I don’t think many would quibble with me too harshly if I characterized the last two seasons for the Atlanta Braves as dreary disappointments. In 2024, the Braves were generally believed to challenge the Dodgers for the title of best team in baseball. This held true for about six weeks, but for the rest of the season, they suffered myriad injuries and played .500 ball, barely hanging onto a wild card spot before quickly being dispatched by the Padres. Going into 2025 with the hope for a healthier, bounce-back season, nothing of the sort happened. Atlanta finished at 76-86, the franchise’s first losing season since 2017. Expectations coming into this season were more muted. While the Braves were expected to be competitive (the FanGraphs projections were more optimistic than ZiPS), the excitement was certainly dampened compared to the previous two years.

So far in 2026, the Braves have defied the pundits and computers, dominating the NL East and sporting the best record in baseball, at 25-11. Their 8 1/2-game lead in the NL East isn’t an insurmountable one, but it’s quite impressive for this point in the season. No other division leader has more than a two-game lead right now! As crucially, the two teams expected to be Atlanta’s fiercest competition, the Phillies and Mets, are a bit farther behind, at 9 1/2 and 11 1/2 games back, respectively. Naturally, the success of the Braves and the struggles of Philadelphia and New York have changed how the final standings project to shake out.

That’s quite a sea change from the start of the season. Of course, Atlanta isn’t projected to keep playing this well the rest of the way. We’re only a little over a month into the season, and we should expect some regression from the Braves as they play more games.

But just because things will normalize some does not mean that nothing has changed. I’m not convinced that Dominic Smith is a 157 wRC+ guy, or that Martín Pérez is the first person in history to figure out the secret to maintaining a sub-.200 BABIP, but there are other things about this team that I’m quite ready to believe. Matt Olson has had very big seasons before, and when healthy, Chris Sale is one of the best pitchers in baseball. Ozzie Albies isn’t going to hit .330 for the season, but he did amass the second-most WAR as a second baseman from 2018 to 2023, behind only Jose Altuve, so we have seen enough from him in the past to believe this is a true comeback campaign rather than an early-season mirage.

To get a better idea of what’s real and what’s fake, here are the ZiPS projections for the hitters currently on Atlanta’s Depth Charts roster, compared to their preseason projections.

Even being skeptical of a few players, there are a lot more advancers than decliners here. Of all major league hitters currently projected to get plate appearances over the rest of the season, the Braves have nine of the top 100, more than you would expect from random chance. Only three players — Austin Riley, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Mike Yastrzemski — have taken big hits, but they are still projected to be real contributors, though I’m a bit worried about Riley personally.

How does that compare to other teams? Using the rest-of-season Depth Charts playing time projections and applying both the up-to-date projections and the preseason ones to that projected playing time, we can get an idea of which teams have had something change and which teams have not.

Atlanta’s offensive projection has improved more than that of any other team, so it isn’t just smoke and mirrors producing these results. At the risk of veering off topic, the 14-22 Astros’ having the second-most improved offensive projection is quite an awkward data point for the team’s struggling pitching staff. Conversely, even if you’re generally confident that the Phillies and Mets (and Red Sox) will right the ship, the projections are less optimistic than they were in March.

Let’s repeat the exercise with the pitchers:

ZiPS is confident that Atlanta’s offensive improvements are legitimate, but it’s considerably less so when it comes to the pitching staff. I’ve already made a crack about Pérez, but ZiPS is also skeptical about Bryce Elder’s strides. Overall, it still sees the rotation as risky, though it is more bullish on several of the team’s relievers.

(For those curious, the most improved hitter and pitcher in baseball, from a projection standpoint, is Chase DeLauter and Mason Miller, respectively.)

It’s kind of funny to see the Phillies so high up on this list, but they have allowed a .349 BABIP over 35 games, a freakishly high number that can’t possibly be sustained. One can see why the Yankees and Padres have been so strong in the early going, though their success is a story for another day.

Is the NL East race actually over? The projections and Betteridge’s law of headlines say no. But it is true that the Braves have flipped the script. It’s not as over for the Mets or Phillies as the vibes indicate, but if they are going to mount a comeback, they better start fairly soon. If not, they’ll quickly run out of calendar.

Source

Source

12:02

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to my first chat of May! Happy Cinco de Mayo to those celebrating, and a belated happy Star Wars Day if that’s your thing.

12:03

Jay Jaffe: On Friday I wrote about the league scoring environment through the end of April, noting that walk rates are up, likely due to the impact of the new ABS Challenge system https://blogs.fangraphs.com/more-walks-more-runs-an-early-look-at-offe…

12:04

Jay Jaffe: On Sunday I had a bizarre gardening accident, but fared better than the average Spinal Tap drummer https://bsky.app/profile/jayjaffe.bsky.social/post/3mkxvubesl22v

12:05

Jay Jaffe: Yesterday, I wrote about Ildemaro Vargas’ unlikely hitting streak. (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/ildemaro-vargas-is-suddenly-a-hitting-mach…), and last night I went up to Yankee Stadium to do some reporting to supplement a tribute to longtime Yankees radio play-by-play broadcaster John Sterling, who passed away at age 87. That will be up tomorrow.

12:06

Jay Jaffe: Sterling, of course, is famous in the site’s lore https://x.com/JSterlingCalls/status/1300580776464068608

12:08

Jay Jaffe: and one final programming note: next Tuesday evening I’ll be accompanying MLB.com’s Michael Clair to Word Bookstores in Williamsburg to moderate a discussion of his book on the Czech Republic’s national baseball team and its unlikely rise: https://bsky.app/profile/michaelclair.bsky.social/post/3ml4k6v4zqs2u

12:08

Jay Jaffe: Ok, and now, on with the show!

12:10

Jay Jaffe: “Loose bodies” is a catch-all term that has more or less replaced “bone chips” in the sports medicine lexicon, because some of those fragments aren’t bone but cartilage.

12:12

Jay Jaffe: Here’s how Will Carroll described them in his Under the Knife newsletter yesterday: “Those loose bodies are fragments of bone or cartilage that have broken free and are literally floating inside the elbow joint. They can come from a single event, a chip knocked loose, but more often in pitchers they’re the byproduct of something ongoing. Repetitive stress, especially valgus extension overload, creates small bone spurs or cartilage damage that eventually fragments. Those fragments don’t just sit there. They move, they catch, they lock the joint for a split second, or they irritate the synovial lining. Sometimes they even grow, accumulating more material over time. “That’s why the surgery has evolved in how it’s treated afterward. It used to be a quick fix. Clean it out, a few weeks, and back on the mound. Teams learned the hard way that the loose body wasn’t the real problem. It was the symptom, not the diagnosis. Something created that debris, and unless that something is addressed, the cycle can repeat…

12:12

Jay Jaffe: “The rehab now reflects that, with a more cautious ramp, often six to eight weeks at minimum and sometimes longer depending on how the joint responds.”

12:13

Jay Jaffe: Carroll was writing about Tarik Skubal’s diagnosis and impending surgery. Ben Clemens covered that for us https://blogs.fangraphs.com/tarik-skubals-injury-leaves-him-and-the-ti…

12:14

Jay Jaffe: I wrote about Edwin Díaz in that context a couple weeks ago. The good news is that this is a procedure from which players generally return in-season in predictable fashion. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/edwin-diaz-is-headed-for-surgery-shaking-u…

12:17

Jay Jaffe: What Aaron Judge has done is pretty damn remarkable. Ruth came close — one more homer in 1930 would have done it — and while he was doing it at a time that home runs were far less common, what Judge is doing is against a higher caliber of competition and a larger player pool. Still, the man is somewhat injury-prone, as you allude to, so let’s not count our chickens before they’ve knocked on wood or whatever.

12:20

Jay Jaffe: Good question. A friend asked me if it was time to put him in the same class as late bloomers like José Bautista and Justin Turner, and I said I’d like to see at least a couple hundred more plate appearances before I start fully believing it; both were much more selective hitters than Vargas, and we need to see how he reacts when the league adjusts to him and starts finding holes in his swing. That said, he’s been pulling balls in the air, and so he’s clearly figured something out; I’d take the over on 115 wRC+, but not by much.

12:24

Jay Jaffe: That quote sounds correct, and I think it’s from his 1994 book, The Politics of Glory (retitled for paperback Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?).

12:26

Jay Jaffe: That was definitely true back then. I believe that the Hall has tried to define itself a bit more in reaction to PED-linked players, and I think my work and that of others (including James) has tried to apply some definition, some firmer standards, with regards to who gets elected. But it’s one battle after another; I’m goddamn sick of seeing Don Mattingly and Steve Garvey getting nominated every three years instead of other candidates who deserve longer looks.

12:30

Jay Jaffe: Woof, Matt McLain isn’t in a good place. He’s regained some bat speed and he’s pulling the ball in the air a bit more often, but his exit velo, barrel rate and expected stats are pretty much identical. I don’t think he should be in the majors while he’s struggling like thi; he does have three minor league options remaining.

12:34

Jay Jaffe: If you squint at different sample sizes maybe you can convince yourself he’s trending upwards, but I don’t see much to give me confidence in that. He’s a guy who tends to tinker with his stance but he doesn’t seem to be in a good place right now and I wonder about his health — he’s a guy who’s almost impossible to get out of the lineup unless he’s very injured.

12:36

Jay Jaffe: the latter, I think, but I do believe he’ll get to both thresholds.

12:42

Jay Jaffe: i think a best-case scenario for a pending free agent starting pitcher is maybe a 50-FV prospect, but that probably has to come with some salary relief. The Blue Jays traded a 50-FV guy for Shane Bieber but he was making only $10 million last year. The Dodgers gave up a 50-FV and a 45-FV prospect for Jack Flaherty in 2024, but he was making $14 million.

12:45

Jay Jaffe: he’s a real prospect, no. 68 on our Top 100 in the preseason as a 50-FV guy. Whether he has an impact this season is a separate question; the Braves just got Spencer Strider back, and may get Reynaldo López straightened out and Spencer Schwellenbach and Hurston Waldrep back from loose bodies surgeries before the All-Star break. Ritchie might be one of the guys bumped if those things happen as anticipated. But he can force the conversation by pitching well.

12:47

Jay Jaffe: Lou Piniella has fallen one vote short twice in a row; I don’t think he’s as good a managerial candidate as Bochy or Baker but he’ll be back for more. I’d love to see Bill White — who fell two votes short last time — elected as a full member of the Hall but he did just get named as the Buck O’Neil Award winner, which may be an excuse to kick that can down the road, a cold-ass thing to do to a 92-year-old man.

12:49

Jay Jaffe: I’d take the under on that. This is going to cut into the value of his walk year but it’s a comparatively routine surgery and recovery, not a major career interruption. If he wants a long-term deal he’s gonna get offers of $300 million or higher.

12:51

Jay Jaffe: When we have two expansion teams named and a real timeline, that’s an exercise worth doing, but we’re a ways from that happening, with the completion of the next CBA and the resolution of the Rays and A’s stadium sagas all above it in the pecking order.

12:52

Jay Jaffe: Not 30 seconds ago, one of our writers put in a claim on a Martin article so I’m just gonna tease it and tell you to sit tight.

12:56

Jay Jaffe: I don’t have a lot of ideas off the top of my head but here’s one. It’s an overstatement to call Orlando Cabrera a mediocre player, I think, since he was an adept fielder at his best, but the fact that he owns the longest on-base streak in major league history — 63 games — despite a career .317 OBP is remarkable when you consider the alternatives such as Ruth, Hornsby, Bonds, Boggs, Judge, etc.

12:58

Jay Jaffe: He’s 29, signed through 2032, and in his second straight year of clear decline both in actual production and expected production based on his Statcast numbers. Yeah, that’s not a good place to be at all.

1:01

Jay Jaffe: I’m less concerned than I was at the outset of the season, for sure. And so are the projection systems. Given the impact of his strong early start, his Depth Charts slash projection has improved from .234/.343/.449 in the preseason to .234/.349/.471 today. so yeah, your numbers appear to be realistic

1:03	Jay Jaffe: I’m with you. he’s hitting .236/.322/.465 (119 wRC+) but is about 40 points short of his xSLG, so I think he can be better. I’m a bit alarmed by the 29.2% strikeout rate considering he went about 19%/16%/11% over his last three seasons in Japan (the last one a shortened one)

1:03	Jay Jaffe: But I think on the whole he’ll be fine

1:07	Jay Jaffe: Josh Donaldson won an MVP award after converting from catcher to third, BJ Surhoff was decent there before moving on to left field, and Brandon Inge turned in some good seasons. Craig Biggio converted from catcher to second base, which has to be harder.

1:09

Jay Jaffe: As to whether the Dodgers do it with Smith, I don’t see a pressing need even with Dalton Rushing going small-sample bananas given that Max Muncy is off to another great start. It might be something worth experimenting with in spring training next year if Rushing maintains his strong season, but let’s also see how his defense develops.

1:13

Jay Jaffe: I’ve started to think Olson has a chance, because in addition to being an excellent hitter he’s a great defender. By bWAR, his 2023 and 2025 seasons (7.5 and 6.0 WAR, respectively) are his best, and those are recent; he’s also got two others above 5.0 and appears to be on his way to a third (2.5 so far). His WAR7 is at 35.7 and with, say,  6-WAR season would improve to 37.4 — 40.0 is where **** gets real, with a player havign about a 75% chance of future induction.

1:14	Jay Jaffe: It’s the Mets. You can hope, but you should know better.

1:17

Jay Jaffe: After the contraction from a few years ago, they all have the same four from A-ball on up: A, A+, AA, AAA. Below that, everybody’s got a Complex League team  in either Arizona or Florida and I think they all have a Dominican Summer League team, though I know the Reds have had two of those in recent years, and I’m not sure how many others do.

1:23

Jay Jaffe: Well, there are a bunch of guys whose careers entirely predate the advent of the All-Star Game in 1933, including Walter Johnson, Cy Young, Pete Alexander, Kid Nichols, and Christy Mathewson, all with well over 100 WAR (Johnson has the most bWAR including offense; not sure about fWAR off the top of my head). More recently, I believe it’s Tony Phillips who holds the distinction, with 50.9 bWAR and 46.6 fWAR.

1:28	Jay Jaffe: Maybe the Yankees aren’t as bad at player development — particularly on the pitching side — as some people want to believe? He’s a 6-foot-6 dude who has gained velocity and improved his command thanks to better mechanics and a switch from a slider to a cutter.

1:30	Jay Jaffe: Waaaay too early. Like a decade too early. Gonna have to pile up saves and strikeouts, and survive the inevitable arm injuries

1:31	Jay Jaffe: Sorry if that sounds bleak but the last thing i’m forecasting ina Cooperstown sense is a 100+-mph throwing reliever with 61 career saves.

1:32	Jay Jaffe: We’re not even sure if Kenley Jansen, Craig Kimbrel, and Aroldis Chapman will get a long enough look from voters, and they smashed strikeout rate records while piling up saves

1:33	Jay Jaffe: And we have ample evidence that two or three years isn’t enough in a Hall of Fame sense. Dale Murphy’s in the same boat.

1:33	Jay Jaffe: Ok folks, the lunch bell tolls for me. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Source

Jonathon Long has logged a shiny 137 wRC+ since he was selected in the ninth round of the 2023 draft out of Long Beach State. How bright of a future he has is a question not easily answered. Ranked 17th on our recently released 2026 Cubs Top Prospects list with a 40 FV, the 24-year-old first baseman has a profile that is promising, yet in some ways concerning.

Last season’s numbers were particularly strong. Playing at Triple-A Iowa, Long slashed a robust .305/404/.479 with 20 home runs and a 131 wRC+ over 607 plate appearances, which led to his being honored as the organization’s Minor League Player of the Year. His right-handed bat hasn’t been nearly as productive in the current campaign — a .294/.369/.405 slash line with a pair of round-trippers and a 101 wRC+ over 143 plate appearances — but he nonetheless remains a threat to opposing pitchers. Moreover, he has begun to warm up. Over his last nine games with Iowa, Long is 14-for-40 (.350).

A hyperextended elbow caused the Orange, California native to miss time in spring training, a period that coincided with my annual visit to Cactus League camps. Intrigued by his stat sheet and scouting reports alike, I asked Long if he considers himself more of a power hitter, or more of a contact hitter.

“I’m probably a little bit of both,” replied Long, whose 20.3% strikeout rate and 10.5% walk rate this season are slightly worse than last year’s respective marks of 19.7% and 13.2%. “I don’t like striking out, and I have pretty good exit-velocity numbers. If you combine those, you kind of get a high contact rate and a power hitter.”

Our recent prospect report on Long, put together by Eric Longenhagen and James Fegan, is largely in accord with that self-assessment. Bullish in agreement, it nevertheless came with a caveat:

“Long swings hard and has several underlying data elements that corroborate his statistical output to this point — better-than-average contact, hard-hit, and chase rates, as well as peak exit velocities — but we’re skeptical of it translating to the big leagues without incident because Long’s swing is, well, long.”

I didn’t ask Long about the length of his stroke, but I did bring up its ferocity, which I’d heard about previously.

“I have above-average bat speed,” he responded. “That plays into my exit velocities, which I think were around the 90th percentile last year. But it comes naturally. I don’t try to swing hard. When you’re in a game and have the adrenaline, and the ball is coming in faster, it’s just something that happens. You’re able to hit the ball harder when you do.

“I never try to hit home runs,” Long added. “When I actually try to swing harder, or try to create lift, I just create swing-and-miss. So, I just try to stay through the middle of the field. That naturally creates you pulling the ball on offspeed pitches, or shooting the ball to the opposite field on fastballs. That’s the approach I take.”

Which brings us to something else that Eric and James wrote:

“It takes a while for the bat to match the pitch plane in a way that enables him to turn on the baseball, and he ends up late to the contact point.”

“I’ve tried to pull the ball more, but I don’t naturally move that way well,” Long explained to me in Arizona. “I try to stick to what I’m good at, and if that leads to home runs, that’s what it does. If it doesn’t, I’ll make hard contact regardless. I’ve always hit the ball deep; I’ve always used right field a lot.”

Sticking with what works for him doesn’t mean that Long has been averse to making changes. He had a leg kick in his first two collegiate seasons, but after struggling to hit high velocity while playing in the Cape Cod League in 2022, he went to a no-stride load. Four years later, he has another adjustment in mind.

“Last year, my groundball rate was a little high for my liking,” admitted Long, whose 45.9% groundball rate was far from ideal, as is this season’s nearly identical mark of 45.3%. “Instead of a 106-mph grounder to shortstop, I’d like to be driving the ball up the gap. The more OPS points, the better. It’s a matter of contact point. Same swing, but catching the ball to where I get it in the air. That’s something I need to get better at doing.”

Source

There are no “good” injuries in baseball. Losing a player to the IL is never a fun time. But there’s still a relative hierarchy – not every injury is an equally big bummer. On Monday, we got one of those big bummers. The Tigers placed Tarik Skubal, the two-time reigning AL Cy Young winner, on the injured list. He’s slated to undergo surgery to remove loose bodies in his pitching elbow, as Evan Woodbery of MLive first reported.

Skubal had dealt with occasional pains in his arm throughout the season, as The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen reported. In his start last Wednesday, Skubal grimaced and grabbed his elbow in the seventh inning, sending a bevy of concerned Tigers staffers to the mound. He waved them off and struck out the side, but when his arm didn’t recover as much as expected in the aftermath of that start, the team had imaging done, revealing the need for surgery. This injury could alter the balance of power in the AL Central this year. More than that, it could change the trajectory of Skubal’s career. So let’s walk through the implications for the team, league, and player as we try to make sense of this unfortunate bit of news.

The Tigers could ill afford to lose another pitcher, let alone their best pitcher. Their injured list looks like a good pitching staff all on its own. Skubal, Casey Mize, and Justin Verlander were members of the Opening Day rotation. Reese Olson, Troy Melton, and Jackson Jobe are all either intriguing youngsters, effective major leaguers, or both. When analysts say “you can never have too much pitching,” this is the type of situation they’re hedging against.

Detroit built this rotation around two principles: an ace at the top and huge redundancy. That means that its much-diminished rotation still has a surprising amount of juice. Framber Valdez, the team’s big winter signing, is doing just what you’d expect. He doesn’t get a ton of strikeouts, but that’s because he’s busy racking up grounders. His ERA, FIP, and whatever advanced run prevention metric is your favorite all agree: Valdez is performing right around his career average, and that’s a high level.

Behind him, the Tigers rotation starts hitting question marks quickly, but it’s still not without promise. Jack Flaherty is off to the worst start of his career, and his big problem has been walks. He’s issued multiple free passes in every game he’s pitched this year, and has had trouble commanding his fastball, particularly when behind in the count. But it’s not hard to imagine what a better version of Flaherty looks like; he’s been a competent, if inconsistent, starter for a while now. Before the season, I felt like Flaherty was a nice fit in the no. 4 spot in the rotation. Now, he’s their no. 2 starter despite performing like a no. 5 so far this season. It’s not ideal, but let me put it this way: After Detroit’s streak of injury misfortune, still having a guy with Flaherty’s track record available is definitely a bonus.

Keider Montero, who worked in a swingman role for the Tigers in the past, has been starting full-time this year, and he’s been sneakily effective so far. He has the kind of game that plays better on the field than it looks on paper. He doesn’t miss many bats and doesn’t induce many chases, but he’s extremely aggressive in the strike zone, and his kitchen-sink array of fastballs and secondaries keeps batters guessing. He’s allowing a career-low rate of home runs per fly ball at the moment, and that seems unlikely to continue, but if you’re looking for a starter who can eat some innings, you could do much worse.

Ty Madden was called up from the minors to replace Skubal in the rotation. He missed all of 2025 with a rotator cuff injury, in what was set to be his rookie season, though this won’t be his first taste of the big leagues. He debuted in 2024 and made Detroit’s postseason roster that year. He throws six pitches and works heavily on the fastball/cutter/slider spectrum, giving batters subtly different looks that keep them off balance before using slower secondaries to end at-bats. Our prospect team likes him as a fifth starter or swingman, and it appeared that the Tigers were interested in putting him in a relief role before this spate of injuries. He’s off to a middling start in Triple-A in his return from injury, but given the attrition, Detroit has little choice but to put him in the big leagues and see what happens.

Astute readers will note that I’ve only listed four starters. The Tigers surely hope that they won’t be without the services of at least a few of their injured hurlers for much longer, but in the meantime, they’re in a pickle. Drew Anderson was a starter the last two years in the KBO and looked very good, but he’s been working as a long reliever so far this year. He’s probably not stretched out for a full workload, but who cares? He looks better than the other options available, and he’s missing bats in the major leagues already. Honestly, the Tigers might stick with him even if he struggles mightily; Sawyer Gipson-Long, the team’s other reasonable option in the upper minors, was scratched from his latest start with “undisclosed discomfort,” an ominous phrase, particularly when you consider that he already missed the entire 2024 season due to injury and hit the IL twice last year despite not being activated until midseason.

Skubal’s injury puts Detroit’s playoff chances in doubt, and those odds get worse the longer he’s out. There aren’t a lot of players who can singlehandedly move the needle from no hope to competing, but Skubal might just be one. Replacing the rest of his 2026 season with the aggregate efforts of Montero, Anderson, Madden, and Gipson-Long would be a 5-WAR downgrade. It would take Detroit from one of the top three projected rotations in baseball to one of the bottom 10. If Skubal returns for the second half, on the other hand, you can roughly halve that estimate; they’d be a mid-pack rotation in the aggregate.

The AL Central is a tight race; before Skubal’s injury, we projected Detroit to be about five wins better than the field, with the Guardians, Royals, and Twins all jockeying for second place. That’s easy math – losing Skubal pushes the Tigers into a four-way scrum for the division, and the longer he’s out, the tougher things get. Sure, the AL has started slowly this year, but this doesn’t look like a division that will send two teams to the playoffs.

In fact, the AL Central might now be the most interesting division in baseball. The presumed doormats, the White Sox, have held their own so far. The Twins have a flammable bullpen, but their offense is legit, and even if they don’t contend for the playoffs, they have the personnel to play spoiler. Cleveland and Kansas City are both battle-tested squads with superstar leaders. And now, the expected favorites are missing their best player. What’s more, the division now feels so wide open that the trade deadline will likely have a lot to say about the eventual finishing order.

While the ramifications of this injury will reverberate across the Midwest all season, they’ll echo even further into Skubal’s future. He was – and still is, in fact – the marquee free agent of this winter’s class. Pitchers this good don’t often hit the open market. Skubal received the highest arbitration salary in history this winter, and he was headed for a likely record-breaking contract. Now that payday is up in the air, and to get a better idea of what this might mean for his future, it’s worth understanding a little more about what exactly “loose body removal” means.

Loose bodies are bone chips, little shards of bone (or occasionally cartilage) that have been abraded or otherwise broken off one of the bones in the elbow. It’s likely that every pitcher in baseball has them to some degree; pitching puts a ton of strain on the elbow, and particularly on the hinge where the upper and lower arm connect. The ulnar collateral ligament bears a lot of this strain, but not all of it, which is why not every elbow injury requires Tommy John surgery. Some of that strain gets borne by bones, and when they wear down, voila: bone spurs and loose bodies.

While every pitcher has some amount of elbow damage, the specific degree of loose body buildup varies heavily from one arm to the next. That makes estimating a recovery time complicated; clean loose body removal surgery can be a fairly quick procedure with a recovery timeline in the area of two to three months. But it’s the kind of surgery that also involves some exploration; until the surgeons actually cut in (arthroscopically, generally), the amount of removal, bone spur shaving, and other corrective work remains unknown.

It’s too soon to know how Skubal’s case will evolve. A return to the mound in 2026 is highly likely. But there’s still plenty of uncertainty around the timeline of that return, even though both he and the Tigers would love to have him back on the mound as soon as possible. It comes down to balancing uncertainties. For Skubal, there are plenty of unknowns. He doesn’t know how his arm will respond to surgery and rest; some pitchers have returned from similar procedures no worse for wear, while for some it’s a precursor to more elbow injuries. That makes good sense – if your throwing motion is causing this kind of small-scale bone damage, it might be causing small-scale damage elsewhere, as well.

On the other hand, re-establishing his effectiveness before reaching free agency is important. Consider things from a team’s perspective: It’s hard to hand out a nine-figure contract to a guy who just had elbow surgery and hasn’t pitched (or at least, hasn’t pitched well) since. In any other year of Skubal’s career, patience would be the clear best course; there’s always next year. But mere months before he might sign the biggest contract of his life, the calculus isn’t so clear.

One fascinating subplot: Would Skubal be interested in a one-year contract, or perhaps one of those two-years-with-an-opt-out structures, just to prove that he’s healthy and allow him to regain his value? Every team in baseball would be interested in taking a short-term shot at Skubal, in my estimation, even at a high average annual value and even with injury uncertainty added to the mix. If he’d be willing to look at short deals as a fallback, that makes this winter’s negotiations less pivotal for him.

I don’t know what Skubal would think of this option. I’m not sure he knows, candidly. When you’re busy winning two straight Cy Youngs and setting salary records, you probably don’t spend that much time considering prove-it contracts. But life comes at you fast, and now it’s a meaningful decision. I imagine he’ll be spending plenty of time working out a plan for the future while his arm recovers.

I expect Skubal to prioritize a return at full strength over the fastest possible return. The timeline of loose body recoveries is quite variable. Hurston Waldrep and Spencer Schwellenbach each had similar procedures this February, and Waldrep is near a return while Schwellenbach hasn’t begun throwing. Setting a return date now isn’t feasible given how broad of a range of injuries “loose body removal” covers. Against that backdrop, I don’t think prospective Skubal suitors care particularly much about how many innings he throws after his return; I assume they’re far more interested in how good those innings are.

Playing it cautiously requires at least a little on his openness to a bridge deal, however. The later Skubal returns, the less information teams will have about him come the offseason. If he looks rusty in his first two starts back, and those are also his only two starts post-surgery, his market might end up meaningfully softer than expected. Heck, if he plans on a late-season return and then takes longer to ramp up than he hoped, he might not even be able to pitch in the big leagues this year. That would almost certainly necessitate some kind of short-term contract.

It’s also worth remembering that Skubal is a competitive human being, not a profit maximization algorithm. You only get so many cracks at the World Series. The Tigers have lost in the ALDS in each of the last two years, but before that, they hadn’t been to the postseason since 2014. Skubal has never played for another organization, and the team is full of players with whom he advanced through the minor leagues. Money is nice, but so is success, and baseball players measure success in the playoffs. They’re also, in general, the kind of maniacal competitors who think they can win every game, and have spent their entire life being proven correct. This is a really hard puzzle to balance, particularly given how much is still unknown.

We have Skubal down for 15 or so starts the rest of the way, which is something like a no-complications timeline. That makes the Tigers still the division favorites, though by a smaller margin than before this injury. I urge caution about that estimate, though, because this is an asymmetrical situation. It’s not like Skubal is likely to return unexpectedly quickly; he has to have surgery, rehab, and build his arm strength back up. On the other hand, the right tail, a lengthy absence, could extend meaningfully longer.

At the end of the day, the exact date of his return isn’t that important – one start probably won’t be the difference between making and missing the playoffs. The bigger story is that the best pitcher in baseball is injured and can’t pitch, and we don’t know exactly when he’ll return. For everyone’s sake, let’s hope for the best.

Source

The best team in baseball will be without its biggest star for a few weeks.

The Braves placed Ronald Acuña Jr. on the injured list Sunday with a strained left hamstring. Acuña exited Saturday’s game after pulling up in considerable pain while running out a groundout. Manager Walt Weiss told reporters that imaging revealed a Grade 1 strain, the least severe grade. According to MLB.com, Weiss said:

“It’s not going to be just a couple days. It’s gonna be more than that, so we need to put him on the IL, and hopefully it’ll be sooner than later. No idea with these soft tissue injuries how long they’re gonna take, but I think the silver lining is that the MRI showed it wasn’t too serious.”

While many players return from Grade 1 hamstring strains in just a couple weeks, or even following the 10-day minimum, this is an injury that can linger and delay a return.

This is, obviously, less than ideal for the Braves. Acuña is their best player and was projected in the preseason as the ninth-best position player in baseball with 5.4 WAR, according to our Depth Charts. Though his performance hasn’t been spectacular thus far, with a 111 wRC+ in 152 plate appearances, his .381 xwOBA and 12.2% barrel rate — along with strong strikeout and walk rates — suggest he hasn’t missed a beat this year, coming off his bounce-back 2025 season.

Of course, last year was a comeback campaign because Acuña missed most 2024 (and the early part of 2025) after tearing his ACL. He also missed chunks of 2021 and 2022 with a torn ACL in his other knee. In 2018, he missed about a month with a mild ACL sprain. That means Acuña’s hamstring strain is his fourth lower body injury requiring IL time in his career.

To replace Acuña on the active roster, the Braves called up speedy outfielder José Azocar, who has a 74 wRC+ in parts of four seasons in the majors. Azocar likely won’t play a bunch, as the Braves are expected to platoon Mike Yastrzemski and Eli White in Acuña’s absence. But center fielder Michael Harris II has missed three of the last four games with a quad injury, so depending on what happens, Azocar may be thrust into more playing time than expected.

The Braves have dealt with a rash of injuries in the early season, mostly in their pitching staff. They did get a key piece back on Sunday, when Spencer Strider returned from an oblique injury (though his outing didn’t go particularly well). But with Acuña out, the Braves have 12 players on the IL.

Still, the start of the season has been nothing short of a tremendous success for Atlanta, as Jay Jaffe outlined last week. At 25-10, the Braves not only boast the best record in the majors, they also have the best run differential. While a brief Acuña absence might pose a challenge, they sit comfortably atop the NL East.

Cal Raleigh, Ben Rice Sit for a Bit
The Braves head to Seattle on Monday to face the Mariners, who may or may not be without one of their top players.

Cal Raleigh was a late scratch for Saturday’s game with what was described as “general soreness.” Before Sunday’s game, he told reporters he was dealing with a bit of pain in his core. The issue began Friday, though he said there wasn’t necessarily a specific play that triggered it. So far, Raleigh has not been placed on the injured list; the Mariners called up catcher Jhonny Pereda for the time being.

After struggling out the gate in 2026, Raleigh has picked it up with five homers over his last 10 games. Unlike the Braves, the Mariners aren’t quite in a position to merely stay afloat without one of their top players. They entered the season as favorites in the American League by our Playoff Odds, but after getting swept by the Royals, they sit at 16-19. The good news for the Mariners is the rest of the AL West remains uninspired, and we still give them the second-best odds in the AL to win the World Series. But as I noted in the preseason, Seattle’s success relies quite a bit on Raleigh and Julio Rodríguez being healthy and productive.

Leap-frogging the Mariners for the best odds to win the American League are the Yankees, who also happen to have a star slugger temporarily sidelined. Ben Rice is listed as day-to-day with a bruise on his hand. The injury occurred while receiving a pickoff attempt from Max Fried in the third inning on Sunday. The ball appeared to catch him awkwardly square in the palm, where the padding on his glove is quite thin.

Before the injury, Rice smacked his 12th homer of the year in the first inning. After the injury, he hit a popup that landed in no-man’s land for a double in the fourth. He was removed when the Yankees took the field in the fifth. The two extra-base hits gave him a major league-leading 224 wRC+.

Aces Down
A trio of top pitchers also went down over the weekend.

Twins ace Joe Ryan left Sunday’s start with elbow soreness after facing just two batters. He struck out the first, walked the second, then signaled to the bench.

Ryan’s fastball velocity has been down to begin the season, from 93.7 mph last year to 92.6 mph. That drop hasn’t seemed to affect him much, as he’d entered the day with a 2.99 FIP in seven starts, making him one of the top 15 starters by WAR. The last fastball he threw Sunday, however, was at 90.9 mph.

It’s unclear the extent of the injury, though it’s presumed to require a trip to the IL at the minimum. Ryan will get imaging this week. If he returns healthy, he’s expected to be one of the most sought-after players at the trade deadline.

Brewers flamethrower Jacob Misiorowski was removed from his start on Friday with a hamstring injury. He’d thrown 5 1/3 hitless innings with eight strikeouts against the Nationals. He’d also unleashed 43 pitches 100 mph or faster, just four shy of Hunter Greene’s single-game record of 47. And then he threw a 98.9-mph fastball before leaving the game with trainers.

Misiorowski said he felt the discomfort from the start of the sixth inning. Per the Associated Press:

“Probably about the last warmup pitch and then that whole first batter I had it,” Misiorowski said. “It didn’t really get terrible until that first pitch to [James] Wood, and then it really grabbed. One of those things.”

Misiorowski is not set to have any imaging done, and the Brewers believe he avoided serious injury. He is day-to-day.

Red Sox lefty Ranger Suarez also hopes to have avoided a serious hamstring injury. He exited his start Sunday after the fourth inning, with his pitch count at 70. Suarez was throwing a shutout and cruising through the Astros lineup, then simply didn’t return to the mound to begin the fifth.

He said after the game it was tightness in his right hamstring. He also missed time in 2023 with a right hamstring injury, though he said this time feels different. He’s optimistic he won’t need to be placed on the IL.

The Red Sox certainly hope that’s the case. They entered the season with one of the best rotations in the majors and have since lost their top two starters in Garrett Crochet (shoulder inflammation) and Sonny Gray (hamstring strain). Gray is expected to return after a minimum stay on the IL, but losing any more time from their frontline starters will make climbing out of their hole in the AL East more difficult.

Veteran Starters on the Shelf
The Brewers placed Brandon Woodruff on the injured list with shoulder inflammation on Friday, a day after he left his start in the second inning, with his fastball averaging just 85 mph — more than 7 mph below his average from last year. He told reporters there’s nothing structurally wrong with his shoulder and expects a minimum stay on the IL.

The Angels placed Yusei Kikuchi on the injured list Sunday with shoulder inflammation, stemming from his start Wednesday, which he exited after just two innings. His 3.73 FIP (despite a 5.81 ERA) so far this year is an improvement from his first season in Anaheim, helping the Angels boast a surprising top-five starting rotation by WAR so far in 2026. The team has not yet offered a timeline for his return.

Editor’s note: This story was filed before news broke that two-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal will undergo surgery in his left elbow to remove loose bodies. We will be covering that injury is a separate piece on Tuesday.

Source

It seems like almost every team in baseball is dealing with some sort of injury crisis right now. Of course, key players are bound to get hurt during the long marathon of the regular season, yet these injuries are still having a considerable impact on both the standings and our evaluations of the affected clubs.

Our power rankings use a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant ranking format that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds. (Specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%.) The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. As the best and worst teams sort themselves out between now and October, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise remains reactive to hot streaks and cold snaps. If you’re looking for a visual representation of the ups and downs of your team throughout the season, look no further than the brand new Power Rankings Board in the FanGraphs Lab.

First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers with comments on a handful of clubs. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — there are times where I take editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula.

FanGraphs Power Rankings

Rank	Team	W-L	Hot/Cold	Elo	Opp Elo	Playoff%	Power Score	Δ
1	ATL	25-10		1599	1479	95.5%	1603	1
2	NYY	23-11		1580	1484	98.2%	1584	1
3	CHC	22-12		1581	1503	83.2%	1581	1
4	LAD	21-13		1578	1486	99.1%	1577	-3
5	TBR	21-12		1552	1494	62.2%	1555	2
6	SDP	20-13	—	1528	1487	40.7%	1529	-1
7	DET	18-17		1523	1505	74.2%	1521	4
8	STL	20-14		1520	1500	26.1%	1520	12
9	PIT	19-16	—	1522	1502	59.9%	1519	0
10	CIN	20-14	—	1514	1495	27.6%	1514	-4
11	ATH	18-16	—	1510	1510	39.9%	1510	1
12	MIL	18-15	—	1510	1481	40.7%	1508	3
13	SEA	16-19	—	1504	1494	70.1%	1500	-3
14	TEX	16-18		1502	1527	49.0%	1499	-1
15	ARI	16-17		1503	1526	28.6%	1498	-7
16	CLE	18-17	—	1494	1515	36.5%	1494	0
17	TOR	16-18		1494	1484	41.5%	1491	0
18	PHI	14-20		1493	1503	47.5%	1485	7
19	KCR	15-19		1487	1496	28.3%	1482	2
20	MIA	16-18		1474	1502	11.1%	1470	2
21	BAL	15-19		1473	1493	33.0%	1469	-3
22	BOS	13-21	—	1470	1500	24.1%	1463	-3
23	MIN	15-20	—	1462	1500	20.5%	1459	0
24	CHW	16-18		1457	1496	2.9%	1456	6
25	SFG	13-21		1463	1514	11.0%	1456	-11
26	NYM	12-22		1462	1492	28.1%	1453	-2
27	WSN	16-19	—	1456	1517	0.8%	1451	-1
28	HOU	14-21	—	1453	1479	16.9%	1448	-1
29	COL	14-21		1425	1529	0.1%	1419	0
30	LAA	13-22		1413	1499	2.7%	1409	-2

Elo up >20 pts (last 10) | Elo down >20 pts (last 10)
Avg opp Elo >1525 (last 10) | Avg opp Elo <1475 (last 10)

…

With a sweep of the Rockies over the weekend, the Braves continued their rampage through the competition. They haven’t lost a series all season long despite facing some significant injury hurdles. Speaking of, Ronald Acuña Jr. was placed on the IL on Sunday with a minor hamstring injury. Thankfully, Sean Murphy and Raisel Iglesias are both on the mend and should be activated off the IL sometime this week.

Aaron Judge and Ben Rice each hit three home runs last week as the Yankees kept setting the pace in the American League. They’ve lost just twice over their last 15 games, and with two key rotation pieces due back from injury soon, it’s possible that they’re about to get even better. Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón could rejoin the team this weekend or early next week to bolster a starting staff that already leads the majors in 4.9 WAR by nearly an entire win. One notable player who won’t be returning to the big league roster is Anthony Volpe, who just completed a rehab assignment after undergoing offseason shoulder surgery. The Yankees activated him on Sunday and immediately optioned him to Triple-A. It’s a pretty big vote of confidence in José Caballero and a pointed message to Volpe to work toward earning his way back to the majors.

All of a sudden, the Dodgers’ bats have gone cold. They scored just 16 runs in their six games last week as they went 2-4 against the Marlins and Cardinals. Their offensive struggles actually go back to mid-April; over their last 13 games, they’ve scored 4.2 runs per game, with two 12-run outbursts skewing things a bit. In their 11 other games since April 21, they’ve scored just 2.7 runs per game. Thankfully, the Los Angeles pitching staff has been pretty dominant; the team has allowed the fewest runs in baseball. I’m sure the Dodgers will break out of this funk sooner or later, but until then, things will continue to be pretty tight atop the NL West.

After completing a sweep of the Giants over the weekend, the Rays have now won nine of their last 10 games and 16 of their last 21. They’re just 1.5 games behind the Yankees in the AL East, and at 21-12, they boast the second-best record in the AL. Yandy Díaz (158 wRC+) and Junior Caminero (133) have enjoyed strong starts to the season, and the starting rotation has the third-lowest ERA- in baseball. This hot streak has helped the Rays bank a bunch of wins, but they might be out over their skis a bit. Their run differential is just +7, and they’ve outperformed both their Pythagorean and BaseRuns records by three games. Driving this unexpected surge is Tampa Bay’s performance in close games; the team has a 7-1 record in one-run games despite a bullpen that ranks just 21st in ERA-. With all that in mind, the Rays are entering a pretty important stretch that could prove whether they are legitimate contenders, as 19 of their next 22 games come against division rivals.

Like the Rays, both the Padres and Cardinals have outperformed their Pythagorean and BaseRuns records by three games. San Diego seems to be getting by thanks to its lockdown bullpen, though you have to wonder what’s going on with Fernando Tatis Jr. He still hasn’t hit a home run this season, with March/April marking the first homerless month of his career. As for St. Louis, the most encouraging part of the season so far has been the progress of its young hitters. Both Jordan Walker and Alec Burleson collected 11 hits and two home runs apiece last week, and JJ Wetherholt is leading all NL rookies in WAR.

The biggest paper tiger of them all has been the Reds. They’ve outperformed their Pythagorean and Base Runs records by a whopping six games. Their three blowout losses last week didn’t help their run differential either. Nick Lodolo is set to be activated off the IL this Friday, which should give the starting rotation a bit of a boost. After getting swept by the Pirates over the weekend, Cincinnati heads to Chicago for a huge four-game divisional battle against the Cubs, beginning Monday night.

The Tigers and A’s treaded water last week, both going 3-3. That was good enough to stay atop their respective divisions, though neither team is really pulling away from the pack. As for the Pirates, they bounced back after a rough four-game sweep at the hands of the Cardinals by sweeping the Reds this past weekend. The NL Central has continued to be the toughest division in baseball; Pittsburgh is tied for last place despite being three games over .500.

The Brewers are the other team at the bottom of the Central, though they have the best run differential in the division. There’s a lot happening on the injury front in Milwaukee. Brandon Woodruff hit the IL with shoulder inflammation last week, and on Friday, Jacob Misiorowski had to depart his start early — he was in the middle of a no-hitter — with a hamstring issue. Thankfully, it sounds like neither issue is very serious. The Brewers should also soon benefit from the return of two key offensive contributors. First baseman Andrew Vaughn is set to be activated off the IL on Monday, and outfielder Jackson Chourio shouldn’t be too far behind, even after he suffered a minor setback when he fouled a ball off his foot on Saturday. Fresh off series wins against the Diamondbacks and Nationals, the Brewers have two tests ahead of them with series against the Cardinals and Yankees this week.

There’s a big group of AL teams hovering around .500 in this tier. Both the Mariners and Rangers went 2-4 last week, sliding another game back in the thoroughly mediocre AL West. The Guardians went 3-3 against the Rays and A’s last week, managing to keep pace with the Tigers in the AL Central. The big news in Cleveland was the promotion of Travis Bazzana on Tuesday; he collected his first big league hit on Saturday and added two more on Sunday. As for the Blue Jays, they went 4-3 last week and are slowly climbing out of their early-season hole. Kazuma Okamoto led the way over the weekend, blasting four home runs in three games against the Twins.

The Phillies became the second team in as many weeks to fire their manager, dismissing Rob Thompson on Tuesday. It’s unclear whether midseason firings truly provide a wake-up call for teams, or if the struggling teams just see some positive regression, but regardless of the cause here, the Phillies started winning under interim manager Don Mattingly. They swept the cratering Giants and then won two of their first three games in a four-game wraparound series against the Marlins. Those four wins last week equaled what Philadelphia had earned across the previous three weeks combined. It’s small progress for a team that’s still hoping to make some noise in the NL Wild Card race this summer.

The Royals got off to a strong start in May, sweeping the Mariners this past weekend. Their star trio of Bobby Witt Jr. (108 wRC+), Maikel Garcia (107), and Vinnie Pasquantino (72) has underperformed at the plate this season, though there have been some signs of life recently. Pasquantino collected five hits and a home run in that series in Seattle, and Garcia had eight hits — five for extra bases — last week. Meanwhile, after catching fire for most of the second half of April, Witt cooled off some last week. Kansas City faces a pretty critical stretch this week, with the Guardians and Tigers coming to town for series that could shuffle up the AL Central standings.

As if things couldn’t get worse for the Red Sox, they placed Garrett Crochet on the IL with shoulder inflammation last week. It doesn’t seem like a serious issue, but the team now has six starters currently out hurt, a group that doesn’t include Ranger Suarez, who exited his start on Sunday in the fifth inning with hamstring tightness. It sounds like Suarez should be fine, but Boston cannot afford to lose anyone else to injury right now.

The White Sox had a five-game winning streak snapped on Sunday, a surge that helped them clamber to within a few games of .500. In fact, they’ve won 10 of their last 15 games, and suddenly look fairly competent as a ballclub. Munetaka Murakami continues to blast home runs, and Colson Montgomery is trying to match him homer for homer. The bigger storyline during this stretch has been the pitching staff. Chicago has allowed just 3.9 runs per game over its last 15 games, with the unheralded Davis Martin leading the way. He’s given up just one run in each of his last three starts.

The Giants just endured a week from hell. They were swept by both the Phillies and Rays, got shutout twice, lost both legs of a doubleheader on Thursday in walk-off fashion, and suffered another walk-off loss on Sunday for good measure. They managed to score just nine runs in six games and did not hit a home run on this road trip. Things are getting ugly in San Francisco, though there are some positives to cling to: Landen Roupp has taken a big step forward (or to the side) on the mound, and Luis Arraez has played surprisingly good defense at second base. Still, a shake-up is desperately needed to get this team back on track. To that end, the Giants are promoting prospects Bryce Eldridge and Jesus Rodriguez on Monday to hopefully jumpstart the offense.

Two more Mets hit the IL last week: Luis Robert Jr. and Ronny Mauricio, bringing the team total to 12. New York did manage to win its series against the hapless Angels over the weekend. The Astros also won their weekend series against the Red Sox, capping things off with an extra-innings win on Sunday. Neither series win should be seen as a triumph, but it’s definitely forward progress for the two beleaguered teams.

Remember when the Angels were playing really entertaining baseball, going toe to toe with the Yankees? They’ve lost 12 of their last 15 games since that series in New York and have fallen all the way to the bottom of the AL standings. To make matters worse, Yusei Kikuchi and Logan O’Hoppe were placed on the IL last week. It’s not all bad: Mike Trout (a 168 wRC+) and Jorge Soler (120) continue to mash, but the supporting cast for those two sluggers has been severely lacking.

Source

3:00	Bob: Mike Trout is still good. I am happy

Source

A year ago Sunday, Anthony Volpe went down in a heap after diving for a grounder in the 5-6 hole. The Yankee shortstop felt a pop in his non-throwing shoulder, but he stayed in the game, and imaging didn’t turn up anything untoward.

At least not in the moment. The shoulder nagged Volpe for the rest of the season, and after the Yankees’ ALDS loss to Toronto, he went in for surgery to repair a partially torn labrum. Shoulder surgery has a long timeline for rehab — even when performed on the non-throwing shoulder of a position player — so Volpe missed all of spring training. He reported to Double-A for a rehab assignment on April 14, and when his 20 days were up, the Yankees activated him… and optioned him straight to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Volpe was the Yankees’ Opening Day shortstop in 2023. Over the next three seasons, he appeared in 493 of their 507 regular-season and playoff games; on 476 of those occasions, he was the starting shortstop.

Under any circumstances, the demotion of a three-year incumbent starter would be major news. All the more so here because of the messianic hype that has surrounded Volpe.

In retrospect, maybe it was a bad idea for the New York baseball world to get over its collective skis on Volpe. A first-round pick, an Italian American kid born in Manhattan and raised in North Jersey, a lightning-quick shortstop who hit .309 in spring training to claim the starting shortstop job at age 21 — you could hardly blame the Yankees and their coterie for being excited.

But just in case anyone was tempted to let slide potential comparisons to Derek Jeter, the Yankees — who have taken more numbers out of circulation than a crooked roulette croupier — gave Volpe the lowest uniform number left in circulation. Anything short of Jeterian greatness would be viewed as a failure.

In three years, Volpe hasn’t been terrible. In 2024, he posted an 87 wRC+ that, buoyed by 28 stolen bases and excellent defensive metrics, made him a 3.5-WAR player. Shortstops who consistently play elite defense, steal double-digit bags, and are only kind of crappy at the plate — those guys play a long time. Elvis Andrus is a folk hero in Texas.

But that doesn’t fly for the Yankees. More than that: My approach to player evaluation is measured and holistic, probably to a fault. And if you came to me and tried to explain why it’s actually good that a guy with a .222 career batting average and a .283 career OBP is a nailed-on starter for my favorite team, I’d turn you upside-down and give you a swirly. Yankees fans can be A Lot, but they were right to demand better.

Especially because, at this moment, the Yankees have a better option at shortstop.

I don’t think José Caballero is a star or anything; he’s a journeyman who’s bounced among franchises that have needed productive infield play. His assets are obvious — he’s stolen 28 bases in 73 games with the Yankees, and he runs hot and cold at the plate. Shortly after joining the Yankees last year, he had a four-game stretch in which he went 7-for-15 with two home runs and four steals. Fans remember that, and forget that he went 2-for-21 over his next 15 games. Caballero is sixth out of 179 qualified hitters in WPA this season, but 111th in wRC+.

Still, he is playing well, and the Yankees (currently 23-11, but only 1.5 games ahead of the second-place Rays) are in a position where any present advantage must be pressed to the fullest extent. Sentimentality is not currently a major motivator. If Caballero is the best man for the job — and he seems to be, at least for now — he ought to play full-time.

Where does that leave Volpe? Is this demotion the end of his run in the role to which he’d ascended with such fanfare? After all, he’s coming off three full seasons without breaking a wRC+ of 90 even once. I don’t care how hyped he was as a prospect, that’s a lot of rope to give anyone.

Having said that, I’d be absolutely astonished if Volpe never reclaimed the Yankees’ starting shortstop job. He was pretty terrible last year: .212/.272/.391, 83 wRC+, 1.0 WAR. He gave back about two wins’ worth of value, relative to 2024, in defense and baserunning.

But he also reworked his swing for 2025. He increased his fast-swing percentage from 3.7% in 2024 to 28.6% last year. His average bat speed went up 3.3 mph, the second-largest year-on-year increase, after Brice Turang. (Hey, did Turang make any notable strides at the plate in 2025? I can’t remember.) Volpe also dropped his GB/FB rate from 1.75 to 0.94, and his chase rate from 29.1% to 23.8%.

I think there’s a nuanced conversation to be had about whether it’s a good idea for a small guy with plus speed to go full-on swing-plane revolution, especially when his strikeout and walk numbers weren’t that good to start. But it’s undeniable that Volpe was trying to do more damage last year; he just didn’t get rewarded.

Volpe ran a .252 BABIP in 2025, a drop of 51 points from the year before. That’s got something to do with hitting more balls in the air (and fewer line drives), but it’s still indicative of bad luck. So is the fact that he increased his xSLG by 70 points from 2024 to 2025, but only got 27 extra points of real-world slugging percentage out of it. His results were almost the same over his past two full seasons in the majors, but he deserved better last year.

The second reason I’d expect Volpe to come back strong after a terrible 2025 campaign is the shoulder injury. He played the last five months of the season with an unsound joint that turns out to be quite important for swinging a bat. Based on health alone, he has to be better now.

Obviously, I don’t expect a healthy Volpe to show up immediately and play like Jeter. Neither do the Yankees, or else they wouldn’t be wasting those at-bats in Lackawanna County.

But even after almost 500 games and 2,000 plate appearances in the majors, Volpe is still a hugely talented ballplayer who only turned 25 last week. He ought to get time behind the scenes to refine his swing and approach with a fully healthy body. Getting the best out of Volpe in the long term is incompatible with returning him to New York now. The Yankees’ hot start — and Caballero’s contributions thereto — has given them the luxury of playing their best shortstop in the majors while simultaneously sending Volpe back to the lab.

He’ll be back, sooner or later, and without the weight of the world on his back.

Source

You’re forgiven if you’re not exactly familiar with Diamondbacks utilityman Ildemaro Vargas. Though he’s spent parts of 10 seasons in the majors, the switch-hitting 34-year-old has been designated for assignment seven times, suited up for five different teams, and has never played more than 97 major league games in a season. From 2017–25, he netted a grand total of 1.5 WAR in 460 games, reaching 1.0 WAR in a season just once, in 2022. Yet Vargas just finished the hot streak of his life, one that made a bit of history. His 4-for-4 performance against the Cubs on Friday afternoon pushed his batting average to .404 and marked his 27th consecutive game with a hit dating back to last season, the longest in the majors in seven years and the longest ever by a Venezuela-born player; meanwhile, his 24-game streak to start the season is the second longest of the integration era. Vargas was finally held hitless on Saturday, but maintained a lofty perch on the batting leaderboards after a 1-for-4 performance on Sunday.

Vargas ended the weekend hitting .382/.406/.657, good enough to lead the majors in batting average and the National League in slugging percentage, thanks in part to his six home runs — a total that’s already matched his career high, set with the Diamondbacks in 2019. His 195 wRC+ leads the NL as well, while his on-base percentage ranks fourth in the league and his 1.5 WAR is virtually tied for seventh. Small sample though it may be, that’s a remarkable performance coming from a player who did not figure to be central to the plans of the Diamondbacks after hitting a meager .270/.292/.383 (85 wRC+) in 38 games and 121 plate appearances for the team last year.

Vargas was originally signed by the Cardinals out of Venezuela in 2008, so this is his 19th season of professional baseball. He’s now on his fourth stint with Arizona, which first signed him out of the independent Atlantic League in 2015, after he had been released by St. Louis. He reached the majors for a couple sips of coffee in 2017, and continued to shuffle between the minors and the majors until being DFA’d and traded to the Twins in August 2020. From there, in rapid succession, he bounced to the Cubs (2020), and then to the Pirates and back to the Diamondbacks (both 2021). He split 2022 between the Cubs and Nationals, the latter of whom kept him around through the ’24 season and gave him more regular play than any other team. The Diamondbacks signed him to a minor league deal in late January 2025; he exercised an opt-out in late May but quickly re-signed with the team. Four weeks later — after just 10 games in the majors — he was hit on the right foot by a curveball, fracturing his fifth metatarsal and sidelining him for about eight weeks.

Vargas signed another minor league deal with Arizona in late January of this year, and made the roster out of spring training.

“Somehow we have a lifetime contract agreement with Ildemaro, even though I take him off the roster all the time and then re-sign him to minor league deals,” general manager Mike Hazen told Arizona Sports’ Wolf & Luke last week. “We’ve been going back since 2017 when we got here with him. He works so hard. He’s got great energy. He’s so positive. All the guys love him. He’s just one of those guys in the clubhouse.”

The hitting streak began during the final series of last season against the Padres, with singles off the Padres’ Yu Darvish and Wandy Peralta on September 26. He collected hits in each of the next two games, then picked up where he left off when he made his 2026 debut on March 30, with a single off the Tigers’ Justin Verlander and then a homer off Brant Hurter. He played in just three of the Diamondbacks’ first nine games, spotting at designated hitter, second base and third base, but collecting at least one hit each time. But since Carlos Santana went down with a groin strain on April 5, Vargas has gotten the bulk of the first base work, with a brief stint at second when Ketel Marte was slowed by lower back tightness, as well as late-inning appearances at shortstop and in left field.

The regular playing time has helped him maintain his current groove. On Friday, he surpassed a 2019 streak by Wilson Ramos as the longest by a Venezuelan player, but on Saturday, Cubs starter Shota Imanaga and reliever Ben Brown retired him four times without a hit.

Vargas’ streak put him in the company of a couple of other wraparound streaks that rated as the longest since the start of the 2017 season:

Additionally, Vargas’ streak was the second longest by a Diamondback, ahead of only a 30-game one by Luis Gonzalez in April 1999. As season-opening hitting streaks go, his 24-game stretch is the sixth longest since 1901, and second longest since integration:

Looking at those tables above, what stands out — along with the presence of batting title winners such as Abreu, Cabrera, Heilmann, Sisler, Torre, and Turner — is Vargas’ burst of power, particularly while knowing that, again, he’s never hit more than six homers in a season, and has averaged just nine per 162 games in his major league career. If he’s known for anything at the plate, it’s for his aggressive, contact-oriented approach. His 3.28 pitches per plate appearances is the lowest mark among NL hitters (Ernie Clement and four other AL hitters see fewer). He’s chasing 37.4% of pitches outside the zone, including 22.9% of waste pitches. He is walking just 3.7% of the time, but he has just a 6.5% swinging strike rate and a 10.2% strikeout rate (seventh lowest among qualifiers in the majors). For the moment at least, his combination of his low strikeout rate and high slugging percentage puts him in a neighborhood with Astros thumper Yordan Alvarez, one of the best hitters on the planet:

Vargas tends to hit the ball on the ground; he had a 58% groundball rate last year, and a 53.4% mark from 2017–25. He’s down to 43.8% this year, though his groundball-to-fly-ball ratio has only dropped from 1.87 to 1.50. He’s still killing a fair number of worms, and his average launch angle is pretty low:

Vargas doesn’t swing the bat very hard from either side of the plate, and particularly not from the left side:

His overall average swing rate places him in just the 28th percentile. While batting from the left side, he stands closer to the pitcher than any other hitter does from either side, just 9.5 inches from the front of the box, and his feet are about six inches farther apart. From either side, he meets the ball way out front, and is very good at squaring it up, placing in the 98th percentile overall.

Vargas is hitting a ridiculous .473 and slugging .818 against fastballs (four-seamers, sinkers, and cutters) with just an 8.8% whiff rate against such pitches, but that’s not entirely new, as last year he hit .344 and slugged .508 against fastballs, with an 8.0% whiff rate. He’s improved from .152 AVG/.152 SLG to .238 AVG/.381 SLG against breaking pitches, and from .238 AVG/.381 SLG to .308 AVG/.538 SLG against offspeed pitches, while trimming his whiff rates from about 29% to about 22% against each group.

What Vargas is doing differently this year — and what’s fueling those impressive Statcast expected numbers highlighted above — is he’s pulling the ball in the air. While he did so 19.9% of the time in 2024, his career mark is just 15.5%, and he was as low as 11.8% (13th percentile) just last season. This year, he’s more than doubled that rate, to 23.9% (79th percentile). While he’s not likely to maintain his spot among the big boys in the slash stats, if he can continue to elevate and pull, he’s in for a breakout season.

The Diamondbacks can use all the help they can get. They were swept by the Cubs this weekend, and after losing four straight and nine out of 12, they’re just 16-17. Their offense has been very middle of the pack, with Corbin Carroll, Geraldo Perdomo, and newcomers Nolan Arenado and Jose Fernandez providing support, but Marte (74 wRC+), the catching tandem of Gabriel Moreno and James McCann (56 wRC+), as well as their left fielders (66 wRC+) and center fielders (58 wRC+) pulling in the wrong direction. What’s more, their pitching staff has allowed 5.48 runs per game, the third-worst mark in the majors. That’s not on Vargas, though. Nineteen years in, he’s living his best baseball life.

Source