just nine hits. Along the way, he recorded the first of what is now 395 saves.

I’ve had a Hall of Fame vote for three years, and in each of them I’ve put a checkmark next to Wagner’s name. This coming winter, I plan to do so again in what will be his penultimate year on the ballot (assuming he doesn’t get voted in; Wagner received 68% of support in his last go-round).

Kimbrel will soon celebrate his 35th birthday, and while the end of his career is fast approaching, he’s still pitching. Will he likewise be getting my vote once his name appears on the ballot? And what about Kenley Jansen? Still going strong at age 35, he’s also got 395 saves, tying him with Kimbrel for seventh on the all-time list, directly behind Wagner.

Let’s compare some of their numbers:

Wagner: 422 saves, WPA 28.40, 187 ERA+, 2.73 FIP, 6.0 H/9, 11.9 K/9.
Kimbrel: 395 saves, WPA 22.99, 174 ERA+, 2.38 FIP, 5.2 H/9, 14.3 K/9.
Jansen: 395 saves, WPA 24.72, 161 ERA+, 2.44 FIP, 5.8 H/9. 13.0 K/9. Read the rest of this entry »

Orlando Arcia getting the nod for the starting shortstop job in Atlanta raised some eyebrows this spring. After all, he had looked more like a utility infielder in recent years than a viable starting shortstop, and it felt a bit like that ship had long since sailed. The present and future was Vaughn Grissom, our top Braves prospect last year after the graduations of Spencer Strider and Michael Harris II. Grissom didn’t exactly struggle in his debut last fall, whomping pitchers to the tune of a .293/.353/.440 line, a triple-slash that would be viable for a first baseman, let alone a guy who can handle short. Yet it was Arcia who ended up with the job in the spring. It didn’t even seem like the typical service time shenanigans, such as the Cubs swearing that Kris Bryant needed a couple weeks to learn to be a better player than Mike Olt; Grissom already had nearly a third of a year of service time, which would have made it a bit arduous to maintain that façade.

Arcia didn’t disappoint in early play: In 13 games, he hit .330/.400/.511 and looked fairly comfortable playing short regularly for the first time in a few years. Unfortunately, a Hunter Greene fastball had other plans for the position; his upper-90s heat hit Arcia’s wrist during an at-bat, knocking him out of Wednesday’s game against Cincinnati, replaced by Ehire Adrianza. Initial x-rays didn’t reveal a fracture, but an MRI and CT scan on Thursday showed a microfracture, sending him to the injured list. This appears to be a minor injury, and it appears as if Arcia will only miss a couple weeks of play. Cookies don’t crumble in identical ways, but Nick Castellanos suffered this injury in 2021 and only missed a couple of weeks.

If there were service time issues involved, the Braves could have very easily plugged in Adrianza or Braden Shewmake for a couple of weeks and continued to let Grissom work on his defense in the minors (he was so-so at best in the majors last year with the glove). But finding time at short for Grissom, who by all reports took his demotion with humility, was still the upside play. Just as Arcia didn’t disappoint early on, he performed very well for Triple-A Gwinnett, with a 1.044 OPS in 10 games. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Braves won the World Series in 2021, Ronald Acuña Jr. was a bystander, as a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee knocked him out for the second half of the season and the entire postseason. He returned to action near the end of April last year, but while he was the Braves’ second-most valuable outfielder — which wasn’t saying much due to the slumps and calamities that befell the team’s other fly chasers — his performance was far short of the high standard he’d set since debuting in 2018. With a strong start to his 2023 season, Acuña is showing signs of recovering his pre-injury form, though his performance in a couple of areas does raise concerns.

After hitting a sizzling .283/.394/.596 (157 wRC+) in 82 games before tearing his ACL in 2021, Acuna dipped to .266/.351/.413 (114 wRC+) in 119 games last year. It wasn’t a bad performance; his wRC+ ranked among the top 30 of all outfielders, and his 2.1 WAR prorates to about 2.6 per 650 PA. On a team where all of the other outfielders besides rookie Michael Harris II — namely Travis Demeritte, Adam Duvall, Robbie Grossman, Guillermo Heredia, and Eddie Rosario — netted -1.1 WAR, Acuña’s contribution wasn’t an unwelcome one, helping the team win 101 games. Yet his season was well shy of the elite level that he set for himself pre-injury, with a 140 career wRC+ and 6.0 WAR per 650 PA. After all, this is a player whom Dan Szymborski had once projected as the most likely to supplant Mike Trout as the game’s best in terms of WAR.

Acuña missed his chance for that, but he’s still just 25 years old, and through the first two weeks of the season, he’s hitting .370/.452/.537 through 62 plate appearances. Already he has three three-hit games and four two-hit games under his belt, and he’s helped the Braves jump out to a 9-4 record even while dealing with numerous injuries to their rotation and lineup. Read the rest of this entry »

After I wrote about Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran last month, consider this the next installment of my highly unrelated, only-for-the-joke “Duran Duran” series; today we take an entirely separate look at 25-year-old Twins closer and velocity king Jhoan Duran. This Duran was one of baseball’s best relievers as a rookie in 2022; this year, he returned to the Twins’ bullpen with a lot less to prove after his impressive rookie campaign. Nevertheless, he has made some significant tweaks to his already devastating arsenal, and he’s bringing more heat in his sophomore season than ever before.

Duran arrived on the scene in Minnesota last year at a rather uncertain time in his prospect journey. After registering on our Top 100 prospect lists as a high-velocity starter in 2020 and 2021, a forearm strain (and a global pandemic) limited the right-hander to all of five appearances across the river with Triple-A St. Paul in the last two years. The uncertainty around his health obscured his future outlook and called his potential as a starter into question. But he did enough in just seven Spring Training innings last season to show he was healthy and earn one of the final spots in the Twins’ bullpen, then made the absolute most of his first big league opportunity. In 57 relief outings, he allowed just 14 runs and limited hitters to a .251 wOBA, .187 xBA, .269 xSLG, and .232 xWOBA, all of which were in the top 10% of the league. His 34.7% whiff percentage was in the 94th percentile, and his 33.5% strikeout rate was in the 96th. Thanks in part to the trust he quickly earned from Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, he finished second among big league relievers with a 4.56 WPA. Read the rest of this entry »

For half of Thursday’s game against Boston, it seemed like the good times had finally stopped rolling for the Tampa Bay Rays. The hitherto unhittable Jeffrey Springs left the game with ulnar neuritis—nerve irritation in his elbow, but it’s scarier when you say it like the name of the chancellor of a minor Star Trek world. Corey Kluber had held Tampa Bay’s vaunted offense to just one run through four innings.

Then the Rays burst out for seven runs as if out of nowhere. The highlight of the inning was probably Manuel Margot’s pinch-hit RBI bunt. Bunting for a hit with two outs and the bases loaded is the kind of thing you do when a mystical hooded figure grants you the power of telekinesis and you want to see if it’s real or you’re being pranked. That’s just how things are going for Tampa Bay right now.

But the biggest hit of the inning, according to WPA, was Brandon Lowe’s seeing-eye single three batters prior, which tied the game with two outs. If the Rays are actually going to continue on as the best team in baseball, Lowe is one of their most important players. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an evaluation of the prospects in the Minnesota Twins farm system who readers should consider “imminent big leaguers,” players who might reasonably be expected to play in the majors at some point this year. This includes all prospects on the 40-man roster as well as those who have already established themselves in the upper levels of the minors but aren’t yet rostered. I tend to be more inclusive with pitchers and players at premium positions since their timelines are usually the ones accelerated by injuries and scarcity. Any Top 100 prospects, regardless of their ETA, are also included on this list. Reports, tool grades, and scouting information for all of the prospects below can also be found on The Board.

This is not a top-to-bottom evaluation of the Twins farm system. I like to include what’s happening in minor league and extended spring training in my reports as much as possible, since scouting high concentrations of players in Arizona and Florida allows me to incorporate real-time, first-person information into the org lists. However, this approach has led to some situations where outdated analysis (or no analysis at all) was all that existed for players who had already debuted in the majors. Skimming the imminent big leaguers off the top of a farm system will allow this time-sensitive information to make its way onto the site more quickly, better preparing readers for the upcoming season, helping fantasy players as they draft, and building site literature on relevant prospects to facilitate transaction analysis in the event that trades or injuries foist these players into major league roles. There will still be a Twins prospect list that includes Emmanuel Rodriguez, Marco Raya and all of the other prospects in the system who appear to be at least another season away. As such, today’s list includes no ordinal rankings. Readers are instead encouraged to focus on the players’ Future Value (FV) grades. Read the rest of this entry »

In case you were worried that Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge somehow forgot how to be excellent at baseball since the end of last season, fear not. The 2021 and ’22 American League Most Valuable Players are off to strong starts this season, highlighted by a shared distinction: both have gotten on base in every game thus far, extending lengthy streaks that have carried over from last season.

Admittedly, on-base streaks aren’t as sexy as hitting streaks. Nobody rhapsodizes about them or scrutinizes their mathematical unlikelihood the way they do Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak from 1941. Comparatively few people — professionals as well as fans — could tell you who holds the record for consecutive games getting on base. The answer is Ted Williams in 84 straight games from July 1 through September 27 in 1949, which makes perfect sense given that the Splendid Splinter is the career on-base percentage leader (.482). DiMaggio is a distant second at 74 games, with his more famous streak occupying games 2–57 of the longer one. Williams also owns the third-longest streak at 72 games bridging 1941 (the year he hit .406) and ’42, but as for the fourth-longest one — and the longest of the post-1960 expansion era — it belongs to Orlando Cabrera, he of the career .317 OBP and 83 wRC+. Cabrera reached base in 63 straight games from April 25 through July 6 in 2006. Go figure. Read the rest of this entry »

If there’s one thing I remember the Cubs of recent vintage for, it’s winning the curse-breaking World Series in 2016. What, you were expecting something else? But if there are *two* things I remember the Cubs of recent vintage for, the second one is failing to sign their marquee players to contract extensions. Kris Bryant, Javier Báez, Willson Contreras, Anthony Rizzo: all four felt like candidates for a contract extension that made them a lifetime Cub, with a jersey retirement ceremony and fawning coverage from national media for their sparkling career.

Each of those four plays for another team now. The Cubs never turned that dynamic core into a second championship, or even a second World Series appearance. For a team that had dynastic aspirations, it’s a strange look. To the Cubs’ credit, it’s also a look they seem intent on changing. After signing Nico Hoerner to a three-year extension, they took care of another core player, agreeing to a three-year extension with Ian Happ worth $61 million, as Bleacher Nation’s Michael Cerami first reported.

Happ represents a bridge between the 2016 squad that has now mostly departed and the modern-day Cubs team. He debuted in 2017, and while he spent most of ’19 in the minors, he’s otherwise been a fixture in the Chicago lineup ever since. He’s also been a fixture in the field, though not always in the same place. In 2022, however, he settled into an everyday left field role and put up his best season as a professional.

A quick look at Happ’s statline might leave you wanting. He doesn’t hit a ton of home runs or get on base at an unbelievable clip. He doesn’t have a shockingly low strikeout rate for modern baseball. He simply does everything well, with no real holes in his game other than a slightly elevated strikeout rate, and that adds up to solid overall performance even without anything that will blow you away. Here, take a look at it in percentile form, as compared to all qualified hitters:

The funny thing about those numbers is that Happ’s game doesn’t feel middle-of-the-road at all. He’s capable of enormous top-end power but until 2022 had paired that intermittent thump with plenty of empty swings. His career swinging-strike rate is roughly 14%; he shaved that to 11.8%, and the hits flowed like wine. That’s how you can post your lowest career ISO and beat your career batting line anyway. Read the rest of this entry »