Author Archive: Kiri Oler

Welcome to your Week Two recap of all things WPBL. As a reminder, these weekly roundups are designed to cover each week’s action by highlighting the most notable players, moments, and anything else I deem worthy of further commentary. For each edition of the recap, I re-license the naming rights to this list of highlights to whichever team I feel has won the week. And how does a team win the week? Well, unlike actual wins and losses in baseball, this type of win is purely subjective and will operate under the time-honored tradition of making it up as we go along.

Along with the list of highlights, the Unforced Errors list discusses the more confounding aspects of the prior week because good faith criticism is a necessary component of continuing progress. Rounding things out are the Historic Firsts of Lesser Renown. The league’s momentous firsts will obviously get their shine, but there’s something to be said for the more strange and mundane firsts, the smaller day-to-day occurrences that make a new league feel familiar and complete. Think of these firsts as the knickknacks on a shelf that make a new house feel like a home. Baseball fans won’t really feel settled into their new league until the first time a player on their favorite team commits a TOOTBLAN.

If you need a refresher on the league’s structure and mechanics, check out the Week One recap.

But enough preamble, let’s get to the Week Two winner: The New York Heights. The Heights went 2-1 in the second week of WPBL action, including a victory in the league’s first extra-inning game on Sunday. Though the Los Angeles Queens own the league’s best record and run differential through two weeks of play, they did suffer a 12-3 loss to the Firebells, while the Heights have yet to lose a game by more than three runs. Add in what Denae Benites and Natsuki Yonetani have been getting up to (more on them below), and giving the dub to New York feels pretty obvious. Read the rest of this entry »

Opening weekend of the WPBL’s inaugural season is officially in the record books. Around 5,200 fans happily crowded into a wet and windy Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois on Saturday for the privilege of being able to say they were present for the league’s first pitch. A rain delay lasting just over an hour prolonged the suspense that had been building since the league was first announced early last year, but women are used to waiting their turn.

With the season now underway, I’ll be recapping each week’s action by highlighting the most notable players, moments, and anything else I deem worthy of further commentary. For each edition of the recap, I will re-license the naming rights to this list of highlights to whichever team I feel has won the week. And how does a team win the week? Well, unlike actual wins and losses in baseball, this type of win is purely subjective and will operate under the time-honored tradition of making it up as we go along.

Along with the list of highlights, the Unforced Errors list will discuss the more confounding aspects of the prior week because good faith criticism is a necessary component of continuing progress. And to round things out, we’ll touch on the Historic Firsts of Lesser Renown. The league’s momentous firsts will obviously get their shine, but there’s something to be said for the more strange and mundane firsts, the smaller day-to-day occurrences that make a new league feel familiar and complete. Think of these firsts as the knickknacks on a shelf that make a new house feel like a home. Baseball fans won’t really feel settled into their new league until the first time a player on their favorite team commits a TOOTBLAN. Read the rest of this entry »

Plan A for Chicago’s starting rotation went out the window all the way back on April 4 when Cade Horton went down with a forearm strain. After he’d finished second in Rookie of the Year voting in 2025, the Cubs were counting on him as a key contributor in 2026. Instead, his season ended after just two starts. Then on April 6, Matthew Boyd hit the IL with a bicep strain. Fortunately, he was only sidelined for two weeks, but by May 6 he was out of commission again, this time with a meniscus tear that took him out until June 25. Offseason rotation addition Edward Cabrera has also logged multiple IL stints this year — first, a blister that sidelined him from May 24 to June 5, then a hamstring strain that has had him on the shelf since June 24. Strained hamstrings aren’t contagious, but if they were, Cabrera would’ve caught his from Jameson Taillon, who was out with the same injury from June 9 to July 20 and then designated for assignment a week following his return due to poor performance. Given the myriad of injured starters, by early May the Cubs were forced to move Ben Brown from his long-relief role in the bullpen back to the starting rotation. He made eight starts before landing on the IL with a neck strain.

After placing both Cabrera and Brown on the IL on June 24, the Cubs started their deadline shopping a little early, trading with the Mets for left-handed starter David Peterson on June 25. Peterson has not pitched well this season, posting a 5.52 ERA and a 4.11 FIP over 101 innings, but aside from one clunker against the Cardinals, his results have been much better with the Cubs. Over his last four starts, he’s pitched to a 1.52 ERA, albeit with a 4.20 FIP. Nevertheless, Peterson does not single-handedly fix the Cubs’ rotation, nor does Kevin Gausman, whom they acquired from the Blue Jays on Sunday. No, and even with Cabrera pitching in his first Triple-A rehab game last Friday (1 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 2 BB, 3 K), it’s always a good idea to go ahead and add one more guy. Maybe even two.

Thus, in the hours before the trade deadline on Monday, the Cubs linked up with the Mets once more, this time agreeing to send infield prospect Jefferson Rojas to New York in exchange for right-handed starting pitcher Clay Holmes and outfielder Tyrone Taylor. But that’s not all, as Chicago also acquired right-handed reliever Ryan Zeferjahn from the Angels in exchange for catcher/DH Moisés Ballestero and right-handed pitcher Mason McGwire. To cap it off, the Cubs sealed a swap with the Marlins in which they sent infielder Jonathon Long and pitcher Jace Beck to Miami for pitcher lefty Braxton Garrett. Read the rest of this entry »

News out of the Women’s Pro Baseball League has been sparse ever since the league’s draft back in November, but with the inaugural season set to start on August 1, the league recently announced team names and confirmed who will manage each of the four squads that will take the field this year.

I’ll get to a full breakdown of the managerial hires shortly, but first, a quick refresher on the WPBL’s plan for its first season. Teams representing San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Boston will play all of this year’s games at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois, then take up residence in their home cities next year. Currently, all four teams are owned and operated by the WPBL itself, though that may change in the future. The league will play a six-week, 30-game regular season (15 games per team), followed by a two-week postseason during which each team will play a three-game series in the semifinal round, with winners advancing to a five-game championship series.

This is where I would like to tell you how to watch the games, but that information is nowhere to be found on the league’s website. As a result, fans have taken to the comment section of the league’s official Instagram account to try and get some answers, but all the replies from the account’s admin simply say details will be shared soon. I reached out to the league’s PR contact over the weekend, but have yet to hear back; we will update this piece if I do. Read the rest of this entry »

Fully appreciating what Phillies DH Kyle Schwarber is and does as a baseball player is harder than you’d think given that he really only does one thing.

Namely, this:

Obviously, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. It’s more accurate to say that Schwarber is a distinct brand of a three-true-outcomes hitter. For his career, 49.4% of his plate appearances have ended in a strikeout, a walk, or a home run. But even among three-true-outcomes players, Schwarber is very homer-forward. Round-trippers make up a high ratio of his production, particularly among his peers who also own a batting average that hovers right around the leaguewide mark. Looking at qualified player-seasons where at least 49% of plate appearances ended in one of the three true outcomes and the player batted .255 or lower, Schwarber has three that rank in the top 10 in terms of the percentage of three true outcomes that were homers. Among that same subset of player-seasons, Schwarber has two that rank in the top six in terms of home runs per plate appearance (2025 and 2026) and four in the top 25 by home runs per hit (2022, 2023, 2025, and 2026). Read the rest of this entry »

Paul Skenes turned in his last truly dominant start on May 12 at home against the Rockies. He threw eight shutout innings, allowed just two hits and no walks, and notched 10 strikeouts. Since then, Skenes has posted a 5.36 ERA over 47 innings. He’s gone fewer than six innings in six of his last nine starts, and seven of his 11 home runs allowed on the season have come during that same span.

It’s safe to say Skenes has been missing a certain je ne sais quoi on the mound over the last month and a half. And I say je ne sais quoi, which literally translates to, “I don’t know what,” because there are competing theories about what, if anything, is actually wrong with him. Some blame poor defensive play behind him and point to his expected stats as proof of unfortunate batted-ball luck. Some say it’s a mechanical issue, while others fear he’s pitching through a physical ailment.

It’s true that Skenes has been on the mound for several obvious defensive gaffes. Everyone remembers Opening Day and the bases-loaded fly ball that center fielder Oneil Cruz lost in the sun. The misplay turned a would-be sac fly into a bases-clearing triple. Fast forward to last week, when third baseman Nick Gonzales allowed two runs to score after his throw home on a bases-loaded grounder hit the runner, and it’s pretty easy to assume the defense behind Skenes has been letting him down all season. The numbers support the impression left by those glaring blunders. Overall, Pittsburgh’s defense has been worth -18 fielding runs (fifth worst in the majors). With Skenes on the mound, the Pirates have posted -7 FRV, which is tied for the worst defensive showing behind any pitcher this season. Moreover, most of that negative defensive value (-5 FRV) has come during his skid. Read the rest of this entry »

If you clicked through to read this post, you’ve probably visited the ABS Challenge Leaderboard on Baseball Savant at some point this season. While you were there, you may have sorted by Won% to see which players have been the most successful with their challenges. And if you, like me, are a bit of hater, you also reverse sorted to see which players are now considered a fire hazard because of how rapidly they burn through challenges. In that case, you know that James Wood has won just 20% of his 15 challenges, that Josh Naylor owns a 25% success rate on 12 challenges, and that Jazz Chisholm Jr. has a 27% hit rate on his 15 challenges. Players this bad at picking their spots probably shouldn’t be allowed to challenge at all, right? Well the truth is, those samples probably aren’t large enough to definitively signal an inability to consistently win ABS challenges. Or maybe they are large enough, but it’s tough to say for sure because the ABS challenge system hasn’t been in place long enough to generate the volume of data needed to determine an appropriate sample size.

But even if there were absolute certainty about which players lack the eye for challenging ball/strike calls, sitting a player down and telling him he’s not allowed to challenge anymore because he sucks at it isn’t exactly the best strategy. It runs the risk of damaging the relationship between the player and the team and it shuts down the opportunity to improve with additional reps. And let’s say that player is in the box for a pitch that absolutely should be challenged — given the short window to challenge following a call, a batter paralyzed by self-doubt or concern over potential reprimand is set up to fail. It’s also much easier to communicate and get buy-in on a single, team-wide philosophy than it is to devise a bunch of player-specific exceptions to the rule.

The good news is that there’s a straightforward method for eliminating many of the most infuriating failed challenges, a method independent of any given player’s ability to judge whether a pitch was in the zone. Because there’s more to challenging than assessing whether a ball/strike call is correct and then assigning a level of certainty to that assessment. If you’ve ever watched a batter on your favorite team spend a challenge on an 0-0 count in the first inning, you know that it’s vexing on multiple levels. Even a successful challenge in that scenario doesn’t offer a significant swing in advantage, since it’s just flipping an 0-1 count to a 1-0 count (a swing in run expectancy of about a tenth of a run, depending on the base-out state). And to make things even more maddening, it also tightens the calculus around future challenges, since an additional failed challenge risks leaving the team unable to act on a potential missed call in a late-and-close situation. Read the rest of this entry »

Not sure if PokéBallpark is the game for you? Follow me! I’m about to play the demo, and I hereby grant you permission to roam the land with me!

Our character has just woken up as an amorphous blob. It’s unclear who or where we are. First, we’re given a device for storing all of our PokéBallKnowledge, it’s called a FanGraph. Our FanGraph reveals that we are a versatile creature who inhabits the world of baseball.

Our character (whom I’ve named RedAsh, I hope you’re cool with that) has a transformation ability that enables it to quickly pick up moves from other PokéBallers and take on the role of GM, player, or coach as needed. And it will be needed because the baseball world is looking dire. PokéBallers are nowhere to be found. Once lively stadiums are now deserted ruins. The only sign of life is the flickering screen of a videoboard in the distance. Read the rest of this entry »

Like many of you, Lilo & Stitch taught me that, “‘Ohana means family,” and Hawaiian Bros, like many businesses, boasts that it has a familial relationship with its employees and customers. But that didn’t stop the fast casual restaurant chain from making a business decision to walk back a promise to its most loyal customers.

At the beginning of the season, Hawaiian Bros announced a Plates for Plates promotion in conjunction with the Royals. Anytime the Royals “plated” six or more runs during a home game, HB Rewards members would be eligible for a free Classic Plate Lunch, redeemable the following day at participating locations. But by May 6, the Kansas City-based restaurant had issued a statement to its rewards members, announcing a change to the Plates for Plates promotion. Now when the Royals score six or more runs at Kauffman Stadium, members of the loyalty program can receive a free Classic Plate Lunch only with the purchase of a Plate Lunch. It’s still a good deal, but going from a no-purchase-necessary perk to one that requires spending a minimum of $12 is a sizable downgrade.

So what prompted the change? In their first 17 home games, the Royals reached the six-run scoring threshold eight times. To start 2025, Kansas City hit the six-run mark just three times over the same number of home games. The promotion’s cashing in at more than twice the rate it would have just one season prior is reason enough for the company to reevaluate, but the Royals amplified the issue for those running the corporate fraternity of Polynesian food by scoring six-plus runs in five consecutive home games from April 21 to April 26.

At this early stage of the season, it is fair to wonder if Hawaiian Bros perhaps overreacted to a hot performance during a soft part of the schedule. Maybe this year’s slate of opponents was less competitive than last year. The Guardians, Orioles, Twins, Rockies, Astros, and White Sox made up the early part of the home schedule in 2025, while this year, the Royals faced the Twins, Brewers, White Sox, Orioles, Angels, and Guardians. Some overlapping opponents and similar vibes across both years, but for the sake of thoroughness, I calculated a weighted ERA- to compare the overall quality of pitching faced in the early going each season. In 2025, that number came in at 103, and in 2026, it was 104, making for a very similar strength of opponent in the visiting dugout. Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine a video game designed around failure. One where winning isn’t defined as completing a set of objectives, but rather as finding the most creative, painful, and improbable ways to avoid completing the task at hand. I haven’t heard of such a game, but I’m convinced that it must exist, because the Reds are speedrunning it before our very eyes.

Entering May, Cincinnati was 20-11 and in sole possession of first place in the NL Central. To that point, they hadn’t been more than a game out of the division since April 3. One week later, the Reds are now 20-18, six games back, and in sole possession of last place in the division. Now, measuring strictly on length of losing streak, Cincinnati’s skid isn’t nearly as notable as the 12-gamer put up by the Mets or the 10-gamer that contributed to the dismissal of Phillies manager Rob Thomson. But by several other measures, the last week of Reds baseball has been an even more profound and excruciating experience of failure.

The Reds’ true talent as a team is still a bit of an enigma at this point in the season. They haven’t hit well — their team wOBA sits at .311, which ranks all the way down at 23rd in the majors, but a BABIP of .262 and an xwOBA of .332 suggest some misfortune at the plate. On the other side of the ball, their 4.61 team ERA is in the bottom third of the league, their 5.16 xERA ranks last in the majors, and their 4.80 FIP doesn’t rate much better. With those numbers in mind, it should come as no surprise that Cincinnati’s win total as estimated by BaseRuns sits around 16, a full four wins fewer than their actual mark. Read the rest of this entry »