This season was supposed to be something different for the Giants. Following last year’s 81-81 finish, president of baseball operations and franchise icon Buster Posey went outside the box to hire manager Tony Vitello straight from the college ranks, and added free agents Luis Arraez and Harrison Bader to upgrade a couple of the lineup’s dead spots. Throw in a full season of mid-2025 acquisition Rafael Devers, and the team had reasonable hope of reaching the playoffs for the first time since 2021, and just the second time in the past 10 seasons. Instead, the 2026 Giants haven’t spent a day over .500, and at 58-83, they own the National League’s second-worst record. Like the Tigers, they’re in danger of making some dubious history, in their case by falling short of their BaseRuns-projected win total by the largest margin of any team since 2002.

As I explained on Thursday, the Tigers are nearly 11 full wins short of their Pythagorean-projected win total, an estimate based upon their totals of runs scored and runs allowed using the formula Winning % = RS^2 /(RS^2 +RA^2). Out of all the teams playing full seasons in the Wild Card era (not the strike-shortened 1995 season or the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, but including 2026 for the purposes of comparison), that’s the third-largest shortfall.

Where Pythagorean projections use actual runs scored and allowed to calculate an expected winning percentage, BaseRuns uses estimated runs scored and allowed, derived from familiar statistical components such as hits, walks, hit-by-pitches, stolen bases, and so on. Those run estimates are then plugged into the Pythagenpat formula — a variant of Bill James’ Pythagorean formula where the exponent itself is a function of the scoring environment via the formula X = ((RS + RA)/G)^0.287 — for a second-order estimate of winning percentage. Both the Pythagorean and BaseRuns estimated winning percentages provide useful if imperfect ways of measuring teams’ underlying performance and helping to identify outliers in either direction. Read the rest of this entry »

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Quick programming note: I’m working on a very special bonus Five Things that would normally run in this slot, but as with most bonus things, it’s taking a bit longer than expected. Look for it next week, along with a regular Five Things. In the meantime, join me in puzzling over what’s gotten into the A’s.

In 2023, the Oakland A’s were putrid. They won only 50 games, got outscored by 339 runs, and generally looked like the worst team in baseball. But over the next two years, sandwiched around a move to Sacramento, they figured things out. In 2024, they improved by 19 games. In 2025, they improved again, to a 76-86 record. Nick Kurtz, Shea Langeliers, Tyler Soderstrom, Brent Rooker, and Jacob Wilson either broke in or broke out in that span. Coming into 2026, the A’s weren’t favorites in the AL West, but they were trendy playoff picks, with various market and model estimates spitting out projections between 75 and 80 wins.

Yeah, about that. The American League is about as bad as it’s ever been this year, and the AL West is particularly poor. Eighty-two wins might be enough to take the division. But the A’s aren’t part of the race. They’re 54-86, a mere game ahead of the Angels for the worst record in baseball. They’ve been outscored by 194 runs, 54 runs clear of the Rockies in second-to-last place. I had to investigate what went down – both because rubbernecking is fun, and because I want to figure out what I should think about the A’s for 2027.

The obvious place to start is the offense. Last season saw four different Athletics eclipse 3.0 WAR on the batting side – Kurtz and Wilson had standout rookie seasons while Langeliers and Soderstrom both broke out to establish new career highs. Throw in Rooker and Lawrence Butler as offensive building blocks, mix in a blazing-fast center fielder (your choice of Denzel Clarke or Henry Bolte), and the bones of an upper echelon offense were clearly there. Even if you count the two center field options as only one position filled, that’s seven spots spoken for. The A’s traded for Jeff McNeil to fill an eighth spot. Their plan was surely to score a boatload of runs – a great plan in the snug confines of Sutter Health Park. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball is a team sport, but sometimes there’s only room for two faces on a poster.

Before every playoff series, the league, its broadcast partners, and anyone else with an interest in promoting the event will circulate something based on the poster for the 1997 John Woo film Face/Off.

Half Cage, half Travolta, all smoldering scene-chewing and cartoonish violence. If that doesn’t get your blood pumping I don’t want to know you. There’s more to each side of the matchup than just the one guy, but in baseball as in film you put the superstar’s mug on the promo material if you want to sell tickets. 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 duplicate episode titles and the Angels being slightly less bad than previously indicated, Stat Blast about extended team droughts between multi-hit MLB debuts, and discuss the arrival and role of Padres prospect Ethan Salas, a (deep breath) Cubs-produced, TikTok-based, baseball-themed, microdrama rom-com, whether they have any interest in VR baseball broadcasts, and an apparent change in Minor League Baseball’s ball, followed by additional Blasting about a Jordan Walker fact that may or may not be fun, catcher hot-swaps, center fielders on the mound, and all-win/loss days for divisions.

Audio intro: Jimmy Kramer, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Gabriel-Ernest, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to duplicate episode titles
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It’s been a dismal and deflating season in Detroit. The Tigers, who entered the year as favorites to win the AL Central after signing both Framber Valdez and Justin Verlander in February, played middling baseball through the first five weeks of the season before hitting the skids in May, at one point losing 16 out of 18 games. Instead of loading up for the stretch run ahead of the August 3 trade deadline, they dealt away both Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize to other contenders. While the team has actually outscored opponents by 47 runs (610 to 563), the Tigers are currently 11 games below .500 at 64-75, and in danger of making some dubious history by falling short of their Pythagorean-projected win total by the largest margin of any Wild Card-era team.

Misery loves company, and the Tigers are not alone in undershooting their target. The Giants, who at the outset of the season looked to have a reasonable chance of claiming a Wild Card berth, are not only 24 games below .500 (58-82) but in danger of falling short of their BaseRuns-projected win total by the largest margin of any team since 2002.

If you’re not familiar with either of these concepts, a Pythagorean projection is one of the most enduring Bill James creations, introduced in his self-published 1980 Baseball Abstract. James showed that simply by knowing a team’s runs scored and runs allowed, one could estimate its winning percentage with a reasonable degree of accuracy via the formula Winning % = RS^2 /(RS^2 +RA^2). The use of the squares, reminiscent of the Pythagorean formula to calculate the length of a right triangle’s hypotenuse, is what gives the stat its name. Further refinements by James and other sabermetricians showed that using a slightly smaller exponent increased the accuracy of the estimate. The Pythagenpat formula, where the exponent itself is a function of the scoring environment via the formula X = ((RS + RA)/G)^0.287, is the one we use for our Projected Standings pages, which now have all major league seasons dating back to 1871 (damn those underachieving Rockford Forest Citys). Read the rest of this entry »

Jake Burger has grown into a solid big league slugger. Now 30 years old and in his fourth full major league season — and his second with the Texas Rangers — the 6-foot, 230-pound first baseman has logged a 107 wRC+ and gone deep 102 times since earning regular playing time in 2023. Hitting primarily out of the four and five holes in the Rangers’ lineup, Burger currently has 23 home runs and a team-best 78 RBIs to go with a .234/.297/.421 line.

His approach is slugger-ish, yet in many ways nuanced. While he primarily goes up to the plate looking to bash, Burger is more than just a turn-and-burn guy. Placing pitchers in buckets and embracing a calm mindset, the erstwhile Missouri State University Bear has a plan every time he settles into the right-handed batter’s box.

Burger sat down for the 126th installment of our Talks Hitting series when the Rangers visited Chicago to take on the White Sox last week.

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David Laurila: What have you learned about hitting over the years?

Jake Burger: “More than anything, it’s about your mentality in the box. It’s about who can be almost bored, in a sense. If you’re trying to live up to a name, or a situation, you’re going to be less bored than the pitcher. When you can control your emotions a little bit and be almost bored in the box, you’re going to control situations better. You’re going to calm your mind a little bit.” Read the rest of this entry »

On Opening Day, Paul Skenes had his worst start since at least high school. He threw 37 pitches, allowed five runs (not all of which were his fault) and lasted only two-thirds of an inning. Skenes left that outing with an ERA of 67.50; even for a high-volume starting pitcher, that’s a big hole to climb out of.

From that point on, the NL Cy Young race has been a heads-up contest between Jacob Misiorowski and Cristopher Sánchez; the former, with his big velocity and strikeout totals, seems to be the favorite at the moment. But a third pitcher has entered the race in the past seven weeks: Chris Sale. Read the rest of this entry »