MLB Daily Notes - May 4
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!
JOSH JUNG
This guy is #6 on the player rater at third base.
Sal Stewart
Jose Ramirez
Ildemaro Vargas
Max Muncy
Junior Caminero
Josh Jung
So I guess he’d be #5 in leagues where Stewart doesn’t have 3B.
His K% is down ten points, his BB% is up 2.6 points, his HR% is up 0.5 points. He’s making a bunch of contact and hitting a ton of line drives (32% LD%, 44% Sweet Spot%, .359 BABIP).
He started the year unlucky, but the lines have switched sides lately:
Both lines are above the league average of .320 since mid-April, but his actual is well above his expected.
He’s not barreling the ball very much (5.2% Brl%), and the EV90 is at just 104.6. His max EV is 107.8.
The bat speed is up, but it’s still not an elite mark, and he’s hitting the ball with the same EVs as last year:
This is largely a lucky streak of just hitting a ton of line drives and racking up base hits. But at the same time, the plate discipline gains are huge and real.
I think almost surely Jung will slide out of the top ten at the third base position, but it’s not all luck going on here.
YANDY DIAZ
The first player rater is interesting:
Ben Rice
Matt Olson
Christian Walker
Yandy Diaz
Ryan O’Hearn
Alec Burleson
Willson Contreras
Vlad Guerrero Jr.
Jonathan Aranda
Bryce Harper
No Nick Kurtz, but this is a player rater that doesn’t consider OBP at all.
Yandy Diaz has matched his HR% from last year, which I didn’t think was possible going from Steinbrenner back to Tropicana.
Yandy is still hitting for a 49% GB% and a 5.9% Brl%, and he almost never pulls it in the air (5%), so I’m really not buying the home runs.
But he gets so many balls in play (12% K%, 8% BB% - that’s a BIP in 80% of his trips to the plate), and he’s always hitting the ball hard (106 EV90), so he’ll “luck” into a few homers here and there. It’s not really luck, but you get what I’m saying.
COLE YOUNG
He’s hitting .266/.333/.387 for the Mariners with a 23% K%, an 8% BB%, a .275 xBA, and a .341 xwOBA. The EVs aren’t elite, but they’re not awful either (104.1 EV90). He’s +0.016 over expectation in xwOBA, which is good. His air pull is strong at 19%, and he’s GB% is very low at 33%.
He’s also kicked in two steals (11% attempt rate), so he’s been good, and he’s in the top five at the second base position. The skills are all pretty middling, and eventually we’d think he’s going to lose the job to Colt Emerson, but for now things are pretty good and he should be a bit more owned than he is.
CHASE DeLAUTER
The home run slump is over. He hit five in the first seven games of the season, and then nothing until yesterday.
But the xwOBA has been above the league average all year, and his plate discipline has been terrific.
90% Zone Contact%
40% Swing
60% Zone-Swing
10.8% K%
13.1% BB%
.287 xBA
.370 xwOBA
It’s pretty wild he went that long without a homer. His EV90 is strong at 105.7, and his air pull is at 18% with a 32% GB% overall. It’s a very good profile. He’s must-start in all leagues, I’d say, but he’s probably better for points leagues where that plate discipline really helps you out.
MARK VIENTOS
Super slow start, but a homer yesterday got some of the numbers looking better. He’s at a .250/.297/.440 slash line with a 7.9% Brl%, a .250 xBA, and a .316 xwOBA.
The K% is still fine at 24%. He just doesn’t hit the ball super hard and struggles with angles. I don’t think he’ll ever be a 12-team guy again.
CALL-UPS
Chase Petty & Bryce Eldridge are on their way to the bigs.
I wouldn’t recommend either guy for your more shallow leagues. Eldrige has huge power, but it comes with a 30% K% (in the minors) and a 67% Contact%.
He doesn’t swing very much (41% Swing%), which doesn’t help with the strikeout rate since he’s voluntarily getting behind in counts. The contact rates aren’t all that pathetic. I mean they’re not Spencer Jones level stuff.
Eldridge: 82% Z-Contact%, 67% Contact%
Spencer Jones: 66% Z-Contact%, 58% Contact%
Eldridge will strike out a bunch and he’ll be limited in power by the home park. But he’s a fun dude to watch.
As for Chase Petty, he’s made some splashes in AAA, but his K% is down to 27% after three pretty pedestrian strikeout outings. The K% is way up from last year, when he was under 20% in the minors.
His SwStr% of 14.5% is good, but the 47.4% Strike% is mediocre. He has a double-digit walk rate and there’s really nothing in the pitch mix to get excited about. But he could end up being decent. At the very least, we’d think he’s better than Brady Singer and Brandon Williamson.
PITCHERS
Joe Ryan
He left the game in the first inning, and it’s the dreaded ELBOW SORENESS. It’s good news for Connor Prielipp’s chances to stick in the rotation when Mick Abel returns.
It gives us a chance to check in on Zebby Matthews.
Rough start to the year giving up ten earned runs in those first two outings, but better lately wiht a 13:4 K:BB and just one run allowed in the last two. His K% is 29.5% in the last four starts with a 6.4% BB%.
Maybe we’ll get a look at him if Prielipp doesn’t end up being able to hang or if they give up on SWR or Ober or someone else gets hurt.
Griffin Canning - 5.0IP 3H 1ER 1R 7K 3BB
Well, well, well. We’re doing this one again! 21.9% SwStr%! But a 42% Ball%.
His fastball was great yesterday, but I don’t think that will stay. I wouldn’t budge at all on Canning, but he’s back, and it was a good outing yesterday.
Parker Messick 5.0IP 6H 4ER 4R 6K 0BB
Little bit of trouble for Messick there! He gave up three homers after just giving up one all season before that. But it was all pretty good under the hood with a 20% SwStr% and a 30.4% Ball%. No reason to worry, sometimes they just get you a few times.
Logan Henderson 6.0IP 3H 2ER 2R 8K 0BB
Good thing they let that guy get super-seasoned up in AAA!
I’m confused about this stuff. I can understand letting a hitter dominate in AAA for a little bit if they haven’t been there before. Maybe they need to see that higher level of pitcher for an extended prior so they can make a smoother transition to the Majors. Maybe. I don’t know.
In the case of a guy like Konnor Griffin, I had questions about it. My thinking is that these hitters are very likely to struggle for 100-200 PAs no matter how long they’ve been in the minors. It’s not as though the step up from AAA to MLB is the same as the other progressive steps. Here’s how I view it in my mind:
I don’t know if that’s true. But since MLB is the top level, as high as you can go, it would make sense that it’s a much higher step as I’ve displayed it there.
So if the guy is probably going to need that 150 PA adjustment in the MLB no matter what, why not just start it earlier? That all assumes that you’re confident the guy can eventually make the step.
I could be totally wrong about this, the highest level baseball I’ve ever played is in the Sappy Moffitt League in South Bend, Indiana. A prestigious league in the community, no doubt, but at best it’s like average high school league competition. It might even be like competitive middle school competition. It’s not impressive.
That’s all just about hitters, though.
With pitchers, I think it’s different. The pitcher has the ball. They dictate the play. They don’t need to adjust to their competition the same way or to the same extent that a hitter does. Paul Skenes pretty obviously could have gone straight from college to MLB and did very well. Because the pitches he was already throwing were good enough. If your pitches are good enough, you just go face whatever lineup and throw them.
And from every single indicator last year that Henderson gave, his stuff seemed more than good enough to be a top five SP for the Brewers. So why all of this time in AAA?
I’m willing to admit that probably the Brewers know what they’re doing. And it doesn’t matter. Henderson is here now, and there’s no way he’s going back to AAA now. Right… right!?
Chase Burns 7.0IP 3H 0ER 0R 7K 1BB
This is what happens to you when you start guessing about injuries and reacting to weird things that happen in the spring. You end up dropping a dude from your like #17 SP outside of the top 35, and you draft Emmet Sheehan instead of him.
Burns has been elite in the bigs (2025-2026) with a 24% K%-BB%. He cooked the Pirates yesterday and now has a 2.43 JA SIERA dating back to last year. No trouble with the elbow, and he looks like an SP1 in fantasy.
Trey Yesavage 4.0IP 5H 1ER 1R 6K 3BB
Six strikeouts and three walks, perfectly fine. The fastball is at an 11.8% SwStr% now with a 53% Strike% and a 28% Ball%. So he’s landing that 94mph heater in the zone and putting it where it needs to be.