MLB Daily Notes - June 29
A daily automated report of what happened yesterday in Major League Baseball, along with other recent trends and further analysis
Check out yesterday’s box scores here
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!
My kids just get to wake up and do whatever they want in the mornings. That’s something I’m a little jealous of. Summers as a kid are so elite. I came down this morning and they were sitting there playing Go Fish so nicely, it was a beautiful thing. But then I had to keep going down the stairs to start doing all the work that I need to do this week before the long weekend.
It’s a big week in America. The 250th anniversary of the founding. The SEMIQUINCENTENNIAL, if you will. And you should.
→ SEMI = Half
→ QUINT = 5
→ CENT = 100
Half of five times one hundred gives you 250. Gotta love WORDS, don’t you? Actually, most people don’t seem to care like I do.
So we’re going to be listening to a lot of loud, patriotic country music this week and I’m going shopping for some things that explode this week.
It’s a good life, man. I had myself a day yesterday. There’s something special about having a wife who really likes and supports you. It’s that old trope happy wife, happy life. I think most married men realize the truth in that. A lot of times, though, they say it because their wife is usually on their case about stuff so it’s really nice when things are quiet. That’s not how I really take it, although yeah - it’s never comfortable when your wife isn’t happy with you. There’s just something about it, when you have a family that is all happy and doing what families should do. You really can’t have too bad of a day when you have that going. The happiness floor is very high.
We have got to start with some Pirates talk. My rule is that I love the Pirates and watch every game I can until they’re five games under .500. After that, I quit and find a new team. But they’re sitting at .500 right now and had a big win yesterday. But I’ll tie in some fantasy talk with it, too, because Esmerlyn Valdez showed something this weekend. A couple of dingers and a double. He has his barrel rate up to 33.3% (repeating, of course).
Very few understand the Leeroy Jenkins joke, but to those that do - it’s elite.
It’s an all-or-nothing profile for Valdez.
We’ll see if he can develop into more contact, he didn’t have this kind of huge problem in the minors (many such cases). But what I wanted to shout out was his 461-foot bang-job.
That was just the tenth homer above 460 feet this year. So that’s real power. It takes some kind of athlete to hit a ball that.
I had probably my highest exit velocity of my men’s league season last night. I’m guessing I cranked it the whole way up to 75mph. Direct shot to the pitcher’s gut. It was awesome. He picked it up and threw me out and we lost 4-2 largely because I went 0/3 from the lead-off spot, but it was a solid .800 xBA batted ball event, believe me.
Here’s the 2026 MLB HR distance distributions:
The average homer is just shy of 400 feet. The 90th percentile mark is 430, so anything above that is really cranking some hog.
Crazy that you get the same number of runs for a 460-foot job and a 330-footer. Bryce Eldridge’s game-winning grand slam a couple of weeks ago went 326:
Compare that to Valdez’ smash:
That Eldridge dinger was probably one of the most valuable swings of the bat all season in terms of win probability added. Valdez’s was meaningless. But that’s the way she goes. I think the Pirates should be given five extra wins for that homer.
Any-hoo. Let’s look at some of the big pitching performances from yesterday.
CONNOR PRIELIPP
→ 6.0IP 6H 2ER 2R 10K 0BB
The Road Rockies are still a thing, and Prielipp dominated them yesterday. He was my cash game SP2 and he took me to the promised land once again. 20 whiffs for Prielipp. I also told somebody to choose him as their Sunday streamer on X, so I look pretty sweet in that regard.
The profile for him:
The good:
15.4% K-BB%
.233 xBA
.312 xwOBA
The bad:
10.8% SwStr%
4.29 JA ERA
4.42 ERA (at least two runs given up in seven straight)
The slider hasn’t been nearly as dominant as it was early on, and his fastball is nothing special. But he’s good enough for the bigs. He’s a streamer and a 15-team league target to me.
CHRIS SALE
→ 6.0IP 8H 1ER 2R 10K 1BB
Ten more strikeouts for Sale. He’s been a little bit quiet lately, putting up “good” outings, but nothing spectular really since May.
He had a 33% K% and a 6% BB% in May with a 1.69 ERA. In June, it finished at a 2.35 ERA with a 28% K% and a 5% BB%. So I don’t even know why we’re nitpicking. He’s elite. An almost 24% K-BB% with a 2.10 ERA and eight wins.
Emmet Sheehan - 5.0IP 2H 1ER 1R 5K 2BB
Pretty good stuff there for Sheehan against the Padres. Five strikeouts is mid, but he did have 15 whiffs and a sick 17.9% SwStr%. He’s still suffering big time from this 27% HR/FB. That’s the highest in the league for 10+ GS SPs:
There’s plenty of hope that he can be very good the rest of the season. The home run problem is likely going to stick around, but not to this extent. He’s pretty predictable and he’s a fly ball guy, but his stuff is good.
It’s too many four-seamers and sliders; that’s going to turn into homers. But you can’t blame him too much because both pitches grade out well. Maybe just a few more changies and curve-daddies could help the home run prevention.
I think he’s an add if somebody ended up dropping him.
Carlos Rodon
→ 5.0IP 1H 0ER 2R 6K 4BB
The problem with Rodon is that he cannot throw strikes this this year. Nine starts in now, and his BB% is still above 13%.
A 39% Ball% isn’t so bad that you’d think 13.4% is right for the BB%.
The league average BB% for pitchers between a 38% and 40% Ball% is 10%. Rodon should be able to be about that kind of guy the rest of the season. And that will help a lot, because his stuff is still really good.
Big 13.9% SwStr% with a nice 27% K% and a small .297 xwOBA. I would say that the arrow is pointing up on Rodon, but he’s been a bit frustrating so far with a 1.25 WHIP and three straight outings under six innings pitched.
Kumar Rocker
→ 6.0IP 4H 0ER 0R 5K 1BB
Has he maybe figured something out? Since May 30th:
That’s a lot better. But under the hood, it doesn’t look promising:
The 15% K-BB% is fine, and the 14.2% SwStr% is a good sign. But he’s still throwing for a 38% Ball% and just getting kinda lucky with a 10% HR/FB and a high strand rate.
But okay, he’s not someone we totally attack with hitters. The slider has been vicious since that May 30th date with a 114 MLB DW Grade and a 23.6% SwStr%. Sick pitch. He just doesn’t have a good fastball.
He has one good pitch, it seems, and it’s a slider. I think they should just make him a reliever, he could probably end up being a pretty nasty closer. But the Ranger do hate closers, you have to remember that.
I guess they’ve gotten 15 saves from Jake Latz, so they have been sticking mostly to one guy - which is not normal for them. But ehshe’s seemingly their only good reliever. So that works.
Jack Flaherty
→ 5.0IP 2H 0ER 0R 9K 3BB
This feels good for me, even though I’ve dropped Flaherty everywhere I had him because I don’t trust myself enough. Dude has a 16% K-BB% on the season now, but it’s 22% over his last ten starts. Fastball and slider are both working, and he has a good tertiary curveball. I think he’s good, man. And he goes to Arlington next to face the Rangers.
Sonny Gray
→ 7.33IP 1H 0ER 0R 9K 1BB
He took a no-hitter late into the game. This guy is WEIRD.
20 strikeouts in his last two on just 30 whiffs. He’s been very good since a bad start to the year. The pitch mix since May 1st:
It’s a 26% K% with a low 12.4% SwStr%. But he’s freezing dudes with all of this movement. He’s throwing just 38% true fastballs (FF + SI), and the sweeper has been unreal. A 26.7% SwStr% and 117 Stuff+ on it! Sick pitch. I think he’ll have some bad starts when that pitch is being located, and he’s not a guy to get a ton of whiffs. He’s kinda Nolan McLean like except without the same level of nastiness.