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An interesting thing about grabbing guys off the waiver wire, or signing them as freegies after they pass through waivers, is you often see your team grabbing guys out of the same organization, losing teams to the same organization. Maybe there's a favorite scout that they trust who has just returned from a look at that team. Transactions, 5/26/2026 GOING Transferred from 10-Day to 60-Day Injured List with Lubar Spine Disc Herniation Signed away by TBR to Minor-League Contract Outfielders Luis Robert, Jr. Austin Slater R/R DoB: 1997-08-03 High Level: MLB (2026) R/R DoB: 1992-12-13 High Level: MLB (2026) Merely hours after signing a post-waivers Craig Kimbrel to a minor-league contract, the Rays extended the same courtesy to Austin Slater, who similarly exercised his veteran's right to refuse a minor-league assignment and shop himself around. At 34-18 and in first place in the big-spending AL East, all the while playing in a park they had to fix up just to get the team to return in preparation for leaving again, the Rays may the best team in baseball at the same time as being the most irrelevant. It's a strange world, and the Rays may be collecting players waived by a last-place team, but they are sure doing something right. Luis Robert, Jr. got bumped to the 60-Man IL to make room for recent roster jugglage, so while the assignment may not represent a change in his health status, there isn't much of a peep of his improvement, leaving the Mets, among other things, a little short of righthanded hitters. Transactions, 5/27/2026 COMING Sent to Binghamton on Rehab Assignment Infielders Jorge Polanco S/R DoB: 1999-11-13 High Level: MLB (2026) While that righthanded hitter shortage has led the Mets to give a second look to corner infielder/corner outfielder Eric Wagaman, Jorge Polanco looms in the professional on-deck circle, suggesting Waggy's time could again be short. Polanco has historically been better from the left side, so he wouldn't particularly solve that righty issue. It is unclear how mobile he will be when he comes back, so he might well be seeing the bulk of his time at DH, leaving a deeply slumping (but still possibly the team's best righthanded hitter) Mark Vientos at first. We mean, yeah, that's not the way it is supposed to be, but putting the Vientos season side by side with those of Bo Bichette, Marcus Semien, and Luis Torrens, you kinda know what we mean, right? Your 2026 New York Mets Starting Pitchers Nolan McLean Freddy Peralta David Peterson Christian Scott Jonah Tong R/R DoB: 2001-07-24 R/R DoB: 2996-06-04 L/L DoB: 1995-09-03 R/R DoB: 1999-06-15 R/R DoB: 2003-06-19 Relief Pitchers Huascar Brazobán Sean Manaea A.J. Minter Tobias Myers Brooks Raley Austin Warren Luke Weaver R/R DoB: 1989-10-15 R/L DoB: 1992-02-01 L/L DoB: 1993-09-02 R/R DoB: 1998-08-05 L/L DoB: 1988-06-29 R/R DoB: 1996-02-05 R/R DoB: 1993-08-21 Relief Pitchers Catchers Infielders Devin Williams Hayden Senger Luís Torrens Bo Bichette Brett Baty Vidal Brujan Marcus Semien R/R DoB: 1994-09-21 R/R DoB: 1997-04-03 R/R DoB: 1996-05-02 R/R DoB: 1998-03-05 L/R DoB: 1999-11-13 S/R DoB: 1998-02-09 R/R DoB: 1990-09-17 Infielders Outfielders Mark Vientos Eric Wagaman Carson Benge A.J. Ewing MJ Melendez Juan Soto Jared Young R/R DoB: 1993-12-11 R/R DoB: 1997-08-14 L/R DoB: 2003-01-20 L/R DoB: 2004-08-10 L/R DoB: 1993-11-29 L/L DoB: 1998-10-25 L/R DoB: 1995-07-09 Also on 40-Player Roster Starting Pitchers Relief Pitchers Clay Holmes Tylor Megill Kodai Senga Zach Thornton Alex Carrillo Daniel Duarte Reed Garrett R/R DoB: 1993-03-27 R/R DoB: 1995-07-28 L/R DoB: 1993-01-30 L/L DoB: 2002-01-17 R/R DoB: 1997-06-06 R/R DoB: 1996-12-04 R/R DoB: 1993-01-02 Relief Pitchers Catchers Infielders Justin Hagenman Dedniel Núñez Jonathan Pintaro Dylan Ross Francisco Alvarez Francisco Lindor Ronny Mauricio R/R DoB: 1996-10-07 R/R DoB: 1996-06-05 R/R DoB: 1997-11-07 R/R DoB: 2000-09-01 R/R DoB: 2001-11-01 S/R DoB: 1993-11-14 S/R DoB: 2001-04-04 Infielders Outfielders Jorge Polanco Luis Robert, Jr. Nick Morabito Tyrone Taylor S/R DoB: 1999-11-13 R/R DoB: 1997-08-03 R/R DoB: 2003-05-07 R/R DoB: 1994-01-22 Your Mets Coaching Staff Manager Bench Coach Pitching Coach Hitting Coordinator Third Base Coach First Base Coach Bullpen Coach Ass't Pitching Coach Carlos Mendoza Kai Correa Justin Willard Jeff Albert Tim Leiper Gilbert Gomez José Rosado Dan McKinney DoB: 1979-11-27 DoB: 1989-07-14 DoB: 1990-09-09 DoB: 1992-08-16 DoB: 1996-07-19 DoB: 1992-03-08 DoB: 1974-11-09 DoB: 1989-06-06 Hitting Coach Strategy Coach Catching Coach Coaching Assistant Bat'g Practice Pitcher Equipment Manager Bullpen Catchers Bullpen Catchers Troy Snitker Danny Barnes J.P. Arencibia Rafael Fernandez Kevin Mahoney Kevin Kierst Eric Langill Dave Racaniello DoB: 1988-12-05 DoB: 1989-10021 DoB: 1986-01-05 DoB: 1988-08-03 DoB: 1987-05-11 DoB: 1964-07-09 DoB: 1979-04-09 DoB: 1978-06-03 Your Mets Training Staff Director of Player Health Head Athletic Trainer Assistant Athletic Trainer Reconditioning Coordinator Reconditioning Therapist Head Performance Coach Assistant Performance Coach Performance Coordinator Soft Tissue Specialist Brian Chicklo Joseph Golia Bryan Baca Sean Bardanett Josh Bickel Dustin Clarke Tanner Miracle Jeremy Chiang Hiroto Kawamura DoB: 1972-07-17 DoB: 1978-??-?? DoB: Circa 1980 DoB: 1988-06-23 DoB: 1996-??-?? DoB: 1987-??-?? DoB: 1991-??-?? DoB: ????-??-?? DoB: 22846 View the full article

Charles McAdoo is heading to Baltimore. Jays Centre's No. 14 prospect will join the Blue Jays tomorrow as they start a series against the Orioles, according to ESPN's Jeff Passan. He'll be making his MLB debut when he first gets in a game. The Jays can free up space for McAdoo on the active and 40-man rosters by designating Lenyn Sosa for assignment. While I'm only speculating, it's all but certain that's how they're going to do it (unless there's been another injury we don't know about). McAdoo, like Sosa, is a right-handed-hitting infielder. He is primarily a third baseman but has recently started getting reps in at second base, which is Sosa's primary position. And while Sosa is hitting beyond poorly this season (.195 with a .490 OPS), McAdoo has hit well down in Triple-A Buffalo. He has eight home runs and a 13.9% walk rate, and his wRC+ is 12% better than league average. The Blue Jays will hope McAdoo can keep it up at the MLB level, much like his former Bisons teammates Yohendrick Piñango and Brandon Valenzuela. View the full article

TRANSACTIONS In anticipation of the DSL season starting June 1st, players were officially assigned to rosters today. You can check out the Twins’ collection of players here. We now have minor leaguers born in 2009, the Joe Mauer MVP year. And so, the passage of time trudges on. Saints Sentinel St. Paul 5, Louisville 10 Box Score SP: Mike Paredes: 5 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 7 K HR: Ben Ross (3) Multi-hit games: None The Saints were outgunned on Wednesday. Though, Mike Paredes did his best to ensure that wasn’t true. The St. Paul starter was phenomenal, working five innings with seven strikeouts, allowing a lone run on an awkwardly-caromed fly ball turned inside-the-parker from Héctor Rodríguez (more on him soon). Otherwise, Paredes was magnificent. His sweeper ushered Bats’ hitters to the dugout. On 19 offerings at the pitch, Louisville hitters came up empty 12 times. Rodríguez remained a nuisance, however, as the inside-the-parker perhaps fueled a vengeful rage to clear the great outfield walls. And so, he did. Twice: once as a part of a three-homer barrage against reliever Alejandro Hidalgo in the sixth, and again in the seventh off Kody Funderburk. He likely possesses one of the rare three-homer games that includes a long-ball that didn’t actually go long. The outburst obscured what was once a 5-1 lead for the Saints. In the second Kaelen Culpepper singled home two off this excuse-me poke to center. Then, an extra base onslaught in the fifth: Gabriel Gonzalez tripled, Kyler Fedko doubled him home, and Ben Ross hit one that remained in the air for about an hour before finally landing safely in the fan section. Old friend Darren McCaughan started for Louisville. MLB.com’s 99th-ranked prospect, Edwin Arroyo, played shortstop for the Bats on Wednesday. You may remember Arroyo as one of the critical youngsters netted by the Reds in the Luis Castillo trade in 2022. He went 0-4 in the game. Wind Surge Wisdom The Wind Surge did not play on Wednesday. Kernels Nuggets Cedar Rapids 3, Quad Cities 7 Box Score Jason Doktorczyk: 1 2/3 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 1 K HR: None Multi-hit games: Brandon Winokur (2-for-3), Danny De Andrade (2-for-4, RBI) The Kernels fell behind early and never recovered on Wednesday. Three straight run-scoring innings in the early going will get you. Starter Jason Doktorczyk labored for 49 pitches before he could record his first out, portending what would become a poor day on the mound for Cedar Rapids hurlers. Neither Adam Falinski nor Cole Peschl could improve on the situation. And by the time Paulshawn Pasqualotto established order, the deficit was so dire that it no longer mattered. Brandon Winokur continued his torrid month of May, collecting two singles and swiping a base to extend his hitting streak to six games. He was also hit by a pitch. He’s now slashing .341/.430/.518 in the month, a drastic improvement over his .198/.323/.358 line in April. RBIs in this game went to Jacob McCombs and Danny De Andrade, respectively. Catcher Blake Mitchell ranks as MLB’s 55th-best prospect, and he walked twice in five plate appearances against the Kernels on Wednesday. Mussel Matters “Inclement weather and unplayable field conditions” ended matters in Fort Myers before they could begin. A doubleheader is scheduled for Thursday, May 28th. TWINS DAILY PLAYERS OF THE DAY Twins Daily Minor League Pitcher of the Day – Mike Paredes Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Day – Brandon Winokur PROSPECT SUMMARY Here’s a look at how the Twins Daily Top 20 Twins Prospects performed: #2 – Kaelen Culpepper (St. Paul) - 1-5, 2 RBI, 2 K #4 – Connor Prielipp (Twins) - 4 1/3 IP, 8 H, 6 ER, 3 BB, 5 K #5 – Eduardo Tait (Cedar Rapids) - 0-4, 2 K #10 – Gabriel Gonzalez (St. Paul) - 1-4, 3B, R, BB #15 – Brandon Winokur (Cedar Rapids) - 2-3 #19 – Khadim Diaw (Cedar Rapids) - 1-4, 2B, R THURSDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS St. Paul @ Louisville (5:35 PM) - RHP Ryan Gallagher Wichita @ Springfield (4:35 PM) - RHP Sam Armstrong Quad Cities @ Cedar Rapids (6:35 PM) - LHP Dasan Hill Jupiter @ Fort Myers (3:35 PM) - RHP Jason Reitz Jupiter @ Fort Myers (Game Two) - TBD FCL Orioles @ FCL Twins (11:00 AM) - TBD View the full article

With such a poor start to the 2026 season, can Royce Lewis's struggles be chalked up to more of a mental or physical struggle, which led him to be sent down to Triple-A? View the full article

When the Twins hired Derek Shelton, the early reaction around the organization felt overwhelmingly positive. After years of watching Rocco Baldelli manage with a calm and measured personality, Shelton brought a more energetic and outwardly emotional style to the dugout. That difference has been noticeable from Day One. Shelton has always been comfortable in front of a microphone and has shown a natural ability to connect with both players and the media. That doesn’t automatically make someone a good manager, but it helped establish confidence, during a season wherein the Twins were already facing plenty of uncertainty. The real question was whether Shelton could navigate a flawed roster while keeping the club in contention. So far, the answer has mostly been yes. Lineup Construction One of the biggest talking points entering the season was the top of the lineup. The Twins had multiple candidates to hit leadoff, including Luke Keaschall, Ryan Jeffers, and Brooks Lee. Instead of endlessly rotating options, the club quickly settled on the obvious answer. Byron Buxton wanted the role, and Shelton embraced it. It has been the right decision, and it wasn't an easy one. Buxton remains the team’s most dynamic offensive player, but if he could hit equally well regardless of lineup position, you'd want him to bat second, third or fourth. More than Baldelli, Shelton came in trying to make that work, but once he recognized how big a difference it makes for Buxton in matters of preparation and mindset, he changed tack. The Twins have not spent the season overcomplicating lineup construction with constant matchup-based shuffling. Injuries have forced adjustments, but the everyday structure has largely remained stable. Shelton also deserves some credit for the organization’s willingness to make difficult decisions with struggling veterans and former stars. Royce Lewis and Matt Wallner were both expected to anchor significant portions of the offense this season. Instead, both players played themselves into demotions. While Shelton wasn’t the sole voice behind those moves, he deserves credit for managing the situation without creating unnecessary distractions (although, arguably, also some blame for the fact that each has cratered so badly). The Twins prioritized production over reputation. Offensively, the results have been encouraging in several important categories. Minnesota ranks as the eighth-biggest improver in Hard Hit%, up 0.2% from last season. Only three American League clubs have improved more. The Twins have also posted the AL’s largest increase in Launch Angle Sweet-Spot%, improving by 1.3%. That doesn’t mean the offense has been perfect. There have still been prolonged slumps and inconsistent performances throughout the lineup. However, Shelton has shown a willingness to move on from underperforming players rather than wait endlessly for improvement. Shelton's Lineup Grade: B Starting Pitchers The rotation looked like a potential disaster before the season even started. When Pablo López went down on the first day of spring training, it felt like Minnesota’s margin for error disappeared immediately. Instead of collapsing, the Twins have pieced together one of the better rotations in the American League. Taj Bradley has looked like a legitimate frontline starter. Joe Ryan continues to pitch at an All-Star caliber level despite an injury scare earlier in the year. Connor Prielipp has exceeded expectations during his rookie campaign, even as the organization carefully monitors his workload. Then there’s Zebby Matthews, who opened the season in the minors before injuries forced him into a critical role. He has responded exactly the way the Twins hoped. Shelton has also pushed the rotation aggressively, because he understands the limitations of the bullpen. Minnesota’s starters have consistently been asked to work deeper into games, and for the most part, they’ve delivered. He's been bitten a few times by leaving in starters too long, but there's no doubt that he has a different philosophy of pitcher usage and managing injury risk than Baldelli did. Last year, the Twins had 12 starts in which a hurler topped 100 pitches. This season, they already have nine, even though Bailey Ober only needed 89 pitches to complete one game. They're also staying on more of a five-day rotation, with 23 starts coming on four days' rest so far. Last year, under Baldelli, the Twins only had 41 such starts. The overall numbers back it up. Twins starters rank 10th in MLB in fWAR, which is sixth in the American League. They also sit eighth in ERA, eighth in Hard Hit%, and sixth overall in HR/FB rate. Given the circumstances, it’s hard to imagine Shelton squeezing much more out of this group. Shelton's Starting Pitcher Grade: A Bullpen Usage This bullpen probably should not work as well as it has. Entering the season, Minnesota lacked established high-end relief arms, and the concerns only intensified as injuries and inconsistency piled up. Shelton has responded by embracing complete bullpen chaos. So far, it has mostly worked. Eleven different pitchers have recorded a save this season, and no reliever has more than two saves. It has been a full committee approach, with Shelton constantly searching for favorable matchups and hot hands. There have absolutely been questionable moments along the way. Some pitching changes have backfired, and there are nights when the bullpen still feels one bad inning away from disaster. However, the overall results have been better than anyone reasonably expected. Twins relievers currently own a positive WPA, which felt nearly impossible entering the year, considering the available personnel. The organization also deserves credit for refusing to stay loyal to struggling veterans. Luis García and Justin Topa were designated for assignment after failing to establish consistency. Meanwhile, the Twins continue searching for undervalued contributors who can stabilize innings. Yoendrys Gómez has carved out a useful role, while younger pitchers like Andrew Morris and Travis Adams are beginning to adjust to leverage situations at the major-league level. Shelton hasn’t magically transformed the bullpen into a strength, but he has managed to keep it from sinking the season. Shelton's Bullpen Grade: B Overall Grade: B+ Shelton inherited a roster with obvious flaws, limited bullpen certainty, and major injury concerns in the rotation before Opening Day even arrived. Instead of letting the season spiral out of control, he has established a clear clubhouse identity while keeping the Twins competitive in a wide-open American League. His style differs noticeably from Baldelli’s, but different doesn’t necessarily mean better or worse. It simply means Shelton has put his own stamp on this team. There’s still plenty left to prove over a full season, especially when it comes to handling late-game situations and offensive consistency. However, considering the circumstances, Shelton’s first season in Minnesota has been a successful one (to this point). What grades should Shelton get for the areas above? What’s his overall grade? Leave a comment and start the discussion. View the full article

Unlike most sports, baseball is a game where a one or two-player effort won't push a team to victory, no matter how impressive it is. The Marlins were reminded of that the hard way on Wednesday afternoon. All-Star level performances from Xavier Edwards and Otto Lopez put their club in prime position to secure back-to-back series victories for the first time since Opening Week and creep back to four games under .500, but a dreadful four outs on the bases and a 2-11 showing with runners in scoring position was too much to overcome. Miami dropped an upsetting series finale to Toronto and two-time All-Star Kevin Gausman by a score of 2-1 while clinching the fourth series loss of their past five. A team reliant on small-ball, the Marlins completely fell apart on the base paths in the later innings. A caught stealing of Jakob Marsee and mental gaffe by Heriberto Hernandez ended the sixth while a strike to nab Esteury Ruiz at second stopped Miami in their tracks an inning later. The most critical mishap, though, came in the eighth with runners on first and third, one out, facing a one-run deficit with Connor Norby at the plate. Needing at the bare minimum a sacrifice fly to tie, Norby watched a hanging slider for strike three while Marsee bolted to second where he was dead to rights. The strike 'em out, throw 'em out took all the remaining wind out of Miami's sails as they were sat down in order by Tyler Rogers in the top of the ninth. Beyond baserunning, the Fish squandered multiple opportunities to put runs on the board early. Leading 1-0. with the bases loaded and one out in the third, Kyle Stowers grounded into an inning ending double play. A frame later, Christopher Morel and Graham Pauley couldn't cash in their first chance with one away and runners on the corners. Taking credit for over half of Miami's hits was the budding star duo of Lopez and Edwards. The two combined for seven hits, four stolen bases and the lone RBI opposite Gausman and a trio of Blue Jay relievers. The two now sit alone atop the hit lead in all of MLB, with Lopez at 75 and Edwards close behind at 67. Now over fifty games into 2026, there should be little to no doubt where the best middle-infield in the league resides. Lost in the late-game malaise was the success and sudden worry for Marlins starter Eury Perez. Perez, who dazzled in his previous outing last Friday against New York, showed more of the same promise that he became renowned for as a top prospect. "Baby Goat" punched out seven through just three innings on his way to a season-high nine. It's a number that had the potential to be even higher if not for a bizarre situation in the middle of the fifth. The 23-year-old right-hander was shown on the broadcast to be writhing in pain out of seemingly nowhere before being helped to the clubhouse by team doctors and his mentor Sandy Alcantara. Shortly after, the team announced it was a right hamstring spasm. Christina De Nicola of MLB.com reported postgame that Perez noted he would be getting imaging and the initial pain was a 10/10, but was a 7 during his scrum. Should the injury lead to an IL stint, it would sting that much more knowing Perez's recent adjustments have proved to be quite effective against formidable lineups. The incorporation of a two-seam pitch with sinking action has kept hitters off balance from a strong, but at times predictable four-seam offering. Increased command—Perez walked zero for the second consecutive outing—and trust in secondary offerings has been key as well. Toronto was able to grab the lead following the youngster's departure, capitalizing in back-to-back frames off Michael Peterson and Andrew Nardi, the latter surrendering his fourth homer of the season. The good news for Miami? A trip to Queens is on deck. Having just swept the Mets and enjoying success against their division foe dating back to 2025, the Fish enter Citi Field with confidence knowing they can mirror what happened at loanDepot park. Max Meyer, having dominated yet again against New York last Saturday with seven innings of scoreless ball looks to continue his sensational early-season campaign on Friday night opposite Freddy Peralta. First pitch is slated for 7:10 pm EST. View the full article

Abner Uribe is, in one reading of all this, just that loud person at the party who no longer has any desire to let some quiet tensions simmer. Maybe they actually challenge someone to step outside and take care of things, but more often, they say something they know will stir up what they feel has been allowed to settle and stagnate when it shouldn't. They don't throw fists; they throw down the proverbial gauntlet. A mess ensues, and everyone at the party ends up doing one form of cleanup or another. You just hope the air is actually clearer afterward. In this case, the match that lit the waiting fuse was fairly vulgar, like a drunken but unmistakable accusation of cheating or a carefully chosen, exceptionally rude bit of name-calling. He struck out Alec Burleson Tuesday night, and turned to the Cardinals dugout with relish. As gleefully as untold millions of 11-year-olds have done it over the last few decades, he gyrated his hips and elaborately, repeatedly chopped his crotch, inviting the Cardinals to suck it and (ironically) drawing a sharp intake of breath from just about everyone except the occupants of the visitors' dugout. The tea has spilled pretty freely since. Uribe removed subtext and shattered the fragile privacy of the diamond by doing what he did, so reporters have followed up doggedly ever since. In brief, here's what happened: The Cardinals suspected the Brewers of picking up a tip or a pitch grip from St. Louis starter Matthew Liberatore on Monday afternoon, and relaying the needed information to their batters via the hitting coaches in the dugout. No one has suggested to me, on or off the record, that the Brewers were using illegal sign-stealing, with any kind of technological assistance, but the league has cracked down this year on the practice of base coaches relaying intel to hitters, too. That's why base coaches have to stay in their boxes now, and the spirit of that rule is that non-players shouldn't use their advantageous angles to give information directly to the batter. If the Brewers were doing so, it's not a violation of a written rule, but it won't be taken kindly by opponents. Once that suspicion arose, Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol began staring daggers into the Brewers dugout throughout the game Monday. That, too, is considered gauche, if not outright aggressive. Brewers personnel saw him staring them down in a way they interpreted as both intrusive and threatening, and he gestured to his side and to his head as he yelled across at one juncture. Marmol admitted to this in the fallout after Uribe broke the seal, saying his message was, "Don't do it. Be smart. You're going to get someone hurt." During the Cardinals' batting practice on Tuesday, hitting coach Daniel Vogelbach and Marmol aired their respective grievances with one another. It caused a minor commotion, but no fracas or physicality came of it. Uribe saw some of the above first-hand, and heard some about it from teammates after the game Monday and before the game Tuesday. In his mind, the aggression toward the Cardinals after finishing the top of the eighth inning was a matter of showing them Milwaukee would not be intimidated or denigrated. If all of this sounds a bit petty or childish, it should; that's what it is. Uribe's demonstrations were inappropriate in their intensity and escalatory effect, but apropos in their immaturity. Every team is trying to pick up and relay information, at all times. It should very rarely lead to this kind of sudden surge in tension, and certainly didn't need to do so this time. That said, let's assess some of the claims on both sides. Were the Brewers Doing Something Wrong in the First Place? This is the hardest question to answer, really, because it depends a great deal on whom you ask. For a long time, players and teams felt that any intelligence that could be gleaned with naked eyes on the field or from the dugouts or bullpens was fair game, as long as it was relayed via organic means. The infamous trash can-banging Astros were regarded as doubly criminal, because the way they got their information broke the first part of the unwritten rules, and the way they got that information from the tunnel behind the dugout to the field broke the second part. For most of baseball history, though, what the Cardinals accused the Brewers of doing this week would not have been considered a breach. As discussed above, the league changed an actual rule (or, rather, its enforcement) recently, to try to curb on-field collection and relaying of tips and tells. That's partially because, in the wake of the revelations about the Astros, the league's collective attitude toward intelligence gathering and communication shifted. Ironically, the Cardinals—an organization with a reputation for extreme old-fashionedness—took umbrage with the Brewers because they have a very new-school understanding of what's ok when it comes to picking up information from the other side. Two players, a coach and two front-office employees from other organizations acknowledged that the Brewers have a reputation for drawing a bead on you, often via the acuity of non-players. They get that information to the field, the sources said, via direct conversations between players and coaches both on the field and in the dugout, but also via surreptitious signaling. No one I spoke to said they believe the Brewers are doing anything explicitly against the rules or egregious, but one former Brewer now playing for another team admitted that his new teammates asked him some probing questions about Milwaukee's methods at the beginning of spring training. Crucially, Marmol didn't accuse the Brewers of doing anything truly wrong—and teams are often trying to enforce something other than actual rules when they engage in the kind of behavior Marmol did Monday. That brings us to the next question. Was Marmol Really Threatening to Hit Brewers Batters with Pitches? This one, by contrast, is easy. Yes. Yes, of course he was, and this is one of the silliest layers of unwritten rules and their passive-aggressive enforcement. Marmol explained to reporters exactly what he communicated to the Brewers on Monday, as detailed above. He said that wasn't a threat to hit anyone, but a simple matter of telling them to knock it off. Well, that's stupid, and anyone really listening and unwilling to put up with microaggressions will see why. "Be smart," Marmol told the home side, pointing to his head. "You're going to get someone hurt," he said, pointing to his side. He wasn't implying that Christian Yelich was going to strain an oblique turning to peak at whatever sign Vogelbach might have been sending him. The gesture to the side is a threat to hit a batter if the other team doesn't stop the behavior they're being told to stop. Marmol refused to characterize it that way, but in doing so, he was either insulting the intelligence of the whole baseball world or (more like) asking everyone to play along with him. Moreover, doing so is a bit of old-school intimidation in the service of Marmol's aforementioned new-school ethics about the game and its balance of intelligence and counterintelligence. For the lion's share of baseball history, a threat (veiled or otherwise) to plunk someone for being in violation of the unwritten rules has been considered in-bounds, but that's going the way of the complete game. Teams very rarely throw at anyone on purpose anymore, and the intimation of an intention to do so is no longer considered light fare between friends. So: Was Marmol Wrong, and If So, for What? Ask many baseball people about this aspect of Marmol's tenure with the Cardinals, and you get quick, decisive answers. The Cardinals' skipper is not well-liked inside any other dugout in the league. In most of them, he's one of the most aggressively disliked. Implying that the team would throw at a Brewers batter might not have been over the line for everyone, and Marmol said he's never actually ordered any such action. However, players, coaches and one former opposing manager all confirmed that Marmol is often guilty of staring into the opposing dugout, looking for a reason to get upset or to raise the temperature of the conflict on the field. Even those who guard information dearly and don't want to let a rival get an advantage without feeling some pushback often try not to introduce the distraction of these often subtle but distracting bouts of back-and-forth. Marmol, one ex-Cardinal who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of their new role with another organization, "seems to love that s---," and tries to motivate his team by raising the emotional stakes that way. Few people in modern dugouts take well to the threat gestures Marmol made, but his eyes can be as much of a problem as his hands and mouth. In the opinion of most people outside this particular conflict, Marmol effectively started it, by hunting for something to which to react and (arguably) overreacting when he found it. To return to the metaphor of a late-night house party, Marmol is the guy who actually wants to fight way too often, even if he has the restraint and the cooler-headed friends to prevent that from happening most of the time. Vogelbach might have actually committed a party foul, or Marmol might have only imagined he did, but either way, the party took on an uneasy edge after the two had their say and went back to their sides of the room. Uribe, who emotes freely, loves antagonism just as much as Marmol, and didn't care for the vibe shift on his side of the party after the initial dustup, decided he would put things right by doing a foolish stunt to assert his side's dominance. It didn't work as well as he might have envisioned, in that plenty of people on his own side found his tactics distasteful. It will surely draw a fine from Major League Baseball, as well it should, and the Cardinals will skate without any tangible punishment. But it was just ridiculous enough to take some of that serrations off the whole thing. Wednesday's series finale was a taut game, but not an overly tense one, and the teams both say they've put the matter to bed. As a visual communicator, Uribe is to be commended for his layered (though not nuanced) messaging, as well as his clarity. He asserted dominance. He stood up for his teammates. He also said, without words, "Here's a sign everyone will see, so we can all be clear about what we're being clear about." Of course, he also has to be castigated for a gesture that holds within it some implied homophobia, sexism and wanton malice, as well as being stupid-looking. This was an interesting glimpse into the things often going on beneath the radar for the average fan, but the most important takeaways from it are that the Brewers are clearly in the heads of all their NL Central rivals; that the Cardinals and their skipper were looking for a fight when one wasn't really there to be had; and that Uribe can always be counted on to dispense with subtlety. Going forward, the Crew will hope he focuses on dispensing with batters, instead. View the full article

While there were a slew of moves Wednesday by the Toronto Blue Jays, there was only one set that affected the 26-man roster. That was the Jays calling up right-handed reliever Austin Voth from Triple-A Buffalo and sending right-handed reliever Tanner Andrews back down to Triple-A. The others included a trade, with right-hander Connor Seabold being reacquired from the Detroit Tigers in exchange for left-hander Juanmi Vasquez, and right-handed starter Jose Berrios (15-day injured list, right elbow stress fracture) and catcher Alejandro Kirk (10-day injured list, fractured left thumb) being transferred to the 60-day injured list. Those were paperwork moves to create room on the 40-man roster for Voth and Seabold. Seabold had been designated for assignment by the Tigers. The Jays will have to make a 26-man roster move once Seabold reports to the team. Another move, reported Tuesday, was made official as the Jays signed right-handed reliever Matt Bowman to a minor-league contract. Voth is making his second appearance with the Jays this season. He was called up April 5 and pitched 2⅔ innings that day against the Chicago White Sox in a 3-0 loss, allowing one run on three hits with a walk and a strikeout. Voth was DFA'd the next day, went unclaimed and chose to become a free agent only to re-sign with the Jays on April 11 on a minor-league contract. He didn't pitch in the majors in 2025, last appearing with the Seattle Mariners in 2024. Andrews was called up Monday to make his MLB debut and he appeared in games Monday and Tuesday, pitching two innings, giving up no runs on one hit with two walks and a strikeout. Seabold is back with the Jays after signing a minor-league contract in January. But the Jays released him a few days before Opening Day and scooped up by the Tigers, who included him on the season-opening roster. He then went on the 15-day IL on April 26 with inflammation in his left ankle and returned to the MLB roster May 15, but was DFA'd Sunday. He appeared in 11 games for the Tigers, with a 3.45 ERA over 15⅔ innings, with 17 hits, five walks and 14 strikeouts. View the full article

With the current MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) set to expire on December 1, there’s already a growing sense around the baseball world that the sport could be headed toward another lockout. That doesn't mean games will be lost—an offseason stoppage is almost guaranteed, but last time, they resolved it before Opening Day—but the risk of that is real. A major reason why? The conversation surrounding a salary cap and salary floor. Right now, Major League Baseball technically has neither, though the players' union does have the right to pursue a grievance against any revenue-sharing receiving teams who don't spend more than a certain threshold, and even though the competitive-balance tax tiers act as progressively harder caps as payrolls get large. Spending across the league remains wildly uneven. Teams like the Dodgers, Yankees, and Mets are operating in an entirely different financial world than smaller-market organizations, while some clubs continue to spend at the absolute bottom of the league with little pressure to increase their payroll. That imbalance has created growing frustration on both sides—despite a relatively weak correlation between spending and actual wins. Owners are far more likely to push for a salary cap, hoping to create cost certainty that can drive their franchise values even higher. Players, on the other hand, are much more likely to push for a salary floor, forcing lower-spending teams to invest more heavily in their rosters. Obviously, there will be both, if there is either, but whether to switch to such a system (the owners want it; the players don't) and where to set the top and bottom thresholds of one are hard questions on which to agree; hence the tough talk from both sides. The last MLB lockout began at the start of December 2021 and lasted until March 10, 2022. Ultimately, the league still managed to play a full 162-game season, though Opening Day was pushed back roughly a week while the two sides finalized a new agreement. But there’s no guarantee the next one would be resolved that quickly. There's a possibility that the 2027 lockout could drag on longer, and if that happens, the major-league season would essentially be suspended until a new CBA is agreed upon. However—and this is where things get especially interesting for teams like the Twins—a major-league lockout would not impact the minors. Minor league baseball would continue as normal. That immediately raises an interesting question for Minnesota, moving forward: might the Twins choose to keep some of their top prospects in the minors, to avoid losing valuable development time during a potential lockout? Their top-end talent is getting awfully close to the majors. Walker Jenkins, Kaelen Culpepper, and Emmanuel Rodriguez (the Twins’ top three prospects) are all nearing the point where they could realistically debut sometime this summer, health-permitting. Under normal circumstances, getting those players major-league reps during a season where the Twins (still) probably aren’t serious American League contenders would make a ton of sense. Let the young core learn at the highest level, and give them experience heading into a more competitive window down the road. If Rodríguez can get healthy, it still makes sense to give him a look later this year. He's already on the 40-man roster, so he'll be affected by any lockout, anyway. Only players not on a 40-man MLB roster will be able to participate in minor-league spring training and/or games, if those get started before the big-league ones do next year. Several other could-be rookies—CJ Culpepper, Ty Langenberg, Ricardo Olivar and Aaron Sabato, to name a few—either are already eligible for the Rule 5 Draft or have to be added to the 40-man roster this fall to avoid that, so they also don't need to be held back. Even if a lockout comes, the deadline to add players to the 40-man and protect them from the Rule 5 Draft will come first, in mid-November, so the Twins have to decide on those guys before a work stoppage can enter the equation. Jenkins, Kaelen Culpepper and pitching prospect Ryan Gallagher, however, belong to the class of players who won't need to be added to the 40-man roster until the fall of 2027 for Rule 5 purposes. If Jenkins could get and stay healthy, he would probably force his way to the majors, anyway, but he's likely to be sidelined several more weeks by the shoulder injury he sustained earlier this season. He, Culpepper and Gallagher are where this gets incredibly tricky for the Twins. Do you prioritize getting your top prospects exposure to the majors now? Or do you protect their ability to continue playing and developing next season in the event of a lengthy lockout? For Minnesota specifically, there may not be an easy answer. Right now, the state of the infield could force the issue, sooner rather than later. With both Luke Keaschall and Royce Lewis struggling, and with Lewis currently back in the minors, Culpepper may simply become too difficult to keep down. If the Twins believe he’s clearly one of their best infield options, they may not have much choice but to bring him to the majors and worry about any disruptions to his development right along with those to the development of Keaschall, Austin Martin or any other young players. Good stretches from Tristan Gray and Ryan Kreidler or a return to the bigs by a rehabilitated Lewis would make keeping Culpepper down more feasible, which emphasizes the importance of those potential developments, even beyond winning games this year. The outfield situation, though, is a bit different. With Trevor Larnach and Martin both playing well, the Twins may actually have the flexibility to slow-play some of their outfield prospects throughout the remainder of 2026. Rodríguez's thumb surgery will keep him on the shelf a while, but he could still debut this year. All things considered, it might make sense for Jenkins not to. It’s honestly an unfortunate situation, all around. You’d love for organizations to simply call players up the moment they’re ready and allow them to develop naturally at the major-league level. But given the very real possibility of a lockout following the 2026 season, along with where the Twins currently sit as a franchise, Minnesota may have to think about this differently than most fans would initially expect. For both the futures of those players and the future of the organization itself, keeping some of their top prospects in the minors for all of 2026 may ultimately be the smartest long-term move. View the full article

On Wednesday morning, the Kansas City Royals announced that they had designated left-handed pitcher Bailey Falter for assignment and had recalled right-handed pitcher Mason Black from Omaha. Falter had come over to the Royals at the Trade Deadline from Pittsburgh last season in exchange for lefty reliever Evan Sisk. In 2024, Falter posted a 4.43 ERA in 142.1 IP, and in 2025 with the Pirates, he posted a 3.73 ERA in 113.1 IP. However, he struggled in his move to Kansas City last year, posting an 11.25 ERA in four outings (two starts) and 12 IP before landing on the IL for the remainder of the year. The struggles Falter experienced with the Royals in 2025 carried over into this season. In five outings (two starts) and 9.2 IP, the 29-year-old posted a 13.97 ERA, 3.10 WHIP, and 9.10 WHIP. He also landed on the IL early in the year due to some elbow issues and looked better in his rehab outing in Omaha. Unfortunately, the results from Omaha didn't follow Falter to Kansas City. As discussed in a post this morning, Falter showed an interesting TJ Stuff+ profile and extension on his pitches, but struggled to generate whiffs and CSWs this season at the Major League level. Falter will likely declare for free agency if he clears waivers. It doesn't seem like he was happy with his role, flipping between starter and reliever, as evidenced by this quote from the Kansas City Star's Pete Grathoff. Mason Black will replace Falter on the Royals' pitching staff. Black has made four appearances with the Royals this year. In that 4.2 IP sample, he has not allowed a run, has a 1.93 WHIP, 2.24 FIP, and 13.6% K-BB%. His profile is very similar to Falter's, albeit from the right, as seen below in his TJ Statcast Percentiles summary. In 13 outings and 20.2 IP with Omaha this year, Black has a 6.53 ERA, 1.55 WHIP, and 4.3% K-BB%, which isn't impressive. However, his FIP is much better at 3.49, and he's done a much better job in Triple-A of throwing strikes (67% strike rate) and limiting the long ball (0.0% HR/FB rate). View the full article

If you watch a San Diego Padres game this year, you'll note that closer Mason Miller makes major-league hitters look like they are playing on a broken video game simulator. Headlines are rightfully tracking his staggering 19.4 K/9 ratio across 8.1 innings in May. However, analyzing Miller purely through box scores ignores a fascinating web of cause-and-effect, league-wide context, inherent player risk, and macroscopic team strategy. Evaluating a relief pitcher’s monthly impact through Wins Above Replacement (WAR) usually yields a microscopic number. Because relievers throw limited innings compared to everyday starters, building massive value over a four-week span is difficult. Yet, Miller’s May output has been an entirely different beast, propelling his seasonal total to a team-leading 1.3 WAR. What makes his May metrics so unique is how he is generating value. Looking closely at his game logs, his pinpoint command has actually wavered slightly this month. He's walked a total of six batters in eight appearances, including tight outings against both the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers. However, against the relievers' former team, the Athletics, he was back to his former self while lowering his WHIP to 1.20. Normally, a sudden spike in walks destroys a reliever's value. However, Miller has weaponized an extreme strikeout-or-nothing approach to completely erase his own mistakes. Across 36 total batters faced in May, he has collected 18 strikeouts. It's not hard to understand how he's maintaining a stellar 0.76 seasonal ERA over 23 appearances when he's striking out half the hitters he faces. In May, Miller weaponized a devastating two-pitch mix, highlighted by a slider generating an astronomical 51% whiff rate during this dominant stretch. To put that figure in context, the average major-league slider yields roughly a 35% whiff rate. He relies heavily on a four-seam fastball, throwing it 45% of the time, that sits at an average velocity of 101.3 mph. By suffocating batters with triple-digit heat and a historic breaking ball, he creates an inescapable defensive vacuum. The ultimate team-wide benefit of Miller’s bizarre May numbers is structural. When a closer can guarantee strikeouts at a 19.4 K/9 clip, it alters the Padres' entire bullpen blueprint. By completely removing the ball from play, Miller eliminates "luck" from the 9th inning. There are no sacrifice flies, bloop hits, or defensive errors to worry about. This security blanket allows the coaching staff to exhaust their best middle-relief bridge options in the 7th and 8th frames. They do not have to hold back high-leverage arms out of fear of extra innings. While his maximum-effort velocity creates an inherent health tightrope, his dominant month of May proves that extreme high-leverage efficiency can bend a team's entire winning strategy in your favor. Throughout the rest of the season, Miller will continue to dominate on the mound, anchoring the bullpen while leading the National League with 16 saves. Cleveland Guardians reliever Cade Smith is currently two ahead of him on that front; however, there is still plenty of baseball to be played. While his challenges with walk ratios and workload in May remind us of his human side, the historically elite strikeout metrics leave no doubt why the Friar faithful firmly believe in him as our closer of the future. View the full article

To say that the start of the Royals' season has been bad would be an understatement; it has been an unmitigated disaster so far. Nothing seems to be going right for the Royals this season, and it would be easy to assume that the Royals will be sellers at the trade deadline of the season were to continue in this direction. The deadline is still three months away, but with the way the season is going, it looks like the Royals will not be anywhere near the playoff hunt. But what moves could the Royals make? Here are some realistic and far-fetched ideas. Realistic Royals Trade Scenarios Michael Wacha to the Chicago Cubs for Jacob Webb and Pedro Ramirez Wacha is having a fantastic season so far, so if that were to continue, teams will definitely be looking at his services. A team in need of starting pitching is the Cubs, whose team ERA of 4.05 could definitely be improved once Wacha joins the team. The Royals are in need of reliable bullpen arms and a second baseman, so Webb and Ramirez will do the trick. Seth Lugo and Ramcell Medina to the Padres for Kale Fountain Another team in need of pitching is the Padres, who are in need of some depth in the starting rotation. A reunion with Lugo could do the trick, as he could fill in as a 4 or 5 starter right away, and Medina could also be developed into a middle infielder of the future. Fountain is an interesting prospect whose power and arm could fit in nicely in the lineup for a future Royals team. Far-Fetched Royals Trade Scenarios Bobby Witt Jr. to the Dodgers for Tommy Edman, Emmitt Sheehan, Mike Sirota, Zyhir Hope Now the chances of this trade even happening are slim to none. The Royals would not willingly move on from their superstar shortstop that easily unless the Dodgers gave them an offer the team just could not refuse. This could be one of those offers. Mookie Betts is getting older and might have to transition to another position, so BWJ would fit right in in this already loaded lineup. But the price for Witt’s services will be steep, so the Dodgers would have to give up a ton just to get him. I could see JJ bargaining his way to getting Edman, Sheehan, and two of the Dodgers top prospects in Sirota and Hope. Vinnie Pasquantino to the Guardians for Steven Kwan With the way Vinnie has been producing at the plate and with Brett Squires mashing in the minors, the Royals may want to move him in exchange for one of the more underrated players in baseball, Steven Kwan. Both players are struggling to produce, so a change of scenery for both of them could be beneficial. But again, the chances of this trade even happening are extremely low. View the full article

Boston Red Sox Affiliate Recap (May 26) Triple-A Worcester Red Sox Season Record: 24-25 Worcester hopped on the road and defeated the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Railriders (New York Yankees) 6-3. Worcester came out on top first and never trailed in this matchup. They jumped on the Railriders starter early, scoring two runs in the top of the first. Nate Eaton drew a leadoff walk, then Anthony Seigler brought him in after he ripped a line drive single, then Mikey Romero drove in Kristian Campbell with a productive groundout. The RailRiders answered back immediately in the bottom half with a two-run homer to tie it, but that was the last time they would be a threat. Vinny Capra put Worcester back in front in the third with an RBI single, scoring Campbell, who continued to be a pest on the basepaths all night, scoring his second run. From there, the WooSox pitching staff locked things down. Starter Raymond Burgos gave up those two early runs but was pulled after two innings, and Alec Gamboa was phenomenal in long relief, pitching four scoreless innings and giving up just two hits while striking out four. He earned the win, moving to 2-2. Worcester tacked on some insurance runs with Eaton's sacrifice fly in the sixth and then blew it open in the eighth. Eaton crushed a solo homer, his fifth of the year, then Seigler followed later with a sharp RBI double to make it 6-2. Seigler was arguably the best bat in the lineup, going 2-for-3 with two walks and two RBIs. Zack Kelly earned the hold, pitching the seventh and eighth, allowing just one run, then Tommy Kahnle slammed the door in the ninth for his third save. Key Performance: Anthony Seigler: 2-for-3, 2B, 2 RBI, 2 BB Nate Eaton: 1-for-3, HR, 2 R, 2 RBI, BB Kristian Campbell: 1-for-3, 2 R, BB Alec Gamboa: 4 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 4 K Double-A Portland Sea Dogs Season Record: 23-22 The Sea Dogs won it on the road in a tight, low-scoring game but broke open with a four-run inning to end it 7-3 against the Binghamton Rumble Ponies (New York Mets). Portland got off to an early start in the first inning. Marvin Alcantara, who is currently riding a five-game hitting streak and batting .421 in that span, hit an infield single and stole a base, then Brooks Brannon hit a single to bring him in. But the lead didn't last too long; Binghamton tied it in the third on a solo homer, then took the lead with an RBI double. The Sea Dogs were staring at a 2-1 deficit through four innings. However, they clawed back in the fifth, Tyler McDonough roped a single and scored on a Caden Rose line drive single, knotting it at 2-2. The Rumble Ponies retook the lead after hitting a sacrifice fly in the bottom half of the inning. Portland's bats went quiet again up until the eighth, when Nate Baez lifted a sac fly to right to score Alcantara and tie it at 3-3. Caleb Bolden had an outstanding relief appearance, throwing three shutout innings, including the ninth to force extras. The tenth inning is where the Sea Dogs' bats woke back up. With Miguel Bleis as the ghost runner at second base, McDonough ripped an RBI triple to break the tie. Franklin Arias followed with an RBI double to earn his 30th RBI of the year, then Alcantara collected his second hit of the game with a single to left and advanced to third base due to a throwing error from the pitcher, making it a 6-3 game. Brannon capped the rally with another RBI double. Four runs on four hits put the game out of reach, 7-3. Anthony Eyanson was tagged a little bit, giving up three runs, but he still looked terrific. Eyanson struck out eight batters in four innings while also generating 14 whiffs. The bullpen combination of Cade Feeney and Bolden shut Binghamton down over the next five frames. Reidis Sena pitched great as well, tossing a scoreless tenth inning while working around two base runners with no outs. Key Performances: Anthony Eyanson: 4 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 8 K Caleb Bolden: 3 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 3 K Marvin Alcantara: 2-for-4, 3 R, BB, 2 SB Tyler McDonough: 2-for-4, 3B 2 R, RBI Brooks Brannon: 2-for-5, 2 RBI High-A Greenville Drive Season Record: 17-27 With some new additions to the team, the Greenville Drive crushed the Asheville Tourists (Houston Astros) 10-2. Greenville scored two runs in the first inning to start the slugfest. Enddy Azocar drew a walk in his first High-A at bat, then Yoeilin Cespedes hit his 10th homer of the year with a two-run shot, giving the Drive an early 2-0 lead. Asheville cut the deficit with a solo home run in the top of the second, afterwards in the bottom half, for Luke Heyman’s first Greenville at bat since his promotion, he smacked a solo homer to make it a 3-1 game. The Drive got some comfort room in the third inning, scoring three runs. It all started when Cespedes hit a single and advanced to second on a passed ball, then advanced to third due to a disengagement violation. Gerardo Rodriguez brought him in with an RBI single to left. In the next at-bat, Heyman put on a good impression for the new squad, hitting a two-run blast, his second home run of the game, giving Greenville a 6-1 lead. The Tourists made it a 6-2 game in the fourth, but the Drive did not flinch. Henry Godbout belted a solo homer to lead off the fifth inning. Rodriguez roped a double to left field and advanced to third on a pitch, then Heyman hit him in to earn his fourth RBI of the game with a sacrifice fly. Turning the lineup over, Godbout came back up and hit a sacrifice fly to bring in Rodriguez once again. Azocar got his first High-A hit to lead off the eighth, hammering a ball past a diving center fielder and legging out a triple, his fourth of the year. Cespedes brought him in with a single to put the game way out of reach, 10-2. Other than the homer he gave up, Tyler Uberstine pitched well in his first rehab start and his first outing since April 14, tossing 1 ⅓ one-hit innings and striking out four batters. Danny Kirwin had a scoreless appearance to finish off the second inning for Uberstine. Dylan Brown was outstanding in relief, giving up four hits, one unearned run, and striking out nine batters in 4 ⅓ innings. Steven Brooks finished the last 2 ⅔ innings and had a scoreless appearance as well, while striking out three. Key Performances: Luke Heyman: 3-for-4, 2 HR, 2 R, 4 RBI Yoeilin Cespedes: 3-for-5, HR, 2 R, 3 RBI Henry Godbout: HR, 2 RBI Gerardo Rodriguez: 2-for-5, 2B, 2 R, RBI Dylan Brown: 4 ⅓ IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 9 K Single-A Salem RidgeYaks Season Record: 21-25 Salem took the victory in a game that ended in the middle of the sixth inning due to rain, 3-1, against the Hickory Crawdads (Texas Rangers). The RidgeYaks got started early in the first inning when Andrews Opata hit a single and was a pest on the bases, stealing second and third base, his 22nd and 23rd of the year, the third most in the Carolina League. A perfectly timed error by the Crawdads' first baseman gave Salem a free run, putting them on top 1-0. Hickory answered back quickly, hitting an RBI single to tie it up 1-1. It was uneventful up until the fifth inning when Frederik Jimenez worked a lead-off walk, then Stanley Tucker crushed a two-run homer, giving Salem a 3-1 lead just in time for the umpire crew to call the game in the sixth. Barrett Morgan has continued to look incredible this season, earning his third win of the year, throwing four strikeouts in five innings of work while giving up just one run, lowering his ERA to 1.98 and WHIP to 0.95. Wuilliams Rodriguez gave up a lead-off single, forced a groundout, and recorded a strikeout, then was one out away from a scoreless inning until the game was called; however, he earned his first save of the season. View the full article

On July 27, 2024, the Blue Jays acquired Yohendrick Piñango and Josh Rivera from the Cubs in exchange for Nate Pearson. Last season, Piñango posted a 124 wRC+ with the Buffalo Bisons. However, Toronto left him off the 40-man roster before the Rule 5 draft. Fortunately for the Blue Jays, another team did not select him. Let us take a deeper dive into Piñango’s numbers. Since Piñango made his MLB debut on April 26, he has been one of the Blue Jays’ better hitters. As of May 25, his .342 OBP ranked second on the team, and his .333 wOBA and .403 SLG were the team's fourth-highest. In the field, many scouts considered his defence to be below average. Entering the May 25 game, Piñango had a 1 OAA and 0 FRV in limited innings (144). However, that evening, he misplayed two very makeable catches, which are not reflected in those OAA and FRV numbers. Also, he is not fleet of foot (44th percentile in sprint speed). For a more fulsome prospect report, please refer to the Jays Centre’s top prospect rankings. From a batted ball perspective, he is a straightaway hitter. Piñango’s pull rate is 32.7%, lower than the 37.4% MLB average. His straightaway contact rate is 43.6%, higher than the MLB average of 37.3%. Regarding opposite field rate, the MLB average is 25.1%, higher than Piñango’s 23.6% mark. He is also a contact hitter, as shown by his 83.7% contact rate (74.7% MLB average) and swings at pitches out of the zone at a 32.0% clip, slightly higher than MLB’s 30.1% average chase rate. Piñango’s strikeout, walk, and whiff rate marks are 17.1%, 5.3% and 19.9%, respectively. Those scores are lower than the corresponding MLB averages (22.1%, 9.3%, and 25.3%). Generating power is an area where Piñango lags the average MLB hitter: his .097 ISO and .099 xISO trail MLB’s average .148 ISO and .155 xISO. There are three reasons why Piñango has produced below-average power numbers. First, his pull rate lags the MLB average. On batted balls pulled, hit straightaway and to the opposite field, the MLB average ISO numbers are .312, .112 and .139, respectively. Piñango’s opportunity to generate ISO is limited due to his below-average amount of pulled contact. The second reason is launch angle. The MLB average launch angle is 13 degrees, whereas Piñango’s is 7 degrees. Consider that, on batted balls with a launch angle between 0 and 10 degrees, the average ISO and xISO are .065 and .071, respectively. Contrast those figures with launch angles between 11 and 15 degrees, on which the average ISO and xISO are .182 and .192, respectively. If Piñango could raise his average launch angle, we should observe higher ISO numbers. The third factor that negatively impacts Piñango’s power numbers is his attack angle/timing. According to the MLB website, attack angle is “in large part a timing metric, as the hitter’s attack angle is constantly changing throughout the course of the swing … When the hitter is behind the pitch with his swing (i.e., too late), he will tend to have a lower attack angle.” The MLB average attack angle is 9 degrees, but Piñango’s is -1 degree. Regarding ideal attack angle rate, his 21.9% is well below the MLB average of 48.8%. For context, the average ISO on batted balls with an attack angle between 5 and 20 degrees is .203. Concerning Piñango’s average attack angle, the MLB average ISO on batted balls with an attack angle between -1 and 4 degrees is .081. Notably, an issue for Piñango is not bat speed, as his average is 73.7 mph, faster than the MLB average of 69.8 mph. Therefore, as he gains MLB experience, if Piñango can generate a higher pull rate, launch angle and attack angle, he should post better power numbers. Now, to the question of whether Piñango should be Buffalo-bound when Barger returns, let us peek at a long-overdue table! SLG wOBA ISO OBP # Rank # Rank # Rank # Rank Lukes 0.357 10 0.309 8 0.071 13 0.328 5 Piñango 0.403 4 0.333 4 0.097 9 0.342 2 Sánchez 0.435 2 0.327 6 0.156 4 0.315 7 Straw 0.349 11 0.300 9 0.108 8 0.312 8 Varsho 0.420 3 0.336 3 0.155 5 0.338 3 Schneider 0.211 13 0.254 12 0.085 11 0.295 9 Sosa 0.286 12 0.214 13 0.091 10 0.203 13 MLB Average 0.387 0.316 0.148 0.318 Higher than MLB Average: Source: Baseball Savant. Data is as of May 25. The metrics I selected for the table are those with the highest correlation with scoring runs. In a prior article, I calculated regression results for the last 11 162-game regular seasons (2013-2019 and 2021-2024) with various metrics and runs. Why the focus on runs? Toronto ranks 22nd in runs per game as of May 25. Concerning the decision to make room for Barger, one of the factors the Blue Jays should consider is a player’s performance in metrics that lead to run scoring. As shown in the table, Piñango’s SLG, wOBA and OBP are better than the MLB average. Furthermore, his SLG, wOBA and OBP rankings among the 2026 Blue Jays with at least 50 plate appearances are fourth, fourth and second, respectively. His xSLG, xwOBA, and xOBP numbers are marginally below the corresponding MLB averages. Accordingly, except for ISO, Piñango’s metrics that are strongly correlated with run-scoring scream, “No Buffalo for the rookie!” However, there are other issues to consider. The table demonstrates that Piñango has generated better numbers than Lenyn Sosa. However, if Toronto removed Sosa from the 26-man roster instead of Piñango, Sosa would have to clear waivers because he has no MiLB options remaining. Given that Sosa has been awful (32 wRC+), losing him to waivers would not be catastrophic, to say the least. Nevertheless, the primary concern is that Sosa is Toronto’s only backup middle infielder. If the Blue Jays add Barger, keep Piñango and cut ties with Sosa, Toronto will have six outfielders (Piñango, Barger, Nathan Lukes, Daulton Varsho, Jesús Sánchez, and Myles Straw). Who would play second base or shortstop if Andrés Giménez or Ernie Clement were not available? Therefore, Toronto needs a backup middle infielder, but it does not need to be Sosa. Perhaps Davis Schneider can rebound after his stint in Buffalo, or a Buffalo Bison (Josh Kasevich) can replace Sosa. Of course, there is always the possibility that Toronto could add a middle infielder from the trade market. Lastly, a topic for another day is the batter-handedness of Toronto’s outfielders. Of the six, including Piñango, only one (Straw) is a right-handed batter. As of May 25, Toronto’s outfielders have a 65 wRC+ versus left-handed pitchers, which ranks 24th. Against right-handed pitchers, the Blue Jays’ outfielders have posted a 109 wRC+, good for ninth-best. At some point this season, Toronto’s management should add a lefty-masher to the outfield mix. What does this mean for Piñango when Barger returns? Unfortunately, he appears to be the one who would be Buffalo-bound. Suppose Toronto wants to carry 13 pitchers on the 26-man roster. Accordingly, there will be eight slots occupied by non-outfielders: four infielders, two catchers, one designated hitter, and one middle infielder. Hence, Toronto will deploy five outfielders. Barger, Sánchez, and Varsho should remain because they offer the power that the team needs. Lukes and Straw offer flexibility because they can play more than one outfield position well. The three primary strikes against Piñango remaining on the 26-man roster are his below-average power (ISO), his left-handed bat for a team with a surplus of left-handed-hitting outfielders, and his recent defensive woes. Hence, the game of roster musical chairs leaves Piñango standing (in Buffalo). The Last Word Piñango has had a particularly good season thus far. Since joining the big league club in April, he has produced a 112 wRC+ and a 0.4 fWAR. However, with Barger's imminent return, Toronto will have one too many outfielders, and Piñango will likely be Buffalo-bound. View the full article

Chicago Cubs Minor League Report - May 27 Affiliate Overview Triple-A Iowa Cubs Series at Indianapolis Indians (Pittsburgh Pirates): Cubs lead, 1-0 Season Record: 22–29 Double-A Knoxville Smokies Series at Chattanooga Lookouts (Cincinnati Reds): Lookouts lead, 1-0 Season Record: 22–23 High-A South Bend Cubs Series vs. Fort Wayne TinCaps (San Diego Padres): Cubs lead, 1-0 Season Record: 26–16 Single-A Myrtle Beach Pelicans Series vs. Wilson Warbirds (Milwaukee Brewers): Warbirds lead, 1-0 Season Record: 18–26 Affiliate Highlights Triple-A: Iowa Cubs Season Record: 22–29 Series Opponent: Indianapolis Indians (21–31) Series Standing: Lead, 1-0 May 25: The Iowa Cubs opened their series at the Indianapolis Indians with a 9-7 comeback victory on Monday at Victory Field. The Indians took a 1-0 lead after one but the Cubs scored twice in the second to take their first lead of the ballgame. Scott Kingery’s (1-for-3) sacrifice fly started the scoring and Brett Bateman (3-for-5) put Iowa in front with an RBI-single. Indianapolis would score five times in the bottom of the second to take a 6-2 advantage. The I-Cubs got two of those runs back in the fourth on another RBI-single from Bateman and a run-scoring bunt single from Justin Dean (1-for-4). Ben Cowles (1-for-5) brought home a run in the fifth to cut the lead to one but the Indians answered back with a run of their own in the home half of the frame to make it 7-5. Iowa went in front for good with three runs in the sixth, with Owen Miller (4-for-5) tallying an RBI-single and Cowles delivering the go-ahead swing with a two-run single. Miller’s solo blast in the eighth, his third of the year, gave the Cubs some insurance as they were able to hold on for the series-opening win. Tyler Beede picked up the win out of the bullpen and improved to 1-2 on the season. Beede allowed one run on two hits over three innings of work, striking out two and walking one. Luke Little earned his first save of the season by tossing two perfect frames, whiffing two. Eight of the nine Iowa starters tallied at least one hit in the ballgame with four recording at least three-hit efforts. Double-A: Knoxville Smokies Season Record: 22–23 Series Opponent: Chattanooga Lookouts (26–20) Series Standing: Trail, 1-0 May 26: The Knoxville Smokies dropped their series opener to the Chattanooga Lookouts, 12-3, on Tuesday at Erlanger Park. The Lookouts took a 3-0 lead in the first and later made it a 9-0 game with a six-spot in the fourth. The Smokies finally got on the board with two in the seventh through a solo shot from Jefferson Rojas (2-for-2), his fifth of the season, and an RBI-single from Alex Madera (1-for-2). Chattanooga plated three more in the bottom of the inning to make it 12-2. Andy Garriola (2-for-4) notched a consolation tally in the ninth with a solo blast, his ninth of the season. Frankie Scalzo Jr. turned in three scoreless innings out of the bullpen, allowing just two hits, striking out three while issuing just one walk. High-A: South Bend Cubs Season Record: 26–16 Series Opponent: Fort Wayne TinCaps (22–24) Series Standing: Lead, 1-0 May 26: The South Bend Cubs pushed their winning streak to six games with a 5-2 series-opening win over the Fort Wayne TinCaps on Tuesday night at Four Winds Field. Josiah Hartshorn (1-for-2), making his High-A debut, gave the Cubs the lead with a sacrifice fly in the first. Kade Snell (1-for-2) doubled the lead two batters later with an RBI-double, his sixth two-bagger of the year. The TinCaps halved the lead in the second but South Bend got that right run back in the home half of the inning to go up 3-1. Hartshorn picked up his first High-A hit in the fifth, doubling home Ty Southisene (1-for-3). The Cubs added another run in the eighth before Fort Wayne pushed one across in the ninth but they were able to hold on for the 5-2 win. Alfredo Romero improved to 2-1 on the season by firing 5 2/3 innings of one-run ball, allowing four hits and whiffing four, to go along with two walks. Jackson Brockett earned his first save of the season by working the final 3 1/3 frames, allowing one run on three hits to go along with five strikeouts. Single-A: Myrtle Beach Pelicans Season Record: 18–26 Series Opponent: Wilson Warbirds (24–22) Series Standing: Trail, 1-0 May 26: The Myrtle Beach Pelicans dropped their ninth-straight contest, falling to the Wilson Warbirds, 4-1, on Tuesday night at Pelicans Ballpark. The Warbirds took a 1-0 lead in the second and added runs in the fourth and the fifth to make it 3-0. The two teams traded runs in the eighth, with Eli Lovich (4-for-4) providing the Pelicans’ lone run of the ballgame on a solo shot, his fifth of the season. Pierce Coppola got the start for Myrtle Beach and took the loss, falling to 0-3 on the season. Coppola allowed two runs on three hits over four innings of work, striking out eight and walking two. View the full article

On Monday, the Blue Jays selected the contract of right-hander Tanner Andrews from Triple-A Buffalo. The next day, they signed a new arm to replenish their right-handed minor league relief depth. Matt Bowman, 35 on Sunday, has appeared in 231 games over seven major league seasons. From 2016-19, he pitched to a 4.02 ERA and 3.20 xERA in 183 games for the Cardinals and Reds. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2020 and did not return to the majors until September 2023. Since then, he has tossed 59.1 innings with a 5.46 ERA and 5.05 xERA for the Yankees, Twins, Diamondbacks, Mariners, and Orioles. While Bowman hasn't had much success since his surgery, he's been an interesting pitcher to watch. If you're curious to learn more about Bowman, Michael Rosen of FanGraphs wrote a great piece about the unusual right-hander last season. This past winter, Bowman signed a minor league deal with the Twins. Although he pitched to a 1.69 ERA with 25 strikeouts in 21.1 innings at Triple-A St. Paul, he never got a call-up to the majors. Last week, he exercised an opt-out clause in his contract, prompting Minnesota to grant him his release. Matt Bowman will now report to the Buffalo Bisons, and it wouldn't be surprising to see him pitching for the Blue Jays at some point this year. View the full article

When the Minnesota Twins selected Royce Lewis with the first overall pick in the 2017 MLB Draft, the organization believed it was taking the highest-upside position player available. Nearly a decade later, the results have been frustrating, complicated, and increasingly difficult to defend. Last week, the Twins officially optioned Lewis to Triple-A after a brutal opening stretch to the 2026 season. In 31 games, Lewis slashed just .163/.261/.279 while producing only six extra-base hits. For a player once viewed as a franchise cornerstone, the performance became impossible for the organization to ignore. The frustrating part is that Lewis has shown flashes of being exactly what the Twins hoped he could become. Injuries interrupted multiple seasons, but when healthy, he looked like an explosive middle-of-the-order bat capable of carrying an offense. Those stretches are why he has still managed to accumulate 3.7 rWAR for his career, ranking 10th among first-round selections from the 2017 draft class. Unfortunately, most of that value came earlier in his career. Right now, Lewis looks lost offensively, overaggressive at the plate, and short on confidence. The Twins are hoping a reset in St. Paul can help him rediscover the version of himself that once looked destined for superstardom. Still, the bigger picture surrounding the 2017 draft is important context. In hindsight, the Twins may have been trapped in a no-win situation, no matter which direction they chose. Let’s revisit the names that followed Lewis near the top of the draft board. RHP Hunter Greene The Cincinnati Reds selected Greene second overall and handed him the largest signing bonus in the draft at $7.23 million. When healthy, Greene has absolutely looked like the best player from the class. He has accumulated 13.3 rWAR, the highest total among all first-round picks from 2017, thanks to overpowering stuff and ace-level flashes. If the Twins could redo the draft today, Greene is probably the choice. But that comes with a giant asterisk. Injuries have constantly interrupted his career. Greene underwent an elbow procedure this March and is expected to miss 14-16 weeks. Last season, he also missed more than two months because of a groin strain. The talent is undeniable, but durability concerns have followed him since the moment he entered professional baseball. LHP MacKenzie Gore The San Diego Padres went with Gore third overall, betting heavily on a high-school left-handed pitcher. That’s always a terrifying profile at the top of the draft, especially for a small-market organization that can’t afford a complete miss. Gore eventually found success after being traded to Washington, earning his first All-Star appearance last season while posting a career-best 3.0 rWAR campaign. This year has been a different story. Through 10 starts with Texas, Gore owns a 76 ERA+ and -0.1 rWAR. His career has featured massive swings in performance, and it’s easy to understand why the Twins avoided prep pitching at the top of the board altogether. Minnesota likely viewed both Greene and Gore as too risky for the first overall selection. 1B/RHP Brendan McKay Few players in the draft generated more intrigue than McKay, the Louisville two-way standout selected fourth overall by Tampa Bay. McKay was dominant on both sides of the ball in college, posting a .966 OPS while also recording a 2.23 ERA across three collegiate seasons. Tampa Bay gave him a $7 million signing bonus, another total that exceeded Lewis’s deal. It never came together professionally. Injuries completely derailed McKay’s development. He appeared in only 13 major-league games as a pitcher, and his last professional appearance came in Double-A during the 2024 season. Considering the expectations attached to him entering the draft, McKay would have been an even more painful outcome for Minnesota than Lewis has become. RHP Kyle Wright The Atlanta Braves selected Wright fifth overall after a dominant college career at Vanderbilt. He was viewed as one of the safer collegiate arms in the class and eventually delivered at least one excellent season. In 2022, Wright won 21 games for Atlanta while posting a 128 ERA+ over 180 innings. For a moment, it looked like the Braves had landed a frontline starter. Since then, his career has stalled out. Wright has bounced between multiple organizations in recent years, including the Royals and Cubs organizations. He hasn’t appeared in a major-league game this season, and last year he split time between Double-A and Triple-A. That’s the reality of this draft class. Even some of the “successful” picks came with major caveats. The painful truth for the Twins is that the top of the 2017 MLB Draft was loaded with warning signs. Nearly every option carried significant risk, whether it was injuries, inconsistency, stalled development, or outright collapse. Minnesota chose the player it believed offered the best combination of upside and long-term value. At times, Lewis absolutely justified that belief. There were stretches where he looked like a future superstar capable of changing the direction of the franchise. Right now, though, something clearly isn’t working. The Twins are hoping this stint in Triple-A becomes a reset instead of a farewell. Because while the 2017 draft may have been full of landmines, Minnesota still needs Royce Lewis to prove he isn’t one that permanently blew up their future plans. If the Twins could repick, who would they take with the first overall selection? Leave a comment and start the discussion. View the full article

Brooklyn led the night with a clean 6-0 combined shutout over Wilmington, Daviel Hurtado tossing four scoreless innings to start the effort. St. Lucie pounded out three home runs in an 8-2 win at Bradenton, with Julio Zayas, AJ Salgado, and Simon Juan all going deep, while Miguel Mejias struck out six over two perfect relief innings. Binghamton fell 7-3 in 10 innings to Portland despite Jonathan Santucci's seven-strikeout outing. The Syracuse Mets were idle. Mets Transactions Transferred CF Luis Robert Jr. from the 10-day injured list to the 60-day injured list. Lumbar spine disc herniation. Placed CF Tyrone Taylor on the 10-day injured list. Right hip flexor strain. Activated LHP A.J. Minter from the 60-day injured list. Activated 1B Jared Young from the 10-day injured list. Optioned LF Nick Morabito to Syracuse Mets. Optioned RHP Jonathan Pintaro to Syracuse Mets. Selected the contract of 1B Eric Wagaman from Syracuse Mets. Late Runs Sink Rumble Ponies In Extras The Rumble Ponies fell 7-3 to the Sea Dogs in 10 innings on Tuesday night at Mirabito Stadium, undone by a four-run top of the 10th. Binghamton struck out 13 times at the plate, stranded eight runners, and saw a late lead slip away. Jonathan Santucci handled the bulk of the starting work, going 4 2/3 innings on 84 pitches. He gave up four hits and two earned runs, walked two, and struck out seven, the most by any pitcher in the game on either side. Max Green followed with 2 1/3 innings of one-hit relief, fanning three without issuing a walk. Binghamton turned things around in the bottom of the third. With one out, JT Schwartz launched his third home run of the season to tie the game at one. Two batters later, Marco Vargas drew a walk and came around to score on a Chris Suero double to left, giving Binghamton a 2-1 lead. The lead lasted only into the fifth, when Portland evened it before a Jacob Reimer sacrifice fly in the bottom of the inning put the Rumble Ponies back ahead 3-2. Portland pushed across the tying run in the eighth, then broke through against Jefry Yan in extras. With the zombie runner aboard, the Sea Dogs strung together a triple, a double, a single, and another double to plate four. Yan was charged with the loss after surrendering four runs, three earned, in his one inning of work. Schwartz finished 1-for-3 with a home run, a walk, and two runs scored. Wyatt Young added two hits and two stolen bases. Player AB R H RBI BB K Marco Vargas, SS 3 1 0 0 2 1 Chris Suero, C 4 0 1 1 1 2 Jacob Reimer, 3B 4 0 0 1 0 2 Eli Serrano III, LF 5 0 1 0 0 1 Jose Ramos, RF 3 0 0 0 1 2 D'Andre Smith, CF 4 0 1 0 0 1 Nick Lorusso, DH 4 0 0 0 0 3 JT Schwartz, 1B 3 2 1 1 1 0 Wyatt Young, 2B 3 0 2 0 1 1 Player IP H R ER BB K HR Jonathan Santucci 4 2/3 4 2 2 2 7 0 Max Green 2 1/3 1 0 0 0 3 0 Guillo Zuñiga (BS, 1) 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 Saul Garcia 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 Jefry Yan (L, 0-1) 1 4 4 3 0 3 0 Cyclones Combine For Shutout Over Wilmington Brooklyn blanked the Blue Rocks 6-0 at Maimonides Park behind a five-pitcher combined shutout, scattering four hits over nine innings while striking out 10 and walking just one. Daviel Hurtado set the tone, working four scoreless innings with three strikeouts and no walks while allowing only two hits. Joe Jacques picked up the win with a strikeout in a clean fifth, Ryan Dollar followed with a hitless sixth, and Garrett Stratton fired two shutout frames in the seventh and eighth, striking out three. Cristofer Gomez closed it out with a one-hit, two-strikeout ninth. The Cyclones broke through in the second. Colin Houck and Trace Willhoite drew back-to-back walks before Sam Biller punched a single up the middle, scoring Houck for a 1-0 lead. Brooklyn doubled the margin in the third when Mitch Voit worked a walk and John Bay followed by lining his sixth home run of the season to left field, pushing the lead to 3-0. Biller stayed busy in the fourth, lacing a double to right that scored Trace Willhoite from first and making it 4-0. Yonatan Henriquez added a run-scoring single in the seventh, and Voit capped the scoring in the eighth with a base hit to left that brought home Nick Roselli. Biller finished 2-for-3 with a double, two RBIs, and a walk, while Voit reached safely three times with two walks, a single, and a run scored. Bay's homer and two-RBI night anchored the middle of the order. Ronald Hernandez chipped in with a triple in the third. Player AB R H RBI BB K Mitch Voit, SS 3 1 1 1 2 1 John Bay, RF 4 1 1 2 0 1 Corey Collins, DH 2 1 0 0 2 1 Ronald Hernandez, C 3 0 1 0 1 1 Yonatan Henriquez, CF 4 0 1 1 0 1 Colin Houck, 2B 3 1 0 0 1 1 Trace Willhoite, 1B 3 1 1 0 1 2 Nick Roselli, 3B 4 1 1 0 0 2 Sam Biller, LF 3 0 2 2 1 0 Player IP H R ER BB K HR Daviel Hurtado 4 2 0 0 0 3 0 Joe Jacques (W, 1-0) 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 Ryan Dollar 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 Garrett Stratton 2 1 0 0 0 3 0 Cristofer Gomez 1 1 0 0 0 2 0 Three Homers Lift St. Lucie To Win Over Bradenton The St. Lucie Mets bashed three home runs and rolled to an 8-2 win over the Marauders at LECOM Park, racking up 10 hits and 10 walks while their pitching staff held Bradenton to two unearned runs over nine innings. Jonathan Jimenez opened on the mound and gave the Mets 2 1/3 innings, allowing two hits and one unearned run while walking and striking out none. Christian Rodriguez followed and picked up the win with 2 2/3 innings, surrendering two hits and one unearned run while fanning two. Miguel Mejias was the standout out of the bullpen, striking out six over two perfect innings. St. Lucie struck quickly in the second. Julio Zayas led off the inning with his third home run of the year, and Chase Meggers later doubled to center to bring home AJ Salgado for a 2-0 lead. The Mets tacked on in the third when Antonio Jimenez walked, moved to third on a Randy Guzman double, and scored on a Zayas groundout. The fifth was the back-breaker. With Zayas aboard on a walk, Salgado launched his eighth home run of the year to make it 5-1. Simon Juan followed in the sixth with a two-run shot to left that brought Antonio Jimenez home, and Elian Peña tacked on an RBI single in the eighth to close out the scoring. Peña reached base three times with a hit and two walks. Antonio Jimenez was on base in all five trips with a single, three walks, a hit-by-pitch, two stolen bases, and two runs scored. Player AB R H RBI BB K Elian Peña, SS 3 0 1 1 2 2 Antonio Jimenez, 3B 1 2 1 0 3 0 Randy Guzman, 1B 3 0 1 0 0 0 Simon Juan, RF 2 1 1 2 0 0 Yohairo Cuevas, CF 4 0 1 0 1 3 Julio Zayas, DH 4 2 1 2 1 1 AJ Salgado, 1B 4 2 1 2 1 0 Branny De Oleo, LF 1 0 0 0 0 0 Sam Robertson, LF 3 0 1 0 1 1 Chase Meggers, C 5 0 1 1 0 2 Jeremy Rodriguez, 2B 4 1 1 0 1 1 Player IP H R ER BB K HR Jonathan Jimenez 2 1/3 2 1 0 0 0 0 Christian Rodriguez (W, 2-0) 2 2/3 2 1 0 0 2 0 Luis Alvarez 1 0 0 0 3 1 0 Miguel Mejias 2 0 0 0 0 6 0 Joe Charles 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 Top-20 Prospect Performance Carson Benge: DNP A.J. Ewing: DNP Jonah Tong: DNP Elian Pena: 1-for-3, RBI, 2 BB, 2 K Jack Wenninger: DNP Ryan Clifford: DNP Jacob Reimer: 0-for-4, RBI, 2 K Nick Morabito: DNP Mitch Voit: 1-for-3, R, RBI, 2 BB, K Jonathan Santucci: 4 2/3 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K Chris Suero: 1-for-4, 2B, RBI, BB, 2 K Zach Thornton: DNP Wandy Asigen: DNP Will Watson: DNP Eli Serrano III: 1-for-5, K Randy Guzman: 1-for-3, 2B Ryan Lambert: DNP Dylan Ross: DNP Antonio Jimenez: 1-for-1, 2 R, 3 BB, 2 SB R.J. Gordon: DNP View the full article

The San Diego Padres improbably find themselves at 31-22 and keeping pace with the reigning champions in the National League West. It’s not that the Padres being one of the best teams in the league is wholly surprising; it is how they’ve gotten there that is. At the beginning of the season, if someone had told you that the Padres were challenging the Dodgers for the division title, your first thought would have likely been that Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, and Jackson Merrill had played at an MVP level, but you’d be wrong. The Padres have gotten here despite their star trio. Machado has a wRC+ of 76, Tatis clocks in at 77, and Merrill sits at a lowly 74. Thankfully, their defensive abilities have prevented them from being complete negatives, but that trio's underperformance is the primary reason the Padres own the league’s 27th-ranked offense by wRC+ at 90. While Tatis’ continued home run drought, despite excellent hard hit rates, is well chronicled, as is Machado’s perplexing brand of flaccid patience, Merrill’s struggles have flown a bit under the radar. Jackson Merrill, Future Star Bursting onto the scene as a 21-year-old rookie, Merrill looked like a future star and potential perennial MVP candidate. His 130 wRC+ as a rookie, while performing admirably in center field, a position he had never played as a prospect, led to an incredible 5.3 fWAR season, and saw him finish second in Rookie of the Year voting to Paul Skenes. It was enough to get the Padres to offer him a nine-year, $135 million extension that no one batted an eye at. Early in his career, the game plan for Merrill was simple. In possession of an incredibly variable swing, he could square the ball up anywhere in the zone for doubles damage. His blend of contact volume with above-average pop formed the foundation of an incredibly enticing profile. If either his plate discipline or power trended up, two traits that usually improve as a hitter matures, he would instantly become one of the game’s elite hitters, but after a slight backslide in his second season, he has completely fallen off in year three. So, what’s exactly befuddling such a talented hitter that he could go from being an All-Star as a rookie to one of the league’s worst non-catcher hitters? Well, he isn’t getting results in the heart of the zone. Finding Love in the Heart of the Zone The dirty secret of hitting is that the pitcher is in almost complete control. The vast majority of extra-base damage is done on pitches the pitcher would like back, and no one tries to throw balls. Even a mediocre fastball, if well executed, is going to give the best hitter fits, which is why the best hitters excel at taking advantage of mistakes, either through slugging pitches down the middle or spitting on pitches off the plate. Merrill isn’t blessed with an elite batting eye, but early in his career, it didn’t matter. He offered at pitches outside of the zone infrequently enough that it didn’t detract from his ability to square up balls in the zone. The trade-off as a hitter he was making made sense. Yes, he’d swing at some bad pitches, but he’d rarely fail to offer at ones he could drive. The result was a lower walk and strikeout rate, but a higher batting average and slugging percentage. Unfortunately, the entire operation has gone backwards this season. Through 50 games and more than 200 plate appearances, Merrill’s contact ability has continued to erode, and he’s offering at pitches outside of the zone more than ever. However, that isn’t what’s really troubling him. Plenty of hitters can succeed with this approach as long as they punish the mistakes in the heart of the zone. The problem is that Merrill hasn’t done enough with those crushable mistakes. Compared to 2025, Merrill has seen a concerning drop in his production in the dead center of the strike zone. *Stats as of the week of May 25 It’s still early, but Merrill is whiffing more and hitting for a worse average and slugging percentage on pitches down the middle. If he were still using the same approach as his rookie season, his overall production would probably still be fine, but because his approach has shifted to take advantage of those exact pitches at the cost of plate coverage, it’s a serious problem. Now, it would be fine if Merrill’s plate discipline and in-zone contact figures declined if it came with a corresponding bump in production right down the middle, but right now, everything is coming up snake eyes. However, there is some good news. Process Over Results in the Heart of the Zone Whether or not you think Merrill changing his approach from being a plate coverage monster to a home run-seeking slugger is a positive development, it appears to be the choice he has made. The good news is that while his surface numbers in the heart of the plate have declined, the underlying batted ball data suggest he has been incredibly unlucky. By and large, Merrill’s new approach has been working from a process standpoint. He has sacrificed his ability to cover the entire plate to improve his contact in the heart of the zone. However, one of the problems when you make this decision is that you’re at greater mercy of batted ball luck and the unknowable location of each pitch. A two-percent drop in pitches down the middle doesn’t seem like much, but for a hitter it’s massive. Merrill has swung at 92% of pitches down the middle this season and made contact at an 84% clip. This season, he has faced 797 pitches. At an 8% dead center rate, that’d equal 63.76 total pitches, but at 6%, it drops to 47.82. That’s 15.94, let’s say 16, fewer pitches where Merrill would swing 92% of the time, equaling 14.72 more swings and 12.36 more times where he makes contact. Considering his expected slugging is 0.943, that’s an incredible loss in potential production. In all likelihood, Merrill will see his metrics regress towards his expected stats in the heart of the zone, and it’ll pull his offensive production out of the red. While we can expect better days for Merrill ahead, it’s another matter if this evolution was the right one to take. He’s walking and striking out more because pitchers are throwing him fewer strikes, even though he’s chasing more than ever. On pitches not down the middle, his underlying production has mostly declined. While you can get the most bang for your buck on dead-red fastballs, Merrill’s superpower was his ability to get plenty of bang on pitches throughout the zone. This new approach will probably lead to Merrill being far streakier, as we’ve seen in the bad way, to start the season. Now, it’s not like Merrill has to abandon his new approach for it to be worthwhile, but he does need to refine it. If he can rein in the chase and continue to aggressively hunt middle-middle pitches, he’ll be fine. But if the chase is the cost of doing business, he might be better off covering the whole plate. The good news for the Padres is that they’re well above .500 and better days are likely ahead for their youngest star. His new approach might not be optimal long-term, but he has executed it far better than his current production would suggest. As the summer starts to heat up and he gets an unusually high number of middle-middle pitches, don’t be surprised if he goes on a surge, but also don’t be surprised when he comes crashing back to Earth. Merrill is still a good hitter, but he is fundamentally a different one than the star we knew. View the full article

Emmanuel Rodriguez is once again out for a significant amount of time due to injury. The Twins' top prospect had a UCL tear in his left thumb after a headfirst slide into first base on May 1, and only after the inflammation went down was the UCL tear revealed. With an estimated timeline of recovery around three months, will he make his MLB debut before the 2026 season is over? View the full article

Carson Benge is quickly turning into one of the brighter young stars in the 2026 MLB rookie class. The New York Mets' right fielder is hitting just over .250 and is hitting the ball relatively hard. In this video, we will dive into his average exit velocity and overall approach to start off the season. View the full article

After a shaky season at the plate in 2025, the Royals have not made substantial progress offensively in 2026. Right now, the Royals sit at a wRC+ of 93, which is tied with the San Francisco Giants for 23rd in MLB. Alec Zumwalt has been the Royals’ Major League hitting coach and Senior Director of Hitting Performance since May 2022. Since 2021, the Royals’ team wRC+ has not been above league average, and excluding the playoff season in 2024, that mark has not risen above 93. The Royals also currently rank 26th in runs scored, and their runs per game average is down 3% from 2025, with the team averaging only 3.91 runs per game. Entering 2026, the Royals had aspirations of making the playoffs and pushing for the division title. After 53 games, roughly a third of the way through the season, the Royals sit nine games below .500 and nine games back in the AL Central. While the Royals’ situation is not great, there is still hope, as they are only four games back in the Wild Card race. Now could be the time to make a change to turn the season around. While many players have struggled to reach their expectations this season, there are a few metrics that could highlight the Royals' struggles could be rooted in hitting philosophy rather than poor individual performance. When looking at hitting performance in high-leverage situations, the Royals currently rank last with a wRC+ of 60. With runners in scoring position, the Royals also rank last with a wRC+ of 80. Since teams do not necessarily need power to drive in runs with runners in scoring position, it is also worth looking at runs per plate appearance in those situations, where the Royals rank 22nd. This offseason, the Royals also specifically targeted players with good plate discipline. Acquisitions Isaac Collins and Lane Thomas, in particular, graded well above-average in chase and walk rates. Those additions have helped the Royals improve their overall walk rate to 9.2% in 2026 from 7.2% in 2025, but that mark is still only the 17th-best in MLB this year. However, the Royals rank 12th in strikeout rate at 21.5%, which is notably up from last year’s mark of 18.2%. Another change that the Royals made this offseason was bringing in the fences by 10 feet in left and right fields. Have the Royals taken advantage of the shorter fences? The Royals this season rank 18th in home runs per plate appearance at home, which is up from ranking 27th last season. This is a notable improvement, which perhaps adds some perspective to the team’s lack of run creation. The Royals are still struggling to generate runs despite hitting more home runs at home. Right now, Bobby Witt Jr. is at his absolute peak and is having an MVP-level season. He currently leads MLB in both bWAR and fWAR. However, if you combine all Royals hitters, they equal Witt’s bWAR mark of 3.4. The Royals need to take better advantage of Witt during his prime, and a change in hitting philosophy could help spark that improvement. While it is difficult to place all of the blame on Zumwalt, it is definitely tough to see former Royals prospects like Ryan O’Hearn and Brent Rooker become all-star caliber players after struggling to make an imprint at the major league level in Kansas City. It is easy to come to the conclusion that the Royals are to blame for these players’ initial struggles in MLB. Ultimately, it is easier to fire a coach than replace multiple struggling players in the lineup, and a change in philosophy and perspective could be what this lineup needs to find its footing and turn the season around. With the Royals' offense remaining stagnant year-over-year, the Royals continue to risk wasting another precious year of Witt’s prime if they don't make a change soon. View the full article

Turn on a Cubs game, lately, and you won't have to wait long for confirmation that the team is fighting it—not only losing, but panicking about it, and trying to turn a losing streak into their next winning streak in a way that's only pushing them deeper into the losing spiral. At this point, you almost—almost—can't even blame them. The predicament they face is very real. This is a team built to win now, if ever, and it doesn't look like they're built to win now, after all. In a highly competitive NL Central, they're dead last, and the only team they really need to worry about (the perennial, inevitable Central champions, the Brewers) sits comfortably in first, even if it's only 4.5 games from penthouse to cellar right now. They're in scramble mode, because they really can't afford the way things have gone, and they certainly can't allow it to go on any longer. No one ever got out of a hole by digging frantically, though, and that's what the Cubs have been doing lately. Injuries and a collective slump by half their lineup have played big roles in throwing them into this pit of despair, but their desperation to escape is increasingly counterproductive. Nowhere is that more clear than in center field, where Pete Crow-Armstrong has lost it and is playing like an extremely talented, extremely dysregulated fool. Because Cade Horton, Matthew Boyd and Edward Cabrera are all on the injured list, Jordan Wicks was recalled from Triple-A Iowa to take Cabrera's turn in the rotation Tuesday night. That was an utterly doomed endeavor, and Wicks wasted no time proving that. However, his woes were exacerbated just moments after he toed the rubber. That Wicks gave up hits to the first two batters he faced can hardly have surprised anyone. Unfortunately, it also didn't come as any surprise when Crow-Armstrong tried to do way too much and wound up making the situation instantly worse. He had no hope of throwing out Konnor Griffin at third base on this line-drive single, but because he's become convinced that he needs to lift the team out of its torpor through the sheer force of his will, he tried, anyway. His errant throw gave Brandon Lowe a free base and made Wicks's job harder, rather than easier. Crow-Armstrong is very lucky, too, that the ball didn't sail or skip a bit higher, landing in the Pirates dugout. He gave away one base (though, unaccountably, he wasn't charged with an error on the play), but it could easily have been more. To call this a pattern would, by now, be an understatement. Crow-Armstrong should have come into this season with a certain measure of security and comfort, after a breakout 2025 season and a strong showing in the World Baseball Classic. Instead, he's played all year like a starving man forever trying to start a brawl over half a rotisserie chicken. So insatiable is Crow-Armstrong's appetite for greatness and championship glory that it's eating him, from the inside out. Lamentably, the final note in the stirring song of Crow-Armstrong's 2025 was a pair of plays on which he tried to scale the center-field wall in Milwaukee to pull back clutch homers by the Brewers in the NLDS—despite each ball clearing the fence by dozens of feet. One image summed up the futility especially tidily, and seemed like the universe itself taunting Crow-Armstrong for his unbridled ambition. Maybe he stewed on that more over the winter than he let on. Maybe he so hated losing that playoff series that he lost all sense of patience or perspective as he looked forward to beating the Brewers this year. Whatever the reason, Crow-Armstrong has showed up this year with exactly the same energy with which he finished last year—and that's a problem. We've already talked about the drawbacks of Crow-Armstrong's huge increase in bat speed this year. It's a change that has the chance to make him a lethal slugger, but so far, it's mostly produced more pop-ups and rolled-over grounders, however sharply hit. You'd like to see him swinging more under control. To his credit, though, he has at least swung less often, by a considerable margin. In the past, his difficulty harnessing his immense talent has mostly taken the form of chasing everything. This year, though his swing is faster than he can handle and isn't generating the right kind of contact, he's found a bit of restraint about when to swing. Even when that falters, sometimes, good things can happen. He swung at a 3-1 pitch he absolutely should not have chased in the bottom of the ninth inning against the Reds on May 6. It was a dumb, overcooked swing, at a moment when reaching base would have meant bringing the winning run to the plate and having Crow-Armstrong's speed carrying the tying one. On the next pitch, he chased outside the zone again, but he connected on a low-flying missile of an opposite-field homer, tying the game. He was playing out of control, governed only by adrenaline. That's how he's looked at all big moments this year. On that pitch, though, that adrenaline and his remarkable talent created an explosive play. All year, Crow-Armstrong's bat speed has climbed. It's still climbing. Five of the six fastest swings of his career have come since April 27, peaking with this pass at a Jacob deGrom slider on Mothers Day. WU9WMzdfVjBZQUhRPT1fQUFCWlYxeFhVRlFBQVZWVEFBQUhBUVlGQUFNREJ3Y0FCMU5SQUFzQ0JRRmNBRkJR.mp4 The Statcast-reported swing speed on this was 87.9 MPH, the only time Crow-Armstrong has reached the maximum value the system spits out for public data purposes. As you can see, though, the result was another mishit, and watching the swing leaves one wondering more why he traded so much barrel accuracy for sheer swing speed on a two-strike count than how he can achieve such a thing. On balance. you'd like to see Crow-Armstrong rein all that in, because the lineup needs him badly and he can't be his best self until he regains control of his swing. However, being slightly out of control in the batter's box is normal for Crow-Armstrong; he's just doing it in a different way this year. You can live with his indiscretions at bat. You can't live with that throw we saw above. You can't live with this one, either, from April 13. a0R2Uk9fWGw0TUFRPT1fVWdsVUFsY0hVVmNBV3dFRVZRQUhBUTVmQUFBRlVWUUFDbE1DQVF0UVVBWlVDUUJU.mp4 It's a testament to Crow-Armstrong's brilliance as a fielder that Brandon Marsh actually waited before heading home on this play. If The Flash had a jetpack, he still couldn't have caught that ball, but Crow-Armstrong got such a great jump and sold it so well that Marsh held at third a bit. That Crow-Armstrong then airmailed his cutoff men and fired all the way home, however, testifies only to his erratic mindset in the field this year. This throw, too, cost the Cubs a base. It left his hand at over 101 miles per hour, the hardest throw of his career. His form in charging and firing was, as always, superb. But the decision was dreadful—a bit of hubris that the Phillies easily punished. Almost every mistake Crow-Armstrong has made this season has come because he was trying to do way, way too much. He wants to be the best player in the sport, and to take over the game and will the Cubs to win. Instead, he's willing them closer to losses, at times. On the David Hamilton single which Crow-Armstrong played into a three-run round-tripper last week against Milwaukee, Crow-Armstrong was plotting another heroic bit of scoop-and-fire. He's trying to make up for the failure of his teammates to score runs in bunches. He's trying to mitigate his pitching staff's inability to rack up enough strikeouts. He's trying to deal with the fact that they keep giving up long fly balls, by hunting outs even when there are none to be found. His wild desire for excellence has positives in the field, too. We've never seen a player get jumps on fly balls as good as Crow-Armstrong's. He's devised a pre-pitch setup and movement unique to him, which almost pushes him into some kind of magnetic suspension as he reads contact and begins to chase fly balls. He's dedicated himself to his craft, and he's doing some freakish things, in the field and at the plate. At too many crucial moments—within games, but even within swings or just when he gets to the ball after some blindingly fast, arrow-straight route—he's way out of control, and it shows. That was more apparent than ever when he collided with the fence at Rate Field after a valiant but ludicrous attempt to catch something uncatchable. Taunted by a fan who'd ragged on him all game, he lashed out with profane and offensive ferocity. It was ugly, and Crow-Armstrong has been appropriately remorseful. It was also very real. That's where he is right now, mentally—on such a sharp, fine edge that any tip off the right track will leave someone wounded. He's too good to be making the mistakes he's making this year, just as the Cubs are too good to have lost 14 of 16 games and be getting their doors blown off in most of those contests. As baseball people always say, though, you are what your record says you are after 162 games. The Cubs haven't played that many in 2026. They have time to get right. So does Crow-Armstrong. To begin fixing the problems at hand, though, both the team and the player have to reckon with an excruciating dual truth: their margin for error is gone, but they must stop playing like it. Their sense of urgency has become its own emergency. View the full article

The Minnesota Twins entered this season with the deck stacked against them. They were a 70-win team that made few meaningful upgrades during the offseason. Minnesota's new manager brought with him the worst career winning percentages in history; their new ownership chair had no baseball experience. The Twins' long-tenured and highly-respected baseball ops leader resigned just before spring training, leaving untested Jeremy Zoll in charge of the front office. The infrastructure was already quite questionable. Then, on the first official day of spring training, the Twins lost Pablo López, their highest paid and arguably most important player, for the season. None of their big bullpen gambles in camp (e.g. Liam Hendriks and Andrew Chafin) paid off. The team started the season 3-6. Everything was seemingly moving along as one would expect. But from there, the Twins won eight of nine, vaulting above the .500 mark. This was followed by a prolonged "back to reality" slump, with a 9-19 record over the next 28 games putting Minnesota back underwater by six games. But now they've pulled together another hot streak, winning seven of their last nine to get back within a game of .500 and into the thick of the AL Wild Card picture. Through these first 55 games, in addition to being without López entirely, the Twins have: Gotten zero appearances from David Festa, and just four from Mick Abel. Received sub-replacement level performance from their two biggest offseason signings, Josh Bell and Victor Caratini. Seen hopeful lineup cornerstone Luke Keaschall go from promising #3 hitter on opponent day to floundering #8 hitter two months later. Sent down key players Royce Lewis and Matt Wallner after several weeks of immense and relentless struggle. Demoted Simeon Woods Richardson to the bullpen after he posted a league-worst 7.71 ERA through nine starts. You look at this series of developments all together, and you'd assume the Twins were 10 games below .500. At times, they've been trending in that direction. But so far they've been able to pull out of their tailspins with winning bursts, and as we pass the one-third milestone in the schedule, they are on pace for 80 wins. That's on the higher end of general expectations and well within range of Tom Pohlad's "We will be competitive in 2026" edict. I don't want to heap too much praise on a losing team that's hanging around in a very underwhelming American League, but, it's impressive! How have the Twins managed to overcome their shortcomings and tribulations to reach this point? What's Gone Right? For all that has gone amiss in the past few months, there are a number of important things that have gone swimmingly. And while it's fair to debate the sustainability in some cases, there's no denying the impact up until now. (The following stats were entering play on Tuesday.) The starting rotation has been (mostly) fantastic. Twins starters are on pace for 14.1 fWAR, which would be the highest in the last decade aside from their division-winning campaigns in 2019 and '23. The collective 3.82 ERA from Minnesota's rotation is dragged down by Woods Richardson; if you remove his contributions from the mix that figure drops to 3.15, which would rank third in the AL behind the Rays and Yankees, owners of the two best records in the league. Byron Buxton is as good as ever. He's on pace for 48 home runs and 6.0 fWAR, which would both represent new career highs. Having such an offensive force at the top of the your lineup who can also play a solid center field is just such a big competitive advantage. Ryan Jeffers was building toward a career year. He was neck-and-neck with Buxton in WAR before going down with a hamate fracture last week, and that probably understates the impact of his prolific ABS-challenging success. Jeffers will be out until around the All-Star break, which is one major factor standing in the way of sustained success for the Twins, but he's been integral to getting them here. Austin Martin and Trevor Larnach are taking big steps forward. They rank third and fourth Twins among position players in WAR after Buxton and Jeffers. Not long ago, it was unclear whether either of them would even be in the team's plans for this season. They're excelling with a similar formula: good plate approaches yielding low-power, high-OBP production that nets out at roughly 25% of above league average. The bullpen has been shockingly effective. At least lately, anyway. Through 39 games, Twins relievers had the second-worst ERA in baseball (5.81). Since then, in their past 15 games, they have the fourth-best ERA (2.05), and they lead the majors in WPA, helping them go 9-6 over this stretch. It's been a stunning turnaround and while I struggle to convince myself it's going to stay this way, they did just part ways with their two worst bullpen arms (Justin Topa and Luis García) in the past week. Derek Shelton seems to be resonating. I don't want to blow this out of proportion — especially because, this time last year, the Twins were five games over .500 and fresh off a 13-game winning streak under Rocco Baldelli. That's easy to forget now because of how the rest of the season went, and there's plenty of season left this year. We've seen this Twins team play some bad ball under Shelton. But we've also seen them generally respond well to his presence, and they're now on their second run of scrappy winning baseball in two months. There's a lot that's gone wrong with this team, and a lot that still could go wrong. But to be within spitting distance of a winning record as the summer gets going in earnest is about all I could have realistically ask for, so I'm going to savor it while I can. What are you biggest impressions of the 2026 Twins through one-third of the season? Is it a bad team that's riding a temporary hot streak? A mediocre team that matches its record? Or a potentially good team with more in the tank? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. View the full article

On Tuesday, the New York Yankees absolutely thrashed the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium. The Yankees not only scored 15 runs, but also collected 24 hits in a 14-run win over the Boys in Blue. Safe to say, it was one of the worst losses of the season, especially at Kauffman Stadium. The Royals had a bullpen game on Tuesday against the Yankees, and unfortunately, the strategy blew up in Kansas City's face early. Bailey Falter opened the game for the Royals, and the Yankees got after him early. They scored four runs against him in the top of the first, and in 2.1 IP, he allowed seven runs on nine hits. He didn't allow a walk, but he didn't strike out anyone either, and he gave up three home runs. Two of those home runs came in the first inning, including one from Cody Bellinger, who hit his second home run of the series. When looking at his TJ Stuff+ summary from Tuesday's game, not much went right for Falter, though his TJ Stuff+ actually wasn't as bad as the results illustrated. He struggled to generate whiffs, and the Yankees hit him hard in his 2.1 innings of work. However, the TJ Stuff+ and chase were actually pretty decent, especially for his standards. Falter posted an overall TJ Stuff+ of 100 with his four-seamer being his best pitch in terms of TJ Stuff+. Not only did it have a 106 mark, but it also sported a 64 grade, a 55.6% zone rate, and a 25% chase rate, all of which are average to above-average marks. However, he didn't generate a single whiff with the pitch, and his .639 xwOBACON was the second-worst mark in that category of the four pitches he threw on Tuesday. Ironically, his splitter, which was his second-best pitch in terms of TJ Stuff+ (103), had the worst xwOBACON at .901. Tuesday was another frustrating outing for Falter, who just hasn't put it together in his time in Kansas City. In 9.2 IP this year, he has a 13.97 ERA with a 3.10 WHIP, which includes 24 hits allowed in less than 10 innings of work this season. Last year, after he came over from Pittsburgh at the Trade Deadline, he had an 11.25 ERA and 2.25 WHIP with 20 hits allowed in 12 IP with the Royals. Therefore, even though the TJ Stuff+ hints at a better pitcher than his results show, it may be time for the Royals to part ways with Falter. Command Remains a Problem for Falter (Especially on Fastball) When it comes to what Falter has done in terms of Statcast percentiles, he's actually limited barrels and hard contact, but has struggled to generate whiffs and strikes in general. Here's a look at Statcast summary this season after Tuesday's game, via TJ Stats. Falter actually does a good job of limiting that "productive" contact. He has limited barrels and hard hits, and kept the average exit velocity manageable. Furthermore, his Z-Contact% allowed is actually pretty good (80.5%), considering his struggles with whiffs and CSW. Unfortunately, it's hard to ignore those "strike-generating" categories. His whiff rate ranks in the 39th percentile, his CSW ranks in the 15th percentile, and his O-Swing% ranks in the third percentile. That's not a recipe for success, especially for a pitcher with a subpar fastball (21st percentile fastball velocity). An issue for Falter that has limited his ability to throw strikes this year is subpar command. Even though his extension and TJ Stuff+ metrics are encouraging, he leaves pitches in hittable areas of the strike zone far too much. That was on prime display on Tuesday against the Yankees. Here's his pitch type chart against the Bronx Bombers in his latest outing on May 26th. Frankly, that's not a good-looking chart, simply because he's leaving way too many pitches in the middle-middle areas of the strike zone. The Yankees teed off on Falter's pitches as well, as evidenced by his pitch-description chart, which shows the results. As Royals fans can see above, there are a lot of "In Play, No Out" and "In Play, Runs" dots in that pitch chart above. All on pitches thrown in the middle-middle areas of the strike zone. In fact, below is an example of Falter hanging a curveball right in the middle of the strike zone to Amed Rosario, and the journeyman utility player launches it like he's Aaron Judge. While the curveball was an example of a command "mistake" of Falter in this outing, the fastball command has been a problem this year. That's disappointing considering that his four-seamer has been his best pitch on a TJ Stuff+ end this season, as illustrated in his TJ Stuff+ summary below. Falter relies heavily on the four-seamer, as illustrated by his 61.5% usage rate on the pitch. It makes sense, since it sports a 102 TJ Stuff+, 57 grade, and .303 xwOBACON. Unfortunately, it's been a poor-performing pitch in terms of zone rate, chase rate, and whiff rate. Here's a heatmap breakdown of Falter's four-seamer below. Notice how often the pitch sits in the strike zone and how few whiffs it generates. With a four-seamer, it's more ideal for a pitcher to locate it in the upper edges of the strike zone. Unfortunately, that's just not where Falter's pitch sits against lefties or righties. Against lefties, it tends to be in the lower middle of the strike zone. As a result, it has a 27.3% CSW, which is good, but all those strikes are called, not whiffs. His whiff rate with the four-seamer against lefties is zero. Against righties, he elevates it a little more, but it still sits more in the middle of the zone (though more inside to righties). The whiff rate is a little better at 14.3%, but the CSW is lower at 23.5%. Thus, it's not a great tradeoff for Falter, and his .383 xwOBACON against righties and .436 xwOBACON against lefties with the four-seamer illustrates that it's just not an effective offering overall. To be successful, Falter needs to be a pitcher who can command the four-seamer effectively. That isn't happening, and it doesn't seem like it's going to turn around anytime soon either. What's the Next Move? The Royals don't have a lot of options right now on the 40-man roster to straight-up replace Falter. Cole Ragans and Kris Bubic are still on the IL, and their return timetable is unknown. Furthermore, the pitching options for guys who can go multiple innings in Omaha are thin, with Mitch Spence having the most MLB experience. If the Royals are looking for another option who can go multiple innings and is a lefty, Ryan Ramsey could be an option. The 25-year-old former 13th-round pick doesn't have great stuff, and his ERA and FIP are high. However, he generates groundballs well and could be crafty in a reliever role, much like Sam Long, who made the transition from spot starter to reliever. The best option to replace Falter may be Beck Way, who needs to be added to the 40-man roster to make his Royals debut. Way was acquired from the Yankees in 2022 in the Andrew Benintendi trade, along with Chandler Champlain and T.J. Sikkema. Only Way remains in the Royals organization, but rightfully so, as Way has demonstrated a strong ability to generate whiffs and strikeouts in Omaha, something that evaded him a year ago. In 29.1 IP, Way has a 3.68 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 2.91 FIP, 32.8% K%, and 24.6% K-BB%. He also demonstrates excellent TJ Stuff+, whiff, and xwOBACON metrics, according to TJ Stats. Now 11 games under .500 and June about to be here next week, the Royals need to start thinking long-term with their roster, especially the bullpen. Kansas City's bullpen ranks 24th in ERA, 26th in WHIP, and 27th in BB/9. Thus, they need to find pitchers who can not just help those meager stat lines, but also provide upside beyond this season as well. Way certainly can do that, and since he's Rule 5 eligible, he likely will be swooped up in the December draft if he's not added to the Royals' 40-man roster soon. At this point, the Royals don't have anything to lose by replacing Falter with Way on the 40-man roster. View the full article