...Just to Keep From Being Thrown to the Wolves

 

The White Sox have about five weeks left to cement the unthinkable. In a year where the Tigers, Royals and Guardians were all expected to compete, they are still hanging onto first place for dear life, on the strength of a bunch of 20-year-olds, a Japanese rookie who hits dingers, and a ton of really close games and walk-offs. For a team this streaky and basic, it's not gonna be over til they wave the flag, and they need to keep from coming apart. This is year one of the competitive White Sox experiment, and they want to take this as far as they can.

Already you're beginning to see a few of the strings come undone. After being one of the best pitchers of the first half, Davis Martin has slowed down and will be missing time with an injury. Sean Burke has stepped up in his stead, and Anthony Kay, Erick Fedde and Luis Castillo are doing what they can to support him, but...you see the issue, right? The hook of this rotation was that it was centered around the youth movement. Now Noah Schultz, David Sandlin and Shane Smith are all sitting in the minors rather than supplanting the older, shakier rotation options. The fear is that those guys aren't much better, and recently Schultz and Sandlin have gotten roughed up, but it's worth a shot, right? We saw Shane Smith's highs. He hasn't been TERRIFIC in Charlotte but he's still a confident enough young arm. Hagen Smith is also around, but the team is very hesitant to let him start, and I'm still not sure why, considering he was doing pretty well at that in the minors until someone got the bright idea to start using him in relief. You don't see the Mariners doing that with Kade Anderson, right? No, they started him, and it worked. This is what the Pirates did with Bubba Chandler last year, and I don't think that worked for them either.

I think the idea is just to outhit everybody and hope that still works, and judging from all the walk-offs that's been doing the trick. Jake Rogers had the big one the other night, the blast so incredible that one lady in the crowd nearly showered the contents of her purse all over the field level seats. Yesterday was Tristan Peters's turn, he had a walk-off homer. Two guys are closing in on 30 homers, and a 3rd ain't too far off. The depressing part is the lack of catching stability but Rogers and Romo are doing what they can.

An underrated piece of this team this year is Andrew Benintendi, who's been around since before the rebuild. Benny was supposed to be a huge piece of those competitive Red Sox teams going forward, and has wound up as the least accomplished of the Killer B's, with his speed basically gone, his contact ability waning and his defense nonexistent. All that remains is a halfway decent power hitter, and with 13 homers and 64 RBIs he's been that. It's not pretty, and he's not on target as much as his contemporaries, but he's got a role to fill, and he's filling it pretty well. 

The Sox have to play fellow AL competitors the Rangers and Twins coming up, and hopefully they can stave off the Guardians for that playoff spot. Nothing's over in this division til the Guardians say it's over, and the Tigers aren't completely out of it either, so hopefully this Sox team can be in it for the long haul.

Coming Tonight: Once he figured out how to stay healthy, and once the team found room for him on the MLB roster, the big game stuff was bound to show up.

The Right Time to Duck Out?

 

Last year, Bo Bichette helped the Blue Jays get to a World Series. Then he left in free agency. Now, from the looks of things, neither his new team nor his former team will be making the playoffs at all. The Mets are out of it, the Jays are a game or so behind but not looking great. Was this trip really necessary?

Let's look at Bo's numbers with the Mets this year. He's hitting .268 with 14 homers, 66 RBIs and 101 strikeouts. His atrocious defense has followed him from Toronto to New York, and now at third he's not really in his element, in addition to the shaky hitting numbers. It's not like this is the first flaw for Bo, his 2024 was kinda rough too, but in the first year of a new contract, he was expected to play a large role in the Mets' run, and despite not getting injured [unlike most of the rest of the team], he's made only a light impact. 1 win above replacement despite 550 at-bats. Reminds me a bit of how his dad's first year in Cincinnati went. Admittedly I don't think he's as bad of a fielder as Dante was, but it hasn't been doing him any favors.

And in a season where so many pieces have gotten injured, a lot has been on Bo, and he's only done so much. And now some of the guys who got injured are beginning to do the work anyway. Luis Robert hit two moonshots yesterday. Francisco Alvarez seems to be hitting again. Marcus Semien's been piling up cheesy power. Sean Manaea's had a bunch of decent starts. Even Kodai Senga seems to be working as a closing option somehow. But Bo seems to just be kind of there. I'm not saying that's how the whole contract will go, assuming he doesn't opt out [who am I kidding, he's toast]. But it's an uneven step for a career that seemed to be on a strong path just last year.

Yet I don't think things would have gone too differently had Bo stayed in Toronto. It's been a similar story- Guerrero, Kirk, Springer, Lukes and Sanchez have all spent time on the IL, and it's dulled the output tremendously. The difference is that the rare 500+ at-bat guy, Ernie Clement, is not only having a nice season but feels central to so much of the action. That's why he was the top vote-getter in the AL. He's a terrific contact hitter with nice defensive perks and everybody loves him. It's not as if the fans have given up on Vlad Jr., there's still room for him to improve given all the equity, but all wasn't exactly lost without Vlad's better numbers. This team still has a 25+ home run guy, even if it is Kazuma Okamoto admittedly slightly off his game from the usual averages. 

But I feel like if Bo was on this team, he'd be doing the same thing, and it would be a 'what is going on with the Jays' year, cause he and Vlad would be struggling at the same time. And that's not good if you're the defending AL champions. Even if you have call-up stories like Brett Bateman and Charles McAdoo coming around, or Jose Soriano making the most of the deadline gambit, or the continued inevitability of Dylan Cease stealing the Cy Young out from under Cam Schlittler's fingertips, if the marquee guys aren't cutting it, there's an issue.

I'll give the Jays this- Alejandro Kirk has been making up for lost time, and he's on fire recently, with 7 homers, 28 RBIs and a .283 average in 55 games. Once again he feels like his old self, and while it's nice to have Brandon Valenzuela around for the security, Kirk is the #1 catching option for a reason, and can still be relied upon. In something of a lost year, even if there's still a chance of making the playoffs, that's at least a plus.

Who knows where Bo and the Jays will go next year. I see Bo making improvements and reclaiming the narrative on a team that isn't the Mets, and I see the Jays reforming and contending again. Who knows how accurate that read is though.

Coming Tomorrow- I never thought he'd end up as a fairly average power DH after how impressive he looked as a rookie, but I suppose this is how things are going.

Rockie Business as Usual

 

The best thing you can say about the Rockies this year is that they are no longer historically bad. They are no longer 'worst ever' bad. They are just plain bad, which works I suppose.

Every so often you do hear of something good happening to this team, like a Jake McCarthy multi-homer day or a Hunter Goodman RBI masterclass, or Mickey Moniak still doing something cool. So the Rockies can still hit for power. That helps I suppose. You're in Denver, why not? The defense is still kind of atrocious, you've got Karros, McCarthy, Johnston and Moniak all doing well enough at the plate then drawing straws to see who gets to DH. Ezequiel Tovar's defense used to be a perk, but he's just not good at anything this year. The only really good defender on this team is T.J. Rumfield, and everyone else is average or below average. 

Willi Castro is pretty indicative of the issues here. He is a career utility man, and can play a few different positions, but the trick is that he's got to be able to play them well. At second base he is decent I suppose, but he's losing defensive runs and doesn't have the range you'd expect. He's playing 2nd more often than not because Edouard Julien didn't work there [what a shocker], and the cool thing is, seeing as this is Denver, his power numbers are up. He's got 14 homers and 53 RBIs, plus a .423 SLG, which isn't Moniak or Goodman levels but is still good. It helps that this team has pure contact guys like Troy Johnson and Kyle Karros in addition to the power core.

Losing Hunter Goodman for a bit is a pretty harsh blow, but the Rockies have been moving some guys around from the minors. Zac Veen is up again, and he's been doing better than last time, with 2 homers, 7 RBIs and a .263 average in 8 games. Connor Norby's up after the trade for Victor Vodnik, he's hitting .269 with some of his usual contact success. I'm not sure if he's gonna be a working piece for them going forward, seeing as he's sort of limited defensively, but the contact numbers certainly help. I'm not sure if Jordan Beck's gonna be a thing for them sadly, he's still a sub-.200 hitter without much versatility. Brett Sullivan's a decent enough backup catcher that also is an above-average pitcher in blowouts. And for some reason, after failing to keep anything down in Los Angeles or Philly, somehow it is DENVER that levels Jordan Romano, as he's got 8 saves in 14 opportunities, and seems to have the position despite many younger options. 

The Rockies are still kind of a mess. I have no idea what this rotation will look like going forward because there's no slam dunk options, and Chase Dollander constantly had to be opened for and still got hurt. If they can't get a halfway decent rotation together, in Coors Field, they're just gonna be like this for the rest of the decade, and again...there's a way of avoiding this that nobody in the front office wants to approach. So for now, enjoy the mildly interesting shitshow and let's hope there's some level of improvement.

Coming Tonight: He missed a lot of time for Toronto, but he's certainly been making up for it in the last few weeks. 

Groom and Bored

 

Thursday's game against the Astros really worked both poles for the Angels. Yes, they completely ravaged Peter Lambert in the 4th with 6 runs [in addition to the 4 he already gave up], then kept beating down the bullpen with 8 more, culminating in a 7-RBI day for Zach Neto...but Wade Meckler, one of the most exciting and fun pieces of a lost season, went down midgame thanks to a Bryan King pitch that hit him in the head, and now he might be on concussion protocol. And they just lost last night's game in extras thanks to a Ezequiel Duran walk-off, one of like 6 walkoffs yesterday it seems.

At this point, the Angels really are just trying to keep the lights on, but Meckler was one of the guys making that a lot easier. He's 26, was mostly a Giants farmhand that was relegated to Sacramento mostly after a promising call-up in 2023 that went nowhere, and wound up being cut after last season and claimed by the Angels. He's got good defensive skills, hits for average, and is just a sneaky little contact guy that helps any roster he's on. The Angels had issues with Josh Lowe and Jose Siri as left field options, and so Meckler got the gig a few months ago, but he's ran with it, hitting .288 with a .740 OPS and 59 hits in 70 games. He only has 20 RBIs, but he's been excellent in the last month, and has been a bright spot in a lineup very much hanging it up by this point. And now they might not have him after the HBP. That sucks.

I'll give the Angels this, I know where they're headed I think. I don't assume Zach Neto or Nolan Schanuel will be traded in the offseason, though there's always a chance, and those two are still mighty tentpoles. Neto has 21 homers and 61 RBIs, and is an excellent shortstop. Schanuel's been heating up, is hitting .276 and has 49 RBIs. Vaughn Grissom and Oswald Peraza have been nice additions to the roster, and have provided some semblance of stability. Jose Siri's having a decent comeback year in between injuries, and has gotten a lot more playing time since Jo Adell left. There's still issues, like the lack of a solid catching option, the inability for Denzer Guzman to get anything going, and rotation depth in general, but there is a gameplan in place. And yes, having Mike Trout putting in some solid enough late-career work is very helpful.

The most intriguing thing about this Angels team is that, since the deadline, the bullpen has entirely crumpled and tossed and now looks entirely different. Suter, Zeferjahn and Silseth are gone, Sam Bachman is hurt, Mitch Farris is down. A whole host of people have been brought up and are now making for a much better bullpen experience. Some of these guys are long-injured favorites, like Ben Joyce, finally healthy again and capable of 100mph speeds. Some are recent callups that have been really strong in early appearances, like Luke Murphy, Ryan Watson and Blake Weiman. Some are former Rookie of the Year Michael Fulmer, looking to stay on a roster for a bit even in the midst of a career nadir. I think losing Samy Natera, someone I know will be a terrific bullpen piece given a healthy year, hurt, but these other guys have been doing really well, and point towards a much better follow-up year.

The Angels have signs of life, and could work on something given the right circumstances, and developments in the past week or so have kept me optimistic. They are, ultimately, still the Angels. But they're now in fourth place, ahead of the very hurt A's. So maybe this rally means better days are ahead.

Coming Tomorrow- A utility man known for being plugged in anywhere...being plugged in one specific place this year due to desperate times.

Throw for Broke

 

The Pirates have been so bad for so long that this team, that is likely to still miss the playoffs, is championship caliber almost. At last, a Pirates team that seems to actually know what it's doing and has enough young players to build on...potentially. 

The Paul Skenes thing is a little scary, no joke. He's not pitching as well as he was last year, or even earlier in the season, and people are worried he's gonna need surgery. He was better in his last start against the Tigers, but gave up 3 runs and only struck out 5. Something is probably up, and to be perfectly honest, there being the potential for work stoppage next year might be the best thing for him. But the silver lining is that this year it's not all on Skenes, and Braxton Ashcraft, Bubba Chandler, Jared Jones and Carmen Mlodzinski have all been picking up the slack. Jones got here late but has been pretty durable, with a 4.50 ERA, 72 Ks and a 1.203 WHIP in 14 games. Not perfect but he's eating innings and doing what he should be doing. Ashcraft has been the defacto ace, and he's got 13 wins, 159 Ks and a 3.68 ERA, very impressive. Chandler has improved greatly since the first few months, and has a 4.23 ERA and 108 Ks. And Mlodzinski has a 4 ERA and 81 Ks over a season split between long relief and spot starts. He seems to have a handle on things as a starter, which certainly helps. I feel like this rotation's maybe one arm away from greatness, and it looks like Mitch Keller might not be that guy anymore. I have no idea who the next young arm up at bat is, but I suppose we'll find out next year [I hope].

The array of young people stepping up and saving this team has spread to the lineup, as now Rafael Flores has popped up as a fun outfield bat, he's got 6 homers and 12 RBIs in 19 games. He's right there with Esmerlyn Valdez who, while he has slowed down, as 14 homers and 41 RBIs. It does continue to piss me off that Jhostynxon Garcia continues to not work in the majors, as once again on a come-up he struggled to get anything done, and even Jacob Gonzalez, who looked like a steal from the White Sox, is hitting around .210 in 29 games despite being a strong fill-in for Konnor Griffin. The veteran core of this team [Reynolds, Lowe, Cruz, Gonzales, Mangum] has been very helpful, and there's enough steady power and impressive offensive flair to go around. It's also just very good to have Oneil Cruz back, as he was just getting things together when he got hurt. 

Sadly, despite all the great bullpen additions [Lake Bachar, Kirby Yates, Luke Weaver, Camilo Doval], the Pirates still are a long-shot for the postseason. They have won 5 of their last 7 and cut the Tigers down to size a little, but they're still four or so games back from the main wild card scrum, and may not have done enough to really go for it this year. Hopefully it can be built on so that they don't run into this problem again in another two years.

Coming Tonight: Nobody knows who he is, or where he came from, but he's been a nice under-the-radar success for a team that recently made waves by getting the hell out of last place.

Your Driver's Outside

 I have seen several inexplicable comebacks over the 17 years I've been writing this blog. I saw Bartolo Colon bottom out and then become a backbone of multiple rotations in his 40s. I saw Jon Singleton come up, crumble and then return to help the Astros win a ring. I saw Eric Thames come back from Korea with a power-hitting vendetta. I saw Matt Bush finally make the bigs and become a relief specialist in recovery. I saw Rich Hill emerge from minor league hell and become a Dodgers and Red Sox hero. This year alone I saw Peter Lambert return from obscurity to lead the Astros' rotation. I thought I had seen it all.

And never in my wildest dreams did I ever think Randy Dobnak would not only return to the bigs, but be a reliable piece of a team again.

The thing about Randy Dobnak in his 2019 and 2020 heyday with the Twins is that he was a novelty, and everyone knew it. 24-year-old guy with more in common physique-wise with a mechanic than a major league pitcher, never threw especially hard, moonlit as an Uber driver. This was not going to be a sustainable model for MLB success because the age of guys like this finding careers was over, even in 2019. If anything, they could be relief specialists or knuckleballers, but not starters for contending teams. Dobnak was a secret weapon of the bomba Twins team, sporting a 1.95 ERA in 9 appearances, lighting up September and propelling to the playoffs...where he would later be annihilated by both Yankee hitting and Yankee fans. 2020 was a relatively strong sophomore effort for Dobnak, he was reliable and went 6-4 in 10 starts. But after that, the material was never especially great, and even though the Twins kept him around, I'm assuming, for the benefits, the return never exactly happened. I saw him signing for people when I was at Twins camp in 2023, and that's how you know Twins fans take care of their own. Dobnak was basically a triple-A guy by that point and he still had guys lining up for an autograph. 

So...the prospect of a Randy Dobnak return was always gonna be a stretch for me. I figured he'd sung his song. He was in camp with the Mariners, looked good....yeah, good for you, but you're not breaking that rotation. If Kade Anderson can't break that rotation til August, you can't either. And then midway through July I noticed that the Royals had a new face in the WAR leaderboards, and then...it dawned on me. The Royals, without Cole Ragans or Stephen Kolek or Luinder Avila, needed rotation help, Dobnak was succeeding in Omaha, it was all they had. And Dobnak was...doing well? 

In 9 appearances for the 2026 Royals, Randy Dobnak, who is 31 and still not throwing especially hard, has a 1.58 ERA, a 2.1 WAR, and 29 strikeouts, which is a career high for him. He's also giving up a lot of walks, which has boosted his WHIP, but the dominance says enough honestly. Nobody has figured out how to hit this guy, and he's continuing to stifle genuinely good lineups with craftsmanship. Somehow, since his return last month, Dobnak has been the Royals' best pitcher.

Granted, this is happening during a lost season. Maikel Garcia's hurt again, and probably missing the rest of the season. Pasquatch, Witt, Caglianone and Isbel have all missed a substantial amount of time, and last place in the AL Central is basically theirs. This is a season that will likely result in Matt Quatraro's firing, a few months of Pujols speculation, and the crushing reality that this team still isn't all the way there. Dobnak is a temporary solution to a larger problem, the lack of roster stability and repeated injury beatdowns. The Royals fans are excited about Randy Dobnak because there's not a hell of a lot else to be excited about right now, and they know that Dobnak likely won't be a recurring thing. It'd be great if he continued this into next year like Rich Hill did, but...we all know what's the more probable outcome here.

For now, it's great that he's back, and it's great that he's winning games. Very positive MLB success story. I just wish there was more to say about the Royals this year.

Coming Tomorrow- He came up before Skenes, missed a year, and returned to honestly pick up a lot of Skenes' slack.

A Slight Adjustment

 

It's not exactly THE gutsiest of moves but it's something that's still kind of turning heads.

So C.J. Abrams is having the best season of his career in Washington, he's on the heels of what could be a 30-homer/100-RBI season, and there's a slight chance he's able to steal 6 more bases and make it 30-30 as well. Nasim Nuñez has been getting to play everyday, has a league-leading 40 steals and has been aiding the Nats as a speedy infield boost. Last week, the decision was made to switch the two defensively, meaning Nunez will play shortstop and Abrams will play 2nd. On paper this makes sense, as Abrams's defense at short wasn't great and he could use a change. But...they're also telling Abrams, in the midst of his best season to date, that he needs to move over. In the midst of a non-competitive year after it's been clear they're not a playoff team. And this is the same organization that suspended him for gambling and nearly traded him months earlier. So needless to say, Abrams isn't happy, and conveniently he's day to day with a minor injury. So, the Nats, once again potentially ruining a good thing. 

It shouldn't take away from Nunez having his best season yet, and stealing bases like it's his job. He's not really hitting all that much, as he's a .226 hitter with 34 RBIs in 117 games, but it's about getting him on base and watching him fly. I kinda wish there was more to him than that, and even James Wood and Jacob Young can steal bases while still remembering to hit. But hey, at least Nunez is good at something, and at least he's finding his niche on this team. You're also seeing the other pieces falling into place. Brady House is starting at third again and doing alright, with 9 homers and 31 RBIs in 65 games. Dylan Crews has 10 homers and 27 RBIs in 76 games. Abimelec Ortiz has burst onto the scene as a rookie corner infielder, and has 5 homers and 9 RBIs in 16 games. He could be a nice piece going forward. You're even seeing Harry Ford slowly creeping up to Keibert Ruiz, and beginning to figure out MLB hitting.

Again, frustratingly given the last few years, the rotation isn't as far along. Cade Cavalli and Andrew Alvarez have thankfully improved, with Cavalli going on a historic run and shaping up to sneak right into the 'best pitchers in the NL' conversation going forward. Jackson Kent has a lot of support behind him but two starts in and he may not be ready for the bigs. Beyond that...who knows? Openers? Trevor Williams getting to start again, which honestly isn't that bad of an idea? Jake Irvin trying his best despite being seriously cooked? The bullpen isn't much better, despite Clayton Beeter and P.J. Poulin's best efforts.

The Nats are nearly good, and nearly got something going this year, but seem to keep shooting themselves in the foot whenever it's about to get good. This Abrams thing, if he's actually mad, is the next stage of foolishness. He's already pissed off, the lockout might not help, I guess he might be traded soon, so there goes what you're trying to build I guess. I dunno, maybe this lineup without James Wood is reminding me just how bleak it might all be with the Nats.

Coming Tonight: Literally the last person I expected to make a custom of this year.