Seth Lugo pitching for the Kansas City Royals; CC by License 2.0 Seth Lugo has completely shattered expectations in his first season in Kansas City. The Royals signed Lugo in the 2024 offseason to a two-year, $30 million deal with a player option for the 2026 season. This move was swept aside, as players like Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamammoto stole most of the spotlight in this most recent offseason. However, Lugo has revived his career by pitching like an ace for the Royals. The 34-year-old made his first All-Star team in 2024. His story is one of the most interesting in the ‘24 MLB seas ..read more

Chase Burns of Wake Forest, CC'ed by Liscense 2.0 The 2024 MLB draft class is projected to be one of the best classes in a long time at the top with the hitters like Bazzana, Condon, Wetherholt, and Caglianone being the biggest names. These guys are special and dominant, and we are going to break them down later this week. However, today we are going to dive into the pitchers of this class. They are headlined by big names like Hagen Smith and Chase Burns as well as fellow big college arms like Brody Becht, Trey Yesavge, and Jonathan Santucci. They are joined by big time prep arms Cam Caminit ..read more

Mark Buehrle pitching for the White Sox in 2005; CC by License 2.0 The art of scouting and drafting is not a perfect science. More often than not, high draft picks do not live up to their perceived potential. Whether it can be attributed to organizational failure in development, bad scouting, or simply the injury bug, highly drafted players bust all the time. What doesn’t happen nearly as often is a team finding a player in the late rounds of the draft who becomes a contributor at the highest level. Everyone knows the story of Mike Piazza getting taken by the Dodgers in the 62nd round as a fav ..read more

Paul Skenes pitching for the Indianapolis Indians in 2024; CC by License 2.0 If you’ve kept up with baseball media recently you’ve most likely seen Paul Skenes’ name a lot. Paul Skenes was the #1 overall pick in the 2023 MLB draft out of LSU. He was a big part of LSU’s success in 2023, where they ended up winning the College World Series. Skenes pitched only five games in 2023 in the minors and seven games in 2024 before being called up to the show. He made his debut on May 11, 2024, striking out seven batters and touching 100 MPH with his fastball 17 times. Pretty good for a rookie making hi ..read more

Aaron Judge on the Yankees; CC by License 2.0 When the New York Yankees acquired Juan Soto in the offseason, the franchise was letting the baseball world know that they meant business. The Yankees sent five players to San Diego to make the move happen, while the Padres shipped off Soto and outfielder Trent Grisham to the Bronx. This move set the baseball scene on fire. This was one of the times when preseason predictions of two sluggers that would go nuclear in New York came true. The “short porch” with Soto, plus the alien-like, power-hitting talent of Judge, was a combination that shot the ..read more

Ken Griffey Jr. swinging away, CCed by Liscense 2.0 As detailed in my fellow writer Perry Nadreau’s article, Baseball Savant’s new bat tracking data has added an incredible tool to the repertoires of analysts, writers, and everyday fans of the game alike when it comes to breaking down the best and worst hitters in the league. If you don’t fall into one of those categories, or if you do but haven’t yet delved into the world of bat tracking data, then I highly suggest you take a look at Perry’s piece so that you don’t get lost reading this one. These new metrics have enabled us to va ..read more

A Swinging Strike; CC'ed by License 2.0 Angel Hernandez, one of the most disliked umpires of all time, has just retired. Him being awful at his job was one of the few things that practically all baseball fans could agree on, and he will likely be the most hated umpire of all time for the rest of history. Not because he was just that insanely bad, but rather because MLB is just a few years away from adding robot umpires to the game. Robot Umpires, or more technically known as the ABS system (Automated Ball Strike system), has been something some fans of MLB have wanted for a while now, and it ..read more

LaMonte Wade Jr on the San Francisco Giants; CC by License 2.0 The San Francisco Giants are winning a lot of baseball games. This squad has won nine of their last 11 games, with the majority of those wins happening on the road. What is interesting about this recent success is that it has come after some brutal injury luck for the would-be stars of this team.  Jung-Hoo Lee, the Giants’ biggest offseason signing, went down to a season-ending shoulder injury. Michael Conforto, the hottest Giants hitter through the first month of the season, has been sidelined by a hamstring injury. Blake S ..read more

Javier Baez playing for the Detroit Tigers; CC by License 2.0 In 2016, the Chicago Cubs broke the franchise’s 108-year World Series drought with a seven-game series win over the Cleveland Indians. That season, the Cubs sent seven players to the All-Star Game, including infielders Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Addison Russell, and Ben Zobrist, outfielder Dexter Fowler, and pitchers Jake Arrieta and John Lester. In the years following the title, however, it was second baseman (turned shortstop) Javier Baez who would leave arguably the greatest impact on the Chicago teams of the late 2010s. Born ..read more

Oakland Coliseum; CC by License 2.0 Mason Miller of the Oakland A’s has taken Major League Baseball by storm this season, coming out of the bullpen with an electric fastball reaching 103.7 mph and while striking out 56.7% of batters he’s faced so far. He is also yet to allow a single barrelled ball in his first 285 pitches this season, which is a remarkable feat when you consider the fact that the average MLB pitcher allows 7 in every 100 pitches thrown. He’s saved 8 games for the A’s, totaling nearly half of the A’s current total of 19 wins, and is rumored to be on the trading block at the ..read more