June 23, 2023, was a rough day for the Braves. They scored 10 runs but gave up 11 in a hard-fought battle with the Reds. It was the first time they’d given up more than ten runs all season, and the first time they’d scored double-digit runs and still lost in over a year. They blew two leads and couldn’t quite pull off the comeback at the end of the night.

Yet in the grand scheme of things, June 23, 2023, was an insignificant day for the Braves. By that point in the season, their playoff odds were 99.5%. Sure, they lost the game, but it was one of only four losses they would suffer all month. They went on to win the series and sweep their next two, increasing their playoff odds to 100% within the week. The Braves have about as much reason to worry about losses as I have to worry about werewolf attacks. It’s not worth agonizing over something that only happens once in a blue moon.

But for one particular Brave, June 23, 2023, was an excellent day. Ronald Acuña Jr. went 3-for-5 with a home run and a stolen base. He made a great catch, too, covering 78 feet in 4.6 seconds to rob Tyler Stephenson of a hit. The following morning, he rose to first place in the National League in WAR, a position he has held ever since.

First place on the WAR leaderboard isn’t necessarily meaningfully different from second, third, or even fourth. At times, Acuña’s lead was so slight that you had to add another decimal place just to see it. Still, leading the league for 53 days (and counting) is an impressive accomplishment. Plenty of guys can get hot and amass a high WAR in a short stretch, but maintaining such a high degree of excellence over eight weeks is something else. Four others occupied second place in that time, and nine shuffled through spots three to five. But Acuña has yet to give up his lead. Read the rest of this entry »

Shohei Ohtani and Ronald Acuña Jr. have been the MVP frontrunners for quite some time. They lead the majors in WAR, and to make things nice and easy, there’s no need to specify which kind; they’re the top dogs here at FanGraphs, as well as Baseball Reference and Baseball Prospectus. MLB.com has conducted three MVP polls throughout the season, asking over 40 writers and analysts to fill out a ballot. Ohtani and Acuña won all three, and in the latest iteration, released on July 13, they were unanimous choices. The NL Rookie of the Year is just as cut and dry, with Corbin Carroll the hands-down favorite. Meanwhile, Gunnar Henderson is pulling ahead in the AL, and Josh Jung’s fractured thumb likely takes him out of the race.

Thankfully, at least one of the major awards will provide a compelling race down the stretch. There is no clear-cut frontrunner for Cy Young in the AL or the NL, and if the season ended today, five or six pitchers could earn first-place votes in either league. Read the rest of this entry »

Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer were the stars of the trade deadline, along with prospects Drew Gilbert, Kyle Manzardo, and Luisangel Acuña. The Mets, White Sox, and Cardinals were the biggest sellers, and the Rangers were the most active buyers of the season. These were the names and teams that dominated the headlines on the busiest days of the baseball calendar. But as always, some teams stood pat and some stars stayed put, and a few of the trades that did not happen were just as interesting as many that did.

The most surprising non-trade of the deadline was that of Eduardo Rodriguez, who will remain with the Tigers through the end of the season. Detroit had every reason to shop the veteran, who’s in the midst of a career year with a 2.95 ERA and 3.17 FIP in 15 starts. His performance caught the eye of several suitors, including the Dodgers, Rays, Padres, Rangers, Reds, Diamondbacks, and Phillies. The Tigers, meanwhile, are already out of contention, and Rodriguez is certain to exercise his opt-out at the end of the year. And having already received the qualifying offer once, he cannot receive it again; if/when he leaves in free agency, the Tigers will receive no compensation at all. On top of all that, it was clearly a seller’s market for starting pitching, so although the Tigers had little leverage, they could have still secured a sizeable return for their best trade chip.

With the clock ticking on Tuesday, word came out that the Tigers and Dodgers had reached an agreement to trade Rodriguez. But he exercised his partial no-trade clause and vetoed the deal; as per his contract, he has the right to refuse a trade to 10 different teams, and the Dodgers are one of them. Rodriguez reportedly rejected the trade to L.A. to stay closer to family; his wife and children live in Miami. (Editor’s Note: this piece has been updated to reflect reporting on Rodriguez’s reasoning in rejecting a trade.) However, his reasoning for turning down the deal is hardly relevant, nor does it say anything about his value on the field. His no-trade protection is a part of his contract, just like his salary, bonuses, and option years. He has every right to use his no-trade clause however he sees fit, just as he has every right to collect his paycheck and exercise his opt-out.

Still, it’s hard not to view this turn of events as a failure on the part of Scott Harris and the Tigers front office. There are 19 teams that Rodriguez could not have refused a trade to, and there’s a good chance at least one of them would have liked to add a frontline starting pitcher. Yet the Tigers wasted their time crafting a deal that would never come to be; by the time it fell through, it was too late to change their plans.

Harris justified the outcome, explaining, “There were some contractual headwinds that influenced [Rodriguez’s] market. There were a couple of terms in his contract that disqualified a lot of markets from pursuing him. So we were working with the market that we had.” Those vague excuses may well be true, but they still come across as a poor defense. The Tigers blew their best opportunity and came away from the deadline with only a single prospect of note: Hao-Yu Lee, received in exchange for Michael Lorenzen. Impending free agents José Cisnero and Chasen Shreve remain with the Tigers, as do bigger trade chips like Alex Lange, Jason Foley, and Kerry Carpenter, all of whom popped up in rumors ahead of the deadline.

As Harris also mentioned, there are worse fates than having “one of the best left-handed starters in baseball on the mound every five nights.” Be that as it may, one of the very few benefits of being a crappy baseball team is the chance to sell at the deadline. The Tigers couldn’t even manage that.

The White Sox dangled an ace of their own on the trade market, but unlike the Tigers, they faced little pressure to finalize a deal. Dylan Cease is arbitration eligible through 2025; if Rick Hahn wants to trade him, he still has plenty of time to do so. Furthermore, Chicago had several other players to sell, including Lucas Giolito, Jake Burger, Lance Lynn, and a cornucopia of relievers. Still, considering the prospects the Mets got back for Scherzer and Verlander, the White Sox could have fetched a pretty penny for the 2022 Cy Young runner-up. They seemed to pick up on this, because after days of rejecting inquiries about Cease, they suddenly started listening to “more serious offers” hours before the deadline. Ultimately, however, it all came to nothing, and Cease will make his scheduled start this evening against the Rangers at Globe Life Field.

All things considered, Cease never seemed that likely to be traded. The White Sox had higher priorities this summer and no reason to sell low on Cease after his slow start in 2023. Neither his 4.15 ERA nor his 3.57 FIP reflect the ace-level pitcher he can be. Over his last ten starts, he has a 3.34 ERA and a 2.66 FIP; if he pitches more like that down the stretch, his trade value will be even higher in the offseason. What’s more, it’s possible Chicago could be looking to sign him to a long-term extension. Still just 27 years old, there’s little risk that he’ll start to decline before the White Sox next field a competitive team. They play in the AL Central, after all, and with a good offseason, they could be contenders again as soon as next season.

With Rodriguez and Cease staying put, the only frontline arms to change hands at the deadline were Scherzer and Verlander, leaving several contending teams with holes in their rotations high and dry. The Orioles turned to Jack Flaherty, a fine pitcher but hardly the ace they were searching for. The Dodgers struck a last-minute deal for Ryan Yarbrough; the former Royal will provide them with left-handed depth but not much more. Meanwhile, the Rangers, who secured the services of Scherzer and Jordan Montgomery, come out looking even better than they did when the trades were first announced.

When it comes to bats, some significant names stayed put: Teoscar Hernández, Adam Duvall, Lane Thomas, Dylan Carlson, and Tyler O’Neill. Salvador Perez and Harrison Bader were briefly made available on deadline day, but the chances of either being moved were small. Similarly, Jonathan India’s name came up in rumors in the days before the deadline, but he was only ever moving in a truly unexpected blockbuster.

Neither Hernández nor Duvall made much sense as trade candidates either; they play for contending teams, and they’re both struggling to hit as of late. Given the dearth of right-handed bats on the market, they each came up in their fair share of rumors, but ultimately, the Mariners and Red Sox didn’t receive any offers they liked enough to pull the trigger, and it’s not hard to see why. The potential benefit of a hot-hitting Hernández or Duvall down the stretch far outweighs whatever return they could get for two months of a slumping veteran.

Thomas and his 114 wRC+ could have garnered a stronger return, but Washington never seemed too keen to trade him. He is arbitration eligible through 2025, and if the Nationals think he can prove himself as an everyday corner outfielder, and not just the short side of a platoon, they’d be wise to hold onto him a little longer. The Nats had a quiet deadline this year, trading Jeimer Candelario, the piece they needed to sell, but holding onto other trade chips like Thomas and Kyle Finnegan.

The Cardinals, on the other hand, were anything but quiet. Carlson and O’Neill were never obvious trade chips, but once rumors of the impending fire sale began, their names popped up as young, controllable alternatives to the likes of Hernández, Duvall, Randal Grichuk, and Tommy Pham. St. Louis would have been selling low on both, though, and with each under contract past this season, there was little pressure to make a move. Indeed, the only players the Cardinals dealt were impending free agents: Montgomery, Flaherty, Jordan Hicks, Chris Stratton, and Paul DeJong. Carlson and O’Neill survived the deadline, as did reliever Giovanny Gallegos, who is under contract through 2024. Unsurprisingly, superstars Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt are also staying in St. Louis. In other words, the Cardinals don’t plan to be down in the basement for long. The prospects they got back point to a similar conclusion.

Like the Cardinals, the Mets were supposed contenders who ended up selling big, but it doesn’t look like they will be back in contention in 2024, and they certainly weren’t just trading rentals. That being so, it’s a little surprising they didn’t find a new home for reliever Brooks Raley. The left-hander has a reasonable $6.5 million club option for 2024, and given his 2.37 ERA in 46 games, he seemed like a safe bet to be dealt. Then again, buyers might have been scared by his unsustainable 88.1% strand percentage, declining velocity, and high fly ball rate. He has still done an excellent job limiting hard contact, but his xFIP and SIERA are more than a full run higher than last season. That’s not to say he wouldn’t improve several contending teams’ bullpens, but he may not have been in as high demand as his surface stats would have you believe.

With impact trade candidates at such a premium, the deadline could have gone one of two ways. We could have seen a buying frenzy, where contending teams handed over piles of prospects for any upgrade they could get their hands on. Instead, however, we got one of the more placid deadlines in recent memory. Rodriguez is still on the Tigers. Cease is still on the White Sox. And it’s time for the stretch run to begin.

The National League Central is the weirdest division in baseball. It’s the only one where the first place team has a negative run differential. It’s also the only one where the second place team has a negative run differential. Indeed, only one team in the division has scored more runs than they’ve allowed, and it’s the third-place Chicago Cubs at 51-51.

With a +55 run differential, the Cubs rank third in the National League, better than teams like the Giants, Diamondbacks, Phillies, and Marlins, and, of course, ahead of the Brewers, Reds, Cardinals, and Pirates. Only three NL clubs have outscored the Cubs, and only six have allowed fewer runs to cross the plate. Only one has done both: the Atlanta Braves. Yet while the Braves have the best World Series odds in baseball, the Cubs’ chances of claiming a title are just a teeny tiny bit worse:

By Pythagenpat and BaseRuns, the Cubs “should” be 57-45. According to the calculation of Pythagorean win-loss record at Baseball Reference, the Cubs “deserve” to be 56-46 this season, five games better than they are right now. That record still wouldn’t be quite enough to put them ahead of the Brewers, but it would bring them within half a game of the division and into first place in the Wild Card standings. Unfortunately for Chicago, Pythagoras doesn’t have much of a say in the postseason race. With a .500 record, the Cubs are four games back of a Wild Card berth, and they’d have to leapfrog at least three teams to get there. Their playoff odds sit at 21.5%, putting them behind the Brewers and Reds in the NL Central, as well as the Phillies, Giants, Marlins, Diamondbacks, and even the Padres in the Wild Card chase. They recently surpassed the Mets, but with the way New York is playing, that isn’t saying much. Read the rest of this entry »

Jose Trevino’s second season in the Bronx has taken a turn from bad to worse. After earning an All-Star selection in his first year with the Yankees, Trevino struggled to provide even serviceable offense in 2023. Then, on Friday, the 30-year-old catcher revealed he would undergo surgery on a torn wrist ligament he’s been dealing with since spring training. The injury might explain his sharp offensive downturn, but it also means he’ll miss the remainder of the season. It’s yet another tough blow for a Yankees squad that has dealt with more than its fair share of injuries.

On Opening Day, 26 of 27 FanGraphs staffers picked the Yankees to reach the playoffs. It wasn’t a bad prediction, by any means; they had the highest preseason playoff odds in the American League and more projected WAR than any team in baseball. Yet the roster we’ve seen this season is a sad facsimile of the one we imagined before the year began. According to the Injured List Ledger at Baseball Prospectus, the Yankees rank first by a mile in cumulative value lost to injury. Of the seven players on the roster who were All-Stars in 2022, five have spent significant time on the shelf: Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Nestor Cortes, Carlos Rodón, and now Trevino. Other players who have missed time include Frankie Montas, Harrison Bader, Josh Donaldson, and Luis Severino. Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight is a big night for Zach Eflin. When he takes the mound, he’ll be making his 19th start, and when he earns his second out of the evening, he’ll have retired his 318th batter, good for 106 innings on the year. Those aren’t records or nice round numbers, but they’re meaningful for this particular pitcher; he hasn’t surpassed those totals since 2019, his first and only qualified season. The Rays took a gamble on the righty this winter (by their own standards, at least), signing the oft-injured starter to the largest free-agent deal in franchise history. When Drew Rasmussen and Jeffrey Springs each went down with season-ending injuries, the stakes for Eflin grew higher. But with each subsequent start he makes, his contract looks less like a gamble and more like highway robbery. When Eflin records his second out tonight, he’ll have given the Rays more than he gave the Phillies in a single season since the pre-pandemic days.

Eflin nearly reached 106 innings his last time out, but the fates weren’t on his side. An hour-long rain delay messed with his preparation right before first pitch, and the hapless Royals chose that particular day to score five unanswered runs in the first two innings of play. Eflin was pulled shortly thereafter, and he would have to wait another five days to celebrate his achievement. Barring disaster, he’ll get there before 7:00 PM ET this evening, and all things considered, the timing actually works out quite well. His 106th inning will coincide with his 19th start, and his outing today will mark the latest date on the calendar that he’s started a game since 2020.

What makes tonight all the more special is the possibility of what’s to come. Eflin is on pace to make 30 starts and throw about 170 innings, both of which would be new career highs. When he qualified for the ERA title in 2019, he did so by the skin of his teeth, tossing 163.1 frames. He briefly lost his rotation spot after a disastrous performance that July (indeed, this season marks the first successful July of his career), and if the Phillies had optioned him to Triple-A instead of putting him in the bullpen, he’d have fallen 13 outs short of qualification. Thus, he’s looking to finish the season as a fully qualified starting pitcher for the very first time. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve watched The Brady Bunch, Family Ties, Community, or pretty much any other sitcom, I’m sure you’re familiar with the “two dates to the dance” trope. The premise is exactly what it sounds like, and antics are guaranteed to ensue. It almost always ends in disaster, and the wannabe Lothario learns their lesson. If they had only picked a single date, they might have had a lovely evening. Instead, as Confucius says, “The man who chases two rabbits catches neither.”

It’s not just TV characters who try to pull this off; some of the most prevalent baseball statistics are guilty of double dating, too. In particular, I’m talking about the stats that try to court the analytics crowd and more traditionally-minded fans at the same time. This is an admirable endeavor (unlike two-timing your prom date), but that doesn’t make it any less of a fool’s errand.

OPS+ is the perfect example. It takes a widely understood statistic and revamps it for the modern age, but as a result, it combines all the inaccuracies of OPS with all the complexities of park and league adjustments. It’s too much for most casual fans to wrap their heads around, yet it still undervalues on-base percentage and overvalues extra-base hits — cardinal sins for the hardcore sabermetricians among us. I’ve long thought that isolated power falls in the same category. It’s missing the simplicity and storytelling quality of batting average and total bases, but it also lacks the precision of advanced numbers like wOBA and wRC+. Thus, I’ve never fully understood who the target audience for ISO really is. Read the rest of this entry »

Lance Lynn was phenomenal in his final start before the All-Star break, going seven innings, striking out 11 batters, and allowing just three baserunners. By game score, his outing against Toronto was among the top 20 starts of the year. But if you prefer to focus on factors solely within a pitcher’s control — strikeouts, walks, and home runs — it wasn’t even the best of Lynn’s season. By FIP, his most dominant performance was a 16-strikeout gem against the Mariners a few weeks prior. Over seven frames, he walked only two and kept everything in the ballpark. Even more impressive, all but one of his strikeouts came on a swing and miss, as Lynn collected 33 whiffs on the evening, the most by any pitcher in a single outing this season. His 16 strikeouts were also the most in a single game this year; no other pitcher has topped 13.

Lynn has two more double-digit strikeout games this year, one each against the Rays and the Twins. Only eight other pitchers have four or more double-digit strikeout games, and only four have multiple starts of seven-plus innings, double-digit strikeouts, two or fewer walks, and zero home runs: Kevin Gausman, Zac Gallen, Logan Webb, and Pablo López. (The White Sox, being the 2023 White Sox, went on to lose all four contests, but that’s hardly a reflection of Lynn’s efforts on the mound.) Read the rest of this entry »

No one can deny that baseball’s new rules are having the intended effects. BAPIP is up, game times are down, and stolen bases are back. Attendance is growing too, and while we can’t give the rule changes all the credit for that one, they’ve certainly done their part. Even better, the new rules aren’t leading to the adverse side effects some of us feared. The pitch clock isn’t causing widespread injury, pitch timer violations have been steadily decreasing as players adapt, and bigger bases haven’t led to any reports of Ty Cobb rolling over in his grave.

As efficacious as all the new rules have been, one stands above the rest. In my humble opinion, the disengagement limit has proven to be the gold standard of rule changes. Let me explain.

I like the pitch clock. Imaginary audience applauds. I like the shift restrictions. Imaginary audience begins to turn on me. I even like the automatic runner on second in extra innings. Imaginary audience starts throwing rotten fruit. But as much as I appreciate those new rules, I understand they all came at the expense of something else, something fans once cherished. The pitch timer offends purists who believe baseball shouldn’t have a clock. The shift restrictions limit smart defensive positioning in service of hitters who can’t adjust. The automatic runner warps each team’s priorities in the 10th inning onward. But the disengagement limit? It’s been a roaring success, and it hasn’t cost us anything at all. Read the rest of this entry »

I like to think I’m pretty tuned in to what’s going on in baseball each day. I check the news and the standings regularly, and my morning wouldn’t be complete without a quick scan of the leaderboards in all the major statistical categories. That being so, it’s rare that I’ll be caught off guard by a player’s ERA, or batting average, or WAR. That doesn’t mean it never happens, though, and when it does, I often feel compelled to share my surprise.

With that introduction as a clue, would you care to guess who leads the Rays in home runs? You know, the Rays who have more homers than any team in the American League. The Rays who rank second in baseball in runs scored and first in wRC+. The Rays who do all that despite playing in one of the least hitter-friendly home ballparks in the game. Yeah, those Rays.

It’s not All-Star first baseman Yandy Díaz or rookie sensation Luke Raley. It’s not Wander Franco, or Isaac Paredes, or anyone with the last name Lowe.

I’ll give you another hint: Two players are actually tied for the team lead in long balls, and one of them isn’t so hard to guess. Randy Arozarena hit his 16th homer of the season on Sunday, pulling even with the mystery player for first place, and only kind of ruining the guessing game I had planned. Then again, the title and featured image already gave it away, so it’s time I pull back the facade of this rhetorical device. No team in the American League has more home runs than the Rays, and no one on the Rays has more home runs than Jose Siri. Read the rest of this entry »