Sunday Notes: Matthew Wood Caught Jacob Misiorowski in the Minors

Matthew Wood watched the World Series from afar, and he did so with a close eye on former teammates. Currently competing in the Arizona Fall League, the 25-year-old Milwaukee Brewers prospect caught a pair of the championship club’s starters when they were still down on the farm. I asked him about those experiences — both the observing and the receiving — prior to Milwaukee’s Game 5 clincher. “It’s been really cool,” said Wood, who is suiting up for the Scottsdale Scorpions. “It’s been especially cool to see guys that I’ve played with in the World Series. Some of our game times are conflicting, but I’ve been going back to watch the ones I missed, checking in on the guys. What they’re doing is unbelievable. I’m excited for everyone involved.” Jacob Misiorowski and Logan Henderson are two of those players. What was it like for Wood to work with them as they climbed the proverbial ladder? “Catching them in the minor leagues, you kind of know that they’re going to be stars,” he told me. “And they are. To see where their journeys have taken them is really cool. I’m really happy for them. They deserve all the success they’re having.” Misiorowski’s success has been most notable. Not only is the flamethrower likely to capture the NL Cy Young Award in his first full MLB season; he won both of his World Series starts — including the one that gave the franchise its first-ever title. “He’s incredible,” stated the erstwhile Penn State Nittany Lion, whom the Brewers selected in the fourth round of the 2022 draft. “With his velocity and extension [both of which ranked in the 100th percentile this season] the ball just gets on you so quickly. What he does is basically a one-of-one thing.” There aren’t any Misiorowskis in Milwaukee’s well-regarded pipeline, but there are some promising arms. Wood was behind the dish for some of them at Double-A Biloxi this past summer. “I had the opportunity to catch a lot of great guys,” the up-and-coming backstop told me. “The Brewers have so much talent in the minor leagues. I mean, Cam Wagoner was coming off an injury, and he had a great year. Manuel Rodríguez is a young kid in our organization who has unbelievable pitchability for someone his age. He’s not going to beat you with his velocity, but he has great command and feel for four or five pitches. There are plenty more, but those are two guys who most stood out to me.” Rodriguez, who turned 21 in August, was one of the youngest pitchers in the Southern League. He finished 13-4 with a 4.74 ERA and a 20.9% strikeout rate over 133 innings. Wagoner, who turned 25 in June, had a 35.1% strikeout rate and a 1.48 ERA over 42-and-two-thirds innings. An Eastern Michigan University product who missed the 2024 and 2025 seasons after undergoing Tommy John surgery, he throws in the mid-to-upper 90s and has touched triple digits. As for Wood, his 2026 performance was of the arrow-up variety. Swinging from the left side, he homered 18 times and put up a .257/.398/.492 slash line with a 134 wRC+ over 385 plate appearances. Moreover, he drew 71 walks and went down on strikes just 52 times. ——— RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS Jake Marisnick went 5 for 5 against Neal Cotts. Randy Jackson went 5 for 5 against Cot Deal. Henry Cotto went 1 for 15 against Dave Stewart, Hooks Cotter went 1 for 16 against Dazzy Vance. Chuck Cottier went 1 for 18 against Dave McNally. ——— As noted above, the winning pitcher in Wednesday’s World Series clincher was in the 100th percentile for extension this season. At an average of 7.57 feet, Misiorowski’s four-seamer and cutter each ranked highest in MLB. Logan Gilbert was second-highest at 7.56 with his four-seamer, while Tyler Glasnow was third; both his four- and two-seamer registered in the 7.5 range. The lowest extension in MLB this season? That distinction belonged to Sam Moll. The Cincinnati Reds reliever was at 4.43 for his sweeper, and 4.58 with his fastball and his changeup. Moll was the only pitcher below five feet. Jimmy Herget had the second-lowest extension, followed by Brad Lord, Brennan Bernardino, Braydon Fisher, and Brandyn Garcia. Milwaukee’s Aaron Ashby also bears noting. The postseason stalwart ranked in the second percentile for extension at 5.5 feet. Hat tip to Eric Longenhagen, who looked up the numbers as we sat together in the Glendale press box prior to a recent AFL affair. ——— Sean Sullivan is atypical, if not unique. Much like Misiorowski, the 24-year-old Colorado Rockies hurler ranked in the 100th percentile for extension. Unlike “The Miz,” he was at the opposite extreme for fastball velocity. Averaging just 87.5 mph across his five MLB appearances (he also made 14 starts in Triple-A), the southpaw ranked in the first percentile for that particular metric. Sullivan is currently making up for lost innings in the desert — he missed time this season due to injury — and while I didn’t get an opportunity to talk to him following his most recent outing, I did catch up with someone who knows him well. Jerry Sullivan serves as the pitching coach for Colorado’s Double-A affiliate, the Hartford Yard Goats, and is currently in that role with the AFL’s Salt River Rafters. With the low-velocity/extreme extension profile in mind. I asked Sullivan how the Rockies are working to optimize the Wake Forest product’s effectiveness. “The velo is on our minds, for sure,” the coach told me. “It does uptick because of his deception (Eric has described a low three-quarters slot and a stride direction that creates an extreme angle). His 91 [mph] can play like 95-97 with his extension. We also like the deception piece from how he comes from that side of the rubber — first base-side drift — so if we can get the fastball to tick up, everything can play off of that even better. “We’ve added to his arsenal as well,” added Sullivan. “Over the last season, the cutter has been inserted to create some separation from the four-seamer, to help protect it. We’re also working on a little more of a shorter slider to complement the sweeper. Essentially, what we’re chasing there is a bridge pitch. It doesn’t have to be this elite slider, just something separate from his sweeper and cutter. We want to miss barrels with it. If he’s coming at you with a bigger arsenal, and with a velo uptick, he is going to be a more effective pitcher over the long term.” ——— A quiz: The 3,000-hit club comprises 33 players. One of them had just one sacrifice hit in his career, while another just had just two. Who are they? The answer can be found below. ——— NEWS NOTES George Thomas, an outfielder who played for four teams across the 1957-1971 seasons, died on October 23 at age of 88. A Minneapolis native who attended the University of Minnesota, Thomas saw his most-extension action with the Detroit Tigers in 1964, garnering 333 plate appearances and batting .286 with a dozen round-trippers. He played for the “Impossible Dream” Boston Red Sox in 1967. There have been numerous transactions in recent days, the most notable being the Houston Astros’ hiring of Randy Flores as their new general manager. Listing all of them in this column would be impractical, but Roster Resource has you covered if you want to find them in one place. Player movement can be found here, and a coaches table can be found here. ——— The answer to the quiz is Albert Pujols, whose lone sacrifice hit came in his 2001 rookie season, and Eddie Murray, who debuted in 1977 and had one sacrifice hit in each of the 1978 and 1979 seasons. Bonus fact: Eddie Collins, who played from 1906-1930, had 512 sacrifice hits, as well as 3,315 hits and a .333 batting average. The game was played differently back then. ——— Tate Southisene is one of the highest-profile players competing in the AFL. Drafted 22nd overall in 2025 out of a Nevada high school, the 20-year-old middle infielder is ranked second in the Atlanta Braves system, and 71st on The Board. His regular season, which was cut short by a wrist fracture, was stellar. Playing as a teenager at Low-A Augusta and High-A Rome, Southisene slashed .278/.406/.467 with a dozen round-trippers and a 139 wRC+ across 419 plate appearances. Having heard that he’s made swing changes, I approached him on that subject following Thursday’s game in Glendale. “I feel like you’re always making swing changes,” Southisene said in our brief conversation. “You’re toning up your swing, keeping it sharp, so I’m always kind of tinkering with my swing. When it’s good, I’m just keeping it sharp.” “I’ve always been a really handsy guy,” the youngster went on to say. “I do what comes naturally, but at the same time, you have to do what’s best for you. That could be making an unnatural move that becomes more natural as you work on it. I have trust in my hitting coaches and coordinators with the Braves. They give me what they think is best for me, and then I put in my own two cents on it, I guess you can say. My hands, my load, kind of everything.” ——— Foster Griffin was included in my October 18 Sunday Notes column, the subject at hand being the southpaw’s eye-test experiences with pitching coaches in NPB. Left on the cutting room floor was his response when I asked how he would compare the two pitching coaches he’s worked this season after returning to MLB. “I really wouldn’t compare them, really,” Griffin said of Washington’s Simon Matthews and Cleveland’s Carl Willis. ”It’s more that as a staff the teams are a lot different. There are more pitching coaches [with Cleveland] compared to DC. Each one kind of has his specific role. The organizations differ that way.” ——— FOREIGN AFFAIRS The Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks won their second straight Japan Series, sweeping all four games from the Yokohama DeNA BayStars. It was the Hawks’ ninth NPB title since 2011. Haruto Takahashi was honored with the Eiji Sawamura Award, NPB’s equivalent to the Cy Young Award. The 30-ear-old Hanshin Tigers southpaw finished the season 16-3 with a 1.92 ERA over 159 innings. The 2026-2027 Australian Baseball League season gets underway late this month. The four teams begin play on November 19, with the Adelaide Giants facing the Brisbane Bandits, and the Perth Heat matching up against the Sydney Blue Sox. ——— Michael Wuertz served as the interim bullpen coach for the Los Angeles Angels this past season. He was once a big-league reliever. The right-hander from Austin, Minnesota made 426 appearances and went 21-11 with 11 saves over 414-and-a-third innings while toeing the slab for the Chicago Cubs and the Oakland Athletics from 2004-2011. His best season came with the A’s in 2009 when his ledger included a 2.63 ERA and 102 strikeouts across 78-and-two-thirds frames. “That year I threw a lot of sliders and generated a lot of swing-and-miss,” recalled Wuertz, whom I spoke to in September. “Had I known how effective that pitch could be earlier on, it may have made a big difference to my career. We talk a lot about pitch usage and different characteristics, and back then it was basically the hitters telling us what was good. Now there is data available to help tell us what is good. It would have been nice to have. It was a challenge to figure things out on your own.” ——— A random obscure former player snapshot: Earl Torgeson was one of baseball’s better players in 1950 and 1951. Across the two seasons, the lefty-swinger from Snohomish, Washington — his nickname was “The Earl of Snohomish” — logged a 132 wRC+ and 8.7 WAR with the Boston Braves. Moreover, he swatted 47 home runs and swiped 35 bases, the latter total made more notable by his being a first baseman. All told, Torgeson played 15 MLB seasons, putting up a solid 121 wRC+. What he didn’t put up with was guff. Per his fascinating SABR BioProject entry, Torgeson had a short fuse and was involved numerous fracases, both on and off the diamond. As Mark Armour wrote in the bio, even before breaking into the bigs, the tempestuous slugger “faced assault charges for decking two men on a Seattle street who had used vulgar language in front of his wife.” ——— LINKS YOU’LL LIKE CBS Sports’s Dayn Perry looked at some of the top trade candidates for the 2026-2027 offseason. Sox Machine’s Jim Margalus wrote about how the Chicago White Sox swung-and-missed with John Schiffren, who won’t be returning to the team’s TV booth next season. Minnesota Monthly’s Clayton Trutor reflected on the Twins’ 1991 World Series win. The Washington Sun’s Jesse Dougherty wrote about how Matthew LeCroy’s job as the Nationals’ Triple-A manager is to make dreams come true — including his own. Washington State University unveiled a John Olerud statue at their baseball field. Smith Slye has the story at The Daily Evergreen. ——— RANDOM FACTS AND STATS Barry Bonds was drafted sixth overall out of Arizona State University by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1985. That year’s fifth overall pick belonged to the Chicago White Sox, who selected Kurt Brown, a high school catcher from Glendora, California. Brown went on to play seven professional seasons, all in the minors. Dennis Eckersley recorded 81 saves and a 1.03 ERA while tossing 131 innings across the 1989-1990 seasons. He issued seven walks over that two-year span. Billy Koch went 11-4 with 44 saves while appearing in 84 games for the Oakland Athletics in 2002. The right-hander led the junior circuit in appearances and relief wins, and was second in saves behind Minnesota’s “Everyday Eddie” Guardado, who had 45. Red Sox right-hander Dick Radatz led American League pitchers in both appearances (62) and saves (24) in his 1962 rookie season. The workhorse closer’s batting record is also noteworthy. While “The Monster” went just 3-for-36, all three of his hits were two-run singles. The Oakland Athletics released Mike Andrews on today’s date in 1993. A few weeks earlier, the veteran second baseman had committed errors on back-to-back plays in the 12th of inning of a World Series Game 2 loss to the New York Mets, prompting Charley Finley to act like… well, Charlie-O, the ass. The mule-owning A’s owner attempted to have Andrews replaced on the roster, falsely claiming that he was injured. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn not only didn’t allow that to happen, he fined Finley. Andrews later pinch-hit in Game 4, getting a standing ovation in what proved to be his last-ever game in the majors. On today’s date in 1975, the Toronto Blues Jays acquired Chris Chambliss from the New York Yankees as a part of a six-player trade. He never did play for Canada’s team. A month later, the Blue Jays flipped Chambliss to the Atlanta Braves as part of another multi-player deal. Players born on today’s date include Miguel Dilone, a speedy outfielder from Santiago, Dominican Republic who appeared in 800 games and logged 2,000 at-bats while playing for seven teams — primarily Cleveland — from 1974-1985. His best season by far came with the Indians in 1980. That year, Dilone swiped 61 bags while slashing .341/.375/.432 with a 123 wRC+ and 61 stolen bases. Also born on today’s date was Dick Baney, a right-hander who appeared in nine games for the expansion Seattle Pilots in 1969, and in 33 games for the Cincinnati Reds across the 1972-1973 seasons. Baney began his MLB career by getting taken deep by the first batter he faced, Harmon Killebrew, then went on to finish with a record of 4-1 and a 4.28 ERA over 90-and-a-third innings. According to B-Ref bio, Baney posed nude for Playgirl Magazine once his playing days were done.