Another week, another delightful slate of games, which can only mean one thing: It’s time for another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) In Baseball This Week. One of my favorite parts of the early season is rediscovering the small pleasures of watching baseball that I’ve forgotten over the winter. I don’t mean watching Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge play. That’s obviously very enjoyable, but it’s not something I forget about in the offseason. But the feel of the game, the look on players’ faces when something unexpected happens, the pure happiness I get from seeing a bunch of grown-ups throw a ball around for a job? I only have that experience when the games are on, and the feeling is strongest after a prolonged absence. So no stars today, just stuff I watched that gave me a happy (or, in one case, angry) feeling. As always, a shout out to Zach Lowe of The Ringer, who popularized this article format in his seminal basketball column. And a programming note: Five Things won’t be appearing every week this season, to help balance out my workload and allow me to work on other projects here at the site. I’ll likely be off next week – unless the baseball I watch this weekend is just too enjoyable not to write about.
1. Late-Night Hijinks
I associate West Coast games with wackiness. It’s likely because I grew up out East, and was usually halfway asleep and fully loopy when I turned on late-night baseball (or late-night any sport, really; I have fond memories of silly Pac 10 football games at 1 a.m.). But there’s something thrilling about the last game of the day’s slate going into extra innings, whether you live in Portland, Maine or Portland, Oregon. Last week, the Padres and Rockies did their best to deliver. Read the rest of this entry »
On Wednesday, the Detroit Tigers signed rookie shortstopKevin McGonigle to an eight-year, $150 million contract extension, keeping him under team control through 2034. When McGonigle was going through the draft process, quite a few observers — including me — saw a heady, left-handed-hitting second baseman with average size but a polished, punchy bat, noted that he is from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and thought, “Maybe he’ll be the next Chase Utley.”
As big as the hype around McGonigle has become, that’s still a lofty comp. Utley played 16 years in the majors, made six All-Star teams, produced 61.5 WAR (including five straight seven-win seasons), and appeared in three World Series, winning one. If McGonigle ends up doing all that, I think everyone walks away happy. But after just 17 major league games, McGonigle guaranteed that he would out-earn his childhood hero, who pocketed a mere $125.6 million across his decorated career. Read the rest of this entry »
Albert Cesare/The Enquirer/USA Today Network via Imagn Images
George Klassen’s initial big league outings were clunky. He allowed seven runs in just 4 2/3 innings over a pair of April starts, which, combined with an index fingernail contusion, has him back at Triple-A Salt Lake for more seasoning. That doesn’t mean his future isn’t promising. The 24-year-old right-hander ranks second on our Los Angeles Angels Top Prospects list, and 57th on our Top 100. Moreover, he was described by Brendan Gawlowski as having “some of the best stuff in the [Angels] system.”
An inability to consistently land his plus stuff in the strike zone is currently Klassen’s bugaboo. He issued free passes to 10 of the 32 batters he faced in his two starts in the majors — one against the Reds, another against the Mariners — and while big league jitters were certainly a factor, George Kirby he’s not. As Gawlowski wrote in his scouting report, “Klassen’s command remains below average… [and] there are markers in his delivery that suggest his feel for location will likely remain crude.”
A few years ago, Klassen was Mitch Williams-wild. As Eric Longenhagen pointed out in November 2024, the West Bend, Wisconsin native walked nearly a batter per inning in his 2023 draft year at the University of Minnesota. But as our lead prospect analyst also noted, “his feel for the strike zone improved right away in pro ball.” That was in the Phillies system. The Angels later acquired the erstwhile sixth-round pick from Philadelphia in the July 2024 Carlos Estévez deal. Read the rest of this entry »
First things first, I need you to divorce yourself from the notion of marrying strictly for love. Because that’s not how it worked for Evelyn Hugo.
Oh wait. That’s right, some of you probably don’t know who Evelyn Hugo is. Imagine Elizabeth Taylor, Rita Hayworth, and Ava Gardener all rolled into one, and now, in her twilight years, she’s sitting for a longform, tell-all interview spanning her entire career — every marriage, every movie, every divorce. That’s the premise of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, a novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
None of Hugo’s marriages are fairytale romances. For her, they entail more practical considerations. Sometimes love is a factor, but it’s never the sole focus, and rarely the primary concern. Nevertheless, each marriage plays a distinct role in Hugo’s story, in the creation of her final, self-actualized form. Read the rest of this entry »
Konnor Griffin isn’t the only rookie infielder to land a nine-figure extension within his first few weeks in the majors. On Wednesday, the Tigers reached an agreement with Kevin McGonigle — who made the jump from Double-A into Detroit’s Opening Day lineup and has been the team’s top hitter thus far — on an eight-year, $150 million extension for the 2027–34 seasons. The contract slightly surpasses the value of Griffin’s deal, making it the largest guarantee to a player with fewer than 100 days of major league service time, even before its other bells and whistles are considered.
According to MLB.com, McGonigle will receive a signing bonus of $14 million, $8 million of which is payable within 30 days and the rest in 2028. He’ll then earn $1 million next season, $7 million in 2028 (when he would have qualified for Super-Two status), $16 million in ’29, $21 million in ’30, $22 million in ’31, and then $23 million annually from ’32–34, which would have been his first three years of free-agent eligibility. Escalator clauses can increase the values of the deal by an additional $10 million, with higher salaries for those last three seasons of $25 million (2032), $26 million (2033), and $28 million (2034).
Those escalators are based on MVP voting and other honors, and can be triggered starting this season, per ESPN. McGonigle could get boosts of $2 million for winning an MVP award, $1 million for finishing second through fifth in MVP voting, and $500,000 for finishing sixth through 10th; he’ll also get $500,000 for making the All-MLB first or second team, $250,000 for making an All-Star team, and $250,000 for winning a Silver Slugger award. His contract has no options or opt-out clauses, but additionally includes a $5 million assignment bonus for every time he’s traded to another organization under the life of the contract. Read the rest of this entry »
Dan Szymborski: AI is getter better at making fun of me, BTW.
12:02
Guest: Vegas had notably much worse ratings on the Twins than both ZIPS and PECOTA (not to mention the fans). Has anything you’ve seen in the Twins playing what has been pretty good baseball so far justified that much higher projection in your mind?
12:03
Dan Szymborski: Well, Taj Bradley’s been really darn good, I mean sub two FIP
12:04
Dan Szymborski: and Mick Abel has been really solid too (and one of the boom picks)
12:04
Dan Szymborski: I’m not confident at all they’re this good, but I think this was always a team in the .500 vicinity
Three weeks into the 2026 season, I find myself looking around the league and being astonished by how right I was about everything I thought was going to happen. I’m already on the board in the Effectively Wild predictions game with Artemis II taking off before the first 117-mph batted ball, and my off-the-wall prediction that Mickey Moniak would lead all no. 1 picks in home runs is somehow on track. This despite Moniak starting the season on the IL.
If I’m going to get all my victory laps in this season, I’d better start now, beginning with Brandon Lowe being a great pickup for the Pirates.
Lowe wasted no time endearing himself to the Yinzer crowd, as he went deep twice on Opening Day. Lowe’s total of dingers has since swollen to seven. That’s good for second in the league behind Jordan Walker, which tells you how early in the season it is. But Aaron Judge, Yordan Alvarez, and Sal Stewart (speaking of guys who started hot) are also part of that second-place tie. It still takes a certain quality of hitter to go deep so many times so early in the year.
I always thought Lowe was an inspired get for the Pirates, especially since they paid so little to acquire him. It was a three-team deal with the Rays and Astros, which brought Lowe, Jake Mangum, and Mason Montgomery to Pittsburgh from Tampa Bay, with Mike Burrows going to Houston. I don’t want to spend too much relitigating this trade, but Lowe’s gotten off to a hot start as Pittsburgh’s starting second baseman.
Montgomery has been used as a high-leverage reliever, where he currently has a 42.5% strikeout rate and a 5.40 ERA, so maybe we should let those marbles settle for a minute before passing judgment. Mangum is a weird player (I wrote about why last year) who was way better than I expected as a rookie; he’ll never hit for power, but he’s probably fine as a fourth outfielder and pinch-runner. That’s not a bad haul for a starer the Pirates weren’t going to use anyway.
I’ve been a big fan of Lowe’s since his days at the University of Maryland, where he shared an infield with LaMonte Wade Jr. and future big league reliever Jose Cuas, but I’ll be the first to admit he’s a limited player. He strikes out a lot; 27.1% for his career, and 26.9% in 2025. When the Rays traded Lowe, he’d played enough to qualify for the batting title just once in four years, and his walk rate had been on the decline two years running.
Lowe is not a very good defensive second baseman, and that criticism has gone from a nag to a blaring alarm as he’s hit his 30s. And despite terrific power numbers, he’s merely an OK on-base guy (.314 OBP from 2022 through 2025) who doesn’t actually hit the ball especially hard.
All that said, the real reason the Rays got rid of him for cheap was his $11.5 million salary. (Say what you will about Lowe’s limitations, he’s at least as good as Gavin Lux and better than Richie Palacios and Taylor Walls.) That’s a lot for Tampa Bay, and it would’ve been a lot for the Pirates under normal circumstances, but for an up-the-middle guy who would probably hit 20 to 30 home runs and post about 2 WAR in a full season, that’s not much at all. The fact that the Pirates — usually the sport’s most miserly franchise — would make such a move was profoundly encouraging.
Because the Pirates have already completed the two hardest steps toward building a contender: They have the best pitcher in the National League in Paul Skenes, and by all appearances, they have a superstar shortstop in the making in Konnor Griffin. But they sucked at a bunch of different positions, including second base.
Actually, second base itself was pretty bad last year; only first base and DH produced fewer total WAR league-wide than second base. Second basemen also tied with center field for the lowest league-wide wRC+ by defensive position. (The weakest offensive position is supposed to be catcher, but I’m assuming Cal Raleigh screwed up the curve by himself.)
Even by that low bar, the Pirates’ second basemen failed to cover themselves in glory in 2025: 1.3 WAR (20th out of 30 teams) and a wRC+ of 80 (23rd out of 30). Lowe beats those figures in his sleep. If he strikes out a lot, you live with it. If he’s a terrible defender at second, well, you’ve got Ryan O’Hearn in the outfield—Lowe is the least of your worries.
As much as I loved this trade for Pittsburgh, I did not foresee that after 16 games, Lowe would be hitting .250/.375/.633. His 1.0 WAR is three tenths of a win from what all Pirates second basemen produced on the aggregate last year. His .383 ISO wouldn’t just be a career high for him, it would be a career high for Judge.
Lowe is currently running a .211 BABIP; he’s a fly ball hitter, traditionally, and therefore not a big BABIP guy. Even so, that figure would usually portend better batted ball luck down the line. Statcast data, as you might expect, shows the opposite. Lowe is currently outstripping his xSLG by more than 160 points, and his EV90 of 103.5 mph is merely 127th out of 189 qualified hitters at the moment. His bat speed is also down from previous years, which I mention not to ring alarm bells but merely to point out that he hasn’t unlocked some hitherto undiscovered fast-twitch ability.
Lowe does two things really, really well. First: He kills fastballs. Last year, he hit .278 and slugged .564 off four-seamers; he was one spot above James Wood on the leaderboard for wOBA on four-seamers, and 13th in the whole league in run value created.
Lowe has seen 73 four-seamers in 2026. He swung at 28 of those and put seven of them in play, including three that landed in the seats. Lowe has seen 42 fastballs of all kinds in Statcast’s heart zone. He’s slugging 1.133 on those pitches, 15th out of 336 batters who have seen 50 or more fastballs so far this season. Here’s one:
Look, you can’t throw 92 middle-middle to any decent hitter in this league, but Lowe is better at dispatching those than most. That’s thanks to his second special ability: Over Lowe’s career, 23.1% of his batted balls have been pulled and in the air; the league average over that time is 16.7%. This is where damage gets done. Pull-side line drives turn into doubles and triples, pull-side fly balls turn into home runs.
Statcast’s expected stats (e.g. xSLG) take into account launch angle and exit velo but not batted ball direction. Over a big enough sample, that evens out, but the fact that Lowe’s in-air pull rate is 26.7% right now gives us some insight into how he’s hit seven home runs in three weeks with lackluster exit velo numbers.
All seven of Lowe’s home runs this season have come to the pull side, as did 19 of his 31 dingers last year and 111 of his 164 career major league home runs. PNC Park is a good spot for him then; it’s only 320 feet out to the right field foul pole, which is the fifth-shortest right field porch in the league.
The venue’s famous 21-foot right field fence might cost Lowe the odd wallscraper, but what we’re looking at here is basically a mirror image of the Crawford Boxes in Daikin Park in Houston; it’s 315 feet out to left field there, with a 19-foot wall. You know who plays there: Mr. In-Air Pull Rate himself, Isaac Paredes. Last year, Paredes had a 14th-percentile hard-hit rate, and his EV90 was 224th out of 277 batters with 300 or more plate appearances. This is not a guy with a ton of pop.
Nevertheless, Paredes hit 20 home runs in 438 plate appearances. Half of those 20 home runs came at home and to the pull side. I don’t think Lowe is going to rip off 45 wallscrapers, buoyed by the proximity of the right field wall. But he won’t have to in order to be an asset to a Pirates team that needs all the pop it can get, whatever form it takes.
Entering the 2023 season, Taj Bradley was the no. 36 prospect in baseball, a 22-year-old ace who overmatched his opponents to such a degree that he forced himself to the majors for the back half of the year.
In 2025, Taj Bradley was traded straight up for Griffin Jax, a 31-year-old reliever who has accrued exactly zero wins above replacement for the Rays since that trade.
In 2026, Taj Bradley has been one of the best pitchers in the major leagues.
That’s some roller coaster. And while my first instinct is to take Bradley’s first four starts with a giant grain of salt, this isn’t your average “random dude has good stretch” story. Bradley truly is one of the most dynamic pitchers in the world. He’s electric on the mound. He wasn’t a 55-FV prospect by accident. So let’s take a look at what he’s changed, what he hasn’t changed, and whether this recent run of dominance looks like the portent of a new skill level or just a blip on the graph. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Kevin McGonigle’s new contract and whether pre-arbitration extensions are still team-friendly, Tatsuya Imai’s adjustment period, MLB’s average four-seam fastball velo nearing 95 mph, a new frontier in catcher’s interference calls, and whether a new challenge signal should replace the head/helmet tap, then (1:21:02) Stat Blast about a historic scoring day, games in which the score most often matched the inning, homering against all other teams while playing for one team (and the most homers without going deep twice against the same team), opposing pitchers catching pop-ups in the same game, driving in oneself and no one else, and season-starting streaks of games with a lead.
Dan Szymborski
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