How do MLB GMs assess their rivals? Plus, will Cardinals stick with 6-man rotation?

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The Windup Newsletter ⚾ | This is The Athletic’s MLB newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Windup directly in your inbox.

Sure, on-field standings matter most. But what about off-field standings? You know you want to check them out!

Plus: Attendance woes in Minnesota, a crowded but sturdy rotation in St. Louis, hitters gaining an edge through tech — and more! I’m Tyler Kepner, filling in for Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal. Welcome to The Windup!

Rankings: Process and culture — not just rings — are points of front office envy

It’s tempting to wonder if the Dodgers’ front office would be perceived the same way among fans if the team had lost to San Diego in the division series last year. Instead, of course, they roared back to life and took the title. Most fans understandably view success or failure in the cold calculus of rings.

The folks who put teams together take a broader view. Our second annual front office rankings are here, with dozens of executives around the game voting on which of their rivals do it best.

In all of the interviews my colleagues and I conducted for the piece, virtually nobody mentioned the World Series. Baseball is a game of huge sample sizes, and that’s where a smart front office makes its biggest mark. That’s why teams like the Rays, Brewers and Guardians are so highly regarded despite having zero championships in the expansion era.

To top decision-makers around the sport, it’s not so much that the Dodgers won 11 big games in October. It’s that they’ve spent a decade leveraging their resources to excel in every aspect of baseball operations. Now, as one GM put it, “They have the platform to do seemingly whatever they want.”

One reason this piece was fun to report — with my colleagues Jayson Stark, Britt Ghiroli, Patrick Mooney and Will Sammon — was the nuanced explanations of how the top teams operate. One especially telling anecdote came from a rival AL executive on how trade talks with the Rays typically go down:

Rays: “OK, this is the guy we like.”

Other team: “Well, what about this guy instead of that guy?”

Rays: “Nope. That’s the guy. Can we give you more for that guy?”

“That’s their thing,” the exec said. “I like dealing with them because they’re very clear on what they want to do.”

Now, as for those 10 teams that received no votes at all … maybe they should take notes from their colleagues around the game. Full story here.

Ken’s Notebook: Rookie, scout both beating odds

From my latest story, with Tim Britton:

His speech isn’t all the way back. But the excitement in his voice was palpable, practically bursting through the phone.

“Awesome,” Jonah Rosenthal kept saying when asked about New York Mets right-hander Justin Hagenman. “Really awesome.”

Rosenthal, 35, is an area scouting supervisor for the Los Angeles Dodgers who suffered a large stroke on Dec. 10. Doctors initially told his wife, Lindsey, that in the best-case scenario, he would never regain mobility on his right side, never speak or understand speech again.

“They didn’t think he would make it through the day,” Lindsey said.

Rosenthal (no relation) continues to defy his doctors’ expectations. And yesterday, he experienced the kind of thrill amateur scouts relish like none other: watching a player he signed overcome the odds to make his major-league debut.

Hagenman, 28, was the Dodgers’ 23rd-round pick out of Penn State in 2018. His $75,000 signing bonus was a relative pittance compared to what top picks command. But after seven years in the minors, he struck out three of his first four hitters in his first appearance for the Mets and held down 3 1/3 innings as a bulk reliever. The only run charged to him in a 4-3, extra-inning loss to the Minnesota Twins came after he left the game in the fifth inning.

Rosenthal, who joined the Dodgers 10 years ago, was also the scout behind the 2018 selections of first baseman Michael Busch, now with the Chicago Cubs, and right-hander Michael Grove, who is out for the season with the Dodgers after undergoing shoulder surgery. Left-hander Garrett McDaniels, currently with the Los Angeles Angels as a Rule 5 pick, is another of Rosenthal’s major leaguers, a non-drafted free agent the scout signed out of Coastal Carolina for $20,000 in 2022.

In the case of Busch, Rosenthal downplayed his own role, saying, “It’s a top prospect. First rounder. OK, it’s cool.” Hagenman, on the other hand, was picked in a round that no longer exists. Major League Baseball and the Players Association in 2021 reduced the draft to 20 rounds. It was 40 rounds from 2012 to ‘19.

Talking about Hagenman, Rosenthal kept coming back to the word “ingenuity,” citing the way the pitcher lowered his arm slot and developed different shapes on his breaking ball. Hagenman, who signed with the Mets as a free agent last November, said he still talks with Rosenthal a couple of times a year.

More here.

(Aaron Gleeman / The Athletic)

Numbers Game: What’s up with the Twins’ attendance?

Early contender for headline of the year: “Land of 10,000 Fans.” Ouch.

Yes, we know it’s very early. In many places, it’s also very cold. And it’s the middle of the week. But they’ve been playing games like that at Target Field in Minnesota for 16 seasons. And Monday’s crowd of 10,240 was the lowest yet for the Twins since they moved outdoors in 2010.

The Twins averaged more than 30,000 fans per game in their first four seasons at Target Field. It’s an intimate venue, traditional and sleek at the same time — one of my favorites in MLB, up there with Seattle, Pittsburgh and San Francisco. But the charms of a new park wear off with time.

The Twins are drawing 2,400 fewer fans per game compared to the start of 2025. Aaron Gleeman dives into what that’s all about, and how it reflects fan frustration with a team that stumbled last September, then followed it up with an unfulfilling winter.

Maybe there’s hope, though: The 7-12 Twins walked off the Mets yesterday for their second series victory of the season.

Innovation? The Cardinals pick six

No, we’re not talking about the defensive backfield in Arizona. We’re talking about the baseball team in St. Louis that might have missed this recent Chad Jennings story on why the six-man rotation still hasn’t caught on.

The Cardinals want their pitchers to work every fifth day, not every fourth — and for now, that means using a sixth starter. They’ve been stingy the last time through the rotation, with a 1.07 ERA and a meager .416 opponents’ OPS — and yesterday, the sixth guy looked pretty sharp, too.

Steven Matz — remember him? — rejoined the rotation and beat the Houston Astros with five strong innings in a 4-1 St. Louis victory. With the way the schedule sets up for the Cardinals in May, they figure not to stay with six starters for long. But Katie Woo details all the reasons it makes sense for now — and if it keeps the Cardinals relevant, I wonder if they’ll at least consider keeping it up.

Handshakes and High Fives

We know all about pitching labs, high-speed cameras and velo factories. But could the hitters finally be catching up? Britt Ghiroli, Eno Sarris and Jen McCaffrey tackle that issue with a look at the advancements in bat path metrics, bat speed training and bat fitting tech.

Immediate needs versus long-term development. Eno Sarris, DVR and Jed Lowrie discuss Matt Shaw’s early struggles and the Cubs’ decision to send him to Triple A after a slow start on the latest “Rates & Barrels.” Watch it here.

Fernando Tatis Jr. is striking out less, Manny Machado is stealing bases and other factors have helped the 15-4 Padres build an early cushion. Dennis Lin went deep on the five numbers that have defined San Diego’s season so far.

Our resident GM, Jim Bowden, shares his nine early-season takeaways.

Everyone has data now on Ben Rice, who has been a revelation for the Yankees in the first three weeks of the 2025 season. But as Brendan Kuty details, New York took an old-school, “no data” approach to discovering him.

There was a very scary moment in Wednesday’s Mets-Twins game when a line drive struck longtime umpire Hunter Wendelstedt in the head. MLB said in a statement that Wendelstedt, 53, “was in good spirits when he was in touch with our medical staff” and was undergoing additional tests in Minneapolis.

Most-clicked in our last newsletter: The Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes scoring three runs on a bases-loaded walk.

📫 Love The Windup? Check out The Athletic’s other newsletters.

(Photo: Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Imagn Images)

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