Brant Hurter is a reliable reliever who largely flies under the radar. Since debuting with the Detroit Tigers in August 2024, the 6-foot-6, 250-pound southpaw has fashioned a 2.49 ERA and a 3.41 FIP over 64 appearances comprising 119 1/3 innings. Moreover, he has registered a pair of saves and a 13-4 won-loss record.

He is off to a solid start in the current campaign. Hurter has come out of the ‘pen 11 times and allowed just three earned runs over 11 frames. His outings have been timely. The 2021 seventh-round pick out of Georgia Tech has wins in all three of his decisions.

Befitting his low profile, Hurter wasn’t highly regarded coming out of college, nor was he viewed as a future star while down on the farm. That doesn’t mean our lead prospect analyst didn’t see a big league future. Ranked 17th with a 40 FV on our 2024 Tigers Top Prospects list, Hurter was described by Eric Longenhagen as a pitcher he could “see in an important bulk relief role.” Read the rest of this entry »

Nathan Lukes was 28 years old and in his ninth professional season when he made his MLB debut with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2023. He almost didn’t make it that far. Life down on the farm isn’t exactly a bed of roses, and that was especially true prior to conditions — financial and otherwise — improving via a collective bargaining agreement that essentially coincided with his reaching the bigs. A few years earlier, Lukes almost walked away.

“It’s been a journey,” Lukes said of his path, which began when Cleveland selected him in the seventh round of the 2015 draft out of Cal State Sacramento. “Five games into my career — this was in short-season ball — I broke my hamate and was out for the rest of the year. The next year, I started in Low-A, and halfway through I got traded to Tampa Bay at the deadline. I stayed with the Rays until my minor-league contract was up, then signed here [in November 2021].

“It was getting to the point where it was almost time to think about hanging it up,” continued Lukes, whom the Blue Jays placed on the IL with a hamstring strain prior to yesterday’s game. “But then, in 2023, they put me on the 40-man roster. Pretty much as long I had that 40-man ticket, I was going to keep running with it.”

The now-31-year-old outfielder didn’t feel that he had stalled out developmentally when he pondered calling it a career — “I always felt that I could play in the big leagues” — but he did recognize that there is more to life than baseball. Lukes and his wife had a child in 2021, and as he explained. “Family changes things.” While his financial situation had improved somewhat thanks to minor-league free agency, he was “going to play the 2022 season, and after that, probably just be a dad.”

“You weren’t getting rich,” I said to Lukes in our spring training conversation. “No,” he replied. “I was getting poor. My wife was working at the time, which helped… actually, it didn’t just help, it kept us running. At the lower levels, I was bringing home six thousand dollars a year after taxes, so I was making a thousand dollars a month. The most I ever made on a minor-league contract was $15,000. You can’t really do too much with that.” Read the rest of this entry »

A question popped into my head as I edited Ryan Blake’s column on the Nationals Friday morning. In the piece, shortly after noting that James Wood ranked third in the majors with a 170 wRC+, Ryan mentioned that Wood’s teammate, CJ Abrams, was sixth with a mark of 168. Upon reading this, I pulled up our leaderboards to see if the Nationals were the only team to have two players in the top 10. Turns out that, yes, they are. I thought about that for all of two seconds before something else caught my eye. Just below Abrams on the list was Mike Trout, who also had a 168 wRC+. This prompted me to wonder: Can Trout return to form? Can he both stay healthy and produce this year?

I’m hardly the only one who spent the bulk of the 2020s dreaming on a fully healthy season from Trout, just as I’m not alone in having abandoned that hope as the injuries piled up. But after watching him blast home run after home run last week from the Yankee Stadium pressbox, I felt the pull of the past encroach upon the present, and perhaps against my better judgment, I started dreaming again. He sure looked as healthy as ever as his broad body barreled up baseballs and roamed center field. The best way to describe the way Trout moves — really, the way he has always moved — is that he lumbers and boulders; for all of his natural athleticism and breathtaking blend of speed and strength, he does not glide gracefully. I put that dream of a Trout renaissance on ice when the Angels left town, only for it to come back a week later. This time, though, I considered whether, at 34, he still has one more MVP season in him. He entered this weekend slashing .239/.417/.557 with eight home runs, and has posted 1.2 WAR in 25 games. He’s walking more than he’s striking out, and he’s already stolen four bases. His BABIP is a mere .228, 111 points below his career mark, so we should expect his batting average to see some positive regression. (Even if we know batting average isn’t all that indicative of player performance, it still matters for MVP voters.) His .483 xwOBA is second in the majors and 62 points above his wOBA. His defense has been below average so far, but if Trout keeps hitting like this, his glove won’t matter much for his MVP case. The narrative would certainly be in his favor.

I just answered two of my own questions from Friday in this mailbag, so I guess it’s time to get to yours. What if the Astros blow it all up? How might the Pirates benefit from a Houston fire sale? Why don’t teams develop bench players to be knuckleballers? What the heck was Austin Warren doing in the game with the bases loaded in the Mets’ 12th straight loss? We answer all these questions and more in this week’s mailbag. Plus, Jay Jaffe remembers Garret Anderson. But first, I’d like to remind you that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

Dan Petry faced 644 different batters across the 1979-1991 seasons, and while he certainly doesn’t remember them all, his level of recollection is impressive. Now 67, the former All-Star right-hander proved as much when he became the latest pitcher-turned-broadcast analyst to tackle one my a matchup-focused career quizzes. As did David Cone, Mark Grant, Mark Gubicza, and Jeff Montgomery — those pieces can be found here, here, here, and here — “Peaches” reached into his personal memory bank to take a stab at answering my questions, and to provide entertaining anecdotes while doing so. Our conversation took place at Fenway Park this past weekend.

I began by asking him which batter he faced the most times.

“It would have to be somebody in the American League East,” replied Petry, who played the bulk of his career with the Detroit Tigers and is now Dan Dickerson’s primary partner in the team’s radio booth. “I’ll say Robin Yount.”

It was indeed Yount, who stepped in against Petry 89 times. I proceeded to ask which player recorded the most hits off him.

“That might be a trick question, because maybe it is Robin Yount,” said Petry, before going with a different answer. “But I think a lot of my answers are going to be George Brett, so I’ll say George Brett.”

He should’ve trusted his initial instinct, because Yount was the answer again. The Hall of Famer logged 24 hits in 83 at-bats against the right-hander, who went 119-93 as a Tiger and 125-104 overall, while tossing 2,080 1/3 innings over 370 big league outings.

“He is a guy who I’ve always, to this day, have so much respect for,” Petry said of the Milwaukee Brewers icon. “I remember when he was just a teenager. At that time [when Yount was in the majors at age 18], I was a teenager also, and thinking about whether I would ever get that opportunity to play, like he was doing. So, just getting to face him was among my most competitive moments.”

How about the batter to whom he surrendered the most home runs? Read the rest of this entry »

Arjun Nimmala has a high ceiling that he is still far away from reaching. No. 2 on our Toronto Blue Jays Top Prospects list, and No. 48 on our Top 100, the 20-year-old shortstop is presently slashing .163/.308/.372 with two home runs and a 94 wRC+ in 52 plate appearances with High-A Vancouver. Last season, he left the yard 13 times while putting up a 92 wRC+ over a full course of games at the same affiliate. But while the production hasn’t been anything to write home about, the potential is clearly there. As Brendan Gawlowski explained in his scouting profile, “We really like the athlete and tools here, and we’re betting the results will follow in time.”

Nimmala’s right-handed stroke projects to produce plus power once he fully matures, and I asked him about it during spring training

“It’s a swing that’s built to do damage,” replied Nimmala, whom the Blue Jays drafted 20th overall in 2023 out of Dover, Florida’s Strawberry Crest High School. “I pride myself in taking good swings. When things are going well, I have a really good idea of the zone and am doing damage to all parts of the field.”

Asked to elaborate, Nimmala said he considers his bat path a plus — “I think it’s been good since high school” — adding that his adjustments since reaching pro ball have mostly been about putting himself in better launch positions. He further explained that he has tweaked his posture and how he lands.

As for reports saying that his swing is a little on the long side, but also quick, he agrees — but only to a point. Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday, the Detroit Tigers signed rookie shortstop Kevin McGonigle to an eight-year, $150 million contract extension, keeping him under team control through 2034. When McGonigle was going through the draft process, quite a few observers — including me — saw a heady, left-handed-hitting second baseman with average size but a polished, punchy bat, noted that he is from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and thought, “Maybe he’ll be the next Chase Utley.”

As big as the hype around McGonigle has become, that’s still a lofty comp. Utley played 16 years in the majors, made six All-Star teams, produced 61.5 WAR (including five straight seven-win seasons), and appeared in three World Series, winning one. If McGonigle ends up doing all that, I think everyone walks away happy. But after just 17 major league games, McGonigle guaranteed that he would out-earn his childhood hero, who pocketed a mere $125.6 million across his decorated career. Read the rest of this entry »

Konnor Griffin isn’t the only rookie infielder to land a nine-figure extension within his first few weeks in the majors. On Wednesday, the Tigers reached an agreement with Kevin McGonigle — who made the jump from Double-A into Detroit’s Opening Day lineup and has been the team’s top hitter thus far — on an eight-year, $150 million extension for the 2027–34 seasons. The contract slightly surpasses the value of Griffin’s deal, making it the largest guarantee to a player with fewer than 100 days of major league service time, even before its other bells and whistles are considered.

According to MLB.com, McGonigle will receive a signing bonus of $14 million, $8 million of which is payable within 30 days and the rest in 2028. He’ll then earn $1 million next season, $7 million in 2028 (when he would have qualified for Super-Two status), $16 million in ’29, $21 million in ’30, $22 million in ’31, and then $23 million annually from ’32–34, which would have been his first three years of free-agent eligibility. Escalator clauses can increase the values of the deal by an additional $10 million, with higher salaries for those last three seasons of $25 million (2032), $26 million (2033), and $28 million (2034).

Those escalators are based on MVP voting and other honors, and can be triggered starting this season, per ESPN. McGonigle could get boosts of $2 million for winning an MVP award, $1 million for finishing second through fifth in MVP voting, and $500,000 for finishing sixth through 10th; he’ll also get $500,000 for making the All-MLB first or second team, $250,000 for making an All-Star team, and $250,000 for winning a Silver Slugger award. His contract has no options or opt-out clauses, but additionally includes a $5 million assignment bonus for every time he’s traded to another organization under the life of the contract. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to a new season of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) In Baseball This Week. After a slow, veteran-who-signed-late-this-spring style warmup to the year, it’s time for another dive into the little details that catch my eye each week. It’s the perfect time of year for it. Beautiful weather, early-season optimism, overheard conversations about who should bat third and who’s a bum – it all fuses together to make this one of my favorite parts of the baseball calendar. And even though the WBC whetted my appetite for the spectacular somewhat, there’s really no replacing major league games for the sheer variety of entertainment. I’m sure that Zach Lowe of The Ringer, whose old NBA column format I’ve borrowed, would say the same thing about the basketball regular season. Let’s talk baseball.

1. Ricochets
If you share my baseball consumption habits, it might seem like every weekday offers a Royals game, a Guardians game, or a Royals-Guardians game. And I love it! I’ll take any excuse to watch Maikel Garcia continue his ascent from contact hitter to do-it-all superstar, a kind of modern-day José Ramírez. And I get to watch the actual José Ramírez too? And Bobby Witt Jr.? And Steven Kwan, Vinnie Pasquantino, Bo Naylor, and old favorite Michael Wacha? Both of these teams are sneaky fun, and their series this week didn’t disappoint. Witt might be having a slow start on offense, but he’s still a defensive genius:

Lots of shortstops – pretty much every other shortstop, even – would get only one out, somewhere, on that play. But two?! Ludicrous. When Garcia’s lunging attempt caromed toward Witt, he turned from interested observer to protagonist so smoothly that it looked like he was planning on doing it the whole time. It started with his feet. Instead of charging the ricochet, Witt timed his steps to hop to a stop and get his body in as good a throwing position as he could:

Read the rest of this entry »

Tarik Skubal commanded the zone while dominating the San Diego Padres on Thursday. Making his third straight Opening Day start for the Detroit Tigers, the reigning back-to-back Cy Young Award winner threw 49 of 74 pitches for strikes, including 17 of 22 to start an at-bat. Moreover, he mixed with aplomb. Skubal garnered 14 called strikes, 10 of them on either his four-seamer or sinker, as well as 11 whiffs, nine coming on changeups. He departed after six innings having surrendered just three hits, with six strikeouts and nary a free pass.

His M.O. for attacking the strike zone? I asked the 29-year-old southpaw about that following one of his spring training outings earlier this month. As it has become increasingly common for pitchers — particularly power pitchers — to aim middle and let their stuff play from there, I wanted to know how precise he is with intended location.

“My changeup, I throw down the middle, but that’s because when I throw it down the middle, the result is down and away,” replied Skubal. “And when I throw my slider down the middle, the result is glove-side and down. So, there are pitches I throw down the middle, but that’s just visually, as opposed to what I’m actually doing.

“I feel like I do a good job of throwing strikes,” continued Skubal. “As far as really executing every pitch that I throw… I don’t know. There is probably a metric on it. I’d like to think I’m a little bit above average, but I don’t know what the numbers say.“

Measuring command is an imperfect science, so where Skubal ranks depends on your metric of choice. According to our PitchingBot model, he was among the best of the best. Last season, Skubal graded out at 64 (on a 20-80 scale) tying him with Seattle’s Bryan Woo at the top of our botCmd leaderboard. Read the rest of this entry »

On September 12, 2004, Eli Manning made his NFL debut. The Giants were down three touchdowns in the fourth quarter, and starting quarterback Kurt Warner had taken four sacks and fumbled twice; maybe let the no. 1 overall pick take a spin.

On Manning’s very first play from scrimmage, he handed the ball to Tiki Barber, who ran for a 72-yard touchdown. Now, Manning would go on to have a very, very good career: 16 years in the league, four Pro Bowls, 366 touchdown passes, two Super Bowls, and untold hundreds of millions of dollars in career earnings. But if you look at Manning’s career through a certain lens, he peaked with that first snap.

A quarterback’s job is to advance the ball down the field and score. And while Barber did most of the work, a one-play, 72-yard touchdown drive is about as good as a debut gets. Manning’s career productivity would never be better than it was after that first play. So it proved, and quickly; on the very next possession, Manning coughed up a fumble of his own on a nightmarish three-way hit. Welcome to The Show, kid. Read the rest of this entry »