Welcome again to High of the Order, the place each Tuesday and Friday I’ll be beginning your baseball day with some information, notes, and ideas concerning the sport we love.
Whereas esteemed FanGraphs author Michael Baumann has spent this season anchored to South Jersey, the identical can’t be mentioned concerning the right-handed pitcher of the identical identify. Since that linked interview from July 2023, pitcher Mike Baumann (hereafter known as “Baumann”) has thrown 60 innings with a 5.10 ERA, along with his 49 strikeouts, 26 walks, and 11 house runs producing an identical 5.39 FIP. Nothing particular, and positively nothing both Baumann is just too comfortable about.
What’s particular, nevertheless, is all of the touring Baumann has executed this 12 months. And I don’t imply the standard cross-country trekking that’s the lifetime of a ballplayer in the course of the 162-game grind. No, Baumann’s season is notable due to all of the locations he’s known as house for the reason that finish of March, when he made the Orioles’ Opening Day roster. Though he pitched to a 3.44 ERA over 18 1/3 innings with Baltimore, he was designated for task on Could 18. (That good ERA was belied by a FIP that was greater than a run greater.) He then moved onto the Mariners in a commerce, pitching significantly worse there (5.51 ERA/6.05 FIP) throughout 16 1/3 innings earlier than being designated as soon as once more. One unhealthy sport with the Giants (two runs, two outs) became 10 unhealthy video games with the Angels (6.75 ERA/6.06 FIP), and now he’s on the transfer once more, this time to the new-look Marlins. Upon making his Marlins debut, the out-of-options Baumann will tie Oliver Drake’s 2018 report for many groups performed for in a season, with 5.
Assuming Baumann stays on the Marlins’ roster for the remainder of the season — a fairly secure guess since they’re not taking part in for something — he’ll amazingly nonetheless accrue a full 12 months of service time regardless of bouncing across the league as a result of gamers nonetheless get days of service whereas in DFA limbo. That, plus the $748,900 he’s incomes this season, makes all of the shifting a better tablet to swallow, although it’s definitely rather a lot to placed on the plate of a man who’s additionally set to be a first-time father someday subsequent month. Hey, at the very least the child can put on 5 completely different crew onesies.
Danny Jansen, Double Agent
We love esoteric, inane baseball ridiculousness right here at High of the Order, and I’m undecided something will ever prime what Danny Jansen completed on Monday, when he turned the primary participant in MLB historical past to play for each groups in the identical sport.
When Jansen was with the Blue Jays on June 26, he fouled off a pitch from Crimson Sox right-hander Kutter Crawford to make the depend 0-1. That may be the final pitch that evening, as the sport was suspended attributable to rain with one out and a runner on first within the prime of the second inning. On Monday, two months to the day it began, the sport resumed with Jansen now not on the plate for Toronto however behind it for Boston, that means he kinda-sorta caught his personal plate look! As he changed the since-designated Reese McGuire, Daulton Varsho took Jansen’s journey to the plate and struck out swinging. Jansen really acquired the primary hit for the Crimson Sox within the sport, when he singled with one out within the fifth, and made the ultimate out towards former teammate Chad Inexperienced, so his impression was throughout this sport.
Suspended video games can typically result in weird stats, like when Juan Soto went again in time and hit a house run earlier than his main league debut, however Jansen’s first-time feats take the cake, in my view. It’s proper up there with Joel Youngblood’s accomplishment of getting hits for 2 groups in at some point.
As for the subsequent frontier in suspended-game accomplishments? How a couple of pitcher getting each ends of a call? Or a participant getting hits for each groups, which Jansen couldn’t do for the reason that sport interrupted his first plate look? Or pitching for one crew and hitting for the opposite (late-career Shohei Ohtani, hiya)? There are extra choices than we will think about, and so they simply begin with Jansen.
Garrett Stubbs’ Close to-Cycle
Garrett Stubbs may be higher identified for his position as Phillies clubhouse DJ than his precise job as a significant league catcher as a result of, as J.T. Realmuto’s backup, he’s rarely within the lineup. This 12 months, although, Realmuto missed 32 video games after present process knee meniscus surgical procedure, so Stubbs has needed to don the instruments of ignorance in 2024 for extra innings (357) than he has in every other huge league season. And all issues thought of, the Phillies’ glue man has carried out nicely when known as upon.
His general numbers this season aren’t all that spectacular (.216/.310/.281, 72 wRC+, 0.4 WAR), however they aren’t unhealthy for a backup catcher who, for essentially the most half, shouldn’t be anticipated to play. And now that he’s again in his part-time position, Stubbs has caught hearth. In his 9 video games (eight begins) since Realmuto returned on July 20, Stubbs is hitting .357/.471/.500, together with his 4-for-4 exhibiting with a double and a triple on Sunday. Needing the house run for the cycle, Stubbs confronted off towards… place participant Garrett Hampson. However quite than clobbering an inside cookie to finish the cycle, some unlucky Garrett-on-Garrett crime occurred as a substitute. Hampson hit Stubbs with the pitch. His Phillies teammates weren’t comfortable about it, however Stubbs was thrilled. He’d reached base 5 instances for the primary time in his profession.
“Garrett Hampson is an effective man,” Stubbs mentioned, per the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Alex Coffey. “I’ve gotten to play towards him for a very long time now, all by way of the minors and the large leagues now. He was in all probability attempting to perhaps even feed me in to [hit a homer]. He form of fed me in just a little bit an excessive amount of.
“All people was giving me crap about not getting out of the best way, however I attempted to get out of the best way. I used to be like, that is the one crew the place you may go 4-for-4 with successful by pitch and so they’re providing you with crap while you come within the dugout.”
For what it’s value, a cycle wouldn’t even have given Stubbs one thing to brag about to Realmuto; the Phillies’ beginning catcher cycled on June 12 of final season, the primary catcher to take action since George Kottaras in 2011.