19 year old and 61 days

So far Wilyer has swung at only 4 of 41 pitches out the strike zone this spring; he is human ABS system

Narvaez 6'0" -> 5'11" Contreras 6'1" -> 6'0" Durbin 5'7" -> 5'6" Duran 6'1" -> 6'0" Gasper 5'10" -> 5'9" Seigler 5'10" -> 5'9" Ehrhard 5'10" -> 5'9" Liendo 5'8" -> 5'7" Hickey 6'0" -> 5'11" Romero 6'0" -> 5'11" Godbout 6'2" -> 6'0" Gonzales 6'4" -> 6'5" Taylor 5'11" -> 6'0"

Connelly Early had reached 96.5 in AAA statcast and 96.6 in MLB statcast before today, when he hit 97.1

I’m probably on an island here, but watching spring training games, the ABS system is so incredibly dumb. Just use the technology to call every ball and strike correctly.

Besides a dramatic change in “stuff” from a pitcher, not much into getting up or down about any spring performance. So far, my only mental note is that Tolle’s command may not have been a winter fix, and we may be on a longer development path with him even though he rocketed through the system.

The two hardest hitters in the AL East

Rafaela's combined spring training stats from 2024-26 pro-rated to 650 plate appearances: 52 2B, 31 HR, 121 RBI, 42 SB, 52 BB, 105 K

@mikepetriello.bsky.social Maybe a dumb question, but do you know why gamefeed has these mirrored compared to other parts of the site?

Jake Bennett (Luis Perales trade) hitting 97.6 mph this afternoon

Justin Slaten threw a couple of changeups today, they might be his first ever in game action

So, watching 4 innings of Konnor Griffin play, he appears to be a combination of Bobby Witt Jr. and Mike Trout.

"By all accounts, including interviews with longtime pressroom employees and a review of the Globe historical archive, the decision marks the first time that management has called off production of a daily paper since the organization’s founding in 1872."

Jovani Moran's fastball/changeup combo yesterday looked very much like when he dominated in 2022, with a slider that had a bit more bite. They didn't get a veteran lefty reliever all winter, and it's hard to see them finding one now that is near as intriguing.

With ST games getting underway today, a fun look back on last year was Trayce Thompson hitting .278/.447/.833 with 6 HR, and Abreu and Campbell combining for .132/.250/.250 before putting up .298/.412/.520 in April.

that was an insane hour of olympics right there

It looks like a Baseball Savant update for this year is that instead of a generic zone, we get the actual height-adjusted zone for each batter.

If I'm interpreting the ABS graphic change articles correctly, the difference is every pitch will be displayed as a filled in circle like the Mets did (images on the left), rather than the filled in or empty circle like the Red Sox and others showed (images on the right.)

Duran seemed peeved that he was asked if he’s doing anything to hit lefties better this year. Here are the MLB players that basically got full time playing time as lefties against lefties the last two seasons.

It’s comically on-brand that Cora and the media team apparently had players crying and shit with such a heartwarming kickoff meeting this morning… and somehow the Sox still managed spend the day getting dragged through the mud all over the internet for idiotic and out of touch media comments

We're seeing some fascinating divergences in projections. @fangraphs.com has the Red Sox as a 90-win team. @baseballprospectus.com has them as an 81-win team. While ZiPS doesn't have any Sox hitters projected for > 18 HR, PECOTA has Duran and Contreras getting to exactly 20.

On the morning of June 7th, Durbin ranked 201st/229 of MLB batters in wRC+. I have no idea how much of a leash he had left, but the rest of the way he put up a 120 wRC+, ranking 81st/222.

I guess we'll never get the full story about what went on after Campbell's rib injury and subsequent cratering last season. However, if his bat's back to line drives all over the park with walks, I'd not be surprised if a Campbell Anthony Abreu OF is the result at some point in season.

My offer for Neto would have been colossal and impossible for the Angels to refuse. www.masslive.com/redsox/2026/...

Whether Gray or Suarez follows Crochet in the rotation to start the season won't be decided until the end of camp and how they want to line things up for the first few series.

Cora says that all of Kristian Campbell's regular work and playing time will be in the outfield this spring, but he will get individual work at 2B and 3B to stay fresh in those spots because if he's hitting, they will need to find him at-bats.

Durbin and Contreras both had friendly zones called against them last year. They had lower catcher framing runs than any Red Sox batter. Umpires struggled with the top and bottom zones for Durbin. An interesting ABS case upcoming.

Finally confirmed that JetBlue Park has upgraded to Hawk-Eye / Statcast in time for spring training and the implementation of automatic ball strikes. They were one of last spring facilities still using trackman. Most interesting part will be if real young pitchers sneak into games for their data.

The blue line is every Red Sox SP month last year (>10 IP) and the corresponding K-BB%. Orange is Crochet, Suarez, Gray, Bello, Oviedo, and Early. So the overlapping first 5 are Early's September and 4 Crochet months. Then you can see the rising tide of the new rotation.

Updated players that pitched for the Red Sox last year by release extension

Durbin was apparently atrocious defensively in spring training last year, which bled into April, but then he became quite good at third base.

If Durbin is going to "use the Monster to his advantage" and all that stuff, he's going to need to be much better handling inside pitches.

Durbin had a .334 OPB last year, and that was while leading the NL in hit by pitches (24). HBP for batters has modest year-to-year correlation, so it's more than just luck. Durbin's HBP rate 5.9% NCAA 3.4% MiLB 4.7% MLB

Durbin put together a nice 8-hit postseason by mostly sweet-spotting (8-32° launch angle) flares.

Durbin came up and won the full-time 3B job with the Brewers out of necessity, but his career minor league defense time looked much different Innings 2B 1286 3B 628 SS 343 LF 65 CF 9

Durbin’s similar style batters from Savant

I’d rather Durbin than anyone they gave up, but he’s nothing special, and in the context of Breslow and Bailey openly talking about Harrison pitching in the front of a rotation it’s absolutely pathetic.

Waking up at 5:30 a.m. on Patriots’ Super Bowl Sunday to watch women’s alpine skiing was a choice

Red Sox nuggets from the Astros front: Sox and Pirates are 2 of 5 teams on the Isaac Paredes trade market. Trade talks heating up. Astros prefer Abreu over Duran; Sox do not to and have not wanted to move Abreu. If attention gets focused on Duran, Astros would need to shift money around.

Started digging in on a roster overview and the simple takeaway is it'll be flabbergasting if another sizeable move doesn't happen. The position player group mix feels so ill-fitting, don't love the lineup options, trickles down to a weird bench. Cora can do it, but this is hard mode for no reason.

I post these charts about 100 times during a season. This is what the 6th worst "quality of contact" looked like in MLB last year, out of 309 players.

In the 2000s, there have been 4,461 individual MLB seasons with at least 450 plate appearances. Last year, Kiner-Falefa's season ranked 4,215th.

First time we've had a goalie fight outdoors!

I guess add Casey Schmitt to the maybe available infielder options now that the Giants signed Arraez? Another imperfect option, but I'm more interersted there than a lot of the other names mentioned for months.

Sox likely would have hired him to be Chief Baseball Officer, but he was one of the long list of people who declined an interview. Rough couple of years with the Twins since for the Massachusetts native.

Patriots playoff defense 36 drives 16 punts 7 turnovers 4 field goals 4 turnovers on downs 2 touchdowns 2 missed field goals 1 defensive touchdown