When the ABS challenge system was first implemented in spring training two preseasons ago, MLB players had to be measured for the first time since their college days, leading to a Great Height Revision across Major League Baseball.
To nobody's surprise -- especially those who long had eyed Andrew Vaughn's 6-foot listing with suspicion -- the majority of height corrections rendered players shorter, but it was interesting to consider the possibilities behind the ones who got taller.
And that's where I'd left it, because it didn't occur to me until reading Sam Blum's article in The Athletic about the topic that player heights might continue to change. Sure enough, a comparison to the current White Sox roster against pre-spring Wayback Machine pages shows that a few players are still fluctuating. Unlike last year, nobody has gotten taller, but a handful of players showed up shorter:
- Andrew Benintendi: 5'10" to 5'9"
- Chase Meidroth: 5'10" to 5'9"
- Austin Hays: 5'11" to 5'10"
- Kyle Teel: 6' to 5'11"
Benintendi is the one that jumped out to me -- after a fashion, anyway -- only because he was listed at 5'9" pre-ABS, then grew an inch last spring, only to give it back this time around. That doesn't seem like it should be the case for something so scientific, but hey, maybe that's how he also lost the 12 pounds.
Spare Parts
With the Charlotte Knights opening their series against the Nashville Sounds here tonight, I'll have an opportunity to see whether the cited improvements in the secondary offerings of Noah Schultz and Duncan Davitt hold up in a second start, and ask about how it's happening.
Sam Miller writes about some potential downstream effects of the challenge system in major league ballparks, and one I've been considering is the effect of major league crowds. It's one thing to have a call go the wrong way during spring training or a Triple-A game with 5,000 people, and only a quarter of them are invested in a given pitch. It's another to have tens of thousands cheering your mistake, especially if you're an umpire with a reputation.
Michael Soroka, who signed a one-year, $7.5 million contract with Arizona, struck out 10 over five shutout innings in his Diamondbacks debut, capped off with an immaculate inning. Maybe the White Sox weren't wrong about him, just early.
Anthony Kay's return to the majors after time overseas was far from perfect on Sunday, but he's far more fortunate than Cody Ponce, who left his Blue Jays debut on a cart after suffering a knee injury fielding a dribbler in the third inning. They're calling it "right knee discomfort," but his expression suggested quite a bit more than that.
Dylan Cease's Toronto debut was far more successful, as he struck out 12 batters over 5⅓ innings of one-run ball. One big difference is a refined changeup. It was always a goofy show-me pitch with the White Sox and Padres, oftentimes 20 mph slower than his fastball, which is why he'd only throw it a few times over the course of a start. He's now narrowed the gap to 15 mph ahead of starting the White Sox home opener on Thursday, and he threw it more frequently in his debut, so it might be less of a novelty in multiple senses of the word.
