Jo Adell Gets Robbed

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Jo Adell performed a miracle. Let’s turn it into math.

Adell robbed the Mariners of three home runs on Saturday. He got Cal Raleigh in the first inning, Josh Naylor in the eighth, and J.P. Crawford in the ninth. Sports Info Solutions has tracked home run robberies since 2004 and only twice had an outfielder robbed even two home runs in a game — nobody had ever robbed three.

Each catch was crucial. The Angels wound up winning 1-0, with Zach Neto’s leadoff solo shot in the first inning being the only run of the game. That means Adell was thrice the difference in the Angels’ narrow victory.

Win Probability Added doesn’t agree. It suggests Adell overall hurt the Angels’ chances of winning by about 3%. Position players only gain WPA on offense — Adell went 1-for-3 with an irrelevant single — so he didn’t get credit for any of these catches. WPA instead gives all the glory to the pitcher, with the assumption that an out is an out on defense, and the only thing that can be known about an out is who threw the ball (in this case, Jack Kochanowicz, Sam Bachman, and Jordan Romano).

While this assumption makes sense for nearly all plays and scenarios, home run robberies are a bit different. They’re definitive. We know what the outcome was, and we know what the outcome would have been had Adell not intervened.

How much was each catch worth? And how much credit does Adell deserve? Let’s take a look. Read the rest of this entry »


Sunday Notes: Mason Miller Threw a Changeup; Make That Three Changeups

Going into yesterday, Mason Miller had thrown 37 pitches on the season, 19 of them fastballs averaging 101 mph, while another 17 were sliders that elicited a 60.0% whiff rate. There was also one changeup. Delivered to Luis Arraez on a 1-1 count, the ninth-inning offering was wide outside and taken for a ball.

Why did the San Diego Padres closer throw his seldom-used changeup to the three-time batting champ on Wednesday night? Low leverage was certainly a factor; the Friars had scored four times in the bottom of the eighth to turn a 3-1 lead into a far safer 7-1 advantage. It nonetheless represented an outlier for the 27-year-old flamethrower. Over the previous two seasons, only 2.3% of his pitches were changeups.

I asked him about it when the Padres visited Fenway Park on Friday,

“A changeup is a good pitch, but I’m not going to feel comfortable with it if I’m not throwing it,” Miller told me. “I’m picking my spots. There are certain guys it matches up well against. [Arraez] is a guy who isn’t going to swing and miss, so I’m not going to be hunting a strikeout. If I can get softer contact on it… any time you have a guy who isn’t fast and he puts it on the ground, that’s an opportunity for an out.”

Arraez didn’t kill any worms in his matchup with Miller, instead lining a 2-1 fastball to right field for a single. Not that it mattered. The righty proceeded to fan the next three batters, one on a 101.5-mph heater, and two on nasty sliders. While those pitches were pristine, the execution on his lone changeup was another story. Read the rest of this entry »


FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: April 4, 2026

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It took all of a week for the Pirates to call up shortstop Konnor Griffin, the top prospect in all of baseball, to make his debut in their home opener Friday afternoon. Batting seventh, Griffin went 1-for-3 with a walk in Pittsburgh’s 5-4 win over the Orioles, with the highlight coming in the second inning. He stepped in with a runner on second and one out against Baltimore right-hander Kyle Bradish. The first pitch was a slider well off the plate that Griffin chased and missed. He took the next pitch, a slider even farther away, for a ball, whiffed at yet another slider low and away for strike two, and barely got a piece of a fourth-straight slider outside the zone to stay alive. Then, finally, he got a pitch to hit, a curveball on the black away. He scorched it into the left-center gap for a double to drive in the first Pirates run of the game. Two pitches later, he showed off his 70-grade speed, blazing around third to score on a single to shallow right field.

If you’re reading this Members only mailbag, you almost certainly know all about Griffin and his tantalizing, franchise-altering potential. Our prospect team described him as a “freaky five-tool player” when they ranked him no. 1 on our preseason Top 100 list and assigned him a 70 FV. He doesn’t turn 20 until the end of this month and immediately raises the floor of this Pirates team significantly, even if he struggles some out of the gate. Michael Baumann wrote about Griffin on Thursday afternoon, and I’d encourage you to read it if you want to learn more about what Griffin brings to the Pirates and why, after just five games at Triple-A, they decided it was the right time for his big league career to begin.

That’s the last you’ll read about Griffin’s debut in this week’s mailbag. Instead, we’ll answer yours questions on the World Series teams with the most and least WAR on their rosters at the time of their Fall Classic, the dropped third strike rule, and players with the same name. But first, I’d like to remind you that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »


Yes, Pennants Can Be Lost in April

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When looking at most April stats, especially the basic ones, I spend a lot of time issuing disclaimers about small sample sizes. After all, any player can do just about anything in 25 or 50 or 100 plate appearances. I’m pretty confident that Joey Wiemer is not going to end the season as the NL MVP, and that Hunter Barco won’t finish the season with the worst WAR in major league history. But conversely, when we’re talking about standings, even if bad/good starts shouldn’t necessarily overconcern us about a player’s future, when it comes to teams, playoffs are determined by wins, which are cumulative numbers with razor-sharp margins. It’s not the end of the world if Cal Raleigh, because of his slow start, finishes with 38 homers instead of his projected 41 (ZiPS DC), but it may doom the Mariners if they underperform their projections by three wins.

The season is just a week old, but there are already sizable impacts in playoff probabilities around the league. To demonstrate this, I ran ZiPS overnight to get the updated playoff odds, so I could compare them to the preseason projections. Six teams have seen their playoff odds change by at least five percentage points. Here’s the full table, as things stand on Friday morning.

ZiPS Playoff Projections – Entering April 3, 2026
Team W L Pct Div% WC% Playoff% Preseason Playoff% Difference
New York Yankees 89 73 .549 26.3% 43.3% 69.5% 61.5% 8.1%
Milwaukee Brewers 88 74 .543 42.8% 21.3% 64.1% 56.8% 7.3%
Houston Astros 85 77 .525 31.7% 23.0% 54.7% 48.2% 6.5%
Miami Marlins 79 83 .488 8.2% 20.2% 28.3% 22.6% 5.7%
Atlanta Braves 85 77 .525 21.5% 29.6% 51.1% 46.5% 4.6%
Texas Rangers 82 80 .506 18.6% 19.7% 38.3% 34.2% 4.1%
Toronto Blue Jays 90 72 .556 32.5% 41.2% 73.7% 69.9% 3.8%
Cleveland Guardians 79 83 .488 16.7% 11.3% 28.0% 25.2% 2.8%
St. Louis Cardinals 77 85 .475 5.6% 11.1% 16.8% 14.5% 2.2%
Kansas City Royals 82 80 .506 30.3% 14.3% 44.6% 43.4% 1.1%
Los Angeles Dodgers 97 65 .599 76.9% 17.2% 94.1% 93.1% 1.0%
Baltimore Orioles 88 74 .543 22.6% 40.5% 63.1% 63.0% 0.1%
Washington Nationals 64 98 .395 0.1% 0.8% 1.0% 1.0% 0.0%
Colorado Rockies 60 102 .370 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.0%
Los Angeles Angels 67 95 .414 0.6% 1.4% 2.0% 2.2% -0.2%
Cincinnati Reds 77 85 .475 5.3% 10.4% 15.7% 16.5% -0.8%
Pittsburgh Pirates 79 83 .488 10.5% 15.5% 26.0% 27.1% -1.1%
Philadelphia Phillies 90 72 .556 40.9% 29.7% 70.6% 71.8% -1.2%
Tampa Bay Rays 73 89 .451 0.8% 8.4% 9.1% 11.0% -1.8%
Chicago Cubs 86 76 .531 35.8% 22.5% 58.2% 60.1% -1.9%
Chicago White Sox 71 91 .438 2.2% 2.2% 4.3% 6.6% -2.3%
Minnesota Twins 76 86 .469 9.7% 8.4% 18.0% 20.7% -2.7%
Seattle Mariners 88 74 .543 45.9% 21.3% 67.2% 70.1% -2.9%
Arizona Diamondbacks 81 81 .500 6.5% 27.0% 33.5% 36.7% -3.2%
San Francisco Giants 83 79 .512 9.6% 32.4% 42.0% 45.5% -3.5%
New York Mets 88 74 .543 29.3% 32.9% 62.2% 65.7% -3.5%
Detroit Tigers 84 78 .519 41.3% 13.1% 54.4% 58.1% -3.7%
Athletics 72 90 .444 3.1% 6.1% 9.2% 13.3% -4.1%
San Diego Padres 82 80 .506 7.1% 29.3% 36.4% 41.9% -5.5%
Boston Red Sox 88 74 .543 17.9% 46.0% 63.9% 72.7% -8.9%

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Eric Longenhagen Prospects Chat: 4/3/2026

12:02
Eric A Longenhagen: What’s up hosers? Good afternoon from Catasauqua, PA where I’m seeing family and baseball (mostly Nats affiliates) through next week.

12:02
Guest: Is it possible that Jefferson Rojas has gotten back on track?  True that he’s put on muscle?

12:05
Eric A Longenhagen: We didn’t think he ever got off track so much as he was a young player with an aggressive assignment last year. We had him as the top prospect in the system entering the year, 55th overall. He absolutely looks stronger, was selling out for power a little more than I liked when I saw him during the spring, though some of that was probably Breakout Game pressing.

12:05
Lord Thunder: With 17 walks in 15-plus innings including spring training, how long of a leash does Bubba Chandler have before he walks himself back to Triple-A?

12:08
Eric A Longenhagen: I wish Jared Jones were going to be ready to go sooner than mid-to-late May because there’d be a nice, natural swap there if Chandler is this wild until then. You’re seeing why we had McLean ranked first among pitchers and Chandler in the tier behind him. I’m not too worried about it, long term, athletes with this kind of arm speed tend to take a minute to reign it in. They could just let him struggle and learn on the fly and I think it’d be fine. Don’t burn an option year unless you really, really have to.

12:08
Jim: How fast should Jamie Arnold move through the minors?

Read the rest of this entry »


Mike Trout Goes for a Walk

Troy Taormina-Imagn Images

Let me tell you a story about a 34-year-old baseball player. Seven games into the new season, there are some worrying signs about his performance. His swing speed is down half a tick, and two full ticks from 2024. His fast-swing rate has declined precipitously. He’s squaring the ball up less frequently than ever, the opposite of what’s supposed to happen when you rein in your swing. He’s never run a lower hard-hit rate. He’s never run a higher infield fly ball rate. Somebody call an ambulance.

… But not for him. The hitter in question is Mike Trout, and he’s off to a scorching start. He’s slashing an absurd .261/.485/.522, good for a 192 wRC+. Whenever process statistics and result statistics diverge this much, this early in the season, I’m tempted to yell “April” in my best Dan Szymborski voice and move on. But when it’s Trout, one of the best players of all time, I’m willing to be more open-minded. Let’s take a quick peek into what’s changed, what hasn’t, and what’s too early to tell.

The most obvious change in Trout’s statistics this year is that he’s walking 30% of the time. Walks have always been a part of Trout’s game, of course. He has a keen eye at the plate, annually notching one of the lowest chase rates in the game, and he makes enough contact that he can grind his way back into at-bats even after falling behind. But 30% is double his career rate. What gives? Read the rest of this entry »


On Second Thought, Let’s Call Konnor Griffin Up After All

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It feels incredibly weird to say this but… it’s a good time to be a Pirates fan? Because Konnor Griffin is coming to the majors. He’ll make his major league debut in Pittsburgh’s home opener on Friday.

Griffin was the Pirates’ first-round pick in 2024, ninth overall, and quickly emerged as the no. 1 overall prospect in baseball. A team that’s been as bad as the Pirates, for as long as they’ve been bad, will have some familiarity with the ballyhooed prospect debut, but I’m not sure even they’ve seen anything like this. I was as big a Paul Skenes fan as anyone, and as pumped as I was to see him hit the majors, he’s surpassed even my expectations.

Well, now Skenes is in the majors to stay. So is Bubba Chandler. The Pirates flirted with spending some money this past offseason, and while a 3-3 record is the definition of unremarkable, the Pirates just went on the road and played the Mets and Reds — two of their erstwhile NL playoff rivals — to a draw. The Pirates might be kind of OK. Life hasn’t been this good, genuinely, in more than 10 years.

But Griffin’s debut is the main event. Because as big as the hype around Skenes was, the expectations for Griffin are even greater. Read the rest of this entry »


RosterResource Chat – 4/2/26

2:01
Avatar Jason Martinez: Welcome to the 1st RosterResource chat of the 2026 regular season. “Happy Konnor Griffin MLB Debut Eve” to those who celebrate.

2:01
Stu: Who gets kicked out of the Yankees rotation when Cole and rodon are back? Thinking about selling Weathers before a potential move to the bullpen, is that premature?

2:03
Avatar Jon Becker: They’ve got a lot of time to figure that out (and maybe it’ll get figured out for them) with Cole not back until June. Best guess for right now is Luis Gil, since he didn’t make the season opening rotation and wasn’t good last year, so he’s got the most to prove. I wouldn’t completely discount the possibility of Weathers to the bullpen at some point (playoffs?) but he’d have to be truly awful for it to be the move in the first half of the season. They traded for him to start.

2:03
Bryan Baker: is he really the closer?

2:04
Avatar Jason Martinez: You never know with the Rays, who might be just as likely to go with Kevin Kelly for a 1-out save than the most obvious choice. At least for tomorrow, they can’t trust Griffin Jax after his last outing (and he’s also allowed a run in 3 of 4 appearances). And Garrett Cleavinger has walked 2 batters in each of his last 2 outings. Baker looks great so far. He’d be my pick. But things can change quickly.

2:05
Pistol Pete: Red Sox need a shake-up … do you see any big changes?

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Sal Stewart Has Leveled Up

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Sal Stewart made a promising showing when the Reds called him up last September, clubbing five home runs in 18 games while helping Cincinnati reach the postseason for the first time since 2020. His 2026 campaign is off to a flying start, as well. Not only did he bank NL Player of the Week honors for the season’s opening week, but his performance underscores the notion — supported by both scouting and statistical projections — that he’s leveled up significantly.

Through the Reds’ first six games, the 22-year-old first baseman has put up video-game numbers, batting .474/.615/.947 (313 wRC+) with two homers in 26 plate appearances. His hot streak began with an eventful Opening Day; while the Reds lost to the Red Sox, 3-0, it was hardly his fault. He went 3-for-4, including a pair of bases-empty doubles, one apiece off starter Garrett Crochet and reliever Garrett Whitlock, as well as a single to right field off Crochet with men on first and second. With third base coach Willie Harris wary of testing two-time Gold Glove winner Wilyer Abreu’s arm, lead runner Matt McLain was held up and ultimately stranded.

Stewart also survived a scare in the fifth inning, when a 110-mph liner off the bat of Roman Anthony hit his left wrist as he tried to backhand the ball. He was shaken up but remained in the game, and reassuringly collected two of his three hits after being drilled. Read the rest of this entry »


All Gas, No Aim: Bubba Chandler Is Amped

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In Bubba Chandler’s first start of the 2026 season, he didn’t allow a single hit. Oh yeah, and he struck out more than 30% of the batters he faced. Spectacular! Just, um, don’t look over at the walk column. Oh, you did? Yeah, fine, he walked more than 30% of the batters he faced, too. Oh, and he allowed a run, and didn’t get out of the fifth inning. To understand what Chandler was up to, and what it might mean for the rest of his year, we’ll have to dig a little deeper.

Chandler leaned heavily on his fastball to start his year, as many pitchers do in their first appearance of the season. He breezed through the first inning with 11 straight fastballs, eclipsing 100 mph on the radar gun four times and essentially daring the Reds to hit it. TJ Friedl waved feebly at 100 above the zone. Matt McLain did the same. Chandler’s fastball is dynamite, particularly when he’s locating it high. It explodes upwards, and some offseason tweaks have it moving less arm side than before, making it even harder to square up.

I could watch a montage of Chandler overpowering Reds hitters all day. In fact, you can too:

You can see how difficult it is to track Chandler’s fastball by watching the check swings. The pitch that Jose Trevino, the last batter in that loop, offered at was more than a foot above the zone. The combination of velo, movement, and Chandler’s loping delivery means that hitters have a lot of trouble figuring out where the ball is going. Read the rest of this entry »