Hello. While on paternity leave, I kept a journal about baseball and my daughter, who is not named Derek Jr., but who will henceforth be referred to as Derek Jr. You can read all of the entries here.

May 11
Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and I thought that would be the theme of my entry. I wasn’t actually planning on writing about my wife, though. I was planning on writing about her friends.

This isn’t my story to tell, but my wife has had a really difficult life. She’s had to overcome more than anyone I’ve ever known, and she’s had to work very hard to get where she is. Part of the reason she’s made it so far is that she has built an amazing collection of friends stretching all the way back to preschool. She is kind and outgoing and selfless. She is an incredibly supportive friend, and now that she could use some help herself, she’s got an army behind her. One friend was waiting at our apartment to help out when we got home from the hospital. One checked an enormous suitcase of hand-me-downs the last time she visited. One had a baby nine months before us, and when we visited her over the winter, she sent us home with a bag of clothes and a trunk full of fancy baby gadgets we never would have thought to get ourselves. Another made a mobile for Derek Jr. by hand and is scouring the Buy Nothing app for free diapers and baby supplies. Another is visiting town — from Europe — for two weeks and coming over most days to cook for us and do laundry. Those who can’t visit have sent gifts and FaceTimed the baby.

I have been really moved by the support I’ve gotten from my own friends, but this is something else entirely. My wife has put so much good into the world, and the world is taking this opportunity to show how much it is appreciated. It’s overwhelming evidence of a life lived right. Anyway, that’s what I thought I was going to write about. Or maybe this onesie that my wife has been saving for Mother’s Day. Instead we’re going to talk about the injured list. Read the rest of this entry »

Max Clark is among the top position player prospects in baseball. Three years removed from being drafted third overall by the Detroit Tigers out of the Indiana’s Franklin Community High School, the left-haded-hitting 21-year-old outfielder has been described by our prospect team as having “a mature blend of tools and skills that belie his young age,” as well as a “feel to hit [that] stands out.” Clark is currently holding his own as one of the youngest players in Triple-A. Over 310 plate appearances with the Toledo Mud Hens, he has 22 extra-base hits, including six home runs, to go with a .264/.346/.394 slash line and a 100 wRC+.

In the latest installment of our Talks Hitting series, Clark discusses his approach at the plate, as well as developmental strides he has made since coming to pro ball. My conversation with the 60-FV prospect took place prior to Wednesday’s Mud Hens game in Worcester, Massachusetts.

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David Laurila: How would you describe yourself as a hitter?

Max Clark: “I’m definitely a feel-for-hit guy. I have developed more power over the last couple years, obviously from growing up, but also from understanding where to do damage on which pitches and in which counts. Overall, I’m just going to hit. I’m going to put the ball in play. I hate striking out; I absolutely despise it. So, I want to put the ball in play and let my speed tool work, steal bases, cause chaos. But when I get a pitch in the damage zone, I’ll take a rip.” Read the rest of this entry »

To repurpose an old quote about the weather, if you don’t like the identity of the best catcher in baseball, just wait a year and you’ll have a new best catcher in baseball. It’s almost uncanny. Every year, there are two contenders for best catcher in baseball. And every year, one of them falls to the wayside, to be replaced by someone new. It’s like clockwork:

Last year was an exception to the rule in that Cal Raleigh was a lot better than Alejandro Kirk, but for the most part, the top two catchers in the game have put up similar WAR. It’s hard to stand out all the way at catcher, and it’s also hard to stay near the top for long. Truthfully, that isn’t all that surprising. Catching is phenomenally difficult on the body, and WAR is a counting stat. The best catchers play a lot, and they wear down. Before long, they’re either playing less often or playing less effectively.

With that backdrop, you might expect one of Kirk or Raleigh to be clinging to the top spot while a new contender appears. But that hasn’t happened. They’ve both been hurt – Raleigh missed a month on the IL, and Kirk missed more than two. And they’ve both played poorly when healthy – both are off to the worst offensive starts of their careers, though Kirk’s is in a tiny sample. There’s still more than half a season to play, and it’s reasonable to think that the two of them might end up posting solid numbers the rest of the way, but they’ve racked up a combined 0.5 WAR so far this year. It’s safe to say that there will be some new faces at the top. Read the rest of this entry »

A friend of mine is a Tigers fan, God help him. He’s upset about baseball quite a bit these days, and the other night he was miffed about something specific: With two outs in the ninth inning and the tying run coming to the plate, Detroit manager A.J. Hinch pinch-hit with Jake Rogers.

Whatever else the Tigers’ backup catcher has going for him, he’s not a very good hitter. He’s hitting .155/.239/.276 this season, with a 30.9% strikeout rate. (All stats in this article are current through Tuesday’s games.) That’s a wRC+ of 42. Rogers had about a season’s worth of pretty good offensive production spread from 2021 to 2023 — like, a good Mike Zunino season, with a low-.200s batting average, a bunch of home runs, and a strikeout rate in the 30s — but overall he’s a career .198/.268/.380 hitter. He hasn’t batted .200 in a season in three years.

Sure enough, Rogers struck out on four pitches to end the game.

So yeah, it’s jarring to see that guy not only at the plate with the game on the line, but to come off the bench with the game on the line. Hinch put Rogers there on purpose, which seems like the work of a madman.

Believe it or not, it was probably the right decision. Read the rest of this entry »

Steve Sparks is a good storyteller, which serves him well in the broadcast booth. Now in his 14th season working alongside Robert Ford, Sparks forms one half of a Houston Astros radio team that ranks among the best in the business. He used to throw knuckleballs for a living. Pitching for five teams from 1995-2004, primarily the Detroit Tigers, the 61-year-old Tulsa, Oklahoma native took the mound 270 times to the tune of a 59-76 won-lost record and a 4.88 ERA. All told, he faced 626 different batters over 1,319 2/3 innings of work.

How well does he remember his more-notable matchups? Following in the footsteps of Geoff Blum, David Cone, Mark Grant, Mark Gubicza, Jeff Montgomery, and Dan Petry — links to those pieces can be found on their player pages — Sparks sat down for the seventh installment of our Challenging Career Quiz.

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

“It would probably have to be somebody in the American League Central,” replied Sparks, whom I spoke with at Fenway Park in early May. “I’ll say Frank Thomas.”

His guess was spot on. Sparks faced Thomas 60 times, with “The Big Hurt” going 13-for-49 with three home runs, nine walks, and a pair of plunkings. His memories of the Hall of Famer?

“I had the impression that he couldn’t reach the outside corner,” Sparks told me. “I felt like if I had to go somewhere, throwing a fastball or a cutter, I could go away to Frank Thomas. I found out very quickly that I was wrong. He was so far off the plate that I didn’t think he could reach it. But he could. Read the rest of this entry »

In early February, just before camps opened, the Tigers added both Framber Valdez and Justin Verlander to their rotation. After a rather underwhelming winter full of speculation as to whether they would trade two-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, a pending free agent, the moves kept them in win-now mode, making them the favorites in the AL Central. Yet injuries to Skubal, Verlander, and several position players have hamstrung Detroit, and after playing .500 ball through the end of April, the team crashed and burned in May, losing eight series in a row while going 6-22 due to an utterly inept offense. At this point, the Tigers have dug themselves a big enough hole that trading Skubal may be a necessity.

This past week was particularly bleak. First, the Tigers dropped two out of three at home to the Angels, the only AL team who had a worse record than them. After Thursday’s 7-1 defeat, the two were both 22-35, and the Tigers followed that by getting swept by the White Sox over the weekend. On Friday night, after Troy Melton and Will Vest held Chicago to one run through eight innings, Kyle Finnegan allowed the tying run in the ninth. And then, once the Tigers retook the lead with a run in the top of the 10th, Drew Anderson served up a walk-off two-run homer to Miguel Vargas. It was Detroit’s seventh walk-off loss this season, the most in the majors. On Saturday, the Tigers were trounced, 7-1, and then on Sunday, when manager A.J. Hinch pulled starter Keider Montero after he’d thrown six scoreless innings on just 65 pitches, Anderson came in and served up a game-tying solo shot to Colson Montgomery, then yielded three more singles and the go-ahead run. The Tigers lost 2-1, for their 21st loss in 25 games. They’re now 5-13 in one-run games — the most losses of any team in that context — and, at 22-38, are tied with the Rockies for the majors’ worst record.

This is just about the last thing anyone expected of the Tigers. Led by Skubal, they claimed back-to-back Wild Card berths in 2024 and ’25, surging over the final two months of the former season to snag a playoff spot, then spending most of last year in first place, though they faded late and lost the division title on the final day. Both times, they won their Wild Card Series before being bounced in a five-game Division Series, including last year’s squeaker against the Mariners, which took until the 15th inning of Game 5 to decide. Read the rest of this entry »

Mike Stanley was C.J. Nitkowsk’s biggest nemesis. In seven career plate appearances versus the now-Atlanta Braves broadcaster, Stanley homered twice, hammered a double, and walked four times. That added up to a 4.333 OPS. Of the 592 batters Nitkowski faced over 10 big-league seasons, no one was more injurious to his stat sheet.

Somewhat surprisingly, the pair of gophers — one at Tiger Stadium in 1996, the other at Fenway Park in 2000 — aren’t what the southpaw most remembers about his matchups with the slugging catcher/first baseman. What stands out is the two-bagger.

“I have a story about Mike Stanley,” explained Nitkowski, who made 336 MLB appearances, 213 of them with Detroit, while pitching for eight teams from 1995-2005. “As a kid who grew up in New York and was a Yankees fan, I always knew who he was. He was a Yankee when I was in high school. When I got drafted and went down to Orlando for my first spring training [with the Cincinnati Reds in 1995] — I went early to get out of the cold — I was working out with Chad Mottola, who is now the hitting coach for the Rays. He was my first roommate in professional baseball.

“Chad lived down there,” continued Nitkowski. “Mike Stanley happened to live in the same neighborhood, and they worked out together once in awhile, so I met him. I was 21 or 22 years old, so it was a big deal. You meet a big-leaguer and are trying to play it cool — you’re a professional now — but it was Mike Stanley. That’s cool. I thought it was kind of a big deal. I got to know him a little bit.”

Fast forward to August 12, 2000. Stanley was playing for the Oakland Athletics, while Nitkowski was pitching in relief for the Tigers. A request was made in the dugout during the sixth inning. Read the rest of this entry »

AJ Blubaugh has given a boost to the Astros bullpen since debuting in late April of last season. Over 29 big-league appearances (including three as a starter), the 25-year-old right-hander has logged a 3.22 ERA over 58-and-two-thirds innings while being credited with five wins, against three losses, and three saves. Drafted in the seventh round by Houston out of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2022, he ranked third among the system’s prospects with a 45 FV when he reached The Show.

His backstory is atypical, in part because of a pitch he hasn’t thrown since his days as an Ohio prep. Moreover, the Mansfield native now has a delivery that is both conventional and consistent. That wasn’t always the case.

“When I was in high school and started to get into pitching, I threw from three different slots,” Blubaugh explained. “An over-the-top arm slot, a sidearm arm slot, and a submarine arm slot. I would differentiate that every single pitch. One pitch would be a curveball from over the top, then I’d drop to sidearm and throw a slider. Then I’d throw a fastball from submarine. I was just a funky junk-ball thrower. I threw a knuckleball a bunch, probably from the time I was 10 years old to the time I graduated. It was probably my main pitch.”

Remarkably, his butterfly wasn’t simply delivered from down under; it came from each of his arm angles. Read the rest of this entry »

There are no “good” injuries in baseball. Losing a player to the IL is never a fun time. But there’s still a relative hierarchy – not every injury is an equally big bummer. On Monday, we got one of those big bummers. The Tigers placed Tarik Skubal, the two-time reigning AL Cy Young winner, on the injured list. He’s slated to undergo surgery to remove loose bodies in his pitching elbow, as Evan Woodbery of MLive first reported.

Skubal had dealt with occasional pains in his arm throughout the season, as The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen reported. In his start last Wednesday, Skubal grimaced and grabbed his elbow in the seventh inning, sending a bevy of concerned Tigers staffers to the mound. He waved them off and struck out the side, but when his arm didn’t recover as much as expected in the aftermath of that start, the team had imaging done, revealing the need for surgery. This injury could alter the balance of power in the AL Central this year. More than that, it could change the trajectory of Skubal’s career. So let’s walk through the implications for the team, league, and player as we try to make sense of this unfortunate bit of news. Read the rest of this entry »

The best team in baseball will be without its biggest star for a few weeks.

The Braves placed Ronald Acuña Jr. on the injured list Sunday with a strained left hamstring. Acuña exited Saturday’s game after pulling up in considerable pain while running out a groundout. Manager Walt Weiss told reporters that imaging revealed a Grade 1 strain, the least severe grade. According to MLB.com, Weiss said:

“It’s not going to be just a couple days. It’s gonna be more than that, so we need to put him on the IL, and hopefully it’ll be sooner than later. No idea with these soft tissue injuries how long they’re gonna take, but I think the silver lining is that the MRI showed it wasn’t too serious.”

While many players return from Grade 1 hamstring strains in just a couple weeks, or even following the 10-day minimum, this is an injury that can linger and delay a return.

This is, obviously, less than ideal for the Braves. Acuña is their best player and was projected in the preseason as the ninth-best position player in baseball with 5.4 WAR, according to our Depth Charts. Though his performance hasn’t been spectacular thus far, with a 111 wRC+ in 152 plate appearances, his .381 xwOBA and 12.2% barrel rate — along with strong strikeout and walk rates — suggest he hasn’t missed a beat this year, coming off his bounce-back 2025 season.

Of course, last year was a comeback campaign because Acuña missed most 2024 (and the early part of 2025) after tearing his ACL. He also missed chunks of 2021 and 2022 with a torn ACL in his other knee. In 2018, he missed about a month with a mild ACL sprain. That means Acuña’s hamstring strain is his fourth lower body injury requiring IL time in his career. Read the rest of this entry »