MLB Daily Notes - April 7
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!
Hitters
CAM SMITH
2025:
28% K%, 8.7% BB%, 6.9% Brl%, 48% Swing%, 82% Z-Cont%, 45% GB%
2026:
24% K%, 16% BB%, 19.2% Brl%, 47% Swing%, 80% Z-Cont%, 42% GB%
Substack keeps adding different formatting stuff. That’s called a “callout block”, and I am not sure how it’s going to look when I publish this thing.
Smith homered in Coors last night and he’s up to a .283 xBA with a .410 xwOBA on a 1.017 OPS. That’s a super hefty walk rate for a guy swinging 47% of the time. Maybe he’s just not seeing strikes. But yeah, Smith was a somewhat easy guy to call a breakout, and the early signs are very good.
I believe he should be added in all leagues. Not because of the hot ten-game start he’s had to the year, but because of the SKILLS. He has huge bat speed and strong foot speed, and he’s super young.
It’s not easy to go for a high barrel rate and a lower K% even in a two-week sample. The full list of hitters so far with:
40+ PA
Brl% above 15%
K% below 25%
You’ll almost never find known bad hitters on this list. It’s not something that Javier Baez slips into by random chance. It’s a good sign that these guys are good. So you can raise your confidence a bit in Sal Stewart, Wilyer Abreu, Michael Harris, Drake Baldwin, and Maikel Garcia. Stewart hasn’t made any headlines in the last few days but he’s still chilling with a .353/.476/.618 slash line.
Maikel Garcia is slugging again with an 18% Brl%.
Christian Walker looks pretty good out of the gate with two bombs and a 20% K% on a 15% K%.
And yeah, Baldwin looks like a potential catcher #1. He’s running away with it early on. Here’s the MLB DW roto player rater:
Your top ten overall hitters so far:
Drake Baldwin
Andy Pages
CJ Abrams
Yordan Alvarez
Oneil Cruz
Cam Smith
Yandy Diaz
Ben Rice
Jose Altuve
Brice Turang
That’s all available on the “Player Rater” page of the web app. I’m going to do a “free look Friday”, I think this week. My idea is to program the app to simply not ask for a password on Fridays. So everybody will have access to everything, including the PRO stuff.
I put together a little stat comparison sheet in the main Google Sheet workbook for all of you paid subs. It’s called “Hitter Stat Comp”, and it will show you rows for 2025 and 2026 of these stats:
You can feed that data to an AI bot and ask it questions. I looked for the guys with improved bat speed AND zone contact to try to find the dudes swinging harder who haven’t given up contact abilities so far:
Do with that what you will. I’m not sure anything is actionable at this point.
JORDAN WALKER
The daily Jordan Walker update. He homered again last night to bring him to a .314/.385/.629 slash line. He has a 21% Brl% with a 28% K%. The GB% is down to 38%, and the fly ball rate matches it at 38%. He also can steal bags.
That’s another high-upside outfielder to take a flier on. What do you have to lose? The return could be one you’re upset you missed out on.
Some other low-owned hitters crushing the ball (xwOBA):
Ryan O’Hearn .395
TJ Rumfield .370
Brady House .368
Brayan Roccio .359
Adolis Garcia .352
Jake Meyers .352
Miguel Vargas .350
Luis Garcia Jr. .348
Evan Carter .344
Max Muncy (ATH) .333
Dualton Varsho .333
Brandon Marsh .332
Pitchers
Here’s a screenshot of yesterday’s SP data.
Jacob deGrom had to leave the game with a knee thing. Doesn’t sound serious, but that’s two minor injuries already. His debut was pushed back a few days because of a neck thing, and now a knee thing might delay him again. And I’ve personally very exposed to deGrom. I have him in the two leagues I want to win the most. Be careful who you expose yourself to. That’s what I’ve always said.