After sweeping the Cardinals in St. Louis, the Mariners continue their annual early-season cursèd march through the Midwest with a stopoff in Minnesota, the famous not-roof-havers. The Twins are fresh off their own sweeping, at the hands of former Mariner Ben Williamson and the Tampa Bay Rays. They’ve lost five straight and nine of their last ten, as they’re starting to really look like the team PECOTA predicted for under 80 wins.

The Twins are in rebuild mode, so have already brought up (and sent down) a couple of their MLB-ready pitching prospects, one of whom will make the start on Monday against the Mariners: lefty Connor Prielipp, meaning the Mariners will have to pull out their righty-heavy lineup again in the series opener. Offensively, Minnesota brought up contact-monster infielder Luke Keaschall for a couple months last season and he continues on with the team this season, but has dropped off significantly after a torrid start to his MLB career. The Twins’ other top offensive prospects, Walker Jenkins and Kaelen Culpepper, remain at Triple-A for now; Jenkins is working back from a hamstring injury, and Culpepper is still gaining experience at the level. The top prospects are close but still a ways away for Minnesota, so the Mariners will see the group that remained after the Twins stripped down the team last trade deadline (especially bullpen-wise), accented by their modest off-season upgrades rather than a full youth movement.

Byron Buxton is the Twins’ leadoff man and the spiritual heart of this team, although he’s slowing down as the perpetually-injured outfielder moves through his early 30s. He’s followed by Trevor Larnach, whose performance has annoyed Twins fans enough that they were trying to trade him to Seattle this off-season. Josh Bell, one of the aforementioned modest off-season upgrades, usually hits third, and those who have long clamored for Josh Bell, Seattle Mariner, will be pleased to know that he continues to be Josh Bell. We stan a consistent king. 

Things get spongy after that, as manager Derek Shelton has tried a few different lineup combinations. Usually one of the Twins’ catchers bats cleanup, usually Ryan Jeffers but switch-hitting Victor Caratini, who can also play first base, can slot in around there too. Then it’s a spin-the-wheel to see what the bottom half of the lineup spits out in what order. Third baseman Royce Lewis will be in there somewhere, along with shortstop Brooks Lee, off to a solid start this year; the outfield is a similar mix of bench players all steadfastly ignoring the “starting jobs this way” sign.

Probable Pitchers 

Updated Stuff+ Explainer 

• Stuff+ scores for Mariners starters

The Twins promoted Connor Prielipp last week to make his major league debut against the Mets. He completed four innings, allowing two runs on four hits while striking out six. Entering the season, he was ranked as the Twins top pitching prospect and their third overall prospect. A pair of serious elbow injuries — one in college in 2021 and one in the minors in ‘23 — have curtailed his development somewhat, but his raw stuff has continued to look dominant. His best pitch is a superb slider that features tight, downward movement and higher than average velocity. His fastball is fine — it’s the pitch he can command the best at the moment — and his changeup has flashed some promise, though he has trouble with his feel for that offspeed pitch.

Joe Ryan survived the Twins sell off last summer, and with Pablo López sidelined with Tommy John surgery this year, he has become the de facto ace of the pitching staff. His four-seam fastball is one of the best in baseball. He’s able to generate an extremely flat approach angle with the pitch thanks to a good amount of ride and a really low arm angle. His ongoing issue has been trying to figure out the right mix of secondary pitches to pair with his heater. He’s now throwing three different breaking balls and a splitter to keep batters off his fastball.

The Twins acquired Taj Bradley from the Rays last summer in a deal that has turned out to be somewhat of a coup. Back in 2023, Bradley was one of the most highly regarded pitching prospects in baseball, but he struggled to harness his impressive raw stuff across his first three seasons in the big leagues. Tampa Bay cut bait on him, and he continued to struggle in Minnesota after the trade, but he’s managed to put everything together this season. The biggest difference for him has been small adjustments to his cutter and splitter to differentiate those pitches from his fastball. His cutter is breaking glove side a little more and his splitter is diving out of the zone more often. With an extremely high arm slot and an arsenal that heavily relies on vertical movement, those small changes have had a huge impact on his results on the mound.

The Big Picture:

We’re still not looking at standings, but if we were, we would point out that the Mariners have firmly stepped on the Angels in climbing out of the cellar of the division while leaving Houston buried in the bottom. The A’s and Rangers just spent a series slugging it out against each other, pushing the Athletics to the top of the division for now, but the Mariners lurk just behind those two teams. The A’s welcome in Kansas City this week, while Texas has to cope with the Yankees team that just spent time beating up on the Astros. The Astros, meanwhile, travel to Baltimore, and the Angels make a similar journey to the Mariners, heading north to take on the Chicago White Sox.

Questions persisted all offseason as to what this 2026 St. Louis Cardinals starting rotation was going to look like. Matthew Liberatore has not quite found his stride early in the season. Dustin May, after 2 shaky starts to begin the year, has found a footing in the rotation over his last 3 appearances. Andre Pallante has been mostly good in his first 5 turns this year, and Kyle Leahy is early in his transition from the bullpen back to a starter’s workload.

On Sunday, we saw Michael McGreevy give the Cardinals another quality start, going 6 IP, the only run he allowed was on a solo shot to Cal Raleigh (it happens), and allowed scant traffic all game long. It was Mcgreevy’s 3rd time posting a QS in 6 games started this season. If McGreevy can maintain a QS% of 50% or higher, that’s going to go a long way towards the Cardinals navigating the 162-game season and a really refreshing source of “Bulk” innings, not a 30-something veteran starter on the back end of their career.

In 31.3 IP now this season, McGreevy has a 3.16 ERA, and his WHIP is down to 0.86, which is good for 6th in the NL. McGreevy has been the quintessential “pitch maker” for the Cardinals this season, living around 91-92 MPH on the FB so far this year. McGreevy has effectively mixed his pitches, featuring at least 5 pitches with more than 10% usage. His Hard-Hit% is only 36.5%, and his average exit velocity against is 87.9, and those are both above-average marks. The other thing that McGreevy is doing superbly is avoiding the free passes. His BB% is under 5% this year, and in the modern game, if you’re not a pitcher who can punch his way out of trouble, then you better not GET yourself into trouble often.

Michael’s Changeup has been a particularly effective pitch for him this season. Opponents are hitting .077 against the cambio and with a .114 wOBA and 25.6 Whiff%. So far in 2026, it rates out as a +4 in Run Value, which puts him in the 98th percentile of all offspeed pitches in baseball. McGreevy’s sinker and Cutter are also positive value pitches for him thus far this year, as well as using the breaking ball as a “strike stealer” early in counts, and can put hitters away with soft contact in play.

We spoke to Eno Sarris on last week’s episode of the podcast, and our wonderful Gabe Simonds asked Eno about Stuff+ and the ability to have outliers, and it is possible for certain players to outperform what they show, and Michael McGreevy would certainly seem to be one of those pitchers who will outpitch a lot of expected predictor type stats.

For the more experienced fans in Cardinal Nation, McGreevy is probably more of a favorite, as he does the things that Cardinals starters of a previous generation did well. He works quickly, throws strikes, gets groundballs, and gives his team a chance to win just about every start he makes. He won’t wow stuff metrics evaluators, but he’ll do enough to be your dad/grandpa’s favorite pitcher on the team.

-Thanks for reading

Every year there’s a prospect who doesn’t make our top 40 list and makes that omission look foolish almost immediately. This year it’s Nolan Perry, who did make Matt’s pref list but whom I have to admit to whiffing on entirely. Perry got $200k in the 12th round back in 2022 out of Carlsbad, New Mexico. He looked promising in the 2023 complex league and in his full season debut in 2024, striking out about 28% of batters he faced but walking too many. As Matt noted in his write-up, he had a tendency to lose his delivery and have meltdown innings, but tended to overpower A ball hitters when things were working. Then he went down with elbow troubles in mid-August which ultimately lead to a Tommy John surgery that caused him to miss 2025 entirely.

Command is usually the last thing to come back after TJ, but having had a full 19 months to recover before returning to game action, Perry appears to have not just gotten back to where he was but taken a step forward. So far in 2026 he’s both landing more pitches in the zone overall (45% vs 41%), but when he works out of the zone placing pitches more deliberately, drawing chases and some called strikes on fastballs up and sliders and curves low. It’s still below average command, probably, but he’s improved the quality and consistency of his location enough to increase the odds that he ultimately sticks as a starter.

Perry’s stuff has also improved. In 2024 he sat 90-93 and occasionally approached 95 with his fastball. Now he’s sitting 93-95 and occasionally cresting 96. He’s further defined the shape of the heater, which in 2024 StatCast classified as a sinker about a third of the time (though the movement profile was similar enough to his four seamer that I think he was just sometimes getting on the side of the latter pitch and sailing it a little). The pitch has above average vertical carry and plus arm side run, which should allow it to play as solid average.

Two distinct breaking balls make up most of the rest of Perry’s pitches. His slider, used just under 30% of the time, varies from 82-87mph. It looks like an average pitch, with pretty typical movement although it could use a little more depth. That’s too much for A ball hitters, who’ve missed a little more than half the time when they swing. He’s located it pretty well, missing down and away when he does miss and mostly avoiding hanging anything out over the heart of the plate. The curve, used 20% of the time, comes in just under 80mph and gets big two-plane break. It’s big enough that batters tend to read it out of his hand and have swung under 30% of the time he throws it (compared to 43% for the slider and 57% for the fastball). They can’t hit it when they do, with 9 whiffs on 16 tries, but he’ll want to get better at dropping it into the bottom third of the zone for strikes to really maximize its effectiveness.

His change-up is rarely used, and only to lefties. It comes in at 86mph with good vertical drop compared to the fastball, and at least as a rare ambush weapon it’s been too much for A ball hitters, who’ve whiffed on three of four swings so far. We’ll have to see whether it remains deceptive against better hitters with a bit more of a book on Perry’s arsenal, but to my eye it has considerably more bite than in 2024 and now flashes some potential.

It’s a pretty smooth looking delivery, with a high leg kick and an average stride, and he looks like he repeats it pretty well. Perry’s listed at 6’2” and 195lbs and still looks fairly lanky, although at 22 there isn’t likely to be a ton more development physically. The steps he’s taken with his command point to continued development as a starter for the forseeable future. He has the repertoire depth to make that work, assuming continued progress on the change-up, with no monster plus pitch but at least three that look like they could be above average consistently with development.

A ball is clearly beneath Perry’s level. His 47% strikeout rate and 2.07 xFIP are both second among pitchers at the level with at least a dozen innings. At 22, even with missed development time, he’s also old for the level. I would expect a move up to Vancouver sometime soon, possibly once the weather improves in the pacific northwest. From there, if he continues to outclass hitters in the Northwest league, a cameo at New Hampshire probably isn’t out of the question. That’s the track that last year’s Dunedin breakout arm, Gage Stanifer, took, although Stanifer had a base of 60 innings in 2024 to build off of and Perry might be under a tighter usage limit.

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Ernie Clement has been raking for the battered Toronto Blue Jays, and with a lefty on the mound for the Boston Red Sox, I expect that trend to continue. 

Find out more in my Red Sox vs. Blue Jays predictions and MLB picks for this April 27 matchup.

Red Sox vs Blue Jays predictions

Red Sox vs Blue Jays best bet: Ernie Clement Over 1.5 total bases (+110)

Toronto Blue Jays batter Ernie Clement is second in the AL in hits with 36, and is on a 10-game hitting streak — with knocks in 14 of his last 15 games. 

Over that stretch, he’s hitting .359 with 10 extra-base hits. He’s also averaging 2.2 bases per game during this heater. 

He's set to face Boston Red Sox southpaw Ranger Suarez, and the infielder has found great success against lefties over the last two seasons.

Clement has a .320 average this year against them after posting a .900 OPS vs. LHP in 2025. 

COVERS INTEL: Ranger Suarez has allowed four or more runs in three of his five starts this season, while posting a 4.99 xERA that ranks in the 28th percentile.

Red Sox vs Blue Jays same-game parlay (SGP)

Suarez is more of a contact pitcher than a strikeout guy, which is great for the disciplined Jays who like to see balls in the zone. 

Additionally, the Blue Jays have the lowest strikeout rate in baseball, and Suarez ranks in the 15th percentile in that category with just an 18% whiff rate, which ranks in MLB’s 8th percentile.

I’ll also take the Jays to go Over their team total at 3.5 runs tonight. Toronto has exceeded this run total in five of its last six games, while the Red Sox have allowed an average of 4.57 runs per game against them this season. 

Red Sox vs Blue Jays SGP

• Ernie Clement Over 1.5 total bases
• Ranger Suarez Under 3.5 strikeouts
• Blue Jays team total Over 3.5

Red Sox vs Blue Jays home run pick: Daulton Varsho (+790)

I’ll make this a half-unit wager.

The lefty-on-lefty matchup has to be the reason the price is so juicy for Daulton Varsho at +790, however, the outfielder has fared better at the plate against southpaws this season, posting an .815 OPS against them. 

The matchup is great for him, too, as the lefty Suarez throws his sinker at a 45% rate against left-handed hitters. Varsho owns a .412 average and a .647 slug rate against the sinker with a home run, which was hit off a lefty at that. 

Red Sox vs Blue Jays odds

• Moneyline: Boston +1.5 (-180) | Toronto -1.5 (+155)
• Run line: Boston +115 | Toronto -135
• Over/Under: Over 7 (-120) | Under 7 (+100)

Red Sox vs Blue Jays trend

Ernie Clement is currently riding a 10-game hit streak. Find more MLB betting trends for Red Sox vs. Blue Jays.

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Baseball life is good for the Atlanta Braves at the moment. They’ve already put a gap between them and the rest of the division and the gap keeps growing between them and the Phillies and the Mets as well. The vibes are very positive and the week ahead for the Braves could be a promising one if everything goes according to plan.

With that being said, there’s always reason to take any opponent seriously — and yes, that includes the Colorado Rockies, who would love nothing more than to make a statement of their own at the expense of our Braves. Before Atlanta can get to Colorado, they’ll have to deal with one of the main favorites in the AL Central and their All-World caliber pitcher in the form of two-time defending AL Cy Young Award winner, Tarik Skubal. It’s time to take a look at what’s in store for the Braves for this coming week.

April 28-30: Detroit Tigers

Current Record: 15-14 Projected Record (via FanGraphs): 86-76

Don’t let Detroit’s current record fool you — this’ll likely be a tough series for the Braves and it’s mostly due to the fact that they’ll be catching three really good starters from the Tigers. Casey Mize will be entering his start on Tuesday with a very good track record so far. He’s made five starts and he’s given up one or fewer runs in four of those starts. Framber Valdez’s metrics (particularly his xERA and xBA) suggest that the Braves could do some damage against him but if they get stuck in a ground ball vortex against him on Thursday afternoon, watch out.

Tarik Skubal is, well, Tarik Skubal. Granted, he has had a couple of starts where he’s looked human but if he gets on a roll, it’ll basically just be a matter of waiting until Detroit’s currently-struggling bullpen gets involved and hoping that Bryce Elder continues to do a good job of limiting runs, himself.

When it comes to Detroit’s lineup, they’ve got a nice little core going. Kevin McGonigle is the new hotness around here and the 21-year-old has gotten off to a blazing start at the plate as a big leaguer. Riley Greene has also done his fair share of mashing as well. Kerry Carpenter leads the team in homers and Dillon Dingler is not to far behind him as well. Colt Keith has also been getting his fair share of knocks when called upon. This will be similar to what the Braves had to deal with against the Nationals, as Detroit has some eerily-similar plate numbers to what Washington is putting up right now. If that’s the case, then Elder, Martín Pérez and JR Ritchie will have their hands full trying to keep this lineup quiet.

Tuesday, April 28 at 7:15 p.m. ET (BravesVision)
Wednesday, April 29 at 7:15 p.m. ET (BravesVision, TBS (out-of-market only))
Thursday, April 30 at 12:15 p.m. ET (BravesVision)

May 1-3: Colorado Rockies

Current Record: 13-16 Projected Record: 65-97

As usual, the Rockies are probably going to end up being not-so-good this season. With that being said, this series will take place in Colorado and whenever that’s the case, anything is on the table as far as results go. If you don’t believe me then go ask the Dodgers, who ended up leaving Denver with “just” a four-game series split — and they had to salvage that split too, as the Rockies got up 2-1 in the series on them! I’m not saying that to say that Coors Field is a fortress or anything like that but the Rockies have been playing some decent baseball at home so far and they’ll also be thrilled to be back home after a road trip sent them to New York this past weekend (thanks for the sweep, Rox) and Cincinnati in the midweek series.

With that being said, this is totally doable for the Braves to pull off a series win. So far, the Rockies have only produced a team wRC+ of 89 at Coors Field, where they’ve hit a combined .275/.334/.444 with a team wOBA of .344. Meanwhile, the Braves on the road have hit .258/.328/.458 with a .346 wOBA and a wRC+ of 117. The main difference is the power hitting — Atlanta’s carrying an Isolated Power number of .200 on the road while the Rockies have only hit for .169 Isolated Power within Coors Field. If any slugfests do break out, I’d like Atlanta’s chances in them. Still, you’d like to see the Braves make sure that guys like Mickey Moniak, Hunter Goodman and Troy Johnston stay quiet.

It’ll come down to Atlanta’s pitching staff keeping the Rockies under control and preventing Colorado from sticking around and making things interesting (in a bad way). The good news is that they’ll likely have Chris Sale going for that series and Spencer Strider’s most recent rehab start went very well so he could be activated in time for this series as well. We’ll see who is the third for that rotation since Walt Weiss has indicated that they’re essentially going on a series-by-series basis when it comes to the starting pitching but you have to like Atlanta’s chances if those two guys will be going for them this weekend. We’ll see what happens!

Friday, May 1 at 8:40 p.m. ET (BravesVision)
Saturday, May 2 at 8:10 p.m. ET (BravesVision)
Sunday, May 3 at 3:10 p.m. ET (BravesVision)

Detroit Tigers infield prospect Hao-Yu Lee had a pretty rough spring. After a slow start in camp, he headed off to represent his native Taiwan in the World Baseball Classic. An oblique strain suffered before the tournament even began caused him to miss the opportunity, and then it lingered, costing him the first week of the International League season with the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens. After just nine games in which he didn’t do a whole lot and was busy trying to find his footing after nearly a month without any plate appearances, everything flipped as the 23-year-old suddenly got his first chance to play in the major leagues when Zach McKinstry went down with a minor injury.

No doubt his call-up was one of the best days of his life, but to much of the fanbase who don’t follow the farm system, the reaction was more like, who is this guy? He played all the 2025 season at Triple-A Toledo, and while he had a solid year at the plate, posting a 106 wRC+ with 14 home runs and 22 stolen bases, his numbers certainly don’t leap off a FanGraphs or Baseball Reference stat page. For prospect watchers, however, it was another year of solid progression for a young hitter who has always been well ahead of his age curve.

Lee was acquired by Scott Harris when he shipped starter Michael Lorenzen to Philadelphia at the 2023 trade deadline. This was one of the first trades Harris made, and it’s turning out pretty well so far. Lee conquered Double-A Erie in 2024 when he was just 21 years old. His numbers in Toledo weren’t that impressive when he jumped to Triple-A last year, but with a February birthday he had just turned 22 years old when he took on the highest level of the minor leagues, consistently competing against good prospects and veteran pitchers, many of whom have major league experience. Production is key, but without the context of age and experience, it’s easy to miss the real picture developing beneath the surface. Lee has been challenged year after year with aggressive promotions, and even in a year where he struggled at times, he still managed to hold his own in 2025.

Lee is currently ranked sixth on MLB Pipeline’s ranking of the Tigers farm system, one spot behind fellow 2B/3B right-handed hitting Max Anderson. In my view, that’s a minor mistake and Lee is pretty clearly the more talented prospect of the duo, but it is fitting in a sense to have them back-to-back on a list, because they’re both bound to play a similar role in the major leagues.

Each has plus raw power, and neither really profiles as a good defensive infielder. They both tend toward mashing left-handed pitching and just trying to hold their own against right-handers, but their profiles diverge from there. Lee is the more disciplined hitter of the two, and also the more athletic player of the duo. He has the potential to clean up his game and become an average third baseman or second baseman, whereas Anderson is very competent, but just doesn’t have the range and quickness to get much better than he is. Those traits extend to baserunning, where Lee gets the most out of his average speed by being a crafty, aggressive baserunner with some knack for reading pitchers and getting good jumps to steal second base. Anderson’s lack of speed is a real limitation on his baserunning ability that can’t really be overcome through experience. Lee’s overly aggressive style of play can cause him to make the occasional poor throw, but he also has more knack for making a tough play than Anderson does, and the mistakes of aggression may be cured by more time and experience.

Lee struck out a very reasonable 20.9 percent of the time in Triple-A last season. That’s basically league average, but he also walked 11.2 percent of the time. Much less a free swinger than Anderson, Lee is better at holding his own when he isn’t really seeing the ball well at the plate. He’ll take his walks and uses the whole field to spray singles and doubles, and as he showed against the Reds on Sunday, he has all fields pop as well. The issue for both hitters is that they tend to do most of their damage against left-handed pitching, and that will probably limit both of them to a part time role in the major leagues.

For Lee, the main issue continues to be breaking stuff from right-handed hitters. He handles fastballs well, but he can look like the bad version of Javier Báez when right-handers with good sliders start feeding him heavy doses of benders moving down and away out of the strike zone. That’s his challenge to overcome, whereas Anderson has better hands and strikes out less, but tends to swing at everything within reach rather than being patient enough to hunt for something he can drive. That can work in the minor leagues, but the lack of a strong approach also means he’s more likely to get his weaknesses exploited at the major league level. We’ll see if he can develop a little more of an approach this season, in which case he too might be a nice player to have on the roster in 2027 in the wake of Gleyber Torres holding the second base gig everyday.

The other advantage for Lee, is that he’s a year younger than Anderson. While Lee has more pro experience, there’s still more time for him to start shoring up his issues with right-handers than Anderson has to work with in trying to develop his strike zone judgement and overall swing discipline. With the benefit of better athleticism and strike zone judgement, my bet is on Lee to prove the more useful player to the Tigers in the year’s ahead, although Anderson could potentially make a decently productive first baseman with the ability to handle some second and third base as well.

McKinstry’s injury provided a perfect opportunity for Lee to come up, right as the Tigers were about to face their first sustained set of left-handed starting pitchers. It was also an opportune moment to get with him with the major league roster to forge some ties, get to know and be known by the regular roster, and get his feet wet in the major leagues. The Tigers believe in those team building aspects, and they also like to dangle the carrot a little bit to interesting prospects who aren’t of blue chip quality. After getting a taste of the major league life, Lee will be hungrier than ever when he returns to the minor leagues. Perhaps if Anderson was healthy, he would’ve gotten the call instead considering Lee’s lack of reps in spring camp, but it didn’t work out that way, and Lee has done a solid enough job with the opportunity. If a similar opportunity arises, I wouldn’t be surprised if it went to Anderson instead, because this is all about future roster building and getting these guys a little experience when the right opportunity comes along. Neither is really ready to seize a regular role just yet in my opinion.

When McKinstry returns, you can bet that Lee will return to the Toledo Mud Hens. With Colt Keith still not doing enough damage to really expand his role, and several lefty starters ahead on the docket, the Tigers had an opening for an infielder to hit left-handed pitching. Lee fits the bill. Launching a go ahead bomb against lefty reliever Sam Moll was just what AJ Hinch and the Tigers’ front office had in mind when they called him up. But the Tigers probably don’t want to convert a recently turned 23-year-old prospect into the next Andy Ibánez just yet. Lee needs more time to work against both handed pitchers to see if he can shore up his weaknesses against right-handers, and perhaps find his way to more than a weak side platoon role next season in the wake of Gleyber Torres likely departure in free agency.

Hao-Yu Lee is a reasonably talented young player, and his aggressive, bull in a china shop style is a lot of fun to watch. He’s likely to be voted first out of the dugout in a benches clearing scenario, and he runs the bases with a dynamism you might not expect for a thickly built power hitter. He’s also been ahead of the curve, tackling tough levels at an early age and generally finding his way. While he doesn’t quite profile as a future full-time player right now, the Tigers lefty heavy regular lineup will have use for him in the years ahead. If Lee can take one more step and post better numbers against right-handed pitching, while playing a bit more under control on defense, he could creep up into top 100 prospects lists by season’s end, and have an even better chance of taking a roster spot later this season, or in 2027.