Category: Sports News

As we pass through the diamond, I should note that I have been playing a little footloose and fancy free with the outfield distinctions. In point of fact, just about every outfielder outside of Yordan Alvarez is capable of playing all three spots and most of them likely will play multiple positions. So, who I choose to put where largely depends on where we might expect them to play, but also as a way to space it out so we get the same number of guys in each lab.

For our purposes here, we are looking at Jake Meyers and Zach Cole, but we should acknowledge that Joey Loperfido and Cam Smith could also see time in center. Like we did, I will include a player not on the Astros (or currently in MLB) as a frame of reference for Zach Cole. We are not necessarily predicting that he will have this player’s career, but I’m sure we would be in for it if he did.

• Chase rate: This is the percentage of balls a player swings at outside of the zone. The league average normally lives around 30 percent, but we will be looking at three year intervals and we should notice trends more than where a player is in relationship to the league average.

• Hard hit percentage: This is simply the percentage of balls that a player hits hard. Hard hit balls become hits and extra base hits more often than softer contact. Typically 35 percent is around the league average in this category.

• BABIP: This is batting average on balls in play. Home runs are obviously excluded since they are not in play. The league average tends to hover around .300 but it will largely depend on hard hit percentages and breakdowns between groundballs, flyballs, and line drives.

• Contact percentage: This is the percentage of swings that turn into contact. Typically 75 percent is around league average.

• HR/FB percentage: This is the percentage of flyballs that result in home runs. Ten percent is typically around the league average.

Jake Meyers

There were a number of people (me included) who were critical of the Astros hitting coaches the last few years, but it has to be noted that not everyone got worse under those guys. Meyers made real gains in his chase rate, hard hit rate, and contact rate last season. At least some of that is likely to carry over into this season. So, in all likelihood, Meyers is a better offensive player in 2026 than he was in 2023 and 2024. However, he might not be quite as good he was last season.

That is largely because of the out of context BABIP. Even with gains in hard contact, that kind of jump is not sustainable. At best, he might live between .310 and .320 in that category and that is assuming a return to career norms in home runs per flyball. If you give him positive regression in that category then he might be roughly on par with last season overall.

However, the likelihood is a hitter that lives around .250 or .260 with decent speed numbers and okay power numbers. So, that could end up being something in the neighborhood of .250/.300/.380. Couple that with very good defensive metrics and you have an above average regular overall, but in all likelihood you will not see 2025 Meyers again.

Zach Cole

These are all minor league numbers for Cole. Cole has four of the five tools in spades. If we add plate discipline as a tool then he has five of the six tools in spades. Unfortunately, that sixth tool might be the most important one. Like Matthews and Dezenzo before him, there is just a ton of swing and miss in his game. Players have succeeded at the big league level while missing the hit tool, but they are fewer and further between. The question will be if he can make enough gains in contact to give those other tools enough room to breathe.

As we noted above, there is a player that Cole has been compared to that we can profile here. Joey Gallo is no longer playing in the big leagues, but he had some big seasons with the Rangers before washing out. In short, the lack of contact eventually caught up with him, but he might be the apex of what Cole can accomplish at the big league level. Between 2017 and 2019, Gallo hit more than 100 home runs. Cole has more speed than Gallo, so he could be even more. Just look at the numbers and see what you notice.

The career numbers showed he tapered off a little in hard hit and pure power after those three initial seasons. Simply put, you cannot survive long with a contact rate like that. I do not have a minor league to major league decoder ring, but most players do not make more contact at the big league level initially. So, Gallo seems like a reasonably comp for Cole.

Gallo reached a career high of 4.4 FWAR in 2021, so I think most people would be pleasantly surprised if the Astros got that out of Cole. Keep in mind, he adds a speed element that Gallo did not. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have quite the power rate or hard hit rate that Gallo did. Perhaps he makes a bit more contact and ends up approximating the numbers above overall. The question will be whether Astros fans want to stomach the swing and miss in order to tap into the impressive power and speed. What do you think?

For most of 2025, Zach Eflin was just not himself. The effort was undeniable. But something was badly, visibly wrong. In 14 starts, he went 6–5 with a 5.93 ERA, a 1.42 WHIP, and a K:BB ratio of 50:13 across just 71⅓ innings. He made three separate trips to the injured list before finally undergoing lumbar microdiscectomy surgery in August — a procedure that removes part of a herniated disc pressing on spinal nerves. When Eflin hit the market in free agency, the thought might have crossed your mind that he wouldn’t be back.

Well, good thing Mike Elias kept his agent’s number. On Thursday, in Eflin’s first spring training appearance of 2026, the righty offered a bracing reminder of what he can be when everything is working — and what the Orioles paid $10 million this winter to get back.

Against his former team, the Tampa Bay Rays, Eflin spun two-plus scoreless innings with three strikeouts, lighting up the radar gun and flaunting a command that looked nothing like the labored pitcher who gritted through 2025. He worked with six different pitches — sinker, sweeper, curveball, four-seamer, cutter, changeup — and got six whiffs in fourteen swings. Most excitingly, his sinker and fastball touched 94 MPH, several miles better than last season.

It’s just one spring start, I know. But the velocity, the pitch mix, the swinging strikes — it all points toward a pitcher who has been genuinely fixed, not merely managed.

Eflin agrees. His 2025 numbers were ugly in ways that the box score couldn’t fully capture, especially the four IL trips. Speaking in December, Eflin revealed that back problems had haunted him on and off for ten years in his pro career, but 2025 was when the pain turned debilitating, convincing him to finally go in for surgery to “clean it up.” Now, he reports feeling like he has a “brand-new back.”

This is good news for all of us. With Kyle Bradish, Trevor Rogers, and Shane Baz ahead of Eflin in the rotation, the Orioles aren’t depending on an Eflin resurgence, but seeing him approach his ceiling would be a wonderful thing. That would look something like 2023, a season when Eflin was arguably the most underrated starting pitcher in the American League as a member of Tampa Bay’s staff. That year, he made 31 starts, went 16–8, posted a 3.50 ERA, struck out 186 batters over 177⅔ innings, finishing sixth in AL Cy Young voting. His 1.02 WHIP ranked second in the entire American League, behind only Gerrit Cole. The Rays went 23–8 in his starts — a team winning percentage that, per historical records, tied David Price’s 2014 season for the best in franchise history in a starting pitcher’s qualified starts.

That is a genuine ace-adjacent performance. Not a fluke, not a warm stretch — a full-season demonstration of what a healthy Eflin looks like.

Eflin will never be a strikeout-rate marvel. He’s a contact pitcher who works with heavy sinkers and lateral break, generating soft contact and keeping the ball in the park. When his stuff plays at full strength, he profiles as a legitimate number-two or number-three starter capable of eating 175–180 innings with an ERA in the mid-threes. That is, in the current pitching landscape, genuinely valuable. The Orioles, who ranked near the bottom of the AL in rotation ERA last season, need that stabilizing presence badly.

The case for Eflin bouncing back rests on a straightforward premise: the problem was structural, and the structure has been repaired. A lumbar microdiscectomy isn’t a band-aid; it removes the source of nerve compression. Eflin himself says the chronic pain is gone in a way it hadn’t been in years. The early evidence from the mound — the velocity restored, the arm angle presumably returning toward its 2023 level, the whiff-generating breaking ball — suggests the surgery worked.

Baltimore re-signed him to a prove-it deal worth $10 million with a mutual option that could extend to $30 million total. The incentive structure is perfectly aligned. Eflin has everything to prove and, finally, a back that will let him prove it.

The vagaries of scheduling made yesterday a day chock full of Czechia baseball action… but unfortunately, it went pretty terribly for them.

The early-morning (at least here on the East Coast of the United States) contest saw Czechia get absolutely clobbered by Korea. Starter Daniel Padysak didn’t even escape the first inning — two walks and a single loaded the bases, and then Bo Gyeong Moon unloaded them with a grand slam. The game got kind of closer (6-3) when Terrin Vavra (I think the only guy on Team Czechia with MLB experience) hit a three-run homer in the fifth, but Korea’s onslaught continued and the game ended with a 11-4 tally. Korea hit four homers in total, including two by Astros infielder Shay Whitcomb. Overall, it was about as unbalanced as you’d probably expect when glancing at the matchup: Czechia pitchers had a combined 6/5 K/BB ratio to go with those four homers; Korea’s pitching slate had a 12/3 K/BB ratio.

There was a very quick turnaround of only about 14 hours before Czechia had to get on the horse again, this time against Australia. This game didn’t go much better for them. Though they did take an early lead on a sac fly, White Sox infielder Curtis Mead bashed a three-run homer off starter Tomas Ondra, and that was basically the game. (Southern Thunder added a couple of more runs in the ninth, including an Alex Hall homer.) The game was heavy on balls in play, as there were only a combined ten strikeouts across the two teams.

Czechia is now in pretty unfortunate territory, since the remaining pool-mates they haven’t played include Japan.

Speaking of haven’t played, Friday’s slate is massive:

• Japan-Taiwan (spoiler alert, Japan already won 13-0)
• Cuba-Panama
• Netherlands-Venezuela (aka, the Braves Best Buds Cup)
• Mexico-Great Britain
• Puerto Rico-Colombia
• Nicaragua-Dominican Republic
• USA-Brazil
• Taiwan-Czechia (yes, a short turnaround for Taiwan this time)

Which of those matchups are you most looking forward to? It’s probably the Braves Best Buds Cup, but maybe you really want to see Team USA or the Dominican Republic smash their underdog bracketmates instead.

The remaining games start at 11 am ET and progress basically all through the day, so there’s a lot of WBC action if you’re so inclined.

On May 3, 2025, Anthony Volpe’s luck took a turn for the worse. That day, he hurt his left shoulder while diving for a ball in the performance of his defensive duties. He felt a pop that turned out to be a torn labrum, re-aggravating the injury in September and managing the discomfort while playing.

Volpe received cortisone shots in June and September. After putting up a 115 wRC+ since the first day of the season until May 3rd, he finished with a highly disappointing 83 mark for the year, adding 19 homers and 18 stolen bases. Even his defense, which earned him a Gold Glove in 2023, suffered in the process. He underwent surgery to repair his torn labrum in October and is likely to miss the entire first month of the season at the very least. Can he become an offensive threat in 2026, or is his time in the Bronx coming to an end?

2025 statistics: 153 games, 596 PA, .212/.272/.391, 19 HR, 72 RBI, 83 wRC+, 7.2 BB%, 25.2 K%, 2 Defensive Runs Saved, -7 Outs Above Average, 1.0 fWAR

2026 FanGraphs Depth Charts projections: 109 games, 469 PA, .228/.293/.391, 14 HR, 53 RBI, 91 wRC+, 7.8 BB%, 23.9 K%, 1.9 fWAR

While saying that Volpe’s presence in the Yankees’ future plans is in jeopardy if he doesn’t perform would be premature, it’s clear that he will have a lot to prove this year when he returns, and it might not be entirely fair to expect immediate results after such a major surgery. And if he fails to bounce back, the Bombers might start seeking other alternatives; that’s the truth. The Bronx rarely waits for anyone.

The reality is that, injury or not, the former first-rounder is running out of time. He has failed to return even league-average offensive production in any of his three seasons in The Show, as his career-high wRC+ was 87 in 2024. His excellent defense used to make up for the lack of offensive consistency and on-base ability, but that also evaporated last year, presumably affected by the bum shoulder.

José Caballero prepares to enter the 2026 campaign as the shortstop, having focused his offseason training on improving his bat speed. On the other hand, Volpe started his hitting program by taking dry swings in mid-February. He is significantly behind his counterpart, but right on schedule according to the team’s estimates. Volpe will likely need a lot of at-bats to even approach his top form. The question here is how long the Yankees are willing to wait for him to regain full health or even approach a point at which he can fully trust his shoulder.

A healthy version of Volpe is a much better defender than what he showed last year, but we are not so sure if it’s a big upgrade offensively over his 2025 self. He is still young, though, and has a lot of room to grow and improve. He is, after all, just 24, younger than some of the highest-profile prospects in the game. Volpe does contribute some power and speed, but it will all come down to contact and plate discipline. There are some encouraging signs, though.

For a hitter who ranked in the 76th percentile in chase rate per Baseball Savant, he should be able to rank higher than the 36th percentile in walk rate. He is also in the 64th percentile in barrel rate. With some work, a sound gameplan, and a bit of luck, Volpe can take off if he’s fully healthy. Labrum surgery is no joke, though: ask Miguel Andújar, who needed five years to have an above-average offensive season over a significant sample after going under the knife in 2019.

That’s not to say that Volpe is necessarily doomed just because Andújar had a hard time returning to top form, but it’s a perfect example of how things can go south with labrum tears. It’s impossible to remove his current health status from any 2026 analysis. As a counterpoint to Andújar, there is Fernando Tatis Jr.: after undergoing labrum surgery in 2022, his performance diminished for one year (111 wRC+ in 2023 after three campaigns over 150) before settling in the 130 range in 2024 and 2025. Volpe clearly doesn’t have the sky-high ceiling that Tatis does, but he exists as a data point for pure injury recovery nonetheless.

The shoulder issues aren’t a death sentence for Volpe. However, combined with the urgency of playing for the Yankees, their perennial need for immediate results, and three disappointing seasons with the bat, they could definitely complicate things in 2026 and beyond.

See more of the Yankees Previews series here.

We got into Jupiter Wednesday 2/25 and stayed through Monday 3/2. Here is a rundown of various discoveries and observations outside of the game reports. This will be a fair amount of surface level observations. I will follow up with a couple more in-depth articles where it appears more attention is deserving. Ask questions, and I will put a little more detail, in comments, where the questions come up.

Getting out of the blocks

Turns out I know a guy (Doc) who set me up to get press credentials with the Cardinals in advance of my visit.

I think the connections were a bit circuitous (he knew a guy, who knew a guy, etc.), but it worked out in the end. They gave me press badges, one for each day (see example above), access to the back fields, the press box and the media room (where Oli does his pre- and post-game interviews). Thank you Doc!

They were reluctant to give me clubhouse access, understandably since they don’t know me, and as a blogger I’m a bit different. They figured out in their research that I’m more a big picture guy anyway, so their reluctance was not an imposition. Overall, they were very gracious and accommodating. Hopefully they saw it as a positive thing and perhaps another avenue to reach a portion of the fanbase.

The media room was populated by the usual suspects. Feinsand. Goold. Guerrero. Jones. A few others I didn’t recognize but will try to get introductions as the week goes on. I’m a closet introvert, so that is not my favorite part, but still a group that obviously likes to talk baseball. Never a bad thing.

In the press room, they pass out a schedule of who is in which group and which group is on which field doing which drill. They certainly keep them moving. Lots of small print. Sometimes in the details there is a story lurking.

The construction

I’ll touch on this lightly since there has already been lots put out about the improvements at RDS. Mostly things that might be helpful to people heading down later this month. There is lots of new square footage added for player development work. Their new hitting building is enormous. I got to see the Trajekt machine in operation as Walker was prepping for the Astros game. It is very realistic. That part of the complex is a no fans area right now.

Access to the quads (backfields 2-5) is temporarily (for fans) re-routed through the Marlins side, using the Marlins entrance to their quads. It is a bit of a trek. FYI, they closed up that access at noon. I don’t know if that will continue deeper into spring. Fields 1 and 6 were largely inaccessible to fans. It appears due to the hangover in construction work (there are certainly punch list items and clean-up to be done yet), so I’m hopeful access to the fields the MLBers work out on will be restored for fans by next spring.

The camp – day#1

With the orientation I got and getting settled, I didn’t get a lot of time on the back fields on the first day.

The MLB players were almost all working out inside the stadium. I did not go watch. Fans can buy early entrance to RDS on home games and see the MLBers take BP. I focused on the back fields. All the MiLBers are in, so the camp itself is in the neighborhood of 240 players! 40-man roster, plus 28-ish NRIs, plus 165 MiLB roster guys plus a few more development guys. Lots to watch. Not many names on back of MiLB jerseys yet, so hard to discern who is who. The groups are telling. As are the uniform numbers and names (or lack of).

If you wonder how exactly they fit 165 two-digit numbers on MiLB unis, there are lots of guys with duplicate numbers.

I looked but didn’t see Raniel Rodriguez on the back fields. I guessed he might be in the stadium working with the MLBers, but not sure. He was not listed anywhere on the schedule, on either the MiLB or MLB sides. Lots going on. It is quite a logistical challenge.

I watched Deniel Ortiz take BP. Nice stroke. Nice sound coming off the bat. Mautz and McGreevy threw bullpens today. Honeyman was out there. Perhaps he is past the injury woes that plagued him.

The camp – day#2

Couple of guys on the rehab track got BP sessions in. Saw B. Holiday with P. Graham. Graham threw some breaking balls, so he must be further along. Watched Ethan Young throw in live BP. Seems to have a pretty live sinker. No tech on his field, so I didn’t see the Trackman read outs on it. You get VEB bucks if you can answer the trivia question of “Who is Ethan Young?”

Watched May throw a sim game, opposed by Bradt. The tech readings seemed pretty strong for early spring. Velo 96-98, horizontal break on his breaking pitch got up to -27”. His change had good fade, too. Herrera was his catcher. They had runners on most of the time (so May was out of the stretch most of the time). They worked Ivan in the running game pretty hard. Bradt had good stuff, too. Consistent 96 with sharp slider. Command is a work in progress, particularly with pitches on the inner half. An uncomfortable AB for the hitters. Walker, Scott, Moore, Prieto were the hitters.

MLB has a reference card on ABS. A good read. One thing I did not know. If a manager wants to challenge the results of a play AND there is a challenge on the ball/strike call, the ball/strike must come first. They can’t ask for an ABS challenge after a ruling on a play in the field that results challenge.

Today, I discovered an additional info sheet in the RDS pressbox that listed “minor league extras” for today’s game. Sure enough, I find Raniel Rodriguez on it. He doesn’t appear anywhere else in the lists. He seems like the rare guy we had in High School football who was a freshman but worked out with Varsity.

On the business side, I hear a lot of comments that the crowds aren’t what they used to be. To-date, the Cardinals are well ahead of the Grapefruit League average attendance, with almost 4,000 per game, versus ~3,200 on the road. Today’s 4,600 will boost that. Fair number of Mets fans here, though.

The camp – day#3

Saturday. Marlin’s home game, so I head down to the Marlin’s clubhouse to get a Marlin’s authorized press box credential. The Marlins had sent me an email with some very specific instructions, all of which were incorrect, so there was a bit of a run-around there. They got it all figured out in good time. I’m getting my steps in!

Lots going on today. Watched a Cinjtje bullpen. Lots to like. Dobbins had a “live BP”. He looked comfortable. Oli talked in the pre-game that they are keeping him in the backfields just for protection because there are still things (like covering first) that they don’t want him doing yet. The pitching side is coming along, although they are intentionally bringing him along more slowly.

The MLB group (29 non-pitchers if anyone is counting) went through an “execution game” where they set up situations and awarded points for hitters taking (and executing the correct approach). Ex. 1st and 3rd, 1 out, infield back. What do they want out of that hitter? And then if the infielders creep in just before the pitched, does the hitter recognize and switch to the new, correct approach? One point if he does. Competitors being competitors, they took it seriously and argued pretty much everything. Lots of hooting and hollering. Spring fun. More on that tomorrow.

Got a peek in at a bullpen by Franklin, while trying to watch Doyle and Fajardo in live BP against Levenson, Mendlinger, Madris, Peete, Gazdar and Ledbetter.

Fitts and Zimmerman threw bullpens, as well. I see on the schedule that Lin was to throw off the NewtForce mound (which is inside the MiLB batting cage building). I have inquired about what this is, exactly. On Franklin, I’ve seen some pundits suggest he might be the steal of the 2025 draft, or something like that. Watching him throw BP, I can see why someone might say that.

Camp day#4

Today is not a total quiet day, but close. The MiLBers have the full day off, so the back fields are closed down. Some scrimmage action on the MLB side for guys not playing today. A bit of a dreary morning, giving away to clearing skies and cooling into the 70’s.

The press conference announcing Oli’s extension took center stage. Quite a few players attended and applauded. Some will poo-poo culture and chemistry. I get it. Performance and wins count. That said, trying to incorporate winning habits requires some degree of culture that is not tolerant of mediocrity, incomplete effort or lack of attention to details. I get that, too. In the firefighting world I live and work in, minor failures in execution can get people hurt.

Oli described this morning that they expect players to take pride at being really good at the mundane things (I had used PFP as an example). In my view, one guy at the top doesn’t set that tone alone, it’s got to be throughout the org. Coaches, top players, etc. He talked about the fun the players had in the execution game yesterday as another example. One team won 17-16 in a very spirited competition with lots of hooting and hollering. Brotherly love, we used to call it. Inside all of that, you could hear whispers of the culture … when Brant Brown awarded an execution point for a guy who tried to hit a groundball in a GB situation (runner on third, fielders back, 1 out). The young hitter actually hit a laser about 3 feet off the ground that was caught. Burleson was quick to observe that everyone had the right intent, the point was to execute perfectly. Sort of out of Yoda’s Master Jedi playbook. “Either do, or do not. There is no try”. I’d put Pages, Nootbaar and Burleson as the vocal leaders of this group. Oli says they are all close knit. He described it as it seems to be because they are in the same boat and realize they will be together for a while.

Camp Day#5

Last day. Will wander the backfields as a fan only. Using only my eyes. I won’t be at the game today and will stay out of the press room. I need to get some more pics. Do our readers like the kind of pics I’m putting in here? I’m no photographer.

This catcher appears set to start at High-A. I don’t think he will end there.

As compared to the last couple of years, you can definitely see/hear/feel the presence of more coaches, trainers and technicians. Perceptibly more instruction in Spanish this year as well. Both, I thought, were pretty noticeable.

More players were wearing “wearable” tech. The visible ones were all not pitchers. Catapault wearable technology as shown below…

Watched what I expect to be the AA rotation do some PFP type drills. Noted Doyle and Lin in this group. Will Cinjtje be here, too, or AAA?

I watched Won-Bin Cho hit for a bit. Man, there are a lot of left-handed hitters in these parts. He is starting to fill out. I am very curious about him. This will be a big year for him.

One last thought. Today, I wandered through the Marlins side just to get a sense of how the other half lives. I thought the differences were noticeable. Maybe even almost stark. Across 6 fields, all I saw were a handful of guys taking BP under the mobile cages. Since the trek in and out is lengthy, this was more than just a point-in-time view. Didn’t see a single Trackman device, iPad, or anything like that. No tech guys running around setting up cameras. Just coaches throwing BP pitches from behind the L screen. Not even many guys out shagging balls or working on fielding skills. In the end, it seemed like the Marlins side had a tech and organizational feel more akin to high school than the Cardinals side. Interesting how different the approaches are.

That a rundown of what my eyes took in. More detail next week.