Mining the News (4/21/22)

American League

Angels

• Anthony Rendon may get every Sunday off to start the season.

Joe Maddon said it was possible that Anthony Rendon remains on this type of schedule with regard to off-days. So far he's had the last two Sundays off.

Maddon said it's because he's coming off surgery, and he may need less time off later in the season.

— Sam Blum (@SamBlum3) April 17, 2022

Orioles

• Keegan Akin and Mike Baumann will remain as long relievers.

Meanwhile, the Orioles watched starting prospects like Akin and Baumann make more traditional conversions into relievers. Now, suddenly searching for ways to fill a John Means-sized rotation hole, Hyde said he prefers to keep Akin and Baumann in bulk-relief roles despite their starter history.

• Tyler Wells will be limited to around 100 innings this season.

Wells last started as a prospect in the Twins’ system in 2018, missing the next two seasons after undergoing Tommy John surgery, before arriving in Baltimore in December 2020. A strict innings limit came last summer, with the O’s putting Wells in the ‘pen so he’d adhere to it and stick on the roster, fulfilling his Rule 5 requirement. He threw 57 innings, about half of the career-high 119 1/3 he tossed in the Minors in ‘18.

“We were protecting his innings last year,” Hyde said. “That’s why he wasn’t starting.”

Wells will be limited to around 100 innings this season and still needs time to build up, so the Orioles will continue to piggyback him with long relievers like Mike Baumann and Keegan Akin. Wells threw 54 pitches in his first start and 64 on Saturday, before giving way to Baumann. But Baumann threw only nine pitches before the skies opened and didn’t return after the delay.

Rangers

• Kennedi Landry of MLB.com thinks Josh Jung will likely remain in the minors once returning from the IL.

I grouped the two Josh Jung related questions together because I feel like they’re intertwined. Jung, the Rangers’ No.2 overall and top hitting prospect, injured his shoulder heading into Minor League camp and is projected to be out until at least August.

Unless he’s fully, 1000% healthy and absolutely raking in Round Rock, I wouldn’t expect to see him in the big leagues this season.

Royals

• Mike Matheny still plans on using his best relievers in the highest leverage spots.

Barlow, who posted a 2.42 ERA last season, has been the epitome of reliability over the past two seasons, and he’s embraced Matheny’s strategy of throwing the highest-leverage relievers in the highest-leverage spots, even if that’s not the ninth inning.

That is what has made this bullpen so good early: no one seems worried about roles, only getting big outs.

“If you’re ready at any inning, you can pitch any inning,” Barlow said. “That’s kind of been our mindset.”

Twins

• Trevor Larnach played through a hand injury last season.

Perhaps that’s why, when Larnach’s hand started bothering him in early July, he tried to push through it — all the way until when he was ultimately sent back to the Minors in mid-August. When July began, he had a .764 OPS. Over the next month-plus, he posted a .566 OPS.

One noted aspect of Larnach’s struggles from last season had to do with his struggles against offspeed pitches — and Baldelli thinks the hand issues had plenty to do with that.

Before the injury (HBP, sat a day) he had a .709 OPS and .507 OPS after it.

National League

Braves

• The Braves are going to a five-man MLB rotation with Huascar Ynoa in the AAA rotation and Touki Toussaint will be used as a long reliever.

Huascar Ynoa was optioned to Gwinnett after struggling again Monday. Snitker said the team would revert to a normal five-man rotation after using a six-man unit during the busy first two weeks of the season.

“He’s not a finished product, so I think it’ll be good for him to go down there and pitch,” he said of Ynoa, who’ll join the Gwinnett rotation and pitch on a regular schedule, something he wouldn’t have done in the next two weeks for the Braves with five starters ahead of him and off days coming up.

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The Braves brought up Touki Toussaint to give them another multi-innings option out of the bullpen or a potential emergency starter.

Cardinals

• Jordan Hicks will be limited to 3 IP and 55 pitches.

Because Hicks is still building up his arm, Marmol slotted him in between workhorse starters Miles Mikolas and Steven Matz to not overtax the bullpen on consecutive days. At most, Hicks will pitch three innings and no more than 55 pitches — meaning either Woodford, VerHagen or Aaron Brooks 브룩스 will be used as a “piggyback” starter on Thursday.
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Hicks’ injury history taught him that less velocity could mean many more appearances for him in years to come. In Spring Training, most of his pitches were in the 97-99 mph range instead of the 101-104 mph range he often featured prior to his arm injury.

Diamondbacks

• Madison Bumgarner has a new slider/cutter.

Bumgarner described the current iteration as “in between” a slider and cutter movement-wise, calling it the result of intentional offseason tinkering. Bumgarner’s unusual release point and across-the-body mechanics give it natural tilt, allowing him to bear the pitch in on righties from a starting point that appears well beyond the opposite batter’s box. And its slider origins give it more vertical movement than most cutters, allowing Bumgarner to use it as a swing-and-miss pitch against left-handed hitters.

Dodgers

• Walker Buehler has already made some in-season tweaks to his delivery.

In between outings, Buehler made some adjustments to his delivery.

Before each pitch, Buehler would bring both arms over his head during his delivery. On Tuesday, the right-hander made a noticeable change, going with a quicker windup and abandoning his usual windup in hopes of finding something that would turn things around.

Buehler has been known to tinker with his mechanics often, especially when things aren’t going as smoothly as he has come to expect. He expects more of the same before his next start against the D-backs.

Giants

• The team is going to try to find ways to keep Thairo Estrada in the lineup once Tommy La Stella returns from the IL.

Estrada has played every inning at second base so far, but he’ll likely end up splitting some reps there with La Stella once the latter completes his rehab from offseason left Achilles surgery. Still, the Giants could be inclined to keep both of their bats in their lineup by starting La Stella at designated hitter, especially given Estrada’s superior defense at second.

“Tommy La Stella is an excellent Major League bat,” Kapler said. “It doesn’t mean that reps will come at Estrada’s expense. These puzzles have a way of working together. We figure these things out. But Tommy is a badass, and we want Tommy back and ready to play as soon as possible. We want Estrada in the lineup as much as possible, so we’ll figure it out.”

Phillies

• The team knew that Zack Wheeler would not be 100% to start the season.

Seeing the results in Miami, it certainly appears that Wheeler’s lack of buildup for the season — right shoulder soreness delayed his spring schedule, and he pitched only in intrasquad games — is affecting his stuff.

Girardi said that when the Phillies kept Wheeler in the rotation to open the season, they knew they wouldn’t be getting the normal Zack Wheeler. The team has chosen to ramp him up through actual Major League game action. Wheeler was limited to 65 pitches in his first start; he threw 66 against the Marlins.

Pirates

• Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic thinks Roansy Contreras and Miguel Yajure will be demoted once the roster size shrinks to 26 players.

Contreras and Yajure likely will head to Triple-A Indianapolis soon due to some combination of Duane Underwood Jr. coming off the injured list and rosters being trimmed to 26 players on May 2. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Contreras and Yajure get a spot start with the Pirates before being sent to Indy, if it would line up with their rotation schedule in the minors.