MLB Daily Notes - April 28
A daily automated report of what happened yesterday in Major League Baseball, along with other recent trends and further analysis
The Daily Notes are the flagship resource of MLB Data Warehouse. Every morning, Jon breaks down the current goings on in the fantasy baseball world, and an automated daily report gets you up to date on key stats and trends. Become a paid subscriber at MLB Data Warehouse to get this unlocked in your inbox every morning!
Rough morning for your boy. Work meetings and the projections not working. But it’s squared away now, so I’ve got a few moments to write these here daily notes.
CALL UPS
Travis Bazzana got the call for the Guardians. He’s a second baseman, and he was the #1 overall pick of the 2024 draft. Ahead of Nick Kurtz and JJ Wetherholt, don’t you know.
Here’s what to know!
A .933 OPS this year. His K% has come down from 25% to 21% while he continues to take a bunch of walks. The power doesn’t seem to be there at the moment. Just 14 homers in his 587 career PAs. That’s not likely to get any better in the Majors this year. So you’re hoping for like a 10-12 homer pace the rest of the way home. However, his power fScore is 108. Well above the average prospect. That’s because he’s hit a bunch of doubles, which is a good sign, but not a great sign because we like homers a lot more in the fantasy game than doubles.
He’s made some EV gains this year, though. He sports a 104.8 EV90 and a 1103.3 max on his 68 minor league balls in play. The plurality of them are on the ground:
47% GB%
21% LD%
27% FB%
11.8% Brl%
His air pull rate is poor at 10%. It would seem that his approach is to go to all fields and rack up singles and doubles, and that’s what we’ve seen.
How about speed? His 108 fSpeed score is above average as well, but it’s nowhere near the elite guys.
He’s more of a Wetherholt type prospect than a Konnor Griffin. His plate skills are strong this year, just a 19% K% and an 18% BB% with a 92% Zone-Contact% and a 42% Swing%.
He’s patient. But big league pitchers are going to make him less patient, because they’re going to come right after him.
My guess for his first few hundred PAs in the Majors:
24% K%
10% BB%
6% Brl%
25% attempt rate
If he can keep hitting line drives, he could provide some fantasy value through AVG/OBP and steals. But more likely is that he struggles early on. It’s hard to make this transition, and he’s not the most “tooled out” dude where the power and speed will translate immediately.
For 10 or 12 team redraft leagues, you don’t need to get him if you have a decent 2B already. I added him in my home league ahead of Brooks Lee, which probably won’t work out super well, but I’ve been starting total losers at 2B so I gave it a shot.
JASSON DOMINGUEZ
This went exactly as predicted. Dominguez murked dudes in AAA:
→ .323/.409/.469, 3 HR, 15% K%, 12% BB%, 8 SB, 24% Attempt%
And that made him the easy choice to replace Giancarlo Stanton as he heads for his first IL stint of the year.
He can hit homers and steal bags, and he’s interesting for fantasy leagues in that regard. He’s also still just 23. This could be the year! We’ve said that for at least two years in a row now.
Last year in the Majors (123 GP) he struck out 27% of the time with a 9.6% BB%. Which isn’t horrible. If he can take a step forward to a 24% K% and a 10% BB%, the skills will play and he’ll be pretty useful.
Dominguez is a better add than Bazzana right now, and I do think I’d be giving him a shot in pretty much all roto leagues because of the HR + SB potential. He hit 10 bombs and stole 23 bags last year even while struggling. That shows you something.
Shout outs are due to Ben Rice. He’s the #1 FIRST BASEMAN on the player rater with his 10 homers, .320 AVG, 26 R, and 23 RBI. And he still hasn’t played a ton with just 90 ABs. He’s the #1 catcher in most situations. And he’s #5 overall on my player rater for standard roto.
YESTERDAYS PITCHERS
Ten strikeouts for Ranger Suarez. He’s given up four earned runs three times, but he’s thrown three outings of 6, 8, and 8 scoreless innings in his last four outings. The K% came up to 22% after last night. So he’s back to being a confident start, but still without much upside.
He’s had just seven starts of 9+ strikeouts in his last 63 outings. You’re not getting strikeouts, but the guy knows how to pitch and make it work.
PARKER MESSICK
He’s been one of the best in the league this year. A 1.73 ERA, a 0.88 WHIP, and a newfound 28% K%!
We always thought he might be a guy who can outdo his peripherals with the command the delivery and the left-handedness and all of that. So it’s not shocking to see him outdoing his 12.3% SwStr%. But I still don’t think he’s a high strikeout guy. Maybe 25-26%.
But you’re starting Messick every single time, obviously. He’s getting ahead, he’s throwing six different pitch types, the changeup has been insanely good, and between his four-seamer (33% usage) and that change (23%) usage, he’s allowed an xwOBA below .270. Crazy stuff, good for that guy.
I’m going to the Guardians game next Friday, kinda hoping he’s the guy who lines up for that start.
Here’s the list of SPs with 30+ innings and less than two homers allowed:
Zero HR: Cease
One HR: Schlittler, Kochanowicz, Soriano, Roupp, Fried, M Keller, Messick, Lowder, Lugo, Skubal
Look who is there! JACK KOCHANOWICZ! It’s a lesson on sticktoitiveness. And I cannot believe that word got into the dictionary. STICK-TO-IT-IVE-NESS. Who allowed that into our great language?
Last year: 14% K%, 11% BB%, 1.7 HR/9
This year: 16% K%, 12% BB%, 0.3 HR/9
The only thing he’s doing a lot better hits year is not allowing homers. And he does have a 61.5% GB% this year, which is a big change.
He’s throwing more changeups this year, but fewer sinkers. So it’s not as though he’s gone from FF+SL to SI+CH. I can’t make a lot of sense out of Jack Kochanowicz.
His SIERA is down from 5.35 last year to 4.80. But that’s still a really, really bad SIERA.
There’s no way Jack Kochanowicz keeps pitching this well. And if he does, I’ll delete this entire publication and become a welder or something.
CONNOR PRIELIPP
→ 5.0IP 1H 2ER 2R 5K 3BB
A 13.1% SwStr% last night, but a 41.7% Ball%. He threw the slider 43% of the time last night, so he’s still at 47% slider usage for the year.
The early returns on the four-seamer are bad:
4.3% SwStr%
47% Strike%
43% Ball%
.480 xwOBA
He’s asking for trouble. I’m not confident in his long-term success. And the leash could be pretty short as it sounds like Mick Abel, whose spot Prielipp took, should be back in the next 1-2 weeks.
STEVEN MATZ
→ 7.0IP 4H 2ER 2R 2K 1BB
I gave out this four-leg parlay daddy on X last night, and it hit thanks to the Cardinals scoring four in the ninth. My thinking was that the Cardinals would whallop Wilber Dotel, but they were dominated by him and went to the ninth down 0-2. And then they lit up the Pirates closer.
So I looked cool on X, but my problem was for my own parlay, I included Matz to not get a win because I thought he sucks. And he does suck, but he didn’t suck last night.
He’s throwing strikes, at least. But it’s a sub-13% K-BB% with a 3.87 JA SIERA and a worse 4.22 JA ERA.
You’d think with 80% usage of the sinker and changeup, he’d get a bunch of ground balls. But no! A 36% GB%.
I’ll give Matz this much. What he’s done in his career has never made any sense, and I guess it’s not going to start making sense now.