It has not been a fun time to be a prospect in the San Diego Padres farm system. For most of the position players, places to play are getting harder to find with multiple MLB players signed to play those positions at the major league level for years to come. Position player prospects may not even bother unpacking because Padres president of baseball operations and general manager A.J. Preller uses them to add other players to the MLB roster. For the prospects who do not get traded, Cheri Bell of Gaslamp Ball found they are left to make up one of the worst farm systems in baseball according to various prospect rankings. The best prospect among them at least on some lists, is catcher Ethan Salas who has seen his stock drop since missing all but 10 games of the 2025 season. The 2026 season is fast approaching with Spring Training just around the corner. Perhaps it will over an opportunity for some young players who might be overlooked or underrated to show their potential.
Padres News:
The Padres announced their promotional schedule for the 2026 season, which features scarves, bobbleheads, ponchos and more to entice fans to come out to Petco Park to watch their hometown team.
Jaff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribunecontinued his Padres roster review looking at reliever Jeremiah Estrada. The Chicago Cubs castoff has found his home in the San Diego bullpen and he has become and integral part of the best ‘pen in the game.
Framber Valdez remains the best remaining free agent pitcher and many believe he will end up with the Baltimore Orioles. Eugenio Suarez and Luis Arraez are two of the top position players left, but Suarez has not seen a ton of interest and Arraez has had essentially no interest at all. Time is running out for free agents to sign with teams if they don’t want to delay the starts to their seasons as Spring Training is just a few weeks away.
Joe Ryan has been discussed as a possible trade candidate for several teams this offseason. He and the Minnesota Twins agreed to a contract to avoid arbitration, which could keep him in Minnesota for 2026.
Japan named eight players to its World Baseball Classic roster and the top among those names were Shohei Ohtani and his Los Angeles Dodgers teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Nolan Arenado, who was recently traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks from the St. Louis Cardinals, will play for Puerto Rico in the WBC.
The move marks a major shift from the 2023 tournament, when Arenado played for Team USA, as he now looks to represent his heritage after previously competing for his home country. The Diamondbacks’ third baseman has Puerto Rican heritage through his mom’s side and now has the opportunity to represent his roots on baseball’s biggest international stage.
With a little bit of hindsight, it was pretty obvious from the onset that the Diamondbacks were handicapped financially entering the offseason. Injuries to Corbin Burnes, Justin Martinez, A.J. Puk, and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. limited what they could do. The quartet combined for $53.6 million of Arizona’s 209.2 million payroll for 2026 (Cots), or 25.6%.
With injuries completely decimating the pitching staff, which will linger into 2026, D-backs GM Mike Hazen had some tough decisions to make. He chose to address the rotation and third base this offseason, at the expense of the bullpen.
There’s no denying Marte, from a statistical standpoint, holds the advantage over the rest of MLB. He led all qualified second basemen in OPS (.893) in 2025 — a full 80 points above Jazz Chisholm in second place.
Despite missing a decent chunk of time with an injury, and finding himself in the middle of some mid-season drama, he also managed the third-most homers (28) and fourth-most doubles (also 28), while slashing an immense .283/.376/.517 and posting a 145 wRC+ (45% above league average) per FanGraphs.
The Houston Astros have made their position clear. Jose Altuve will not represent Venezuela in the 2026 World Baseball Classic, and the decision came from the organization, not the player. According to Brian McTaggart of MLB.com, the Astros requested that their 36-year-old second baseman skip the tournament to focus on spring training preparation.
The club hasn’t officially confirmed the news, but Altuve’s comments from Saturday’s FanFest made the situation obvious. “I signed the paper that I’m willing to go play like I did the last two WBCs,” Altuve told reporters. “Always an honor to represent my country. I played in the last one and the one before, and I’m trying to do it in this one. I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, but it seems this year is not up to me. Hopefully everything clears up, and I’ll be able to go.”
Zac Gallen is a workhorse starting pitcher with two top-five Cy Young finishes in the past four years who’s still just 30 years old. Sounds like a top-tier free agent.
But instead, he’s a polarizing one because of his rocky 2025 season. Gallen still pitched 192 innings and recorded 175 strikeouts for the D-backs, but his ERA spiked to 4.83, one of the highest among qualified pitchers, and he just didn’t look the same as the ace-level Gallen of 2022-23.
This is Irmo, South Carolina, the most baseball a baseball town can be.
Irmo is so baseball that last year it sent not one, not two, not three, but four teams in different divisions to the Little League World Series — baseball teams of up to 12-, 13- and 16-year-old boys, along with a girls softball team. Little League has seven divisions, each of which holds a national tournament of top teams every year, the World Series. Do the math: One community sent clubs to more than half the national competitions.
Irmo is so baseball that championship jerseys hang in local restaurants as relics of pride with signatures of the ball players, who are treated as local celebrities.
Last year, there were three teams that beat their baseline win figure by at least 10, all in the American League: the White Sox, the Athletics and the Toronto Blue Jays.
Breaking out means different things for different teams. For the White Sox, it meant being less terrible than their record-setting 2024 collapse. For the Athletics, it meant a return to respectability, laying the foundation for a possible playoff run in 2026. For the Blue Jays, it meant falling inches shy of a World Series championship.
The Giants have a notable upgrade to their outfield defense in place, reportedly agreeing to a two-year, $20.5MM contract with free agent outfielder Harrison Bader. The Vayner Sports client can earn an additional $500K via incentives, bringing the deal’s maximum value to $21MM.
Bader, 31, has been a free agent for three consecutive offseasons but now lands the multi-year deal that’s previously eluded him. He signed one-year deals with the Mets and Twins, respectively, over the past two winters. Bader turned in a career-best performance in Minnesota and was red hot for the Phillies down the stretch after joining them in a deadline swap, and the market has rewarded that strong 2025 performance.
Sigh, this is a depressing one of these to do. Everything about Spencer Strider was, in theory, so awesome, that it didn’t seem like a little thing like a year-long layoff due to elbow troubles was going to derail his career. Surely someone so diligent in being in tune with his body and mechanics could hit the ground running, right? Well, not exactly. After an uneven 2025, Strider’s outlook is uncertain, and pretty fraught.
Career-to-date, status
Drafted in the fourth round of the shortened 2020 MLB Draft, Strider pitched at five different levels (including MLB) in his first professional season. He started 2022 in the big league bullpen, but transitioned to the rotation at the end of May, and well, it seemed like the rest would be history. A hilariously dominant 2022 season could’ve earned him Rookie of the Year honors had his teammate, Michael Harris II, not taken that piece of hardware. (Strider actually had barely more fWAR than Harris, 4.9 to 4.7, though he was pitching in the bullpen while Harris was in the minors.) Strider then spent a full year in the rotation in 2023, and “hilariously dominant” still applied. His 5.5 fWAR that year was second only to Zack Wheeler’s 5.9. All in all, including his time in the bullpen, Strider put up 10.3 fWAR in 318 1/3 innings in 2022-2023, with a 79 ERA-, 59 FIP-, and 63 xFIP-. While perhaps not video game numbers, they were essentially dominant reliever numbers, but from a guy who was close to six innings a game as a starter.
Disaster struck fairly quickly after that, though. Strider looked like himself in his first start of 2024, but not so much in the second, and then missed the rest of the year with an elbow issue that let him avoid Tommy John Surgery, but not missing about a year of action anyway.
Even before his 2023 gave serious credence to the possibility of him being the best starter in the game, the Braves inked him to a $75 million, six-year extension in October 2022. It was, at the time, the highest average annual value for a player with between one and two years of service time. The extension gave Strider relatively low salaries through 2025, but bumps his pay up to $20 million for 2026 and $22 million for the two years thereafter, along with a $22 million club option for 2029 with a $5 million buyout. At the time, it was a move in line with the exuberance of the moment. In 2023, the only concern was that he might eventually get injured. In 2024, well, he got injured. What came after has basically become the antithesis of that exuberance.
Recent performance
2025 was a problem for the Braves, and with regard to Strider’s outlook even moreso than just the mess that was that calendar year for the organization. The main problem, as I’ll get into a bit below, wasn’t that Strider was rusty — it was that rather than improving, he more or less fell apart as the season went on. Maybe it’s not right to have expected rust removal or improvement with experience post-elbow procedure, but given that the proverbial ship seemingly unrighted itself after he had regained a level of decent performance, there are certainly a lot of concerns for Strider heading into 2026.
To be more specific, Strider struggled a fair bit in his first five starts back, though this was not surprising given the layoff and the fact that a hamstring injury actually forced him to take another monthlong break from active duty after his first start of the year. He then reeled off a seven-start stretch where no one would fault you for thinking that Strider was back: in 42 2/3 innings, he put together a 60 ERA-, 61 FIP-, and 66 xFIP-. Nor was this an artifact of facing weak teams, as five of those seven games came against teams that finished in the top ten in wRC+, including the top-finishing Yankees. (Even without the Rockies, the line goes to 70/74/76.) Unfortunately, and here’s the rub: he didn’t keep it going.
There was a two-homer game against the Giants, a poor-peripherals game against the Royals, and then another two-homer game against the Brewers. Whether you want to include those in the “Strider was fine/good” or “Strider was bad” column isn’t really the point, because after that, things just got awful. Strider’s final eight starts of the season featured eight homers, but leaving HR/FB concerns aside, he had a garbage-quality 124/133/125 line. I’m not going to use this projections post to talk about the specific issues he had (see his season review, among other things, for that), but the point is that Strider got worse and never really showed he could un-get worse after those dreadful seven weeks.
All in all, his 2025 involved 0.9 fWAR over 125 1/3 innings with a 105/111/102 line; the okay-ish xFIP could be offset by the fact that his xERA was much worse than his xFIP, assuming you give any weight to xERA as a measure of pitching effectiveness.
Forecasting
Same brief disclaimer: once upon a time I built a projection system to try to mirror/get at the workings of Steamer and ZiPS. I called it IWAG. You can figure out what that means, maybe. I’m bringing it back for this series of posts. Here’s Strider, for 2026.
This is probably the most fraught point estimate of this series. It makes Strider out to be an above-average starter with health issues. But… we know things are a little different. Namely, this is an average of his possible divergent outcomes, with some discounting of his availability given that he missed quite a lot of time in 2024-2025.
Steamer has Strider at around 3.4 WAR per 200 innings, with a point estimate of 161 innings and 2.7 WAR. ZiPS is at 3.2/200 and a point estimate of 2.2 WAR in about 138 innings. IWAG is more conservative on all fronts, but not really all that different (which makes sense because it was built to understand Steamer and ZiPS). So, no discrepancy, but…
Is Strider good or not? I don’t know. I’m not sure anyone knows. Maybe he’ll go back to pre-injury form. Maybe he’ll look like 2025. It’s possible he ends up somewhere in the middle, I guess, but we haven’t seen much middling performance from him at any point, so I’m not sure where that would come from. One of the two poles seems more likely at this point. And, there’s a huge competitive swing for the Braves depending on which of the two you get. I have a headache now. Who’s next on the list? Jurickson Profar? Well… that’s only somewhat less fraught. What a stretch of guys with variable performance we’ve been privy to.
Your turn
Alright, I’ve given you the info. Well, some info. You may have your own info. With that, I ask you:
Rounded to the nearest fWAR, how much will Spencer Strider produce in 2026? (If you ignore this and provide a partial fWAR, I will round it for you, and your scoring will not be based on 1 WAR around your point estimate, but 1 WAR around the rounded number.)
How confident are you in your choice? Go with a scale from 1-5, where 3 is “I dunno, reasonably confident,” 5 is certain, and 1 is “I am participating but have no confidence in my choice and don’t want the fact that it will likely be incorrect to affect my place in any theoretical standings all that much.”
Should the Orioles secure the 32-year-old lefty from the Dominican Republic, it would not only transform the top of the O’s rotation but also create an interesting competition for the No. 5 spot. Depending on how new manager Craig Albernaz wants to structure his rotation, you’d expect Valdez, Kyle Bradish and Trevor Rogers to fill in the top three spots in some order. Then, high-risk, high-reward acquisition Shane Baz will likely slide into the No. 4 spot. With four potential options to round out the rotation, filling that No. 5 spot will be one of the hardest decisions facing Alby and the new coaching staff.
I’ve consistently thought of Kremer as a pitcher you’d be happy to have as your No. 5 starter. Too often in the past, the Orioles have been forced to have Kremer take on a more important role in the rotation. In 2023, he was the Game 3 starter in the Orioles’ playoff series against Texas. In 2024, he was third in total starts and innings pitched and probably would’ve taken the ball in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series had the O’s made it that far. Last year, Kremer was the Orioles’ most consistently available starter, leading the team in innings pitched and strikeouts while making 31 appearances.
Heading into the 2026 season, Kremer finally has a chance to fill the role he was destined for. Given the other three options’ struggles with injuries (and on-field performance) in 2025, Kremer would come into spring training with the inside track on landing the final spot in the rotation. He should be the most stretched out of all Orioles pitchers, as he starts his competitive season earlier than most, headlining Team Israel’s rotation in the 2026 World Baseball Classic.
And not only would the fifth-starter role better fit Kremer’s “consistent, but rarely spectacular” brand of baseball, but it also may help Kremer avoid the early-season struggles that have plagued him in the past. Due to some extra rest days in the first month of the season, the fifth starter often doesn’t get a full complement of starts. That’d suit Kremer just fine, who sports a 6.24 ERA in March/April and a 3.88 ERA across all other months.
While Kremer represents the steady, dependable option for the Orioles’ fifth starter, Eflin is the higher upside option. After a nine-start cameo in 2024 that saw him pitch to a 2.60 ERA and 1.12 WHIP over 55.1 innings, Eflin came into last season as the Orioles Opening Day starter and de facto ace.
The first nine outings of his 2025 season were similarly encouraging. Eflin pitched to a 4.08 ERA, which went down to 3.02 if you removed an eight-run blow-up against the Nationals. Eflin then crumbled as he tried to gut through the effects of the back injury that ultimately ended his season. Over his final five outings of last season, Eflin put up an 11.29 ERA while allowing 37 hits and eight home runs over 18.1 innings.
The Orioles may choose to be cautious with the 10-year MLB vet, as he looks to bounce back from the fourth major back injury of his career. If the O’s slow play his build-up in the spring, he may fall behind Kremer in the early-season pecking order. However, if Eflin is fully healthy when the team leaves Sarasota in two months, he may get the nod based on his contract. Eflin is set to make $10M in 2025, compared to $5.75M for Kremer.
Povich was in a similar position last year and ended up breaking spring training as the Orioles’ No. 5 starter. What happened after that was a bit of a trainwreck for the 25-year-old southpaw. In Povich’s first 13 starts of the season, the lefty they call Slim posted a 5.15 ERA, gave up a .286 average against, and overall, struggled to string together decent outings.
Povich missed six weeks in the middle of the season with a hip injury and wasn’t much better when he came off the IL. In nine starts down the stretch, his ERA grew to 5.29, his batting average against remained in the .280s and he continued to give up home runs at an alarming rate. In fact, Povich’s 1.4 HR/9 rate would have been one of the 10 worst in all of baseball if he had enough innings to qualify.
The former Nebraska Cornhusker does have two factors in his favor: youth and strikeout upside. Povich is at least four years younger than any of the other pitchers he’s competing against, meaning Albernaz and the new staff may want to give him another opportunity to maximize his upside. The coaching staff may also want another pitcher with swing-and-miss stuff. Outside of Bradish, Povich was the only starter last year who posted a K/9 greater than nine.
Wells is the ultimate wild card, as the Orioles could choose to use him in rotation, the bullpen or a hybrid, Albert Suárez-type role. The towering righty from Oklahoma has only pitched 27 innings over the last two seasons due to a UCL injury that required surgery, though not a full reconstruction. The fact that he moved back into the rotation last year upon his return from injury was a bit surprising, but his results justified it.
In four starts at the end of last season, Wells had two quality starts, limited opponents to a .213 batting average and only issued two walks in 21.2 innings. Home runs were a problem for him—he allowed a home run in each of his starts—but overall, he looked like pre-All-Star break, 2023 Tyler Wells again. If that’s the type of pitcher he can be over 25+ starts, he jumps to the front of the line for the Orioles fifth starter spot.
However, Wells’ biggest problem has always been his durability. After throwing 104.2 innings in the first half of 2023, he faded after the All-Star break. The former Rule 5 draft pick hit a wall in the second half, ultimately being demoted to Double-A midseason before being brought back as a reliever. Wells has never thrown 120+ innings in a season, and asking him to be a full-time starter may simply not be the best use of the innings the Orioles can get out of him.
Good morning! We fans probably downplay the effect a trade has on a baseball player. Could you imagine how disrupting it would be if your employers could force you into a different job in a different city in an instant? But Payton Tolle isn’t too fazed by the trade rumors, which is just one thing he discussed during this great interview on MLB Network.
Talk about what you want, keep digging out from that snow, and be good to one another.
If it is late January on the the MLB Calendar, that means it is prospect lists galore. And for Cam Caminiti, it is further validation that he is emerging as one of the best young pitching prospects on the game. Both Keith Law and MLB Pipeline see the young southpaw as the Braves best prospect, and an arm that is moving up top 100 lists across baseball. It could really be a huge year for Caminiti, who is clearly the prize of the Braves farm.
Braves News
ESPN tabbed the Braves as being the most likely team to “bounce back” to contention in 2026. This prediction has some merit, as many projection systems still see the Braves as one of the top teams in baseball. Health and a return to normal production for many players is the key.
Lukas Vlahos graded the team’s acquisition of Luis Robert Jr.
Ryan Clifford came in at number 8 on the Amazin’ Avenue list of Mets’ prospects list.
This Date in Mets History
The Mets dealt Steven Matz to the Blue Jays for a package that featured Sean Reid-Foley, Josh Winchowski, and Yennsy Diaz on this date in 2021. On the same day, they signed Aaron Loup, who pitched in one season for New York and set a franchise record for fewest earned runs allowed (six) with at least 50 innings pitched.
Yesterday, we told you about the four Red Sox prospects who made their way into MLB Pipeline’s top-100 list: Payton Tolle, Franklin Arias, Connelly Early, and Kyson Witherspoon. Today, we have a new prospect ranking — this one from the Athletic’s Keith Law. The same four players are on it, though Law is comparatively lower on Tolle (he has him 40th compared to Pipeline’s 19, admitting that he wasn’t high on him to start last season) and comparatively higher on Arias, who he has at number 12 compared to Pipeline’s 31. (Keith Law The Athletic)
But is it risky to get too attached to any of those guys? According to a new report, the Red Sox remain interested in infielder Isaac Parades of the Astros, though no deal is particularly close. (Chandler Rome, The Athletic)
Though the fact that no deal is particularly close right now doesn’t mean that a deal can’t come together quickly, as evidenced by the Ranger Suárez signing. In this piece that dives into the pursuit of the pitcher, we learn that the Red Sox met with Suárez way back at the start of the offseason after deciding he was the best fit among this year’s class of free agent pitchers. But that was as far as things went until the Sox were forced to pivot quickly following the Alex Bregman departure. (Alex Speier, Boston Globe)
Speaking of the Alex Bregman departure, it’s a little unsettling that we still have no idea who is going to play third base for the 2026 Red Sox— or second base for that matter. But Marcelo Mayer is going to be prepared either way: “I’m doing everything I can, taking reps at third and at second base, and I feel really good at both. So wherever they need me is where I’m gonna play, and I’m gonna do my best out there.” (Ian Browne, MLB.com)
As for who will play whichever position Mayer doesn’t man, can I interest you is some Dylan Moore?
They’ve had some conversations with Dylan Moore, per source, but unclear if they’ll be his final destination.
Dylan Cease (how come I’ve been saying his name Cleese like he’s John Cleese son?) is a 30-year-old, right-handed pitcher whom the Jays signed to a 5-year, $210 million contract. It is more than possible that the last couple of years of that contract won’t go well.
Cease has pitched seven seasons in the MLB and has a 65-58 record, 3.88 ERA in 188 starts, and a 16.7 bWAR. His best season was 2022, when he had a 2.20 ERA, went 14-8 in 32 starts, and posted a 6.4 bWAR, finishing second in Cy Young voting (he finished fourth in 2024).
In our post about the signing, we had a poll. 42.9% of us were ‘Kind of Happy’, 41.8% were Very Happy. Only 5.1% were Kind of or Very Unhappy. I’m slightly curious how you could be very upset, but maybe they were Yankees fans.
But then we also had a poll asking, ‘Should the Jays sign Cease if the cost is $31 million a year for five years?’ and 64.2% said no. So we are nothing if not flexible.
Last year wasn’t his best; he had an 8-12 record and a 4.55 ERA in 32 starts. Everyone is allowed a down year.
He’s been incredibly durable. He’s made 32 or 33 starts in each of the last five seasons. The season before that was COVID-shortened. And he’s thrown between 165 and 189 innings in those five seasons.
Dylan throws five pitches, but his Four Seamer (averaging 97.1 MPH last year) and Slider show up 83% percent of the time. The rest: Knuckle Curve, Sinker, Sweeper, and Change-up. I’d think that, as he ages and perhaps loses a bit on the fastball, he’ll have to start throwing one or two of those secondary pitches more often.
I’d like to think he’ll be in the 2-4 range for WAR in most of his seasons with the Jays, but I’ll hold out hope that he can have another 5+ season. Dylan threw a lot of innings in his 20s, and often, guys like that don’t age well, but ‘often’ isn’t ‘always’.
Steamer thinks he’ll make 32 starts, throw 185 innings with a 3.61 ERA and a 12-10 record and a 3.8 fWAR. I think 185 innings is a lot; he’s only been over that once in his career, and the Jays aren’t the kind of team to push a starter.
“I went to school here,” the UCLA graduate said. “I manage the Dodgers.
“It’s a no-brainer.”
There’s a seemingly long time between now and the 2028 Olympics, but also a lot of logistical items to be resolved. But aside from that, there’s also the question of whether major league players would be allowed to play in the Olympics, which would require a disruption to the MLB schedule that season.
During the World Series last October, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred expressed optimism that a deal could be struck between the league’s owners and the player’s union for MLB players to be used in the Olympics, per Bill Shaikin at the Los Angeles Times:
“I am positive about it. … I think the owners have crossed the line in terms of, we’d like to do it if we can possibly make it work, but there are logistical issues that still need to be worked through.”
The schedule for the 2028 Olympics runs from July 14-30. When baseball will be played hasn’t been finalized, but Dodger Stadium will host the games, as it did in 1984 when the Summer Olympics were last in Los Angeles. Back then, baseball was only a demonstration sport in the Olympics. Baseball was an official medal sport from 1992 to 2008, and again in the 2020 Olympics, which were played in 2021.
Team USA did not qualify for the Olympics in 2024, and were led by college coaches in the 1992 and 1996 games. Since then, the team has been managed in Olympic play by former Dodgers.
In 2000, Tommy Lasorda managed Team USA to a gold medal in Sydney. Davey Johnson, who managed the Dodgers from ., helmed Team USA to a bronze medal in 2008 in Beijing., Longtime Dodgers catcher and Angels manager Mike Scioscia led the team to silver in 2021 in Tokyo, with a team that included former Dodgers Edwin Jackson and Tim Federowicz.
National prospect list season continued on Monday as Keith Law, prospect writer for The Athletic, dropped his new top 100 list. At this point you won’t be surprised to find three highly ranked Detroit Tigers prospects in his top 30. Max Clark continues to grade almost unanimously as the best all around outfield prospect in baseball, while Kevin McGonigle remains behind the Pirates’ Konnor Griffin as the second ranked prospect in baseball with the best hit tool of any player in the minor leagues.
Law’s intro does have some interesting points, namely that the top 100 at this point is very hitter heavy. There just aren’t many obvious, dominant pitching prospects who have already proven their ability to handle the workload around the game. He mainly cites injury as the cause, noting that as a result of the ever higher rates of injury that teams are pushing their pitching prospects along more and more carefully, focused more on stuff and control rather than on stretching them out, trying to save their workload until they reach the major leagues. In any case, this is reflected in the fact that there are a lot of talented pitching prospects with 45/45+ grades, but they just aren’t as proven enough to really draw certain top 100 level grades, and the demands and more limited workloads make it harder to gauge who might actually emerge to put up 3+ WAR seasons in the bigs.
The Tigers’ Troy Melton is a pretty good example of this. He’s super talented, but the lack of a good third pitch led most to keep him in those 45 tiers entering 2025, including us. Based on his production and outlook, that still seems like an accurate grade. But he’s clearly improved and has the potential to be a 3-4 level starter or possibily more if he commands his splitter more effectively in the coming years. We just don’t know how long it may be until he gets a chance to prove he can do it in a full-time starting role and those usage concerns nowadays make it trickier to forecast future value for pitchers unless the player is already an established stud starter in the upper levels prior to the next season.
None of that pitching development strategy really seems to be working out, however. The Tigers are uber cautious with workload, both in terms of overall innings, length of outings, and frequency of outings, rarely giving a starting pitching prospect two starts in a week’s time, and so far it isn’t doing them a bit of good.
Law has RHP Bubba Chandler of the Pirates as the top pitching prospect in baseball in the 14th spot, with the Mets RHP Nolan McLean behind him at 15. RHP Ryan Sloan of the Mariners is ranked 21st, with RHP Andrew Painter of the Phillies at 22. All together Law has just 12 pitchers in the top 50.
Law says: He’s an elite hitter for hard contact, pairing that with outstanding swing decisions, so the result is that he hits the ball in the air and pulls it a ton, getting to surprising power for a guy with more of a medium build and frame.
#5 Max Clark
Law says: Clark has excellent bat speed and a very advanced eye at the plate, which combined to produce just an 18 percent whiff rate on the season, along with an 18 percent chase rate that dropped to 10 percent on pitches well out of the zone.
His MLB ceiling is as a plus defender with high OBPs and 18-22 homers a year, which is going to at least make him an All-Star and a big fan favorite.
#17 Bryce Rainer
Law says: When he played, he showed a bit of everything, with power (peaking at 111.6 mph EV, with a hard-hit rate over 52 percent), patience, plus defense and, at least before the injury, a plus-plus arm. He had no trouble with better velocity, hitting .333/.440/.476 last year off 94-plus mph in a sample of 80 pitches.
#59 Josue Briceño
Law says: (at the Double-A level) He did still maintain his feel for the strike zone and continued to make plenty of contact in the zone (85 percent), so there’s reason to believe he’ll resume mashing with more reps at the level. It’s plus power already, even to the opposite field, as he understands how to hit the ball where it’s pitched…
#91 Max Anderson
Law says: He focused over the offseason on trying to change how he was making contact from getting on top of the ball to hitting it on the bottom half, and took off from the start of last season, with a .306/.358/.499 line in Double A in 90 games, then a .267/.327/.422 line in Triple A where he still had a 46 percent hard-hit rate. His production is almost entirely in his hit tool; he has average power, below-average patience and below-average speed, so he has to continue to post high contact rates given his lack of a current defensive position.
Summary
Overall the only thing in terms of the Tigers that hasn’t already been covered extensively is Max Anderson making the list. Law cites the defensive concerns we’ve brought up repeatedly the past two seasons, but is more optimistic that he’ll hit enough to make it as an everyday player. I continue to think his pitch selection and overall discipline is going to have to improve quite a bit, as major league pitchers aren’t going to have that much trouble getting the current version of Anderson swinging at pitchers’ pitches and getting him out on the ground.
Anderson does have good hands and makes plenty of contact. There’s just a lot of pressure on the bat to hit for power due to his lack of defensive utility, mostly because of his mediocre range. His fairly strong and accurate arm helps make up for it and will allow him to play back against hitters without the footspeed to beat out choppers and slower rollers hit his way. It’s nice to see some optimism for Anderson, and hopefully Law ends up being in the right on this one.
Yesterday, the San Francisco Giants announced that they have signed outfielder Harrison Bader to a two-year deal. So I wanted to check in and see how people are feeling about the signing.
Personally, I agree with Brady’s assessment in the linked post above. Bader is an improvement on outfield defense, which is great! And if he hits as well as he did in 2025, that would also be a plus! Though I’m not sure if that’s sustainable, as he has tended to be a little under league average.
Bryan pointed out something interesting as well, in that he tends to hit pretty well in NL West parks (except for Dodger Stadium, naturally).
But the defensive improvement is the point! And I’m excited about it.
How are you feeling about the Harrison Bader signing?
When he was in the minor leagues, there were good indications that Joey Ortiz would be, at minimum, a decent offensive player. From his professional debut through his last substantive minor league season in 2023, Ortiz never had a wRC+ lower than 98, and even that low mark came in 2019 when he was 20 and had just finished his last college season. Ortiz’s offense in the minors ranged from slightly above average to excellent, particularly in his 2023 season, when (as a top 100 prospect) he hit .321/.378/.507 (a 124 wRC+) at Triple-A Norfolk and earned himself a late-season promotion to the Orioles.
During his (official) rookie season with the Brewers in 2024, Ortiz largely performed the way his minor league numbers suggested he might. In 142 games, he didn’t hit for much average but showed good patience and did a decent job driving the ball. His season was up and down — he started hot, cooled off, looked terrible in the weeks following an IL stint, and then recovered a bit over the last month-and-a-half. But Ortiz’s final line of .239/.329/.398 equated to a 102 OPS+ and 105 wRC+, more than acceptable for a glove-first rookie. He earned 2.7 bWAR and 3.2 fWAR, and looked like he was on the way to a long, productive career as a Brewer.
Then, in 2025, Ortiz’s offense abandoned him completely. After a hot spring training, Ortiz started dreadfully and never really pulled himself out of it. After going 2-for-4 on the first day of the season, Ortiz didn’t have an OPS over .600 again until August 12. He finished the season at .230/.276/.317 for a dreadful 66 OPS+/67 wRC+ in 506 plate appearances.
It is rare for players to be given that kind of playing time when they are that bad at the plate. Since 2000, there have been only 58 instances of a player receiving at least 500 plate appearances with an OPS+ of 66 or lower.* As a rookie, Ortiz showed some strengths: a good walk percentage, good bat speed, a good chase percentage. But in 2025, almost everything nose-dived, his chase percentage went way up, and he didn’t do any damage on pitches he made contact with.
*A quick “fun” fact: there are three other Brewer seasons on this list: Orlando Arcia in 2019 (546 PA, 64 OPS+), Alcides Escobar in 2010 (552 PA, 66 OPS+), and Marquis Grissom in 2000 (640 PA, 63 OPS+). Brice Turang just misses this list: he had a 61 OPS+ in 2023, but in only 448 PA. I should also draw attention to another BCB favorite on the list, who did this before arriving in Milwaukee: Yuniesky Betancourt had a 66 OPS+ in 508 PA in 2009, split between Kansas City and Seattle.
According to Statcast, the only thing Ortiz did well in 2025 was that he didn’t miss much when he swung at the ball — he had a 90th percentile whiff percentage and 86th percentile strikeout rate. But if you’re never doing damage when contacting the ball, it doesn’t matter a whole lot if you’re putting the ball in play; we all remember the 19,000 (or thereabouts) infield pop-ups we saw from Ortiz last season.
Looking to history
What I was most curious about here was not necessarily a diagnosis of Ortiz’s issues but sort of hopes for recovery he has.
So, I started in 1969, when the league expanded to 24 teams, and searched for players who, within the first three years of their career, had a season of at least 500 plate appearances with an OPS+ of 70 or less. Then I combed through the players on that list (56 players, a handful of whom appeared twice) to see if any finished with a career OPS+ of 95 or better. Here’s who I found:
Jean Segura (26.3 career WAR, 97 OPS+)
Dansby Swanson (28.4 WAR, 97 OPS+, still active)
Geraldo Perdomo (13.5 WAR, 101 OPS+, still active)
That’s it. And that’s the bad news: there are very few players in modern baseball history who’ve been as bad as Ortiz was in 2025 who have gone on to good offensive careers. Let’s quickly cover these three players — and it’s nice that we have couple of active guys, because we can check out the same Statcast data for them that we have for Ortiz.
First, Segura. After he debuted for one game with the Angels in 2012, he was included in Los Angeles’ trade deadline package that they sent to Milwaukee for Zack Greinke. The Brewers put Segura right into their starting lineup, and he was good enough to earn himself the starting shortstop job in 2013. At 23 years old that season, Segura was great: he hit .294/.329/.423, stole 44 bases, and made the All-Star team.
But in 2014, Segura’s offense disappeared completely, and it didn’t come back in 2015, either. After back-to-back seasons of a 70 and 68 OPS+ in 146 and 142 games, the Brewers traded Segura to Arizona… where he promptly hit .319/.368/.499, led the league in hits, and had a 6.6 WAR season.
The second half of Segura’s career was less up and down, but he was never a super consistent player. After looking good in his early 30s in Philadelphia, he was so bad in 85 games with the Marlins in 2023 that he never played in the majors again, despite being just 33 years old in his final season in 2023.
Swanson was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 draft and was in the majors the following season; he looked great in 38 games in 2016, so the Braves made him their starting shortstop in 2017 when he was less than two years removed from college ball. It went badly. In 144 games and 551 plate appearances, Swanson hit .232/.312/.324 (68 OPS+).
While Swanson struggled in 2017, his available Statcast numbers aren’t nearly as badly as Ortiz’s in 2025; most of his numbers fell in the 20-35 range, percentile-wise, while many of Ortiz’s are below the 10th percentile. Swanson’s career also followed a more traditional arc: he was good in 2016, but it was only a 38-game sample, so 2017 was his rookie year. His OPS+ numbers are then basically a straight line, if you throw out the shortened 2020 season: 87 in 2018, 89 in 2019, 99 in 2021, 114 in 2022. Over the last six years, Swanson has a 105 OPS+ in 837 games, which he pairs with excellent defense at shortstop, and has made himself a valuable player.
Perdomo was thrust into the starting job for the Diamondbacks before he was really ready; he played 11 games in a brief debut in 2021 then played 148 games as a 22-year-old regular in 2022, in which he hit just .195/.285/.262. Perdomo’s 2022 season actually looks somewhat similar to Ortiz’s 2025; Both players didn’t swing and miss much, and both had above-average strikeout percentages, but both did nothing when they made contact: both players ranked in the 13th percentile or worse in all of xwOBA, xSLG, average exit velocity, barrel percentage, hard-hit percentage, and launch angle sweet-spot percentage.
The thing that’s different is that Perdomo didn’t chase anything, and his ability to draw walks has always been a strength. He improved to a 95 OPS+ in 2023 (and made the All-Star team), then to a 100 OPS+ in 2024, and then he broke out in 2025 and became one of the best players in the league (.290/.389/.462, 136 OPS+, 20 homers, 33 doubles, 27 stolen bases, 94 walks, NL leading 7.0 WAR).
Judging the career arc is tricky. Swanson and Perdomo both followed paths where they struggled early and then rose in a straight line, and the cynic would say that’s an indication that Ortiz hasn’t been able to make the necessary adjustments as the league’s pitchers figured him out. But Segura’s early career shows the sometimes-random nature of player development, so it could go either way.
I’d also just like to briefly discuss Turang, who technically doesn’t fit the criteria, as his bad season was in fewer than 500 PA and his career OPS+ is currently 93. Turang’s early career resembles Perdomo and Swanson more than Ortiz, in that he was awful in his first real shot and has since shown steady improvement. But Turang in 2023 was even worse than Ortiz in 2025, so that should give some encouragement that someone in Milwaukee might know how to help.
Other Pathways
There are several other players who fit the “bad early season” criteria who did go on to have good, or at least notable, careers:
Ozzie Smith (76.9 WAR) is by far the best player of all those who fit the “bad early-career offensive season” criteria. He is, of course, the greatest defensive player in the history of baseball; his 44.2 dWAR are the most all time by a comfortable margin. While Smith was never a good offensive player, he did figure things out as he went along: after posting an OPS+ of 74 over his first seven seasons, Smith had an OPS+ of 99 over the next eight years (1985-1992). Combine that with his all-time good defense and it makes him an obvious Hall of Fame choice.
It’d be a little crazy, but I could, for fun, make an argument that Jim Sundberg (40.5 WAR, 90 OPS+) is the best defensive catcher of all time. He’s got the best dWAR rate of any catcher with substantial playing time in league history, just ahead of Yadier Molina and comfortably ahead of the next three, Iván Rodríguez, Bob Boone, and Gary Carter. Sundberg was a really good player who won six Gold Gloves (consecutively from 1976-81) and made three All-Star Games, one of which was in his lone season in Milwaukee in 1984.
Terry Pendleton (28.4 WAR, 92 OPS+) was a solid player who peaked in the early ‘90s when he won an MVP in 1991 and finished second in the voting in 1992. Pendleton probably doesn’t win those awards nowadays, but it’s still impressive. He finished with three Gold Gloves and one All-Star appearance.
Bob Boone (27.4 WAR, 79 OPS+), as noted, was a great defensive catcher, but aside from a four-year stretch in the late ‘70s when he was slightly above average, he was always a bad offensive player. Boone played 19 years and finished with seven Gold Gloves and four All-Star appearances.
Jack Wilson (23.5 WAR, 76 OPS+) is well known to fans of the NL Central; the first nine-and-a-half years of his 12-year career came in Pittsburgh. Wilson had a couple seasons in which he hit for solid average, but he was a low-OBP, low-power hitter. In 2004, he was an All-Star and won the Silver Slugger when he hit .308/.335/.459 with a league-leading 12 triples. His son, Jacob, was second in 2025 AL Rookie of the Year voting.
Michael Bourn (22.8 WAR, 87 OPS+) was a defensive standout in center field who won two Gold Gloves, made a couple of All-Star teams (one with Houston, one with Atlanta), and led the league in stolen bases every year from 2009-2011.
Larry Bowa (22.8 WAR, 71 OPS+) collected over 2,100 hits in his 16-year career, but they were about as empty as they come; he was a lifetime .260/.300/.320 hitter. But Bowa was considered a star: he finished as high as third in MVP voting, won two Gold Gloves, and made five All-Star Games.
Juan Uribe (22.6 WAR, 87 OPS+) played for 16 years as a good defensive infielder who occasionally hit a bit, especially later in his career. He started on World Series winners in Chicago (2005) and San Francisco (2010), and while he didn’t make any All-Star Games or win any awards, he had a solid career.
Ozzie Guillén (21 WAR, 69 OPS+) was a no-bat, all-glove shortstop who is now known more for his career as a manager than as a player. He made three All-Star Games, all between 1988 and 1991, and won AL Rookie of the Year in 1985 and a Gold Glove in 1990.
Juan Pierre (17.3 career WAR, 84 career OPS+) played 14 years, led the league in hits twice, triples once, and stolen bases three times, but he was a player with zero power (18 career homers) in an era when a guy hit 73 homers in a season.
Vince Coleman (12.5 WAR, 83 OPS+) came into the league and looked destined to challenge the slightly older Rickey Henderson as history’s greatest base stealer: in his first three seasons, Coleman stole 110, 107, and 109 stolen bases, a run which even Henderson cannot boast. But unlike Henderson, Coleman couldn’t hit, and he couldn’t get on base enough to sustain a meaningful run at Henderson. His 13-year career included two All-Star appearances, the 1985 NL Rookie of the Year, and 752 stolen bases, sixth all time.
Conclusion
It’s going to be a big year for Ortiz. If he can get his bat back near the levels of 2024, his combination of “good enough” offense and excellent defense at shortstop would make him a valuable contributor. If he can’t, though, the Brewers have a bevy of options nearing the top of the minor leagues that could theoretically replace him, sooner than you might think.
Cooper Pratt and Jett Williams are likely to start the season at Triple-A Nashville, and Jesús Made is going to be right behind them at Double-A Biloxi. It’s a little early for Made, who doesn’t turn 19 until May. But if Ortiz’s struggles show no signs of correction and Pratt or Williams open the season swinging the bat, either could replace Ortiz this summer. Williams may not be the long-term answer at shortstop — by all accounts his defense there might be a little questionable (at least compared to Pratt and Made), and most think he ends up in center field.
That doesn’t mean he couldn’t be a short-term replacement, though, manning the position until Pratt or Made are ready. The point is, Ortiz shouldn’t feel exactly threatened, but I feel confident that the Brewers are not about to let their everyday shortstop hold an OPS below .600 for a full season again.
There are bound to be some events of note at some point. Perhaps not today. But we remain vigilant. Pitchers and catchers are due to report in two weeks.
We do have a nice The Compound Podcast if you have time, and several shorter stories, both on video and via text. Randy Holt has a good piece about building the bench, below. Pat Hughes is going to have a fundraiser chat in mid-February.
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Jordan Bastian (MLB.com*): Cubs’ injured ace is ‘movin and a groovin’ his way back to action. “It’s a heck of a boost,” Cubs general manager Carter Hawkins said, “to have a guy that’s a top of the rotation-type talent that potentially could come in here and be that for us later in the year.”
Jack Lindsay (North Side Baseball*): The Cubs’ fourth outfielder battle is wide open. “There’s a crucial roster spot up for grabs this spring. Four Cubs are now in position to fight for it.“
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