The Spring Signal, February 23rd
Skubal's communist compromise, Zac Veen makes weight, and standout pitcher performances that actually don't matter cause it's February
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Hunter has no power and has apparently been buried below several feet of snow. So he is now deceased. It was nice knowing him. So it’s Jon giving us an update, and it feels good. I’m ready for this one.
Tarik Skubal’s WBC Compromise
Skubal will make one start for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic and then go back to Tigers camp. The classic American mindset. Everybody wants both things. We think we can have all of everything. And you can’t. If Skubal wants to prioritize this contract year, that’s fine. If he wanted to go all in to make sure the USA brings home this WBC crown, that would be awesome. It would be more fun for us. But he’s not going to do that, but he also didn’t want to do the first one. So this is the lame compromise he ends up with. He’ll go throw a few innings against the Brits, who couldn’t even get Aroldis Chapman on the team, and then he’ll be done. What’s the point, man. Pick a lane. If you stand in the middle of the road, you get hit by a truck.
I’m not actually all that upset about it. But a little bit.
Zac Veen
He unloaded on a walk-off homer today. It registered as the hardest-hit ball of the day.
It was a home game for the Rockies, so you can’t trust the EVs. It seems like that gun is still busted up. His max EV per the Prospect Analysis Dashboard (2024-2025) was under 109.
But this goes perfectly with the narrative street we already had paved for him. He came into camp apparently having kicked some alcohol issues and he had put on a ton of weight. They say he gained 43 pounds this offseason, which is either BS or mostly bad news. You can probably only add 5-10 pounds of muscle in a 3-4 month span, and even that is a pretty aggressive estimate. So if he really is 40 pounds heavier than before, that’s not all weight that you actually want to have.
Buddy has always had talent though! He swiped 55 bags in 2022 and has gone for 22 homers and 34 steals in 152 games these last two years.
With a decent spring, he’ll make the Rockies team out of camp (he’s seen MLB time in the past). And the power + speed combination has always been interesting. I wrote him up in the Rockies preview back in October when I started that monstrosity of a series, 40+ pounds ago for Veen, I guess!
He didn’t start today, but in his two starts so far, he’s hit 8th. Here’s his page from the dope new lineup tracker.
That’s going to be awesome to look at when we get pretty deep into the spring. We’ll keep an eye on Veen, but I’m very much skeptical of the hype right now.
I think I’m just skeptical of any hype anywhere. I was even complaining about people being excited about Konnor Griffin hitting a hard fly ball that was knocked down by the wind the other day. Maybe I should try to change my ways.
KAZUMA OKAMOTO
Actually, hold on, I have another bucket of water to dump. Dude cracks a home run to center today, and everybody’s on his jock too. IT WAS ON A SWEEPER! Did I miss something where sweepers are really hard to hit for homers or something? Sweepers were the fourth-most barreled pitch last year.
I don’t know, I should stop hating, I guess. I’m just seeing people react to single events as if they should change our minds. Like, yeah, Okamoto can hit home runs. And it’s probably right to be willing to adjust our rankings and projections on him as we get this spring data, since we have so little data on him to draw from, but I’m not easily moved.
I have drafted him a couple of times in Best Ball. He’s really cheap there. I like him fine. My guess is that, as a hitter, he’s Matt Chapman with fewer steals.
CUBS SIGN CONFORTO
It might not go anywhere - it was a minor league deal. It wasn’t a great sign for Conforto that it took this long. But he was rather unlucky last year and still looked like he could hang. So maybe he makes the Cubs as a strong-side platoon bat. But we’re a long ways from wanting him in fantasy leagues.
PITCHER PERFORMANCES
Mick Abel generated 12 whiffs and posted a 26.1% SwStr% with a 37% Ball% in his spring debut. He threw 46 pitches too, so he’s halfway there already. Five strikeouts and no walks! Good sign for him, there’s a clear path to the rotation with Pablo Lopez hurt.
Dude has a really good fastball, and that’s why I liked him during the Twins preview. You need more than just a good fastball to make it in the Majors, but it’s an important foundation to have. And you can see in that great graphic above (from MLB Pitch Profiler) that he threw six different pitch types today. Lots of potential with Abel.
Ben Hess, a Yankees prospect we like for some innings this year, also pitched and racked up 11 whiffs.
It’s not a huge fastball, especially not from a 6’5’’ dude, but the curveball is nice looking, and that’s an interesting 1-2 pitch from a dude who looks like a horse. He’s not going to be in the Yankees rotation initially, of course, but it’s a name to remember for the future.
Ben Brown still has the death curveball or whatever they call it. They have some ridiculous name for his curveball, but it’s a disgusting pitch. In a good way! He threw ten successful sinkers today with it, and that might be a new pitch. I don’t have him with any sinkers in the bigs last year. So that’s a positive sign.
He threw eight four-seamers as well, so there were definitely two different fastballs going today. That makes a ton of sense. But he’ll be in the Cubs bullpen at the beginning of the year. An injury or two could push him back into the rotation, and at that point, I will once again be removing my pants before telling you all to stream him, and then he will give up seven earned runs for your fantasy teams and mine!
Bubba Chandler had no command today, walking four.
No whiffs on 19 four-seamers is also bad. These are the sorts of things we’re happy to forgive in one outing, especially at the very beginning of spring. But we’ll want to see fastball whiffs and command for him to have a shot to be a really good pitcher this year.
Emmanuel Rodriguez has a couple of dingers this spring. There’s a lot to watch for on this Twins roster. Rodriguez could be an impact bat in the home run-hitting department in Minnesota this year. There are some questions about his contact abilities and if he’s overly patient at the plate, but there’s big raw power there.
I think that’ll do it for what I’ve got today. We’re doing our best to cover the relevant news and stories coming out of spring training. And I was kidding about Hunter; he’s alive and well, but he is without power. Hopefully, his mom isn’t an MLB DW subscriber; I might have scared her.
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