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 »

The image you just scrolled past is a photograph of professional baseball player Bryce Harper. You might remember him from home runs like this 2019 walk-off grand slam or his rain-soaked, NLCS-clinching blast. Indeed, Harper has hit 288 regular-season home runs and another 11 in the playoffs since making his big league debut. Only nine players have hit more in that time. His career .519 slugging percentage ranks 12th among active qualified batters, and his .239 isolated power ranks 15th. His maximum exit velocity has been in the top 10% of the league for seven years straight. Long story short, this Harper guy is one of the most fearsome power hitters of his generation.

So why am I talking about a two-time MVP as if there’s any chance you aren’t familiar with his accomplishments? Well, as hard as it is to believe for an old-timer like me, millions of people around the world hadn’t even been born the last time Harper hit a home run. Granted, I doubt many of those babies between zero and 34 days old have found their way to FanGraphs just yet, but the point remains: 34 days is a long time. It’s the longest home run drought of Harper’s career. The last time he hit a home run, the Reds had the worst record in the National League and Shohei Ohtani ranked 21st on the combined WAR leaderboards. Five weeks later, the Reds sit on top of the NL Central and Ohtani is lapping the competition in WAR. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, my colleague Ben Clemens wrote about Marcus Semien and his impressive durability. As Ben pointed out, Semien leads the majors in plate appearances over the last five seasons, which has helped him to be one of the most valuable players in the game despite his relative shortage of standout skills.

The most productive catcher during that same time period has been J.T. Realmuto, who leads his fellow backstops by more than 5 WAR. He’s also way ahead of the pack with 2,147 plate appearances; Willson Contreras ranks second with 1,879. On the defensive side, the Phillies catcher is similarly outpacing his peers. He has played 4,084 innings behind the dish, 397.2 more than Martín Maldonado in second place. That’s the equivalent of 44 full games, or Austin Hedges‘ 2023 season to date. Much like Semien, Realmuto encapsulates the popular aphorism “availability is the best ability.” He isn’t the best defender or the best offensive catcher, but he’s good at everything he does, and he does it more often than anyone else. Read the rest of this entry »

Jorge Soler has always had big power potential. His power was his carrying tool as a prospect, and he homered in his first big league plate appearance. Unfortunately, he’s had trouble making the most of his strength throughout his career. For years, Soler was an “if he can put it all together” kind of player. His raw power was enticing, but injuries and inconsistency kept getting in the way. From 2014 to ’18, he hit just 38 home runs in 307 games, a pace of 20 per 162.

Finally, in 2019, everything clicked. The 6-foot-4 slugger played all 162 games, walloping an AL-leading 48 home runs. He finished fifth in the league in slugging, third in isolated power, and 13th in wRC+. His wRC+ went up every month, and no player in baseball hit for more power over the final two months of the season. He lost the Silver Slugger at DH to an ageless Nelson Cruz, but all the same, Soler was finally living up to the hype. There was even talk of the Royals signing him to a long-term deal.

But that extension never came, and Soler’s performance over the rest of his Royals tenure dashed any dreams he might have had of a lucrative long-term contract. In 2020, his old problems came back to haunt him. He didn’t make the most of his power, hitting only eight home runs in 43 games, and injuries kept him off the field for several weeks in September. The following season started out even worse; in 95 games with Kansas City, he hit 13 home runs and posted a feeble 77 wRC+. At the trade deadline, the former home run king was sent to Atlanta for pennies on the dollar. Read the rest of this entry »