Tristan Peters was a 22-year-old San Francisco Giants outfield prospect when he was first featured here at FanGraphs in August 2022. Drafted in the seventh round the previous year out of Southern Illinois University, he had recently been acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers at the trade deadline in exchange for Trevor Rosenthal. His profile was modest. While he possessed potential, Peters was nonetheless unranked, with plenty of raw edges to be smoothed out if he hoped to one day reach The Show.

It took time, but his once-raw tools are now are shining brightly on Chicago’s South Side. Now with his fourth organization — the White Sox purchased his contract from the Tampa Bay Rays over the offseason — Peters is thriving to the tune of a .279/.344/.468 slash line, a dozen home runs, and a 128 wRC+ over 408 plate appearances. Moreover, he went deep for the fifth straight game on Thursday, tying a franchise record held by seven other players. Munetaka Murakami is among them, having turned the trick back in April.

The developmental strides Peters has made since we spoke four years ago this month? Peters told me that there have been “tons,” with defense standing out as an especially meaningful area of improvement. On the offensive end, he has made adjustments to his lower half, putting him “in a better position to swing,” thus allowing him to be “more powerful.”

His future was in doubt as recently as December. Nine days before Christmas, the 26-year-old native of Winkler, Manitoba was designated for assignment. Not surprisingly, he found himself not only wondering where his baseball journey would take him next, but also if a big-league uniform was part of that equation. Read the rest of this entry »

Three months ago, when MLB and the MLB Players Association made their first proposals for baseball’s next collective bargaining agreement, I wrote about how these offers were designed to be rejected, and that they would continue to be until January at the earliest. For that reason, I haven’t devoted much space in these mailbags to the various rounds of bargaining that have taken place this summer. We have real baseball games to cover.

That said, I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw the most drastic change in MLB’s latest proposal: In the offer sent to the union on Thursday, the league proposed instituting two free agent signing periods during the offseason, the first stretching from the first day of the Winter Meetings until December 21, and the second beginning the first week of February. The first period of no free agent signings would allow teams to trade players and re-sign their own free agents, while the second would be a complete blackout of big league transactions. So why is that funny? Well, because the league made clear that the players wouldn’t be able to get these free agent signing periods unless they agreed to a salary cap, as if the transaction limitations would be enough of a sweetener to get the players to give in. The union doesn’t want free agent signing periods because they would give ownership greater leverage during negotiations, potentially resulting in unfavorable contracts. Bruce Meyer, the interim executive director of the MLBPA, called the proposal “unserious.” We’ve got a long way to go.

If you want to read more about the latest proposal, you should check out Michael Baumann’s writeup from Friday. Otherwise, let’s get on to this week’s mailbag. We’ll be answering your questions about Julio Rodríguez’s hitting, the greatest World Series ever, and what would happen if home runs became automatic triples. 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 »

As Pete Crow-Armstrong authors his breakout season and Chris Sale side-eyes Laz Diaz, the battle for the future of baseball rolls quietly on in the background. On Thursday, MLB delivered to the MLB Players Association its latest set of proposals for the next collective bargaining agreement. This is news for nerds and diehards — you either have to love the minutiae of labor relations or have a vested interest in the structure of the Rule 5 draft to get excited about this stuff.

Fortunately, I know what my audience is. Read the rest of this entry »

Jac Caglianone’s season doesn’t stick out. He doesn’t lead the league in any important statistics. He’s not likely to reach any significant thresholds. He hasn’t completely overhauled his profile. No, his season isn’t that much more interesting than that of any other 2-WAR batter. But for Caglianone, boring is good.

That’s unfortunately a testament to just how bad the Royals’ towering slugger was last year. He couldn’t hit, posting a 47 wRC+. He couldn’t play right field, with -7 OAA. He couldn’t stay healthy, missing about a month with a hamstring strain. He accumulated -1.6 WAR over 62 games. It was one of the worst rookie seasons of the century. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Just so you know, the trade deadline was August 3. Tarik Skubal is on the Dodgers. Adley Rutschman is on the Red Sox. José Soriano is on the Blue Jays. Did you hear about this? Anyway, that was the last major opportunity for teams to revamp their 26-man rosters for a playoff push, but it was not the final chance to add players who can appear in October games. Enter the August 31 playoff eligibility deadline, which Ken Rosenthal just brought into the news with his report that the Reds put Eugenio Suárez and TJ Friedl on waivers. (Both have since cleared, will remain with the Reds, and can’t be placed on waivers again.)

The waiver trade deadline — the mechanism by which Justin Verlander joined the Astros from the Tigers in 2017 — is long gone, and in its absence over the last several years, the process has been streamlined. The waiver process for all players works the same as it does for a player who is designated for assignment, with two exceptions. The first is that, while on waivers, a non-DFA’d player can continue to play; both he and the public might not even know he’s on waivers. Only reporting like Rosenthal’s is guaranteed to give us knowledge without a claim.

The second wrinkle is that if a waived player goes unclaimed, he simply stays on the active roster, unlike players who are DFA’d. He also stays on the active roster during the waiver process, as Suárez and Friedl did. Everything else is identical: waiver priority order is worst-to-first by record at the time of the waiver placement, and waiver claims are irrevocable. No compensation may change hands besides the $50,000 waiver fee that every claiming team pays on every waiver claim throughout the season, and the entire remainder of the player’s contract is the responsibility of his new team. Players may be waived after August 31, but any player who joins a new organization in September is not eligible for postseason play, making Monday a meaningful deadline. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. I took a two month hiatus from writing this column because we had a heavy summer of evaluating baseball, and as it turns out, it’s tough to both analyze baseball and watch it entirely out of a sense of whimsy. But now the tables have turned. There are no more studies to do on prospect valuation. The trade values have been tabulated. The deadline has passed. The playoffs are still a month away. There’s not much to do other than watch baseball and enjoy, whether it’s playoff races, dominant performances, exciting debuts, or just the beauty of a well-played game on a warm summer evening. So kick back, relax, and join me in thanking Zach Lowe of The Ringer for the article format that I’ve been riffing on for the past four years.

1. Rangy Infielders
During the peak of the infield shift, 5-3 double plays had a brief heyday. With three defenders on the right side of the infield against most lefty batters, the third baseman played a de facto shortstop for large portions of most games. When those lefties grounded out to short with runners on, third basemen somewhat frequently fielded the ball, stepped on second, and threw to first to complete the play. But with two infielders now required to be on each side of second base, it wouldn’t make any sense for a third baseman to get the ball and then sprint past the shortstop to tag the base and make the relay throw.

Or would it? Read the rest of this entry »

Behold, a table. Does anything strike you as odd about this leaderboard?

Some of those guys are just the best relievers in baseball and have been for a while. We’ve also got a couple breakout relief aces from this season, including Brent Headrick, Erik Sabrowski, and Samy Natera Jr., who is apparently not the lead singer from Chicago. Don’t feel bad, it’s an easy mistake to make. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, please visit our Patreon.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a baseball reference in summer sci-fi flick The End of Oak Street and new reporting on players’ unwillingness to wear cups, then (32:30) discuss career years for Pete Alonso and Gabriel Moreno, Mason Miller’s changeup, Cal Raleigh’s swing change, and whether MLB will follow other leagues’ leads in establishing a tournament or trophy apart from the playoffs, before Stat Blasting (1:17:47) about the worst/least-experienced lineups ever, the most prolifically .500 teams, and the hierarchy of double-play frequency.

Audio intro: Kite Person, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Ian Phillips, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to The End of Oak Street wiki
Link to David Robert Mitchell wiki
Link to Detroit references in movie
Link to Parrish 1982 gamelog
Link to Doctor Strange Tigers reference
Link to protective cups article
Link to Luke 22:42-44
Link to Chisholm article
Link to Forbes article on JKG
Link to Time article on JKG
Link to best hitters in August
Link to on-pace leaderboard
Link to pitch run values since 2025
Link to Miller’s changeup count
Link to Cruz homer clip
Link to Miller article 1
Link to Miller article 2
Link to game theory meme
Link to Cal swing article
Link to Neil on alternate champions
Link to Neil on the NBA Cup
Link to Knicks NBA Cup decision
Link to regular-season-champion article
Link to regular-season-champion episode
Link to Yankees’ six-run win
Link to Stat Blast wiki
Link to Giants loss article 1
Link to Giants loss article 2
Link to Giants unfun fact
Link to Sam post 1
Link to Sam post 2
Link to 2022 White Sox .500 records
Link to Rochester Hop Bitters info
Link to Preston’s FB post
Link to “9 to 5” video
Link to double-play data
Link to Hembekides clip
Link to Hembekides graph
Link to Molina 3-2-8 double play
Link to Nootbaar play

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