A.J. Preller must have been getting itchy. It’s too early in the season for substantial trades; they generally happen before the start of the year or when the calendar has flipped to July. Teams that thought they were going for it usually haven’t accumulated enough evidence to change that view, and even if they want to trade someone, the potential of finding a higher bidder closer to the deadline makes sellers hesitant to move. But the Marlins and Padres overcame those factors and linked up on a deal that sends Luis Arraez to San Diego for a sampler platter’s worth of prospects: Dillon Head, Jakob Marsee, Nathan Martorella, and Woo-Suk Go.
There’s a lot to unpack in this deal. We’ll start in San Diego and then head east, because the Padres’ side is more straightforward. It’s like this: the Padres had roughly eight batters they wanted to use every day. Luis Campusano is more journeyman than star, but the team seems comfortable with him at catcher. With Manny Machado back to playing the field after an injury limited him to DH to start the year, the infield is set. The outfield likely isn’t changing, either: Jurickson Profar looked like the weakest link before the season, but he’s been the team’s most productive player so far.
Their only plausible route to offensive improvement, then, is at DH. That’s great, though! You can play anyone at DH, more or less. But if you play an excellent defender there, you’re wasting that talent, and the Padres have one of the best defenses in baseball this season, so whoever they acquired probably wasn’t going to displace one of their regulars. Read the rest of this entry »
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Oakland Athletics. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fourth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.
A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.
All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »
In the modern game, pinch-hitting is seen as something of a lost art. This likely started with teams prioritizing roster spots for extra bullpen arms over spare position players. With that came a heavier emphasis on positional flexibility off the bench, rather than plus contact skills (think Ross Gload) or a big bopping bat (à la Matt Stairs). As an angry Facebook commenter might tell you, it’s one more way that sabermetrics has ruined America’s pastime. Yet, the numbers bear it out; the best arm is often a fresh arm, while conversely, fresh bats off the bench tend to perform significantly worse than their counterparts in the starting lineup. Ahead of the 2020 season, Ben Clemens found that the pinch-hitting penalty, first theorized in 2006, still held 14 years later. Contemplating Ben’s findings, Patrick Dubuque of Baseball Prospectuspenned a line that stuck deep in my brain: “Pinch-hitters are just difficult to justify, except when they’re mandatory.”
Pinch-hitters were mandatory far less often in 2020 after the universal DH came into play. However, the age of the universal DH is also the age of expanded rosters and pitcher limits, and those new roster rules may just have saved the pinch-hitter from a slow demise. Pinch-hitters are rarely mandatory anymore, but they haven’t disappeared as much as you might think. Read the rest of this entry »
On April 28, the Mets walked off the Cardinals in the 11th inning. It was a huge moment, made even bigger because the embattled Mark Vientos delivered the knockout blow in just his second big league game after starting the season in the minors. That night, John DeMarsico, director of SNY’s Mets broadcasts, posted a video of the play that was shot from inside the production truck. It’s something he does occasionally, though this video had a twist: the audio from the triumphant final scene of Moneyball was overlaid on the broadcast.
DeMarsico is renowned for adding cinematic flourishes to SNY’s broadcasts, but when I watched this particular video — hearing dramatic music play as the voices in the truck worked together to decide what shot should come next — I was struck by the way DeMarsico is entrusted with telling the story of the game. SNY’s team is universally acknowledged to be one of the best in the business. At any given moment, DeMarsico can choose multiple shots that would look great and tell the viewer what is going on, but his job is bigger than that. His job is to use those images to craft a narrative. 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.
On Friday night, after a horrendous 9-24 start to the season, the Marlins waved the white flag barely a month into the campaign when they traded back-to-back batting champion Luis Arraez to the Padres for a quartet of prospects. Arraez almost certainly won’t be the last player Miami will swap for prospects this year as new president of baseball operations Peter Bendix looks to reset his beleaguered roster and build for the future.
Considering the team’s position, there are only two Marlins players who should be off limits to prospective trade partners, starting pitchers Eury Pérez and Sandy Alcantara, who are both out for the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Alcantara, who signed a five-year, $56 million extension after the 2021 season, should be ready for Opening Day, while Pérez will miss at least a couple months of next season, too.
Let’s take a look at some of the players the Marlins could deal between now and the July 30 deadline.
Jazz Chisholm Jr., CF
Few players in baseball are more entertaining than the lefty-swinging Jazz Chisholm Jr., who’s been viewed as a key piece for the Marlins since his 2021 rookie year. Back then, Chisholm was their starting second baseman, and he’s yet to play as many games as he did in that season, when he came to the plate 507 times over 124 games. Injuries limited him to 157 games over the past two years, but that full season’s worth of production across 2022 and 2023 offered a tantalizing glimpse of what he could offer if he could just stay on the field: .251/.312/.487 (116 wRC+) with 33 homers, 34 steals, and above-average defense at both second base and center field.
Chisholm’s 2024 hasn’t been great thus far (102 wRC+), but he’s stayed healthy and is taking walks more than ever, with a career-low strikeout rate to go with that more patient approach. Lefties have always given him fits in his career (66 wRC+), but he’s got plenty of utility as the strong side of a platoon in center, and teams may be open to moving him back to second base if that better fits their roster. The 26-year-old Chisholm is earning $2.625 million this year and isn’t a free agent until the conclusion of the 2026 season. Maybe those two years of club control beyond this season would make the Marlins hesitant to trade him, but dealing him now would also probably sweeten the return.
Best Fits: Phillies, Mariners, Royals, Guardians
Jesús Luzardo, SP
The Marlins made a savvy deal back in 2021, when they acquired lefty starter Jesús Luzardo from the A’s for 56 games of Starling Marte. Luzardo missed half the 2022 season with a forearm strain, but he was great in his 18 starts. Last year, the hard-throwing lefty broke out in a big way, posting a 3.58 ERA (3.55 FIP) in 178.2 innings and striking out 28% of the batters he faced.
Luzardo stumbled to start this season, with just 26 innings across his first five starts, allowing 19 runs (6.58 ERA), with his strikeout rate tumbling by four percentage points and his walk rate up above 11% before he hit the injured list with a strained flexor tendon on April 26. Typically, that diagnosis portends a long absence, but Luzardo made his first rehab start on Sunday, so his recovery seems to be progressing fairly swiftly, though there is no timetable yet for his return. Like Chisholm, Luzardo has two more years of club control after this one.
Best Fits: Dodgers, Rangers, Giants, Twins, Astros
Bryan De La Cruz, OF
Bryan De La Cruz hasn’t had a flashy career to date; he has a 99 wRC+ across his four seasons and hasn’t produced 1.0 WAR in any of them. But he’s always felt capable of more: In 2022, his xwOBA and sweet-spot percentage were both elite, with the latter being the best in baseball. His thump took a step back last year, but his sweet-spot percentage remained excellent. This year he’s trading ideal contact for hitting the ball harder; he’s barreling more balls than ever but his sweet-spot rate is down nine points.
It seems as if De La Cruz doesn’t exactly know what type of hitter he should be, with the constant fluctuations preventing a true breakout. He’s never been a good hitter, which limits his utility, but some of the stronger teams at hitting development could look to iron out some kinks with the hope that things will start to click for him. He’s not a free agent until the end of the 2027 season, but he seems as good as any player to benefit from a change of scenery.
Best Fits: Phillies, Rays, Mariners, Cardinals
Of course, the Marlins should look to deal away more than just these three players. The problem is many of their trade candidates are struggling — shortstop Tim Anderson, first baseman and DH Josh Bell, outfielder Jesús Sánchez, starting pitchers Trevor Rogers and Edward Cabrera, and reliever Anthony Bender — while others are injured: starter Braxton Garrett, corner infielder Jake Burger, and reliever A.J. Puk. Closer Tanner Scott is healthy and his 2.77 ERA is promising, but his peripherals (5.54 FIP, .194 BABIP, and a walk rate that is 3.2 percentage points higher than his strikeout rate) are bad enough to suppress the return package.
Some of these players probably will be traded, if for no reason other than to shed some payroll. Anderson, Bell, and Scott are all free agents after this season, so the Marlins should be willing to trade them for a can of beans come late July if they can’t get anything else for them. For the others, Miami can afford to hold onto them if the right deal doesn’t come to fruition before the deadline and look to trade them in the future.
…
Alek Manoah Looks Like Himself, for Better and Worse
On Sunday, Blue Jays righty Alek Manoah returned to a big league mound for the first time since August 10, finally making his way back after months beleaguered by ineffectiveness, injuries and mechanical issues.
The questions surrounding the sharp downturn of Manoah’s career won’t go away after a four-inning outing in which he threw 92 pitches, gave up seven runs, walked four batters, and hit another. Understandably, that performance will evoke far more memories of his troubling 2023 season than it will cause fans to think fondly back to his 2022, when he finished third in Cy Young voting. His command was shaky, featuring plenty of up-and-arm-side misses with his fastball:
That gave the Nationals a lot of easy takes; they offered at just 18% of pitches outside the strike zone, well below the league average of 31%. Batters did make less contact than league average on swings both inside and outside of the zone, but they didn’t do much swinging: Washington swung at only 36% of Manoah’s offerings, 10 percentage points below average.
The good news is Manoah’s velocity ticked up notably from last year, with his heater averaging 94.3 mph compared to 92.6 mph. But ultimately, if he wants to stick in the rotation and resurrect his career, he’ll have to make more competitive pitches; the stuff doesn’t matter if hitters can just wait it out and take their bases. Because the Blue Jays are expected to be without the injured Yariel Rodriguez and Bowden Francis for a while, Manoah should have ample opportunity to figure things out at the major league level.
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.
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a recent uptick in base stealing and why Mike Trout’s loyalty to the Angels is criticized more than it’s celebrated. Then (16:39) they’re joined by Patreon supporter Alex Levy to discuss Alex’s background as a podcast listener, baseball fan, and mail carrier and answer emails (43:49) about a Mario approach to chemistry in baseball, back-to-back homers, providing players with a destructible piece of equipment, probabilistic robo umps, umps as neutral (but not infallible) arbiters, and the correct pronunciation of “summer sausage.”
First base defense is complicated. It isn’t one of the most difficult positions, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its own challenges. Players in the latter half of their careers who have lost athleticism sometimes adopt the position as their new home, which is interesting because it is much more difficult to learn a new position when you’re past your athletic prime. But because first base doesn’t require top tier athleticism, it’s not uncommon for that to happen. Bryce Harper’s case is a perfect example of this.
Between Philadelphia’s crowded outfield and its interest in keeping its star healthy as he ages through his 30s, first base became a viable option for the former MVP when the position opened up and he was returning from Tommy John surgery in record time. Last year, he handled it well — even if he at times ventured too far off the bag for grounders in the hole, as if he were back in right field trying to cut the ball off in the gap — given that he was learning the position on the fly.
It was a bet on Harper’s baseball skills and IQ that seems to have worked out well. His defensive metrics looked solid in 2023 (+3 OAA); of course, considering the small sample, we shouldn’t take these numbers as bond, but they were encouraging nonetheless. Now, with a full offseason of learning the position and a month’s worth of plays, we have a better idea of what his true talent is at the position. Later in this article, we’ll watch some video of Harper playing first to evaluate where he stands. But first, let’s take a look at the numbers.
So far in his first base career, Harper has a +6 OAA and a Success Rate Added between three and four percent. His OAA this season is +3, which is the highest among first basemen. Basically, the numbers indicated that Harper had a solid foundation already, and with more experience, he’s become one of the top defenders at his position.
For the rest of this piece, we’ll use video to break down Harper’s handling of three fundamental facets of the position: his footwork on groundballs that he takes unassisted, his feeds and feel for flipping to pitchers, and his opportunities to make outs at second. There are other aspects that go into first base defense — such as catching pickoff attempts, securing scoops, and receiving cutoffs before delivering relays — but I’m most interested in his skills fielding groundballs. With that said, let’s start by looking at grounders hit close enough to the bag for Harper to make an unassisted putout:
Unassisted Groundballs
Two things stick out to me right away: Harper is good at working from the ground up, and he almost always keeps his body moving in the right direction. Any shortstop would tell you that progressively moving your feet and body weight toward your target as you field the ball is crucial. The same premise holds for first baseman.
With a slow chopper, you have to stagger your feet to make sure you stay under control and don’t overplay the baseball and get a bad hop. When working toward the first base line, as Harper has done so well, you balance how hard the ball was hit with the angle you take to it; on harder hit balls, you put your body on the line to protect against a double, whereas when a deep chopper comes, you reorient your center of mass toward the bag to make sure you’re ready for a race with the runner or to throw to the pitcher. Harper looks very comfortable making these decisions. I snuck the liner from Matt Olson in there to show how quick he can be on his feet. Not every first baseman can move like that. Now, let’s move on to a more complicated task: flipping to the pitcher.
Flips to Pitcher
Harper has done well sticking to the fundamentals here. He has a rhythm established with Zack Wheeler in particular, but his execution of leading each pitcher to the bag is on point. He maintains composure throughout each of the throws, even when the batter-runner is a speedster like Elly De La Cruz. Urgency and pace are important aspects of fielding grounders at first because you can get caught in a foot race with a runner. But if you’re consistent with your delivery and have a good feel for speeding up your arm when necessary, there is no need to rush your feet.
I’m impressed by Harper’s ability to make plays moving to his right. He uses his right foot to plant or pivot very well. That has a lot to do with his athleticism. He gets into good positions to stay under the baseball and make reads with his hands. The next clips highlight that even more:
Potential Plays to Second
There are three different moves that you can make as a right-handed thrower when deciding to deliver a fire to second from the various first base positions (shallow, medium, deep) — you can pivot toward your throwing shoulder to square your body to the bag, you can spin toward your forehand and non-throwing shoulder to square your body, or you can make the throw on the run. Harper clearly has a feel those three moves.
On the grounder hit by Olson, Harper’s footwork is fantastic as he spins, turns, and throws, and his delivery is to the correct side of second base. Then on a similar grounder (the third play), he realizes he doesn’t have a throwing lane and decides to take the sure out at first. On the hard groundball from Mike Trout, Harper switches his feet very quickly (like a catcher would) and delivers the ball right on top of the bag. The only hiccup comes in the final play in the clip, when he gets the groundball near the outfield and decides to hold it instead of making a spinning throw to second. If he fires to second instead, the Phillies have had a shot at an inning-ending double play. This is something to keep your eyes on as Harper continues to develop at the position. It’s the longest throw a first baseman will make and requires a quick decision. He’s clearly comfortable making the spinning throw from a shallow depth, but this last piece will help him become more complete at the position.
In general, I’m impressed with how comfortable the Phillies slugger looks at his new position. His fundamentals are on point. He can pop off the bag quickly after holding a runner on and get his feet in check to move in any direction. Even when he makes a mistake, it’s not because he isn’t prepared with his feet. This might not be a Mookie Betts-level position switch, but it’s still worth appreciating.
It’s a great time to be a fan of the Baltimore Orioles. This is now the third season since their emergence from the dark basement of the AL East, and they no longer retain their tatterdemalion appearance. The O’s, at 20-11, have been winning by the very straightforward method of beating their opponents into submission, not by collecting more than their fair share of extra-inning and one-run victories. While the pitching staff has been a big part of the team’s success, what has made the Orioles so dangerous is a lineup that leads the American League in runs scored and wRC+. Even better for an O’s fan, they’re terrorizing opposing pitchers with a lineup that’s largely made of players that came up with the franchise and are several years away from hitting free agency. And there’s more on the way, giving the team a rather novel first world problem: having too many hitters and not enough lineup spots.
That the O’s have some of the best young offensive talent in the majors should not be lost on anyone who is into baseball. Adley Rutschman was the runner-up for AL Rookie of the Year in 2022, Gunnar Henderson took the award last year, and Jackson Holliday was the heavy favorite before his poor debut. Holliday could very easily come back and win it in the end, but if he doesn’t, one of the current favorites is yet another young Baltimore left-handed hitter, Colton Cowser. Through Thursday’s games, Cowser stands with the top WAR among AL rookies, with a .277/.351/.578, 164 wRC+ line. I haven’t even mentioned Jordan Westburg, who has an .890 OPS while splitting time between second and third base.
Even with Holliday falling flat in his first 10 games in the majors – something I expect him to rectify in the not-too-distant future – the O’s are leading the league in WAR from players younger than the traditional peak age of 27.
Team Positional Player WAR, 26 and Under
Team
PA
HR
BA
OBP
SLG
wRC+
WAR
Orioles
513
25
.276
.332
.493
137
5.2
Yankees
470
16
.274
.365
.438
135
4.1
Guardians
746
17
.253
.324
.392
109
3.9
Brewers
644
13
.270
.341
.394
111
3.6
Royals
669
20
.237
.302
.406
98
3.0
Nationals
436
11
.267
.324
.413
110
2.5
Rangers
507
11
.252
.332
.396
109
2.1
Reds
502
18
.229
.311
.431
106
2.1
Giants
249
6
.269
.327
.408
113
2.0
Braves
333
4
.280
.351
.377
110
1.8
Padres
451
14
.245
.302
.404
106
1.8
Twins
373
14
.237
.319
.453
122
1.7
Phillies
319
10
.237
.308
.389
98
1.7
Rays
315
9
.262
.334
.397
117
1.6
Tigers
610
16
.216
.301
.372
94
1.5
Diamondbacks
428
5
.245
.331
.346
97
1.2
Astros
260
6
.290
.327
.412
114
1.1
Athletics
615
19
.201
.275
.352
84
0.9
Mariners
199
4
.261
.302
.367
97
0.9
Mets
163
3
.258
.313
.358
98
0.8
Cubs
377
13
.222
.289
.387
91
0.7
Dodgers
149
3
.217
.262
.333
72
0.4
Marlins
270
7
.240
.319
.368
96
0.4
Red Sox
435
13
.220
.281
.391
84
0.3
Blue Jays
435
8
.210
.292
.316
80
0.2
Angels
448
11
.235
.296
.368
90
-0.2
Cardinals
619
10
.203
.277
.315
72
-0.2
Rockies
513
14
.231
.284
.373
71
-0.7
Pirates
476
6
.210
.284
.293
65
-1.0
White Sox
360
6
.195
.243
.299
54
-1.5
In franchise history, including its first year as the Milwaukee Brewers in 1901 and through decades as the St. Louis Browns, the 2023 team ranked seventh in WAR (12.2) from position players younger than 27, and this year’s team is already within shouting distance of halfway to that mark. So naturally, my question is how this team is likely to end up by the end of the season, and whether it would stack up to the best young offensive teams ever. For this, I’ll use our Depth Charts playing time to give plausible estimates of how the O’s will use their lineup for the rest of the season.
Even with Depth Charts projecting a much more conservative promotion schedule for Holliday than expected at the start of the season, the O’s have a mean projection of 21.7 WAR from this group of players. That would be the best in team history, edging out the 1973 club with Bobby Grich, Don Baylor, Earl Williams, and Al Bumbry as the headliners. And yes, it’s significant on a historical level as well.
Best AL/NL Teams, 26-and-Under Hitters, 1901-2024
Season
Team
WAR
1943
Cardinals
29.9
1942
Red Sox
29.6
1912
Athletics
29.3
1910
Athletics
28.3
1941
Yankees
27.8
1928
Giants
25.8
1988
Reds
24.9
1965
Reds
24.8
1910
Giants
24.3
1911
Giants
23.7
1912
Red Sox
23.4
1913
Athletics
23.4
1987
Pirates
23.2
1929
Yankees
23.1
1939
Yankees
22.9
1935
Cubs
22.9
1942
Cardinals
22.5
2016
Cubs
22.1
1921
Yankes
22.0
1974
Reds
21.9
1930
Giants
21.8
2024
Orioles (Proj.)
21.7
1911
Athletics
21.4
1979
Expos
21.4
1978
Expos
21.3
Their 21.7 WAR would be enough to put the Orioles in the top 25, and there’s an argument that this undersells the group. The vast majority of the teams with the most 26-and-under contributions come from the pre-World War II era, when players were called up at younger ages and there was no ticking service time clock. Looking at just the divisional era – which now covers more than half a century – the Orioles rank impressively among recent stables of young talent.
There are some mighty impressive teams on that list, most notably the Big Red Machine and the early 1970s Athletics before free agency.
And even this perhaps underrates Baltimore’s offensive talent. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Holliday destroy in the minors and get a quick call back up, and if he does, he would slide right into the everyday lineup. Otherwise, though, the Orioles are now up to the practical limitation of roster and starting lineup spots. Cowser is an example of this: It would have been hard to get him regular playing time if not for Austin Hays’ dreadful start to the season. (Hayes is now on the IL). Heston Kjerstad was called up to replace Hays on April 23, after hitting .349/.431/.744 at Triple-A Norfolk, yet the former first rounder has gotten only eight plate appearances total in three games — the O’s have played 10 games with him on the roster.
Kjerstad is far from the only Orioles farmhand who likely would have gotten more playing time on a team with a thinner roster. At Triple-A, Coby Mayo is hitting .333/.397/.683 with 11 homers while mostly playing third base, a position at which the Orioles are already overflowing. Connor Norby has split time at second base and the outfield with an .829 OPS at Norfolk, but there’s no obvious place for him to get playing time unless the team decides to cut Ramón Urías. Using up-to-date minor league translations for Kjerstad, Mayo, and Norby, we can get an idea, via some up-to-date ZiPS projections, at what this trio could do if they O’s had playing time to give them.
All three players project as league average or better if they started in the majors right now.
While this represents a pretty enviable problem for the Orioles to have, it also can be an opportunity. The organization is deep in hitters, but its farm system does not have anywhere near the same depth when it comes to pitching. We don’t yet have a 2024 farm system ranking up for the Orioles, but in the updated 2023 list, the top 15 prospects featured just two pitchers, Cade Povich and Seth Johnson. Corbin Burnes was a great acquisition, but it doesn’t have to end there; as teams fall out of contention, the possibility exists for Baltimore to add a pitcher who can not only pitch down the stretch or in a possible playoff series or three, but in 2025 and beyond. The surplus of offensive talent should give the Orioles the ability to offer more for the right pitcher than practically any other team in baseball can, and if they do swing a trade, they’d still have so many other hitters in the pipeline that such a move likely wouldn’t make a dent in the team’s long-term outlook in a meaningful way.
Whether Baltimore gets to the World Series after a drought of more than 40 years is still uncertain. But this is the Orioles team that looks the most like the ones of the early Earl Weaver years: It’s a club that’s built mostly from within and overflowing with young stars. That worked out pretty well the first time around.
Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. As always, thanks to Zach Lowe for coming up with the idea for the column, because it’s a great excuse to watch a ton of baseball and write about plays that make me smile. This week had a little bit of everything: close and fun games, lopsided and fun games, idiosyncratic batter behavior, and even an all-time major league record (nope, not a good one). Let’s get started. One quick note: Five Things is taking a week off next week for workload management. No word on whether I’ll be assigned to FanGraphs Triple-A to keep my typing arm fresh, but the column will return a week from Friday.
1. High-Stakes Games in April
Two division leaders faced off in Seattle on Monday night. The juggernaut Braves need no introduction; they have the best record in baseball and won 104 games last year. The Mariners have ridden a dominant rotation to the top of the AL West despite a sputtering offense. The first game of the series pitted Bryce Miller against Max Fried, and while neither was projected as their team’s ace coming into the season, they both looked the part in this game.
Miller started things off with his customary dominant fastball. He got Ronald Acuña Jr. looking and Ozzie Albies swinging in the first inning, and kept going from there. When Miller’s fastball is cooking, it’s hard to imagine making contact against him, never mind getting a hit:
Fried got off to a slow start this year after missing half of last season with injury, but he’d just thrown a three-hitter against the Marlins, and he picked up right where he left off. He baffled the Mariners with an array of fastballs, sliders, and delightful slow curves:
These two battled long into the night, exchanging scoreless innings and confident struts. One thing they didn’t exchange was baserunners; through six innings, they combined for three walks and no hits allowed. They traded strikeouts – 10 for Miller, seven for Fried – and made every 2-1 count feel like a rally.
The Braves lineup is too good to hold down forever. Acuña recorded the first hit of the game with a smashed groundball single in the seventh. Then he stole second. Then he stole third. Then Albies cracked a ground-rule double to bring him home. Miller recovered to escape the inning with no further damage, but Fried and the relievers that followed him could work with that. They made it through eight innings without any damage, setting up a dramatic clash between Atlanta closer A.J. Minter, trying to protect that one-run lead, and the two goats of the Seattle offense so far, Jorge Polanco and Mitch Garver. Polanco led off the bottom of the ninth with a single through the six hole before Garver clobbered a walk-off blast:
More games like this in April, please. More games like it in May and June. I like whimsical baseball just as much as the next person – probably more, in fact. But when games are this well played and this tight, it’s like a little piece of the playoffs escaped October and landed in my living room. My heart couldn’t handle every game being like this, but getting one every once in a while is a delight.
2. Wyatt Langford in Space Wyatt Langford’s debut has been uneven, to be kind. He’s hitting .239/.311/.312, not exactly the offensive juggernaut Rangers fans expected after he tore up the minors last year. He has top-of-the-scale power; he hit six homers in spring training this year, and 10 in fewer than 200 minor league plate appearances last season. So far, that power hasn’t shown up. He only has a single home run in the majors this year. But oh boy, was that home run fun:
It feels weird for a power hitting DH to have an inside-the-park home run and no regular ones, but Langford is a strange DH. The fact that he isn’t a plus corner outfielder is surprising, because he can absolutely fly. Statcast clocks his average sprint speed so far this year at 29.6 ft/sec, one of the fastest marks in the sport. That somehow hasn’t translated to defense yet, but on offense? The man can move.
For a lot of players, this would be a triple. I clocked him at just under 15 seconds around the bases, and that could have been even faster if he didn’t think he hit a homer at first:
Now, did the Reds defense help out? Sure. Jake Fraley didn’t play the carom well at all; if he’d simply been less aggressive chasing the ball into that corner, this would have been a double or triple at most. But that one mistake is all it took (and for the Sam Miller enthusiasts out there, note Elly De La Cruz taking the cutoff throw from right field). But even accounting for the defensive miscue, Langford’s speed is what made this play happen.
Langford doesn’t seem like a track star to me, though I’m not sure how much of that is because I keep seeing “DH” next to his name. (He was playing left field in this game, for what it’s worth.) But watching him round the bases, you can’t miss it:
I particularly liked this close-up angle the Rangers posted:
Maybe it’s the red gloves. Maybe it’s the stride length. There’s just something simultaneously soothing and surprising about seeing him round the bases. He’s a large man with flailing arms, but there’s a grace to it too; his torso and head barely bounce around even as he accelerates to full speed. It’s a joy to watch, is my point. And Adolis García loved it just as much as I did:
3. Walk Offs
It all started with a mistake. In the bottom of the first inning last Thursday, Yoshinobu Yamamoto missed just low to Joey Meneses in a full count. Umpire Brian Walsh didn’t see it that way:
You can see Meneses at the edge of the frame looking back in shock. That was a ball! But the game moved on. The next three-ball pitch Yamamoto threw was a walk to Joey Gallo. The next one after that? Another one to Gallo with a different result:
I do think that one was a strike, but Gallo clearly didn’t. And now the battle lines were set: The Nationals were walking to first on every three-ball pitch they saw. Jacob Young got the memo:
And then on 3-2, he got the memo again:
Jesse Winker looked to me like he was ready to trot off – but Yamamoto’s 3-2 curveball caught so much of the plate that he instead pivoted around and marched back to the dugout:
Yamamoto was commanding the edges of the plate masterfully, and getting some help there to boot. But I loved Washington’s strategy. Just trot down to first base if it’s close. Maybe you’ll influence the umpire. Yamamoto threw eight pitches in three-ball counts in the game. The Nats swung at one and ran down toward first on five. That’s aspirational living right there. Maybe Mike Rizzo should put up a sign that says “no one cares how fast you run down to first base on strike three.” Or maybe he shouldn’t – I had a lot of fun watching them do it.
4. Revenge
You can only pull off this play when a catcher is hitting:
Don’t get me wrong, José Ramírez is a great defender. That was a heck of a play, a difficult barehanded scoop and an impressive off-platform throw. Not many third basemen can combine those two so smoothly. But if pretty much anyone else on the Braves were running, that would have been a single. Travis d’Arnaud is a 35-year-old catcher, and he moves like one, with 18th percentile sprint speed and 10th percentile home-to-first splits.
A series of unlikely events needs to happen for that to be such an unlucky out. Replace Ramírez with a slightly worse defender and it’s a hit. Replace d’Arnaud with a slightly faster runner and it’s a hit. Take a mile per hour off of the contact, or move it just a bit more away from Ramírez’s path, and it’s a hit. Part of being a good defender is making a lot of these edge-case plays, but I’m sure d’Arnaud was unhappy about losing a hit that way.
It’s OK, though, because he got his revenge two nights later. With two out and no one on in the top of the 10th, Ramírez singled off of A.J. Minter. He got a huge jump on the second pitch of the next at-bat and stole second standing up. Or at least, he thought he did:
Blink and you’ll miss it. Orlando Arcia’s swipe tag was way late, and it didn’t even make contact. A reverse angle is even more confusing. I have no idea why Ramírez didn’t slide, but he looks pretty clearly safe on this one:
Surely replay would fix this, right? Wrong:
What a remarkably perfect throw. Without meaning to, d’Arnaud hit Ramírez’s back pocket batting gloves from 130 feet away. Ramírez was out the moment Arcia caught the ball. The after-the-fact swipe was just instinctual, because Arcia has caught thousands of throws like that in his life but probably never received one that precise. I’ve heard of letting the ball do the work on a tag, but this takes that to a new level.
If Ramírez had been faster, there would be no play. If he’d been slower, he probably would have slid – honestly, he should have anyway. If the throw had been three inches off in either direction, the tag wouldn’t have been there. Ramírez stole one from d’Arnaud thanks to a series of just-so events. It’s only fair that d’Arnaud did the same to him.
5. Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of Victory
With their loss to the Astros on Sunday, the Rockies fell to 7-21 in their first 28 games, which is bad enough. Even worse, they trailed at some point in each of those games. That tied a “record” set by the 1910 St. Louis Browns for most consecutive games trailing to start a season. Any time you’re tying a record set by the Browns, something has gone wrong.
Luckily for them, the next game, on Tuesday, offered a quick reprieve. They ambushed the Marlins with five runs in the top of the first, and Ryan Feltner was absolutely dealing. He faced the minimum number of batters through six innings, with the two singles he allowed quickly erased by a double play and a caught stealing, respectively. He needed only 79 pitches to get through eight scoreless innings. Bud Black sent him back out for the ninth to try for his first career complete game, a shutout to boot.
Things started to go wrong right away. Vidal Bruján snuck a single through the infield, Feltner hit Christian Bethancourt to add another baserunner, and then Luis Arraez doubled Bruján home to open the scoring ledger for Miami. Feltner’s first complete game would have to wait, because the Rockies needed this win. Closer Justin Lawrence came in to slam the door. But uh… he walked Bryan De La Cruz, and then Dane Myers (in the game because Jazz Chisholm Jr. got ejected for arguing balls and strikes) singled home two runs, and then Josh Bell singled to load the bases, and then Lawrence hit Jesús Sánchez to make it 5-4, and then… well, you get the idea. By the time Jalen Beeks came in to replace Lawrence, the game was tied and there was still only one out. But Beeks wriggled out of the jam without conceding anything further. The Rockies still had a chance to bury this accursed streak – they hadn’t trailed at any point in this game.
They scored a run in the top of the 10th when Ryan McMahon stroked a two-out double. But it wasn’t to be. De La Cruz doubled in the bottom of the inning to even the score. Then Myers – c’mon, the guy who wasn’t even supposed to be in the game! – won it for Miami with a seeing-eye single. Or maybe De La Cruz won it by remembering to touch home. Or maybe catcher Elias Díaz lost it with a bobble:
Oh boy, that one’s gonna sting. The Rockies can’t get out of their own way. They’ve trailed in the two games they’ve played since this collapse, too, extending the record to an outrageous 31 straight games trailing to start the season. Include the end of last year, and it’s 37 straight games trailing. I’m sorry for the Rockies fans enduring this, and for Patrick Dubuque for choosing to live the Rockies fan life for a year in this year of all years. At this point, there’s not much you can do other than stare, like rubbernecking but for sports.
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