Category: Baseball

What's not to love about Pete Crow-Armstrong? The young, talented Chicago Cubs center fielder is somehow simultaneously super cool and fiery. Nicknamed simply PCA, he should be an entertaining and accomplished player to watch for many years.

And he's Southern California born and bred, the product of esteemed diamond factory Harvard-Westlake High.

So why oh why did these words come out of his mouth during an interview for a 4,500-word article published Monday in Chicago Magazine?

“I love Chicago more and more,” he said. “It’s just an incredible city. The people are great. They give a [crap]. They aren’t just baseball fans who go to the game like Dodgers fans to take pictures and whatever. They are paying attention. They care.”

The love of Chicago and Cubs fans? Understood.

The dissing of all Dodgers fans as photo-obsessed, uncaring whatevers? Laughable.

Read more:'Pretty healthy' Kyle Tucker content to fit in among Dodgers' galaxy of stars

The Dodgers became the first team to draw four million fans in 2025 and have exceeded 3.7 million paying customers every non-COVID season since 2013.

And it's a false narrative to suggest the devotion is merely a byproduct of back-to-back World Series titles and a star-studded lineup. Remember, the Dodgers didn't win a title from 1989 through 2019, a 31-year drought during which their attendance exceeded 3 million 25 times.

So, where did a baseball-loving future MLB star growing up in Sherman Oaks come to such a contorted conclusion?

Blame it on dad.

PCA penned a first-person article for the Player's Tribune in September that spelled it out:

"Growing up in L.A., my dad gave me a couple of rules. 1) I couldn’t root for the Dodgers. 2) I couldn’t root for the Cardinals.

"He’s from Naperville, just outside Chicago. He didn’t force me to be a Cubs fan, but let’s just say it was heavily encouraged."

Read more:Stephen Nelson is now part of Dodgers fans' memories. Here's how he keeps it in perspective

The Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 108 years in 2016. PCA was 14, and he and his dad, actor Matthew John Armstrong, watched Game 7 together on television. Dad cried.

"I don’t think I fully got it in the moment, you know?" PCA wrote. "I was like, Dad, don’t be weird … stop crying. But I’m sure almost every Cub fan of a certain age had tears in their eyes that night. And now, a bit older, I get it."

PCA signed with the New York Mets after being drafted 19th overall out of high school in 2020. He was traded to the Cubs a year later for Javier Báez, Trevor Williams and cash and swiftly rose through the minor leagues, making his Cubs debut in 2023.

Last season he broke out as a bona fide star, becoming the first MLB player to accumulate 25 home runs, 25 stolen bases and 70 runs batted in during the first half of a season. He also cemented himself as the top center fielder in the game.

PCA slumped during the second half and finished with 31 homers and 35 stolen bases to go with a .247 batting average. Although the fans might not have noticed with all the picture-taking and whatever, he has done well in six games at Dodger Stadium, batting .333 with a home run and five RBIs.

But according to his teammate and close friend Nico Hoerner, PCA feels at home in the friendly confines of Wrigley Field.

“That’s one thing that is very cool about him that not a lot of younger players get,” Hoerner said. “He couldn’t have more of an appreciation for the history of the game and playing in Wrigley Field. He’s excited to be a part of the city of Chicago in a way a lot of guys don’t really understand.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

No TV covereage today, but the game can be heard through the radio.

First pitch is 1:05 against the Minnesota Twins at Charlotte Sports Park.

Pittsburgh Pirates vs. Boston Red Sox, February 24, 2025, 1:05 p.m. ET

Location: JetBlue Park, Fort Myers, FL

How to Listen: KDKA-FM 93.7

The Pittsburgh Pirates are on the road today against the Boston Red Sox looking to grab a win.

Please remember our Game Day thread guidelines.

• Don’t troll in your comments; create conversation rather than destroying it
• Remember Bucs Dugout is basically a non-profanity site
• Out of respect to broadcast partners who have paid to carry the game, no mentions of “alternative” (read: illegal) viewing methods are allowed in our threads
• The commenting system was updated during the summer. They’re still working on optimizing it for Game Day Threads like ours. If you don’t like clicking “Load More Comments”, remember that the “Z” key can be your friend. It loads up the latest comments automatically.

BD community, this is your thread for today’s game. Enjoy!

Prior to beginning this deserved evisceration, this author would like to clarify that she is not related to Angels GM Perry Minasian (so far as she knows). She is proudly related to Raffi Minasian, who, when pressed into attendance, scrolls on Instagram and asks every half inning when they’re going to throw hot dogs to him. 

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim should be extremely grateful to the Colorado Rockies for existing. Hopefully Bradley Blalock got a fruit basket, at the very least, because the Rockies pitching staff were often the only thing standing between the Angels arms and the very cellar of most FanGraphs leaderboards. They had the highest BB/9 rate of any team in baseball, ranked second-highest in HR/9, put up a walk rate of 9.9% and tallied all that into a cumulative 6.4 fWAR (29th overall). As John pointed out yesterday, they certainly weren’t helped by the worst defense in baseball, but it was much more Felix the Cat running while holding a bomb than Félix Hernández.

To address these issues, this off-season Minasian opted to employ a strategy inspired by Armenians at any family gathering, and many nerds online: Remembering Some Guys.

Notable Transactions

Out: LHP Brock Burke, LHP Tyler Anderson, RHP Kenley Jansen, RHP Connor Brogdon, RHP Kyle Hendricks, LHP José Quijada, LHP Andrew Chafin, RHP José Ureña
In: RHP Grayson Rodriguez, RHP Alek Manoah, LHP Drew Pomeranz, RHP Kirby Yates, RHP Jordan Romano, LHP Brent Suter, LHP Jayvien Sandridge, RHP Huascar Ynoa, RHP Shaun Anderson, RHP Nick Sandlin, LHP Tayler Saucedo, RHP Kaleb Ort, RHP Angel Perdomo, RHP Hunter Strickland

Italics = Minor League Deals with Spring Training Invite

Here to tell you the story of the Angels’ off-season additions is Jake, an aspiring screenwriter whose favorite films include Transformers, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Armageddon.

We open on Yusei Kikuchi in the weight room at Angels Stadium, sweat pouring down his face.

SMASH CUT [plus explosion sound]

A screen recording of Grayson Rodriguez’s extensive injury history page, with the voiceover of Rodriguez telling a reporter that he didn’t go through a physical before being traded to the Angels.

SMASH CUT [plus explosion sound]

Alek Manoah throwing 89 MPH fastballs in Buffalo, New York.

SMASH CUT [plus explosion sound]

Jordan Romano’s entire 2025 season on 6.9x speed.

SMASH CUT [plus explosion sound]

Soft focus zoom into the gray hairs of Kirby Yates’ beard.

SMASH CUT [plus explosion sound]

Soft focus zoom into the gray hairs of Drew Pomeranz’s beard.

SMASH CUT [plus explosion sound]

Soft focus zoom into the gray hairs that would grow in Brent Suter’s beard.

SMASH CUT [plus explosion sound]

This picture

Fade to black

Starting Rotation

According to ZiPS, José Soriano is slated to be The Quiet Place of the rotation, with old friend Kikuchi as The Quiet Place II and Detmers rounding it out as Bumblebee. Beyond those three, it’s all just various iterations of The Purge.

There’s an argument to be made that the Angels’ 1-3 in their rotation represent the team’s most noble, respectful tribute to baseball in the 2026 season. The ceiling isn’t terribly high, but the holes are patched and it keeps you dry. But in 2026, you need more than three starting pitchers, and while Rodriguez, Manoah and Dana offer a little more clearance for your noggin, you’re going to need a few buckets handy in the event of a storm. It’s easy to see some upside here – Rodriguez had surgery in August to remove the bone spurs in his elbow that he claimed were the root of 2+ years of injuries and struggle, Manoah sat 93-94 in his debut Spring Training outing, Dana is still just a baby and Gregg Klassen is waiting in the wings like the Midwestern pitching version of Zach Neto. It’s also a thin line for competence and a generous promenade of risk.

I’m not here to pass judgement on my fellow 90’s babies, but I’m also not out there every day trying to hurl my arm around like a kid with one of those sticky hand toys. That’s a lotta 30-somethings in that table, to say nothing of the injury histories that get those names beeping like a metal detector being swept along the basin of the Trevi Fountain. This bullpen is the 2003 version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – the source material is haunting, but the remake lacks oomph or necessity.

To be honest, at this point I can’t tell if I’m more tired of making Michael Bay references or just considering the Angels franchise. It likely skews towards the latter, but I’ll take some blame myself. As the Halos know better than any, it’s tough to be a Michael.

One of the calling cards of the David Stearns era has been a glut of relievers brought it, called up, sent down, designated for assignment, released, waived, purchased, or otherwise moved around the fringes of the Mets’ organization. While for some folks, myself included, the constant churn can seem like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic at points, the process allows the Mets to get looks at a ton of pitchers and decide if those pitchers have a role in the team longer-term than just the inning or two that is directly in front of them.

In that regard, the Mets seem to like Kevin Herget quite a bit. Over the past 18 months, the Mets have acquired fellow Bergen County, NJ native Herget thrice: claiming him off waivers from the Reds after the conclusion of the 2024 season, signing him as a free agent in mid-July after his first stint with the Mets and subsequent stint with the Braves ended, and then signing him again to a minor league deal in December.

Now, to be fair, the Mets don’t like him that much, as he only threw 12 total innings for the big league club in 2025, and they designated him for assignment twice. The DFAs have more to do with roster construction than anything else; the fact that he was brought back each time is more of an endorsement than the releases were a referendum on his talents.

In his limited time in the majors, Herget only had one appearance that could be classified as bad, and that was when he was left in too long in a laugher against the Tigers. He didn’t strike out a ton of batters, but he limited damage and was dependably giving the Mets at least an inning, if not multiple innings, in each appearance. His final Mets line was a 3.00 ERA in 12 innings over six appearances with six strikeouts and three walks.

His numbers didn’t look too different in Syracuse either (2.81 ERA over 32 innings with 35 strikeouts and eight walks). Simply put, he limits hard contact with a mostly three-pitch mix of four seam fastball, cutter, and changeup. The fastball average velo was just 92.1 mph in 2025, which is not what you’d expect from a right-hander out of the bullpen, but he makes it work.

The question remains to be seen if he can make it work for any extended period of time in the majors and, just as importantly, if the Mets will give him the opportunity to answer that question. Herget is out of options, so if the Mets call him up, he’s going to really have to prove his worth to not have the same DFA shuffle happen again. And while his skillset is certainly useful, with limited bullpen roles, a soft-tossing righty without big strikeout numbers is going to be a hard sell.

The only player in this year’s top twenty that joins our rankings from another major league organization, Alex Hoppe has received more coverage this offseason than he’s likely ever gotten in his life. In what will be his third stand alone article in the span of three months, our staff placed Hoppe 16th in the Mariners system as he’s yet to debut and has full prospect status. If you’ve read the prior articles on him, there’s probably going to be some rehashing here. If not, fantastic! Welcome to the Alex Hoppe experience.

Hoppe, a 2022 sixth rounder out of UNC-Greensboro, has an intriguing array of stuff in his arsenal. With velocity being his primary calling card, Hoppe leans on a 98 MPH fastball that’s peaked as high as 101, but he’ll mix in a cutter at 93, slider at 88, and changeup at 89 as well. For a pure relief prospect, the arsenal here is rather complete; Depending on what the M’s seem to be intrigued by (postulated on here by our own Nick Vitalis), there’s a ton of stuff to work with from a developmental standpoint.

On the field, Hoppe worked to a 4.76 ERA in Triple-A this past year, an admittedly not good mark. This, however, is ameliorated slightly by his 3.83 FIP and 27.9 K%. The walks are a major problem still (12.3 BB% last season), but at least there’s some swing-and-miss to his game that makes the control issues more bearable.

This is assuredly not a finished product at present (something that doesn’t necessarily bode well for a now 27 year old), but the makings of a good pitcher is in there somewhere. The fastball-slider combo looks promising enough to work with, and swapping his subpar cutter in favor of his changeup looks like some low-hanging fruit that could lead to quick results. The borderline extreme over-the-top release point is another interesting tidbit with Hoppe that will be something to note moving forward; he’s a mold-breaker from the Seattle norm in that respect.

Now with one Mariner appearance under his belt this Spring Training (no need to look at the box score), Hoppe has officially made his organizational debut and will likely serve in an up-down bullpen role over the next several years. Even as somewhat of a mystery product, a reliever with three option years that can top 100 MPH is certainly not a bad thing to have in the system. Hopefully he can take to the teachings of the pitching lab to heart and find new levels of success with his new home.

Here are the lineups. For the Phillies:

For the Marlins:

¯_(ツ)_/¯

Let’s talk about it.

The Dodgers on Tuesday take on the Cleveland Guardians at Camelback Ranch. Here are the active players for the fourth game of the Dodgers’ spring, including Freddie Freeman at first base in his first Cactus League game this year, just as he planned.

Lineup

Miguel Rojas SS
Kyle Tucker RF
Will Smith C
Freddie Freeman 1B
Teoscar Hernández LF
Andy Pages CF
Alex Freeland 2B
Nick Senzel 3B
Keston Hiura DH

Gavin Stone starts on the mound in his first game action in 542 days, after missing the entire 2025 season after surgery on his right shoulder.

Other pitchers

Justin Wrobleski, Edgardo Henriquez, and Paul Gervase are slated to pitch on Tuesday, as are non-roster invitees Ryder Ryan, Wyatt Mills, and Antoine Kelly.

From minor league camp, Antonio Knowles (wearing uniform number 05), Roque Gutierrez (89), Kelvin Ramirez (91), and Nicolas Cruz (93) are also active.

Other position players

Michael Siani is the lone position player on the 40-man roster available in reserve, along with non-roster invitees Ryan Fitzgerald, James Tibbs III, Josue De Paula, Zyhir Hope, Kendall George, Chris Newell, Noah Miller, and catchers Seby Zavala, Griffin Lockwood-Powell, Eliézer Alfonzo, and Nelson Quiroz.

Up from the minor league side are infielders Elijah Hainline (90) and Jake Gelof (06).

1928
The future third baseman for the 1959 pennant-winning White Sox, Bubba Phillips, was born, in West Point, Miss. Phillips originally came to the White Sox from Detroit, in a 1955 swap for Virgil Trucks. He played for four seasons on the South Side, covering his most productive seasons in the majors; all told, it was just 5.4 WAR, but his stints for the Tigers and Cleveland in his career both finished as negative-WAR efforts.

Phillips put up an impressive 2.7 WAR in 1957, but lost his starting job to Billy Goodman in 1958. Regaining the role in 1959, Phillips had a modest season but hit .300 for the White Sox in the 1959 World Series.

1948
White Sox GM Les O’Connor sent pitcher Eddie Lopat to the Yankees for three players. 

Lopat was a soft-tossing, off-speed pitcher who won 50 games in four years with the Sox, twice having an ERA off less than 3.00. He would quickly develop into one of the aces on the Yankees dynasty of the 1950s, winning 113 games in seven-and-a-half years. He also went 4-1 in World Series play.

Of the players the Sox got in return, only pitcher Bill Wight had any success on the South Side, winning 34 games in three seasons.

It wasn’t really a lost deal, though. Another one of the players acquired, catcher Aaron Robinson, would be sent in November 1948 to the Tigers for a youngster named … Billy Pierce. Pierce would win 186 games in a White Sox uniform from 1950-61, fourth-most in franchise history.

1966
Future White Sox (oh, OK, Mets) pitcher Tom Seaver, who had been taken in the first round (but just No. 20 overall) by Atlanta in the January draft, signed for $40,000. However, because Seaver’s USC season had already begun, the righthander was not allowed to turn pro (MLB and the NCAA understood such poaching would play havoc with college rosters). Because USC then made Seaver ineligible to play (having signed with the pros), baseball commissioner William Eckert set up a special drawing to place Seaver with a team; any team willing to match at least the original $40,000 bonus could throw their names into a hat, and Cleveland, Philadelphia and the Mets did so. Floundering New York won the drawing — yes, literally having their name picked from a hat — and the ascendance of the New York Mets began.

Eighteen years later, the White Sox defied custom and selected the future Hall-of-Famer as free agent compensation, resulting in almost two full, successful, swan-song seasons for Seaver on his way to Cooperstown.

1978
Perfect game defensive hero Dewayne Wise was born in Columbia, S.C.

Forever a part-time player, Wise was called up to the White Sox in 2008 and was a standout in the ALDS loss to Tampa Bay, slashing .286/.375/.857 over three games. He achieved his White Sox immortality, however, by securing an impossible catch in his first play as a defensive replacement in the ninth inning of Mark Buehrle’s 2009 perfect game.

2019
A backstop who had a relatively rare two stints with the White Sox, John Romano, died in Naples, Fla.

Signed by the White Sox at age 19, Romano moved up from D-ball to the majors over four seasons, making his debut on Sept. 12, 1958 vs. the Yankees. “Honey” was a part-timer behind incumbent starter Sherm Lollar, and without apparent playing time ahead the Sox sent Romano to Cleveland as part of the ill-fated Norm Cash deal to re-acquire Minnie Miñoso after the 1959 pennant.

After five seasons in Cleveland, Romano came back to the White Sox as part of a three-team deal that also netted Tommy John and Tommie Agee. The catcher had two solid seasons as a White Sox starter in 1965 and 1966 before getting traded to St. Louis, where 24 games for the Cardinals in 1967 would end his MLB career.

Sebastian Walcott underwent successful internal brace surgery on his elbow last week, per the beats.

This is good news, as Walcott’s damaged UCL did not need the full Tommy John replacement surgery, which would involve a longer recovery time than the internal brace surgery. With what the Rangers are indicating is an expected 5 to 6 month recovery time, Walcott should be able to resume playing before the minor league season is over, though I anticipate he’ll be limited to DH duties upon his immediate return.

Walcott, who doesn’t turn 20 until next month, was a consensus top 10-20 prospect in MLB prior to the injury. Walcott slashed .255/.355/.386 as one of the youngest players at AA Frisco in 2025. While primarily a shortstop so far in his professional career, Walcott profiles as a likely third baseman or right fielder in the majors, assuming that there are no long-term effects from the elbow surgery.

Today we look at the Cubs’ right-handed sometime reliever.

Gavin Ernest Hollowell was born in Somerset, NJ, 11/04/1997. He’s a 6’7”, 215 pounder, a sixth-round pick by the Rockies in the 2019 Amateur Draft, a graduate of St. John’s.

Hollowell had some coffee in Colorado in 2022-23, appearing in 32 games during that span, throwing 40.2 innings, and garnering a single save and three holds (all in 2023, when he threw the majority of his innings). He’s gotten into eight games as a Cub and his numbers are not impressive, Overall he sports a 5.79 ERA, having given up 33 runs in 51.1 innings, allowing 49 hits and 29 walks. He does strike out a man per inning, and his stuff seems decent, but he doesn’t have it all together at this point and is probably looking at Iowa with a possibility of an injury recall. He rode the Des Moines Express in August and September, in 2025.

2025 was meh. Hollowell threw 10 K’s in 9.1 IP but allowed nine hits (one home run) and walked seven men. He throws a four-seam fastball that tops off @94.4 mph, an 85 mph sweeper, and a 95 mph sinker, and also has a cutter and changeup that he rarely uses, preferring the sweeper to be his breaking pitch.

That straight change might be handy, though. He’s a 2500+ spin rate guy. The sinker seems to be his out pitch, or at least he gets the bulk of his strikeouts using it. IIRC it darts down and can be hard to harness. HIs fastball has some lateral movement and he needs to spot it carefully or it drifts into the middle of the zone.

Maybe the Pitch Lab can fix him, and maybe keep his arm angle the same for two consecutive years, just for something to build on (Baseball Savant, linked above, shows him changing that angle every year).

I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t know if it would pay to get too familiar with him. If he doesn’t step up the out-getting. he’s another camp arm. His name sounds like it should be appended to a law firm. It’s very impressive and official.

The Royals won 82 games last year, five games out of a playoff spot and four games worse than they were in 2025. It was tantalizingly close, and the reason they fell short seemed easy enough to identify – outfield offensive production. Royals outfielders collectively hit .225/.285/.348, a 73 wRC+ mark that was easily the worst in baseball.

So the goal of the offseason seemed clear. Get some outfielders that can hit! And the Royals didn’t just sit on their hands. J.J. Picollo did make a shrewd trade to get Isaac Collins from the Brewers, a promising on-base machine who hit .263/.368/.411 in his rookie campaign. He also signed Lane Thomas to a one-year deal, hoping he can bounce back from a lousy 2025 season and return to his 2023 form, when he hit 28 home runs. The Royals also acquired Kameron Misner, a Missouri product with solid minor league numbers who has hit just .203 in 79 MLB games. Oh, and they moved in the fences!

And that’s it.

There were plenty of trade rumors. Jarren Duran. Teoscar Hernández. Jake Meyers. There were rumors that they were interested in free agents Harrison Bader and Austin Hays.

There were certainly other outfielders available. Maybe Cody Bellinger (five years, $162.5 million) was too rich for their blood. But there were plenty of options in their wheelhouse.

• Mike Yastrzemski signed a two-year, $23 million deal with the Braves
• Bader signed a two-year, $20.5 million deal with the Giants
• Willi Castro signed a two-year, $18 million deal with the Rockies
• Adolis Garcia signed a one-year, $10 million deal with the Phillies
• Rob Refsnyder signed a one-year, $6.25 million deal with the Mariners
• Cedric Mullins signed a one-year, $7.5 million deal with the Rays
• Hays signed a one-year, $6 million deal with the White Sox
• Miguel Andujar signed a one-year, $4 million deal with the Reds
• Jake Fraley signed a one-year, $3 million deal with the Rays
• Mike Tauchman signed a minor league deal with the White Sox
• Michael Conforto signed a minor league deal with the Cubs

And there were outfielders that were traded.

• The Orioles acquired Taylor Ward from the Angels for Grayson Rodriguez
• The Athletics acquired Jeff McNeil from the Mets for Jordan Rodriguez
• The Pirates acquired Jake Mangum, and the Rays acquired Jacob Melton in a three-team trade with the Astros
• The Angels acquired Josh Lowe from the Rays in a three-team trade for Brock Burke
• The Mets acquired Luis Robert Jr. from the White Sox for Truman Pauley and Luisangel Acuña
• The Blue Jays acquired Jesús Sánchez from the Astros for Joey Loperfido

The Royals were reportedly willing to deal from their surplus of pitching (which some say is the currency of baseball!), but could not find a deal to their liking.

Some restraint is understandable. The Royals passed on last year’s outfield free agent class, and those players largely turned into pumpkins in 2025. Better to make no move than panic and make an ill-advised signing that saddles the payroll for years, or a trade you end up regretting.

But perfect should not be the enemy of good. It would not take much to upgrade the Royals outfield. Of the 145 qualified hitters last year, 141 out-hit Royals outfielders. What is even more curious is the Royals have not brought in a single veteran outfielder on a minor league deal to compete for a spot. Sure, these kinds of players are the dregs of the free agent market, but sometimes they show they have something left in the tank, and the cost is negligible.

Perhaps the Royals still have a move left in them. Spring training trades are not uncommon, and if pitchers start getting hurt in camp, teams may come to the Royals desperate to build pitching depth and willing to give up an outfielder.

Perhaps the Royals are hoping to make do with what they have to start the year and explore better opportunities this summer. Last year, they were able to make substantial upgrades at the trade deadline, acquiring Yasztreski, Adam Frazier, and Randall Grichuk without giving up much of anything.

Perhaps they have tied their season to Jac Caglianone and Carter Jensen. If the offense is to improve, it will be due to the development of their two most promising young hitters, not some declining veteran who, at best, improves things at the margins.

But when you’re competing for a playoff spot, the margins matter. The Royals fell just short of the postseason last year. Could another bat earlier in the year have made a difference?

The Royals are not wrong to avoid panic. They are not wrong to protect payroll flexibility. And they are not wrong to believe in internal growth. But Dodgers executive Andrew Friedman once said, “If you’re always rational about every free agent, you’re going to finish third on every free agent.”

The Royals have a potential Hall of Famer in Bobby Witt Jr. in his prime. They have another potential Hall of Famer in Salvador Perez, still in his productive years. They have some exciting All-Star caliber hitters in Maikel Garcia and Vinnie Pasquantino. They have one of the best starting rotations in baseball. They have three shutdown relievers in Matt Strahm, Lucas Erceg, and Carlos Estévez.

The opportunity is there. The Royals need to seize it.

There have been 250 big league hitters who have logged at least 650 plate appearances since the start of the 2024 season. Orlando Arcia, who somehow could not find a way to hit with the Colorado Rockies last season, ranks dead last among that group with a meager 62 wRC+ in that time.

Ranking just behind him in second to last over that time frame is resident Cincinnati Reds 3B Ke’Bryan Hayes, a player who not only was sought out by the club as a key cog at last season’s trade deadline, but was also brought in on a contract guaranteeing him at least $36 million through the 2030 season. So, he’s not just a short-term pillar of the roster assembled by the Cincinnati Reds, he’s on the books for the long haul, and will do so as an admittedly excellent defender who, by all accounts, completely lost the plot on how to hit.

That wouldn’t be so much of an issue if, say, he could move around the diamond with that excellent glovework. However, on a roster that’s been put together to be as flexible (and mobile) as possible defensively, Hayes sits as the long player on it who plays exclusively one position and one position only, doing so at a position that typically features players who also carry a big bat.

Whether or not the Reds thought they’d found something capable of being unlocked in Hayes’ offense was a question I had late last August, nearly a month after the Reds acquired Hayes (and his entire contract) from their NL Central rivals up the road in Pittsburgh. They had clearly seen plenty of the player now manning the hot corner on the regular, and it was enough to wonder whether there was some hitch, some toe-tap they thought might quickly unleash Hayes as a much more potent offensive force than he had been for quite some time.

That’s why you go and get a guy like Hayes, right? Even with his absurdly good defense (and the value that brings), you don’t just take on an entire contract like that unless you think there’s more there that the world hasn’t yet seen. Right?

Right?

Through almost four weeks, it looked as if there was at least a little bit of change. Hayes, a notorious ground-ball heavy hitter, had begun to put the ball in the air a bit more often, and his patience at the plate was improving significantly both with his chase rate and walk rate. However, by the time the 2025 season ended, much of that improvement had evaporated into the annals of ‘small sample size,’ and one defining characteristic of his batted ball data looked just the same as it always has.

He finished with a 48.1% grounder rate with the Reds after posting a 49.5% rate with the Pirates in the first half of 2025, a mark that’s very much in-line with the 50.6% rate he’s posted overall since the start of 2024 (good for the 10th highest among those 250 hitters with 650 PA). In other words, any tweak with his swing mechanics or approach was still producing a bunch of balls hit right into the dirt.

The oddity, though, is that his hard-hit rate (per Statcast) dipped from 45.3% with the Pirates in his 2025 work there down to just 35.7% with the Reds, with his soft-contact rate rising from 15.9% with the Bucs up to 23.3% in Cincinnati. His average exit velocity in Pittsburgh in 2025 had been 90.2 mph – very much in-line with his career mark of 90.5 mph – but that dipped down to a career worst 87.1 mph in his time with the Reds. His launch angle fell, too – down from 9.1 degrees to just 7.0 – while his barrel rate dipped almost a full percent, too.

That all came with a distinct spike in his walk rate, too. After walking at just a 4.6% clip in Pittsburgh in 2025 (and at a 6.9% rate for his career), Hayes walked in 10.1% of his trips to the plate with the Reds – a mark that would’ve been a career-best for a single season. He also saw his strikeout rate drop from 20.7% (and 20.4% for his career) down to 16.9% with the Reds, a mark that would also have been a career-best in a full single season. That all coincided with a nearly 4.0% drop in his swing rate, a rate that featured drops in both his in-zone and out of zone swing rates, too.

It’s enough to begin to assume that there is something brewing here with a new approach. Though it didn’t fully pan out in that short 178 PA sample with the Reds at the end of 2025, it does look like Hayes was working on being much more patient, swinging at fewer pitches, and perhaps not swinging so hard at even the pitches he did like. His .108 ISO was double that of his .054 mark in 2025 with Pittsburgh, and up significantly over the .058 ISO he posted in a full season with the Pirates in 2024, and all of this came with a .270 BABIP in a Reds uniform that would have been a career-worst mark for a single season for him.

We are going to get ample time to see if these tweaks can materialize in the form of just slightly below average offense from Hayes. His glove is going to keep him on the field for the bulk of the innings played by the Reds next year whether he hits better (or worse) than he did as a Pirate, and his contract is going to keep him on the roster even longer. And even if the power never comes, if this modified approach can result in him boosting his on-base percentage up from his career .308 mark to, say .325 and above, that’ll be a boon to a Reds offense that could use help anywhere it can get it.

The Atlanta Braves will be continuing their spring training today as they face off against the Detroit Tigers in North Port, FL. What typically happens in these games is we get to see mostly players who are slotted to have significant playing time during the regular season.

Reynaldo López is making his long-awaited return after only pitching one game in 2025. With the Braves lacking starting pitching depth, a López return can potentially have a huge role in the success of the season.

Today we will see a lineup that we may see in the regular season on days that Drake Baldwin will get some rest (until Sean Murphy returns).

Outside of Jonah Heim, the rest of the players look to get significant playing time this season. What will be interesting to see if this is how the Braves will face LHP starters once the season starts.

This is how the Tigers will lineup:

Game Notes

Time: 1:05 ET

TV: Gray TV

Streaming: MLB.TV (free game of the day)

Radio: ESPN 103.7/WIFN 1340

If you like to have fun watching baseball, you should make a point to see some games that feature Chris Suero this year. Born in The Bronx in 2004, Suero joined the Mets as an international free agent after moving to his parents’ native Dominican Republic, and he got his professional career started as he played for the Mets’ team in the Dominican Summer League in 2022.

The short version of this story is this: Suero is a catcher who’s good at stealing bases. The vast majority of catchers in professional baseball aren’t all that fast, and even the ones who aren’t glacial on the basepaths don’t tend to attempt stolen bases.

In his age-21 season last year, Suero stole 35 bases and was caught stealing just eight times, and he hit .233/.379/.407 with 16 home runs in 475 plate appearances. And while he spends the majority of his time at catcher, he has experience in left field and at first base, as he’s logged some time at each of those positions since his move to stateside ball in Single-A Port St. Lucie and High-A Brooklyn in 2021.

Following a strong showing in Brooklyn to start the 2025 season—an .837 OPS with 13 home runs in 301 plate appearances—Suero earned a promotion to Double-A Binghamton, where he spent the remainder of the regular season. He struggled at the plate from there, as he managed to finish with just a .697 OPS in his time with the Rumble Ponies, but he fared much better in his stint in the Arizona Fall League following the season, as he hit .283/.353/.567 in the fifteen games that he played there.

Having ranked 17th on our list of the Mets’ top prospects for 2026 before the trade that sent Jett Williams and Brandon Sproat to the Brewers, there’s plenty more to read about him in Steve Sypa’s prospect list profile and in the thoughts that Lukas Vlahos and Steve shared following the publication of the full list.

While Suero is in major league camp as a non-roster invitee at the moment, he is certain to begin the year in the minors. Based on what transpired last season, it also seems incredibly likely that he’ll start the year back in Binghamton. If he shows significant improvement at the plate while continuing to be an incredibly fun player to watch, you’d have to imagine the Mets would bump him up to Triple-A Syracuse by the end of the season.

There’s no guarantee that will happen, of course, as players can stall out at either of the upper levels of the minors. Given his age and athleticism, though, it’s much more fun to buy in to Suero’s well-rounded skill set and go into this season looking forward to seeing what he can do. And if you’re able to catch a Rumble Ponies or Syracuse Mets game in person or on MiLB.tv this year, you should make a point to watch Suero play baseball.