I would like to start by giving a shoutout to Scott White, who wrote a long post on X last night about being a father. You can click that link to read it, it’s too long for me to put here. But it’s great. And a really important thing for our target demographic (men between 20-50) to see another man say.
Men don’t talk about serious things very often, and in this day and age especially we’re all very averse to trying to give advice or guidance to another person. The idea seems to be that whatever you’re doing in life, that’s your choice and it’s great and nobody else should tell you that you should be doing something differently.
And sure, you can overdo it. It wouldn’t be helpful or wise or prudent for me to be yelling at people I don’t even know telling them to change their ways. But like with so many other things, we have wildly overcorrected. We’ve taken it to the point where it’s unacceptable to even say like “hey this way of living is better than this other way”.
That’s all beside the point, Scott wasn’t really trying to tell anybody what to do, just reflecting on the mind-transforming process that happens between the minute your wife tells you she’s pregnant and when your children are at least a few years old. I’m not sure at what point the mind transformation stops, I’m only six years into mine. I do think there’s a serious change in your attitudes, disposition, and general worldview during the first two years. And it slows down after that, because you’ve gotten to where you need to be. At least that happens to good and loving fathers.
I have been reading and listening to Scott White for something like ten years now. And I really appreciate his newfound (I think it’s newish?) willingness to give us his thoughts and opinions and analysis outside of the fantasy baseball world. I appreciate it more because I agree with him, obviously. But all opinions aren’t equally good and useful, and I don’t have to think they are! So, shout to Scott. He’s first class.
I’m all better now after yesterday morning. Unfortunately my work inbox hasn’t stopped populating. But let’s get into some baseball stuff.
There were three rainouts and a suspended game yesterday, and that means we have 19 different games going today. It’s a scroll-down kind of day.
It also means that less happened yesterday than a typical Tuesday.
Grant Holmes led the day with 27 whiffs on 106 pitches against the Angels.
That guy knows how to pop off in good matchups. He struck out 15 Rockies a few weeks ago and added 10 yesterday. He has a 28% K% on the season now, and it’s 36.3% in his last seven starts.
He’s doing it without much help in the whiff department from his fastball.
The slider is the money pitch. And especially so against righties. He throws it 46% of the time to righties and has a 28.3% SwStr% on the pitch. And then it gets even sillier with a 53% GB% on the pitch. He got 14 whiffs on the slider against righties last night. Righties are hopeless against that slider and that salad under his hat. What a look.
The one hole to poke in Holmes’ recent resume is that he hasn’t finished six innings against any team that isn’t the Rockies or Angels since May 24th when he went seven strong against the Padres. He also has a pretty brutal 11.2% BB% on the year. His 3.24 JA ERA on the year is good, but well shy of the league’s best. And lefties have plenty of success against him (22% K%, .335 xwOBA, 4.02 JA ERA). It’s hard to say that Holmes a stone lock-button must-start guy every time out.
He’ll get the Orioles and Cardinals for his next two starts. That’s a middle-of-the-road pair of matchups.
By the way, there’s a new page on the MLB DW Slate Analysis Appcalled “SP Planner”. This gives you that data I developed earlier this week about the strength of schedule scores for all starting pitchers. Here’s what it looks like:
You can see the best and worst matchup scores there at the top, and you can search for any pitcher you want as well as just see who is upcoming against a certain team. I’ll be on that daily now.
And I plan to continue to add to that application and change the name of it. It is going to have more and more stuff that is very useful for season-long fantasy players. But it’s for paid subs only, you can find the password in the Resource Glossary.
And yeah, that’s how I’ve had to lock things down since I don’t have a real website. I just have to hard code in a password so it doesn’t show you anything until you type the right password. A very professional service I have going here…
What is going on with Shane Baz? Another elite start for him, and that makes three of his last four being extremely good.
7 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 11 SO, 1 BB, 20 whiffs, 22.2% SwStr%
Remember last week I wrote about his new cutter. He ditched the slider awhile ago, so this is what it’s looked like over his last four starts:
The problem I have here is that the cutter doesn’t look all that special. It’s good to have multiple fastball variations tunneled together, and maybe that’s what he’s doing. But a 40% Ball% isn’t good. And it’s quite possible that hitters will get the tape on it and adjust. Baseball is a game of adjustments, and the league always seems to fight back.
There’s also the issue that Shane Baz has never been consistent at anything ever. I mean, I don’t know him personally, but he seems like the kinda guy that will bail on your happy hour plans like seven minutes before you’re supposed to meet.
Shane Baz Fantasy Points Log, 2025
It’s not only this year in the Majors, either. This guys minor league career had my head spinning.
Shane Baz Minor League Stats, 2021-2024
Those 21 starts from 2021-2022 had him looking like the next big thing if he could only get healthy. And then he got healthy in 2024 but the K% dropped 13 points and the walks exploded. Maybe it was because he had basically an entire new shoulder and arm installed on his body in 2023. I don’t know.
The one thing I do know is to know better than to trust Shane Baz.
He is also a fruit of the poisoned tree since he was involved in that ridiculous Pirates and Rays trade back in 2018. The Pirates sent him, Tyler Glasnow, and Austin Meadows to the Rays for Chris Archer. The only time in my life the Pirates had ever truly made a win-now move, and then Chris Archer dropped a 1.5 year long dookie on us. He made 33 starts with a 4.92 ERA and went 6-12. Real nice.
The consolation, I guess, is that Meadows career doesn’t seem like it was ever going to pan out and that Baz and Glasnow have had enormous trouble staying on the field. It’s also possible that the Pirates incompetence would have kept Glasnow away from ever being good. I mean that’s a very real possibility. But yeah, I’d sure take Baz and Glasnow on the Pirates right now!
I keep forgetting that I don’t care about the Pirates anymore. I’m not a fan, and I need to remember that. But hey they’ve won five in a row root root root for our home team a new Pirates generation shouting let’s go Bucs!!!
Zac Gallen returned in glory. Man I missed a lot last night. I was at church for a book club thing (we’re reading AW Tozer) and then came home and just watched Top Chef with my wife. And
7 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 10 SO, 0 BB
Real nice.
I noticed when pulling up his profile that he has no minor league innings since 2021. That’s impressive in and of itself. So I looked for guys with 500+ MLB innings since 2021 and no time at all spent in the minors (on rehab typically).
First, here’s the Python code, which is only possibly useful for those of you who have completed my Python course. But I kind of like showing off code because I’m very special and intelligent.
Here’s the result:
Back to Gallen. He generated a 15.8% SwStr% yesterday on a sick 30.7% Ball%. There was no pitch mix change or velocity bump to mention. It just all came together for him. He landed 65% of his curveballs for strikes (called strikes, swinging strikes, or foul balls) and dotted the fastball well with a 53% Strike%.
What will happen next? Who is to say! But the season sample on Gallen looks pretty awful.
His next two are against the Royals and Angels, a very strong schedule. So, if you’re in a league with multiple idiots that follow me and listen to my stupid advice, you might be able to pick Gallen up for free!
It’s late in the morning now and games start in like 90 minutes, but I’ve gotta get to Edward Cabrera.
That outing dropped his season BB% half of a point to 10%. The disappointing part is that the improved walk rate hasn’t come with a sustained K%. He’s lost a couple of points on that. He was at a 27% K% in 2023 and a 25.6% mark last year, and he’s down to 25% this year. That’s still a more than fine K%, but paired with a 10% BB% it gives you a mediocre 15% K-BB%.
But this is by far the best version of E-Cab we’ve ever seen. He’s given up two or fewer earned runs in seven straight outings and has a 3.41 ERA on the year and a 2.05 ERA in his last 10 starts. He should be owned in most leagues.
The top scoring bats yesterday were George Springer and Hunter Goodman. They both went dongus kongus twice.
Springer has had a quietly productive season with the stick.
310 PA, .270/.358/.486, 13 HR, 9 SB
It’s his highest OBP since 2019 and his highest SLG since 2021.
As for Goodman, he continues to look like one of the best offensive catchers in the league.
315 PA, .290/.337/.532, 16 HR, 1 SB
It does come with an elevated K% (26%), but it’s not out of control. He doesn’t walk much either (5.7% BB%).
He hits the ball hard (107.9 EV90) and gets it in the air (36% GB%, 19% Air Pull%), so that offsets some of the lost PAs when he strikes out. I do think he’ll be a streaky guy. But we can say that he’s defeated the elevation change curse so far.
Goodman at home: .283/.335/.476, 5 HR, .308 xwOBA
Goodman on road: .297/.338/.588, 11 HR, .372 xwOBA
He’s a must-start guy in all leagues, obviously. But I will not fall into the trap of drafting him next year. NO WAY. If I die, I die.
Hey Jon, I’ve got my own Substack abt the Red Sox to practice sports writing while I’m in college and cause I enjoy it. I wanna put clips from Film Room into my posts but I can’t figure out how to on my laptop like you did w Grant Holmes up top. Any guidance on how to make this possible would be much appreciated🙏
You used to post longest PA streaks since last hit and last home run. Where or how I can find that data? Thank you!
Hey Jon, I’ve got my own Substack abt the Red Sox to practice sports writing while I’m in college and cause I enjoy it. I wanna put clips from Film Room into my posts but I can’t figure out how to on my laptop like you did w Grant Holmes up top. Any guidance on how to make this possible would be much appreciated🙏