With less than a third of the season remaining, it’s crunch time for a number of teams on the playoff bubble. There are still division titles up for grabs in both Central divisions, and both Wild Card races are shaping up to remain exciting down to the last day.

A reminder for how these rankings are calculated: first, we take the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), and their starting rotation and bullpen (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by IP share) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric. New for this year, I’ve opted to include defense as a component, though it’s weighted less heavily than offense and pitching. Some element of team defense is captured by RA9-, but now that FanGraphs has Statcast’s OAA/RAA available on our leaderboards, I’ve chosen to include that as the defensive component for each team. I also add in a factor for “luck,” adjusting a team’s win percentage based on expected win-loss record. The result is a power ranking, which is then presented in tiers below.

Note: All stats are through Sunday, August 14.

The Dodgers had a 12-game win streak — which included sweeps of the Giants, Padres, and Twins — snapped on Sunday. They’ve lost just four times since the All-Star break and have asserted themselves as the best team in baseball as the summer rolls on. This hot streak comes despite plenty of uncertainty surrounding their starting rotation; Clayton Kershaw hit the injured list last week with a lower back strain, and the team announced yesterday that Walker Buehler would undergo elbow surgery, ending his season. They’ll be glad to welcome back Dustin May from his Tommy John rehab this weekend. Read the rest of this entry »

After getting ahead of the trade deadline frenzy by acquiring Luis Castillo on Friday, the Mariners spent Tuesday adding some depth around the roster, picking up Curt Casali and Matthew Boyd from the Giants in exchange for a couple of minor leaguers, right-handed reliever Michael Stryffeler and catcher Andy Thomas. In a separate deal, they also grabbed Jake Lamb from the Dodgers for a player to be named later or cash considerations.

Last week, Justin Choi broke down the adjustments that have led to a breakout season from Seattle’s full-time catcher Cal Raleigh. His excellence this year has helped the Mariners to a cumulative 1.6 WAR from their backstops, the 12th-highest mark in the majors. Unfortunately, nearly all of that production and then some has come from Raleigh alone. Luis Torrens has been the primary backup and one of the worst players in the majors this season, accumulating -0.7 WAR across 42 games. A year after hitting 15 home runs and putting up a 101 wRC+, he has sunk to a pitiful .208/.262/.225 slash line (46 wRC+) without a single home run, which is awful even by the lower standards for catchers.

With Tom Murphy sidelined for the year with a shoulder injury and no other options in the organization, Torrens’ struggles have forced the Mariners to ride Raleigh pretty hard. Since being recalled from Triple-A on May 7 following Murphy’s injury, he has played in 65 of Seattle’s 76 games, starting 55 of them, and has gotten exactly one full day off since June 24, when he sat out the second game of a double-header on July 13.

Casali is currently on the IL after suffering a strained oblique in early July but is in the middle of a rehab assignment and should be activated soon. When healthy, he has been a perfectly serviceable backup backstop for the Rays, Reds, and Giants, accumulating positive WAR in every season of his career except for his rookie campaign back in 2014. Over the last two seasons in San Francisco, he’s put up a .218/.317/.357 slash line (89 wRC+) and 0.8 WAR. He strikes out a little too often but has some power and can take a walk, and he’s a capable defender behind the plate, earning positive framing marks over the last three seasons, though that skill has fallen off a bit this year, down to -2.9 runs in just over 300 innings behind the plate. His familiarity with Castillo from his time in Cincinnati was also a big factor in acquiring him. Read the rest of this entry »

Currently holding the top spot in the AL Wild Card race and a 12–3 record over the last three weeks, it seems like the Blue Jays are finally playing up to this season’s lofty expectations. But despite their recent hot streak, there were spots on the roster that needed to be addressed in order to bolster their playoff odds — notably their pitching depth. They focused on doing just that at the trade deadline by acquiring relievers Anthony Bass and Zach Pop and a player to be named later in exchange for shortstop prospect Jordan Groshans.

This is Bass’ second stint with the Blue Jays; he spent the shortened 2020 season in Toronto, compiling 0.4 WAR with a 3.51 ERA in 26 appearances that year. He signed a two-year deal with the Marlins in 2021 but struggled in his first season in Miami, with his FIP increasing by more than a run, even though his ERA only saw a slight increase. A 62.3% groundball rate in Toronto dropped to 43.7% with the Marlins, and all that additional contact in the air led to a huge increase in balls flying over the fence.

Surprisingly, despite his groundball rate falling even further this year to a career-low 39.0%, Bass is in the midst of a career-best season. His strikeout rate has increased to 26.0%, a career high, and his walk rate has fallen by more than three points. More encouragingly, he’s only allowed a single home run this year. The result is a 1.41 ERA, a 2.06 FIP, and 1.4 WAR in 45 appearances. Read the rest of this entry »

The trade deadline is nearly upon us, and there are plenty of teams still vying for playoff position in both the AL and NL. It’s been a slow hot stove season so far, but there should be plenty of action over the next two days as teams try to position themselves for the stretch run.

A reminder for how these rankings are calculated: first, we take the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), and their starting rotation and bullpen (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by IP share) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric. New for this year, I’ve opted to include defense as a component, though it’s weighted less heavily than offense and pitching. Some element of team defense is captured by RA9-, but now that FanGraphs has Statcast’s OAA/RAA available on our leaderboards, I’ve chosen to include that as the defensive component for each team. I also add in a factor for “luck,” adjusting a team’s win percentage based on expected win-loss record. The result is a power ranking, which is then presented in tiers below.

The Yankees stumbled out of the All-Star break a bit, getting swept in a pair of two-game series against the Astros and Mets. They took care of business against the Orioles and Royals and continue to hold a commanding lead in the AL East, but they did slip behind the Dodgers for the overall best record in baseball and hold a slim two-game lead over the Astros for the top seed in the American League. They got an early start on their deadline shopping by trading for Andrew Benintendi to stabilize their outfield. They’ll almost certainly be in the market for pitching help, too, especially after Michael King was lost for the season with a fractured elbow. And as for your weekly Aaron Judge check-in: he’s blasted nine home runs since the All-Star break, no big deal.

The Dodgers emphatically started off the second half with a four-game sweep of the Giants two weekends ago. Those two teams match up for four more games in San Francisco to start this week, with a series against the Padres immediately afterwards. Neither division rival is anywhere close to challenging for the NL West, but a solid week against these two teams should all but wrap up the division for Los Angeles in the first week of August.

This week in “you can’t predict baseball,” the Astros sandwiched a pair of series wins against the Mariners between a three-game sweep at the hands of the A’s. Interestingly, they’re reportedly open to moving one of their starters prior to the deadline; they’re currently running a six-man rotation, Lance McCullers Jr. is close to returning from his elbow injury he suffered last year during the postseason, and they have a number of pitching prospects currently throwing well at Triple-A. It’s an enviable situation to be in, and one that is rare given how high pitcher attrition rates are in the modern era. Read the rest of this entry »

On June 20, the Mariners designated Sergio Romo for assignment. They had just finished an 11-game homestand where they had gone 2–9, and their record had dipped to a season-low 10 games under .500. The next day, Seattle beat Oakland, 8–2, and has gone 24–6 since then, pushing its way into the middle of the AL Wild Card race. Romo wasn’t the only (or main) reason why Seattle had struggled up to that point in the season, but his 8.16 ERA and -0.7 WAR certainly didn’t help either. He does provide a convenient inflection point, though, to talk about how critical the Mariners’ bullpen has been to their play over the past month.

Here’s a table showing how Seattle’s relief corps performance before and after Romo’s departure:

Earlier this season, Mariners relievers had trouble converting an excellent strikeout-to-walk ratio into consistent success. Romo was the worst offender, but Diego Castillo (5.25), Andrés Muñoz (4.50), Drew Steckenrider (5.65), Anthony Misiewicz (4.61), and Matthew Festa (4.35) all had ERAs over four through June 19. Their biggest problem as a group was an outsized home run rate that pushed their FIP up to 4.17 even though their xFIP sat at 3.83. Along with Romo, the Mariners also found ways to get Steckenrider and Misiewicz off their roster, replacing the latter with Ryan Borucki in a trade on June 4 and designating the former for assignment on June 11. All told, Seattle churned through 18 different relievers to start the season, three of whom are no longer with the organization and another seven who were shuttled back to the minors.

A couple of those relievers who struggled early on in the season have been key members of the Mariners’ turnaround. Muñoz went 17 straight appearances without allowing a run before giving up two in last night’s game against the Astros. Castillo and Festa have both been lights out, with ERAs of 1.42 and 1.13, respectively, since June 20. But the one constant has been Paul Sewald. An unknown reliever prior to last year, he improved the shape of both his fastball and slider last year to become one of Seattle’s most valuable relievers. He hasn’t been quite as good this year; after approaching a strikeout rate of 40% last year, that’s fallen to just above 30% this year — still elite but not as dominant. Thankfully, he has a whole corps of relievers behind him who are now putting together fantastic seasons, with a few of them boasting repertoires that curiously look similar to Sewald’s. Read the rest of this entry »

With the All-Star break in the rear-view mirror, the eyes of the baseball world turn to the upcoming trade deadline, which is now less than two weeks away. Juan Soto’s sudden availability is dominating the headlines, pushing the rest of the field to the back burner with the focus on the possible blockbuster deal. Still, for the majority of teams who are priced out of the Soto sweepstakes, there’s no shortage of interesting trade candidates to go after over the next few weeks.

For teams looking for pitching help, the top option on the market is almost certainly Luis Castillo. A pair of shoulder injuries to the two other top targets has thrown a wrench into the market; Frankie Montas threw three innings yesterday in his first start since July 3, and Tyler Mahle is scheduled to make his first start off the IL on Sunday. It’s certainly possible either Montas or Mahle (or both) will be dealt in the next few weeks, but teams will understandably be more cautious with them.

Castillo dealt with his own shoulder injury this spring which held him back from making his season debut until May. He wasn’t all that sharp through his first four starts, but he’s turned it on since then, averaging more than six innings per start since and allowing just three total runs across his last four turns. During this recent hot streak, he’s struck out 33 batters (a 30.8% strikeout rate) in 27 innings. In his final start before the midseason break, Castillo held the Yankees to a single run in seven innings, allowing two hits and four walks and striking out eight.

Well known for his fantastic changeup, that pitch hasn’t been nearly as effective as it has been in the past. Over the first five seasons of his career, he ran a 41.2% whiff rate with the pitch, the fifth-highest whiff mark for a changeup during that period. This year, that has fallen to just 25.1%, a career low and the third year in a row it’s dropped. It’s still an effective pitch at limiting hard contact (.305 xwOBAcon), but batters simply aren’t swinging and missing at it as much as they used to.

To combat the slow decline of his changeup, Castillo has turned to his four-seam fastball, throwing his heater more often than his cambio for the first time since 2018:

It’s still a bit of a surprise to see him turn away from his changeup despite its lackluster results this year. That pitch has been such a dominant weapon for him, and he’s relied on it as his primary out pitch for the last three seasons. The biggest reason why he’s turned away from it, though, isn’t because of its loss of effectiveness; it’s because his four-seamer has been better than ever before. Read the rest of this entry »

We head into the All-Star break with very little movement in the top five but tons of ups and downs in the middle of these power rankings.

A reminder for how these rankings are calculated: first, we take the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), and their starting rotation and bullpen (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by IP share) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric. New for this year, I’ve opted to include defense as a component, though it’s weighted less heavily than offense and pitching. Some element of team defense is captured by RA9-, but now that FanGraphs has Statcast’s OAA/RAA available on our leaderboards, I’ve chosen to include that as the defensive component for each team. I also add in a factor for “luck,” adjusting a team’s win percentage based on expected win-loss record. The result is a power ranking, which is then presented in tiers below.

The Yankees head into the All-Star break on a high note after scoring 27 runs against the Red Sox on Saturday and Sunday. That smackdown redeemed a week that hadn’t gone all that well before the weekend, with New York’s normally sturdy bullpen blowing two games (and nearly a third) against the Reds and another against the Red Sox. The emergence of Clay Holmes and Michael King has solidified a relief corps that has lost Chad Green and Jonathan Loáisiga to injuries and has had to work around a diminished Aroldis Chapman. With Luis Severino headed to the IL after exiting his start early on Wednesday, a bullpen upgrade probably isn’t the top priority at the trade deadline, but the Yankees definitely need to get their relievers in order for the stretch run and the postseason.

The Astros limped into the break a bit after dropping two of three to the A’s over the weekend. They’re hoping that Yordan Alvarez will be ready to be activated from the IL next week once play resumes, because their upcoming schedule looks daunting: a double-header against the Yankees on Thursday before playing the streaking Mariners seven times in two weeks, followed by series against the Red Sox and Guardians.

The Dodgers closed out the first half of the season on a 15–2 run and have opened up a 10-game lead in the NL West. Just a month ago, the Padres were breathing down their necks; now they enjoy the second-largest divisional lead in the majors. The man carrying the club right now? Freddie Freeman, who has collected 16 hits in his last six games, including three homers and five doubles. Read the rest of this entry »

On June 19, the Mariners lost 4–0 to the Angels. It was their second straight shutout loss, ending an 11-game homestand where they went 2–9, dropping them to a season-low 10 games under .500, and leaving their postseason odds at a minuscule 5.3%. Since then, they’ve gone 16–3 and tied the Blue Jays for the final American League Wild Card spot after sweeping them in four games last weekend, passing five teams in the standings during this hot streak and digging themselves out of a pretty deep hole.

As you’d expect for a team playing so well, Seattle has seen contributions from all across the roster. But the pitching staff has been particularly strong, leading the majors in ERA at 2.99 since the beginning of June — a period that includes that aforementioned horrible homestand. In that same span, the starting rotation has posted a 3.06 ERA, and from June 2 to 26, it put together a 24-game streak of allowing three or fewer earned runs. The group’s collective FIP and xFIP during this period are both more than a full run above their ERA, likely indicating some amount of good fortune, but any team that rattles off 16 wins in a 19-game stretch is bound to benefit from some luck. Still, despite the gap between their results and their peripherals, many of Seattle’s starters have made beneficial adjustments to their arsenals that have fueled a lot of their recent success.

It all starts with the reigning AL Cy Young award winner, Robbie Ray. Diminished velocity led to a rough first couple of months; through his first 11 starts of the season, his ERA was sitting just under five, though his FIP and xFIP both painted a more optimistic picture. Some of that likely had to do with his propensity to allow a bunch of runs in a single bad inning in nearly all of his starts. But in his start against the Astros on June 6, he made a change to his pitch repertoire, adding a sinker — a pitch that’s now become an integral part of his arsenal:

Last year in Toronto, Ray leaned into his four-seam fastball and slider as his two primary pitches. He continued that trend in Seattle to the point where he was essentially a two-pitch pitcher during the first two months of the season. Whether it was the diminished velocity or batters simply figuring out his approach, he wasn’t nearly as effective. By introducing a sinker into his mix (and throwing his curveball a little bit more, too), he’s given opposing batters a new wrinkle to figure out. Read the rest of this entry »

With the All-Star break right around the corner, a few teams have made surprising charges up the standings. There are at least 10 teams vying for as few as four playoff spots which should make for a second half packed with drama.

A reminder for how these rankings are calculated: first, we take the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), and their starting rotation and bullpen (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by IP share) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric. New for this year, I’ve opted to include defense as a component, though it’s weighted less heavily than offense and pitching. Some element of team defense is captured by RA9-, but now that FanGraphs has Statcast’s OAA/RAA available on our leaderboards, I’ve chosen to include that as the defensive component for each team. I also add in a factor for “luck,” adjusting a team’s win percentage based on expected win-loss record. The result is a power ranking, which is then presented in tiers below.

The Dodgers just wrapped up an 11-game homestand with 10 wins, including back-to-back sweeps of the Rockies and Cubs, and have built an eight-game lead in the NL West in just a couple of weeks. That’s enough to bump them back into the top tier with the Yankees and Astros. Mookie Betts has shown no ill effects from his rib injury, collecting three home runs last week, including two on Thursday. The pitching staff, meanwhile, allowed four or more runs in a game on Sunday for the first time since June 28. Tony Gonsolin has continued to shine and has made a strong case to make the start for the NL All-Stars in Los Angeles next week.

The Yankees ended up splitting their four-game series against the Red Sox over the weekend, losing the last two games on Saturday and Sunday. Thanks to their huge lead in the AL East, it would be a miracle if anyone caught them, but they have slipped behind the pace of the 2001 Mariners and are now on track to win 115 games this season. They’ll head into the All-Star break with three against the Reds and another three against Boston.

Like the Yankees, the Astros have built such a big lead in their division that they can take their foot off the gas pedal just a bit as they head into the midseason break. To that end, they placed Yordan Alvarez on the IL with hand inflammation that he’s been dealing with since late June. There’s never an ideal time to lose your best hitter, but the upcoming All-Star break will give the AL MVP contender a little extra time to heal, and facing the floundering Angels and A’s before the midsummer pause should help ease the blow to the lineup. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, Patrick Sandoval broke out in a big way, posting career-bests in ERA, FIP, strikeout rate, called and swinging strike rate, and WAR. The foundation of his newfound success was a phenomenal changeup that was among the most effective pitches in all of baseball. This season, he’s lowered his ERA and FIP by more than half a run apiece, and has been the Angels second-most valuable starter behind Shohei Ohtani. Still, his strikeout rate has fallen by a couple of points even though his change has been as effective as it was last year. Looking past that one standout pitch, it’s clear Sandoval is being held back by another aspect of his arsenal: his fastballs.

Sandoval throws two different types of heaters and neither is all that effective. Last year, he allowed a cumulative .356 wOBA off his two fastballs; that mark is up to .408 this season. It’s a stark contrast to his three secondary offerings, which are all whiff machines. Here’s a look at his per pitch type results from this year:

Among all four-seam fastballs thrown at least 100 times this year, Sandoval’s whiff rate of 7.5% is the second lowest in baseball. His sinker’s whiff rate is a little better at 10.9%, but still below average for that pitch type. On the other hand, his changeup and two separate breaking balls each have whiff rates no lower than 38.5%. For Sandoval, it’s feast or famine depending on which pitch in his arsenal he’s throwing. Read the rest of this entry »