Mining the News (2/28/25)

Note: Sorry for the lack of content. I’m just returning from the dead (flu). Here is a Mining the News and I will need to rework my rankings. 

• Two items I’m going to focus less on are StatCast generated fastball velocities and injuries. I’ll report on the fastball velos that come from game observations like with Ian Anderson (ATL) below. If anyone wants to know the StatCast velo readings, I recommend TJ Stats.

• Keith Law posted an article on the top rookie contributors for 2025. Here is a list of his honorable mentions.

No Pirates pitchers here, even though they have several candidates (Bubba Chandler, Thomas Harrington, Michael Burrows), because there’s no room at the inn at the moment after they signed Andrew Heaney. … Jordan Lawlar needs to get healthy himself, and then needs either an injury to another infielder or for Eugenio Suárez to get old in a hurry for him to have a shot at playing time. But if he plays, Lawlar will be productive. … Logan Henderson deserves a shot at the Brewers’ rotation this year, and I think he’ll be more than just a fifth starter, but I don’t see the opportunity coming soon enough for the list. … Ronny Mauricio should get some time in the minors after a full year lost to an ACL injury, and there’s some risk his defense suffers if he’s lost any range or mobility. … Caden Dana and Sam Aldegheri debuted for the Angels last year, but they’re not on this list because they’re too far down the depth chart and neither was remotely ready for the big leagues.

American League

Astros

• Jon Singleton got “ripped”.

The runaway winner in Astros camp for reporting in the proverbial “best shape of my life” is first baseman Jon Singleton, who turned heads on the field and had people whispering off the field about his new chiseled physique.

“He is ripped,” manager Joe Espada said.

“He looks like Dwayne Johnson in ‘Pain and Gain’ right now,” utility player Mauricio Dubón said.

Singleton reported to camp looking more like a bouncer you don’t want to cross more than the team’s backup first baseman, which would be his role following the addition of free-agent Christian Walker — a Gold Glove winner at first base in the National League the past three seasons. Singleton is trying to make the club as a power left-handed bat off the bench.
…
The hard work began last year at his home in California, where Singleton developed a workout regimen that has served him well. He worked out for about three or four hours each day, which included weightlifting and multiple sauna sessions, as well as taking ground balls and hitting. He did that five days a week.

“I’ve [reshaped] my body and I’ve also lost weight,” he said. “I’ve lost about 25 pounds. I followed a serious weight-lifting program. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been. A lot has changed.”

Athletics

• J.T. Ginn is tinkering with a cutter and four-seamer.

The A’s are working with Ginn to truly define who he is as a pitcher. As of now, his three-pitch arsenal consists of a sinker, a slider and a changeup, relying heavily on that sinker as a ground-ball pitcher.

This offseason, he tinkered with adding a cutter and four-seam fastball. That process is ongoing this spring.

“Just trying to refine what I do well and add another weapon to use against these guys,” Ginn said. “I feel like I’m in a good spot.”

Blue Jays

• The manager thinks Orelvis Martinez’s bat might force its way into the lineup.

“If he’s swinging the bat with authority and being a threat every single time, I think that with what else we have on the roster, there’s always room for a guy that can hit a home run,” manager John Schneider said. “The defensive part is important. That’s never going to stop, but if it gets to that, it gets to that.”

…

“Ideally, yes, he’s playing pretty regularly, because he is still fairly young. But again, we’re at the point where we’re putting the best guys out there every single night. If that means you’re platooning him or you’re putting him in the right spots, so be it,” Schneider said.

Orioles

• Brandon Young has a “mid-90s fastball” after averaging 92.5 mph last season.

“I really like Young,” McDonald said. “I’ve been watching him throw a couple bullpens and it’s a mid-90s fastball, and then watching the analytical data, it’s got some hop on it. It’s got some good carry through the zone, his four-seamer. His off-speed stuff seems to be coming.”

Royals

• Maikel Garcia is reworking his swing.

Garcia has added a small toe tap this spring, which he’s done before and thinks will help him with timing after seeing how many balls he fouled back or to the right last year. But his main priority is to center his weight in his stance rather than falling forward, or what hitting coach Alec Zumwalt likes to call “crashing.” It ends up, among other things, hindering hitters’ swing decisions.

“Crashing, for us, is when the foot gets down and everything is coming behind it with no ability to stop,” Zumwalt said. “So you’re basically in ‘go’ mode, and it’s really hard to adjust. If you guess right, it looks good. You guess wrong, you miss. With Maikel, what gives him so much hitting ability is he’s got such a flat swing through the zone, so he can be a little late and shoot the ball the other way.

“But we’ve talked about getting away from the crashing. He owned it. He felt his weight get too heavy on the front foot and knew he needed to be more adjustable. … Just selling out to be a good hitter. He knows that’s in his DNA. He knows that’s what he’s good at.”

Tigers/Giants

• Tarik Skubal taught Robbie Ray his changeup.

Ray texted Skubal asking if he’d be willing to share the way he grips the changeup. He wasn’t expecting what he got in return.

“He kind of just sent me the kitchen sink,” Ray said. “He sent me pictures, video, everything. He was very open about it, and I was very thankful.”
…

Ray was able to learn the pitch without seeing Skubal in person. They traded videos as he tinkered with the pitch during the offseason. Ray tried it out Tuesday in his first outing of Spring Training and was happy with the results after striking out three over two scoreless innings.

Twins

• David Festa is adding a sinker.

After the season, Festa talked to the coaching staff about pitching from the stretch. They were on the same page, so Festa spent the offseason working on his delivery and on a new pitch, a sinker. He used the pitch only three times in Sunday’s game and allowed his only hit on it, to Pirates third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes, who singled to right field in the first inning with two outs.

“I’ll take it. It was a pretty solid pitch. Good piece of hitting,” Festa said about the sinker. “I probably will not throw a lot of two-strike sinkers this year. Obviously, it’s not my best pitch. It’s more just to work on it. The results were good. I thought it came out nicely. I was trying to get it inside on right-handers. I like the execution of the pitch. Just a really good hitter in Hayes. He put it in play.”

White Sox

• Mike Clevinger could be used in relief.

• RHP Mike Clevinger: Agreed to a Minor League deal and received a non-roster invite to Spring Training. This is Clevinger’s third straight year with the team, and he could be used in a leverage relief role this time around.

National League

Braves

• Ian Anderson is only throwing “91-93 mph”.

The biggest positive: He’s healthy. His fastball velocity was 91-93 mph, a couple of ticks below his pre-injury velo, but not much different than what Anderson, 26, said he typically featured early in past spring trainings.

Cardinals

• The manager is undecided if he’ll platoon much.

When asked if he would platoon his lineup as often as last year, Marmol acknowledged that was something he was still working through.

“Yes and no,” he said. “That’s part of the bigger conversations of the development part of this as well. So yes, to a certain degree, but there are some areas that are not as black-and-white as before.”

Dodgers

• Dustin May added a slider.

May developed a new slider grip in January to complement his power arsenal, and he believes his stuff is where it always has been during a Major League career in which he has gone 12-9 with a 3.10 ERA in 46 appearances (35 starts) since 2019.

“Everything is back to normal,” May said. “The velocity is where it is at. All the shapes and metrics and releases and everything are back to normal.”

• Dalton Rushing is fielding some balls at first base.

After a day’s worth of catching bullpens earlier this spring, Rushing went to one of the main fields and took groundballs at first base from infield coach Chris Woodward. First base is a position he’d spent significant time at in college at Louisville while second on the catching depth chart behind eventual No. 1 overall selection Henry Davis.

Mets

• The team wants Brandon Sproat to add a sinker.

One big takeaway from Sproat’s time in Syracuse was a need for a two-seam sinking fastball. The Mets have been aggressive in pushing sinkers, and they believe it can be a crucial pitch for Sproat.

Padres

• Dylan Cease is looking to add a changeup and two-seamer.

Cease, long reliant on a blazing four-seamer and one of the sport’s best sliders, is experimenting with two potential additions to his arsenal: an “arm-speed changeup” and a two-seam fastball. According to Statcast, Cease hasn’t thrown a changeup faster than 78 mph since 2023. He’s never thrown a pitch classified as a two-seamer.

“Until you see how the batters react to them, it’s kind of hard to tell, but I’ve liked them so far,” Cease said.

• Matt Waldron plans on throwing his knuckleball more.

When Waldron went back and re-watched some of his best starts, he had this takeaway: He was at his best when he was establishing his knuckleball and allowing his other pitches to play off it.

Sure enough, that’s the way he attacked the A’s on Saturday afternoon at the Peoria Sports Complex. Waldron threw his knuckleball on 22 of his 32 pitches — a 69% clip that is higher than any of his previous big league starts and well above his 38.2% clip from the 2024 season as a whole.

Phillies

• Max Kepler adjusted his swing.

He had spent his entire professional baseball career with the Twins before signing a one-year, $10 million contract with the Phillies in December. It meant new teammates, new coaches, new philosophies, new facilities and, perhaps unexpectedly, a slightly new swing.

“We made some minor adjustments that I’m still working on and committed to,” Kepler said.
…
Kepler spent a few days last month with Phillies hitting coach Kevin Long, who lives in Arizona. Long suggested that Kepler get into his legs more, move closer to the plate and tip his bat.

“I used to have my bat head straight up, and we’re just tipping it more back toward the dugout now,” Kepler said. “It’s a more direct path to the zone, opposed to kind of having to gain ground. And if your bat’s [straight up], you kind of have to loop around, and you tend to get under it.

• Edmundo Sosa is taking some outfield reps.

With Wilson sidelined, the Phillies need a right-handed-hitting outfielder even more and the answer could be Sosa. The 29-year-old utilityman has worked out each day during camp in the outfield with coaches Paco Figueroa and Andy Abad, and unlike last season, it’s more than just an experiment. The Phillies toyed with the idea last summer but Sosa was needed elsewhere when Trea Turner missed six weeks with a hamstring injury.

“It’s hard work every single day,” Sosa said through team interpreter Diego D’Aniello. “I start the day doing my infield routine to keep my skills as sharp as possible and then I go back and forth with Paco doing a lot of outfield work.

• Cristopher Sánchez wants his fastball to sit in the “95 to 96 mph range”.

Sánchez’s sinker averaged 94.5 mph last year, up 2.4 mph from 2023. His fastball velocity ranked ninth out of 35 left-handed starters who threw 750 or more fastballs last season.

He thinks his sinker could sit in the 95 to 96 mph range this year.

“Last year, I pitched 180 innings, the most in my career,” Sánchez said through the team’s interpreter. “So I just wanted to make sure that my body was in good shape for this year, to get stronger and go through this year healthy without an injury.”