Kid Gloves

 

Right now, in Williamsport, PA, the Little League Classic is going on between the Yankees and Tigers. I feel really bad for the Tigers, because the Yanks have people like Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Gerrit Cole, even Jazz Chisholm and Jasson Dominguez came along for the ride, and...I think the Tigers had to activate Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter, and call up Spencer Torkelson, so the kids would have anybody to be excited about on their side. Like, what 12 year old wants to hang out with post-Cubs Javier Baez? 

I exaggerate a little, the Tigers actually do have some fun picks for the little leaguers to spend time with, like Tarik Skubal, Jason Foley, and the two big rookies of the week, Jace Jung and Trey Sweeney. But I really don't hope the Tigers aren't getting their feelings hurt by all the kids racing to hang out like the Yankees. They're a perfectly adequate team, but they happened to come to town with a team that every team wants to talk baseball with. Like, the Yankees? Any era? Come on.

Still, the Tigers have still found some moments to stifle the Yankees during this season. Keider Montero was part of a battery that silenced the Yanks yesterday, and as I write this Tarik Skubal's doing a pretty good job of that as well. People like Torkelson, Vierling and Keith are capable of coming up and delivering in crucial moments. And yes, you can definitely see a clearer picture of the future with Jace Jung finally taking third. Honestly, an infield of Torkelson, Keith, Sweeney and Jung might be the model for a while in Detroit, and seeing it finally click into place is a pretty cool feeling.

That's not to discredit some of the veteran, replacement-style choices that have also been successful for the Tigers this year. Andy Ibanez has continued to be a reliable defensive infield choice, and on top of that he still hits .265. Ibanez, like Jake Rogers and Parker Meadows, have been giving great defensive performance that at least keeps the team sturdy without completely going all in on the need for great hitting. Clearly Torkelson and Keith are not fully reliable at defensive positions yet, and having these upgrades still keeps the Tigers from going make-or-break on these guys. 

Now, are some of these veteran guys really feeling like replacement-level holdovers? Yes, I think the Tigers still very much regret signing Javier Baez for that long, and for that much money. Similarly, the Tigers could have DFA'd Kenta Maeda a while ago, but not only do they need starting innings right now but they're paying him 14 million this year. In a lot of cases, the Tigers' hands are tied, and they can't completely move onto open spaces for the next stage of the team. So we're still in this awkward position where you can see the team begin to develop but they can't entirely.

Next year will hopefully be another step in the right direction, and hopefully Jung and Sweeney will give them even more sure bets going forward. But until then, they're not exactly gonna be winning popularity contests with teenagers in Williamsport.

Coming Tomorrow- His team was out of the race a week or so ago, and now they're breathing down the neck of the wild card race. Just one problem...their best player just got injured.

Wake Up Call

 

The Nationals are, by design, a very young team. You have people like C.J. Abrams, James Wood, Jacob Young, Luis Garcia, Mitchell Parker, D.J. Herz, now Jose Tena, all guys who are under 25 and providing crucial support to this team. Yet at the same time, this is a Nats regime that has allowed for a story like Joey Meneses, who took the league by storm as a 30-year-old rookie in 2022, a year after 33-year-old Yadiel Hernandez broke through in a similar manner. The rookies and breakthrough players don't need to be young, 'future of the team' guys in order to truly make a difference.

Case in point: as people were being dealt at the end of July, the Nats called up Alex Call, who seemed like he'd be here to stay after a strong 2023 but was blocked at multiple positions to start the season. Call is in his third season of MLB play, but he's 29 years old. He's at the benchmark where most players strive for free agency numbers, rather than still struggling to make one's mark. There's a whole conversation about how players take longer to progress through the minors now, and start their MLB careers at 25 or 26 rather than in their early 20s, and while that is the safer course of action it does rob us of a lot of long, 20 year careers. The myth of Dave Winfield, the guy who walked right out of the draft and onto the Padres' roster, seems to have passed through.

Yet someone like Call can still be a great service to a Nats team that is just trying to end the season with some shred of dignity. In 24 major league games this year, Call is hitting .367 with 12 RBIs and 29 hits. The man just keeps finding new and exciting ways to get on base, and with Lane Thomas and Jesse Winker gone, there's outfield room for him to play everyday and stay at this pace. To be honest, the Nats could go with a Young-Wood-Call outfield for a little while. Young blossomed this year, he's a really versatile OF piece, and Wood is slowly coming along hitting .289 in 40 games. 

And that's the cool part. You're seeing both short term and long term solutions in Washington. Juan Yepez is the short term 1B solution, his power numbers have been fantastic, while Andres Chaparro seems like the longer term 1B solution, just as his own power bat improves. MacKenzie Gore is seeming more like a short-term starter, as his all-K/no nuance stuff works until the homegrown guys like Irvin, Parker and Herz can really take over. Ildemaro Vargas is a sharp short term solution at third, while Jose Tena smooths out the wrinkles now so he can take over eventually. 

The Nats are still a few more years away, so they need guys like Alex Call to keep things moving now so that when they can compete, everybody's ready and they can start tacking on more strategic contract pieces as supplemental additions. The Nats seem closer to putting together a working core than tearing it all down again, and hopefully they have enough at the end of this season to bring with them to 2025.

Coming Tonight: A useful infielder for a team that...somehow silenced mine yesterday. 

Odd Timing for a Backup Plan

 

The Rays are technically still in the playoff race, but only nominally. They're 6.5 games out of a wild card spot, and while the Mariners are dropping like a stone the Rays are steadily winning around as many as they're losing. The main issue is that because they lightened the load and sent some of their big pieces packing, they no longer hold a candle to the Yankees, Orioles, Red Sox or even the lighter-but-still-hot Blue Jays. The Jays at least have someone like Vlad Jr. hitting like a storm, and the Rays really don't have an everyman type of guy like that anymore. 

So really, it's been on Brandon Lowe's shoulders for a lot of the year. Lowe was a big deal in 2019, coming in as a defensively-inclined rookie with power perks, and made waves with an incredible 2021 where he chased 40 homers, but never really provided consistent offensive support after that. 2024 has been something of a return to form for Lowe, as he's hit .248 with 14 homers and 48 RBIs, while also fully embracing the leadership position that's no doubt been placed upon him. Lowe is a rare above-average hitter that's stayed consistent in Tampa this year, and it's really only him and Yandy Diaz left who can be really relied upon at the plate right now. 

However, the Rays have recently been revitalized by the activations of Jeffrey Springs and Drew Rasmussen, who'd both been hurt for a year. Springs' activation came at the same time Jason Adam was dealt, meaning Springs found a very funny way of becoming the last remaining member of the Pride Month holdouts in Tampa. Since coming back, Springs has been...reminiscent of his 2022 self without completely bowling people over. He's got a 3.86 ERA and 21 Ks in 4 starts, meaning his 0.00 start to 2023 may have just been very circumstantial. Rasmussen is similarly mediocre so far, with a 5.40 ERA in 3 appearances, only 1 of them starting. Rasmussen will likely get more starts now that Zach Littell is hurt, but he'll need to quickly return to form. Taj Bradley and Ryan Pepiot are still strong at the head of the rotation, but this is a team that's seen pitchers really dominate, and the bar is 'well he's doing well enough right now' this year.

Additionally, we're seeing Junior Caminero back in the majors, and he's already got 3 hits in as many games. The general idea right now seems to be, instead of embracing the low budget, for-rent strategy that got the Rays this far, trying to plug in as many people that worked last year [a year where they actually made the playoffs] and hoping that works. And at the moment it's only working so much. They do match up well against Arizona, but they've had a dismal August so far, and seeing that it ends with games against the Dodgers, Mariners and Padres, it may not be a given that things improve. I think the Rays can never be completely counted out, but if someone like Springs can't provide much of a spark then I don't know what to tell you.

Coming Tomorrow- After people left at the deadline he was brought up to conserve energy, and I'd say he's been doing a good job of that.

Ahead By a Century

 

The NL Wild Card race, at the moment, comes down to who will nab the last spot, be it one of the NL East challengers or a competitor from the Central scrum. The top two seem to be set pretty in stone, covered by the Padres and Diamondbacks, both being red hot at the moment and so far ahead of anybody else that it seems like a foregone conclusion at this point. In fact, it remains to be seen whether of them will challenge the Dodgers for the division. 

Which means we're going into a playoff race in the NL West where, even if the outcome has been decided, there is still tension in who ends up where, and how. Could somebody dethrone LA? Could it somehow be the Diamondbacks, catching the same tailwinds they caught last year?

For a lot of this year, the D-Backs were essentially defined by Ketel Marte and Christian Walker. Then Walker got hurt, a bunch of people were activated and things evened out. Geraldo Perdomo has been back for a month and a half, and he's making up for lost time by hitting .281 and playing excellent defense. Zac Gallen missed his month of time and is still 9-5 with some vintage Gallen excellence. Merrill Kelly's first start back went pretty well, and he should be rolling again in no time. Even Eddie Rodriguez is FINALLY back and performing well enough in his first two starts, only giving up 3 runs in each. It feels like a large portion of this team has finally been restored.

Like, going into this year we foresaw a rotation of Gallen-Kelly-Montgomery-Rodriguez-Pfaadt, and now after FOUR AND A HALF MONTHS OF SEASON, we FINALLY have it. It took playing Ryne Nelson as a pen guy, but we actually have the five guys that people came to see performing at a high level. Montgomery's not at his 2023 form, but pretty much everybody else is pitching like they were supposed to. Pfaadt is honestly the revelation- he's the only one to make 24 starts, and he's kept his ERA at 3.50 and has 135 Ks. They needed him to become a consistent guy, especially considering the other 2023 pitching rookie that ruled the postseason has been blackballed due to sports betting. 

And additionally, people like Eugenio Suarez, Jake McCarthy, flamethrowing Justin Martinez, rookie Adrian Del Castillo, and the apparently unstoppable Josh Bell, are fueling this team's come-up. Nabbing Bell was a move I didn't think much of at the time, but he's not only been a great fill-in for Christian Walker but an excellent power bat in his own right, hitting .283 with 9 RBIs and 4 homers. Plus, now Corbin Carroll's finally heating up. In August alone he has a .261 average and a .933 OPS, with 12 hits, 7 RBIs and 3 homers. This is the production the team was waiting for, and hopefully he can build back to his 2023 supremacy.

The bottom line is...this D-Backs team looks just as good as it did in the thick of the 2023 postseason, only now it has better depth and more great starters. If this team stays at this pace...we all could be in trouble.

Coming Tonight: I'm still kinda surprised he stuck around after July, but evidently the Rays still have a plan for him. 

Bottoming Out in August

 Right now, there are a lot of teams vying for wild card spots, and there's a lot of tension as to which teams will be able to funnel late momentum into actual playoff runs. And you're seeing teams that may not have been in the race before, like the Reds, Cubs and Rays, inch their way into relevance. But at the same time, you're also seeing teams that made moves and were competitive weeks ago that are now further than ever from playoff spots. 

There's two teams in particular that have really fallen out of the race, perhaps irreparably so. One is the Pittsburgh Pirates, a team whose competitive midyear run, and buying nature at the deadline, came as a surprise to many people, but whose inability to stay in the hunt shouldn't be surprising at all. The other is the Texas Rangers, a team that won it all last season by avoiding the complete drop-off that this team is now experiencing this year. The Pirates are 7.5 games back from a wild card spot, further than the Reds, Cubs or Cardinals. The Rangers, meanwhile, are so far back from an AL wild card spot that baseball reference doesn't even include them in the chart. Keep in mind, the Nationals are still included on the NL side. They don't include teams that are 10 or more games back, which means...that's not good, folks. They're also 10 games back from the division, too. 

We're really at the point where we could technically count out the Rangers with a month and a half left. This is a team that took the world by storm last year and outdid the odds. But...as Bochy used to only operate on even years before, now his Rangers seem to exist on odd years now. And 2024 might be a wash for them solely because of the injury problem. Scherzer, deGrom, Gray and Eovaldi have been hurt for large swaths of the year, and getting Cody Bradford and Tyler Mahle back now seems like too little, too late. Bradford got chased for his first two starts back but seems to have mellowed out, and is approaching his 2023 dominance again. Mahle has yet to notch a win in 2 starts back but he has a 2.79 ERA and 9 Ks. The idea is for deGrom to return momentarily, but who knows how much of a boost he'll be at this point. 

The Rangers are also experiencing down seasons from some crucial 2023 pieces, like Adolis Garcia, Andrew Heaney, Dane Dunning, Leody Taveras and Travis Jankowski. The fun hitting depth this team flashed last season seems diluted, even with Robbie Grossman back on the bench. Seager, Semien and Langford are still pretty durable, but Josh Jung missed a huge chunk of season and is now struggling to get back up to speed while his brother takes the corner dish in Detroit. All the elements that made the Rangers a true competitor last season seem to not be there this year.

Meanwhile, everything that made the Pirates seem promising just WEEKS ago seems gone as well. They've only won one game this month so far. Even with the additions of Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Bryan de la Cruz and Jalen Beeks, this team has dropped off, with series against the red-hot Padres and still good Dodgers just not going their way at all. It helps that Paul Skenes is still excellent, but now he's giving his all during a period where nobody else is, and it's getting to the point where people are questioning whether the Pirates should be limiting his innings to ensure he makes it all the way to the end of the season. 

There have been some signs of life, like Joey Bart surprisingly making a true case to be starting catcher next season, despite the existence of both Henry Davis and Endy Rodriguez. Bart is not the guy the Giants thought they'd be getting, but he's still hitting .273 with 33 RBIs and 11 homers in Pittsburgh, and has become a somewhat reliable bat, even as Yasmani Grandal continues his late career decline as the starter. You're also still seeing highlights from Oneil Cruz and Bryan Reynolds. But the full team scrappy energy that was there earlier in the year isn't showing up now, and it's really just been down to only a few reliable players per game.

The intriguing news is that, while the Pirates are the ones closer to reentering the scrum, they're also currently playing the Mariners, who've dropped like a stone since retaking 1st earlier in the week. And in a battle of two unlucky dropping teams, one is going to have to gain momentum. Why not the Pirates? Wouldn't be funny if they came back now and shocked everyone? Of the two, they're the ones that could!

Coming Tomorrow- He came off the IL right when his team started getting 2023-style amazing again.

Ten Years and 224 Salvy Homers Later

 

It occurred to me earlier that the Royals right now are pretty much in the same position they were ten years ago, which is 'right on the cusp of a wild card spot with a homegrown phenom running the show and another excellent Salvador Perez season, plus a surprisingly well-stocked rotation made mostly up of wise acquisitions'. We've really lapped ourselves. In fact, I'd even say that 2024 Bobby Witt is better than 2014 Eric Hosmer. And this rotation might be better too. 

It's just going to come down to luck and circumstances. It is helpful that there's now three wild card spots. But that means that if the Royals are still hanging onto this last one at the end of the season, they'll have to play a division leader. At the moment that's Houston. And that's...not something I'm looking forward to indulging, because the second it hits October the Astros just lock in, and I don't know if the Royals are there yet.

But what's very clear is how much the Royals have been building over the past month or so. They're 10 games over .500, they've got an MVP candidate and a Cy Young candidate, they established superiority over the majority of the division, and they have erased memory of their June/July slump. The additions of Paul deJong, Michael Lorenzen and Lucas Erceg have made them a better team. Even the return of Kris Bubic, in a relief role due to the overpacked rotation that even brought Alec Marsh back to the minors, has been going extremely well. 

Again, the key is the youth core that took a year more than expected to really blossom. It looked like this team was gearing up for something big in 2022, but injuries and inefficiency put a stop to that. Michael Massey is now fully MLB ready, with great defensive numbers paired with a .762 OPS. In fact, the defense on this team, including people like Kyle Isbel, Freddy Fermin, Adam Frazier, Garrett Hampson and SOMEHOW M.J. MELENDEZ, has been routinely great. Fermin getting to catch regularly while Perez can slide over to DH makes it win-win. And obviously Witt is still an excellent defensive shortstop, in addition to outhitting everybody south of Judge. 

Meanwhile, the Royals are gonna end the season with a rotation that rivals the Mariners' and Phillies' for full consistency. Lugo, Singer, Ragans and Wacha have all had excellent seasons, and Lorenzen is continuing at his Texas pace for another strong campaign. This team, with these assets and this degree of excellence, could be a postseason threat. The only thing that worries me is the recent downturn, as well as how they match up against the Twins.

But still, the Royals very well might have something here, and they could be a surprise postseason threat in a year that already seems pretty well defined.

Coming Tonight: The Giants gave up on him. And as he ascends again, his team's giving up in general.

Comeback Capital of New York

 

I think Steve Cohen is realizing that the trick with this Mets team is not paying millions for big stars, but giving a chance to people that the other guys aren't looking that and watching them have the best seasons they've had in years. Obviously getting Lindor, keeping Nimmo and swinging Martinez at the last second have paid off for the Mets, but it's the guys that nobody thought twice about that have made this Mets team such a surprise competitor.

Case in point: the Mets' best starting pitcher right now is a guy whose 2023 went so badly that nobody wanted him. Sean Manaea was a reliable starter for the A's, despite some injury-plagued campaigns here and there. The Padres got a decent enough year out of him in 2022, though he wasn't comparable to someone like Yu Darvish or Joe Musgrove. But last year in San Francisco, Manaea struggled in a swing role, going 7-6 with a 4.44 ERA in 37 appearances, only 10 as a starter. Even as a longman Manaea's perks seemed relatively sparse. And so when the Mets signed Manaea for a one year deal, it wasn't initially meant to be much of an endorsement. The rotation was relatively set for 2024, they were going with Kodak Senga, Jose Quintana, Luis Severino, David Peterson and Tylor Megill, with Joey Lucchesi or Jose Butto subbing in if need be. Then Senga gets hurt and Megill does his usual flakey thing, and so Manaea becomes an Opening Day rotation member.

In 23 starts since then, Manaea has been just as good as he was in Oakland, perhaps due to the cutting of his early-2010s locks. Manaea is currently 8-5 with a 3.44 ERA, a team-leading 125 strikeouts and a 2.1 WAR. Even for a rotation lacking in a true anchor [like deGrom, Scherzer or Verlander], Manaea has been a veteran presence with consistency and skill perks. You look at Jose Quintana, and he's still very good, and capable of great starts, but he's 35 and far from his Chicago numbers. Same with Sevvy, clearly he can't strike people out like he used to in the Bronx. But Manaea, despite some down years, has reemerged with all of his best traits as a big-game pitcher intact, and he'll be a major asset to the Mets if they are to pursue a Wild Card spot.

It's not just Manaea whose career has been resurrected in New York. Equally crucial is Jose Iglesias, who sort of petered off after a series of yearlong stints, culminating in a down year in Colorado. I just kind of assumed his career was kinda done, but the Mets gave him a shot and not only has he been hitting .329 with 20 RBIs in 50 games, but his self-penned 'OMG' song has become a fanfare at CitiField upon big wins. First Edwin Diaz's Timmy Trumpet anthem in 2022, now this OMG thing here. The Mets just know how to set trends. I'd also put Harrison Bader into this category, he had a weak year in 2023 and now he's at least hitting .268 with 40 RBIs. And I suppose Luis Torrens is having a comeback year, hitting .277 with 13 RBIs and 3 homers in 29 games. The people you wouldn't expect to be vital pieces of a competitor. And here they are.

The Mets have been looking very good recently, even if logically it's because their schedule has hit an easy period. Like they had no trouble with the A's today, none at all. The Marlins are in town next. It's only when they have to play Baltimore that I think they'll truly be challenged, and hopefully they'll have built enough momentum by that point to make it work. It'd be a very fun outcome if the Mets made it work this way. Not by outspending, but by using the exact opposite tactic. THAT would be hysterical. 

Coming Tomorrow- A middle infielder for a team on the razor's edge of a playoff berth.