Mining the News (9/18/24)

American League

Angels

• Mike Trout might move to a corner outfield spot or DH next season.

Angels superstar Mike Trout said his twice surgically repaired left knee is feeling better and he’s open to potentially moving to a corner outfield spot or serving as designated hitter more often to try to stay healthy.

Astros

• Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez might have their final starts skipped so the playoff rotations get set.

Closing the gap could create a fascinating conundrum for Espada and his pitching coaches — and four more games against this awful Angels team make it somewhat realistic.

An off day on Sept. 26 would allow Brown to be on four days of rest for the club’s penultimate regular-season game against the Guardians. Valdez could start the Sept. 29 series finale on regular rest, too. The Wild Card Series is scheduled to start on Oct. 1.

Pitching either Brown or Valdez in the final two games against the Guardians could prevent them from contributing. Whoever starts the second game against Cleveland wouldn’t be on regular rest until an if-necessary Game 3 of a Wild Card series.

Preserving both of them — while affording some extra rest — may be the most prudent decision. That Ronel Blanco and Spencer Arrighetti are pitching well only reinforces the thought.

Athletics

• Ryan Noda was working with his mechanics until he settled on a set he liked in mid-July.

MLB.com: Looking at your numbers at Triple-A, you were getting on base a lot, which has been kind of your calling card for a while. What do you attribute for that success you had there?

Noda: I took the first month to really try things. It was a very slow start again. It was just trial and error at that point. Once I found something that felt comfortable and felt like myself and I can walk into the box and think I can hit anything, that’s when things started changing. Middle of July was when I really was like, “All right, now we go.” I had a pretty good August. I feel like I’m pretty much back to who I am and what I can do. I think I can still improve. At the same time, I’m ready go and ready to rock with the boys.

Blue Jays

• Daulton Varsho’s Spring Training could be delayed because of his recent shoulder surgery.

[Varsho]’s expected to recover over the winter and participate in spring training 2025, with next steps beyond that to be determined later.

“We’ll see how it goes and what the recovery time is like,” said manager John Schneider. “Most likely, it could bleed into next spring a little bit.”

With that in mind, it’s possible the recovery window could extend past opening day 2025, in which case the Blue Jays would be relying on someone like Joey Loperfido or Nathan Lukes in centre field on a temporary basis. While both have played the position in Varsho’s absence, no one can fill in for the game’s best defensive outfielder.

• Yariel Rodríguez will be limited to 140 IP next season.

That starts with a workload limit. Rodríguez has thrown 98 innings between Triple-A Buffalo and the big leagues this year, leaving him on track to finish just over 100. That’s been the magic number all along for the Blue Jays, and it should set Rodríguez up to push closer to 140 next season.

“You have to be patient, but I know we’ve had a plan since the beginning of the season,” Rodríguez said through a club interpreter. “I’ve prepared myself mentally that I wasn’t going to go for many innings because we have a plan. It’s tough. A couple of times it’s been tough, because I’m a big competitor and you want to keep going, especially in some outings when I felt I was going good. It’s part of the plan. We’re following that, and so far, so good.”

Tigers

• After a July 21st start, Brant Hurter added a rocking motion, improving his delivery.

Hurter had long been known as a strike-thrower, a lefty sinkerballer who could pound the zone and induce groundballs. But his mechanics had gotten out of whack. He was struggling to repeat his delivery. He had no rhythm, his pitch counts were getting bloated and opposing hitters were feasting.

So Bochtler suggested Hurter implement a small rocking motion at the beginning of his delivery. It’s a slight movement that starts with his front leg, then goes to his arms, rocking as if he’s cradling a baby, before he gets loaded on his back leg.

Hurter took the motion into his next bullpen session. The results came in an instant.

Twins

• Trevor Larnach is dealing with a hamstring injury

Trevor Larnach is clearly running at way less than full speed.

Rocco Baldelli said he's dealing with a hamstring injury. It's why he's been limited to designated hitter lately.

But as Baldelli said, "It's not affecting his swing."

Larnach doubled, walked, and scored two runs.

— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) September 15, 2024

• Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa will not play every game.

Rocco Baldelli said Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa will be evaluated after each game to assess if they can play the next game.

Correa: "Realistically, I'm not going to play every game. I'm going to miss some games here and there. But we want to be out there as much as possible."

— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) September 14, 2024

White Sox

• Free-agent-to-be Yoán Moncada will see limited playing time as the team wants to evaluate Bryan Ramos and Miguel Vargas.

“I don’t have a set plan for anybody, but I’m gonna kind of prioritize Ramos and Vargas right now just because we want to see what these guys can do,” Sizemore said. “So they’re gonna probably take priority over Yoán right now, but still gonna try to mix everybody in as much as I can.”

National League

Cubs

• Nate Pearson throws his slider more against lefties and changes his mound position.

When the Cubs acquired Pearson from the Toronto Blue Jays a little before the trade deadline, they knew he had stuff. But the former top prospect had yet to translate that into results at the highest level. In 21 innings with the Cubs, he’s made some tweaks that have helped lead to a 2.57 ERA.

The first has been that Pearson is using his slider more against lefties. Since the start of the 2023 season up to the time he was traded from Toronto, Pearson used his slider against lefties just 16.4 percent of the time. Since being traded to the Cubs, he’s used it 38.9 percent of the time.

…

The other change Pearson has made is that he’s moved from the third-base side of the rubber to the first-base side. That’s helped him drop his walk rate. With the Blue Jays, it was 9.3 percent. So far with the Cubs it’s just 2.6 percent.

Marlins

• Sandy Alcantara is sitting 97 mph to 99 mph and will no longer throw his curveball.

“Well, first of all, it’s just really cool to see him on the mound again, facing hitters,” manager Skip Schumaker said of Alcantara. “Looked like he was in Opening Day form, throwing 97-99 mph with a really good run. [The] changeup looked good. For his first time out, 20 pitches, in about a year, it was just really impressive.
…
Alcantara has ditched the curveball, which might have been a reason behind the injury.

“You can see that he was working a lot on his slider, just to have that feeling,” Sanoja said via interpreter Luis Dorante Jr. “I think he was looking for that. And again, it’s just incredible to face a guy like this, you guys know he’s a Cy Young.

He rarely threw the curve anyway (2% in ’23, 4% for his career).

Mets

• Kodai Senga and Jose Quintana will piggyback starts once Senga returns.

Senga is eligible to come off the 60-day injured list on Sept. 25 — the middle day of New York’s massive three-game series in Atlanta in the season’s final week. The Mets have sketched out a possible schedule in which Senga starts that game on a limited pitch count, with lefty Jose Quintana piggybacking after him. The club’s preference is to use Senga as an abbreviated starter rather than trying to finagle him into an unfamiliar long relief role.

Phillies

• Spencer Turnbull is still a ways away from joining the pitching staff.

If they want 13, the last spot could go to left-hander Kolby Allard or right-handers Max Lazar, Tyler Gilbert or Spencer Turnbull, who has not pitched since June 26 because of an injured right shoulder. Turnbull threw 64 pitches in Clearwater, Fla., on Tuesday. There is a chance that he could make a rehab appearance this weekend in Triple-A Lehigh Valley, but his return is not imminent.

“He still has some more work to do,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said.

Pirates

• Nick Yorke could be “part of our future”.

“I mean, [Yorke]’s a guy that we acquired at the Deadline and has done really well in Triple-A all year long, and as we move forward the next two weeks, someone we want to get a look at, because we think he’s going to be part of our future.”

• Jared Triolo lower his hands and improved his results.

He’s really picked it up at the plate of late though, going from batting below the Mendoza line to slashing .274/.390/.464 with four home runs from Aug. 17-Sept. 16, a month-long stretch in which he’s been the regular third baseman with Ke’Bryan Hayes on the injured list.

It’s around that time frame when Triolo made a change in his mechanics, lowering his hands. As a result, he’s drastically cut down on his groundball rate (46.7 percent before Aug. 17 to 28.3 percent since) and is hitting more line drives.