The Joey Bart Era, such as it was, may already have ended in San Francisco. Struggling to fill the shoes of Buster Posey — admittedly, a ridiculously tall task for anyone — the 26-year-old backstop strained his groin in mid-May; by the time he was healthy enough to return, the Giants had shifted their focus to a younger catcher they were even happier with in Patrick Bailey. After finishing last season in High-A, the 24-year-old Bailey rocketed through the minors this spring, and upon arrival has hit and fielded well enough to help turn the Giants’ season around.

Recall that Posey retired abruptly after the 2021 season, at age 34. The move shocked the entire baseball world, not just the Giants, who had just won 107 games and planned to discuss retaining him upon the expiration of his nine-year, $169 million contract, whether by picking up his $22 million option or by hammering out a longer-term deal. Yet Posey, who had opted out of the 2020 season in order to spend time with his family, which had expanded to include two adopted twin daughters who had been born prematurely, felt the pull of home. Having checked every box for a Hall of Fame resumé except the padded career totals, the sad decline, and the long goodbye, he hung up his mask.

The Giants pivoted to Bart, who had looked like the heir apparent when he was taken with the second pick of the 2018 draft out of Georgia Tech. In Posey’s absence, he had done the bulk of the work behind the plate in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, but his inexperience showed, and he spent most of ’21 in the minors. While he began the 2022 campaign with promise by homering off Sandy Alcantara on Opening Day, he was optioned to Triple-A Sacramento in early June. Though he played somewhat better upon returning a month later, he finished with just a .215/.296/.364 (90 wRC+) line and an astronomical 38.5% strikeout rate in 297 PA, with -3.7 framing runs and a meager 0.6 WAR.

After making a two-inning cameo on Opening Day of this season, Bart landed on the injured list due to a mid-back strain. He additionally missed time in late April due to right groin tightness, then was diagnosed with a Grade 1 left groin strain in mid-May. In between all of the injuries, he hit just .231/.286/.295 (63 wRC+) in 84 PA; while he trimmed his strikeout rate to 25%, he walked just twice (2.4%). He started 22 of the team’s 43 games before landing on the IL a second time, with Roberto Pérez making five starts before suffering a season-ending rotator cuff tear and rookie Blake Sabol starting 16 games.

Enter the 6-foot-1, 210-pound Bailey, who was chosen with the 13th pick of the 2020 draft out of North Carolina State. He entered last season at no. 76 on our Top 100 list as a 50 FV prospect but was downgraded due to his early-season struggles at High-A Eugene, where he had finished the 2021 season. While he finished with a respectable .225/.342/.420 (113 wRC+) line with 12 homers, he missed the Top 100 — not just ours, but every major top prospect list of note throughout the industry. Baseball America, for example, ranked him 27th among Giants prospects, calling him a plus defender with “sound footwork and quick release” but also “a switch-hitter with an inconsistent approach [who] gets in trouble when he starts chasing power.” The publication saw his ceiling as that of “a defense-minded backup catcher.”

It wasn’t until last week that Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin published the Giants’ Top 49 Prospects list here. Ranking Bailey third behind Luis Matos and Kyle Harrison, they began the entry with a mea culpa: “Time to eat double crow here, as Bailey was just outside the Top 100 when he was drafted and throughout 2021 before we rounded his FV grade down during an uneven 2022. When we put together the lengthy Giants Imminent Big Leaguers piece, Bailey was not included, as we didn’t anticipate he’d spend just two weeks each at Richmond and Sacramento before the club decided to insert him as their primary big league catcher.”

Indeed, Bailey moved quickly this spring, hitting .333/.400/.481 (143 wRC+) with two homers in 60 PA in Double-A and .216/.317/.353 (61 wRC+) in 60 PA at Triple-A. He got the call when Bart hit the IL, debuted with a late-inning cameo on May 19, and went 1-for-3 in his first start the next day, singling off the Marlins’ Tanner Scott. The day after that, he clubbed a solo homer off Jesús Luzardo and added another RBI later in a 7–5 win. A week after his debut, on May 26, he went 4-for-5 with three RBI in a 15–1 rout of the Brewers; three days later, he went 3-for-5 with a double, a homer, and four RBI in a 14–4 shellacking of the Pirates.

The hits keep coming, and the Giants keep winning. Bailey is batting .302/.336/.512 for a 128 wRC+ — second on the team behind LaMonte Wade Jr.’s 139 — with five homers in 139 PA. The Giants, who were 20–23 before he was called up, are 27–17 since; they won nine straight from June 11 to 21 and soon after pulled to within 1.5 games of the NL West lead. They’ve since fallen back to third place in the division behind the Diamondbacks (50–37) and Dodgers (48–38) and are three games out at this writing, though they’re in a virtual tie with the Phillies (46–39) for the third NL Wild Card spot.

The one win during the team’s recent 1–6 skid was something of a Bailey showcase. Last Friday (June 30), in the eighth inning of the opener of a three-game series against the Mets at Citi Field, he hit a 432-foot three-run homer to center field off David Robertson, turning a 4–2 deficit into a 5–4 lead. With heat-throwing closer Camilo Doval issuing a one-out walk in the ninth, Bailey then made a perfect throw to nab pinch-runner Starling Marte attempting to steal, thus ending the Mets’ franchise-record streak of 35 straight stolen base attempts. On the next pitch, Doval struck out Brandon Nimmo to preserve the win.

“That was as good as it gets,” manager Gabe Kapler said afterwards. “That was superstar-caliber stuff.”

Getting back to our prospect team’s evaluation of Bailey: while putting a 40 present and 50 future grade on his overall defense and a 45 grade on his throwing, they noted, “He is a skilled one-knee’d receiver, great at beating the pitch to the spot in all parts of the zone, often subtly shifting his body to help him receive borderline pitches with strike-stealing stillness.” The numbers back this up; by FanGraphs’ measure, Bailey is 4.8 runs above average in framing in just 302 innings behind the plate, and by Statcast’s measure, he’s four runs above average. He’s done a great job against the running game, with pop times to second base averaging 1.87 seconds. He’s thrown out 12 out of 31 stolen base attempts for a 39% success rate, nearly double the league average of 20%; Statcast rates him as two runs above average in that department, but one run below average in blocking.

On the offensive side, while Bailey hit well from both sides of the plate in college, he struggled mightily against lefthanders in the minors, albeit in a comparatively small sample, an average of less than 50 PA per year. “A natural righty, he viewed the splits as being in part because of a lack of opportunity — he had just 61 at-bats against lefties last year — and made adjustments this spring to his swing and approach,” wrote NBC Sports’ Alex Pavlovic. “The Giants sent Bailey off to Double-A with a plan to spend more time on his right-handed swing during batting practice since he won’t get as many opportunities in games.”

The practice seems to be paying off, because Bailey has not only been effective against lefties within a very small sample, but he’s also put up insane numbers thanks to a BABIP that’s nearly double what it was in the minors — and quite unsustainable. Those have propped up a righty performance that’s slightly above the league average for a catcher (86 wRC+) but hardly exceptional, with strikeout and walk rates that rate as concerns.

Contact-wise, Bailey’s got enough total batted ball events that he’s past the point where the numbers start to stabilize. While the individual platoon splits haven’t entirely reached that point, his actual numbers from both sides are close to his expected numbers — and quite robust:

Bailey really is hitting the ball much harder from the right side of the plate, not that anyone should expect him to maintain Rogers Hornsby’s 1924 numbers.

Getting back to the walk and strikeout stuff: Bailey’s rates are out of balance, but it’s not as though his 44.7% swing rate, 29.1% chase rate, or 9.9% swinging-strike rate stand out as egregious or as marks that can’t be attached to reasonable production. Consider, for example, this list of players who are within 0.2 percentage points of his overall swing rate, two points of his chase rate, and one point of his swinging-strike rate:

Those are largely productive hitters, and the biggest difference seems to be that they’re taking fewer called strikes than Bailey en route to more balanced walk and strikeout rates. But again, it’s not like he is extraordinarily passive or aggressive. Note his -1 run rating in the Statcast shadow zone; he’s taking slightly more pitches in that zone than the league average (52% to 47%) and slightly more than average in the heart of the zone (31% to 28%) as well:

Anyway, for now as he’s making his way around the majors for the first six weeks of his career, Bailey has been exceptionally productive. I would caution that while he appears to have taken a significant leap forward from his minor league stats and pre-2023 scouting profile, the Posey comparisons he’s drawn — comparisons to a franchise pillar and future Hall of Famer (seriously, fight me) who began his career by winning NL Rookie of the Year honors in 2010 — are over the top. “Hey, let’s pump the brakes a little bit,” said Kapler in response to that line of discussion prior to Bailey’s big game in New York. “It’s a month into his career. Let’s let things unfold.”

As for what this means for Bart, he hasn’t exactly been Pipped out of a job given his struggles, but it’s tough to see him getting it back. For the near future, he may be blocked by Sabol, a Rule 5 pick from the Pirates who’s hitting .251/.313/.438 (104 wRC+) and putting up decent defensive numbers while splitting time between catching (26 starts and a total of 228 innings) and left field (183.2 innings). With his versatility, the Giants could carry three catchers, but doing so only to have Bart sit on the bench instead of working to improve at Sacramento probably isn’t in his best interest. For the longer term, he may be a change-of-scenery candidate — a player whose value is currently at the lower end of its range but one who was previously judged to have the makings of an everyday catcher, who has fewer than 500 PA under his belt, and who still has five years of club control remaining. If he doesn’t get another look in San Francisco, somebody out there will give him a shot.

As the Giants approach the August 1 trade deadline, it will be interesting to see if Bart’s name comes up as they shop to fill their needs. In the meantime, we should probably expect Bailey to cool off and should hope that folks cool it with the Posey comparisons; he casts a long enough shadow over the Giants’ organization as it is. Nonetheless, it’s exciting for any rookie to arrive, put his claim on a starting spot, and help turn his team’s fortunes. Let’s see where Bailey goes with this next.

Bryce Miller led off last Friday’s game with a fastball to Yandy Díaz. He missed low and away, and Diaz took the pitch for ball one. Miller came back with another fastball, wildly away, then another one low to send the count to 3–0. But then things turned. He threw another fastball right down the middle for strike one, fired one past Díaz for strike two, and finally threw a perfectly-located missile that Díaz waved through. Six pitches, six fastballs, and one out: it’s exactly how Miller drew it up at home.

The rest of the first inning held more of the same. He threw Wander Franco three straight fastballs to garner another strikeout, one that Luke Raley tapped into play (he reached on a fielding error), then six straight fastballs to Randy Arozarena to duplicate the 3–0-to-strikeout path he’d walked against Diaz. All told, Miller threw 16 fastballs in the first inning and nothing else whatsoever.

To some extent, this was an unsurprising tactic. Miller boasts one of the best fastballs in baseball, period. It’s one of those mindbending pitches that seems to defy gravity by rising out of its path halfway to home plate. Whether you’re looking at it statistically or visually, it’s hard to find faults. He’d used it nearly two-thirds of the time heading into last Friday’s game. Read the rest of this entry »

When my colleague Ben Clemens wrote about Eury Pérez a week ago Tuesday, he called him “amazing.” It’s an apt description. Over his first 10 big-league starts, the 6-foot-8 Miami Marlins right-hander is 5–2 with a 2.47 ERA, a 3.61 FIP, and 54 strikeouts in 47.1 innings. Moreover, if not for a clunker in his most recent outing — six runs allowed and just one out recorded against the powerhouse Atlanta Braves — his numbers would be even better. Less than three months after celebrating his 20th birthday, Pérez has already established himself as one the best young pitchers in the game. His bona fides preceded his mid-May debut; the precocious youngster came into this season ranked as our top pitching prospect (and No. 3 overall on our Top 100).

Pérez has matured exponentially, both physically and as a pitcher, since being signed by Miami out of the Dominican Republic in July 2019. Reportedly 170 pounds when he inked his first contract, he’s now listed at a sturdy 220. His fastball velocity has grown just as much, climbing as high as triple digits and averaging a firm 97.6 mph. He’s also honed his secondary offerings: a changeup, a curveball, and a slider.

I asked the über-talented Santo Domingo native about his development path when the Marlins visited Fenway Park last week. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a mock draft compiled using a combination of industry rumors, deductive reasoning, and pattern recognition of teams’ past behavior. I go down to pick 39, the end of Competitive Balance Round A, so that I get to touch on every team at least once. If you’d like to learn more about the players mentioned here, you’ll find rankings and scouting reports over on The Board. Some teams settled in for pre-draft meetings a few days ago, while others begin them today and tomorrow. The general industry sentiment is that buzz will grow and change between now and the weekend. In the event that I learn enough pertinent info between now and the draft, we’ll have another mock of just names up shortly before the first round kicks off. I’ll be chatting live from Lumen Field on Sunday during the draft, Woj’ing picks and providing reaction and analysis while pretending I’m putting a spin move on Walter Jones. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about whether Mike Trout‘s injury makes the Angels more likely to trade birthday boy Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers’ rotation depth without Dustin May and Clayton Kershaw, bad news for Thairo Estrada and oldsters Nelson Cruz and Adam Wainwright (and the Cruz/Joe Ryan trade revisited), James Paxton‘s comeback, Mariners All-Star additions, Jordan Walker’s strange season, the arrival of the latest Orioles prospect, Colton Cowser, and more. Then (47:53) they answer listener emails about Triston Casas and assessing player development, a Jack in the Box baseball offer, a silly ending to a minor league game, baseball references (or the lack thereof) in Fall Out Boy’s version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” a ball that would be conducive to singles, a genie that grants baseball wishes, a simultaneous doubleheader, Ohtani fun facts, and softball-style helmets, plus a Future Blast (1:45:15) from 2029 and postscript follow-ups.

Audio intro: Nate Emerson, “Effectively Wild theme”
Audio outro: Ian Phillips, “Effectively Wild theme”

Link to Dan S. on the Angels
Link to hamate study 1
Link to hamate study 2
Link to hamate study 3
Link to Rosenthal on an Ohtani trade
Link to FG playoff odds
Link to Angels depth chart
Link to Dan’s Adell MLE
Link to Clay Davenport’s Adell MLE
Link to Hill EW episode
Link to Ben C. on the Dodgers
Link to Dodgers depth chart
Link to BP IL Ledger
Link to Fabian on Kershaw
Link to Fabian on May
Link to MLBTR on Estrada
Link to MLBTR on Cruz
Link to FG on Cruz/Ryan trade
Link to FG Ryan interview
Link to Ryan deception article
Link to other Ryan deception article
Link to info on Cruz’s eyes
Link to LASIK/baseball study
Link to MLBTR on Wainwright
Link to K-BB% leaderboard
Link to Mariners WAR leaderboard
Link to Jay Jaffe on Walker
Link to MLBTR on Cowser
Link to Down on the Farm Substack
Link to Jack in the Box offer
Link to Woodpeckers game story
Link to THT on worst endings
Link to THT on worst playoff endings
Link to high school game ending
Link to Fall Out Boy song
Link to Fall Out Boy lyrics
Link to Billy Joel lyrics
Link to thread on Joel’s fandom
Link to L.A. Times on Fall Out Boy
Link to Pesca on Fall Out Boy
Link to Bad Bunny song
Link to The Bear episode transcript
Link to Power Rankings leaderboard
Link to FG’s The Board
Link to The Bear episode transcript
Link to mitt in Catcher in the Rye
Link to Red Sox prospect list
Link to Schumaker/Arraez clip
Link to Ben on Ohtani
Link to softball mask EW episode
Link to listener emails database
Link to Rick Wilber’s website
Link to Derby field
Link to Odor profile
Link to Ross complaint
Link to Schifman on shadows
Link to Schifman on EW
Link to La Russa complaint
Link to 2003 Metrodome story
Link to 2004 Metrodome story

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The Angels started off Independence Day by announcing that Mike Trout had suffered a broken hamate bone in his left wrist and will miss at least the next four-to-eight weeks. That cuts short what had been his healthiest season since 2016; Trout had played in 81 of the team’s 87 games, and the costovertebral dysfunction in his back — something that’s going to remain a long-term issue — didn’t prevent him from playing center field daily. That wasn’t the only firework for the Angels, either; later that day, Anthony Rendon fouled a pitch off his lower leg, a painful enough blow that he needed help standing up and getting off the field. And if that weren’t enough for the fans in Orange County, Shohei Ohtani was pulled from his start with a then-undisclosed injury and walked off the field accompanied by a trainer — true horror movie material. His issue, at least, did not turn out to be serious, but it wasn’t the most festive holiday. Dropping the second of three games against the Padres, right after Juan Soto served a small but spicy helping of trash talk, removed any silver lining.

Angels announce that Mike Trout is going on the IL with a left hamate fracture.

That’s a massive blow for the Angels, who are already dealing with many injuries.

Jo Adell has been called up.

— Sam Blum (@SamBlum3) July 4, 2023

Rendon’s X-rays of his shin came back negative, so for now, his injury is being diagnosed as a shin contusion. It’s still possible he ends up on the Injured List, but it appears that he’s avoided a significant injury. Thankfully for the Angels, they have better depth at third base than just a few months ago after the low-key acquisitions of Eduardo Escobar and Mike Moustakas in recent weeks. Neither are likely to replace the production the Angels are hoping to see from Rendon, but the position will likely not be a disaster in his absence.

Ohtani’s injury is connected to a blister, believed to be the result of the treatment for a cracked fingernail that pushed his start back by a day. Blisters have been tied to pitchers missing significant amounts of playing time; Josh Beckett is a primary example. But if this is just due to Ohtani’s acrylic nail deteriorating over the course of the game, it doesn’t seem like anything concerning. He did, however, indicate that he won’t pitch in the All-Star Game, which stinks for viewers but is pretty small potatoes in the big picture. In any case, we basically already got the big All-Star-esque moment earlier this year, when Ohtani faced off against Trout with the WBC on the line. And even if Ohtani ends up missing a start with the Angels, there’s no problem with him continuing to hit.

But if injuries to Rendon and Ohtani aren’t big deals, the one to Trout most certainly is. The three-time MVP broke the hamate bone in his wrist while swinging at a Nick Martinez pitch in the eighth inning on Monday. While far from a career-affecting injury, it’s one that will keep him out of the lineup for one to two months. The Angels are heavily reliant on the production they get from their two megastars, so losing one of them for somewhere between a third and two-thirds of the remaining season is a particularly unwelcome sight. The team is right around .500 and just four games behind the Yankees for the last wild card spot, so we’re talking about a group with legitimate October aspirations. But the Angels aren’t alone; the Blue Jays, Mariners, Red Sox, and Guardians are all within two games of them in the standings, meaning every win has a lot of playoff leverage. Read the rest of this entry »

The Dodgers came into 2023 with a ton of question marks. Was a platoon of James Outman and Trayce Thompson truly the answer in center field? Was Miguel Rojas a sufficient backstop given Gavin Lux’s injury? Was Jason Heyward’s bat salvageable, and where would he play if it was? Was Miguel Vargas ready? The offense was hardly up to the standards of the team’s recent run.

They didn’t answer all those questions positively, but with the benefit of hindsight, the offense seems fine. The team is hitting a collective .243/.328/.446, good for a 110 wRC+. They’re one of the best baserunning teams in baseball. Mookie Betts can play shortstop now, which is neat. But they’ve exchanged those worries for one that has dogged every team in baseball over the years: Is there enough starting pitching to go around?

In the past week, the Dodgers were dealt two more blows on that front. One is a bump in the road: Clayton Kershaw’s sore left shoulder sent him to the IL Monday, where he hopes to make a minimum 15-day stay. That’s mildly concerning, but if Kershaw and the Dodgers are right, it’s just a temporary setback. One of Kershaw’s potential replacements got far worse news, however. Yesterday, the club announced that Dustin May will have elbow surgery to repair his flexor tendon, which means he’s done pitching in 2023. Read the rest of this entry »

Mookie Betts ended June the way he began it, by leading off the Dodgers’ half of the first inning with a homer, then adding another later on as one of his three additional hits. He bookended his month by doing so against the Yankees in Los Angeles on June 2, then against the Royals in Kansas City on June 30. Along the way, he added an additional five homers, boosting his season total to 22 (he hit his 23rd on Tuesday night against the Pirates), and he’s remained hot as July has begun. Not surprisingly, he’ll be the National League’s starting lineup in next week’s All-Star Game.

Betts has been on a leadoff homer binge this season. Just past the midway point, he’s hit nine already, including five in June, and three in an eight-day span as the month ended:

Betts’ total to date ties him for ninth on the single-season leaderboard, though he’s just four homers shy of the record, which was challenged by Jose Altuve last year, when he fell one short:

You’ll note that all but one of those 13 seasons has taken place in the Wild Card era (1995 onward), and over half of them have occurred in what we might call the Statcast era (2015 onward). Those high concentrations have plenty to do with the higher home run rates of recent seasons, and they also owe plenty to teams’ increasing willingness to bat power hitters first. Who doesn’t find the possibility of a quick 1–0 lead tantalizing? Read the rest of this entry »

Jacob Berry saw his prospect stock drop earlier this season. Highly regarded coming in, the sixth overall pick in last year’s draft had an abysmal .477 OPS in April and his .509 mark in May was barely better. Showing little resemblance to the player who’d raked first at the University of Arizona and then LSU, he fanned 41 times while logging just 25 hits, only two of which left the yard. Playing at High-A Beloit in Midwest League spring weather certainly didn’t help, but red flags were nonetheless flying. When our Miami Marlins Top Prospects list was published on May 31, Eric Longenhagen wrote that he was “content to have a hair trigger when it comes to sliding Berry because I was already skeptical… but deciding how much to slide him is challenging.” Our lead prospect analyst ultimately settled on No. 11 and a 40+ FV for the switch-hitter.

Berry’s June was markedly better. Rebounding from his two-month swoon, the 22-year-old third baseman slashed a solid .287.358/.447, with 10 of his 27 hits going for extra bases. Only one of them cleared the fence — his surprising lack of pop remains a concern — but overall, his success at the plate was much more in line with expectations. Despite understandable concerns, he remains a viable big league prospect.

What’s been behind his improved performance? Berry declined a recent interview request to discuss any adjustments he might have made, but he did sit down to discuss his hitting approach late in spring training. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the San Diego Padres. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the third 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 I 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 »