Opening Day News & Notes
Thoughts on a few notable roster situations and what to watch for on Opening Day
Happy Opening Day! We made it through another offseason. I’d say it was the most fun one to date, and this should be a fantastic season in Major League Baseball and here at MLB Data Warehouse.
I have to once again repeat my thankfulness for the readers. It’s amazing that I get to do this. I’ve seen huge growth already this year, so I hope I can make it worth everybody’s time.
There aren’t any games until 3:00 eastern today, so we have some time. I wanted to comment on a few recent developments and then give some Opening weekend thoughts.
Cam Smith
You’ve probably already made up your mind. You either have Cam Smith or someone else does. Although I do hear from people all the time who play in eight-team leagues and they’re asking me if they should pick up like Bryan Woo or Joe Ryan. That kind of thing really happens.
My take on Smith is simply, take the shot, but don’t get your hopes up. I would absolutely not be dropping a good player for him. But if he’s free (like you just have to drop your worst player for him), then yeah, go for it. I’d do that.
Just remember, the guy was playing in college 10 months ago. How many hitters have success in their first season against MLB competition?
The Astros (a sharp organization, mind you) think the kid is worth the job. That says a lot more than anything I can say. But there is very likely going to be an adjustment period needed. I’d call it 150 PAs. Probably a month. Smith will probably suck for a month. Do you really want that? And there’s no guarantee that he’ll be great after that, or even during the second half. And who knows, maybe it’s so bad that he gets sent down to AAA in May. That’s a very real possibility; there’s no financial reason for the Astros not to do that.
There is the other possibility that he’s just a stone-cold 99th percentile stud and he starts producing right away and doesn’t stop. It’s possible.
As usual, the decision is league-dependent. Like I said, would I drop my worst player for him and see what he does for the first three weeks? Yes. Would I be looking to spend 5-10% of my FAAB budget for him right now? Nope!
Tigers Bullpen
We are going to have some saves available right out of the gate. The surprising news from Wednesday was that Jason Foley was sent to AAA. For most of draft season, he was the best guess to close games. But hey, APPARENTLY NOT! Here’s what it looks like on the 2025 Bullpen Data sheet:
Don’t ask me, man. I have no idea. I think it’s a hands-off for now. But if you’re forcing my hand, I’d give Beau Brieske a shot. He looked pretty nasty late last year, is right-handed, and has the upper-90s velo.
The legend of Tommy Kahnle might get some shots early on. That’s the guy who only threw a changeup in the playoffs last year. During the regular season, it was 73% changeup usage
Don’t you have to change the name of the pitch if you’re throwing it 73% of the time? Your fastball is the thing that's changing it up, right?
Reds Bullpen
I talked about this last time and didn’t even mention Scott Barlow. That was a mistake, but now Terry Francona shouted out Tony Santillan as the guy who he’d be looking to for saves.
So yeah, it’s anybody’s guess. I wouldn’t be surprised if any one of Pagan, Rogers, Barlow, Santillan, or Ashcraft gets the first save.
I suppose Ashcraft isn’t going to get saves early on. I still like his changes for the long haul, but he’s new to the bullpen, so I doubt they’d put him in that role right away.
For now, it’s even more hands off with the Reds. I think we’re well past the era of teams looking to have a traditional closer.
Jack Leiter & Kumar Rocker
First it looked like neither would make it, and then it looked like one of them would make it, and then BAM - both made it. They both have great stuff and plenty of upside, but they’ve had their shortcomings in their young careers.
Leiter got a look in the Major last year, and he was awful:
9 G, 6 GS, 36 IP, 17.9% K%, 9.8% BB%, 8.83 ERA, 1.71 WHIP, 1.8 HR/9
That was 31 strikeouts, 17 walks, and seven homers allowed in 36 innings. Command seems to be a problem for him. He has not posted good ratios really ever in his career:
It seems like a stretch that he can be a successful Major League pitcher this year, but the stuff is certainly there if he can fix the command issue. Here’s the pitch mix from last year in the Majors:
The fastball checks out, but he wasn’t able to do much with any other pitch type. Those ball rates on the secondaries are atrocious. So that’s what we’ll be watching for in his early starts. Is he getting strikes with the slider/curve?
I like Rocker more than Leiter. He posted elite walk rates in the minors:
He got the Majors last year for a quick cup of coffee:
All of a sudden, he had a walk issue! I’d like to take some shots on him this year. The stuff is filthy, and if the minor league career is any indication, he should be able to throw strikes.
We’ll be watching the starts of these two guys closely. I mean not literally, I don’t watch the games, but I’ll look at those numbers when they come in!
Opening Day Notables
There are a bunch of studs pitching today, obviously. So there’s not a ton to watch for in our quest to find those breakout SPs. But I’ll be interested to see Sean Burke and Clay Holmes. Holmes’ ownership is up there. I doubt he’s available in too many leagues, but Burke is probably on waivers in plenty of your leagues.
The story with him is strike-throwing. He has a 12% BB% in his minor league career. It wasn’t a big issue for him in his short MLB sample last year, but that was just 19 innings.
You are really going to want strong ratios out of a White Sox pitcher, since the wins won’t be there. As a young kid, he’s also not likely to get super deep into games The White Sox probably want to take it a bit easy with him.
I’ll be looking for a ball rate under 35% in these first few starts to get me interested. He’s certainly someone to watch today and for the next few weeks. Here’s the limited data from last year:
Mid-90s fastball with a slider that worked wonders early on. That’s a good pitch mix for strikeouts.
I’ve got a lot to do to get ready for the data to start flowing in! Reminder about the Live Game Tracker! That should be fun to watch this evening. Fire that bad boy up when the games are rolling.
I’ll be back in a bit with a slate preview, and we’ll have an extensive daily notes tomorrow going over everything that happened.