Konnor Griffin's contract, Mason Miller's Time and a 1-ball walk: Weird & Wild

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Coming right up in this column, you can read about all of it. But it’s hard not to start in Pittsburgh, where over 100 million Bob Nutting dollars are heading in the direction of a guy who isn’t even old enough to buy a round of Iron City for his friends and family. By which we mean … Who’s the last teenager to be the face of his franchise? Mel Ott? Ty Cobb? OK, it’s probably Bryce Harper, but can we just say it’s a short list? I think we can. Which brings us to Konnor Griffin, 19-year-old face of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He’s younger than Alysa Liu. He’s younger than Bronny James. He’s younger than Arch Manning. And for the next nine years, he’s going to be as big a part of life in Pittsburgh as all those bridges, Terrible Towels and sandwiches stuffed with french fries. OK, I know what you’re thinking: What about Paul Skenes? Definitely more famous. Definitely more established. Definitely a dude who instills sheer disbelief in everyone in Pittsburgh that he actually pitches for their team. But who out there thinks Skenes will be a Pirate in 2034? Right. Not seeing a lot of hands in the air. So let’s think about how crazy it is that Griffin will be, now that baseball’s No. 1 prospect has signed a nine-year, $140 million contract with no opt-outs or any other kind of escape clauses. Here at the Weird and Wild column, we don’t just look at Griffin and see a star. We look at him and see all the fun Weird and Wild notes he has already provided before he’s even turned 20. What kind of notes are those, you ask? These kind! You know who still hasn’t earned $140 million in their careers? Here’s a staggering list, courtesy of Spotrac: Andrew McCutchen — $137.7 million Sonny Gray — $127.6 million Carlos Santana — $126.2 million I could go on. But those three guys have played a combined 49 seasons in the big leagues. Griffin has been in the big leagues for, like, 49 minutes. So consider this a sign he has big things ahead. He’s guaranteed $140 million, and he’s a teenager? If you’re thinking you don’t see that much, it’s because you don’t see that ever. Griffin was 19 years, 349 days old when he signed that contract this week. Is that the youngest any player in MLB was when he signed a deal that guaranteed him at least $100 million? Of course. Here are the three runners-up: 20 years, 271 days — Wander Franco, Rays (2021) 21 years, 86 days — Roman Anthony, Red Sox (2025) 21 years, 105 days — Ronald Acuña Jr., Braves (2019) (Hat tip: Cot’s Baseball Contracts) He got $140 million before he got five hits? Yeah, that’s also true. Griffin had exactly three career big-league hits when he signed on that dotted line. I know he’s getting paid for what he will do, not what he’d already done. But $46.67 million per hit seems like good work if you can get it. Not counting free agents from Japan and other nations, I could find only two other players who signed nine-figure deals before their 50th career hit: Corbin Carroll — 27 hits Roman Anthony — 45 hits A guy just got paid $140 million by the Pirates? All my favorite Pirates-fan friends are still reeling from that headline. But in the Pirates’ defense, Griffin is not their first $100 million player. Bryan Reynolds beat him to it, with an eight-year, $106.75 million extension in 2023. It should also brighten my Pirates fans’ day to learn that there are two teams left that still haven’t signed any player to a deal worth $100 million or more. (*extension) (Source: Sarah Langs, MLB.com) But the Pirates? They’ve now handed out two of those. What a time to be alive. 1. Margin of Error — Baseball is weird. It’s also wild. Tell that to Orioles starter Kyle Bradish. His start Wednesday was the 70th of his career, in his fifth season. You know what he’d never done in all those games? Commit a single error. Then this happened. Orioles pitcher Kyle Bradish probably wants a do-over here pic.twitter.com/GWsuaWOrDN — Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) April 8, 2026 So that’s five seasons and over 1,500 batters faced with zero errors … and then two errors on the same play … on a throw back to the pitcher. 2. Sacramento Special — Last Sunday in beautiful West Sacramento, the A’s and Astros rolled into the fifth inning locked up in a 0-0 game. So … what a pitchers’ duel, right? Wrong. Final score: A’s 12, Astros 10! First four innings: no runs, four hits Last five innings: 22 runs, 23 hits (Hat tip: Our friends at Just Baseball) 3. All You Don’t Need Is Glove — When White Sox starting pitcher Shane Smith arrived on the mound Tuesday, he had the standard four infielders and three outfielders standing behind him. In retrospect, he could have told those guys: Take the first couple of innings off. Check out how his first two innings went against the Orioles. First inning: Strikeout, walk, walk, strikeout, strikeout. Second inning: Strikeout, strikeout, walk, hit batter, walk, strikeout. So that’s 11 hitters … and zero balls in play. Well, you don’t see that often. Baseball Reference’s amazing Kenny Jackelen looked into it and found only one other time in his site’s database when any pitcher went that deep into a game without a ball in play. That was Carlos Martinez, for the Cardinals, on April 15, 2017: Walk, walk, strikeout, strikeout, walk, walk, strikeout, strikeout, strikeout, walk, walk, strikeout. That’s 12 in a row — not even including the wild pitch and passed ball he mixed in there. Oh, and one more thing. Smith’s line for his day: 99 pitches in 3 2/3 innings — without giving up a run. So how many pitchers in the pitch-counting era (1988-present) have thrown that many pitches, gotten that few outs and (somehow) not allowed a run? Exactly one: Shane Smith. 1. Let’s Not Play Two – It isn’t often that a Division II college baseball extravaganza slips into this column. But America wanted to make sure I didn’t miss this one. Last Saturday in Frankfort, Ky., Kentucky State hosted Lane College for what you might have thought was just another routine April doubleheader. Well, here’s how routine it was: The Game 1 score: Lane 31, Kentucky State 27 The totals: 58 runs, 51 hits, eight errors, four homers by Kentucky State’s Ryan Campbell, four homers by everyone else, 32 walks, 10 hit batters, 10 stolen base, eight runners thrown out trying to steal, 31 runners left on base in a game with 58 runs. 146 batters and 93 of them reached base (not even counting the ones who reached on errors). Time of game: 5 hours, 1 minute … and then they had another game to play. 2. Don’t Play the Hits — Then there was the Weirdest and Wildest minor-league inning of the year (so far), Tuesday in Portland, Maine … when the New Hampshire Fisher Cats scored eight runs in an inning before they even mixed in a hit. That seems hard. But all things are possible, when you fire up a “rally” that goes: walk, walk, wild pitch, strikeout, sacrifice fly, walk, walk, walk, hit-by-pitch, wild pitch, walk, hit-by-pitch, wild pitch, walk, walk, wild pitch. Meanwhile, in the big leagues, we still have two teams — the Reds and Red Sox — that haven’t scored eight runs in a game this season, no matter how many hits they got. But down in the Eastern League, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats scored eight without getting any hits. BBBBWPKSF (1-2)BBBBBB (2-2)HBP (3-2)WP (4-2)BBHBP (5-2)WP (6-2)BBBB (7-2)WP (8-2)1B (10-2)K https://t.co/Fd5PBquk6g — Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) April 7, 2026 3. Going Out for a Short Walk — But if you think eight runs on no hits is hard, I’m not sure it’s more mathematically challenging than this: Hat tip to my friend Ken Krsolovic for alerting me to this nutty thing that happened last week in the High-A Midwest League. Just took three pitch-clock violations in one at-bat, and voila: West Lansing pitcher Carlos Lequerica had just walked Lake County’s Dean Collins, despite throwing more strikes in this at-bat (two) than balls (one). YOU PAY YOUR MONEY AND YOU TAKE YOUR TROTS — Let’s check on the first four hitters in the Dodgers’ lineup last Friday in Washington. Shohei Ohtani homered in the third inning. Mookie Betts homered two hitters later. Freddie Freeman homered in the fifth inning. Kyle Tucker homered in the seventh. I’m just going to make a wild statement here without doing any further research: Those are the most expensive homers ever hit by the top of any team’s lineup. Total value of those four contracts: A mere $1.467 billion. OK, so I’m not adjusting for deferrals or opt-outs or any of the small print. You can have your accountant call me. But here’s where I’m going with this. For $1.467 billion, you could buy your own private island, complete with mansion, yacht and your own plane and pilot. Or you could buy four home runs. Tough choice! WAY TO MAKE AN ENTRANCE — Hey, I’m not quite through dishing out Konnor Griffin nuggets — because in his very first plate appearance in the major leagues, all he did was double in a run. And just so you know, that’s special. In the last 50 years, I could find only two other teenagers who emerged from their first big-league plate appearance with a run-scoring extra-base hit. There was Jurickson Profar, who started his career with a homer on Sept. 2, 2012. And there was Adrián Beltré, who kicked off his Cooperstown journey with an RBI double on June 24, 1998. But those two were midseason or late-season call-ups. You know how many teenagers have done that in a game in April over the last 100 years? That would be one: Konnor Griffin. THE GREATEST TRADE IN HISTORY — Should we give the Cubs’ Jed Hoyer his Executive of the Year award now or wait a few months? We ask because if the season ended today (which seems doubtful), it would almost be safe to say that the Cubs’ offseason trade for pitcher Edward Cabrera was the deal of the century. Cabrera’s first start as a Cub: 6 IP, 1 hit Cabrera’s second start as a Cub: 5 2/3 IP, 1 hit That seemed rarified. We asked our friends from Baseball Reference just how rarified it was. The word from Kenny Jackelen: Your handy-dandy list of starters in the Retrosheet/Baseball Reference era who allowed one hit or none in each of their first two starts (of at least five innings) after changing teams looks like this … AND THAT MASON KEEPS ROLLIN’ ALONG — There’s baseball. And then there’s Mason-ball. It’s hard to argue that Padres closer Mason Miller is playing the same sport everyone else is, if only because he’s way better than those human hitters he’s pitching against. He last gave up a run eight months ago, in August. What he’s done since the start of last September almost makes you laugh out loud — unless you have to hit against him. So far this season — 16 outs, 13 strikeouts, 1 hit In the WBC — 12 outs, 10 strikeouts, 0 hits 2025 postseason — 8 outs, 8 strikeouts, 0 hits Last September — 37 outs, 25 strikeouts, 1 hit So … since the start of September, opposing hitters are 2-for-74 against him, with 57 strikeouts. Is that good? It’s so good that if he gave up a hit to the next 28 hitters in a row (which seems unlikely), they still wouldn’t be hitting .300 against him. Shake Shack — Who was that on the mound Monday night, finishing up the Dodgers’ 14-2 win over the Blue Jays? Here’s a hint: He is normally referred to as “not a pitcher.” That would be Miguel Rojas, trusty Dodgers do-it-all handyman. But here’s why seeing a Dodgers position player pitching in a game his team won shouldn’t surprise anybody. Since Dave Roberts became the manager of this team a decade ago, this was, incredibly, the 18th time the last pitch of a Dodgers victory was thrown by a position player. The next-most, by any team, is six — by Gabe Kapler’s Giants in 2022-23. THE MIZ KID — The Brewers pointed Jacob Misiorowski toward the mound at Fenway Park this week. Let’s see how that went. The Miz, Tuesday at Fenway: 21 pitches of 100 mph or faster in the first two innings. I count 35 pitchers who have started a game for the Red Sox at Fenway over the last five seasons. Pitches at 100 mph or faster by all 35 combined: 3 (all by Garrett Crochet last year) MICKEY, DON’T LOSE THAT NUMBER — When the Phillies took Mickey Moniak with the first pick in the 2016 draft, they must have imagined there would come a day when he would do this in a Phillies game. Mickey Moniak with the Phillies:105 plate appearances, 1 HR Mickey Moniak today vs. the Phillies:3-plate appearances, 2 HR https://t.co/FYbjwe2yKB — Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) April 5, 2026 Oops! So that two-homer game happened against the Phillies, because of course it did. Moniak isn’t the first overall No.1 pick to homer twice in a game against the team that drafted him. But he did make history last Sunday — by setting a record for fewest home runs hit for the drafting team by a guy who later hit at least two in a game against that team. The old record, according to Baseball Reference’s Katie Sharp, was 20, by Delmon Young. Hit 20 for the Rays, who took him No. 1 in 2003 … then hit two in one game against them as an Oriole on May 31, 2015. (Those 20 homers include his one postseason bomb for Tampa Bay.) WHICH ONE WAS THE POWER FORWARD — Isn’t it fitting that on Final Four weekend, we had a starting pitcher matchup of 6-foot-9 (Bailey Ober) vs. 6-8 (Joe Boyle) last Friday in Minnesota? Katie Sharp was all over that one, too. On one hand, it was the eighth time a starting pitcher as tall as Boyle had ever pitched against a starter even taller than him. On the other hand, these guys were 1 inch from history. Boyle and Ober were a combined 13 feet, 5 inches tall. The record: 13 feet, 6 inches, in two starts involving (who else) Randy Johnson, all 6-10 of him. May 15, 2007: Johnson (6-10) vs. Jason Hirsh (6-8) June 8, 2009: Johnson (6-10) vs. Sean West (6-8) Does anyone else miss those Big Unit notes? We do. HE GOT GAMES — I’m still trying to comprehend the magnitude of what José Ramírez did this week. The Cleveland Guardians have been around for 126 seasons. More than 2,000 men have made it into a big-league batter’s box wearing a Cleveland uniform. And a guy who is playing right now has played more games than any of them? That’s the coolest thing ever. In the last 50 seasons, only three other men — Mike Schmidt, Cal Ripken Jr. and Derek Jeter — have broken the record for most games played for a franchise that has been around as long as the Guardians. And now there’s a fourth: Ramírez. But here’s a tidbit I haven’t seen anywhere else. By the end of this season, barring something unforeseen, Ramírez will have more than 1,700 games played, 300 homers and 300 stolen bases, all as a Guardian/Indian. Ready for the complete list of every player in history who will have done that, all for one team? WE AREN’T FAMILY — A wild (and weird) thing happened last weekend in Pittsburgh: The Pirates won three games in a row against the Orioles. Not to imply it had been a while, but the last time Pittsburgh beat Baltimore in three straight games was … Games 5-6-7 of the 1979 World Series. And you know that wasn’t exactly last week, because it looked like this. Today In 1979: Relief pitcher Kent Tekulve gets the save as the "We Are Family" Pittsburgh #Pirates win the #WorldSeries in seven games vs. the Baltimore Orioles! #MLB #Baseball #History #Postseason pic.twitter.com/CHLpqKj5f1 — Baseball by BSmile (@BSmile) October 17, 2025 CRAZY (GAME) 8 — Speaking of World Series memories … it sure seemed like fun to see the Dodgers returning to Toronto this week, for the first time since the electrifying World Series Game 7 … until the Dodgers and Jays actually started playing each other … And then a 14-2 game busted out. If you’re familiar with this column, you know exactly what we asked: Was that the biggest blowout in history in the first meeting of two World Series teams since their World Series? Correct answer: Heck, yeah, it was. Kenny Jackelen took on that plum assignment – and found it as amusing as I did that some of those rematches didn’t take place until decades after that World Series. (Google “interleague play” for more details.) But we never did require that it had to happen the following season. So here’s your Strange But True leaderboard for the biggest margin of victory in a World Series Rematch Nobody Asked For. NEVER CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN — It was always a pretty safe bet that a man who hit 60 home runs last year would hit at least one this year. And whaddaya know, on Monday, this happened to Mariners masher Cal Raleigh, aka. “The Big Dumper.” Cal Raleigh ends this 12-pitch at-bat with his first home run of the season 🔱 pic.twitter.com/PX7GZJgqVh But that’s not even the Strange But True part. The Strange But True part is: HR hit this year by the Dumper — 1 HR hit last year by the Dumper — 60 HR hit in 12-pitch at-bats this year — 1 HR hit in 12-pitch at-bats last year — 0 SEEING RED AND TEAL IN PITTSBURGH – A very Strange, very True thing happened Monday, and I bet you never even noticed. Check out the record of these three teams when they awoke Monday morning: Marlins — 6-3 Pirates — 6-3 Reds — 6-3 Well, I know one guy who noticed. He’s the great Cincinnati baseball stats machine, Joel Luckhaupt. And here’s why he was so excited to see that: Would you believe that was only the fifth day in history when the Reds, Pirates and Marlins were all at least three games over .500? Yes, not 20. Three! If you know much about the recent history of those three juggernauts, you undoubtedly do believe it. But that doesn’t make it any less amazing. The other four dates when that happened: three days in 2012 (June 8-9-11) and one day in 2009 (April 23). And … that … is … it. GOOD WILL BUNTING — It was the 10th inning last Friday on the South Side of Chicago. The White Sox were one out from defeat, trailing the Blue Jays by a run and then … we had this Strange But True moment. A bunt hit, with two outs in extra innings, by a team trailing by a run? Derek Hill did that against Jeff Hoffman. It led to a dramatic 6-3 White Sox win. And it was an excellent time to ask … he did what? Want to know how Strange But True that really was? I can help with that. Last bunt hit in extras by a team trailing by a run? It had been a while! How ’bout Brett Butler off Lee Smith, on Aug. 27, 1993. Last bunt hit like that in extras by a team that wound up winning? It had been an even longer while! That was Rod Carew, off a knuckleballer (Wilbur Wood), on July 14, 1969 … as a pinch hitter … in the 12th inning … with two outs and nobody on … and it worked. Cesar Tovar doubled him in to tie the game. And the Twins wound up winning the game in the 13th. Want to guess how many other bunt hits like that there’ve been in the expansion era (1961-present) by a team that laid down that bunt and lived to celebrate a win? If you’ve read this column much, you know the best guess you could make here is … zero. It may be Strange. It may be True. But the best part is, it’s … Remember last week, when we told you about the only game (so far) this season in which neither team challenged a single ball/strike call? We gave you a chance to vote on what we should call a game like that. And the winner was … “a no-tapper.” But because the people who read this column are so fun and creative, they made a bunch of really compelling suggestions for what else we could call it besides the choices they were given. So let’s do this again, because why wouldn’t we? We’ll give you the results in the next edition of this column. And from that moment on, the name for one of those games will be … whatever you vote for. Vote early and often. And also … you’re welcome! Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Jayson Stark is the 2019 winner of the BBWAA Career Excellence Award for which he was honored at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Jayson has covered baseball for more than 30 years. He spent 17 of those years at ESPN and ESPN.com, and, since 2018, has chronicled baseball at The Athletic and MLB Network. He is the author of three books on baseball, has won an Emmy for his work on "Baseball Tonight," has been inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame and is a two-time winner of the Pennsylvania Sportswriter of the Year award. In 2017, Topps issued an actual Jayson Stark baseball card. Follow Jayson on Twitter @jaysonst