News and Notes for Saturday, January 25th, 2025
MLB Pipeline released their list of Top 100 prospects which includes four Cleveland Guardians:
Travis Bazzana, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 #MLBDraft, lands at No. 10 on the 2025 Top 100 Prospects list: https://t.co/SDUw3758BP pic.twitter.com/O45nJjo4RZ
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) January 25, 2025
MLB share the list of Save Leaders in the 2020’s. It should come as no surprise that Emmanuel Clase tops the list.
Fox Sports ranked the 2018 Cleveland starting rotation as the 10th best rotation in the past 30 years.
Spring Training will see the testing of the automated balls and strikes challenge system at the major league level. All teams will have Spring Training games with the “robo ump” system in place – the Guardians seeing 27 games. For those who are unfamiliar with the system, all teams start with two ABS challenges that allows the batter or the pitcher to challenge the umpire’s call on balls and strikes. The challenge is immediately reviewed by a camera system that accurately tracks the path of the ball to determine if it falls within the defined strike zone as opposed to the human ump strike zone. The team keeps their challenge if the ABS system determines that the umpire’s call was wrong. This system was officially adopted by all AAA teams in June of 2024.
I am personally not the biggest fan of the system as it removes the human element of baseball that requires professional athletes to adjust their game. The answer to the Ángel Hernández problem isn’t robots, but accountability from the league and umpires union. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how players adjust strategy to competitively exploit this system similarly to how the pitch clock has become a tool for both batters and pitchers to game.