#pitching-performance

#pitching-performance

The rumours have been swirling for over a week now, but the official word has come down from the Toronto Blue Jays: right-hander Yariel Rodriguez will be pitching for Team Cuba at the World Baseball Classic later this spring. Rodriguez is no stranger to the WBC stage, making two starts for the national squad at the 2023 tournament. Across 7 1/3 innings, Rodriguez allowed just five hits and two earned runs with 10 strikeouts.

He made his long-awaited Major League debut just 364 days after the Nationals drafted him. He excelled in college at San Diego State University, where Baseball Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn coached him, and in his MLB debut, oh boy, did he shine. In just seven innings of work, he struck out 14 Pittsburgh Pirates, allowed two runs on four hits, and didn't walk an opposing batter. The anticipation for greatness built, and although injury cut his rookie season short,

Weigel, 31, made four big league appearances a few years ago. One of those came with Atlanta in 2020 and three with Milwaukee in 2021. Put together, he allowed four earned runs in 4 2/3 innings via six hits, seven walks and one hit-by-pitch while striking out nine opponents. The Brewers outrighted him off the roster in 2021. Since then, he has been bouncing around professional baseball by playing in the minor leagues, indy ball and the Mexican League.

Sigh, this is a depressing one of these to do. Everything about Spencer Strider was, in theory, so awesome, that it didn't seem like a little thing like a year-long layoff due to elbow troubles was going to derail his career. Surely someone so diligent in being in tune with his body and mechanics could hit the ground running, right? Well, not exactly. After an uneven 2025, Strider's outlook is uncertain, and pretty fraught.

The Dodgers agreed to a minor league deal with reliever Nick Robertson, reports Ari Alexander of Boston 7 News. The righty returns to the organization that drafted him in the seventh round in 2019. Robertson briefly reached the majors with Los Angeles. He made nine appearances before being traded to the Red Sox alongside minor league pitcher Justin Hagenman in the deal that brought Kiké Hernández back to the Dodgers.

Beede, 33 in May, has had a uniquely winding career but is not coming off a good year. He signed a minor league deal with the Twins in April of 2025. He made seven appearances for Triple-A St. Paul but allowed eight earned runs in nine innings via 12 hits and nine walks while striking out seven opponents. He was released in June and then landed a deal with the Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League.

Let's remember where the Blue Jays were when Lauer made his first start on May 17. They were two game under .500. Max Scherzer had only thrown three innings and wasn't set to rejoin the rotation for at least another month. And Bowden Francis was floundering as the number five starter. But at Rogers Centre, in that game against the Detroit Tigers, Lauer pitched three innings of three hit ball and allowed one run in an eventual 2-1 walk-off win for the Blue Jays.

While he originally signed with the Red Sox as a teenager back in 2016, Santos was flipped to the Giants organization a year later as part of the team's return for infielder Eduardo Nuñez. Santos spent four-plus seasons in the Giants' system before making brief appearances in the majors in both 2021 and 2022. He wound up pitching only 5 2/3 innings as a Giant before being traded again - this time to the White Sox in exchange for minor league righty Kade McClure.

The club doesn't intend to shop Castillo during this year's winter meetings, reports Adam Jude of the Seattle Times. The 32-year-old Castillo delivered steady results last season, pitching to a 3.54 ERA over 32 starts. He topped 175 innings for the third straight year. Castillo's strikeout rate fell to a career-low 21.7%, but he countered the downturn with a career-best 6.2% walk rate. The veteran has now improved his walk rate in each of the past four seasons.

The Mets have claimed righty Cooper Criswell off waivers from the Red Sox, reports ESPN's Jorge Castillo. Boston designated him for assignment just yesterday as a corresponding move after acquiring Johan Oviedo from the Pirates. (Boston needed 40-man spots for both Oviedo and minor league lefty Tyler Samaniego.) The Mets have not yet announced the claim, but they currently have a pair of 40-man vacancies, so they won't need to make a corresponding move.

Hartwig, 28 this month, has a limited big league track record. He tossed 42 innings for the Mets over the 2023 and 2024 seasons. He allowed 24 earned runs, giving him a 5.14 ERA. He struck out 18% of batters faced and issued walks at a 10.1% rate, both subpar figures, but induced grounders on 46.5% of balls in play. He averaged in the mid-90s with his four-seamer and sinker while also mixing in a cutter, slider and changeup.

Francis struggled mightily in 2025. The right-hander recorded a 6.05 ERA and 1.53 WHIP across 14 ineffective starts before landing on the injured list with a right shoulder impingement in June that sidelined him until the end of the year. Much of the damage done against Francis came via the long ball; he allowed a staggering 19 home runs in just 64 innings pitched.

The right-hander has just 11 MLB appearances on his resume between the 2020 and '21 seasons. He posted an 8.64 ERA in six appearances for the Tigers at the big league level before being plucked off waivers from the Twins in 2021 and turning in a 12.54 ERA across 9 1/3 frames for Minnesota. Burrows has identical 12.5% strikeout and walk rates for his career and has allowed eight home runs in 17 2/3 career innings of work.

Thankfully, the entire list is well-known thanks to the Dunedin Blue Jays tweet below. As you can imagine, Trey Yesavage ranks first. He only made three regular season starts, accruing just 14 days of service time, so he's still considered a rookie. Yesavage went on to become one of the most important pitchers during the Blue Jays' push for a World Series, as he posted a 3.58 ERA and 3.61 FIP in 27.2 innings pitched.

Signed out of Venezuela as part of the 2023 international signing class, Reyes received a bonus of $250,000 to join the Braves organization. What were the 2025 expectations? Coming into the 2025 season, Jeremy Reyes received plenty of hype - and rightfully so. All the 19-year-old has done since he came stateside in 2024 has put up stellar numbers on the mound.

Sears blew away all expectations for him this year. He made just five appearances for Augusta, including two starts, pitching to a 1.93 ERA and 1.02 WHIP with a 31 strikeout to four walk ratio in 18.2 innings before being promoted to Rome. His time with Rome was even shorter, as he made just three starts there, pitching to a 2.00 ERA and 0.67 WHIP with 17 strikeouts to two walks in 17 innings.

At this week's GM Meetings, Krall again downplayed the idea of trading a starting pitcher and was a bit more forceful with regard to Greene in particular ( link via Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer). Krall still declined to speak in absolutes but came close when speaking about the possibility of trading Greene, specifically: "...[T]hat's a hard one to actually say, 'Hey, we're going to trade the guy that has a chance to be the ace of your staff and top-of-the-rotation guy going into the postseason.' We're looking to figure out how to get better, but right now that's not on the table."

The Royals announced that they have acquired right-hander Mason Black from the Giants. Minor league righty Logan Martin heads in the other direction. The Giants designated Black for assignment last week. The Royals' 40-man roster count climbs from 36 to 37. Black, 26 next month, joins a new organization for the first time in his career. The Giants took him with a third-round pick in 2021. As he climbed the minor league ladder, he was generally regarded as one of the club's top ten prospects.

He wrapped up one inning of work needing 14 pitches, six of which were strikes. The Sierra Junior College alumni ended up throwing only two of his sliders, which typically sit in the low-80's, but generated no swings. The other 12 pitches he threw were his sinkers, which sat around 91 mph in the Fall Stars Game. The sinker generated five swings, but Peterson never ended up generating a whiff.

Expectations were high for Fuentes in 2025 coming off a breakout 2024 with Augusta, where he pitched to a 2.74 ERA and 1.02 WHIP with 98 strikeouts over 75.2 innings as a 19-year-old. Fuentes had been a guy with potential before then, but it was his 2024 breakout that really saw his stock rise. Fuentes skyrocketed through the minors in 2025. He made just three starts with Rome, then five with Columbus, prior to his promotion to Gwinnett.

Kinley will receive a $750K buyout and head into free agency rather than collecting a $5.5MM salary for the 2026 season. The move to decline Kinley's option is something of a surprise. The right-hander pitched to a 3.96 ERA with a 3.69 FIP in 72 2/3 innings of work overall in 2025, but those solid yet unspectacular overall results don't tell the whole story.

When you face guys like him and Jacob deGrom and those kind of pitchers, you know when you wake up it's going to be a battle that night. When you face a power pitcher that can locate three plus-pitches, you know it's going to be tough. That's the thing, like he mentioned earlier, how he pitched tonight is probably not going to be how he pitches the next time.

Takahashi, 29 in February, pitched to a solid 3.04 ERA in 24 starts for the Lions this past season. He struck out only 14.3% of his opponents in 148 innings of work, however, and his 2024 season was limited to just 15 starts at the highest level of NPB play when he posted a 3.87 ERA in 81 1/3 innings of work last year and saw his velocity dip below his previous career norms.