It was a grand Opening Day for the 2023 baseball season. And it wouldn’t be an opening day without some insane forward projecting on the part of fans and analysts. You know the drill. A guy hits a home run on opening day and you giggle that he is now on pace for 162 home runs. But it isn’t too far off the mark if you listen to some people in the industry glowing about what they saw on Thursday’s Opening Day. While the highly touted Adley Rutschman did go 5-for-5 on Opening Day with a majestic home run, and Aaron Judge smacked a shot to deep center field for the first home run of the 2023 season, Brendan Donovan got a heap of praise. Donovan started off 3-for-6 for the Cardinals and had hit three (3) balls with exit velocities in excess of 100mph.
Shohei Ohtani struck out 10 batters in a game that the Angels lost. Justin Verlander was placed on the IL with a teres muscle strain at 1:51pm and just minutes before 7pm the Colorado Rockies announced that closer Daniel Bard was being placed on the IL due to anxiety. And with 2/3 of the league having an off-day for Friday after the Opening Day, it was going to be eerily silent that Friday night. But there are some very interesting things to be noticed going into the weekend so let’s give it a deeper look.
You know from reading my articles in the past, I look for roughly 1/3 of the announced closers to have lost their jobs announced for opening day. But on Thursday, we noticed some interesting developments for teams which were hinting that their closing situations were going to be closers by committee. It was a little surprising to see Andres Munoz and Jhoan Duran get the saves Thursday for their Seattle and Minnesota teams. I have both relievers in my dynasty league and I kept both as I simply viewed them as dominant pitchers period. PERIOD. And while it is true that Paul Sewald and Jorge Lopez are looming to ger some saves for both of those teams, I am advising owners to steer clear of both. The near triple digit velocity from both is tantalizing and on May 1st, both could have the endorsements from their managers as the designated closer.
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I was impressed by the stolen base from Anthony Volpe on Thursday. He has visible speed and sprint ability and broke beautifully off of the pitcher’s delivery. Though he went 0-2 he did draw a walk and he showed no signs of jitters as he seemed to bask in the applause he received from the crowd. There were 21 bases stolen Thursday as the new rules are expected to make stealing bases easier with pitchers limited to 2 pickoff attempts per runner. Keep an eye on Esteury Ruiz of Oakland who stole a sure triple from Mike Trout with a beautiful diving catch. Ruiz is blazing fast and a fearless base stealer. He stole 86 bases in only 118 minor league games in 2022.
If you have the ability to stash minor league prospects in your league, keep an eye on Angels reliever Ben Joyce. Joyce got a lot of coverage in 2022 while with Tennessee by hitting 105 mph during the college baseball season. To my knowledge, only Hunter Greene of the Cincinnati Reds threw a pitch that hard last year. While Joyce was the talk of Angels spring training, don’t read too much into his assignment to Double AA to start the season. The Pacific Coast League Triple AAA affiliate can adversely affect developing pitchers. The Angels have done this with other relievers in the recent past by preferring to finalize their development with their Double AA affiliate. Joyce has all the appearances of a dominant closer and appears to be the Angels long term future at closer. That could be this September.