Catcher Dillon Dingler of the Tigers drove in two runs with a triple, and the Tigers lead the Orioles 2-1 in the bottom of the fourth. For the rookie, that was his second triple in 24 games. He adopted the golf adage, “Hit them far and not too often,” as seven of his first ten hits went for extra bases, and he’s hitting just .133 on the season.
James Wood, the seasonal age 21 rookie of the Nationals, hit two home runs on Sunday in a 4-3 win over the Marlins, adding a walk along the way. That gives him seven home runs on the season and a slash line of .273/.364/.429. I will take that any season from a young rookie.
Those numbers should come with a caveat. Wood’s high BA is a result of a .382 BABIP. If the gap between this BA and BABIP surprises you, it’s because he struck out 81 times in 280 plate appearances, 28.9%. That’s a high K rate, the K rate of a slugger. At the moment, Wood is not a slugger.
I suspect the .382 BABIP is unsustainable as pitchers learn more about his tendencies as a hitter. If he cut down on his Ks and still managed .340, he might win a batting title.
The good news on this front is that he doesn’t swing and miss much. He is taking pitches in the strike zone. As a rookie, he might not get the edge calls, but as he learns the zone better, that might change. So he may not need a different swing, he may just need to learn to apply it on edge pitches with two strikes.
Rhett Lowder of the Reds made quite the impression in his second MLB start Thursday afternoon. He shutout the Astros for 6 1/3 innings. He did walk four and strike out just three, but all the hits were singles.
That gives him one run allowed in his first 10 1/3 innings for an 0.87 ERA. He’s doing this after going up three levels in the minors in one season. I suspect there is a little bit of luck behind that ERA, but he struck out 113 in 108 2/3 innings in the minors, walking just 24. If the control comes around, he could be awesome.
The Nationals called up Darren Baker, the son of Dusty Baker, best know for nearly getting run over by Giants players in the 2002 World Series as he served as the bat boy at three years of age:
In Game 5 of the series, San Francisco outfielder Kenny Lofton ripped a triple in the bottom of the seventh inning. But that wasn’t the highlight of the play.
Instead, it was 3-year-old Darren, who left the dugout while the play was still developing to retrieve the bat. Giants first baseman J.T. Snow scooped up the youngster near home plate and carrying him out harm’s way as another runner raced into home behind him.
SportingNews.com
Video at the link.
Baker does a good job of getting on base, but with little power. He did not hit a home run in 483 plate appearances in AAA this season. At age 25, he is no longer a prospect. It’s a nice move by the Nationals so Baker and Baker each get their names at the major league level.
Andres Chaparro made his MLB debut at first base for the Washington Nationals, going three for four with three doubles in a 9-3 win over the Orioles. He produced a .500 slugging percentage in over 1000 PA at AAA. At seasonal age 25, he’s not a prospect, but in his prime he can still be a valuable MLB player.
The Rays recalled infielder Junior Caminero from the minors. The seasonal age 20 prospect ranked near the top among minor leaguers:
In ESPN’s Top 100 prospects list, coming out of spring training, Caminero ranked No. 3 overall after a minor league season in which he hit .324 with 31 home runs. Jackson Chourio of the Milwaukee Brewers and Jackson Holliday of the Baltimore Orioles — both currently in the majors — were the only two players ahead of him.
ESPN.com
He destroyed AA pitching at seasonal age 19. He did not hit that well at AAA this year, but he was slowed by injuries. It looks like the Rays think he’s ready, as he’ll be batting fifth and playing third base on Tuesday night.
The Rays are not afraid to start the free agent clock early on their prospects. They usually get an early long-term signing at a good price. Maybe Caminero will be smart and play until he’s a 27 year old free agent.
A 26-year-old is not a prospect.
Pedro Leon of the Astros, in the second year of his prime, is hitting well at AAA. Note that he spent much of his career at AAA. Basically, he has old player skills, walking a lot and hitting for power. Those are good skills to have, but at 26 and in AAA, he better have some skills. He is not the future. He is a good AAA hitter who might fill a hole.
Ignacio Alvarez, who goes by Nacho Alvarez, made his major league for the Braves tonight. I believe he is the first Nacho to play in the majors. The seasonal age 21 rookie owned a .404 OBP in his minor league career, including a .432 mark at AAA in 132 PA.
In his first PA, he did get the bat on Hunter Greene‘s cheese, but Greene made a nice behind the back catch of the grounder for the out. The Reds lead the Braves 1-0 in the second inning.
The NL decided to start rookie pitcher Paul Skenes of the Pirates in the All-Star game:
Skenes received the news from NL manager Torey Lovullo, who surprised him during an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show on Friday.
“That’s unbelievable,” Skenes said when he received the news. “That’s awesome.”
“So well deserved,” Lovullo told Skenes. “We’re super excited to make this announcement. You represent so many great things that this game craves. It’s such a great story the way you’ve come on the scene, the way you’ve done it with such humbleness. It’s noticeable. I’ll be honored to be your manager and I’m going to be honored to be watching you throw your first pitch.”
MLB.com
It’s also a great way to get fans to tune into the game. I suspect many people have not yet had a chance to watch Skenes pitch live. Most people don’t have Extra Innings, and the Pirates are not a mainstay of national broadcasts. Here’s MLB shining the spotlight on a player. That lack of player promotion by the league is a long standing complaint from the men on the field.
It’s a good job all around by MLB, and it’s a great reason to watch the contest.
Ben Rice of the Yankees hit three home runs today to help New York to a 14-4 win over Boston. Rice, seasonal age 25, did a great job getting on base at every level of the minors and hit for power the the more A’s were added the level.
The Yankees moved him into the lead-off slot as Anthony Volpe slumped, and had a .364 OBP coming into the day. Saturday afternoon, he showed off his power.
I do wonder why the Yankees did not call him up last season to replace Anthony Rizzo after the concussion was discovered. Rice did miss May and June due to an oblique injury, but if he been on the team in August, might he had made a difference?
He is listed as a catcher-first baseman, but the way he hits I suspect that first base would keep his bat in the lineup longer. We’ll see what happens if and when Rizzo returns.
James Wood of the Nationals just finished his first MLB plate appearance. He did not chase anything bad, worked the count 3-2, and then went with a pitch down, grounding it hard the other way for a single. It was a good PA with a good result.
This is the first time I saw him and was impressed by his height. He’s listed as 6′ 7″, but he looks taller. He was .300/.400/.500 player in the minors, which is pretty good for a seasonal age 21 player.
The Mets and Nationals are scoreless going to the bottom of the third inning.
Pitcher Drew Thorpe of the White Sox came into Saturday with a horrendous line for 2024, mostly based on a very bad second start of his career. He righted the ship in his third start, shutting out the Tigers for six innings on two hits as Chicago went on to win the game 5-1. It wasn’t a perfect outing, as he walked four to go with this five strike outs. He blew away the minor leagues, however, with a 21-3 record and a 2.17 ERA in 199 1/3 innings. He improved moving from A to AA, which was likely a major reason for his call up.
Paul Skenes strikes out the first two batters he faces in his Pittsburgh debut, hitting 101 and 102 on the radar gun. He does walk Cody Bellinger of the Cubs, but gets a long fly out to center to end the inning. The crowd, which does not appear to be a sell out, loved it.
Update: Skenes has control problems in the second inning, loading the bases on a hit by pitch, walk and single with one out. He gets a strikeout and ground out, however, to end the inning with no score in the game. Four of the first ten batters did reach against him.
Update: Connor Joe hits a three-run homer in the bottom of the third inning to put the Pirates up 3-0. Oneil Cruz goes back to back to make it 4-0. Excellent home run calls by the Pirates announcer.
Update: Nico Hoerner homers off Skenes in the top of the fourth inning, the first run off the rookie. The Pirates lead the Cubs 4-1.
Update: Skenes comes out for the fifth, but gives up a double and an infield single to put men on first and second with none out. He’s pulled from the game.
It was a good start. He missed a lot of edges, and because of that did not get some edge calls. The Cubs managed six hits seven though they struck out seven times. The one jam Skenes saw, he pitched out of well.
Jackson Holliday makes his major league debut tonight in Boston with the Orioles. In ten games at AAA this season, the 20-year-old hit .333/.482/.595 after hitting .267/.396/.400 in 18 games there last year. Holliday proved to the Orioles he has nothing left to prove at the minor league level.
Shota Imanaga pitched a gem in his major league debut, allowing just two hits while striking out nine his his six innings of work for the Cubs. He owned a low walk rate in Japan, but the strikeouts were quite surprising. The Cubs easily defeat the Rockies 5-0.
Jackson Chourio, the 20-year-old Brewers phenom, leads off and walks in his first MLB plate appearance. He posted a .373 OBP in spring training. He also steals his first base. The Brewers and Mets are scoreless in the top of the first inning as baseball opens in New York City.
Update: Chourio does not score as Rhys Hoskins hits into a double play on a less than hard it ball to third base. It’s clear that Hoskins has very little speed after his injury last year. No score going to the bottom of the first inning.
The Tigers agree to a six-year deal with prospect Colt Keith:
The Tigers made an unusual bet on a player with no major league experience, signing 22-year-old infield prospect Colt Keith to a six-year contract Sunday that guarantees him $28,642,500.
His deal includes three team options that could make it worth $64 million over nine seasons, and the Tigers said there are escalators that increase the value to $82 million over nine years.
ESPN.com
So the Tigers buy out his arbitration years, and if he turns out to be good, keep him through his prime year. He will play 2024 as a 22-year old. Keith hit well at pretty much every level. He is a triple threat, with a high BA, OBA, and slugging percentage. He also averaged a triple per 100 PA, which is pretty good in this era.
One of the points of the last CBA was to get more money in the hands of young players. This does that very nicely, while saving the Tigers money in the long run if Keith turns out to be a star.
Rookie sensation Jasson Dominguez tore his UCL:
Aaron Boone said Dominguez reported soreness in the elbow as far back as his first series in Houston, but it didn’t impact him at the plate until he was taking batting practice Sunday.
He is expected to be out for 9-10 months.
NYPost.com
Bryce Harper showed hitters can come back from this injury quickly, and youth in on Dominguez’s side in this regard. Of course, the Yankees may not want him as a designated hitter, since they have plenty of people on that team better suited to that role. I could see him DH’ing in the minors until he can throw again, which may mean he might not be back with the Yankees until 2025.
Correction: I mistakenly typed 2024 in the original post.
The Astros at the Tigers got to two out in the bottom of the ninth with just two hits in the game, one for each team and the Astros leading 1-0. Two hits would have been the lowest total hits in a game in the division era, 1969 on. Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers singled, however, and two hits later the game was tied and rookie Parker Meadows came to the plate. Three for eleven with a triple and two walks in his first three MLB games, Meadows was 0 for 1 with two walks when he hits his first MLB home run, and the Tigers take the game 4-1. Parker found his power this season at AAA, and unleashed it in the majors at just the right time.
Red Sox rookie Wilyer Abreu posted a game to remember in his third MLB contest as the goes four for five with a double and a home run in a 17-1 victory over the Astros. It was the 17th time the Astros allowed at least 17 runs in a game, and the first time since 9/10/2019.
Abreu hit .274/.391/.539 at AAA Worcester this season. He was in the Astros organization until the middle of last season when he came to Boston in the Christian Vazquez deal. So far, that deal looks pretty good for the Red Sox.
The Angels called up the player they drafted six weeks ago, Nolan Schanuel:
Big picture, though, it looks like a win-win. We’ve long moved past the date to gain a full year of major league service time in 2023, and with Friday being 44 days away from the end of the regular season, players can still vie for the 2024 Rookie of the Year Award if they remain on the active roster the rest of the way (provided they don’t exceed 130 at-bats).
The Angels can fill an immediate need while seeing how Schanuel stacks up against major league pitching, which is part of what this season has been about. The Angels had already called up Zach Neto and Sam Bachman and Ben Joyce, and they’ve given Mickey Moniak and Logan O’Hoppe plenty of opportunities. They’ll hold out hopes of bringing back Ohtani, but they’ll also leave 2023 with a pretty good idea of what type of young core they have.
ESPN.com
Schanuel moved up quickly, reaching base six times in twelve PA at the rookie level, collecting five hits and a walk in in PA A ball, and then posting a .339/.480/.475 line at AA in 75 PA. Since players should not be judged on nine to twelve PA at a level, I assume the coaches looked at Shaneul and saw that he was too good for the first two levels. Again, 75 PA is nothing, but the coaches there may have also noticed he was too good for the level. It will be an exciting night for LAnaheim.
Phillies rookie Weston Wilson homered in his first MLB plate appearance:
It took Weston Wilson until he was 28 years old and 332 days to get his first at-bat in the Major Leagues. It took the newest Philadelphia Phillies utility man just one at-bat to launch his first home run.
Wilson connected with the third pitch that he saw in his MLB career to hit a 429-foot home run off of MacKenzie Gore, electrifying the crowd at Citizens Bank Park, which included his family.
PhilliesNation.com
Wilson walked in his second PA, giving him a perfect 1.000/1.000/4.000 line. If he were a gambler, I’d tell him to quit while he was ahead. 🙂
The Phillies lead the Nationals 6-0 in the fifth inning.
Davis Schneider of the Blue Jays posted another great game to start his career. He started off with a two for five on Friday, homering in his first MLB PA. His second game was perfect, with three singles and a walk. Sunday afternoon he added a four for five with another home run to leave his slash line at .692/.733/1.154. He was hitting .275/.416/.533 at AAA, so it looks like his OBP and power is real. That’s a real bonus for a middle infielder, and makes up a lot of the loss of Bo Bichette to injury.
The Blue Jays completed a sweep of the Red Sox with a 13-1 win.
Quinn Priester of the Pirates retired the first nine Guardians he faced in his major league debut. He has yet to strikeout a batter, but eight of the nine outs came on ground balls. The exception was a lineout to shortstop, where Liover Peguero, in his second game, made a great catch.
The game is scoreless in the bottom of the third at Pittsburgh.
Update: In the fourth, Priester walks Steven Kwan, then Amed Rosario homers for a 2-0 Cleveland lead.
Lots of players hit a home run for a major league debut, but how many get an outfield assist before they come to the plate? With Ha-Seong Kim of the Padres on first after a lead-off single in the top of the first inning, Fernando Tatis, Jr. lifts a fly ball to the wall in center, a bit to the rightfield side. Johan Rojas, making his major league debut for the Phillies, robs Tatis of extra bases with a great catch, then throws to first for a close double pay to get Kim retreating from the far side of second base. An unusual spectacular start to an MLB career.
Rookie Dane Myers bats ninth for the Marlins today, playing in his sixth game of the season and his career. He leads off the bottom of the second inning with a home run, the first of his career. That makes him eight for nineteen with a double and a homer.
At seasonal age 27, Myers is not a prospect, but a player reaching the majors at his peak. He posted good OBPs in the minors, so batting him ninth as a secondary lead-off hitter to set up the power of Jorge Soler seems perfect.
The Marlins lead the Phillies 4-0 in the bottom of the second inning as Bryan De La Cruz just homered as well.
Joey Votto of the Reds just hit his second home run of the game against the Braves, his three-run shot in the bottom of the fifth giving Cincinnati a 9-7 lead. It’s his third home run in four games since his return to the team. Meanwhile, rookie Elly De La Cruz is three for three in the game, just needing a triple for the cycle. In his fifteenth MLB game, he’s slugging .627. These two could make a great story down the stretch.
Update: De La Cruz comes up for the fourth time, and launches a ball to deep right-center. It splits the outfielders, and De La Cruz turns on the jets. He makes third base easily for the cycle and his second triple of his young career. Just wow!
Update: It was the Reds first cycle since Eric Davis on June 2, 1989.
Update: Note that was the fourth cycle this season. There were five in 2022. The Day by Day Database goes back to 1920, and in that time 1933 and 2009 are tied for the most cycles in a season with eight.
Henry Davis of the Pirates works a three-two count in his first MLB plate appearance, the laces a double down the third base line for his first hit. The Pirates picked him first overall in the 2021 draft. He slugged .541 between AA and AAA this season with a .433 OBP. He had nothing left to prove in the minors.
The Cubs lead the game 3-0 in the bottom of the third inning.
Bobby Miller of the Dodgers continued the excellent start of his career on Saturday, pitching six shutout inning for his second start in a row. He’s now allowed two runs in 23 innings, both earned, for a 0.78 ERA. The weakest part of his game is his walks, with seven allowed so far. Given that he has yet to allow a home run and only gave up twelve hits, that’s a pretty good weakness.
The Dodgers defeat Philadelphia 9-0.
I love this quote from Kumar Rocker of the Rangers. The Mets did not sign him after drafting him in 2021, worried about his shoulder. The Rangers then took him in 2022, and he is in camp, shoulder fixed, and throwing in the high 90s.
Rocker, very poised off the mound as well as on, said he learned the ropes of a pro athlete from his dad, Tracy Rocker, the former college great and NFL defensive lineman and coach. While he said he will try to be more “mindful” about not pushing himself, he also said he only knows one way.
“I grew up with the philosophy you don’t get off the field until you have a bone sticking out,” Rocker said. “That’s how I grew up and that’s how I’m going to continue to play.”
NYPost.com
That’s the attitude one wants in a major league player. It’s also why coaches are needed to keep that competitiveness from causing a serious injury.