Every major league player has great individual performances on his résumé, and that’s especially true when you include their time in the minors and amateur ball. From youth leagues on up, they’ve had games where they’ve stood out among their peers with epic displays at the plate and/or the mound. When you’re good enough to have advanced to the highest level of your profession, such showings come with the territory.

With this in mind, my colleague Michael Baumann and I recently asked a dozen players a straightforward question: “What has been the best game of your life?”

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Sal Frelick, Milwaukee Brewers outfielder: “I think I was part of one of the greatest college comebacks in NCAA history. We were down to Auburn 9-1 in the ninth inning, with two outs, and ended up coming back to win. I led off the ninth inning with a single, came around to score, then came back up as the tying run and hit a homer. We went into extras and won the game. This was in 2021 [with Boston College], my draft year. It was an absurd rally.

“I hit for the cycle one time in the Futures League. This was with my summer ball team, the North Shore Navigators. It was after my senior year of high school, before my freshman year at Boston College, and the game was in Worcester. I went strikeout, walk, double, triple, homer, single. A strikeout and a walk, then the cycle. That was crazy.”

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Riley Greene, Detroit Tigers outfielder: “I hit for the cycle at Hagerty High School [Oviedo, Florida]. I’m almost positive that it was the first cycle in school history. I could be wrong, but yeah, it was that game. I started off with a leadoff homer — I was hitting leadoff — and then I went single, double, triple. We were playing Edgewater High School and it was a pretty big game. We had a beef with that team, so it was pretty cool to do it against them in front of all my boys, who I’m still best friends with to this day.

“What probably stands out the most from here is my first homer, the walk-off homer [against the Royals in 2022] to win the game. That’s pretty special.”

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Kyle Finnegan, Washington Nationals pitcher: “I threw an immaculate inning in 2021, in the big leagues. I’d have to say that was my best inning. I struck out Austin Riley, Dansby Swanson, and William Contreras.

“The best game I’ve ever pitched in my life was in college [at Texas State University in 2012]. I was a starting pitcher. We were playing Notre Dame, who was really good at the time. And, here’s a fun fact about that weekend: In the three-game series we didn’t allow an opponent to reach third base. We were in the middle of one of the longest consecutive scoreless streak in modern NCAA history; we threw something like 50 scoreless innings. I pitched the Saturday game in that series and went seven innings with 12 strikeouts. I struck out the first seven guys that game.”

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Josh Lowe, Tampa Bay Rays infielder: “I had a three-homer game my senior year in high school. That would probably be the best game I can remember. It was early in the year and it was freezing cold. The temp was in the upper 20s and it was super windy. I grew up outside of Atlanta and while it doesn’t get that cold often, it does get cold.

“One game in Triple-A, I think I had five or six plate appearances and hit all five or six balls over 105 [mph]. I’d say that was a pretty good game. It was against Jacksonville. I don’t remember anything specific about it outside of having five or six at-bats and hitting the ball hard five or six times.”

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Christian Yelich, Milwaukee Brewers outfielder: “You’re a FanGraphs guy, so what’s better, a three-home run game — probably that one? — or 6-for-6 and hitting for the cycle? I don’t know if I’ll be able to beat [the latter]. Three home runs is pretty cool, but going 6-for-6 and hitting for the cycle is pretty cool, too.

“[Amateur ball], I can’t really remember. I’ve spent 12 years in the big leagues, so high school was a long time ago. I’m sure there were some decent ones back in the day, but everything that happens here is obviously more special for me.”

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Matt Vierling, Detroit Tigers infielder/outfielder: “The game the other day was pretty good [4-for-6 with two home runs, including a walk-off three-run homer, against the Toronto Blue Jays]. There have been a couple of them, but the best game of my life was probably in high school. We were in the state semifinals when I was a sophomore and I threw six innings [and allowed] no runs, and also hit two home runs. It was the most fans we’d had at a game — about 2,000, which was a ton for us in Missouri — and it got us to the state championship game.

“Another good one was when I was with the Phillies. I went 5-for-5 against the Blue Jays. This was in 2022, the year we went to the World Series, and we needed a couple of wins to keep things going. Along with the 5-for-5 — everything seemed to find a hole — I ended up hitting a walk-off single. It was a great game.”

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Jonny DeLuca, Tampa Bay Rays outfielder: “My senior year of high school, in the first game of the year, I went 6-for-6 with a grand slam, another home run, a triple, and three singles. It was a home game, and while I know we won, I don’t remember what the score was. I don’t think I’ve had a game that comes close to that one.

“In pro ball, last year was pretty cool when I made those two catches against Texas. I made a diving catch and then kind of robbed a home run. It’s up for debate if it would have been a homer or not, but yeah, that game last year.”

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Jordan Weems, Washington Nationals pitcher: “I had a game with five punchies when I was with Double-A Portland. That one really stood out, because I had really good stuff that night. In the big leagues it would have to be the one in Seattle where I had the bases loaded, got out of it, then came back for another inning to shut them down and we got the win.

“As a kid… I mean in 9- or 10-year-old All-Stars there was a game where I went something like 5-for-6 with two home runs. That was in a championship game to go the regionals. That was a pretty cool experience. Not trying to brag, but there were a lot of cool games in Little League, high school, and all that. I remember a playoff game, right before the state championship, I went 3-for-4 with two home runs. This was in high school.

“Another time — I could go forever on these — we lost the first game [of a high school playoff series] to Matthew Crownover, a big lefty who went to Clemson but then had Tommy John and never really came back from it. He was throwing really hard and kind of shoved it up our butts, so we had to win the second game. We were down by a run going into the bottom of the seventh inning, and I led off with a double. Cody Walker, who went to Mississippi State as a catcher, had this great at-bat. He hit a ground ball up the middle and I scored to tie the game. I remember going crazy at home plate after sliding in safely. We ended winning to force a Game 3, then went on to win the state championship.”

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Grant Anderson, Texas Rangers pitcher:

“There were a couple of games in high school, but I’ve got to go with my [MLB] debut, which was in Detroit last year. I got called up and struck out seven out of nine guys. That’s pretty high up there in the best game I’ve ever played. Like, I didn’t really have any expectations. At the end of the day I just wanted to throw up some zeros, so the strikeouts were kind of like a cherry on top. To be honest, it was kind of an out-of-body experience to strike out that many guys. It was almost a blur. It was a pretty crazy experience.”

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Whit Merrifield, Philadelphia Phillies infielder: “The first thing that comes to mind is the College World Series [with the University of South Carolina, against UCLA, in 2010] — the walk-off World Series with the walk-off hit. I’ve had better individual games; I’ve had a couple five-hit games, multi-homer games, a six-RBI game, but I honestly can’t really remember the games [specifically]. I remember the World Series game like it was yesterday.

“[In the ninth inning] our leadoff guy walks. Evan Marzilli gets the bunt down — good bunt — the pitcher fields it and throws to first. Watching from my angle, I thought he had thrown it away, because he kind of short-hopped it. The guy made great play at first base to catch it.

“Trevor Bauer is warming up in the bullpen. I’m thinking that he’s going to come in to face me. I step up. The manager goes to the mound. I’m thinking he’s going to bring [Bauer] in, but he doesn’t. He walks back to the dugout and I’m thinking they’re going to walk me. Jackie Bradley, who’d had a great World Series, was behind me, and Christian Walker was behind him. Christian was a freshman, so I’m thinking they’re going to walk me and Jackie, and pitch to Christian with the bases loaded.

“I really don’t have any intention to hit. Catcher is standing up, then finally squats down. As soon as he squats down I get a rush of nerves and emotion. Balls one and two aren’t really close pitches. I’m thinking unintentional intentional walk; they’re going to try to get me to chase something. Guy takes awhile, shakes off some pitches. I end up calling time. Like I said, in my head I’m thinking they’re going to try to walk me. But I thought to myself, ‘You’ve got a chance to win the World Series here. If the ball is close, I’m swinging. I’m going to try to win the game.’ He threw a good pitch, a fastball down and away — not really a good 2-0 pitch for a hitter to go after — but I made a good swing and hit the ball to right. We won. I can’t believe it was 14 years ago.”

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Spencer Torkelson, Detroit Tigers first baseman: “Minor leagues, Double-A Erie, and it wasn’t one game; it was a doubleheader. In two seven-inning games, I went 7-for-7 with three home runs, a double, and [six] RBIs. I remember it felt like I was literally seeing a beachball for a whole day. It was amazing.

“I had a couple of two-homer games [as an amateur], but nothing crazy. I think my greatest [quality] growing up was just how consistent I was. It wasn’t like really high, really low, really high, really low; it was just being consistently good. I’m sure there were some really good days in travel ball, but I can’t really remember. There is no book on that.”

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Zack Littell, Tampa Bay Rays pitcher: “Off the top of my head, I don’t really know. Especially in pro ball, they all kind of run together. I don’t know that I have that kind of memory. I guess there was one in high school. I had a game in our conference championship where I had two home runs, a double, and a single. I went 4-for-4 and also threw seven innings. We won 3-1, or something like that. In terms of sheer everything, it would probably have to be that one.

“I’d had one home run all year, and then in our three-game conference tournament I had three, including two in the championship. And again, I pitched seven innings. I was Shohei Ohtani that day. That’s the way I like to think of it.”

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Thanks to Michael for procuring the quotes from Grant Anderson and Whit Merrifield.

Baseball is big business and no team is infinitely patient with players who are struggling. While teams won’t generally describe it in such blunt terms, at the beginning of the season, every player has some unknown, invisible amount of leeway when it comes to poor performance. Established role players and fringe starters who just squeezed their way onto the big league roster in March may find themselves in the Pacific Coast or International League come late April or early May as they feel the heat of a poor start. As summer approaches, the names facing demotion become bigger, especially when those players are younger guys who still have minor league options remaining. On Sunday night, two of those bigger names ran out of rope, at least for now: Spencer Torkelson and Edouard Julien are headed to Triple-A to play for smaller crowds in smaller towns.

Before we examine what this pair of demotions means, I thought I’d put some numbers to the broader phenomena. I looked at the preseason ZiPS projections for players optioned during the season over the last 10 years. In nine of the 10 seasons, June was the month in which the players with the most combined projected WAR were sent to the minors. That holds true on a rate basis as well, with 0.75 projected WAR per June demoted player the highest monthly average. Naturally, demoted players tend to be worse performers than those who keep their jobs. To use last year as an example, of the 1,091 demotions, only 19 involved players projected for at least 2 WAR. Just one such player, Brayan Bello, was optioned in April, but starting on May 10 with Jose Miranda, bigger demotions started populating the list, with Miranda, David Villar, Oswald Peraza, Brandon Pfaadt, Alek Manoah, Josh Rojas, and Luis Urías all hitting the minors from mid-May through the end of June. Only four two-win players were demoted in July, with Manoah’s second demotion on August 11 the final one. Read the rest of this entry »

Matt Vierling has been swinging a hot bat with the Detroit Tigers. Over his last 11 games, the 27-year-old third baseman/outfielder is 16-for-41 with four doubles, a triple, four home runs, and 13 RBIs. His slash line over the span is .390/.435/.829 bringing his seasonal mark to a solid .292/.324/.509. While by no means an offensive force, he has nonetheless been an integral part of the lineup. Since being acquired by Detroit from Philadelphia prior to last season as part of the five-player Gregory Soto swap. Vierling has the second-most hits (175) on the team, and a respectable 106 wRC+.

Defensive versatility adds to Vierling’s value — his big-league ledger includes games at 3B, 2B, CF, RF, and LF — and there is a chance that another non-DH position could eventually be added to the list. Given the right circumstances, he might even pitch. It would be familiar territory. Vierling thrived on the mound as a prep, then was a two-way player at the University of Notre Dame from 2016-2018.

A Perfect Game showcase in Minneapolis is a standout memory for the St. Louis, Missouri native. Vierling recalls Carson Kelly’s brother, Parker, being one of his teammates, while Ke’Bryan Hayes and Josh Naylor — “I pitched against him if I remember correctly” — were among his notable opponents. Playing well against that type of talent garnered him attention from colleges and professional scouts alike, and while his bat showed promise, it was the arm that stood out the most. Read the rest of this entry »

During most baseball games, there are eight people calling the action. Both the home and away teams have radio and television broadcasts, and most of those crews consist of a play-by-play announcer and a color commentator. If those teams have a Spanish language broadcast, the number is even higher. More often than you might think, something notable happens in the middle of a game and not one of those eight people notes it. Maybe a player will square around to bunt but end up taking the pitch, and that detail just goes unremarked upon by everyone. It’s a small detail, but it’s part of the story of the game. It tells you about the batting team’s strategy and their confidence in the hitter. It informs the defense’s pitch selection and positioning. Maybe the television crews figure you already saw it. Maybe the radio crews need to squeeze in a promo or the color guy’s in the middle of an anecdote about that one time he got to be an extra in Little Big League. There’s only so much time between pitches, and the announcers all have a decision to make on how best to fill it. Either way, if you’re listening on the radio, or if you’re looking away from your television for a moment, you’ll never know it happened at all.

Something happened on Wednesday, in the first game of a doubleheader between the Tigers and Pirates. I found it remarkable, but apparently I was alone. No one else mentioned it. The Pirates were starting Jared Jones and Paul Skenes that day, and I was watching Detroit’s television broadcast. I did so partly because Jason Benetti is a delight, but mostly because when Jones and Skenes are on the mound, it’s fun to hear the opposing announcers react with awe as they watch batter after batter on their own team get taken apart limb from limb. Unfortunately for both Jones and me, the Tigers avoided dismemberment, hanging five earned runs and two unearned runs on Jones en route to a breezy 8-0 victory. On the bright side, Benetti and Kirk Gibson, who was serving as color commentator, decided that for much of the game, the best way to spend their time was by bickering like an old married couple.

Benetti: Do they know you at your local donut shop?

Gibson: No.

Benetti: They know you as the guy who orders all the chocolate fry cakes.

Gibson: I don’t. I’m on the sugar free now, so I’m not doing it now. So nobody knows.

Benetti: Well, everybody knows you’re on the sugar free diet because you keep saying it. Read the rest of this entry »

Blade Tidwell has a five-pitch arsenal and a future on a big-league mound. Two years removed from being drafted 52nd-overall out of the University of Tennessee, the 22-year-old right-hander ranks among the top prospects in the New York Mets organization. “An old school power pitcher” in the words of our lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen, Tidwell has made six appearances for the Double-A Binghamton Rumble Ponies this year and has a 2.59 ERA, a 1.85 FIP, and 38 strikeouts in 31-and-a-third innings.

He’s developed a good understanding of his pitch metrics, a process that began when he was playing with Team USA following his 2021 freshman season at UT. Tidwell “started studying analytics” on his own, and would often discuss the subject with fellow Mets prospect Drew Gilbert, his roommate that summer. He subsequently “didn’t dabble too much into it” during his sophomore year — the Columbia, Tennessee native played just two collegiate seasons due to the pandemic — but that changed after he signed a professional contract. There was a lot more to learn… and to improve upon.

His four-seamer, which sits 94-96 mph and tops out at 98, has grown meaningfully since his amateur days. The 6-foot-4 righty got “around 14-15 inches” of ride in college, and now he gets “around 19 inches on a good day.”

Janzen Blade Tidwell — his father picked his middle name, his mother his first name — also gets good movement on his sweeper. Moreover, he can massage the movement by upping or lowing velocity. Read the rest of this entry »

Kyle Harrison was pitching for the Double-A Richmond Flying Squirrels when he was first featured here at FanGraphs in August 2022. Then a fast-rising prospect in the San Francisco Giants system, the now-22-year-old southpaw had broken down the early evolution of his arsenal for me prior to a game at Portland, Maine’s Hadlock Field. Fast forward to this past week, and we were reacquainting at a far-more-fabled venue. Harrison was preparing to take the mound at Fenway Park for his 14th big-league start, his seventh this season.

As I’m wont to do in such scenarios, I asked the dark-horse rookie-of-the-year candidate what’s changed since our 20-months-ago conversation. Not surprisingly, he’s continued to evolve.

“I’ve added a cutter, although I haven’t thrown it as much as I’d like to,” Harrison told me. “Other than that, it’s the same pitches. The slider has been feeling great, and the changeup is something that’s really come along for me; it’s a pitch I’ve been relying on a lot. I really hadn’t thrown it that much in the minors — it felt like I didn’t really have the control for it — but then all of a sudden it clicked. Now I’ve got three weapons, plus the cutter.”

Including his Thursday effort in Boston, Harrison has thrown his new cutter — Baseball Savant categorizes it as a slider — just six times all season. Which brings us to his other breaking ball. When we’d talked in Portland, the lefty called the pitch a sweepy slider. Savant categorizes it as a slurve.

What is it? Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

Things couldn’t be going worse for the Angels. The Halos have stumbled to an 11-19 record in Ron Washington’s first year managing them, and he’ll now try to tread water without his best player. Future Hall of Famer Mike Trout is set to undergo knee surgery for a torn meniscus in his left knee, and while it isn’t expected to end his season, it will keep him out for awhile.

Trout started the year in fine form, with a wRC+ of 142 and 10 home runs tying him for the league lead. His production was elite despite a hilariously low .194 BABIP, which portended things likely would’ve gotten even better for him as the sample-size shenanigans worked themselves out. On top of that, he was much more aggressive on the bases, with his six steals equaling his total from the prior four years combined. That put him on pace for his first 30/30 season since his otherworldly 2012 rookie campaign. Indeed, this was shaping up to be another MVP-caliber campaign for Trout.

Of course, all of our optimism came with the cautious caveat: as long as he stays healthy. Which, as we know all too well, hasn’t been the case in recent years. Trout hasn’t played more than 120 games in a season since 2019, the year he won his third MVP award.

Beyond the silver lining that we might see Trout play baseball again in 2024, it’s too soon to know when he’ll be back in the lineup. Even so, we have some data to help us guess. A 2023 study by the Mayo Clinic’s Department of Orthopedic Surgery compiled data from 314 meniscus injuries from MLB and MiLB players over a seven-year period, with the median return to play time coming out to 70 days. But that includes all meniscus injuries, including those that didn’t require surgery. Knowing that Trout needs surgery paints a bleaker picture, with the median return to play for those players jumping up to 104 days. Put another way: A typical return from surgery wouldn’t have Trout returning to the Angels until the middle of August.

As difficult as it may be, the Angels still have to play baseball games without Trout. Taylor Ward (127 wRC+) and Jo Adell (174 wRC+) have done their part and will need to anchor the lineup and outfield without Trout. Mickey Moniak is expected to replace Trout in center field, at least against righties, and will likely platoon with new addition Kevin Pillar, whom the Angels signed to a major league deal shortly after Trout went down. Cole Tucker and Luis Rengifo are also capable of playing the outfield.

Bryce Miller’s Evolution

By now you’ve probably heard of Mariners righty Bryce Miller, though it’s certainly possible you hadn’t until he shined against the Braves on Monday. He took a perfect game into the sixth and a no-hitter into the seventh, striking out 10 and allowing just one run. The excellent showing lowered his ERA to 2.04 over his first six starts, with just 19 hits allowed in 35.1 innings. His strikeout rate has jumped from 22% last year to 29% so far this season, though he’s also walking a higher percentage of batters (9%, up from 5%). Of course, his .179 BABIP allowed is unsustainably low; then again, his 3.81 FIP is still respectable. Even if he’s due for some negative regression, it’s still worth discussing what has made him so effective thus far this year.

Miller relied heavily on his fastball as a rookie, and you would too if yours had 99th-percentile spin rate and nearly 10 inches of vertical ride — that’s more than all but seven pitchers who threw at least 100 innings in 2023. But when you throw your fastball nearly 60% of the time, major league hitters are going to know it’s coming and make the necessary adjustments to crush it. And boy, oh boy, they did, feasting for a .450 slugging percentage against Miller’s heater last year.

And so Miller’s response has been, unsurprisingly, to throw fewer four-seamers. He still relies on the pitch heavily, but it now represents 45% of his offerings, making him less predictable. He’s increased his sinker usage from 8% to 18%, and ditched his curveball and changeup for a splitter, which has quickly become his most-used secondary pitch (19%). With that splitter, he’s now actually running reverse splits in the early going, with lefties batting just .121/.205/.288 against it, and righties at .196/.262/.339. That said, he is striking out more and walking fewer righties than he is lefties, so I’d expect that trend to shift at least a bit. He’s kept lefties in check with his fastball this season, as his xwOBA allowed to them on that pitch has decreased from .406 to .333, but the splitter appears to be most effective tool to neutralize the platoon advantage. Lefties are 3-for-21 against that pitch with eight strikeouts and a 31.3% whiff rate. His continued emergence could give the Mariners a fourth great starter to go with Luis Castillo, George Kirby, and Logan Gilbert.

Jack Flaherty Shoves Against His Former Team

It wasn’t hard to imagine that Jack Flaherty would have a strong season. He’s still just 28, his velocity hasn’t dipped, and he has the pedigree of a fourth-place Cy Young finish in 2019. But back in December, when he signed a one-year, $14 million pillow contract with the Tigers, I certainly didn’t expect him to look as good as he did on Tuesday afternoon.

Facing the Cardinals — the team that drafted and developed him — for the first time since they traded him to the Orioles last summer, Flaherty allowed just two hits and one walk with a career-high 14 strikeouts on 93 pitches over 6.2 scoreless innings. All five of his pitches, even the few sinkers and changeups he threw, had whiff rates of at least 44%. Maybe he was amped facing his former club, or maybe he started to find his groove in his sixth start of the season; either way, all of his pitches had at least an extra tick of velocity from his rest-of-season averages. Despite his efforts, though, the Tigers allowed two runs in the top of the ninth inning and the Cardinals took the first game of Tuesday’s doubleheader, 2-1. (The Tigers won the night cap, 11-6.)

Flaherty’s excellent start could be quite the jumping-off point for a big contract when he reaches free agency again entering his age-29 season. Aside from this one outing, there are plenty of indications that Jack is, indeed, so back. His 2.85 FIP belies his 4.00 ERA, and he’s striking out 10 batters per every walk, a league-leading ratio. Most encouragingly, he’s made every start and thrown at least five innings and 87 pitches in each of them, no small feat for a guy who hasn’t qualified for the ERA title since that breakout 2019 campaign. If the Tigers are to stick around in the race, they’ll need more than just ace Tarik Skubal pitching big innings. Flaherty looks like a more than capable no. 2.

From now on, maybe we should ignore the numbers until Juan Soto is leading the league in walks. Soto has had the highest walk rate in baseball in each of the last four seasons. And he’s close this season! He’s got 21 walks (tied for first) and a 17.4% walk rate (tied for third). But first place belongs to Riley Greene, and that’s a surprise. Greene is not the person you’d expect to top this list. Excepting a two-game stint in Single-A in 2022, he hasn’t run a walk rate above 12% at any stop of his career, but this season, he’s at 19.6%. Since 1903, the largest single-season jump in walk rate by a qualified player in AL/NL history was 10.7 percentage points, by Barry Bonds in 2004. Right now, Greene is sitting on a jump of 11.2 percentage points. He’s also sitting on a 157 wRC+, thanks to a .244 ISO that ranks 22nd in baseball, just behind Soto. Aside from the fact that it’s still April, what exactly is going on?

For the second year in a row, Greene has cut his chase rate, and this year the drop is more than five percentage points. Want to walk more? Not swinging at balls is a great start! But take a look at his swing rate on pitches inside the zone.

It’s down by nearly 10 points! Among all qualified players, Greene has the 12th-lowest overall swing rate, by virtue of being 27th lowest outside the zone and 24th lowest inside it. It’s not just that he’s chasing less, it’s that he’s being much less aggressive overall. With such a big drop on pitches inside the zone, I wondered whether Greene had become too passive. After all, his exit velocity numbers are down a bit, and his 63.2% swing rate on meatballs (pitches right down the middle that you should definitely be swinging at) is 15th lowest among qualified players. However, according to Robert Orr’s SEAGER metric, not only is Greene making better swing decisions than he did in 2023, he ranks 17th in all of baseball (minimum 70 plate appearances). Greene has cut his swing rate in the heart zone by 15 percentage points, but apparently cutting nine percentage points off his swing rate in the chase zone was a worthy tradeoff.

Despite being so much choosier, Greene has improved his contact rate by less than a percentage point, which is somewhat odd. We can see what’s happening when we break things down by pitch type. He has cut his in-zone swing rate by roughly the same amount against all three categories of pitches, but look at the breakdown of his chase rates.

Offspeed pitches are still his biggest problem, but he’s halved his chase rate against fastballs, and cut his chase rate against breaking pitches by a quarter. No one who has seen at least 100 fastballs outside the zone has chased fewer of them than Greene. This helps explain things: He’s making a hair more contact on pitches inside the zone, but his contact rate on pitches outside the zone has fallen by nearly five percentage points. That’s what happens when the pitches you’re chasing are harder to hit. In 2023, fastballs (which run lower whiff rates) made up 37.6% of the pitches Greene chased. So far this year, they’re just 19.2%.

It’s important to keep in mind that a player’s contact rate on pitches outside the zone isn’t necessarily that important. Chasing and whiffing isn’t great, but chasing and making weak contact is usually worse. That’s part of the reason Greene is getting into deeper counts and working so many walks. Even though he’s swinging at way fewer strikes, more of the balls that Greene actually puts into play are coming on pitches in the zone: 83.1%, up from 80.7% in 2023.

Before we end, I would like to take you on a brief detour. I mentioned before that Greene’s in-zone swing rate has dropped more or less indiscriminately. He’s down roughly eight points against offspeed pitches and 10 points against fastballs and breaking balls.

Understandably, opponents have reacted to this by throwing Greene a lot more offspeed pitches. In a somewhat odd side note, Greene is under the impression that he has, in fact, stopped chasing changeups. “Heater in, changeup away,” he told reporters. “It’s almost automatic now. Until I can prove that I can lay off the changeup away, they’re going to keep throwing it. And I feel like I’ve been doing a good job recently of laying off the changeup away.” To be clear, he is swinging at significantly fewer changeups, but only inside the zone (where he’s swinging at less of everything). That is in itself a victory, as offspeed pitches give Greene a ton of trouble, but he’s still chasing them at a nearly identical rate. In 2023, 14.6% of his swings came against offspeed pitches. In 2023, that number is 28.6%. It’s nearly double! His 2023 swing rate is on the left, and 2024 is on the right.

Greene has done a great job of laying off elevated fastballs this season, and he’s also done a better job of laying off low breaking balls. But because so many of his swings are coming against changeups, his swing zone is focused down and away. When he swings at offspeed pitches, he’s worse than ever. He’s running a .158 wOBA and a 50% whiff rate against them, and his 83.5 mph exit velocity against them is dragging his overall EV numbers down. However, because he’s picking better fastballs and breaking balls to swing at, he’s barreling up nearly twice as many balls as he did in 2023.

These are all knock-on effects of the big news. The big news is simple: Riley Greene has slashed his chase rate against breaking pitches and decided to stop chasing fastballs entirely. That’s why he’s walking more, and that’s huge. Even if he never figures out how to stop chasing changeups, this is an improvement. However, we’ve still got a few more days left in April, so I am legally obligated to end by throwing some cold water on everything I just told you. Take a look at the 15-game rolling average of Greene’s walk and chase rates.

In both 2022 and 2023, Greene started out passive, and then got more aggressive over the next couple weeks. Presumably he’ll start swinging more at some point, and presumably Soto will ease back into pole position. But even if Greene’s aggression goes all the way back to his career norms, it’s definitely encouraging that he’s displaying better pitch recognition and a better understanding of the strike zone. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for Greene to get some of his old aggression back, especially if he can keep any of the gains he’s displayed in the past month.

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

It’s not easy to be in playoff position — no matter how early we are in the season — with an offense ranked 23rd in wRC+ entering Tuesday. But that’s exactly where the Tigers stood, above .500 despite an offense that’s better than only seven other teams. Spencer Torkelson doesn’t yet have a home run, Colt Keith has been anemic in his first few weeks in the majors, Javier Báez has continued his backslide, and Detroit is getting almost no offense from its catchers. Mark Canha, Riley Greene, and Kerry Carpenter have been great, but three well-performing hitters can’t carry the other six spots in the lineup. So, then, it’s not hard to see what’s keeping the Tigers afloat: the performance of their pitchers.

A FIP of about 4.00 has the Tigers right in the middle of the pack in pitching WAR, but in terms of ERA — however sustainable or unsustainable it may be — they are among baseball’s best teams at preventing runs.

Detroit’s main contributor has been, of course, ace Tarik Skubal. He’s already been worth 1.0 WAR over his five starts, striking out nearly a third of the batters he’s faced and walking less than 5% of them. He’s allowed just two home runs, a major improvement from a few years ago. He surrendered 35 homers over 149.1 innings in 2021, his first full season in the big leagues, when he was a fastball-heavy prospect who tried to shove his heater down batters’ throats, an approach that often led to uneven results. Now that he’s mixing his pitches, Skubal is overwhelming hitters and making it far harder to guess what he’s going to throw, leading to far more weak contact.

Other than Kenta Maeda, who’s struggled badly this year despite his five scoreless innings Tuesday night, the rest of the rotation is doing its job, too. Jack Flaherty has his best strikeout percentage since 2019, when he finished fourth in the NL Cy Young race, Casey Mize is fully healthy, and Reese Olson looks like a solid back-end starter.

Where the Tigers have especially shined is in relief. Their relievers have an incredible 1.83 ERA, which actually went up after Tuesday night’s 4-2 win over the Rays, though it’s worth noting that mark has been aided by an unsustainably low BABIP against. Jason Foley is the headliner in the bullpen, firing high-90s sinkers to keep his ERA spotless through 11 appearances, but he’s had plenty of help. Shelby Miller’s deceptive fastball is difficult to square up, lefties Andrew Chafin and Tyler Holton are getting out right-handed hitters as well as lefties, and Alex Lange has been effectively wild. Even multi-inning relievers Alex Faedo and Joey Wentz, who largely pitch in low leverage situations, are doing well.

Opposing hitters won’t continue to run such a ridiculously low BABIP, but Torkelson won’t go homerless either. Such are the ebbs and flows that come with a long season, and right now the pitching is flowing and the offense is ebbing, with the former doing juuuuuust enough to keep the Tigers in the conversation as true contenders.

Will Daulton Varsho’s Adjustments Stick?

By no means was Daulton Varsho bad in his first season with the Blue Jays, but he was definitely underwhelming. He was still worth over two wins on the strength of his outfield defense — he led the majors in defensive runs saved — after hanging up his catcher’s mitt for good. However, his bat lagged far behind, with his 107 wRC+ from 2022 dropping all the way down to 85 last year. His strikeout and walk rates were similar, and he actually hit more balls in the air, but fewer of his fly balls turned into home runs because he was popping up far more pitches and pulling the ball less.

In working with bench coach and offensive coordinator Don Mattingly to flatten his swing plane a little in an effort to create fewer automatic outs, Varsho is thriving so far in 2024. His hard-hit rate is the highest of his career, with his average exit velocity up a full mph from 2023. Ironically, his IFFB% is actually higher than it’s ever been, but it’s more than outweighed by better contact overall, which has led to six homers (already 30% of last year’s total) and a 158 wRC+.

Varsho still has some holes in his game: Along with the popups, he’s pulling even fewer of his balls in play, and while he’s walking more, he’s also striking out more than ever. His offensive profile right now looks more boom or bust than Varsho and Mattingly intended, and the bust could come as quickly as the boom did. But for now, he and the Blue Jays should keep riding the wave of his boom for as long as it lasts.

RIP to Robert Suarez’s Fastball Streak

All good things must come to an end, and so it has with Robert Suarez’s fastball streak. For 79 pitches, the Padres’ closer threw nothing but four-seam and two-seam fastballs, until, finally, he mixed in a changeup at Coors Field on Monday night.

Although his ERA has fluctuated in his three MLB seasons since coming over from Japan, Suarez has been mostly the same pitcher when looking at xERA, though FIP feels differently about his 2023. At any rate, Suarez is taking a new approach in 2024; his pitch mix was essentially unchanged from 2022 to 2023, but now he’s throwing his two fastballs nearly 90% of the time.

The rest of his pitches are changeups, meaning Suarez doesn’t have any breaking pitches in his arsenal, but hitters have been flummoxed nonetheless. That fastball-changeup combo is enough to give hitters fits. Entering play Tuesday, he’s allowed just one run in 10.2 innings and earned eight saves. That’ll play.

When I interviewed him 12 months ago, Logan O’Hoppe told me that he keeps two journals. One is for baseball. The other is for life. As the then-rookie catcher explained, “It’s tough to stay in a consistent headspace day to day,” and writing down his thoughts helps keep him centered.

One year later, he’s not only taking his game to a new level — O’Hoppe has a 137 wRC+ over 70 plate appearances — he’s also upping his journal input. I learned as much when I asked the LA backstop if he ever writes about the ballparks he visits. Moreover, I learned those visits are atypical of most major leaguers’.

“I’ve got three different ones now,” O’Hoppe explained when the Angels played at Fenway Park earlier this month. “One is for the game-planning stuff with the pitcher, and another is for hitting; those are obviously all baseball. With the third one, yes, I write a lot about the ballparks. It keeps my perspective in line. Early on last year, when I was really new to [the big leagues], I tended to think that this was the end all be all, and that the results were everything. I’m trying to realign my perspective and understand the results for what they are. I feel like it’s really helped me to come to different ballparks like this one, and sit alone in stadiums that I was at growing up.”

Adam Wainwright did something similar toward the end of his career, visiting various locales in ballparks, such as press boxes and concourses, prior to games. O’Hoppe is doing something similar, only on the front end of his career. Read the rest of this entry »