Salty swings in San Diego, plus Ken’s latest trade deadline intel

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The Missing Bats project takes a trip in the wayback machine, Ken explains Luis Robert Jr.’s complicated market, things got testy in San Diego and this is not the Subway Series we would have expected a few weeks ago. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal, welcome to The Windup!

Perfectly Salted: Benches (and bases) clear in San Diego

The Padres have been looking for a spark lately. If the last two nights didn’t do it, they might be un-sparkable.

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

Profar hit a two-run walk-off ground-rule single (we can explain), boosting his June OPS to .795, by the way. As part of his celebration, he appeared to be yelling at the Nationals dugout, though he claimed he was pumping up the home crowd. Still, this postgame quote made that assertion a bit dubious:

“I felt disrespected.” 

Last night, before Profar even took an at-bat, Nationals catcher Keibert Ruiz instigated a lengthy conversation at home plate with Profar in the bottom of the first inning. It went on long enough that Manny Machado stepped in to break it up, and the benches cleared. There was a bit of shouting, but no shoving, and warnings were issued to both dugouts.

MacKenzie Gore used to pitch for the Padres. He and Profar were teammates in 2022. If you think this would cause him to be kinder, you don’t know your Gore Lore. Gore hit Profar in the leg with the very next pitch.

Automatic ejection, right? Wait … no?! Padres manager Mike Shildt was, predictably, furious, leading to his ejection. But here’s what happened on the very next pitch, the first to Machado:

San Diego. IT'S LOUD. pic.twitter.com/NF9WzN2WsK

— MLB (@MLB) June 26, 2024

Oh, that’s salty.

Later, after the Padres had relinquished — and then regained — the lead, Profar got his own revenge, hitting a grand slam that was ultimately the difference in the Padres’ 9-7 win.

Missing Bats: The fastball forefathers

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

Cody Stavenhagen is next up in our Missing Bats project, and in today’s third installment, he tells us about the “Galileos” of pitching analytics.

Tom House and Brent Strom were teammates at USC before the duo embarked on big-league pitching careers in the 1970s. After retirement, each entered the coaching realm. Between them, there was a unifying belief: Perhaps the commonly accepted truths about the sport hadn’t been handed down from on high?

For House, the focus was technology, as he began dissecting pitching mechanics using slow-motion cameras way back during his tenure as the Texas Rangers’ pitching coach (1985-1993).

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

As Strom remembers it, the official informed the room that major-league batters hit .222 on groundballs but .417 on fly balls.

Strom, ever the contrarian, raised his hand. “That’s bull—,” he said.

Strom asked whether a line drive should count as a fly ball. The official said yes. And here, Strom realized, was one of the game’s prevailing logical fallacies. In 2008, major-league batters actually hit only .222 on fly balls and pop-ups. On groundballs, they hit .241. On line drives, they hit an eye-popping .728.

Throw in Ron Wolforth, who founded the Texas Baseball Ranch to train pitchers to throw harder — something previously believed to be impossible — and you had a trio of true disruptors. As you might expect, they were not immediately hailed as visionaries.

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

Sometimes it takes a few fearless kooks to find the future.

Ken’s Notebook: Trade deadline watch

The White Sox in recent weeks have assigned top scouts to focus on the Padres’, Dodgers’ and Mariners�� farm systems, according to sources briefed on the scouts’ movements. All three of those clubs have shown interest in multiple White Sox players, but are far from the only ones engaged with Chicago.

Then again, perhaps the White Sox’s scouting activity is a tipoff to how they will approach the deadline. If they lean on field scouts, it 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 fits, and Padres GM A.J. Preller remains perhaps the game’s most aggressive — or is it impatient? — executive.
• The Dodgers also like Crochet and center fielder Luis Robert Jr., sources said. The Mariners, whose combined outfield OPS ranks 23rd in the majors, clearly could use Robert. But unless Robert gets hot, the White Sox fear that if they trade him at the deadline, they will be selling low.

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

Teams likely will want to see more before giving up what the White Sox would want for a player who last season hit 38 homers and stole 20 bases. Robert is owed the balance of his $12.5 million salary in 2024 and $15 million in ‘25. His deal also includes $20 million club options for 2026 and ‘27.

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 the way he normally acts as GM?

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

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

New York, New York: Mets, Yankees go streaking

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 an extended hot streak that has them within a game of .500, a place they haven’t been since May 7.
• For the Yankees — 3-7 in their last 10 games — it’s been the first real falter in what had been a pretty dominant season.

The Yankees’ issue hasn’t just been the injuries. The guys on the field (Aaron Judge and his 29 home runs notwithstanding) have also struggled of late. Gleyber Torres’ frustrating season was easier to gloss over when the Yankees were winning at a league-best rate.

Gerrit Cole’s absence wasn’t a massive issue because the rest of the rotation performed admirably in his stead. His return, however, has become something of a concern. In last night’s 9-7 loss to the Mets, he did something that had never been done in the 18,000+ games in team history: He allowed four home runs and four walks without a single strikeout.

We’re not yet to a point where either change in fortune is certain to make a big-picture difference. The Mets are still 13 games behind the Phillies (though they are now just 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 pivotal so far with the Yankees.

Handshakes and High Fives

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(Photo: Orlando Ramirez / USA Today)