Sunday Notes: Ron Washington Wants His Players To Play Baseball

Ron Washington has formed strong opinions over his long time in the game. One of them is built on old-school common sense. The 73-year-old Los Angeles Angels manager doesn’t believe in hefty hacks from batters who don’t possess plus pop, and that’s especially the case when simply putting the ball in play can produce a positive result. Which isn’t to say he doesn’t like home runs — “Wash” is no fool — it’s just that he wants his hitters to play to the situation. Moreover, he wants them to play to their own strengths.

The subject came up when the veteran manager met with the media prior to a recent game at Fenway Park. Zach Neto had gone deep the previous day — it was his 10th dinger on the season — and Washington stated that he doesn’t want the young shortstop thinking home run. I proceeded to ask him if he likes any hitter thinking home run.

“That’s a tough question,” he replied. “You’ve got guys that are home run hitters — that’s what they do — and you’ve also got guys that are home run hitters who are ‘hitters.’ There are guys that can walk up to the plate, look for a pitch, and take you deep if you throw it. Neto is not one of them.

“The game of baseball has transitioned itself to the point where everybody is worried about exit velocity and launch angle,” added Washington. “Even little guys have got a launch angle. They’re supposed to be putting the ball in play, getting on the base paths, causing havoc on the base paths, and letting the guys that take care of driving in runs drive in the runs. But for some reason, the industry right now… everybody wants to be a long-ball hitter. And I see a lot of 290-foot fly balls. I see a lot of 290-foot fly balls where they caught it on a barrel. If you caught the ball on a barrel and it only went 290 feet, you’re not a home run hitter. I see a lot of that.”

What about hitters that do have plus power? Does Washington like them thinking home run? That follow-up elicited any even lengthier response.

“If that’s what they do, that is what they are getting paid for,” said Washington. “I’m not going to tell them not to hit a home run. If they are those kind of hitters, they’ve perfected it. I’m not going to take what they do expertisely — if that’s a word — away from them. See what I’m saying? Because, why? The industry has allowed it. The industry don’t care if you hit a buck-98 if you hit 25 or 30 out. If I could hit 30 home runs and get paid, and they don’t care about average, then I’m going to go for the home run.

“As you learn the game, your mindset should come down to where the situation is paramount,” continued Washington. “The game tells you what you have to do. Now, these kids don’t listen to the game when it speaks to them. See what I’m saying? If a lot of these kids listened to the game when it spoke to them… what the game asks you to do is more important than what you want to do… You play to the situation. That’s a part of the game we’re still trying to teach. In my day — and I’m not trying to say in my day was better — we played baseball.

“You look out there. Do you see baseball every night? I’m not talking about [one team]. I see the same thing every place we go. I’ve seen it against the Yankees. It don’t matter. Seen it against the Dodgers. It don’t matter… Have you seen people choke up? That [Corbin] Carroll kid over in Arizona chokes up. He chokes up and still takes you deep, Because of the youth we’ve got in this game… where they came from, they never had to adjust, because they was King Tut. Now you’ve got to make an adjustment, And then you’ve got to readjust. It never changes. That’s boring to them. But when you play baseball, that’s baseball.”

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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Bruce Fields went 3 for 7 against Storm Davis.

Derrick May went 4 for 4 against Brian Meadows.

Mickey Grasso went 5 for 15 against Ken Holcombe.

Tyler Flowers went 6 for 11 against Scott Feldman.

Willie Bloomquist went 7 for 12 against Mike Maroth.

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Nolan Schanuel has more or less established his identity. The 23-year-old Angels first baseman isn’t, and likely never will be, your prototypical power hitter. That doesn’t mean he’s not an important part of the LA lineup. Two years after being drafted 11th overall out of Florida Atlantic University, Schanuel has a 119 wRC+ and a .277/.378/.390 slash line over 252 plate appearances. While his ledger includes just three home runs, he leads the team in hits, doubles, walks (he has more free passes than strikeouts), and OBP.

While his modus operandi hasn’t changed, Schanuel has made meaningful improvements to his left-handed stroke. While his bat speed and exit velocities are still well below MLB average, both are moving in the right direction.

“I knew what I had to work on over the offseason,” said Schanuel, who homered 13 times in 607 trips to the plate in 2024. “It was bat speed. I did that, and the numbers have opened up for me this year. I’ve gained three to four miles per hour, and that has impacted my exit velos. I think the highest exit velo I had last year was 105, and this year I’ve hit 109 or 110.”

Schanuel did his own program over the winter, using overload and underload bats, and the results necessitated a tweaking of his timing mechanism.

“I was catching balls a little too far out in front this spring,” explained Schanuel, whose spray chart is indicative of an all-fields approach. “You’re used to your swing, so once your bat speed gets higher you’re going to naturally be catching pitches a little more in front. I was able to make an adjustment and tone that down later in spring training.”

Is he thinking ahead to what he’ll work on in the forthcoming offseason?

“No,” he said to that question. “Where I’m at is a pretty comfortable place. From a swing point of view, I like where I’m at right now.”

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A quiz:

Over the past 50 seasons, a total of 10 pitchers have been credited with 250 or more wins. Of them, Randy Johnson has recorded the most strikeouts. Which has recorded the fewest strikeouts?

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NEWS NOTES

The Pittsburgh Pirates announced yesterday that Kiki Cuyler, Vern Law, and Al Oliver will be inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame. The complete list of Pirates so honored can be found here.

Verle Tiefenthaler, who pitched in three games for the White Sox in 1962, died on May 28 at age 87. The Carroll, Iowa native retired 10 of the 24 batters he faced, one of them by way of the K. He also gave up a gopher. Detroit’s Bill Bruton took Tiefenthaler deep with the bases juiced in the righty’s first big-league frame.

A reminder that this year’s national SABR convention, which is open to all, will be held in the Dallas area from June 25-29. Featured speakers include Texas Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young, Rangers manager Bruce Bochy, Hall of Famers Ferguson Jenkins and Ivan Rodriguez, and former MLB Players Association executive director Don Fehr. More information can be found here.

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The answer to the quiz is Jamie Moyer, who had 2,441 strikeouts to go with his 269 wins. Andy Pettitte is a close second; he had 2,448 strikeouts and 256 wins.

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Romy Gonzalez isn’t a power hitter. The 28-year-old Boston Red Sox infielder is slashing a sturdy .329/.368/.486 with a 135 wRC+ over 76 plate appearances this season, but he’s only gone deep once. All told, he has just a dozen home runs in 531 big-league PAs. Much for that reason, I was intrigued when recently reading his April 2022 FanGraphs scouting report. Gonzalez was No. 5 on that year’s Chicago White Sox Top Prospects list, with Eric Longenhagen writing that his “carrying tool is his above-average raw power.”

I asked Gonzalez about that. Since coming to Boston — the Red Sox signed him prior to last season after he was inexplicably placed on waivers — the University of Miami product has primarily featured a line-drive stroke that favors the opposite-field gap.

“That’s always been my approach,” Gonzalez said. “A lot of it comes down to health. I was banged up the first couple years of my career, and when you’re banged up your body doesn’t do what you want it to do. But yeah, I’m just sticking to my approach and going to right-center, trying to hit line drives. If the ball gets put in the air, it gets put in the air.”

Gonzalez has made some mechanical adjustments. He’s minimized his leg kick “just a tad,” and most notably he’s dropped his hands. The “huge hole on the inner half” that Longenhagen cited in his 2022 report was the reason.

“I was getting attacked with a lot of velo on the inner part of the plate, and I think that was a product of me having my hands really high,” explained Gonzalez. “I had them over my head, so teams would attack me under my hands. Dropping them has allowed me to be more direct to the baseball.”

Which brings us back to his raw power. He homered 24 times between Double-A and Triple-A in 2021, so why the relative paucity of dingers in the majors? His current home ballpark is part of it. Gonzalez recalls the majority of his 2021 home runs being from center to right, which isn’t an ideal direction to drive balls in the air at Fenway (only two of the six homers he hit last year were at home). Even so, he feels that he could hit 20 per season given 500-plus plate appearances.

Whether or not Gonzalez can earn that opportunity remains to be seen. For now he is getting a lot of reps at first base due to circumstances, but his background is that of a middle infielder with the versatility to play all over the field. While he’s never squatted behind the dish in a game — his lone missing position in the bigs — he has caught bullpens and is currently the club’s emergency catcher. Being a Swiss Army Knife is a huge part of his value. As Gonzalez told me, “It’s kind of become my calling card.”

Whatever the calling card or carrying tool, Gonzalez is good at baseball. Cast aside by a Chicago team on the doorstep of a 121-loss season, Gonzalez has gone on to be a winning player in Boston.

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks southpaw Livan Moinelo fanned 18 Tokyo Yakult Swallows batters and over eight scoreless innings on Friday. The 29-year-old Pinar del Rio, Cuba native is 5-0 with a 1.30 ERA and a 29.3% strikeout rate on the season.

Tatsuya Imai is 5-2 with a 1.30 ERA and a 27.9% strikeout rate for NPB’s Seibu Lions. The 27-year-old right-hander has allowed just 45 hits in 83 innings.

Mitch White is 4-2 with a 2.41 ERA and a 26.1% strikeout rate for the KBO’s SSG Landers. The 30-year-old right-hander pitched for four MLB teams across the 2020-2024 seasons.

Hyun Bin Moon is slashing .314/.369/.495 with eight home runs and a 138 wRC+ over 245 plate appearances for the KBO’s Hanwha Eagles. The 21-year-old outfielder has swiped 10 bases in 12 attempts.

Phillip Ervin is slashing .325/.422/.618 with eight home runs in 147 plate appearances for the Mexican League’s Pericos de Puebla. The erstwhile 32-year-old outfielder played for the Cincinnati Reds and (briefly) the Seattle Mariners from 2017-2020.

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A random former obscure player snapshot:

June Greene played in 32 games for the Philadelphia Phillies across the 1928-1929 seasons and wore a glove in just six of them. The Ramseur, North Carolina native toed the rubber half a dozen times, pitching to the tune of an 18.38 ERA, and he also made 21 appearances as pinch-hitter and another five as a pinch-runner. Greene — his given name was Julius Foust — had seven hits in 25 at-bats, drew five walks, and finished with a .400 OBP that ranks 14th highest in franchise history among players with 30 or more plate appearances (John Kruk, who had 3,001 PAs, also finished at .400). Greene’s best season in the minors came in 1927 when he went 19-7 with a 3.28 ERA for the Portsmouth Truckers.

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FARM NOTES

Arjun Nimmala is slashing .280/.368/.500 with nine home runs and a 136 wRC+ over 231 plate appearances for High-A Vancouver. Drafted 20th-overall in 2023 out of a Dover, Florida’s Strawberry Crest High School, the 19-year-old shortstop is No. 2 on our Toronto Blue Jays Top Prospects list.

Josh Adamczewski is slashing .360/.450/.539 with two home runs and a 173 wRC+ over 111 plate appearances for Low-A Carolina. Selected in the 15th round of the 2023 draft out of St. John, Indiana’s Lake Central High School, the 20-year-old second baseman is No. 12 on our Milwaukee Brewers Top Prospects list.

Ching-Hsien Ko is slashing .420/.523/.625 with two home runs and a 197 wRC+ over 111 plate appearances in the Arizona Complex League. The 18-year-old outfielder was signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers out of Taiwan last summer.

David Davalillo is 4-0 with a 1.09 ERA and a 36.2% strikeout rate over 49-and-a-third innings for High-A Hub City. The 22-year-old right-hander was signed by the Texas Rangers out of Venezuela in 2022.

Dasan Hill has allowed just 10 hits while logging a 1.50 ERA and a 42.1% strikeout rate over 24 innings with Low-A Fort Myers. The 19-year-old left-hander was drafted 69th-overall last year by the Minnesota Twins out of Grapevine (TX) High School.

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Marquis Grissom Jr. is looking to follow in his father’s footsteps, albeit via a notably different path. The patriarch played for six teams — most prominently the Montreal Expos — from 1989-2005, logging 2,251 hits, 227 home runs, and 429 stolen bases. A stalwart on both sides of the ball, he garnered four Gold Gloves as a centerfielder.

The progeny is a pitcher. Drafted in the 13th round out of Georgia Tech by the Washington Nationals in 2022, the 23-year-old right-hander is currently working out of the bullpen for the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings. Counting his nine relief outings in Double-A, he has a 4.68 ERA and 23 strikeouts in 25 innings.

His father was a two-way player prior to reaching pro ball. Along with the playing the outfield, the elder Grissom pitched both as a prep and at Florida A&M (Vince Coleman, Andre Dawson, Mudcat Grant, and Hal McRae are other products of the Tallahassee-based University). The son’s journey took a different turn.

“I was an infielder, then got pushed to the outfield,” explained Grissom, who also toed the rubber during his days as an Atlanta-area prep. “I got some two-way offers, but Georgia Tech told me that if I was going to be a starting pitcher, I wasn’t going to be able to hit. I was cool with that.”

The youngster’s arm was clearly better than his bat, so going the pitcher route made the most sense. It’s safe to say that his father also ended up at the right position — 17 big-league seasons says a lot — but even so, might Marquis senior have succeeded as a moundsman?

“If you asked him that, he’d probably say that he would have been Cy Young,” the younger Grissom cracked. “But he could hit, too. With his speed, and his arm, he could do everything. He was just a freak athlete. There’s no telling what he could have been.”

What if he were to go up against his on-the-doorstep-of-the-majors son?

“If we faced each other, he’d say that he could bunt me over the fence,” said Grissom, whose repertoire includes a four-seamer, a slider, and a changeup. “But I’m going to take myself. I could definitely get him out.”

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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

Shigeo Nagashima — arguably the most famous player in Japanese baseball history — died earlier this week at age 89. Jason Coskrey has the story at The Japan Times.

A French basketball writer who’d never seen a baseball game went to one at Fenway Park while in Boston to cover the NBA playoffs. MassLive’s Matt Vautour accompanied him and wrote about the first-timer’s experience.

Is Juan Soto MLB’s unluckiest hitter? Deesha Thosar delved into that question for Fox Sports.

Minneapolis-based writer John Rosengren sold his boyhood sports-card collection, which included Nolan Ryan and Walter Payton rookie cards, and now wonders if the money was worth the memories. He wrote about it for LMU Magazine.

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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

MLB infielders are slashing .246/.315/.389 this season. Outfielders are slashing .245/.314/.401.

Boston’s Rafael Devers has hit 13 home runs and drawn 51 walks. LAA’s Logan O’Hoppe has hit 14 home runs and drawn eight walks.

Batters are slashing .136/.224/.167 over 76 plate appearances against Colorado’s Jake Bird at Coors Field. They are slashing .279/.366/.426 over 71 plate appearances against him in Rockies road games.

Atlanta’s Drake Baldwin is 23-for-56 (.411) in home games. He is 14-for-65 (.215) in away games.

In 2021, Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez hit 48 home runs and stole one base. In 1982, Kansas City Royals catcher John Wathan hit three home runs and stole 36 bases.

In June 1952, Boston Braves southpaw Warren Spahn lost back-to-back starts in which he allowed a combined six runs, with two walks and 29 strikeouts, over 24 innings.

On today’s date in 1989, the Pittsburgh Pirates scored 10 times in the top of the first inning, only to see the Philadelphia Phillies rally to win 15-11. Darren Daulton’s two-run single in the eighth put the home side ahead to stay.

On today’s date in 1950, the Boston Red Sox got three home runs from Bobby Doerr and two each from Walt Dropo and Ted Williams in a 29-4 rout of the St. Louis Browns at Fenway Park. One day earlier, the Red Sox beat the Browns 20-4 with Dropo, Vern Stephens, and Clyde Vollmer combining to go deep five times.

Players born on today’s date include George Brunet, a native of Houghton, Michigan who pitched in 324 games while playing for nine MLB teams from 1956-1971. His professional career spanned 30-plus seasons. Brunet debuted with the Class-D Tar Heel League’s Shelby Clippers in 1953, and in 1984 he took the mound with a pair of teams in the Mexican League. The southpaw was 49 years old when he threw his last pitch.

Also born on today’s date was John Gibbons, who logged 11 hits in 50 at-bats while catching for the New York Mets in 1984 and 1986. The Great Falls, Montana native went on to manage the Toronto Blue Jays from 2004-2008, and again from 2013-2018. Gibbons is now the Mets’ bench coach.