From Paris With Love

 

For the first time in years, I can look at an Angels team, look at pretty much every position and go '...yeah, these are the answers'.

There's maybe one or two elements that can be retooled over time, like Jo Adell, and the back half of both the rotation and the bullpen, but a lot has suddenly clicked into place. The infield of Schanuel-Paris-Neto-Rengifo has fully arrived, with all four healthy and on the right track. Neto and Rengifo are recovering from injuries and heading back on track, but Schanuel is hitting .273 with 7 RBIs so far. Karen Paris, meanwhile, is the revelation, and after a brief major league run last fall, he seems to be a mainstay for the Angels, hitting .288 with 8 RBIs, 5 homers and 5 steals. He's also been excellent defensively, and he's really versatile as a hitter. He's young, he's ferocious, and he's making the most of the opportunity. Him, Neto and Schanuel together and surging will be a very good thing for this lineup, even with Trout and Ward still doing their thing.

The one worrying detail for the Angels has been Mike Trout's average, as he's only hitting .184. 8 of his 14 hits have been home runs. Now, unlike last year, Trout's RBIs haven't been on solo homers, as he's got 16 RBIs compared to his 8 homers. But he's just been less accurate than usual, and this is the most human he's ever been while healthy. Of course it's likely he'll go on a tear eventually and bring the average up, but this is perhaps a clue to the possible reality that Trout's peak may have passed during the injury-shortened years. Which is kind of awful. The Griffey comparisons have already been made, but this may be even more heartbreaking. This year he can still do something great, but that hot streak had better come soon.

The Angels, so far, have gotten great starting performances out of Tyler Anderson, Yusei Kikuchi and Jose Soriano. The Kikuchi deal was something of an odd one for the Angels, as it was based mostly off of his Astros numbers, but it's been paying off, with a 3.38 ERA and 28 Ks in 5 starts, despite no wins yet. Anderson has embraced his 2020s boom, with a 2.08 ERA through 4 starts. And Soriano's got a 3.16 ERA with 2 wins so far. This is a pretty strong core, even with Kochanowicz struggling, Caden Dana on mop-up duty [in the minors[ and Ian Anderson looking like an odd investment after all. I see this looking a ton fuller by the end of the year, I'm just not sure what exactly will happen for that to come to fruition.

The Angels look good right now, and while they're not breathing down the necks of the Rangers quite yet, they could factor heavily into the AL West this season, which would be pretty cool after all this time. Kyren Paris is looking like the real deal right now, and he could be the missing link this team needed.

Coming Tonight: The Yankees gave him up for a guy they couldn't even keep, and so he gave his new team the strikeout god they needed.

Valuing the Inverse

 

So here's what has been made clear about the Cardinals so far this year: what has helped this team more than anything else has been when the pressure is off, and when the spotlight is not there. The people that are succeeding on this team are the ones who were either counted out or just didn't do well with all the attention on them. 

Here's the best way to explain this. To move on from Yadier Molina, the Cardinals signed Willson Contreras to a mega-deal. Here's your catcher for the next several years, dude can hit and he's well loved, done deal. Last year Contreras gets injured behind the plate, he's moved to 1st for 2025 and has been...terrible. So not only have you given a roster spot to a subpar hitting choice, but now the catching spot is open. However, the majority of the Cardinals' 2025 catching choices have been successful so far. Ivan Herrera got off to a crazy start at the plate, then got injured. Since then, the position's been held by Pedro Pages, who's been excellent, with 14 hits and 10 RBIs in 17 games. And backing him up has been Yohel Pozo, who's hitting .316 already with 6 hits and 2 RBIs. Everyone was expecting Contreras to be THE guy, and the expectations needed to be lowered, so that now that the Cardinals have found the answer by stuffing three young catchers in a trench coat and winning with that, it's a good thing.

This also works for Nolan Arenado. Going into this season, the Cardinals weren't pleased with his 2024 work and were trying to trade him during the offseason. Then the season starts and, randomly, the old Nolan Arenado is back and he's hitting .282 with 22 hits and 10 RBIs. Once the expectations were lower and it wasn't about people waiting around for him to do well, he was great. Victor Scott's in that category as well, he came into 2025 as an alternate outfielder and is not only hitting well but stealing bases, with 8 so far. Even Matthew Liberatore has started being pretty sturdy as a starting man the exact second Cardinals fans stopped waiting for him to happen. 

The one Cardinal who's doing exactly as well as everyone thought is Brendan Donovan, who seems as good as everyone had thought. Donovan, right now, is hitting .356, with 32 hits, and 13 RBIs. Donovan is one of those guys who can do just about anything, as he's great defensively, he's an amazing contact hitter, and he's still very fast. It's weird that, as this team has elapsed, someone like Brendan Donovan has become a sort of central figure for this team. You'd think it would be Arenado but he's sort of taking a lower rung approach. You'd think Burleson but he's just not getting it done this year. And until Winn comes back it'll be someone like Donovan, who...can get it done, and can be that guy. The Cardinals weren't sure whether or not Tommy Edman was that guy, and so they traded him to LA. I think they want to try a different approach with Donovan. 

The Cardinals aren't doing terrific at the moment, but I still think they'll be better than they were last year, as they have the starting pitching, the versatility and the youth options necessary to win games. It's just a matter if, at last, the competition can withstand them.

Coming Tomorrow- Mike Trout isn't hitting for average right now, so here's an Angels hitter who is.

A Sort of Homecoming

 

This is Carlos Santana's third stint in Cleveland. His first stint, he becomes a hero at catcher then at first and helps the team get to a World Series. His second stint lasts two years, but has an incredible comeback season in 2019 which culminates in a starting ASG job. In the seasons he's played elsewhere, he's notched 108 of his 326 career home runs, as well as a couple postseason runs. Last season, however, he accomplished arguably his biggest feat: winning a gold glove and becoming a contact-friendly defense-first guy. 

Carlos Santana. The guy they call 'Slamtana'. He's now good at everything but power pretty much. He still hits home runs, he's got 2 so far this year, but now he's a gold glove 1st baseman, at 39, in the same defensive schematic as Steven Kwan, Austin Hedges and Brayan Rocchio. It makes a ton of sense having him back here as well, as the Guardians are a true contact team and Santana can crack those through still. And it's not like Santana is being relied upon heavily as a power bat right now- they have Kyle Manzardo and Lane Thomas for that, Santana can stick to his new strengths. 

But it's still just...odd. Trading Josh Naylor is one piece of it, because there's a true masher, even if he's not great defensively. He's continuing that strong work in Arizona right now. And in his place is Santana, dulled at the plate and better at 1st. I think even with sentimentality involved, the Guardians fans would still prefer Naylor's bat to Santana's glove right now. A lot of their other constants, like Ramirez, Clase and Bibee, are letting them down at the moment, and that would be a nice one to still have. And Santana can still knock RBIs, but that's not really what he's been hired to do as much. It's the opposite of what happened to Jose Altuve, he went from being a killer contact guy to a home run hitter. Santana's defense and contact moments are nice, but I think a lot of people miss the 30 home guy. And he's not really that guy anymore. I expect 20, if that.

It sort of lampshades that even if the Guardians are doing well, and trending upward, there are these little flaws and nicks that keep them from being fully great right now. Emmanuel Clase is blowing saves left and right, which he never does. There's a lot of very okay starting performances right now, with only Gavin Williams and Logan Allen standing out. Ramirez has calmed down. Steven Kwan and the bullpen have been the highlights, and you can see some guys warming up. But it's not all the way there yet.

They beat the Yankees last night. That's a start. But right now the Tigers just look better, and they need to put a stop to that.

Coming Tonight: With Arenado probably leaving soon, this guy might be the central figure for the Cardinals. Which is honestly pretty cool. 

That Certain X-Factor

 

Here's the wildest thing about the 2025 Miami Marlins, already the most fascinating of the 'bad teams' this year. Statistically, their best player right now is a reliever named Lake Bachar. Bachar toiled in the Padres' minor league system for 8 years, signed a deal with the Marlins and snuck onto the roster last year. So far he's been excellent in relief. Bachar is perfect for Miami baseball, because he has he look of someone who just crawled out of a swamp. He's got long hair, asymmetrical eyes, is somehow gangly and bloated at the same time, and looks perpetually like the mysterious insane drifter in a television show. Equal parts Old Man McGucket from Gravity Falls and Horace Goodspeed from Lost. More relievers should look like barroom denizens. We had Rod Beck, we had Bob Wickman, and now Bachar will do the trick.

I bring this up because the Marlins' thing so far this year has been getting wins out of the most anonymous, incomprehensible types of players. Going into the season, the narrative the Marlins were going with was 'Sandy Alcantara is back, Xavier Edwards, Jesus Sanchez and Connor Norby are the stars of this team, and we're building on last season in order to hopefully be good again soon'. Alcantara so far has a 7.27 ERA, Edwards is decent but limited, Norby and Sanchez just got activated and the team again seems to be reshuffling. And...in the most bizarre way, it's kind of working? The Marlins aren't in last, they're scraping by, and yesterday they won on a 5-RBI day from rookie Javier Sanoja, who also hit his first career home run.

This was against the Philadelphia Phillies, by the way. As was the previous game, which the Phillies won but the Marlins nearly flipped by tacking on 6 runs in the ninth. And you can easily go 'oh, well the Phillies bullpen is having troubles right now', but if the Marlins' lineup wasn't sneakily good then they never would have had much of an issue. 

Right now the Marlins' best starter is Max Meyer, who had some excellent 2024 starts despite spending a chunk of the year in the minors. He's got a 2.10 ERA and 41 Ks so far, and as we speak he's silencing the Reds' offense. The team's best power hitter is former Cubs prospect Matt Mervis, who has 6 homers and 12 RBIs despite struggling in most other aspects. Kyle Stowers is undeniably the team's best clutch hitter, as he's been proving since the season started. And the best defender is Otto Lopez, though his contact numbers aren't all the way there yet this year. Plus, Ronny Simon and Agustin Ramirez got called up tonight and both have fit snugly into the equation. 

The injuries to this team...you'd think would be more destructive. Obviously Eury Perez and Braxton Garrett are out for a bit, but this team is also without Ryan Weathers, Nick Fortes and now, just as he was getting going, Griffin Conine. And yet the roster depth and farm system are keeping the Marlins in it right now. Maybe not in the starting pitching division, but the variable quality of the lineup is definitely keeping the team fresh. Dane Myers, Eric Wagaman and Liam Hicks have played crucial roles in this team despite having more minor roles at the onset of the season. Only one person has truly outright failed so far, and he's off the team...though Cal Quantrill is close to that designation. 

The Marlins, despite any indication that they would be, aren't terrible this year. They aren't GREAT, but they haven't been as much of a disappointment as someone like Atlanta. Hopefully they build on this.

Coming Tomorrow- Fifteen years ago, if you had told me that this guy, all those years later, would still be starting for Cleveland, now coming off a gold glove season as a 1st baseman, I wouldn't have believed you. 

Error in Judgment

 

So, after the Yankees got away with the torpedo bats there was all of this smoke about how the Yankees would never be properly penalized for anything. And they were kind of right, the Yankees have just been penalized improperly ever since.

The umpiring against this team lately. Good lord. It's not exactly costing us games, so it's not the kind we can really take to task, but it's been terrible. First Jazz Chisholm gets tossed for disagreeing with a call, then gets suspended for tweeting 'not even close' about it after the game. Then yesterday, Aaron Judge hits a home run that the umps refuse to count as anything other than a foul, which allows a prompt strikeout on a called strike that wasn't even close. The fact that Judge came extremely close to losing his cool and didn't, but as Aaron Boone came out to back him up he was thrown out in seconds...that's an agenda. Then after a solid minute of Boone arguing with umpires, the official scorer decides, 'hey, you know what? That Paul Goldschmidt error from two innings ago that was the only thing that came close to breaking this no-hitter Max Fried has going? Suddenly, now, at this unrelated point in the game, I think that was a hit'. 

Which was decided between innings, during a commercial break. While Fried was warming up to try and keep the no-no going into the eighth. Fried immediately giving up a hit then is besides the point. It was a suspect and incomprehensible move. 

There's a sort of unwritten politeness in it, where if you're going to overturn a call, especially when a no-hitter is on the line, do it while the play is still live. Don't wait around for two innings. Because Fried went two more innings thinking he had a no-no going and needed to stay in the game. If that hit gets counted in inning 6, he doesn't need to stay in for the eighth. And in this era of MLB pitching, keeping a pitcher in past the seventh is a risky play, as you could keep him up there and within two weeks there's arm tightness. If Max Fried gets injured as a result of having to pitch the eighth when he didn't need to, that scorer needs to send Fried a check or something. Because that's entirely his fault. 

The thing that many people with status are miffed about is what Michael Kay did during the broadcast. I was watching, we cut back in with the hit on the board and Kay was PISSED. You could tell that he'd just gotten some cursing out of his system before they went live but he still had some angst leftover. The broadcast cut to the scorer who made the decision, put his name up there in big letters, BILL MATHEWS, and kept it up for 10 seconds. As Michael Kay seethed behind it. 'THERE HE IS. GET HIM'. Not verbatim but that was kind of the gist of it.

People are mad about that. They're saying it was unprofessional of Kay for spotlighting an official after a decision he didn't agree with. I honestly think it was more unprofessional to overturn an error immediately after a manager argues with your calls, but apparently the moral high ground is that Kay was the one that made the mistake and not the one who works in the field of 'getting things wrong for a living and having a good enough union to still make money from it'. 

You know what would have been unprofessional? If Kay had put Mathews' address up there. Of a picture of one of his summer homes. All he did was just figure that the fanbase should put a face to the discrepancy, and that it wasn't some elite in a suit but just some regular old guy with no deep pockets...who could probably be taken in a fistfight. 

The Yankees won the game, ultimately, and it was a shutout. But Judge still hit a home run, and Fried still had a no-no going. The officiating team was simply wrong, and will go unchecked in being wrong. And Rob Manfred is in no rush to employ automatic officiating systems because he doesn't want a union to stick him in a car boot and push him off the Golden Gate Bridge. Nothing will be done, nobody will learn, and everybody will get madder. Such is life right now.

As for the Yankees themselves, barring some infuriation, like Devin Williams just not figuring shit out in pinstripes, Chisholm and Volpe's averages, and the back half of the rotation, I like the look of this team. Judge has a .397 average, 25 RBIs, 7 homers and 31 hits. Absolutely unreal. Grisham's gotten hot as hell too, which is a pretty welcome development. This team's a little rough around the edges at the moment, but they could toughen up and go deep. Just keep those big wins coming.

Coming Tomorrow- The closest thing the Marlins have to a star hitter right now.

[P.S.- Anyone infuriated by the points made during this post can send any hate mail to BILL MATHEWS, P.O. Box 666, Tampa, FL.]

If It Wasn't Evenly Matched, That'd Have Been More Shocking

 So, one of the big series' of the weekend was Rangers-Dodgers, and it led to three very tight, low-scoring games. Of course it did.

The Dodgers are gonna be hard to beat because they just won a World Series and, in response, got even better. The Rangers are gonna be hard to beat because everyone who was hurt last year is healthy again, and the Bruce Bochy magic now works on odd years rather than even ones. Between the two teams you have some of the best players in baseball right now, a few of which didn't even factor into many of the games in this series. The knock-down/drag-out quality of just an April version of Rangers-Dodgers foreshadows the fact that this could very well be a World Series matchup.

That's certainly not something that intimidates Corey Seager, arguably one of the best postseason performers of the last decade. By 31, he's a two-time World Series MVP, and a two-time World Series champion. He's responsible for 19 postseason home runs and 48 postseason RBIs, 20 of those happening during the 2020 playoffs. His last three seasons with Texas he's hit 30+ home runs, a feat made even bigger when you factor in that he never crossed 30 with the Dodgers, even though, surrounded by Cody Bellinger, Joc Pederson and Max Muncy, he never really needed to. And now that Seager's paired with Pedey again, uh...Pedey's not really hitting too well. No matter. Seager's hitting .304 with 4 homers and 6 RBIs already.

The thing about Seager, which is interesting to talk about the week he faces the battery of Betts, Ohtani and Freeman, three surefire future HOFers, is that Seager's HOF case is...borderline. He played on some of the biggest teams of the decade and was the difference-maker on them, had 4 seasons of 5 WAR or more, and placed high among the best contact hitters of his day. His career WAR at the moment is 38, which isn't...crazy, but you also think that if he hadn't gotten injured a bunch of times that'd be in the 50 zone by now. And that would be the factor that keeps Seager from fully recognized greatness, those injury numbers, especially during the Dodgers years. It's why the Dodgers were so willing to let him go...and why the Rangers were so pleasantly surprised that, by and large, he's held together ever since. 

As Seager has become one of the more crucial Rangers, somehow Teoscar Hernandez has fit into LA perfectly. I wasn't sure how much of a presence he'd have in LA, after a fairly middle of the road 2023 in Seattle, but Teoscar has become one of the most lovable parts of an already easy to enjoy Dodgers lineup. Last season with the Dodgers, Teoscar topped his old single season HR total with 33, not counting the 3 he'd blast during the postseason. Three more and he'll top 200 total, as he's already knocked 5 this season. Tesocar is the new cheesy power guy, and unlike your standard grade Max Muncy, he's got the occasional defensive perk and some contact moments. He's now started two different all-star games for two different teams, and he's still a big part of this current Dodgers lineup. Arguably there are more versatile bats, but somebody like Teoscar is perfect for this team, and it's no wonder he's already found his fanbase in LA.

The success of Tesocar, and the Dodgers' lineup in general, is distracting from some pitching woes, like some more starting roulette. Already Snell and Glasnow have gotten hurt, and Landon Knack, Bobby Miller and Justin Wrobleski have all struggled in fill-in starts. It helps that the core of the rotation, Yamamoto, Sasaki and May, has been pretty good so far, but this is the exact kind of musical chairs shit they went through last year, and you'd think they'd have ironed out the kinks by now. Half the guys who should be here, Gonsolin and Kershaw mostly, are still rehabbing. Now even relievers are getting in on the fun, as Blake Treinen and Michael Kopech are out for a bit. You really shouldn't be putting that many eggs in Luis Garcia's basket, not at this age. At the very least a new reliever named Jack Dreyer who I've never heard of has been phenomenal in that position, but who knows how long it'll be before he burns out as well.

Like...it says a lot where, of the two teams, LA's rotation is more of a liability. The Rangers have Jacob deGrom, Tyler Mahle and Nate Eovaldi. And their backup choice is Patrick Corbin, who's been surprisingly pretty good despite being bitten by an animal before his last start, which is genuinely one of the funniest things I've ever heard. Falling in the shower is nothing, here's Patrick Corbin getting bitten by a spider and suddenly becoming phenomenal. After Wade Miley and Noah Syndergaard, the Marvel superhero motifs are just gonna work for me every time.

Anyway, Rangers-Dodgers is fascinating even now. We may see it again later. It may be even more fascinating. 

Coming Tomorrow- He's already hit a ton of home runs this season, but it's one he didn't hit that people are talking about. 

Shota in the Dark

 

The thing about the Cubs right now is...I mean, they look good. Statistically there's a lot that stands out. And you could make the argument that they're looking this good because of those two extra Japan games, but like...they lost those games. It's not THAT much stat beefing. I look at the stretch they've had since and there have been some huge moments. Multiple runaway games, including beating the Dodgers 16-0. One of the best starts by anyone in the game right now. A backup catcher hitting .419 in 31 at-bats. I don't think the extra games have much to do with that.

If anything, the early start has created narratives that have already elapsed. Matt Shaw's unspectacular rookie run at third, which has given way to Jon Berti. Justin Steele's excellent start, leading the MLB in wins before being out for the rest of the season. The return of 'Is PCA really up to this whole majors thing?' discourse before he suddenly started hitting. We've gotten all that out of our system, and a very good baseball team still remains. 

Look at Shota Imanaga so far, proving his 2024 wasn't just a fluke. So far he's 2-1 with a 2.22 ERA and 21 Ks. With Steele gone, Imanaga seems like a trustworthy guy to have at the head of the rotation. There's a lot of those this year, an emphasis on veterans, people like Taillon and Rea and Boyd just hanging around and doing good work. The empty space that Kyle Hendricks left isn't exactly felt, there are enough people doing exactly what they should. With Wesneski gone the one less-tested starter is Ben Brown, and he's at the very least gone 2-1 with 20 Ks. 

After so many years, the Cubs have developed a really strong core, emphasizing contact over all else, where so many different people can be the hero. All of Tucker, Busch, Happ, Hoerner, Suzuki and PCA are all hitting very well, and can all perform in vital situations. PCA has 23 hits and 7 steals. Tucker has 6 homers and 21 RBIs. Busch is hitting .306, proving he's much more versatile than we all thought. So much is really impressing me about this lineup, in a way where Swanson taking a second to heat up isn't worrying me too much. 

I'm very happy with how the Cubs have started the season, but I also know that these teams tend to bend at unfortunate times. The Brewers are gaining, and building their own very good team, and the Cubs are now only a few games ahead of them. If they've got more 10+ run wins in them I'll be comforted, but until they really cushion themselves I'm gonna hold my applause. They may look like a new, dominant Cubs team, but they still haven't made the playoffs since everybody left. We'll see if this version starts a new trend.

Coming Tonight: Perhaps the most valuable player in the league that may never break the tier into superstardom.