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Eric Haase is having a breakout season with the Tigers. Acquired from Cleveland in January of last year, the 28-year-old catcher has a 128 wRC+ and a team-leading 18 home runs. Opportunity has helped fuel the production. Coming into the current campaign, Haase had appeared in just 26 games at the big-league level.

As impressive as Haase has been with the bat, it’s his background that drove a conversation that took place at Comerica Park on Thursday. I began by asking the Detroit-area native about his old organization’s well-earned reputation as a pitching-development machine.

“I think it starts with the guys you’re taking the draft,” opined Haase, who was in the Cleveland system from 2011-2019. “Obviously, there some are high-upside guys, and some organizations pick those top guys and kind of say, ‘Go out there and pitch.’ They think they’ve got themselves more of a finished product. With Cleveland, it was more about picking guys that already had a good feel for pitching, and then implementing things that would give them little spikes in velocity. They were big on weighted balls, big on strength and conditioning. Basically, they’d take guys who already had good command and give them some more legitimate weapons to get hitters out.”

Haase cited Shane Bieber, Aaron Civale, Mike Clevinger, and Zach Plesac as prime examples, and technology played a big role in their respective development paths. Drafted out of Dearborn Divine High School in 2011, Haase was there when the organization began transforming itself. Read the rest of this entry »

Will Wilson has received mixed reviews since he was drafted 15th overall by the Los Angeles Angels out of North Carolina State University in 2019. He’s also changed organizations. The 23-year-old (as of earlier this week) shortstop was traded to San Francisco that same winter as part of a budget-driven deal centered around the contract of Zack Cozart. With just 46 professional games under his belt, Wilson came into the current campaign No. 11 on our Giants Top Prospects list.

The mixed reviews have included assessments that begged for clarification.

When I spoke with Wilson a week ago, I shared that I’d read that his swing is short, and also that it has changed. I’d also seen that he doesn’t project to hit for power, yet he’d put up solid home run numbers in college. Moreover, he already has double-digit dingers this season between High-A Eugene and Double-A Richmond.

Could he share his thoughts on the above?

“A lot of the projection stuff is up to interpretation,” replied Wilson, who received his promotion on July 6. “I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job of hitting for power. I hit a lot of doubles, and I’ve hit more home runs than I think a lot of people have projected. That’s always a good thing.”

Asked why he’s shown more power than many expected, the Kings Mountain, North Carolina native provided a rock solid — if not somewhat unexpected — answer. Read the rest of this entry »

Mitchell Kilkenny is quietly having a stupendous season. A second-round pick by the Colorado Rockies in 2018 out of Texas A&M, the 24-year-old right-hander boasts a 1.47 ERA over eight starts with the Low-A Fresno Grizzlies and the Spokane Indians. Moreover, he’s fanned 54 batters and issued just five free passes in 43 innings.

His plus command is a much-needed asset. Kilkenny is more finesse than power, his fastball ranging from the upper 80s to the low 90s. At least for now. Kilkenny threw harder as a collegian, but then came Tommy John surgery shortly after he was drafted, and last year’s cancelled minor-league season only muddied the waters. No matter. He fully expects his velocity to tick back up in time, and even if that doesn’t happen, his ability to mix, match and tunnel two- and four-seam fastballs, a slider, a curveball, and a changeup has proven to be plenty effective. As Kilkenny put it, “I might not be bright and flashy, but I’m having success.”

Prior to matriculating at Texas A&M where he double-majored in Renewable Natural Resources and Forestry, he excelled in English class at Houston Christian High School.

“My one fun fact is that I won two awards in creative writing contests,” Kilkenny told me. “One was for a class project where we were to write to a favorite author of ours. I picked Bill Watterson, for Calvin and Hobbes, because that was my favorite comic growing up, I love Calvin and Hobbes. Anyway, it was just a little piece about what the author had given me, which was some of the insights you can get out of a simple comic.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Joe Smith has quietly been a good pitcher for a long time. Now 37 years old and playing for his sixth team, the Houston Astros reliever has a 3.06 ERA over 14 big-league seasons. Moreover, his 804 appearances are the most of any active hurler — and that’s not even the eye-catching part. Smith recently moved ahead of Walter Johnson into 49th place on the all-time list, with another legend in his sights. Next up is Nolan Ryan, who logged 807 career outings.

I asked Smith about his ascent in the pitching-appearances category. Could he have imagined this when he debuted with the New York Mets in 2007?

“When I first got called up, I was just trying to figure out what the heck pitching in the big leagues was, “said Smith, who’d been drafted out of Wright State University the previous year. “That offseason, I wrote out some goals and things I needed to get better at, and I was able to accomplish them. At that point I felt like I could do it for a long time. But there’s so much luck in this game. Your health, right? Pedro Martinez was on the team, and everybody would wish him good luck. He’d be, ‘No, wish me good health. If I’m healthy, I’ll be good.’ That really resonated with me. Being able to answer the call is what it’s about, especially when you’re a reliever. You want to be able to post as many days as you can.”

Right now he’s on the shelf. Smith went on the 10-day IL earlier this week, his return date uncertain. The sidearmer told me that everything is structurally sound, yet his forearm had been “grabbing” him (Astros manager Dusty Baker has reportedly referred to it as “elbow soreness”). Read the rest of this entry »

Join me and Kevin Goldstein on Twitch at 10 AM PT/1 PM ET for a unique Friday stream that takes you inside our process. We won’t be breaking down video this time; instead, we will be breaking down The Board. Sure a few players might move here and there, but for the most part, this will be a public broadcast of one of our many internal calls as we discuss the current state of Draft section of The Board and our plans for getting the information we need to make smart changes to it.

Join us on the FanGraphs homepage or the FanGraphs Live Twitch channel. Read the rest of this entry »

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2:02

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon and welcome to another edition of my Friday chat — this is the third week in a row I’ve been able to do this, my longest streak since August. So there’s that. Housekeeping-wise, today I have a piece dreaming on Greg Bird’s minor league deal with the Rockies, who couldn’t possibly have done worse at finding first basemen over the past half-decade.  https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/greg-bird-takes-flight-to-colorado/

2:03	Jay Jaffe: Yesterday I took a look at Yadier Molina’s new one-year deal as well as his Hall of Fame case https://blogs.fangraphs.com/youll-never-guess-where-yadier-molina-sign…

2:03	Jay Jaffe: And on Tuesday I took a deep dive into the health and safety protocols in the 2021 MLB Operations Manual https://blogs.fangraphs.com/high-tech-contact-tracing-vaccines-and-run…

2:04	Jay Jaffe: Meanwhile, in What Is Jay Irate About Today? Jay Jaffe @jay_jaffe they’ve done away with historic league names as well in favor of this generic bullshit? C. Trent Rosecrans@ctrent MLB announces new minor league structure 12 Feb 2021

2:04	Jay Jaffe: Ok, on with the show

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My first ever conversation with Jarren Duran took place prior to spring training when the Red Sox held their annual rookie development camp. Things started off clumsily. The speedy outfield prospect has a certain intensity about him, and his responses to my initial inquiries came couched with edgy caution.

Duran has a 50% ground-ball rate since turning pro, and when I noted that worm-killing isn’t exactly de rigueur in today’s game, his reply was a terse, “Yeah, but I can’t beat out a fly ball. That would be a waste of my speed, so why not use the tool that I have?”

Fair enough. Duran has plus-plus wheels — he swiped 46 bags last season — and he profiles as a table-setter as opposed to a bopper. Even so, is a willingness to stay on the ground really in his best interest?


“I’m willing to accept any ball that will give me a hit,” Duran proclaimed. “Ground balls. Line drives. Even fly balls. I’m just trying to make hard contact.”

Again, fair enough. But it’s not as though the 23-year-old Long Beach State product is wholly without pop. The 2018 seventh-round pick did leave the yard five times between high-A Salem and Double-A Portland, and he’s by no means built like a beanpole. Plus, fence-clearing ability is a quality any hitter should aspire to. Right?

“Bobby Dalbec is the big guy, the home run hitter,” Duran said of his muscular minor-league teammate. “I’m the little guy who gets on for the bigger guys.” When I pointed out that he’s bigger than Mookie Betts, Duran shrugged and deadpanned, “He’s got more power than me.” Asked if power is something he’s hoping to grow into, his response was an equally-shrug-worthy, “If it comes it comes. If it doesn’t it doesn’t.” Read the rest of this entry »