FanGraphs Baseball

Sebastian Walcott arguably possesses the highest ceiling among players currently competing in the Arizona Fall League. Not only is the 20-year-old shortstop ranked 11th on The Board with a 55 FV, Eric Longenhagen opined in his AFL preview that Walcott “might be the best prospect in baseball.” Brendan Gawlowski has likewise been bullish. When ranking the youngster atop our Texas Rangers list back in April, Brendan wrote that “Walcott has been one of the toolsiest and most projectable players in the game from practically the moment he signed as part of the 2023 international class.”

An elbow injury delayed his start to the season. The Nassau, Bahamas native underwent internal brace surgery in February and subsequently didn’t return to game action until mid-July. Understandably erring on the side of caution, the Rangers limited Walcott almost exclusively to DH duty (although he is back on the dirt in the desert — and reportedly also working out in the outfield — with the Surprise Saguaros.)

The layoff didn’t prove burdensome to his bat. Getting the lion’s share of his 187 regular-season plate appearances with Double-A Frisco, Walcott walloped 10 home runs while putting up a .325/.401/.590 slash line and a 149 wRC+. He hasn’t been nearly as good in the AFL — seven hits in 31 at-bats, with a lone dinger — but there is no disputing his potential to one day hit in the middle of a big league lineup.

Once upon a time, he punished pitchers who were windmilling balls from a mound 43 feet away from home plate. As did Jazz Chisholm Jr. and others from the Bahamas, Walcott played softball growing up. Read the rest of this entry »

There is an old saying that goes, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

In baseball terms, how do you eat the two-time reigning champs with a $412 million payroll and steamroll into the World Series? One shrewd acquisition at a time.

Throughout the National League Championship Series, the ragtag Milwaukee Brewers played their most inspired ball of the season, taking down the almighty Los Angeles Dodgers in a series that marked a slight shift in National League power. The Brewers — forever subject to backhanded compliments about being better than the sum of their parts, or great for a small market team — are also just immensely talented. There’s no two ways about it. A team doesn’t progress this deep into the postseason without having some dogs that can put the barrel on the ball and prevent the other team from doing the same. But if you were to stop a random person on the street and ask them if they know who Shohei Ohtani is, it’s fairly likely they could tell you he’s a baseball player, or that they’ve at least heard the name. If you asked the same thing about Jake Bauers, they might furrow their brow and wonder aloud if that’s someone they went to high school with. Quite honestly, showing them a photo of Bauers might only reinforce the idea that he’s a long lost childhood classmate, what with his everyman appearance and Saved by the Bell sounding name. What you really need to do to jog the memory is play them a sound, particularly this one of Bauers’ bat taking a large chunk out of the elephant.

Read the rest of this entry »

Direct links to applications (please see job details below):

Software Engineer
Product Manager – Research and Development
Analyst – Coaching and Player Development

Software Engineer

The Pirates Why
The Pittsburgh Pirates are a storied franchise in Major League Baseball who are reinventing themselves on every level. Boldly and relentlessly pursuing excellence by:

• purposefully developing a player and people-centered culture;
• deeply connecting with our fans, partners, and colleagues;
• passionately creating lifetime memories for generations of families and friends; and
• meaningfully impacting our communities and the game of baseball.

At the Pirates, we believe in the power of a diverse workforce and strive to create an inclusive culture centered in Passion, Innovation, Respect, Accountability, Teamwork, Empathy, and Service.

Job Summary
We are seeking a talented and motivated Software Engineer to join our Baseball Systems team. In this role, you will design, build, and maintain the software systems that support baseball operations and team initiatives. You will deliver full-stack features, including APIs, backend services, and frontend components, while continuing to deepen your technical expertise, system knowledge, and ownership.

You will collaborate with engineers and cross-functional stakeholders to translate requirements into effective technical solutions. Your work will help provide reliable, maintainable, and accessible tools that support analysts, coaches, front office staff, and other users across the organization. These tools directly impact decisions related to a wide variety of baseball operations like draft picks, trades, game play decisions, and player development.

Responsibilities:

1. Design, implement, and maintain full-stack features, including APIs, backend services, and frontend components.
2. Propose technical approaches and create planning documents for feature requests.
3. Collaborate with product managers, analysts, researchers, and other stakeholders to understand requirements and help translate them into effective technical solutions.
4. Write and maintain tests, documentation, and supporting materials to ensure code quality and reliability.
5. Participate actively in code reviews by incorporating feedback and offering thoughtful suggestions that improve implementation quality.
6. Troubleshoot and resolve bugs, while working to identify and address potential issues before they affect users or systems.
7. Share knowledge and pair with teammates to strengthen team practices and collective system understanding.

Qualifications:
Candidates need not meet every qualification listed to be considered; we welcome applications from people of diverse backgrounds who are excited about this opportunity.

1. Authorized to work lawfully in the United States.
2. Experience with Typescript/Javascript, SQL, React, NodeJS, and/or Python
3. Experience designing or consuming APIs and implementing user-facing application features.
4. Experience in testing practices, version control, code review, and maintainable software design.
5. Demonstrated problem-solving skills, attention to detail, and clear communication.
6. Ability to collaborate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
7. Authorized to work lawfully in the United States.
8. Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
9. Experience with cloud platforms, containerization, CI/CD, or related DevOps practices.
10. Experience developing internal tools, data-rich applications, and dynamic, complex data visualizations using libraries like Plotly and D3
11. Knowledge of baseball statistics and how technology, data, and analytics inform strategy and performance

Equal Opportunity Employer
The Pittsburgh Pirates are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.

To Apply
To apply, please follow this link.

Product Manager – Research and Development

The Pirates Why
The Pittsburgh Pirates are a storied franchise in Major League Baseball who are reinventing themselves on every level. Boldly and relentlessly pursuing excellence by:

• purposefully developing a player and people-centered culture;
• deeply connecting with our fans, partners, and colleagues;
• passionately creating lifetime memories for generations of families and friends; and
• meaningfully impacting our communities and the game of baseball.

At the Pirates, we believe in the power of a diverse workforce and strive to create an inclusive culture centered in Passion, Innovation, Respect, Accountability, Teamwork, Empathy, and Service.

Job Summary
The Pittsburgh Pirates are looking for a Product Manager to join Baseball R&D and help our teams identify and solve the most important problems for baseball decision-makers.

You will work on a cross-functional team with engineers, data scientists, analysts, biomechanists, and baseball experts. Many of our products are data- and model-driven, combining statistical or machine-learning models with software and workflows to improve decisions across areas such as player development, coaching, and Major League strategy.

You will have broad ownership and substantial autonomy to understand users, shape priorities, challenge assumptions, and help the team discover effective solutions.

Responsibilities:

1. Create clarity around what matters most. Work with R&D leadership and your team to define meaningful outcomes, establish priorities, and ensure the team understands what it should focus on and why.
2. Develop a deep understanding of our users and their problems. Learn how baseball decisions are made, understand the workflows and constraints surrounding them, and work with stakeholders to get to the root of the problem.
3. Help the team discover effective solutions. Partner with engineers, data scientists, analysts, baseball experts, and users to explore ideas, test assumptions, reduce uncertainty, and adapt as you learn. Solutions may involve software, analytical models, new data, changes to workflows, or some combination of these.
4. Keep important work moving. Protect the team’s focus on the highest-leverage problems and partner closely with Domain Leads, who bring technical and domain expertise, to make tradeoffs explicit, sequence work realistically, and intervene when high-priority work stalls or ownership is unclear.
5. Measure impact and learn from what we build. Use qualitative and quantitative evidence to understand whether our products are improving decisions and workflows, and use those insights to shape future priorities and direction.
6. Build alignment on process and philosophy. Work with other product managers in R&D to align on best practices for process and product management.

Qualifications:
We don’t expect any candidate to have done all of these things. We’re interested in people who can demonstrate several of these experiences or capabilities and who have the curiosity and ability to grow into the others:

1. Authorized to work lawfully in the United States.
2. Owned meaningful product problems end to end , from understanding the user need through discovery, prioritization, launch, and iteration.
3. Made difficult prioritization decisions when multiple valuable opportunities competed for limited time or resources.
4. Used discovery and evidence to change direction , drawing on user research, experiments, usage data, or other signals rather than simply executing an initial plan.
5. Worked closely with engineers, data scientists, or other technical experts on products where data, analytics, or models were a meaningful part of the solution. You do not need to build the models yourself, but you should be comfortable understanding their capabilities and limitations and helping turn them into useful products.
6. Operated with high agency and a hands-on approach , identifying important problems and finding practical ways to reduce uncertainty and move them forward.
7. Demonstrated a genuine interest in baseball and an ability to learn complex domains deeply. You do not need previous professional baseball experience, but you should be excited to learn how baseball decisions are made and have evidence that you can become fluent enough in an unfamiliar domain to make good product decisions within it.

Desired:

1. Building data, analytics, AI/ML, or decision-support products.
2. Working with expert users or in technically complex domains.
3. Working on a startup or small product team with broad ownership.
4. A demonstrated passion for sports technology and/or sports analytics.
5. Experience with rapid prototyping, software development, SQL, and/or cloud technologies.
6. Working in agile development environments.

Equal Opportunity Employer
The Pittsburgh Pirates are an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.

To Apply
To apply, please follow this link.

Analyst – Coaching and Player Development

The Pirates Why
The Pittsburgh Pirates are a storied franchise in Major League Baseball who are reinventing themselves on every level. Boldly and relentlessly pursuing excellence by:

• purposefully developing a player and people-centered culture;
• deeply connecting with our fans, partners, and colleagues;
• passionately creating lifetime memories for generations of families and friends; and
• meaningfully impacting our communities and the game of baseball.

At the Pirates, we believe in the power of a diverse workforce and strive to create an inclusive culture centered in Passion, Innovation, Respect, Accountability, Teamwork, Empathy, and Service.

Job Summary
Support Coaching and Player Development (CPD) by turning performance data, research, and video into clear player evaluations and actionable development insights. This role will help coaches and CPD leadership identify player priorities, monitor progress, and make informed development decisions. The successful candidate will combine strong analytical skills, baseball knowledge, and the ability to communicate clearly with coaches. Working within Player Analysis and closely with Research and Development (R&D), this analyst will produce reliable analysis, maintain useful reporting, and help staff apply organizational research and tools in their daily work.

Responsibilities:

1. Analyze player performance using tracking data, statistical models, video, and other available information to identify strengths, limitations, and development opportunities.
2. Evaluate hitter/pitcher tendencies and other assigned areas of player performance, accounting for pitch characteristics, game context, competition level, and sample size.
3. Translate research and analytical findings into practical recommendations that support player evaluations, development plans, and CPD decisions.
4. Support the player plan process by helping coaches identify objective focus metrics, establish baselines, document priorities, and update measures of progress.
5. Monitor performance trends and communicate meaningful changes to the appropriate staff in a timely manner, distinguishing likely skill changes from short-term variation.
6. Build and maintain reports, dashboards, and visualizations that answer coaching questions clearly and are accessible through organizational systems, including Bridge as appropriate.
7. Use current R&D research and models in CPD reporting; work with R&D to understand assumptions, resolve questions, and provide feedback on tools and analysis.
8. Partner with product and technical teams on durable reporting solutions; automate recurring work and validate data quality before sharing results.
9. Maintain reproducible code, version-controlled analysis, and clear workflow documentation in organizational systems such as DevOps or GitHub.
10. Help coaches interpret reports and use analytical tools independently; seek feedback on whether the information is understandable and useful in practice.
11. Complete timely analysis for player meetings, offseason planning, Spring Training, and other CPD projects as assigned; communicate priorities and handle player information with discretion.

Qualifications

Required:

1. Bachelor’s degree in statistics, mathematics, computer science, data science, sports analytics, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
2. Demonstrated ability to complete analytical projects from a defined question through data preparation, analysis, and clear communication of findings.
3. Proficiency in Python or R and working knowledge of SQL for accessing, cleaning, joining, and analyzing data.
4. Understanding of statistical reasoning, sample size, uncertainty, and the limitations of observational data.
5. Working knowledge of baseball performance analysis and a strong interest in player development.
6. Ability to explain technical information in practical language and collaborate effectively with coaches, analysts, and other staff.
7. Strong attention to detail, organization, and follow-through; ability to manage recurring work alongside time-sensitive requests.
8. Availability to support the baseball schedule, including nights, weekends, holidays, and travel as required by the role.

Desired:

1. Experience working with baseball tracking data, player development reports, or performance analysis in a team or comparable setting.
2. Experience building dashboards, interactive visualizations, or automated reporting workflows for end users.
3. Familiarity with Git-based version control, documented analytical workflows, and collaboration with software or product teams.
4. Experience applying statistical models to player evaluation, monitoring performance over time, or assessing development outcomes.

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) are integral to who we are as an organization. We believe that our workforce should reflect the vast diversity of the communities we serve and that diverse voices should be elevated and intentionally integrated into our work. Even if you feel as if you do not meet 100% of the qualifications, we still strongly encourage you to apply.

To Apply
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Direct links to applications (please see job details below):

Applied Biomechanist – Coaching and Player Development
Applied Biomechanist – Major League

Applied Biomechanist – Coaching and Player Development

The Pirates Why
The Pittsburgh Pirates are a storied franchise in Major League Baseball who are reinventing themselves on every level. Boldly and relentlessly pursuing excellence by:

• purposefully developing a player and people-centered culture;
• deeply connecting with our fans, partners, and colleagues;
• passionately creating lifetime memories for generations of families and friends; and
• meaningfully impacting our communities and the game of baseball.

At the Pirates, we believe in the power of a diverse workforce and strive to create an inclusive culture centered in Passion, Innovation, Respect, Accountability, Teamwork, Empathy, and Service.

Job Summary
Operate the biomechanics lab and support player analysis within Coaching and Player Development (CPD) and Player Analysis Departments. This role will ensure reliable data collection, process and organize movement and performance data, and provide analysis that helps staff understand and develop players. Hitting will be the primary focus, with opportunities to support pitching and other player analysis needs. The successful candidate will bring hands-on experience with lab technology, strong attention to detail, and the ability to turn data into useful information. Working with coaches, Research and Development (R&D), and performance staff, this analyst will support daily lab operations, player assessments, and applied research.

Responsibilities:

1. Operate and maintain the biomechanics lab, including markerless motion capture systems, force plates, and supporting video equipment for hitting and pitching assessments.
2. Prepare and run lab sessions, including equipment setup, calibration, synchronization, and troubleshooting; follow consistent protocols to collect high-quality data.
3. Coordinate assessments with coaches, players, and performance staff; maintain clear schedules, session records, and equipment readiness.
4. Process, organize, and quality-check lab data; identify collection or processing issues, document limitations, and maintain reliable datasets for analysis.
5. Support player analysis using lab data, in-game tracking data, and video, with hitting as the primary area of focus. Examine player tendencies and performance trends to help identify development opportunities.
6. Contribute to research projects using lab and in-game data to better understand player movement and performance, with a primary emphasis on hitting.
7. Prepare clear reports and visualizations for coaches, Player Analysis, and CPD leadership; communicate findings in practical language and account for data quality, sample size, and context.
8. Work with coaches, R&D, and performance staff to track player progress, answer development questions, and identify useful follow-up assessments or analysis.
9. Maintain documented workflows and reproducible code in organizational systems; help improve the efficiency of recurring lab and reporting processes and handle player information with discretion.
10. Support Spring Training, camps, offseason assessments, and broader Player Analysis projects as assigned, adapting to organizational priorities while maintaining a primary focus on hitting.

Qualifications

Required:

1. Bachelor’s degree in biomechanics, kinesiology, engineering, sports science, a quantitative field, or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
2. Demonstrated experience operating a motion capture lab or comparable human performance testing environment, including equipment setup, data collection, and troubleshooting.
3. Working knowledge of biomechanics, measurement reliability, and data quality practices for movement assessments.
4. Working proficiency in Python or R for data processing, analysis, and visualization, with the ability to build repeatable workflows.
5. Understanding of basic statistical analysis, sample size, variability, and uncertainty when interpreting performance data.
6. Ability to explain technical findings clearly and work effectively with coaches, analysts, and other performance staff.
7. Strong organization, attention to detail, and follow-through; an interest in baseball and a willingness to learn and apply analytical skills to player development.
8. Availability to support the baseball schedule, including nights, weekends, holidays, and travel as required by the role.

Desired:

1. Experience with markerless motion capture, force plates, or biomechanical analysis software such as Visual3D.
2. Experience analyzing baseball performance data, particularly hitting, or a demonstrated interest in developing expertise in this area.
3. Familiarity with SQL, Git-based version control, automated reporting, or combining data from multiple sources.
4. Experience supporting athlete assessments or applied research in collaboration with coaches or sports performance staff.

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) are integral to who we are as an organization. We believe that our workforce should reflect the vast diversity of the communities we serve and that diverse voices should be elevated and intentionally integrated into our work. Even if you feel as if you do not meet 100% of the qualifications, we still strongly encourage you to apply.

To Apply
To apply, please follow this link.

Applied Biomechanist – Major League

The Pirates Why
The Pittsburgh Pirates are a storied franchise in Major League Baseball who are reinventing themselves on every level. Boldly and relentlessly pursuing excellence by:

• purposefully developing a player and people-centered culture;
• deeply connecting with our fans, partners, and colleagues;
• passionately creating lifetime memories for generations of families and friends; and
• meaningfully impacting our communities and the game of baseball.

At the Pirates, we believe in the power of a diverse workforce and strive to create an inclusive culture centered in Passion, Innovation, Respect, Accountability, Teamwork, Empathy, and Service.

Job Summary
The Pittsburgh Pirates are seeking an Applied Biomechanist to work directly with our Major League team and advance how biomechanics informs player development and performance. This person will own and operate biomechanics data collection, partner with coaches and performance staff to turn data into actionable insights, and work with R&D to identify new ways biomechanics can help answer important baseball questions.

The ideal candidate combines a strong foundation in human movement and biomechanics with the ability to operate effectively in an applied baseball environment. They should be comfortable moving between technical biomechanics concepts and practical conversations with coaches and players, understanding that the value of the data comes from helping people make better decisions, not simply producing more information.

Responsibilities

1. Operate, calibrate, troubleshoot, and maintain motion capture and biomechanics technologies.
2. Manage biomechanics data collection and ensure consistent, high-quality outputs.
3. Partner with Major League coaches, players, performance, and medical staff to identify and answer applied biomechanics questions, incorporating other performance data where applicable.
4. Translate complex biomechanics information into clear, actionable insights.
5. Proactively identify opportunities to generate new insights and expand how biomechanics is used to improve player performance.
6. Collaborate with research-oriented biomechanists and others in R&D to identify high-value research questions and improve models, metrics, reports, and tools.

Qualifications

Required:

1. Authorized to work lawfully in the United States.
2. Advanced degree in biomechanics, kinesiology, engineering, exercise science, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
3. Demonstrated experience applying biomechanics analyses to help improve baseball performance.
4. Experience collecting and analyzing motion capture or other biomechanical data.
5. Demonstrated ability to analyze and visualize data with SQL, Python, R, or similar tools.
6. Demonstrated ability to explain technical concepts to coaches, players, or non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred:
We don’t expect any candidate to have done all of these things. We’re interested in people who can demonstrate several of these experiences or capabilities and who have the curiosity and ability to grow into the others:

1. Work experience in professional or collegiate sports, with a preference for baseball and softball.
2. Demonstrated experience conducting statistical or data science research; biomechanics applications are a plus.
3. Demonstrated ability to generate novel research ideas.
4. Experience coaching or working directly with athletes; baseball or softball experience is a plus.
5. Experience building a motion-capture lab from the ground up.

Equal Opportunity Employer
The Pittsburgh Pirates are an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.

To Apply
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

It’s the World Series preview pod! Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a few intriguing factors that could affect the Fall Classic and then bring on two expert reporters to break down each team’s advantages, vulnerabilities, and overlooked storylines. Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel joins first (19:59) to talk about the Brewers, followed by (1:04:49) Adam Berry of MLB.com on the Rays.

Audio intro: Gabriel-Ernest, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 1: Austin Klewan, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 2: Philip Bergman, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Garrett Krohn, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to missing Miz whiffs
Link to Baumann on Miz
Link to 2026 EW team goals
Link to Brewers preview pod
Link to Rays preview pod
Link to Ben C.’s preview
Link to FG on lefty batters
Link to MLB.com on lefty batters
Link to ZiPS odds
Link to Petriello on challenging
Link to Sheehan on rest
Link to Murphy gamers/Famers quote
Link to Curt on Bauers
Link to Brewers anthem
Link to article on anthem
Link to Timeless Ticket apology
Link to EW Episode 599
Link to Curt on traveling Brewers fans
Link to Curt’s first pod
Link to Curt’s second pod
Link to September article on Baker
Link to Adam on Baker
Link to Rasmussen’s 2026 splits
Link to Rasmussen’s career splits
Link to Walls defensive stats
Link to Adam on Walls
Link to Pham on defensive stats
Link to Tango on DRS vs. FRV
Link to Blum on ticket pricing
Link to Rosenthal report

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If grade schoolers have to come home with a report card, why shouldn’t big league managers? We at FanGraphs tend to veer towards egalitarianism, and if little Liam or Daenerys can be sent to bed without Roblox or whatever it is the kids like these days, then why can’t Big Stephen or Dodger Dave? That’s why every time a postseason manager is eliminated from contention, we run down their playoff performance and see who gets a Grape Job! sticker.

Ben Clemens already assessed the work of Will Venable and Aaron Boone, while Jon Becker broke down the October runs of Walt Weiss and Craig Stammen, as well as the losing managers from the Wild Card round. Today, it’s Dave Roberts’ turn.

Crafting these report cards can be an odd exercise. Major league managers simply don’t have as large an effect on a team’s on-field performance as, say, an NFL team’s head coach. Baseball is a game of player execution, and a manager’s job mostly comes down to making sure that the best players are on the lineup card and that everyone refrains from killing each other in August. But that doesn’t mean that managers have no effect on their team’s fortunes. Baseball is, by its very nature, a very coin-flippy, volatile game, where the fates of both teams hang on a knife’s edge. Small decisions can have a big impact. Last year, I gave Pat Murphy somewhere between an A- and a B+ overall. Let’s see how Roberts fares! Read the rest of this entry »

The American League Championship Series between the Rays and Guardians was a study in contrasts when it came to starting pitching, particularly as the series extended. Tampa Bay’s starters lasted five or more innings in all but one of the six games, with Drew Rasmussen and Freddy Peralta combining for three starts of at least six innings; the former went seven innings and the latter 5 1/3 in the the final two games. Cleveland’s starters reached the five-inning mark just twice and never went deeper than that; over the final three games, the team’s starters — ace Parker Messick and reliever Shawn Armstrong, who was deputized to open Games 4 and 6 — totaled just four innings. Given that imbalance, it was hardly a surprise that the Rays rallied from a 2-1 deficit to win those three and take the series.

The World Series might present a similar contrast. The Rays and the Yankees are the only teams whose starters have averaged at least five innings per turn during this postseason, and Tampa Bay knocked off New York in a Division Series sweep earlier this month. Meanwhile, the Brewers are one of five teams whose starters have averaged less than four innings per turn; only twice did a Milwaukee starter even last five innings, with Logan Henderson reaching that mark in Game 2 of the NLDS against the Padres and Robert Gasser doing so in Game 3 of the NLCS against the Dodgers. Jacob Misiorowski — the likely NL Cy Young winner, who even before the playoffs had already exceeded his total workload from last year by more than 30 innings — burned through 88 pitches to complete four innings in his NLDS start and 94 to go 4 1/3 in his NLCS start. For the Brewers and Rays, those divergent approaches have worked. Tampa Bay went a combined 7-2 in the ALDS and ALCS; Milwaukee, 7-1 in the NLDS and NLCS.

After a season in which he ranked third in the AL in FIP (2.81) and WAR (5.0) and fourth in ERA (2.67), Rasmussen began his postseason by no-hitting the Yankees for 7 2/3 innings in the Division Series opener. In three starts totaling 21 innings, he’s delivered a 1.29 ERA and a 2.58 FIP. Peralta, who struggled during his four months as a Met before righting himself somewhat as a Ray following a deadline deal, has put up a 1.13 ERA and a 3.72 FIP in 16 innings as a starter, on top of which he added two-thirds of an inning out of the bullpen in ALCS Game 4; that cherry on top of his two strong starts helped him win series MVP honors. While their third and fourth starters, Nick Martinez and Griffin Jax, haven’t been as effective, the Rays’ postseason rotation ERA is good enough to crack the top 10 dating back to the start of division play in 1969:

Read the rest of this entry »

Tomorrow night, the Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays will kick off the 2026 World Series. They’ll both deploy unhittable aces to open the series, and they’ll both back them with a squad made up of speedsters, platoonable hitters, a young superstar, and relievers as far as the eye can see. To a first approximation, these teams might as well be a mirror image of each other. They’re small-budget operations that rely heavily on pitching, speed, and defense. They put the ball in play. They wreak havoc on the basepaths. They play indoors – at least some of the time, in Milwaukee’s case. But while the Rays and Brewers are superficially similar, key differences will have a lot to say about how this series turns out. So let’s take a look at where the equivalence ends, and how each team will try to use that to their advantage.

Pair of Aces

The Brewers and Rays each have an obvious leader in their respective rotations. Jacob Misiorowski and Drew Rasmussen are two of the best pitchers in baseball, and they’re both having career years. Misiorowski is a shoo-in for the National League Cy Young, and while Rasmussen probably won’t win the American League version, he just put up his sixth (!) straight season with a sub-3.00 ERA, posted over a career-high 172 innings. He’s found another gear in the playoffs — three starts, 21 innings pitched, and just three runs allowed. The Miz hasn’t looked quite so steady – two starts, 8 1/3 innings, three runs – but his 1.80 ERA and 2.17 FIP in the regular season were downright ludicrous. Read the rest of this entry »

By now, we imagine you have all heard about BLEPH. A few weeks ago, The Onion published an article that quoted FanGraphs contributor Derek Gardner extensively. In that article, Derek purported to be speaking on behalf of the entire analytics community in advocating for a new statistic called BLEPH. “We don’t care what it measures or how it’s calculated,” he said. “We just need something called B.L.E.P.H., and we need it now.” This is not the full truth, and we feel compelled to set the record straight.

First, we want to make it clear that Derek Gardner no longer works for FanGraphs. He was terminated for cause. Second, we take our stats seriously. We would never manufacture a new statistic just for the sake of creating a fun acronym. Because baseball analysis is already drowning in alphabet soup, we have a strict policy against creating new junk stats and acronyms unless we’re convinced that they’ll meaningfully expand the boundaries of sabermetric knowledge. We call it the Baseball Utility Terminology Threshold for Stopping Lighthearted Acronym Proliferation (BUTTSLAP).

That high standard never wavers. It’s what pushed us to publish groundbreaking research about when baseball players do the most sex, to create a metric that will help Jack Reacher avoid getting murdered, and to invent legitimate, informative statistics like OOPSY, MeatWaste, ShadowBalls, Whomps per Whiff, Tromps per Whomp, Hard-Hit Rate Hit Rate (HHRHR), Crap the Bed Rate (CTB%), and EKSTRYM+.

This rigor is, in part, the reason that BLEPH became a national story in the first place. Before we get into the specifics, though, we should explain why we’re making all this public. In recent years, we’ve been inspired to learn that when we’re honest about our vision for the site and the challenges it faces, it can inspire a sense of camaraderie in our readers. All the same, that openness hasn’t normally extended to firings. Read the rest of this entry »

The way people talk about Jacob Misiorowski bothers me a little. Yeah, he’s taller than almost any other starting pitcher and throws harder than literally any starting pitcher in history. He led all major league pitchers in WAR this year, and if he wins the NL Cy Young Award next month — as he’s almost universally expected to do — it will be a deserved victory.

But Miz didn’t lap the field or post paradigm-altering results. I can’t make a defensible case for Chris Sale or Cristopher Sánchez to win the Cy Young over Misiorowski, but I suspect the eventual vote total will not reflect how close the statistical margin was between Miz and his rivals.

In other words, this is an outstanding pitcher — maybe the best in the world at the moment, perhaps even a future Hall of Famer — but he’s not 1999 Pedro Martínez, or Victor Wembanyama with a curveball. This is a fairly inexperienced 24-year-old with real flaws in his game.

He can be got at. Read the rest of this entry »