Orgfiller

Has to be Piña

The hipster answer to this is Dillon Dingler btw. Elite defense combined with 99th percentile xwOBA? The hitting doesn't seem sustainable though, his top end exit velo is not elite and the projections don't love him, so how long can he keep pummeling the baseball with like 50 grade power? Is the hit tool better than advertised?

Drake Baldwin: new BCIB? The defense is nothing impressive, but the offense might be getting better from last season, and the projections are buying it. Gen-Z Will Smith?

At this point I'm wondering if he's (Lauer) more injured than he's letting on and not telling anyone about it. An injury could hurt his FA market, especially if by the time he's back he's been lapped in the rotation by all the returning arms. He's been averaging like 88-89 on his heater his last few starts for god's sake, he looks awful out there. Now he's wearing weird neck tape that the manager didn't even know about. I think he's hurt but is trying to prolong staying in the rotation as long as he can, but it's only costing him more because he looks next to unplayable at the moment.

People were quick to write him off after uhh...having a 92 wRC+ in A+ at 19 years old while vastly improving his K rate? But if he keeps this up he's easily in AA at 20 years old by the end of the year, which is very much still top prospect territory. None of the prospect publications have even written him off, he's firmly top 100 in all of them, averaging out around the 75 mark. Even more encouragingly, they all seem to think he'll be able to stick at SS. Willy Adames here we come.

2023: 84 IP, 9.4% BB rate 2024: 62 IP 5.5% BB rate 2025 with TOR: 6.1% BB rate 2025 with MIN: 15.9% BB rate 2026: 18.9% BB rate wtf did the Twins do to him? Is it just a matter of more advanced hitters being able to see his stuff? His K rate has gone down with the Twins as well, although the sample size in AAA and above is not very large

Kendry Rojas debuted. Stuff is pretty impressive, that's some sick velo from a lefty. The command has significantly backed up since he joined the Twins however. Changed something mechanically to get more out of his stuff (which was already quite good), but at the cost of a more repeatable delivery?

Fisher was the right call there though? While groundballs are great, they have a higher chance of squeezing through a hole, you want strikeouts with a runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs. Fisher came in and did just that. The walk hurt him, but then he induced a weak .060 xBA bloop bases clearing double and then a pop up that Ernie played poorly. He did his job for the most part, just got crazy unlucky with the results.

Tyler Rogers is nuts lol. Weak contact merchant

He has but not in ways that suggest it’s sustainable. His exit velos haven’t been impressive, he’s just hitting singles all over the place.

John Schneider is a genius

Sosa instead of Schneider?

Unreal toss from Valenzuela, he’s got a cannon.

How close is "close"? I don't think either have started minor league assignments just yet, and these things tend to resolve themselves. As it stands, Eloy is for sure being DFA'd since he's been a slap hitter, and to be honest I could see the same for Sosa even though he's under team control and they traded something for him. He doesn't cost anything and hasn't been good. Lukes is starting to show signs of life and the Jays love platooning him with Straw/Schneider.

Let's go with Okamoto tonight. He's locked in.

Maybe he emits bad cosmic energy? Drafted by the team, traded away and then came back to reset the bad energy. He has a Thanos tattoo and a closer's entrance that revolves around it, kind of cringe? He has an absurd K rate - second best in the league - but an almost unbelievable .571 BABIP and a 33% HR/FB rate on the few times they're making contact. Maybe the universe just thinks he has bad vibes and is punishing him for it.

Ernie for me

He still has the same concerning red flags as before though, so I don't know if it's too early to be celebrating this as a miss by MLB FOs. His Contact% is the fourth worst mark in the league among qualified hitters, broken down further as 3rd worst on pitches outside the zone and second worst on pitches in the strike zone. His whiff rate is in the first percentile. This can work, Aaron Judge has been in the 2nd percentile multiple times, although his whiff rate has never been worse than ~35%, Murakami is sitting at 41% right now. Can he keep being this patient and connecting this well every time he does make contact? Or can the contact rate get even worse than this and his plate discipline and contact ability suffers as a result? Here's a quick and dirty slugger comparison. Judge and Schwarber have career, Murakami obviously only has 2026 SSS data. The contact rate difference is pretty striking # Name Team BB% K% wOBA wRC+ xwOBA O-Swing% O-Contact% Z-Contact% Contact% SwStr% 1 Kyle Schwarber 4 Tms 14.3% 28.5% .360 127 .375 25.3% 55.8% 80.8% 71.7% 11.6% 2 Aaron Judge NYY 16.2% 27.4% .425 177 .440 25.1% 47.3% 80.9% 68.8% 13.1% 3 Munetaka Murakami CHW 21.5% 33.3% .395 153 .416 21.7% 36.7% 72.5% 60.9% 15.0%

Sorry he got infield singled to death the other day, he sucks.

Ernie Clement quietly has a 102 wRC+ on the back of a Luis Arraez like performance: .302 batting average, .105 ISO, 1.1 % BB rate, 6.9% K rate. Yes, the xwOBA says he's getting a bit lucky, but he's been outperforming it for a few years now so this isn't fully out of the norm for him. He has zero barrels on the season, but his squared up rate is in the 97th percentile. The defensive metrics have been mediocre thus far, but I'm willing to fully dismiss that as early season noise in the metrics. Some actual metrics of note though: his sprint speed is down about 1.5 ft/s, and his arm strength is down about 7 mph. I'm pretty sure this is just a factor of him mostly playing 2B and not requiring as many full strength throws as he would from 3B, but he hasn't had enough tosses from the latter this season to compare the difference.

Another thing that's impressive about him, is despite the relatively small frame, he's been improving his EV and max EV each year. 108.8 in 24, 111.2 in 25, and already topped out at 112.8 this season! Marlins got a gem.

Yeah it's probably not a coincidence that Patrick and Sproat both have been incredibly efficient these last couple of games. They're swinging early for no good reason, just to roll it over or pop it up without doing any damage. Be like Davis Schneider. Take a pitch. Be a man.

Contreras and Sanchez were already all over Corbin even when he was pitching fine, both crush lefties, and you think them facing a tired Corbin - who didn't have a Spring Training and is on his second start of the season - for a third time is genuinely a good idea?

Come on Nance, get your head out of your ass buddy.

You guys are idiots if you think letting Corbin face William Contreras and Gary Sanchez for a third time is a good idea. Objectively the right call.