On Monday night, I had the privilege of attending a game in which the Reds’ best left-handed starter, Andrew Abbott, faced the Phillies’ best left-handed hitter, Bryce Harper, three times. Abbott got the better of Harper, who went 0-for-3 with a strikeout against the Cincinnati starter and 0-for-5 overall. But the qualities of each player got me thinking.
When Harper swings the bat, one of two things happens. In scenario no. 1, he squares it up and hits it so hard it causes bruising on the deceased ancestors of the workers who stitched the ball together at the Rawlings factory. Sure enough, Harper tagged Abbott’s teammates for three home runs just 24 hours later.
Otherwise, Harper misses it. He can miss it by a lot, in which case he just swings through it, or he misses it by a little. Those swings manifest themselves either in balls fouled straight back to the screen, or in fly balls that go straight up in the air and stay there long enough for the outfielder to take out his phone, and queue up Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell,” so the ball lands right at the climax of the second chorus. You know the part: “Like a sinner / before / the gates of Heaven / I’ll come crawling on back to you.” The loud one, like five and a half minutes into the song. 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.
Fun with small samples: Bryce Harper entered Tuesday hitting .000/.154/.000 over his first 13 plate appearances of the season, with five strikeouts. After his second career three-homer game on Tuesday, he’s now at .200/.294/.800, good for a WRC+ increase of 198 points (from -34 to 164).
Harper put the Phillies on his back in a 9-4 win over the Reds, driving in six runs with the three homers — one a grand slam — that combined for 1,209 feet of distance and left the bat at 108, 103, and 108 mph. The grand slam, a left-on-left blast against Brent Suter, made the score at the time 8-1 and allowed the Phillies to cruise to a win using just two pitchers — an important reprieve for an overworked bullpen. Not a bad day on the job, and a much-needed good one for a Philadelphia team that entered the day 1-3 on the young season.
There’s just something so aesthetically appealing about watching Harper hit homers, especially into the raucous crowd at Citizens Bank Park. His long balls aren’t the hardest hit in baseball, nor do they travel the farthest. But seeing his ferocious swing unload and send a ball deep into the Philadelphia night is an unmatched view across the sport. It’s the antithesis of my favorite right-handed home runs to watch: the liners that Giancarlo Stanton smokes. Stanton suddenly turns his hips, flicks his wrists, and launches absolute rockets with what looks like no effort whatsoever. Harper puts his entire body into every swing, hurling his bat into the path of the incoming projectile, torquing what feels like the weight of multiple people to send a ball into flight.
Harper’s future Hall of Fame career has not been without its trials and tribulations. He’s always been a good or great hitter, but there have certainly been seasons where he was more the former than the latter. That’s an awfully high standard to hold him to, but when you’re a first-overall phenom, those are the breaks. Last year, two seasons removed from winning his second MVP award, it took him a few months to regain his power stroke after coming back from Tommy John surgery in record time, but once he did, we were privileged to watch him clobber 16 of his 21 dingers in August and September. And thankfully, this year we didn’t have to wait anywhere near as long for his thunderous bat to come alive.
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Seeing a team like the Pirates come out of the gates hot is always refreshing, though there’s obviously the context of playing the Marlins and Nationals, not exactly powerhouses. I’m not really convinced that they’re even a .500 team; most teams will have a five-game winning streak over the course of the season, and starting the season with one is no more indicative of a team’s talent level than ending the season with one to avoid 100 losses.
But while I’ll need a lot more time to gather thoughts for the team as a whole, I’ve really liked what I’ve seen so far from catcher Henry Davis. The former first overall pick struggled mightily in his debut last year, with a 76 wRC+ and -1.0 WAR in 62 games, almost exclusively playing right field instead of behind the dish. He was worth -9 defensive runs saved, and to my eye, the look matched the metrics: He has a very strong arm, but his reads were rough and he often had to be bailed out by the second baseman when a not-particularly-shallow fly ball was hit his way.
Back at his natural position, Davis looks more comfortable, grading out (in the very early going) as a scratch defender by DRS and very slightly above average as a framer. I also like how well he’s controlled the strike zone through his first 21 plate appearances, with as many strikeouts as walks; both rates are vastly improved from last season. Of course, all of that comes with a small-sample caveat, but you can’t fake exit velocity as a hitter, so it’s worth mentioning that he’s already hit a ball harder (111.5 mph) this year than he did all of last year (109.9 mph).
Tuesday night’s acquisition of Joey Bart should do nothing to unseat Davis’ position as the starting catcher, though perhaps it’s a little more pedigree breathing down his neck than Jason Delay and the currently injured Yasmani Grandal. It is an interesting “ships passing in the night” moment though for two catchers who were taken within the first two picks of their respective drafts.
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It’s too simple to say that Taylor Trammell is in for a breakout just because the Dodgers claimed him off waivers and should have playing time to offer him with Jason Heyward’s back troubles, but at the same time, there’s probably not a better fit for him. Hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc revitalized J.D. Martinez’s career a decade ago and also helped Chris Taylor break out, and it’s not implausible to think Trammell could be his next turnaround.
Trammell has a wRC+ of just 83 in his 351 career big league plate appearances, and at 26 years old and out of options, he’s at something of a crossroads. But he was our 61st-ranked prospect at the end of 2020, so it’s not as if the Dodgers have nothing to work with here. They’re hoping to do what the Reds, Padres, and Mariners all couldn’t: Turn Trammell into a quality major leaguer before moving on.
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a grab of topics, including a team meeting after two games, early bad blood and benches-clearing incidents, the continued terribleness of the new uniforms, a Bryce Harper blooper, a missing first-base coach, an A’s conspiracy, Juan Soto as instant True Yankee, new lights at Chase Field, the Dairy Daddies and marketing, a Nelson Cruz one-day-contract comp, Oswaldo Cabrera’s selective switch-hitting, and more, followed by a Stat Blast (1:14:22) about first-time Opening Day starters, Jesse Chavez and pitchers who were much better with one team than they were overall, games in which both teams scored more runs than they had hits, and the lowest-WAR three-team trades.
JT: Is Ronel Blanco fur realz or should we be very, very worried as Blue Jays fans that Mark Shapiro loves glove first non-hitters?
2:05
Jay Jaffe: Blanco had his changeup working last night, and it baffled the Blue Jays. They have the potential for a pretty decent offense, but punting on third base by letting Matt Chapman go and replacing him with Isiah Kiner-Falefa is going to cost them, and I’m not wild about their second base situation either.
2:05
slave to 25 PA: I know Mike Trout’s not gonna maintain a .900 slugging, but am I wrong to be a little hopeful he makes a bounce back. I am worried about his whiff rate.
2:07
Jay Jaffe: after getting just 237 games over the past three seasons, I’m glad to see any Mike Trout, and holy smokes did he destroy that baseball. 473 feet! and that was just one of his homers https://www.mlb.com/video/mike-trout-drills-a-473-foot-homer-run
No fooling: April 1 was a day for no-hit bids. On Monday afternoon at Wrigley Field, in his major league debut, Shota Imanaga threw 5 2/3 innings of hitless ball against the Rockies before yielding a single to Charlie Blackmon. On Monday evening at Citi Field, in his first start for the Mets, Sean Manaea matched Imanaga with 5 2/3 hitless innings against the Tigers before finally surrendering a single to Andy Ibáñez. (The Mets still managed to lose in extra innings.) And finally, on Monday night at Minute Maid Park, Ronel Blanco went the distance for the Astros against the Blue Jays, at one point retiring 26 hitters in a row. He capped a 10-0 rout by getting Vladimir Guerrero Jr., whom he’d previously struck out three times, to ground out to second base.
The win was the Astros’ first of the season after they opened with four straight losses at home against the Yankees. According to MLB.com’s Sarah Langs, manager Joe Espada, who took over from the retiring Dusty Baker, became the first skipper ever to notch his first major league win — or his first with a new team — with a no-hitter. This is the earliest no-hitter by calendar date, per Sportradar, surpassing Hideo Nomo’s April 4, 2001 no-no for the Red Sox against the Orioles. The first of last year’s four no-hitters, a perfect game by the Yankees’ Domingo Germán, wasn’t thrown until June 28.
If you haven’t heard of Blanco, you’re forgiven. The 30-year-old Dominican-born righty entered the game with just 58 1/3 major league innings under his belt, and until last year, he hadn’t made more than two starts in a season since 2017, his second in pro ball. He’s a late bloomer who was never considered much of a prospect; he did place 30th on our Astros Top Prospects list last year as a 35+ FV reliever, with Eric Longehagen and Tess Taruskin describing him as an “up/down relief piece” whose 94-97 mph fastball “plays below its velocity.” According a 2022 profile at The Athletic by Jake Kaplan, Blanco is a former position player who didn’t begin pitching until he was 18. He signed for a $5,000 bonus in 2016, when he was 22, after trying out for at least four other teams. Before getting signed, he practiced baseball in the mornings and washed cars in the afternoons in his hometown of Santiago in order to support himself and his mother. Astros scout Francis Mojica spotted him throwing 94 mph while scouting Julio Rodríguez, who had the same trainer. Read the rest of this entry »
The Minnesota Twins had a strong start to the season, taking two of three games against the Kansas City Royals. But the positive results came with the unfortunate revelations that Royce Lewis will miss at least the next month, and likely longer, with a severe right quad strain, and right-hander Anthony DeSclafani will miss the entire season after undergoing flexor tendon surgery.
If you want to know why the Twins finally defused all the jokes last fall by winning their first playoff games in more than two decades, Lewis is one of the best answers. After nearly four years of injuries kept him mostly off the diamond, Lewis finally returned last May, though he landed on the IL twice more in 2023; an oblique strain in early July cost him about month and a half, and a hamstring strain in the middle of September prematurely ended his regular season. Still, he raked whenever he was healthy, slashing .309/.372/.548 with a 151 wRC+ and 2.4 WAR in just 58 games (239 plate appearances). His flow of pure, unadulterated awesomeness continued in the postseason as he hit four homers in six games.
With the preseason hope that Lewis would get 581 plate appearances (per our Depth Charts), that was enough to project the Twins to rank fifth at third base in our positional power rankings. He got through the spring healthy and was in the Opening Day lineup for the first time ever, batting third and playing third. His 2024 debut was his career in microcosm: He blasted a no-doubt dinger in his first plate appearance, lined a single his second time up, and got hurt before he had a chance to bat again; that injury occurred almost immediately, while he was rounding second when the next batter, Carlos Correa, hit a double. Read the rest of this entry »
If you’re in the mood to contemplate, contemplate this: A college pitcher becoming the subject of a New York Times story, especially a story that was indifferent to his results. Kent Emanuel did it. In 2013, Emanuel, the Friday night starter at the University of North Carolina, became the poster boy for a watershed moment in amateur baseball.
North Carolina, the no. 1 team in the country heading into that year’s NCAA tournament, had a slapstick run to that year’s College World Series. The Tar Heels found themselves in a winner-take-all game against Florida Atlantic with advancement out of their regional at stake. I vividly remember watching this game on TV, the way Boomers remember where they were for the moon landing or JFK’s assassination. What looked like a pretty routine game got turned on its wear when Florida Atlantic scored six runs in the top of the ninth. The two teams traded crooked numbers in both the ninth and 12th innings before the Tar Heels won by submission, 12-11, in 13 innings. Read the rest of this entry »
I don’t know about you, but one of my favorite parts of the first week of the season is that I can look at a single performance and let my imagination go wild. Juan Soto learned how to play defense. Mookie Betts is going to hit 100 homers. Lance Lynn is going to end every single start soaking wet and fuming at the umpire. OK, fine, maybe that last one could actually happen — especially with those new unis! And here’s another one that might actually come true: Jared Jones dominates in the majors right away.
That sounds weird, I’m sure. Jones made his major league debut on Saturday and gave up three runs in 5.2 innings. He’s only 22, last year was the first time he pitched above A-ball, and he put up a 3.85 ERA across two levels. But I’m surprisingly confident about this. If you watch Jones pitch for a game or two, I think you’ll agree with me too.
Jones had me in the first inning of his start. Look at this outrageous two-pitch sequence to Josh Bell:
But it gets better! Here are the next two pitches Bell saw:
The Juan Soto era of Yankees baseball is off to a resounding start. The 25-year-old superstar put on a tour de force as his new team swept a four-game series against the Astros in Houston to open the season, most notably by throwing out the potential tying runner at the plate in the ninth inning on Opening Day and then driving in the decisive runs in each of the next three games. The sweep would not have been possible, however, without a couple of unheralded reserves rising to the occasion, namely Oswaldo Cabrera and Jon Berti, both filling in for the injured DJ LeMahieu at third base.
First, let’s note Soto, who absolutely wore out Astros pitchers by going 9-for-17 with a trio of walks and a quartet of RBI, one in each game. He began with a fifth-inning single off Framber Valdez that brought home the Yankees’ first run of the season and started a comeback from a 4-0 deficit. Then with one out in the ninth and the Yankees up 5-4, he scooped up Kyle Tucker’s single and nabbed Mauricio Dubón at the plate. In the seventh inning on Friday, he worked a bases-loaded walk against Rafael Montero to break a 1-1 tie, and in the bottom half of the frame followed with a sliding catch off an Alex Bregman bloop that could have brought in the tying run. In the seventh inning on Saturday, he broke a 3-3 tie by poking an opposite-field solo homer into the Crawford Boxes at the expense of Bryan Abreu. And in the ninth inning on Sunday he again broke a 3-3 tie, capping a three-hit day by slapping a two-out, full-count RBI single off Josh Hader. Oh, is that all?
The Yankees couldn’t have asked for more from their latest marquee addition, who helped them to their first 4-0 start since 2003 (also on the road) and their first four-game series sweep ever in Houston. Including their three-game sweep at Minute Maid Park last September, they’ve won seven in a row against the team that has tormented them for most of the past decade by eliminating them from the postseason in 2015, ’17, ’19, and ’22. For a Yankees team that missed the postseason last year, that has to be a boost.
They did it all while scrambling to fill the shoes of the 35-year-old LeMahieu, who was slated to be their leadoff hitter and regular third baseman to start the season. On March 16, LeMahieu fouled a ball off the top of his right foot in an exhibition game, and was initially diagnosed with a bone bruise after X-rays, a CT scan, and an MRI all came back negative. His slow recovery made apparent his need to start the season on the sidelines; on Opening Day, the Yankees made it official by placing him on the IL retroactive to March 25. A follow-up MRI on Saturday revealed that he had actually suffered a fracture.
This is the second year out of three that LeMahieu has contended with an injury to his right foot. In 2022, he broke a sesamoid bone in his right big toe that led to ligament damage in his second toe; he needed a cortisone shot at the All-Star break and played through the injury for most of the second half, hitting just .228/.308/.327 over that span, spiraling into a 1-for-31 slump before missing three weeks in September, and getting left off the postseason roster. He never underwent offseason surgery to alleviate the issue, which may have contributed to his first-half struggles in 2023 (.220/.285/.357, 77 wRC+), but thanks to former hitting coach Sean Casey, who helped LeMahieu improve his lower body positioning, he hit for a 129 wRC+ in the second half, though he still finished with a thin .243/.327/.390 (101 wRC+) line.
While the Yankees did not announce a full timeline for his return, manager Aaron Boone said the infielder would work out at the team’s spring training facility in Tampa as his pain allows, and that he would be re-imaged in two weeks; a best-case scenario might put his return at the end of April, though the team isn’t going to rush him back. LeMahieu’s slow recovery from his previous foot injury is an “added concern, which is why we’re not pushing it,” Boone said, “It’s not something that he’s going to play through. He’s going to be 100 percent.”
The Yankees hadn’t confirmed the fracture until after the season started, but they knew LeMahieu would be out and also that Oswald Peraza would begin the year on the IL with a right shoulder strain. Both injuries prompted New York to pulled off a three-team trade just 24 hours before Opening Day, acquiring Berti from the Marlins, trading 18-year-old outfielder John Cruz — a “prospect of note” on the Yankees’ Top Prospects list — to the Marlins and 26-year-old out-of-options backup catcher Ben Rortvedt to the Rays, with 23-year-old outfield prospect Shane Sasaki going from Miami to Tampa Bay, as well. In 2023, the 34-year-old Berti, who spent the past five seasons with the Marlins, batted .294/.344/.405 (103 wC+) with seven homers in a career-high 424 plate appearances en route to 2.1 WAR; his batting average was a career high, and he just missed setting full-season highs in the other slash categories. One oddity about his numbers is that he went from stealing a major league-high 41 bases in 46 attempts in 2022 to just 16 in 22 attempts in ’23 despite the new rules that had so many players running wild; even so, his sprint speed still placed in the 95th percentile, according to Statcast.
The righty-swinging Berti can play second base, shortstop, and third base, and also has experience at all three outfield positions, though 29 of his 30 starts in the outfield over the past three seasons were in left field. He didn’t see his first action for the Yankees until Sunday, when he went 1-for-4 with a fourth-inning single off Astros starter J.P. France; the hit brought home Anthony Rizzo to put the Yankees ahead 2-1, but they couldn’t hold that lead. It was in the ninth inning where Berti came up bigger. With the Yankees having taken the lead thanks to Soto’s RBI single, the Astros began the inning with back-to-back singles by Jeremy Peña and Victor Caratini against closer Clay Holmes. Jose Altuve then ripped a hot grounder down the third base line, but Berti prevented what could have been an RBI double with a diving, backhanded stop, then recovered to beat Peña to third for the force out.
Berti didn’t get to play until Sunday because the 25-year-old Cabrera had done such a strong job holding down the hot corner. A 45-FV switch-hitting prospect who was more or less crowded out of the middle infield by the rises of Peraza and Anthony Volpe, both younger and with higher ceilings, Cabrera reached the majors first, on August 17, 2022. He hit .247/.312/.429 (111 wRC+) with 1.5 WAR in 171 PA in a utility role over the final third of the season, learning the outfield corners on the fly but starting key games at shortstop as well, including two against Houston in the ALCS. He made the team out of spring training last year and spent most of the season in the majors but struggled mightily, hitting just .211/.275/.299. His 60 wRC+ tied for the sixth-lowest mark among players with at least 300 PA, and he finished with -0.6 WAR. He struggled from both sides of the plate, with a 61 wRC+ against lefties and a 60 against righties.
While he started spring training in a 1-for-23 slump, Cabrera overhauled his swing and approach. He ditched a high leg kick in favor of a toe-tap that he had previously used mainly in two-strike situations in order to reduce his movement and simplify his path to the ball. He also focused more on contact and on hitting line drives after observing Soto in batting practice. Cabrera toldThe Athletic’s Chris Kirshner:
“The one big thing that I see from that guy is he doesn’t try to hit fly balls… He’s not trying to hit the ball in the air every time. His hands just get quick to the ball. That’s what got my attention. He’s always trying to hit line drives. When I saw Soto hitting in the cage for the first time, it was low line drives all of the time, so what am I doing trying to hit homers all of the time? I talked with the hitting coaches about it — obviously, Soto and I are not the same. But I’ve been trying to take some of the things he does into my game.”
On Opening Day, Cabrera batted ninth and collected a fifth-inning infield single off Valdez and then a game-tying solo homer off Montero in the sixth. On Friday, he went 4-for-5, with a single and a double off Cristian Javier, then an RBI single off Tayler Scott, and a two-run single off Parker Mushinski. While he batted right-handed against Valdez, he went lefty-on-lefty against Mushinski, something the team is having him do against certain southpaws. He had less success with that approach against Josh Hader, striking out against him on both Saturday and Sunday, but in the first of those games he had already hit a game-tying two-run homer in the seventh off Abreu, a righty. He started at shortstop on Sunday, filling in for Volpe, who sat due to a stomach bug.
Cabrera’s .438/.471/.875 across 17 PA is a clear signal that we’re in small-sample territory, but it’s worth at least a passing note regarding how much harder he’s hit the ball. Last season, he averaged just 87.8 mph in exit velocity, with a 3.5% barrel rate and a 32.5% hard-hit rate. Through his first 10 batted balls, he’s averaged 91.6 mph with one barrel and five hard-hit balls.
Obviously, the samples will have to get much larger before we have any real idea whether Cabrera truly has improved. Nonetheless, his rising to the occasion in timely fashion offers hope that the Yankees are a deeper team than last year, one that will be able to weather the absence of LeMahieu.
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Jay Jaffe
