Kyle Ross-Imagn Images
Angels
Astros
• The team signed Nate Pearson:
Nate Pearson to sign a 1-year deal with the Astros, per Chandler Rome.The team plans to use him as a starter.
— MLB Daily News (@fantasymlbnews.bsky.social) 2025-10-17T19:47:15.600Z
Yukihito Taguchi-USA TODAY Sports
To get an idea of a player’s production when moving from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball Organization (NPB) and Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), I compiled a list of players who made the move and their MLB results. With the results, I compiled a list of comps to get a range of possible outcomes. We have several players coming over for their debut, but also returning arm trying to make an impact after 55 uneventful innings 2020-21.
Here they are:
Note: If I missed anyone to find the comps for, let me know. I’ll add them later to this article or possibly to Mining the News.
| Name | Year | Age | G | PA | HR | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | K% | BB% | ISO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hyeseong Kim 김혜성 | 2025 | 26 | 71 | 170 | 3 | .280 | .314 | .385 | .699 | 31% | 4% | .106 |
| Ha-Seong Kim 김하성 | 2021 | 25 | 117 | 298 | 8 | .202 | .270 | .352 | .622 | 24% | 7% | .150 |
| James Adduci | 2017 | 32 | 29 | 93 | 1 | .241 | .323 | .398 | .720 | 29% | 11% | .157 |
| Jung Hoo Lee 이정후 | 2024 | 25 | 37 | 158 | 2 | .262 | .310 | .331 | .641 | 8% | 6% | .069 |
| Jae-Gyun Hwang 황재균 | 2017 | 29 | 18 | 57 | 1 | .154 | .228 | .231 | .459 | 26% | 9% | .077 |
| Median | 26.0 | 37 | 158 | 2 | .241 | .310 | .352 | .641 | 26% | 7% | .106 | |
| Average | 27.4 | 54 | 155 | 3 | .228 | .289 | .339 | .628 | 24% | 7% | .112 |
He’ll need a full-time job to be worth a late-round pick. I’m a pass for now. Read the rest of this entry »
Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images
It’s time to review my preseason BOLD predictions.
1. Cristopher Sánchez will be a top-3 starting pitcher.
He didn’t quite make it to the top three but ended up sixth according to our player rater. I’ll take it as a hit.
Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
Angels
• Logan O’Hoppe is going to be the team’s main catcher after struggling in 2025.
To this day, the Angels view O’Hoppe as their guy, said Angels GM Perry Minasian. When he comes into spring training next season, he won’t need to earn the job.
“Logan had a tough year, there’s no sugarcoating that,” Minasian said. “But yes, we believe Logan can catch. It’s a really tough position. To break in a young catcher takes time. I’m expecting a better Logan O’Hoppe.”
Erik Williams-Imagn Images
Note: There was so many “season in review” pieces that came out I’m still working through them. I’ve got at least one more Mining the News from end-of-season comments.
• NBP’s Takahiro Norimoto could sign with an MLB team.
Rakuten Eagles RHP Takahiro Norimoto will exercise his international FA rights and wants to talk to both NPB and MLB teams.
Norimoto, 34, was a 5x PL strikeout title winner from 2014-2018. He moved to the pen in 2023 and only had a 17.3 K% this season.
— Yakyu Cosmopolitan (@yakyucosmo) October 6, 2025
Lon Horwedel-Imagn Images
Other
• Batters rarely add power once in the majors and start declining due to better early-career training.
Position players are not becoming stronger in their late 20s, as conventional wisdom suggests. Bat speed and exit velocity are not immune to aging like so many other movement- and speed-based skills in the sport (like pitching velocity).
When players arrive in the major leagues, many of their underlying skills are nearly as good as they will ever be – at least since we’ve had the ability to measure them in the Statcast era.
Driveline director of hitting Tanner Stokey noted that those skills’ aging curves might have been different years ago – perhaps more players did grow into strength and bat speed – but it is a different game in the modern era.
“You just assume players are the most physically gifted they’ve been – they have all the resources in the weight room, the nutrition side, the sleep, recovery side, right? It’s very different than it was back in the day,” Stokey noted. “That stuff is pretty optimized compared to where it was 20, 30, 40 years ago.
Ken Blaze-Imagn Images
This past season was one of my worst ever. And about halfway through it, the outcome looked worse than the final results. I was able to focus on a few leagues and salvaged my bankroll. Here are some of the lessons I learned. Read the rest of this entry »
Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images
With the regular season over, it’s time to find out how hitters performed who didn’t let an injury heal and played through the pain. Whether these hitters cause permanent damage to their bodies or pick up bad habits, they continue to underperform their next season’s projections. Besides collecting the names myself, I’ve asked for some help (article) for this past season’s list.
First, here is a look at how 2024 hitters performed compared to their Steamer projections.
Katie Stratman-Imagn Images
A few days ago, I asked for help to double-check this season’s initial closers (full 2024 edition).
Here are the results, starting with the initial closers and their performance.
Chatting with Jake Mailhot about our plans for the off-season, he mentioned something his kid talked about: learning from her mistakes. First of all, that’s some A-plus parenting, Jake. But then Jake took it a step further and suggested that if his daughter could learn from her mistakes, so could we. So here are five numbers that represent mistakes I made this year and the lessons I learned.
