Chase Lee is now a Blue Jay after enjoying a mostly successful 2025 rookie season as a Tiger. The 27-year-old, sidewinding right-hander made 32 relief appearances with Detroit, logging a 4.10 ERA, a 24.3% strikeout rate, and a 6.1% walk rate over 37-and-a-third innings. He allowed 32 hits, seven of which left the yard, and was on the winning end of four of five decisions. Toronto acquired him in exchange for 24-year-old farmhand Johan Simon in mid-December
He was originally in the Rangers system. Texas took Lee in the sixth round of the 2021 draft out of the University of Alabama, only to move him to Motown at the 2024 trade deadline as part of the Andrew Chafin deal. Lee then headed into last season with Eric Longenhagen calling him a “a sinker/slider sidearmer who has posted strikeout rates up around 30% his entire minor league career… a high-probability up/down look reliever.” That proved accurate. Lee rode the Detroit-Toledo shuttle multiple times, making 23 appearances as a Mud Hen.
Talking to him Jays camp on Friday, I learned that the well-educated hurler places a high value on the information he gets from hitters.
“That’s where pitchers get a lot of their information,” the Alabama graduate told me. “When I’m working on new pitches, new shapes, new locations — whatever it may be — I normally go to the hitting coaches. It’s like, ‘Hey, if your team were to face me, what would the plan be?’ I take that, then it’s, ‘OK, how can I mess up that plan?’
“I did this the other day,” the former walk-on to the Crimson Tide baseball team added. “I talked to Cody Atkinson, who is one of our hitting coaches here. I knew Cody in [the Texas Rangers organization]. I asked him to write me a 30-second report on what he would tell hitters to do if we were on different teams and I was coming into a game. He said he would tell them to look in a certain location, for these two pitches. If I were to instead throw a fastball up, or a fastball in, that would ruin the entire plan.”
Lee explained that he has asked those types of questions in the past, and not just of hitting coaches. He’s also asked hitters, most recently new teammate Nathan Lukes.
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“Last season he hit a home run off of me on a slider,” recalled Lee, whose sinker (38%) and sweeper-slider (34.8%) were his most-used pitches in 2025. “When I faced him in a live [BP] for the first time this spring, I threw a changeup low, below the zone, which he fouled off. I know that he generally hits the ball down really well, so after the at-bat, I asked him, ‘Hey, what did you think of the changeup there?’ He said, ‘I was pushing you down, and you threw something down, but it just kept going.’ He said he didn’t like it, that he was looking for something that stayed up a little more.
“Feedback goes a long way,” continued Lee. “A hitter’s perspective is also different from a catcher’s perspective, or from a pitching coach’s perspective. They all see things differently.”
It is probably safe to say that Lee sees things differently than most of his baseball contemporaries, players or otherwise. As Sportsnet’s Arden Zwelling chronicled in an article earlier this week, the sidearmer “holds an aerospace engineering degree and enjoys calculus.”
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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS
Ty Cobb went 23 for 65 against Babe Ruth.
Walter Johnson went 15 for 40 against Red Faber.
Red Ruffing went 18 for 38 against Lloyd Brown.
Wes Ferrell went 11 for 29 against Ted Lyons.
Mike Hampton went 4 for 4 against Fernando Valenzuela.
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Jaxon Wiggins is the top pitching prospect in the Chicago Cubs system, and a power arsenal is a big reason why. Drafted 68th overall in 2023 out of the University of Arkansas, the 6-foot-6 right-hander has been described here at FanGraphs as possessing “one of the more dominant fastballs in the minors.” Pairing that with three solid secondaries, Wiggins also ranks 72nd on our Top 100.
His 2025 numbers were eye-popping. Pitching at three levels, topping out in Triple-A, Wiggins fanned 97 batters while allowing just 44 hits in 78 innings of work. His strikeout rate was a healthy 31%.
Wiggins didn’t shy away from the power pitcher label when I talked to him in Cubs camp late last month.
“I would say my arsenal is pretty good,” said the 24-year-old, erstwhile Razorback, who complements his mid-to-high-90s velocity with roughly six feet, nine inches of extension. “It’s a power arsenal. I throw hard. All of my pitches are hard. My four-seamer has some ride to it, and while I also get a little run, the ride is about 20 inches. I’ve always thrown it the same way, so I think that’s just God-given.”
Along with a heater, his repertoire comprises a curveball, a changeup, and a slider. He considers the curveball to be his fourth-best pitch, so I asked him to describe the last two on the list.
“In high school, I was fastball-changeup only,” Wiggins said, “I’ve thrown the changeup my whole life. It’s a circle-change, and a little bit of a one-seam, so it kind of takes off a little bit, kind of runs. It’s got about 15 inches of horizontal.
“My slider is more like a bullet. It’s a hard gyro slider that I just started throwing last year. I had an old slider that was a little more slurvy, and a little slower. This one I can throw about 91. It’s sharp, and hard like my other pitches.”
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Jumping back to the Jays, which player is the key to the team’s success this season? I posed that question to David Singh, who covers the defending American League champions for Sportsnet Canada.
“You could try to get cute with this, but the conversation always comes back to first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr,” Singh told me via email. “Blue Jays manager John Schneider has often referred to Guerrero Jr. as an “aircraft carrier” and the entire baseball world saw that last October. After hitting 23 home runs during the regular season, Guerrero Jr. ascended to a new level in the playoffs by smashing eight home runs in 18 games. He is the emotional leader of this team and that’s even more the case now with the departure of his running mate Bo Bichette. Guerrero Jr.’s production has oscillated from good to great since his epic 2021 campaign, but if he carries over his post-season dominance and is in the AL MVP conversation, he will solve many offensive questions for the Blue Jays.”
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The Tigers’ key player in 2026? I asked Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press for his opinion.
“The Tigers have a star-studded starting rotation headlined by Tarik Skubal and Framber Valdez, with future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander behind them,” Petzold replied. “The health of those pitchers is paramount, but the Tigers still need to score runs to win games, which makes Colt Keith the key to their offensive success this season. He will be the Opening Day third baseman, and if he takes a step forward offensively, he could find himself in the All-Star Game. Another bona fide All-Star position player alongside American League MVP dark horse Riley Greene would give the Tigers’ lineup the stability it needs to make a deep run in October.
“It’s easy to forget Keith doesn’t turn 25 until mid-August, making him the youngest player locked into a spot on the Opening Day roster (not counting top prospect Kevin McGonigle, who hasn’t played above Double-A Erie). Last season, Keith hit .190 with a .661 OPS in his first 32 games, then bounced back to hit .273 with a .768 OPS in his final 105 games. Avoiding a third consecutive slow start will be critical for Keith to break out — and settle in as the Tigers’ leadoff hitter, with Gleyber Torres behind him.”
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A quiz:
Of the 17 players who stole 250 or more bases in the 1980s, only two had a batting average of .300 or higher over that 10-year span. Who were they? (A hint: both are in the Hall of Fame.)
The answer can be found below.
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NEWS NOTES
The Baltimore Orioles announced earlier this week that Chris Davis and Storm Davis have been elected to the team’s Hall of Fame. The duo will be honored in an on-field induction ceremony on Saturday, August 1.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum announced that Bill White has been selected as the 2026 recipient of the John Jordan “Buck” O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award, which is presented to an individual for extraordinary efforts to enhance baseball’s positive impact on society. The announcement can be found here.
Gary Wagner, a right-hander who made 162 major-league appearances — 118 with the Philadelphia Phillies and 44 with the Boston Red Sox — across the 1965-1970 seasons, died on Thursday at age 86. A native of Bridgeport, Illinois, Wagner went 15-19 with 22 saves and a 3.70 ERA over 267-and-a-third innings.
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The answer to the quiz is Paul Molitor (281 steals and a .301 BA) and Tim Raines (582 steals and a .303 BA). If you guessed Rickey Henderson or Tony Gwynn, the former swiped 838 bases but batted just .291, while the latter batted .332 but had just 221 steals.
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Earlier this week, Aaron Boone told reporters that his “first real look” at Cam Schlittler came roughly one year ago this month when the young right-hander came over from minor-league camp and impressed in a spring start. The Yankees manager recalled thinking, “This guy could be a factor this year” — and that’s exactly what happened. Schlittler debuted last July and went on to log a 2.96 ERA and a 3.74 FIP over 14 starts comprising 73 innings. For good measure, he then excelled in the postseason, allowing just a pair of earned runs, with 14 punch outs and no walks, in 14 1/3 frames.
I asked Boone if any pitchers he hadn’t yet been familiar with have caught his eye this spring.
“Well, our three guys knocking on the door,” he replied. “I hadn’t seen them in person. To see [Carlos] Lagrange, to see ERC [Elmer Rodríguez-Cruz], to see [Ben] Hess, I feel like all of those guys are going to be good big-league pitchers. In what way, I don’t necessarily know. But I also feel they are really close. It wouldn’t shock me if one, or all of them, impact us in some way this year.”
A handful of hours after Boone spoke those words, Lagrange threw four hitless and scoreless innings against the Blue Jays, walking one, fanning three, and reportedly topping out at 103 mph. The 22-year-old right-hander ranks fourth on our recently-released Yankees Top Prospect list with a 50 FV. Rodriguez-Cruz, also a 22-year-old right-hander, ranks second with a 50 FV. Hess, a 23-year-old righty, is fifth with a 45 FV.
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A random obscure former player snapshot:
MLB history includes nine players born in Italy, the most recent being Cincinnati Reds right-hander Chase Burns, and the most accomplished being Reno Bertoia, an infielder who recorded 425 hits while playing for the Detroit Tigers, Washington Senators, and Kansas City Athletics across the 1953-1962 seasons.
If you include the minor leagues, the most accomplished Italian-born player is Lou Polli. The first from his homeland to appear in the majors, Polli pitched in five games for the St. Louis Browns in 1932, and then in 19 games for the New York Giants in 1944. His time down on the farm was far more notable. Initially with the Eastern Canada League’s Montreal Royals in 1922, and ultimately with the International League’s Jersey City Giants in 1945, the righty made 655 appearances in all, logging a record of 263-226. His best season was 1929, when he went 22-9 for the Bubbles Hargrave-managed St. Paul Saints. Per his SABR BioProject entry, Polli tossed three no-hitters, including one in his final professional season.
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Clarke Schmidt was mostly resigned to TV baseball after undergoing an internal brace procedure in July, and there was irony in that experience. As the New York Yankees right-hander told me earlier this week, he found himself watching more like a pitcher, whereas from the dugout he would be watching more like a fan. Counterintuitive in a sense, but also perfectly understandable. The view of the strike zone is far better on television than it is from the first- and third-base sides of the diamond.
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Last Sunday’s column included a baseball-related passage from Patti Smith’s recent memoir Bread of Angels, which I’m currently reading. I’ve since come across another, this one also involving her late husband, Fred “Sonic” Smith. It was the early 1980s, and the storied music couple was living in metro Detroit.
“In the evenings we’d sit in the boat with a thermos of coffee for me and a Budweiser for Fred,” Patti wrote. “Listening to Tigers baseball on the transistor radio.”
Ernie Harwell was in their ears.
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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE
Lookout Landing’s Ryan Blake (who recently became a contributing writer here at FanGraphs) delved into the fastball characteristics displayed by Seattle Mariners pitching prospect Kade Anderson.
Purple Row’s Renee Dechert wrote about how bench coach Jeff Pickler — a University of Tennessee alum who graduated magna cum laude with a degree in business marketing — is part of the Rockies’ “Mile High Nerd Club.”
Hit or error? Dan Hirshberg talked to longtime Rays official scorer Bill Mathews for Tampa Bay Weekly.
Toronto Blue Jays right-hander Dylan Cease has tweaked his delivery. David Singh has the story at Sportsnet Canada.
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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS
Steven Kwan has 18 career triples, all against right-handed pitchers.
Darryl Strawberry had 355 home runs and 1,000 RBIs.
Carlos Santana has 335 home runs and 1,136 RBIs.
Nolan Ryan walked 2,795 batters, the most in MLB history. Walter Johnson and Warren Spahn combined to pitch 42 seasons and walk 2,797 batters.
Juan Marichal signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers as a free agent on today’s date in 1975. A nine-time All-Star while pitching for the San Francisco Giants from 1960-1973, Marichal made two appearances and allowed nine runs over six innings as a Dodger, then called it a career in mid-April.
The Pirates signed Jim Bibby as a free agent on today’s date in 1978. The right-hander went on to have multiple strong seasons with Pittsburgh, including in 1979 when he went 12-4 with a 2.81 ERA, and in 1980 when he went 19-6 with a 3.32 ERA. Bibby started Game 7 of the 1979 World Series, getting a no-decision as the “We Are Family” Pirates beat the Baltimore Orioles 4-1.
Players born on today’s date include Steve Stroughter, an outfielder whose MLB career comprised 26 games and eight hits in 47 at-bats for the Seattle Mariners in 1982. Thirty years old when he debuted in the majors, Stroughter stroked his lone long ball off of Baltimore Orioles right-hander Dennis “El Presidente” Martinez. Stroughter’s time down on the farm included a .336/.390/.593, 25-home run, 116-RBI season with the Double-A El Paso Diablos.
Also born on today’s date was Rosy Ryan, a right-hander who had back-to-back stellar seasons while working both as a starter and out of the bullpen for the New York Giants. In 1922, the Worcester, Massachusetts native went 17-12 with two saves and a 3.01 ERA, and in 1923 he went 16-5 with five saves and a 3.49 ERA. He then made history in 1924. That October, Ryan became the first National League pitcher to homer in the World Series, as well as the first player to hit his first career home run in the postseason.
Mike Handiboe’s MLB career comprised five games and one hit in 15 at-bats with the New York Highlanders in 1911. An outfielder who nicknamed “Coalyard Mike,” Handiboe spent seven seasons down on the farm, suiting up for teams such as the Albany Babies, Hopewell Powder Puffs, Petersburg Goobers, and Savannah Colts. Per his B-Ref bio page, Handiboe is known for composing the song “It’s St. Patrick’s Day In Savannah.”