Mining the News (7/20/24)

American League

Astros

• Yainer Diaz is getting some reps at first base.

Since Abreu’s departure, Singleton is hitting .301/.374/.411 in 83 plate appearances. Whether the Astros believe this is sustainable may dictate their deadline approach at first base. That the team hasn’t ruled out catcher Yainer Diaz as a possibility at first base is intriguing, too.

Diaz took groundballs at first base during the team’s last homestand before the All-Star break, though that itself isn’t newsworthy. Backup catcher Victor Caratini’s imminent return from a hip flexor strain could free Espada to experiment with Diaz at first base, perhaps putting him in a platoon with Singleton on days he does not catch.

Yankees

• Anthony Volpe won’t change his flawed swing until the offseason.

Volpe dropped his fly ball rate by over 11 percentage points from last season in favor of increasing his ground-ball rate by over 10 percentage points. He’s no longer driving the ball nor pulling it, the two traits that made him become the team’s No. 1 prospect. Though the overall results have been slightly better this year, Volpe’s approach has very little value because he no longer slugs.

What’s discouraging is Volpe changed his approach this drastically for, frankly, no benefit. Volpe said he won’t do a deep dive into his approach until the season is over. When he evaluates himself, he should realize he’ll need to change it again in Year 3.

• Luis Gil altered his slider grip mid-season.

Boone said Gil’s slider now has a “better profile.”

“He altered his grip a couple of weeks ago, and we saw the results against Boston his last start and more this time to even get some more swing-and-miss with it against the left-handed hitters with it,” the manager said. “It’s definitely a pitch that’s a factor for him now.”

“Definitely feel a lot more comfortable with the grip of the slider now,” Gil said via the team’s Spanish interpreter. “That can make such a huge difference. I feel like now it’s not slipping away and I just feel comfortable and secure about executing that pitch.”

National League

Cardinals

• Arm injuries have robbed Nolan Arenado of his power.

As for Arenado, injuries to both arms have robbed him of his power.

Besides the arm injuries, he ended last season on the IL with back spasms. His power is down across the board this year.

Stat: 2023, 2024
avgEV: 88.8, 85.1
maxEV: 110.3, 107.5
Barrel%: 7.3%, 3.1%
ISO: .193, .110

For next season, I’d check his second half stats for any improvements.

Cubs

• Dansby Swanson is trying to get the ball in the air more.

There’s also the good. All those bad results on breaking balls are coming with quality contact — that seems to be where a lot of his “bad luck” comes from. His hard-contact rate is nearly 6 percentage points higher than last year’s, the second-highest of his career. And Swanson has been working hard to get his swing right, so he gets the ball in the air more often. The results have finally been coming.

“A lot of it is direction,” Swanson said. “Good direction leads to good results. It comes in different ways and forms. Just being able to trust that has helped with the consistency for the past few days.”

What Swanson does defensively also can’t be ignored. There was a slight blip there early in the season; part of that might have been because of a knee issue he tried to play through and for which he eventually went on the injured list.

He doing a better job in July.

Month: GB%
Apr: 49%
May: 55%
Jun: 55%
Jul: 39%

It’s a start.

Giants

• Marco Luciano is getting some minor league reps at second base.

President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said the Giants still view Luciano, their No. 3 prospect, as a shortstop, but the 22-year-old Dominican has started to get some looks at second base in the Minors, which could create more avenues for him to force his way back to the big leagues in the second half.

“Nobody’s jumping to conclusions based on a short stretch and a handful of tough plays that didn’t go his way,” Zaidi said. “Some of this is just our philosophy of wanting to find different spots to get guys to the big leagues when we have opportunities. Diversifying things a little bit for him has made some sense. But we’re not giving up on the shortstop role for him.”

Mets

• The team is trying to get Jeff McNeil to hit the ball hard, not “aim” it.

But Mets coaches have worked with McNeil for a while now on helping him quit “aiming” balls and focusing on hard contact. According to club officials, that was part of their plan when they began benching McNeil in favor of Iglesias last month. Perhaps changes for someone accustomed to a certain way of hitting take time. And it’s worth noting that McNeil performed better after the All-Star break last year, too, with a .659 OPS in the first half compared with a .775 OPS in the second half. After such a dismal and odd individual season in 2024, McNeil’s performance Friday night was at least encouraging for the Mets and potentially important.

Hey Mets, good luck with that.

Padres

• Luis Arraez has been battling a hand injury for a few weeks.

The Padres arguably did well to go into the break with an above-.500 record. Their five highest-paid players — Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., Xander Bogaerts, Darvish and Musgrove — have all played through injuries and/or missed chunks of time. Their best performer, Jurickson Profar, continues to manage patellar tendinitis. Arraez sat out the All-Star game to rest a left thumb that has bothered him since he jammed it in late June [25th].

Before the injury, he was hitting .310/.345/.383. Since the injury, he’s at .322/.333/.373. A thumb injury doesn’t sap your power if you don’t start with any.