Mining the News (10/3/24)

Note: There are a ton of end-of-season team reviews I need to get through. Here is round one. Once I get through this group of articles, the news cycle dries up.

American League

Angels

• Brandon Drury blames his struggles on migraines, nagging injuries, and attempts at adding exit velocity.

Migraines and some nagging injuries played a role in these struggles, but Drury told Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register that some swing changes last offseason might’ve been the biggest culprit, as his attempts to add exit velocity backfired badly.

Blue Jays

• The team wants Yariel Rodríguez to optimize his pitch mix.

“Routines definitely have developed in between,” manager John Schneider said of Rodriguez’s growth. “The last thing we’re kind of looking for is just pitch mix, you know what I mean? That’s something that’s been talked about over the last month, but that’s the next step for him. The maturity, the regular stuff that he’s doing in between starts has been the biggest part.”

The Blue Jays want him to throw more fastballs and splitters and rely less on a slider that was his second-most used pitch Saturday (21 of 82 pitches) and throughout the season at 28.4 per cent. His least used pitch was the splitter at 10 per cent and he identified that as “my key pitch,” while adding that, “I’ve got to get it better.”

• Leo Jiménez and Ernie Clement are out of options.

Ernie Clement and Leo Jimenez are out of options …

• Bowden Francis’s rotation spot is secure according to the manager.

Schneider called Francis’s performance “the highlight of the second half for me” and strongly hinted Francis has secured a place in the rotation next season.

Orioles

• Colton Cowser used a bigger bat in the second half to help hit off-speed pitches.

Cowser:
…
I guess the only thing I did change was go up to a 34-inch bat [from a 33 1/2] during the second half of the year.

MLB.com: How did the 34-inch bat help you?

Cowser: Sometimes with some of these off-speed pitches — I still occasionally do — I felt a little quick to the zone and I wanted to slow myself down a little bit because of the way I was getting attacked. I knew I could get to fastballs. I was swinging and missing a lot of off-speed pitches in the zone. I felt I wanted to put the ball in play more.

Rangers

• Kumar Rocker will compete for a 2025 rotation spot.

Rocker ultimately made three big league starts, posting a 3.86 ERA across 11 2/3 innings. Bochy said Rocker will enter Spring Training fully primed to compete for a spot in the rotation.

Rays

• Yandy Díaz played with patellar tendinitis but won’t need offseason surgery.

In fact, Diaz’s most productive month (.879 OPS) came in September, even though he said he was dealing with patellar tendinitis in his left knee. Diaz isn’t worried that the injury will require any surgical treatment, and said “I need to work on my strength, my knee and exercises, and get ready for Spring Training, and hopefully everything’s going to be OK.”

Red Sox

• Masataka Yoshida has been dealing with a sore shoulder and might need offseason surgery.

Red Sox designated hitter Masataka Yoshida caused something of a stir Sunday when he told Japanese reporters (including Carlos Yamazaki of Tokyo Sports Press) that he [might] undergo right shoulder surgery shortly after the season. So what’s actually going on?

Both Yoshida and Sox manager Alex Cora acknowledged after Sunday’s season finale that Yoshida has been dealing with nagging shoulder soreness all season.

National League

Diamondbacks

• Eugenio Suárez changed his pregame routine to include high-intensity reps.

Suarez made adjustments to his pregame routine, including taking higher-intensity reps off the pitcher-mimicking Trajekt machine in the batting cage.

Dodgers

• Anthony Banda now has one of the best sliders in the game.

Developing one of the most unhittable sliders in the game has unlocked everything else. Among pitchers who have thrown at least 200 sliders this season, only three — Josh Hader, Andrew Chafin and Michel Otañez — have gotten a higher rate of swings-and-misses on a pitch that Banda didn’t even throw before landing in Los Angeles. At least, he didn’t throw a slider quite like this.

Banda had fiddled with grips for years. Each stop, each failure brought with it a pivot. Each attempted change had a domino effect on the next one. An extended run of success in Triple A while on a minor-league deal with Cleveland (a 2.12 ERA in 17 innings) popped him on the relief-starved Dodgers’ radar. Within 24 hours of arriving in Los Angeles, Banda stood on the bullpen mound surrounded by Edgertronic cameras and a suite of potential pitch grips and mental cues at his disposal to find a pitch other than his changeup to keep hitters off his mid-90s fastball.

Dodgers assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness noted Banda’s unorthodox slider grip — one that had just three fingers on the baseball — and tried his first suggestion.

He instructed Banda to try to grip the baseball with a “spike,” digging the nail of his index finger into the seam to impact movement and spin. The instruction was simple: Aim down the middle, throw it like a fastball and let it rip.

Giants

• Heliot Ramos has played through plantar fasciitis.

Bob Melvin said Heliot Ramos has a tight hamstring and has been playing through plantar fasciitis. No concerns beyond today, he said he could DH if needed.

— Alex Pavlovic (@PavlovicNBCS) September 29, 2024