Justyn-Henry Malloy was in the Atlanta Braves organization when he appeared as a guest on FanGraphs Audio in October 2022, this while finishing up his first full professional season in the Arizona Fall League. He became a Tiger soon thereafter. In early December of that year, Detroit acquired the now-24-year-old outfielder, along with Jake Higginbotham, in exchange for Joe Jiménez.
Then a promising-yet-unpolished 2021 sixth-round pick out of Georgia Tech, Malloy was described in our trade recap as possessing “a combination of power and patience.” It was the latter that stood out most. Plate discipline was the youngster’s carrying tool, as evidenced by a .438 OBP as a collegian and a .408 OBP across three levels in the minors. Despite a higher-than-ideal strikeout rate and questions about his defensive future — he’d recently transitioned to left field from the hot corner — Malloy seemed well positioned to join a young Tigers lineup in the coming seasons.
He arrived, at least in part, this summer. After doing his thing in Toledo — his stat line with the Triple-A Mud Hens this season included a .403 OBP and a 129 wRC+ — Malloy made his MLB debut in early June, and with the exception of brief demotion in late August remained on the roster throughout. His numbers were admittedly not great. In 230 plate appearances against big-league pitching he slashed just .203/.291/.366 with eight home runs. Moreover, a pedestrian 10% walk rate belied the discerning-eye approach that helped him get there.
How different is the present day Justin-Henry Malloy from the up-and-coming prospect I’d talked to two years ago? I asked him that question when the Tigers played in Chicago on the final weekend of the regular season.
“I haven’t changed much,” replied Malloy, who subsequently went 2-for-3 in the Wild Card series is now on Detroit’s ALDS roster. “I like staying pretty consistent. I liked what I did in 2022, so I went into that offseason trying not to do too much and wanting to replicate a good season in 2023. I felt like I was able to do so [Malloy had 23 home runs, a .417 OBP, and a 130 wRC+]. That’s what I wanted to do again this year, replicate another good season. Remaining the same guy has kind of always been my mentality.”
Hitters typically make mechanical adjustments as they move up the ladder and the quality of pitching improves. Has Malloy not done that?
“Nope,” said Malloy. “Same guy. I don’t think the quality of competition should change the setup or the swing. There is obviously some minor tuning in terms of approach — how they’re going to attack you and how you want to attack them — but I think the swing remains the same.”
Malloy told me that his discerning-eye approach hasn’t changed either. The only real difference from the minors is that big-league pitchers attack the zone with better command, necessitating a need to “remain on go and get my swing off whenever I need to, which I’ve always done.”
My asking if he has ever felt any pressure, either external or internal, to make changes elicited an especially thoughtful response.
“There’s no doubt,” Malloy said. “It’s important to make small adjustments, but I don’t think there should be a change. Those are two completely different things. Adjustments are just small little things, whereas changing is kind of a scary place. Once you start changing you’re kind of abandoning everything that has gotten you to this point. That’s something I absolutely don’t want to do, because then I would be searching. Adjusting is good, which is what I’ve been doing. But I haven’t changed.”
How does evolving fit into that equation?
“Evolving, in that equation, is the byproduct of making the adjustment,” reasoned Malloy. “You make an adjustment and it organically turns into the evolution of the type of hitter you are now becoming.”
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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS
Pete Alonso is 16 for 50 against Aaron Nola.
Keith Hernandez went 15 for 34 against Orel Hershiser.
Francisco Lindor is 14 for 34 against Chris Sale.
Bud Harrelson went 20 for 60 against Bob Gibson.
David Wright went 23 for 55 against Jamie Moyer.
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I was remiss in not mentioning last Sunday that Joe Castiglione was about to call his last game after 42 years in the Red Sox radio booth. The 2024 Ford C. Frick Award winner, who was behind the mic in Cleveland and Milwaukee before coming to Boston in 1983, is retiring as the longest tenured broadcaster in team history.
Following last Sunday’s game — a 3-1-Boston win over Tampa Bay — Castiglione was asked what the ninth inning was like.
“I was sort of numb,” Castiglione told reporters. “It sort of felt like the ninth inning in St. Louis, in ’04 — in the zone, pitch after pitch, hoping it would end. Yeah, it’s nostalgia and sadness.”
Getting to call the final outs in 2004 when the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 seasons is obviously a career highlight for Castiglione. That the venerable broadcaster had retained his ever-positive attitude when the team fell into an 0-3 hole to the Yankees in that year’s ALCS is something that stood out to Pedro Martinez. Talking to reporters during Sunday’s game, the Hall of Fame hurler recalled Castiglione’s words of encouragement and hope, which contrasted greatly to those of a notoriously negative segment of the Boston media.
Martinez punctuated his praise of Castiglione with a well-deserved dig at two particular reporters who were in the celebratory clubhouse on October 27, 2004.
“I wanted them to get champagne in their eyes, so they could feel the burning,” Martinez said. “They can stop saying, ‘Oh, they’re going to fall again.’”
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Three Tigers/Guardians notes:
The Tigers are 1,159-1,155 all-time against the Cleveland Guardians/Indians (there have also been 12 ties) in the regular season. The AL rivals are currently meeting in the postseason for the first time.
Travis Fryman played with the Tigers from 1990-1997 and batted .274 with a .779 OPS. He played with the Indians from 1998-2002 and batted .275 with a .779 OPS.
The Tigers won 86 games in the regular season. Eighteen times in franchise history they have won 87 or more games without advancing to the postseason, including in 1961 when they went 101-61, and in 1915 when they went 100-54.
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A quiz:
Whitey Ford’s 10 wins are the most in World Series history. Which pitcher has the most World Series losses? (A hint: he is in the Hall of Fame and spent his entire career with the same team.)
The answer can be found below.
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NEWS NOTES
Ozzie Virgil, who became MLB’s first Dominican-born player when he took the field for the New York Giants in 1956, died last week at age 92. A utility player who saw action in nine big-league seasons and later coached for the Giants, Expos, Pdres, and Mariners, Virgil also has the distinction of being the Tigers’ first player of color. Detroit was the second-to-last team to integrate, doing so in June 1958.
The 10 finalists for the Hall of Fame’s 2024 Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in baseball broadcasting were announced this week. They are Rene Cardenas, Skip Caray, Gary Cohen, Jacques Doucet, Tom Hamilton, Ernie Johnson Sr,, Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper, Dave Sims, and John Sterling.
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The answer to quiz is Whitey Ford himself. He went 10-8 while appearing in 11 World Series with the Yankees between 1950 and 1964.
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On the subject of Ford C. Frick candidates, my vote would go to Tom Hamilton. The longtime radio voice of the Cleveland Guardians not only has numerous signature calls on his résumé — Down Goes Anderson is a recent classic — he is a fantastic storyteller. The 70-year-old Waterloo, Wisconsin native is more than deserving of the honor.
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Generally speaking, teams/managers are too bullpen-reliant/make too many pitching changes in the postseason. Yes or no?
I asked that question in a Twitter poll earlier this week, and the results leaned old school, with “Yes” yielding 56.5% of the votes cast, and “No” receiving 43.5%.
Four games were played on Wednesday, and the eight teams combined to use 45 pitchers. Like it or not, the days of Luis Tiant throwing 155 pitches in Game 4 of the 1975 World Series are long gone. Four days after tossing a complete game shutout in Game 1, the Red Sox legend allowed nine hits and issued four walks while going the distance in a 5-4 win over Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine.
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Dwight Evans and Pete Rose excelled in the 1975 World Series, and the former offered an opinion on the latter in his autobiography, Dewey: Behind the Gold Glove, which was published earlier this year.
“Pete is a true treasure of baseball and I believe he belongs in the Hall of Fame,” Evans wrote. “Rose is a flawed individual with a gambling addiction. And I realize he broke the cardinal sin of betting on baseball while manager of the Reds (wagering on his club to win each time). But Major League Baseball now has partnerships with sports betting companies, making its hardline stance on Rose somewhat hypocritical.”
With all due respect, I disagree with the erstwhile Red Sox outfielder on Rose being honored with a plaque in Cooperstown. Moreover, I am of the opinion that if there is ever a major betting scandal in MLB (this spring’s Ohtani issue, which presumably/hopefully was handled appropriately, would have been seismic), the individuals most responsible for green-lighting gambling partnerships in baseball should themselves be banned from the game. Not that it would happen, of course. As politics prove all too well, billionaires protect their facilitators.
Whether Evans belongs in the Hall of Fame (he probably does) is a discussion for another time.
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FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The NPB postseason begins this coming Saturday with the second- and third-place teams in each of the Central and Pacific leagues meeting in best-of-three series. The winners will then face their leagues’ first place teams in six-game series, with the first-place team beginning with a one-game advantage. The best-of-seven Japan Series will follow, with the Central League champion meeting the Pacific League champion.
Tomoyuki Sugano, who has been cited here in Sunday Notes numerous times, including in January 2021 regarding his decision to return to the Yomiuri Giants rather than sign with an MLB team, will reportedly pursue a deal to come stateside as an international free agent. About to celebrate his 35th birthday, the right-hander is 15-3 with a 1.67 ERA this season over 156-and-two-thirds innings. Sugano has fanned 111 batters and issued just 16 free passes.
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Another poll I ran this week asked which of Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani had the better season. If you’re scratching your chin contemplating an answer, the results reflect that uncertainty. In a razor-thin finish, the Dodger captured 50.4% of the votes cast, while the Yankee garnered 49.6%.
Ohtani finished the season with 54 home runs, 59 stolen bases in 63 attempts, a 181 wRC+, and 9.1 WAR. Judge finished with 58 home runs, 10 stolen bases without being caught, a 218 wRC+, and 11.2 WAR.
Objectively speaking, there was no right answer.
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A random former obscure player snapshot:
Bobby Keppel appeared in 49 big-league games, had a 5.36 ERA over 92-and-a-third innings, and a record of 1-5. The lone win was especially notable. Keppel was the pitcher of record on today’s date in 2009 when the Minnesota Twins beat the Detroit Tigers 6-5 in 12 innings to capture a winner-take-all Game 163 and advance to the ALDS. It wasn’t without controversy. With one out and the bases loaded in the top of the 12th, the right-hander was judged not to have hit Brandon Inge with a pitch — the Tigers disagreed — after which he retired both Inge and Brandon Laird to strand the runners. The Twins then walked it off in the bottom half.
A St. Louis native who’d previously pitched briefly for the Kansas City Royals and the Colorado Rockies, Keppel was released by Minnesota over the winter, then finished his career in Japan with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. None of the 23 NPB games he won from 2010-2013 were big as as his one MLB win.
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FARM NOTES
Emil Morales slashed .342/.478/.691 with 14 home runs and a 194 wRC+ in 201 plate appearances in the Dominican Summer League. Signed as an international free agent by the Los Angeles Dodgers in January, the native of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain celebrated his 18th birthday two weeks ago.
Thomas Farr went 1-17 with a 5.56 ERA over 126-and-a-third innings for the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts. A fifth-round pick in 2021, the 25-year-old right-hander is 7-34 with a 5.21 ERA since being drafted out of the University of Carolina by the Cincinnati Reds. Karl Kauffmann, whose 39 losses are the most in the minors since 2021, made his MLB debut with the Colorado Rockies this summer. His ERA down on the farm was 6.78.
Cesar Lares had 20 HBPs to go with just 28 walks in 81 innings for the Low-A Fort Myers Mighty Mussels. The 21-year-old left-hander in the Minnesota Twins system fanned 77 batters and had a 4.56 ERA.
Luke Adams had a .227 batting average and a .443 on-base percentage in 418 plate appearances for the High-A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. The 20-year-old third baseman in the Milwaukee Brewers organization had 67 hits, including 11 home runs, 78 walks, and a most-in-the-minors 40 HBPs.
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Isaac Collins has two career hits, the first of them coming at American Family Field on September 8 in his first big-league plate appearance. I asked the 27-year-old Milwaukee Brewers infielder/outfielder about it when the NL Central champs played in Pittsburgh on the final week of the season.
“It was a Sunday day game against Colorado,” recalled Collins, who has since gone 0-for-9 plus a walk. “The Rockies had drafted me in 2019 [in the ninth round out of Creighton University], so it was pretty cool to have it against them. Kyle Freeland, first at-bat, second pitch, fastball — a two-seamer away — up the middle, broken bat.”
The exit velocity on Collins’s knock was 74 mph, but as the baseball adage goes, it will look like a line drive in the box score.
“As long as it’s a hit,” he replied to that suggestion. “It can be 110 or 55 [mph] off the bat and it doesn’t matter. Fortunately I was able to get the first one out of the way in my first at-bat. A lot of guys end up with 10 or more before they get their first hit.”
Adrenaline played a role in the accomplishment. Called up from Triple-A Nashville, the Maple Grove, Minnesota native had flown to Milwaukee on the morning of the game. He hadn’t gotten much rest.
“I had to get up at 5:30 to go to the airport and there was too much going on in my head to sleep that night,” Collins explained. “There was a lot of excitement.”
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Collins having mentioned how a number of players go without a hit in their first 10 or more at-bats brings us to Mickey Gasper. The 28-year-old Red Sox rookie appeared in 13 games this year, came to the plate 23 times, and went hitless in 18 official at-bats. That will be a franchise record if Gasper doesn’t go on to record a hit in a Boston uniform. Currently, the franchise record for career at-bats without a hit by a non-pitcher is held by Dutch Lerchen, who went 0-for-15 in 1910.
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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE
MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy wrote about the Milwaukee Brewers’ playoff demons striking again in their Wild Card finale.
The Score’s Travis Sawchik went behind the numbers to show where the Cleveland Guardians, who have MLB’s 23rd-highest payroll, found value.
Andscape’s Clinton Yates wrote about how Lawrence Butler is precisely the kind of player Oakland fans would have connected with… if only the team wasn’t leaving.
MLB official historian John Thorn featured Billy Bean in his Our Game series.
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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS
The New York Yankees went 62-15 at home in 1932, the best single-season home record in MLB history. The National League record belongs to the Cincinnati Reds who went 64-17 in 1975.
Terry Francona came to the plate 219 times and batted .227 for the Pete Rose-managed Cincinnati Reds in 1987. The following year, Francona came to the plate 222 times and batted .311 for the Cleveland Indians.
Pete Rose had a .303 batting average, 160 home runs, a .354 wOBA, a 121 wRC+, and won three batting titles. Bill Madlock had a .305 batting average, 163 home runs, a .358 wOBA, a 121 wRC+, and won four batting titles.
In 1911, Ty Cobb had 248 hits — including 47 doubles and 24 triples — 83 stolen bases, 148 runs scored, and 127 RBIs. He slashed .419/.466/.620.
Barry Bonds went 1-for-1 with a home run and eight walks in nine plate appearances versus Guillermo Mota. He went 4-for-4 with two home runs and four walks in eight plate appearances versus Eddie Oropesa.
On today’s date in 1960, Mickey Mantle homered twice as the New York Yankees steamrolled the Pittsburgh Pirates 16-3 in Game 2 of the Fall Classic. The Pirates came back to win the Series despite being outscored 55-27 over the seven games.
On today’s date in 1983, Mike Boddicker tossed a five-hit shutout with 14 strikeouts as the Baltimore Orioles beat the Chicago White Sox 4-0 in Game 2 of the ALCS. The Orioles went on to win the series, then vanquish the Philadelphia Phillies in five games to capture the Fall Classic.
On today’s date in 1973, Tom Seaver surrendered solo home runs to Pete Rose in the eighth inning, and to Johnny Bench in the ninth inning, as the New York Mets fell to the Cincinnati Reds 2-1 in Game 1 of the NLCS. The Mets rebounded to win the series before going on to lose to the Fall Classic to the Oakland Athletics.
Players born on today’s date include Gary Gentry, who in his 1969 rookie season with the Miracle Mets went 13-12 with a 3.43 ERA, then was the winning pitcher in Game 3 of the World Series. The right-hander spent four years in New York and three more with the Atlanta Braves.
Also born on today’s date was Jeff Zaske, whose big-league career comprised three relief appearances and five scoreless innings for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1984. Per his B-Ref bio, the right-hander was once punched by Bill Madlock during a batting practice session.
