2 former top prospects heating up and other fascinating storylines

There’s always something fascinating going on in the world of baseball—and there’s always something new. Every Friday morning throughout the season, heading into the weekend, inspired by Zach Lowe’s terrific “10 Things I Like” NBA column for ESPN, we present the Five Fascinations, five fun things going on in the baseball world. Also, we’d like to shout out the always excellent Ben Clemens at FanGraphs, another progenitor of a similar format. Submit your personal fascinations to will.leitch@mlb.com, or just yell at me about mine.

1) The latest Jurickson Profar resurgence
Kids, come sit around the fire, and let Uncle Will tell you about the years when Jurickson Profar was the top prospect in baseball. It’s true: Atop MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 prospects heading into the 2013 season was the then-20-year-old Rangers phenom, ahead of such luminaries as Zack Wheeler (No. 8), Gerrit Cole (No. 9), Christian Yelich (No. 13), Francisco Lindor (No. 14), Max Fried (No. 53) and Nolan Arenado (No. 62). One of the quiet subplots of the Rangers’ 2010-11 World Series seasons was that talent many believed to be the best in the entire organization was just about to arrive.

Profar got a cup of coffee in September 2012 -- he was the youngest player in the Majors and the first person born in 1993 to make it -- and then was more of a utilityman in 2013 until the Rangers traded Ian Kinsler after that season to make room for him at second base. Unfortunately for Profar, that was just in time for shoulder injuries to cost him both the 2014 and 2015 seasons. While Profar would have some success as a regular with the Rangers, A’s, Padres and Rockies between 2016-23, he was up and down and a below-average hitter overall (93 OPS+). Last August, he was released by the Rockies and signed a Minor League deal with the Padres.

So, of course, at age 31 in 2024, he’s finally having the season everyone predicted he’d have all those years ago. Profar, on a team with Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts and Fernando Tatis Jr., has been the Padres’ best player, hitting .342, getting on base at a .431 clip (more than 100 points higher than his career average) and playing in every single game. He went 4-for-4 in a 6-2 win over the Reds on Wednesday, after which teammate Jake Cronenworth -- who actually hit a grand slam in the game -- said, “Everything started with him.” There is something sort of poetic about Profar, the guy many thought would be a Hall of Famer, taking over for Juan Soto … and not missing a beat. Tell 2012 you that Jurickson Profar is one of the best players in 2024 and you wouldn’t blink. But in 2024, you blink.

2) Some sign of hope in Anaheim
It was, obviously, a dreadful few days for the Angels. They’ve lost six of their past seven games, they’re in danger of falling into last place again and, worst of all, Mike Trout is hurt again and likely out for weeks, if not months. This is a disaster for the Angels (and Trout), and it is understandable if Angels fans have fallen a bit into despair. But may I give them something to be happy about, however much it might pale in comparison to the Trout news? Here’s something: Jo Adell may have, at last, arrived.

The longtime Angels top prospect -- a guy whom Trout explicitly name-dropped when he signed his extension in 2019 -- has had a stumbling, frustrating start to his career, with basically none of his supposed strengths (his speed, defense and potential power) working out at all. His speed hasn’t translated -- he has stolen 12 bases in his career and been thrown out nine times -- his defense is a perpetual adventure and he has hit so poorly the Angels haven’t been able to play him regularly. Just a few months ago, it wasn’t clear he had a spot in Anaheim.

How things change, though. The defense and baserunning still aren’t quite working out -- he has somehow been thrown out stealing five times, which is more than eight entire teams -- but he is at least hitting the ball hard. He has a top 10 expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA), with eight extra-base hits in only 62 at-bats. With Trout out of the lineup, the Angels have no reason not to let Adell ride this out as long as he can. Somehow he is still, all these years later, not even arbitration eligible yet, which means the Angels have him under control through at least the 2027 season. He’ll never have a better opportunity than now. See? Good news, Anaheim!

3) The Rays are starting to sweat
The Rays’ blistering start to 2023 -- they were 13-0 and 29-7 -- feels very far away right now. Their 14-18 start this season has exposed all sorts of weakness with this Rays team, particularly the bullpen, which is actually 30th in ERA in the Majors. That’s the opposite of what we’ve gotten used to from the Rays, who always seem to dig up someone, somewhere for their bullpen.

But it’s also alarming that the guys they were expecting to lead their lineup have face-planted. Yandy Díaz won the AL batting title last year with a .330 average, but that has plummeted all the way to .211 this year, and he has only one homer -- hit as he led off the first inning on Opening Day. Díaz has been one of the least productive lineup regulars in baseball … but he’s not even the least productive on his own team. That would be Randy Arozarena, the playoff superhero who has somehow fallen off the face of the Earth this year. Arozarena is hitting .139, which is basically what pitchers hit, back when pitchers had to hit.

When you look at their bullpen and what was supposed to be their top two hitters, it’s actually surprising the Rays aren’t worse than 14-18. (Their Pythagorean record is 12-20, and they have the second-worst run differential in the American League.) The AL East gives no one any room for error, something the Rays know better than anyone. Their five-season postseason streak is already in serious jeopardy.

4) Jack Flaherty is back. Or is he?
I understand, for obvious and very sane reasons, that it’s difficult to remember a lot of things that happened right before March 2020, but allow me to show you exactly how good Jack Flaherty was for the Cardinals the second half of 2019:

Flaherty’s key numbers, after 2019 All-Star break
Starts: 15
Innings: 99 1/3
W-L record: 7-2
ERA: 0.91
K/BB: 124/23

That run ended with Flaherty finishing fourth in NL Cy Young Award voting and made it look like the Cardinals had their next ace, following in the footsteps of Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright and Michael Wacha. But it just never came together for Flaherty after that. He struggled during the truncated 2020 season, pitched better but kept going down with injuries in 2021 and had even more injury trouble in 2022. The Cardinals finally gave up in 2023 after 20 frustrating starts -- some of which were dominant, most of which went careening off the rails -- and traded him to the Orioles, who were hoping for a rotation boost down the stretch and instead got a 6.75 ERA in nine outings (seven starts).

The Tigers gave Flaherty $14 million for one year to try to prove himself -- he's still only 28 -- and, as usual, the results have been mixed … but still enticing. He looked terrific in his opener against the White Sox back on March 31 (6 IP, 1 ER, 7 Ks) but had mostly been an average innings eater in his following five starts until, facing his old Cardinals mates on Tuesday, he was his second-half-of-2019 self, striking out 14 in 6 2/3 shutout innings. When Flaherty is cooking, like he was Tuesday, his mix of velocity and a wipeout slider can make him look unhittable. But the problem has been doing it more than a start at a time. Another reason to be skeptical? The two great starts this year have been against the White Sox and the Cardinals … two of the worst offenses in baseball to this point.

5) Seth Lugo … rotation stalwart?
In the early days of Statcast, when we were still trying to decipher spin rate and what it all meant, Seth Lugo leapt out as someone who had a special curveball. That continued as the years went along. But because he didn’t throw hard, Lugo mostly stayed in the bullpen, maybe appearing as an occasional swingman. You certainly didn’t imagine a guy who threw a ball with spin like that being durable. After an attempt to make him a starter toward the beginning of his career with his Mets -- and a handful of starts in the truncated 2020 season -- Lugo had been a bullpen guy exclusively, and a generally effective one.

It was the Padres who gave him a shot to start last year, and he threw a career-high 146 1/3 innings with a 3.57 ERA. Not bad! But he has turned into Jack Morris all of a sudden in Kansas City this year. He entered Thursday leading the Majors with 45 innings pitched -- just 1 1/3 short of what he threw during the entire 2021 season in the bullpen -- and boy, they’ve been some fantastic innings. He’s 5-1 in seven starts with a 1.60 ERA, and he’s faced 176 batters, more than all but two other MLB pitchers.

There are reasons to be somewhat skeptical. He’s striking out fewer batters than he ever has, he’s giving up fewer ground balls and more line drives; his numbers are boosted by the fact that he has only given up three homers, and you have to think more of those are coming. But even if the ERA rises, he’s still piling up innings. That’s valuable for the Royals -- and quite a surprising development for someone with Lugo’s track record.

Fun Series of the Weekend: Red Sox at Twins
The rally sausage returns to the Twin Cities! The Twins are scorching right now, winning 10 straight, with their last win particularly stirring with a four-run comeback against the White Sox in the ninth inning. While they did lose Byron Buxton in that win, the vibes are immaculate in Minnesota right now, and they come home to face a Red Sox team that also has been playing good ball despite injuries and is proving impressively sturdy in the AL East. The Twins need to keep this ride going as long as they can: They’ve got a brutal stretch coming up, with the Red Sox, Mariners, Blue Jays, Yankees and Guardians over the next two-plus weeks. Let’s see how the dugout meat holds up. (That was a weird sentence to type, and I am honestly sorry I did.)