On Wednesday night, I sent Michael Baumann a Slack message asking him the first question in today’s mailbag: How many teams have never had a 30/30 season? “Phew,” he said. “That’s a good one.” I told him I’d be answering it, but I thought it was a fun bit of trivia and wanted to know what his guess would be. I was on my way back from my softball game, and I told him I’d look it up as soon as I got home. But Baumann was impatient. He proceeded to run the search himself and answer the question for me.

“Thanks for doing the mailbag for me lol,” I said. He replied, “I had that thought. I just couldn’t help myself.” That’s the type of impulsive, obsessive behavior that drives us to answer your mailbag questions every week. Like you, we love all that is trivial, whimsical, historical, hypothetical, strategic, pedantic, gigantic, nitty, gritty, and silly about baseball. Your passion is our passion. Anyway, because Baumann couldn’t resist, part of the answer to the first question comes from his initial Stathead search. He told me to run my own search, just in case he missed something in his fervor.

We’ll get to the answer to that 30/30 question in a moment. We’ll also answer your questions on the teams with the greatest difference between cumulative player WAR generated and actual team wins, bases-loaded walks, and how to get your baseball fix when you’re short on time. But first, I’d like to remind you that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com.

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Dear FanGraphs team,

Kevin

Let me begin by saying that I don’t think Jordan Walker, who leads the Cardinals with 10 stolen bases, is going to get to 30 steals. Every projection system we have here at FanGraphs forecasts his median rest-of-season stolen base tally somewhere between seven and nine. However, let’s remember that a lot of the data being factored into these projections comes from a previous, much lesser version of the Cardinals right fielder.

Entering play Friday, through 65 games this season (out of the Cardinals’ 66), Walker is slashing .302/.358/.561 with 17 home runs and a 156 wRC+. Our Depth Charts peg him for a .253/.316/.431 line (110 wRC+) with 14 homers in 86 games the rest of the way, slightly better than the .252/.313/.425 line (108 wRC+) with 12 homers in 83 games that ZiPS expects. As I’ve written in previous mailbags, I believe that Walker’s improvements are sustainable. But even if he gets on base more than the projections say he will, and therefore has more opportunities to steal, there’s still an 11-steal gap between his most optimistic median stolen base projection and the 20 more he’d need to make Cardinals history. That’s a lot of ground to make up, especially when you consider that Walker still doesn’t really walk that much. His walk rate this season is 7.5%, which ranks in the 30th percentile, and he’s gone 52 straight plate appearances without drawing a walk. That’s fine for St. Louis because he’s hitting the snot out of the ball right now, but it limits his chances to steal, especially because he isn’t much of a threat to swipe third base. He’s 0-for-2 this season when taking off from second (but 3-for-6 in his career), compared to 10-for-11 when stealing from first. More than 40% of Walker’s hits this season have gone for extra bases; all those doubles and home runs curb his opportunities to swipe second.

Then again, Walker has stolen three bases during this walkless stretch, and he’s only been on first 12 times, on 10 singles and two fielder’s choices. Eight of those 12 times on first base came without a man on second, meaning he really only had eight opportunities to steal second during that stretch, and he did so successfully on three of them. That’s an extremely small sample, to be clear, so we can’t draw any meaningful conclusions from the data, but if these last 12 games mark the start of a more aggressive Walker, that could greatly improve his shot at 30 steals. It would also align with what the Cardinals are seeing from him.

This week at Citi Field, I asked Cardinals manager Oli Marmol about Walker’s baserunning, specifically when it comes to steals. Marmol credited Walker’s strides as a basestealer to the 24-year-old’s added confidence in his game. “It’s freed him up to just be an athlete and go out and compete,” the manager said. “This guy can move well, and he’s confident in picking his spots.”

We’ve known for a while now that Walker possesses the raw power to hit 30 home runs in a season, but despite his 6-foot-6, 250-pound frame, he also boasts plus-plus speed. At 29.1 feet/second, his sprint speed this season ranks in the 93rd percentile. A lot of his success at the plate can be attributed to the amount of time he’s spent honing his mechanics, studying pitchers, and game-planning with his coaches and teammates, and the same is true for his baserunning. Walker’s done a lot of prep work to be a better basestealer, Marmol said. Confidence begets more confidence, and getting positive results from hard work and preparation leads to more hard work and more preparation. It’s all related. And if his confidence continues to grow, and his skills and instincts as a baserunner keep improving, we could see an uptick in stolen bases from Walker. Will that lead to the Cardinals’ first 30/30 season? Probably not in 2026. But do I think Walker could be a 30/30 guy in the future? Absolutely.

OK, so now to answer your question. The Cardinals are one of six teams that haven’t had a 30/30 season, along with the White Sox, Tigers, Twins, Padres, and Rays. At this time last year, the Diamondbacks would’ve also been part of that group, but Corbin Carroll became their first 30/30 player when he finished the 2025 season with 31 home runs and 32 steals.

However, just because the Cardinals have never had a 30/30 player doesn’t mean that a St. Louis player has never recorded such a season. Outfielder Ken Williams registered the first ever 30/30 season in 1922 while playing for the St. Louis Browns, who moved to Baltimore after the 1953 season. The franchise had to wait 99 years before its next 30/30 player, when Cedric Mullins hit 30 homers and swiped 30 bases. Remarkably, Mullins is the only player to have a 30/30 season with exactly 30 homers and exactly 30 steals.

The Royals were the last team before Arizona to get their first 30/30 player, when Bobby Witt Jr. hit 30 homers and swiped 49 bags as a rookie in 2023. He did it again the next year, with 32 home runs and 31 stolen bases. Kansas City is also one of three teams to only have one 30/30 player but multiple 30/30 seasons, along with the Astros (Jeff Bagwell, 1997 and 1999) and Pirates (Barry Bonds, 1990, 1992). Only three teams have had the same player post three 30/30 seasons. Howard Johnson was the first; he went 30/30 in 1987, 1989, and 1991 with the Mets. Next was Barry Bonds with the Giants, who had three straight 30/30 seasons (1995-1997). The third player is José Ramírez (2018, 2024, 2025). He already has 24 steals this year, but with only 10 home runs, it seems like the Guardians are going to have to wait at least another year before becoming the first team to get four 30/30 seasons from the same player. If Ramírez does record another 30/30 campaign in his career, he’d become the fourth player ever to achieve the feat at least four times, along with Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonds (1969, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1978), and Alfonso Soriano (2002, 2003, 2005, 2006).

There have only been three times when two teammates have each had a 30/30 season in the same year. The Mets have two of those pairs: In 1987, Johnson and Darryl Strawberry became the first duo to do it in the same season, while Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto did it last year. The 1996 Rockies, with Dante Bichette and Ellis Burks, are the team sandwiched between the 1987 and 2025 Mets.

After Williams founded the 30/30 club in 1922, it took 34 years for another player, Willie Mays, to become its second member. Mays then followed up his 36-homer, 40-steal campaign in 1956 with 35 home runs and 38 stolen bases in 1957. Bobby Bonds notched the Giants’ third 30/30 season — their first in San Francisco — and the fifth one for any team, in 1969. Bonds went on to have two other teams’ first 30/30 seasons (Yankees, 1975; Angels, 1977), and in 1978, he became the first player to split a 30/30 season between two teams, the White Sox having traded him to the Rangers on May 16. The only other player with a split-30/30 season is Carlos Beltrán in 2004 (Royals, Astros).

Before wrapping up this answer, here is the top contender to put up a 30/30 season in 2026 from each of the six teams that have never had one:

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Which teams historically have had the greatest difference (positively or negatively) between cumulative player WAR generated and actual team wins? Is there a common thread among those teams that helps explain why (record in one run games, batting average with RISP, blowouts, etc.)? — Brad

Michael Baumann: That’s an interesting question, Brad, less because I think we’re going to find anything revealing or probative, and more because you’ve given me occasion to make a very large and very fun spreadsheet. (I’m imagining one of those “It Gets Better” PSAs where I go back in time to tell my depressed teenage self that in 25 years I’m going to say “very fun spreadsheet” and mean it.)

Actually, through the custom reports and data exports available to FanGraphs Members, any one of you could do this, too: Get position player and pitcher WAR for each AL/NL team from 1901 to 2025 (a total of 2,706 seasons) and whack it all into one big spreadsheet so you can add them up. Don’t forget that WAR isn’t going to match wins anyway, because a theoretical replacement-level team has a winning percentage of .294. A little math and a few magic words later, and I give you the following:

I decided to calculate Pythagorean record the instant I sorted this leaderboard and saw the 2016 Rangers and 2007 Diamondbacks in first and fourth place. Because I remember those teams. The 2007 Diamondbacks were the no. 1 overall seed in the National League playoff bracket despite having a minus-20 run differential. (Everyone says they want parity, but it’s less fun than you think.)

The 2016 Rangers were an important team to me personally; that was my first season with a full-time sportswriting job, and I spent a lot of that season arguing with Ben Lindbergh about how good the Rangers actually were. I loved the 2015-16 Rangers, and spent a decent amount of time around them since I was based in Houston at the time. They’d been terrific the year before, when they’d only had half a season of Cole Hamels and Yu Darvish was hurt. Now they had both Hamels and Darvish, plus that one random good Ian Desmond center field season, plus a monster rookie in Nomar Mazara (don’t laugh, he was a big deal back then)… and they got totally throttled in the ALDS rematch with Toronto.

You don’t forget those formative disappointments.

The first four teams on this list had high-quality, or at least higher-quality, defensive data to put into WAR, and in addition to outperforming their WAR by double digits, they outperformed their run differential by double digits. So did the 2012 Orioles, in seventh place. What I take from that: Fluke teams are identifiable by multiple methods.

I also very, very much enjoy the 1919 Reds being here. Not only did they barely beat a team that was trying to lose the World Series, but WAR says they should’ve been a sub-.500 team. (Though run differential disagrees.)

The bottom half of this graph is almost all old teams: Three different versions of the 1900s Washington Senators, five teams from the Deadball era, seven from before the leagues split into divisions, none more recent than 1991. The deviation between real-world wins and Pythagorean wins is also much, much smaller in this group of teams, as you can see.

This might be an anticlimactic answer, but I think WAR is just not that good this far in the past. We don’t even have strikeout and walk rate data until 1915, and how precise can FIP be in a league with no strikeouts and no home runs? Are we going to lose something in translation, comparing the modern game to the small ball of 100 years ago?

Probably. Even now, WAR is a chainsaw, not a scalpel, and when you’re adding up individual players’ contributions, those small imprecisions compound themselves.

Going back up to the top half of the table, the 1906 Cubs won 116 games, overperforming their WAR by 16 games but actually underperforming their run differential by a game. That team had the most famous infield defense in baseball history, and our WAR had Johnny Evers as plus-15.0 runs and Joe Tinker at 29.1. But they had two other tremendous defenders up the middle in catcher Johnny Kling (5.8 runs) and center fielder Jimmy Slagle (also 5.8 runs). I’m happy to believe that WAR missed something there, just because the data wasn’t fit for empirical purpose.

Since I have all this data, I made a little graph of the difference between real wins and WAR wins, plotted against real wins versus Pythagorean wins.

I’ve highlighted four outliers: the 1909 Senators in yellow, the 1908 Cardinals in red, the 1905 Cubs in purple, and the 1909 Cubs in brown. Those four teams all had at least an 18-win difference between what WAR and run differential would’ve predicted, and they all competed before World War I. (The fact that the Cubs not only overperformed but also outscored their WAR so many times in a row only supports the point I made earlier.)

I also spot-checked some of the more modern underperformers for bullpen performance and record in one-run games. The 1965 Red Sox and 1991 Orioles had terrible records in one-run games, but not much worse than they had on the whole. Cleveland in 1991 was actually better in one-run games than in other contests.

I’m coming up on the point where Matt’s going to get mad at me if stretch this answer out much longer, so now is a good time to end. Maybe I’ll revisit this question in the future, since I already did the stat work.

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My perception may be skewed since I am a Reds fan, and the team has already eclipsed their single-season record for allowing bases-loaded walks, but has there been an overall uptick of free passes with the sacks jammed in 2026?

Miles

Ben Clemens: I couldn’t agree with you more, Miles. I feel like I’ve seen more bases-loaded walks this year than in any year in recent memory. That makes sense intuitively – the walk rate has trended down slightly in the last month, but it’s still up massively from 2025, and in my head, the challenge system makes a bases-loaded walk more likely. Umpires might still subconsciously widen the zone as they did before, but now batters can challenge their calls. There’s just one problem with this beautiful story – the numbers don’t bear it out.

So far this year, the league-wide walk rate with the bases loaded is 7.5%. Given that hitters have already batted with the bases loaded more than 2,000 times this year, that’s a lot of walks, 156 to be precise. But that’s only the fourth-highest bases-loaded walk rate of the 21st century. As recently as 2021, batters walked with the bases loaded 8.1% of the time. They also walked 7.8% of the time in 2020 and 7.7% of the time in 2009. Those three years all featured high walk rates, so there’s some correlation here, but 2026 doesn’t appear to be a particular outlier. More walks overall means more bases-loaded walks, basically.

The Reds’ 19 bases-loaded walks are, no doubt, ridiculous. But you’re getting fooled by your own team’s particular ineptitude at this skill. The team with the second-most bases-loaded walks? That’s the Astros with 10. The Reds have walked in as many runs as the second- and third-place clubs combined! Even in 2021, only one team eclipsed 20 bases-loaded walks for the entire season. The Reds are issuing free passes in 18.4% of their bases-loaded plate appearances. Ew!

That 18.4% rate would be a record, and by a lot. Two teams hit 16.7%, but that was in 2020, in an abbreviated season. The previous team with the highest full-season mark in my database is the 2012 Padres, who issued walks 13.4% of the time with the bases loaded. To borrow the old Jeff Sullivan bit, the gap between the 2026 Reds in first and the 2012 Padres in second is as large as the gap between the Padres and the 2009 Marlins in 116th. This isn’t the year of the bases-loaded walk – but it might be the year where the Reds blow the doors off of the record for bases-loaded walks.

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My question relates to how you keep up with the daily highlights, and/or information during the baseball season.

Thanks!!
Matthew Nuttall

Davy Andrews: This is a great question, Matthew. I definitely struggle with this myself. Before I started writing about baseball, I was just a Nationals fan. I’d watch the Nats most nights, and I’d learn about the rest of the league from Sunday Night Baseball, from SportsCenter, and from reading FanGraphs. I feel pretty confident that’s how most baseball fans work. They watch their favorite team. If they’re really into baseball, they’ll also read about it, watch MLB Network, catch the nationally televised games, and maybe bounce around MLB TV to catch Paul Skenes or Tarik Skubal doing their thing. If they’re super-duper nerds who are interested in the intricacies of the sport, then they haunt FanGraphs.

These days, my baseball-watching habits are much more aligned with yours. It’s my job to know as much as I can about the game, and there are only so many hours in the day, even though I’m in a convenient time zone. I watch a lot of Replay Rundown in the mornings. I try to have the day games on in the background while I’m working. At night, I do my best to pick a game between two teams I haven’t seen recently. (The fact that my favorite team spent the past several years plumbing the depths of unwatchability made that transition easier.) Like you, I try to focus on close games, because that’s when teams will have their higher-leverage players in the game. I want to be familiar with all the players. I want to have a sense of what’s happening with each team.

That said, I do really prefer to watch a whole game, or as large a chunk of one as I can, starting at the beginning. I pay more attention and feel more connected to it when I know the story of the game. I tend to find my mind wandering when I watch MLB’s Big Inning. That’s probably because of how I grew up watching the game, but that’s not how you started watching the game and it sounds like you don’t have this problem. That’s great.

More importantly, I’m here to tell you that you’re not doing it wrong. There’s no way to do it wrong. It’s a game and we watch it for fun, and unless the way you watch baseball is somehow hurting someone, then you’re doing it right. You enjoy the strategy of the game and you want to see the high-leverage moments. Right on. I’m so glad that FanGraphs helps you find them. If you want to try experiencing the game the way the average fan does, maybe pick a favorite team and really try to watch their games for a week or two, see how it treats you. I’d recommend a team with a great television booth like the Mets, Tigers, or Orioles. But this is supposed to be fun. Keep having fun.

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Bryce Elder was thriving when he was featured here at FanGraphs in July 2023. Then in his first full season with the Atlanta Braves, the now 27-year-old right-hander was 8-2 with a 3.18 ERA, and he’d recently been named an NL All-Star. Killing worms was his M.O. Relying heavily on a sinker, Elder boasted a 53.6% groundball rate, which ranked fifth best among qualified pitchers.

Then things slowly started going south. From August 2023 through last season, Elder was on the winning end of just 14 decisions while putting up a 5.53 ERA over 48 starts comprising 259 innings. The University of Texas product had gone from a burgeoning frontline starter to profiling as more of a back-of-the-rotation arm.

Adversity has a way of begetting change, and much for that reason, Elder is no longer the same pitcher who struggled to record outs. The transformation has taken a bit of time — Rome wasn’t built in a day — but his current-season results are certainly pleasing to the eye. Over 14 starts, Elder has a record of 5-3 to go with a 2.66 ERA and a 3.46 FIP over 84 2/3 innings. Notably, his 45.0% groundball rate is the lowest of his career.

Elder discussed his evolution — one that has essentially brought him full circle in terms of success — when the Braves visited Fenway Park late last month.

———

David Laurila: It’s been three years since we first spoke. What has changed?

Bryce Elder: “A lot has changed. When we talked in 2023, I’d been on a roll; I’d had a good first half. But then the second half was pretty rough. It wasn’t all rough, but the numbers weren’t all that great. I was kind of like, ‘I’m tired of sucking, tired of not being very good, so I’m going to try to make some changes. I’d never worked on mechanics too much, and I’d never been a big, like, stuff chaser, but I got tired of dying on the hill of complete execution.

“I never thought I’d be saying that, even a year ago. But what I figured out is that if I could make my stuff a little better, that would only help. And then, if I was moving a little better on the mound, my execution was going to be just as good as it’s ever been, if not better. So, I think I’ve had a little tick up in stuff, as well as in my execution.”

Laurila: How did you go about accomplishing that?

Elder: “I’ve learned not to chase what other people look like, but I have chased the principles of how you’re going to move. I went out and did some bio-mechanic stuff with a guy named Bob Keyes, out in Utah. He helped me figure out how I can move better. In 2023, my average [sinker] was something like 89-and-a-half [mph], and while I was never going to a guy who throws 98, I knew that I could make my stuff a little bit crisper, a little sharper, a little tighter. I think I’ve done that.”

Laurila: In which ways did you start moving better?

Elder: “People always talk about staying in your backside, and one thing he taught me out in Utah was to hold my line down the mound as long as possible. There is a reason the mound is sloped. It’s free energy, so use that free energy. Don’t try to do too much on the mound, use the gravity. Hold yourself closed, hold your line as long as you can.”

Laurila: You’re not throwing nearly as many sinkers. When we talked three years ago, that was by far your primary pitch.

Elder: “To righties, I think it still is. And I will throw it to lefties, but mostly just in. When you’re throwing sinkers away to lefties, the margin for error is small — especially with ABS. If you miss by one quarter of the ball, they can challenge it, and if you miss over the plate, it’s usually into a lefty’s bat path. So, I kind of went away from that last year, toward the end when I was struggling. I had a 6.30 ERA or something like that, and was, ‘OK, screw it. I’m going to start throwing something different.’ I started throwing more four-seams, and the results have been pretty good.”

Laurila: You’ve also added a cutter.

Elder: “Yes. Greg Maddux showed a cutter to me a year and a half ago. I didn’t throw it at all last season, but [pitching coach Jeremy Hefner] saw it in spring training and told me, ‘You’ve got to throw that.’ So, now I’m four-seam, cutter, slider, changeup, with the occasional sinker.”

Laurila: You learned a cutter from Greg Maddux…

Elder: “I actually tried to throw a cutter in 2022. It was fine, but then it morphed into a bad four-seam/cutter thing. I’ve never been able to ride the ball, and my cutter was just kind of a right-in-between pitch that wasn’t doing much. But the biggest problem is that it messed with my slider, which is usually my best pitch.

“What Maddux taught me was to throw it with my index finger, instead of my middle finger. That allows the vert to stay there, and cross the horizontal axis, but at the same time not mess with my slider. He showed me a grip and I eventually incorporated it into my repertoire. So yes, that’s another of the changes I’ve made.”

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Minnesota Twins. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.

Other Prospects of Note

Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.

Too Many Strikeouts
Daiber De Los Santos, SS
Quentin Young, SS
Billy Amick, 1B
Aaron Sabato, 1B
Teilon Serrano, OF
Jaime Ferrer, 1B/OF

De Los Santos signed for just shy of $2 million a couple years ago and has struggled with strikeouts to a degree (50% clip since his promotion to the Florida complex) that disqualifies him from the main section of the list, but boy, is it fun to watch him swing as hard as he does. Young, of the baseball-playing Young family that includes Delmon and Dmitri, is a 6-foot-6 power-hitting prospect who graded as a 40+ FV before last year’s draft. He has added maybe 30 pounds already since then, and is striking out more than 40% of the time in A-ball. He’s missing at a rate that is well below any kind of viable big league threshold. Amick has plus raw power such that he can really let it loose on pitches where he can extend his arms, and will probably surpass the 23 home runs he compiled in his junior year at Tennessee. But his in-zone whiff issues are driving a low-60s contact rate, and he lacks the range and glovework to stave off a permanent move to first base. A former first round pick, Sabato might have enough juice for a 30-homer season in St. Paul. His contact skills and breaking ball recognition won’t play in the majors, but he might have some fun years along the Pacific Rim ahead of him. Serrano is a 5-foot-11 teenage outfielder who uses the ground to generate impressive power for his size. He’s posted above-average rookie level statlines despite the excessive strikeouts that are keeping him in the HMs. Ferrer is a physical 23-year-old 1B/OF with an aggressive, low load who was hitting for power at Cedar Rapids dating back to last year before he was promoted to Wichita in mid-May. His contact rate is down around 60%.

DSL Follows
Anibal Beltre, SS
Jendy Martinez, 2B/CF
Jhon Gonzalez, OF
Juan Holmann, 3B
Abel Sosa, OF

The Twins’ DSL group skews young and hitterish more than projectable, with a few exceptions. One of them is Beltre, 17, who has exciting bat speed and a long, frequently tardy swing. Martinez is a stout, 5-foot-9 switch-hitting second baseman (he also has one center field start so far this season) with very strong hands for a teenage hitter. Gonzalez is a medium-framed lefty-hitting outfielder whose swing has aggressive natural uppercut, but is a bit long right now. He’s off to a hot start. Holmann, who signed for $500,000, is a more mature athlete with a swing that stays in the meaty part of the strike zone for a long time, similar to Nick Gonzales. Sosa is a dangerous pull-side hitter adept at covering the top of the strike zone. He’s young and has typical big league size at 6-foot-3, but is a stiffer, below-average athlete.

Throwing Hard
Yoel Roque, RHP
Juan Collado, RHP
Adam Falinski, RHP
Yordi Jose, LHP
Yosangel Braffit, RHP

Roque is a projectable teenage righty whose fastball will creep into the upper 90s (he’s maxed out at 97 this year), but he is walking a very high rate of hitters for the third consecutive year. Collado is a hard-throwing 19-year-old who’ll sit in the 92-95 mph range, at times with nasty sink and tail, and bend in some good gyro sliders. His delivery out of a 6-foot-4 frame is very violent right now. Falinski is an undrafted free agent from Troy who is sitting 95 and was quickly promoted to Cedar Rapids after cruising against FSL hitters. Jose, 19, is a 6-foot-2 southpaw who is sitting 93-94 and touching 97 on the Florida complex, but has no feel for location. Braffit, 18, is a DSL righty whose fastball is scraping 97 as he struggles to find the strike zone.

Great Breaking Balls
Miguelangel Boadas, RHP
Kolten Smith, RHP
Aldwin Morillo, RHP
Cole Peschl, RHP
Omar Montano, RHP
Geremy Villoria, RHP

Boadas has been hurt and/or had issues throwing strikes since 2023, but at times he has been up to 97 with a good slider. Lately his fastball has been more 90-93. Smith, who also has a great slider, was a swingman and long reliever at Georgia and is operating in a similar capacity at Fort Myers. The 18-year-old Morillo, who signed a month ago, has a lively, riding 90-91 mph fastball, a really snappy breaking ball, and a nascent changeup. His delivery has big effort, so let’s call him a relief prospect for now. Peschl dominated the Florida State League last season, but his ability to miss bats evaporated after he was promoted to Cedar Rapids. That might be why he was moved to the bullpen this year. His slider has great vertical depth, while the rest of his stuff is below average. Montano is a 20-year-old righty on the complex with above-average velo and a good sweeper, but poor command makes the whole operation play down. Part of the Harrison Bader return from Philly last year, Villoria has a great breaking ball and threw strikes in 2025. His heater is hittable and slow. You might be inclined to project on it based on his age (Villoria is still 17), but not as much on his delivery and athleticism.

Miscellaneous Misfits
Merphy Hernandez, CF
Jacob McCombs, OF
JP Smith II, 1B
Cory Lewis, SP
Brad Rudis, RHP
Luis Fragoza, UTIL
Nick McAuliffe, RHP
Jose Salas, INF
Byron Chourio, CF

Hernandez, 19, is a dandy center field defender with excellent range and ball skills, but a 30-grade hit/power combo. McCombs comes out of UC Irvine and has progressed very quickly through A-ball, as the 6-foot-2 lefty’s big, elaborate swing has a wRC+ approaching 110 as of publication. He has some looming plate coverage issues on the inner half, but has performed well enough to pop onto the radar. Smith, 21, is a powerful first baseman out of Sacramento State who is a dangerous hitter in the inner half of the zone. He has an entertaining (if sometimes distracting) “main character energy” on the field. Lewis’ most used secondary is a mid-80s, real-life knuckleball. It mostly plays like a weird splitter. He’s a depth starter who has to dance around a super vulnerable heater. Rudis is a 23-year-old submarining righty senior sign out of Texas A&M who is currently carving on the complex. Fragoza, an A-ball utilityman who has played both corner infield spots and all three outfield positions this year, has enough pull pop to put himself in the long-term depth conversation. McAuliffe pitched at four different schools in college, mostly concentrated around the PA/NJ border area where he’s from — Kutztown, Mercer County CC (remember Heath Fillmyer?), New Orleans, East Stroudsburg — and then in Indy ball before the Twins signed him. He has an arm slot similar to Oliver Drake’s, so high that at times he’s on the left-hander’s side of the clock face. He’s dominating complex ball at age 25. Salas and Chourio were part of the Pablo López/Luis Arraez trade and at one point were both exciting prospects. Chourio is on his third season at Fort Myers and striking out too much for comfort, while Salas is below the Mendoza Line in Wichita.

Fun, Projectable Pitching
Frederick Hiciano, RHP
Sebastian Echavarria, RHP
Rainer Marin, RHP
Adrian Martinez, RHP
Santiago Castellanos, RHP
Hendry Chivilli, RHP

Hiciano, 18, signed in January but was assigned to the domestic complex rather than the DSL. He touched 96 in his first start and was generating seven feet of extension, but it requires a ton of moving parts and effort to do both. Let’s see if he throws strikes. Echavarria, who turns 17 in August, is built like LaTroy Hawkins at a rangy 6-foot-2, and has such long levers that he’s generating 6-feet, 9-inches of extension. He’s a fun deep projection sleeper whose repertoire (tailing low-90s fastball/changeup combo, third-pitch cutter) and delivery consistency are both below average right now. Marin, 20, is an athletic Venezuelan righty with a gorgeous low-to-the-ground delivery. He could be a riding fastball/changeup reliever down the line, but he’s too crude of a pitch executor right now. Martinez is a 16-year-old DSL righty who has a great mechanical foundation (bendy, loose, and mobile with vertical hand position on release), with a great chance to get stronger and add to his low-90s velo. Castellanos was arguably the best pitching prospect on last year’s Twins’ DSL roster, flashing three viable pitches and enough athleticism to develop as a starter even though he’s small. This year, he didn’t pitch for the first few weeks of the Florida Complex season, and when he finally returned, his velo was down a couple ticks compared to last year. He’s a bounce back candidate. After two years of excessive strikeouts, the Twins moved Chivilli (who originally signed for just over $2 million) to the mound, where he’s been in the 93-97 mph range in his second season in Fort Myers.

System Overview

Minnesota’s system is deep with volatile players who are risky either for a skill-based reason (like excessive strikeouts) or due to injury, something that has plagued the Twins org for years. Their approach to player acquisition is pretty balanced. They’re as likely to take a risk on a high school prospect, like Quentin Young, Dasan Hill, Brandon Winokur or Charlee Soto, as they are to take a player with a more analytically-friendly profile, like Marek Houston. The same is true internationally, where the Twins have had years where they’ve spent big money on guys like Hendry Chivilli and Daiber De Los Santos, and also years where they give upper-six-figure bonuses to several contact-oriented players, with Jhomnardo Reyes emerging from last year’s crop as a potential everyday player. There are definitely more risky, high-variance players toward the top of this system right now, but to say that the Twins go out of their way to target that type of player probably isn’t correct.

Several of the 50-FV players above are set to be part of the big league roster very soon (or already are, in Connor Prielipp’s case). Our site’s projection systems had the Twins forecast as a 79-win team at the start of the season, just a couple months after the awkwardly-timed departure of Derek Falvey. They aren’t a bad team when healthy (which they have not been), and over the next 12 months will add several good young players to that group, and even more when you consider that Mick Abel and Alan Roden (who aren’t rookies anymore, but are players we like) are also getting healthy and will be given an opportunity to play soon, especially if the Twins are deadline sellers. We are a bit lower on Walker Jenkins than the general consensus (although the three of us working on prospect stuff at FanGraphs are all in agreement) because we don’t see him having the kind of power output of a Roman Anthony or a Samuel Basallo. He’s a darn good player and a future lineup mainstay, but he isn’t a Face of the Franchise type of talent, something this system lacks for now. Can the third pick in the upcoming draft be that dude? It isn’t likely, but he and the other three prospects who the Twins will draft with top-80 picks will help keep this system afloat in the top third of orgs even though several of the guys above are set to graduate before the end of the season.

Source

It’s a busy time for sports right now. The NBA Finals have been incredible. The Stanley Cup Finals have been nearly as good. The World Cup just started; Team USA is playing tonight. With this embarrassment of entertainment riches, regular season baseball might seem to temporarily lose a little bit of its luster. But even if you want to watch those other great spectacles, I implore you to set aside a few hours of your life this weekend for baseball. For a limited time only, they’re playing on the moon.

OK, fine, maybe not the actual moon. There are any number of logistical and physical challenges involved in that. But the first half of the six-game Las Vegas series has been the next best thing, and before the A’s play the Rockies this weekend, I’m hoping to convince you to watch it. I wouldn’t want my baseball to always look like this, but in small doses, it’s absolutely captivating.

The Athletics, currently playing in the minor league stadium of the Sacramento River Cats, have taken up an even briefer temporary residence in the stadium of their Triple-A affiliate, the Las Vegas Aviators. It’s a preview of sorts – in advance of their scheduled 2028 move to Sin City, the team is playing a six-game series there. And boy, does the ball carry in the desert.

Las Vegas sits only 2,000 feet above sea level. That sounds like nothing – Coors Field, the archetypical high-altitude ballpark, is famously a mile high. But the major league stadium at the second-highest altitude is Chase Field in Arizona, and it’s only 1,000 feet above sea level. That elevation helps the ball carry, but it’s only one of the many reasons that offense is high here. For one thing, it’s hot. High temperatures are forecast to exceed 100 degrees this weekend, with lows in the mid-80s providing little respite even at night. The air is as dry as it gets; Las Vegas has a lower average relative humidity than any big league city, and it’s particularly dry in the middle of summer. It’s an outdoor park, so there’s no escaping the hot, arid conditions. The PCL was the homer-happiest minor league in 2025, and Vegas was the homer-happiest park in the PCL.

I know what you’re thinking. Don’t the A’s already play in a launching pad? How different could Vegas possibly be? I hear you, but also, minor leaguers hit home runs 30% more frequently in Vegas than in Sacramento in 2025, and that ratio is even greater in 2026. Just to connect all the dots, Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park is the second-best park for offense in the majors, behind only Coors. Las Vegas Ballpark is significantly more conducive to home runs and offense.

That’s the setup. If you’re looking for evidence, consider the first three-game set the Athletics played in Vegas earlier this week. The Milwaukee Brewers were in town, and they’re not exactly a power-hitting team. Before the series started, they were 29th in baseball in home runs hit, and their pitchers had allowed the fewest homers in the majors. Their home park plays neutral – they just built their team around keeping the ball in the ballpark.

The Brewers clobbered seven home runs in their three games in Vegas. They scored 23 runs in those games. And they were the less powerful of the two squads. The A’s, for their part, launched 15 homers en route to 25 runs of their own, a franchise record for homers in a three-game series. Brewers pitchers had only allowed 49 home runs all season!

I don’t think you can reasonably use MLB’s “home run in X parks” statistic for these home runs because there’s not a lot of historical data useful for calibrating that difficult calculation, which needs to make assumptions about prevailing winds, atmospheric conditions, and the like. I’ll just tell you that Statcast measured 14 homers at 400 feet or more, and that doesn’t count this one from Gary Sánchez that hit a sign so high up the left-center field stands that Statcast couldn’t get a read:

Or this one that Jackson Chourio sent on an exploratory mission to deep space center, nearly clobbering a cameraman in the process:

It’s not just the huge bombs, though. Even players who don’t catch all of it are getting home runs for their troubles. Across the entire majors this year, there have been two home runs hit softer than 95 miles an hour and higher than a 40-degree launch angle. That’s a can of corn in most instances. The first one was a pop that Elly De La Cruz tucked just past the foul pole in a snug stadium. The second one was Jonah Heim’s 398-foot game-tying blast from Monday:

If you’re wondering how weird the stadium is, take a look at the distance projection the broadcast slapped on that ball:

What is the Statcast distance estimator supposed to do, though? Balls hit that hard at that angle should carry in the low 300-feet range. But even if you don’t completely buy the 398-foot estimate, the power alleys in Las Vegas ballpark are 380 feet, the wall is 10 feet tall, and that one was hit near the outfield notch, where the park is even a bit deeper. The ball just carries much farther in the hot, dry air. That’s how you get Alika Williams rifling a ball out of the park at sub-100 mph and a 21-degree launch angle, the kind of home run that basically doesn’t exist elsewhere. Or how you get Chourio hitting a home run on a ball that wasn’t even hard hit, resulting in great merriment:

With the Rockies in town, things could get downright flammable. Their pitching staff is one of the worst in baseball, and that’s not just a Coors effect; they’ve posted a 5.01 ERA (4.73 FIP) in road games. By sheer fluke, the three Colorado starters scheduled to go in this series are the three with the highest HR/9 rates on the team.

On the other side of the ball, the Rockies don’t offer quite as much thump; they’re 24th in homers this year despite playing in Coors, which is an above-average home run park. It’s not as good as you think for dingers – a lot of its high-scoring nature comes from the vast size of the outfield, not how easy it is to leave the yard. But still, it’s good for homers, and the Rockies don’t hit many despite that tailwind.

But if ever there were a time for an unexpected offensive explosion, it would be this weekend in Las Vegas. Parks like this don’t actually make it into the majors on a full-time basis. The offensive environment is too ridiculous. When the A’s debut full-time in Vegas, they’ll play indoors, and the league will no doubt take great care to ensure that the game plays fair, even if it’s tilted toward the offensive side. There will be careful studies of humidity and well-considered decisions about humidors and ball storage. But this is just a showcase event. They played a series in offense-wild Mexico City – offensive environments are negotiable for one-time engagements.

So if you’re into dingers, huge towering drives that clear the fence by a mile and would scrape the clouds if there were any in the sky, check out one of this weekend’s games. It’s a nice palate cleanser for the rest of this glorious sports weekend, and a fun glimpse into how different baseball might look with just a few simple adjustments. When else are you likely to see a home run this majestic?

Or this majestic?

I can’t keep posting these. There are just too many. But you get the idea. Check out a game. See some majestic home runs. Start some A’s players in fantasy. It’s going to be a high-scoring weekend.

Source

Manny Machado was in the news last week for what got called an anti-analytics rant. This would’ve been a bigger deal 10 or 15 years ago, when front offices were still coming to grips with empirical study as a part of scouting and player development, but that battle’s over now. The nerds are here.

Machado said the game’s getting harder to play, and that there are “too many stats out there. Too many stats, way too many numbers. I don’t even know half of the stuff that goes up there. I look at the board sometimes, and I even ask some of the guys, like, ‘What is WCCVBB, whatever it is?’… It’s crazy to even keep up with.”

As someone who makes his living using WCCVBB, I think Machado’s actually got a point here. I’m an analyst with a social science background: There is no stat so newfangled I won’t poke it to see if it’ll teach me — or better yet, you, the fans — something new about the game.

Machado’s job isn’t to get in the lab and find new insights using bat tracking data. His job is to hit the ball and catch the ball. However useful the new alphabet soup might be to me, it’s useless to him if he can’t use it to help him hit better. And after 15 seasons of Hall of Fame-quality performance, I trust Machado to know the level of information he needs to do his job well.

Reading Machado’s comments fully, he wasn’t making a broad, principled statement about the place of empirics in baseball coaching. He acknowledged how much the game has evolved during his career, but also jabbed at the media for being negative. The Padres had just lost, and he’s not playing well, and he was upset.

Besides, numerate baseball fans don’t need Machado to have a good relationship with stats. They need him to hit. Which he’s not. Which is the real problem.

And it’s a new one. Since his major league debut in 2012, Machado has had one of the highest floors in baseball. He came into this season on a run of 13 straight seasons of at least 250 plate appearances and a wRC+ of 100 or better. Only Freddie Freeman can beat that claim. (Bryce Harper would, too, but he missed the cutoff by six plate appearances in 2020, so I’m inclined to let him by the bouncer on this fun fact, as well.)

Machado has had his ups and downs, and his injuries, but he’s never been bad before. His only full season of less than 2.5 WAR was 2017, when he hit 33 home runs in 156 games, but his defensive metrics at third base dipped from excellent to well below average for a single season.

This year is the exception. Through 65 games, Machado has a wRC+ of 68. To put that in old-timey baseball stats, he’s hitting .172/.253/.345, and he’s striking out at the highest rate of his career. (K% is under the “advanced” tab on our stats pages, but kids learn percentages in elementary school, so how advanced can it really be?)

Whether Machado has been bad is not an interesting question to me. We can tell that this is so using the stats we had in the 1950s. I want to know how it’s happening. More specifically, I want to know whether it’s going to keep happening. We see big, right-handed power hitters fall off a cliff all the time. The bat speed starts to go, and they can compensate for a while, and then it all collapses in a season or two. Presumably the Padres, who have Machado signed through 2033 at an AAV of $31.8 million, are also interested in this question.

There’s some good news right off the proverbial bat: It looks like Machado is having some truly catastrophic batted ball luck. This is a hitter with a career .295 BABIP, who’s BABIPing .176 this year. Some of that is his fault, but unless he’s forgotten which end of the bat to hold, he’s getting unlucky, too.

On to the part that is his fault. Machado’s lost 55 points of wRC+ from last year to this year, and the fury of the BABIP gods can’t explain all of it. On this graph, you can see that while he’s massively underperforming his expected stats, his quality of contact has nosedived.

That warrants a look into Machado’s swing and plate discipline. I’ll explain briefly what I was terrified of finding.

Sometimes, a power hitter will feel his bat speed going and compensate by putting more effort into the swing. That means guessing more, and selling out for power instead of balancing power with contact and plate discipline. You’ll see the home run total stay the same for a couple years, but the OBP will gradually drop, until he can no longer compensate, and all of a sudden you have late-2010s Albert Pujols.

I don’t see especially powerful evidence that that’s happening here. Machado has lost a tick of bat speed and a couple points of Z-Contact% since 2023, but he was a monster bat speed guy back then and he’s still well above average. Also, the man is 33 years old and is coming up on his 2,000th major league game — I think it’s fair to expect his physical abilities to slide a little without raising too many alarms.

Machado is chasing a little more this year, but we’re talking about a single-digit number of swings across the season. That can be explained by any number of factors, especially when he’s clearly frustrated with his performance. Either way, he’s swinging more or less how he was swinging last year, when he was really good.

There are two numbers that give me concern, and I’ll admit up front that I don’t know how these two figures alone could tank Machado’s season. We’re into the realm of educated guesswork.

Compared to the three prior seasons, Machado is letting the ball get deeper into the hitting zone before he intercepts it: roughly four inches deeper than in 2024-25, and six inches deeper than in 2023. Is that the result of a decrease in bat speed? Maybe to some extent, but he’s also standing three or four inches deeper in the box than he did in the past three years. His stance, which has always been wide open, has closed up by a couple degrees.

At the same time, he’s pulling the ball more — even pulling the ball more in the air — than he did in any of those three foregoing campaigns. He’s also lost nearly two miles per hour of EV90.

Is Machado stepping in the bucket? That’s hard to diagnose on a season-by-season basis from TV. The center field camera angle at Petco Park isn’t that good, and Machado will sometimes deliberately open his hips early to get around on an inside pitch.

The other number that disturbs me is Machado’s swing rate on pitches in the center of the strike zone.

I think I retroactively failed a statistics class with the Y-axis scale here, but the downturn is real. For most of his time in San Diego, Machado would swing at about 80% of pitches in the heart of the strike zone. This year, that’s down to 72.6%, which is significant no matter how you format the graph. Pitches in this zone aren’t always easy to hit, but they are literally always strikes when you don’t swing. And taking more strikes is bad for a hitter, for reasons you don’t need an analytics background to explain.

I don’t know exactly what’s wrong with Machado. Between the new batting position and the reduced heart-zone swing rate, I wonder if Machado is somehow not seeing the ball as well as he’s used to. Maybe he needs glasses. The fact that Fernando Tatis Jr. famously didn’t hit a home run until May 30 makes me wonder if there’s a deleterious metaphysical presence in the Padres’ clubhouse. Is there a golem? Do they all have mono or something?

I’m sympathetic to Machado’s frustration, and agree that more data might not necessarily be the answer. But something’s got to change. See the eye doctor. Get an exorcism. Wash your hands. This can’t keep going on forever.

Source

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the listener response to their conversation with Adrian Chiles, newly minted major leaguer LuJames Groover, and a big Giants comeback (in defiance of the team’s historically walk-averse ways), then (21:25) answer listener emails about how long-term team outlooks factor into present-day disappointment levels, spectacle vs. analysis in closer-entrance pageantry, whether umps should be able to challenge themselves, how future sub-Ohtani two-way players will be perceived, the entertainment value of human managers and hypothetical robo-managers, a pre-playoffs rest period, and stats used as verbs, plus Stat Blasts (1:27:23) about teams that turned deficits into large leads, Paul Skenes and glad-to-see-him-go games, and the Angels’ used-to-be-good guys.

Audio intro: Josh Busman, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Harold Walker, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Episode 2489
Link to Groover debut story
Link to 2025 Groover story
Link to 2025 Groover clip
Link to Groover shirt story
Link to Eldridge game story
Link to Eldridge game box score
Link to ultimate slams story
Link to Giants BB%+
Link to Krukow/Kuiper clip
Link to Knicks comeback story
Link to Ben on Larry David
Link to Burnes setback story
Link to Crochet setback story
Link to Crochet setback confusion
Link to Michael’s BOOG intro
Link to BOOG pod appearance
Link to Jay on the White Sox
Link to Duran entrance video
Link to story about ballpark loudness
Link to call on Contreras
Link to Miller hot-mic moment 1
Link to Miller hot-mic moment 2
Link to Miller hot-mic moments article
Link to Sam on the Umpire Manual
Link to info on umps and HFA
Link to Sam on the two-way balance
Link to two-way draft prospects story
Link to “obligate” definition
Link to Grandstand Managers Night
Link to Ballers’ AI manager
Link to Twitch Plays Pokémon
Link to moonwalking robot
Link to running robot
Link to kicking robot
Link to Laws of Robotics
Link to Deep Thought wiki
Link to Marvin robot
Link to Grant on mascot pants
Link to NBA Cup
Link to Paine on the NBA Cup
Link to more Paine on the NBA Cup
Link to Knicks banner news
Link to Schlittler quote
Link to Shakespeare usage shifts
Link to Bulls vs. Tides story
Link to big comebacks data
Link to harmonic mean wiki
Link to listener emails database
Link to Skenes game story
Link to more on Skenes game
Link to bullpen blowups data
Link to Mancini comeback story
Link to past Angels Blasts
Link to used-to-be-good guys data
Link to Boog/Mancini survival story

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2:02	Jason Martinez: Welcome to the RosterResource Chat! With the new requirement of having to log in to ask questions, we are still having some technical difficulties. Please let us know (via twitter or bluesky) if this continues to be the case. For those of you who are in the chat, here we go …

2:03	Jon Becker: Should be a pretty easy swap with Abel in and Paredes/bullpen game out. It gets tougher when another starter like Rojas or Ober is back, but there’ll be plenty of time to evaluate others in the meantime because neither of those two has a timetable for his return.

2:06

Jason Martinez: I’d take Baty to have better numbers and Winn with a little bit more volume (better counting stats) just because Baty might sit occasionally vs LHP and could sit a bit more often once the team is back to full health. 70-75% of the pitching in the league is right-handed so a left-handed batter is usually going to be in a better position to put up better numbers. Baty also has more offensive upside than Winn. Both should be good. Baty has been inconsistent but has shown he could be a bit more than just good.

2:08

Jon Becker: I think he is, at least against righties. Melendez has cooled off and they can’t rely on much of anything from Polanco due to his recurring bursitis, it seems, so Young’s got a good hold on the strong side of the 1B platoon. Ryan Clifford could come into play sometime next year but the strikeout rate in Triple-A is over 35%.

2:11

Jason Martinez: Giants are going to set a high price tag on Arraez and won’t back down anytime soon. They won’t worry too much about how many at-bats someone like Ramos or Drew Gilbert is getting. Schmitt will continue to move around — Lee in CF, Schmitt in RF isn’t ideal but might be a temporary option — until they have a permanent spot for him. I think they will end up trading Arraez in early July, weeks befor the deadline, just because the price might come down if they wait it out. Because he’s such a unique hitter, he fits well into most lineups — especially now that he’s a good 2B — so there should be plenty of interest. Giants are in a good spot to shed his remaining salary and get a good prospect.

2:15

Jon Becker: He’s been hot lately but I’m sure the Giants would love to find a taker for the 4y/$100M he’s got left on his deal after this year (and would have to pay down some of it). He’s actually pacing to be a little bit better than last year (which was a good year) but they surely signed him to that deal with the intention of contending this year and last, and that hasn’t happened. If someone else wanted to take on his ages 34-37 seasons and hope he doesn’t decline too much, I’d be surprised, though.

2:20

Jason Martinez: My favorite team (Padres) is 3 games over .500 and I can’t believe how bad they are. Maybe the worst lineup of all time. But the reality is that a lot of teams are really bad right now and all but 2-3 are in the mix for a playoff spot. Cubs have been terrible and setbacks to Boyd and Steele are concerning. Their young hitters are going to be inconsistent, especially when they’re not in the lineup regularly. I think the plan, similar to a lot of bad teams still in the playoff hunt, is their core players turn things around over the next few weeks and the front office can focus on adding impact talent at the trade deadline. Good news for the Cubs is that their farm is in good shape and they have a lot of emerging prospects (Kepley, Hartshorn, Ayers, etc.) who will have very high trade value if they want to make a big splash.

2:20	Jon Becker: After the Cubs won the World Series in 2016 I decided to not really care how they did despite growing up a big Cubs fan, and I’m glad I made that decision. This season would really be trying my sanity.

2:22

Jon Becker: Combination of the three, but most important is that he’s feeling good and is built up. They don’t care how many pitches he can throw if there’s any pain or discomfort from pitch one (and I assume there isn’t because I haven’t seen anything since he last pitched, and I think the Brewers will slot him in soon). I don’t view it as an injury just waiting to happen per se because there seem to have nipped this one in the bud before it turned into something bigger, but there’s of course increased risk for someone with his injury history. But they have arguably the most SP depth in the league so they just want him to be effective when he’s healthy, however often or rarely that ends up being.

2:26

Jason Martinez: I look forward to any top prospect getting the call. I think we’re getting pretty close to Kaelen Culpepper being the starting SS in Minnesota now that Brooks Lee seems locked in at 3B and Royce Lewis is getting time at 1B and 2B. I’m a big fan of players like Nelson Rada, who makes a ton of contact and can run. He’s hitting .444 over his last 10 games in AAA. Not sure if there is room in the Angels’ OF for both Wade Meckler and Rada, but that sure would be fun for me. On the pitching side, I think the Rays could call up one of their top prospects soon (Ty Johnson or Brody Hopkins).

2:29

Jon Becker: Two years of control after this year and I think he compares very favorably to MacKenzie Gore. Wasn’t quite as good of a prospect as Gore (almost nobody was) but is pitching better now than Gore finished last season by a ton and arguably better than Gore was pitching when he made the All-Star team. He’d require quite the Gore-like haul and I think that would surprise a lot of people who don’t look beyond the surface-level stats.

2:34

Jason Martinez: As things stand, he seems a long way from returning. Latest update had him close to swinging a bat again. But let’s assume he’s ready to return in August. The Red Sox will have already made the decision to buy or sell. Depending on who was traded away, Casas’ path to playing time could be clearer. And if things have just gone horribly wrong and they’re not in the playoff race, it makes sense to just let him play every day so they have a better idea of what to expect in 2027 and beyond. He had an .838 OPS and 37 HR over 745 PAs between 2023-24. Need to find out if he’s still capable of being that kind of impact hitter.

2:37

Jon Becker: It doesn’t sound like they’re banking on Schwellenbach coming back at all (maaaaaaaybe August or September) so there is a pretty up-for-grabs rotation spot with Holmes pitching shakily at times. Really he only has to be better than Holmes to hold onto that spot, and he didn’t quite pitch better than Holmes when he was up earlier this year. Walt Weiss has been pretty aggressive with pulling Holmes early in games so it’s possible there could be a piggyback scenario where Ritchie out-pitches Holmes and then keeps the spot.

2:39

Jason Martinez: Early had around 120 IP and Tolle had around 115 IP last season. So, I’d say somewhere in the 145-155 IP range sounds about right for either. Maybe a bit more if they happened to be in the playoff hunt. And maybe a bit less if they’re just way out of it and the Red Sox want to be on the safe side.

2:42

Jon Becker: I’m sure they’ve kicked around the idea of Stanton playing some right field but not sure how seriously, and I don’t think you could rely on him to play the field more than maybe twice a week, if at all. But I think he’d require plenty of rest/maintenance days anyway such that Goldschmidt would still play plenty. And they’re still some time away from having to make a decision with Stanton and Goldy might cool off by then anyway.

2:46

Jason Martinez: I think Bowen goes back to AAA for now. He brings more to the table than Bryce Johnson, but it’s a tough role for him (4th OF/platoon vs LHP) and I think they like him enough that they want him playing as often as possible in AAA. And I think the Padres finally figured out that they really need more lefty bats in the lineup so Wagner and Song should stick around. I’d guess Song goes back to AAA once Cronenworth is healthy. Samad Taylor is out of options but that doesn’t matter. He is so valuable. Might have locked up a spot on that team for a while.

2:48

Jon Becker: Judging by how they’ve handled Pratt since his own extension, I don’t think the timeline for Lara has changed, and they’ve been pretty committed to letting their struggling players work through things, whether it’s the infielders (Ortiz/Hamilton/Rengifo) or outfielders (Frelick). But Lara’s forcing the issue more than Pratt so don’t think seeing Lara become the starting CF or RF this year at some point is outlandish.

2:52

Jason Martinez: I remember watching the 1998 Padres facing the Astros in the playoffs and realizing that the Astros’ right-handed heavy lineup had no chance against Kevin Brown despite having Biggio/Bagwell. In recent years, there have been really good hitting teams who were right-handed heavy (Blue Jays and Yankees come to mind) and they were dominated in the post-season because they faced a right-handed ace. These days, it all kind of seems like some version of that to me. 70-75% of the league is right-handed and most pitchers have high-velo/high-spin fastball/sinker and can throw a breaking pitch that gets a lot of swing-and-miss from right-handed batters. Hitting a baseball is more difficult than ever. The adjustment from teams should be to add more lefty contact hitters but maybe there aren’t that many good ones. Arraez is a very unique hitter. But there are guys like Antonacci (CHW), Ewing (NYM), and Meckler (LAA), not to mention a few top prospects who can also control the strike zone (McGonigle, Wetherholt, Emerson, etc.), who I think teams will value more and more. Lowering the mound is drastic. Not sure the league will do anything like that. Just expecting teams to adjust so the pendulum swings back in their favor.

2:55

Jon Becker: I don’t think so, no. The teams who were expected to be good (or at least better) but have been bad like the Royals and Red Sox aren’t committing to anything just yet. The Angels should be open for business (and no I don’t think that includes Trout, who has been adamant for years about not wanting to be traded) but they pretty consistently are only willing to move rentals and convince themselves they can contend again the next season. Antonio Senzatela has turned into a really good reliever, he should be the most available good arm between the three teams. And the Giants have good rentals (Arraez, Ray) and bigger contracts they ought to at least listen on though I doubt anyone would want very much (Adames, Devers, Chapman).

3:00

Jason Martinez: Definitely. Speaking of right-handed heavy lineups, the Reds went into the season with one lefty (Friedl) and a switch-hitter (EDLC) in their starting lineup. And now I can’t imagine they’d want a lineup without JJ Bleday and Lowe (152 wRC+ vs RHP) in it. Kim takes a while to figure things out and then he’s really good once he locks in. I think he’s been bad enough to where they’ve had to sit him vs RHP and let Mateo play SS for the time being. But Mateo is also a guy who can be really streaky. Their best lineup has Kim in there as the everyday SS and I think they’re hoping he’ll be fine in a month or so.

3:02

Jon Becker: Not a fantasy expert here but I like the general question within this so I’ll say Yordan will be better for the rest of the season because he’s been the best hitter in baseball and it’s hard to go against that, but Soto will be better long-term. Too many injuries for me to feel great about Yordan as he ages and he’s actually almost a year and a half older than Soto.

3:05

Jason Martinez: Goodman is their best hitter so he’s the DH on the days he doesn’t catch. On those days, their catcher (Sullivan or Fulford) will likely need to be pinch hit for at some point. Instead of losing the DH spot by moving Goodman to catcher, they can just substitute their 3rd catcher. Ideally, they’d get more offense from Sullivan or Fulford. Both have hit well in AAA. But it’s a tough gig as a part-time player in the big leagues.

3:08

Jason Martinez: Their bullpen really needs some help and Melton/Montero have a chance to be impact high-leverage arms. My guess is that they give Verlander every chance to settle in while they temporarily go with a 6-man rotation and Montero (probably) goes to the ‘pen. In a scenario where Skubal, Valdez, Mize, Flaherty, and Verlander are all healthy and pitching effectively later in the season, Melton and Montero pitching in high-leverage bullpen roles isn’t out of the question. But at least for the next 2 months, I’d expect they’d want at least one of Montero/Melton to remain stretched out.

3:08	Jason Martinez: That will do it for today. Thanks for joining us!

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Dustin May’s 2026 season did not begin in auspicious fashion. He was chased in the fourth inning in each of his first two starts with the Cardinals, facing the Rays at home on March 29 and then the Tigers in Detroit on April 4. On the heels of his rough 2025 season, it was fair to wonder if St. Louis had grossly miscalculated by signing the 28-year-old righty to a one-year, $12.5 million deal. Since then, however, May has gone on a roll, putting together perhaps the best run of his injury-wracked career and placing himself among the game’s top starters during that span.

On Tuesday at Citi Field, May spun six scoreless innings against the Mets, holding them to four hits and one walk while striking out six. It was his first scoreless start since last August 12 while with the Red Sox, and with it, he collected his first win since April 21. Though he’d averaged a crisp six innings with a 3.86 ERA and a 3.03 FIP over his previous seven starts, the Cardinals had scored just 19 runs and posted a 2-5 record in those games.

Undoubtedly, the most frustrating of those strong outings was on May 27 in Milwaukee. May had held the Brewers hitless for seven innings, striking out nine and allowing only two baserunners; he hit Jake Bauers with a pitch in the second inning, and catcher Pedro Pagés interfered with Sal Frelick in the fourth. May had thrown just 72 pitches to that point, giving him a real shot at finishing the job without too much concern about pitch count. Alas, Garrett Mitchell led off the eighth with a double just over the head of left fielder Bryan Torres as he raced into the left-center gap, and then Luis Rengifo bunted for a base hit before manager Oliver Marmol called for the bullpen. The Brewers, who trailed 1-0 at the time, plated both runs against reliever JoJo Romero, and held on to win 2-1.

On Tuesday, the Cardinals built a 6-0 lead as May set a season high with 101 pitches; it was just the fourth time in his career he’d broken the century mark. “We got a big lead, so I just went out and tried to attack the zone and get ahead early,” he told reporters afterwards. He called his pitch execution “pretty good, I wouldn’t say it was great on a lot of things. Sinker was good, four-seam was good, cutter was very iffy, curveball [and] slider weren’t super crazy.”

May wasn’t terribly happy with his sweeper, which last year was the one pitch that worked well for him. “The sweeper kind of feels like a redheaded stepchild right now,” said one of the game’s most foremost redheads — a comment that drew some laughs. “It doesn’t really feel that great, to be honest.”

Marmol praised May’s mental approach, saying, “He’s just been on the attack with all his stuff, and he’s just landing all his pitches at a much higher rate. When I say he’s got a purpose behind every pitch, I just like the mentality that he’s bringing to every inning. It’s been really good.”

Overall, May has a 4.21 ERA and a 3.21 FIP in 72 2/3 innings, already the second-highest total of his career. That’s a big step forward from last year, when he was cuffed for a 4.96 ERA and a 4.88 FIP in a season notable mainly for his workload — he threw 132 1/3 innings, that after totaling just 101 innings in the majors from 2021-24 due to injuries — and for his change of address. “There was always the one inning last year where it was a blow-up,” said May on Tuesday. He hasn’t allowed three runs in an inning since those first two starts, during which he did so four times, and only one other time has he allowed four runs in a start, on May 21 against the Pirates. By comparison, he surrendered three or more runs in an inning seven times last year, and allowed four or more runs in a start nine time in 23 turns.

With so many Dodgers starters on the IL last year, May spent the first four months of the season grinding away and eating innings. He ranked second on the team in starts and innings by the time he was traded to the Red Sox for outfield prospects James Tibbs III and Zach Ehrhard on July 31; the Dodgers needed to make room for the healthy Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow within their rotation. Even while being shut down for most of September due to neuritis in his elbow, May set a career high in innings and avoided the operating table. During that 2021–24 span, he underwent a pair of Tommy John surgeries on May 12, 2021 and July 18, 2023, the latter while undergoing a repair of a torn flexor tendon. While rehabbing from that second procedure, he required yet another surgery; he suffered an esophageal tear in July 2024 when a piece of salad got lodged in his throat, briefly threatening his life and nipping his comeback in the bud.

May reportedly lost 40 pounds in his first three weeks after that third surgery, bulked up from 185 pounds to 205 during the 2025 season, then added another 15 pounds before being signed by the Cardinals, with a target goal of 225 pounds. Sources still list the 6-foot-6 righty at 180 pounds, but he’s definitely bulkier than he was in his Dodger days, and by his own account, he’s stronger.

Excluding his pair of rocky starts at the outset of this season, May has put up a 2.89 ERA and a 2.86 FIP in 65 1/3 innings. Over that span, from April 5 onward, he’s ninth in the majors in FIP, tied for 12th in WAR (1.8) and 16th in ERA. Overall, his strikeout rate has improved incrementally from 2025 (19.5%) to ’26 (21.9%), but he’s made bigger gains by cutting his walk rate (from 9.8% to 6.6%) and home run rate (from 1.59 per nine to 0.62). He’s getting more groundballs (45.4%, up from 42.2%) and finding fewer barrels (from 9.2% to 6.7%). That won’t win him a Cy Young, but if he continues to pitch like this, he’ll be a top trade candidate in late July if the Cardinals — who have a $20 million mutual option on him for 2027, with a $500,000 buyout — become sellers, and he should fare much better in free agency a second time around. Of course, considering they currently hold the top Wild Card spot and are just 3 1/2 games out of first place in the NL Central, the Cardinals might not want to trade away their top starter. Mutual options are almost never picked up, but as Matt Martell noted a few weeks ago in a mailbag column, the two sides could be interested in working out an extension before the end of the season.

Amid his injuries, May has rarely sustained anything close to this kind of run. Using Baseball Reference’s Span Finder, I pulled up the best 11-game stretches of his career, then excluded all of those that fell short of 55 innings, either because he was working with a very short leash or because he spent at least part of that time pitching out of the bullpen. Note the timespans to complete these runs:

Half of those spans took at least two years to complete, and two more of them fell just short. This current run is the only one that hasn’t spanned multiple seasons, and for what it’s worth, his FIP during this stretch is the lowest of any of them.

To pitch as well as he has, May has made several adjustments, chief among them finding ways to succeed without being able to dial fastballs to 99 mph with regularity. He has regained some of his lost velocity while increasing the usage of his four-seamer, sweeper, and changeup, and reintroducing a curveball into his repertoire. He’s also continued to adjust his arm angles.

First, the velocity. Circa 2020, May’s sinker averaged 97.7 mph, and went 99 or higher 6.4% of the time. By 2023, that average dropped to 96.6 mph, with 0.8% of those sinkers reaching 99 or higher. When he returned last year after his second elbow surgery, he was down to an average of 94.5 mph, and didn’t touch 99 once. This year, he’s back up to an average of 96.6 mph, though he’s dialed just one sinker up to 99. His four-seamer has followed a similar pattern, averaging 99.1 mph in 2020, falling to 97.3 mph by ’23, then to 95.4 mph last year. This year, he’s back up to 96.9 mph. His other pitches have shown similar gains.

Man cannot live on velocity alone, and for May, the shape of his four-seamer has generally been a problem throughout his career. After he failed to crack our Top 50 Free Agents list last November, Michael Baumann noted that the Dodgers had only partially succeeded in remaking May when he returned in 2025. Despite his velocity, his four-seamer didn’t generate many whiffs because of its dead zone-y nature (roughly 15 inches of induced vertical break, around league average) so he dropped his arm angle on the pitch, from 35 degrees in 2023 to 27 degrees in ’25, giving it less rise and more arm-side run while still distinguishing it from his sinker, which has averaged over 18 inches of arm-side movement. That created another problem, as Baumann explained:

The other thing the Dodgers did was turn May from a sinker-first pitcher into a sweeper-first pitcher. But the arm slot shift that got his fastball out of the dead zone also took it out of the same vertical plane as the sinker, reducing its effectiveness as a barrel-misser. It also wrecked the curveball-ish depth on May’s sweeper, though to be fair, the breaking ball was May’s best pitch in 2025. His only effective pitch in 2025, really.

May has raised his arm angle on the four-seamer back to 36 degrees, with its movement profile much closer to what it was in 2023 than last year, and he’s dialed up its usage from 16.6% to 25.6% while dropping his sinker usage from 33.5% to 17.5%. Meanwhile, he’s cut his sweeper usage almost in half while making more room for his cutter, changeup, and curveball, the last of which hasn’t been part of his repertoire since 2019.

I put all of this together in a big table and also included 2023 for reference.

Batters have been far less successful against his sinker, cutter, and changeup than in 2025, and have continued to be befuddled by his sweeper, for whatever May’s concerns about the pitch. Note those variations in arm angle on just about every pitch type as May tries to find ways to differentiate them. His average angle was at 30 degrees in 2023 but down to 21 last year, and is back up to 33 this year, with a wider range across his offerings — from 39 degrees for the curve to 28 for the sweeper — than in either of those previous seasons.

Those usage rates blur what has become a much more bifurcated approach depending upon handedness. May uses his cutter about twice as often against lefties as against righties, and he uses his changeup and curve almost exclusively against lefties.

The cutter, sinker, four-seamer, and (for lefties) the changeup all tunnel together before spreading all over the strike zone:

Generally, this is working well:

Even with opposing teams stacking more lefties against May, he’s lowered his wOBA allowed by trading in some of those extra-base hits for singles; that’s an ISO drop of 91 points, from .234 to .143, and a home rate more than cut in half. And as you can see, he’s made even more impressive gains against righties, particularly by avoiding walks and homers.

When the Cardinals signed May in December, the general assumption was that he’d serve as an innings-eater for a rebuilding team, and could be flipped at the deadline if he pitched well enough. Even within the past week, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale wrote, “The Cardinals, in fact, are expected to trade reliever JoJo Romero and starter Dustin May at the trade deadline, providing they slip further back in the wild-card race.” Yet the Cardinals have been one of the majors’ big surprises. Projected for 75 wins with an 8.5% chance of making the playoffs as of Opening Day, they currently have an 84-win projection and a 52.8% chance of making the playoffs. Perhaps they’ll regress over the next six weeks and trade May. But if he keeps pitching at this level, and they remain in contention, the redhead may well stick with the Redbirds.

Hat-tip to Matt Martell for his reporting from Citi Field.

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