Notes Week Ending 6/7

6/1 N1: I consider 16 steals for Kyle Tucker with just over a third of the season gone super surprising and super cool. Guy is still young, 28, so I guess there’s no reason he can’t be setting new personal steals highs.

I would certainly have thought he’d hit more than 30 home runs in a season, which he hasn’t, but he does most everything well. Maybe the reason I had that impression that he’d hit more home runs in a season, aside from his gorgeous uppercut swing, is that when he went down with his shin injury almost exactly a year ago, he had 19 home runs, placing him in a tie for second in the American League. But this year, his 18.6 AB per HR are just a hair better than the 19.3 AB per HR he posted in his career through 2023, and are more suggestive of the excellent all-around ball player that he is.

6/1 N2: This is also the second striaght season Kyle Tucker has had more walks than strikeouts, and he leads MLB in (Walks - Strikeouts). His 2018-2020 seasons, when he combined for a mediocre 28 walks and 79 strikeouts, are a distant memory.

The 2025 (Walks - Strikeouts) leaderboard:

(1) Kyle Tucker 8

(2) Jeff McNeil 6

(2) Geraldo Perdomo 6

(2) Gleyber Torres 6

(5) Carson Kelly (Go Cubs!) 5

(5) Luis Arraez 5

(7) Mookie Betts 4

(8) Luke Keaschall 3

6/1 N3: If Cal Raleigh can keep up his current home run pace, baseball history will have to be updated to include him. I’m not sure I’m ready for that, but it will have to be done. I apologize if I have the wrong person and he does not want to be associated with this view, but I think it was Jorn Thorn who said Hall of Famers should be evaluated in terms of whether the history of baseball could be written without them. Raleigh is currently on pace for 62.5 home runs….All the more surprising since the rate of home runs-per-game this year, while not down notably, does rank 9th of the last 10 years.

6/1 N4: As his 3.77 pitches-per-PA on the season are actually below the 3.87 MLB average, it’s pure trivia, but on Saturday versus the Mariners, Bailey Ober became the first pitcher this year to have two starts of at least 18 batters faced where he’s thrown at least 5 pitches-per-batter. Ober’s other such game came on May 14 against the Orioles, and there have only been 12 such games this year.

For some reason, the success of the pitchers in the starts has been just short of phenomenal, with the exception that none of the starts have lasted past 6 innings. I guess there could be something interesting in that, but the confound is that I insisted on 18 batters faced, and if your manager is keeping you around for that long while you throw a lot of pitches-per-batter, you’re probably doing well.

The composite totals made for 59.1 IP, 29 hits, and 91 strikeouts. E.R.A. of 1.97, with no unearned runs allowed. Walks were a bit on the high side, 26 (not surprisingly, given the criterion).

In nine of the 12 starts, the pitcher allowed 0 or 1 run, and Ober pitched two of the three other games. So he has not followed the general trend of having these high-pitch games be excellent outings. The other multi-run game on the list was a start of Dylan Cease versus the Pirates (but not the one on Saturday).

Ober threw 66% strikes on Saturday and only walked 1, but had his efficiency reduced by 24 foul balls from his 97 pitches. As Ober is an unmistakable fly ball pitcher (a 0.57 GB/FB ratio this year, and never over 0.72 for a season), I thought maybe he was also a big foul ball pitcher, but he isn’t: he rates 72nd of 131 qualifiers this year in terms of the percentage of his strikes that have gone for foul balls (with the #1 ranking meaning the highest percentage).

6/1 N5: Since he only throws 92 MPH and is a funky left-hander who went to Stanford, to the extent I have paid Kris Bubic any heed, I have labeled him a finesse pitcher. But his whiff data are really intriguing, and strongly suggest he will have staying power. Using the 1 IP per scheduled game criterion (79 pitchers), Kubic is 5th in whiff rate, and he’s 2nd in in-the-zone whiff rate, going with Statcast’s zone decisions. He has a 37.0% whiff rate on his changeup, highest for any of his pitches, and the changeup is a pitch often thrown in the zone, so that is my tentative theory for why he excels so much in in-the-zone whiff rate.

Tarik Skubal leads starters in both overall whiff rate and in-the-zone whiff rate, while Max Meyer leads in whiff rate in pitches outside the strike zone.

6/1 N6: I’ve noticed that there is a vague agreement that a first career hit is best a clean one, that you don’t want it to be a dribbler or wrapped up in a delayed scoring decision. Let’s not have any taints, the idea goes. So a first career hit against a position player, while maybe not rising to the level of scandal or shame that you would hide it from your grandchildren, certainly wouldn’t be an ideal event.

The Dodgers’ Dalton Rushing didn’t have his first career hit against a position player, but he did have his first career home run against Pablo Reyes in the national television 18-2 Dodger thrashing of the Yankees. I didn’t really know that a first home run could be tainted, as it’s inherently a real work of strength, and even an inside-the-park home run as a first home run would be so unusual it would be very cool. A first home run against a position player is certainly unusual, too, but not at all in a positive way.

The much greater relative excitement over a first MLB hit compared to a first home run is sort of interesting….Not sure what to attribute it to, but a guess is that we would get impatient if we sometimes had to wait weeks or intervening minor league stops before we could celebrate a player’s moment. I’ve sometimes thought the first plate appearance should be celebrated, regardless of results, but I guess a celebration in the context of failure would be a little confusing, and there isn’t necessarily one ball that marks a plate appearance, if there were foul balls in the plate appearance, and the final pitch ended in the catcher’s glove for a strikeout.

6/2 N1: Gary Cohen’s discussion of Pete Alonso’s high number of two-strike home runs this year during the Mets game yesterday seemingly demanded me to return to my May 2023 “The DiMaggio Standard” piece, in which I made an extensive analysis of two-strike home run statistics. I had forgotten all of the specifics, but reread the beginning to place Alonso in context.

Nine of 12 home runs with two strikes really is a remarkable percentage, Cohen was right about that. I said im my peice the rule of thumb is 30% of home runs coming with two strikes. Albert Pujols, who never struck out 100 times in a year, and hit more two-strike home runs than anybody since this has generally been recorded in 1988, had 31.3% for his career.

If Alonso had a 30% share this year and his same 9 two-strike home runs, that would give him 30 home runs this year (unfortunately, he’s not doing so good at hitting home runs before two strikes, so he doesn’t have anywhere near 30). Somewhat, surprisingly, however, there are other extreme outliers this year in the person of guys like Spencer Torkelson, who has 8 two-strike home runs; Alonso’s teammate Francisco Lindor, with 7; and Jazz Chisholm, who has connected only 7 times total all year, with his last before injury on April 21, but has hit 6 two-strike home runs.

Cal Raleigh with 23 home runs overall, has been every bit as good with 2 strikes, hitting 8 such home runs. Raleigh’s two-strike home run percentage from at-bats comes out to 6.11%.

In my paper, I used 2000 two-strike plate appearances as a requirement for qualifying for career home run percentage, noting that about 50% of plate appearances nowadays go to two strikes. Bonds (.0515) and McGwire (.0510) led in two-strike home run percentage, with Manny Ramirez (.0460) 3rd.

Alonso is now up to 1986 two-strike plate appearances, and has a .0465 percentage. With 34.5% of his career home runs hit with two strikes, Alonso certainly retains his power well, but his somewhat higher strikeout rate (22.7 from PA) than Ramirez’s (18.5%) does make his job harder, and Alonso leads Ramirez by a larger margin (7.08% HR/AB, versus 6.73%) in overall home run percentage.

6/2 N2: While any hitter, much less a catcher, who is hitting .258 with a 39 home run pace, as is the case with Logan O’Hoppe, isn’t going to be asked to pack his bags, O’Hoppe’s contributions have been decidedly imbalanced, as he is also only on a pace for 22 walks and 6 doubles. It all makes for “just” a 121 OPS+.

He’s a young guy, just 25, but the question is also if he’s getting any better. He happens to have played the same 51 games he did in 2023 when he was a rookie and sustained that shoulder injury. The same pattern was apparent in his statistics, to a remarkable degree. O’Hoppe had the same 14 home runs, just 6 doubles, and a .236 average. His walk and strikeout totals, 14 and 48, were actually a lot better than they are this year. This year, O’Hoppe has struck out 66 times. His strikeout percentage is an alarming 35.1. He had a .796 OPS in 2023, a .798 this year.

The smart money is on that to drop. Another reason to think so is his .712 in a full season last year. You can only get so much mileage out of home runs and singles, and he’s not leaving himself much room for development there. So, I guess he could be an .800 OPS guy, but if he is, his walk and strikeout data will get better, and don’t reflect who he is.

Taking the best parts of his record (the .258, the 39 home run pace, and the catching), I looked for other cases in history, using a .248-.268 BA range, and a 36-42 home run range. My only match was Todd Huntley, 1996, who hit .259 with 41 home runs, but with 79 walks and 32 doubles, had a .906 OPS.

The catchers were largely tripping on the home run part of this, as there have only been 11 seasons from catchers (including five from Mike Piazza) of 36-42 home runs. In addition, of course, Salvador Perez once hit 48 home runs, Bench once hit 45, and Javy Lopez, 43.

6/2 N3: Boy, you really have to check these things, and sometimes Robbie Marriage is right, that your impression isn’t worth a hill of beans. With Raleigh’s run, and the recent call-ups of talents like Agustin Ramirez (even if he’s been doing a lot of designated hitting) and Dalton Rushing, I thought there was no stopping “The Year of the Catcher.” Specifically, I thought catchers had probably risen to #1 in the overall OPS rankings (I think they were 2nd or 3rd when I checked a few weeks ago). In fact, the bulk has told, and catchers are now down to a tie for 5th in OPS.

Third basemen, who were so terrible early in the year, are now within a point of them. Third basemen have the same OBP as catchers, and are 1 point behind in slugging average.

Center fielders, along with second basemen, are one of the two positions under .700 in OPS. They continue to walk a very low percentage, with 535 walks on the year, looking directly up at 3B (586 walks), SS (587 walks), and 2B (593 walks). While middle of the pack in home runs, center fielders are also last in doubles.

Their 276 steals do have them squarely in the lead there. They also lead in triples, and they have over 5 times as many steals as caught stealing, while only right field, with a 4.09 ratio, is also over 4.00 in SB/CS ratio (or an 80% success rate).

6/2 N4: The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd teams in E.R.A. this year (the Mets, Rangers, and Giants) were 15th, 24th, and 19th last year.

Over the last two years combined, the Tigers, at 3.51, lead in E.R.A., while the Braves (3.53) are 2nd. The Mets, who have allowed 13 fewer earned runs than any other team this year, vault to 5th using the last two years from their 15th ranking in 2024, but the Rangers and Giants still aren’t in the top 10.

The Rangers did win the 2023 World Series, and with deGrom returning, they can’t be a complete pitching surprise this year. So how about over the last three years?

The Mariners lead in composite E.R.A., followed by the Brewers. The Rangers, 18th, aren’t close to the top 10.

In terms of totals wins since 2023, it’s the Dodgers out front by 13 wins from 2023-2025, but the Brewers are 4th, just 4 off second. The Mariners have the 10th most wins since 2023.

6/2 N5: Yesterday’s 79 game score for Chris Paddack was his third time in his last five starts being 70+. I guess we should hold off on putting him on an All-Star ballot, as Zack Wheeler and Kris Bubic have seven 70+ starts this year, or a majority of their starts.

Paddack’s been excelling in WHIP; even throwing in his 46 and 55 game score starts in this interval, his WHIP is 0.788. 33 innings, 22 hits, and only 4 walks. Whether we should read anything into those 10 strikeouts against Seattle is an open question; his previous season-high in strikeouts was 6. He did have 10 twice in 17 starts last year, one of the games also coming against Seattle.

6/2 N6: Doing a study with 2024 data, and just saw a name I had completely forgotten. Recognized it, but he occupies none of my idle thoughts. Colton Cowser, he of all of the strikeouts and 50- or 55-level tools, except for probably better defense. Apparently is days away, if the Orioles decide they have room for him.

It is hard to keep track of all the Oriole hotshots and ex-Oriole hotshots, if not the 2025 Orioles wins.

I also may not be doing justice to CC’s arm, since in average outfield velocity, he was 15th of 187 last year….On the other hand, he had just 3 assists.

But the last time I heard about outfield assists was decidely before CC got hurt….Working with 2024 data, an average-performing regular outfielder would have 6-7….Jarren Duran led everyone in that, too, with 12.

6/3 N1: Riley Greene is hitting .271 and it’s not a soft .271, but he is surprisingly the American League’s strikeout leader, on pace for 207. Last year, Greene missed a few games and batted only 584 times, but his 156 ks only tied him for 13th in the American League. More tellingly, his strikeout percentage is 31.6 this year and was 26.7 last year, confirming the increase in real terms.

One thing we can pinpoint is Greene’s performance versus lefties. He’s striking out in just shy of 39% of his plate appearances versus them, while his career strikeout rate against lefties entering this season was shy of 30%.

The other issue is Greene’s chase rate. His zone contact rounds to the same 83% it’s been each of the last two years, but he’s chasing 33% of the time, while that percentage was just 24% last year. It’s a pure regression, and a trend that has gone in the wrong direction.

Greene’s chase rates over his career (Statcast, via FanGraphs)

2022: 28.4

2023: 27.8

2024: 24.0

2025: 32.7

Not only is Riley’s strikeout rate up, but his walk rate is down. I guess this can happen when you chase more.

Walk rates

2022: 8.6%

2023: 8.4%

2024: 11.0%

2025: 6.9%

The good news is that Greene’s home run rate, which entered the season on the same positive trajectory as his k and chase rates, has improved once again.

HR/AB

2022: 1.3

2023: 2.9

2024: 4.7

2025: 5.7

I had forgotten that Greene hit for very little power when he first came up, hitting only 5 home runs in 93 games. He was just 21, supposed to have more power, and has good size, so I guess we just assumed it would materialize in time.

But it seems there is no connection between the greater power Riley has shown this season, and his increase in strikeouts, tempting as it might be to think that. I don’t see that focusing more on home runs should make you chase more.

6/3 N2: With 38 strikeouts, 3 walks, a 0.68 E.R.A. and 1.16 FIP, Giants’ reliever Randy Rodriguez has been brilliant through 26.2 innings. Will turn 26 in September. A rare true two-pitch pitcher (four-seamer and slider), according to FanGraphs. And Statcast does call this a slider, not a sweeper. It’s 86 MPH.

6/3 N3: There is no runaway leader in infield hits right now. We have 14 players with 15, 14, 13, or 12. Starting with the 15s, these players are Jose Altuve, Xander Bogaerts, Heliot Ramos, Jackson Chourio, Santiago Espinal, Brice Turang, Jacob Wilson, Chandler Simpson, Harrison Bader, Kyle Isbel, Steven Kwan, Jeremy Pena, Trea Turner, and James Wood.

I decided to compile two facets for these players: their GB/FB ratio, and their strikeouts, in order to see if these names make sense in light of them. I am overlooking the more often discussed speed component, I guess just because it is more often discussed. Ideally, I would just be able to reference total number of ground balls, but not having that easily, I decided to look at strikeout rate to get overall contact, and then GB/FB as an idea of how that contact was divvied up.

Certainly, there is also a luck component and maybe even an official scoring component, but my hypothesis that number of infield hits is basically a function of number of ground balls received strong support. Consider:

The total MLB GB/FB ratio this year is 1.10, but the median was 1.40 for this group, with 12 of the 14 players over 1.10. The only two who weren’t were Jackson Chourio (1.04) and Kyle Isbel (0.96). Isbel is a special case; he has 6 bunt hits this year, while the other 13 guys on the list combined for only 13.

The MLB strikeout rate is 22.0% this year; the median on this list was 18.2%, a savings of about 24 strikeouts per 625 plate appearances. Speedy Brice Turang strikes out at the MLB average exactly, but has 1.68 GB/FB. Heliot Ramos has 23.4% strikeouts, but 1.60 GB/FB. James Wood, aside from his speed and hustle, is the one guy who doesn’t fit the model, as his 27.% strikeouts mark him a true strikeout hitter. He does have a 1.56 GB/FB ratio, though.

This exercise surely left me wondering about the infield hit possibilities for Jacob Wilson if he could run, as he has only 6.1% strikeouts, and a 2.41 GB/FB ratio. The data say he can’t run, though, with 39 percentile sprint speed, and a 4.54 average time to first.

That 2.41 GB/FB, incidentally, trails Chandler Simpson (3.28), if no one else on this list. Simpson even likes to bunt, and struck out in just 10.5% of plate appearances in his tour of duty. So how many infield hits is he going to get?

By the way, in “More Batted Ball” on FanGraphs, I just ran into the actual ground ball counts for players….

6/4 N1: The Rockies have three of the top four pitchers in hits allowed: Tony Senzatela (98; on pace for 260, which would be the most since Carl Pavano allowed 262 in 2011), Kyle Freeland (87), and German Marquez (77). They have given up batting averages of .377, .332, and .317, respectively. This in an era when hitting .300 is really doing something.

Interrupting the Rockies threesome, perhaps surprisingly, is Logan Webb, who had given up 78 hits. He has worked 81.1 innings, third most in the major leagues, so giving up hits is only partly a matter of BA Allowed (that’s .252 for Webb).

A .343 BAbip allowed for Webb. Paul Skenes, with a .234 BAbip Allowed and leading MLB in innings after going 8 yesterday, is having a different season.

6/4 N2: There is so much that is really dreadful about the Angels that I can’t believe the narrative about them and their record will stay as positive at season’s end. For instance, they have drawn the second-fewest walks in MLB, and walked the most hitters. That makes for a walk deficit of -98 already. To put this into perspective, walks occur with a frequency that is 75% of runs, and you probably know that a -100 run deficit at this time would be extremely bad. For walks, this is even worse. The Angels are on pace for a -265 walk deficit.

The amazing thing is that the White Sox were -248 last year, almost matching that for the full season. While their starting pitchers sometimes have very clean outings, control wise, overall they are still 3rd in MLB in walks. However, at the plate, the White Sox have made vast improvement in walks, if that is worth anything. They are ahead of 13 teams. The trade to Tampa Bay of Matt Thaiss, who had 23 walks in just 110 PA, will hurt this, but now having Chase Meidroth and Mike Tauchman in the lineup everyday or thereabouts will probably more than compensate.

My uninformed take is that I am in the Will Venable fan club, and I do not put him with Clayton McCullough and some of the other new managers as showing inexperience and lack of pragmatism.

6/4 N3: I know he has a pre-2000 DOB, but I’m kind of surprised the Cubs or at least the White Sox couldn’t find room for Gage Workman after he was exposed in the Rule 5 Draft. In the Eastern League last year, Workman tied for the league lead in home runs, led in hits, and was 4th in walks. Baseball America gave him a 70 fielding grade and a 60 running grade. He’s 6 foot 3. He even went to Arizona State, where my sister teaches.

Workman is now back with the Tigers in AAA. In 49 AB, he has 12 hits, but 4 of them are home runs.

6/4 N4: Comparing the OPSes of the Phillies starters this year to their career marks, there is a real sameness. Except for Realmuto, who has rather ugly stats, no one is having a terrible year, but everyone is a bit down. Schwarber is certainly doing his best to compensate for the general slackening.

Realmuto -123

Harper -65

Stott -11

Turner -15

Bohm -40

Kepler -50

Rojas -6

Castellanos -66

Schwarber +122

If you wanted to take a positive view, you could say that the team has underachieved offensively, but is still 7th in runs scored. But, when players are a little bit past their peak agewise, as most of the Phillies are, what has happened is exactly what would one have expected to happen.

Although eight of the nine guys have been down, I don’t think you could find many teams this year where baseball cards have been such a reliable guide, in terms of current OPS.

Another note: while the Phillies haven’t recorded one single plate appearance this year from anyone older than 34, in Baseball Reference’s Batting Age, only the Dodgers rate as older.

6/4 N5: Denzel Clarke already 5 Outs Above Average and with 5 Defensive Runs Saved in just 86 innings. When he went over the fence to take away a home run, I gather he wasn’t supposed to catch that one. Athletically, I gather this is the only guy who makes Elly De La Cruz feel insecure.

6/4 N6: Ketel Marte’s 1.013 OPS start to the season makes me think of a marathoner putting up his best per-mile time in the final mile. What you can do for an encore, he is doing.

6/4 N7: Shohei Ohtani right now with more than a run per Dodger game….I had thought from memory that the post-1900 record was 170 by Ruth, and given the Dodgers’ offensive talent, if we have a nice, hot summer, that didn’t seem impossible. But in fact I was confusing Ruth’s walks best, that 170, for his runs best, which was in fact 177. That is the only 170+ season.

The post-1900 National League record is Chuck Klein’s 158 in 1930. That’s more realistic, obviously.

Ruth had four seasons of 158 or more runs.

He and Gehrig both had nine of 130+.

6/4 N8: Jonathan India’s career single-season home run totals, starting with last season and ending with his first, were 15, 17, 10, and 21. With just 1 home run currently through 54 games, if he’s not pressing, he’s a patient man.

100 or more AB this year and no home runs, in order of most at-bats: Nico Hoerner, Xavier Edwards, Santiago Espinal of the infield hits, Nick Allen, Tommy Pham, Alex Verdugo, Luisangel Acuna, Chandler Simpson, Jose Tena (but 12 2B and 2 3B), Edgar Quero, Jose Iglesias, Jacob Young, and Alex Call.

6/4 N9: I must say that Adley Rutschman is running the opposite career race of Ketel Marte. You didn’t think he could get worse at the plate, and he has.

I assume he will at least largely rebound.

6/4 N10: Until his last start, when he fanned 10, Taj Bradley hasn’t been standing out strikeout wise, but I notice that he has MLB’s best whiff rate (35%) on his cutter, using Statcast’s field of 38 qualifiers. Interestingly, Garrett Crochet is only 8th on that list at 27%. He has a nasty cutter, but I gather he is trying to break your bat with it.

Crochet was 4th in cutter whiff rate last year, at 33%, while Bradley was 5th at 32%.

6/4 N11: Max Muncy getting going is the last thing the rest of the National League needs….Normally, it would be a mistake to talk in terms of “leagues” these days, but leagues and divisions do matter, in terms of playoffs. But, as the Dodgers are almost as certain to make the playoffs as we all are to die, I suppose I may still be in error, as the problem the Dodgers pose to other teams with a hot Max Muncy bat isn’t in taking up an extra playoff spot, but just in stopping them from winning individual games, a problem the Dodgers present regardless of a team’s league. This line of reasoning overlooks, however, that the Dodgers play the teams in their division a disproportionate amount. So, I suppose my statement would have had the most meaning if I’d restricted it to the National League West.

6/4 N12: We shouldn’t sleep on Shea Langeliers as a home run hitter. I was surprised to see this — namely, that last year, he hit one home run per every 18.4 plate appearances, while the rates for Cal Raleigh and Kyle Schwarber were 18.5 and 18.2. Shea’s rate projected to Schwarber’s PA would have placed him at 37.6 home runs, while Schwarber hit 38.

Right now, Langeliers has 10 home runs, meaning his pace for total home runs is a little off his 29 of last year, but in this new ballpark, he should theoretically be able to post a total. To put up a number, as they’d say in golf.

Plate appearances are absolutely the name of the game when it comes to home run potential. Even if we theoretically say that walks should not count against home run rate, and it should be recognized that Schwarber walked 106 times last year, the fact is you don’t get another chance at a home run if you walk, except in the tiny way that maybe you increase your team OBP, and thus theoretically your potential PA. But when you walk, you sacrifice your home run potential.

Unlike the Mariners with Raleigh, the A’s have not given in to the temptation to DH Langeliers much. They’ve done that just three times this year, and did it just three times last year. Since a .750 OPS to this point in Langeliers’ career has just been a rumor, I can’t say I blame them. But functionally, that Langeliers hasn’t been in the lineup 9 times this year, and wasn’t 36 times last year, hurts his home run total, and obscures what a good home run hitter he is.

He does lead AL catchers in games this year. But, as you know, there are no true everyday catchers. This is probably another aspect in which the DH is a good thing. One can absolutely argue against it on the score of purity, that it’s inconsistent with the other positions, and thus the definition of a baseball player. But it’s a rather brilliant invention, if you think about it.

6/4 N13: I understand this is a hodgepodge, and it’s probably more interesting just from the standpoint that I mentioned last week, that a majority of plate appearances in baseball are not the one dominant thing, the non-strikeout out (about 46 ½ percent of plate appearances), but I decided to look at the players with the lowest percentages in each of the last two years. So, again, the formula is (H+BB+HBP+SO)/PA.

The leader last year, far and away among batting average qualifiers, was Judge, at 70.0%. He was followed by Elly De La Cruz (65.1%), Brent Rooker, Kyle Schwarber, Seiya Suzuki, Teoscar Hernandez, Colton Cowser, Marcell Ozuna, Oneil Cruz, and Michael Busch.

I guess each mountain peak or category is a little different this year for Judge, but he’s summing by this metric to the same place: he leads MLB at 70.3%. The rest of the top 10: Oneil Cruz, James Wood, Michael Toglia, Jonathan Aranda, Cal Raleigh, Riley Greene, Marcell Ozuna, Shohei Ohtani, and Rafael Devers.

In addition to Judge, Cruz and Ozuna are the repeaters. Hernandez and Cowser don’t qualify this year with their playing time.

I was interested to see De La Cruz down to 21st, but I guess there’s nothing that surprising in seeing his position move. Statistically, he may generally be conspicuous, but if you identified him by a couple of things, strikeouts might be one of them, but steals would certainly be the other. And, with ELC’s strikeout rate down to 27.6%, there are quite a few guys striking out more than he is.

There are 170 qualifiers this year, and Rooker, Schwarber, Suzuki, and Busch rank 62nd, 14th, 37th, and 20th, respectively. So the stat basically carries over.

6/5 N1: Have you noticed Jose Trevino’s amazing rate of doubles this year? He has 14 in 119 AB. In his Yankee years, Trevino showed a bit of home run power (23 long balls in 701 AB, with 11 of those coming on the road), so this could signal more noticeable slugging from Trevino in the near future (not discounting the obstacle presented by Tyler Stephenson).

6/5 N2: Having gotten on the MacKenzie Gore bandwagon, I am of course continually on the lookout for proofs of his greatness, and in that spirit was wondering how much extra credit he deserved for keying a shutout of the mighty-hitting Cubs, and also how much extra credit he deserved for keying a game in which they did not manage a single extra-base hit.

On the extra-base hit score, this was the fifth time the Cubs have been shut out, and that is actually almost an exactly average number: there are 151 XBH shutout games this year, to be spread among the 30 teams. The Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Yankees, and Athletics have only been victimized twice, leading the pack.

But what is more interesting here is to compare the rate of no-XBH games to the rate of shutouts. If you just go by average runs/game (4.30) and average XBH/game (2.77), you think that a shutout must be much harder to pull off. In fact, the two rates are very comparable, as there have been 139 shutouts this year.

The way it works is that, because of the structure of baseball scoring and innings, if you get one run, you are in a position to get more. This contrasts with extra-base hits, the manufacture of which is completely independent. So the rates of the statistics per game belie the relative probability of getting 1 or more. Working backwards from runs/game and XBH/game is not the way to analyze the problem.

The record of the teams shut out in XBH this year is 26-125, by the way, or a .172 winning percentage. Before the Rockies got on their three-game winning streak, they were 9-50, corresponding to a .153 winning percentage. So this means that one would rather take her chances with a random, 0-XBH game, than a random Rockies game. Remarkable, or so it seems to me.

6/6 N1: At 41-23, the Tigers are having a dream season, and their 42-22 Pythagorean record says “runs luck” hasn’t been behind it. But check out their AA affiliate, the Erie SeaWolves. If this is the year of the Tigers, there is a symmetry in the SeaWolves’ 37-17 record, but not only have the SeaWolves not been lucky, they have been absolutely killing teams. The Tigers have scored 317, and allowed 226; the SeaWolves have scored 301, but allowed just 157. That comes to a .767 Pythagorean projection. The SeaWolves are scoring 65.7% of the runs in their games; for comparison, the 1969 Orioles did something unsurpassed at the major league level for decades when they cracked a 60% run share.

Combining age and production, the SeaWolves most intriguing bat this year has been 23-year-old Max Anderson. The 2023 second-round pick and second baseman is hitting .330 in the pitcher’s league with excellent gap power.

Coming off a .270/.321/.392 slash while playing regularly in the Midwest League in 2024, Anderson was not rated by Baseball America as one of the organization’s best 30 prospects prior to this year. However, he was rated a top-30 prospect prior to 2024, and because of that, I was able to get his defensive rating, which was given only a grade of only 45.

The Eastern League is a pitcher’s league (a .229 BA with a .362 SA), but Anderson’s 8 home runs still don’t really have him among the leaders. His 24-year-old teammate Eduardo Valencia, though, is one of four Eastern Leaguers in double digits, though, along with three Somerset Yankees (Rafael Flores, Tyler Hardman, and Spencer Jones).

Jones has a mediocre average but has hit his 10 home runs in just 32 games.

The SeaWolves have stolen only 16 bases on the year and been caught 13 times, something that does not scream “athleticism.” Every other Eastern League team has at least 38 steals. The team’s average batting age is oldest in the league (24.6), but certainly isn’t at the advanced level one sees in AAA, where prospect status is pretty much sacrificed therein.

The caution on the bases and the overachieving made me look up the team’s manager. That is 43-year-old Andrew Graham. He’s been managing for the Tigers organization since 2011. He was at Erie in 2018, but otherwise has been at the A level.

As a Tigers fan, one would hope to find starting pitchers had been at the center of the mound success, but in fact Erie has been led by over-aged relievers. Andrew Magno, Drew Sommers, RJ Petit, Dylan Smith, and Tim Naughton have combined for a 1.57 E.R.A. and 131 strikeouts in 114.1 innings. Sommers, a 250-lb lefty who FanGraphs shows as throwing 94 MPH, is the only one of these guys under 25 years old.

The team’s 14 saves have been spread among 10 guys, so we can’t learn anything from that. Or nothing exciting, anyway.

6/6 N2: With his average up to .312, Chase Meidroth perhaps hot enough to deserve the “stop it!” reaction. He also is sporting one of those reverse OBP/SA combos where his OBP (.401 to .369) is the higher of the two. He did the same with Worcester in the International League last year (.437 and .400).

Meidroth got on base all five times he got up against the Tigers on Thursday, although he somehow didn’t score a run.

6/6 N3: Basically devoid of left-handed and switch-hitting bats (perhaps of their own device, with the exception of the Yordan Alvarez injury), Baseball Reference “platoon advantage” league-worst read like this.

(1) Astros 22.3%

(2) Angels 35.1%

(3) Athletics 43.8

The MLB average is 53.9%. This egregious discrepancy is enough to raise an eyebrow. A left-handed starting pitcher to the Astros would be like a conjugal visit to an inmate.

6/6 N4: In noting Cole Ragans’ misleading 5.18 E.R.A. through his first 10 starts despite 14.1 k-per-9 and 3.0 BBs-per-9, I think back upon the greatest power lefty, Randy Johnson, who had 75 strikeouts in 55.1 innings through his first 10 starts in 1998, but a 6.83 E.R.A. That was the year of all of the turmoil when he got traded to the Astros, whereupon he emerged as unhittable, even by his standards. Johnson had been top three in the American League Cy Young in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1997, yet had that kind of E.R.A. through 10 starts in 1998.

Incidentally, I noticed that he threw over 4000 pitches that year. The most anyone threw last year was 3202 (Logan Webb). So a 25% difference. Johnson’s median pitch total that year was 124….

6/6 N5: Victor Scott is really scuffling. Has 1 hit in his last 25 AB. He was slugging .406 entering May, but is down to .332 now. I cited him for his impressive 1.6 bWAR on May 10, but his bWAR is 1.4 now, so he’s been worse than replacement since I last checked in.

6/7 N1: I came across that the recipient of George W. Bush’s famous on-target first pitch in the 2001 World Series was one Todd Greene. Greene’s career of 1996-2006 quite nicely overlaps with my weakest period of living fandom, so the name rang no bells.

What struck me about him, looking up his record, is that his career negative bWAR of -2.9 is perhaps surprising since he was mostly a catcher and had a career .444 slugging average. His OBP was .286, so we have certainly seen worse there.

One assumes that the problem bWAR reflects is his defense. But that he threw out 26% of baserunners during his time, while 30% would have been expected (hardly terrible), makes me reflect that I know absolutely nothing about the basis for defensive ratings of catchers pre-Defensive Runs Saved and modern framing statistics.

Some of the stench of Greene’s defensive rating does go away if you throw out his terribly-rated defensive work in the outfield (-12 in zone rating-based runs in 316 innings, or about 35 games), but the question remains. That Greene made 79 of his career 309 starts at DH may also be hurting his bWAR, as being a DH gives you the most negative positional grade possible.

Greene was a backup player, but a backup, not a fringe. I would say that about everyone who hit exactly 10 home runs in three straight seasons, as he did from 2002-2004 (if playing for the hitting-friendly Rangers and Rockies when he did it).

In 2002 with Texas, he hit those home runs in just 118 at-bats. He hit 6 home runs in September for the miserable squad that featured ARod’s 57 home runs.

Greene would never walk. He had a career 4.0 walk percentage. In his two Texas seasons, he combined for 20 home runs and 4 walks.

The threat that he could be offensively is captured by his 1997 season for Vancouver of the Pacific Coast League. He hit 25 home runs in 260 AB, and had a slash of .354/.408/.727.

We see the peripatetic life of a backup catcher in the fact that, while he played in at least 29 major league games in each of his 11 seasons, he compiled 1347 minor league plate appearances during this time, too, on nearly equal footing wiith the 1657 he had in the majors.

6/7 N2: Probably just a funky thing in the data and a coincidental pattern, but AL West-style baseball this year, in at least one regard, is not for me. AL West teams have hit 375 home runs, more than any division in baseball, but are well behind the other divisions in doubles. Doubles by division:

AL East 519

NL Central 505

NL West 505

NL East 492

AL Central 483

AL West 426

If you were to play devil’s advocate and defend the AL West, you might contend that home runs and doubles are inversely correlated. And then, since you’d rather have home runs than doubles, that the lack of doubles is merely an unfortunate but necessary casualty in the pursuit of better offense.

However, an inverse home run and double correlation is not reality, based on my 2024 database of batting average qualifiers, in which I found a positive correlation between the rates of .06 (so essentially no correlation). And, perhaps more to the point, the AL West teams collectively have not done a good job of scoring runs; with 1261, they rate fifth of the six divisions, just ahead of the AL Central.

Runs by division:

NL Central 1414

AL East 1395

NL West 1384

NL East 1332

AL West 1261

AL Central 1253

So if grandma gets me an all-expenses-paid trip to Seattle for an Angels-Mariners game (the two teams that have more home runs than doubles), I’ll be grateful, but know in my heart she isn’t the world’s biggest baseball fan.

(No, I don’t have a living grandma, but allow the literary device.)

6/7 N3: Man, counting 2025, triple black type for Corbin Carroll three straight years. Because I am a lover of patterns, this is a thing of beauty. But with his triple Friday night, Jarren Duran has taken the 2025 major league lead with 7. It’s Affirmed and Alydar, as both players had 14 triples last year.

6/7 N4: Thank goodness it was against a left-hander that the Guardians put out an Angel Martinez, David Fry, Jose Ramirez, Carlos Santana, Daniel Schneemann, Gabriel Arias, Nolan Jones, Will Wilson, Dom Nunez lineup Friday night. Still seems a bit troubling.

With 597 home runs combined, Ramirez and Santana are on the doorstep of 600; those other seven guys combine for 95.

6/7 N5: He’s done it! A three-hit game for Soto Friday night. His first of 2025, his first as a Met. O.k., coming in Coors field, perhaps it’s rendered a tiny bit cheap, but you could say he didn’t take a shortcut, since he drew his customary walk. And, while this was a game in which undisputed hits-allowed king Tony Senzatela worked 4 innings, none of Soto’s three hits came against him.

6/7 N6: Jacob Wilson now 13 for 21 in June….Looking at his .369 average and freedom from the base on balls, I’m actually surprised he’s “only” on a pace for 222 hits….One thing is for certain: the shit that is hitting him 5th or lower in the order, which has been done 27 times, must stop. To hell with wins and losses; hits, hits, hits for Jacob is what I want!