Dan's Baseball Digest: 2025 Week 2
First Pitch
A weekly baseball digest seemed like a good idea when the news was slower. But my goodness we have turned on the firehose! The end of Spring Training and the start of the regular season have brought far more news and notes and highlights than I could possibly include in one blog post, which gives me the opportunity to refine what I want to do here: a round up of things that I, personally, think are interesting and cool. If you want a list of every 26th man who made the roster and every 27th man who got cut then you'll want to head over to MLB Trade Rumors Dot Com. I'm here for the big stuff, and the players I enjoy talking about.
So here we go. Opening Day has come and gone. The Pirates lost to a team that spends so little money that the players' union is filing a grievance. It literally cannot get any worse (unless they lose again today).
Article Roundup
Baseball Prospectus: Craig Kimbrel and the Issue of Trust (Paid) - A good post from last year that's less about Craig Kimbrel and more about relievers and the Hall of Fame.
MLB: Savant Has Batting Stance Data Now - Everyone's favorite free baseball data tool has added batting stance data, and the results are very cool.
FanGraphs: Opening Day Power Rankings - Who doesn't love power rankings? Especially early ones which always have some big misses. The Pirates are 23rd, which seems like a fair starting point.
Fangraphs: One More Look at the New Taijuan Walker - I really enjoy deep dives into pitcher arsenals, and this one doesn't disappoint. Plus it's free and isn't about my nemesis Roki Sasaki, unlike last week's entry.
Important Transactions, Injuries, etc
- The Rockies traded Nolan Jones to the Guardians for Tyler Freeman Being a Pirates fan sucks, but at least I'm not a Rockies fan. Jones' 2024 season was mostly lost to injury, but he came in 4th for Rookie of the Year the season before that. He's got hella upside, which is not something I feel comfortable saying about Tyler Freeman. Freeman can play all over the field, which is nice, but really shouldn't be a priority for a cellar dwelling team.
- Mariners release Mitch Haniger. Haniger was not on a minor league contract, and will be making 15 million dollars this year despite the release. I'm happy for him.
- Gunnar Henderson, Zack Gelof, and Shane McClanahan to start season on IL Bummer for the Orioles, A's, and Rays respectively. Gelof is expected to be out the longest, and likely have the most difficult road to recovery as he broke his hamate (a notoriously power sapping injury). Gunnar and S-Mac should be back within a couple weeks.
- Pirates pitcher Jared Jones out until midseason with elbow inflamation. Well...... at least it isn't Tommy John surgery. Yet.
- Braves sign reliever Jesse Chavez to a minor league deal. Again. In what seems to be becoming another annual-ish tradition, Chavez and the Braves have reunited for the 5th time. I don't know how they do it, but Atlanta keeps getting the best possible version of Chavez. I hope it happens again cause it's FUN!
On Deck
- BASEBALL CONTINUES! The Rays and Rockies play today, and assuming that doesn't get rained out then every team will have at least a game under their belt.
- Several interesting players were DFAed in the past couple days, and will likely not make it through waivers. I'm especially interested to see where Eguy Rosario ends up.
Highlights of the Week
The first (domestic) pitch of the 2025 season!
MacKenzie Gore had 13 strikeouts and yet the Nationals still managed to lose.
Colin Hanks wore an MLB logo hat to the Dodgers game. Where do celebs get these things??
Lowlight: MLB.tv was down for the first hour or so of Opening Day. I think it was an AWS outage so not totally their fault, but really not ideal!