The following article is part of my ongoing look at the candidates on the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot. Originally written for the 2013 election at SI.com, it has been expanded and updated. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, use the tool above. An introduction to JAWS can be found here.

It took four position changes — from catcher to first base, then left field, right field, and finally center field — and parts of five major league seasons for the Braves to figure out where the 6-foot-4 Dale Murphy fit. Once they did, they had themselves a franchise centerpiece, a wholesome, milk-drinking superstar whom Sports Illustrated profiled for its July 4, 1983 cover story by proclaiming, “Murphy’s Law is Nice Guys Finish First.”

The title was a reference to the slugger helping the Braves to an NL West title the previous year, their lone playoff appearance during the 1970-90 stretch. “Here’s a guy who doesn’t drink, smoke, chew or cuss,” wrote Steve Wulf. “Here’s a guy who has time for everyone, a guy who’s slow to anger and eager to please, a guy whose agent’s name is Church. His favorite movie is Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. He’s a wonderful ballplayer.” Let the record show that Wulf did unearth some dirt on Murphy, noting that he once got a speeding ticket for doing 35 in a 25-mph zone… while running late to speak to a church group.

Murphy won the first of his back-to-back MVP awards in 1982 as well as the first of his five consecutive Gold Gloves, and made his second of seven All-Star teams. He would spend most of the 1980s as one of the game’s best players. Alas, knee problems turned him into a shadow of the player he once was while he was still in his early 30s, and he played his final game in the majors at age 37. Read the rest of this entry »

At the end of perhaps the most thrilling back-and-forth Game 7 in World Series history, with one out in the bottom of the 11th inning and the tying run on third base, Alejandro Kirk hit a chopper to shortstop. Mookie Betts raced over to second base to force out Addison Barger, and while running through the bag, fired a perfect strike into the outstretched glove of Freddie Freeman. The Dodgers’ second game-ending double play in as many nights didn’t just clinch the 2025 World Series, it made them the first team to win back-to-back championships since the 1999–2000 Yankees.

Dating back to their days in Brooklyn, the Dodgers have won nine championships, but this is the first time they’ve done so in consecutive seasons. Twice before, they had returned to the World Series as reigning champions only to lose, first to the Yankees in 1956 and then to the Orioles in ’66. Neither of those attempts to repeat involved surviving multiple playoff rounds before that. This time, the 93-win Dodgers went 13-4 in the postseason, first sweeping the 83-win Reds in the Wild Card Series and then defeating three of the four teams that finished with more wins: the 96-win Phillies (3-1 in the Division Series), 97-win Brewers (4-0 in the League Championship Series), and finally the 94-win Blue Jays (who themselves dispatched the 94-win Yankees in the Division Series). Despite being outpitched, outhit, and outscored in the World Series, the Dodgers outlasted the AL champions, with two of their four wins coming in extra innings, the last of those by deploying three of their four series starters in relief and by pulling off three of the 12 most impactful plays ever in terms of Championship Win Probability Added, namely Miguel Rojas’ game-tying home run in the top of the ninth (12th, +34.9% cWPA), Will Smith’s go-ahead solo shot in the top of the 11th inning (fifth, 41% cWPA), and Betts’ double play (fourth, +46.2% cWPA).

Once upon a time, winning back-to-back titles wasn’t uncommon. From 1903 through 2000 — a span of 96 World Series (none in 1904 or ’94) — 10 teams won two in a row, two won three in a row, one won four in a row, and one won five in a row. That’s 14 teams who won at least two World Series in a row (not double-counting any of them), and 21 times in which the World Series winner was the same as the year before. Here’s a breakdown, divided into (roughly) 20-year increments that fortunately don’t split up any back-to-back championships:

Read the rest of this entry »

The champagne and tears have barely dried in the wake of this year’s instant-classic World Series, but election season is already upon us. On Monday, the National Baseball Hall of Fame officially unveiled the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot, an eight-man slate covering players who made their greatest impact on the game from 1980 to the present and whose eligibility on the BBWAA ballot has lapsed. For the second year in a row, the Hall stole its own thunder, as an article in the Winter 2025 volume of its bimonthly Memories and Dreams magazine revealed the identities of the eight candidates prior to the official announcement. The mix includes some — but not all — of the controversial characters who have slipped off the writers’ ballot in recent years, including Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, as well as a couple surprises. This cycle also marks the first application of a new rule that could shape future elections.

Assembled by the Historical Overview Committee, an 11-person group of senior BBWAA members, the ballot includes Bonds, Clemens, and fellow holdovers Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy, as well as newcomers Carlos Delgado, Jeff Kent, Gary Sheffield, and Fernando Valenzuela. As with any Hall election, this one requires 75% from the voters to gain entry. In this case, the panel — whose members won’t be revealed until much closer to election time — will consist of Hall of Famers, executives, and media members/historians, each of whom may tab up to three candidates when they meet on Sunday, December 7, at the Winter Meetings in Orlando. Anyone elected will be inducted alongside those elected by the BBWAA (whose own ballot will be released on November 17) on July 26, 2026 in Cooperstown. In the weeks before that, I’ll cover each candidate’s case in depth here at FanGraphs.

This is the fourth ballot since the Hall of Fame reconfigured its Era Committee system into a triennial format in April 2022, after a bumper crop of six honorees was elected by the Early Baseball and Golden Days Era Committees the previous December. The current format splits the pool of potential candidates into two timeframes: those who made their greatest impact on the game before 1980 (Classic Baseball Era), including Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues Black players, and those who made their greatest impact from 1980 to the present day (Contemporary Baseball Era). The Contemporary group is further split into two ballots, one for players whose eligibility on BBWAA ballots has lapsed (Fred McGriff was elected in December 2022), and one for managers, executives, and umpires (Jim Leyland was elected in December 2023). Non-players from the Classic timeframe are lumped in with players, which doesn’t guarantee representation on the final ballot. Read the rest of this entry »

For the first time all season — indeed, the first time since Game 5 of last year’s Division Series against the Padres — the Dodgers are facing elimination. A win on Friday night in Toronto will continue their season, forcing Game 7 of the World Series, while a loss will end it, making the Blue Jays champions for the first time in 32 years. Since their 18-inning victory in Game 3 late Monday night local time (and Tuesday morning for much of the continental United States and Canada) on Freddie Freeman’s walk-off home run, the Dodgers have looked as though they’re sleepwalking. They were thoroughly outplayed by the Blue Jays in both Games 4 and 5, with rough performances by their starters, relievers, hitters, and fielders. For Game 6, Los Angeles will turn to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, hoping he can continue his tremendous October run and extend the season for one more night.

During the National League Championship Series, the Dodgers rotation absolutely dominated the Brewers, posting a 0.63 ERA and 1.88 FIP in 28 2/3 innings, but in the World Series it’s been a different story, as those starters have been touched for a 4.88 ERA and 4.55 FIP in 31 1/3 innings. To be fair, some of those runs are attributable to manager Dave Roberts’ trying to squeeze a few more outs from Blake Snell in Games 1 and 5 and Shohei Ohtani in Game 4 instead of handing clean innings over to an increasingly erratic bullpen. The damage from those attempts — both starters combined to record only two outs (both by Snell in Game 5) and bequeath seven baserunners, all of whom later scored, to three different relievers — blew those three games wide open. Yamamoto not only has produced the Dodgers’ only quality start of the series, but also the only relief from their relievers, as the 27-year-old righty spun a four-hit complete game on 105 pitches in Game 2, his second time going the distance in as many turns. If that wasn’t bad-ass enough, he warmed up in the top of the 18th inning of Game 3, ready to relieve Will Klein if needed.

As you’ve probably seen by now, Yamamoto’s three-hit complete game in Game 2 of the NLCS was the first by a postseason starter since the Astros’ Justin Verlander went the distance against the Yankees in Game 2 of the 2017 ALCS. Yamamoto is just the sixth starter with multiple complete games in a single postseason during the Wild Card era, and the first in 24 years to go back-to-back at least once. Read the rest of this entry »

When Bo Bichette sprained the posterior collateral ligament of his left knee on September 6 in a home plate collision with Yankees catcher Austin Wells, both the ramifications of his injury and the upcoming World Series were mere abstractions. Bichette remained in that game, postgame X-rays ruled out a fracture, and at the time a cut on his left shin appeared to be the worst of the damage he sustained. While the Blue Jays were not only atop the AL East at the time but also positioned as the league’s top seed, the team — as you’ve heard a million times by now — hadn’t played in a World Series since 1993, and hadn’t won a postseason game since 2016.

Seven weeks later, Toronto is matched up against the defending champion Dodgers, and after missing the final three weeks of the regular season and the Blue Jays’ first two playoff series, the 27-year-old Bichette has been shoehorned into the lineup, albeit under significant limitations. An experiment with him playing second base for the first time in six years has largely worked, and on Tuesday night, Bichette — slotted as the designated hitter with George Springer sidelined by “right side discomfort” following a violent swing in Game 3 — contributed a key hit in a 6-2 victory that helped the Jays rebound from their 18-inning loss the night before and even the World Series at two games apiece.

Bichette’s hit came during Toronto’s four-run seventh inning. Leading 2-1 thanks to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s third-inning homer off Shohei Ohtani, the Jays opened the seventh with a single by Daulton Varsho and a double by Ernie Clement, spelling the end of the two-way superstar’s night on the mound. Lefty Anthony Banda took over for Ohtani, allowed an RBI single to Andrés Giménez, collected a pair of outs that nonetheless brought home Clement with the Blue Jays’ fourth run, and intentionally walked Guerrero. To the chagrin of every Dodgers fan, manager Dave Roberts then called upon right-hander Blake Treinen, who entered having allowed 14 earned runs in 11 2/3 innings over the past seven weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

12:01

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Hope you’ve all recovered from last night’s epic World Series game

12:02

Jay Jaffe: I stayed up for the whole thing here on the East Coast, though i will admit that by the time the bottom of the 18 rolled around, I was under a blanket listening to the game with my eyes mostly closed. I did open them as soon as the pitch of Joe Davis’ voice rose, in time to see Freeman’s homer clear the fence

12:04

Jay Jaffe: Which is better than I fared during the last 18-inning World Series game in 2018. For that one I met Mike Petriello and some of his MLB.com colleagues at the late great Pacific Standard (sigh), watched Walker Buehler shove, went home after the 10th or 11th inning, hung on til around the 14th, and then woke up to Max Muncy’s on-field postgame interview and pieced together what had transpired, which was still in the TiVo spool.

12:06

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, yesterday I wrote about the contributions of catchers Alejandro Kirk and Will Smith to their teams’ respective offenses through the first two games, and both had contributions last night as well, though Freddie Freeman was thrown out by a country mile on Smith’s lone hit. Kirk’s 3-run homer was huge at the time. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/big-nights-for-the-backstops-through-the-f…

12:06

Jay Jaffe: let’s get to the questions…

Read the rest of this entry »

Cal Raleigh’s tremendous season ended with the elimination of the Mariners from the ALCS, but that hasn’t meant the disappearance of high-impact hitting from catchers during the postseason. So far in the World Series, both the Blue Jays’ Alejandro Kirk and the Dodgers’ Will Smith have been central to their teams’ respective offensive attacks, building on their stellar contributions during the regular season.

Neither Kirk nor Smith had seasons on the level of Raleigh, but the same is true for nearly every other catcher in AL/NL history. That said, the two starting backstops in this World Series each made their respective All-Star teams and ranked second and third in the majors in catcher WAR behind Raleigh’s 9.1. The 26-year-old Kirk hit .282/.348/.421 (116 wRC+) while clubbing a career-high 15 home runs, and he also posted the majors’ second-highest marks in Statcast Fielding Run Value (21) and our own framing metric (11.3 runs), with the latter fueling his career-high 4.7 WAR. The 30-year-old Smith spent much of the season vying for the NL batting title, finishing at .296/.404/.497 with 17 homers and a 153 wRC+, his highest over a full season and the second-best mark on the team behind Shohei Ohtani. Despite subpar defense (-8 FRV and -6.8 FRM) and just 10 plate appearances in September, he produced a solid 4.1 WAR.

The Dodgers couldn’t get Kirk out on Friday night in Toronto, as he not only went 3-for-3 but also drew a first-inning walk that helped set the tone for the Blue Jays, even though it didn’t lead to a run. Facing Blake Snell with two outs and runners on the corners, Kirk got ahead 3-1, then fouled off four straight pitches before finally laying off a curveball in the dirt. His tenacious plate appearance lasted nine pitches; by the time Snell retired Daulton Varsho on a fly ball to end the threat, the two-time Cy Young winner had thrown 29 pitches.

Read the rest of this entry »

When the World Series opens on Friday night at the Rogers Centre, Blake Snell will take the ball for the Dodgers against the Blue Jays, hoping to replicate the success he’s had thus far in October. After an injury-shortened regular season, the two-time Cy Young winner has thoroughly dominated opposing hitters through his first three postseason starts, putting together one of the most impressive October runs in recent memory.

Runs — remember those? — have been hard to come by during Snell’s starts this postseason. He surrendered two during the seventh inning in the Wild Card Series opener against the Reds after holding them scoreless on one hit and one walk (against nine strikeouts) through the first six frames. Since then, he’s logged 14 consecutive scoreless innings, six against the Phillies in Game 2 of the Division Series and then eight against the Brewers in Game 1 of the Championship Series. He allowed just one hit in each of those last two starts, and while he walked four Phillies (and again struck out nine), he didn’t walk a single Brewer while punching out 10.

Read the rest of this entry »

At last, we’ve got a World Series matchup to wrap our heads around. Representing the American League are the Blue Jays, who are back in the Fall Classic — making it a truly international World Series — for the first time since 1993. They’ll face the Dodgers, who are vying to become the first back-to-back champions since the 1999–2000 Yankees. They’re the first defending champions to repeat as pennant winners since the 2009 Phillies, who lost that World Series to the Yankees. If that matchup feels like a long time ago, consider that it’s been twice as long since the Blue Jays were here.

Though the core of the lineup is largely unchanged, this year’s Dodgers team differs from last year’s in that it has reached the World Series on the strength of its starting pitching rather than in spite of it. Due to a slew of injuries in the rotation last year, manager Dave Roberts resorted to using bullpen games four times to augment a rickety three-man staff consisting of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Jack Flaherty, and Walker Buehler. Even as those starters (or “starters,” in some cases) put up a 5.25 ERA while averaging just 3.75 innings per turn, the bullpen and offense more than picked up the slack, and the Dodgers took home their second championship of the Roberts era.

This time around, with Flaherty and Buehler elsewhere and Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Shohei Ohtani joining Yamamoto, Dodgers starters have been absolutely dominant, posting a microscopic 1.40 ERA while averaging 6.43 innings per turn through the first three rounds, helping the team to paper over a shaky bullpen. After Snell utterly dominated the Brewers, holding them to just one hit over eight innings while facing the minimum number of batters in Game 1 of the NLCS, Yamamoto followed with a three-hit, one-run masterpiece — the first complete game in the postseason since the Astros’ Justin Verlander went the distance against the Yankees in Game 2 of the 2017 ALCS. Glasnow, who began the postseason in the bullpen, allowed one run across 5 2/3 innings in Game 3 of the NLCS, while Ohtani backed his 10 strikeouts over six shutout innings in Game 4 with a three-homer game in what for my money stands as the greatest single-game postseason performance in baseball history. Read the rest of this entry »

12:00

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to my first chat of the playoffs. Apologies that it’s been so long — on-site coverage, late nights, and quick turnarounds have made it hard to keep up here.

12:02

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, I’m glad we’ve been treated to some awesome playoff games and series. Last night’s ALCS Game 7 was a classic and a heartbreaker. As happy as I am for the Blue Jays fans in my life, i’m gutted for the Mariners fans — a group that includes colleagues and family.

12:03

Jay Jaffe: Yesterday I wrote about Vladimir Guerrero’s postseason for the ages https://blogs.fangraphs.com/vladimir-guerrero-jr-s-postseason-for-the-…. his wRC+ this October slipped from 302 to 280 during last night’s win, dropping from 2nd since the start of division play in 1969 to 4th. Still impressive!

12:03

Jay Jaffe: Anway, let’s get on with the show

12:06

Jay Jaffe: Heading into his age-29 season, coming off a very good season and the October showcase that he’s had, he has every reason to seek a deal longer than three years. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s after something much longer than that. I do believe the Mariners will make him a priority, but they shouldn’t wimp out. They were so close to that elusive World Series trip this year, and going back to skimping on quality players is going to reduce their chances of getting to the next step.

Read the rest of this entry »