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On April 28, with the Phillies off to a 9-19 start — tied with the Mets for the worst in the majors — president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski fired manager Rob Thomson and named bench coach Don Mattingly as interim manager. Since then, the team has been red-hot, going 16-6 and (briefly) climbing above .500 for the first time since April 7. While they aren’t yet in a playoff position, the Phillies’ season has at least gotten a much-needed reset. Cristopher Sánchez and Kyle Schwarber appear to be on their way to especially productive campaigns, and Zack Wheeler has made a strong return from surgery to alleviate thoracic outlet syndrome.

After winning the NL East in back-to-back seasons and making the playoffs four times in a row, at the outset of 2026, the Phillies appeared to have a pretty good shot at returning to October baseball, with a 24.4% chance of winning the division and a 68.8% chance of reaching the postseason according to our Playoff Odds. That said, they did have significant concerns, particularly with regards to their starting pitching and their remade outfield. Their rotation placed third in our preseason Positional Power Rankings, which seemed overly optimistic given not only the question marks regarding Wheeler but also the departure of Ranger Suarez for Boston, the ugly 6.01 ERA Aaron Nola put up last year, and the arrival of top pitching prospect Andrew Painter despite a subpar 2025 season at Triple-A. The remade outfield, with Justin Crawford taking over in center, Brandon Marsh settling in left in place of Max Kepler, and Adolis García replacing Nick Castellanos in right, offered a chance to improve upon last year’s subpar showing, but it was hardly a guarantee, particularly given that García had been non-tendered by the Rangers.

Under Thomson, the Phillies won just two of their first nine series, taking two out of three games from the Nationals at home and the Rockies in Colorado during the season’s first two weeks but losing series to the Rangers, Diamondbacks, Cubs (twice) and Braves (twice) — with a 10-game losing streak spanning parts of their home-and-home series against the last two teams — before Dombrowski swung the axe. It was a surprising move given the Phillies’ success under Thomson, who himself took over for the fired Joe Girardi in June 2022, guided the team to its first pennant in 13 years, and won at a .580 clip while making the playoffs in every subsequent season. Read the rest of this entry »

Hunter Feduccia is striving to establish himself behind the dish in Tampa Bay. Acquired by the Rays from the Los Angeles Dodgers as part of a four-player swap at last summer’s deadline, the 28-year-old former LSU Tiger is currently sharing time with Nick Fortes as the left-handed side of a platoon. His pedigree is that of a mid-level prospect. A 12th-round pick in 2018, Feduccia has been described by Eric Longenhagen as “a fairly well-rounded defensive catcher,” but also as a “bat-first backup catcher who struggles to control the run game.”

His offensive numbers in limited major league action are nothing to write home about. Feduccia has just a 63 wRC+ over 184 plate appearances, although his stroke has been showing signs of promise. So far this season, the Lake Forest, Louisiana native is slashing .278/.365/.370 with a 111 wRC+ in 62 trips to the plate. Moreover, he went yard for the first time Thursday afternoon in Tampa Bay’s 5-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles.

But it’s not his bat that I wanted to talk about when I sat down with him prior to a recent game at Fenway Park. What I was interested in were certain nuances of his position, particularly when runners are attempting to pilfer bags. While Feduccia remains a below-average thrower, he’s put a lot of effort into trying to improve that part of his game over the years and has a strong understanding of the components that go into it. I began by asking him how catchers are trained to throw. Read the rest of this entry »

12:02

Dan Szymborski: Since there is a time to every purpose under heaven, so to there is one for SzymChat

12:04

Dan Szymborski: Mostly-ish?

12:04

Dan Szymborski: He’s “down” about three tens of a run in the ZiPS ROS basic model

12:05

Dan Szymborski: and right now, his 2027-2029 ERA+ projections are 103, 107, 109

12:05

Dan Szymborski: So it’s at least confident he’s a 2/3 dude

Read the rest of this entry »

When a meteor* slams into Earth’s atmosphere, it’s moving so fast that it compresses the air in front of it. That compression superheats the air to nearly 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and the extreme heat in turn melts the outside of the meteor. The outer layers of rock glow brilliantly as they disintegrate, leaving a trail of plasma in the meteor’s wake. By the time the flying object has descended to around 30 miles above the surface, air resistance slows it to a more reasonable speed, though still hypersonic. At that elevation, the meteor is in what’s known as “dark flight” – without the plasma trail, the remaining hunk of rock is impossible for the human eye to pick up at that speed and distance. This explains why it’s so difficult to hit Chase Burns’s fastball.

*It’s technically a meteoroid until it encounters Earth’s atmosphere, and then the rock plus the trail of plasma is a meteor until the plasma burns out, at which point it becomes a meteorite. You’re welcome, pedants.

Few pitchers release the ball higher than Burns:

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Last year was a rough time for the best pitchers of the early 2020s. Zac Gallen cost himself untold tens of millions of dollars with a brutal walk year. Aaron Nola got hurt, and even when he was available, he was little more effective than a batting practice machine. Spencer Strider made 23 starts, but nearly doubled his FIP from his 20-win campaign in 2023.

Sandy Alcantara, like Strider, was coming back from a torn UCL that wiped out his 2024 season, he also had a rough go of it. Alcantara’s ERA was over 7.00 at midseason, leaving the Marlins unable to cash in on their former Cy Young winner at the trade deadline. Even with a strong stretch run, Alcantara ended 2025 with a 5.36 ERA, and an xERA and FIP in the mid-4.00s. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the “tarps off” fan-shirtlessness trend sweeping MLB ballparks, early grand slams, inside-the-park home runs, and “little league home runs,” more sources of baseball embarrassment, Blake Snell’s bone spurs (and the Dodgers’ perennial pitcher-injury issues), Gerrit Cole’s return to the Yankees, Gio Urshela and other players who excelled for one team but struggled for others, updates on early-season sensation Joey Wiemer, John Brebbia, and this season’s class of rookie hitters, and the league’s trend toward catcher challenges.

Audio intro: Ted O., “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Philip Bergman, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to shirtless Rockies fans
Link to Rockies fan photos
Link to shirtless Cardinals fans
Link to shirtless Mariners fans
Link to shirtlessness trendpiece
Link to AP piece on the trend
Link to latest Giants thrust
Link to Snell surgery update
Link to MLBTR on Cole
Link to MLBTR on Fried
Link to MLBTR on Westburg
Link to MLBTR on Berríos
Link to Wiemer option news
Link to Brebbia update
Link to MLB rookie offense
Link to FG post on Padres timeliness
Link to Arenado grand slam
Link to Arenado game play log
Link to previous Slam Blast
Link to Wood ITPGS
Link to Lee’s ITPHR
Link to Clemens LLHR
Link to Ohtani LLHR
Link to Sam on the LLHR
Link to “Yakety Sax”
Link to “Yakety Sax” wiki
Link to Urshela retirement post
Link to Urshela wRC stats
Link to Small retrospective
Link to Chavez Stat Blast
Link to Mariners game story
Link to Wilson pinch-hitting complaints
Link to Sheehan on ABS
Link to Sheehan Bluesky post
Link to Trueblood on ABS
Link to Tap to Challenge
Link to MLBTR on Crawford
Link to 2025 Cortes article
Link to Kimbrough wiki
Link to Kimbrough SABR bio
Link to Kimbrough book excerpt 1
Link to Kimbrough book excerpt 2

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Expectations were generally quite low for the Minnesota Twins coming into the 2026 season after last summer’s fire sale that resulted in the departure of seven players from the 26-man roster, including Carlos Correa and half the bullpen. To defy those expectations this year, the Twins needed to wring as much performance as they could out of the talent that remained. In the early going, Ryan Jeffers did more than meet his projection, hitting .295/.408/.541 for a sterling 165 wRC+. At 1.7 WAR in just under two months, he was already nearing his career-best 2.3 WAR from 2023. Now, a broken left hamate bone will likely knock him out for four to six weeks, resulting in a lot more Victor Caratini in the lineup than anyone wants to see.

The Twins also held onto third baseman Royce Lewis last summer. Part of that was because he was affordable and under club control through the 2028 season, but it was also because he took a major step backward last year and wouldn’t have fetched them much in a trade. The oft-injured Lewis was a crucial part of the last Minnesota team to make the postseason in 2023, and the hope was that he would bounce back this season. Instead, a .539 OPS and some fairly extreme struggles with contact earned him a trip to Triple-A St. Paul.

Neither player’s stat line in 2026 looks like a fluke. Jeffers has shown continual improvement in his plate discipline over the last few years, and his walk rate was higher than ever in 2026. After debuting with a contact rate hovering around the 70% mark in 2020-2021 and running a 77.0% rate across 2022-2024, Jeffers increased his contact rate to 80.7% last year, and he was making contact at an 85.5% clip in 2026 before his injury. While he’s not going to absolutely destroy baseballs like Giancarlo Stanton or Oneil Cruz, Jeffers makes enough meaningful contact to do damage, especially for a catcher.

Caratini is a serviceable enough backup, but he’s a bit stretched as a starter, and six weeks of him in the lineup versus Jeffers does shrink Minnesota’s playoff odds a bit. With an uninjured Jeffers, ZiPS projected the Twins to have a 23.1% chance of making the playoffs this year. With the injury, though, their probability is down to 20.5%. That’s not a crazy-large gap, but it’s a major hit to take just from losing a single player for a quarter of a season.

Lewis hasn’t been completely healthy in 2026, but the sprained knee that sent him to the injured list last month isn’t really a satisfying explanation for what’s wrong with him. He’s been an absolute mess on offense, striking out in 31.1% of his plate appearances, nearly a 50% increase from his career strikeout rate. His contact rates have plummeted, suggesting that his inflated percentage of strikeouts is legitimate. His overall contact rate is down to 65.6%, well into the danger zone, and he’s making contact just 78.3% of the time when he swings at pitches in the zone, nearly five percentage points below his career mark. Meanwhile, his out-of-zone contact rate is a career-worst 44.0%, and he’s swinging at 32.8% of the pitches he sees outside the zone. Noticing all of this, pitchers are throwing 38.3% of their pitches to Lewis into the chase/waste zones compared to 29.8% last year. These numbers are highly concerning, especially because they tend to be quite meaningful in small sample sizes, enough to raise serious questions about Lewis’ future. Entering 2026, ZiPS saw him as a .730ish OPS guy over the next few years. That is no longer the case:

To replace him, Minnesota is likely to go with some combination of Tristan Gray, Orlando Arcia, and Ryan Kreidler. With that trio, the Twins are projected to rank 30th out of the 30 major league teams in production from their third basemen. If they’re going to have any hope at the hot corner, they’re going to need Lewis to figure things out in the minors and then right the ship in the majors. Otherwise, ZiPS thinks their best option at third base is to sign 36-year-old free agent utilityman Jon Berti. That’s bleak.

To add insult (and… injury) to injury, the Twins also lost another possible bat this week when 23-year-old prospect Emmanuel Rodriguez suffered a torn UCL in his left thumb, which will require surgery to repair. Rodriguez’s power upside and ability to play center field are tantalizing, but this is yet another setback for him in a professional career in which he has never been able to get on the field for 100 games in a season. ZiPS evaluates him as a 110 wRC+ hitter in the majors, but his impressively varied array of injuries has prevented him from getting a chance to try and do that in the big leagues for real.

No AL Central team is a juggernaut, and hanging in the playoff race well into the summer could have done a lot to improve fan perceptions of the Twins, who entered this season with their smallest payroll in some time. According to Baseball Prospectus/Cot’s Contracts, Minnesota’s payroll this season is its lowest since 2014 (excluding 2020 payroll, which is only lower because of the 60-game season). Adjusted for inflation, this is the team’s tiniest payroll since 2009.

The 2026 Twins are not dead and buried, even with the Jeffers injury and Lewis’ offensive issues. After all, nobody in the AL Central is capable enough to dig them a very deep grave. But their margin of error has shrunk considerably, and unless they can conjure up a quick answer or two soon, the Twins may end up extending their fire sale into another summer.

Elly De La Cruz is one-third of the way to an all-time season in Cincinnati.

De La Cruz collected his first triple of the season on Tuesday, ripping a middle-middle changeup from Jesús Luzardo into the gap in left-center at 103 mph. He later drew a walk to raise his wRC+ on the year to 147. His 2.6 WAR ranks third in the majors behind only Bobby Witt Jr. (3.1) and Shohei Ohtani (2.9). If the season ended today, De La Cruz would be the favorite to at least challenge Ohtani for the National League MVP:

De La Cruz at the moment is on pace for 30 stolen bases, 38 home runs, and 8.9 WAR. The first two numbers aren’t all that notable, beyond our affinity for the nice round, rhythmic 30-30 label. Well, 38 homers would be a career high for De La Cruz, who topped out at 25 in 2024. But no, it’s the 8.9-WAR pace that’s caught my attention. That would tie him with George Foster in 1977 for the fifth-best Reds season ever — a leaderboard that goes back to 1882 — behind only Joe Morgan, who registered 11.0 WAR in 1975 and 9.5 WAR in both 1973 and 1976, and Johnny Bench, who put up 9.2 WAR in 1972. We simply haven’t seen a a performance this good in Cincinnati in 50 years. Read the rest of this entry »