2026 Misc MLB News Thread

[Underachiever]

I didn't see this coming. Cal Raleigh is 0-for May.

After going 0 for 3 with a walk and two strikeouts Sunday, Raleigh hasn’t picked up a hit since blasting a two-run homer against the Twins on April 26 — that’s a span of 36 plate appearances. During that span, he drew three walks and struck out 14 times.

[AdvantageSchneider]

Mets calling up their #2 prospect AJ Ewing.  Ewing is 3 months shy of 22 years old and has only 51 plate appearances in AAA but he's getting the call to the bigs with the Mets scuffling and Luis Robert hurt.  Interesting to see how he performs.  Luis Lara is 4 months younger and has 110 more at bats than Ewing does at AAA.  They have similar AAA numbers.  

[wiguy94]

6 minutes ago, AdvantageSchneider said:

Mets calling up their #2 prospect AJ Ewing.  Ewing is 3 months shy of 22 years old and has only 51 plate appearances in AAA but he's getting the call to the bigs with the Mets scuffling and Luis Robert hurt.  Interesting to see how he performs.  Luis Lara is 4 months younger and has 110 more at bats than Ewing does at AAA.  They have similar AAA numbers.  

Was curious so I looked and his underlying numbers have been way better than Lara’s down in AAA.  

[AdvantageSchneider]

6 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Was curious so I looked and his underlying numbers have been way better than Lara’s down in AAA.  

I'm curious what numbers do you think are better?  Ewing is walking as much as striking out while Lara is walking more than k'ing.  Lara's isolated power is .085 higher than Ewing.  They have about the same number of stolen bases if you include Ewing's AA steals.  Lara's wRC in AAA is 147, Ewing is 118.  Based only on AAA numbers Lara looks better IMO.  

[wiguy94]

4 minutes ago, AdvantageSchneider said:

I'm curious what numbers do you think are better?  Ewing is walking as much as striking out while Lara is walking more than k'ing.  Lara's isolated power is .085 higher than Ewing.  They have about the same number of stolen bases if you include Ewing's AA steals.  Lara's wRC in AAA is 147, Ewing is 118.  Based only on AAA numbers Lara looks better IMO.  

Ewing has hit the ball on much better angles than Lara. Avg LA is 16 to Lara’s 9. Barrel rate is 12% to Lara’s 6%. Those two things lead to his expected slash absolutely dwarfing Lara’s. 
 

Ewing - .319/.386/.577 for a .412 xwOBA

Lara - .222/.336/.348 for a .312 xwOBA

Basically Ewing’s contact quality has been substantially better than Lara’s.

[AdvantageSchneider]

8 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Ewing has hit the ball on much better angles than Lara. Avg LA is 16 to Lara’s 9. Barrel rate is 12% to Lara’s 6%. Those two things lead to his expected slash absolutely dwarfing Lara’s. 
 

Ewing - .319/.386/.577 for a .412 xwOBA

Lara - .222/.336/.348 for a .312 xwOBA

Basically Ewing’s contact quality has been substantially better than Lara’s.

I'll grant you that Ewing has a better launch angle over 41 at bats but Lara's EV appears to be a bit better.  Lara has 7 HR Ewing has 0.  It's hard to make an argument that Ewing's contact has been all that much better than Lara given the results.

[wiguy94]

28 minutes ago, AdvantageSchneider said:

I'll grant you that Ewing has a better launch angle over 41 at bats but Lara's EV appears to be a bit better.  Lara has 7 HR Ewing has 0.  It's hard to make an argument that Ewing's contact has been all that much better than Lara given the results.

Angles matter just as much as exit velocity. Lara hits the ball slightly harder but the vast majority of his hard contact is on the ground. Lara has 51 hard hit balls on the year. Of those 51, 28 (55%) have negative launch angle. Hitting the ball harder is good but if that contact is just being smashed into the ground it doesn’t really mean much.

Sweet spot rate is rate of batted ball between 8 and 32 LA. This is the ideal launch angle to hit a baseball for maximum damage.  Lara on sweet spot batted balls has a 95 Avg EV and 61% hard hit rate compared to Ewing’s 91 Avg EV and 43% hard hit. In that regard Lara looks much better but the difference is Lara only has only hit 23% of his batted balls on that angle compared to Ewing’s 56%.

That’s why Ewing’s contact quality and underlying numbers are far above Lara’s. It’s an angles issue not an EV issue. 
 

Lara has a .285 xwOBACON compared to Ewing’s .427. 

Here are a couple MLB players with similar xwOBACON to Lara this year - Spencer Horowitz, Luke Keaschall, Sal Frelick

Here are a couple MLB players with similar xwOBACON to Ewing this year - Brandon Lowe, Ronald Acuna, Brandon Nimmo