Category: Baseball

It’s that time of year again! Athletics Nation’s annual Community Prospect List time, where you, the fans of our A’s, will get to vote for who is ranked among the farm system’s best and brightest prospects. This year we’ll be going as far as the top-25 in the system. starting with the top prospect and wrapping it up with the #25 spot.

The process for this public vote is explained below. Please take a moment to read this before participating:

• Please only vote for one. The player with the most votes at the end of voting will win the ranked spot. The remaining four players move on to the next ballot where they are joined by a new nominee.
• In the comments, below the official voting, the community will nominate players to be put onto the ballot for the next round. The format for your comment should be “Nomination: Player Name”.
• If a prospect is traded, his name will be crossed out, and all other players will be moved up a space. If a prospect is acquired, a special vote will be put up to determine where that player should rank.

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We will start out with five nominees vying for the top spot in our rankings. The candidates for the top prospect in the Athletics’ farm system are the cream of the crop in the organization. Shortstop Leo De Vries is widely considered one of the best prospects in the entire sport and is a potentially franchise-altering player. It took a lot to pry him away from San Diego but he could be a center piece for a future playoff contender. The same could be said for left-handed pitchers Jamie Arnold and Gage Jump, both of whom were selected by MLB Pipeline as two of the top left-handers in the entirety of the sport recently.

If you lend more weight to players who are actually on the cusp of making it to the big leagues, you may end up voting for top outfield prospect Henry Bolte, who stole 44 bags last year and offers a different aspect than what the A’s offense usually produces. He could be a backup plan in center field if Denzel Clarke’s bat isn’t quite up to snuff. Right-hander Braden Nett, who came over to the A’s organization along with De Vries, spent all of last year in Double-A and posted encouraging results. It wouldn’t be a shock of the Athletics, who have been aggressive with their prospects in recent years, see him succeed at Triple-A next year and decide to get an early look at the righty.

Here’s a quick rundown on each one — the scouting grades (on a 20-to-80 scale) and scouting reports come from MLB Pipeline (last updated early-2026).

Nominees on the current ballot:

Leodalis De Vries, SS

Expected level: Double-A | Age: 19

2025 stats (A+/AA): 536 PA, .255/.355/.451, 28 doubles, 8 triples, 15 HR, 74 RBI, 66 BB, 107 K, 11 SB

MLB Pipeline grades and scouting report:

Scouting grades: Hit: 60 | Power: 55 | Run: 55 | Arm: 55 | Field: 55 | Overall: 60

A switch-hitter, De Vries already shows an exquisite knowledge of the zone and will take his walks like he’s a player many years older. He needed just a little bit more exposure to California League arms before making the adjustment to their quality, and that speaks well to how he’ll handle higher levels, something he continued to show in the Midwest League with low strikeout and high walk rates at the time of the trade. After getting to his power more from the right side in 2024, with seven of his 11 homers coming from that side despite far fewer plate appearances, he flipped the script in 2025, with seven of his eight homers coming left-handed before he was sent to the A’s. He has more than enough bat speed from both sides of the plate where splits aren’t a major concern.

A former point guard in basketball, the Dominican Republic native is an agile runner and efficient on the basepaths. He has the range and hands to handle shortstop well, and even though he got some looks at second base in the Fall League, he’s played shortstop exclusively this season. There’s enough arm strength here to keep him on the left side of the dirt anyways. De Vries plays like a prospect hungry for challenges, which has served him well during his age-18 season.

Gage Jump, LHP

Expected level: Triple-A | Age 22

2025 stats (A+/AA): 3.28 ERA, 24 starts, 112 2/3 IP, 131 K, 34 BB, 7 HR, 2.96 FIP

MLB Pipeline grades and scouting report:

Scouting grades: Fastball: 55 | Curveball: 55 | Slider: 60 | Changeup: 50 | Control: 55 | Overall: 55

Jump’s fastball is difficult for opposing hitters to pick up with an arm angle that creates some deception. The heater sits about 92-94 mph and can reach up to 97 with good carry up in the zone. His upper-70s curveball has significant downer break, and his low-80s slider has cutting action. His fading low-80s changeup is used far less than his other three offerings.

Listed at 6-foot, Jump lacks the size of a typical starter, though his growth since the surgery and ability to generate his stuff with arm speed helps his potential outlook as a long-term starter. The ceiling of a mid-rotation starter is there, though some scouts believe he might be better suited in a bullpen role. To start out, the A’s will develop him as a starter and look to see him maintain good health and strike-throwing ability.

Jamie Arnold, LHP

Expected level: Single-A | Age 21

2025 stats: None (Athletics’ 2025 1st-round draft pick)

MLB Pipeline grades and scouting report:

Scouting grades: Fastball: 60 | Slider: 65 | Changeup: 50 | Control: 55 | Overall: 55

A left-hander with a rangy body and a loose, whippy arm, Arnold has seen his stuff tick up since leaving Jesuit High School for Tallahassee. Coming from a lower arm slot and flat approach angle, his fastball, which was 88-92 mph in high school, now sits in the 94-95 mph range and touches 97, with a ton of life to miss bats. While his slider can be a little wide at times, the 82-85 mph sweeping breaking ball is a second plus offering that elicited a 43 percent miss rate in 2024 and ’25 combined. His changeup is his third pitch, and he doesn’t need it much, but there’s some feel for it.

Arnold has shown the ability to fill up the strike zone and limit damage while maintaining his stuff deep into outings. With the funky arm slot, his stuff has drawn some comparisons to Chris Sale, a reason why people think it shouldn’t take him too long to join a big league rotation.

Henry Bolte, OF

Expected level: Triple-A | Age 22

2025 stats (AA/AAA): 488 PA, .284/.385/.427, 20 doubles, 6 triples, 9 HR, 56 RBI, 57 BB, 141 K, 44 SB

MLB Pipeline grades and scouting report:

Scouting grades: Hit: 45 | Power: 55 | Run: 65 | Arm: 50 | Field: 50 | Overall: 45

Bolte is a tooled-up athlete who continues to fill out his big 6-foot-3 frame. His impressive raw power continues to show up in the Minors, though there is still a real concern over his swing-and-miss and high strikeout rate as he continues to struggle with offspeed stuff out of the zone. The A’s have worked with him to revamp his swing in order to improve his bat path and cover more of the zone, which has produced slight improvements in those areas, though there is still plenty of work to be done.

Another shining tool for Bolte is his near-elite speed, which was on display last season as he swiped 46 bags. That speed also comes in handy on defense, combining that with a strong arm that makes him a solid outfielder at all three spots. Further refining is required, but he remains an exciting talent with a very high ceiling who continues to steadily advance through the system.

Braden Nett, RHP

Expected level: Triple-A | Age 23

2025 stats (AA): 3.75 ERA, 24 starts, 105 2/3 IP, 116 K, 48 BB, 8 HR, 3.77 FIP

MLB Pipeline grades and scouting report:

Scouting grades: Fastball: 55 | Curveball: 55 | Slider: 60 | Changeup: 50 | Control: 55 | Overall: 55

While working around the injuries, Nett has continued to show stellar velocity, touching as high as 99 mph in the Minor Leagues last season. He typically sits 95-97 mph and gets swing-and-miss up in the zone thanks to ample carry. He also throws a tight 81-84 mph slider that ran a 38 percent whiff rate in ’24 and a sharper 90-92 mph cutter that can catch hitters off guard. He’ll mix in an upper-70s curveball with more vertical drop and he’s scrapped a low-80s splitter in favor of a much more effective 88 mph kick-change that really neutralizes lefties.

Nett has some effort in his delivery, and the 2025 season (pre-trade) was the first time he’d posted a walk rate below 13 percent at any Minor League stop. Combine that with the early injury concerns, and it’s easy to think he could be a reliever eventually. But his arsenal is deep enough, and his stuff is promising enough — when combined with strides taken this season — to keep landing him in a starting role in the upper Minors.

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Programming Note: Each CPL vote will run for around 48 hours, so don’t delay making your selections!

It’s been a couple of days now since the news hit Braves Country like a meteor falling out of the sky. Ha-Seong Kim is now set to miss all of spring training and at least a couple of months of the regular season on top of that. This is after he reportedly slipped on ice while walking around in his home country. He slipped on ice. The Braves will have to do without their starting shortstop for nearly half of the season because of a patch of ice.

Part of my coping mechanism is simply repeating what happened out loud so that it sets in. I’ve done that multiple times over the past couple of days and as you can see, I’m still doing it. It’s just wild to think about but also when you consider the injury luck that the Braves have had for two full seasons now (and hopefully this is as bad as it gets for this season in particular), it’s somehow not out of the ordinary, either. This is just another injury or unintended absence that the Braves will have to deal with, just like what they had to deal with for large portions of both the 2024 and 2025 regular seasons.

The only good news about this injury to Kim is that it happened in mid-January and that this is a position that the Braves at least did a good job in fortifying with their offseason business. Now, don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say here when it comes to Maurico Dubón (and Jorge Mateo as well after the Braves brought him in on a one-year, $1 million deal shortly after the news about Kim’s injury broke): It’s definitely not ideal to have Dubón holding down the fort at shortstop for a long stretch of time. Sure, you heard people like Alex Anthopoulos and Walt Weiss both talk about how they’d be fine with Dubón being the starting shortstop while that was still a possibility before Kim’s signing changed the depth chart around here.

With that being said, there’s a reason why agreed to pay Kim $20 million for just one season (and hopefully more, since I’d imagine that the Braves would still be interested in keeping Kim around once he recovers and hopefully rebounds) at shortstop: It’s because they absolutely needed Kim and the offense that he could potentially provide at that position. There’s no question that Dubón is going to provide solid-to-great defense for the Braves at the shortstop spot while he holds down that spot. There’s a very big question as to whether or not Dubón will hit enough to where they won’t be desperately missing Kim’s potential of plate production. Atlanta already went through nearly one full season with paltry plate performance from the shortstop spot and it was clear that they didn’t want to have to deal with another season of that.

Unfortunately, it’s looking like that might be the case. Dubón is coming off of a season where he finished in the tenth percentile of all batters when it came to Batting Run Value (-12. Negative twelve!) and his two best finishes in that category came in 2023 when he finished in the 44th percentile and then in the COVID-shortened 2020 season where he logged a 47th-percentile finish — both only gave him a Batting Run Value of 1 for the season. Jorge Mateo also isn’t going to be hitting balls off of outfield walls on a regular basis either, as he’ll be entering 2026 as a career 75 wRC+ hitter with a high-water mark of 87 wRC+ back in 2024. Nacho Alvarez Jr. also has plenty of professional experience as a shortstop and could see some time there as well but he doesn’t have the glove to keep up with Dubón or Mateo and he certainly doesn’t hit much better than those two, either.

Plain and simple, this was just about one of the worst ways for the Braves to start off their season and we’re not even to the point where pitchers and catchers have reported for camp, yet. I mentioned in earlier articles that the Ha-Seong Kim signing essentially tied together all of the other offseason moves that the Braves made in order to make it all make sense. That signing was the finishing touch on an offseason painting from Alex Anthopoulos that wasn’t quite a masterpiece but still one that anybody would love to hang in their home.

Now, their biggest offseason signing won’t be around for a significant period of time and it’s certainly going to hamstring the Braves at the plate for as long as it takes Kim to eventually return and also get going as well. There’s no telling when we’ll finally see this Braves team at full strength but I doubt that it’ll be any time before July at this rate.

So while there’s no way around Kim’s injury not being a major blow to the 2026 Braves, it’s not a death sentence, either. The pitching squad still figures to be coming into this season fully healthy and if the Braves can simply maintain a healthy rotation then that alone could help them return to Postseason relevance in this upcoming season.

Additionally, the Braves have also upgraded their bullpen over the course of this offseason, they figure to be at full strength with a much-deeper outfield than last season’s team had to offer and the infield is still full of players who are either solidly capable of playing their position or fully capable of being stars as well. The hole at shortstop is a significant one to fill but you could certainly do with worse options than Dubón and Mateo as being half-season replacements.

So while this completely absurd and equally lame injury for Ha-Seong Kim is terrible news for the Braves, it’s still not the end of the world for this squad. I can absolutely understand if anybody’s feeling nervous about the injury bug that has hounded this team for over two seasons now continuing to float around this squad but at this point, there’s nothing we can do about it except continue to hope that everybody else can stay out of harm’s way and avoid stepping on an injury mine like Kim did.

The Braves are still set up pretty nicely for 2026 — they’ll just have to find a way to stay afloat and competitive before we see the complete vision of this team on the field in action. They’re set up well to do so but it’s also totally understandable if you’re already counting the days until Ha-Seong Kim returns to the starting lineup in Atlanta. It’ll just be a lot warmer outside than it is right now once he does finally return.

The Phillies are #RunningItBack in 2026! After missing out on Bo Bichette and re-signing J.T. Realmuto – barring any unforeseen moves between now and the start of the season – Dave Dombrowski has said that the 2026 Phillies are going to look very similar to the 2025 edition of the team.

Asked about notable players still on the free-agent market, Dave Dombrowski said, "I think we're content where we are at this point." Any roster adjustments figured to be more depth related.

— Todd Zolecki (@ToddZolecki) January 20, 2026

The consensus on social media and the comments section of this site is unhappiness.

So excited for the Phillies to run it back with basically the same squad for the last 4 years expecting a different outcome

— Evan (@evan_cahall) January 20, 2026

We knew this since his end of year presser. He told us “we were 1 or 2 plays away from beating LA” so you knew we would just run it back. The worst part is we are running it back with missing pieces & no substantial adds lol. 2026 Phillies Baseball: Gaslight ‘em til they believe! https://t.co/YmKWDFvUKH

— Gerry (@Saboats5) January 20, 2026

I understand why fans aren’t enthused about bringing back most of a team that has won a total of two playoff games the past two seasons. I too was in favor of adding Bichette or another big name, because adding good players to a roster is usually a positive thing.

But can we maintain some perspective on what the Phillies are running back? This team won 96 games in 2025, which was the second-most in baseball. They had two players finish in the top five of MVP voting – and that doesn’t include the guy who has actually won the award twice. They had three pitchers finish in the top ten of Cy Young Award voting and a closer who made the All-MLB team.

Obviously, they lost in the playoffs, but the loss came at the hands of the eventual champion super team Dodgers, with their three losses coming by a combined four runs. (If Orion Kerkering knew how to field, game four might still be going on.)

That’s pretty good! And others apparently agree since the Phillies currently have the second-best World Series odds in the National League.

2026 Odds:

To win the World Series
(via @DKSportsbook):

+250 Dodgers
+850 Yankees
+1300 Phillies
+1300 Mariners
+1500 Braves

To win the NL East
(via @FDSportsbook):

+150 Phillies
+175 Braves
+200 Mets
+3000 Marlins
+8000 Nationals pic.twitter.com/Q6kqBlL5If

— Phillies Tailgate (@PhilsTailgate) January 18, 2026

It would be disingenuous (and Smarty is never disingenuous) to not mention the counter arguments:

• This core has failed to win the World Series the past four years.
• They’ve gone backwards every season. (People say this, but it isn’t actually true. They won one more game in 2026 and the playoff result was the same. It certainly wasn’t a step forward, but they didn’t go backwards)
• A lot of key players are now one year older, and it is natural to expect some decline.
• They lost Ranger Suarez and we don’t know what to expect from Zack Wheeler.

Maybe this group hasn’t shown an ability to win when it counts, but they seem like a good bet to make the playoffs again. If you think the Phillies are imperfect, take a look around the rest of the league aside from the Dodgers. And sadly, even if Dombrowski nailed the offseason, the Phillies would still have an inferior roster to the Dodgers.

Faced with this reality, here is my suggestion: Just enjoy the regular season as its happening, and don’t get too hung up on what may or may not happen in the playoffs. Think back to 2021 when the team was in year ten of not even making it to the playoffs, and we had to wonder if they ever would again. As disappointing as the past Octobers have been, I will take this run over that any day.

This may sound snarky, but if you’re at the point where you consider just winning the division or making the playoffs to be a massive failure, then I suggest you not watch any games before October. When regular season wins fail to bring you joy and only cause a response of, “Who cares? It doesn’t mean anything until the playoffs,” then preserve your mental health, and don’t put yourself through 162 games of aggravation.

And who knows, maybe the playoffs will turn out differently this year. It’s easy to say, “Same roster, same results,” but as I mentioned, the oddsmakers think they have a chance. It wouldn’t be the first time that a core of Phillies players finally came through after years of failures.

If that’s going to happen, they need the trio of Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and Trea Turner to do far better than they did during last year’s playoffs. The Phillies gave huge contracts to each of them expecting them to be the main pieces of a championship team, and I think they are capable of it. But they need to justify that faith (and money) in the postseason, for more than just one game. (You can only win a game once, guys.)

Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper in the NLDS:

Game 1: 1-for-11 (Dodgers win)
Game 2: 1-for-10 (Dodgers win)
Game 3: 7-for-13 (Phillies win)
Game 4: 1-for-14 (Dodgers win) pic.twitter.com/8BAwWTzTVD

— Phillies Tailgate (@PhilsTailgate) October 10, 2025

The real hope for improvement comes from the farm system. John Stolnis wrote how its well past time the Phillies’ minor league system provides positive results. Justin Crawford and Andrew Painter (and maybe even Aidan Miller) are going to get their chances this year, and maybe they can prove to be the missing pieces that will allow the Phillies to finally bring home another trophy.

Sure, this hasn’t been the offseason most of us dreamed of. Maybe #RunningItBack doesn’t provide the excitement we wanted. But at this point, there’s nothing else to do besides hope for the best and understand that there are worse places to be.

After the Mets lost out on Kyle Tucker, with the outfielder signing a mammoth contract with the Dodgers, the main question was where would the Mets turn next? The Mets, through trades and free agency, lost many lineup mainstays, and while they still had Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto, they were looking for another major addition to their offense. And with Tucker off the board, their options became that much more limited.

Turns out, that question did not go unanswered for long. Less than 24 hours after missing on Kyle Tucker the Mets signed free agent infielder Bo Bichette for a three year contract worth $126 million. And while there are opt-outs that could lead to an early exit from Queens, the fact of the matter is that, at least for 2026, Bo Bichette will be a New York Met.

Bo Bichette has spent the entirety of his career playing for the Toronto Blue Jays. He was drafted in the second round of the 2016 MLB draft, and made his debut in July of 2019, forming a formidable homegrown duo with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. In his seven seasons in Toronto, he hit .294/.337/.469 with 111 home runs, 437 runs batted in, and a career 122 wRC+. He accumulated 20 fWAR in his time in Toronto.

In his last season in Toronto Bichette hit .311/.357/.483, hitting 18 home runs and driving in 94 runs. He had a 134 wRC+, his second-best career mark, just after his abbreviated 2019 after his call-up. He accumulated 3.8 fWAR, which was short of what he probably could’ve gotten given a late season knee sprain that cost him the final month of the season and most of the playoffs. He was able to make a miraculous return in time for the World Series, where he had an incredible showing. In seven games he hit .348/.444/.478, with one home run and six runs batted in, adding up to an incredible 165 wRC+.

Now before last season’s excellence, he had the worst campaign of his career in 2024. He hit an abysmal .225/.277/.322 in 81 games, with just four home runs and 31 runs batted in. He was 30% worse than league average with a 70 wRC+, and was worth just 0.3 fWAR. But he also had two separate stints on the injured list that year, including one that cost him multiple months of the season, so he might not have been able to get his footing underneath him with all the injury issues.

He’s not a flawless player. He has never been a player who draws a lot of walks, with a career BB% of 5.7%, and last year had the second highest mark of his career with 6.4%. Over his seven seasons he’s struck out 19.4% of the time, though last season he brought that down to a career low 14.5%. And he’s getting progressively slower each year, only being in the 21st percentile of sprint speed last season.

He’s also never been a great fielder. He’s spent almost his entire career at short with the exception of last year’s World Series when he played second base. His high marks as a fielder were in 2020 and 2024, when he was worth 1 OAA in both seasons (both abbreviated seasons for Bichette as well). Last season he was worth -13 OAA, with all his games at shortstop. 

But now he’s going to be playing third base, with Lindor to his left. And his major issue has been his range, not his arm, since he’s had a 0 run value for his arm over his career (which is better than the extreme negative of his range). So if he has to focus less on covering a ton of ground and has Lindor to help him (and Marcus Semien to help cover up the other side of Lindor), he might just be alright at his new position.

After missing out on Kyle Tucker, the Mets quickly pivoted and brought in Bichette to play third and help solidify their lineup. While on paper he’s yet another middle infielder on a team chock full of them, his impending move to third makes the team more flexible and stronger at the plate. There are some concerns to be had about his defense and potential to turn out a clunker of a season, money’s on Bichette being a welcome addition to a Mets team looking for a new identity in the wake of the dismantling of their core.

Going into the 2025 season, left-handed starting prospect Gabriel Reyes was one of my picks for an unheralded prospect to break out. As it turned out, the stuff was willing, but the body and the command were not. Reyes spun his wheels at Single-A Lakeland despite good results, and now he’ll head into his age 22 season in real need of a big season that will carry him to the upper minors.

The Dominican born Reyes signed with the Tigers back in the 2020 international signing period. He immediately tore the DSL up with five dominant short starts and then came stateside at 18 to pitch in the Complex League in 2021 and 2022. Injury trouble cost him the 2023 season, but he moved up to Single-A Lakeland in 2024 and showed off dominant stuff and good control for a young southpaw. He punched out 33.9 percent of the hitters he faced across 11 starts. His only blemish was such aggressive strike throwing that he occasionally left a few meatballs over the heart of the plate that got whacked.

So we were excited for his 2025 campaign. It just didn’t pan out well. First, Reyes reportedly came to camp in sub-optimal shape. The Tigers held him back for a few weeks before turning him loose again for the Lakeland Flying Tigers. Reyes had a good year on paper. He made 16 starts, got more ground balls and cut down the home runs, producing a stellar 2.40 ERA. His walks ticked up, but for a young pitcher he still shows a very good ratio of strikes thrown. And yet the Tigers never decided to promote him to West Michigan. The problem was more erratic pure stuff than he showed in 2024, and it showed as his strikeout rate dipped to 22.5 percent. They may also just have wanted to keep working with him at their main camp to make sure he was 100 percent ready for the move out into the farm system.

Reyes stands 6’1” and while he appears pretty strong and athletic for his size, he has a pretty reedy frame with an official weight of 170 pounds. He’s added some muscle in the past two years, and while he may get a little stronger he’s pretty close to maxed out physically.

The big calling card is a slider with a lot of sweep that is a plus pitch much of the time. He really turns the slider over and is quite adept at burying it on right-handed hitters’ back foot. At the Single-A level he can also pour it into the zone with impunity as long as he doesn’t leave too many above the belt, and he will get a lot of called strikes with it.

The fourseam fastball has a cruising speed of 92-93 mph and Reyes can run it up to 95 mph when he wants it. He’s a short-armer who doesn’t get a big stride, so the velocity plays down maybe a half a mile per hour, but the funk counterbalances that factor. When he’s up in the 94-95 mph band it’s at least an average fastball, which argues for an eventual move to the bullpen if he can’t ultimately build up to sustaining that velocity. He’s also developing a solid changeup but that pitch is still pretty hit or miss for him in terms of command.

Reyes has some funk, as he throws out of a low three-quarters arm slot, but his stuff doesn’t move the way hitters expect from that slot. Simply put, he has the arm slot of a guy that would usually pronate more and produce a lot of tailing action on the fastball and changeup. Instead it’s a true fourseamer that throws hitters off by defying the look of his release and sinking more than moving horizontally. He has started mixing in some actual sinkers with more tailing action as a change of pace to both right and left-handed hitters, but the fourseam is still accounting for about three-quarters of all fastballs thrown.

All told, Reyes looks like a potentially good lefty reliever. A lot would have to go right for him to reach the majors as a starter and I doubt he’ll get much more leash in that role. His size and delivery scream reliever. Presumably if there isn’t a big breakout this year the team will convert him and try to fastrack his move into the upper minors. He’ll be 23 next summer and it’s time to get a move on and conquer the High-A level this year. Expect him to start with the Whitecaps, and the Tigers will decide to adjust based on how he progresses by the end of the year.

Here’s a look at his six inning, 9 strikeout performance from back on August 17.

In this edition of our birthday series, we take a look at a player who reached the top of his abilities in his very first chance in the big leagues, never to reach that mark again. Kevin Maas was a late draft pick for the Yankees in the mid-’80s, and found his way to the Bronx by unfortunate circumstances. Despite that, he took full advantage of the situation and shined brightly for a brief period.

Maas’ career was not ultimately that long or historically significant with the Yankees, but he was still able to make his mark. Particularly true when considering that he provided some excitement in a stale point on the Yankee timeline.

Kevin Maas
Born: January 20, 1965 (Castro Valley, CA)
Yankees Tenure: 1990-93

In the 22nd round of the 1986 amateur draft, the Yankees selected Kevin Maas, out of the University of California. From the beginning, the 6-foot-3 left-hander impressed at the professional level. He first appeared at low-A in ‘86, and slowly worked his way through the Yankees system through the late ‘80s.

Come 1990, the Yankees didn’t have a whole lot of things break their way. But, if anything could be counted on, it was their star first baseman Don Mattingly. But even he couldn’t help things in the Bronx, as the injury bug began to bite for the first time in his career, and the lefty experienced his first real down season. He was banged up for most of the year, and when he did play, his power at the plate had all but disappeared. Luckily for New York, Maas provided a major spark as a rookie.

After a solid start in the minors, the 25-year-old first baseman was called up in late June of that season and hit the ground running. The lefty notched his first hit in his big league debut, and swatted his first home run just a few days later. The rest of the campaign would be a dream for the rookie. The first homer was just a taste of what would come, as Maas and the right field seats became very familiar with one another.

That season, despite appearing in just 79 games, Maas belted 21 homers and hit to the tune of a 150 wRC+. He would set some rookie records, including the fastest rookie (by plate appearances) to get to 10 home runs (a record that has since been broken by a couple other Yankees in Shane Spencer and Gary Sánchez). Despite standing in for the face of the franchise, Maas made a memorable first impression, and it would be hard not to give the rising star an opportunity going forward.

Maas was given just that for the 1991 season, as he appeared in 148 games and racked up nearly 600 plate appearances. Unfortunately for him and the Yanks, he did not reach nearly the same level of success. He did set a new career-high with 23 homers, but did so as a roughly league-average bat, seeing drops in nearly every category as he slashed just .220/.333/.390. Coming off of his electric, albeit brief rookie campaign, Maas was largely disappointing in his sophomore effort. Fairly or not, that would be his last shot at regular plate appearances with the Yankees or elsewhere around the majors.

Between the 1992 and ‘93 seasons, Maas never played more than 98 games, playing roughly a full season in total during that stretch. Once again, the lefty hit 20 home runs in those 158 games, as a league-average bat (98 OPS+). Not that production of this level is necessarily bad, but as a first baseman, and one that is behind the team’s captain on the depth chart, it is not enough to justify regular time on the field.

Maas was released by the Yankees just before the 1994 season, and would take until 1995 to make his way back to the major leagues. He did so with the Twins, in an underwhelming 22 games worth of baseball. It was easily the lowest point of his career in the bigs, as he slashed just .193/.281/.316, and at 30 years old, that was the end of the road for Maas in The Show.

Just five years after Kevin Maas burst on to the scene as an electric replacement for the injured Mattingly, his time on a big league field had come to an end. He came up relatively late, and was unable to repeat his rookie performance — and at a premium offensive position, his time was limited. With that being said, he contributed an exhilarating rookie campaign, as few storylines are as exciting, and Maas provided just that in a particularly grim time for the Yankees.

There is always something to be said for any Major League Baseball career, and that of Maas had moments of real potential and excitement, a real accomplishment on its own.

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See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here.

If you watched the Kansas City Royals last year, you knew that second base was a problem. Sure, the outfield–held together last year by duck tape, Elmer’s glue, and some gumption–was the biggest problem, but the free agent class of outfielders was rather thin. Acquiring an impact player who played the infield would be easier. 

Kansas City was of course connected to (and ended up acquiring) several outfielders, but they were also reported to have been interested in infielders such as CJ Abrams and Brendan Donovan. The pie in the sky perfect fit for the Royals, though, was Bo Bichette. Bichette had hit free agency and had alerted teams that he was comfortable moving to second base. He would cost a lot of money, but a combination of injury history and a lower ceiling limited the average annual value (AAV) that he’d command to some extent. 

Or so we all thought, because Bichette signed  three years and $126 million, a whopping $42 million a year, from the New York Mets. 

This happened just days after the Los Angeles Dodgers punched the hornet’s nest again by signing Kyle Tucker to a four-year, $240 million contract. There’s some deferred money because of course there is, but it comes out to a present-day AAV of an eye-watering $57.1 million. That’s not all, folks, because the Dodgers’ luxury tax situation means that they’ll end up paying–sit down if you’re not already–$119.9 million annually for the privilege of having Tucker roam the outfield.   

While the Tucker deal is absurd, there’s usually one of those every year. Last year it was Juan Soto. The year before that it was Shohei Ohtani. The year before that it was Aaron Judge. Small market teams simply cannot devote the average of $40 million a year (or more!) it takes to secure the biggest names on the market. 

The Bichette types, on the other hand, have been a theoretically obtainable asset, because small market teams can pay $25-$30 million a year for a difference maker. We don’t even have to look to other teams; the traditionally stingy Royals did so to extend Bobby Witt Jr. And at the start of free agency, Bichette was projected to be in that $25-$30 million a year range over six to eight or so seasons. The Phillies ended up offering seven years and $200 million, which Bichette declined. But at $42 million AAV? No matter if it’s for fewer years, that functionally places guys like Bichette outside the possibility for 80% of the league. 

Nobody should fault Tucker or Bichette for taking those deals. They’re interesting deals where both players can have their cake and eat it too, because both players will have the ability to test free agency again after their age-30 seasons. 

Likewise, nobody should fault the Dodgers or the Mets for doing what they did either, and for the spending sprees that they have done. In fact, more teams should be more like them. The biggest reason why the Dodgers can spend so much money is that they pull in gigantic amounts of revenue. As far as the Mets, well, Steve Cohen is the richest owner in Major League Baseball by a substantial amount, and they also happen to play in, you know, New York City. Both teams spend because they have the money, in other words. 

I think you can absolutely blame teams for not spending to their best ability. Some owners are notoriously cheap (cough Pittsburgh cough) and cry poor all the time, hoping that we trust them even though they refuse to open their books. But this doesn’t solve the core problem at hand: that some teams make orders of magnitude more than other teams, and even more equity between the teams does not mean full equity. 

To an extent, baseball has always been somewhat like this. But I think this is all building to a head. The Dodgers’ continued dominance has brought out the flaws of a system that does not distribute wealth. Baseball relies on so many players and, unlike football or basketball or hockey, you cannot build an entire team around a star player at a key position. What should be happening is that the turnaround time for down-on-their-luck teams should be short, and that anybody can win the championship.

That is not the case. MLB has become a pay-to-play league; over the last decade of the World Series, the median participant–median, mind you–had the fifth-highest payroll of their season. A full 80% of participants ranked in the top 10 of payroll. Nobody in the bottom third of MLB payroll has won a World Series since the Florida Marlins in 2003. 

Yes, an unremarkable squad can go on a cheeky little run and maybe play in a league championship series. Yes, small market or cheap teams can knock off large market, big-pocketed teams in the postseason. Yes, you can make the playoffs on a shoestring budget.

But I don’t think it’s very interesting that teams with lots of money are the ones snapping up all the best free agents and are the ones duking it out to hoist the Commissioner’s Trophy. I think it’s stunting the growth of the league when there are only so many landing spots for the big players. And if players like Bichette and Tucker are going to take shorter deals to take them even further from the realm of possibility for even middle class teams, well, it sure seems that we’re tumbling forward into a work stoppage that, while unfortunate, might just need to happen to land on a solution that’s not the status quo.

To date this offseason, three outlets have unveiled a ranking of Dodgers prospects. Baseball America unveiled its top-10 list in November, then expanded it to 30 deep in January. Baseball Prospectus revealed its top 21 Dodgers prospects in November, and FanGraphs dropped its top 52 Dodgers prospects in December.

The tippy top of these lists are very outfield heavy, with Josue De Paula, Zyhir Hope, Eduardo Quintero, and Mike Sirota dominating the top four spots. De Paula and Hope were all over top-100 prospects lists MLB-wide last year and will be again this year. We’ll dive more into MLB top-100 lists later this week as those begin to drop.

Sirota, who will be 23 years old in June, is the oldest of the group. Acquired from the Reds last January in the Gavin Lux trade, Sirota was working on a monster season, hitting .333/.452/.616 with 32 extra-base hits in 59 games between both Class-A levels, but suffered a season-ending knee injury on July 5.

Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs each had De Paula the top Dodgers prospect followed by Hope and Quintero, in that order. Baseball America went with Quintero at the top followed by De Paula, Sirota, then Hope as their top four.

“Ultimately I found Quintero to be the most well-rounded player, and the most likely to stick in center field,” Josh Norris said on a Baseball America podcast last week. “Mike Sirota had the injury that he had, and I want to see what he looks like when he comes back.”

Quintero won the California League MVP in 2025 despite getting promoted to High-A in late July. Between both Class-A levels he hit .293/.415/.508 with 19 home runs and a 152 wRC+ in 113 games, and in September was a Branch Rickey Award winner as the Dodgers’ minor league player of the year. And entering is age-20 season in 2026, Quintero is a year younger than De Paula and Hope.

“He’s a guy who’s going to shoot up these rankings because of the swing, potential for growth in the swing, potential for growth in the body, the all-around skillset,” Norris said of Quintero. “He doesn’t have a 70 on the card [on the 20-80 scouting scale] like some of the other guys, but he’s got a lot of 55s and doesn’t have any 40s either.”

In addition to those top-four outfielders, three more prospects were ranked in the top 10 of the Dodgers system by all three of Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, and FanGraphs — shortstop Emil Morales, who ended last season in Class-A Rancho Cucamonga and turned 19 in September; infielder Alex Freeland, who made his major league debut with Los Angeles in 2025; and outfielder Charles Davalan, who was drafted out of Arkansas in July with the No. 41-overall pick, which was also acquired in the Lux trade.

In all, a total of 17 prospects were ranked in the top 10 of the Dodgers system in at least one of these lists.

Player	Pos	2026 age	BA	BP	FanGraphs
Josue De Paula	OF	21	2	1	1
Eduardo Quintero	OF	20	1	3	3
Zyhir Hope	OF	21	4	2	2
Mike Sirota	OF	23	3	4	6
Emil Morales	SS	19	9	5	4
Alex Freeland	SS	24	7	6	8
Charles Davalan	OF	22	6	7	10
Jackson Ferris	LHP	22	5	15	13
Adam Serwinowski	LHP	22	14	8	11
Christian Zazueta	RHP	21	12	16	7
River Ryan	RHP	27	13	17	5
Zach Root	LHP	22	8	13	16
Joendry Vargas	SS	20	15	10	19
James Tibbs III	OF	23	26	11	9
Chase Harlan	3B	19	10	NR	24
Landyn Vidourek	OF	22	27	9	22

With Andruw Jones being the talk of the town with the HOF vote this week, it seems like a perfect time to reflect on notable for players of the Atlanta Braves franchise who had solid careers but could not quite get the votes needed to be enshrined.

The purpose of this exercise is not to argue who should or should not be in, because at the end of the day it is subjective to those members of BBWAA. What we can do is see how these players have faired in comparison to their peers.

It is easy to say “well if player X is in, then this player should be in”. Let’s get away from that line of thinking for a minute and look more at averages. There have been some fun tools to be able to do this over the years. You can find them easily on Baseball Reference.

We could spend an entire article just explaining these measurement tools, but let’s keep it short and sweet. If you want further explanations on the measurements, you can see them here. In a nutshell, black-ink is league leading stats. Gray-ink is similar but accounts for being in the top ten. Both of these are slightly flawed since it is easier to lead a league before the leagues expanded.

There is the Hall of Fame Monitor test that tries to assess how likely a player will get in, with one-hundred being a “good possibility”. Then, there is the Hall of Fame Career Standards Test which another test used by accumulating points based on key stats. The average HOFer is fifty. Another newer test is to look at WAR. Love it or hate it, we can still use it as a piece of the puzzle.

Let’s look at some former Atlanta Braves that did not quite make the cut but had solid careers.

Dale Murphy

Murphy is likely the first player to come to mind with his two MVP awards, and cemented Braves legacy. Murphy finished his eighteen-year career with a slash of .265/.346/.469 with a 46.5 bWAR and two HRs shy of four hundred.

Looking at the measurement tools we talked about earlier, we see how he measures up to other HOFers.

• Black-Ink: thirty-one (average HOFer has twenty-seven)
• Gray-Ink: one-hundred-forty-seven (average HOF has one-hundred-forty-four)
• HOF Monitor: one-hundred-sixteen (likely HOFer is one hundred)
• HOF Standards: thirty-one (average HOFer is fifty)
• Murphy is 27^th all-time among CFers in bWAR with 46.5. There are nineteen primary CFers in the HOF and they average a career 71.3 WAR.

Murphy was eligible back when players could stay on the ballot for fifteen years and remained on the ballot all fifteen years. His highest percentage was in year fourteen with 23.2 percent. He also has been on the Veterans committee ballot three times but was not elected.

Kenny Lofton

It may be a stretch to put Lofton on this list because he only played the 1997 season with the Braves, but it was a solid season for the Braves in the peak of his career. Lofton played seventeen seasons where he accumulated 68.4 bWAR showing his five-tool presence. His final career slash-line of .299/.372/.423 is impressive. His voting may have been hampered due to lack of power in an age where power was a huge deal. He only hit one-hundred-thirty.

Now to look at how he measures up to other HOFers.

• Black-Ink: thirteen (average HOFer has twenty-seven)
• Gray-Ink: sixty-two (average HOF has one-hundred-forty-four)
• HOF Monitor: ninety-one (likely HOFer is one hundred)
• HOF Standards: forty-three (average HOFer is fifty)
• Lofton is 10^th all-time among CFers in bWAR with 68.4. There are nineteen primary CFers in the HOF and they average a career 71.3 bWAR.

Lofton’s value was not flashy in the time frame he played. Defense was typically put on the backburner by voters. That is not to say he should have been a HOFer, but it is a shame that he fell off the ballot on his first year of eligibility while accumulating the tenth most bWAR as a CFer.

Jim Whitney

If you don’t remember this name, it is okay. No one on planet earth was alive when he played. He played for Boston way back from 1881 till 1885. Boston would eventually become what is now the Atlanta Braves. Whitney was a two-way player that pitched and played 1B and OF. In only ten seasons he accumulated 56.0 bWAR to include one of the best single seasons of all-time in 1883 where he had a 11.4 bWAR season. For his career he pitched 3496.1 innings with 1571 strikeouts, 2.97 ERA, and a 1.147 WHIP. With the bat he had just over twenty-three-hundred PAs while slashing .261/.313/.375.

His bat alone was not great, but factor in his pitching and was extremely valuable.

• Black-Ink pitching: twenty-eight (average HOFer has forty)
• Gray-Ink batting: nineteen (average HOF has one-hundred-forty-four)
• Gray-Ink pitching: one-hundred-sixty-one (average HOF has one-hundred-eighty-five)
• HOF Monitor pitching: one-hundred-eleven (likely HOFer is one hundred)
• HOF Standards pitching: thirty-one (average HOFer is fifty)
• HOF Standards hitting: six (average HOFer is fifty)
• As an SP he is 101st^th all-tim in bWAR.

Obviously, he is unique since he was a two-way player so these measurements are not one-for-one. That being said, it is a bit puzzling that he did not get more HOF love. He was an early player, so this was well before the voting process we know today. He was never on a ballot.

Darrell Evans

Evans was one of the more underrated players in Braves history. In his twenty-one-year career he spent nine seasons in Atlanta. For his career he had a slash line of .248/.361/.431 while accumulating 58.7 bWAR along with four-hundred-fourteen HRs.

He clearly did not win over voters due to his low batting average, but he did have a solid career. Here is how the two-time all-start stacks up.

• Black-Ink: eight (average HOFer has twenty-seven)
• Gray-Ink: eighty-two (average HOF has one-hundred-forty-four)
• HOF Monitor: forty-two (likely HOFer is one hundred)
• HOF Standards: forty (average HOFer is fifty)
• He is 22^nd all-time among 3B in bWAR with 58.7. There are eighteen primary 3B in the HOF and they average a career 68.9 bWAR.

He fell off the ballot in the first year he was eligible with 1.7 percent of ballots.

Joe Torre

Alright, so technically Torre is in the HOF, but not as a player. Torre could be argued to be the best catcher the Braves have ever had while 33.3 of his career 57.7 career bWAR and with the franchise. That being said, He did play some 1B with them as well but was primarily a catcher at this time with the franchise.

Torre finished his career with slash of .297/.365/.452 with two-hundred-fifty-two HRs. He stacked up as a solid career while comparing him to his peers.

• Black-Ink: twelve (average HOFer has twenty-seven)
• Gray-Ink: seventy-one (average HOF has one-hundred-forty-four)
• HOF Monitor: ninety-six (likely HOFer is one hundred)
• HOF Standards: forty (average HOFer is fifty)
• He is 26^th all-time among 1B in bWAR with 57.6. There are twenty-five primary 1B in the HOF and they average a career 64.9 bWAR.

Torre is an interesting case because he basically split his career between catcher, which is a premium defensive position, and 1B which is the opposite. He also spent some time at 3B as well (23.3 percent of his time) , and four games in the OF. If he could have stayed at catcher for his entire career, it would have been interesting to see if the voting would have been different.

Torre was on the BBWAA ballot as a player all fifteen years reaching his highest rate of 22.2 percent on the final year. He was eventually voted in as a manager in 2014.

There are many more interesting players that played for the Braves at some point that never made it. Put some in the comments!

Jonathan Santucci comes from a family of amateur baseball players, but he is the only Santucci to have gone pro. His father, Steven, attended Assumption College and played baseball there from 1991-1993 and his cousin, Nick, attended Rollins College and played on their baseball team for six seasons, from 2017 until 2022. Jonathan attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he hit .322 over the course of his three-year varsity career and showed a great deal of promise on the mound. One of the highest regarded prospects in the state of Massachusetts, he went undrafted in the 2021 MLB Draft and honored his commitment to Duke University.

The summer after graduating from high school, he played in the Futures Collegiate League, appearing in two games for the Worcester Bravehearts as a reliever and going 5-27 at the plate. That fall, he went on to attend Duke, and that spring, the left-hander appeared in 20 games for the Blue Devils, starting as a middle reliever but eventually transitioning and establishing himself as a weekend starting pitcher as the months went on. On the season, the left-hander posted a 4.17 ERA in 41.0 innings, allowing 32 hits, walking 20, and striking out 58.

He played in the Cape Cod Baseball League that summer, posting a 3.65 ERA for the Harwich Mariners in 24.2 innings, with 20 hits allowed, 10 walks, and 28 strikeouts. He wasn’t able to keep that momentum going in 2023, as an elbow injury limited the amount of time he was able to spend on the mound in his sophomore season back at Duke. The southpaw started seven games for the Blue Devils before having his season end prematurely in March due to bone chips in his elbow. All in all, he posted a 4.30 ERA in 29.1 innings, allowing 27 hits, walking 16, and striking out 50. Fortunately for him, the injury was not Tommy John-related, but rather, an olecranon- the bony hinge tip of the elbow- fracture and he had surgery to have a screw inserted into his elbow to allow the bone to fuse back together properly.

When the left-hander returned to the mound in 2024, he made up for lost time, throwing 17 scoreless innings to begin the season, scattering 10 hits, walking 7, and striking out 31. He eventually came back to earth, and then in mid-May, sustained a rib-injury on his non-throwing side just prior to starting a game against Georgia Tech. He was originally only expected to miss a week or two, but Santucci missed roughly a month, returning to the mound in the NCAA Regionals, throwing two innings against Oral Roberts University on June 1st. The 40-20 Blue Devils had their season end the next day, finalizing Santucci’s season: in 58.0 innings, the left-hander posted a 3.41 ERA with 40 hits allowed, 36 walks, and 90 strikeouts.

The Mets selected the southpaw in the second round of the 2024 MLB Draft and signed him for $2,031,700, the exact slot value of the 46th overall pick. He was assigned to the FCL Mets in early August as a roster formality but did not pitch for them. He instead made his professional debut in 2025, pitching for the High-A Brooklyn Cyclones. Appearing in 15 games for the Cyclones, making 13 starts, Santucci posted a 3.46 ERA in 67.2 innings, allowing 62 hits, walking 23, and striking out 75. He was promoted to Double-A Binghamton in mid-July and ended his season there, posting a 2.52 ERA in 50.0 innings over 10 starts, allowing 33 hits, walking 18, and striking out 63. All in all, the left-hander posted a cumulative 3.06 ERA in 117.2 innings, scattering 95 hits, walking 41, and striking out 138, his strikeout total fourth in the system.

The 6’2”, 205-pound left-hander has a solid frame for pitching. The left-hander throws from a low-three-quarters arm slot, almost exclusively working from the stretch, incorporating a leg kick and long arm action through the back.

His fastball sits in the low-to-mid-90s, topping out as high as 97 MPH on stadium radar guns. Additionally, the pitch comes at batters from a flat approach angle, giving the pitch rising life, especially when thrown up in the zone.

His primary secondary pitch is his slider, a tight, two-plane pitch with gyroscopic break that sits in the low-to-mid-80s. Santucci can throw the pitch effectively to both sides of the plate and uses the pitch against left-handed batters and right-handed batters equally, though it has shown more effectiveness against left-handed batters. The pitch was his main strikeout pitch in college, and the pitch has retained its swing-and-miss qualifies as a professional.

His changeup sits in the mid-to-high-80s and features a bit of armside fade and vertical tumble. He generally does not use the pitch much, more or less reserving it for the second or third time through an order, and the fact that it tunnels well with his fastball and he does not telegraph it makes the pitch even more dangerous.

The left-hander recently added a developing curveball to his repertoire, and the addition of this new high-70s-to-low-80s pitch gives him a four-pitch mix. The pitch is still a work in progress and is not currently a true weapon, instead a strike stealer to catcher batters off-guard.

Command has long since been an issue for the left-hander, and all of his pitches play down when he has starts where he isn’t able to locate his pitches. Coming into the season, Santucci airmailed his fastball and bounced his secondaries with alarming regularity, making him inefficient as well. While some of his command issues stem from the movement in his pitches, almost unbelievably for a highly-regarded college pitching prospect who was drafted fairly high in his respective draft, some his command issues have come down to simply needing to throw more and learn how to repeat his mechanics and release points better; Santucci was primarily an outfielder during his high school baseball days, and after transitioning to being a pitcher full-time while at Duke, he still only threw 128.1 innings in total, supplemented by another 26.2 in collegiate summer leagues. While pitching for Brooklyn, manager Gilbert Gomez observed that Santucci had to do more on-the-job learning than most pitches his age and level and was pleased with how the left-hander began recognizing and self-correcting issues during his tenure with the Cyclones.

While he did not show any issues over the course of 2025, health may be an issue for Santucci over the course of his professional career. While his 2024 rib injury was seemingly random and has not been problematic since, the elbow issue he sustained and had surgically fixed in 2023 may have a recurring impact on his career given the location of the injury.

With the 2025 Texas Rangers season having come to an end, we shall be, over the course of the offseason, taking a look at every player who appeared in a major league game for the Texas Rangers in 2025.

Today we are looking at utility guy Dylan Moore.

How many reasons can you come up with for wanting the Texas Rangers to win the division in a given year?

One could say that there’s just one reason, and its that you are a fan of the Texas Rangers, and so inherently you want them to succeed, and winning the division is a success.

But beyond that obvious fact, what other reasons might there be?

Take the 2025 Texas Rangers. I wanted the Rangers to win the division because they hadn’t won the division since 2016, and I wanted to end that run of not winning the division title, meaningless though that may be in the Wild Card Era.

I wanted the Rangers to win the division so they’d finish ahead of the Astros, because screw the Astros.

I wanted the Rangers to win the division because I didn’t want the 2023 world title to be seen as a fluke, a team that played great and then didn’t do anything else afterwards.

I wanted the Rangers to win the division because of what a great story it would be, overcoming all the injuries that near crippled the team late in the season.

And, fairly low down on the list — but on the list nonetheless — is the fact that, over the final month of the season, the Rangers had two guys playing regularly for them who had been released earlier in the season by the Seattle Mariners. And it would be very funny to me if the Rangers passed the Mariners and finished ahead of them with a couple of guys the M’s had cast off.

It didn’t happen, of course, because of course it didn’t. Too many injuries, too much ground to make up.

But it would have been very amusing. At least to me.

Dylan Moore was one of the guys the Mariners released who the Rangers scooped up. Released by the Mariners on August 25, signed by the Rangers on August 27, Moore made his first appearance on August 29 for the Rangers. He seemed to be a good luck charm at first, as the team went 9-2 in the first 11 games he appeared in for Texas. He appeared in seven games after that, and Texas went 0-7 in them, so so much for that.

The Mariners were 44-44 in the games he appeared in for them, so maybe there was something inherently average about him, something that wasn’t limited to just himself but manifested in the team around him. Maybe the Rangers, by signing him, ended up locking themselves into a .500 record for 2025. Maybe the Mariners would have finished at .500 if they had not released him.

As with Luke Jackson, Moore signing with the Rangers brought his career full circle. He was originally drafted by the Rangers in the 7th round in 2015 out of the University of Central Florida, a senior sign who got $10,000 so the Rangers could go above slot for Eric Jenkins and Michael Matuella, their second and third round picks.

And like Luke Jackson, the Rangers traded Moore to the Atlanta Braves in 2016, for an insubstantial return. The Moore to Atlanta trade was actually a three way deal in late August, back when you could still make trades after July 31. Former Ranger Jeff Francoeur, on his last legs in his final major league season, went from Atlanta to Miami. Miami sent Matt Foley, motivational minor leaguer, to the Braves. Texas got international slot money from both Atlanta and Miami.

I had forgotten Jeff Francoeur played for the Rangers until just now. The Rangers traded Joaquin Arias to the Mets for him on August 31, 2010.

Man, that was a long, long time ago.

Moore spent six-plus seasons with the Mariners as a useful role player, even winning a Gold Glove for utility guy in 2024. We can condemn the Rangers for giving up on Moore barely a year into his pro career and getting little in return for him, I guess, if we are especially condemnation minded today. But the Braves released him at the end of spring training in 2018, after he had slashed .207/.291/.292 as a 24 year old in AA the year before, and apparently then didn’t do much that spring to suggest he was going to be any better going forward.

Milwaukee then signed Moore, and he had a pretty good season in their minor league system in 2018, splitting the year between AA and AAA. It wasn’t good enough to convince them to add him to their 40 man roster, however, and he became a free agent at season’s end. Seattle snatched him up a week later on a major league deal and, well, the rest is history.

Moore got 30 plate appearances in his 18 games for the Rangers in 2025, slashing .259/.300/.481 while helping fill in for the injured Marcus Semien at second base. I am hard-pressed to think of anything particularly memorable about his month with Texas. Really, in my mind, he stands as an avatar for the pets-heads-falling-off state of the Rangers in the last six weeks or so of the 2025 season.

Previously:

Gerson Garabito

Tyler Mahle

Kyle Higashioka

Adolis Garcia

Luis Curvelo

Alejandro Osuna

Blaine Crim

Jake Burger

Jacob Webb

Nick Ahmed

Jon Gray

Carl Edwards Jr.

Josh Jung

Leody Taveras

Dustin Harris

Marc Church

Luke Jackson

Danny Coulombe

Wyatt Langford

The people have spoken and Angel Genao is our No. 5 Cleveland Guardians prospect. Genao won with a 40.1% of the vote, beating out Cooper Ingle (26.8%), Braylon Doughty (15.5%) and Khal Stephen (11.3%). He moves down one spot from No. 5 last year.

Genao received a $1.175 million signing bonus out of the Dominican Republic in Cleveland’s 2021 international class, tops in Cleveland’s class. In his debut season for the Dominican Summer League, the switch-hitting shortstop slashed .265/.422/.364 with an impressive 20.3% walk rate. The following season, he moved to the United States, where he dominated the Arizona Complex League to the tune of a .322/.394/.416 slash.

Genao spent his entire 2023 campaign with Lynchburg at age 19, slashing .263/.345/.385, although he missed the first two months of the season because of knee surgery. Once fully healthy in 2024, Cleveland chose to repeat him at Lynchburg and the move paid off.

Genao slashed .322/.377/.463 with a 166 wRC+ in Lynchburg, which earned him a promotion to Lake County, where he didn’t slow down, slashing .322/.377/.463 with 13 stolen bases over 66 games played, good for a 140 wRC+. He finished his season with a career-high 10 home runs, more than double his previous best of four in 2023. He has also had pretty even splits against LHP and RHP as a professional.

Genao began 2025 with an aggressive placement at Double-A Akron for his age-21 season, but he was hampered by an injury. He didn’t debut in Akron until early June due to a right shoulder sprain and it never seemed like he was able to fully put it together, finishing the year with a disappointing .263/.332/.382 slash and a ho-hum 103 wRC+ in 77 games at Akron.

Hopefully he can put the shoulder issues behind him in 2026 and get back to his dominant 2024 self.

Now, it’s time to determine who is number five in the Guardians’ loaded farm system! Your options are below:

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Juneiker Caceres, OF (Age 18)
2025 (CPX) 160 PA, .289/.419/.469, 3 HR, 5 SB, 16.9 BB%, 11.3 K%, 139 wRC+
2025 (A): 130 PA, .250/.331/.345, 1 HR, 2 SB, 6.9 BB%, 13.1 K%, 103 wRC+

Impressed at the complex league, then hit the ground running in a late season promotion to Single-A before running out of steam late in his age-17 season. Loaded with potential.

Jaison Chourio, OF (Age 20)
2025 (CPX) 27 PA, .261/.370/.304, 0 HR, 1 SB, 14.8 BB%, 37.0 K%, 95 wRC+
2025 (A+): 353 PA, .235/.380/.284, 2 HR, 9 SB, 18.7 BB%, 21.8 K%, 103 wRC+

Chourio was lining up to be Cleveland’s top prospect after a sensational 2024, but he was slowed in 2025 by a nagging shoulder injury and had a very average season. He’s looking to bounce back in 2026.

Braylon Doughty, RHP (Age 20)
2025 (A): 22 GS, 85.1 IP, 3.48 ERA, 2.84 FIP, 27.3%, 6.4%, 1.25 WHIP

Cleveland’s competitive balance first round pick in 2024, Doughty debuted in full-season ball and put up solid numbers in his age-19 season at Single-A, showcasing elite control.

Cooper Ingle, C (Age 23)
2025 (AA) 403 PA, .273/.391/.443, 9 HR, 0 SB, 16.1 BB%, 17.4 K%, 148 wRC+
2025 (AAA) 107 PA, .207/.383/.329, 1 HR, 0 SB, 19.6 BB%, 16.7K%, 105 wRC+

Ingle has shown excellent offensive tendencies for a catcher. Will his defense and power be enough to earn an opportunity in Cleveland this year?

Jace LaViolette, OF (Age 22)
2025 (NCAA) 262 PA, .258/.427/.576, 18 HR, 7 SB, 21.8 BB%, 25.2K%, 120 wRC+

Cleveland’s first round pick in the 2025 MLB Draft, the 6-foot-6 LaViolette instantly becomes one of the top power hitting prospects in the system. Strikeouts and contact have been an issue, however.

Alfonsin Rosario, OF (Age 21)
2025 (A+) 354 PA, .268/.362/.490, 16 HR, 12 SB, 10.8 BB%, 25.1 K%, 139 wRC+
2025 (AA): 145 PA, .211/.303/.391, 5 HR, 2 SB, 10.3 BB%, 33.1 K%, 105 wRC+

One of Cleveland’s most impressive hitters in its minor league system during his stint at High-A Lake County as a 20-year-old. Rosario has a unique combination of speed and power, but will need to overcome his strikeouts.

Khal Stephen, RHP (Age 23)
w/ TOR 2025 (A) 7 GS, 39.1 IP, 2.06 ERA, 1.97 FIP, 31.4 K%, 4.6 BB%, 0.92 WHIP
w/ TOR 2025 (A+): 9 GS, 48.1 IP, 1.49 ERA, 2.70 FIP, 26.6 K%, 5.4 BB%, 0.85 WHIP
w/ TOR 2025 (AA): 1 GS, 4.0 IP, 6.35 ERA, 1.88 FIP, 11.1 K%, 5.6 BB%, 1.68 WHIP
2025 (AA): 4 GS, 11.1 IP, 9.00 ERA, 9.54 FIP, 21.9 K%, 3.9 BB%, 1.50 WHIP

Acquired from Toronto in the Shane Bieber trade, Stephen rocketed through the minor league system in 2025 before hitting a wall in Double-A.He instantly became one of Cleveland’s top pitching prospects.

Welcome back to A Pod of Their Own, an all-women led Home Run Applesauce podcast where we talk all things Mets, social justice issues in baseball, and normalize female voices in the sports podcasting space. 

This week, we begin by discussing the very busy 24 hours for the Mets between Thursday night when they missed out on Kyle Tucker and Friday afternoon when they pivoted to Bo Bichette instead. We also talk about whether a salary cap or a lockout is coming for baseball and where the Mets go from here this offseason.

We also talk about the state of the NL East with the Mets sniping Bichette from the Phillies and the Braves losing their starting shortstop to injury for the first half of the season. We also shout out the record-breaking attendance at Capital One Arena in Washington DC for the PWHL game between the New York Sirens and the Montreal Victorie.

Finally, we wrap things up with Walk-off Wins, where each of us talks about what’s making us happy this week, baseball-related or otherwise. 

You can listen or subscribe to all of our wonderful Home Run Applesauce podcasts through Apple Podcasts, where we encourage you to leave a review if you enjoy the show. It really helps! And you can find us on the Stitcher app, Spotify, or listen wherever you get podcasts. You can also support our work by subscribing to our Patreon, which will get you bonus episodes, access to our Discord server, livestream experiences, an exclusive monthly playlist, and more!

You can follow A Pod of Their Own on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky (@apodoftheirown) and you can follow Home Run Applesauce on Twitter and Instagram (@HRApplesauce). You can also follow our co-hosts on Twitter and Bluesky: Allison McCague (@PetitePhD), Maggie Wiggin (@maggie162), and LindaSurovich (@LindaSurovich). You can also email the show at aa.apodoftheirown@gmail.com. 

Look for A Pod of Their Own in your feeds every week and don’t forget: there’s no crying in podcasting!