The Windup: Salt Swings in San Diego

The Windup newsletter ⚾ | This is The Athletic’s daily MLB newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Windup straight to your inbox.

The Missing Bats Project takes a trip down memory lane, Ken explains Luis Robert Jr.’s complicated deal, things have gotten tough in San Diego, and this isn’t the Subway series we expected a few weeks ago. I am Levi Weaverattached Ken Rosenthalwelcome to The Windup!

Perfectly salty: the benches (and bases) are clear in San Diego

The Padres have been looking for a spark lately. If the last two nights didn’t do it, they might not get one.

In the bottom of the 10th inning Monday night, the Nationals elected to intentionally walk Luis Arraez (who, with that walk, increased his June OPS to just .561) to get to Jurickson Profar, who is having a monster season.

Profar respected the basic rule of two points Single (we can explain), increasing his June OPS to 0.795. As part of his celebration, he appeared at He shouted at the Nationals dugout, even though he claimed he was cheering for the home crowd. Yet this post-match quote made that claim a little dubious:

“I felt disrespected.”

Last night, before Profar even came to bat, Nationals catcher Keibert Ruiz began a lengthy conversation at home plate with Profar in the bottom of the first inning. It went on long enough for Manny Machado to step in and break it up and the benches to clear. There was some yelling, but no shoving, and warnings were issued to both dugouts.

MacKenzie Gore played for the Padres. He and Profar were teammates in 2022. If you think that would push him to be nicer, you don’t know your history with Gore. Gore hit Profar in the leg with the very next pitch.

Auto eject, right? Wait… right?! Padres manager Mike Shildt was predictably furious, leading to her ejection. But here’s what happened on the very next throw, the first to Machado:

San Diego. IT’S STRONG. pic.twitter.com/NF9WzN2WsK

– MLB (@MLB) June 26, 2024

Oh, that’s salty.

Later, after the Padres had given up – then regained – the lead, Profar got his own revenge by hitting a grand slam that ultimately proved the difference in the Padres’ 9-7 victory.

Missing Bats: The ancestors of fastball

Before Trackman, before Statcast, before Driveline, spin efficiency or offset seam wake, there were… footballs.

Cody Stavenhagen is the next participant in our Missing Bats project, and in today’s third installment, he talks to us about the “Galileo” of pitch analysis.

Tom House and Brent Strom were teammates at USC before the duo embarked on big league pitching careers in the 1970s. After retiring, each entered the coaching field. Between them, there was a unifying conviction: Perhaps the commonly accepted truths about sports did not have been transmitted from above?

For House, the focus was on technology, as he began dissecting pitching mechanics using slow-motion cameras while serving as pitching coach for the Texas Rangers (1985-1993).

For Strom, the revolution was more about approach. Here’s my favorite part of the story:

As Strom recalls, the official informed the room that major league hitters were hitting .222 on ground balls but .417 on fly balls.

Strom, still going against the grain, raised his hand. “It’s bull…” he said.

Strom asked if a line drive should count as a fly ball. The official said yes. And there, Strom realized, was one of the game’s dominant logical fallacies. In 2008, major league hitters actually hit only .222 on flyballs and pop-ups. On ground balls, they hit .241. Online they hit a mind-blowing .728.

Add to that Ron Wolforth, who founded the Texas Baseball Ranch to train pitchers to throw harder – something previously thought impossible – and you had a trio of real troublemakers. As might be expected, they were not immediately hailed as visionaries.

This has since changed. Strom is considered one of the best pitching coaches in the history of the game. House has expanded his scope to work with NFL quarterbacks, including Tom Brady. And the Baseball Ranch has coached more than 100 draft picks.

Sometimes it takes a few intrepid fools to find the future.

Ken’s Notebook: monitoring trade deadlines

In recent weeks, the White Sox have assigned top scouts to focus on the farm systems of the Padres, Dodgers and Mariners, according to sources briefed on the scouts’ movements. These three clubs have expressed interest in several White Sox players, but are far from the only ones committed to Chicago.

Then again, perhaps the White Sox’s scouting activity is an indication of how they’ll approach the deadline. If they’re relying on on-field scouts, that means they likely want prospects with big tools. The Padres, Dodgers and Mariners all have those types of players in considerable supply.

As previously reported, White Sox left-hander Garrett Crochet is a Padres target.
Reliever Michael Kopech and outfielder Tommy Pham are among the other potential candidates, and Padres general manager AJ Preller remains perhaps the most aggressive in the game — or is he impatient? – executive.
The Dodgers also like Crochet and center fielder Luis Robert Jr., sources said. The Mariners, whose combined on-field OPS ranks 23rd in the majors, could clearly use Robert. But Unless Robert becomes a healthy player, the White Sox fear that if they trade him at the deadline, they will sell him cheap.

Robert, who turns 27 on Aug. 3, missed nearly two months with a right hip flexor strain. Through Sunday, he had hit just .191 with a .265 on-base percentage since returning. His seven homers have boosted his OPS to .737, but he’s been inconsistent, not a game-changer. All that could change in the next month, but Robert’s frequent injuries, low walk rate and high strikeout rate are a concern for interested clubs.

Teams will likely want to see more before giving up what the White Sox would want for a player who last season hit 38 home runs and stole 20 bases. Robert is owed the balance of his salary of $12.5 million in 2024 and $15 million in 2025. His contract also includes club options of $20 million for 2026 and 2027.

While a number of people in the game are speculating that Preller is trying to bolster his roster in an effort to save his job, what would be the difference between this supposedly desperate version of Preller and how he normally acts as a general manager ?

A litmus test for Preller will be whether he moves Leodalis De Vries, a 17-year-old shortstop the Padres signed in the Dominican Republic last January for $4.2 million.

De Vries and catcher Ethan Salas are considered as untouchable as any player in the Padres system. The Padres are telling clubs they don’t want to trade them. But in the case of De Vries, is it possible that Preller is taking this stance purely to whet the appetite of interested clubs? As Preller has shown previously, if he can acquire the right player, no prospect is off limits.

New York, New York: the Mets and the Yankees follow the sequences

What better time than the Subway Series for both New York teams to do something they haven’t really done all year?

For the Mets, it’s a long streak of success that puts them just one game over .500, a place they haven’t been since May 7.
For the Yankees – 3-7 in their last 10 games – it was the first real failure of what had been a pretty dominant season.

The Yankees’ problem isn’t just injuries. The guys on the field (despite Aaron Judge and his 29 home runs) have also struggled lately. Gleyber Torres’ frustrating season was easier to overlook when the Yankees were winning at the best rate in the league.

Gerrit Cole’s absence hasn’t been a major issue as the rest of the rotation has performed admirably in his place. His return, however, has become worrying. In last night’s 9-7 loss to the Mets, he did something that had never been done in the team’s 18,000-game history: He allowed four homers and four walks on balls without a single strikeout.

We are not yet at the point where any change in fortune will certainly make a big difference. The Mets are still 13 games behind the Phillies (even though they are now only 1 1/2 games out of a wild card position). And the Yankees’ cold streak has coincided with a similar chill in Baltimore, where the Orioles are on a five-game losing streak.

More Yankees: How Juan Soto’s relationship with Aaron Judge has been crucial thus far with the Yankees.

Handshakes and High Fives

Immediately after Texas A&M lost the Men’s College World Series to Tennessee on Monday, coach Jim Schlossnagle appeared rather miffed when asked about rumors that he was considering leaving, saying, “I think It’s quite selfish of you to ask me this question. …I took the job at Texas A&M only to never take another job again. And that hasn’t changed, in my mind. On Tuesday, that was the case: He will coach A&M’s biggest rival, the University of Texas.

With the All-Star Game less than three weeks away, Tarik Skubal is making a strong case that he should be the starting pitcher in the AL.

Speaking of which: Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm is the fourth-most voted player in the league. Who would have thought it, a little more than two years after expressing certain feelings about Philadelphia?

There was a time when Mark Prior was considered a future Hall of Famer. Then injuries derailed his career. He flourished again at age 43 as the Dodgers’ pitching coach.