When the Nats traded MacKenzie Gore, the piece people talked about the most was Gavin Fien. It makes sense, Fien was the 12th pick in the 2025 draft and has been a famous name for a while. However, I think there is a solid chance that Devin Fitz-Gerald ends up being the real prize of the return.

The early signs are sure pointing in that direction. Fien struggled in his first four games in Low-A, and then missed the last week for unknown reasons. Meanwhile, Fitz-Gerald has taken to High-A like a duck to water as a 20 year old with limited professional experience. 

It is way too early to make any real declarations, and I am not giving up any of my Gavin Fien stock after just four rough games. For Fitz-Gerald though, he seems like he is on the road to being a top 100 prospect. After the graduation of Astros prospect Brice Matthews, Fitz-Gerald is now one of the top 10 second base prospects in all of baseball.

I anticipate that his stock will continue to rise, and there is a chance he will become a top 100 prospect. It was a slight surprise to see Fitz-Gerald assigned to High-A Wilmington. He only played 41 games last year in his first pro season, which was cut short by injuries. Fitz-Gerald spent 31 of those games in rookie ball and just 10 in Low-A. 

Despite only playing 10 Low-A games, the Nationals were comfortable assigning him to High-A Wilmington, which is not only a level higher, but also a ball park that is notoriously tough on hitters. The Nats stockpile of young infield talent forced their hand a bit, but the fact they were comfortable sending Fitz-Gerald to High-A shows their confidence level in him.

So far, their faith is being rewarded. Through his first 30 at bats, Fitz-Gerald is hitting .333 with a .944 OPS. He also has five walks to just five strikeouts. The switch hitting infielder is showing his advanced hitting chops despite being assigned to a tough level.

Fitz-Gerald has a nice combination of pure hitting ability and power. In high school, Fitz-Gerald was seen as a contact first player, but showed surprising pull side power in his pro debut. We saw that pull side power on display when he hit his first High-A home run last week against Yankees prospect and former Nats farm hand Sean Paul Linan.

That home run was a real thing of beauty. His left handed set up and toe tap kind of remind me of Tigers young phenom Kevin McGonigle. Fitz-Gerald has some similarities to McGonigle with his advanced hitting ability and surprising power. However, the 20 year old has a long way to go if he wants to reach McGonigle’s level.

When you watch Fitz-Gerald play, you can tell he is a gamer who has been around baseball his whole life. His dad Todd is one of the most prominent high school baseball coaches in Florida. He coaches at Stoneman Douglas High School, which has produced players such as Roman Anthony, Jesus Luzardo, Anthony Rizzo and Coby Mayo. Fitz-Gerald hopes to be the next great product of his dad’s program.

There was a podcast recently that had Todd Fitz-Gerald on, which I really enjoyed. They talked about Devin’s development among other things. Todd was not worried about his son’s aggressive assignment because of his confidence in his hitting ability.

That is not just a father hyping up his son, it is just true. Wherever Devin Fitz-Gerald has been, he has hit. None of the concerns about him as a player come from his hitting ability. The questions about Fitz-Gerald come from his average athleticism and defensive home.

Fitz-Gerald played shortstop in high school and with the Rangers, but he is likely to settle in as a second baseman. He is not the twitchiest player, but he has great instincts and enough athleticism to be a good second baseman. In the past, Fitz-Gerald’s power upside was questioned, but those doubts have been answered for the most part. He now projects to be at least a 15 homer bat with the potential for more due to his ability to pull the ball in the air.

Of all the prospects in the Nats system, Devin Fitz-Gerald has one of the fewest question marks. He may not have the athletic upside of some other players in the system, but man can he hit. Fitz-Gerald also gets the most out of his tools due to his baseball IQ.

He has average speed, but already has 7 stolen bases thanks to his great instincts. There could be 15 SB upside here even without great speed due to his ability to make good reads. This is truly your prototypical coaches kid and I think he is the hidden gem of the MacKenzie Gore return. If he is the best player of the five guys the Nats got back from the Rangers, I would not be at all surprised.

The Cincinnati Reds are wasting zero time instituting their outfield (and offensive) shakeup, as Rece Hinds will start Tuesday evening’s series opener against the San Francisco Giants in RF. Hinds, 25, was recalled after Noelvi Marte was optioned to AAA following a horrid start to his 2026 season, and the Reds will hope the improved plate approach Hinds has shown for the better part of the last 13 months with the Bats will now translate at the big league level.

Rece will hit 6th tonight as the Reds stack their lineup with right-handed hitters as the Giants will send left-hander Robbie Ray to the mound for the start. As was mentioned yesterday, Hinds actually has hit right-handed pitching better than southpaws down at AAA for a while now, but the assumption is that he’ll still have a better shot at turning one around than left-handed outfield options Will Benson and, for now, TJ Friedl.

Friedl will start this one on the pine as righty Dane Myers covers CF and leads off.

On the mound for the Reds tonight will be Brady Singer, and there’s a great hope that his blister issues are far enough in the past that he’ll finally be able to put together a more vintage Singer outing. In his trio of outings so far this year his average fastball velocity is down to just 90.3 mph after sitting at 91.5 mph last year (and 92.5 as recently as 2023), and he’s leaning on his sinker usage almost 13% more than he did a year ago. The assumption has been that the blister (or the threat of it coming back) have hampered him a bit from letting it rip 100% the way he’d like, so hopefully that changes for the better beginning tonight.

First pitch is set for 6:40 PM ET, and this one will be on Reds.tv/MLB.tv per usual.

Here’s how the Reds will line up for this one:

The Dodgers took the opener over the New York Mets on Monday night, continuing their season-opening stretch of not yet losing two games in a row. They now head into Tuesday night looking to keep another streak alive — winning all the middle games of a three-game series.

Thus far, the Dodgers are five for five in the second game of a series:

• March 27: Dodgers 5, Diamondbacks 4 — Edwin Díaz introduced with live trumpet playing, records first save
• March 31: Dodgers 4, Guardians 1 — Max Muncy homered, Cleveland didn’t score until ninth inning
• April 4: Dodgers 10, Nationals 5 — Second straight early pummeling in Washington D.C., with five runs in first two innings
• April 7: Dodgers 4, Blue Jays 1 — Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed only one run, faced two batters in seventh
• April 11: Dodgers 6, Rangers 3 — Alex Vesia joined the Dodgers birthday save club

Yamamoto has finished six innings in all three of his starts thus far, something Dodgers starters have done 10 times in 16 games this season (10 out of 13 starts by the non-Sasaki members of the rotation), including each of their last four middle games of series.

Dodgers starting pitchers have a 3.44 ERA this season while averaging 5.56 innings per start, and their nine quality starts are one behind the Seattle Mariners for most in the majors. And after Justin Wrobleski’s eight-inning gem on Monday night, the Dodgers will have a well-rested bullpen for the final two games of the homestand before Thursday’s off day.

Mets rookie Nolan McLean gets the ball for New York on Tuesday. The right-hander has 20 strikeouts against only six walks this season, with opposing batters hitting just .140/.234/246 against him.

Tuesday game info

• Teams: Dodgers vs. Mets
• Ballpark: Dodger Stadium
• Time: 7:10 p.m.
• TV: SportsNet LA
• Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish)

If you told someone you were writing a script and had the White Sox at 6-10 a tenth of the way into the season, they’d reply, “Sounds about right. Extrapolates to a normal season for them.” If you then said that half the victories were against the defending AL champions, that same person would say, “That stretches the suspension of disbelief. Better rewrite that part.”

Incredulity would stretch further if you also wrote that the major failure was not from the expected terrible starting rotation, which has instead been very good except for Shane Smith, whose fall has been as rapid as his 2025 Rule 5 rise — back when, it’s worth noting, Ethan Katz was the pitching coach — but rather from a pathetic offense, which was supposed to be much improved.

With Lenyn Sosa off to botch up the Blue Jays’ defense (has there ever been a major league player with less in the way of baseball instincts?) in exchange for an 18-year-old 17th-round draft pick and a PTBNL or Jerry Reinsdorf’s favorite — cash — even last year’s home run leader has departed, so the almighty quest for power, power, POWER!!! becomes even more difficult. Sosa, incidentally, was the last remaining member of a White Sox team that didn’t have a losing record, except for Reese McGuire, who left and came back, so that doesn’t count.

How bad is the lineup? Let us count the ways.

So far in 2026, the Sox are dead last in the majors in scoring runs, at 3.06 per game, even with all the gifts from the Blue Jays and Royals. Sure, small sample size and bats generally warm up with the weather, but that’s true for the other 29 teams as well.

How awful is 3.06 runs per game? Last year, they scored 3.99, which was 27th. Worse yet, even the record-setting 2024 horror team scored more — 3.13 runs per game.

This year’s team is also 30th in average at .193, an astounding 29 points below the 121-loss team, and last in OPS, 34 points below 2024, in both cases by a wide margin. They’ve improved from that team and matched 2025 to tie for 23rd in home runs so far, and beat both years in rank in stealing bases, where they’re 10th with 12.

And apparently Braden Montgomery won’t be riding to the rescue soon, since he’s hitting .212 in Birmingham. San Antonacci, on the other hand, is clobbering the ball in Charlotte.

And, oh, yeah — they’re back to striking out like crazy, second to last. Or second best, if you think striking out is a good thing.

WHO’S TO BLAME FOR THIS MESS?

Well, Jerry Reinsdorf, of course, and to a lesser extent, Chris Getz. But among players, there’s plenty of awfulness to share. And that’s even before we get into a defense that is dead last in both defensive runs saved and RTOT, which is Baseball-Reference’s range factor, and by a wide margin in both cases.

B-R has an algorithm that measures Wins Above Average, a more persnickety version of WAR, by team and position. As you might imagine, the numbers aren’t pretty for the White Sox, but let’s look anyway.

STARTING PITCHING

As you’d expected, a very bright spot, and one that should (we hope) shine even more brightly when Noah Schultz comes in playing the deus ex machina role. The starters come in eighth out of the 30 teams despite Smith’s struggles, a big jump up from last season’s 18th, but — amazingly — below 2024’s fifth. See, I told you that was amazing (but remember, Garrett Crochet was on that team)!

RELIEF PITCHING

The Sox fall here to a dismal 27th, far below last year’s 14th, but — and this is disheartening — in line with 2024’s 28th.

ON TO THE POSITION PLAYERS (PLEASE AVERT THE EYES OF SMALL CHILDREN)

In each case, let’s go to the placement by year, going backward — 2026, 2025, 2024.

Catcher — 28/8/30. Obviously, the absence of Kyle Teel so far has been a major negative, but the collapse of Edgar Quero to a pathetic .162/.244/.162 line (a 21 OPS+) after a solid 2025 is horrid, and McGuire and his .125 average haven’t helped.

First base — 22/29/26. This was supposed to be a really bright spot with the acquisition of Munetaka Murakami. Still, after his red-hot four-homer start that made it look like a brilliant move for the Sox, Murakami has basically hit zilch, now checking in at .157/.323/.392, making the other 29 teams look smarter. Chances are, he’s neither as good as his start, nor as bad as he is now, and he wouldn’t have set records in Japan if he weren’t capable of making adjustments. A .154 BABIP indicates some bad luck, but Murakami’s 34% K rate (even young Kyle Schwarber wasn’t that bad) and 50% grounder rate aren’t good signs.

Second base — 29/25/29. Yep, near the bottom at second, despite Chase Meidroth usually being fun to watch. The problem is, despite occasional cool plays, he scores negatively in both DRS and RTOT, and his average is now down to .196, not workable for a singles hitter, leaving him with a 72 OPS+ despite a good walk rate.

Third base — five-way tie for 5/25/29. That’s a hard jump up to explain since Miguel Vargas is only hitting .180 and is just a wash defensively. Maybe it’s a collapse by other third basemen around the majors.

Shortstop — 16/20/29. Colson Montgomery only had part of a season last year, so he’s beating himself here, despite just hitting .200/.302/.418 for a 108 OPS+ thanks to three homers. His 30% K rate doesn’t help, though, and his hard-hit rate is well below league average.

Left field — 29/28/29. Correlation doesn’t necessarily indicate causation (except when it really does), but the White Sox have lost 100 or more games every season Andrew Benintendi has been on the team. Maybe with Sosa gone, he can go full-time DH and just be bad at offense. Tanner Murray looked good out there Sunday.

Center field — 29/21/26. Turns out, Luis Robert Jr. at his worst was better than whoever the Sox have sent out in his stead, which has mostly been Luisangel Acuña. Having escaped the Sox, Robert is hitting .319 for the Mets, while Acuña is hitting (and slugging) .196.

Right field — 22/22/30. This has been a throw-somebody-out-there-because-we-have-to situation since Austin Hays was hurt, and he only had a 69 OPS+ anyway. Must be a lot of bad right fielders around the big leagues to make it up to 22, though Dustin Harris’ homer-saving catch to save the game Sunday was quite nifty.

WHICH MEANS?

All those top-100 MLB prospect shortstops in the system need to move on up the ladder quickly and spread across the field. Otherwise, … well, let’s not think about it.

Continuing our series from last week, let’s take a look at who showed up the most last week and who stands to gain this week.

Who’s Hot

Ethan Bagwell – 7IP 7H 3ER 0BB 5K

Building off of a great season debut, Ethan Bagwell continued his good work – this time against the Delmarva Shorebirds. That’s now a grand total of 1 walk through two starts (13 IP) for Ethan. He got ahead of batters consistently throughout the game as he landed a first pitch strike to 20 of the 27 hitters he faced. He was primarily a three pitch pitcher, featuring his four-seam (31% usage), two-seam (29% usage), sweeper (26% usage) while also executed a changeup (14% usage) low in the zone multiple times. While his velocity did fluctuate a bit during this start he still averaged 94 MPH on it, reaching 96.

Didier Fuentes – 6IP 2H 0R 4BB 8K, 1 HBP

The strong early work for Fuentes continued in his second start of the season for the Stripers as he threw six shutout innings. Fuentes recorded 13 whiffs on 30 swings, and only really struggled out of the stretch where he picked up three of his four walks. The fastball velocity sat between 96-99 MPH and he continued to locate it at the top of the zone very well. He leveraged the fastball 65% of the time, while he used his slider 30% of the time. Fuentes did also throw his changeup, but it had a usage rate of 5% – a number that hopefully increases as he continues to work up his arm strength.

Tate Southisene – 5g, .263/.462/.632

After a solid opening week of the season, Tate really took off last week showcasing power, speed, and defense in a very strong week for the first round pick. Tate got on base at a great .462 clip and had a homer and two triples, while walking five times, and striking out six. The exit velocity data from Tate has also been very strong as the homer he hit was clocked at 108 MPH. He’s done a good job of working counts and seeing pitches while not expanding and looking for his pitch. On the 8th, when he collected that homer, Tate saw a game high 34 pitches at the plate, and while he did have six plate appearances it is of note that he still led the team.

Honorable Mention: Colby Jones, Jim Jarvis, Eric Hartman, Owen Hackman

Who’s Not

Ben Gamel – 4G, .000/.125/.000

Stripers outfielder Ben Gamel had a week to forget after going 0-for-14 over the last week with 8 strikeouts and just one walk. His time with the Braves, as a whole, hasn’t quite gone the way he had hoped as he’s hitting a paltry .105/.209/.211 through his first 10 games. Luckily for the Stripers his production hasn’t been needed as they have had other players step up. That said, for simple depth reasons, hopefully Gamel can get things going and become a legitimate threat in a good Stripers lineup.

Landon Beidelschies – 1G, 3IP 6H 5ER 3BB 3K

Landon’s first start of the season didn’t go as well as he had hoped. After doing well the first couple of innings, his second trip around the lineup card wasn’t as great. Landon was four-seam (40%), slider (38%), curveball (21%) for the most part and his stuff just didn’t look at crisp with his slider and curveball not really featuring sharp action. His fastball velocity was mainly upper-80s, hitting a max of 91 MPH. For someone with reliever risk because of his arsenal, the fact that he failed to really get through the lineup a second time shows that his overall path might be as a reliever. That said, still just one start made, thus not enough to really draw a conclusion.

Cade Kuehler – 1G, 3IP 4H 5ER 4BB 2K, 1 HBP

It was a very rough start for Cade who simply hasn’t looked the same since his injury. He did induce 8 whiffs in his three innings, but the stuff really lacked. His fastball velocity peaked at 93 but sat more comfortably at 89. This resulted in Cade effectively pitching backwards and trying to get ahead with his slider, and splitter. Unfortunately for Cade, neither pitch was that strong and he ended up walking four and hitting one despite throwing just 62 pitches.

Honorable Mention: Cedric de Grandpre, Jacob Shafer, Kendy Richard

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The Philadelphia Phillies play host to the Chicago Cubs at Citizens Bank Park this evening. 

Philly took the series opener 13-7 last night, but my Cubs vs. Phillies predictions are backing the visitors as underdogs on Tuesday.

Here are my best free MLB picks for this NL clash on April 14.

Who will win Cubs vs Phillies today: Cubs moneyline (+120)

Riley Martin will take the mound as the Chicago Cubs opener tonight, with Colin Rea serving as a bulk reliever. Martin has looked sharp as a reliever, while Rea has a 3.18 ERA this year and pitched to a 3.95 ERA in 159 2/3 frames last season.

Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Phillies are giving the pill to Aaron Nola, who had an ugly 6.01 ERA in 2025. The veteran right-hander gives up too much hard contact and is susceptible to the long ball.

Martin and Rea are both ground-ball pitchers, and that could be the difference, with both teams boasting plenty of pop in their lineups.

COVERS INTEL: Aaron Nola sits in the bottom 40th percentile in hard-hit rate and barrel rate, with opponents slugging .471 against him since the start of last season.

Cubs vs Phillies Over/Under pick: Over 9.5 (-110)

Although both of these teams have middling numbers this season, they combined for 20 runs last night. Each club scored at a high level last year and has dangerous lineups on paper, so they should find their groove eventually.

I'm expecting the Cubs’ big bats to get to Nola, which is why I like them as underdogs on the moneyline.

That said, I also don't have much faith in Rea, who finished in the 25th percentile in xERA (4.55), xBA (.261), and barrel rate (10.3%) last year.

Cubs vs Phillies odds

• Moneyline: Cubs +120 | Phillies -140
• Run line: Cubs +1.5 (-156) | Phillies -1.5 (+150)
• Over/Under: Over 9.5 (-110) | Under 9.5 (-110)

Cubs vs Phillies trend

The Over is 6-2 in Chicago's last eight games (+4.90 Units / 54% ROI). Find more MLB betting trends for Cubs vs. Phillies.

How to watch Cubs vs Phillies and game info

Cubs vs Phillies latest injuries

Cubs vs Phillies weather

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