Newsletter Excerpt, June 2, 2025 -- "Royals Get Jac’d Up"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

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The baseline statistics are impressive enough, but it’s how Caglianone has gotten to them that is really exciting. In his short time in Triple-A, he’s posted an average exit velocity on fly balls and line drives of 99.9 mph, seventh among hitters at that level. (Roman Anthony, still in Triple-A, is just behind him at 99.8 mph.) Of his 40 batted balls at Triple-A, five came off the bat at at least 110 mph, and 23 at at least 95 mph. We’re talking about two weeks here, but the combination of contact rate and ability to hit the ball hard paints Caglianone as ready for the majors. His batted-ball numbers look like what players like Pete Alonso and Juan Soto have been doing in MLB this year.

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, June 1, 2025 -- "A Re-Opening"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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Ben Brown, who isn’t throwing a complete game or even eight innings under the best of circumstances, gets to throw his six without facing the top of the opponent’s lineup three times. Brown was drafted in 2017 and is in his eighth pro season, 25 years old, and in all that time he has gone seven innings in a game on three occasions. He has never gone past seven. Brown is the typical MLB starter in 2025, engineered to go as long as he can at maximum effort. We know that when Brown gets the ball you are taking it back from him after six innings in almost all cases, so it’s just about which six innings you’re going to get from him.