Payton Tolle is the top pitching prospect in what is arguably baseball’s best farm system. Drafted 50th-overall last summer by the Boston Red Sox out of Texas Christian University, the 22-year-old left-hander features a fastball that Eric Longenhagen has assigned a 70 grade, and not just because of its high octane. Per our lead prospect analyst, the 6-foot-6, 250-pound hurler possessed “the 2024 draft’s most deceptive secondary traits,” which included seven-and-a-half feet of extension.
I asked Tolle about his four-seamer, which sat 95 mph when I saw toe the rubber for the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs versus the Hartford Yard Goats 10 days ago.
“The velo is something we’ve kind of driven hard ever since I got to the Red Sox org,” said Tolle, who was 90-92 in college and is now topping out at 98-99. “I’m buying into the system, buying into how the velo is going to change how everything looks. I also understand that more swing-and-miss is going to come at the top of the zone. At Wichita State, my first year, I felt like I was almost more sinkers, but then I switched up my grip. I brought my fingers closer together and started to have more ride on it.”
Tolle transferred from Wichita State to TCU for his junior year, where he — along with the Horned Frogs coaching staff — “really dove into how the fastball plays and what we can play off of it.” Since turning pro, that evolution has continued with a heavy emphasis on secondary offerings. Whereas his fastball usage as an amateur was often 70-75%, it has been closer to 50% in his recent outings. A work-in-progress changeup has become more prevalent — Tolle got bad swings on a few of them when I saw him in Portland — but a hard breaking ball is currently his top option behind his heater.
“We’ve put a lot of training economy into a slider/cutter/gyro,” explained Tolle. “We’ve kind of called it everything in the book. I’m trying to throw it with a lot of velo. It’s starting to get up to 87-88, and I think I’ve thrown one at 90. I call it a slider, but it’s probably more of a gyro slider. You can call it anything you want, as long as it’s doing what I want.”
And then there is what to call the mountain-sized southpaw’s low-arm-slot delivery. In his report, Longenhagen opined that “it doesn’t look pretty,” adding that “the ugliness of Tolle’s delivery further cloaks his fastball, and the line on it is incredibly difficult for hitters to match.” My quoting those words elicited a smiling response from the good-natured Stillwater, Oklahoma native.
“I guess it’s ugly,” shrugged Tolle. “I never thought it was ugly. My mom always told me I was super pretty. But ugliness… I would prefer to call it uniqueness. I’d rather we use kind words.”
His numbers are quite attractive. Tolle has tossed 67-and-two thirds innings on the season, the last 18 of them with the Sea Dogs, and has a 3.19 ERA, a 2.74 FIP, and a 39.0% strikeout rate. His walk rate is 6.6%, while his BAA is .215.
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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS
Barry Foote went 7 for 15 against Tug McGraw.
Cotton Tierney went 9 for 14 against Clyde Barfoot.
Shanty Hogan went 16 for 34 against Socks Seibold.
Salvador Perez went 10 for 18 against Matt Shoemaker.
Boots Day went 8 for 16 against Steve Blass.
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Nick Lodolo is having a career-best season. The 27-year-old Cincinnati Reds southpaw has started 20 games and fashioned a record of 7-6 with a 3.33 ERA and a 3.98 FIP over 113-and-two-thirds innings. Being at full strength has a lot to do with his success. As MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon pointed out during spring training, Lodolo had spent more days on the IL than healthy since debuting with the National League Central club in 2022.
Being out of action for all but seven games in 2023 due to a stress fracture in his left tibia also played a role in the success he’s having.
“When I was hurt and couldn’t throw, I spent a lot of time just holding a changeup in my hand, getting comfortable with it,” Lodolo told me when the Reds visited Fenway Park earlier this month. “Since coming back from missing almost that whole year, my changeup has been a lot better. It’s still a work in progress — everything always is — but I’m definitely more comfortable with that pitch.”
Batters clearly haven’t been comfortable seeing the pitch. They have just a .176 batting average and a .306 slugging percentage against it this season. At 22.2%, Lodolo’s changeup usage is also the highest of his career.
Asked how simply holding — not actually throwing — a pitch can help improve it, the 6-foot-6 lefty said that it’s a matter of comfort. As he explained, “You can teach guys grips, but if it doesn’t feel good in your hand, you’re probably going to go to something else.” In Lodolo’s case, the grip — “a fairly traditional two-seam changeup” — is the same one he’s always had. He simply hadn’t thrown it as often, nor with as much consistency and command.
Command is a Lodolo strong suit. His 4.9% walk rate this year is third lowest in the senior circuit, while his career mark is a still-stingy 6.9%.
Along with a changeup, Lodolo’s mix comprises four-seamers (28.7%), two-seamers (21.7%), and breaking balls (27.4%). The last of those is categorized as a curveball by Baseball Savant, but he wasn’t nearly that specific when citing the rest of his repertoire. “Along with my fastballs, I have my… whatever you want to call it — slider/curveball/sweeper,” Lodolo told me. “I’ve had it since high school, and still feel that it’s my best pitch.”
While his breaker has always had a lot of horizontal movement, I was nonetheless intrigued by the lefty’s having included “sweeper” in the definition. His thoughts on that label?
“You can call it that, but I’m not purposefully throwing a sweeper,” replied Lododo. “My arm angle just creates that. The grip… I don’t even know what a sweeper grip is, to be honest with you. I’m throwing it the same way I’ve thrown it for years. But again, it’s my best pitch.”
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A quiz:
The St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore in 1954. Since that time, one Orioles pitcher has won as many as 25 games in a single season. Who is it? (A hint: he went on become a broadcast analyst.)
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NEWS NOTES
Daniel Bard and Kyle Gibson each announced his retirement this past week. Gibson went 112-111 with a 4.60 while throwing 1,878 innings over 13 seasons. Bard went 31-35 with 66 saves over 408 appearances, all but 10 in relief, across nine seasons. Along with having had solid careers, both possess well-earned reputations as good teammates.
Jim Clancy, a right-hander who pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays from 1977-1988, and later for the Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves, died on July 14 at age 69. An All-Star in 1982, Clancy was credited with 140 career wins, all but 12 for Toronto. He logged a win in the 1991 World Series while with Atlanta.
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The answer to the quiz is Steve Stone, who went 25-7 for the Orioles in 1980. Mike Cuellar and Dave McNally had 24-win seasons, while Jim Palmer, who won 20 or more eight times, topped out at 23.
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Andy Freed has been the radio voice of the Tampa Bay Rays since 2005, but like most broadcasters he doesn’t call games for the team he grew up following. A Maryland native, Freed rooted for the Baltimore Orioles. His favorite pitcher was Mike Flanagan.
“He pitched the first game I ever went to, August 9th, 1979,” recalled Freed, who’d been born eight years earlier. “Rainy night, Orioles-Brewers, Eddie Murray homered. Flanagan threw a complete game. He was also my first baseball card. I found it on my neighbor’s yard. I think it was a 1977.”
Game One of the 1979 World Series also stands out for the fan-turned-broadcaster.
“Flanagan is in trouble,” Freed remembered. “He’d won 23 games that year and ended up winning the Cy Young, but he’s thrown something like 140 pitches and is facing Willie Stargell with two out in the ninth. The Orioles had led 5-0, but now it was 5-4. Stargell had already homered against him. Flanagan later told the story about how he clearly remembers thinking, ‘I’m going to throw this ball the hardest that I can physically throw it to get it by Willie.’ Lo and behold, he popped it up to the left side, Mark Belanger caught it and the Orioles won Game One.”
The Pirates came back from down three-games-to-one to win that year’s Fall Classic in seven games. Flanagan, who went to become the Orioles GM, took his own life in 2011. “I still get emotional when I think of his death,” Freed told me.
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A random obscure former player snapshot:
The first of Rich Butler’s seven big-league home runs was also the first hit by a Tampa Bay batter in a [Devil] Rays win. Wade Boggs had homered in the 1998 expansion team’s initial game — an 11-6 loss to the Tigers at Tropicana Field — and the following day, Butler left the yard against Detroit’s Bryce Florie in an 11-8 home team victory.
A Toronto-born outfielder, Butler appeared in seven games for the Blue Jays in 1997 before being taken by the D-Rays in the expansion draft and going on to play in 79 games for Tampa Bay across the 1998-1999 seasons. All of his home runs, and 49 of his 53 career hits, came in 1998. His older brother, Rob Butler, played in the bigs with both the Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies. The siblings were together on Team Canada.
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FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Shintaro Fujinami has signed with NPB’s Yokohama DeNA BayStars. The 31-year-old right-hander pitched for the Hanshin Tigers from 2013-2022 before coming stateside to pitch for the Oakland Athletics and Baltimore Orioles at the MLB level, and for the New York Mets and Seattle Mariners in the minors.
Trey Wingenter has a 41.7% strikeout rate and a 1.86 ERA over 31 appearances comprising 29 innings for the Seibu Lions. The 30-yer-old right-hander is in his first NPB season after previously pitching for four MLB teams, primarily the San Diego Padres, from 2018-2024.
Shugo Maki has a 156 wRC+ to go with a .280/.331/.479 slash line and 15 home runs in 363 plate appearances for the Yokohama DeNA BayStars. The 27-year-old second baseman has 113 homers and a 149 wRC+ over four-plus NPB seasons.
Byeong Hyeon Jo is 4-1 with a 1.32 ERA and a 30.9% strikeout rate over 41 innings for the KBO’s SSG Landers. The 23-year-old right-hander has allowed 24 hits and issued eight free passes.
Michael Wielansky has 23 steals in 25 attempts to go with a .348/.428/.459 slash line over 202 plate appearances for the Mexican League’s Charros de Jalisco. The 28-year-old infielder out of the College of Wooster played in the Houston Astros system from 2018-2021, and in the San Francisco Giants system in 2023.
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Ceddanne Rafaela is breaking out with the bat this season — Davy Andrews wrote about it just a few days ago — and an improved ability to handle heaters is a big reason why. Lowering his hands and decreasing his pre-pitch movement has allowed that to happen.
“He understands what he needs to do,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora explained following a Red Sox win just before the All-Star break. “Obviously, the adjustments in the offseason. I’m a big believer that the big moves don’t work here. If you look at his numbers last year on fastballs, he wasn’t catching up to fastballs… I talked to him toward the end of the season. I was like, ‘We need to do this; we need to get your hands tighter.’ He worked on it. He got to spring training and felt good about it. Little by little, they’re creeping lower and lower. He’s able to catch up to the fastball now.”
Rafaela had a .224 batting average, a .448 slugging percentage, and a 37.9% whiff rate on four-seamers last year. So far this season, those numbers are .310, .598, and 22.6%. Making contact far more frequently, the free-swinger’s overall strikeout rate is a better-than-league-average 18.9%.
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Rafaela hit a breaking ball when he walked off Tampa Bay’s Pete Fairbanks with a home run over the Green Monster last weekend. He supplied a quality quote after the game.
“I faced him the last time they were here,” Rafaela told reporters. “He threw me a curveball that I didn’t swing [at]. Since then, I wanted to see that curveball again. I mean, he’s a great pitcher. He threw a great pitch. I made a great swing.”
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FARM NOTES
Jeremiah Jackson is slashing .311/.337/.530 with 13 home runs and a 132 wRC+ over 333 plate appearances between Double-A Chesapeake and Triple-A Norfolk. The 25-year-old multi-position infielder signed a minor league deal with the Baltimore Orioles in November after previously playing in the Los Angeles Angels and New York Mets systems.
Wilder Dalis is slashing .355/.435/.533 with three home runs and a 150 wRC+ over 203 plate appearances in the Arizona Complex League. An honorable mention when our Colorado Rockies Top Prospects list came out in January, the 18-year-old shortstop/third baseman was signed out of Venezuela in May 2023.
Adrian Ardines has a 33.9% strikeout rate, a 3.6% walk rate, and a 2.17 ERA over 29 innings in the Dominican Summer League. Unranked on our recently-released Houston Astros Top Prospects list, the 18-year-old right-hander was signed out of Panama in January of last year.
Sean Paul Liñan has a 33.7% strikeout rate, a 9.8% walk rate, and a 2.74 ERA over 72-and-a-third innings across multiple levels. Ranked 30th when our Los Angeles Dodgers Top Prospects list came out in April, the 20-year-old right-hander from Cartagena, Colombia is currently with the High-A Great Lakes Loons.
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José Ramírez is enjoying an excellent season, which is par for the course. The Cleveland Guardians third baseman boasts a 142 wRC+ and 4.1 WAR, while his career marks in those categories are 130 and 55.5. Going strong at age 32, he is on track for a plaque in Cooperstown.
Which brings me to David Wright, whom I seriously considered, but ultimately didn’t vote for, either of the two times he’s appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot. The erstwhile Mets third sacker had a 133 wRC+ and 51.3 WAR, as well as seven All-Star berths and a pair of Gold Gloves. Ramírez, who hasn’t been awarded a Gold Glove, was named an All-Star for the seventh time this season.
When this season comes to a close, Wright and Ramírez will have played in roughly the same number of games. I expect to one day put a checkmark next the latter’s name — one could reasonably argue he’s already worthy — but what about the former? Despite a lack of longevity limiting his counting stats, Wright clearly has impressive numbers. Hall of Famer? I’m leaning in that direction.
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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE
No longer with Kyodo News, Tokyo-based baseball reporter Jim Allen was able to
share a story on his newsletter that his old employer didn’t want published: How NPB teams have drastically, and often disingenuously, reduced press access.
The KBO players’ association has criticized the Kiwoom Heroes — the Seoul-based club has by far the league’s worst record — for questionable operating practices. Jee-ho Yoo has the story at Yonhap News Agency.
MLB.com’s Michael Clair wrote about notable international players taken in this year’s amateur draft.
Pitcher List’s Jack Foley wrote about how Miami Marlins right-hander Eury Pérez, back from injury, is only scratching the surface.
A shift in ideology has led to a Toronto Blue Jays pitching prospect renaissance. Geoff Pontes has the particulars at Baseball America.
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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS
Toronto Blue Jays batters have a 17.5% strikeout rate, the lowest in the majors. Colorado Rockies batters have a 26.4% strikeout rate, the highest in the majors.
New York Yankees batters have a 10.1% walk rate, the highest in the majors.
Kansas City Royals batters have a 6.4% walk rate, the lowest in the majors.
Kyle Schwarber has 995 hits, including 500 singles and 316 home runs.
Jamey Carroll had 1,000 hits, including 812 singles and 13 home runs.
The Pittsburgh Pirates franchise began in 1882 as Allegheny City, with the club forging a record of 39-39 in its maiden season. As of yesterday, the franchise had an all-time record of 10,878-10,878. Moreover, they hadn’t been under .500 since 1903. (Hat tip to old friend John Perrotto, who made note of the record at Pittsburgh Baseball Now.)
Henry Aaron hit the 755th, and last, home run of his career on today’s date in 1976. The Hall of Famer’s solo shot off of Dick Drago helped propel the Milwaukee Brewers to a 6-2 home win over the California Angels.
New York Yankees right-hander Mel Stottlemyre hit an inside-the-park grand slam against the Boston Red Sox on today’s date in 1965. Stottlemyre went the distance in New York’s 6-2 win, while Bill Monbouquette was saddled with the loss.
On today’s date in 1954, the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians played to a 5-5 tie at Fenway Park when a curfew ended the 16-inning affair at 12:57am. The home team had been one out away from a win when Cleveland’s Bobby Avila hit his second home run of the game with a runner aboard in the ninth. Avila led the junior circuit with a .341 batting average that year.
On today’s date in 1985, Barbaro Garbey plated Alan Trammell with a 15th-inning walk-off single to give the Detroit Tigers a 6-5 win over the Texas Rangers. Garbey had earlier singled home Lou Whitaker to knot the game at 5-5 in the 13th inning. Bill Scherrer — a longtime scout following his playing career — got the win in relief.
Players born on today’s date include Mickey Stanley, a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan who played for the Detroit Tigers from 1964-1978. A four-time Gold Glove-winning centerfielder, Stanley started all seven games of the 1968 World Series at shortstop despite having previously spent just nine games at the position as a professional.
Also born on today’s date was Hunter “Dodo” Lane, a third baseman from Pulaski, Tennessee who went 1-for-15 while playing for the Boston Braves in 1924. The former University of Tennessee football standout’s lone hit came against Brooklyn Robins right-hander Tiny Osborne.
