Mining the News (6/2/26)

Denis Poroy-Imagn Images

American League

Angels

• Vaughn Grissom has been starting at first base.

Vaughn Grissom, who hit a grand slam and had six RBIs in Tuesday’s 10-6 win, started at first base again on Wednesday. He’s expected to get the bulk of the playing time there in Schanuel’s absence, although Oswald Peraza and Donovan Walton could see time there as well.

“For the most part now, he’s going to fill in and get the majority of the time over there at first base,” manager Kurt Suzuki said of Grissom. “But I could see Peraza or Donnie playing some first base, so we have options.”

In addition to being first and second base qualified, he has eight games at third base, so he could be a nice infield bench bat in deeper leagues (see Ernie Clement).

I think there is some upside to Grissom. He’s pulling off the combination of making more contact (80% Contact to 82%, 21% K% to 10%) and hitting the ball harder (86 avgEV to 91, 69 mph batSpeed to 72). A .241 BABIP is suppressing his overall stats, so other managers might not notice. Projections have noticed the changes, and his OPS projection is up 31 points from the season’s start.

• Top prospect, Christian Moore, is playing games at third base and the outfield in AAA for an improved chance to be promoted.

Former Angels top prospect Christian Moore exclusively played second base in his first two pro seasons but he has split his time between second and third base this season at Triple-A Salt Lake. Moore is now getting a look at the entirely new position of left field, Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register writes. Angels assistant GM Joey Prebynski said Moore will be used at all three positions, and “for us, it’s just about continuing to get him reps out there, seeing balls off the bat in left field.”

Mariners

• Cal Raleigh’s injury kept him from swinging from both sides of the plate.

There was plenty of work to do in Arizona, especially given the nature of Raleigh’s injury and how trying to play through it after a short amount of rest at first only made things worse.

And, of course, Raleigh both plays the most strenuous position on the field and has two separate swings to manage as a switch-hitter.

“Different parts of the swing, you’d feel it differently,” he said. “I’d feel it more at the beginning right-handed, more at the end left-handed.”

Even though I’ve held on to Raleigh in the leagues I had, I have zero expectations from him once he returns. I suspect he’ll not be 100% healthy when he comes off the IL and goes back to struggling (.161/.243/.317).

• Brendan Donovan will play some outfield when he returns.

Things will be more interesting with Donovan’s eventual return, given that top prospect Colt Emerson has slotted into the everyday starter role at third base and is set to stay there. That’s something the Mariners knew would happen when they signed Donovan. In four years with the Cardinals, he made 162 starts in the outfield, and will likely move around the field in a truer utility role when he comes back.

Donovan will need everyday reps to be a usable fantasy option.

Orioles

• Brandon Young throws a new splitter.

After Young’s previous start against the Nationals on May 17, he was approached by the O’s trio of pitching coaches — Drew French, Mitch Plassmeyer and Ryan Klimek — about modifying the grip he uses when throwing his splitter.

“It just wasn’t getting results,” Young said. “I wasn’t consistently getting to the right locations with it, so it was just time for a change, time for an adjustment.”

French thought it could be beneficial to create a larger gap in velocity between Young’s splitter and his four-seam fastball (which is averaging 94 mph). The split is also the righty’s second-most-used pitch — ahead of his slider, sinker and curveball — so it was important for him to have better results with the offering, especially to keep left-handed hitters off-balance.

The splitter’s 47 botStf and 95 Stuff+ grades from his last start were season highs. The pitch didn’t miss many bats with an 11% Whiff%, a season low. At least he’s trying.

Twins

The team is moving Brooks Lee to third base so Kaelen Culpepper can eventually take over at shortstop.

Lee’s move to the hot corner also makes room at shortstop for top infield prospect Kaelen Culpepper, who is knocking on the big league door with the Saints. But what about that Royce Lewis elephant in the room?

National League

Braves

• Michael Harris II adjusted his stance to increase his bat speed.

But why is Harris hitting the ball so much harder this season? A few things stand out. One, he’s opened his stance significantly, going from 18 degrees in 2025 to 26 degrees this season. That’s allowed him to see the ball better and get to inside pitches easier. Two, Harris has moved up in the box by about 18 inches, allowing him to make contact farther in front of the plate than he has in previous seasons. Three, his average bat speed has increased to 75 mph and his fast-swing rate has jumped to 50% from 40.7% last season.

So, if you want to reduce it to a simple formula, it might look like this: Wider stance + moving up in the box + faster swing = making more contact in front of the plate and driving balls with more authority.

Dodgers

• Watch out, Justin Wrobleski is adding velocity.

He’s gotten this far on strike-throwing and prayers once the ball is put in play. His strikeout rate entering Friday was the fourth-lowest of any pitcher with at least 50 innings this season. After sitting at 96 mph with his fastball as a reliever last season, he was down to 93.7 mph in his transition to becoming a starter. It was logical to credit that drop in velocity to the extra workload, but the decrease changed how Wrobleski pitched.

Then Wrobleski averaged 94.9 mph with the fastball Friday night, tossing seven brilliant innings. He struck out nine, a career high, and allowed his only hit with two outs in the sixth inning. He didn’t rely on soft contact. Instead, Wrobleski dominated.
…
Getting swings and misses changes the math. You don’t have to worry about what happens after the ball gets put in play when it winds up in the catcher’s mitt. Wrobleski got 16 swings and misses on Friday, more than he’d gotten in any outing of his career.

Since the velocity jump two starts ago, he has gone from a 7.4 K-BB% (4.84 xFIP) to a 23.4 K-BB% (3.19 xFIP).

• James Tibbs III is not being promoted since he’s hurt, can only DH, and the team’s DH slot is taken.

James Tibbs III has also been dealing with a (minor) forearm issue, sources said, which is why he's essentially been limited to DH duty since May 6. He's on a throwing progression, and it's not the reason for the decision, but explains why he hasn't played outfield lately.

— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) May 30, 2026

Check regularly to see if he’s getting outfield reps and could be promoted.

Giants

• During Monday’s start, Landen Roupp pitched through a bad back.

Manager Tony Vitello said Roupp’s back locked up on him, but the Giants didn’t learn about the issue until after the 27-year-old right-hander came out of the game.

“I just kind of felt a little discomfort,” said Roupp, who gave up a career-high eight runs over four innings. “But it’s no excuse. I feel like I didn’t compete well tonight.”

Mets

•The team says that  Jorge Polanco’s injuries can’t get any worse …

Polanco seems to be trending in the right direction, but there may be a long way to go for him before rejoining the big league roster. He will likely have to play through pain for the entire season, though he is not currently at increased risk of an achilles tear.

“It’s to a point where he’s not going to be 100 percent,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “But as he went through the intensity [of baseball activities], the running the bases and the sprinting and all that, the next day, it’s like, ‘Hey, it’s not getting any worse. I feel better.’ The biggest thing was that it wasn’t getting any worse, and he was able to manage it and was like, ‘I’m good to go now.’”

… but it can always get worse.

Padres

• Gavin Sheets became a better batter by … get this … hitting the ball harder.

So, how exactly did Sheets turn his career around to become the most important hitter for a team in a playoff position? It’s remarkably simple, but Sheets has basically just hit the ball harder as a Padre.

After posting a 6.3 percent barrel rate in four seasons with the White Sox, Sheets was running a 9.5 percent barrel rate with the Padres. Ditto for his hard-hit rate: it went from a 36.0 percent clip with Chicago to a 46.5 percent rate with San Diego.

Some of that can be attributed to a sizable increase in bat speed since coming to San Diego. In his final year and a half with the White Sox — Statcast’s bat tracking began monitoring this in the second half of the 2023 season — Sheets had a 72.7 mph bat speed. That number has jumped to 74.8 mph with the Padres.

Phillies

• Top prospect, Aidan Miller, dealt with back pain last season, and it is still bothering him this season.

In a longer-term injury concern, Phillies GM Preston Mattingly didn’t have any new news on the status of infield prospect Aidan Miller, who has been sidelined all season due to ongoing back pain. “We’re leaning on medical. [He’s] still just doing his rehab program at this point. It’s not baseball activities, but as we’ve seen over the years, that could change pretty quickly,” Mattingly told The Athletic’s Charlotte Varnes and other reporters.

Miller dealt with back problems in the second half of the 2025 season, and played through discomfort over a two-month stretch that saw the infielder promoted to Triple-A for the first time. Miller still hit .264/.392/.433 over 526 combined PA between the Double-A and Triple-A levels, but had to finish the year on the Triple-A injured list after only eight games with Lehigh Valley.

Chronic back pain … I just put him on my 2027 Do Not Draft List.