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Player: Preston Palmeiro

Position: 1B

DOB: Jan. 22, 1995 (21 years old)

Height/Weight: 6’1″, 190 lbs

Bats/Throws: L/R

School: NC State

Previously Drafted: Not Drafted

Background

Scouts saw plenty of Preston Palmeiro during his freshman season at NC State in 2014, as they turned out in droves to watch a pair of eventual first-round picks in left-hander Carlos Rodon and shortstop Trea Turner.

The son of MLB standout Rafael Palmeiro has steadily improved since going undrafted out of high school, and this year scouts are making the trip to Raleigh specifically to watch him.

A part-time player as a freshman, he took over as the Wolfpack’s starting first baseman as a sophomore and hit .305/.381/.456 with 13 doubles, seven home runs and 49 RBI.

He followed up that strong spring by playing alongside another MLB legacy, Cavan Biggio, on the right side of the Harwich Mariners infield in the Cape Cod League.

Now he’s trying to get out from under his famous father’s shadow, as he explained to Stan Grossfeld of the Boston Globe:

I’ve been blessed to be around baseball my whole life and my dad accomplished and taught me so much. The only curse is there’s always expectations. Everyone expects you to be the best. Every game I’ve played it’s always Rafael Palmeiro’s son, its never just Preston Palmeiro.

His junior season has been his best yet, as he’s hitting .337/.412/.539 with 20 doubles, nine home runs and a team-high 55 RBI and earned Second Team All-ACC honors for his work.

The question now is just how high his ceiling is offensively, as he’ll need to produce to have a shot at sticking at a premium offensive position.

Pick Analysis

Palmeiro has a smooth, left-handed stroke that’s drawn plenty of comparisons to the swing that netted his father 3,020 career hits.

Perfect Game offered up the the following scouting report:

Though he doesn’t sport the typical build often associated with the first base position, and he could make a move to the outfield due to his athleticism, he certainly swings the bat and it’s one that would play anywhere on the field.

On top of the professional approach at the plate Palmeiro has shown the ability to work all fields with comfort, hitting for both average and strength. The hands are both extremely quick and loose in his swing as he generates plenty of bat speed through the zone with an exceptional feel for the barrel head and natural leverage at the point of contact.

He’s shown the ability to adjust to off-speed mid-swing, which further reassures his approach and also speaks to his hand-eye coordination.

As a good contact hitter and solid overall athlete, the determining factor in whether Palmeiro can develop into an MLB regular at first base will be the development of his power game.

MLB Player Comparison: Mark Sweeney

This is admittedly not the most exciting comparison for Palmeiro, but it’s one that would be perfectly acceptable at this stage in the draft.

Mark Sweeney carved out a solid 14-year career as a part-time player and left-handed bench bat, displaying enough athleticism to play both corner outfield spots as well as first base.

Palmeiro is a plus defender at first but could be asked to add some versatility as a pro, since he doesn’t possess the requisite power most teams look for in an everyday first baseman.

Sweeney was similar in stature at 6’1″ and 195 pounds and posted a solid .347 on-base percentage for his career while being used primarily off the bench.

The two also share big league bloodlines, as Sweeney was the older brother of Kansas City Royals standout Mike Sweeney.

With a professional approach and good plate discipline, there should be a role for Palmeiro at the highest level. He just might have to settle for being a role player as opposed to a star like his father.

Projection: Potential starting first baseman, quality left-handed bench bat

Major League ETA: 2020

Chances of Signing: 95 percent

The market for college first basemen is never particularly high, but Palmeiro has been among the best in the nation this year and has seen his stock spike as a result. After going undrafted out of high school, he’ll jump at the chance to finally start his pro career.

College statistics courtesy of The Baseball Cube, unless otherwise noted, and accurate through Wednesday, June 8.

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Player: Cavan Biggio

Position: 2B

DOB: April 11, 1995 (21 years old)

Height/Weight: 6’2″, 185 lbs

Bats/Throws: L/R

School: Notre Dame

Previously Drafted: 2013 (29th Round, PHI)

Background

Cavan Biggio was a top MLB prospect coming out of high school, and his status went beyond his famous bloodlines.

The son of Hall of Famer Craig Biggio was among the top high school infielders in his class and likely would have gone in the first few rounds in 2013 if he were viewed as signable.

Baseball America (No. 66) and MLB.com (No. 57) both ranked him among the top 100 prospects in the 2013 draft, but a strong commitment to Notre Dame caused him to slip to the 29th round, and he took his talents to South Bend.

After hitting .246/.329/.353 with 14 extra-base hits in 226 plate appearances as a true freshman, he turned in a breakout sophomore season.

Along with raising his OPS from .682 to .868, he also led the Fighting Irish in home runs (9), walks (50), slugging percentage (.406) and stolen bases (14).

On top of those solid offensive numbers, he also earned Rawlings Gold Glove honors for his defensive work at second base.

He continued his strong play into the summer, where he earned Cape Cod League All-Star honors, and he’s been one of the top hitters in the ACC so far this season.

Slotted in the leadoff spot, he’s currently batting .311/.473/.454 with 18 extra-base hits and 14 stolen bases.

Plate discipline and contact ability continues to be Biggio’s calling card, as he’s recorded significantly more walks (54) than strikeouts (32), and his .473 on-base percentage ranks in the top 50 nationally.

Pick Analysis

He’ll never put up eye-popping power or speed numbers, but Biggio’s advanced approach at the plate and plus defense give him the potential to be an everyday second baseman.

Here’s a scouting report on Biggio from Perfect Game:

Biggio has an unorthodox setup at the plate with a deep crouch and exaggerated high hand set, but his ability to track pitches cannot be overstated.

At times, he may get himself into tough counts by being a bit too selective, but by all accounts he has been able to toe the line between patient and passive much better this season than in the past.

He’s noticeably bigger than his father, and as a result owns a bit more raw power and strength, but he doesn’t project to be a middle-of-the-order type as his swing and approach is geared more towards solid line drives and setting the table for others. He’s a solid defender at second, who also has the athleticism to potentially play third base at the next level.

Biggio’s all-around polish means that, if nothing else, he should move quickly through the minors once he begins his pro career.

MLB Player Comparison: Todd Walker

The comparisons to his dad will be unavoidable, but Cavan is a different player. He hits from the left side of the plate, and his frame is a bit lankier than that of his 5’11” father, who began his career as a catcher.

Looking at the current MLB landscape, there’s really no perfect comparison among active players.

He has a similar offensive profile to Jason Kipnis, but he’ll never be a 20-steal threat. Perhaps the best comparison is Matt Carpenter during his time as a second baseman and prior to his power surge last season.

Instead, we’ll go back a few years to Todd Walker.

Though he was never an All-Star, Walker put together a solid 12-year MLB career during which he hit .289/.348/.435 and piled up 1,316 hits while averaging 36 doubles, 13 home runs and 69 RBI per 162 games.

Plate discipline was also the driving force behind his offensive value, as he posted an on-base percentage over .350 seven different times and had a solid 8.3 percent walk rate for his career.

If Biggio can put together that kind of career, he’ll be well worth the selection at this point.

Projection: Starting second baseman, potential No. 2 hitter

Major League ETA: 2020

Chances of Signing: 90 percent

Biggio has boosted his stock considerably since last spring, and in a relatively thin crop of college middle infielders he won’t have much to gain from returning to campus for his senior season.

College statistics courtesy of The Baseball Cube, unless otherwise noted, and accurate through Wednesday, June 8.

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Shortly after seemingly establishing himself as the New York Yankees‘ starting first baseman, Chris Parmelee suffered a right hamstring injury in Thursday’s win over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Continue for updates.

Girardi Comments on Parmelee’s Injury

Friday, June 10

Following the contest, manager Joe Girardi said he would be “completely shocked” if Parmelee didn’t require a stint on the disabled list, according to Howie Kussoy of the New York Post.

The 28-year-old journeyman was thrust into action after a trio of Yankees first basemen in Mark Teixeira, Dustin Ackley and Greg Bird landed on the DL.

In six games with the team, Parmelee hit .500 with two home runs and four RBI.

Per Kussoy, Girardi lamented the bad luck the Bronx Bombers have had at first base so far this season: “You don’t see this. People ask about depth, you’re usually not four deep or five deep at first base. … It’s hard, but we’ve got to find a way to overcome it.”

With Parmelee on the shelf, 25-year-old utility man Rob Refsnyder is likely to see the bulk of the playing time at first. He is hitting .208 with no home runs and five RBI in 11 games of action and has made some appearances at first base despite naturally being a second baseman.

New York’s win Thursday allowed it to return to .500 at 30-30, and it trails the Baltimore Orioles by 6.5 games in the AL East.

Parmelee’s career profile suggests he wasn’t likely to continue hitting at the clip he did in his first few games with the Yanks, but he finally seemed to stabilize a position that had been an issue for the team, and his absence leaves them with few options.

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

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NEW YORK — The stories saying the New York Yankees would sell at the trade deadline were already starting to appear.

It made perfect sense, because the Yankees are old and flawed and sure don’t look like a team set up to win a championship. Trade Aroldis Chapman, trade Carlos Beltran, maybe even trade Andrew Miller and the Yankees could set themselves up for a better future.

It still makes perfect sense, except for one small detail: Check the schedule.

Look hard at the next two-plus weeks, because the Yankees have a ton of games coming up against teams just like the hapless Los Angeles Angels they beat up on the last four nights. Look at all those games against the Colorado Rockies and Minnesota Twins, and even at a series in San Diego the first week of July.

The Yankees are three games out of a wild-card spot after Thursday night’s 6-3 win over the Angels. Ask yourself, can you really imagine they’ll lose enough of those games against the Twins and Rockies to be out of contention by the All-Star break?

More likely, they’ll be right in the middle of the playoff race when it comes time to make a buy/sell decision in the second half of July. Given the way the Yankees normally think, it’s hard to equate that with a decision to sell.

Look, sometimes teams become surprise sellers. The Detroit Tigers are another organization that believes in going for it, but when they were on the fringes of the wild-card race last July, the Tigers moved David Price and Yoenis Cespedes to give themselves a better chance to win in 2016 and beyond.

Perhaps the Yankees could end up making the same call this year, but it sure seems doubtful. They don’t have players who would bring the same return the Tigers got for Price and Cespedes, and the schedule gives you every reason to believe they’ll hang around in the race.

Already Thursday, Jon Heyman of Today’s Knuckleball wrote that “Yankees higher-ups have determined they are having no selloff in the immediate future.”

That was before their latest win over the Angels, a team that had pitching issues even before it had injury issues. The Yankees scored 29 runs in their four wins, just the second time this season they’ve had five runs or more in each of four consecutive games.

With Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner getting hot at the top of the order, and with Beltran staying hot in the middle of it, the Yankees looked like the team they have hoped all season they would be. Beltran was the first Yankee in 39 years (since Chris Chambliss in 1977) to have at least two RBI in each game of a series of at least four games, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

“If we continue to do what we’re doing now, it’s going to be fun for us,” Beltran said.

If they don’t, it could be fun for him to go to a team with a lot better chance to win. But the 39-year-old Beltran, who chose the Yankees the last time he became a free agent, would rather stay here.

“I just want to go out and do my job,” he said. “What the front office is going to do, they already have their plans. It’s just that you don’t know what that plan is, and we don’t know it.”

The Yankees may indeed have their plans, but plans change all the time in baseball. Earlier Thursday, an American League official was thinking back to 2014, when the Kansas City Royals reached July wondering whether they should be deadline buyers or sellers.

The 2014 Royals won just enough July games that they didn’t sell, and they ended up going all the way to the World Series.

The Yankees don’t look like a World Series team, but they don’t look like a team with no chance—at least not when they play an opponent like the Angels.

As of Thursday, the Angels ranked 24th in the major leagues in team ERA. Two of the six teams behind them are the ones the Yankees will play the next two weeks.

After this weekend, when they have three home games against the Tigers, the Yankees go to Colorado (28th in ERA) for two games and to Minnesota (29th in ERA) for four. Then they come home and play those same two teams again.

Late Thursday night, the Yankees were wondering who will play first base, because after two successful nights at the position, Chris Parmelee was headed to the disabled list with a right hamstring injury. The truth is that against opponents like the Angels, Rockies and Twins, it hardly matters who’s on first.

The Yankees can’t build a championship by beating bad teams, but they can build an argument against a selloff. Maybe they’ll be brave enough to pull the plug even if they win a lot of these games against bad teams.

More likely, a few series like the one against the Angels will be enough to convince them they still have a chance.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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The Toronto Blue Jays selected second baseman Bo Bichette, the son of four-time All-Star outfielder Dante Bichette, in the second round of Thursday night’s MLB draft at No. 66 overall. 

The 18-year-old is known for packing serious power and finished his senior year at Lakewood High School with a .569 batting average and 13 home runs, according to the Tampa Bay Times‘ Rodney Page. 

Like his father, who smashed 274 home runs over the course of a 14-year MLB career, Bichette uses tremendous power to stand out. However, he will need to refine his swing as his career continues if he wants to produce consistently at the plate.

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Player: Bo Bichette

Position: 2B/SS

DOB: March 5, 1998 (18 years old)

Height/Weight: 6’1″, 200 lbs

Bats/Throws: R/R

School: Lakewood High School (FL)

College Commitment: Arizona State

Background

The son of 14-year MLB veteran Dante Bichette and brother of 2011 first-round pick Dante Bichette Jr., infielder Bo Bichette has some of the best raw power of any high school bat in the 2016 class.

He’s been on the prospect radar since his sophomore season at Lakewood High School in Florida and has only solidified his stock with a huge senior season.

In 25 games, Bichette hit .569/.698/1.400 with seven doubles, 13 home runs, 40 RBI and 46 runs scored in 96 plate appearances.

The young slugger credits the summer of 2013, when his father was the Colorado Rockies‘ hitting coach, as the turning point in his career, as he was able to learn from some quality MLB hitters as well as his dad.

“I really feel that was the summer where I went from good to really good, learning from [Troy] Tulowitzki and the best players they had,” Bichette told Maggie Hendricks of USA Today.

Making consistent contact will be the biggest battle for Bichette once he begins his career at the next level. He has a bit of a hitch in his swing, but if he can adjust to the pro game, he’ll have a chance to make an impact.

If nothing else, his bat-flip game is MLB-ready.

Pick Analysis

Baseball America had the following to say about Bichette while ranking him as the No. 46 prospect in its pre-draft rankings:

The right-handed hitter has exceptionally fast hands, allowing him to whip the bat through the zone and drive the ball. His swing includes a deep load and an exaggerated back elbow swoop, but his bat works through the zone well and he controlled at-bats against elite competition on the showcase circuit.

Bichette has a steady glove and a strong arm. He plays shortstop now and could go out as one, but will eventually move to second base or, more likely owing to his 6-foot, 200-pound frame, third base.

Hitting coaches may try to simplify his swing once he starts his pro career, but his raw power is something you can’t teach, and his in-game power is already at a level that is rare for a high school middle-infield prospect.

He’ll never be a Gold Glove winner, regardless of where he eventually lands defensively, but his bat will carry him to the big leagues.

MLB Player Comparison: Jedd Gyorko

Second basemen with plus power from the right side of the plate are few and far between, but Jedd Gyorko is one player who looks like a reasonable comp for Bichette.

Gyorko burst onto the scene with 26 doubles and 23 home runs as a rookie in 2013, but he’s struggled at times to make enough contact to tap into that pop, which is the biggest concern surrounding Bichette.

The 27-year-old Gyorko also has a similar build to Bichette at 5’11” and 215 pounds, and both players possess below-average speed and athleticism.

Despite his athletic limitations, Gyorko is a capable defender at multiple defensive positions, and Bichette could find himself in a similar role once he reaches the majors, since he doesn’t profile as a shortstop long-term.

Projection: Everyday second baseman or left fielder with 20-homer power

Major League ETA: 2021

Chances of Signing: 90 percent

Bichette has as much power potential as any high school bat in this year’s class, and that should land a bonus high enough to lure him away from his commitment to Arizona State.

All high school stats courtesy of MaxPreps, unless otherwise noted.

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Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista was pulled from Thursday night’s game against the Baltimore Orioles with tightness in his right thigh.

Continue for updates. 

Gibbons Comments on Bautista’s Injury

Friday, June 10 

“We don’t think it’s a big deal. … It might require a day or two off,” said Blue Jays manager John Gibbons on MLB Network Radio. 

Bautista Listed as Day-to-Day

Thursday, June 9 

TSN’s Scott MacArthur passed along the update. 

Bautista was removed from Thursday’s game in the bottom of the sixth inning after he recorded a walk. In his first two at-bats, he notched a pair of hits and an RBI. 

Bautista Off to Rough Start in 2016

The 35-year-old slugger has rarely been consistent at the plate this season but has been available on a regular basis. Bautista has appeared in all but one game—and missed that contest due to a suspension that stemmed from his altercation with Rougned Odor. 

However, it’s hardly been a banner year for the six-time All-Star. Bautista entered Thursday batting just .227 and has recorded a .360 on-base percentage while tallying 12 home runs and 39 RBI. That said, he does lead all American League players with 45 walks. 

If Bautista is forced to miss time, Ezequiel Carrera projects as his primary replacement in right field. Over the course of 69 plate appearances to date, Carrera is batting .344 with a .391 on-base percentage, one home run and three RBI.

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Player: Blake Rutherford

Position: OF

DOB: May 2, 1997 (19 years old)

Height/Weight: 6’2″, 190 lbs

Bats/Throws: L/R

School: Chaminade College Prep (Calif.)

College Commitment: UCLA

Background

Similar to the way a college player can significantly boost his stock with a strong showing in the Cape Cod League, a prep prospect can get a serious shot in the arm from a standout performance with the USA Baseball 18U team.

Long on the MLB draft radar, outfielder Blake Rutherford solidified his standing as an elite prospect last summer when Baseball America identified him as the biggest bat on that star-studded 18U team.

However, his stock has slipped a bit this spring, and he’s fallen behind fellow California outfielder Mickey Moniak, who is now the top prep hitter in the eyes of most evaluators.

That being said, Rutherford is still a top-tier prospect with as high a ceiling as any position player.

He has the potential for five plus tools as his development continues, and he went so far as to identify himself as a five-tool player while breaking down his game for Chuck Wasserstrom of MLB Trade Rumors:

I would describe my game as someone who can do all things on a baseball field. I truly believe I’m a five-tool player who has a very overall strong game. I feel like the main thing people have always talked about is my hitting, but I really feel like my fielding, my running and my throwing have all taken a huge step this year. I’m also someone who’s super competitive, and I’m not going to stop until I get what I want – which is winning. I’m just someone who’s passionate and loves to play the game, but stays calm and cool during all situations.

Even after an up-and-down spring, the superstar potential is still obvious, and he’s more than worthy of being selected in the top half of the first round.

Pick Analysis

So what exactly is it that scouts liked so much about Rutherford heading into the spring, and what has caused his stock to slip a bit?

Here’s what Baseball America had to say in its predraft scouting report while ranking him as the No. 9 overall prospect:

Rutherford has size, strength, athleticism and power potential for scouts to dream on, and would likely be the consensus top prep bat in the class if he had a more consistent spring or if he were a year younger.

Rutherford turned 19 as the calendar turned to May, offering less projection than other prep outfielders, with a physically mature 6-foot-2, 195-pound frame. Scouts have to project on Rutherford’s home run power; he’s produced this spring after being the biggest bat last summer for USA Baseball’s 18U team.

However, he hasn’t taken the next step with his power, at times trying too hard to pull and yank balls for power. When he stays with his approach, he’s as impressive as any prep hitter in the class, with power to all fields, a line-drive swing path that covers the plate and the athleticism for center field.

If he can refine his approach at the plate and maximize his raw power, the sky is the limit for the Chaminade Prep star, who could ultimately develop into one of the game’s elite all-around center fielders.

Pro Comparison: Brady Anderson

Rutherford’s upright stance when he loads up and swing path actually remind me a bit of Joe Mauer, but the similarities between those two players begin and end there.

Looking at the current landscape of left-handed-hitting center fielders, there’s no one who matches up with Rutherford as a well-built power threat who can also hit, run and field at a high level.

Instead, we’ll go back a few years to Baltimore Orioles center fielder Brady Anderson.

A three-time All-Star, Anderson is best remembered for his out-of-nowhere 50-homer season in 1996, but that one anomaly aside, he was a steady producer in a number of areas.

Once he hit his stride as the Orioles’ everyday center fielder, he was a consistent threat for 15-plus home runs, 20-plus stolen bases and strong defense in center field.

Rutherford possesses a better hit tool, as Anderson was a career .256 hitter who never batted over .300 in any one season.

Beyond that, it’s a fair comparison across the board as both players are strong, athletic center fielders capable of providing a good mix of power and speed offensively.

Projection: Starting center fielder, potential middle-of-the-order bat

Major League ETA: 2021

Chances of Signing: 95 percent

Rutherford is committed to UCLA, but given how much has been made about his age and lack of projectability, he’s no doubt anxious to get his pro career started.

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Player: Jason Groome

Position: LHP

DOB: Aug. 23, 1998 (Age: 17)

Height/Weight: 6’6″, 220 lbs

Bats/Throws: L/L

School: Barnegat High School (New Jersey)

College Commitment: Vanderbilt

Background

When Baseball America released its first top-100 draft prospects list on March 10, Jason Groome was perched atop those rankings in the No. 1 spot.

However, eligibility issues put a damper on his senior season as he attempted to transfer back to Barnegat High School following a junior season at IMG Academy in Florida.

Joe Zedalis and Matthew Stanmyre of NJ.com provided the details on April 14:

Barnegat High School senior left-handed pitcher Jason Groome, the No. 1 overall prospect for June’s Major League Baseball draft, has been ruled ineligible by the state’s governing body for high school athletics for violating the state’s transfer rule, NJ Advance Media has learned. 

Barnegat must forfeit victories in which Groome played this season and his statistics over the past two weeks will be erased, including the 19 strikeouts he racked up during a no-hitter he threw against Central Regional Monday.

Groome spent last season at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., before transferring back to Barnegat this year to finish his high school career playing with childhood friends. According to New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association bylaws, Groome’s move from the boarding school back to Barnegat did not constitute a bona fide change of address and Groome had to sit out 30 days or half of the season’s games before becoming eligible.

He continued to impress scouts upon returning to the mound, but his standing as the consensus No. 1 prospect was gone, and some scouts began to question his elite standing.

“There’s a feeling that Groome should just be blowing people away, not giving up hits and walks to average high school hitters,” one scout told Zedalis in another article.

“He’s a legitimate top-three pick as a lefty who throws hard, but he’s a high schooler, which makes him a bit more of a gamble,” said another scout, per the article.

Prior to Groome, the highest-drafted players in New Jersey high school history were Jeff Kunkel (1983) and Willie Banks (1987), both of whom went No. 3 overall in their respective drafts.

Pick Analysis

While his senior season was somewhat polarizing, Groome still has the makings of an elite talent. Left-handers with big, projectable frames and polished power stuff are few and far between.

Here’s what MLB.com’s Prospect Watch had to say about Groome:

Groome has everything to be a top-of-the-rotation left-handed starting pitcher, from his 6-foot-6 frame to the potential to have three above-average to plus offerings. The fastball is already there, up to 96 mph and sitting 92-93 mph over the summer, and in the 90-94 mph range in the early stages of the spring.

Groome features a nasty curve as well, with tight rotation and bite. He doesn’t throw his changeup often, but he’s shown some feel for it, with some sink. Groome is generally around the plate and has clean mechanics, with a pretty good overall feel for pitching.

That certainly sounds like a pitcher capable of leading a staff if all goes according to plan, and that’s exactly what his new team is hoping he’ll develop into.

MLB Player Comparison: Clayton Kershaw at the same age

Comparing anyone to present-day Kershaw is simply unfair, so the second part there is important.

Groome has tremendous upside and all the physical tools to develop into a front-line starter, and Kershaw was a similar prospect when he was taken No. 7 overall in the 2006 draft out of Highland Park High School in Texas.

While Kershaw relies more on his slider these days as his main secondary offering, he was a fastball/curveball guy when he began his pro career just like Groome is now.

Kershaw had an advanced feel for pitching and smooth mechanics as a prep prospect, just like Groome, and both possess the ideal projectable size with Kershaw standing 6’4″ and a sturdy 225 pounds these days.

It seems every projectable left-hander with a good curveball draws comparisons to Kershaw, but Groome actually has the complete package to come close to delivering on that high praise.

Projection: No. 2 starter with ace upside

Major League ETA: 2021

Chances of Signing: 95 percent

It’s always tricky with Vanderbilt commits, but Groome went high enough and is headed for a big enough bonus that he’ll almost certainly be starting his pro career.

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The AL East-leading Baltimore Orioles have a formula for winning games, and they’re sticking to it.

This is thanks in no small part to Mark Trumbo, who just won’t stop dropping Trumbombs.

Trumbo entered Monday’s contest against the Kansas City Royals with 18 home runs, tied with Todd Frazier for the MLB lead. The blast that he cranked leading off the bottom of the seventh inning leapfrogged him ahead of Frazier and, oh yeah, tied a game the Orioles went on to win 4-1.

All rise for loud noises and the sight of a ball landing many feet from home plate:

That dinger was one of Trumbo‘s two hits, upping his average to .295 and his OPS to .953. It also put him just three shy of matching the 22 homers he hit in 142 games with the Arizona Diamondbacks and Seattle Mariners last year. And if he stays on this pace, ESPN.com calculates he’ll finish with 55 homers. That would top his previous career best by 21.

In good, old-fashioned plain English: The 30-year-old slugger seems to have turned a corner.

“A lot of guys 28 to 32 start figuring out some things,” Orioles manager Buck Showalter told Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times recently. “You have to be careful about writing them off and saying, ‘This is who they are going to be.’ Guys like Mark, they keep learning, they keeping taking in new things.”

At first, it might not seem like Trumbo has actually learned anything. With a strikeout rate of 26.8 percent that’s par for the course, he’s still struggling to subdue his biggest flaw. Likewise, he’s still not drawing many walks. To wit, his power still looks like his only redeeming quality on offense. 

But when a hitter is maximizing power the way Trumbo is maximizing his, that’s OK.

It may not look like it based on his walk and strikeout rates, but one thing Trumbo is doing in 2016 is making better choices with his swings. Entering Monday, he was chasing pitches outside the zone at a career-low 32.4 percent clip. Likewise, his swing rate on pitches inside the zone was 71.8 percent, just a hair down from last year’s career high of 72.2.

When Trumbo has made contact, it’s been the kind of contact he wants: in the air and loud. He entered Monday with a ground ball-to-fly ball ratio of 0.86, a career low by plenty. And according to Statcast data at Baseball Savant, the top of the exit velocity leaderboard looked like this:

Last month, Kevin Ruprecht of SB Nation offered a comprehensive breakdown of exactly what Trumbo is doing differently in 2016. Arguably most important is how he’s being more selective with low pitches, perhaps due to his latest experimentation with his timing mechanism.

If that’s the case, be warned this isn’t guaranteed to last forever. Trumbo has gotten results out of a timing adjustment before, only to have those results vanish over the long haul. And in general, he’s been a fast starter and a slow finisher throughout his career.

If Trumbo can keep this up, however, he’ll be doing his part to maintain the Orioles’ preferred offensive weapon. 

The point that the Orioles like hitting home runs won’t be breaking news to anyone who’s noticed them club over 200 homers in each of the last four seasons. Even still, it’s newsworthy that they’re going especially silly with dingers in 2016. With 83 through 56 games, they’re on pace for about 240. In franchise history, only the 1996 Orioles have done better than that.

Home runs aren’t the only recent strength the Orioles are taking to an extreme in 2016. They had excellent bullpens in 2012, 2014 and 2015, but even “excellent” doesn’t do their current bullpen justice. Its 2.73 ERA is the best the Orioles have enjoyed in the last five seasons. This year, it ranks second in MLB behind only the Royals.

To boot, Baltimore’s two big strengths have been playing in concert with one another. After Matt Wieters and Manny Machado also went deep Monday, the Orioles now have an MLB-high 31 home runs in innings seven through nine. Those have set opponents up, and the bullpen has knocked ’em down.

For now, this dynamic is allowing the Orioles to hide their lousy starting pitching. In the long run, though, even the man in charge seems hesitant to trust its sustainability.

“It’s not easy,” Showalter said of scoring off opposing bullpens, via Brittany Ghiroli and Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com. “Over the course of the season, if you’re not getting runs, off of those guys you are not going to like the results. So, we’ve been fortunate. It’s not something you like to depend on, getting runs off those guys.”

However, if guys like Wieters, Adam Jones and Pedro Alvarez add even more power to the pile, the Orioles may not need to rely as much on home runs of the heroic variety. That, plus continued domination from their bullpen, would allow the Orioles to keep hiding their lackluster starting pitching.

It was obvious at the outset of 2016 that the Orioles were designed on paper to win games with lots of dingers and an outstanding bullpen. The worry was how well their design would actually come together on the field, as there were questions abound.

With Trumbo obliterating baseballs better than ever, one of those questions has gotten a resounding answer. Others have gotten satisfying answers. And together, it all adds up to a team that doesn’t seem interested in straying far from the top of the AL East.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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