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.

Craig Counsell’s new team has come out of the gate strong, sitting above .500 17 games in. However, 15 of those 17 games featured Seiya Suzuki, who the team will now be without for a significant period of time after Suzuki strained his right oblique during Sunday’s game against the Mariners. An injury to his opposite oblique kept Suzuki out six weeks in 2023, and it looks like this one will keep him out at least two-thirds as long.

The outfielder has improved every year he’s been in the majors, performing solidly as a rookie (116 wRC+) in 2022 before taking a step forward with a 126 wRC+ in 2023, including a 149 wRC+ in the second half. It looked as if he was building upon those second-half adjustments in the early going this year, with a 141 wRC+ through his first 68 plate appearances, including three home runs. Things looked great under the hood too, with a hard-hit rate above 50% (in the 92nd percentile), and an xwOBA, xBA, and xSLG all in the 70th percentile or higher.

Suzuki isn’t an easily replaceable player. Jed Hoyer and co. have built an enviably deep farm system, but the corresponding move was for post-prospect outfielder Alexander Canario. Pete Crow-Armstrong has struggled in Triple-A this season, especially since returning from elbow soreness, which isn’t exactly an encouraging follow-up to the center fielder looking overmatched in his first big league action last year. Fellow Top 100 prospect Owen Caissie is getting his first taste of the minors’ highest level, and Kevin Alcántara and Matt Shaw are both in Double-A for now.

Without a shiny prospect savior to fill in for Suzuki, Counsell will instead look to do what he does best: mix and match. Superutilityman Christopher Morel played every day even with Suzuki healthy, trading in his plethora of gloves for a time split between third base and DH in the hopes of making him more consistent at the hot corner. That hasn’t exactly come to pass, with Morel already worth -2 defensive runs saved, though obviously all sorts of small sample size caveats apply. More troubling is that he isn’t making up for it with the bat — he’s mired in a 1-for-21 slump since April 10, lowering his wRC+ to 86 after a very strong start.

That could lead to more playing time for lower-upside bats like Garrett Cooper, Mike Tauchman, and Nick Madrigal, and probably Canario, since it feels unlikely he was brought up just to ride the pine. Counsell mentioned in Seattle that Morel is dealing with a finger injury. If the Cubs think that injury timing up with his slump is more than a coincidental development, they can of course IL him as well, even if that puts even more of an onus on current stalwarts Ian Happ, Nico Hoerner, Dansby Swanson, Michael Busch, and Cody Bellinger. One x-factor could be Patrick Wisdom, who strikes out a ton but has prodigious power. He’s currently rehabbing a back injury in Triple-A and could be back any day now; he’s got flexibility to play all four corner positions.

The Rangers’ Cavalcade of Returning Pitchers, Part One

He’s not Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom or Tyler Mahle, but the Rangers got a big boost to their rotation when they activated last-minute free agent signee Michael Lorenzen from the IL on Monday. He’s a perfectly useful fourth or fifth starter, and he fit that bill in his first start of the year. He threw five shutout innings in the Rangers’ win, though he walked five and threw just 58% of his 79 pitches for strikes. Lorenzen and his $4.5 million contract aren’t really there to pitch exceedingly well, though; he’s there to raise the floor, give the Rangers a chance to win, and perhaps slide to the bullpen later in the season.

Joining Lorenzen in the majors will be Jack Leiter, who is set to make his big league debut on Thursday for at least a spot start and perhaps a more permanent role. The former Vanderbilt standout and second overall pick hasn’t had an easy path to the bigs, following up a 5.54 ERA in 2022 with a 5.19 mark in 2023, making just one rough start in Triple-A. That didn’t necessarily put Leiter in great position to be knocking on the door, but he finally got his control in order, slicing his previous walk rate almost in half as it dipped down to 5.3%.

With those two in the fray and Mahle and Scherzer both recovering well (Scherzer’s timeline, in fact, appears to be accelerated from what was anticipated this winter, and he could be back as soon as early next month), the Rangers rotation will soon theoretically transform from one that’s treading water into a real strength for the club. Assuming health, Nathan Eovaldi, Scherzer, Mahle, and Jon Gray should all have rotation spots locked in, with a spot left for one of Leiter, Lorenzen, Andrew Heaney, and Dane Dunning. Lorenzen, Heaney, and Dunning all have bullpen experience as recently as last year’s playoffs, so a transition for any or all of them wouldn’t be asking anything new of them and could turn the relief unit into a real strength. Any contributions from deGrom would be gravy; he told the New York Post’s Joel Sherman last October that he’s aiming to be ready for August, and no recent developments appear to have changed that plan.

Yelich’s Back Strikes Back

Christian Yelich landed on the injured list yesterday (his placement is retroactive to April 13) with back trouble. Back injuries are unfortunately nothing new for the Brewers’ left fielder, who hit the IL due to that ailment twice in 2021; his barking back also kept him out of action on a day-to-day basis in 2022 and 2023. The former MVP was enjoying an excellent start to 2024, with a 205 wRC+ backed up by a career-low strikeout rate and a barrel rate that trailed only his MVP runner-up season in 2019.

Yelich’s stint on the IL should mean more playing time for defensive standout Blake Perkins, who is playing well in his sophomore campaign; the switch-hitter entered Tuesday’s action with a 177 wRC+. Outside of Jackson Chourio, Pat Murphy will probably rotate through the other outfielders frequently, with Perkins joined by lefty Sal Frelick and righty Joey Wiemer. Owen Miller, Oliver Dunn, and Jake Bauers could also slide from the infield to the outfield if needed.

2:01	Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to my Tuesday chat. Apologies for the technical glitch in terms of the pre-chat queue but we should be up and running.

2:01	Jay Jaffe: Pouring one out for Whitey Herzog, the Hall of Fame manager best known for piloting the Cardinals to the 1982 championship and two other pennants.

2:03

Jay Jaffe: And pouring another one out for Carl Erskine, a true mensch who not only helped the Dodgers to five pennants and their 1955 championship — and threw two no-hitters as well — but became “a fierce champion of human rights, racial equality and, when his late son Jimmy was born with Down syndrome, became immersed in fighting for people with special needs.” The Hall of Fame honored Erskine with the Buck O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award last summer https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/2024/04/16/indianas-carl-erskine…

2:04	Jay Jaffe: Forgot about Holtzman, who was a big part of the A’s three straight championships and holds the record for most wins by a Jewish pitcher (174).

2:05	Jay Jaffe: I’m thinking about whether I can pull off a Herzog tribute in a timely fashion.

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For four years, Craig Kimbrel was the best reliever in baseball. He wasn’t arguably the best reliever in baseball, or tied for the best; he was just the best. From 2011 through 2014, he compiled a 1.51 ERA with a 1.52 FIP. He struck out 42% of opposing hitters. He allowed a measly .269 BABIP, and didn’t give up home runs either. He averaged more than 65 innings a year and racked up 185 saves as the foregone conclusion of any game that Atlanta led going into the ninth inning.

For the next four years, he was merely a very good reliever – 2.47 ERA, 2.49 FIP, 41% strikeout rate. He started walking more batters and allowing more home runs. He was 30 years old in 2018, and the path forward felt murky. He signed with the Cubs in June of 2019 after a qualifying offer depressed his market, and he was downright abysmal. In 2019 and 2020 combined, he racked up a 6.00 ERA, a 6.29 FIP, and a ghastly 14.6% walk rate to go with 2.75 homers per nine innings. You know the story arc from there, more or less; that run signaled the end of his dominance, and even with occasional flashes of brilliance in the intervening three years, he was back to just a nice arm instead of an unconquerable monster.

I’ve always been interested in the idea of a Craig Kimbrel retrospective, because at his peak he felt so different from the rest of the league, with the wild strikeout rates and the misprint-looking ERA. Mariano Rivera never had a four-year stretch as good as Kimbrel’s, even though he obviously had far greater longevity. I can’t remember who invented it, but Kimbrel even inspired a new junk statistic: a Kimbrel is a game where a pitcher records a negative FIP. That was his specialty; it requires at least two strikeouts, no walks, and no homers over an inning of work. Games like that just felt inevitable at his best. Read the rest of this entry »

Life in the minor leagues differs greatly from life in the majors, often leaving those who climb the affiliated ladder with a multitude of stories. While some of those experiences are amusing in hindsight, many of them also underscore why minor leaguers fought so hard to unionize in an effort to improve their pay and working conditions. From torturous bus rides to cheap motels and ballpark mishaps, life before players make the big leagues can leave you laughing – and shaking your head. Here is a collection of a few such stories, courtesy of nine people in the game well versed in life on the farm.

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Liam Hendriks, Boston Red Sox pitcher:

“The minor leagues are character building. You go through the adversity to get to the [big leagues], and the juice is worth the squeeze. It’s been a minute since I’ve been down there, but the minors are just a grind. You wake up early in the morning to travel to the next town, then you stay in shitty hotels. You learn to find the silver linings in everything.

“One story I’ll always remember is Chris Colabello getting called up. He had spent [seven] years in indie ball, got signed as a 27-year-old to Double-A with the Twins, and I was with him in Triple-A in 2013. We were on the bus — I think it was Lehigh Valley to Rochester — playing cards in back. I don’t remember what game we were playing, but I had the best hand I’ve ever had in my life. One of the other guys had one of the best hands of his life. The manager, Gene Glynn, comes walking down. He says, ‘Hey Chris, got a minute?’ Tells him he’s getting called up. Twenty-eight years old, all those years grinding in indie ball, and he’s getting his first call-up. Calls his old man, was crying on the phone. Read the rest of this entry »

The Astros have dominated the American League West in recent years, winning three straight division titles and six out of the past seven, and getting at least as far as the American League Championship in each of those years. Their quest to extend that run is off to a rocky start, however. Despite taking two out of three from the Rangers this weekend in Houston, they own the league’s second-worst record thus far at 6-11, ahead of only the White Sox (2-13).

Even with the series win over the Rangers — whom they’ve now beaten in four out of seven games while going 2-8 against their other opponents — the Astros are off to their worst start since 2016, when they went 5-12. Notably, that season was the last one in which they missed the playoffs. Their 4-11 record through Friday was their worst through 15 games since 2013, the year they lost a franchise-record 111 games. That said, this is their fifth straight season below .500 at this juncture:

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Believe it or not, we’re almost 10% of the way through the 2024 season. While baseball always offers myriad surprises, especially this early, one of the ones that most intrigues me is the success of the Kansas City Royals, who stand at 10-6, just a half-game behind the Cleveland Guardians in the AL Central. Naturally, as the resident spoilsport of the baseball analytics community, my job is to dig into the unexpected and see if it has some meat on its bones. And the Royals winning the division would definitely count as unexpected. Justin Mason was the only member of our staff to pick them to win the Central before the season started, while our playoff odds had KC with about a 1-in-14 chance to stand atop the division; ZiPS was even lower, pegging them at a 5.9% chance of taking the division. Read the rest of this entry »

Two weeks ago, Spencer Strider’s arm appeared healthy. One week ago, the Braves placed Strider on the IL after an MRI of his elbow revealed a damaged ulnar collateral ligament. This Friday, Strider had internal brace surgery to support that UCL; he’ll miss the remainder of the season and perhaps some of next year recovering from it. That’s awful news for Strider, the Braves, and baseball as a whole. I know a good article structure when I see it. Let’s walk through each of those in turn, in decreasing order of how much I have to say about them.

For Strider, a second procedure shrouds the remainder of his career in mystery. His career trajectory was already essentially without precedent. He ascended from draft pick to prospect to reliever to ace with blinding speed, whipping unhittable fastballs and mind-bending sliders past batters with ease. He instantly became one of the best five or so starters in baseball, an NL Cy Young favorite, and one of the most exciting arms in the game.

Impressively, he did so without missing much time with injury. He made 32 starts last year and pitched 186 innings, a veritable pillar of durability by today’s standards. But injury was never far away. Strider throws phenomenally hard. In his two years at the top of the game, he had the third-fastest average fastball velocity among all starters, behind only Hunter Greene and Sandy Alcantara. He was only a few years out from Tommy John surgery, to boot; he missed the 2019 season after having his UCL replaced while pitching at Clemson. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s gotten into the Central divisions? Often an afterthought behind the big market clubs on either coast, it’s the Central teams in both leagues that are providing the most surprising starts, and most entertaining baseball, so far this season.

This season, we’ve revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined since March. That’s why we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance.

To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds (specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%). As the best and worst teams sort themselves out throughout the season, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise will remain reactive to hot streaks or cold snaps. Read the rest of this entry »

Max Fried is unusual; he’s a good homegrown Braves player who didn’t sign a team-friendly, million-year contract extension. (It feels like this team hasn’t had one of those since Johnny Sain.) As a result, Fried will be a free agent at the end of the season, but insofar as the Braves are preparing for life without Fried eventually, they very much need him now.

Now that Spencer Strider is out for the season, the Braves rotation consists of Fried, two aging big names (Chris Sale and Charlie Morton), one guy who was a reliever next year (Reynaldo López), and we’ll figure out the no. 5 spot when we get there. It’s a lot of upside, and all things considered it’s not that bad when every team seems to be down at least one starter. But suffice it to say that Atlanta has less wiggle room, pitching-wise, than it did two weeks ago.

Therefore it was a bit alarming when Fried came out of his first two starts having completed just five innings total. In those two outings, he allowed 12 hits and 11 runs, 10 of them earned, to bring his ERA up to 18.00. The Braves’ offense is good, sure, but no baseball team ever made could reliably provide 18 runs of support per game for its no. 1 starter. Read the rest of this entry »