The Man Who Wasn't There [and Then Suddenly Was]

 

I think if you wanted to summarize 2020s pitching trends, for better or worse, you couldn't do much better than examining the career of Eduardo Rodriguez. He's been in the league since 2015, and has had some terrific seasons under his belt, including one that resulted in a World Series ring for Boston. This year he's having another nice year, with a 6-2 record and a 2.45 ERA in 15 starts. But something that's always been true with Rodriguez is that once he gives you a grade-a full season...the next year's probably a wash.

And that's the issue with pitching right now, the hard-throwing, all-or-nothing stuff is not sustainable, and ensures some guys are only good every other year. In many cases it means injuries every so often. In Rodriguez's case, the injuries are rare but the stinky in-between years of partial health despite making all the starts are there in their place. Last year for instance, Rodriguez had a 5.02 ERA despite making 29 starts and getting 154 innings. 2022, right when he signed the Tigers deal, was another off, slightly injured year that even included that bit where Rodriguez went MIA midyear. Rodriguez won 19 games in 2019, then missed all of 2020, came back and won 13, then went on his rampage in Detroit. The way he pitches, despite the highs, cannot sustain consistent, consecutive success. 

It's even more evident when Rodriguez is succeeding in the year that Gallen, Kelly, Pfaadt and Nelson are all wiped out because they've been on since 2022. So, those guys are either slumping or hurt, Rodriguez is handling the big games, Mike Soroka is too but...he's not throwing sustainably either, and after a terrific start, HE'S gonna be missing time. And remember, Corbin Burnes is already out this half, and might not even be back til late July. So now the goal is to try and find people who aren't too overexerted to pitch...and not overexert them by making them pitch. 

It wasn't like this in 1978, and I wasn't even alive then.

So I guess the pitching thing is gonna make it harder for the D-Backs to catch LA, because this sort of thing never happens to the Dodgers in a way that wrecks their chances. A shame, cause Carroll, Marte, Moreno, Perdomo and Arenado are all having great years. The bench is becoming a bit worrying though, and the young guys that should be providing depth really aren't. Ryan Waldschmidt and Jose Fernandez didn't have MLB staying power, Lawlar seems to be hurt yet again, Tommy Troy is more unassuming than anything and LuJames Groover hasn't done anything yet. It's half a team, and they're hitting more than the Padres, but without Soroka, and with Kelly and Gallen still struggling, I'm not sure how much longer they'll stay in second. 

I think this is just an unlucky team. They honestly were one Eduardo Rodriguez from squeezing into a wild card spot the last few years. Hopefully he doesn't go down again the next time they need him.

Coming Tonight: One of the most effective relief pitchers in baseball not named Mason Miller.

Our Own Supply

 

Going into this season, my greatest hope was that the Athletics would develop their own starting pitching assets. Because they're tried two different tactics that completely avoid those, and they didn't work. They first tried calling up other people's pitching prospects, and tried getting by with J.P. Sears, James Kaprielian, Ken Waldichuk, Frankie Montas and that ilk. This was not successful. So last year they started over and tried the other tactic, signing decent talent to pitch the big games and farming people under that. This hasn't worked either. Jeffrey Springs has been getting lit up all June for some reason [smirk], Severino strikes people out but can't keep runs down, Civale's a short term solution and the underneath guys from last season haven't made much of an impact. And again, I get why the A's have been so ashamed to bring up their own guys, because a lot of these guys haven't been turning out great in the majors. Joe Boyle was a misfire that's now struggling to stay healthy in Tampa. Joey Estes is very inconsistent. Brady Basso's been really ineffective. Even Luis Morales has struggled this year.

However...hope has arisen. There are two guys in this rotation who are homegrown [or at least were developed by the A's in some way], and they're the most integral starters right now. Finally. 

J.T. Ginn has been on the brink of legitimacy for a few years now, and I think he's finally breaking through. He was fine in a 2024 callup, struggled a bit last year despite some nice late starts, and now he's got a 2.91 ERA with a 1.164 WHIP, 68 Ks and a 2.7 WAR. He went from a rotation also-ran to the one sure bet for a while, and even at 27 he's showing some serious presence in this rotation. Also promising is recent draft pick Gage Jump, who's got a 2.37 ERA, 26 Ks and a 0.989 WHIP in his first five starts. Dude's 23 years old and clicking into place more than Springs, the veteran. This team also has Kade Morris back in the minors, and though he got killed his first start up he's still got a high ceiling. At some point, Henry Baez will be ready, and that will make things very interesting. 

It proves how much further the A's have come even in a year, and how close they are to really being a match in the AL.

Despite a rough week or so, the A's are at .500 and still in 2nd place, and have the offense to stay afloat for a while thanks to Nick Kurtz, Shea Langeliers, Tyler Soderstrom and Zach Gelof. In addition, some new elements have been added, and are aiding this team tremendously. Henry Bolte is playing CF everyday and hitting .317 with 34 hits in 33 games, becoming the kind of fixture I figured Colby Thomas would be this year. Jonah Heim has been a really strong backup catcher in his return to the A's, with 5 homers and 8 RBIs in 21 games [and I know what you're thinking- Heim and a guy named Bolt? What is this, 2019??]. Jacob Wilson is healthy and back to his old contact tricks. And Alika Williams is doing more as a utility infielder here than he did in Pittsburgh for some reason. It's really cool how all of this is coming together.

Unfortunately, because of the pitching, it's not .500+ baseball right now, but it definitely could be, especially if Nick Kurtz keeps at it. I dunno if people are making Ryan Howard comparisons yet, but they absolutely should be.

Coming Tomorrow- A guy that's pitched five terrific seasons. Unfortunately only two of them have been consecutive.  

Under-Armer

 

The good news is that Dustin May narrowly avoids an ironic punchline involving his name. His ERA in the month of May, over his whole career, is lower than any other months, at 3.65. Now, granted, he's only started 14 games in May in 7 years cause he's always hurt, but it's nice that it's not 'his name's May but he gets lit up every May'. Which is nice cause until last year, the joke was 'his name's May but he gets hurt midway through April'. Thankfully he's been healthier since 2025. I remember when we were calling him Gingergaard, cause he was a Noah Syndergaard-esque hard thrower with curly red hair, but now Syndergaard's moved onto a career in shit-stirring, so now May can actually stay healthy. 

This has the potential to be May's fullest, surest season since the pandemic-shortened 2020, and it's with a Cardinals team that is teetering on the brink of being good, which is weird to say about a team that's in 2nd place and 6 games over .500. For a while May, to me, was one of the signs that the team wasn't all the way there yet, as he was getting starts every 5 games and not really doing anything to warrant the job. Then he pitches a 1-hit complete game shutout against the Padres and it becomes clear he's gotten his stuff together. His last four or so starts have been pretty good, the Ks are flying as fast as they were in his peak in LA. Right now he's got a 3.75 ERA, 75 Ks and a 5-6 record, it reflects some early struggles but it's better than what caused LA to trade him in the first place last year. 

It's the Cardinals' rotation that still continues to confuse me, because they're rolling with McGreevy, May, Pallante, Liberatore and Leahy, and until recently they were all kinda getting by without doing anything over the top. Placefiller starters really. McGreevy has a 2.99 ERA but only 51 Ks and a 3-5 record, meaning he's very much at the mercy of the run support, and because Wetherholt, Herrera, Walker and Burleson have been pretty hot recently it hasn't been much of a problem. But...McGreevy being an ace while just being a serviceable leverage guy is...I dunno, man. The Guardians can pull it off cause they have Gavin Williams behind Messick. The Cards have Pallante and May positioned behind McGreevy where...and I'm sorry, but all three would be a 5th man on a better team. I'm sorry. I know they're making it work now and it's fine, but...I just don't see a guy who can serviceably nail a Game 1 of a playoff series. The 2019 team had Jack Flaherty at least. I don't know if McGreevy is there yet. Or if May is that guy all the way through a season.

I'm not disputing this team's ability to hit, though, as it's gotten them way over .500. Jordan Walker leads the league in RBIs with 57, and Alec Burleson's not far behind. Wetherholt's still looking like a major player in the ROY race. Nathan Church is real nifty as an outfield bat. Blaze Jordan seems to be the answer at third, and it takes the sting out of Nolan Gorman not being the answer there [get ready to learn St. Petersburg-ish, my dude]. And Nootbaar's healthy and heating up. 

There's a chance the Cardinals hear all this and make a major deal for a starter. I don't know if they can swing Skubal but they're exactly the kind of team that could surprise everybody for him. Or even a deal for Sandy Alcantara or something. Either somebody becomes the ace or they trade for one, and then they're there pretty much.

Coming Tonight: Arguably another team that doesn't really have an ace, and their closest equivalent. 

Kody-Pendent

 

There's gonna be a lot of talk in 20 years about how the 2020s were defined by second generation players, not just Vlad Jr. and Tatis and Bo and the Hollidays either. You still have guys whose dads had a cup of coffee [or at most a couple donuts in October] in the bigs, like Cody Bellinger, Ronald Acuna Jr., and eventually Eli Willits. 

Ironically, I remember pulling a Reggie Willits card out of 2007 Update. Around when I was looking for that elusive Roger Clemens Yankees card. 

Anyway, the point I was making was that this decade's been inundated with second generation guys who have dictated the direction of the game, and that's really cool. Which is why I wonder how the second-generation guys who were mid-to-low tier will be remembered. There have been guys like Daz Cameron, Cavan Biggio, Nick Gordon and Darren Baker who've tried to find success on name brand recognition alone and haven't gotten as far. Or someone like Ryan Weathers or Hunter Harvey, both of whom have found success but have struggled to sustain it due to injuries. 

I'm actually really intrigued by how Kody Clemens will be remembered, as he might be one of the strangest second-generationers in the league right now. His dad, obviously, is Roger Clemens, pitching icon and mildly controversial MLB figure. Kody made the bigs as a utility infielder, and isn't a pitcher, though the Tigers and Phillies did used to throw him out there as a last-chance mound option and he honestly didn't do too badly. 

With the Twins, Kody Clemens has become essentially a replacement level standout, providing excellent support and good production without being a bankable long term option. Right now he's hitting .250 with 11 homers and 28 RBIs, he's actually above average as a first baseman, and he sort of does his job. On a team like the Twins, where so many long term options are utterly refusing to do their jobs, Kody Clemens being a useful, important piece says a lot. Like, honestly I feel like this is the kind of team Clemens was made for? With the Phils he was useful, but I don't think he was asked for as much as a bench bat as he is here as a starter. I'm not sure if he works as much on a good team, and I know that's weird to say. Especially compared to Byron Buxton, who would be a terrific outfielder and hitter on any team but prefers to stay in Minneapolis because he loves the fanbase and the team. Clemens I think wants bigger things, and will possibly even be traded, but he needs a team like the Twins about as much as they need him. And comparing that to Roger Clemens's presence on any team he was ever on is wild. Roger Clemens made teams; Kody Clemens' teams make Kody Clemens. It's not bad, it's just different.

Barring Clemens and Buxton, still not a hell of a lot going on with this Twins team. They are, however, in third, and ahead of the Tigers for the time being, so they've gotta be doing something right.

Coming Tomorrow- One complete game shutout later and he's not looking like such a bad investment I guess..

Hot Wheels

 

I am amused by the fact that Zack Wheeler and Jacob deGrom seem to have the exact opposite career trajectories. deGrom has an unbelievable career start, then misses a ton of time to injuries and suddenly he's 38 and past his peak. Wheeler missed a ton of seasons in his 20s, locked in at 28 and never looked back, now pitching as strong as ever at 36. In about 10 years there's gonna be a lot of conversations about who was better, and at his peak, deGrom was better than anybody. 

But...let's actually compare. From 2018 til now, Zack Wheeler has a 98-53 record, a 3.06 ERA, 1530 strikeouts, a 1.056 WHIP and a 41.0 WAR. From 2014 til 2021, Jacob deGrom had a 77-53 record, a 2.50 ERA, 1505 Ks, a 1.011 WHIP and 39.7 WAR. That is...close. It depends on what you value. That's 198 games of deGrom vs. 227 games of Wheeler...with playoff starts. And...this period of Wheeler's career is still going, cause he hasn't left his peak yet. I thought there'd be a chance with that injury last season, but since he's been back, Wheels is 6-1 with a 2.01 ERA, 62 Ks and a 3.3 WAR. That is a 10 game period and he's still been one of the best pitchers in baseball. 36 years old.

Wheels' Phillies run has been absolutely legendary, like what if Roy Halladay never got hurt. He's been so consistent, so reliable, so likable and genuinely among the best in the league every year. Three times now he has been robbed of a Cy Young, and seeing as he already missed a month it's looking like it'll be four times. With Wheels, Sanchez and Luzardo, plus the possibility of Andrew Painter eventually getting his act together, this rotation seems to be sorted for a while going forward. This next week or so, maybe more, will be tricky, because with Painter down, we're left with a hole in the fifth spot, and no one is quite sure how to fill it. Alan Rangel maybe? Bryse Wilson? Possibly some Iron Pig having a nice stretch? Whoever it ends up being, they need to add some kind of stability, cause we weren't getting it with Nola and Painter together.

Similarly, filling right field for the rest of the year will be tricky with Adolis Garcia down. Gabriel Rincones and Derek Hill are both getting looks but aren't completely there yet. Dombrowski seems to have a plan for the deadline, but until then they just need to find a working fill-in, and I think that will be Rincones, who looks okay. Thankfully enough of the rest of this team is working that it's just those spots, but they're pivotal spots. Bryce is going cold again, but Turner's heating up, and Schwarber just keeps doing his thing, so I think there can be balance, and it can keep this Phils team moving forward.

We should be able to find leverage over the Mets, but given the fun Juan Soto had with Aaron Nola, you can't really tell. 

Coming Tonight: His dad apparently had the odd start in the majors, and now he's doing his own thing in a smaller market. 

Ray-versal of Fortune

 

Guys, I think that rainout the Rays had against the Yankees last month changed the course of their season. Before then they'd been on top of the world, since then they're 7-15. Mind you, they had 15 losses by that point in May anyway, and they've doubled that in less than a month. Could it be that resting a team on the laurels of an ace who hasn't pitched in 3 years, a speedy hitter who refuses to hit home runs, a production machine that can't play first, the single worst everyday hitter in baseball this decade, and the Rays' worst bullpen since pre-Cash, hasn't turned out to be as strong of a strategy as they thought?

I continue to not understand why the Rays continue to trot Taylor Walls out there. He's one of the best shortstops in the game defensively, that bit I understand, but that's literally it. He's once again absolutely refusing to hit and he's still getting the starts. If this Rays team was as good as it claims to be, there'd be someone who can actually hit playing shortstop and Walls would just be a sturdy ute. But they couldn't have that. I say that, but we've seen Cedric Mullins hit in Baltimore and it's just not happening here, he's a .198 hitter with barely any real upsides this year. The gap between the production core, Caminero, Aranda and Diaz, and everything else is ASTOUNDING. This is why you don't trade Brandon Lowe, because you go from a very varied, consistent lineup to three great power hitters and a lot of dead air. Throwing in Ryan Vilade and Ben Williamson helps on occasion but I don't know if they've really found a working model for success yet. That's a wild thing to say about a 2nd place team still in reach of a division title, but it seems true now.

And it makes the hitters that are working even more valuable. When the Franco thing happened, the immediate inclination was to rush Junior Caminero, and that's how we got like 2 seasons where Caminero would show up midyear, not do much and not make camp next spring. Then 2025 happens, he's for real, this is the guy...we're on firmer ground. Right now Caminero's hitting .272 with 15 homers and 33 RBIs. Not quite as huge as 2025 so far, but on a decent pace, and possibly on the way to another ASG nod. And he's only 22. I really think this guy is the future for Tampa, and I really think they ought to figure out a way to keep him on long term. It worked for Yandy Diaz, he's still an excellent power bat all this time later. They need to lock him down, and it sucks that a lockout might not even make that a further possibility. 

This team has enough production to keep ahead of the pack, and enough solid pitching seasons [Rasmussen, Martinez and until recently McClanahan] to equalize competitors. It just hasn't been as forceful since mid-May, and as such the Yankees have retaken the division [and considering what they've done to the White Sox this week, may hold onto it]. You can never truly count the Rays out, but unless they can fix the lineup dissonance this may be all they can do this year.

Coming Tomorrow- Undoubtedly the single most dominant pitcher of the 2020s. Like a switch flipped.

The Winds Just Aren't Picking Up

 

Fernando Tatis, in 2021, at age 22, hit 42 home runs in 130 games. Sometime after that he was involved in, depending on who you talk to, one or multiple motorcycle accidents, followed by a quad injury a couple years later. He has not surpassed 25 dingers since. 

So far this season, Tatis has hit...two home runs. It happens so infrequently now that one of them was hit in the ninth inning of a game in San Diego that a colleague of mine attended. Maybe it's cause he can't attend anymore games. But still, we've gone from 42 in a shortened season to 2 in 72 games. That's jarring. It's clear something's changed in his swing, and the power ceiling that was there in the early part of the decade might not be as high as it was.

However, Tatis is still having a positive season. .284 average, 79 hits, 26 RBIs. Not a worldbeater, but he's shifted to doing contact work that can aid the already contact-heavy Padres [Bogaerts, Cronenworth, and Merrill are also good in that department]. He's also still one of the team's best hitters. But...here's the thing. The idea was for Tatis and Machado, and to a lesser extent Gavin Sheets, to represent an ironclad power core for this Padres team going forward, and to this point they'd obliged. But now Tatis isn't hitting for power, Machado's power's gotten a ton more one-dimensional, and Sheets is doing more work than he honestly should be. So if this team doesn't really have a power game...and the solo contact guys are doing most of the work...then what are we even doing here? The depth's been sweated away, and when you're down to guys like Rodolfo Duran, Will Wagner and Samad Taylor needing to jump in, it's clear how much has strayed from the plan.

The Padres are hitting .218 as a team. A lot of that is due to Manny Machado not even pretending to reach .200, and Freddy Fermin, Jake Cronenworth and Nick Castellanos not finding it either. If the pitching wasn't better, especially the bullpen, this team would have no chance. But King, Vasquez, Buehler and Giolito are somehow doing enough to keep games close, and the bullpen can very easily finish it off. So as wild as it seems that THIS Padres team, with Tatis not finding the stands and Machado not finding the grass, is still a 2nd place team [and over .500]...well, they're pitching well. That's the key. It's not enough to lap the Dodgers, especially not now, but it's enough to keep them ahead of the D-Backs, who arguably have better individual starting performances and better hitting but keep getting their clocks cleaned by streaky teams. 

Who knows. Maybe they're gonna start hitting. Maybe Tatis is gonna start raking. But as it stands now, this is no way to hit one's way past the Dodgers.

Coming Tonight: It's an unsteady tightrope, being a marquee guy for a team who can't keep talent around, but this guy might have it figured out.