Mining the News (10/7/25)

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• 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.

• Cody Ponce 폰세 might be a free agent option after dominating the KBO last year.

They also have interest in Cody Ponce, a 31-year-old right-hander and former Pittsburgh Pirates prospect who pitched in Japan for three seasons and then reinvented himself with Hanwha in Korea Baseball Organization this past season. Ponce’s split-change and fastball combination made him nearly untouchable in Korea while posting a 1.85 ERA and striking out 242 in 174 2/3 innings.

American League

Angels

• Mike Trout made some late-season swing changes.

When Mike Trout met with the media on Tuesday to discuss the relief of finally hitting his 400th career home run on Saturday in Colorado, he made sure to emphasize that he made a recent change in his mechanics that he believed would get him back to his old self.

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Trout credited seeing the ball better since his swing changes for his recent production — not because of the relief of hitting No. 400.

• The General Manager stated that Reid Detmers is penciled into next season’s rotation.

With Kyle Hendricks and Tyler Anderson both headed into free agency this offseason while Anaheim’s array of young pitching arms have yet to establish themselves as viable regular starters, Minasian suggested that there are three pitchers he has penciled into next year’s rotation: Yusei Kikuchi, Jose Soriano, and Reid Detmers.

• The team is looking to improve at centerfield and third base.

Turning towards the positional side of things, Minasian made clear that the club plans to try and upgrade both center field and third base this winter.

It looks like the Bryce Teodosio experiment is over.

Astros

• Jose Altuve played through a painful foot injury.

Jose Altuve said his right foot injury "is pretty painful, but I had no choice but to go out there and play."

Altuve said he is going to see doctors and they're going to "recommend some stuff" this offseason. Unclear whether that includes surgery.

— Chandler Rome (@Chandler_Rome) September 28, 2025

Athletics

• Lawrence Butler had knee surgery.

A’s outfielder Lawrence Butler underwent successful surgery on his right patellar tendon Friday with Dr. Mike Banffy at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedic Center in Los Angeles. Dr. Banffy performed a partial tendon tear repair and debridement of chronic scar tissue. Lawrence also received a PRP injection into his left patella tendon, under ultrasound guidance, to address chronic tendonitis.

Mariners

• George Kirby changed his sinker.

George Kirby borrowed Bryan Woo’s sinker grip a few weeks ago. Took it into the game against the Angels and struck out 14. Tonight he had 10 in five innings

— Ryan Divish (@RyanDivish) September 27, 2025

The most noticeable change was more spin on the pitch.

In Kirby’s last three starts, the sinker’s Stuff+ increased from 55 to 62.

Orioles

• Colton Cowser finally got healthy after playing through two broken ribs.

Colton Cowser’s injury-filled season included two broken ribs in June that he played through. “But ultimately, when I got back to the point where I was feeling good, I still wasn’t playing very well and still trying to find my way back,” he said www.thebanner.com/sports/oriol…

— Andy Kostka (@afkostka.bsky.social) 2025-09-27T13:13:26.266Z

• Adley Rutschman will remain the team’s primary catcher.

On Monday, president of baseball operations Mike Elias said that despite the emergence of Samuel Basallo, Rutschman would remain the team’s primary catcher.

• Jackson Holliday played through some late-season knee soreness.

Unlike most of his teammates, Holliday didn’t miss substantial time because of injuries and avoided the injured list. In the last week of the season, Holliday missed two games because of right knee soreness but did play the final series at Yankee Stadium.

“It’s manageable,” he said. “I kind of felt like a wuss after getting an MRI and it was only inflammation. But it’s something that’s been bothering me for a while and it kind of just flared up. Stuff you’ve got to play through if you want to play in October, but, yeah, feel fine.”

Rangers

• Nathan Eovaldi might have hernia surgery.

Injury news: Nathan Eovaldi will meet with a physician next week to have a potential sports hernia examined and determine if surgery is necessary.

More on him, Seager, Semien, Burger, Bradford, Carter and anyone else with lingering ailments.https://t.co/cfrE8dR2lv

— Shawn McFarland (@McFarland_Shawn) October 3, 2025

• The GM listed Robert Garcia, Jacob Latz, and Cole Winn as potential closer candidates. Latz also got mentioned as a rotation option.

In discussing whether the team would pursue a closer in free agency, Young mentioned possible internal candidates in Robert Garcia, Jacob Latz and Cole Winn. Young later said that Latz is also a potential rotation option. “We have to determine the best utilization of Jacob to help the team win,” Young said.

• Sebastian Walcott will not be rushed to the majors.

Asked about top prospect Sebastian Walcott (the No. 6 overall prospect, according to MLB Pipeline) making the big leagues next season, Young said the organization does not want to “rush” the process. “The hope is we can give him the time he needs to develop, and then he’ll knock the door down when he’s ready,” Young said. “When he does get here, he’s going to help us win.”

• Cody Bradford should be healthy at the start of Spring Training.

Cody Bradford is also expected to be set for the start of Spring Training, which counts as a bit of a surprise given that Bradford underwent an internal brace procedure in late June. Brace procedures do come with a shorter timeline than Tommy John surgeries, so the initial thought was that Bradford was would be out until late June 2026 at the earliest. The fact that Bradford is expected to participate in all of spring camp doesn’t necessarily alter that timeline since he’ll still need a lot of ramp-up time, though it’s a positive sign that Bradford seems to be making good progress in the first few months of his rehab.

Rays

• Shane McClanahan should be healthy to start Spring Training …

#Rays expecting ace Shane McClanahan to be ‘good to go’ for 2026 season. Plus updates on DeLuca and the other 9 players who ended season on IL. https://t.co/xCt7CA6adQ

— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) October 2, 2025

… even though his recovery has been tedious.

“This has been a tough injury. You feel the most for Shane — just about ready to take the ball opening day and then have an injury that there’s virtually no precedent for it. And then not knowing your timeline — might be a few weeks, might be a few months. High confidence it’s going to heal, but the timeline has kind of been up in the air. … ” Neander said. “He is doing everything a human being could do and more to try to be ready. This has been really difficult on him. We’re doing everything we can to support him. Our hope is that by the time we get to camp this is fully resolved, he’s on the appropriate throwing program going into camp, and we go from there.”

McClanahan hasn’t pitched in a big league game since August of 2023. He required Tommy John surgery at that time and missed the entire 2024 campaign. The Rays were hoping to have him healthy for 2025 but he suffered some triceps tightness in spring training. This was later revealed to be a nerve problem, which landed him on the injured list to start the year. He began a rehab assignment in July but that lasted only three appearances. He underwent a season-ending radial nerve decompression in August.
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“Obviously, missing (from) August 2023 through the end of ’25, that’s a lot of missed time,” Neander said. “So you get into kind of, ‘All right, what’s best for him?’ and how you build him up and how you do all that responsibly. But our expectation from a health standpoint is this at some point here will turn into a normal winter, and the normal build-up in the camp, and we can go from there.”

National League

Diamondbacks

• Tyler Locklear will have surgery on his elbow and shoulder.

Diamondbacks first baseman Tyler Locklear will undergo surgery this month on both his elbow and shoulder, a source said, a worst-case scenario after he was involved in a collision at the first-base bag in September.

Marlins

• Agustín Ramírez will get a chance to catch again next season, with Joe Mack being Ramírez’s possible replacement.

As the primary catcher for the Marlins this season, Ramírez had a league-leading 19 passed balls, 10 errors and 83 stolen bases allowed (compared to only eight caught stealings). Despite that, Bendix said the 24-year-old still has “the ability to be a major league catcher and also needs to improve a lot to be able to consistently achieve that level.”

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On the new Fish Unfiltered episode, FOF founder Ely Sussman speculated that Ramírez would continue to catch early in the 2026 season until the Marlins secure an additional year of club control over top catching prospect Joe Mack. Once Mack is called up, Ramírez may get moved off the position assuming that he’s still struggling at that point.

Mets

• Sean Manaea won’t need surgery for loose bodies in his elbow.

Sean Manaea might not need surgery to remove the loose bodies from his elbow. He finished the season with the elbow feeling very good. Decision about removal will come after he physically cools down from the season.

— Andy Martino (@martinonyc) September 30, 2025

Not having surgery isn’t great news since he’ll still have loose bodies in his elbow.

Pirates

• Bryan Reynolds plans to find some consistency with his swing this winter.

Reynolds is still processing the year as a whole, but the plan is to find a hitting facility this winter and do a dive into how he moved. After a year where he tweaked and tinkered more than normal, he’s looking for answers and the consistency he takes pride in.