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My favorite novel is “Fight Club” by  Chuck Palahniuk. There are tons of philosophical nuggets in the book and one of them is my moniker for everything analytics. “On a long enough timeline the survival rate drops to zero.” In other words, given enough time and data, the underlying metrics and outward metrics will align. This is almost universally true and there are very few instances where it is not true. Those instances are usually the most interesting ones and the ones we can learn a lot from.

Enter Jose Altuve. Altuve is one of the more fascinating statistical studies in history. Obviously, there is a whole lot going on physically as well. However, in this edition we are focused just on the numbers. For his entire career, sources like Statcast would predict failure for Altuve. He doesn’t hit the ball as hard as others. He swings too often (in general), and the quality of his contact is not nearly as good as the elite hitters in baseball. Yet, he has spent most of his career as one of the more elite hitters in baseball. It just doesn’t make sense.

We will do the same thing with Altuve that we have done with Cam Smith and Yainer Diaz, but that is only the last two seasons. To better understand Altuve we need to look at the total career. The underlying numbers follow a particular pattern that fits, but they don’t fit the outward numbers we see from day to day. Let’s start with those.

Conventional Numbers

All players decay. We just don’t necessarily know the ways they will decay until we see it. Some struggle to remain healthy. Some see their speed and reflexes erode. Others lose their ability to field. Some of them suffer equally in all of those areas. Altuve has been fairly durable (knock on wood) but he is leaking oil in terms of offensive and defensive effectiveness.

Being a league average hitter at 36 is not necessarily a bad thing and there is time for him to have a hot streak and get back above water. In some ways, he is aging much like Craig Biggio aged. The fascinating thing is in the ways that it manifests itself. Biggio cheated on pitches and collected more doubles and homers when he guessed right. Yet, he was susceptible to that slider in the dirt late in his career. Altuve’s magical power was being able to put the bat on the ball in almost any instance.

Altuve had a career .330 BABIP until the last couple of seasons. You give him those 50 points back and suddenly he looks like the Altuve of old. The loss of BABIP “luck” can be explained through the nature of contact, but also diminished speed. At his peak, he was averaging 30 to 40 infield singles a season. Even if you cut those in half you severely hamper that average. He officially has eight so far on the season according to Baseball Savant, so that probably does not explain what is going on this season, but that will be a general certainty moving forward.

Statcast Numbers

Here comes the analyst’s nightmare. Do you go in the direction that 99 percent of the numbers will go or do you go with the way Altuve’s career has unfolded to this point? Based on the former, Altuve is pretty much producing what he is expected to produce. That has the look of a below average player overall, but somehow better than he was last season.

The flip side is that Altuve has outproduced his Statcast numbers in every full season of his career. So, you could be forgiven if you predicted better than what these numbers currently show. Notice the difference between his wOBA and xwOBA last season (.331 vs. .300). Does this mean he is destined for a .340 wOBA? I don’t think that kind of exact overperformance is likely, but it would be completely reasonable based on his career norms to project a .320 to .325 wOBA.

In most seasons that would be around the league average. Altuve’s magic power has been impressive productivity given his ability to remain in the lineup. So, the runs, hits, and other counting numbers will continue to mount for a player marching to Cooperstown. Of course, this is scratching the surface on Altuve. Let’s take a look at why Statcast has the numbers it has.

Quality of Contact

Numbers will always say more than one thing at the same time. These numbers say that he has been better in 2026 than he was in 2025. They also say that he isn’t even an average hitter when looking at these numbers alone. Most players have a higher exit velocity. More than half have more barrels. They certainly hit the ball harder.

Numbers like Statcast work because they are based on assumptions. They assume that hitters are more or less the same. They can control the quality of the contact but cannot control the result. So, we assume a neutral result over time. It does not account for hitters that are able to find weaknesses in the defense. Pick your favorite hitter in history and most of them probably have the ability to hit against the defense and pick holes in the defense. Older fans will wax poetic about how the guys in the good ole days could do this, but as a general rule this was not true. The Tony Gwynns, Rod Carews, and Wade Boggs of the world are not normal. That is why they are in the Hall of Fame.

Jose Altuve is one of those guys. He might not quite be on their level, but he also dove into his power more than them. If he had continued on the slap hitter track he might have approached their numbers. This season has been a tale of two seasons. In the first couple of weeks he was a new hitter that took a ton of pitches. In the last three or four weeks he has returned to the Altuve of old. Let’s see where the growth can happen.

Areas of Growth

If we take these numbers at face value and offer no context then we would say that Altuve is a much approved hitter in terms of his approach. The reality is that the Altuve with a 11+ percent walk rate hasn’t been here in a couple of weeks. Naturally, hope springs eternal and he could return to that. The reasonable hope is that the numbers would hold where they are and this would become a jumping off point.

Altuve’s superpower was his ability to put the bat on just about any pitch. Age has diminished that ability and he has become an ordinary mortal. He still has the ability to turn weak contact into hits where others cannot, but he is striking out more often and that is zapping his ability to hit for the higher averages that we were used to during his prime.

I feel reasonably certain that Altuve won’t hit .250 or worse this season once the dust has settled, but we are seeing steady erosion of his skills. These are the push and pull factors that every player must face at the end of their career. You add more numbers with each passing year, but you also diminish the overall quality. Altuve is now clearly in accumulation territory.

Yesterday was School Day at the K, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Kansas City-area children were attending their first Royals game (and learning early on that being a Royals fan means seeing a lot of losing!) Despite the loss, it was a beautiful day in a beautiful ballpark, and they got to see a couple of dingers. Hopefully they’ll be back.

Most of you have probably been to Kauffman Stadium dozens, if not hundreds of times. But do you remember the first game you attended? I think my parents may have taken me to see the Royals when I was very young, but I do not remember. The first game I really remember was in April of 1988, when I had just become a rabid baseball fan. Because of the details I can recall, I have been able to pinpoint exactly when the game was. What I remember was:

• The Baltimore Orioles were in the middle of an epic losing streak to begin the season, and the Royals were losing to them before coming back.
• The Royals pinch-hit Thad Bosley, and people around me groaned. I learned what a “pinch-hitter” was that day. I also learned Royals fans can be very sarcastic and use salty language!
• The Royals won in the bottom of the ninth on a walk-off hit. No fireworks back then though!

Using the power of the internet, I can find it was this game on April 23. Thanks for the game-winner, Kurt Stillwell! That Orioles team lost their first 21 games of the year. Woof!

Do you remember your first Royals games? What do you remember about the game? About seeing the stadium in person for the first time? Share your memories!

The New York Mets (14-23) travel to the desert to face the Arizona Diamondbacks (17-19) in a three-game series. While the Mets have won their last two series against bad teams, they still co-own the worst record in baseball and have a lot more work to do before convincing fans that they’re a serious baseball team.

All one needs to do is look at yesterday’s lineup and pitchers used to tell the story about why this team is in trouble. Austin Slater bating fourth? Andy Ibañez batting sixth? Craig Kimbrel coming into a tie game? Come on now.

Now part of this was clearly a result of injury and part of it was trying to maximize right-handedness against a left handed starter. But a lineup that included Slater, Ibañez, Tyrone Taylor, and Vidal Brujan is a March 7 spring training lineup, not a May 7 lineup. It is much easier said than done to improve a team in the first seven weeks of a season, but part of the frustration that Mets fans feel is due to the fact that nothing has really been done to address the team’s struggles.

This is not a call to fire Carlos Mendoza, but rather a plea to do anything to shake things up a little bit. Until that happens, there is very little that will convince fans that the organization is taking the situation as seriously as it should.

That said? If the Mets can keep winning series, all of this will be moot. And while beating the Angels and Rockies shouldn’t be lauded too loudly, it is better than the alternative. The Mets will face the Yankees in one week, and that is easily the best team in their upcoming schedule, so it is imperative that they hold their own against Arizona, the Tigers, the Nationals, and the Marlins in the next few weeks. There’s every chance that the Mets are near .500 by the end of the month if they can rattle off some wins, and then this is a very different conversation on June 8.

Fortunately for the Mets, the Diamondbacks have hit a skid after a hot-streak in early to mid-April. Losers of 11 of their last 17, the Snakes have won just one of their last six series. The Mets are also getting the D-backs’ two worst starters (but also their best) and the Mets are throwing their two best pitchers (and an unknown) in the series. This seems like a series that is very winnable for the Mets, and would be a nice way to wrap up this road trip.

Standing in their way are Corbin Carroll and Ildemaro Vargas, both of whom are off to hot starts, as well as the always dangerous Ketel Marte, who is off to a slow one. When the D-backs have won lately, it has been by large margins (9-0 against he Pirates, 12-7 over the Padres, 11-7 over the White Sox), but those days seem few and far between.

Nolan McLean vs Ryne Nelson, 9:40pm EDT on PIX11

McLean (2026): 39.1 IP, 51 K, 11 BB, 2 HR, 2.50 ERA, 2.12 FIP, 75 ERA-

The Mets have only won one of McLean’s seven starts thus far, but none of that is McLean’s fault. Two of those losses have come in extra-innings affairs, and in five of his seven starts, he’s given up two or fewer earned runs. McLean is more than just holding his own in the rotation, much like a young Jacob deGrom did with minimal run support.

Nelson(2026): 31.1 IP, 28 K, 15 BB, 6 HR, 6.61 ERA, 5.50 FIP, 159 ERA-

Nelson had an all-time bad start against the Blue Jays on April 19th, lasting just one-third of an inning but giving up a staggering eight earns runs on eight hits. His next start went longer, but yielded six earned runs. He settled down agains the Cubs last week, but he has had a rough go as of late.

Clay Holmes vs Merrill Kelly, 7:15pm EDT on FOX

Holmes(2026): 42.2 IP, 31 K, 14 BB, 3 HR, 1.69 ERA, 3.65 FIP, 42 ERA-

I don’t think anyone expecting Holmes to be this good a year plus into his transition to starting, but the results speak for themselves. He’s pitched into the sixth in all but one start and into the seventh in three starts. In his last two starts, he’s given up just one earned run and seven hits over 12 and tw0-thirds innings.

Kelly(2026): 19.0 IP, 14 K, 15 BB, 6 HR, 9.95 ERA, 8.14 FIP, 240 ERA-

Kelly’s first start of the year came in April 14, and he had a good one: five and a third innings pitched, two earned runs, three strikeouts. But since then, it’s been real bad. Each start has seen at least five earned runs, no more than five innings pitched, and he’s walked as many batters as he’s struck out.

TBD vs Eduardo Rodriguez, 4:10pm EDT on SNY

Rodriguez (2026): 39.2.0 IP, 29 K, 19 BB, 4 HR, 2.50 ERA, 4.42 FIP, 60 ERA-

Rodriguez is having the best start of any Diamondback to the season, and he just had his best start of the year against the Pirates where he pitched seven innings of two-hit, shutout baseball. He’s waking more folks than he should, but so far he’s limiting the damage by not allowing many hits and limiting home runs, aside from one game when the White Sox took him deep twice.

Mookie Betts is starting a minor league rehab assignment with Triple-A Oklahoma City, and will play for the Comets on Friday and Saturday, the team announced on Thursday. Saturday marks the five-week mark since Betts strained his right oblique.

Kiké Hernández is already with Oklahoma City and has played two games so far for the Comets, manning third base on Tuesday and on Thursday, five innings in each game. Hernández is on the 60-day injured list and can’t be activated until May 24 at the earliest, so his rehab will last a little while.

Betts is likely a more immediate return, health permitting of course. When he missed two months in 2024 after breaking his hand, Betts didn’t play in any rehab games at all before getting activated. Betts hasn’t played in a minor league game since August 9, 2015 for the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs while on the injured list with the Boston Red Sox, and that rehab assignment lasted all of one game.

The Dodgers have been deliberate with his rehab, backing off various drills or batting practice depending on how his oblique responded. That he’s ready to play in rehab games suggests he’s turned a corner.

“There’s no magic formula to this. You can do as much rehab as you want. Obliques just take time, it’s always four to six weeks, no matter however you want to twist it,” Betts said at Dodger Stadium last week. “We’re close, and after that it’s going to get a lot better.”

With Betts out, Hyeseong Kim has taken the lion’s share of playing time, starting 22 games at shortstop with Miguel Rojas starting seven times. Alex Freeland has remained at second base, the job he won in spring training, and do date has started 29 of 37 games at the position this season, with Rojas starting at second base five times and Santiago Espinal three times.

When Betts gets activated, someone on the roster has to go, with likely another roster move needed in two and a half weeks or so when Hernández is ready to go. But for now let’s focus on the near term.

Freeland and Kim can be optioned to the minors. Espinal, who has also started three times at third base, has over five years of service time and cannot be sent to the minors without his consent, so he’d need to be designated for assignment if the team wants to move on. Here’s how they’ve done do date:

• Freeland: .253/.330/.363, 97 wRC+, 105 PA, .314 wOBA, .307 xwOBA, +2 fielding run value
• Kim: .314/.372/429, 126 wRC+, 78 PA, .356 wOBA, .338 xwOBA, +2 fielding run value
• Espinal: .185/.185/.259, 17 wRC+, 29 PA, .195 wOBA, .272 xwOBA, +1 fielding run value

Today’s question is which Dodgers player will be jettisoned from the active roster when Mookie Betts returns from the injured list?

Art López could always hit. Despite an injured throwing arm that limited his effectiveness in the outfield, a diminutive stature, and little fanfare, he played until the age of 36, winning championships in six different countries. A hit tool can carry a ballplayer quite a long way, and despite his brief MLB career, the man had a fascinating life.

Arturo “Art” López Rodríguez 
Born: May 8, 1937 (Mayaguez, Puerto Rico)
Yankees Tenure: 1965

López grew up in Mayaguez, a city on the west coast of Puerto Rico. In addition to excelling in volleyball, he took an early interest in baseball, playing third base in sandlot games and closely following the Puerto Rican Winter League. The López family moved to New York in the late ‘40s, settling in in the Bronx, where young Art attended Morris High School. He quickly became a Yankees fan, later recalling the autographs he secured from the likes of Phil Rizzuto and Vic Raschi.

As was the norm in that era, López played not only high school ball but softball and stickball with neighborhood kids. A burgeoning baseball career was temporarily interrupted by four years of service in the Navy. Upon his return, he joined the Central Park League, playing amateur ball around New York, including a stint under manager John Candelaria Sr. (father of the longtime MLB pitcher who played for the Yankees in 1988 and ‘89).

López hit well enough to draw the attention of Yankees scout Art Dede, who invited him to a showcase at Yankee Stadium in addition to watching him play in several Central Park League games. In one of those games, López threw his bat in frustration after a strikeout but later homered. “When you strike out, don’t throw the bat,” Dede chided him after the game. Three days later, the scout showed up at López’s home and offered him a pro contract.

The outfielder steadily rose through the Yankees’ system, hitting .338 at Single-A in 1963 and .315 at Triple-A the following season. After an outstanding spring training performance that netted him the James P. Dawson Award for best performance by a Yankees rookie in 1965, López made the Opening Day roster for his beloved Yankees. He debuted in the season’s first game, pinch-running for a 33-year-old Mickey Mantle and coming around to score. He’d end up splitting the season between New York and Triple-A Toledo, recording just seven hits and one walk in 51 plate appearances in what would end up being his only MLB action.

After another season spent back in the minors, López accepted an offer from the Tokyo Orions that would make him the first Puerto Rican to play pro ball in Japan — even if the Orions initially thought they were signing his Yankees teammate, Hector López.

Despite the confusion at the outset of the deal, it turned into a happy ending. It was here that the erstwhile Yankee would play his best baseball. In four seasons with the club (which changed its name to the Lotte Orions in 1969), López hit .300 with 91 home runs, making two All-Star teams and helping lead the 1970 Orions to the pennant. He played two more years for the Yakult Atoms before handing up his spikes at the age of 36.

López reached out to Yankees owner George Steinbrenner inquiring about employment opportunities from his former club but never heard back. Instead, he launched what would be a long and fruitful second act in banking and insurance, eventually earning three master’s degrees and going into education. On the occasion of his 89th birthday, join us in wishing a very happy birthday to a man whose brief stint in pinstripes was just one chapter in an extraordinary life.

See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here.