Read the rest of this entry »

Nathan Eovaldi is flying under the radar. Unless you’re particularly attuned to the Rangers’ battle to get back to .500 — they’re 63-65 after a recent 1-8 skid — or doing more than a casual perusal of our leaderboards, you might miss that the 35-year-old righty is carrying a 1.76 ERA into the final third of August. A bout of elbow inflammation that sidelined him for a month has left him just short qualifying for the American League lead, but even so, he’s in the midst of one of the best seasons of his career.

It’s an unlikely, out-of-nowhere season, at that. Eovaldi has e(o)volved a great deal since he debuted with the Dodgers in 2011, but even in the second, more successful leg of his career — the years since his 2017 Tommy John surgery (his second), during which he’s won a pair of World Series rings and made two All-Star teams — he’s never posted a full-season ERA lower than 3.63 (2023 with the Rangers) or an ERA- lower than 82 (2021 with the Red Sox). From 2018–24, he put up a 3.94 ERA (91 ERA-) for the Rays, Red Sox, and Rangers, including a 3.80 mark for Texas last year, which was right at the park-adjusted league average (100 ERA-). That recent work led the Rangers to re-sign him to a three-year, $75 million deal this past winter.

Eovaldi has been on this particular run for a while. After his six-inning, two-run effort against the Red Sox on Opening Day, the highest his ERA has been at any point (setting aside in-game fluctuations) was 2.64, on April 19. Beginning with his next start on April 25 against the Giants and running through his turn on August 5 again the Yankees, he put up an 0.90 ERA and a 2.16 FIP while allowing just 52 hits in 80.1 innings. That stretch probably would have garnered more attention had he not departed his May 27 start after two innings due to what was initially described as right triceps fatigue and later diagnosed as posterior elbow inflammation. He didn’t pitch in the majors again until June 27, when he allowed three runs in three innings against the Mariners, the only time during that 3 1/2-month span in which he allowed more than one run. Read the rest of this entry »

We thought we knew what to expect from Maikel Garcia. Coming into his third full season in the majors, the Royals third baseman had a career wRC+ of 77, but thanks to his 17 OAA, he’d put up 3.4 WAR. That added up to a story as old as time – or at least as old as Ke’Bryan Hayes – a good-not-great, all-glove everyday third baseman. This season, Garcia is blowing up that narrative.

Garcia came up as a shortstop, but with Bobby Witt Jr. set to lock that position down for the next decade or two, he quickly settled in as one of the best defensive third basemen in the game. As for the bat, well, he didn’t chase, he made tons of contact, and he hit the ball hard. He just couldn’t get it in the air. A total of 303 batters made at least 1,000 plate appearances between 2021 and 2024. Garcia’s 45.7% hard-hit rate ranked 60th among them, but his average launch angle of 6.2 degrees ranked 285th. As a result, his .344 slugging percentage ranked 293rd. The package worked, especially after Garcia became one of the best baserunners in the game in 2024, but it was hard to look at him without fixating on that one big thing he couldn’t seem to do.

Hayes is just three years older than Garcia, but after spending so much time waiting for him to start lifting the ball, maybe it was a little too easy to write off Garcia’s offensive potential too. The high groundball rate wasn’t his only flaw. Garcia didn’t just have a low chase rate; he was one of the most passive players in all of baseball. With little fear that he’d swing at all, much less somehow turn a groundball into a home run, pitchers absolutely pounded the zone, racking up called strikes and keeping Garcia from turning all that patience into walks. Then 2025 happened. Read the rest of this entry »

Janson Junk is making the most of his opportunity in Miami. Inked to a minor league contract by the Marlins in February, the 29-year-old right-hander joined the big league club in late May and has since gone 6-2 with a 4.04 ERA and a 3.08 FIP over 82 1/3 innings. And while his 17.5% strikeout rate is rather pedestrian, it is accompanied by a 2.7% walk rate — the lowest among major league hurlers who have tossed at least 60 frames. Indeed, pounding the zone has become Junk’s M.O.

Not bad for someone whose track record is that of a well-traveled pitcher who’d done little to impress at baseball’s highest level. Prior to being signed off the scrap heap by the Marlins, Junk had logged a 6.75 ERA over 40 innings while toeing the rubber for the Los Angeles Angels, Milwaukee Brewers, and Oakland Athletics across the 2021-2024 seasons. Before then, he spent parts of five years and four seasons (because there was no minor league baseball in 2020) in the Yankees’ system. New York selected him out of the University of Seattle (where his teammates included Tarik Skubal) in the 22nd round of the 2017 draft.

Junk entered my radar in 2021 when he was pitching with the Yankees’ Double-A affiliate, the Somerset Patriots. That summer, Junk appeared as guest, along with big league veteran Clayton Richard, in a pitching-nerd episode of FanGraphs Audio. With that conversation in mind, I made it a point to catch up with Junk when the Marlins visited Fenway Park last weekend.

I began by asking Junk a question that has led to interesting conversations with other hurlers when we’ve talked later in seasons: What is the worst pitch you’ve thrown this year? Read the rest of this entry »

I thought the Astros made a nifty pickup at the deadline by sneaking Jesús Sánchez through the door while everyone was paying attention to the Carlos Correa trade. Sánchez is by no means a transformative player, but he fixes a platoon imbalance in Houston’s outfield and he can theoretically play center field. At least he can stand out there for nine innings without maiming himself.

But apparently the Marlins are the real winners in that deal. Sánchez has had a slow start in Houston, but I have faith that he’ll come around eventually. Either way, that’s not especially relevant. By moving this perfectly fine outfielder out of the way, Miami has made room for 24-year-old Jakob Marsee. Never heard of him? I don’t blame you. But since the deadline, he’s been the best position player in baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I dove into the wonderful world of Nick Pivetta’s middle-middle magic. It’s pretty crazy to think about. Pitches down the middle shouldn’t lead to a huge batch of called strikeouts, and yet opposing hitters can’t help themselves when Pivetta is on the mound. This two-strike dominance is fueling Pivetta’s best season as a professional. Obviously it is – all those free strikeouts can’t be bad.

When I see such an unexpected and excellent tactic, my mind naturally goes to the exact opposite of it. If Pivetta is getting ahead by doing this, surely some hitter must be getting victimized by having it done to them. If there are standouts in acquiring called strikeouts, surely there are players particularly susceptible to them. So let’s look at the list of the hitters with the most called strikeouts on middle-middle pitches, hereafter “meatball punchouts” with a hat tip to editor Matt Martell:

Wait, what? These are mostly good hitters! The anti-Pivetta being Gavin Lux is one thing – Lux is having a solid but not spectacular season. But Shohei Ohtani? Elly De La Cruz? The hitters who are worst at the thing Pivetta is best at are mostly great. Let’s look at it a different way:

Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about torpedo bats (remember them?), Cody Bellinger’s good year and confounding career, recent comments by Craig Counsell and Aaron Boone, the impending call-up of Bubba Chandler and the recent arrival of Owen Caissie, the weirdest things about being a pro baseball player, a zombie-runner-induced ending to a pitcher’s duel, and Alien: Earth as a baseball show.

Audio intro: Philip Bergman, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Alex Glossman and Ali Breneman, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Straw update
Link to Sam on Bellinger
Link to Clay interview
Link to Tribune on Counsell
Link to latest Counsell quote
Link to 2018 Counsell quote
Link to The Athletic on Counsell
Link to Brewers subreddit post
Link to Chandler call-up
Link to rookie eligibility tweet
Link to rookie eligibility explainer
Link to Caissie debut story
Link to Marte apology article
Link to Marte apology article 2
Link to Tigers-Astros game
Link to Oort Cloud wiki
Link to Ben on sci-fi
Link to Buck Bockai
Link to Dixon Hill
Link to Captain Proton

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Here’s Nick Pivetta’s signature pitch:

Or maybe it’s this one, complete with a skip-off:

OK, the man just likes skipping:

You might wonder why all of his signature pitches are tossed down the middle for called strikeouts. That’s because Pivetta is the league leader in a statistic I didn’t know I loved until I looked it up: called strikeouts on pitches right down the pipe. He’s the 2025 leader. He’s the leader over the past five years, in fact. Keep your reality-distorting sweepers and letter-high four-seamers; Pivetta gets the job done more simply.

This feels like an impossible skill to cultivate. You hear all the time about pitchers going into a lab somewhere and adding velocity or spin. New pitches? They’re a dime a dozen these days. A starter who hasn’t added a sweeper and cutter sticks out like a sore thumb now that technology and training make it easier than ever to branch out. Every year, the sliders get slidier, the curveballs get curvier, and the fastballs get faster. Meanwhile, Pivetta throws 94-mph “heaters” down the middle for strike three. How?? Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, Kenley Jansen did his best to make life harder for his former team. Pitching for the Angels against the Dodgers in Anaheim, the 37-year-old closer secured the final three outs in a 7-4 victory on Monday, August 11. He gave up the go-ahead run in the ninth inning of a tied game on Tuesday by allowing a breathtaking solo homer to Shohei Ohtani, but the Angels came back, tying the score in the bottom of the ninth and winning in the 10th. On Wednesday, Jansen secured a sweep for the Angels by retiring Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Will Smith in order. The loss knocked the Dodgers out of first place for the first time since August 27.

That the Dodgers have retaken the top spot doesn’t detract from what’s been a banner season for Jansen. Pitching for the sub-.500 Angels — his third team in four years since departing the Dodgers in free agency — he’s posted a 2.68 ERA, his lowest mark since 2021. While his 24.6% strikeout rate is a career low and his 4.01 FIP is just off a career high, he’s notched 23 saves in 24 attempts and is now fourth all-time at 470, eight saves shy of Lee Smith’s 478, which stood as the major league record from late 1997 until Trevor Hoffman surpassed it in late 2006. Smith and Hoffman are now in the Hall of Fame, and Jansen has solidified his position as the next reliever due for serious consideration for Cooperstown. Not only does he have a legitimate shot at becoming the third pitcher to reach 500 saves following Hoffman (who finished with 601) and Mariano Rivera (603), but he’s closing in on 2025 enshrinee Billy Wagner’s no. 6 ranking in Reliever JAWS (R-JAWS).

Admittedly, relief pitching is a strange place to start my annual Hall of Fame progress series, but for reasons that will soon become apparent, opening this rundown with the starting pitchers made less sense, and when I began writing this roundup, Jansen’s jump in JAWS surprised me as much as that of any player. At the end of 2023, Jansen was tied for 14th with Craig Kimbrel, but he climbed to 10th by the end of ’24 and is now seventh, closing in on Wagner. So we’re beginning here; in this batch, I’ll get to the starters and catchers as well. Unless otherwise indicated, all statistics are through Monday, August 18. Read the rest of this entry »

Jonathan India was highly regarded when our 2019 Cincinnati Reds Top Prospects list was published in December 2018. Drafted fifth overall out of the University of Florida earlier that summer, India was ranked fourth in the system, with Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel assigning him a 50 FV. Two months later, the reigning SEC Player of the Year came in at no. 75 in our Top 100.

He’s gone on to have a solid career. India made his major league debut on Opening Day 2021, proceeded to win Rookie of the Year honors, and he has since been a lineup mainstay in both Cincinnati and Kansas City. This past November, the Reds traded India to the Royals, along with Joey Wiemer, in exchange for Brady Singer. Assuming more of a super-utility role with his new team, India’s performance has taken a considerable step back. After putting up 2.9 WAR last year, he’s batting .237/.324/.352 with eight home runs, an 89 wRC+, and -0.3 WAR, though he’s been much better since the start of August (113 wRC+). Over four-plus big league seasons, India has 71 home run, a 104 wRC+, and 7.9 WAR.

What did his December 2018 FanGraphs scouting report look like? Moreover, what does he think about it all these years later? Wanting to find out, I shared some of what our former prospect-analyst duo wrote and asked India to respond to it.

———

“India was a well-known prep prospect in South Florida, but the combination of a solid, but not spectacular, tool set and seven-figure asking price sent him to Florida.”

“That would have been 2015, 10 years ago,” replied India, who spent his prep years at American Heritage School in Delray Beach. “I wasn’t mentally ready, I guess. I wanted to go to college, learn how to be on my own, learn how to be a man. So, it was really about personal development. There was no baseball involved. It was more that I wanted to grow up and enjoy college. Live life.”

“His first two years were about as expected; India got regular at-bats but didn’t have any performative breakthroughs. In his draft year, India lost bad weight and added some strength, made some offensive adjustments, and exploded, torching the best conference in the country.” Read the rest of this entry »