Jonathan Dyer-USA TODAY Sports The best pitching prospect in baseball, 21-year-old Pittsburgh Pirates righty Paul Skenes, is slated to be called up tomorrow to make his major league debut against the Cubs. The 6-foot-6 leviathan has a 0.99 ERA in seven Triple-A starts this year and has struck out 42.9% of the hitters he’s faced…
Willson Contreras’ tenure with the Cardinals has not lacked for drama, controversy, or interruptions in his work behind the plate. Unfortunately, the latest chapter in that saga began on Tuesday, when a J.D. Martinez swing fractured the 31-year-old catcher’s left forearm. After undergoing surgery on Wednesday, he’s likely to be out until around the All-Star…
Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports Among the crowd of high-end starting pitchers to sign with new teams over the offseason, perhaps none had wider error bars surrounding his projection than Shota Imanaga. An NPB star for the past half-decade, Imanaga had a track record of success but also many questions about how his skills would translate…
When the Braves signed Reynaldo López to a three-year, $30 million contract last winter, I was confused. Like most people in baseball, I thought López and Lucas Giolito had an E.T.-and-Elliott thing going on, where they couldn’t be separated. They’d come up together as minor leaguers with the Nationals, before being traded together to the…
Kiyoshi Mio-USA TODAY Sports Shohei Ohtani has a tendency to make absurd things happen. When he came over to the United States, some were skeptical that his offense would hold up as well as his pitching. Then, he came over and did just fine. Whether it’s being a two-time MVP as a two-way player or…
Welcome back to Top of the Order Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love. After an interminable wait for Pittsburgh fans (read: under 10 months), the Pirates on Wednesday finally announced they…
Keaton Winn is a rare big league pitcher, and not just because he’s the only one who grew up in Ollie, Iowa, with a population of 201 in the 2020 census. The 26-year-old San Francisco Giants right-hander’s primary pitch is a splitter, and by a significant margin. Through seven starts this season, Winn’s usage breakdown…
Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports We are now deep enough into the 2024 regular season that many of the initial surprises and outliers have leveled out. Mookie Betts is leading the league in position player WAR, Shohei Ohtani leads in wRC+, and Patrick Corbin is close to the top of the leaderboard in earned runs allowed….
Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports Yesterday, I wrote about at the mysterious disappearing zone rate of Mookie Betts. Today, we’ll be looking at a player who has seen his zone rate go in the other direction: Adley Rutschman. This season, opponents are throwing 51.7% of their pitches in the zone against Rutschman, up from 47.3%…
Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports Daulton Varsho must have been disappointed. After a breakout 2022 season, he was traded to Toronto, a World Series contender in need of outfielders. However, he experienced a down year, the Jays were swept out of the Wild Card round, and his former team made a surprising run to the World…
