The Marlins have accumulated the fifth-most WAR of any team from their catchers this year. Their backstops have a collective 133 wRC+ at the position, third highest in baseball. This has been one of the team’s biggest strengths to start this season, so it was a bit of a surprise to see Miami make a pretty significant change at the position earlier this week. On Monday, the Marlins optioned Agustín Ramírez to Triple-A, calling up top catching prospect Joe Mack to take his place on the big league roster. The reason why they felt comfortable making this swap has been the standout play of Liam Hicks, the much less-heralded catcher also in his second big league season.

As Miami’s top overall prospect a year ago, Ramírez spent nearly the entire season in the majors. He put up a .231/.287/.413 slash line (91 wRC+) in 136 games as a rookie. Despite the nearly league-average batting line, he accumulated exactly 0.0 WAR because of some pretty atrocious defensive numbers. Per Statcast, he had the second-lowest Fielding Run Value of any catcher with at least 500 innings at the position. He was actually a slightly above-average pitch framer, but his throwing and blocking grades were the worst in baseball.

Through a month of play this year, Ramírez’s bat hasn’t really taken a step forward; his 86 wRC+ is a hair below what he accomplished last season, though the shape of his production looks a little different. His walk rate is nearly four points higher than it was in 2025, but his power output has cratered thanks to a six-point drop in barrel rate. The defense hasn’t improved either, and so the Marlins sent him back to Triple-A to work on his skills behind the plate. Here’s how manager Clayton McCullough put it on Monday:

“It got to the point where it is performance and felt like, especially on the defensive side of things, that while he put in a lot of good work this offseason and had seen some glimpse of things getting better, that part of his game needs to continue to improve to be able to catch up here for us.”

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On April 29, 2021, Matt Olson hit himself in the face with a baseball in the batting cage at Tropicana Field. A freak bounce off the L-screen left him with the kind of shiner an athlete can usually only acquire by going 12 rounds with Marvin Hagler, but fortunately no lasting damage. By May 2, Olson was well enough to return to the lineup, and he hasn’t missed a game since.

Olson’s consecutive games streak now stands at 820; not only is this the longest active run in baseball, he recently passed Nellie Fox for the 11th-longest streak in MLB history. Assuming he avoids any further batting practice mishaps, Olson will end the season with the eighth-longest streak ever. Only seven players in MLB history — and 10 in all of North American top-level sports — have ever played in 1,000 straight games. Olson is due to become the 11th before the All-Star break next year. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) In Baseball This Week. Actually, this is a slightly different column: Five Nico Hoerner Throws From Shallow Right Field I’ve Liked This Year Plus Assorted Veteran Cubs Defenders. That’s a little bit less catchy, though, and it’s at least vaguely Five Things formatted, so I’m counting it. Does “plays a single second baseman has made in one area of the field in one month of play” sound like too narrow a topic for not just one article, but five vignettes? It sure does – until you watch Hoerner play. When I voted for him in the Fielding Bible Awards last year, I wrote this: “I actually spent a while reviewing his defense on video. That wasn’t because I seriously considered anyone else for the top spot; it’s just that satisfying to watch him play.” Today, you can be a video reviewer alongside me. Try not to spit out your drink. And of course, what introduction could be complete without credit to Zach Lowe of The Ringer, the inspiration for this column?

1. Calmness Under Pressure
When you’re on the baseball diamond, things won’t always go right. At the big league level, the margins are razor thin. The other guy lives in a big house, too. Half a second late, and there’s no chance for an out. Throw to the wrong base? That’s often going to cost you. But the Chicago infield is packed to the gills with defenders who can tilt the playing field with guile, clawing that razor-thin margin back. A freakishly high chopper, off the bat of Joey Wiemer, gave baserunner Andrés Chaparro a good opportunity to take an extra base on an infield single. Hoerner probably shouldn’t have even attempted to throw him out, but he went for it:

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, please visit our Patreon.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a report that Tarik Skubal’s surgically cleaned-up elbow contained only a solitary “loose body,” why the NL now has the upper hand over the AL and whether the latter’s lackluster win-loss records matter, Meg’s thrilling, frustrating in-person Paul Skenes spectator experience, Kazuma Okamoto’s move back in the box, and Rico Garcia’s impressive .000 BABIP streak, plus a follow-up on why good framers have struggled at challenging, listener emails (57:54) about making more knuckleballers, a popup that never comes down, retiring not just numbers, but names, rotating umpires within games, extra-inning non-scoring, and “extra bases,” followed by a bunch of postscript updates.

Audio intro: Guy Russo, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Andy Ellison, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Heyman tweet
Link to “Torn and Frayed”
Link to Bodies Bodies Bodies
Link to Rodón quote
Link to Rodón EW discussion
Link to Sheehan on NL vs. AL
Link to team run differential data
Link to 2026 team run differentials
Link to winning records data 1
Link to winning records data 2
Link to AL vs. NL record by year
Link to Skenes start gamer
Link to Skenes TTOP
Link to 1-0 game at Coors
Link to Savantle
Link to Petriello’s Okamoto tweet
Link to Petriello’s Okamoto article
Link to Okamoto quesadilla article
Link to depth in box correlations
Link to .000 BABIP streaks
Link to Garcia profile
Link to fielder support for pitchers
Link to Voros BABIP article
Link to EW Episode 1399
Link to Ben’s article on knuckleballs
Link to Knuckleball Nation website
Link to Knuckleball Nation article
Link to knuckleball total by year
Link to pitcher knuckleball totals
Link to Jannis on EW
Link to Granderson popup clip
Link to Granderson popup post
Link to Orosco glove article 1
Link to Orosco glove article 2
Link to Orosco glove article 3
Link to Prince guitar toss article
Link to Lee6 article 1
Link to Lee6 article 2
Link to Lee6 article 3
Link to Baumann on the Muncys
Link to EW Episode 1700
Link to EW Episode 1715
Link to scoreless zombie-inning streaks
Link to listener emails database
Link to Domínguez injury story
Link to Jones call-up story
Link to Judge/Jones comparison
Link to 2026 TTO% leaders
Link to all-time single-season TTO% leaders
Link to Frazier’s sign-off
Link to Matthews SABR article
Link to Rushing feature
Link to Coaches4Hire LLC photo
Link to Coaches4Hire LLC info
Link to coaches4hire.com
Link to archived Coaches4Hire site
Link to Coaches4Hire Insta

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Luke Raley took a big hack. Then he took another.

Raley has struck out 36.6% of the time to begin 2026, third most among batters with at least 100 plate appearances. He’s walked just 5.9% of the time, well below the median. His 0.16 K/BB ratio is one of the 10 worst in baseball this year. That’s typically not a recipe for success.

But this is:

Raley has six homers so far in 2026, carrying him to a 132 wRC+. He’s hitting the ball hard (51.8%), to the pull side (50.0%), and in the air (60.7%). His .595 xwOBA on contact is third in the majors. The only batters who have made better contact are Aaron Judge and James Wood, putting Raley ahead of Ben Rice, Munetaka Murakami, Mike Trout, and Yordan Alvarez. It’s impressive company to keep. Read the rest of this entry »

Not all splitters are the same. Hybrids are common — think “splinkers” and split-changes — hence the variations seen in both velocity and movement. The human element is also at play. Regardless of the grip, one pitcher’s split isn’t necessarily going to behave exactly like another pitcher’s. From finger dexterity to arm action, and whatever else might factor in, differences are inevitable.

And then there is spin. Per Statcast, pitches classified as splitters currently range from 508 rpm (Cade Smith) to 2,105 rpm (Joe Boyle). Fifteen of the 71 pitchers who have thrown a splitter this year (minimum 10 innings pitched) are averaging fewer than 1,000 rpm, with Smith being one of seven under 800 rpm, the others being Logan Gilbert (687), Hunter Barco (689), Mark Leiter Jr. (689), Fernando Cruz (774), and Roki Sasaki (776).

Watching a recent game where a splitter acted almost like a knuckleball got me thinking about low spin, and what better way to learn about the subject than talking to someone in the know? Previously with Driveline and Prime Sports Performance, Spencer Medick is now the pitching coach for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RoughRiders, the Triple-A affiliate of the New York Yankees.

I began by asking Medick if anyone on his current club throws a splitter. Read the rest of this entry »

In my free time, I write a newsletter about professional cycling, because my idea of a hobby is “my day job, but on wheels.” (It’s called Wheelysports, you can find it on Medium or sign up here to get it by email. It’s free, it comes out once a week. The last edition was about a guy who had to drop out of a race because of a perineal cyst. It’s fun.)

In the cycling world, there’s a little Slovenian guy named Tadej Pogačar who’s laying waste to all and sundry. The headline figure is that he’s won the Tour de France four times and is going for a record-tying fifth title this summer at age 28, but that undersells how dominant he’s been over the past few years. I don’t think there’s an argument anymore, he’s the best to ever do it.

And it’s not just that Pogačar is the best bike racer in the world; he’s the best at every component of the sport, which is incredibly rare. That level of versatility is basically unheard of since the days of Eddy Merckx, who is the Babe Ruth of cycling.

Pogačar’s feats are awe-inspiring, and every week it seems like he sets a new record or does something historic, but after years of writing about him, I’m starting to run out of things to say. There are no more superlatives left to lavish upon so great an athlete.

Sound like anyone you know? Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — “He brought that New York theater to the ballpark,” said Aaron Judge about John Sterling before Monday’s game, offering a perfect summation of the approach of the longtime Yankees broadcaster, who died earlier that day at the age of 87 in Englewood, New Jersey. Dressed in a suit and tie even though listeners couldn’t see him, prone to dropping a reference to a midcentury Broadway musical while celebrating a Yankees home run, and delivering his lines with a booming baritone capable of reaching the cheap seats, Sterling brought a unique and dramatic flair to the job.

His grandiloquent style could be polarizing, his puns agonizing. His personalized calls for each Yankee player’s home runs — from “Bernie goes boom! Bern, baby, Bern!” for Bernie Williams to “Robbie Cano, don’t ya know?” for Robinson Canó to “He sends a Tex message!” for Mark Teixeira — could sound a bit corny at times, his stentorian elongation of the word “the,” as in his oft-imitated “Thuuuuuuuuh Yankees win!” a hammy flourish.

When you root for a team, though, calls like Sterling’s punctuate the high points of fandom and the thrill of victory. Sterling never failed to convey the excitement of the ballpark with his triumphant blasts, but he easily downshifted into a calmer cadence with his partners, most notably Michael Kay and Suzyn Waldman, during more mundane moments. Such conversations are the comforting stuff of summers past, and such enduring presences in the booth offer us yardsticks by which we can measure our lives. Read the rest of this entry »