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.

Tolle Boost

 

With a new CBA probably on the way, sometime after a settlement that will take far too long to be reached, there's always murmurs about a divisional realignment, which Rob Manfred wants to do but I don't think anybody else does. He always goes on like 'well, with the universal DH, the NL and AL are meaningless, and since all 30 teams play each other once a season, the divisional matchups mean less, so we can just put the Mets and Yankees in the same division because it's way easier that way', like...listen to yourself. You're tearing down things that work, and have worked, just to save time and money, and you're forgetting WHY they work. The Yankees and Mets being in separate divisions works because the rare times they do play each other feel special. That's also why an actual divisional matchup like Yanks-Sox can happen a ton of times per season, because it doesn't need to feel unique. Yanks-Sox is just normal stuff. Of course they're playing each other again, it's been a few weeks anyhow.

But the one argument in favor of divisional realignment is that some divisions are simply built better than others. The AL East this year, much like in other recent years, have three teams that have a better record than literally every other team in the AL. Nobody in the Central or West has a better record than the third place team in the AL East, and the last place team in the AL East has the same amount of wins has two teams fighting for a playoff spot in the AL Central. Conventional wisdom says you need to reshuffle. I don't necessarily agree, as I like that some divisions are better than others, but if you're a Red Sox fan you probably need things to change. Since the Yankees and Red Sox play each other less now, both teams can be good without one or the other suffering record-wise.

And so, while the Sox are still looking at a playoff spot, they've got this long road for something that should be more inevitable than it actually is. They've got more pieces than a lot of the great teams in other divisions, and have one of the best hitting performances in the game this season coming from Willson Contreras and his .927 OPS. But they still have to get through a wild card round that stopped them last year, despite a pretty decent team. And they've gotta do it with the possibility of there being no Masataka Yoshida, no Roman Anthony, no Trevor Story and no Garrett Crochet. 

Thankfully, Crochet's absence has not broken this team as much as you'd think, as they've survived well enough using their immediate starting options. Patrick Sandoval is the shakiest of everybody, he's got a 5 ERA in 7 starts, but he's not even that bad. Jake Bennett's improving, has a 1.066 WHIP and a 3.50 ERA. Ranger Suarez is sort of doing his usual thing, low ERA, not a lot of runs scored, same as in Philly. Sonny Gray's having a comeback season for the ages, with a league-leading 15 wins, a 2.65 ERA and 117 Ks. And then you've got Payton Tolle, a 23-year-old schtarker with the arsenal to fool everybody, who currently has a 3 ERA, 134 Ks and a 1.083 WHIP. He's not the fanciest pitcher here, but he works hard, gets people out and keeps things clean. I think the lack of a Crochet type will be obvious if he's out for the postseason run, but someone like Tolle will definitely help. Which is weird, because of him and Connelly Early I assumed Early would be the guy going forward, but evidently the Sox figured they didn't need him. Anyway, Curtis Mead's still injured. 

On that note, kinda weird that Jahmai Jones is more productive than any of the Sox's postseason pickups, including Adley Rutschman. 

The Sox have a surprisingly nice core, have used Andruw Monasterio, Anthony Seigler and Mickey Gasper in huge roles despite being replacement level, have gotten terrific seasons out of Contreras, Durbin, Rafaela and Abreu, and are keeping the momentum going for the most part despite a very precarious path to postseason glory. I think they could figure it out more than last year's team, but if they get the Yanks again it'll be another war of attrition, and I'm not wild about that.

Coming Tomorrow- Meanwhile, on the team they traded Early to, the league's base-stealing king gets a new everyday gig.

Willy or Won't He?

 

There's been a lot of talk about the Kyle Tucker contract this week, especially considering how poorly he's been playing at this specific moment. There's gonna be smoke about this next year to rationalize CEOs not forking over the money to pay players. Which is not what people are saying, we don't need to incentivize paying players Kyle Tucker sized contracts, we need to incentivize...PAYING players. Teams should spend money on keeping great players around, and it doesn't need to be Tucker money or Dylan Cease money. Players need enough to sustain themselves but not too much to fail to sustain themselves. 

Willy Adames is an underrated entry into this conversation. Last year, after a peak season, the Giants signed him to a 7-year, 182 million dollar deal. It made sense at the time. Adames has never been a superstar, but he's a contact king with great power perks and great defense, he's the full package and can get things done in the postseason. He gets to San Francisco last season, and does...fine. .225 average, .740 OPS, 30 homers, 87 RBIs, still productive numbers. This season was another step backwards. In 116 games, he's hitting .224 with a .697 OPS, 19 homers and 48 RBIs. Yes, his next home run will be #200 career-wise, and that is nice, but he's faded into the background on a team where he could have starred. He made things work in Milwaukee, and was an underrated aspect of those competitive Brewers teams. But here, on a team with Matt Chapman, Rafael Devers, Logan Webb and Jung Hoo Lee, he sort of does his thing without being especially noteworthy.

At the very least, even if Rafael Devers will have a slow stretch in SF, he'll respond with a killer month. In May he hit .306, then in the following two months he hit 15 homers. That he's only hit 3 all August, plus a .235 average this month, just proves how spotty he's become, even if the perks are still worth it. Bryce Eldridge is in the same category, as after a .300 June, he fell back down to earth and has hit .200 since the start of the second half. It's a very inconsistent, spotty team that, despite having very talented people on board, cannot seem to put together a solid enough six month run to garner anyone's attention.

Amusingly, the Giants have gotten to the point where they're now trying guys out places, just to see what'll work. Oselvis Basabe has been surprisingly good as a 2nd base fill-in, Jonah Cox might be an answer in center, Drew Cavanaugh might be a catching option going forward [if Susac's gonna keep getting hurt]. And hey, this Dylan Smith guy might be a 9th inning success if given a larger opportunity. It's good that they're figuring those out, because so much of this team needed to be crumpled and tossed for simply not staying on the gameplay as often as the higher three NL West teams. Will 2027 be better? Probably not, maybe a little. The pieces are sort of there, they just need to do what they're supposed to.

Coming Tonight: A big craftsman with a mustache who's the most 34-looking 24 I've ever seen. 

Might as Well...

 

I didn't think it could get any worse for the A's, but somehow it has. So they already had Brent Rooker out for the season, right? Then they lose Nick Kurtz, but they get him back, right? No. His thumb keeps acting up, he's gotta be shut down for even longer. Now we're at the point where, in addition to Rooker and Kurtz, Shea Langeliers is out [probably for the season], Tyler Soderstrom is out, Luis Severino and Jeffrey Springs are out, and Joshua Kuroda-Grauer is out due to, well...having a ball overturned. The IL has a combined 10 WAR. 

The A's team WAR is a 15.6, by the way. Meaning 10 out of 15.6 of the runs the A's have scored better than everyone else...was scored by someone who is currently injured. That also means that the rest of the team is worth 5.6 WAR. Keep in mind, there's a guy on one of the other teams in the AL West who has a 5.5 WAR, just by himself. Which means putting, like, Max Muncy, Alika Williams, Jeff McNeil, Lawrence Butler, Gage Jump and the rest of the funtime gang together can get you one Yordan Alvarez. And keep in mind, Yordan Alvarez alone isn't getting it done for the Astros, it's gotta be a team effort.

So yeah. Not much left for the A's to do but close up. And keep in mind, the Angels at least have some guys still healthy. They have Reid Detmers striking everybody out, they have Mike Trout delivering a comeback season, they have Walbert Urena as a rookie, that's worth more than most of this team right now, and that's not even counting Zach Neto or Oswald Peraza. The A's are in danger of eclipsing the Angels for the worst record in baseball. And keep in mind, this isn't a year where someone's gonna chase the all-time-worst record, this is just a regular, vanilla flavored bad team. And it's probably gonna be the A's if they keep losing games like this, 3 years after being in the basement already and calling up the guys that would hopefully keep them out of there.

Gage Jump was brought up to stop the bleeding, he did for a while. He had some really tough starts in late July/early August, gave up 6 runs in a few starts, and now is looking a lot worse for wear. He's building it back, did really well against Boston, had a decent start against the Rangers, and seeing as J.T. Ginn is a little shakier since the injury, he's taking on a lot more responsibility. At 23, he's...sort of up to the task? He's got a 4.50 ERA, 85 Ks. It's a season you could build something on, given a better team and less direct hits to the lineup. Right now, the A's rotation consists of J.T. Ginn, Gage Jump and Jacob Lopez, plus two openers and the hope that the lockout somehow starts early. 

All the A's have to work with right now is a very good Zach Gelof performance, a surprisingly agile Alika Williams performance, the sudden emergence of Lawrence Butler's power numbers, and Jonah Heim killing the Red Sox. That's....not a hell of a lot, but it's at least somewhat entertaining. 

Coming Tomorrow- The year before he signed his nice-sized contracts, he hit 32 homers, 112 RBIs and got MVP votes. Now he's struggling to get his OPS above .700. 

Made Red-undant

 

Hunter Greene going down for another Tommy John surgery wasn't the official death nell for the Reds, the season had been going downhill long before that, but it was the confirmation that whatever nearly happened last year wasn't even remotely a possibility this year. Chase Burns is nice and all, but Hunter Greene is what helped this team to a wild card spot last year, and without him, considering the state of this lineup, there's no point.

Like, okay, let's see the issue here. Ke'Bryan Hayes, still not hitting. Dane Myers, barely hitting, here for his defense. Noelvi Marte, still not hitting, it feels like it's a scam of some sort. Matt McLain, not hitting, occasionally threatens to. T.J. Friedl, not hitting, embarrassingly so. Jose Trevino, not hitting. Eugenio Suarez, thankfully hitting more than he was and currently on a homer tear but compared to last year, not hitting. J.J. Bleday, was hitting, isn't really hitting anymore. Even if you have Elly de la Cruz, Sal Stewart and Tyler Stephenson, you still can't get the majority of the lineup to do anything. And even still, Stewart is leading the league in RBI but because of his occasional slumping this season, he's not the Rookie of the Year. J.J. Wetherholt kinda is, and though Stewart's gonna make it very close, and may even have the better career, Stewart's been human a few too many times this year, 26 homers aside. Even Elly's only hitting .264 and does the thing where his average goes off a cliff for a month again.

The rotation...without Greene...beyond Chase Burns...yeah, I dunno what happened. Andrew Abbott finally had a down season, which is still somewhat productive for him. He's got a 4 ERA, a 1.421 WHIP and struggled during the first half. Brady Singer struggled throughout, had a few decent starts but seems to be back to getting killed, and is 5-11. Rhett Lowder's fully healthy and not panning out anywhere near how he was supposed to. Nick Lodolo, in the midst of yet another injury-plagued year, has a 5 ERA and a 1.455 WHIP. I know this was gonna be the core, but now's the point where this team should start giving up. Lodolo isn't the guy anymore, Lowder, if 2027 isn't anything, might not either. Williamson's a bust at this point, when Greene gets back he'll be 28 and trying not to do this exact thing, and Singer's just an innings eater at this point. Chase Burns deserves to be built around a bunch of winners, and it's not this lot.  Maybe there'll be some call-ups in the next couple years that do what the Reds' arms were supposed to in the mid-2020s, and get less hurt.

It sucks that it's turned out like this, because the Reds really were building something, but so many pieces actively refused to do what they were supposed to, and as such we're here in last again while the others fight for playoff spots. It's gotta be disheartening, as they might be further from true competition than they arguably should have been by now.

Coming Tomorrow- A rookie pitcher for the A's just essentially keeping the lights on at this point.