Dropping the Cargo

 

I don't think that 2026 is gonna be enough to completely end the Tigers' current run. I think with the youth that is still coming, and that will remain, they will still be able to compete in the next few years, and can still evolve even with this year. This has just been insanely unlucky for them. It took until now for them to find a rotation that didn't fall apart, and for Framber Valdez to stop coughing up runs. They only won six games during the entire month of May, and are in 4th, barely staying ahead of Kansas City. It's a setback year more than anything.

But...that setback is gonna cost them Tarik Skubal.

Looking ahead to the trade deadline season, I'm already predicting this is gonna be a kind of quiet one comparatively. Some of the biggest assets might be relief specialists and second string catchers and role players. People are trying to go 'will Mike Trout leave' or 'will Byron Buxton leave', and...no. Stop that. They both wanna retire with their current team, drumming this shit up again is gonna waste everyone's time. What WILL be happening, unless the Tigers get their act together in 30 days, is Tarik Skubal's gonna be headed elsewhere. It won't kill the development, as the Tigers will still have Casey Mize, and they'll get Reese Olson and Jackson Jobe back next year. Plus I feel like they've still got some big arms on the way given the farm system's recent success rate. Skubal will not ruin the team, not when they still have Mize and Valdez both doing well as of late. 

And Skubal's had a nice season, with a 3.02 ERA and 57 Ks in 9 starts. It's a little less consistent than usual, and limited thanks to an injury, but it's still peak Skubal. I can only imagine he's being shopped as we speak, and I can only imagine the usual suspects want him. The Dodgers technically don't need pitching right now, but they're greedy enough that they'd offer like Emmet Sheehan, Justin Wrobleski and Landon Knack for him, something silly like that, cause they can. The Yankees do have enough prospects to chase them but Cashman's gonna be like 'do we really NEED to trade Jasson Dominguez, the guy I only play when he's either cold or about to get injured?'. The Cardinals could come out of nowhere and nab him to make themselves competitors. The O's could do it like they were going to two years ago, and offer up all the prospects they don't have room to play. There are probably others. I don't see anyone topping the Dodgers' offer but I'd love to be surprised.

Without Skubal, the Tigers still have some life, including a strong campaign from Keider Montero filling in for Justin Verlander, see excellent stuff from Troy Melton filling in for Jack Flaherty, the usual strong standard of production from Riley Greene, dingers all over the place from Dillon Dingler [who'd have thought, right??], and that ROY-caliber campaign from Kevin McGonigle. They're just too unlucky overall to really be a match for Cleveland or Chicago. I'm not saying they're completely out of it yet, but Skubal's got his foot basically out the door a month before the deadline, so that can't be helpful.

Coming Tonight: A guy who somehow managed to hold down the Yankees this weekend [much like Framber Valdez did last night]. 

4 Real?

 

So we have graduated from 'the NL Central has 5 teams over .500 looking good' to 'the NL East has 4 teams over .500 looking good and also the Mets'. I'll take it.

The Nationals might be the most intriguing team in baseball right now because they're suddenly looking like they're for real, even if logically they're probably another year away. They don't have the pitching yet, they're still trotting Miles Mikolas out there every 5 days. But...they're outhitting virtually everyone in the division right now. I used to think it was just Abrams and Wood, but it's really not. Daylen Lile is still a really ferocious contact guy, and has 8 homers and 37 RBIs. He also has 3 triples, tied with Nasim Nunez, the league leader in stolen bases. Curtis Mead has been extremely helpful in a corner infield spot, with 11 homers and 34 RBIs. Keibert Ruiz is actually having a pretty nice run, with a .280 average, a .783 OPS and 29 RBIs. I was fearing Ruiz had hit his ceiling but he's still got some pop to work with.

And now, suddenly...and I could be wrong on this...I think Dylan Crews might be taking off finally. He's got 5 homers and 16 RBIs in 28 games. It's not pretty, and he still strikes out too much, but he's showing more life than he did before. As I'm writing this he already has another RBI against the Phillies. If they get him working, which is still kinda a long shot but still possible, that could be pretty cool. I dunno when Brady House or Robert Hassell will be fully ready but that could also be a nice aspect if this team continues to build. There's still one or two pieces that feel a bit replacement level, Jose Tena and Jorbit Vivas chief among them. But they're much closer than they were to a really intimidating roster.

And again...I've had the thought of 'what if it happens this year??' Cause they genuinely have been a match for some great teams, and have had outrageous showings against the Braves, Mariners, Padres, Orioles and Guardians. The thing about the rotation is that even if they lack a wow factor ace, a Chris Sale or Paul Skenes type, they have some efficient guys that aren't unreliable as much as they're unlucky. Zack Littell is 6-6, and has a number of really strong starts under his belt, but the rough ones just outweigh them right now. Cade Cavalli has a really strong upside but his ERA's just over 4. Andrew Alvarez is young and a bit untested but he's been pretty stable in his last few starts. Foster Griffin is the surest thing on this team, and even if he's not, like, unbeatable, the Merrill Kelly comparisons should honestly be there, because he's completely rebuilt himself and has been really steady in his first season stateside. Efficiency is just the name of the game. Brad Lord, the longman, is efficient as hell, moreso than a lot of starters. Richard Lovelady, Clayton Beeter and P.J. Poulin are just efficient, sturdy relief pieces. It just works, even if it isn't always pretty.

The Nationals, honestly like the Marlins, have enough depth and perks to really stand a chance in the wild card race if things continue at this pace. If not, the Nats will probably be competitive anyway in a year or so, so it all works out.

Coming Tomorrow- One of the best pitchers in the AL. Who knows how long he'll be staying in the AL though.

From the Insides Out

 

Well clearly you can see the problem with this Jays team. Bo gone, Tony Taters hurt, Kirk out for a month and a half, Vladdie and Springer slumping, Barger hurt, Gimenez and Sanchez cold. All the depth this team had last year and now they're throwing out Yohendrick Piñango and hoping for the best. Egad.

I think the Yanks series kinda said it all, and the Cubs series said a little more. Lightning isn't striking twice with this team, and I know how because it's June, The Month Where the Jays Get Inexplicably Hot, and they're still mid. The Yankees took 2 from the Jays, then the Cubs massacred them on Gausman's watch, to the point where even the highlight of the week, a sweep of the Red Sox, looked inadequate. Like yeah, you can sweep the Sox, anyone could do that, but you go up against a higher profile bad team like the Cubs and get rocked. Where's all the common men? Why are they playing so commonly?

Vlad Jr.'s clearly fallen off, he's only hitting .279 after a rough June and only has 4 homers and 31 RBIs this season. It's just a down year, and he does have those from time to time, but it's happening at such a rough time for this team. Without a solid leader, they need more from the secondary guys like Ernie Clement and Nathan Lukes, and that doesn't work as well. Only one guy on this team has over 10 homers [Kazuma Okamoto], and nobody has an OPS over .800, though Brandon Valenzuela is scraping up against it. It's just not a terribly interesting lineup, which is a shame because...look at what we just had! We just had 'even the bench can kick your ass'. We just had a swiss army knife of guys you've never heard of that hit .300. Now they're just guys you've never heard of AND WILL NEVER HEAR AGAIN.

It's making nice seasons from Dylan Cease and Trey Yesavage seem pedestrian. And let's not forget, the Blue Jays have a guy who's working on one of the best relief seasons in baseball, and that's 2025 trade deadline acquisition Louis Varland. Varland's having a terrific year, with an 0.86 ERA, 57 strikeouts, 15 saves and only 4 earned runs in 42 innings. It is dominance that Louie has shown since the beginning of his 2025 season with Minnesota, and he has only locked in further and further. This guy is one of the factors keeping the Jays on the side of good, along with some other bullpen compatriots [Tyler Rogers, Spencer Miles, Braydon Fisher]. But if the team doesn't hit, that can only do so much.

I still think the Jays have a shot, and they've shown slightly more consistency than Baltimore. If they can get Guerrero to start hitting again they have a chance, especially with Kirk back. I just see the flaws and the replacement level guys and I understand why they're not doing what they did last year. But hey, a lot can change in 3 months.

Coming Tonight: Well, he hasn't hit as many triples as last year so far, but he's still really dangerous at the plate. 

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..