Mining the News (9/26/25)

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Note: Teams out of the playoffs are starting to drop end-of-season reports. I’m going to be behind for a couple of weeks catching up.

American League

Athletics

• Zack Gelof had surgery on his shoulder.

Athletics second baseman Zack Gelof had successful surgery on his left shoulder to address an injury sustained earlier last week, the team announced Wednesday.

Dr. Neal ElAttrache performed an anterior labral-capsule repair in Los Angeles to address instability after Gelof’s injury in Pittsburgh on Sept. 19.

• Luis Severino decided to attack batters with his fastball to turn around his season.

Soon after, Severino was better. Following his final outing before the All-Star break against the Blue Jays, Severino said he believed he had discovered what would turn around his undesirable season. The solution was simple: Start attacking hitters more with his fastball.

Since then, Severino has looked like a completely different pitcher. He posted a 3.10 ERA (17 earned runs in 49 1/3 innings) in nine starts after the All-Star break, working around a stint on the 15-day injured list, with an unblemished 6-0 record over that stretch.

The article mentions his last nine starts as the key. Here is his nine-game rolling graph for xFIP.

Blue Jays

• Chris Bassitt dealt with back issues over his last few starts before going on the IL.

A pending free agent, Schneider said at the time of the IL move that Bassitt had been dealing with the back issue for the previous three or four starts.

Guardians

• Gavin Williams performed better once he started attacking the strike zone.

But as he and Willis kept tinkering with his mechanics and his pitch mix, Williams started to figure out where he could attack the zone, and the results followed. Since the start of June, he owns a 2.67 ERA. He’s dropped his walk rate nearly 3 percent (though he admits it’s still too high).

The walk rate is an improvement, but it still didn’t return to his 2024 levels.

Rangers

• Wyatt Langford played through side tightness the whole year and went on the IL with oblique strains three times.

Langford missed games on Sept. 19-20 against the Marlins due to left side tightness, but returned to the lineup for the series finale on Sept. 21, when he launched his team-leading 22nd homer of the season. He said postgame Tuesday that he had been dealing with some side tightness dating back to the Rangers’ series in Houston from Sept. 15-17, but was able to play through it until recently.

…

“He was playing with it a little bit even before we sat him the first time,” said manager Bruce Bochy. “And then he hit the home run, which was incredible with that oblique bothering him. He hit it well, too. But it’s gotten a little bit worse. So, yeah, we can’t risk it.”
…
Despite a solid year, Langford has already had two separate stints on the injured list with oblique strains, first from April 9-20 and again from June 27-July 5.

“There were definitely a couple times — like, a decent amount of time where I was fighting it,” Langford said of his season. “It’s one of those things where it doesn’t always hurt a ton, but it really affects your swing, just because that’s pretty much all swing is, your rotation in the obliques. It’s been aggravating, but it’s something I hope we can figure out as a staff.”

I looked back to see if anyone went on the IL for a core injury three times. In 2010, Jacoby Ellsbury was the only one in my database. The next season, he played in 158 games and had 732 PA. With a sample of 1, Langford isn’t a complete avoid because of the injury.

Red Sox

• Kyle Harrison revamped his arsenal since joining the team.

“First and foremost, there is the cutter,” said Harrison, who has made two appearances and allowed one run over nine innings since making his Red Sox debut on September 10. “There is also a sinker that I can mix in to lefties. I have a new changeup grip, as well. Everything else is the same. The four-seam is kind of how I’ve always been identified — and I still have the slurve — so now it’s been about adding the other secondary stuff to protect it.”

Harrison mentioned adding a cutter when I spoke to him early last season, but the pitch never really took hold. Per Baseball Savant, he threw only six of them in 2024. As for the changeup, there have been multiple iterations. After tweaking his original grip last year, he is now a member of the kick change generation.

“It used to be similar to Logan Webb’s changeup — the way he throws his with a one-seam orientation — but I’ve switched to a kick,” Harrison explained. “That’s what I’m trying to harness. It is a little harder to get a feel for. Throwing a kick kind of takes away that being perfect, of trying to pronate a pitch and get to a spot. Now it’s, ‘Throw the pitch and let the kick take care of it.’”

Twins

• The team’s beat writers seem to think Walker Jenkins will be a major part of the 2026 team. Matthew Leach at MLB.com wrote …

Byron Buxton is obviously the starting center fielder, and after that… well? The July specification makes this interesting, because I don’t think Walker Jenkins (Twins’ No. 1 prospect) breaks camp with the big club, but he could absolutely get the call by midseason.

So let’s start with Buxton in center and Jenkins in right. I think Alan Roden plays a very big part on next year’s club, probably beginning the year as the primary left fielder. Austin Martin has staked a very good claim to being a rotational piece, a platoon partner for the left-handed corner men.

… and Aaron Gleeman of the Athletic wrote.

Ideally, by the middle of next season, a 21-year-old Walker Jenkins and 23-year-old Emmanuel Rodriguez will be in the majors and flanking a 32-year-old Byron Buxton in the outfield.

• Luke Keaschall will need surgery on his thumb.

Keaschall, who suffered a sprained left thumb on a slide in the Twins’ win on Tuesday night against the Rangers at Globe Life Field, will likely need surgery to repair the injury and is not expected to play again in 2025. He will receive a follow-up examination next week, but the most likely outcome for him is that he will undergo surgery.

“It feels a lot better,” he said. “I’m at 100-plus games and finding the swing late, which is exciting going into the offseason, especially ending how I am right now. It feels really good to be healthy, too. Those are the two main things: Try to find the swing, get back to where I was, and then go to the offseason healthy so I can build off of that.”

Yankees

• Anthony Volpe has been dealing with a partially torn labrum.

Volpe has also said he feels much better than he had, and that the time spent on his pregame and postgame maintenance for the partial labrum tear in his shoulder has shortened, as well.

• Luke Weaver wants to be a starting pitcher … again.

Weaver told MLB Network insiders Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman on their podcast last week that he’d be open to a return to starting if the right opportunity presents itself.

“I would say, look, the door is open,” Weaver said. “I am never going to just say ‘absolutely not.’ Like, ‘Hey, when the time comes, let’s talk about it. What does that look like?'”

Horrible idea. Career 3.97 ERA as a reliever. 5.05 ERA as a starter.

National League

Braves

• Hurston Waldrep turned his season around when he added a cutter and sinker.

[Waldrep] been that good since adding a sinker and cutter to a six-pitch repertoire centered on a devastating split-finger fastball.

Mets

• Mark Vientos needs to limit his slumps because his defense can’t keep him on the field.

Out of the three, however, Vientos stands out as someone who has had less time to navigate slumps this season. His inability to consistently defend well is largely why (if he’s not hitting, there goes his value).