In which ways would a fully-implemented Automated Ball-Strike System [ABS] impact pitching? According to a coordinator I spoke to, one effect could be a further increase in the number of power arms who can get away with attacking the middle area of the zone. Conversely, crafty finesse types will become even less common, as getting calls just off the corners will no longer be possible.
Count Chris Bassitt among those not enamored with the idea.
‘“If you go to a full ABS system, you’re going to develop more throwers and the injury rates are going to spike,” opined the 36-year-old Toronto Blue Jays right-hander. “Then you’ll have to go back to pitching. The only way to stay healthy is to pitch. That’s never going to change in our sport. No matter how many people want to do something different, you have to pitch. There are obviously a number of facets for why people get hurt at the rate they’re getting hurt, but the answer for the injury history of the sport for the last five, ten years is more throwers. I don’t agree with it.”
Seattle Mariners pitching strategist coordinator Trent Blank offered a more measured take on the ABS.
“There is talk of different parts of the zone disappearing, so maybe there is a type of pitcher that gets phased out a little bit,” Blank told me. “But I think we’ll eventually find a way to phase them back in. I don’t have anything specific on [the ABS system] though, like how we’ll be attacking it or what we’re anticipating. Right now we’re just gathering anecdotals from our managers, our pitching coaches, and some of the players who have had challenges with it.”
One Mariners pitcher in particular shouldn’t have many problem with an ABS system. George Kirby not only has plus stuff, he has plus-plus command. Developing more Kirbys — to the degree that’s even possible — could be the key.
“The same things that play well with ABS are the same things that play well with a pitcher in general,” Blanks said to that idea, “ But I imagine there will be a little bit of a learning curve for all types of pitchers.”
I asked Kirby what a full ABS system might mean for hurlers a whole.
“You may not get a call on the corner like you’re used to,” replied the right-hander with the minuscule 3.1% walk rate. “But I don’t think the ABS is going to make much of a difference. You shouldn’t worry about it. You should just keep throwing and worry about getting people out.”
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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS
Buster Posey went 6 for 30 against Kyle Hendricks.
Dale Murphy went 2 for 34 against Greg Maddux.
Luis Gonzalez went 0 for 16 against Jamie Moyer.
Shawn Green went 0 for 15 against Bob Tewksbury.
Bryce Harper went 0 for 11 against Josh Tomlin.
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Which player will be the key to the Arizona Diamondbacks’ success this season? I asked that question to Jack Sommers, who covers the club for SI.com.
“The Diamondbacks have created a lot of organizational depth, which gives them a solid floor,” opined Sommers. “But in order to battle through the tough National League, their stars need to perform like stars over a full season. On offense that means Corbin Carroll must avoid any long slumps like the first half of 2024, and Ketel Marte must at least come close to replicating his career year. Corbin Burnes is dependable, but Zac Gallen needs to regain ace-like form to truly provide the one-two punch that can lead to longer winning streaks, Forced to pick just one, I’d say Gallen needs to provide the team a very strong walk year.”
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The key player to the San Diego Padres season? I asked the team’s radio play-by-play voice to offer his perspective.
“As tempting as it is to give a sneaky, non-obvious answer to the question, the reality of sports is so often that a team will go as far as its stars will take it,” Jesse Agler told me. “And the 2025 Padres, thankfully, from my perspective have some serious stars. Manny Machado, Jackson Merrill, and some really talented starting pitchers will all be part of the reason why the Padres should be in serious playoff contention all season long.
“If I have to give one name, it’s going to be Fernando Tatis Jr.,” continued Agler. “His last mostly healthy season was 2021 when he led the National League with 42 homers and put up [6.8 WAR] in 130 games. He looks like the healthy, normal, bouncy version of himself this spring, and if he’s able to get back towards that level of production, combined with what those other guys bring, this will be another thrilling year in San Diego.”
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John W. Miller’s new book, The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented, and Reinvented Baseball, includes a great set of facts within its opening pages. The following two sentences encapsulate how successful the Baltimore Orioles were with Weaver at the helm.
“In the twelve seasons between 1968-1982, not counting the strike seasons of 1972 and 1981, Weaver won at least 90 games in 11 seasons, and averaged 97 wins. The Orioles won more games, and recorded a better run differential, than any other team in baseball.”
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A quiz:
Jackie Robinson broke MLB’s color barrier in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Which Dodgers minor-league affiliate did Robinson play for in 1946, and which Negro American League team did he suit up for prior to being signed by Branch Rickey?
The answers can be found below.
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NEWS NOTES
The Padres announced that Jake Peavy has joined the organization as a special assistant. A member of the team’s Hall of Fame, Peavy won the NL Cy Young Award pitching for San Diego in 2007.
SABR’s Oral History Committee will be hosting a live Zoom interview with former Atlanta Braves star Dale Murphy on April 16. More information can be found here.
Jim Breazeale, a first baseman who appeared in 89 games across the 1969-1978 seasons, died on March 13 at age 75. The Houston native played for the Atlanta Braves and Chicago White Sox, logging 40 hits in 179 at-bats. He homered nine times.
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The answer to the quiz is the Montreal Royals and the Kansas City Monarchs.
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Bud Black isn’t the biggest fan of offseason facilities. The Colorado Rockies manager obviously wants his players to get better, but he’d prefer that happen via the tutelage of instructors within the organization.
“We’ve talked about it as managers and coaches,” Black said. “The offseason facilities that guys go to — Driveline, Tread, The Ranch, you name it. Hitting labs, hitting coaches. They leave their professional coaches and go to these facilities and get coached again. Sometimes it can affect a hitter positively, but more often than not, negatively. So, they come in trying to do something different than they did the year before [and] we’ve got to rework them. It’s happening everywhere. All teams.”
The Rockies — an organization that has never been cutting edge — has taken steps to make in-house training more accessible. Moreover, they are trying to catch up to the competition in terms of modernity.
“We’ve built a lab with all the technology that every facility in the public sector has,” explained Black. “We encourage our guys… and we have a number of guys who come in and use our lab. We have two guy [performance science manager Brandon Stone and performance science coordinator Emilio Martinez] who are here year round. Guys hit. Bat speed. Exit velocity. Launch angle. You name it. Kinetic movements. More teams are doing this to, obviously, help the organization, but also to combat some of the off-site programs that guys go to.”
The Rockies “lab” opened a year ago January, making this past offseason the first full offseason it has been utilized.
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Referencing his team’s young players, Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy told a small group of reporters, including yours truly, that player development in the majors is “a real thing.” I asked him if he could elaborate.
“Younger guys are getting here, and they’re talented enough, but they haven’t exactly learned the game as much as they’re going to learn the game,” Murphy said. “There’s more to learn, and little adjustments, to keep them in the big leagues.”
Keeping players on the field is currently an issue for the NL Central club. Injuries have at least temporarily hamstrung Milwaukee’s pitching depth, as has a suspension dating back to last season that will have Abner Uribe unavailable for the first four games of the regular season.
Murphy had earlier said that “The opening day roster is one day.” Brewers beat writer Adam McCalvy brought that up, then asked the personable manager if creativity was needed to fill the void.
“With Tobias [Myers] down, with [Nestor] Cortes and the birth of his first, you look at that and say, ‘Where do we go from this; how are we going to get the innings?,” Murphy responded. “You’ve got the Uribe situation. It does become a creative thing. I’m glad we have the people to help how we’re going to get through it. Depth from jump street. You know what I mean?”
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Which player is the key to the Brewers’ season? I asked the MLB.com reporter for his opinion.
“William Contreras,” said McCalvy. “The Brewers lost Willy Adames’s team-leading power to free agency and are limping toward opening day down three candidates for the starting rotation [Myers, Aaron Ashby, and DL Hall] while erstwhile ace Brandon Woodruff continues his comeback from shoulder surgery and rookie Robert Gasser works back from Tommy John surgery.
“Contreras could be the key holding things together in both areas. He set a career high for home runs last season while ranking in the 94th percentile in average exit velocity, and in the 91st percentile in hard-hit rate. Behind the plate, he’s the glue for a staff that will have many moving parts in the early going, with five starting pitchers on the injured list.”
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Continuing with keys to teams’ seasons, longtime San Francisco Chronicle — and now San Francisco Standard — scribe,John Shea weighed in on the Giants.
“Few pitchers in Arizona and Florida have looked as dominant as Robbie Ray, which is encouraging for the Giants considering the lefty was doing little last spring beyond rehabbing from Tommy John surgery,” Shea told me via email from an arm’s-length away in Scottsdale Stadium press box. “The Giants didn’t re-sign Blake Snell or win the Roki Sasaki sweepstakes or sign coveted free agent Corbin Burnes, but they did bring in 42-year-old Justin Verlander to complement Logan Webb atop the rotation. That wasn’t going to be enough. They needed a solid No 3 to make noise in a stacked National League West. So far, Ray is the man. In four Cactus League starts, he struck out 19 and walked zero in 14-and-a-third innings while posting a 1.26 ERA.
“If Ray shows flashes of his 2021 Cy Young Award form, the Giants could be in a nice position to contend. New baseball boss Buster Posey is stressing pitching and defense, especially at hitter-not-so-friendly Oracle Park, and a bounce-back season by Ray would go a long way toward making the Giants special this year.”
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FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The KBO season got underway on Friday with the Kia Tigers rallying for eight runs in the eighth inning for a 9-2 win over the NC Dinos. Not all of the news was good for the defending Korean Series champions. Do Yeong Kim, last year’s KBO MVP, left the game with a hamstring injury.
Yonny Chirinos had a successful KBO debut, allowing two runs over six innings as the LG Twins routed the Lotte Giants 12-2. The erstwhile Tampa Bay Rays right-hander fanned eight.
Ja-Wook Koo had a home run and four RBIs as the Samsung Lions lambasted the Kiwoom Heroes by a count of 13-5. Yasiel Puig went deep for the losing side.
The NPB season kicks off later this week. The Yokohama DeNA BayStars are the defending Japan Series champions.
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It’s not new news, at least not for Mariners fans, but I didn’t know until talking to him earlier this week that Rick Rizzs was injured in action on March 10. For the first time in his four decades behind the mic, the Seattle broadcaster was struck by a foul ball while calling a game. It happened at Milwaukee’s spring training venue.
“We were in Maryvale, “Rizzs explained. “I was doing play-by-play and Rhys Hoskins lined the ball back into the broadcast booth. It knocked me off my chair onto the floor.”
Rizzs was shaken — as was broadcast partner Gary Hill — but as the saying goes, the show must go on.
“The [Mariners medical director] came over and checked me out, and I passed the concussion test,” said Rizzs. “I missed an inning, then did the rest of the game with a lump on the back of my head bigger than an egg.”
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A random obscure former player snapshot:
Cupid Childs was probably the best second baseman of the nineteenth century. Playing from 1890-1901 (he also appeared in two games in 1888), the Calvert County, Maryland native slashed .306/.416/.389 with a 123 wRC+ and 45.6 WAR. No player during that period had a higher OBP or more WAR, nor as many runs scored, hits, or walks. Moreover, his strikeout rate was just 3.6%. A mainstay at his position, Childs — a Cleveland Spider in eight of his 12-plus seasons — played all but one of his 1,457 career games at second base. His given name was Clarence Lemuel.
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A few weeks ago I linked a story from SportsNet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith that told of how Blue Jays outfield prospect Alan Roden put astrophysics on pause to pursue his MLB dream. Days later, I asked Toronto manager John Schneider about Roden, who has been one of the team’s hottest hitters this spring.
“He’s a smart guy,” said Schneider. “When you can blend physics, astrophysics, into the swing, you’ve got a pretty good shot. But he’s kind of a poster boy of player development; we’ve asked him to get better at things and he’s done it. And he’s done it really quickly. Couple that with a really good idea of the strike zone, and a good idea of what his swing does… he’s done really well.”
Following up, I asked Schneider if the Blue Jays have any astrophysics classes in their player development program.
“Not that I know of, but this place is pretty big, so they might have a classroom tucked away somewhere,” replied Schneider. “But no. I think he’s leading the charge in that category.”
Asked about Roden’s chances of breaking camp with the big-league team, Schneider said, “He can play at the major-league level, and whenever that is, that’s when it is.”
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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE
At NBC News, Kimmy Yam wrote about how Japanese superstars are helping to revitalize baseball.
Rylee Pay is blazing a trail as Triple-A Tacoma’s radio play-by-play broadcaster. Daniel Kramer wrote about her for MLB.com.
The Baltimore Orioles broke a record last year, and no one seemed to notice. Jordan Ellenberg wrote about it at Slate.
Are the Seattle Mariners a good defensive team? Mark Simon explored that question at Sports Info Solutions.
The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey wrote about how Craig Breslow’s Red Sox front office audit resulted in a number of painful cuts, particularly in the scouting department (subscription required).
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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS
The Kansas City Royals joined the American League in 1969 and won their first two games by identical scores of 4-3. Each was an extra-inning walk-off against the Minnesota Twins. The first came on a 12th-inning single by Joe Keough, the second on a 17th-inning single by Lou Piniella.
Charlie Manuel had exactly 1,000 managerial wins. He hit four home runs during his playing career, the last of them off of Catfish Hunter.
Craig Counsell’s father was a left-handed-hitting outfielder in the Minnesota Twins system from 1964-1967. John Counsell topped out in A-ball, playing primarily with the Midwest League’s Wisconsin Rapids Twins.
The Cincinnati Reds signed Terry Francona as a free agent on today’s date in 1987. Francona slashed .227/.266/.295 with three home runs in what turned out to be his lone Cincinnati season.
The Atlanta Braves released Glenn Williams, whom they had signed as a 16-year-old seven years earlier, on today’s date in 2000. The native of New South Wales, Australia later went 17-for-40 for the Minnesota Twins in 2005, hitting safely in all 13 games he played as a major-leaguer. No other player in MLB history has appeared in as many games and recorded a hit in all of them.
Players born on today’s date include Cy Slapnicka, a right-hander from Cedar Rapids, Iowa whose big-league career comprised three games for the Chicago Cubs in 1911, and seven games for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1918. Later the general manager of the Cleveland Indians, Slapnicka went 1-6 with 4.30 ERA, one of his losses coming in a 1-0 defeat in which he allowed four hits over 13 frames.
Also born on today’s date was Farmer Weaver, an outfielder/catcher who played for a pair of big-league teams, primarily the Louisville Colonels, from 1888-1894. On August 12, 1890, the Parkersburg, West Virginia native hit for the cycle while going 6-for-6, a feat that remained unmatched until Ian Kinsler turned the trick with the Texas Rangers in 2009. Weaver’s time in the minors included stints with the Inland Empire League’s Walla Walla Sharpshooters, and the Kansas State League’s Strong City-Cottonwood Falls Twins City/Larned Cow.
Robert Riesener went 20-0 with a 2.16 ERA over 204 innings for the Evangeline League’s Alexandria Aces in 1957. He never reached the majors.
